Fic: Screw Angels, This Bell's Ringing In Wings for Me 3/7 (MCR/FOB, NC-17, Mikey/Pete)
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The New Year’s thing Mikey was talking about turns out to be a black tie gala for the Elton John AIDS Foundation in the city. Pete wants to protest but Mikey is markedly not talking to him about it so that option’s out. He tries Patrick but he’s annoyed when Pete calls to complain.
“Oh no. You talked me into this in the first place. You don’t get to pussy out on me now that you’ve just finally realized that dropping Bronx off with Donna’d give you guys the house to yourself. Should’ve thought of that before you made me rent a tux.”
“Remind me of my logic again?” Pete says, going for a joking tone. He’s been getting a lot of answers that way since Christmas.
“It’s a good cause for one thing, and for another you spent like half an hour ranting about how you and Mikey needed to spend time around adults you weren’t related to or touring with.” Patrick ticks off. “Also, you like to make Mikey wear bow ties. I don’t pretend to understand your turn-ons, you sick fuck.”
And that’s how he ends up on the train in a tuxedo with the Jersey based members of My Chemical Romance and Christa Toro. They’re all out of place in their tuxedos on the train's faded benches, except for Christa who looks weirdly at home in a long blue gown and a pair of old Converse, her heels poking out of Ray’s jacket pockets. Apparently, bestselling artists can’t be assed to hire a car into the city when they’ve got public transit. Pete stands by the door separating one train car from next, letting the vibration bang his head into the metal over and over.
“You’re going to give yourself a concussion,” Gerard says, leaning against the door next to him.
“I told you I wasn’t talking to you, Way.”
“I’m sorry about the list all right? I did the best I could.”
“Not talking to you. Because I fucking hate you.”
“I’m really sorry I forgot, Pete. I got everything I could for you, I just missed that. I know there’s other stuff I missed too but I tried.” He puts his palm out to intercept Pete’s forehead before it can hit the door again. “You’ve got to stop that or you’ll get a dent in your forehead and then you’ll fuck up the group picture.”
“How altruistic of you.”
“Just looking out for you, bro. I mean, you, Pete.”
Pete lets it slide. “Anything else I need to know that you neglected to tell me that’ll end up traumatizing your brother or nephew?”
“Nothing big. The rule list was the biggest thing. Off the top of my head the only thing I can think of is that you guys have a single in that movie that came out on Christmas.”
“Which one?”
“The teen one, with the incredibly mediocre witch mythology.”
Oh. Right. Pete remembers turning that down. “You’re just pissed because Umbrella Academy is still in development hell.” Pete turns his head on the door to better face Gerard. “It is here too, right?”
Gerard grumbles and folds his arms in a way that’s going to wrinkle his jacket. “It might be. They’d fuck it up anyway.”
“Probably.”
“Hey, Pete, I really am sorry about forgetting the rule list but just, try and enjoy tonight. You were really looking forward to this. You and Mikey, you don’t get out much. You’re on tour all the time and when you’re not, the two of you are kind of wrapped up in doing the dad thing with Bronx.”
“When this is over, we’re gonna have another talk.”
“Yeah. But tonight’s really easy. Just, don’t get too drunk okay? Me and Mikey are both sober and it makes him really uncomfortable to have to take care of you when you get wasted,” Gerard admits. “You haven’t done it in ages. The last time was before you adopted Bronx so, just, be careful.”
“Sober, no getting waste-y face, got it. That it?”
“Uh, your tie’s crooked?”
“Anything I can’t tell with a mirror?”
“Nope.”
“I’m not famous here right?”
“Like, indie scene cred famous or actually famous?”
“Followed by paps with cameras famous.”
Gerard laughs. “Paparazzi. That’s funny. I love that song though. I feel like I should hate it but it was such audible crack you know? Her new stuff’s not as good.”
“So no.”
“I mean, you’re famous in the scene. And you’re an out artist in a working band so for this event you’re famous enough but not really. Are you famous there?”
“Yeah. Claustrophobically.”
“Nice break then.”
“It’s a break,” Pete concedes. “Go entertain him for me? I just, I need to get my shit together before we do this.”
“No problem,” Gerard says softly, squeezing his shoulder. “This’ll be better than Christmas was, Pete. I’ve got a feeling.”
The party’s got a red carpet and Pete feels comfortable for the first time since arriving in this universe. He knows how to walk a red carpet. He knows how to talk to reporters. He knows how to lean into or away from his date for the best picture.
He decides when the first flashbulb goes off to embrace this. He’s always liked acting and this at least is easier than memorizing lines. It’s like being on stage at a show, only instead of playing front man, he’s playing Pete Wentz-Way. He can do this because no one is going to want to talk to him. He’s not famous here.
Mikey lets him take his hand but it’s not a good grip. This isn’t the way they look in the few pictures that Pete’s had the balls to look at. But he’s pretty sure they can get away with it until they’re about a foot from the door when someone with a camera stops him and Patrick and goes “Hey, aren’t you guys in that band?”
“Depends on the band,” Pete says with an easy smile. Patrick makes a huffing noise and Mikey rolls his eyes.
“You’re Fall Out Boy,” the paparazzo says. “Yeah, you guys did that song for the Wicked Brew soundtrack.” His camera goes off with a flash as he asks, “Hey, how’s it feel to be the number one downloaded song in the country this week guys?”
“I’m sorry?” Patrick says leaning forward all of a sudden. He pushes the brim of his black fedora up so that he can get a better look at the guy. “We’re what?”
“The movie’s the biggest thing since that shitty vampire series and people are stupid for that song you guys did. iTunes and Amazon both exploded with people buying your single. Pre-sale on your new album blew up too.”
Patrick looks like someone hit him with the stupid stick. It’s cute. “They did?”
“Fucking awesome,” Pete breathes, an old rush hitting him like it hasn’t in years. It’s been a long time since anything in music’s really surprised him but there might be something salvageable in his suburban wasteland.
“What magazine are you with?” Mikey asks tugging Pete back by the hand.
The photographer grins. “For this? In Touch but I do a lot of work for Blender.” The guy pulls out a card and Pete snaps it up before Mikey can say anything. “When people start calling you guys again, don’t forget who told you first.”
Pete grabs Patrick around the neck and pulls him under his shoulder with a grin. “We’re ecstatic people like our sound, and you can quote that.”
“I will. Thanks, Pete right?” The photographer asks. “I think I read your interview with the Advocate, man.”
“Yeah, Pete Wentz.”
“Way,” Mikey says softly.
“Way.” Pete adds with only a little bit of a trip over the word. “Pete Wentz-Way.”
“And you’re the singer?”
“Lyricist and bass.” He adjusts Patrick’s hat on his head which earns him an elbow in the ribs. He flinches but still manages to get out a fairly smooth, “Patrick Stump’s got the magic voice.”
Patrick ducks his head and tugs on Pete. “We should go in now. The rest of the guys are waiting.”
“Nice talking to you,” Pete calls, saluting the guy with his card pressed between Pete’s middle and index finger. Then he lets Patrick and Mikey drag him inside.
“I think I forgot what an attention whore you are,” Mikey mutters, untangling his hand from Pete’s once they get inside. “All you’re missing are big green tail feathers. You know guys like that are what caused the trouble in the first place.”
What trouble? Pete has no idea what Mikey’s talking about. So he chooses to ignore it. “It’s one of my better qualities,” Pete retorts instead, complete with a wide smile.
He’s trying for normal, doing his best to treat Mikey like he’d treat Patrick or Joe or Andy or Rihanna. Mikey was a friend first and he can do friends with this Mikey even if he doesn’t feel comfortable with all the intimacy shit. So for tonight, he’s going to do like Gerard asked and try to enjoy himself. Which means that he’s got his sarcasm and comebacks turned to 11.
“Besides, you know I’d look awesome with tail feathers. You’d love it.”
“Freak,” Mikey says but his mouth’s softened a little and he sounds a lot less angry.
“So, are you the pot or the kettle here?” Pete asks, tilting his head to study Mikey, imagining that he can find a price tag for one or the other if he looks close enough. “That metaphor always confuses me but I know you’re some kind of cooking implement that is black.”
“We’re the top single,” Patrick mumbles to himself, cutting into the conversation. He wanders off to the bar and Pete snickers. He needs to go wrangle Patrick back before he gets too drunk. Pete’s usually the one to watch but if this Patrick’s alcohol tolerance is the same as his, leaving him alone with an open bar is a bad idea.
“I’m gonna make sure he doesn’t hurt himself. Patrick’s kind of drunk fail,” Pete says with a laugh. Then on impulse, and because it’s what he would do if he were darting away from any of his friends, he kisses Mikey on the cheek and takes off towards the bar.
Patrick is leaning against the bar when Pete gets there. He’s drinking something amber colored with no ice like it’s medicine.
“This is a good thing,” Pete says, rubbing Patrick’s shoulder.
“Cork Tree was a good thing too, Pete. And then it all blew up and Mikey had that breakdown and just…” He lifts the glass to his lips and chugs it down. He looks no better when he’s done. “We were this close, Pete.” Patrick squeezes his fingers together. “We were so close to making it when everyone turned on us. You don’t get second chances in this industry. “
Pete wants to know what the fuck that’s about but he doesn’t at the same time. It’s somewhere in those journal entries and scanned articles, taunting him. He can’t really answer Patrick without knowing the history here so he goes for funny instead. “Britney’s gotten like seventeen chances.”
