anon_lovefest

Title: Domestic
Rating: PG
Notes: Photo by danske @ flickr. Poem by Carl Phillips.
Request: Patrick/Pete, the real reason Patrick nearly left Fall Out Boy






Domestic

Carl Phillips



If, when studying road atlases

while taking, as you call it, your

morning dump, you shout down to

me names like Miami City , Franconia ,

Cancún, as places for you to take

me to from here, can I help it if



all I can think is things that are

stupid, like he loves me he loves me

not? I don’t think so. No more

than, some mornings, waking to your

hands around me, and remembering

these are the fingers, the hands I’ve



over and over given myself to, I can

stop myself from wondering does that

mean they’re the same I’ll grow

old with. Yesterday, in the cafe I

keep meaning to show you, I thought

this is how I’ll die maybe, alone,



somewhere too far away from wherever

you are then, my heart racing from

espresso and too many cigarettes,

my head down on the table’s cool

marble, and the ceiling fan turning

slowly above me, like fortune, the



part of fortune that’s half-wished-

for only—it did not seem the worst

way. I thought this is another of

those things I’m always forgetting

to tell you, or don’t choose to

tell you, or I tell you but only



in the same way, each morning, I

keep myself from saying too loud I

love you until the moment you flush

the toilet, then I say it, when the

rumble of water running down through

the house could mean anything: flood,



your feet descending the stairs any

moment; any moment the whole world,

all I want of the world, coming down.



*

So, here's what happens.

They're sitting in an airport.

Pete's talking to someone on his phone; Andy is curled in an uncomfortable airport chair reading a comic book. Matt’s next to him, and Joe is bobbing his head silently as he scrolls through his iPod. They're in an insulated little corner. The noise and bustle from the rest of the airport is distant- muted, swirling in eddies of audio, nearly unreachable underneath the ringing in Patrick’s ears. Patrick's eyes keep closing.

Patrick adjusts his hat, tugs at the zipper of his hoody. Even though they've stayed in hotels every night since they flew in and there's been no shortage of hot water, Patrick's skin feels gritty and unclean. There's always a fine coating of dust over everything in Australia . Everything is tinder dry and volatile, the veneer of civilization being eaten away at the edges by wilderness. It feels like a city on the brink of being nowhere at all, and at the moment, nothing could make more sense to Patrick.

Mostly, Patrick just feels fucking tired.

On the phone, Pete agrees enthusiastically with someone, nearly vibrating with energy and laughter, and something uncurls in Patrick's gut. Pete was Patrick's first kiss- he's also Patrick's most recent (a bet, two months ago, and before that a stretch devoid of almost any physical contact at all, in the way of all adults). Pete fucking Wentz, sharp and glitzy and painfully out of place anywhere but on stage. Always, always, liked a cutout that reflects light wrong, shadow playing in all the wrong places. Patrick thinks for a moment how he could get lost in the nowhere, and then thinks again. Right now, Pete is agreeing with something that means they’ll have to get up, go go go, play and sing and schmooze.

Patrick is so, so tired. Too tired to be angry. Too tired to sleep.

There are fifty three minutes left to check into their flight.

Patrick gets up, walks away. He touches Andy’s arm as he passes. Andy’s skin is warm and the colors overlaid on his skin make Patrick’s fingers tingle. He looks up and Patrick smiles. Andy smiles back, owlish through his glasses.

He doesn't check onto that flight. The plane takes off without him, with his bandmates on it.

*

“What the fuck do you mean, no-“

Pete’s stomach clenches and churns and he snarls, stepping forward. Joe’s hand on his arm is the only thing that stops him from breaking the airline representative’s nose. Andy has his phone up to his ear, is talking quickly and urgently. Pete feels a wave of frantic crest and break in his chest.

It’s just the exhaustion showing, but when he steps back, his eyes sting. He knuckles away the dampness and turns on his heel, walking off. Behind him, the airline representative is still talking.

