(no subject)
Title: www.PeteWentz.com
Character: Pete
Rating: G
Wordcount: 1455
Summary: Pete's not worried about losing his job. It gives him more time to find his soulmate, his perfect commenter.
Prompt used: loss of job for hc bingo
Disclaimer: This is a non-profit, non-commercial work of fiction using the names and likenesses of real individuals. This fictional story is not intended to imply that the events herein actually occurred or that the attitudes or behaviors described are engaged in or condoned by the real persons whose names are used without permission.
Author’s notes: Moderate AU; Pete followed through with college and became a lawyer, before a disease struck and changed the world. This turned into something completely different than I meant it to be. All the shipping fell out the bottom, and a social commentary I didn't mean for sneaked in. But I still like it, I think I might even like it more now.
So, as it turned out, being a defense lawyer was pretty useless when for all intents and purposes neither you nor your client could lie. Lawyers have their ways of getting around it, of course. There is case law to rely on, and talking obnoxiously loudly. But the moment a client is called to the stand you’re screwed. It’s like the movie Liar Liar, except less funny when it’s your own life, except for the parts that are more funny, because let’s face it Jim Carrey is nobody’s favourite actor.
Pete doesn’t like it anymore. Honestly -fuck, such a funny adverb to start a conversation with these days, in certain bad humoured crowds the kind of word that can get you knocked out- he’s not sure he ever liked his job. Sure, he knew better than to ever ask his client if she was innocent or guilty. But now he knows, can read the event of the night in question from her memory. It makes it different, the certainty if it.
He didn’t understand what was happening, when he first woke up on Day One. It hit at midnight in every timezone, so some countries had been dealing with it for hours by the time Pete had woken up at six to shower, and go to the gym, and do all the other tiny things that worked as a whole to keep him presentable. But he hadn’t watched the news, or checked Twitter, just left his apartment. Once on the street he’d been startled by how many people were talking. Chicago wasn’t Pleasantville; people didn’t just talk to each other. He’d continued to hold his arm out for a taxi, and watched as all around him people burst into tears, or ran back into their buildings. He didn’t get it, but he wasn’t required to get people until his first case of the morning, so he slipped his earbuds into his ears and climbed into the first cab that pulled up.
Getting a taxi to and back from work every morning had introduced Pete to several varieties of cabbie. That day’s variety had been the chatty kind, the sort that attempted to engage his passengers in conversation. Pete tipped that sort for trying, but it was a rare morning he wanted to answer. Day One had been no exception, he just turned his volume down just enough to know when to make the proper ‘mmm’s. Anything more was trying too hard for am hours, anything less was rude.
It was once he made it into his work building that he had started to freak out. He could hear things. He could hear things that people were saying, except he knew the people that were talking and almost all of it was things they’d never say. Their brick wall faces and hundred dollar shoes didn’t match the inanity of their words. Steven Argos would never talk at length about Honey Nut Cheerios. Pete had never even seen him eat, never mind talk about cereal.
The only thing that had made sense was ducking into a washroom. Pete sank to sit on the toilet fully clothed, head in his hands. After a breakdown a few years ago, Pete had gotten placed on medication for his bipolar disorder. He knew the kind he had included the possibility of psychosis, but he’d never experienced it, and now was a bad fucking time. He had shit to do, he couldn’t be hearing things. He stayed in the bathroom, praying to a God he knew didn’t exist that it would stop, hopes dashed when someone came into the bathroom and he started talking about constipation.
At that point, there had been only one thing left for Pete to do. He had called his therapist. The on-hold music was slightly soothing, and eventually Doctor Atkinson had answered, voice far less measured than normal. Pete had tried to explain that he didn’t feel manic or depressed, but he was hearing things, and if he could get some sort of change in medication, preferably in the next few hours so he could be okay for court, that would be fantastic. Atkinson had explained in a clipped voice that it wasn’t just him, it was everyone, there was some sort of rapid spreading communicable disease, and he could find more information on CNN but she couldn’t talk because she had schizophrenics that were taking this very badly, and she had all the confidence in the world that Pete could figure it out.
Pete hadn’t wanted to figure it out, and he hadn’t wanted to watch CNN. Like the majority of the office, he steeled his face and did his best to not let on that he could hear everyone within a ten foot radius. Further, if a direct question was asked; somehow it made the connection focus.
From that moment, Pete had hated his job. His clients were guilty of horrible things, almost all of them. The details floated to the surface for the jury to hear as the prosecution asked pointed questions. His fellow lawyers complained about it constantly. Each did their best to get thoughts stricken from the record, to have jury seats more than ten feet from the stand, to create new laws that could be used in the future to protect the guilty. Pete was different. His case load went steadily down as the bosses seemed to realise he didn’t try his best to get people off on technicalities once he knew they were criminals.
