Archive of Our Own

Work Text

Title: Screw Angels, This Bell's Ringing in Wings for MeStatus: CompleteFandom: Fall Out Boy/My Chemical RomanceSeries: SlideverseWord Count: ~52,800 wordsDisclaimer: I don't own anyone in or related to My Chemical Romance or Fall Out Boy.Pairing: Mikey/Pete, Gerard/Frank, Patrick/RihannaRating: NC-17Warnings: magic, kidfic, alternate universesSummary: A higher power thinks Pete Wentz needs to learn a few lessons and trades Pete's celebrity existence for the domestic life he passed by. The Family Man!AUAuthors Notes:Written for popoffacork for onneonlights. I'm not an expert on the terrain of New Jersey, California, or the workings of foster care/adoption system and did the best I could with all of them for the story. Consider any mistakes creative liscence. This story is technically in the Slide!verse with my other Mikey/Pete fics but you don't need to read either of those to read this by any means.Countless thanks to allyndra, ariadne83, crowgirl13,turps33, the December edition of wrisomifu and all the support from there, rivlee, and my hero mizubyte(who saved my life). For beta, for research assistance, for holding my hand, for everything, if just one of you were missing I'd never have finished.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7
Bonus Content:Ridiculously beautiful art and two disks worth of amazing music and yet more art in a fanmix by mizubyte

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

1|2|3|4|5|6|7
Pete’s been watching the homeless guy in the Santa suit sitting outside the Coffee Bean for almost an hour now. Two and a half espresso frappuccinos’ worth of staring at this poor guy, but to be fair, he’s been trying to figure out what to do. It’s not like that requires any master planning or anything, but he’s been interrupted like a hundred times by everything from soccer dads to WeHo queens to twelve year olds in the latest Disney Christmas sweaters, to this latest young woman in Hot Topic gear.“Can you sign something for me?” she asks, holding a notebook that she’s pulled out of a purse roughly the size of Pete’s dog to her chest. She’s about twenty and looks nervous as hell. He can’t help but say yes, even though the guy outside is niggling at his conscience and patience.“I made this,” she says holding out the book. Then adds under her breath, “Because I’m a total loser.”“No, it’s cool.”“I just needed a place for my lyrics. I want to be a songwriter,” she says more to the floor of the shop than to him. “Which is why I’m in LA, but you don’t need to know that so why am I still talking? I’m sorry,” she mumbles. “I can’t seem to stop talking. Ignore me.”Pete just nods, because this is old hat. This is better and easier than crazy fans who want him to sign their skin so they can run down to the local tattoo shop and make it permanent, or the ones who send him used underwear. “It’s good that you’re chasing your dream,” Pete says with a smile, fishing in his pocket for a pen. “Just keep writing.”She beams at him and stops him before he can sign the notebook. “Could you sign the front? I just, I never thought I’d get to complete it.”Pete opens his mouth to ask her what she means by that, but it’s obvious what she means when he turns it over. The front is a picture of himself with Mikey Way, Mikey’s arm draped around his shoulder. For a split second, Pete is back there, at that show. For an instant, he’s twenty-six and crazy in love again. Still.Then Pete blinks back to himself and it’s heading rapidly towards ten years later. The picture in his hands is just a picture and not a wormhole. It’s nothing.The lines of Mikey’s autograph cover Mikey’s chest and the girl taps her finger on the shirt he’s wearing in the picture. “Could you sign there please? To Noelle.”Pete signs with numb hands, a little transfixed by the picture. It’s been a long time since he’s seen Mikey, even in a photo, and for some reason it makes him flip open the back of her book. He scribbles a ten digit number on the last page and hands it back.“Call that number after the holidays, tell my secretary you want extension sixty-three,“ Pete hears himself saying, even though he doesn’t know why. It’s not like he hasn’t met a thousand wannabe lyricists in this town, or knows if she’s even any good. He usually leaves that to the Decaydance A&R guys nowadays, but he hears himself saying it anyway.Noelle stares at him with huge eyes. “Seriously? Oh, God, thank you so much.” She moves like she’s going to hug him, then stops and wraps her arms around herself, pressing her notebook to her chest instead. “Best Christmas of my life, Mr. Wentz, you don’t even know.”It’s technically Christmas Eve, but Pete’s not really in the mood to correct her. He’s not really in the mood for anything anymore. But Noelle stumbles away and he finds himself walking up to the counter anyway, because it is still Christmas fucking Eve and Hobo Santa is still out there.Just because it’s southern California doesn’t mean it’s not going to turn cold tonight. People don’t freeze to death when the temperature dips down into the mid-forties, but they shouldn’t be sleeping out in it, sans camping equipment, either. And Hobo Santa doesn’t look like he’s got anything but his Santa suit and his elf delusions.Pete buys another coffee – regular this time, with a few packets of sugar to go with it, because who fucking knows whether Hobo Santa’s going to like his coffee sweet or not – and heads outside. He stands in front of the man and holds out the coffee. Hobo Santa finishes his conversation with someone who isn’t actually there before he acknowledges Pete’s presence.And then he cocks his head to the side and looks at him from his seat on the concrete. He stares at Pete for an uncomfortably long time, and Pete is used to being stared at. But this is different somehow, so he gestures slightly with the coffee in his hand. “You look like you could use it.”“Oh, I do, do I?” Santa asks, looking at Pete skeptically. He’s a lot younger than he looked from inside the coffee shop. Maybe five years older than Pete is, maybe less. It’s kind of unsettling.“Yeah. So just, you know, take the fucking coffee and let me help you okay? It’s Christmas Eve, guy, you’re killing the spirit.”Hobo Santa laughs and pushes to his feet, but takes the coffee anyway. He looks rough as fuck, unshaven, with dirt far under his fingernails and in the creases of his hands. “I’m killing the spirit, huh?” He takes a sip then frowns. “What, no eggnog?”“Look, I’m just trying to help, okay? It’s the holidays and I thought-““What? You’d buy fucking nutso Santa a drink and fix everything?”“I was going to see if you wanted me to put you up in a hotel for a few nights and give you the number of my shrink, but yeah.” He buries his hands in his pockets and shrugs. Fuck it, some people don’t want to be helped. He knows how that goes but still. There’s something just fucking sad about the man’s dirty costume that makes him unable to just walk the fuck away like a sane person should. “You looked like you were in need.”Hobo Santa looks at him like Pete’s the crazy who was talking to himself. “You want to save my life, Pete? I didn’t think that was your MO.”“If you don’t want the help, just say so. I’m not looking down on you or anything, but everybody needs something. I thought I could help you get it. Like I said, it’s fucking Christmas. ”“Yes, it is,” Hobo Santa agrees.He smiles with teeth that are whiter and straighter than Pete’s, and it makes him do a double take. Most homeless people he’s seen don’t have smiles like that. “How’d you know my name?”“You don’t need to have a TV to know what’s on it,” the homeless guy says, sipping on the coffee he hadn’t seemed to want moments again. “So, since you seem to know everything I fucking need, what do you need?”“I’ve got everything I need. I’m just trying to give back.” Karma’s been a bitch for Pete, and Andy’s got this theory about keeping shit in balance. Nothing else has really worked, so he’s been giving that karmic equilibrium thing a try. That’s all he’s trying to do here.“Fuck, superstar,” Santa chuckles, shaking his head. He drops the now empty coffee cup on the ground and fixes Pete with another too-straight, too-clean smile. “It must be awesome being you.”“Seriously, I don’t know what your damage is, but I know that if you try you can probably make it a little less-” He tries to find the word Patrick always uses for his crazy when Pete calls in the dead of night when he can’t sleep, yet a-fucking-gain. Like last night or the one before. He wants the one that makes him feel less out of his goddamn mind and more like it’s all just little problems, ones he can deal with if he just tries hard enough. “Disruptive.”“Disruptive? You’re gonna talk to me about disruptive? You? That’s fucking fantastic, man. I’m going to have fun with this.” He laughs, and Pete is so fucking lost. “I want you to remember you did this, okay, Pete?” He clicks his tongue and gives Pete a weird little salute with two fingers. “You brought this down on yourself.”Pete steps back, stunned and a little worried. “Brought what down?”“Merry Christmas, Pete.”Pete stands, a little frozen, as he watches the Hobo Santa walk away down Sunset. The guy’s pretty much out of sight before Pete snaps out of it enough to call after him again, “Brought what down?”There’s no answer. He’s already gone.Pete doesn’t feel very celebratory after that. Hobo Santa kind of crushed his Christmas cheer, and he ends up alone on his couch, Hemmy in his lap, with a carton of eggnog – half of which is less egg and more nog in the form of Bacardi.Patrick bitches at him for twenty minutes over the sound of Scrooged on his TV for that. But he stays on the line while Pete watches.“You think you’re going to sleep?” Patrick asks in that tone. It’s the one that implies that he will get up and leave Christmas with his girlfriend’s parents at her place and come over if Pete asks him seriously.He fucking can’t. Of course he can’t. He sighs into his eggnog and grabs an Ambien out of his medicine cabinet. He’s already taken a Xanax and his Lexapro, but it has been days since he slept more than an hour at a stretch, and he’s tired.“I’m good,” he promises, settling down on the couch.“You’re sure?”“I’m sure. Go fuck your beautiful popstar girlfriend for me. You proposed yet?”“Fuck you,” Patrick laughs. “Merry Christmas, Pete.”“Merry Christmas,” Pete parrots, the eggnog easing down the rough feeling of the pills. He clicks off his iPhone, and Hemmy huffs in his face as he drifts off on the couch.~*~*~Pete wakes up to someone kissing the back of his neck that way he fucking loves, mostly soft lips with just a little bit of teeth. Thing is, he can’t remember who he went to bed with. He’s pretty sure he was alone with the eggnog and his meds, but it’s kind of blurred. Whoever it was, he’s pretty sure it wouldn’t be anyone who would know about this. He can count the number of people who know this about him on one hand and have fingers left over, and none of them were there when he went to sleep last night.He shifts, leaning back into the feeling, and a hand slips around his chest, there and pale and solid. The kissing stops for a second and the mouth presses to his ear to whisper, “Merry Christmas,” in a definitely male voice.Pete has about five seconds where he melts into that. It’s warm and sexy and comfortable and familiar and it’s easy. And then the voice registers in his brain and he’s sitting up, so fast that he almost hurts himself pulling free of the embrace around his chest.Mikey fucking Way blinks at him from the other side of the bed, hair sleep-rumpled and eyes drowsy. He smiles at Pete and says, “Pete, hey, lay back down okay?”He’s dreaming. This is all a very real dream. Only he bites the inside of his lip and it fucking hurts so … “What? What the fuck?”