Archive of Our Own

Pete’s feeling good.

He’s slept through the night, for once, a whole six hours of sleep before he's snapping awake with more energy tickling his veins than he’s used to. He reaches over and checks his phone as soon as he’s awake enough to remember what his hands are for. There’s no new texts – of course not, Patrick actually sleeps like a normal person and not a freak – but he reads over the last few and smiles.

There’s nothing too heavy in them, just making plans and then Pete fucking around like an idiot, like he always does, and Patrick playing along. Like he’s actually enjoying himself. Like he actually likes talking to Pete, which is a novel feeling all on its own.

Pete gets up and eats a bowl of cereal and is really, honestly proud of himself because he doesn’t pair it with smoking a bowl or downing three shots in a row. His hands shake a little bit, like they always do when he goes too long without a hit, but he’s not feeling the nails-on-chalkboard need yet. It’s good.

He’s doing good.

Josh calls in the late afternoon, interrupting a stupid text argument Pete had picked with Patrick about the respective merits of later-era Bowie and Prince, something just to get him talking because Pete’s discovering more and more he feels his best when Patrick’s paying attention. It’s threatening to become an addiction – more than it already is, anyway.

Pete stares at his caller ID with a sinking feeling in his chest to rival the Titanic. Josh's picture is an old one, he notes, from when Arma was just a basement garage band with a pipe dream. Pete hasn’t felt like replacing it in a long, long time.

“What the fuck do you want?” he demands as soon as he hears the sound of the call connecting. On the other end Josh barks out a static-filled laugh that has Pete flinching. He remembers Josh laughing like that, bitten out and angry, just before punching him. It never means anything good.

“Can't I just call to say hi?” he asks obnoxiously. Pete has to snort at that one.

What a fucking joke.

“No,” he replies flatly, because honestly. It's not like any of them actually like each other anymore. “What do you want?”

“Just checking you’re sober enough to get on the bus on Monday,” Josh says and Pete can hear the shit-eating grin through the phone.

What Josh means registers with a feeling like he’s tripping on the stairs, vertigo-heavy and sick. It takes a couple seconds for his lungs to work again and then Pete's sucking in a breath so fast it burns because fuck, how had he forgotten?

“Did you forget, Peter?” Josh asks, sounds delighted.

“Fuck off, Josh,” Pete says with numb lips and hangs up on Josh’s laughter.

The tour.

Right. How had he forgotten? The international tour to promote Arma Angelus's newest, latest, greatest album. All fifty states, even Alaska, even Hawaii. Twenty separate countries. A year, all told, in buses and airplanes and tiny freezing green rooms waiting to fuck up in front of a roaring crowd. All for the album he hadn’t written a word or note for.

Maybe that was how he’d forgotten, because the extent of his involvement was the weak promise to memorize his parts and to show up for the bus.

The panic attack hits Pete in the chest like a sledgehammer and suddenly he can't breathe.

He can't breathe, none of the oxygen in the jagged breath he drags in is reaching his brain and he feels his breathing coming faster and faster and faster until it's ripping its way through his chest. He's so fucking pointless, god, what's the point of him without the music? What possible value can he have when his band doesn't need him, doesn't even like him?

He spends an hour shaking himself to pieces in the corner of the bathroom though he isn’t quite sure he remembers how he got there, stuffing his hands in his mouth to keep himself silent and digging his fingernails into the crooks of his elbows.

The pain clears him up a little, puts a diamond edge to his thoughts and there's something that tells him maybe he should call Andy or someone. He doesn’t want to, wants to hide on the cold tile until he stops existing, but he knows Andy would be mad and he’s so tired of fucking up with the people he loves.

He tries to get his phone but he can't get his hands to stop shaking and there's blood under his fingernails now and fuck, fuck. He tries to breathe slowly for a few minutes and it almost works.

But then he remembers the last tour, the one he did before.

He doesn’t remember a whole lot of it, just the blur of crowds and fucking and fighting and too many hands on him. Alcohol and blood and vomit burning the back of his throat, smoke burning in his lungs, coke laying over everything like glittering fog. More than that, stifling hours on the road. Getting punched every other show because he fucked something up or he got in the way or just because, and he's pretty sure he deserved every bruise.

Mindless fear rips through him again and he's fucking gone.

Patrick's distressingly used to answering his door at ridiculous hours, now.

It's a new one to find a bearded man standing on his welcome mat with an awe-inspiring frown and Pete Wentz tucked under his arm. He spends a second being vaguely upset because he doesn’t really want to see Pete yet, until they get their shit sorted out.

