Hey, I finally did stuff!
You know that A-ha music video AU I promised kittygrenade I'd finish weeks ago, but didn't because my big bang ate my face in addition to me being a horrible, horrible human being? Well, it's finally here! Sorry, bb, you've been nothing but patient and I really didn't deserve it.
Title: You're Shying Away
Pairing: Pete/Patrick
Word Count: 1,900
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A-ha Take On Me AU. If you haven't seen the music video, you are horribly deprived. And it is here.
Disclaimer: Not true. No to the lawyers.
Sometimes, Patrick is pretty sure he might be crazy. In his defense, though, he’s very tired, stuck in the limbo between drowsy and strangely buzzed as the minutes slip from late evening into the wee hours of the morning. That, and he is reading a comic book recommended by Andy, and Patrick has always had a slight suspicion that some kind of vegan voodoo rubbed off on everything he touched.
Still, Patrick tells himself, the man on the page could not have just blinked up at him. Besides, he can barely even see the eyes, as they’re hidden behind a veil of thick, dark hair. He is clearly imagining things.
He sighs and peers into his empty coffee cup as if he expected more to materialize between now and the last time he looked. He shouldn’t even be here. He should be out with his friends like he had planned instead of reading a possibly possessed comic book in the back of a mom-and-pop diner that evidently hasn’t changed their décor since the late 70’s, but the band he’d planned on seeing cancelled the show and all of his friends made other plans, so here he was.
The waitress, a stout middle-aged woman, comes along to refill Patrick’s coffee, and he offers a polite smile before she goes back to her duties. He takes a long, scalding sip and goes to turn the page.
Patrick nearly chokes as a hand reaches from the book and catches his wrist. The man the sketchy hand belongs to is staring up at him with an impish gleam somehow reflected in his two-dimensional eyes. Patrick glances anxiously around the diner with wide and panicked eyes, but no one is looking. No one else seems to notice the fucking hand protruding from an open book and wrapped around Patrick’s wrist. Just when Patrick’s pretty sure he’s lost it, the hand slips gently from around his wrist, beckoning with a finger toward the page, the guy in the comic grinning invitingly.
“Oh, no,” Patrick tells him, careful to keep his voice down. He may be crazy, but he doesn’t need other people to know that. “I’m perfectly content right here. Go back to your panel.”
The guy pouts, stroking his penciled fingers across the inside of Patrick’s wrist. Patrick slaps the hand away. “Stop it.”
The pout quickly turns to a frustrated glower, and the hand on Patrick’s wrist is now gripping him firmly. Patrick barely has enough time to protest before the hand pulls him in.
It doesn’t feel as weird as he thinks it should. Not that Patrick spends sleepless nights pondering how it would feel to be dragged into a comic book, but still. The only real differences he notices are that he feels marginally lighter and that his skin has taken on a smooth, but grainy feel as if he’s made up of paper. Which actually seems to be the case.
Patrick holds up a hand in wonder, twisting it and gasping as the pencil lines move to adjust their shadowing to his movement. The guy from the comic book is grinning smugly beyond his fingers. Patrick drops his arm. “What the fuck just happened?” Patrick demands.
The guy perks up, beaming as he declares, “You’re totally adorable when you swear.” Patrick seriously hopes the fact that he’s now in black and white covers the fact that he’s blushing, but a little futilely since Pete is already adding, “And when you blush. Seriously.” He runs his thumb over Patrick’s cheek. “I’m Pete and I want to keep you.”
Patrick flinches back and stutters, “W-what?”
Pete beams. “I saw you reading, and you’re kind of beautiful, you know? So I pulled you in.” He moves closer, crowding Patrick against what he supposes is the wall of the panel. “I’d like you to stay a while,” he says, running a hand up Patrick’s side.
“You’re a drawing,” Patrick blurts, pretending his voice didn’t squeak over the first word.
Pete rolls his eyes. “I know that, thanks. But I don’t have to be.” Pete’s sketched eyes flash as he tugs at Patrick’s hand. “Follow me.”
He leads him to a room with a sort of panel standing unsupported in the middle of the floor. On the other side of the frame, the room looks more solid and less sketched, almost like… “Hey, is this a way out?”
Pete frowns and says, “No, it’s not,” but Patrick is already pressing a hand to it, just to be sure. It feels glassy, like a mirror.
Pete walks around to the other side of the panel and steps into frame, and Patrick’s brain scatters.
“See, I can be human, too,” he says, and Patrick fails horribly at not gaping at Pete’s admittedly hot human form.
“That’s. Um.” Patrick doesn’t really know where that thought is going, so he lets it go and watches as Pete carefully lines up his hand with Patrick’s.
Patrick notes that Pete’s fingers are slightly longer than his and that his smile looks so much better in the flesh, even if his teeth look a too big for his mouth.
Suddenly, though, his smile disappears. “Look out!” he cries and Patrick ducks on instinct, narrowly avoiding getting beamed in the head by what looks like a flash of metal.