“We’ve got like a little bit before Bronx wakes up and we have to do presents, so just,” Mikey – fucking Mikey fucking Way who he hasn’t seen or really spoken to since that last heartbreaking day on Warped – says before his hand wraps around Pete’s shoulder and pulls him back down. He presses his mouth to the skin beneath Pete’s ear and whispers, “Enjoy it.”Pete squeezes his eyes shut. “This isn’t happening.”“Calm down. You’ll be fine. You always are fine and he always loves everything, so calm down. You and your weird performance anxiety, I fucking swear,” Mikey chuckles low and throaty and still a little sleepy. His fingers are carding through Pete’s hair, and Pete is torn. It feels soothing and good but also what the motherfucking fuck, okay? What the fucking hell?“No, really, this isn’t happening. I’m hallucinating. This is a hallucination and you are not real.”Mikey stops mouthing his skin and pushes up on his elbow. He frowns at him from above, and for a second, Pete can’t look at anything but the line of his collarbone outlined by a bartskull necklace hanging over the threadbare Thursday t-shirt he’s wearing. “You didn’t take a double dose by accident again did you? You promised me you’d be more careful.”Pete opens his mouth, then snaps it shut because he has no fucking idea what the answer is. He was on the couch with Hemmy and the Bacardi-nog. He was alone on the couch. He knows this for a fact, damnit, he is not this crazy. Really he’s not.“I, uh- I’m not-” really here. You’re not really here. None of this is happening. Nope, nope, nope.He doesn’t have time to finish the thought before the door explodes open, and a little boy with blonde hair bolts in followed by Hemmy and another dog, one he doesn’t recognize, that’s uglier than an old man’s foreskin. He barely has time to register their presence before they all pounce onto the bed.The kid flings himself on them, grinning and bouncing, and Mikey laughs even though the impact forces the air out of his lungs. Pete’s too stunned to breathe, so it doesn’t affect him as much as the way the little boy looks at them both with a big happy smile and cries, “Papa, Daddy, it’s Christmas! Santa brought all the presents and you have to come see!”, does.No. Just no. No no no, really, fucking fuck no. Pete’s rolling out of bed and digging in a room that (oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck) is really not his. He trips over a coloring book, a stuffed brontosaurus, and a squeaky chew toy before he makes it to the chest of drawers. He finds a pair of sweatpants, a long sleeve t-shirt, and is dressed and falling out the door before Mikey can call his name.There’s a fucking stairwell at the end of the hallway outside the bedroom and he almost tumbles face first down it. But he gets to the bottom and shoves open the front door for all of three seconds before slamming it shut.He casts a look around desperately, because it’s, like, minus twenty on the other side of that door and there is fucking snow on the ground, goddamnit. There should not be snow on the ground in LA. That porch out there should not be there because this is not his house. This isn’t his fucking life.He spots a pair of galoshes and shoves his feet into them. It takes a few precious seconds longer to grab a coat off a coat rack in the corner behind the door and find a pair of keys. Then, finally, he’s out of there and stumbling into a freaking minivan, complete with booster seat in the back and goddamn cup holders.Pete pulls out of the driveway a little too fast and drives until he’s about six blocks away, then throws the minivan into park almost violently. He’d go somewhere, if he had any idea where he was. Somewhere cold, he thinks, hating the shitty heater in this shitty minivan.The coat is a little big on him, though, and it’s helping, so he pulls it closer against the chill. A deep breath makes him panic again because fucking Jesus, the coat smells like Mikey. He hadn’t known that he remembered exactly what Mikey Way smelled like, but wrapped up in it now, it’s like he never forgot and that’s half the problem.He doesn’t have a phone on him, so he can’t try and call Patrick. Though who fucking knows if Patrick would even pick up in this Lewis Carroll crazyland he woke up in. But he’s not sure what else to do or where to go.Pete drives again and feels a flash of panic when he sees an exit for the Garden State Parkway. He takes it because he’s still in flight mode, but he tries to remember how the fuck he got here.The sound of a horn blaring as he drifts into another lane makes Pete start. He jerks the car onto the shoulder, panting. He rests his forehead on the steering wheel and tries not to freak out even more. It doesn’t work, but he gets his breathing under control and manages to get off at the next exit.There’s a Dunkin Donuts a quarter mile off the exit that is miraculously open, and he pulls in. He needs sugar and coffee and possibly a handful of Prozac, but two out of three isn’t bad. He gets two powdered sugars and an extra large coffee with the change in the pockets of Mikey’s coat. He doesn’t have a wallet either, apparently. When he turns to sit and figure this out, he finds Hobo fucking Santa standing in front of him, grinning.Only he looks less like a hobo now and more like a businessman, in a clean suit with what turns out to be blond hair combed back slick. He’s standing up straighter, and dressed like this, he’s taller, broader and better looking than Pete.“Hey, superstar. Had a good morning?”Pete stares at him for a second, sets his coffee and doughnut down with shaking hands, then grabs Hobo Santa by the lapels and drags him forward. “What the fuck did you do?”“Good to see you too. Have a seat,” Hobo Santa says, gesturing to the back booth in the farthest corner. It’s not near where Pete put his stuff down, but his doughnuts and coffee are over there somehow. And Pete blinks, and so is he, sitting in the booth, the plastic pressing into his back and thighs.“Fucking … I don’t- What the fuck did you do!? Who the fuck are you?”Hobo Santa smiles, only, no. Not a Hobo. He’s not Santa either, because Santa is not as evil and malicious as this fucking guy.“I know the situation’s odd, but you just get your blood sugar up, take some deep breaths and I’ll explain everything.”“Explain? Explain fucking what, Clarence? I didn’t make any wishes or try to kill myself, and you can eat shit and die if you think you’re going to get wings off of me.”Clarence- because what the fuck else can Pete call the guy? - just laughs. He pushes the coffee into Pete’s hand. “Drink that. Eat your doughnuts. Chill the fuck out. I know that this situation can be unsettling but you gotta trust me-““Trust you? Trust you?” Pete sputters. “I try to help you, and you transport me into a fucking episode of The Twilight Zone.”“You did a good thing yesterday, Pete. For me and for that girl. Personal kindness isn’t very big with kids today.”“I’m thirty-four, and I need you to tell me what the fuck, okay? What the fuck? No new age, touchy feely Wicca shit. Just tell me where I am and what’s going o-” He’s cut off by Clarence the Asshole Probably-an-Angel guy shoving one of his doughnuts into his mouth.He sputters and coughs on the powdered sugar but chews because he pretty much has to. Clarence takes the chance to talk. “You talk too much. I bet you hear that all the fucking time. Shut your mouth, eat and remember that you brought this on yourself.”“I didn’t do anything!” Pete sputters.“Oh really?” Clarence wrinkles his unfairly straight nose at Pete. “I have everything I need ring any bells?”“So what, I came off as smug and you decided to make me take the fucking red pill and end up in the Matrix?”“Red pill takes you out of the Matrix. This isn’t like that. You did well yesterday, Pete, so you get a glimpse.”Pete gapes at him and licks away crumbs absently with his tongue. “A glimpse?” Pete takes another bite, because actually, this makes him feel better. Hydrogenated animal fat and processed sugar doesn’t fix anything, but it helps him swallow the ridiculous shit he’s fallen into. “A glimpse of what?”“I know your mother taught you not to speak with your mouth full, Tripp. Chew, swallow, then ask.”Pete resists the urge to throw coffee on this fuck because hi, goddamn magic, okay? Who knows what he’ll do if Pete gets him genuinely angry. So he swallows and asks again. “A glimpse of fucking what? And don’t call me that.”“What your glimpse is about is for you to figure out,” Clarence says with a smile that would make Gabe’s smirk look downright genuine. “I wouldn’t sweat it if I were you. You’ve got lots of time.”Pete tears another piece of the doughnut so he doesn’t rip the Probably-an-Angel’s ears off with his fingernails. “How much time?” Twenty-four hours. Forty-eight, tops. He can sleep in the minivan and ignore this until it’s over.“As long as it takes,” Clarence chuckles, tilting his head as if that will give him a better view of Pete. “And considering what you’ve got to work with, I’d lay good money it’s going to be considerable.”“Considerable?” Pete explodes and the kid working the counter, a young guy in his teens with a Jewfro, leans over the counter to get a better look. Pete lowers his voice but not his anger, leaning across the table into Clarence’s personal space. “Fuck considerable,” he hisses through teeth clenched so tight his head hurts. “That’s no kind of fucking answer.”“Sorry, superstar, but it’s all you’re going to get.”“I want my fucking life back! Give it back right now or so help me-““Don’t take that tone with me, Tripp,” Clarence says, his voice cutting through Pete’s entire body. He points an accusing finger at Pete. “This is on you, remember? So you be fucking grateful I stopped by at all, and don’t push me when I say that this doesn’t work that way and I can’t tell you why.”“Why not?”“Because this isn’t about me giving you all the answers. You have to figure things out for yourself.”“Figure it out?” Pete’s got his hands fisted in his hair and he’s not even sure how they got there. “Figure what out? What am I supposed to figure out? I don’t know what’s going on!”“Just let it happen,” Clarence says with a smug smile.Pete’s been stoned and tripping and fucked right the hell up and felt more grounded than he does right now. “This … I don’t … It’s not … What the fuck?”“You’re going to need this,” Clarence says shoving a piece of paper across the table. He hands over a plastic bag as well. “And this. And also, this.” He tosses a cell phone at Pete, and it lands in his lap.“What is it?”“Your address, a surprise and your phone.” Clarence says like Pete’s stupid and not just pushed out of his little pink jelly Matrix pod. “Get out of here, Tripp. It’s Christmas.”Pete finds himself moving before he knows what he’s doing. The keys are in his hand and his phone is in the pocket of Mikey’s coat. Clarence slaps the counter with open palms on his way past. “Have a Happy Hanukkah, Rubin. Be careful on the drive home.” The kid behind the counter waves as they go.The cold goes a long way toward waking Pete up, but it’s not enough. He still feels stunned, especially as Clarence shoves him towards the minivan. “I don’t have time to talk to you anymore, so off you go.”Pete opens his mouth to complain, but he’s in the car. Not only is he in the car, he’s driving, on the turnpike, on his way back to a house he apparently shares with Mikey Way in fucking Jersey, in this glimpse of what the hell ever. He doesn’t have a long enough drive to be ready for that, but then he could drive from here all the way back to LA and not be ready for that.~*~*~
Pete wakes up with a start and falls off a couch. If it weren’t for the pain of his shoulder colliding with the hard wood floor, he’d be sure it’s a dream. But the pain tells him it’s not and that’s worse than a nightmare, because he doesn’t recognize anything in this room.