He has about a half-minute after that to appreciate how terrifying the expression on the man's face is before he realizes that Pete is more or less comatose, shaking like a leaf and hanging from the man’s grip like he’s incapable of supporting himself. He’s tucking his face into the man's side like a kid. It reminds him a little of the first time he'd met Pete, the way he doesn't seem aware of where he is.

He discovers it’s possible to be both irritated and scared out of his mind at the same time. It’s not a welcome feeling.

He wonders if he’s going to need to call a rehab center, or a hospital, if he’s going to have to deal with another of Pete Wentz’s famous overdoses. He had known Pete was still using but it’d seemed so far away, like it wasn’t his problem yet and possibly never would be. Something he’d get to once he sorted out whether he and Pete were even going to be a thing, not dragged to his doorstep.

He can’t smell any alcohol or vomit but he’s pretty sure coke doesn’t smell and he doesn’t know what that overdose looks like, he doesn’t know how to deal with one, he doesn’t know.

“Pete?” he asks hesitantly. Pete twitches and looks up.

Patrick’s pretty sure he's never compared someone's expression to a black hole before but Pete reminds him of one now. His face is too pale, eyes huge and dark and blank. He doesn't appear to be breathing until he drags air in with a gasp like he's drowning. He’s not twitching, or bouncing, just trembling faintly, and the statistics for coke-overdose fatalities are threading through Patrick head.

“What the fuck happened? What’s he on?” he demands and reaches for Pete thoughtlessly.

Pete makes a noise that's too hoarse and animal to really be a sob and tries to back away. It doesn’t work - it looks like his legs aren’t taking his weight - and he collapses towards the floor. Patrick barely gets his arms under Pete's armpits before Pete's knees hit the ground. He's all dead weight, lolling and lost.

“He’s not on anything, asshole,” the man says grimly. It takes Patrick a couple of seconds to remember what they were talking about and then more fear is threading its way down his nerves in sick little twists. He doesn’t know how to fix this if he doesn’t know what this is.

“’Trick,” Pete says, voice wrecked and almost too quiet to hear. It breaks Patrick’s heart, right down the middle.

“Who the fuck are you?” he asks distractedly, trying to drag Pete mostly up to his feet. Pete fights him every inch of the way, trying to get back out the door, until Patrick’s got him trapped in a bear hug. He’s tucked Pete's face into his shoulder and it seems to help calm him down, if the way he's suddenly clutching weakly at the back of his hoodie is any indication.

Pete's face is suspiciously wet and it makes him want to break things.

“Andy Hurley,” the man says and shoulders his way inside without an invitation. “A friend of Pete's. I didn’t know where else to bring him.”

A sick little flare of pleasure that Pete came to him flashes against Patrick's ribcage and is promptly snuffed out by the anger and fear churning hotly in his stomach.

“What’s wrong with him?” he demands.

Andy opens his mouth but Pete's suddenly shaking in his arms worse than ever and Patrick remembers that his desire to help Pete trumps his desire to commit murder.

Pete’s cheeks stop looking so washed out after being tucked under a warm blanket and handed a cup of tea, though his eyes are still too blank and dark for Patrick to be at all comfortable. He refuses to let go of Patrick's hoodie sleeve and Patrick isn't about to push him off. He’s absolutely fucking terrified of the way Pete’s eyes refuse to meet his and his hands are still shaking so hard it sloshes his tea.

Patrick doesn’t want to leave Pete alone, not at all, but he wants to know what’s going on. He's trying not to think about the black, burning rage rising up behind his eyes. He going to kill whoever did this. He's going to rip them apart.

“You good for a second?” Patrick asks Pete gently. Pete shrugs wordlessly and lets go of Patrick’s sleeve.

Patrick doesn't like the way he's not looking up from his knees but he jerks his head towards the kitchen and leads Hurley toward the kitchen. It’s dark, but out of earshot and out of sight and Patrick is starting to maybe get a little bit of an idea of what’s going on and he’s pretty sure dragging it out where Pete can hear isn’t going to do any good.

“What the fuck happened?” he demands as soon as they're in the kitchen. Andy leans back against the counter and glares at the ground.

“I don't actually know,” he says. His voice hasn’t lifted out of an angry growl. Patrick can sympathize. “Pete called me an hour ago, couldn’t really talk. This happens sometimes but it’s... usually not this bad. He trusts you, I thought you could do him some good.”

Patrick feels himself go bright red, even through the anger and worry.

