Fic: Hand In Unlovable Hand, Pete/Patrick, PG
Title: Hand In Unlovable Hand
Author: leviticus_lied
Pairing: Pete/Patrick, declining Pete/Ashlee marriage
Rating: PG
Summary: Pete goes on vacation and maybe sort of flips his shit a little.
Note: NOT kidfic. Slight AU in that Bronx is not mentioned.
Disclaimer: Hahaha no.
Warnings: Angst, heading toward a homosexual relationship
Thanks to lilithhecate, for reading this over and declaring it finished!
It starts like this:
“You need a vacation, Pete,” Patrick sighs. He’s echoing and loud through the speakerphone of Pete’s Sidekick, which, hey,
“Why haven’t I ever rhymed you with ‘sidekick’?” Pete yawns back.
There’s a little pause and Patrick shoots mindwaves at Pete: You tried and I didn’t let it into the songs, because, seriously. What he actually says is, “What are you doing?”
Pete swallows the last of his lukewarm caramel macchiato and it takes a while because his throat is tense and sore. “What? You want, like, a list?”
“With bullet points.”
Pete glances around the wreckage of his desk and the undulating visual interpretation of the demo he’s checking through and can’t find a place to start. Instead, he asks, “You think Gerard would draw me an undulating visual interpretation of one of our things?”
“Pete. Take me off speakerphone.”
Pete does, and holds the phone between his cheek and his shoulder. Maybe he can talk to Gerard about one of the acoustic versions Patrick does when he’s warming up or in radio station interviews. With lots of undulating.
“Pete - seriously. Is it more than two things at a time?”
“Does talking count?”
“No.”
“Then, yes.” Because of the contract he’s drafting.
“More than three?” but Pete’s learned better, “four? five? Stop me when I get there.”
“I’m fine.” In some corner of his head, Pete’s trying to find a verse to fit around I’m not fine but ask me again last night.
Patrick repeats seriously, “Vacation.”
“I’m on vacation,” Pete points out. “From touring and shit. And band stuff in general.”
“Actual relaxation,” Patrick insists, and Pete might take him up on it if he’ll sing something for Pete to fall asleep to tonight or something.
Tina-the-hot-and-brutal-PA stalks in on über-vicious stilettos. She looks pissed and bitchy and obscenely capable, which Pete doesn’t deserve. She smoothes her hair and straightens her suitjacket and snaps, “Tell your wife I’ve cleared your schedule for a week.”
Pete blinks and parrots, “Tina cleared my schedule.”
Patrick laughs, sort of mean and sharp, like glass. “Ashlee called in? Great. I asked her to pack for you, too.”
Absentmindedly, Pete finds his cheap, free, stolen-from-the-bank clicky pen and writes on the inside of his wrist, choke on glass.
Tina taps her shoe and Pete can hear the souls of the innocent crunch beneath it. “Your flight leaves at three. I called a cab. Go downstairs.” She does that all the time, short declarative sentences that leave no room for argument.
“Uh,” Pete says, and Patrick laughs more cleanly.
“Have fun, Pete.”
Pete says, “I, uh. Yeah. Thanks. Love you.”
Tina turns away. “Ashlee really cares about you, huh?”
“God knows why,” Pete agrees, and that’s the last thing he says for a while.
--
He and Hemmingway stay in a tiny, tiny town, clinging to the side of a mountain by the toenails. Pete doesn’t know the name of the mountain, or the town, or why a driver was waiting at the airport to drive him out here. It’s not very often that he’s not in charge of arranging things, when he’s not on tour.
The cabin-cum-hotel room is pretty nice, though. A king-size bed (which Hemmy completely claims), and a stocked refrigerator, and a quaint little kitchen. It’s adorable.
Also, the reception bars on Pete’s cell phone try to dig into the negatives. Pete’ll have to hike over to the public library for wireless and his Sidekick is right out.
It’s quiet, besides the weirdly rhythmic sound of the woods and the world.