He’s staring up at a TV so big it takes up pretty much the whole wall. There’s a pile of pill bottles on a table that looks like it costs more than his recording equipment. And Hemmy is panting in his face.
“Mikey?” He calls, pushing himself to his feet. “Babe? Are you …” he trails off because he’s got no idea where here is. “Mikey?”
Hemmy barks and butts his head against Pete’s leg. Pete looks down, and Hemmy trots off through a doorway. Pete follows him because if he doesn’t do something, he’s going to have a fucking panic attack. If he focuses on the dog, maybe he can stave it off for awhile.

The hallway seems to go on forever with movie posters and show flyers, and empties into a kitchen the size of his bedroom. The fridge alone is the size the car Pete had in college and it’s bare. None of Bronx’s drawings and paintings are hanging off the metal surface. He touches the smooth surface, gawking at the unfamiliar machine that doesn’t have pictures held onto it with ridiculous Transformers magnets until Hemmy whines and claws at a cabinet in the kitchen island.

Pete bends down, opens it, and pulls out the bag of dog food with shaking hands and pours it into the lone bowl. Bunny’s and Piglet’s are missing. This isn’t his brand. This isn’t his kitchen.

As he stands watching Hemmy eat, his throat starts to burn as it settles on him that Mikey isn’t going to answer. If he leaves this kitchen, he’s not going to find his son asleep in his room, waiting for Christmas morning. He squeezes his eyes shut, but that doesn’t stop the tears from forcing their way out.