“We don’t.”
“Maybe this time we will. Maybe that was the point of doing the single thing in the first place.”
“Pete, just, don’t talk to any other press until we talk to Schechter okay? He’ll be back from vacation tomorrow.”
“Schechter. Schechter who?”
Patrick waves his glass at the bartender for a second then snaps in Pete’s face. “Schechter comma Brian. Our manager, Pete, hello.” He looks down at his glass. “Did you steal some of my drink?”
“How many have you had?”
“This one coming’s my third. But the panic attack is like being drunk.”
The bartender returns with lucky number three. Pete snatches it away. “You don’t need this.”
“It’s going to be the VMA aftermath all over again, Pete, so yeah, I really really do.”
“Just wait until Joe gets back from Chicago and let him get you high,” Pete says, taking a sip. Its scotch and soda and it is just way too strong.
“That doesn’t help me now.”
“Well then think happy thoughts. We’re going to get really amazing royalties off of this regardless. So, take a deep breath, turn around,” Pete says, tugging Patrick by the shoulders because sometimes he needs to be manhandled into what’s right for him. “And we’ll go mingle so I don’t end up spending the night in the basement again.”
He doesn’t need to tell Patrick that he’s been spending his nights in the basement by choice and not by Mikey’s demand. Speaking of, he scans the crowd, looking for Mikey or at least Ray whose hair and height always made him fairly easy to spot in a crowd.
“Pete,” Patrick begins but Pete holds up a hand, cutting him off. Patrick smacks his hand away. “What the hell?”
“Come with me,” Pete says, dragging Patrick by the elbow through the crowd towards the woman who is standing facing away from where Mikey and Gerard are talking to some actress Pete only vaguely recognizes. “We’re going to play a little game of ‘Have you met Patrick?’. It’ll lift your spirit.”
Patrick jerks his arm back hard and Pete comes to a stop about five feet from where she’s standing. “Pete, no.”
“Yes. It’s an amazing game and it always works.”
“It’s not and it doesn’t. Just because you feel compelled to mainline How I Met Your Mother reruns doesn’t make this a good idea. Pete, don’t-“
Pete’s tired of hearing that. Don’t. His whole life used to be “go right ahead.” And now he’s in a world of fucking “don’t” and on this one? He knows he’s fucking right.
So he taps her on the shoulder and smiles widely at her as she turns around and raises an eyebrow at him. Fuck, he’s missed her. “Rihanna, hi, you don’t know me but have you met Patrick?”
She blinks at him and shakes her head before holding out a hand to Patrick. “Rihanna.”
“Patrick. I’m sorry. My friend’s got a mental illness.”
“Is he dangerous?” Rihanna asks with a smile and Pete wants to jump around like Frank on stage.
“Only to himself. From when I kill him.”
“You two are going to get married one day,” Pete beams.
“I beg your pardon?” Rihanna chokes out looking stunned. She turns and looks back at her friends who Pete recognizes but can’t put a name to. But when she returns her gaze to Patrick she’s looking at him in an interested way that makes Pete feel like at least a little of the world is finally getting into alignment.
“See? Kill him. With my bare hands. It’s going to be ugly and I’d like to spare you.”
Rihanna laughs at that and smiles at Patrick as his whole face turns bright red. Pete wonders if they know they’re still holding hands. He shoves his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels. “You have to go out on a date with him.”
“Seriously, Pete, shut up.”
“I do?” Rihanna asks, glancing at Pete quickly before returning her attention to Patrick. “What kind of date?”
“I don’t know,” Pete shrugs. “That’s up to you crazy kids. But trust me. One date and you’ll realize that Patrick is like the single most awesome person to ever live. Less if you make him sing to you. Only took me about fifteen minutes.”
“If you like him so much why aren’t you dating him?” Rihanna shoots back and oh, God, yeah he really has missed her. She’s his favorite of all the girlfriends Patrick’s ever had and if he can just get home before Patrick proposes, he’s going to sell him on the skywriting thing.
“He’s tragically straight and I’m terminally married. We’re star-crossed.”
She laughs again. “How sad for you both.”
Patrick’s red enough to stop traffic but he’s finally noticed that he’s holding Rihanna’s hand. Pete notices he doesn’t let go as he says, “You don’t have to. But, would you like to dance? I’m not very good but-“
“I’d love to.”
“Away from Pete?” Patrick suggests, actually offering his arm like he just stepped out of a fricking Jane Austen novel or something.
“I’m sure he’s not so bad,” Rihanna says as she takes his arm and lets Patrick lead her in the direction of the dance floor. “He’s kind of cute. Is he the type that grows on you?”
“Yeah, like herpes.”
“I heard that,” Pete calls after them but grins as they go and rocks back on his heels in satisfaction. “Dibs on best man.”
Satisfaction shifts into a moment of panic when someone tugs his hand out of his own pocket until he realizes that it’s Mikey. Pete doesn’t relax but he does go with it when his long fingers tangle with Pete’s and he squeezes once. “Nice work.”
“I have my moments,” Pete agrees.
“Sometimes,” Mikey says. Then he stops them and pulls Pete a little closer, reaching towards him with his free hand. His fingers brush Pete’s chin and his breath catches for a second until Mikey pulls back. “Your tie was crooked.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem.” He brushes Pete’s bangs off his forehead and his fingers linger. “You seem better tonight.”
Pete can’t decide if he should pull back or lean forward into the gentle touch. He goes with C, none of the above and holds himself as still as possible while still looking casual and comfortable. “I just needed to get out I guess.”
“Well, I’m glad,” Mikey says, letting his hand drop away. He glances down at the swirls of carpet for a moment before he meets Pete’s gaze again. “I missed you.”
Pete’s hit with a punch of guilt so hard that it almost knocks him down. He has to force himself not to yank his hand away as Mikey looks at him with what has to be love. He doesn’t deserve that. He’s not the guy Mikey misses.
“I’m trying to get back,” Pete says honestly. Every second, every fucking day he’s trying to get back. He brings Mikey’s hand to his mouth and brushes his lips over the knuckles. “I am. And I’m calling those doctors tomorrow.”
Mikey’s so relieved that he actually sags against Pete. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. You wanna go make fun of Patrick’s spastic Elvis imitation attempt at dancing? ”
Mikey bumps his shoulder. “You’re jealous ‘cause his hips don’t lie.”
He leads Mikey towards the dance floor. He ends up spending less time making fun of Patrick, who’s slipped off to the side to talk to Rihanna, and more time actually dancing with Mikey. Neither of them are particularly good and it’s mostly just swaying together, but it’s fun. Pete manages to forget for hours that he doesn’t belong here. He forgets right up until the New Years countdown gets to zero and Mikey is kissing him.
Pete gasps into Mikey’s mouth because this is not quick but concerned kissing or casual, be right back kissing, which are the two kinds he’s gotten familiar with in the week he’s been here. This is serious, ‘I wish we weren’t in public so I could get you naked kissing', the kind they used to grab between sets back on Warped that lead to usually semi-public handjobs and furtive blowjobs. Pete’s always been pretty powerless when Mikey kisses him like this. Apparently eight years and an alternate reality don’t change that.
Mikey’s hands are in his hair pulling him up to meet his mouth as people cheer and drink and blow on noisemakers. Pete catches the fabric of Mikey’s jacket and uses it to balance himself so that he doesn’t freak out or sink into a puddle on the floor. Mikey’s mouth tastes different than he remembers without the cigarette flavor but it’s still amazing, his favorite, and he moans as the kiss pulls the air from his lungs.
“Happy New Year,” Pete gasps when he breaks away panting. He rests his temple against Mikey’s, pushing down a smile at the brief sight of his slightly foggy lenses. Over Mikey’s shoulder, Pete can see Frank bending Gerard back to kiss him like something out of Gone with the Wind. It’s cute and he smiles, hugging Mikey closer for a second before he realizes what he’s doing and steps back.
“Happy New Year,” Mikey agrees. His hands drop down from Pete’s hair to the back of his neck. “You wanna go home?”
Yes. Yes he does. He wants to go back to the house in Jersey and fuck the hell out of Mikey. He wants to peel him out of the tux and see if Mikey still looks the same as he remembers under layers of clothes or if the lines of his body have changed with age. But for some reason, the words won’t come.
“Pete?” Mikey’s hands drag forward, sliding over his pulse. Mikey’s skin is pressed warm against his and he feels sick all of a sudden. It comes over Pete fast and he shudders a little at the contact but can’t make himself pull away.
“I don’t feel so good.” It sounds like an excuse but his stomach feels like someone’s shoved a hand inside and twisted.
Mikey drops his head so that their brows are pressed together. “You okay?”
“I don’t know.” Pete wishes he knew. He could fix it if he knew, or at least try. “Can we just stay like this for a minute?”
“Or we can go home and sleep. You haven’t been sleeping have you?”
Pete can’t remember getting more than twenty minutes of sleep at a stretch since he got here because there’s no fucking Ambien or Lunesta or Valium in the house. There’s just his brain running and running like a hamster on speed on a wheel.
Mikey takes Pete’s lack of a response as an answer. “Come on. I’ll get us a cab.”
“Okay,” Pete murmurs, letting himself lean against Mikey. He fits there really well and he remembers fitting here once, when he was younger and so much stronger. A wave of regret washes over him and makes his stomach ache even worse. “Hey, Mikey?”
“Hm?”
