FicWad

Title: A Lover’s Final Breath

Author: cobrapandemic

Pairing: Post-Split Pete/Patrick

Word Count: 2600

Summary: Pete never asked for this. Who in their right mind would ask for something like this? If anything, anything at all, Pete just wanted everyone to be happy.

Disclaimer: Not true, not true, not true.

Warning(s): Death, tragedy and suicide.

A/N: At the end.

Pete never asked for this. Who in their right mind would ask for something like this? If anything, anything at all, Pete just wanted everyone to be happy.

When he meekly suggested that Fall Out Boy take a break, he had only been going on impulse—as Pete was often known to do. He’d heard the guys, alright? He’d heard Joe and Andy talking about writing new shit. He heard them. He saw Patrick’s notebooks and documents on his laptop. Pete is alot of things but blind is not one of them.

So, in hopes of salvaging what he’d already ruined, Pete suggested they take a break to work on their own stuff. In Pete’s opinion it was the most ingenious thing he’d come up with ever. But the guys took it a totally different way.

Halfway through Believers Never Die, Pete called a meeting. Joe, Andy and Patrick were pretty much all sure it was about something inane. Pete couldn’t find his hoodie. Pete accidentally broke his bass. Pete took another picture of his dick and accidently leaked it to TMZ.

When the guys found out what Pete was proposing, they’d all been more than a little surprised. All of them but Patrick. Patrick seemed blatantly dismissive of the situation saying, “It’s your band, right Pete? Never mind what we want. It’s none of our faults that you think everything is about you.”

Not really knowing what that meant at the time, and feeling just as pissed as Patrick, Pete had just nodded and let it go.

Pete hadn’t meant for this to happen.

Fast-forward three years. Bebe just called Pete. She’s pregnant. She’s pregnant and she’s leaving Black Cards to go back home and elope. Pete is alone again.

The Damned Things are headlining their first tour. Joe and Andy haven’t called him or picked up for him in nearly six months.

Ten days earlier Pete got a phone call from his lawyer. Apparently, due to his “illustrious lifestyle”, Ashlee has won full custody of Bronx. Pete isn’t allowed to see his son.

Pete doesn’t really know how much worse things can get.

He sees a therapist that doesn’t really help other than prescribing him several medications as if drugs would really stop the pain.

He tries to write new songs but everything comes out the same. Broken and distorted words sleeping on tear soaked paper. Ink mixed with tears is never a becoming sight.

About a month into his depression he gets a call from Patrick. It’s 2:30 AM on 21 October, 2012. Pete picks up but all he hears is rushing water like someone standing under a waterfall.

“’Trick, that you?” Pete says but nothing. Then the line goes dead.

Pete chalks it off as an ass dial because he knows Patrick wouldn’t be calling him after all this time. Why now? Why now, when Pete is feeling like shit?

Pete leaves it.

The next morning when he awakes, he has seventeen missed calls from just about everyone in his contact list. Everyone but Patrick. His voicemail box is full and Pete just can’t fucking do this.

He opens the bay window in the living room of his LA home and tosses his iPhone out. He watches it crash to the black weathered pavement. Pete is just fucking done, okay? He doesn’t want to do interviews about how his relationship with Ash is going. He doesn’t want people asking him if he’s alright. He just doesn’t fucking /want/.

Pete goes back to sleep and doesn’t wake up until late the next night.

Feeling well enough to hop online and pay his bills, Pete grabs his laptop and makes himself comfortable on the living room sofa.

He pays off his electric, water and cable in a couple clicks. When he goes to check his email for the confirmation message he stops, breath hitching in his chest.

He has an email.

From Patrick.

Yet again, Pete is perplexed. Why is Patrick just now forging communication with him? Isn’t he supposed to be on tour making a name for himself? Where is he finding time to contact someone he supposedly hates?

Pete opens the email that says/Received: 21 Oct. 2012 at 2:30 AM/

The email simply says:

Stay.

Pete frowns at the screen before opening a reply box and typing.

Patrick, what’s going on? You called me yesterday and didn’t say anything. Reply soon.-Pete

Without checking the rest of emails, Pete shuts down his computer and does the only thing that he can do that doesn’t seem to hurt. He sleeps.

The next morning, the 23rdof October, Pete wakes to an empty apartment as always but something seems different. The air around him is thick and balmy. Outside, the city of Los Angeles is shrouded in clouds.

Pete thinks, “Well, isn’t this just mood fitting?”

He washes up, deciding that he may as well get out for a bit. If not to sulk publicly, to go buy real food for his refrigerator.

Pete lives on the 12th floor of his Los Angeles condominium and it takes a while for the elevator to make its way down. Usually the elevator is full this time of morning; people going to work or to school or to get groceries and sulk like a brooding teenage vampire. Pete never judges.

