(if it hurts) With every heartbeat
Title: (if it hurts) With every heartbeat
Author:
alles_luege
Pairing: Pete/Patrick
Rating: PG-13
Summary: What a catch Donnie AU in which Pete dies, Patrick kisses Brendon and everything turns out to be okay in the end anyway.
Warning(s): none, well spoilers for the video
Author’s Notes: I have no excuse and Pete is a seagull. *hands*
Word Count: 2.467
Beta: tygermine
Disclaimer: Don’t know, don’t own, not real.
~+~
The sea is like every other day, grey and flat. He supposes it shouldn’t make him wonder anymore if the next day would bring something new. It hasn’t so far. The only thing changing in his life is the weather. And it doesn’t change much at all these days.
~+~
It’s kind of impossible that he heard it, but he did. He is sure of it as soon as he climbs up and sees the seagull on the deck. It looks frightened and small and broken in a way Patrick can’t really explain. It’s more of a feeling than anything he could explain with logic.
The seagull doesn’t go away, it just stays with Patrick and Patrick didn’t really know what he was missing, that he was missing something at all before, before the seagull was with him. (In his day to day routine of cleaning, cooking, watching, sleeping.) He didn’t know, well, he forgot how his own laugher sounded and it still feels foreign and too loud in the small space. This home of his, nowhere and everywhere, always moving and it’s not that he’s running away, because he isn’t. He just doesn’t want to be where everyone else is.
The seagull, well, the seagull doesn’t disturb him at all. So Patrick lets it stay.
~+~
The first thing to float by is a guitar. Broken, so Patrick doesn’t try to save it. What good would it do anyway? And there is a lot of junk floating around the ocean anyway.
He pulls out antlers, a coat, pieces of a drum kit the following days.
He has the feeling the seagull watches him with something like melancholy or disdain. He isn’t sure, sometimes he isn’t even sure the seagull is a real bird at all, which is kind of worrying, because he might lose his mind. (He heard it does happen to people who are too long alone, or out on the sea. But on the other hand, it does happen to people who are living on land too. So…he just has to wait and see. But how do you know you’re losing your mind? When there is no one to tell?)
~+~
The sign, or well, just letters, float by on day ten (after the guitar) and he begins to see a pattern. He isn’t sure what it means. The seagull flies over it a few times before it settles down beside Patrick on the railing. Maybe Patrick imagines this all, but he could swear the seagull looks wistful, like it maybe lost something.
Patrick doesn’t feel any loss, not anymore.
~+~
Day fourteen after the guitar, he finds his little ship full of people. The other ship is going down somewhere out of reach. He helps a girl on board and her small hand clings to his wrist, he looks up, she seems pretty shocked. Understandable, he thinks. Someone grabs his shoulder and he turns around. The boy looks pretty shaken, too.
“Have you seen Pete?” he asks, and Patrick doesn’t know what to say to this, because he doesn’t know any of these people. He shakes his head. “Oh, okay…I…” and he lets go of Patrick and looks around.
“Brendon!” Someone yells and points in the direction of the sinking ship. The boy flails around, his eyes wide open in shock. Patrick looks in the same direction. There is someone standing on the sinking vessel.
“He’s going down with the ship…” Brendon whispers. Patrick can’t look at him, doesn’t want to. He can understand to a degree that you would want that, but he…he would not do it. He can’t understand, because it seems that Pete, and that must be Pete, had friends, people who cared, Patrick just has the seagull. Brendon’s fingers are digging painfully into Patrick’s flesh, but he lets him. It must be hard to watch this. It’s hard for Patrick, and he didn’t even know the guy.
~+~
The days after the rescue he can’t find the seagull on board. But it’s full of people, and he has the feeling he’s starting to suffocate. Too many bodies in his space, he will be glad when they’re gone. Safe on the shore. Away from him.
“I just…” Brendon says, interrupting Patrick’s playing. Patrick kinda likes him, so he lets go of the keys and turns to look at Brendon, who looks lost and shy.
“I had a seagull…” Patrick says, Brendon looks up, surprised.
“A seagull?” He asks, sitting down on the bench next to Patrick.
Patrick nods. “Yeah.”
“And what happened?”
“It just left. Flew away, I guess.”
“Do you miss it?” Brendon wants to know. He looks young and sincere. Patrick nods again, because yeah, he fucking misses the seagull. “What was its name?”
“I…it didn’t have one.”