“I, uh,” Pete licks his lips and fixes his eyes on the black buttons of Mikey’s tuxedo shirt. But he doesn’t see that. He sees a Stone Roses t-shirt that smelled of month old sweat. “I missed you too.”
Mikey kisses his forehead and guides him out of the party the same way Pete’s seen him guide Bronx to bed. He stops briefly to whisper something into one of Gerard’s ears, the one Frank is currently not nibbling on, before continuing outside. It’s freezing outside and it snaps Pete back to awareness a little.
Pete huffs out a cloud of hot breath and tries not to lean too heavily against Mikey as a valet hails them a cab that will actually go all the way out to Jersey. It takes longer than it should and while they wait he manages to muster up something to say. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to be a buzzkill and tonight was kind of awesome.”
“Don’t be,” Mikey says, rubbing Pete’s hands with his own in a quest for heat. “Always leave a party before it stops being fun. I think it’s a rule somewhere. I’d say we came out pretty on top.”
“I’m pretty sure I got Patrick laid and that’s always a win.”
Mikey chuckles and brings up their hands to blow on them. The heat makes Pete’s skin prickle. He’s about to suggest they go back inside when a black hire car pulls up and the valet opens the door for them. It’s not a limo but Pete doesn’t mind. He’s just glad they’re not taking the train back.
Pete leans his forehead against the window and drifts for awhile. They’re going through the Lincoln Tunnel when Mikey reaches across the backseat to put a hand on his knee. “Pete, when we get home, try for me okay?”
“Try what?” Pete asks, lifting his head off the cool glass.
“To sleep. Come to bed and just try to sleep, all right?”
Pete studies Mikey’s face through the shadows for a long moment. “What if I can’t?”
“Then you get up and go downstairs like you always do. But give it a try tonight. I dare you.”
Pete can’t help but smile at that. “You’re a hard man, Mikeyway.”
“Only if you push me,” Mikey concedes.
Pete doesn’t push. He lets himself be pushed instead, following Mikey upstairs. He drops the tuxedo on the floor and fishes a shirt blind out of the chest of drawers. He flops on his back and stares up at the sticky stars on the ceiling until Mikey slides in beside him.
“Come here.”
“Huh?”
“Come. Here,” Mikey says again. When Pete doesn’t move, he slides an arm under his neck then bends his elbow so that Pete has to roll towards him.
“I’m here,” Pete mutters, adjusting so that his head is resting on Mikey’s bony chest. It’s weirdly comfortable.
“Yeah now that you’ve made me work for it, you difficult motherfucker.”
“You appreciate shit you work for more.”
“I appreciate this. Now close your eyes.”
“They’re closed,” Pete says. He’s still trying to figure out what the patterns of the stars on the ceiling are supposed to be.
“No they’re not.” Mikey bends his elbow again and puts his hand so that the palm of his hand rests over Pete’s left eye and his fingers drape across his right. “Close them.”
This time, Pete actually does. It’s a little bit easier to keep them shut with Mikey’s hand there. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Now what?”
“Now you stop talking and we sleep. You’re safe here, Pete. You can rest now.” He says that like it’s got extra weight, like it’s something he’s said often as part of a ritual. Pete’s not sure what it is or where it comes from, but it’s like something loosens in his brain.
He reaches up and wraps his hand around Mikey’s wrist. Pete doesn’t pull his hand off his eyes, just holds on with a slack grip until he drifts off. Mikey makes a soft, contented noise in the back of his throat as he gets settled himself and it follows Pete into his dreams when he falls, finally and mercifully, asleep.
~*~*~
Exploring the rest of the Empty Pete’s life after Patrick leaves is like being drafted into a treasure hunt he doesn’t want to go on only to have it turn out that the gold is cursed. Then he’s going to be stuck as a moonlight zombie or whatever forever. Or something like that.
Aztec gold turns out to be two years worth of what Pete can only describe as fucking break up journals. It’s a little unnerving to read what is so clearly his own psychosis over something that never happened. Pete can’t read all of them in one sitting which is fine because honestly, he can’t take any of it in large doses.
The news articles are the easiest because they’re just cut and dried incidents of drug misuse or emotional instability or illicit sex. It’s a crash course in what the Empty Pete’s been up to since walking away from Warped without Mikey. Pete doesn’t need to dig deep to realize it consists mostly of making music and making himself look like a tool interspersed with pictures of his other self with girls who are young enough for Pete to feel uncomfortable just looking at them and rumors of boys who aren’t that much better.
The boys are just rumors though, and unsubstantiated ones at that. He has to read the Advocate article twice because the one he gave was all about marriage rights and figuring out how to tour around his new commitment to Mikey and calling their ex-manager a coward for bailing on the band when he came out. This one actually claims that he doesn’t like dick. It’d be fucking hilarious if it weren’t so goddamn tragic.
The contents of the journals are ugly and broken but they’re just words. It’s harder because he really can imagine writing every word on every page and word document. But when he works on it, he can divorce himself from the emotion behind the content and just get details.
The album though, the one that takes the place New London Hearts on Fire should have, it fucking shatters him. It takes him two days to get through sixteen songs because he keeps having to stop. He’ll get through one and have to get up, and walk away from the computer or iPod.
It’s just too fucking real, the way things always seem to be when Patrick puts his voice and music behind them. He can’t get through I’m Like A Lawyer in one go. He keeps hitting pause and darting into the bathroom to splash cold water on his face. It takes him twenty minutes to get through a three minute song.
The rest of the album’s not much better and he writes and does mindless, fruitless Google searches as he listens. Every song is like involuntarily slicing open a vein and his only defense is to distract himself from the piece of his life the Empty Pete so obviously fucking lost. That works fine right up until track 11 and then what little control and distance he’s managed to grab hold of evaporates.
Pete doesn’t make it to the chorus of the track labeled Bang the Doldrums before he stumbles into the bathroom. He makes it to the sink in time to throw up but just barely. He doesn’t have time to hit pause so Patrick sings to him about goodbye notes and ex-friends as he vomits.
When he’s done, and there’s nothing left for his gag reflex to force up, Pete sinks to the bathroom floor and hits repeat. It’s conversations he had with Mikey, it’s thoughts he had and things he worried about in the days before he asked Mikey to marry him. It’s all fucking familiar.
Only they’re not just nervous musings here. They’re fucking reality. An album made with pieces of a broken heart and eight years of wasted time are what he has to work with. It might be all he ever has to work with again.
Pete sits on that thought for a long time before he can get himself off the floor. But when he does, it’s with a weird kind of acceptance that steadies his feet under him. It’s weird because as painful as knowing how close this life and his are, it’s kind of comforting.
This Pete, the empty shell he could have been if he’d been less brave and less reckless, loved Mikey once. It happened. And chances are that this Mikey loved him back. Patrick is here and his band and Cork Tree and Folie A Deux so maybe-
Pete can’t finish the thought. He can’t actually complete it in case he’s wrong. He chugs a mouthful of mouthwash and forces himself not to hope too much as he opens Google and the Empty Pete’s cell phone rolodex. He tries not to get ahead of himself but the very idea of having something to look for, something to do besides wallow in loss makes breathing easier.
Pete really hates his own habit of naming people weird shit in his phone. It’s nearly impossible to figure out which of the numbers in his phone is his lawyer’s. One of them is though. There’s no way the Empty Pete could get away with saying half the shit Pete’s read or seen in YouTube videos and not have legal representation.
It’s a full twenty-four hours before Pete stumbles across a The California Kids Connection adoption website. He still hasn’t managed to decipher the secret code that is the iPhone’s contacts when he finds it. At first he’s too distracted trying to figure out who the fuck he’d label the Cobra Commander to notice the link on the page with the text Find A Child.
He clicks absently on the link and types in age, sex, gender and ethnicity into the search field. He’s mostly focused on trying to find the lawyer as he clicks because Pete honestly just wants to find Bronx, that’s all. He needs to know whether or not someone else adopted him and if he’s happy, loved, safe. Pete’s pretty sure that if he can know that, if he can have that to hang on to, that everything else can get figured out from there.
Pete’s a little shocked when the page pops up with a short list of six boys between the age of four and five. It’s kind of creepy, like an Amazon for orphans and he wonders how the state can feel comfortable doing this until he scrolls down to the bottom. His hand goes limp and the phone drops to the table because the second to last boy is Bronx.
Pete’s breath catches between his lungs and his throat and he can’t help but press his fingers to the monitor as Bronx smiles up at him from the screen. He looks thinner than Pete’s Bronx but his nose, his hair, the curve of his mouth, it’s all the same. It’s been less than a week since he last saw that face but oh Christ, Pete’s missed him so fucking much it’s been like being without his limbs. Not just one but all of them.
His fingers feel like they’re made out of those big Oktoberfest sausages as he fumbles for his phone. He hits send on Patrick and tries his best to sound normal when he asks “What’s my lawyer’s number again?”
“Are you in trouble?”
“No. I’m fine. I just, I can’t tell. My contacts, they’re kind of fucked.”
“It should be under Sharks and Vultures. Pete, you don’t need me to come pick you up do you?”
“Why? I’m at the house.”
“No reason. I just want to be sure. I can if you need to.“
“I’m fine Patrick,” Pete says, unable to stop grinning at the picture of Bronx still smiling at him. “I’ll call you later, okay?”
Patrick huffs into the phone but doesn’t argue. He’s still too freaked out over Pete’s Christmas breakdown. Pete knows that Patrick can hear him smiling through the phone and is just relieved he’s not calling in tears again.