“Hey now, emo kid, don’t cry.”

Pete blinks at the man in the suit who is standing with him in the kitchen. The guy is taller than he is by a few good inches and he looks like he stepped out of a fucking GQ. Pete wipes his eyes with the back of his hand and blinks at him. “Who the fuck are you? The fucking butler?”

The guy smiles at him. “You can call me Clarence if you want, and you do. Trust me.”
“Clarence. Like It’s a Wonderful Life or something?”
“Or something.”

“That’s- this is-“ Pete grabs the edge of the island so hard that his hands hurt. “Fuck you, man I didn’t do anything! I was in bed with my fucking husband and now-“ His voice breaks and he inhales sharply through his nose. “My son wakes us up on Christmas morning, since he could crawl out of his crib. It’s-“ Pete’s not a crier, goddamn it, but he cannot stop his voice from breaking or the tears from returning. “I didn’t have a problem with where I was. Just, send me back before I miss Christmas, okay? I don’t need to be taught anything.”

“I know that,” Clarence says, and he really does look incredibly contrite, which fuck him, is not even close to enough. “It’s temporary, Pete, I promise. You’re going to get back to them. I just need you to sit tight for awhile.”
“Sit tight. Sit tight?”Pete sputters. “You fucking stole me from my family on fucking Christmas you asshole! And all you have to say is ‘sit tight’?”
“Yeah,” Clarence sighs. “Look, there’s rules, all right? Shit has to stay balanced, so,” he waves a hand. “Look, hopefully, this’ll get figured out sooner rather than later and you can go home.”

“Figured out? What the-“ Pete stops and stares at the guy who is just looking at him sadly and calling himself Clarence. He takes a couple of seconds and does a quick recap of It’s A Wonderful Life in his head, along with every other alternate universe story or movie or show he’s ever fucking seen. Then, of course, it’s obvious. So, naturally, he gives into impulse and punches the guy in his pretty fucking face. His fist bounces off his chin and he curses, holding his now throbbing hand to his chest. “Fuck!”

Clarence just sighs. “Yeah, that was not a smart move on your part.”
“There’s two of us,” Pete hisses, cradling his hand. That really fucking hurt, but not as much as the fear and loss clawing at his insides. “There’s fucking two of us and you sent the fuck-up with the pill problem over there to my fucking family, to my child. They’re my family,” Pete says, pleading. He needs this guy to understand. “You can’t do that to them.”
“Selflessness,” Clarence sighs at him, almost fondly. “Seriously, I wish I could get you two in a room. It’d be so much easier. Just, don’t worry, okay? Your Mikey can handle it. More than. You’ve given him considerable practice.”

“I’m not- He doesn’t-“ Pete takes a deep breath.

He refuses to let himself focus on the petty bullshit of old hurts that this fucker has no right to poke at - none. It’s the bigger implication of “your” on Mikey that makes his gut clench. He hasn’t explored thoroughly, but he already pretty much knows that there’s nothing here. No Mikey, no personal connection, not much of anything.

“Does he, the other one, does he even have any pictures in this place?”

Clarence shrugs. “You’d have to look. I’m sure there’s some of Patrick, Joe and Andy somewhere.”

“Jesus,” Pete mutters rubbing his face with his non-hurting hand. “He’s going to fuck everything up.”

“He’s you,” Clarence says. “Have a little faith.

God, that’s so not fucking good. Pete sinks against the island and plants his forehead on the cool marble. “Oh, Jesus fuck,” he moans into the countertop, because he knows exactly how badly he can fuck things up. Pete knows he’s gotten incredibly lucky a lot in his life, mostly because the people around him have loved him enough to help him avoid his multiple attempts at self-sabotage. This guy, the one who’s got a fucking pyramid of prescriptions just lying around his living room and nothing in his kitchen, obviously hasn’t had that.

“It’ll be fine.”

“He’s going to ruin my marriage,” Pete says to the marble, because if he lifts his head, he is going to cry. He is. And not manly tears - childish, uncontrolled tears like Bronx when he had the chicken pox. He’s just going to start weeping and he’s never going to stop and he just … he can’t. “Eight years strong, and he’s going to fucking ruin it. And Bronx, I- I don’t-“ He can’t even imagine what the cosmically fucked version of himself is going to be like with his baby boy, but it’s enough to make him want to crawl in a hole and fucking die, because killing this fucking Clarence guy clearly isn’t an option.

“Pete,” Clarence says, resting a hand on his shoulder. “Just try to have faith and make the best of it, all right? I can promise you right now – nothing is going to happen to either of them all right? You have my word.”

“Your word is fucking worthless, because you’re not real. This is a hallucination.” Please fucking let this be a hallucination where he will wake up and be back with Mikey and Bronx and his life.

“No, it’s a glimpse. Remember that. You’re going to get home, Peter Wentz-Way. But you’ve got things to do here, just like he has things to do there. And contrary to what your ridiculous little shirt says, love actually can save you.”

“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?” Pete demands, angry enough to lift his head. But when he does Clarence is gone.
~*~*~Pete sits in the minivan about three houses down from the one he supposedly shares with Mikey for almost an hour, staring at the house. He’s trying to come up with something to say. Right now – inoperable brain tumor is at the top of his list of excuses. He’s just trying to figure out how to make it believable.There’s a sharp rap on the window, and Pete blinks, startled to see Gerard Way staring in at him. His hair is longer than Pete remembers it being the last time he saw My Chemical Romance on TV, hanging down to his shoulders, not as long as it was back on Warped, but close. He’s wearing a huge black coat and has a thick green scarf wrapped around his head like one of those old Jewish ladies in Fiddler on the Roof. He looks thoroughly unimpressed with Pete.“Unlock your car, asshole,” Gerard calls through the glass. Pete does, mostly as a reaction to a command, and Gerard trots around to the passenger side, yanks the door open and climbs in. He huffs on his hands for a few seconds after he closes the door behind him then shifts in his seat to glare at Pete. “So, what the fuck, man?”Pete flounders, because really, he has no idea the fuck. He just shrugs and looks down at the steering wheel.“Pete, are you having a nervous breakdown?” Gerard asks. “Because to be fair, it is your turn. Mikey had the last one. But you need to let us know so we can put up the storm shutters.”Pete shrugs again. “I don’t know. Maybe.”“Well, you better be,” Gerard warns like he’s picking up in the middle of a conversation they’d already been having, like they were friends or something. “Mikey’s ready to start calling hospitals looking for you. I mean, that’s not like you, man. Bronx and Frankie were expecting Christmas tree and reindeer pancakes, and there were none to be had. I mean, me and Mikey tried but they just … they came out mutated. Christmas morning is your thing.”“Is it?” Pete laughs, unable to keep the hysteria out of it. “Fuck, man, I wouldn’t know.”“Seriously, Pete, are you okay?” Gerard asks, his frown getting even deeper. He reaches out and puts a hand on Pete’s shoulder like … Like Pete doesn’t know what. “You sound …” He trails off and tilts his head. “You know, you can talk to me if you need to. I can try and help, and I won’t take it to Mikey. You know, I can keep it anonymous if you need me to.”Pete has to process that for a second before he remembers. “Right. Because you’re sober.”“Yeah.” Gerard smiles a little at that, his shoulders going back a little with something like pride. “Nine years come August, so if you need to talk-”“Right.” Pete chuckles. He really wishes he were high. That would be so much easier. “Yeah, no. I’m fine.”“You don’t look fine. You look like shit.”“That would come from the feeling like shit, I figure.” He laughs again and looks at Gerard. “So how the fuck are you? Still doing the whole saving lives thing with My Chem over here, or is that not happening?”“We’re on hiatus for the next eight months,” Gerard says carefully. “You know that.”“Nope,” Pete giggles, resting his temple on the steering wheel. “I don’t know shit. I wouldn’t know what fucking day it was if someone hadn’t told me. I’m down the rabbit hole, man, and the white rabbit just royally fucked me.”“Pete,” Gerard says, taking his hand. “You’re my brother and I love you but you sound fucking psychotic.”“I’m your brother in this universe?” Pete rolls his eyes. “That is fucking trippy.”“Pete,” Gerard says again, squeezing a little too tight. His dark eyes are wide and afraid. “Pete, you’re scaring me.”“So? None of this fucking matters, man. This isn’t my life.” That’s comforting and terrifying at the same time. “This isn’t my fucking life. That isn’t my house. This?” Pete sits up and waves his hands. “This isn’t my fucking car. And you are not my brother.”“Don’t say that.” Gerard’s voice is quiet and hurt. “And for fuck’s sake, pull your shit together before you go in and see Mikey and Bronx. I … Just pull yourself together okay?”“No,” Pete says, shaking his head. “No, because you don’t seem to be fucking hearing me, Way. This is not my life. I’m supposed to be in LA. I haven’t spoken to you, any of you, in more than half a fucking decade. I have never been in this town, and I don’t know who that kid is in there.”“This isn’t funny.”“No shit. I went to sleep last night on my couch, in my house, in fucking California and I woke up in bed with a guy I haven’t spoken to since 2005. So yeah, I’d say it’s the fucking opposite of funny.”Gerard is staring at him. He’s staring at him with his mouth in a thin line and his eyes narrowed. He keeps Pete fixed in that look for fucking ages. Then he blinks and says “Oh, my God, you’re serious.”Pete rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “For a guy I’ve heard called a genius, you’re fucking slow.”“You seriously think this isn’t your life. So, what? You’ve got amnesia?”“No. I remember everything I did yesterday. I talked to my agent and I went to the Coffee Bean on Sunset, and I watched movies on my couch in my house in the hills where I’ve been living for the last five years. None if it is lining up with this. This isn’t …” He points at the house. “And when the fuck did I move to Jersey? I’ve been in LA for the past five years, full fucking time. There’s an extra dog on top of Hemmy, and oh, yeah, there’s a kid who’s calling me his dad. When the fuck did Mikey get a kid?”Gerard cocks his head. “So you think you’re like a mirror Pete. Only without the evil or the bad facial hair. It’s an alternate universe situation.”Pete is stunned for a moment, then nods. “Yeah. Actually, yeah. That’s kind of exactly fucking right.”“Yeah.” Gerard nods. “Okay, that’s insane.”“Totally fucking insane. But I’m serious when I tell you that I haven’t spoken to you in eight years and I have never seen that kid in there before today.”“Bronx.”“His name’s Bronx? I should, fuck, I don’t know, write it down or something.”“God,” Gerard breathes, looking pained. His eyes look bright for a second which makes Pete’s stomach do a nauseating roll. He wasn’t even that close friends with Gerard back on Warped, and now the guy is on the verge of tears over him. “You’re not our Pete are you?”“For the love of God, do not cry.”“I just … you-he-“ Gerard shakes his head, tilting it back and blinking. But that move thankfully works and when he looks back at Pete again, his eyes glitter a little but no tears fall. “You-he- I … Bronx is your world. Our you. He and Mikey are the world for our you. And he’s one of my best friends.”“I’m sorry,” Pete says, and he is, he’s so fucking sorry and he hasn’t even really faced Mikey or the famous Bronx yet. “I’m sorry I’m not him.”Gerard rubs his face with his hands. “This is going to be bad. This is going to be very fucking bad.” He sighs. “You’re gonna have to try and pass.”“I figured that. Thanks, Mr. Wizard.”“No, Pete, you don’t understand. Mikey and you, the you that’s supposed to be you, you’re fucking cohesive. It’s like … I don’t know, but he’s not going to buy this.”“’This’ being the truth.”“Look,” Gerard says, all business, “I don’t know that I buy that you’re actually from an alternate universe or whatever. But I believe that at the very least you believe it. So I’m going to treat it like it’s true until proven otherwise.”“That’s a lot to take on faith.”“And what’re my other options?” Gerard asks. “To assume that you’re out of your mind and try and convince Mikey to have you committed, or to let you go in there, ranting about how Mikey and Bronx aren’t your husband and your child and how this isn’t your life until he decides to put you away on his own? Yeah, both of those would go well and wouldn’t traumatize my brother and nephew at all.”“The cadet’s logic is sound.”Gerard smiles at him. “See, there’s some Pete still in there. We’re just gonna have to wing the rest of it. So, let’s go inside. I’ll spot you.”Pete takes a deep breath and flexes his fingers on the steering wheel going over what he’d figured out. “I’m married.”Gerard nods. “Yeah. Happily. Seriously, you fuckers are a lot to live up to.”“To Mikey Way.”“Wentz-Way,” Gerard says with a distant grin, like he’s watching something lovely from very far away.“Seriously? I’m fucking hyphenated?”“Your idea,” Gerard says, then frowns. “His. Sorry.”The Pete he’s standing in for is a fucking sap and a lame-o. But Pete doesn’t know how he’s going to get through this if he has to look at 3 sets of sad Way eyes for however long he’s here. “Stop apologizing. You’re supposed to be here.”“Right.”There’s an awkward pause that Pete thinks is going to be the fucking staple of his life from now on. He flips through the rest of the crazy he’s landed in. “And the kid is Bronx.”Gerard sighs, and Pete is really starting to hate that sound. “Yeah.”“How’d that happen? I mean, Mikey’s still got a dick in this universe right?”“Right place, right time. The way you tell it, you got an email from a pregnant college student who happened to be a fan and asked you guys to adopt her baby so she could have a life. The way Mikey tells it, you guys were already looking and her recognizing your names in the adoption files just sped the process up. I have to figure it’s a little of both.”“That’s … That’s fucking weird.”“You’re fucking weird, Pete. I have to figure that’s true whichever you I’m dealing with.”Pete sighs, because that’s undeniably true. “I need to go in there, don’t I?”“Yeah. So go park us in the driveway and I’ll try to keep my baby brother from killing you.”“Thanks.”Pete feels like he’s walking to his execution as he climbs the steps of the porch, Mikey’s coat tight around him. He shoves his hands into the pockets, his right hand brushing plastic, and braces himself.“Look what I found?” Gerard calls into the house.Pete has exactly five seconds to think about what the reaction is going to be when he’s hit with forty pounds of excited child. Bronx hugs him around the waist and looks up at him with a bright grin that makes him feel panicky. “Daddy, did you find the present you lost?”“I, uh-“ Pete flounders as he tries to fight the urge to pry Bronx’s arms from around him.“Bronx, why don’t you go wait with Uncle Frank in the living room while me and Daddy get it for you okay?” Mikey says from the doorway. He’s still in the faded Thursday shirt from earlier this morning and a pair of pajama pants that appear to have unicorns on them. His arms are folded over his chest and he looks at Pete over the tops of his glasses with what Pete could only describe as quiet fury.“Kay!” Bronx says. He gives Pete’s waist a squeeze that’s kind of impressive given the boy’s thin frame and then darts off into the living room. Gerard hangs off to the side, huddled next to the fridge, fiddling with the messy crayon drawings and fingerpaintings.“I told him you forgot something,” Mikey says when the door swings shut behind Bronx. He doesn’t unfold his arms. “Because what other possible reason could there be for his father fucking running out on Christmas morning and not coming back for hours?”“Mikey-““Yes?” Mikey says, taking a step towards him. “What? I’m dying to know. I was dying to know when I called the cops and every hospital in a ten mile radius looking for you.” Pete can see the way Mikey’s fingers are digging into the flesh of his arms so hard it has to hurt. “Where were you?”“I …” Pete jerks his hand out of his pocket on impulse and the bag Clarence gave him comes with it, falling out and onto the floor. He leans over to pick it up and there’s a piece of red fabric inside. He plucks it up and Gerard sighs audibly.“He did forget something,” Gerard cuts in, saving him and, wow, he’s going to owe Way so much. “You know Bronx’s crazy Superman obsession, which I totally blame on you, Mikeyway. I’m trying to teach the kid better taste than that.”There’s a Superman cape hanging limply from Pete’s hand even as he stares at it. Mikey is looking at it too and still frowning.“That? You took off, looking like you just saw the Ghost of fucking Christmas Future, for that?”“I … yeah. I guess.” Pete stutters, and Gerard actually drops his head in his hands. That can’t be good.Mikey’s brow furrows and he leans forward, like he’s trying to look through Pete. “Are you high?”“No! No, I just …” Gerard is jerking his head like that’s supposed to mean something. He goes over everything Gerard’s said and stumbles over what he hopes is the right thing to say. “I, uh, I wanted it to be perfect I guess.”Gerard nods and gives him the thumbs up even as Mikey sighs, “Pete.” He is considerably less angry now at least.“I’m sorry.” Pete says again and Mikey nods. Fuck Patrick and all the bullshit he gave him for making them do One Tree Hill. He’s a hell of an actor, he really is.“Perfect’s just being here. For God’s sake, I keep telling you. I know you like to win at the whole gift giving thing, but Jesus Christ.” He tilts his chin up and Pete can see genuine hurt there. “You spent all that time trying to put together that bike for him, and you didn’t even get to see him open it,” Mikey says with a hurt that makes Pete’s gut clench in a way he didn’t know it could. “Pete, you haven’t missed a Christmas morning since we got married.”“I … I’m sorry,” Pete says for the hundredth time. Yeah, he’s going to be saying that a lot from now on.Mikey’s fingers loosen their grip and he shrugs, then wraps his arms around himself. Gerard jerks his head at Mikey in a way that says hug him, you ass, but Pete just can’t. So he watches as Mikey turns on his socked feet and heads into the living room. He feels even more unsteady than ever as he follows him.~*~*~
Part 2