“You could call it Pete…if it should ever come back,” Brendon says with a soft smile. He looks shy and Patrick wants to kiss him. Just to make things better.
“You and Pete?”
“No,” Brendon shakes his head, his messy hair falling into his eyes. “We were just friends.”
“Okay,” Patrick answers.
“Okay…” Brendon says, he tugs his head under Patrick’s arm and sighs. “Hey…I’m sorry for interrupting you.”
“It’s okay…”
“You play good.”
“Thanks,” Patrick answers, letting Brendon snuggle close and burrow into his side, inhale his scent. It’s nice.
~+~
That girl that was clinging to him the day he let her on board gives him a kiss on his cheek and he ducks his head.
“Thank you,” she says and he doesn’t know what to answer, because he is glad they will be gone, but he is also glad he could save them.
“I’m sorry about Pete…” he says after a too long second. She looks away for a moment. He learned a lot about Pete from all of them, mostly from Brendon and Andy, but she told him stories as well.
“Thank you,” she says again, letting go of his hand and Patrick nods.
“Hey…” Brendon says, he is playing with the hem of his shirt. Patrick smiles at him and Brendon smiles back.
“Hey.”
“I…” Brendon begins and Patrick just gives in for this one moment, surrounded by people he didn’t know, but knows now, shared life with for days, shared grief with and silent terror. Brendon’s lips are full and soft and he is shocked for a moment before he responds. When they break apart, Brendon is grinning like an idiot and Patrick wants to roll his eyes, but he really can’t because he knows he is as well. ”I will miss you,” Brendon says softly.
“Yeah, I will too,” Patrick answers and he means it.
~+~
The seagull comes back two nights later. He finds it on his table, picking at some crumbs and looking a bit disgusted.
“Oh, hey…you’re back,” Patrick says from the door. The seagull looks up and Patrick thinks it just rolled its eyes at him. He smiles to himself and crosses the tiny room to prepare some breakfast.
~+~
Patrick doesn’t call it Pete.
The seagull doesn’t seem to mind that Patrick just calls it ‘hey’ or ‘seagull’, and why should it?
On the fourth night he finds the seagull in his bed, next to his head, upon waking up.
“So, you decided to snuggle now?” Patrick asks, and he doesn’t find it strange at all to talk with the seagull. The bird looks at him, then tugs at a lock of his hair and Patrick rolls his eyes, but gets up anyway.
~+~
The dreams start one week after the seagull is back. They are vague at first, just snippets of something. Life, maybe. Someone’s life, not his.
Later he recognises the girl that was shaking so badly and Spencer, and Brendon. Laughing at something he said. But, yeah not him.
It takes him some time to figure out that he dreams about Pete’s life. From Pete’s perspective. That is so goddamned weird he doesn’t have words for it.
“So, I can see Pete’s life now…” he tells the seagull. The seagull looks up from its breakfast and waits. Patrick is not surprised at all anymore. “You know…if I wouldn’t know better…” he begins and the seagull looks back to its breakfast. Patrick huffs a laugh and lets it be.
~+~
The dreams start to be strangely erotic around the fourth week. It’s not about sex per se. It’s different and hard to explain in the morning when he’s awake and facing the sunlight and sea and well, normality of the world.
“So, I’m sure I’m going a bit crazy…it’s not an unpleasant feeling,” He tells the seagull. It gives a small noise that could be concern, but Patrick really doesn’t know. “Maybe you’re right, maybe it is a bit worrying,” he adds after a second, the seagull snuggles into his hand and Patrick lets it.
He thinks about writing Brendon, but decides against it. What could Brendon do anyway?
“He would just worry, don’t you think?” he asks the seagull, it doesn’t answer. It seems pretty self-centred right now. It does that from time to time. (It’s a bit like living with a person who just doesn’t talk to you, but expects you to know what’s wrong anyway.) He sighs and gets up to make some coffee. The seagull likes coffee.
~+~
“So,” Patrick says around week nine. “You are no ordinary seagull, are you?” And it’s so stupid really, but the seagull looks at him and kinda nods. “Okay…so?” And that’s even more stupid because it can’t answer at all. “That’s kind of frustrating, you know?” The seagull nods again and Patrick sighs. “I guess I just need to wait it out, hmm?”
The seagull snuggles into his palm and Patrick smiles.
~+~
It’s a bit like a fairytale, really, he thinks. He just needs to find out which one.