“Okay. Later.”
His lawyer is a very cool lady named Allison who doesn’t seem too upset that he’s calling after office hours to ramble at her about lost kids and volunteering and a few other generally senseless things. She doesn’t ask too many questions either, just important ones.
“You know what you’re doing?”
“Mostly.”
“Is anything I’m going to help you do going to hurt any of these kids, intentionally or otherwise?”
“No. Never.”
There’s a pause while she gages his honesty and then she makes a small noise of assent in the back of her throat. “Right. I’ll call you back in twenty-four hours,”Allison says in a clipped tone before she hangs up on him.
She actually only takes about twelve to get back to him. When she does he’s got an address and the name of the volunteer coordinator for the group home where Bronx is. Allison doesn’t ask why this group home or this boy and Pete thinks that she may possibly be the best lawyer on this planet and in any universe.
When he gets off the phone with Allison, Pete goes looking through the mess of pills that Empty Pete has in the pharmacy posing as a medicine cabinet in search of the components of his actual prescription. He can actually hear his brain calm down when he finds them in the mass of unnecessary mood stabilizers and anti-depressants.
Pete’s been so fucked up since Clarence yanked him away from his family that he hasn’t been taking what he needs. He wants to be balanced and sane when this comes together and he’s not anymore. He can feel it in the roller coaster in his heart that clicks up in hope before crashing down into despair.
Getting back on his meds doesn’t stop him from feeling borderline giddy as he works out logistics with the group home’s volunteer coordinator on the phone the next day. She doesn’t believe he is who he says he is but he convinces her eventually to let him and his band come play for the kids.
He needs an excuse after all. It’s not like Pete can just walk in and say “Hi, you have my son, give him to me please.” It’s just all kinds of crazy and the state doesn’t give custody to crazy people. So he needs an excuse to be there, to find him and well, that takes planning. Master planning and Pete’s good at that.
He cc’s the plan to Patrick, Joe, and Andy. Ten minutes later he’s typed up the chords and lyrics for the lullaby he and his Patrick wrote when Bronx was a baby and sends that ahead too. Andy texts him with a smiley emoticon wearing what he assumes is a santa hat and Joe emails back saying that he’s in but asking if he got visited by three ghosts in the night.
Patrick calls him. “The song, what it is it?”
“It’s a lullaby.”
“Yeah, I got that from the lyrics and the chord progression. Where’d it come from?”
It came from lots of places. Late nights in the basement watching Patrick fuck with different melodies to keep himself busy while they waited for Bronx to arrive. Mikey buying the Winnie the Pooh movie for the baby, the classic one with the Heffalumps and Woozles song and the rainy day. Watching Bronx sleep, Mikey’s chin on his shoulder, their arms looped together. Pete clears his throat before he answers. “It just came to me.”
“Convenient.”
“You’re not going to stand up the orphans are you, Patrick? You don’t want to make orphan children cry.”
“You’re evil.” Patrick groans. “How do you do this to me?”
“I’m thinking of the children. Think of the children Patrick. And bring the missus.”
“This is last minute, Pete. New Year’s Day she’s got places to be.”
“She loves you more than that. Think of the children.”
“You have got to stop saying that.”
“You’re going to be there right?”
“Yeah. Of course. Just stop saying that.”
“We can car pool.”
“You are not driving. I don’t know what your dose’s been adjusted to but you’re not getting behind the wheel.”
“Come get me by nine?”
“Eight-thirty.”
“Nine it is then.”
Patrick arrives at eight-forty-five which is basically a compromise and Pete tumbles into the backseat with his bass. He tries not to vibrate out of his skin for the rest of the morning. It’s less difficult on the drive because Rihanna’s in the front seat distracting Patrick so he doesn’t have to work all that hard until they get to the group home.
Pete’s surprised when it turns out to be a really big house. He was expecting some institution out of Oliver! or Annie or something. Instead the group home is an honest to god home with about a dozen kids from age four to fifteen.
One of the staff gathers everyone together so they can meet the kids and it’s a kind of organized chaos. The older kids recognize him and the rest of the guys but pretty much everyone old enough to go to school recognizes Rihanna, even if they don’t know how they recognize her.
Pete doesn’t really care whether they know them or not. They’re going to play all kids songs and G rated covers anyway. He’s more tearing the small group apart with his eyes looking for his son. So far, Pete’s given a pile of hugs and met seemingly everyone, but he can’t find him.
It’s all ridiculously informal, everyone sitting on the floor including the band and Rihanna. Pete’s trying not to let himself get too disappointed that he’s in the wrong place when a staff member Pete hasn’t met yet ducks out of the kitchen, leading Bronx by the hand.
Pete smiles at him and lifts a hand to wave as Patrick clears his throat. Bronx waves back, his hand opening and closing rapidly. Pete feels every muscle in his body relax as Bronx sits down on the floor in front of an older girl of maybe ten, near Pete’s knee.
The performance is a bit of a blur. Patrick and Rihanna both take requests from the kids, everything from Umbrella to Itsy Bitsy Spider. They sound good together and Andy lets the kid sitting in front of him take a stab at his bongos. Pete follows along but mostly he can’t take his eyes off this Bronx, thinner and quieter but still Bronx.
Pete sings along with Patrick to Lullaby. His voice isn’t great but he’s got practice on this one. He sings it to Bronx when he can’t sleep or when he wakes up with a nightmare and has since Bronx was an infant. Pete watches Bronx sway a little to it and wants to drop his bass and pull him into his arms. It actually hurts his hands not to.
When they’re all done, the kids drag the other four off but Pete stays on the floor, his bass behind him. Bronx stays too, looking at him with young, open eyes. “I liked the silly bear song,” Bronx says by way of introduction.
“I thought you might. And you look like a jellybean kind of man,” Pete says with a conspiratorial wink. “Let me guess your favorite?”
Bronx looks skeptical but he nods. “Okay.”
“Green ones. And you hate the white ones.”
Bronx’s face lights up. “Yes. They’re nasty.”
“Oh I know. Why do they even make them? The black ones aren’t so bad.”
“They’re okay,” Bronx agrees. “They’re kinda gross though too.”
“That’s why you like them,” Pete teases, reaching out to ruffle Bronx’s hair. It’s longer than Pete keeps it, like it hasn’t been cut in awhile. But then who’s going to cut his hair if there’s not even someone to tuck him in at night.
Bronx just giggles. “Yeah.”
“I-“ He stops himself from saying I love you or I’m your dad and settles for holding out a hand. “I’m Pete.”
“My name’s Bronx.” Bronx taking his offered hand. Pete’s fingers swallow Bronx’s small delicate hand. “I’m five and three months almost in three weeks.”
“Are you? I would’ve guessed six. You’re big for your age, Bronx.”
“Yeah. I got to start school this year even though my birthday’s late.” Bronx sighs, frowning at the compliment that always worked back where he belongs.
Bronx wanted to get tall, he wanted to be taller than Ray and he wanted it now. “What, you don’t want to grow up all big and awesome?”
“Yeah,” Bronx says with a shrug. “But mommies and daddies don’t want you when you get big. That’s what Vanessa says and she’s been here forever.”
Fuck, Pete is not going to cry and he’s not going to hit someone. Not. “Who’s Vanessa?”
Bronx points across the room at the oldest of the kids who is attached to Rihanna’s hip staring up at her with stars in her eyes. Pete’s anger deflates because it’s not like he can be mad at a displaced kid who never got adopted. But he can get that shit out of Bronx’s head.
“You believe everything Vanessa says?”
“No,” Bronx says, looking affronted. Pete would smile if he weren’t so upset he even has to have this conversation. “But she’s been here forever.” Bronx stresses the word forever so that Pete can understand the wisdom of a teenage girl. “Since she was three or something.”
“That is forever,” Pete agrees with a sigh. “But I have to tell you Bronx, she’s wrong about this one. You are not too big for a family.”
“And you know?”
“I know like I know your favorite jellybean and that you want to be Superman when you grow up and that you like dogs more than cats.”
Bronx is looking at him with wide eyes. “How do you know that?”
“I just do.”
“Is it magic?”
Pete smiles at him. “You could call it that.”
“Are you magic?”
“No. But I know, Bronx, someone’s going to pick you.” He swallows around the sharp lump in his throat. “Actually, I’ll pick you.” It’s probably too soon to say that but he means it and if he could take Bronx out of here today, he would.
Bronx looks up at him with dark eyes that should never look that sad. “Yeah?”
“I promise. I swear. Heck, I pinky swear.” He holds out his hand, pinky outstretched. Bronx leans forward and hooks his finger with Pete and they shake on it. “I’m expecting you to hold me to that,” Pete says solemnly.
Bronx nods and grins at him for a moment before pulling his hand free. He launches himself at Pete and his arms are full of Bronx like they’re meant to be and it’s almost like feeling whole.
He sits with Bronx until Patrick drags him away to head home and Pete stops and talks with a woman on the staff before he leaves. Her name’s Lilly and she looks at him a little surprised but gives him the foster parenting information and her work number. Lilly is clearly the kind of person who just wants her kids to have real homes and when he leaves her she looks cautious but hopeful.
Pete manages to grab a hug from Bronx before they go and he walks to the car feeling about a hundred pounds lighter. The boy in that home isn’t his child but he still belongs with Pete. He’s got this gut deep belief that Bronx belongs with him in every universe and he’s on his way to making that happen.