Airline answer: just because you can’t find your singer, doesn’t mean other people on the plane don’t have plans. Stay or go.

Frantic is replaced with fault, and something everything in Pete’s stomach burns like acid.

*

Patrick’s phone is off.

*

Patrick’s phone is never off.

*

Patrick turns his phone back on when the plane lands in LA. He flips it open, puts it to his ear. The first voicemail is Pete flipping his shit, swearing and calling him a son of a bitch. So is the second. The third in Joe, sounding worried. Fourth is Pete, calling him a bastard and a cunt and a fucking asshole for 33 seconds exactly. Fifth is Andy, asking Patrick to call them.

Sixth is Pete, muttering weakly into his phone. Patrick catches phrases like sorry and I don’t know what I did and seriously, please just call. Please just tell me you’re safe. That’s all I want, ‘Trick. Please just be safe.

Patrick flips his phone shut, and scrubs at his eyes with his sleeve. Points at the red convertible and signs his name on the rental papers.

*

Its two hours after they land in Chicago that Andy gets a text message.

Alls good. driving 2 chicago cu in a while

Sixth, seventh and eighth voicemails on Patrick’s phone are Pete swearing. The eighth cuts off abruptly as Joe takes the phone off him and says, “Patrick, look. Call or something. You’re a jerk, by the way. If you needed fucking time alone or something-“. Joe’s voice is drowned out by Pete yelling in the background fucking asshole and Andy yelling back jesus fucking christ, Pete, shut the fuck up already.

Ninth is their Tour Manager, politely and efficiently reaming Patrick out for disappearing into thin air in a foreign country..

Actually, the phrase he uses is ‘pulling a Pete’.

*

Patrick picks a highway and starts driving. It’s the wrong way, and the highway doesn’t go to Chicago.

Patrick turns on the radio, flicks through static and Britney Spears. Turns it off when he hears the opening bars of Sugar.

This is the right road. The silence reverberates around him.

*

Patrick stops two and a half hours later. He buys a shitty map and stares at it for a long time, then gets back in the car and turns around. Fifteen minutes back up the road he just drove down, he stops at a post office. He buys a better map, an envelope and a red marker. On the new map, he carefully crosses out Tijuana , and draws a dotted line towards Phoenix . He folds the new map, pressing new creases into the glossy paper, and then shoves it into the envelope. One of the corners gets horrifically mangled, and Patrick laughs to himself.

He scribbles Pete Wentz and the address on the front, sticks on a stamp and slides it into the mailbox.

Tijuana is probably a crappy idea- Patrick doesn’t even like the beach.

*

Six hours behind the wheel, and Patrick suddenly feels jet-lag and just plain exhaustion whammy him so hard he flinches. He pulls over at the next motel, checks in. The décor is tacky and old and everything creaks.

It feels familiar, but empty. He’s been here, a million times before, in between shitty basement gigs and hours in a van crammed between amps and merch.

Patrick can almost hear Joe in the bathroom, dropping his toothbrush on the counter, Pete and Andy in the next room murmuring quietly.

He closes his eyes and revels in the silence instead.

*

Pete cancels everything- interviews, appearances, everything. Instead, he sits at home and tries to write. He throws out everything he comes up with, because it’s all self pitying and features the word ‘why’ way too much. There’s a fight going on in Pete’s head, with half of Pete’s brain insisting that it was no big deal and that Patrick will be back soon soon soon. The other half insists that it’s the end of the world. Pete ignores both sides and chews listlessly on pop tarts and throws things at his walls. Hemingway chases the things he throws, occasionally running head first into the wall in his mindless excitement, tail wagging.

Andy, Matt, his mom and Joe stop by in that order. They all bring food.

“Should we call the cops?” Pete asks Andy.

Andy shrugs one shoulder.