The two of them just hang around the room the first day, sleeping and digging through bags to see if Ashlee packed anything for Hemmy besides Hemmy himself and finding enough chow for maybe two days and no toys.
Oh, well.
--
The second day starts with a walk for Hemmy and breakfast ordered by jabbing one finger at the diner menu in the middle of a yawn.
He spends breakfast drowning his pancakes in syrup and trying to imagine the exact look of disgust that Ashlee would wear if she was across the booth from him. She’s dieting again, or something; she goes though cycles of losing weight and then stopping and then losing even more weight.
She rattles around the cage of his arms, too brittle and flighty to stay there.
From there, Pete goes to the library to combat the internet withdrawal. He emails Patrick first thing.
did someone tell my shrink?
It takes a whole fifty-four seconds to get, He says you should use the alone time to listen to yourself. And also to have fun in the wilderness. A video comes attached of Patrick looking very seriously into the webcam and playing the opening of Dueling Banjos and then saying, “You gots a perty mouf.”
Pete laughs, shaky and snorting, no voice behind it and just breath. Ashlee packed his bass, he can duel right back - only, no, right, library.
He clicks ‘reply’ and types LYRICS in the subject line. He writes:
pixel perfect picture book and
He stares at the cursor, on-off-on, intermittent but reliable predictable fine.
and no delay is too much space
crash against you wash away
and you don’t but i do
i won’t last
i don’t want to so
And that’s all. He sends it. The words never mean much at this point anyways.
Patrick sends back, Wow, you suck at words.
Pete sends back, youll fix them though make em sing trick
Always.
Pete nearly asks Patrick how long he can hold that note - alwaaays - because, maybe, maybe. But that turns into how long can you hold your breath, and no.
No.
Patrick sends another reply, and the subject is, Have you talked to Ashlee? and Pete gets up and leaves.
--
The third day, Pete and Hemmy wander aimlessly though the tamed-and-trackmarked forest at the edge of town. It’s for people, lined and crossed with paths, pathetically easily to follow.
Pete takes off Hemmy’s leash - because he totally won’t sprint off into the woods, he’s an awesome dog, okay - and punches things into his phone.
take the feral from the fox
(Eventually he figures out that nothing profound will ever rhyme with fox.)
trying to lose myself but you’re found alwaaays <3 trck
Pete hits send but there’s no reception. The message flits around for a second and comes back to roost.
He scrolls up and down his contact list, passing over Ashlee’s number every time without slowing down.
He’s testing to see how long he can stay lost before stumbling over a rock path or swept-smooth dirt pocked by rain or anything else that points and says, “Go back,” only they don’t want him there.
So he keeps going out and farther.
--
The thing about vacation is, okay, yeah, Pete uses it for more work. He’s a busy guy (maybe on purpose), and he’s really good at stuff when he has something to focus on. It’s why he started a label. Simple enough.
But actual relaxation vacations (and he’s trying hard not to send Patrick his own words to sing) leave him jumping out of his skin.
He texts it to Patrick: tearing my hair out 2 get 2 u pattycake
But then, Pete texts everything to Patrick, except the words can’t get out to him and it all turns back on Pete, a swirl of thoughts that he tries to siphon off.
He’s trapped in his own head. It’s too crowded in here.
--
The fourth day passes in a weird haze, because he’s been getting so much sleep the last few days that he can’t anymore. So dawn comes in a sludgy bleeding grey, and Pete mechanically showers and dresses and goes to the only diner in this tiny town. The same mother-ish waitress is there that has been there every morning, and she doesn’t ask him what he wants, because he always just points at the pictures on the menu. So some pancakes arrive and he eats through them and feels bubbling and corrosive.
He leaves and gets Hemmy and they walk again. Pete stares at his phone, which has never been quiet for so long, and tries to swallow around nothing. He tries to make himself think, I should call Ash. I should call Ash.
