Words
Title: Words
Summary: Pete has new words, and they're for Patrick.
Rated: PG
"I have new words." A pause, waiting for recognition or realization anything and it never comes, just silent patience that never amounts to anything, "They're not for Bebe."
"Oh." And that's all that comes back through the tinny phone speaker, 'oh', monotone and just on the edge of 'I still have no idea what you're talking about'. Pete sighs, he hates being straight-forward.
"I couldn't show them to her, they're not for her..to sing, y'know? They, " Pete pauses and waits, just a little too long and yet Patrick says nothing, " ...They remind me of Fall Out Boy."
And Pete thinks that sounds ridiculous, he's had fans give him their own lyrics through the years under the same impression, 'they sound like fall out boy', 'its like you possessed me to write this'. So Pete rephrases, "They are Fall Out Boy lyrics."
And then it's Patrick's turn to sigh, "That's...great Pete?" Which isn't as bad as Pete had expected and it isn't as wonderful as Pete had expected and Pete really needs to stop having expectations. Especially with Patrick, who'll never change.
"Pete, I'm about to be on tour, I'm about to put an album out." Patrick's tone slides easily on the scale from disdain to excitement.
"I know, I can't wait-"
"Then you understand right?"
"But I-"
"I don't have time for it right now, I don't have any 'Fall Out Boy' music...maybe you should tell Joe, go work on stuff with him." Which is a pretty low blow considering how well Patrick is supposed to know Pete. How they always work on the song together first. How Patrick is the only person he lets use his words. But then Pete remembers how he lets Bebe use his words. The not-so-good ones, the more nonsense than real meaning lyrics, the ones he wrote purposefully to be lyrics. But what he has for Patrick isn't that, it was a letter originally, started that way. He started a letter to Ashlee, then he started it over and tried to write one to his son for posterity, they both ended up sounding like suicide notes. Then there were the journals he'd been writing in a moleskin. Words that Patrick needed to help him make sense of, things that he needed him to understand like with everything else that he understands about Pete.
And Pete realizes he's been silent again, and he realizes that Patrick hadn't noticed or doesn't care, so he just listens to Patrick's end a bit longer. He thinks he hears a car pass by, someone talking, something reminiscent of dropping a light bulb just light enough that it bounces and doesn't shatter.
"I wrote them for you."
"Pete, please..." Patrick sounds begging for something and Pete's stomach clenches, " I get it, they're for me, they're for Fob, but that's not what our lives are doing right now...save it, we'll work on it later but I really have to go right now, okay?"
"I-Yeah, sure okay. By-"
"Okay bye." Patrick cuts him off in a rush, and Pete hears another person talking and the phone go crackly and silent.
Pete hangs up and looks at the scattered papers and pens and his ballpoint ink stained hands and wonders. He wrote the words and they're for Patrick, they're for his best friend. They're for the short kid that wears a hat. They're for the awkward and shy man that likes jean jackets and wore yellow pants because he thought they looked cool. The dude that a would rather spend a day trying to write a song with Pete than going to an interview alone. The guy that told him he didn't think he could do it alone, didn't think he'd hold up in an interview or a show without Pete there beside him.
And Pete's eyes sting, and he bites down on the inside of his cheek as his vision blurs and he feels the small oceans drip down his cheeks. He wipes them away and wants to look in a mirror to see if the ink on his fingers left stains under his eyes like when he used to wear eyeliner for weeks without taking it off.
He wants to crumple up his words, they're empty to him now, but he doesn't because that's something that kid used to do. The kid that wore boxer briefs outside a hotel at 5am to go pool hopping, the kid that wore the eyeliner, that thought being famous would fix all of his problems. And Pete realizes he's just a hollowed out version of what he used to be, the outside shell weathering away itself and he thinks Patrick took what he had. Patrick took that charisma, the ambition the recklessness. Left Pete with the bruised eye and the bad reputation.
And Pete laughs, because isn't this really what he's always wanted?