This morning is no different. Pete sees the regular crowd. The business man heading to the office, the soccer mom taking her son to school. The old man that Pete is pretty sure happens to be some kind of preacher and Bonnie, the high-functioning autistic girl. Usually Pete is rather dickish to the group, ignoring their hellos, rushing past them rudely in favor of riding the elevator down alone.

Yeah, this morning is no different except for how it is. These people are people Pete simply over looked but now, now he can see them for who they really are. They’re good people, Pete decides. It may just be because he’s realized he has no life. It may be because they are actually good people.

Again, Pete doesn’t judge.

Pete’s apartment is all the way at the end of corridor and it’s quite a walk to get to the elevator. Pete’s in no hurry though. Nope. None at all.

He’s about halfway down the hall when he sees him.

Dressed in a white suit with white loafers and pale skin. His hair is just as strawberry blond as it was the day Pete last saw him. His body is just as round and plump and perfect too. Which Pete thinks cannot be right seeing as he knows Patrick is a lot thinner now. He knows Patrick has short, dyed his hair.

But there is no doubt that Patrick is standing in the middle of the corridor smiling rather sorrowfully at Pete.

“Trick, what are you-“ Pete begins but Patrick turns on his heels, walking quickly in the direction of the elevator.

Pete stares after him for half a second before his following on the boy’s heels.

“Patrick, wait up. What the-“ Pete is running out of breath. He’s never known Patrick to walk this quickly. “-hell is going on? What’s with the call the other night?”

Pete’s inquiries go unanswered. The blond just keeps his eyes forward and speeds up, leaving Pete nearly six feet in his wake.

Pete finally catches up when Patrick enter the elevator full of Pete’s neighbors. The blond has his head down, the bald spot that he is so insecure about is there but to Pete it’s the most beautiful thing ever.

Pete’s neighbors are looking at him expectantly, waiting for him to get on the elevator and just as Pete makes a move to step on, Patrick lifts his head and stops Pete dead in his tracks.

The younger boy’s blue eyes are somber and tears are sliding from them in torrents. He’s not sobbing though. He is standing stark still and Pete can’t turn away. He’s frozen because Patrick never cries. What’s wrong with Patrick? Who the fuck hurt his Patrick?

Pete’s hand reaches out of its own accord. Reaches but the elevator doors are closing too fast.

Pete still can’t move his feet.

The last thing he hears, the last thing he sees, is Patrick’s mouth moving, Patrick’s voice saying “I love you.”

Pete can’t respond in time for the doors shut and the elevator dings and then it happens.

Pete can hear the ripping of metal coils and ropes from inside the elevator shaft. He can feel the rumble and shift of the elevator as it plummets. Above him, the red EMERGENCY light flashes.

Pete’s mind seems to reconnect with his body and he’s flying down eleven flights of stairs faster than he’s ever moved before. All the while he’s thinking, “Patrick, Patrick. No, not Patrick.”

It takes him ten minutes to make it to the lobby and by then there’s a crowd gathered around the condo. Yellow tape is up and gurneys are being loaded.

“No, no…” He murmurs, making his way past the groups of distraught residents.

“Sir, you can’t go this way.” An officer stops Pete, keeping him from getting to where the ruins of the shattered elevator lie.

Pete panics. “My friend was in there! I need to see if he’s okay!” He shouts trying and failing to dodge the officer.

The larger man frowns at Pete. “Who’s your friend? Everyone here is accounted for. Give me his name.”

Pete is furious now. How can they not fucking know? How long has Pete lived here? How can they not know who Patrick is?

“His name is Patrick! Patrick Stump. Please just-“

The officer walks away leaving Pete under the watchful glare of another. Pete watches from his spot as the officer speaks with one of the EMTs. He looks over at Pete with slight suspicion before making his way back to them.

“There was no one accounted for by that name, sir. Are you sure your friend was on that elevator?”

Pete doesn’t say a word. He can’t say a word. What the hell is going on here? Is this a joke? Did they bring back Punk’d?

“You have to check again. He might still be in there. Patrick! Trick!” Pete begins calling over the officer’s shoulder drawing attention to himself but he doesn’t care. How can he? His best fucking friend is probably seriously injured or fucking worse.

“Kid, we’ve scoured the entire shaft. Only two men, a young girl, a woman and a child were accounted for and none of them survived. If we somehow missed your friend there is no way he can hear you calling after him. No one could have survived a fall like that. You’re lucky you weren’t on that elevator.” The man says before giving Pete a warning look and heading back to do his reports.

Pete stands there unable to make sense of it all.

After some time he walks over to the reception desk and calls the first number he knows by heart. He has to know. He has to be sure he isn’t going crazy.