“Me?” he asks, pretending his voice isn’t choking a little bit with embarrassment.

The look Andy gives him is possibly the most sarcastic he’s been gifted with since the last time he was in a room with his mom.

“You know what, I’m drawing a line here,” he drawls. The anger is gone, for the moment, replaced by grim amusement. “You two are sorting shit out between you. This isn’t fucking middle school and I’m not a teenage girl.”

“Fuck, I know,” Patrick agrees and drops his head into his hands. “That’s not even important right now. We need to fix Pete first.”

Andy’s back to frowning when Patrick looks up, drumming his fingers on the countertop.

“First off, I don’t really know exactly what happened,” he says, tone reluctant like he’s telling a secret. “But… It’s usually his bandmates. He doesn’t wanna admit it, but it is. They’re not… good for him. You have to ask him about it though, it’s his shit to decide what to tell you.”

Patrick frowns and opens his mouth – there has to be more, there’s no way there isn’t more – but Pete’s voice interrupts him.

“It’s nothing.”

Pete isn’t really thinking when he gets up and wanders after Patrick and Andy.

He isn’t really thinking in general, is vaguely aware his thoughts are skipping and incoherent, but there’s a quiet little impulse in his head that says he misses Patrick, misses Andy, wants someone’s skin under his fingertips again because it grounds him. His joints feel loose and disconnected like he’s a puppet with his strings cut. It takes a lot of effort to walk that way, it turns out, and he has to lean against a wall, but he gets moving eventually.

He finds them in the kitchen, is about to go in and lean against Patrick when he hears Andy.

“-usually his bandmates. He doesn’t wanna admit it, but it is. They’re not… good for him. You have to ask him about it though, it’s his shit to decide what to tell you.”

His thoughts go sharp and clear and full of fear again, the denial slamming down like a wall because…

His band was his everything. Stardom, music, everything he’d ever dreamed of when he was just a kid with a dream and a bass guitar. It was his life’s work, even when it hurt him. He couldn’t let anything happen to it. He couldn’t let Andy give Patrick the wrong idea.

“It’s nothing,” he raps out, fighting his voice to make it steady, hiding his traitorous shaking hands in his blanket. Andy jumps and Patrick twists to look at him, shock turning his mouth into a perfect O.

“Things are fine with my bandmates,” he continues. He can’t meet Patrick’s eyes so he glares at Andy instead. “Andy’s full of shit. I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine, you’re the farthest fucking-,” Andy begins. Pete cuts him off.

“I am so,” he says, reaching for a nonchalant tone of voice. Andy winces and Pete knows he missed, but he’s not going to admit anything. He tries on a smile, is concentrating so hard on making it look real that he doesn’t notice Patrick approaching until he’s got Pete by both shoulders and is shaking him a little.

“You’re not fine, stop lying to us,” he snarls. Pete flinches away. Patrick doesn’t let him go. Pete’s secretly glad, for the support and for the heat of Patrick’s hands cutting through his sudden cold.

“I am,” Pete croaks but, god, it’s so much harder to lie with Patrick giving him that look of betrayal.

“Stop fucking defending them, Pete,” Andy barks. The words crash over Pete and he’s shaking again, trembling like a leaf. He doesn’t want to defend his bandmates but it’s the right thing to do, isn’t it? He’s suddenly not sure, uncertainty and Patrick’s fiery gaze and Andy’s sharp, absolute tone colliding behind his eyes.

“I’m not,” he whispers, but his tone is broken and he’s so weak. The flare of self-loathing at his inability to hold up under pressure is intimately familiar.

“Pete,” Patrick says, voice so disappointed, and that hurts almost more. Pete feels himself flinch.

“I’m not!” he insists. He’s aware he’s not really doing himself any favors, but he doesn’t know what else to do.

“At least tell us what happened this time?” Andy asks.

Pete recognizes his tone, the careful way he’s picking his words. It’s the voice he uses to pick his way through the worst of Pete’s panic attacks and his reaction is nearly Pavlovian, trained in countless times over the course of their friendship. The tension and righteous denial drains out of him sharply, leaving nothing but anxiety and shaking, ugly need.

He wants someone to hold him.

“The tour,” he manages, sagging against the grip Patrick still has on his shoulders. “Josh reminded me about the tour.”

Andy goes pale when he realizes what Pete means. He’s remembering the last tour, probably. He’d had to patch Pete up more times than he can count, during it, and put him back together afterwards. Bruises, burns, cuts, overdoses, more panic attacks than a heart could probably take without giving out. Pete’s pretty sure he wouldn’t have survived without him.