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

1|2|3|4|5|6|7Christmas dinner is at Gerard’s place – which is four houses down and just everything Pete would’ve expected, from the comic art panels on the walls to the horror movie posters in framed places of honor right next to gold MCR records. He’s not quite prepared for the extra Frankness of the place and the pack of tiny dogs. That was unexpected, because he didn’t really pick up on the rings and the collective “we” the two of them used to talk about themselves and their lives. But he’s doing the best he can to keep up. There’s just too much.Mostly he’s just trying to keep up with Bronx facts, because it’s one thing to fuck up an adult with adult defenses. It’s another to damage a kid and he’s not evil or completely morally bankrupt despite what Perez Hilton and US Weekly like to print about him. So far he’s learned that Bronx doesn’t like peas but loves green beans, is a huge Superman fan, and that he likes to dress up Hemmy and the other dog and the cat.Yeah. There’s a freaking cat. It’s on an ever growing list of shit he wants explained.Christmas dinner involves the entire Way family, including Mikey’s parents, whom he’s never actually met before. Ray and his wife show up with casserole of some kind and ten minutes later, about a minute before Pete’s ready to kill someone(himself probably), Patrick shows up“Patrick!” Pete crows when he walks in the door and clings to him. Hugging this Patrick feels just like hugging his Patrick, and it does wonders for his sanity.“Merry Christmas to you, too,” Patrick laughs. He hugs Pete back and then slaps him on the shoulder. “You gotta let go now, man, I can’t breathe.”“You’re here,” Pete mumbles, not letting go of Patrick, because finally, finally, finally there is something in this hateful upside-down inside out universe that he knows. “How are you here?”“He took the train from the city,” Gerard says pointedly. “You know how crazy it is getting out of Manhattan on Christmas.” He jerks his chin at Pete and shakes his head and, oh. Oh. Patrick is here, too.“Commute’s a bitch huh?” Pete says, thinking quick as he untangles himself from around Patrick and gives him a forced smile.“Better than last year,” Patrick laughs. “Remember you and Mikey had to come get me because of that drama with the rail system?”No. No he doesn’t remember, but Mikey seems to.He comes out of nowhere, plucking the bakery bag out of Patrick’s hand after pausing to hug him. “I told you it wouldn’t happen again,” Mikey says with a gentle nudge of his elbow to Patrick’s side. “Don’t be so negative, Trick.”“I know better than to trust the MTA and New Jersey Transit,” Patrick says, winking at Mikey.They walk into the kitchen together, and Pete’s busy trying to get his lungs to take in oxygen. Hearing Mikey call Patrick that, like they really have been all part of one unit for the last ten-ish years, it makes things real in a way that Bronx’s cheerful chatter and Clarence’s magical transportation and Gerard’s rambling hypotheticals couldn’t.He slinks away in search of a bathroom and finds one on the second floor. He splashes icy tap water on his face and stares at his reflection, trying to find a difference. He looks the same as he always does, as far as he can tell, and that is a problem because he’s not sure that the same-as-always Pete looking back at him from the mirror can do this. That’s a problem, because it’s finally settled on him that he has to.Gerard is leaning against the wall next to the door when he comes out, arms folded over his chest. He gives Pete a nod. “You okay?”Pete takes a deep breath. One thing at a time. That’s how he’s going to deal with this clusterfuck. “When did Patrick move to New York?”“Right after you and Mikey bought the house back in ’07.”Pete is so tired of feeling stunned and winded and caught off guard. But it just won’t stop. “Fuck.”“Joe and Andy both live in Brooklyn, but they’re back in Chicago for Christmas.”“Fuck,” he says again. Nothing else seems adequate for how different things are.“Pete, are you gonna be okay? I can tell them you’re sick. I mean, that’d bring Mikey up here, and probably Mom, but,” Gerard sighs and stares down at his socks. Pete’s isn’t surprised to see they’ve got the Heat and Snow Misers on them. “I don’t want you to ruin Christmas for everyone else. I’m sorry.”“I don’t know. I guess I’ve gotta jump in with both feet, right? That’s how things like this work, isn’t it?”Gerard shrugs and stares down at his Rankin/Bass socks. “Maybe in a book, but I don’t know Pete. I’m in control with fiction, this is reality. I don’t know what to do here.”“There’s not anything I should know before dinner, is there?”Gerard frowns. “Not that you could fake.” He runs a hand through his hair then drops it back into the folded arms position. “There’s not enough time.”“Well, fuck.”“Yeah. Just, I don’t know,” Gerard sighs. “I wouldn’t talk too much if I were you.”“I’m kind of a talker back home.”“Yeah, you are here too. But your option’s be quiet or be…”“Wrong.”“Yeah. So I wouldn’t if I were you.”So he doesn’t. He sits through stories of Mikey and Gerard at Bronx’s age with his mouth shut and his eyes fixed on his plate. He looks up to see Mikey staring at him across the table and turns his eyes back down to the mashed potatoes and ham. It’s really freaking good, actually, and he’s hungry so he focuses on that and not on the conversation around him.That works until someone says “Remember, Pete?”He jerks at that and blinks at the crowd of the other Pete’s friends and family who are all staring at him. It’s the exact opposite kind of rush from the one he gets on stage. “Huh? Sorry, I kind of spaced out there.”Donna Way smiles at him, because of course she understands. She raised Gerard and Mikey, and it’s been awhile, but Pete remembers from Warped that no one can space out like a Way.“Bronx wanted to hear a Christmas story about you two,” Frank says. “I voted for the one from two years ago when you guys nearly set your house on fire trying to pull off a yule log.” He giggles a little and reaches for the green bean and soy cheese casserole, and Pete tries to curb the blank stare.“I wanted one from before I was borned,” Bronx adds with a big smile. Pete tries to smile back because the boy’s adorable and it’s Christmas, but it feels cracked.“So, I was asking if you remembered the way you invaded my kitchen when Mikey brought you home that first Christmas,” Donna says with another smile, like she genuinely likes him. “I was trying to remember how, exactly, you ruined the ham.”“I, uh, I’m not sure,” Pete stutters. “It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?”“Don’t bring that one up,” Gerard cuts in, sounding just a little desperate to redirect the conversation and Pete loves him a little. “We all know that didn’t end that great what with the fire and everything.”“Yeah, I would’ve put money on burning,” Patrick teases, and Pete just shrugs. By the time they stopped touring all year long and living off fast food and venue catering, Pete had enough money to get a cook.“He was hopeless,” she agrees. “But you tried so hard, getting in my way.”“I told you to come watch football with us,” Mikey’s dad says. “I’ll get you one day.”“Pete doesn’t do American football.” Mikey laughs, but he’s still studying Pete. His expression is warm but tinged with worry and suspicion that hasn’t gone away since Pete walked back in this morning.“Soccer’s not football,” Don shoots back, looking directly at Pete when he says this like it’s part of some sort of call-response that Pete doesn’t get.“Okay,” Pete says, pushing at the food on his plate and trying not to have curl into a ball and yell uncle. He’s never actually had performance anxiety, but if this is what it feels like, no wonder Patrick insisted he do all the talking. Gerard wiggling his eyebrows and trying to send him psychic instructions isn’t really helping, but he appreciates the effort.“What? No World Cup versus the Superbowl rant?” Ray calls from down the table. “Come on Pete, it’s my favorite. It’s not Christmas without it.”“Oh, uh, yeah. Every other country calls it football so, you know, soccer is football.”There is a horrifically long silence, aside from the sound of Bronx humming “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer” to himself, which he’s been doing off and on all day, where the whole table stares at him. Except for Gerard, who has his elbows on the table and his face in his hands.“You set it to broil,” Donna says, out of fucking nowhere and apropos of nothing. It takes Pete a second to figure out what the fuck she is talking about when he remembers that the cooking disaster of the Pete the one who he’s failing to be.“I always forget the difference,” Pete says quickly, giving her a grateful smile. He likes Mikey’s mom. She is clearly good fucking people.“I don’t blame you,” Donna says, pointedly ignoring the rest of the table and the way everyone who could drink had refilled their wine glasses. “You were so busy trying to convince me you were serious about Mikey, you were tripping all over yourself. I remember you backed me into the fridge and begged me not to hate you so that you two could get old together.”He did? At least Other Pete didn’t fuck around. That was good to know he could still go with direct, once he got his feet under him. He’s shit at subtle. “I guess I convinced you.”“Eventually,” Mikey says in a quiet voice that makes Pete hurt a little for some reason. He’s not sure why, but it does, like a paper cut inside his chest.“Can I go play?” Bronx sighs, looking desperately put upon, like he wasn’t the one who started the conversation. Pete can tell from the way he’s moving that he’s swinging his feet under the table. “I finished.”“Come on, champ,” Frank says, pushing back from the table. “Gee got me this really cool art set for Christmas you should check out.”“I didn’t-“ Gerard begins then stops. Instead he leans over and looks Bronx directly in the eye. “The ones I got him aren’t the ones in the black box. Because those are mine, and if Uncle Frank touches those,” Gerard says, giving Frank a quick look before returning his focus to Bronx. “I’ll need you to kill him for me. Kay?”Bronx beams at Gerard. “Kay.”Mikey pushes back from the table, too, and starts to stand up. “Frank, you don’t have to-““Dude, please. If I stay here I may just get drunk enough to eat that ham, so how about you do me the favor of letting me.”Mikey sighs and nods, sinking back into his chair. “Don’t give him cookies.”Bronx frowns. “But, Papa-““Later, Bronx, when everyone else has them, too,” Mikey says and he sounds like a real parent, all authoritative and shit. Bronx doesn’t even fight him, just pouts. At least, he does right up to the moment where Frank scoops him up over his shoulder and carries him, upside-down and giggling, out of the room.“Pete,” Gerard says, giving him a hard look, “You feeling okay? You look like you need to lie down or something.”“I’ve got a headache,” Pete says grateful for the out, but no one at the table is buying it. Ray actually moves to get up, but Christa’s hand catches his wrist and pins it to the table. “It’s a killer,” he says, hoping it sounds convincing.“You take anything?” Christa asks, still keeping Ray hostage. “I think I’ve got some Tylenol in my purse.”“Advil.” That’s actually true. He really has had a headache pretty much from the word go, but it took him forever to find it.There’d been a noticeable absence of pills in the medicine cabinet. Pete had found two mood stabilizers and two things of antidepressants, one under Mikey’s name and one under his, and that was it in terms of pills. Pete’s bathroom cabinet in his actual house is like a pharmacy. He misses his Xanax stash pretty acutely right now.“You should’ve said something,” Mikey says, and Pete feels instantly guilty again. It makes him feel like all this lying and bullshit is his fault, when it’s just not.“I thought I did.”“No.”Public conflict is pretty par for the course for this family if he recalls right. Pete can remember a few very public Way Brothers explosions from his real life, especially on that first Warped tour in ’04 when My Chem was just another group on tour, and one falling apart to boot. Pete had avoided them back then, for this very fucking reason. It’s a lot less fun to be on the inside.Patrick has his “get me the fuck out of here” face on and Mikey is still looking at him, still worried and suspicious, but with a new and exciting side of inscrutable. He is really sick of that.“Oh. I guess I didn’t want to spoil the day.”“No, you wouldn’t want that,” Mikey mutters putting his fork down. He looks tired to Pete. And not the good tired like he remembers from Warped, eyes drifting shut in the tight space of one their bunks. It’s the kind of tired that sits in the set of his shoulders and the way his mouth turns down at the corners.“Mikey,” Pete begins not sure where he’s going with it. He remembers what the right thing was with Mikey from years ago, but this isn’t like then. Mikey just shrugs and gives him one of those small smiles that Pete remembers seeing him giving interviewers, fake and empty. It makes him feel a little sick and pretty much the ends the conversation.The rest of the evening seems to go better because the group breaks up. Don, Mikey and Ray go to join Frank and Bronx. Christa, Gerard and Donna disappear into the kitchen.Pete takes the opportunity to grab Patrick by the wrist and drag him outside. Patrick bitches the whole way because it’s actually started snowing a little now. Pete stops to steal one of Gerard’s cigarettes and a lighter as they shrug into their coats. “You’re smoking?” Patrick asks as they huddle together on Frank and Gerard’s porch.Pete coughs and nods. It’s a filthy disgusting habit, but he’s jittery and stressed and really, it seemed like a good idea at the time. “I’m fucked up, Patrick.”Patrick nods and says nothing because in every universe, this is par for the course. He’s waiting. It’s so good to know that this Patrick is the same as his Patrick. Seriously, it’s like gravity; he feels a little less like he’s about to float off the planet.“This …” Pete stops, because Patrick is not Gerard. Patrick matters more, even if it’s not the version he’s used to, to be totally honest. And Patrick is not, and never has been, a true believer of the sort of insanity Ways tend to be. So he couches it in terms of the hypothetical. “It’s like I don’t know him all of a sudden.”“Who, Mikey?”Pete fiddles with the cigarette and shrugs. He remembers Mikey used to smoke this brand like a chimney. He can still sort of remember the taste of them mixed with Mikey’s lips and tongue and skin. He wonders if this Mikey still smokes like Gerard and Frank do or if he’s quit.“Pete, what the fuck are you talking about?”“I think I’m going crazy.”That at least, is completely fucking true. He really does feel insane, and not in the easy to understand ‘just kill yourself and it’ll all be over’ sort of way.Patrick doesn’t comment on that. “Mikey called me this morning,” he says instead. “Where’d you really go?”“A doughnut shop off the Garden State Parkway.”Patrick gages him with his eyes then sighs. “Right. Of course. Care to share why?”“I freaked out.”Patrick exhales with a frustrated noise and rubs at his forehead, pushing his hat back a little – a knit beanie that looks handmade. “Again, why?”“I told you. I feel like I don’t know them. I woke up and it-“ He laughs, but it’s not a happy sound. “It was like I was in bed with a fucking stranger.”Patrick doesn’t laugh at that. He reaches out and puts a hand on Pete’s shoulder and squeezes before pulling him into a one-armed hug. “Did something happen?”Yes. He fell through a wormhole into Bizarro World. Up is down, black is white, and he is not who he should be.“Did he, I mean,” Patrick squeezes him again and looks at Pete with a slightly nauseous expression. “Mikey didn’t-“ Patrick breaks off looking away from Pete and out at the snow on the driveway. “He didn’t, uh, he didn’t cheat on you or something, did he?”Pete blinks at him. “What?”“I just, that’s how I felt with Anna when it all fell apart, you know? Like I didn’t even fucking know who she was anymore.”“Uh, no. I don’t think so. Unless you know something I don’t.” Which Patrick does of course. Fucking everyone knows things Pete doesn’t here.“No, I don’t,” Patrick says, all earnestness. “I don’t think he would, either of you would. And if he were, I’d tell you, you know that, but I just, it sounded like … I mean … You know? ““I can kinda see that, I guess.”Patrick seems to sink visibly with relief, not that he’s got that far to go, short as he is. But he looks better all of a sudden, and it makes Pete feel worse. People are invested in this relationship the other Pete has with this Mikey. It matters to them. He matters not just to Patrick, but to all of them.“It’s not Mikey’s fault. I’m just … I don’t know. It’s wrong.”“Look, Pete, I don’t ever want to tell you how to live your life-““Yes, you do.”“Okay, I do, but I’m not going to. I am going to suggest that you try and keep shit in perspective.”“I have no perspective.”“I don’t know what you want me to say, Pete. If things aren’t working out with your therapist, you should start looking for a new one. Maybe you guys could go to couples counseling?”Pete drops the cigarette. It’s not helping. Nothing is helping. “I’m lost here,” Pete says and tries not to let himself crack over that fact.“So find your way back. You’ve done it before,” Patrick says, totally confident. “Long as you don’t do anything too stupid, he’s going to be there when you get there.”“Patrick.” Pete can’t get the fear out of his voice. “Patrick, I don’t know where ‘there’ is.”Patrick looks pained and pulls him back into a hug. Pete lets his head drop into the curve of Patrick’s neck and wants to cry at the way Patrick strokes his hair. “You’re going to be okay, Pete. You’re always okay.”Pete’s fingers dig into Patrick’s sides as the door opens. “Pete, Mom and Dad wanna do the last of the gifts with Bronx, so- Oh.” Pete lets go of Patrick and turns to face Mikey.“Hey,” Pete says, rubbing his face and going for casual. “Presents?”“And dessert,” Mikey adds as Patrick slides past him and back into the house. “It’s getting late and Bronx got up early.”“Right. We should head back,” Pete says, watching as Mikey exhales through his nose. His breath plumes around him like smoke. He’s hugging himself again, against the cold or something else, Pete’s not sure. “Don’t want to keep the kid up too late, right?”Mikey lets go of himself and steps forward, catching Pete’s face in his cold hands. Pete shudders at the feeling of icey skin on his cheeks even though it’s, like, twelve degrees out here. Mikey’s thumb strokes over his cheek even as he studies him. “Pete, what the hell is going on?”“I’m just having a bad day,” Pete says, clinging to truth where he can find it.“Talk to me. Pete, just talk to me.”“It’s just a bad day. That’s all, really.”“This is not bad. This is something else. If you tell me what, we can deal with it.” Mikey kisses him then, brief and soft but solid, and Pete’s breath catches as Mikey pulls back. “We can pull each other out of anything. Remember?”Pete just nods dumbly, hands clenched at his side against the impulse to press his hand to his mouth. He’s supposed to be used to Mikey kissing him. This isn’t the first time in almost ten years for this Mikey, even though it is for Pete. He finds himself licking his lips and wondering how he forgot how good Mikey tasted.Then Mikey is frowning at him again. “Have you been smoking?”“Really bad day, Mikey,” Pete says, wrapping his arms around Mikey like he so clearly needs. Mikey actually sinks into him when he does, and it makes Pete feel a little heady and nervous as fuck at the same time. “Just fucking shitty.”Mikey winds his arms around Pete’s neck. “Don’t pull this shit with me again. We’ve talked about this.”Pete doesn’t know what this is but he nods anyway. “I won’t.”“Okay. I love you, so stop being extra weird,” Mikey says, winding an arm around his shoulder and dragging him forward. “Come inside before Gee eats the whole cake.”“Cake?” Cake can make anything better. Pete’s a firm believer in this.“Mom’s chocolate. Everyone’s favorite except Frank.”“Frank doesn’t like chocolate?”Mikey blinks at him. “Frank doesn’t like eggs.”“Oh. Right. Vegan.”“Yep. Mom’s still working on how to get it to taste right without eggs. She’ll get it eventually. So come on,” Mikey says tugging him again. “Gerard really will eat it all.”It’s warm inside and Mikey’s arm on his shoulder is heavy and solid. And for the first time all day, Pete thinks maybe he can do this.~*~*~After Clarence disappears, Pete wanders the house like a ghost out of one of Gerard’s comics. There are shallow things on the wall – show posters and Star Wars memorabilia, and other toys and trimmings that he’s always wanted in an abstract way but has never pursued seriously. And there are gold and platinum records with his name on them. There’s one he doesn’t recognize between From Under the Cork Tree and Folie A Deux where New London Hearts on Fire should be.
More startling is the way there are maybe three pictures in the whole place that didn’t come out of photo shoots. One of him and his band at what looks like the Grammys, one of his parents and siblings from way back , and there’s one group shot from Warped where Frank is trying to climb Andy like a tree and Patrick and Gerard are laughing and Pete is wedged between Joe and Mikey. It’s a touchstone that Pete recognizes, because he’s got that same picture framed in his studio. It’s everything after Warped that’s different.