The barrier between him and Pete shatters at the impact of the metal object and Pete immediately pulls Patrick through the frame hissing, “Shit, run!”
Patrick really doesn’t need to be told twice because a backwards glance shows him two men in some sort of racing gear close behind them, each carrying a pipe wrench. Pete grabs Patrick’s hand and pulls him away from the men and into a narrow corridor that Patrick didn’t remember seeing before. Pete turns several corners, guiding Patrick though the nearly identical hallways with the shouts and footsteps of the two men trailing behind them.
Being chased aimlessly down a labyrinth of halls by two men with wrenches feels like it should be more frightening, Patrick thinks, but Pete’s hand is warm in his and he can’t really bring himself to care. That is until he practically stumbles over Pete when he suddenly stops, cursing loudly.
“Fucking dead end!”
“Come on, come on…” Pete mutters, pawing at the wall, hands groping at something unseen. He seems to find what he’s looking for because he gives the wall a sharp tug, peeling it open like wrapping paper to reveal a hole on the other side.
"Who are those people?" Patrick pants, looking back.
"It doesn't matter." Pete grabs him by the arm and pushes him toward the hole in the wall. "Climb through here. It will get you back to your world."
Patrick nods and starts to climb through, when he notices Pete has turned away. "Aren't you coming?"
Pete shakes his head. "I have to stay. I don't belong in that world."
"Those guys are going to beat the shit out of you," Patrick says, but Pete only shrugs.
"That's the way it's written." He presses a kiss to Patrick's cheek. "Now go, before they catch up."
He pushes the dazed Patrick through the hole, and next thing he knows, Patrick is lying face-down on the tile floor of the diner next to an overturned trash can. When he rolls over, a half-dozen faces are staring at him in wonder. His face heats at the attention as he searched the floor for his comic book. He found it crumpled sadly in the corner, but otherwise intact. By the time he grabbed it and stood, the people were gone, save for the stout waitress. "Sir?"
Patrick scrambles to his feet. "Yeah, sorry about the mess. I'll just go now."
He tries to shuffle past her, but she cuts him off. "Not so fast. You haven't paid for your coffee."
He grumbles and throws a wad of bills at her, yelling "Keep the change!" as he ran out of the door. He thinks that there were a couple twenties in that bundle, but he can't bring himself to care. All he can think of is dark hair and tired eyes and tan skin and the footfalls of the two men approaching as Pete shoved him back into reality.Patrick keeps the paper crumpled in his fist the entire way home, conflicted between the urge to see if Pete was okay and the fear of finding out otherwise. he doesn't even look at it until he gets home and smoothes the wrinkles out on his desk. He flips frantically through the pages until he finds where he left Pete: alone and cornered by two burly men, pipe wrenches at the ready.
The first thing Patrick sees when he turns the page is Pete's form sprawled across the floor.
"That's the way it was written," Pete had said. He made it sound so final. Apologetic. He knew it would happen, and chose to save Patrick instead of himself. Patrick's eyes sting as his head hits the desk.
A hollow thump from the hall behind Patrick startles him upright, but when he turns to look, the hallway is empty. He turns back to the comic book to find Pete standing and throwing himself into the sides of the panel. The image of Pete flickers out and the thump sounds again, this time more substantial. When Patrick turns this time, he catches a glimpse of Pete slumping against the wall, purple bruises and gashes littering his skin, before he blinks away. A second later, Pete is back. Patrick reaches out for him as he slams against the wall, but Pete shimmers and disappears before Patrick's hand could close around his wrist. He reappeared in a heap on the floor, his skin slick with sweat.
"Oh my god," Patrick gasps as he pulls Pete to his feet. "What just happened? Are you alright? You're not going to disappear on me again, are you?"
Pete laughs as he stands, and Patrick relaxes minutely at the sound. "I'm fine, it's just harder for me to get to this world than it is for you." His voice becomes very serious when he says, "I won't disappear on you."
Patrick relief quickly turns to confusion. "I thought you couldn't come to this world. You said you didn't belong here."
Pete smiles. "I don't. But that doesn't mean I can't be here." He steps closer to Patrick, cupping his cheek with his hand. "Those men could have followed us out. I couldn't risk that."
Before Patrick could respond, Pete is kissing him, running his tongue eagerly along Patrick's lower lip. Patrick groans and returns the kiss, locking his arms around Pete until they both pull away breathless.
Patrick brushes his fingers over Pete's collarbone where a grey bruise flourished and whispered, "Did it hurt?"
Pete leans back to give Patrick a surprised look. "Are you going to ask me if I fell from heaven? Because you don't seem like the kind of guy to use a line like that."
"I'm not," Patrick replied, his eyes rolling on their own accord. "I was referring to you being beaten with a pipe wrench.
Pete offers a reluctant smile and nuzzles Patrick's cheek. "Yeah, it did," he mutters, "but it doesn't anymore."
Pete runs a hand through Patrick's hair and kisses him again. Patrick smiles against his lips and makes a mental note to thank Andy in the morning.