Dear Nothing - Chapter 15 {All Time Low, Sing It Loud and Bring Me the Horizon}
Title: Dear Nothing
Author: havah24601
Rating: M
Characters: Jack Barakat (All Time Low), Pat Brown (Sing It Loud), Nate Flynn (Sing It Loud), Alex Gaskarth (All Time Low), Zack Merrick (All Time Low), Oli Sykes (Bring Me the Horizon), Tom Sykes
Pairings: Zack Merrick/Alex Gaskarth, Nate Flynn/Pat Brown (other pairings still undetermined)
Warnings: Abuse, violence, psychological torture, kidnap
POV: 1st Person, switches between all characters, as the story is written in journal entries.
Summary: A wealthy 16 year old boy goes missing only six months after a boy who had been presumed dead for over a year turned up unconscious outside of his school, unable to recall the majority of the past 17 months. Another boy tries to reclaim the love that he lost when the first boy disappeared while a fourth boy searches tirelessly to find the first. A young man finds himself growing up too fast, harming others in an attempt to protect the only person that he truly loves while a teenage boy works to keep both himself and the people around him sane as he balances the weight of the situation on his shoulders.
Disclaimer: Thank GOD this is fictional!
Author's Note: Enjoy! And Merry Christmas! I kind of love this chapter.
Dear Vengeance,
It’s over. I never thought that I would get to say this, but they let me take Nate home today. No, he’s not 100% better. He still doesn’t remember a lot of his life, of his past, but when word got out that the experimentation facility where he had been was real, they deemed him sane. It has been an amazing day - not having to leave his side when visiting hours are over. He still doesn’t remember us, but he believes me. He knows that I mean it when I tell him that I love him and he fell in love with me once, so he can do it again, right? Now that I know he’s going to be alright, I can be patient and just wait for him to see in me what I know he already has.
He told me today that he trusts me more than anyone else, that he knows I’m not capable of hurting him. He can see how much I love him and he told me that it doesn’t scare him anymore. Now that he no longer doubts his own sanity, he no longer doubts himself in trusting me. Nate is not scared of my love anymore. He anticipates it; it no longer terrifies him, but excites him. He says that he can’t wait to fall in love with me again, and if he’s saying that then he must be feeling something already - after all, who can’t wait to fall in love with someone they don’t already have feelings for? The best part is that he told me that when we first started going out. On our third date, he took my hand and said “I can’t wait to fall in love with you Pat Brown.” Hearing those words again has made me even more hopeful.
I always believed in Nate. I’ve believed in him since I met him, and even when everyone else was telling him that he was insane, I believed him and that’s why he’s coming home to stay with me. He trusts me. He smiled when he looked at the pictures of the two of us that I have all over the apartment. Most of them are pictures that I’ve already given him copies of, but he still traced his fingers over the frame of a particularly nice one. It’s almost as though his heart remembers loving me, but his mind doesn’t. He sees me, he knows that I love him and he wishes that he could return the sentiment right away because, deep down, his heart remembers what it was like to be so connected to my own. What Nate doesn’t seem to realize is that I don’t need him to love me tonight. I know that it’s coming. I can feel it, and that’s good enough for now.
He wanted to take a shower when he got home, so he’s in the bathroom now, but he’s going to be out soon and when he is, I’ve promised to take him to some of the places where we’d spent a lot of time. He’s hoping that doing so will trigger his memory better than pictures and I’m hoping that he’s right. For a while, things seemed so dark, as though they would never get better, and now, all of a sudden, things are looking up instead of down and it feels amazing, like some sort of drug. I love Nate more than anyone or anything in the world and to see that he’s getting better is truly a miracle. There are a lot of things that we still need to work at, but we’re getting closer. I can feel it. He’s back, and right at this moment, the fact that he trusts me enough to give me a chance, to come and live with me, is all that matters.
Pat
Dear Anyone,
I’m not the only victim in this scenario and I’m far from the most screwed up, so why do I feel filled with overwhelming despair? I haven’t heard from Oli since he left, and I thought that when Zack came back, Oli would be close behind, but it’s been three days since Zack’s return and he still hasn’t come back for me. I’ve been staying at Jack’s and I haven’t done much of anything since I got here. I feel awful, guilty, like I’m taking advantage of Jack, like I should be pitching in to help, but every time I try to get up, I fall back against the bed. I’ve never been like this; so depressed that I couldn’t even move, but no matter how bad things have gotten in the past, I’ve always had Oli. Now I don’t. What I need to realize is that even though Oli isn’t here, I’m not alone. I’ve got Jack.
“Hey,” Jack came into the room where I’m staying this morning carrying a large, steaming mug, “I made you some tea, orange spice. I hope that’s alright?”
“It’s fine.” I took the mug, wishing that I could speak louder, make eye contact, thank him properly, but a part of me just isn’t working right now, and that part decided that nothing could make me feel better, not even my favorite type of tea. “Thank you,” I whispered, taking one sip of the hot beverage before setting it down on the bedside table and pulling the blankets around me again.
“You know, I’m here, Tom. I know that we haven’t seen each other since grade school, and even then we didn’t know each other well, but if you want to talk, I promise that your words won’t fall upon deaf ears. I can see that you’re going through a lot, and I know that you’ve been through a ton already. If there is anything at all that I can do to make this even a little bit easier for you, please, let me know.” As he spoke, he sat down on the edge of my bed, looking at me with kind eyes.
“I don’t.” I shook my head, feeling my body begin to tremble as I spoke. In an attempt to calm myself, I reached again for the tea mug, raising it to my lips, slowly taking a sip.
“That’s alright.” Jack nodded, “I understand, but if you do want to talk, I’ll listen to you - I want to help you, Tom.”
As Jack spoke, I began to shake harder. He was trying so hard to help me, to be here for me, and I gave him nothing. I wanted to talk to him, but I didn’t know the words to use. Everything was just a jumble of fragments, a mess in my head of everything that I was thinking, and I couldn’t let anyone else into my troubled little world. As I shook, the mug slipped from my hands, crashing to the ground and shattering against the floor into a dozen ceramic pieces.
“Oh god.” I gulped, staring down at the mug and the spilt tea, “Jack, I’m so sorry.”
“Tom, its fine. I’ll just go get the dust pan and clean it up - don’t worry about it.” He stood, leaving the room.
One second I was on the bed, staring down at the mug, the next I was on the ground, trying to fit the pieces back together. I had no glue or any kind of adhesive, I was just pushing the shards back together, trying to recreate the mug, to make it whole again.
“Tom?” When Jack re-entered the room, the dustpan dropped from his hand, joining the broken mug on the ground as Jack fell to his knees beside me. “Tom, what are you doing?”
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, “I’ll fix it, I promise - I have to fix it.”
“No, Tom, stop!” He looked at me, fear in his eyes, “It’s nothing. I paid a dollar for it at a yard sale, you don’t have to fix it.”
“I do!” I shouted, “I have to fix it, I have to!”
“No, you don’t.”
The next thing I knew, Jack’s arms were around me, pulling me close to him, holding me tightly, and I finally found the words that I had been searching for.
“Jack?” I barely choked the name out as tears began to spill slowly from my eyes, “Jack, I’m scared.”
“I know.” Jack began to rub my back, pulling me still closer to his warm body, “I know you are, but it’s alright, I’ll look after you.”
I closed my eyes, tears still spilling from them, knowing that I could trust him. No matter what was going to happen, what had happened already, Jack Barakat will take care of me, at least until Oli comes back.
-T.S.