He makes it all of fifteen minutes on the internet before he has to stop. The other Pete, the Empty Pete as Pete’s come to think of him in his head as he’s cataloged the huge house and surfed Google, had pictures of his dick leaked on the internet and a string of hookups that were apparently illicit and tawdry enough to land on the front page of shit like Us Weekly and People. It’s weird enough to imagine being that well known at all, but to be infamous? Jesus. It makes his head hurt.

When he closes the laptop, he finds the master bedroom and crawls into bed. He’s kind of surprised he manages to, because he doesn’t sleep so great alone. Sleeping with Mikey, having someone to cling to at night when his mind was racing, was what had soothed the insomnia in the first place.

The Empty Pete has a huge bed. It’s bigger than the supposed king-sized he and Mikey share, and it’s cold without another body in it. Hemmy hops up and snuggles into the curve of his body, but it’s not the same as having a solid chest to drape his arm across.

Pete sleeps and he tries not to think. That works for longer than he expects it to, and when he rolls out of that big bed it's dark out. Christmas is mostly over.

It hits him, as he looks out the window at what is so obviously the Hollywood hills, that he’s missed the chance to see how Bronx is going to react when he sees the bike Pete got him. He missed the yearly battle with pancake batter as he forces it into reindeer-esque lumps for breakfast. He missed seeing Patrick and Ray and Christa and Mom and Dad Way at the Christmas dinner, which Gerard and Frank are stuck hosting this year because it’s their turn and they haven’t done it yet. He’s missed the way Mikey wakes up early on Christmas and makes love to him (or tries to, before Bronx wakes up), the way he has every Christmas since their first one, wrapped up tight together in Mikey’s childhood bedroom.

He’s missed all of it, and despite what that psycho magic fuck Clarence had said, he may never get back to it. The reality hits him so hard that he actually can’t breathe. It’s like the panic attacks, only worse, because most of those fears were imaginary. This is fucking real.

He fumbles across the room for Empty Pete’s phone that’s sitting on the nightstand and hits the last called list. Patrick is at the top, thank fuck, and he hits send, holding his breath as it rings. Patrick picks up on the fifth ring. “Merry Christmas, fucker. You were supposed to call me earlier so we could work out dinner.”

“Patrick?” he chokes out on a dry sob. “Patrick, I can’t- It hurts so bad I can’t breathe, Patrick.”

“Pete? Where are you?”

“I’m–“ Not home. This is not his home. “The house. I’m at the house. Patrick,” he says, curling in on himself, fetal and suddenly overwhelmed.

The noise and violence in his head is so much worse that it was when he overdosed. At least that was his own fault. He brought that shit on himself and he could take a small, self-loathing comfort in his own fault. But this? This was being done to him. “I can’t breathe, Patrick.”

“You can, okay? You are breathing. Just stay calm and stay there. Don’t take anything. Don’t do anything. Just, stay and try and keep calm. We’re coming over.”

Patrick talks to him for the next ten minutes solid. He tells Pete to breathe and asks him questions that he doesn’t expect to have answered.

Then suddenly, Patrick’s there with a stunning and oddly familiar black woman at his side. He’s wearing jeans and a blue sweater with a Santa hat in place of the fedora or trucker hat that Pete’s used to.

“You look like an ass,” Pete says from his spot on the carpet beside Empty Pete’s bed. He laughs a little at the hat and then he’s not laughing, he’s crying. His whole body is shaking from the sobs as Patrick gathers him up in his arms.

“Pete, Jesus,” Patrick murmurs into his hair. “What the fuck happened? You were okay yesterday.”

“Bronx,” Pete whispers brokenly, into Patrick’s shirt. “And Mikey. Gone, fucking God, gone. They’re gone. I’m gone.” His fingers dig hard into Patrick’s back as he shudders. His face is a wet mess but it doesn’t matter because it’s not like his son is there to see it. “Oh fuck, Patrick, I’m gone.”

“No, you’re right here. You’re okay, Pete, you are,” Patrick soothes, then he lifts his mouth up and says to the woman, “Grab my phone and call Dr. Silverman for me please?”

Here isn’t okay. Here’s the fucking problem. He fists his hand in Patrick’s sweater. It’s fucking cashmere and it’s wrong. Patrick doesn’t wear that shit, which just goes to prove that he’s not the problem. “I don’t need a doctor.”

“The fuck you don’t.”

“Trick, please, just. Just don’t. Stay okay?” He takes a shuddering breath that he hopes sounds like he’s calming down. “I just need you to stay for a minute.”

Patrick sighs and holds him tighter. But he doesn’t hear anyone talking to any doctors so he just lets himself go. If he can just get it out of his system, this breakdown where he can’t stop crying and can’t stop shaking, he’ll be okay. Patrick rubs his back and hums to him, a soft tune that sounds vaguely like Disney and, eventually, Pete manages to pull himself somewhat together.

The woman disappears from the room during the time Pete loses himself to the wave of grief and loss that’s crashing over him. When she returns, she drops to her knees and presses a glass into his hand. “Drink, baby,” she says and she’s got an accent that makes her voice sound a little like music. She holds his fingers around the glass while he drinks the water and blinks at her.

“Rihanna,” He says when she pulls the glass away from his lips.

She smiles at him and sets the glass aside. “Feel better?”

“Rihanna,” Pete says again, because holy shit. Patrick is fucking Rihanna. It makes Pete laugh, but he chokes on it as it mutates coming out, garroting him and threatening to bring the tears back.

“Easy,” she soothes, stroking his bangs off his forehead, a glimpse of a skull tattoo on her finger catching his eye as she does so. “It’s all right.”

“Pete,” Patrick says, calm and even. “Hey, what the fuck? Talk to me, man. You’re scaring the shit out of me.”

“He broke about seven traffic laws getting to you,” Rihanna says as she wipes at the tears on his face in a businesslike manner. She does it like she deals with pathetic sobbing men all the time and this is nothing out of the ordinary. She does it like Donna had when the paperwork cleared on Bronx’s adoption and he hadn’t been able to stop himself crying then, either.

“Tell me what’s wrong or I’m going to call Dr. Silverman, whether you want me to or not.”

“Later?” Pete asks. “Can we talk later? Can we just sit here, now?”

“I’m going to go walk Hemmy,” Rihanna says, pushing up to her feet. She knows this house better than he does, that’s obvious. “You boys talk.”

Her heels click on the floor outside of the bedroom. Pete rests against Patrick’s shoulder until they’re gone. It feels like years ago and yesterday, and he clings to the familiarity.

“It’s later Pete,” Patrick says when there’s no sound but their breathing. “You want to wash your face and tell me what the fuck is going on?”

Pete nods and lets Patrick grab him a wet washcloth and cleans up. He doesn’t feel any better but the fraying, hysterical feeling has receded. In its wake is a gnawing ache in his chest where his family is supposed to be.

“Now talk.”

“Your girlfriend’s awesome,” Pete says instead, picking at the washcloth. It’s easier to think about how Patrick’s life is different than his own. Patrick’s seems to be better here. “She’s way too hot for you, and she’s good in a crisis. You should marry her.”

“Yeah, that’s the plan,” Patrick says, dead fucking serious. Pete opens his mouth, stunned, but Patrick shakes his head. “No, you are not going to distract me with more fucking ridiculous proposal suggestions right now. You know I think skywriting is a stupid idea so don’t suggest it again. You’re going to tell me why you’re crying on your floor on Christmas.”

“I-“ Pete begins but what the fuck can he possibly say? How does anyone explain something like this? He stares at his hands for what seems like forever, but Patrick’s patient. Every Patrick is patient and he waits until Pete’s ready to speak. He has to find something mostly truthful before he can open his mouth. “It just hit me how empty my life is.”

“Hey, Pete, it’s not.”

“It is,” Pete says looking at the bedroom. It’s a mess but it’s also devoid of anything personal. There’s posters instead of pictures. There’s no division of space. “There’s just me. Alone. On Christmas.”

“You wouldn’t have been alone if you had called me hours ago.”