The phone doesn’t ring. Pete gets the “The telephone number you have dialed is no longer in service” message. Patrick’s phone is no longer in service.

He tries for Andy next. He picks up on the sixth ring.

“Pete, where the fuck have you been?! We’ve been trying to fucking call you-“

Pete cuts him off though, adrenaline pumping. “Hurley, is Patrick with you? He fucking called me the other night and didn’t fucking say anything and then he sends me this weird ass email and now the fucker shows up at my condo and just..” Pete trails off not knowing how to finish that sentence. “Where is he, Andy? If he’s still mad at me, just…just tell him I’m-“

“Pete, dude are you okay?” Andy asks voice less furious than it had been previously. He sounds concerned. He sounds like he did those few days after Pete’s Best Buy incident. He sounds cautious.

“Yes, I’m oh-fucking-kay, Andy. Now stop trying to avoid the question. Let me speak to Patrick.”

There’s a heavy silence on the other line before there’s a shift and Joe’s voice is on the line.

“Pete, hey. How you feeling?”

Pete is fuming now. What kind of fucking question is that? “Why the fuck are you asking me that?I fucking told Hurley to let me talk to Patrick. I know he’s fucking with you. He has to have talked to you.”

Again, there’s a silence but there is also whispering.

“Pete, you…you didn’t listen to the voicemails we left?” Joe asks. Pete frowns. What the actual fuck?

“No, what do voicemails have to do with this?” Pete demands, patience wearing too thin.

He hears Joe say, “I can’t fucking tell him, man.” Before Andy is on the line, voice grave but calculated.

“Pete, Patrick…Patrick is dead.”

Pete lets the words hang in the air for a minute or two. Or ten he doesn’t know.

“Don’t fucking mess around Hurley. Tell Patrick this shit isn’t fucking funny! Patrick! I know you’re fucking there, get on this fucking phone you little asshole!”

“Pete! Calm down. It’s not a joke. Trick’s bus lost control and went off the side of an icy bride in Canada. He didn’t make it. They pronounced him dead at 2:30 AM on October 21st. Dude…we…we tried to call you. But you didn’t answer. We thought. We thought you knew and you were too upset to talk. We-“

Pete hangs up the phone before Andy can finish talking. He can barely keep himself on his feet. All he sees are images.

Flash.

Patrick walking through the doors of his mom’s house with Joe ready to try out to be the drummer.

Flash.

Patrick singing Blink-182 in the basement of Pete’s house and Pete being too fascinated to look away.

Flash.

How happy Patrick had been when they went on their first real tour. How happy they all had been.

Flash.

Patrick sweating and bouncing with adrenaline after their first show.

Flash.

Patrick’s face over his hospital bed as Pete recovered from his near suicide.

Flash.

Patrick on the night that Pete decided it would be a great idea to take a break. Patrick’s words,“It’s your band, right Pete? Never mind what we want. It’s none of our faults that you think everything is about you.”

Flash.

Pete listening to Patrick’s solo songs and thinking, knowing that Patrick is better off without him.

Flash.

Patrick dressed in white, tears streaming down his face saying the words Pete had always wished he’d say, “I love you.”

Pete isn’t thinking. He isn’t feeling. He isn’t really seeing.

He just wants.

He wants out.

He wants Patrick.

Pete never asked for this. Pete never meant for any of this to happen, whether it’s all his fault or not. He never meant to crank up his overpriced sports car and drive west. He never meant to swerve in and out of traffic with nothing but strawberry blond and bright blue eyes on his mind. He never meant to drive a little too closely to the edge of that bridge. He never meant to drive off of it.

Pete had only been going on impulse because that’s what Pete does.

But the outcome is just so much better than the input.

Cold water fills his lungs but he doesn’t fight it. He stays strapped in because here it comes. Here comes the light. Here comes the warmth. Here comes the pale faced, rosy cheeked, blond that he loves.

He walks out of life and into heaven.

He steps into warm, loving arms.

Pete never asked for this but he wouldn’t give it up for the world.

Author’s Note:Hi, guys. First and foremost, HAPPY NEW YEAR! The time for great change (and potential Armageddon) is upon us! I hope you all have agreat 2012 and I hope your resolutions go awesomely! Now, on to the reason I wrote this short, tragic piece of crap. I’m a very sad girl, I’ll admit. And this translates to the things I write. Ifelt like it would satiate my undying need to depress others if Iwrote something super sad but slightly fluffy to soften the blow. Did it work? Probably not. Anyway, I hope you maybe sort of liked this and if not I understand. It was recreational anyway. Thanks so much, love you all and again, HAPPY FREAKING NEW YEAR!

Peace Out, Fangs Up,

Cobrapandemic