Now if he could at least talk to Mikey, he might actually be able to get a decent night’s sleep.
~*~*~
Part 4
The New Year’s thing Mikey was talking about turns out to be a black tie gala for the Elton John AIDS Foundation in the city. Pete wants to protest but Mikey is markedly not talking to him about it so that option’s out. He tries Patrick but he’s annoyed when Pete calls to complain.
“Oh no. You talked me into this in the first place. You don’t get to pussy out on me now that you’ve just finally realized that dropping Bronx off with Donna’d give you guys the house to yourself. Should’ve thought of that before you made me rent a tux.”
“Remind me of my logic again?” Pete says, going for a joking tone. He’s been getting a lot of answers that way since Christmas.
“It’s a good cause for one thing, and for another you spent like half an hour ranting about how you and Mikey needed to spend time around adults you weren’t related to or touring with.” Patrick ticks off. “Also, you like to make Mikey wear bow ties. I don’t pretend to understand your turn-ons, you sick fuck.”
And that’s how he ends up on the train in a tuxedo with the Jersey based members of My Chemical Romance and Christa Toro. They’re all out of place in their tuxedos on the train's faded benches, except for Christa who looks weirdly at home in a long blue gown and a pair of old Converse, her heels poking out of Ray’s jacket pockets. Apparently, bestselling artists can’t be assed to hire a car into the city when they’ve got public transit. Pete stands by the door separating one train car from next, letting the vibration bang his head into the metal over and over.
“You’re going to give yourself a concussion,” Gerard says, leaning against the door next to him.
“I told you I wasn’t talking to you, Way.”
“I’m sorry about the list all right? I did the best I could.”
“Not talking to you. Because I fucking hate you.”
“I’m really sorry I forgot, Pete. I got everything I could for you, I just missed that. I know there’s other stuff I missed too but I tried.” He puts his palm out to intercept Pete’s forehead before it can hit the door again. “You’ve got to stop that or you’ll get a dent in your forehead and then you’ll fuck up the group picture.”
“How altruistic of you.”
“Just looking out for you, bro. I mean, you, Pete.”
Pete lets it slide. “Anything else I need to know that you neglected to tell me that’ll end up traumatizing your brother or nephew?”
“Nothing big. The rule list was the biggest thing. Off the top of my head the only thing I can think of is that you guys have a single in that movie that came out on Christmas.”
“Which one?”
“The teen one, with the incredibly mediocre witch mythology.”
Oh. Right. Pete remembers turning that down. “You’re just pissed because Umbrella Academy is still in development hell.” Pete turns his head on the door to better face Gerard. “It is here too, right?”
Gerard grumbles and folds his arms in a way that’s going to wrinkle his jacket. “It might be. They’d fuck it up anyway.”
“Probably.”
“Hey, Pete, I really am sorry about forgetting the rule list but just, try and enjoy tonight. You were really looking forward to this. You and Mikey, you don’t get out much. You’re on tour all the time and when you’re not, the two of you are kind of wrapped up in doing the dad thing with Bronx.”
“When this is over, we’re gonna have another talk.”
“Yeah. But tonight’s really easy. Just, don’t get too drunk okay? Me and Mikey are both sober and it makes him really uncomfortable to have to take care of you when you get wasted,” Gerard admits. “You haven’t done it in ages. The last time was before you adopted Bronx so, just, be careful.”
“Sober, no getting waste-y face, got it. That it?”
“Uh, your tie’s crooked?”
“Anything I can’t tell with a mirror?”
“Nope.”
“I’m not famous here right?”
“Like, indie scene cred famous or actually famous?”
“Followed by paps with cameras famous.”
Gerard laughs. “Paparazzi. That’s funny. I love that song though. I feel like I should hate it but it was such audible crack you know? Her new stuff’s not as good.”
“So no.”
“I mean, you’re famous in the scene. And you’re an out artist in a working band so for this event you’re famous enough but not really. Are you famous there?”
“Yeah. Claustrophobically.”
“Nice break then.”
“It’s a break,” Pete concedes. “Go entertain him for me? I just, I need to get my shit together before we do this.”
“No problem,” Gerard says softly, squeezing his shoulder. “This’ll be better than Christmas was, Pete. I’ve got a feeling.”
The party’s got a red carpet and Pete feels comfortable for the first time since arriving in this universe. He knows how to walk a red carpet. He knows how to talk to reporters. He knows how to lean into or away from his date for the best picture.
He decides when the first flashbulb goes off to embrace this. He’s always liked acting and this at least is easier than memorizing lines. It’s like being on stage at a show, only instead of playing front man, he’s playing Pete Wentz-Way. He can do this because no one is going to want to talk to him. He’s not famous here.
Mikey lets him take his hand but it’s not a good grip. This isn’t the way they look in the few pictures that Pete’s had the balls to look at. But he’s pretty sure they can get away with it until they’re about a foot from the door when someone with a camera stops him and Patrick and goes “Hey, aren’t you guys in that band?”
“Depends on the band,” Pete says with an easy smile. Patrick makes a huffing noise and Mikey rolls his eyes.
“You’re Fall Out Boy,” the paparazzo says. “Yeah, you guys did that song for the Wicked Brew soundtrack.” His camera goes off with a flash as he asks, “Hey, how’s it feel to be the number one downloaded song in the country this week guys?”
“I’m sorry?” Patrick says leaning forward all of a sudden. He pushes the brim of his black fedora up so that he can get a better look at the guy. “We’re what?”
“The movie’s the biggest thing since that shitty vampire series and people are stupid for that song you guys did. iTunes and Amazon both exploded with people buying your single. Pre-sale on your new album blew up too.”
Patrick looks like someone hit him with the stupid stick. It’s cute. “They did?”
“Fucking awesome,” Pete breathes, an old rush hitting him like it hasn’t in years. It’s been a long time since anything in music’s really surprised him but there might be something salvageable in his suburban wasteland.
“What magazine are you with?” Mikey asks tugging Pete back by the hand.
The photographer grins. “For this? In Touch but I do a lot of work for Blender.” The guy pulls out a card and Pete snaps it up before Mikey can say anything. “When people start calling you guys again, don’t forget who told you first.”
Pete grabs Patrick around the neck and pulls him under his shoulder with a grin. “We’re ecstatic people like our sound, and you can quote that.”
“I will. Thanks, Pete right?” The photographer asks. “I think I read your interview with the Advocate, man.”
“Yeah, Pete Wentz.”
“Way,” Mikey says softly.
“Way.” Pete adds with only a little bit of a trip over the word. “Pete Wentz-Way.”
“And you’re the singer?”
“Lyricist and bass.” He adjusts Patrick’s hat on his head which earns him an elbow in the ribs. He flinches but still manages to get out a fairly smooth, “Patrick Stump’s got the magic voice.”
Patrick ducks his head and tugs on Pete. “We should go in now. The rest of the guys are waiting.”
“Nice talking to you,” Pete calls, saluting the guy with his card pressed between Pete’s middle and index finger. Then he lets Patrick and Mikey drag him inside.
“I think I forgot what an attention whore you are,” Mikey mutters, untangling his hand from Pete’s once they get inside. “All you’re missing are big green tail feathers. You know guys like that are what caused the trouble in the first place.”
What trouble? Pete has no idea what Mikey’s talking about. So he chooses to ignore it. “It’s one of my better qualities,” Pete retorts instead, complete with a wide smile.
He’s trying for normal, doing his best to treat Mikey like he’d treat Patrick or Joe or Andy or Rihanna. Mikey was a friend first and he can do friends with this Mikey even if he doesn’t feel comfortable with all the intimacy shit. So for tonight, he’s going to do like Gerard asked and try to enjoy himself. Which means that he’s got his sarcasm and comebacks turned to 11.
“Besides, you know I’d look awesome with tail feathers. You’d love it.”
“Freak,” Mikey says but his mouth’s softened a little and he sounds a lot less angry.
“So, are you the pot or the kettle here?” Pete asks, tilting his head to study Mikey, imagining that he can find a price tag for one or the other if he looks close enough. “That metaphor always confuses me but I know you’re some kind of cooking implement that is black.”
“We’re the top single,” Patrick mumbles to himself, cutting into the conversation. He wanders off to the bar and Pete snickers. He needs to go wrangle Patrick back before he gets too drunk. Pete’s usually the one to watch but if this Patrick’s alcohol tolerance is the same as his, leaving him alone with an open bar is a bad idea.
“I’m gonna make sure he doesn’t hurt himself. Patrick’s kind of drunk fail,” Pete says with a laugh. Then on impulse, and because it’s what he would do if he were darting away from any of his friends, he kisses Mikey on the cheek and takes off towards the bar.
Patrick is leaning against the bar when Pete gets there. He’s drinking something amber colored with no ice like it’s medicine.
“This is a good thing,” Pete says, rubbing Patrick’s shoulder.
“Cork Tree was a good thing too, Pete. And then it all blew up and Mikey had that breakdown and just…” He lifts the glass to his lips and chugs it down. He looks no better when he’s done. “We were this close, Pete.” Patrick squeezes his fingers together. “We were so close to making it when everyone turned on us. You don’t get second chances in this industry. “
Pete wants to know what the fuck that’s about but he doesn’t at the same time. It’s somewhere in those journal entries and scanned articles, taunting him. He can’t really answer Patrick without knowing the history here so he goes for funny instead. “Britney’s gotten like seventeen chances.”
“We don’t.”
“Maybe this time we will. Maybe that was the point of doing the single thing in the first place.”