Pete nods but he’s busy trying to figure out how to phrase things without sounding insane. He’s not used to having to parcel out his words before he speaks. “When was the last time I talked to Mikey?”

Patrick blinks at him, shakes his head, then blinks again. Then he rubs the Santa hat and asks, “Mikey. Mikey Way?”

Mikey Way. Not Mikey Wentz-Way. Pete grits his teeth and manages a reasonably calm-sounding, “Yeah.” He only gets a little bright-eyed, but Patrick pretends not to notice.

“Oh, fuck, I don’t know. I know he was at that MTV thing we went to a few months ago I think?” Patrick rubs the back of his neck and looks up towards the ceiling trying to remember. “I remember My Chem won something. I don’t think you talked to them though. I mean, I’m not sure. Rihanna kept dragging me off to meet people at the after party so I wasn’t around you that much.”

“How about for sure? I mean,” Pete searches for a lie, a good one, and tries to remember which prescriptions he’d found in the medicine cabinet. “I think I took too much Ambien last night. It’s all kind of fuzzy.”

“You’re dredging up old shit, Pete, and you know obsessive thinking fucks you. Wasn’t the whole point of Infinity to get past this?”

It takes Pete a second to understand what Patrick is saying and then it makes sense. Right, that placeholder album, Infinity on High. He adds it to a mental list of things he needs to figure out.

Later though. Now, he reaches out and catches Patrick’s arm. “I was just… I was just thinking. Please, Patrick.”

“Warped.” Patrick sighs and slumps down next to him. “Pete, it took you like two years to get over him. Why are you digging this shit up now?”

“It matters.”

“It always mattered. But you haven’t talked about it in like five years.”

“It matters more now.”

“Why? What’s so different about today from yesterday?”

Oh, how about everything, Pete thinks. He settles for another, more easily explained truth. He rubs his ring finger; his wedding band is missing but the pale line where it should be is still there. “I’m still in love with him.”

“Oh Jesus,” Patrick groans, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyebrows. “No. No, Pete. Don’t you fucking do this to me now, I swear to God. You can’t just wake up after almost ten years and decide that.”

“I didn’t decide it. It just is.”

Patrick sighs and drops his hands to his knees. “I think you do this just to see me react sometimes.”

“Sometimes,” Pete agrees. “But not this time.”

Patrick sighs. “Yeah I know. Why couldn’t you just be fucking with me now?”

“I’m sorry.” And he is. He’s sorry for whatever it is that he did to deserve this.

“Jesus, you’re really not okay are you?”

“Fuck you, I can apologize.”

“You can. A bear can be made to wear a funny hat and dance. Doesn’t mean it’s not against the laws of nature.” This is the place where he’d usually pick back but he doesn’t have it in him. Not now.

“I don’t know what to do.” Pete clenches his hand in the washcloth. It’s getting cold in his hand. Patrick pries his fingers loose and pulls the wet rag away from him.

“You don’t have to right now. We’re going to figure it out okay? We always do.”

Pete drops his head onto Patrick’s shoulder. It makes him feel better. But Pete doesn’t believe him.
~*~*~Pete discovers the basement studio his second day in the permanent acid trip that is Clarence’s so-called “glimpse”, and shuts himself up inside it for pretty much the rest of Bronx’s Christmas break. It’s the best place in the unnervingly small house.Like everywhere else, it’s littered with Bronx’s things and pet toys but it’s also got records hanging on the walls – My Chemical Romance’s gold records and the initial releases of all of Fall Out Boy’s. There’s a wall of DVDs that goes from floor to ceiling and a glass case in the corner with his and Mikey’s basses and guitars and it has a lock on it, which Pete finds the key to on what he has to assume from the Jack Skellington keychain, is his wad of keys. There’s soundproofing on the walls and a computer with music software that he’s almost certain Patrick installed.It feels almost sane down there. Hiding out in the basement “writing” is easier than having to cover up dropping all the verbal and nonverbal cues Mikey keeps throwing at him. Self-isolation’s been working for him so far, except for the way Bronx keeps hunting him down.Pete can pretend it’s just a new office if he can ignore the way Bronx keeps rolling back and forth across the cement floor on the Heelies Don and Donna got him. Which he can, mostly, so long as he doesn’t look up from the computer screen. And he doesn’t have another option since Pete doesn’t have the heart to kick him out.He’s spent the majority of his days since Christmas exploring the computer. If the rightful Pete is really just another version of himself, he knows the answers are going to be on the hard drive somewhere. Only there’s about a thousand dollars worth of portable hard drives to go through, on top of whatever’s on the computer itself.The initial search, conducted at about two in the morning the day after the day after Christmas, yielded folders of word files with lyrics he recognizes as his style but not as his thoughts, a few saved scans of interviews with Blender, AP, and the Advocate – the last one he can’t actually bear to read – and a playlist on iTunes called “Patrick is a sick genius and he will take over the world for me.”That playlist is nothing but Fall Out Boy with a couple of tracks of Patrick singing various covers to the sound of Pete harassing him in the background. It makes him feel kind of sick that he only recognizes about half the songs. Infinity on High is missing, replaced with some album he’s never even fucking imagined called New London Hearts on Fire. Believers Never Die isn’t a greatest hits album, but another undertaking in its own right. He can’t even make himself listen to songs with titles he doesn’t recognize.And if he’s not man enough to listen to the music, he certainly doesn’t have the balls to try and look at the journal entries. And there are a lot of them, one word file after another, in a folder the other him has labeled “Shit no one wants to read.” He keeps toying over the ones dated back to ’05, trying to get the courage up.“Daddy watch!” Bronx calls, rolling backwards across the bare cement floor and pulling Pete’s focus from the cursor hovering over the date 8/16/05. “Watch me.”“Not right now.”“Watch, watch, watch, watch,” Bronx chants until Pete groans and jerks his head up.“I’m looking, kid. What?” He sounds way too short, almost angry and he kicks himself for the way he sounds. Bronx freezes, and a pout flashes across his face, making Pete feel like the biggest douche on planet Earth. Almost a week and he’s absolutely no better at the dad thing. “I’m sorry. Show me?”“I can go on one foot. It’s super cool. Watch,” Bronx proclaims. He grins at Pete, so huge that it fills his whole face and there’s a weird moment when Pete feels almost like he’s looking at a reflection of himself as a kid. Then he pushes off one wall and rolls, on one leg, across the room, the Superman cape Clarence had passed to Pete trailing behind him. Pete’s breath catches because he’s moving way too fast and he collides with the wall and flops onto the floor.Fuck, Mikey is going to kill him if he lets the kid get broken and that’s the last thing he needs right now. Pete’s pushing up and is over to the boy before he knows he’s moved and okay, maybe it’s a little bit of adrenaline. A little.Bronx’s lip is split and there’s a splash of bright red blood on his pale mouth. He’s shaking and Pete has a moment of pure fucking fear until he realizes that Bronx is giggling. Then he’s just pissed.“What’re you doing?” Pete asks, pulling Bronx up by both his shoulders. He’s not holding too tight but Bronx is just tiny and he comes right off the floor. “Huh? What the hell are you doing? You could’ve hurt yourself, Jesus.”Pete doesn’t realize he’s yelling until he hears the door at the top of the stairs open and he realizes that Bronx is crying. His whole face has crumpled and oh, god, he is the worst person to ever fucking live, cursing at a little kid. He checks his hands, and they’re not squeezing Bronx’s arms but he’s right in his face and he sounds like his own dad used to when Pete pushed him too far.He sets Bronx down gently and steps back, taking a deep breath. He’s never even thought about being a dad before Clarence dumped him here. And if he had, he hadn’t seen himself as the kind who screamed at his child, but here he is and there he goes.He can’t do this. He can’t look at that little boy crying and handle it, especially not being the one to cause it.Mikey’s at the bottom of the stairs before Pete can move again. He’s on his knees on the ground in front of him, Bronx’s chin in his hands. “Hey, baby boy, tell me what happened.”“I-I-I fell.” Bronx sniffles, hiccupping on his tears. Pete feels nauseous. “I-I’m s-sorry.” There’s a new wave of tears on the apology that makes Pete want to vomit. He’s never made a child cry before and it’s awful.“That’s okay,” Mikey soothes, wiping away Bronx’s tears. His hands almost cover Bronx’s entire face. “It’s okay, you just have to be more careful. Those shoes are like your skateboard. Don’t do them fast if you’re not wearing pads, okay?”“Okay.” Bronx sniffles again and rubs at his face with his fist. He’s so young and like that, he looks even younger. Pete is hit with the impulse to hold him and it terrifies him.“I’m sorry, buddy,” Pete chokes out, feeling like he’s scrambling in midair for ground that’s gone, Wile E. Coyote style. “I didn’t mean to yell at you.”Bronx looks at him with confusion and hurt in his eyes “Daddy’s just scared of you getting hurt. He’s a big chicken,” Mikey says, ducking his head to stage whisper to Bronx. “Go give him a hug and tell him not to be such a scaredy-cat.”Bronx looks up, nods, and then – because apparently five year olds don’t have irony –rolls across the space between them on his heels. He collides with Pete the way he did that first time Pete met him. Only this time, hugging him back is a relief.“Don’t be a chicken,” Bronx parrots sternly into Pete’s stomach. “People will think you’re lame and you’re not lame.”“Wouldn’t want that,” Pete agrees as Bronx pulls away.Mikey wipes way the blood on Bronx’s lip with his thumb and it's gone like it was never there. Then he jerks his chin up the stairs. “Why don’t you head up stairs and go put on your normal sneakers.”“But Papa,” Bronx whines, rolling back a few inches on the wheels. It’s the same tone as when Bronx wants cookies before dinner or to use the finger paints Gerard gave him on the wall, again.“One fall per day. Go now or I’m going to count to three.”Bronx huffs but does as he’s told, leaving him alone with Mikey in the basement.Mikey waits until Bronx disappears then turns and looks at him like he’s just turned into an alien. “What the fuck was that Pete?”“He hit the wall and I just… I reacted.” Pete still can’t get over that. He didn’t know he even had that reaction in him before it exploded all over Bronx.“By yelling at him? It’s a split fucking lip. He’s gotten worse on the swings at school. Hell, he’s gotten worse playing ninjas versus zombies with Frank.”“That sounds like a stupid dangerous game.”Mikey’s eyes are huge. “It’s the freaking action figures. You’ve got like twenty hours of video on that shit. Pete-““He hurt himself.”“Yeah. He’s five and a boy and it’s just a scrape. Your mom told me you once cracked your head open falling off a jungle gym and kept playing for two hours. That?” Mikey waves at the wall. “That was nothing. He’s fine.”“I-“ Pete shoves his hands in his pockets. “He was bleeding.” And he cares.“He was terrified because you were yelling at him. No yelling was your rule remember?”“I…I forgot.”“You forgot?” Mikey echoes, that now-familiar look of dismay on his face. “Pete, the list of rules was your idea. How could you forget? That was one of the first ones! No hitting and no yelling, no matter what.”“Those are really good rules,” Pete concedes. He really wants to know where the fuck this list is. It’s another thing Gerard should have told him in his cheat sheet.“Yeah I know that.” Mikey’s eyes glance up towards the top of the stairs, looking and listening for Bronx and when he doesn’t hear anything he turns back to Pete and shakes his head. “Damnit, Pete.”“I just saw blood and lost it a little, Mikey. It’s nothing.”Mikey isn’t buying it. He reaches across himself to rub his arm but looks at Pete with determination from behind his lenses. “You forgot the rules.”“It was the heat of the moment.”“Pete, you made that fucking rule. You had freaking boot camp flashbacks talking me into it.” Mikey takes a deep breath and swallows hard. “Look, I’ve been thinking about it and I think you should go back to twice a week therapy.”That had been on Gerard’s list at least – therapy once a week with a guy in the city. Pete hasn’t been yet because of the holiday but he’s almost looking forward to it. Therapists can’t hold too much crazy against you. Still, twice a week? Fuck, back in the real world twice a month is doing good. “Because I lost my cool over Bronx hurting himself?”“And because of Christmas and the way you’re hiding again. I know you’re stressed about the new album but you’re forgetting shit like an Alzheimer’s patient and it’s scaring me.”There’s a new album too? He’s calling Gerard when this fight is over. Seriously. Too much shit got neglected and he’s flailing again – harder than before.“I’m not forgetting things.”Mikey lifts an eyebrow. “Yeah? What channel is Comedy Central?”Shit he knows that. He just watched it last night. Even MadTV was watchable at 4am when he couldn’t sleep. “Uh, fifty-four.”“Forty-seven. Which bank’s our joint checking account at?”Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. “Bank of America?”“Wachovia. Pete, just go back for Bronx okay? And if you won’t go to therapy, get yourself checked out at a real doctor. Please, all right? Don’t make me beg and don’t make me drag you.”“You’d drag me?”“I will if I have to. You’ve dragged me,” Mikey says with a shrug that makes light of the implication.Pete doesn’t like the idea of having to drag Mikey to anything, least of all a shrink, and the fact that the other Pete had to adds to his earlier queasiness. “Mikey, I’m fine.”“You’re not. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with you, Pete, but you’re not fine.”“If I promise I’ll handle it, can we end this conversation?”“I don’t know,” Mikey snaps. “Are you going to go upstairs and yell at our son again?”“No.”“Then yeah. I guess it’s fucking ended.”Pete sighs and nods. He wants to get the fuck out of here half an hour and one week ago. “Good.”“You’re fucking unbelievable, you know that?”“Yeah I’ve heard. Just leave the number of whoever you want me to call on the fridge. I’ll call them tomorrow.”“Tomorrow’s New Year’s Eve,” Mikey says. “We’ve got that thing, remember?”Pete is so sick of that fucking question he’s ready to scream. “If I say no are you going to get pissy?”Mikey opens his mouth, shuts it, shakes his head then opens his mouth again. His face is blank but there’s a flash in his eyes that Pete remembers, a light that’s anger and hurt shoving their way under the Mikey Way mask. “Fuck you, Pete. Do whatever you want.”Pete drops back into the office chair and watches as Mikey’s long legs disappear up the stairs. He knows he’s fucked the goat before the door closes and he feels, Jesus, he actually feels really fucking bad. Bronx’s tears and Mikey’s frown are imprinted on the very front of his brain and no amount of writing, digging or denying can push them away.Pete feels stupid for that. They’re not his family after all. Yeah, he cares about Bronx because he’s a kid and a sweet one at that but he cut Mikey out of his heart with fucking surgical scissors years ago. He shouldn’t fucking care. Especially not when it’s not even his Mikey Way.Yet when he finally crawls out of the basement hours later he goes into the kitchen and finds two doctors' numbers stuck to the fridge. The post-it is stuck between a picture of Bronx on Bob Bryar’s shoulders and a crayon picture of a big mass of red squiggles and stick figures that’s supposed to be Santa and his sleigh. Pete puts the numbers in his contacts and despite himself, sets a reminder in the phone for him to call both the day after tomorrow. He’s not sure why but once he does it, he feels notably better.~*~*~
Part 3