Patrick doesn’t know anything about it, though. He hadn’t followed Arma Angelus, doesn’t know shit-all about them. Hadn’t paid any attention to the tour, probably.

“Tell him whatever you want,” he says to Andy, suddenly more tired than he’s ever been in his life. He yanks himself out of Patrick’s hold and walks away, back into the living room. Collapsing on the couch is a relief, and he closes his eyes. He doesn’t try to interpret the voices coming from the kitchen. He knows everything Andy could tell Patrick already, and he doesn’t want to know what Patrick’s going to say in return.

The silence is what gets his attention. It makes him pop his head up from where it’s resting on his arms and he looks over at the kitchen just as Patrick makes his way out of it.

He’s walking towards Pete with a slow, deliberate tread and Pete flinches with every step. His face is pale, and he’s breathing with deliberate deepness. When he comes to a stop towering over Pete for once. It makes Pete shrink back a little, avoiding Patrick’s eyes. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to know what he’ll see in them.

“I’m gonna kill them,” Patrick says. He's still white, when Pete glances up, and Pete notices the way his eyes are dark and glittering. It scares him, instinctively, so used to anger being directed his way.

“It’s not their fault,” Pete whispers. Patrick sighs, long and low, and drops down next to Pete on the couch. When Pete doesn’t come closer he reaches out and yanks him over into Patrick’s side.

Pete groans and fucking melts, warmth and Patrick’s hand on the back of his head rubbing little soothing circles through his hair. His eyes hurt, his chest aches, and his skin is still prickling with anxiety but it all feels so far away. He wants to stay there forever, Patrick’s nubbly pajama pants under his fingertips and the smell of his deodorant making him feel more at home than anywhere has in a long time.

There’s guilt, in there too, at the thought that he shouldn’t be making Patrick deal with this. It’s too soon, too much, Pete ruining it yet again, but… It’s hard to concentrate on that with Patrick’s hands on him without a hint of hesitation.

“Patrick,” he says, a little involuntarily. Patrick’s hand pauses for a moment, then resumes stroking his hair.

“I’m here,” he replies quietly. Pete nods and burrows his face into Patrick’s shoulder.

He doesn’t realize he’s crying until Patrick starts to shush him, long soothing noises matching rhythm with his hand in Pete’s hair.

“You have to let us help you, Pete,” Patrick says when Pete’s pretty much cried out. He feels wrung out and empty inside, but not in a bad way. More like he’s cleaned out, then, like the ugly sadness and fear have been scrubbed off for the moment.

“You can’t do a tour again,” Andy says. Pete doesn’t jump but it’s close. He hadn’t realized Andy was in the room. “It got pretty close to killing you last time.”

Pete lifts his head and scrubs at his face with his hands. He expects Patrick to let him up but he keeps an arm around him, keeping him tucked into Patrick’s side.

Andy’s sitting on the opposite couch, elbows on his knees, watching Pete with something soft in his eyes. He’s not used to the affection, and it breaks the last of his desire to lie.

“I don’t want to be in the band anymore,” he whispers, feeling the thought break over him like the revelation it shouldn’t be.

It’s an admission he’d never allowed himself to think, before. It feels like being able to breathe at last, like he’d been underwater before and now he’s back in the sunlight.

It helps that Patrick’s arm around him tightens and pulls him closer, fingertips splaying possessively over his side.

“We’re getting you out,” Patrick promises. He sounds so certain that Pete believes him. “We’ll get you a lawyer and get you out of your contract. Whatever it takes. And I’m going to murder all of your bandmates, too, sorry.”

He doesn’t sound sorry at all. There’s actually a fuck of a lot of dark, ugly anger leaking out all over his last words, but none of it is directed at Pete and that makes all the difference. Pete laughs and he’s not surprised about the way it comes out like a sob. Patrick’s hand on him presses down, gently, a reminder that he’s safe right now.

“I’m leaving too,” Andy says softly. Pete blinks at him, astonished, and Andy goes a little red. He’s refusing to meet Pete’s eyes but he quirks a little grin. “I was mostly sticking around for you, anyway. Arma would be shit without you.”

Pete prays he’s not going to do something awful, like cry, and launches himself out of Patrick’s hold to tackle Andy back into the couch. Andy’s laughing, trying to fend Pete’s grasping arms off and avoid his bony knees at the same time, and Patrick’s laughing a ridiculous squeaky laugh behind them. He can still smell Patrick on him, feel warm and close and unflinching, and…

Pete’s happy.