Still, he dealt. He was delegated to more of the office work, and filed as much as he needed to. Until his first depressive cycle. An hour into having everyone that passes him asking with their voice if he’s okay or commenting in their own head about how fucked up he is, Pete bails. He just can’t handle it. He spent a long time teaching himself how to hide the chunks of emotions that the pills don’t cover up. To have it all undone in seconds kills him.
Once he evens out though, he regrets it. Sort of. Not the not being a lawyer part; even if he could plead the Americans With Disabilities Act and get his job back, he wouldn’t. But a lack of job means a lack of paycheck, and sooner or later that’s going to matter. He knows he should be looking. Unfortunately, there are few jobs that benefit from people being completely brutally honest. You can’t even make it as a reality tv star. Though shows like Hell’s Kitchen and The Real World have tried to figure out the technology, no one has managed to expand technology in order to record the thoughts so audible to everyone in the room. All the excuses he can make to avoid hunting can be easily tossed away. An interview might be more difficult now, it’ll be harder to scramble for the right answer to an interview question when the employer can hear all the first thoughts that get discarded. But it’s not like he’d be the only one at disadvantage, it’s a universal problem. His bosses probably won't give him a reference. But his coworkers probably will, if only because he scared some of them with his self loathing on his last day.
Still, he doesn’t look. Eventually he’ll run out of money and have to work somewhere like Walmart where no one gives a crap about anything. One day his bank account will go dry but until then he’s content to stay in his apartment away from horrid coworkers, content to be alone. Except for how he isn’t. He doesn’t want to be alone, he just wants to find someone who’s brain he can handle listening to.
Really, it’s like a new generation of blogging. Thanks to the Retrocognitive Contagion, it’s an entire world reading each other, less permanently recorded but more forcefully honest. Pete’s had dozens of accounts at more sites than he can remember over the years. In his braver moments he finds himself walking down the sidewalks instead of writing an entry and sending it out into cyberspace. Everyone reads him now, there’s no choice about it. But when it’s no one that he knows, it’s just like the anonymous comments online; usually stupid, sometimes insightful. When it’s strangers, it’s easier to take.
One day Pete will find the perfect commenter, the person who he might have keyboard smashed at, might have read obsessively, might have called his brain-twin before that became more of a slur than anything else. Maybe it might even be a customer in whatever shitty job he’ll end up getting. But he’ll find them, man or woman, whomever it is. He has faith.
Character: Pete
Rating: G
Wordcount: 1455
Summary: Pete's not worried about losing his job. It gives him more time to find his soulmate, his perfect commenter.
Prompt used: loss of job for hc bingo
Disclaimer: This is a non-profit, non-commercial work of fiction using the names and likenesses of real individuals. This fictional story is not intended to imply that the events herein actually occurred or that the attitudes or behaviors described are engaged in or condoned by the real persons whose names are used without permission.
Author’s notes: Moderate AU; Pete followed through with college and became a lawyer, before a disease struck and changed the world. This turned into something completely different than I meant it to be. All the shipping fell out the bottom, and a social commentary I didn't mean for sneaked in. But I still like it, I think I might even like it more now.
So, as it turned out, being a defense lawyer was pretty useless when for all intents and purposes neither you nor your client could lie. Lawyers have their ways of getting around it, of course. There is case law to rely on, and talking obnoxiously loudly. But the moment a client is called to the stand you’re screwed. It’s like the movie Liar Liar, except less funny when it’s your own life, except for the parts that are more funny, because let’s face it Jim Carrey is nobody’s favourite actor.
Pete doesn’t like it anymore. Honestly -fuck, such a funny adverb to start a conversation with these days, in certain bad humoured crowds the kind of word that can get you knocked out- he’s not sure he ever liked his job. Sure, he knew better than to ever ask his client if she was innocent or guilty. But now he knows, can read the event of the night in question from her memory. It makes it different, the certainty if it.
He didn’t understand what was happening, when he first woke up on Day One. It hit at midnight in every timezone, so some countries had been dealing with it for hours by the time Pete had woken up at six to shower, and go to the gym, and do all the other tiny things that worked as a whole to keep him presentable. But he hadn’t watched the news, or checked Twitter, just left his apartment. Once on the street he’d been startled by how many people were talking. Chicago wasn’t Pleasantville; people didn’t just talk to each other. He’d continued to hold his arm out for a taxi, and watched as all around him people burst into tears, or ran back into their buildings. He didn’t get it, but he wasn’t required to get people until his first case of the morning, so he slipped his earbuds into his ears and climbed into the first cab that pulled up.