“Pete, just, don’t talk to any other press until we talk to Schechter okay? He’ll be back from vacation tomorrow.”
“Schechter. Schechter who?”
Patrick waves his glass at the bartender for a second then snaps in Pete’s face. “Schechter comma Brian. Our manager, Pete, hello.” He looks down at his glass. “Did you steal some of my drink?”
“How many have you had?”
“This one coming’s my third. But the panic attack is like being drunk.”
The bartender returns with lucky number three. Pete snatches it away. “You don’t need this.”
“It’s going to be the VMA aftermath all over again, Pete, so yeah, I really really do.”
“Just wait until Joe gets back from Chicago and let him get you high,” Pete says, taking a sip. Its scotch and soda and it is just way too strong.
“That doesn’t help me now.”
“Well then think happy thoughts. We’re going to get really amazing royalties off of this regardless. So, take a deep breath, turn around,” Pete says, tugging Patrick by the shoulders because sometimes he needs to be manhandled into what’s right for him. “And we’ll go mingle so I don’t end up spending the night in the basement again.”
He doesn’t need to tell Patrick that he’s been spending his nights in the basement by choice and not by Mikey’s demand. Speaking of, he scans the crowd, looking for Mikey or at least Ray whose hair and height always made him fairly easy to spot in a crowd.
“Pete,” Patrick begins but Pete holds up a hand, cutting him off. Patrick smacks his hand away. “What the hell?”
“Come with me,” Pete says, dragging Patrick by the elbow through the crowd towards the woman who is standing facing away from where Mikey and Gerard are talking to some actress Pete only vaguely recognizes. “We’re going to play a little game of ‘Have you met Patrick?’. It’ll lift your spirit.”
Patrick jerks his arm back hard and Pete comes to a stop about five feet from where she’s standing. “Pete, no.”
“Yes. It’s an amazing game and it always works.”
“It’s not and it doesn’t. Just because you feel compelled to mainline How I Met Your Mother reruns doesn’t make this a good idea. Pete, don’t-“
Pete’s tired of hearing that. Don’t. His whole life used to be “go right ahead.” And now he’s in a world of fucking “don’t” and on this one? He knows he’s fucking right.
So he taps her on the shoulder and smiles widely at her as she turns around and raises an eyebrow at him. Fuck, he’s missed her. “Rihanna, hi, you don’t know me but have you met Patrick?”
She blinks at him and shakes her head before holding out a hand to Patrick. “Rihanna.”
“Patrick. I’m sorry. My friend’s got a mental illness.”
“Is he dangerous?” Rihanna asks with a smile and Pete wants to jump around like Frank on stage.
“Only to himself. From when I kill him.”
“You two are going to get married one day,” Pete beams.
“I beg your pardon?” Rihanna chokes out looking stunned. She turns and looks back at her friends who Pete recognizes but can’t put a name to. But when she returns her gaze to Patrick she’s looking at him in an interested way that makes Pete feel like at least a little of the world is finally getting into alignment.
“See? Kill him. With my bare hands. It’s going to be ugly and I’d like to spare you.”
Rihanna laughs at that and smiles at Patrick as his whole face turns bright red. Pete wonders if they know they’re still holding hands. He shoves his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels. “You have to go out on a date with him.”
“Seriously, Pete, shut up.”
“I do?” Rihanna asks, glancing at Pete quickly before returning her attention to Patrick. “What kind of date?”
“I don’t know,” Pete shrugs. “That’s up to you crazy kids. But trust me. One date and you’ll realize that Patrick is like the single most awesome person to ever live. Less if you make him sing to you. Only took me about fifteen minutes.”
“If you like him so much why aren’t you dating him?” Rihanna shoots back and oh, God, yeah he really has missed her. She’s his favorite of all the girlfriends Patrick’s ever had and if he can just get home before Patrick proposes, he’s going to sell him on the skywriting thing.
“He’s tragically straight and I’m terminally married. We’re star-crossed.”
She laughs again. “How sad for you both.”
Patrick’s red enough to stop traffic but he’s finally noticed that he’s holding Rihanna’s hand. Pete notices he doesn’t let go as he says, “You don’t have to. But, would you like to dance? I’m not very good but-“
“I’d love to.”
“Away from Pete?” Patrick suggests, actually offering his arm like he just stepped out of a fricking Jane Austen novel or something.
“I’m sure he’s not so bad,” Rihanna says as she takes his arm and lets Patrick lead her in the direction of the dance floor. “He’s kind of cute. Is he the type that grows on you?”
“Yeah, like herpes.”
“I heard that,” Pete calls after them but grins as they go and rocks back on his heels in satisfaction. “Dibs on best man.”
Satisfaction shifts into a moment of panic when someone tugs his hand out of his own pocket until he realizes that it’s Mikey. Pete doesn’t relax but he does go with it when his long fingers tangle with Pete’s and he squeezes once. “Nice work.”
“I have my moments,” Pete agrees.
“Sometimes,” Mikey says. Then he stops them and pulls Pete a little closer, reaching towards him with his free hand. His fingers brush Pete’s chin and his breath catches for a second until Mikey pulls back. “Your tie was crooked.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem.” He brushes Pete’s bangs off his forehead and his fingers linger. “You seem better tonight.”
Pete can’t decide if he should pull back or lean forward into the gentle touch. He goes with C, none of the above and holds himself as still as possible while still looking casual and comfortable. “I just needed to get out I guess.”
“Well, I’m glad,” Mikey says, letting his hand drop away. He glances down at the swirls of carpet for a moment before he meets Pete’s gaze again. “I missed you.”
Pete’s hit with a punch of guilt so hard that it almost knocks him down. He has to force himself not to yank his hand away as Mikey looks at him with what has to be love. He doesn’t deserve that. He’s not the guy Mikey misses.
“I’m trying to get back,” Pete says honestly. Every second, every fucking day he’s trying to get back. He brings Mikey’s hand to his mouth and brushes his lips over the knuckles. “I am. And I’m calling those doctors tomorrow.”
Mikey’s so relieved that he actually sags against Pete. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. You wanna go make fun of Patrick’s spastic Elvis imitation attempt at dancing? ”
Mikey bumps his shoulder. “You’re jealous ‘cause his hips don’t lie.”
He leads Mikey towards the dance floor. He ends up spending less time making fun of Patrick, who’s slipped off to the side to talk to Rihanna, and more time actually dancing with Mikey. Neither of them are particularly good and it’s mostly just swaying together, but it’s fun. Pete manages to forget for hours that he doesn’t belong here. He forgets right up until the New Years countdown gets to zero and Mikey is kissing him.
Pete gasps into Mikey’s mouth because this is not quick but concerned kissing or casual, be right back kissing, which are the two kinds he’s gotten familiar with in the week he’s been here. This is serious, ‘I wish we weren’t in public so I could get you naked kissing', the kind they used to grab between sets back on Warped that lead to usually semi-public handjobs and furtive blowjobs. Pete’s always been pretty powerless when Mikey kisses him like this. Apparently eight years and an alternate reality don’t change that.
Mikey’s hands are in his hair pulling him up to meet his mouth as people cheer and drink and blow on noisemakers. Pete catches the fabric of Mikey’s jacket and uses it to balance himself so that he doesn’t freak out or sink into a puddle on the floor. Mikey’s mouth tastes different than he remembers without the cigarette flavor but it’s still amazing, his favorite, and he moans as the kiss pulls the air from his lungs.
“Happy New Year,” Pete gasps when he breaks away panting. He rests his temple against Mikey’s, pushing down a smile at the brief sight of his slightly foggy lenses. Over Mikey’s shoulder, Pete can see Frank bending Gerard back to kiss him like something out of Gone with the Wind. It’s cute and he smiles, hugging Mikey closer for a second before he realizes what he’s doing and steps back.
“Happy New Year,” Mikey agrees. His hands drop down from Pete’s hair to the back of his neck. “You wanna go home?”
Yes. Yes he does. He wants to go back to the house in Jersey and fuck the hell out of Mikey. He wants to peel him out of the tux and see if Mikey still looks the same as he remembers under layers of clothes or if the lines of his body have changed with age. But for some reason, the words won’t come.
“Pete?” Mikey’s hands drag forward, sliding over his pulse. Mikey’s skin is pressed warm against his and he feels sick all of a sudden. It comes over Pete fast and he shudders a little at the contact but can’t make himself pull away.
“I don’t feel so good.” It sounds like an excuse but his stomach feels like someone’s shoved a hand inside and twisted.
Mikey drops his head so that their brows are pressed together. “You okay?”
“I don’t know.” Pete wishes he knew. He could fix it if he knew, or at least try. “Can we just stay like this for a minute?”
“Or we can go home and sleep. You haven’t been sleeping have you?”
Pete can’t remember getting more than twenty minutes of sleep at a stretch since he got here because there’s no fucking Ambien or Lunesta or Valium in the house. There’s just his brain running and running like a hamster on speed on a wheel.
Mikey takes Pete’s lack of a response as an answer. “Come on. I’ll get us a cab.”
“Okay,” Pete murmurs, letting himself lean against Mikey. He fits there really well and he remembers fitting here once, when he was younger and so much stronger. A wave of regret washes over him and makes his stomach ache even worse. “Hey, Mikey?”
“Hm?”
“I, uh,” Pete licks his lips and fixes his eyes on the black buttons of Mikey’s tuxedo shirt. But he doesn’t see that. He sees a Stone Roses t-shirt that smelled of month old sweat. “I missed you too.”