“So, maybe I should kiss you?” he asks the seagull, the seagull looks a bit shocked and doesn’t come any closer. “That’s a no then?” Patrick asks, as the seagull flies to the piano and looks down at Patrick who is sitting on the floor between the ropes. “I really don’t understand, because you are a cuddly little thing…” Patrick continues his musing. He seagull huffs. “Okay, okay…I’ll think of something else.” The seagull looks down on him and he thinks he might lose his mind after all.
“I’m clueless, okay? This is kinda new to me too…well, maybe it’s not new to you.” The seagull shakes its head and flies down to sit beside Patrick. Patrick reaches out and strokes its feathers. “You’re really a cute little guy, you know?”
The seagull kind of nods, Patrick huffs a laugh. “And vain…” he adds. The seagull nips his finger, but stays where it is.
~+~
“Maybe it’s like in the old fairytales? I need to smack you against a wall?” Patrick asks. The seagull bites his finger and flies up to the piano again. “I wouldn’t do it!” Patrick says, sucking on his finger. “You are a vicious little thing, aren’t you?” He asks, the seagull doesn’t respond. In any way. It seems kinda pissed at Patrick. “I really don’t know what to do…obviously you are not a seagull, but I don’t know what else you are. Maybe I’m just a crazy fat little guy…” he says, at this the seagull looks down with something like fierce pity in its eyes. As if it would like to smack Patrick over the head or bite his finger again. “Don’t even think about it.” Patrick warns and the seagull huffs again, annoyed and pissed off. (And when did Patrick learn to recognise the seagull’s moods?)
~+~
The longing upon waking up is nearly unbearable. He needs this to stop. He doesn’t want to know anything else about Pete or his life. Or his sexual adventures. He has had enough of this.
“So,” he says to the seagull, “so, we need to talk.” The seagull comes a bit closer and lets Patrick stroke its feathers. It looks a bit rumpled and Patrick would like to know what it did last night. Or not. “You are Pete, right?” And really what the hell is he even thinking? The seagull is of course not Pete, because Pete is dead, he saw him going down with his fucking ship. The seagull looks kinda embarrassed. “You know…if you are Pete, what the hell were you thinking?”
The seagull doesn’t respond. “Yeah, right you’re sulking again. How very mature of you.” Patrick says. “I want you to stop doing whatever the hell you are doing to me,” he adds and the seagull flies out. Patrick sighs.
~+~
“I’m sorry,” Pete says and Patrick just saw him this once in real life, but he looks so much more solid now.
“I’m dreaming, right?” Patrick asks, he is sure of it, but he needs to ask anyway.
“Yeah…”
“And you’re dead?”
“Well, yeah. I guess…” Pete answers, sitting down on the deck. It’s Patrick’s ship they are on. Patrick knows every corner of it after all.
“And you are the seagull, right?”
“You totally can call me Pete…” Pete answers with a smile. Patrick can’t help it, he smiles back.
“So, what…your soul is in that bird?”
“I guess?”
“But you died after…after I found it,” Patrick says a bit confused.
“Well, don’t ask me…I should be dead by now and somewhere else. I wanted to be somewhere else.”
“But…” Patrick begins and doesn’t know if it’s his place to ask why.
“Why?” Pete asks, looking at the sea and not at Patrick.
“Yeah.”
“Because, it hurt with every heartbeat,” Pete says.
“What?”
“To live,” Pete answers.
Patrick doesn’t know what to say to that.
“You are my seagull and you will not change back or something, right?”
“You’re afraid I will be lying in your bed naked one sunny day?” Pete asks with a lopsided grin. Patrick goes several shades of red.
“That’s not…” he stutters.
“I will not. I guess I will live a seagull’s life with you and then die or go down with your ship,” Pete answers.
“That is so strange.”
“What?”
“That, and also that you’re the only living thing I can stand near me 24/7,” Patrick answers.
“Hmmm…I wish…” Pete begins and Patrick knows exactly what he wants to say so he interrupts with:
“Yeah, I wish that too,” And Pete smiles at him.
~+~
The seagull is picking at the coffee mug when Patrick enters the kitchen.
“So, Pete, what do you think the sea will surprise us with today?” Patrick asks, the seagull picks at the mug again and Patrick smiles. “You’re not a happy camper without your coffee, I know that.” The seagull makes a noise that sounds like laugher. And Patrick laughs too.
~end~