He opens his mouth and realizes that he hasn’t spoken for days.
Cold washes through him and hollows him out and he freezes with the blood-rushing panic. He tries to make noise, but he can’t get enough air in his lungs.
The eggshell crust of calm acceptance that he’s shown about this whole vacation thing crumbles, and he can’t think. Can’t even grasp for the words he might say, if he could.
He spends a long time writing text after text, condensing himself into 160-character bursts that Patrick might never even read.
--
The fifth day, Pete raises his head to the waitress with purpose and intent and he opens his mouth to say anyfuckingthing and his throat is too tight and he can’t breathe, but that might be the panic again because holy shit holy fucking shit he can’t do it.
He texts Patrick,
this is the longest ive been alone since best buy
and cowers with his dog under the covers.
He prays, in that gibberish, facetious way that atheists do, Let me go back to her and smile. Let me learn to keep my mouth shut.
--
It’s nighttime. Pete’s been sitting up, watching the moon move, but now he’s dreaming that he’s doing the same.
Patrick closes the door and drops his bag and tumbles onto the bed.
Pete says, “Hey, Trick, what’s up?”
Muffled by the pillow and exhaustion, the words come back as, “It’s a king, how can there be absolutely no room.”
Pete giggles, maybe, a little. “Hemmy.”
“Oh.” Patrick heaves around to get all the way on the bed, half on top of Pete. “’M tired.”
Pete doesn’t say, What are you doing here, or ImissedyouIloveyoudon’tbeadream. He says, “When I’m somewhere with reception, you’re gonna get a shitload of texts.”
Patrick laughs and then he’s asleep and the world pinks out and films over.
And they’ve slept closer together, but this is closer than they have in a long time.
Pete’s dreaming. It’s a good dream.
And Pete’s been so tired.
--
Pete wakes up wrapped around Patrick, and spends a little while listening to the sleeping sounds and mumbles.
Patrick’s shirt is hitched up and his tummy is showing, and Pete presses his hand softly into the skin. It gives, sinks in and shows the imprint, but it doesn’t leave a mark when Pete lifts his hand away again. He wonders how malleable Patrick really was, when Pete first got to him.
Patrick’s awake and staring at him. He says, “I expected you to stow away on a plane home the second day.”
Pete shrugs. “You told me to take a vacation.”
“Yeah, but it’s not like you had to stay gone,” Patrick says.
Pete laughs, and doesn’t let the panic show. “Why are you here, exactly? You showed up pretty suddenly, dude,” he says, and realizes how true the words are as they come out, and how perfectly logical the world seemed in the middle of the night.
Patrick purses his lips and inspects Pete carefully. Slowly, he says, “I was worried. Ashlee told me two days ago that she hasn’t heard from you since you left, and no one could exactly reach you.”
Pete shows Patrick the dead little receiver picture on his phone’s display. “No signal.”
Patrick rolls his eyes, “Well, I didn’t know that, did I?” He crosses his arms and scowls at the window, bright with the sun. “Is there anywhere to eat around here?”
So they go to the only diner, with apparently the only waitress. Pete is starting to suspect that this place is somehow less than real, a façade put up just for him.
Patrick smiles and asks nicely for eggs, scrambled, and some hash browns, and is there bacon?
Pete stares steadily at the menu and speaks before she can turn away. “And my usual.”
She hesitates for a second, but he doesn’t look to see her expression. She leaves, though, just disappears back into the kitchen.
Patrick kicks Pete’s ankle, sharp and hard. He’s glaring when Pete meets his eyes. “Just how worried should I have been?”
Pete slides his eyes away and shrugs, his shoulders loose and tenuously connected to the rest of him.
Dark clouds gather behind Patrick’s glasses, making lines on the forehead visible below his hat. It builds until the waitress comes back with their food and says, “It’s nice to hear from you, hon. I figured you were just shy.”