Getting a taxi to and back from work every morning had introduced Pete to several varieties of cabbie. That day’s variety had been the chatty kind, the sort that attempted to engage his passengers in conversation. Pete tipped that sort for trying, but it was a rare morning he wanted to answer. Day One had been no exception, he just turned his volume down just enough to know when to make the proper ‘mmm’s. Anything more was trying too hard for am hours, anything less was rude.
It was once he made it into his work building that he had started to freak out. He could hear things. He could hear things that people were saying, except he knew the people that were talking and almost all of it was things they’d never say. Their brick wall faces and hundred dollar shoes didn’t match the inanity of their words. Steven Argos would never talk at length about Honey Nut Cheerios. Pete had never even seen him eat, never mind talk about cereal.
The only thing that had made sense was ducking into a washroom. Pete sank to sit on the toilet fully clothed, head in his hands. After a breakdown a few years ago, Pete had gotten placed on medication for his bipolar disorder. He knew the kind he had included the possibility of psychosis, but he’d never experienced it, and now was a bad fucking time. He had shit to do, he couldn’t be hearing things. He stayed in the bathroom, praying to a God he knew didn’t exist that it would stop, hopes dashed when someone came into the bathroom and he started talking about constipation.
At that point, there had been only one thing left for Pete to do. He had called his therapist. The on-hold music was slightly soothing, and eventually Doctor Atkinson had answered, voice far less measured than normal. Pete had tried to explain that he didn’t feel manic or depressed, but he was hearing things, and if he could get some sort of change in medication, preferably in the next few hours so he could be okay for court, that would be fantastic. Atkinson had explained in a clipped voice that it wasn’t just him, it was everyone, there was some sort of rapid spreading communicable disease, and he could find more information on CNN but she couldn’t talk because she had schizophrenics that were taking this very badly, and she had all the confidence in the world that Pete could figure it out.
Pete hadn’t wanted to figure it out, and he hadn’t wanted to watch CNN. Like the majority of the office, he steeled his face and did his best to not let on that he could hear everyone within a ten foot radius. Further, if a direct question was asked; somehow it made the connection focus.
From that moment, Pete had hated his job. His clients were guilty of horrible things, almost all of them. The details floated to the surface for the jury to hear as the prosecution asked pointed questions. His fellow lawyers complained about it constantly. Each did their best to get thoughts stricken from the record, to have jury seats more than ten feet from the stand, to create new laws that could be used in the future to protect the guilty. Pete was different. His case load went steadily down as the bosses seemed to realise he didn’t try his best to get people off on technicalities once he knew they were criminals.
Still, he dealt. He was delegated to more of the office work, and filed as much as he needed to. Until his first depressive cycle. An hour into having everyone that passes him asking with their voice if he’s okay or commenting in their own head about how fucked up he is, Pete bails. He just can’t handle it. He spent a long time teaching himself how to hide the chunks of emotions that the pills don’t cover up. To have it all undone in seconds kills him.
Once he evens out though, he regrets it. Sort of. Not the not being a lawyer part; even if he could plead the Americans With Disabilities Act and get his job back, he wouldn’t. But a lack of job means a lack of paycheck, and sooner or later that’s going to matter. He knows he should be looking. Unfortunately, there are few jobs that benefit from people being completely brutally honest. You can’t even make it as a reality tv star. Though shows like Hell’s Kitchen and The Real World have tried to figure out the technology, no one has managed to expand technology in order to record the thoughts so audible to everyone in the room. All the excuses he can make to avoid hunting can be easily tossed away. An interview might be more difficult now, it’ll be harder to scramble for the right answer to an interview question when the employer can hear all the first thoughts that get discarded. But it’s not like he’d be the only one at disadvantage, it’s a universal problem. His bosses probably won't give him a reference. But his coworkers probably will, if only because he scared some of them with his self loathing on his last day.
Still, he doesn’t look. Eventually he’ll run out of money and have to work somewhere like Walmart where no one gives a crap about anything. One day his bank account will go dry but until then he’s content to stay in his apartment away from horrid coworkers, content to be alone. Except for how he isn’t. He doesn’t want to be alone, he just wants to find someone who’s brain he can handle listening to.
Really, it’s like a new generation of blogging. Thanks to the Retrocognitive Contagion, it’s an entire world reading each other, less permanently recorded but more forcefully honest. Pete’s had dozens of accounts at more sites than he can remember over the years. In his braver moments he finds himself walking down the sidewalks instead of writing an entry and sending it out into cyberspace. Everyone reads him now, there’s no choice about it. But when it’s no one that he knows, it’s just like the anonymous comments online; usually stupid, sometimes insightful. When it’s strangers, it’s easier to take.
One day Pete will find the perfect commenter, the person who he might have keyboard smashed at, might have read obsessively, might have called his brain-twin before that became more of a slur than anything else. Maybe it might even be a customer in whatever shitty job he’ll end up getting. But he’ll find them, man or woman, whomever it is. He has faith.