Mikey kisses his forehead and guides him out of the party the same way Pete’s seen him guide Bronx to bed. He stops briefly to whisper something into one of Gerard’s ears, the one Frank is currently not nibbling on, before continuing outside. It’s freezing outside and it snaps Pete back to awareness a little.
Pete huffs out a cloud of hot breath and tries not to lean too heavily against Mikey as a valet hails them a cab that will actually go all the way out to Jersey. It takes longer than it should and while they wait he manages to muster up something to say. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to be a buzzkill and tonight was kind of awesome.”
“Don’t be,” Mikey says, rubbing Pete’s hands with his own in a quest for heat. “Always leave a party before it stops being fun. I think it’s a rule somewhere. I’d say we came out pretty on top.”
“I’m pretty sure I got Patrick laid and that’s always a win.”
Mikey chuckles and brings up their hands to blow on them. The heat makes Pete’s skin prickle. He’s about to suggest they go back inside when a black hire car pulls up and the valet opens the door for them. It’s not a limo but Pete doesn’t mind. He’s just glad they’re not taking the train back.
Pete leans his forehead against the window and drifts for awhile. They’re going through the Lincoln Tunnel when Mikey reaches across the backseat to put a hand on his knee. “Pete, when we get home, try for me okay?”
“Try what?” Pete asks, lifting his head off the cool glass.
“To sleep. Come to bed and just try to sleep, all right?”
Pete studies Mikey’s face through the shadows for a long moment. “What if I can’t?”
“Then you get up and go downstairs like you always do. But give it a try tonight. I dare you.”
Pete can’t help but smile at that. “You’re a hard man, Mikeyway.”
“Only if you push me,” Mikey concedes.
Pete doesn’t push. He lets himself be pushed instead, following Mikey upstairs. He drops the tuxedo on the floor and fishes a shirt blind out of the chest of drawers. He flops on his back and stares up at the sticky stars on the ceiling until Mikey slides in beside him.
“Come here.”
“Huh?”
“Come. Here,” Mikey says again. When Pete doesn’t move, he slides an arm under his neck then bends his elbow so that Pete has to roll towards him.
“I’m here,” Pete mutters, adjusting so that his head is resting on Mikey’s bony chest. It’s weirdly comfortable.
“Yeah now that you’ve made me work for it, you difficult motherfucker.”
“You appreciate shit you work for more.”
“I appreciate this. Now close your eyes.”
“They’re closed,” Pete says. He’s still trying to figure out what the patterns of the stars on the ceiling are supposed to be.
“No they’re not.” Mikey bends his elbow again and puts his hand so that the palm of his hand rests over Pete’s left eye and his fingers drape across his right. “Close them.”
This time, Pete actually does. It’s a little bit easier to keep them shut with Mikey’s hand there. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Now what?”
“Now you stop talking and we sleep. You’re safe here, Pete. You can rest now.” He says that like it’s got extra weight, like it’s something he’s said often as part of a ritual. Pete’s not sure what it is or where it comes from, but it’s like something loosens in his brain.
He reaches up and wraps his hand around Mikey’s wrist. Pete doesn’t pull his hand off his eyes, just holds on with a slack grip until he drifts off. Mikey makes a soft, contented noise in the back of his throat as he gets settled himself and it follows Pete into his dreams when he falls, finally and mercifully, asleep.
~*~*~
Exploring the rest of the Empty Pete’s life after Patrick leaves is like being drafted into a treasure hunt he doesn’t want to go on only to have it turn out that the gold is cursed. Then he’s going to be stuck as a moonlight zombie or whatever forever. Or something like that.
Aztec gold turns out to be two years worth of what Pete can only describe as fucking break up journals. It’s a little unnerving to read what is so clearly his own psychosis over something that never happened. Pete can’t read all of them in one sitting which is fine because honestly, he can’t take any of it in large doses.
The news articles are the easiest because they’re just cut and dried incidents of drug misuse or emotional instability or illicit sex. It’s a crash course in what the Empty Pete’s been up to since walking away from Warped without Mikey. Pete doesn’t need to dig deep to realize it consists mostly of making music and making himself look like a tool interspersed with pictures of his other self with girls who are young enough for Pete to feel uncomfortable just looking at them and rumors of boys who aren’t that much better.
The boys are just rumors though, and unsubstantiated ones at that. He has to read the Advocate article twice because the one he gave was all about marriage rights and figuring out how to tour around his new commitment to Mikey and calling their ex-manager a coward for bailing on the band when he came out. This one actually claims that he doesn’t like dick. It’d be fucking hilarious if it weren’t so goddamn tragic.
The contents of the journals are ugly and broken but they’re just words. It’s harder because he really can imagine writing every word on every page and word document. But when he works on it, he can divorce himself from the emotion behind the content and just get details.
The album though, the one that takes the place New London Hearts on Fire should have, it fucking shatters him. It takes him two days to get through sixteen songs because he keeps having to stop. He’ll get through one and have to get up, and walk away from the computer or iPod.
It’s just too fucking real, the way things always seem to be when Patrick puts his voice and music behind them. He can’t get through I’m Like A Lawyer in one go. He keeps hitting pause and darting into the bathroom to splash cold water on his face. It takes him twenty minutes to get through a three minute song.
The rest of the album’s not much better and he writes and does mindless, fruitless Google searches as he listens. Every song is like involuntarily slicing open a vein and his only defense is to distract himself from the piece of his life the Empty Pete so obviously fucking lost. That works fine right up until track 11 and then what little control and distance he’s managed to grab hold of evaporates.
Pete doesn’t make it to the chorus of the track labeled Bang the Doldrums before he stumbles into the bathroom. He makes it to the sink in time to throw up but just barely. He doesn’t have time to hit pause so Patrick sings to him about goodbye notes and ex-friends as he vomits.
When he’s done, and there’s nothing left for his gag reflex to force up, Pete sinks to the bathroom floor and hits repeat. It’s conversations he had with Mikey, it’s thoughts he had and things he worried about in the days before he asked Mikey to marry him. It’s all fucking familiar.
Only they’re not just nervous musings here. They’re fucking reality. An album made with pieces of a broken heart and eight years of wasted time are what he has to work with. It might be all he ever has to work with again.
Pete sits on that thought for a long time before he can get himself off the floor. But when he does, it’s with a weird kind of acceptance that steadies his feet under him. It’s weird because as painful as knowing how close this life and his are, it’s kind of comforting.
This Pete, the empty shell he could have been if he’d been less brave and less reckless, loved Mikey once. It happened. And chances are that this Mikey loved him back. Patrick is here and his band and Cork Tree and Folie A Deux so maybe-
Pete can’t finish the thought. He can’t actually complete it in case he’s wrong. He chugs a mouthful of mouthwash and forces himself not to hope too much as he opens Google and the Empty Pete’s cell phone rolodex. He tries not to get ahead of himself but the very idea of having something to look for, something to do besides wallow in loss makes breathing easier.
Pete really hates his own habit of naming people weird shit in his phone. It’s nearly impossible to figure out which of the numbers in his phone is his lawyer’s. One of them is though. There’s no way the Empty Pete could get away with saying half the shit Pete’s read or seen in YouTube videos and not have legal representation.
It’s a full twenty-four hours before Pete stumbles across a The California Kids Connection adoption website. He still hasn’t managed to decipher the secret code that is the iPhone’s contacts when he finds it. At first he’s too distracted trying to figure out who the fuck he’d label the Cobra Commander to notice the link on the page with the text Find A Child.
He clicks absently on the link and types in age, sex, gender and ethnicity into the search field. He’s mostly focused on trying to find the lawyer as he clicks because Pete honestly just wants to find Bronx, that’s all. He needs to know whether or not someone else adopted him and if he’s happy, loved, safe. Pete’s pretty sure that if he can know that, if he can have that to hang on to, that everything else can get figured out from there.
Pete’s a little shocked when the page pops up with a short list of six boys between the age of four and five. It’s kind of creepy, like an Amazon for orphans and he wonders how the state can feel comfortable doing this until he scrolls down to the bottom. His hand goes limp and the phone drops to the table because the second to last boy is Bronx.
Pete’s breath catches between his lungs and his throat and he can’t help but press his fingers to the monitor as Bronx smiles up at him from the screen. He looks thinner than Pete’s Bronx but his nose, his hair, the curve of his mouth, it’s all the same. It’s been less than a week since he last saw that face but oh Christ, Pete’s missed him so fucking much it’s been like being without his limbs. Not just one but all of them.
His fingers feel like they’re made out of those big Oktoberfest sausages as he fumbles for his phone. He hits send on Patrick and tries his best to sound normal when he asks “What’s my lawyer’s number again?”
“Are you in trouble?”
“No. I’m fine. I just, I can’t tell. My contacts, they’re kind of fucked.”
“It should be under Sharks and Vultures. Pete, you don’t need me to come pick you up do you?”
“Why? I’m at the house.”
“No reason. I just want to be sure. I can if you need to.“
“I’m fine Patrick,” Pete says, unable to stop grinning at the picture of Bronx still smiling at him. “I’ll call you later, okay?”
Patrick huffs into the phone but doesn’t argue. He’s still too freaked out over Pete’s Christmas breakdown. Pete knows that Patrick can hear him smiling through the phone and is just relieved he’s not calling in tears again.
“Okay. Later.”