“No. He said he was coming home, after all.” Andy pushes his glasses back up his nose, bites his lip. “Also, he’s not fifteen, Pete. They wouldn’t do anything, anyway.”

In the background, Mixon shuffles his feet and rearranges the stuff on Pete’s kitchen counter. Fuck it, Pete thinks. Call them anyway.

He just wants someone to know that Patrick isn’t where he’s meant to be, that he wants him back. Wants him to come back. Andy’s hand on his arm tells him that someone already does.

*

That night, Pete takes a handful of Ambien for the first time in ages. He wakes up eighteen hours later, disoriented, muddled and furious.

*

Patrick gets up, checks out. Gets back in the car and drives straight through Albuquerque . Stops once for food at a diner that’s all ‘60’s cliché and formica tabletops and checkered counters. The sign advertises it as ‘authentic Route 66’, and it’s just enough to pull Patrick away from the endless stretch of bitumen in front of his headlights. Patrick snaps a photo on his phone of the excessive neon and the pastel colors of the waitresses’ uniforms and sends it to Joe without thinking about it too much.. It’s like stepping into a time warp, Elvis playing softly on the honest to god vintage jukebox. He drinks coffee until he has to piss, and then goes back for another cup. Makes eye contact with the waitress shyly as she flirts, her smile wide and genuine. Patrick boots up his laptop and messes with some of his own stuff he’s been working on, quietly and away from the band’s eyes, right there at the counter, absently sipping his coffee. He deletes some of it, and lays down the fleeting rhythm he’s had looping in his head for the last hundred miles or so and saves. He likes it better than anything he’s come up with for the band in the last month. Since the last time Pete kisses him, not that he’d ever admit it. Not that he’d think about how he knows exactly how long it’s been. It’s aimless; more fiddling than anything, and for once it’s frustrating instead of a refuge. Patrick grits his teeth.

Just before he leaves, he drags the newest piece into his Recycle Bin and slams the laptop shut. His skin itches a little from all the coffee.

He likes Albuquerque. He’d never stay there, but it has its own charm.

Patrick’s seen too much of the world not to know that things exist independently of him, that things go on and continue to grow and change without him being there.

Albuquerque is like that.

Yeah, Albuquerque, the little voice of doubt says in the back of his mind. To Patrick, it sounds like Pete.

*

Patrick sleeps for a few hours in the back seat of his rental car when the coffee wears off. The seats are uncomfortably narrow, and the fake new car smell makes him a little nauseous and a lot restless, twisting futilely. He wakes up to a cop tapping on his window, and sits up, yawning.

He moves along. Just underneath the surface, his skin still itches.

Patrick needs more coffee..

*

He picks up his phone on a whim when it rings near the border of New Mexico and Colorado , putting it on speaker and throwing it so it bounces on the passenger seat. There’s a moment of silence after he hits the answer button, the only sound the wind whooshing through his open windows and the gravel crunching underneath the wheels. Patrick clears his throat.

“Uh, hi?”

“Patrick? Dude, where the fuck are you?”

Andy’s voice is thin and tinny but unquestionably pissed off. Patrick loosens his hands on the wheel and shrugs to himself.

“Uh, still in New Mexico . I think. I might have missed the border sign, so it might be Colorado. I’m not sure.”

There’s a pause.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

Patrick thinks about it for a moment, and pushes the button to roll up the windows. Inside the car quiets.

“No, not really. I’m pretty sure it’s still New Mexico .”

Patrick can picture Andy at home, grinding his teeth, fists clenched. He breathes out, one long steady exhale. Something inside him feels shaky. The car goes thump thump thump over the reflectors in the middle of the road, and Patrick jerks the wheel to the left..

“Patrick, shit, man. We were worried.”

“I’m sorry?”

It’s unmistakably a question. Patrick isn’t sure if he’s sorry. Half of him is. The other half, not so much.

There’s another long moment of silence, and Patrick wishes for the sound of the wind again, the sound of speeding down the highway, completely isolated from the rest of the world.