Pete’s very detached from the charming eyes, the quirk to his lips. “Yeah, I’m not really a morning person.” He’s watching the pink-red flush of anger and concern sweep over Patrick’s face.
Patrick turns to the waitress, this middle-aged woman who was the only person Pete looked in the face for half a week, and asks, “He hasn’t been bothering you?”
She smiles, confused. “Of course not. Quietest out-of-towner I’ve seen around here in a while.” She thinks she’s being reassuring.
Patrick smiles back and thanks her, and then when she’s gone he goes back to glaring at Pete. “Since when are you ever quiet? Or shy?”
Pete focuses on Patrick’s food and tries to nudge himself back to the right headspace. Ashlee, across the booth from him, making a face at a greasy breakfast. Ashlee, warm and comfortable, Ashlee on their wedding day, Ashlee.
Pete grimaces at his pancakes and says, “Alright, so maybe I flipped my shit a little.”
“What happened to you up here?” Patrick is totally unreadable, because Pete isn’t letting himself puzzle him out.
Pete just asks, “When are we going back?” and doesn’t look at Patrick except in glances for the rest of the meal.
--
When they’re up in the air, Pete turns on his phone.
Patrick hisses, “You’re not supposed to do that.”
Pete watches the bars climb, and can almost feel the phone get lighter as all of the backed-up messages finally get sent. A tourniquet loosens somewhere, and he sleeps for the rest of the flight. There are four messages from Ashlee, and all of them say, I can’t reach you.
--
Patrick’s phone vibrates for three minutes straight when they’re on the ground. His inbox fills up, and that’s just from the first two days.
Pete drives them home while Patrick tries to wade through all the words. Pete keep track of where Patrick is by the sounds he makes: whether he’s hit if i keep walking i’ll hit the edge or tryin 2 climb trees like edward :( not hpning or i think i forgot how to talk or i want to want to want to want to want her.
He’s pulling into Patrick’s driveway when Patrick gasps with a little noise of dismay, and Pete wonders if he’s hit the marathon section of Pete just texting sorry sorry sorry please let me come back, over and over and over again, that happened somewhere around two a.m. of the fifth day.
They’re inside when Pete knows that Patrick finds: i’m in love with you and i wish i didn’t wish for this.
Patrick speaks too loudly. “Pete, tell me exactly what happened up there.”
“I stopped talking, and by the time I realized it, I couldn’t start again.” It’s surprisingly easy to say. Pete’s feeling detached again.
Patrick grabs Pete’s arm, tries to drag him back into the present and the realness of this. “Why didn’t you just come back!”
Pete crash-lands into his own head and slams into Patrick, into the wall. They’ve hardly touched since they woke up, and Pete’s been dying for it. He grinds his forehead into Patrick’s collarbone, until it probably aches like a bruise. All his muscles are tense, desperate, straining to do something that Pete refuses to articulate.
Patrick’s hugging him, murmuring a steady stream of, “Pete, Pete, I love you, too, it’s not like I meant to banish you, I want you here, come on, I love you, too, I want you.”
After a while, Pete unlocks all of his joints and feels creaky and broken. He sighs out all the thick bad air, and backs away, across the room. He fumbles for his phone and says shakily, “I need to call Tina, try to catch up on the work I’ve missed.”
“You need to call your wife,” Patrick corrects, and Pete stares at his phone because he’s already halfway through dialing Ashlee’s number.
“Yeah,” he agrees, and then he folds up against the wall and hits the ground.
Patrick sits next to him and says, “I’ll be right here, Pete. I’m right here. I’m right here. I’m staying with you, okay? Just talk to her.”
“I’m about to ask her for a divorce,” Pete admits.
Patrick leans their shoulders together. “Maybe. Just talk to her.”
But Pete knows how this will go. He says, “When this, are, are you, can we…”
Patrick just says, “Maybe,” again, which means yes.
Pete dials the number and tries to think of what to say to her.
-
Thanks for reading! Keep an eye out for a sequel.
ETA: Sequel!