His lawyer is a very cool lady named Allison who doesn’t seem too upset that he’s calling after office hours to ramble at her about lost kids and volunteering and a few other generally senseless things. She doesn’t ask too many questions either, just important ones.
“You know what you’re doing?”
“Mostly.”
“Is anything I’m going to help you do going to hurt any of these kids, intentionally or otherwise?”
“No. Never.”
There’s a pause while she gages his honesty and then she makes a small noise of assent in the back of her throat. “Right. I’ll call you back in twenty-four hours,”Allison says in a clipped tone before she hangs up on him.
She actually only takes about twelve to get back to him. When she does he’s got an address and the name of the volunteer coordinator for the group home where Bronx is. Allison doesn’t ask why this group home or this boy and Pete thinks that she may possibly be the best lawyer on this planet and in any universe.
When he gets off the phone with Allison, Pete goes looking through the mess of pills that Empty Pete has in the pharmacy posing as a medicine cabinet in search of the components of his actual prescription. He can actually hear his brain calm down when he finds them in the mass of unnecessary mood stabilizers and anti-depressants.
Pete’s been so fucked up since Clarence yanked him away from his family that he hasn’t been taking what he needs. He wants to be balanced and sane when this comes together and he’s not anymore. He can feel it in the roller coaster in his heart that clicks up in hope before crashing down into despair.
Getting back on his meds doesn’t stop him from feeling borderline giddy as he works out logistics with the group home’s volunteer coordinator on the phone the next day. She doesn’t believe he is who he says he is but he convinces her eventually to let him and his band come play for the kids.
He needs an excuse after all. It’s not like Pete can just walk in and say “Hi, you have my son, give him to me please.” It’s just all kinds of crazy and the state doesn’t give custody to crazy people. So he needs an excuse to be there, to find him and well, that takes planning. Master planning and Pete’s good at that.
He cc’s the plan to Patrick, Joe, and Andy. Ten minutes later he’s typed up the chords and lyrics for the lullaby he and his Patrick wrote when Bronx was a baby and sends that ahead too. Andy texts him with a smiley emoticon wearing what he assumes is a santa hat and Joe emails back saying that he’s in but asking if he got visited by three ghosts in the night.
Patrick calls him. “The song, what it is it?”
“It’s a lullaby.”
“Yeah, I got that from the lyrics and the chord progression. Where’d it come from?”
It came from lots of places. Late nights in the basement watching Patrick fuck with different melodies to keep himself busy while they waited for Bronx to arrive. Mikey buying the Winnie the Pooh movie for the baby, the classic one with the Heffalumps and Woozles song and the rainy day. Watching Bronx sleep, Mikey’s chin on his shoulder, their arms looped together. Pete clears his throat before he answers. “It just came to me.”
“Convenient.”
“You’re not going to stand up the orphans are you, Patrick? You don’t want to make orphan children cry.”
“You’re evil.” Patrick groans. “How do you do this to me?”
“I’m thinking of the children. Think of the children Patrick. And bring the missus.”
“This is last minute, Pete. New Year’s Day she’s got places to be.”
“She loves you more than that. Think of the children.”
“You have got to stop saying that.”
“You’re going to be there right?”
“Yeah. Of course. Just stop saying that.”
“We can car pool.”
“You are not driving. I don’t know what your dose’s been adjusted to but you’re not getting behind the wheel.”
“Come get me by nine?”
“Eight-thirty.”
“Nine it is then.”
Patrick arrives at eight-forty-five which is basically a compromise and Pete tumbles into the backseat with his bass. He tries not to vibrate out of his skin for the rest of the morning. It’s less difficult on the drive because Rihanna’s in the front seat distracting Patrick so he doesn’t have to work all that hard until they get to the group home.
Pete’s surprised when it turns out to be a really big house. He was expecting some institution out of Oliver! or Annie or something. Instead the group home is an honest to god home with about a dozen kids from age four to fifteen.
One of the staff gathers everyone together so they can meet the kids and it’s a kind of organized chaos. The older kids recognize him and the rest of the guys but pretty much everyone old enough to go to school recognizes Rihanna, even if they don’t know how they recognize her.
Pete doesn’t really care whether they know them or not. They’re going to play all kids songs and G rated covers anyway. He’s more tearing the small group apart with his eyes looking for his son. So far, Pete’s given a pile of hugs and met seemingly everyone, but he can’t find him.
It’s all ridiculously informal, everyone sitting on the floor including the band and Rihanna. Pete’s trying not to let himself get too disappointed that he’s in the wrong place when a staff member Pete hasn’t met yet ducks out of the kitchen, leading Bronx by the hand.
Pete smiles at him and lifts a hand to wave as Patrick clears his throat. Bronx waves back, his hand opening and closing rapidly. Pete feels every muscle in his body relax as Bronx sits down on the floor in front of an older girl of maybe ten, near Pete’s knee.
The performance is a bit of a blur. Patrick and Rihanna both take requests from the kids, everything from Umbrella to Itsy Bitsy Spider. They sound good together and Andy lets the kid sitting in front of him take a stab at his bongos. Pete follows along but mostly he can’t take his eyes off this Bronx, thinner and quieter but still Bronx.
Pete sings along with Patrick to Lullaby. His voice isn’t great but he’s got practice on this one. He sings it to Bronx when he can’t sleep or when he wakes up with a nightmare and has since Bronx was an infant. Pete watches Bronx sway a little to it and wants to drop his bass and pull him into his arms. It actually hurts his hands not to.
When they’re all done, the kids drag the other four off but Pete stays on the floor, his bass behind him. Bronx stays too, looking at him with young, open eyes. “I liked the silly bear song,” Bronx says by way of introduction.
“I thought you might. And you look like a jellybean kind of man,” Pete says with a conspiratorial wink. “Let me guess your favorite?”
Bronx looks skeptical but he nods. “Okay.”
“Green ones. And you hate the white ones.”
Bronx’s face lights up. “Yes. They’re nasty.”
“Oh I know. Why do they even make them? The black ones aren’t so bad.”
“They’re okay,” Bronx agrees. “They’re kinda gross though too.”
“That’s why you like them,” Pete teases, reaching out to ruffle Bronx’s hair. It’s longer than Pete keeps it, like it hasn’t been cut in awhile. But then who’s going to cut his hair if there’s not even someone to tuck him in at night.
Bronx just giggles. “Yeah.”
“I-“ He stops himself from saying I love you or I’m your dad and settles for holding out a hand. “I’m Pete.”
“My name’s Bronx.” Bronx taking his offered hand. Pete’s fingers swallow Bronx’s small delicate hand. “I’m five and three months almost in three weeks.”
“Are you? I would’ve guessed six. You’re big for your age, Bronx.”
“Yeah. I got to start school this year even though my birthday’s late.” Bronx sighs, frowning at the compliment that always worked back where he belongs.
Bronx wanted to get tall, he wanted to be taller than Ray and he wanted it now. “What, you don’t want to grow up all big and awesome?”
“Yeah,” Bronx says with a shrug. “But mommies and daddies don’t want you when you get big. That’s what Vanessa says and she’s been here forever.”
Fuck, Pete is not going to cry and he’s not going to hit someone. Not. “Who’s Vanessa?”
Bronx points across the room at the oldest of the kids who is attached to Rihanna’s hip staring up at her with stars in her eyes. Pete’s anger deflates because it’s not like he can be mad at a displaced kid who never got adopted. But he can get that shit out of Bronx’s head.
“You believe everything Vanessa says?”
“No,” Bronx says, looking affronted. Pete would smile if he weren’t so upset he even has to have this conversation. “But she’s been here forever.” Bronx stresses the word forever so that Pete can understand the wisdom of a teenage girl. “Since she was three or something.”
“That is forever,” Pete agrees with a sigh. “But I have to tell you Bronx, she’s wrong about this one. You are not too big for a family.”
“And you know?”
“I know like I know your favorite jellybean and that you want to be Superman when you grow up and that you like dogs more than cats.”
Bronx is looking at him with wide eyes. “How do you know that?”
“I just do.”
“Is it magic?”
Pete smiles at him. “You could call it that.”
“Are you magic?”
“No. But I know, Bronx, someone’s going to pick you.” He swallows around the sharp lump in his throat. “Actually, I’ll pick you.” It’s probably too soon to say that but he means it and if he could take Bronx out of here today, he would.
Bronx looks up at him with dark eyes that should never look that sad. “Yeah?”
“I promise. I swear. Heck, I pinky swear.” He holds out his hand, pinky outstretched. Bronx leans forward and hooks his finger with Pete and they shake on it. “I’m expecting you to hold me to that,” Pete says solemnly.
Bronx nods and grins at him for a moment before pulling his hand free. He launches himself at Pete and his arms are full of Bronx like they’re meant to be and it’s almost like feeling whole.
He sits with Bronx until Patrick drags him away to head home and Pete stops and talks with a woman on the staff before he leaves. Her name’s Lilly and she looks at him a little surprised but gives him the foster parenting information and her work number. Lilly is clearly the kind of person who just wants her kids to have real homes and when he leaves her she looks cautious but hopeful.
Pete manages to grab a hug from Bronx before they go and he walks to the car feeling about a hundred pounds lighter. The boy in that home isn’t his child but he still belongs with Pete. He’s got this gut deep belief that Bronx belongs with him in every universe and he’s on his way to making that happen.
Now if he could at least talk to Mikey, he might actually be able to get a decent night’s sleep.
~*~*~
Part 4