“Patrick, are you,” weighty pause, “okay?”

Is he pulling a Pete?

“Yeah, man. I’ll be home in a few days."

Patrick hangs up. No. He’s not pulling a Pete. Right now, he’s the furthest away from Pete he’s been since he was 17, and he’s okay.

*

Pete leaves Hemingway with his mom and uses the spare key Patrick thinks he doesn’t know about to get into Patrick’s house. He lies on the floor of Patrick’s den and stares at the ceiling.

Pete racks his brain for what could have happened, and comes up with nothing but the steadily growing pit of sadness that’s taken root in his chest.

*

Two in the morning at 100 mph on the freeway, Denver skyline just visible on the horizon, and Patrick thinks enough. The wheel is solid under his palms and he blinks, steady and slow. Okay. Enough.

He feels awake.

*

The disappearing thing is too easy. Reappearing is just as easy. Patrick hands over his credit card, signs his name, and is on his way home on the next flight.

Patrick sits on the plane and slouches, thinking about smaller and smaller circles, about inevitable destinations and about the ways to get there. For every deliberate thought there are four whispers behind it that say the opposite. Patrick squashes them all ruthlessly..

He doesn’t understand the half of what it is he’s thinking, but he’s okay with that.

*

It’s just a little bit before dawn when Patrick shuts off the engine, swings his legs out from the car. It’s quiet and utterly still and Patrick can feel reality imposing itself on his mind again, a litany of workworkmajorfifthPeteampsworkPetePetePete. He pulls his duffel from the back seat and shrugs his shoulders to settle his clothing. He feels disgusting, bathed in days of travel and grit. He swings the duffel over his shoulder, clinks his keys in his palm.

The rosebushes need pruning. All his neighbors (nice, normal people) are still asleep. Patrick can see light from his television through the gap in his curtains.

The lawn needs edging.

Patrick’s front door swings open soundlessly under his hand when he goes to push his keys in.. Unlocked, and Patrick steps through. He drops his keys on the table and his duffel on the floor, and cranes his head around the corner to look into his den. It looks like a natural disaster has hit it, and Patrick isn’t even the slightest bit surprised. Pete is curled up on his couch, artificial light playing over his face. His eyes are wide, wide and impossibly brown. He looks vulnerable. Patrick doesn’t know how he’s meant to feel.

“I’m sorry- for whatever the fuck it was I did, ‘Trick, I am so fucking sorry. Just-“

Sometimes, Pete has too many words. Patrick’s voice is mild as he settles down on the couch next to Pete, and Pete curls into him automatically. He smells like Pete, spicy and a little unwashed, and he’s a blanket of warmth that covers Patrick from shoulder to knee on one side. One of Pete’s hands clenches on Patrick’s hoody, over Patrick’s stomach, fisting desperately and trying to pull him closer. His knuckles press into Patrick’s skin.

“What were you going to do if I didn’t come back, just live in my house?”

Pete flinches. His eyes are brown, brown, brown.

“Don’t leave,” Pete whispers.

Patrick closes his eyes.

“I love you too, Pete.”

*

Patrick falls into his own bed gratefully. Outside, the sun is rising, bright and relentlessly cheerful. Pete crawls in after him, presses himself to Patrick’s back. It’s a lot of contact all at once, more than Patrick’s had in ages. Patrick sighs, feels Pete’s bare feet against his sneakers. He’s just about asleep when he hears Pete whisper.

“Why’d you go?”

Patrick thinks about pretending he’s asleep, thinks about telling Pete that he changed his mind and came home early. Thinks about telling Pete that he wasn’t coming back at all, that he’s leaving again tomorrow. Thinks again.

“I’m- I-“

Pete’s grip tightens.

“I’m tired, Pete.”

Patrick tenses, waiting for an answer.

“Oh. Okayokayokay.”

But Pete doesn’t let go.

***