Summary: Pete has new words, and they're for Patrick.
Rated: PG
"I have new words." A pause, waiting for recognition or realization anything and it never comes, just silent patience that never amounts to anything, "They're not for Bebe."
"Oh." And that's all that comes back through the tinny phone speaker, 'oh', monotone and just on the edge of 'I still have no idea what you're talking about'. Pete sighs, he hates being straight-forward.
"I couldn't show them to her, they're not for her..to sing, y'know? They, " Pete pauses and waits, just a little too long and yet Patrick says nothing, " ...They remind me of Fall Out Boy."
And Pete thinks that sounds ridiculous, he's had fans give him their own lyrics through the years under the same impression, 'they sound like fall out boy', 'its like you possessed me to write this'. So Pete rephrases, "They are Fall Out Boy lyrics."
And then it's Patrick's turn to sigh, "That's...great Pete?" Which isn't as bad as Pete had expected and it isn't as wonderful as Pete had expected and Pete really needs to stop having expectations. Especially with Patrick, who'll never change.
"Pete, I'm about to be on tour, I'm about to put an album out." Patrick's tone slides easily on the scale from disdain to excitement.
"I know, I can't wait-"
"Then you understand right?"
"But I-"
"I don't have time for it right now, I don't have any 'Fall Out Boy' music...maybe you should tell Joe, go work on stuff with him." Which is a pretty low blow considering how well Patrick is supposed to know Pete. How they always work on the song together first. How Patrick is the only person he lets use his words. But then Pete remembers how he lets Bebe use his words. The not-so-good ones, the more nonsense than real meaning lyrics, the ones he wrote purposefully to be lyrics. But what he has for Patrick isn't that, it was a letter originally, started that way. He started a letter to Ashlee, then he started it over and tried to write one to his son for posterity, they both ended up sounding like suicide notes. Then there were the journals he'd been writing in a moleskin. Words that Patrick needed to help him make sense of, things that he needed him to understand like with everything else that he understands about Pete.
And Pete realizes he's been silent again, and he realizes that Patrick hadn't noticed or doesn't care, so he just listens to Patrick's end a bit longer. He thinks he hears a car pass by, someone talking, something reminiscent of dropping a light bulb just light enough that it bounces and doesn't shatter.
"I wrote them for you."
"Pete, please..." Patrick sounds begging for something and Pete's stomach clenches, " I get it, they're for me, they're for Fob, but that's not what our lives are doing right now...save it, we'll work on it later but I really have to go right now, okay?"
"I-Yeah, sure okay. By-"
"Okay bye." Patrick cuts him off in a rush, and Pete hears another person talking and the phone go crackly and silent.
Pete hangs up and looks at the scattered papers and pens and his ballpoint ink stained hands and wonders. He wrote the words and they're for Patrick, they're for his best friend. They're for the short kid that wears a hat. They're for the awkward and shy man that likes jean jackets and wore yellow pants because he thought they looked cool. The dude that a would rather spend a day trying to write a song with Pete than going to an interview alone. The guy that told him he didn't think he could do it alone, didn't think he'd hold up in an interview or a show without Pete there beside him.
And Pete's eyes sting, and he bites down on the inside of his cheek as his vision blurs and he feels the small oceans drip down his cheeks. He wipes them away and wants to look in a mirror to see if the ink on his fingers left stains under his eyes like when he used to wear eyeliner for weeks without taking it off.
He wants to crumple up his words, they're empty to him now, but he doesn't because that's something that kid used to do. The kid that wore boxer briefs outside a hotel at 5am to go pool hopping, the kid that wore the eyeliner, that thought being famous would fix all of his problems. And Pete realizes he's just a hollowed out version of what he used to be, the outside shell weathering away itself and he thinks Patrick took what he had. Patrick took that charisma, the ambition the recklessness. Left Pete with the bruised eye and the bad reputation.
And Pete laughs, because isn't this really what he's always wanted?