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

1|2|3|4|5|6|7The 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

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

1|2|3|4|5|6|7Pete doesn’t remember Schechter that well from Warped. The guy came and went a lot. But he calls Pete the day after New Year's to circle the wagons and Pete gets to know him again pretty quick from there.He’s got some awesome ink, a memory that’s a little bit scary, a take-no-bullshit attitude and an incredibly short temper. He also gets them on every music request show on TV that week. People are requesting their single so much that it's gone to number one overnight but Brian calls him about ten times a day to remind him to ‘Just sit tight and try not to say anything stupid,’ while he deals with the studio.Pete’s a little annoyed but Schechter usually calls right when he’s about to say or do something less than wise. It’s eerie until he remembers what Mikey told him back on Warped, about Brian being the one who dealt with Gerard when he was out of control. Then it makes perfect sense and is kind of impressive.Bronx goes back to school that week and Bob Bryar gets back from Chicago so Mikey spends most of his time over at Gerard and Frank’s because apparently they’re working on something that could eventually be an album. Pete doesn’t really know and he doesn’t care to because Joe and Andy are back too and they’re almost exactly the same. Their addresses are different and Joe’s hair’s cut short but otherwise, normal. Normal, normal and blissfully familiar. Doing the guest spot thing is familiar too.They do the new Late Show with Craig Ferguson on Thursday which is the most fun Pete’s had in what feels like forever and Brian is waiting for them when they come off stage. He’s frowning and standing with his lips pressed together. “Band meeting,” he says without preamble. “Now.”Fifteen minutes later the five of them end up in a deli a block from the studio because none of them have eaten. Brian doesn’t order anything, just drinks coffee and turns an unlit cigarette over and over in his fingers until Pete’s a little dizzy watching him. Brian waits until they’ve all got their food before he speaks again.“The label wants to put you on tour. They’re going to push the new album really hard and they want your faces everywhere you stop.” He sighs and rubs the back of his neck. “There’s like a dozen California dates so you guys can do appearances on bigger TV shows.”“So why the long face, Bri?” Andy asks.“Because they want you guys on the road by the beginning of February. Wait,” Brian says, holding up a hand to cut them off. “Just, wait.”“That’s three weeks away,” Patrick protests and Pete tries not to smile because he knows that Patrick’s been out with Rihanna every night this week. It’s been all over TMZ. It’s awesome.“Less,” Brian admits. “But we’ve been trying to get them to realize what everyone else chose to push down and ignore for years now. And they’re talking about a headlining tour and fucking Rolling Stone called me yesterday. So, fuck guys, do you want my honest opinion?”“Always,” Joe says with zero hesitation.“Okay. If you want my honest opinion, you guys are going to get big from this. More important, this is your last shot if you don’t want to be stuck on the road for thirty years like the Ramones.” Brian looks like every word is painful. It makes no sense because this is good right? “So you guys need to decide as soon as you can and let me know so I can give the label an answer before they decide to second guess themselves.”Pete knows a little more now and that concern sounds totally fucking valid to him. He’d bit the bullet and loaded the articles onto his phone to read in the green rooms before performances. This him had gotten married at Warped and come out in the VMA acceptance speech. And Bob and Island Def Jam had dropped them, middle America radio stations had quietly stopped giving Sugar airplay and no one, anyone, read or listened to, wanted to talk to them. Even with Bronx, Fall Out Boy’s been on tour in smaller venues and as openers pretty much consistently since then. As far as he can tell, the only reason they stopped was because Bronx started kindergarten.“You know I’m in,” Joe says. Andy nods in agreement and Patrick sighs but he nods too. Then all four of them are staring at him.“Fuck you, of course,” Pete laughs. He can’t remember the last time he went on a serious tour. Two years, maybe more. He can’t remember. “Like I’m going to say no?”“You don’t want to talk to Mikey first?” Brian asks, popping his cigarette between his lips.No. No he does not. Because if he’s going to be stuck in this fucking glimpse or whatever he’s not going to spend it stuck in the suburbs, no matter how nice Mikey’s hand over his face is at night. “Whatever. Book it, Brian. You know this is the right thing to do.”The four of them stare at him but Brian nods and gets up from the table. He pulls on his coat and Pete watches him through the deli’s front window as he goes outside, lights his cigarette, and starts making calls.Pete debates whether or not he should tell Mikey the whole trip back to Jersey. He’s settled on not but Patrick, the fucking traitor, called ahead so there’s a fight waiting when he gets back to the house.He’s never actually heard Mikey yell before. But he can do it and is, starting out in just a clipped tone but escalating to shouting when Pete picks. He knows it’s not fair, that he’s possibly breaking something that’s not his to play with. But the more Mikey snaps at him about Bronx and school and how Pete’s last tour was pretty much a year nonstop the more the urge to run pulses through Pete.“Pete, think about how Bronx’s going to feel when you disappear for months. It’s the first time he’s been somewhere stable for more than two months at a time since he was born.”How does he feel now? Pete wonders. What he says is “He’ll deal with it. Kids are adaptable.”“Who are you?” Mikey shouts at him, his glasses pushed up on his forehead like he can’t bear to look at him.So many answers to that. Pete’s pissed at having to justify himself so he goes for true and hurtful. “Well in this fucking universe, I’m a failed fucking bassist who missed his chance.”“You’re not failed at anything. Pete, you’re amazing. Why are you acting like this?” Mikey yells but it doesn’t land very hard. It’s hard to make a compliment sound mean.But it stings and Pete is looking to strike out at someone. And as he’s tracked Mikey to the root of pretty much all the problems in this universe, he’ll do just fucking fine. “I’ve been going nowhere for ten years and it’s pathetic. This is fucking pathetic.”Mikey flinches like he’s hit him or something and lowers his glasses back onto his nose with noticeably shaking hands. He’s not shouting when he asks, “So our life is pathetic?”“No. You’re a member of an award winning, groundbreaking group that people listen to. You got the house like ten minutes and five pay grades from your hometown and the life you wanted with your Siamese twin right fucking next door. Your life seems pretty great.” Pete presses his hand to his chest as he tries to keep his voice from reaching shake the furniture levels. “My life is fucking pathetic. And I drove from New York City, the Mecca of music and entertainment to fucking Jersey wondering how the hell I could’ve let myself end up like this. ”“Shut the fuck up,” Mikey hisses. “Bronx is right upstairs, do you want him to hear you?”“No but I want you to hear me. I’m doing this, all right? Not everyone had a big brother whose coattails they could ride all the way to the big time. Some of us have to do it the hard way. ”“Fuck you,” Mikey grits out through clenched teeth, his eyes going hard. His hand actually twitches into a fist like he wants to throw a punch. Pete half wishes he would.“No, fuck you if you think I’m going to let you get in the way of this, Mikey.”“Get in the way? What the fuck are you talking about? I’ve gone on the last three tours with you, Pete. I lugged tech and sold merch and filled in on stage and I’ve done everything I possibly can to help you. And all I wanted on this one was for you to talk to me before you started making commitments. Is that so fucking much to ask?”“Will you just loosen your fucking death grip on me for ten fucking minutes?”“Death grip?” Mikey sputters, leaning against the closest wall. “Seriously? Why don’t you just say it then? Just say you blame me for everything.”“I thought that was obvious. I mean, marrying you’s clearly what fucked Fall Out Boy the first time. I kind of figured you knew that.”“So you regret it?” Mikey asks. He folds his arms and stares down at the kitchen floor for long seconds. Pete can hear him breathing shallow and unsteady and when he looks up at Pete again, there are fucking tears in his eyes. “Eight years and thousands of miles and our family, you regret it?”The sight brings Pete up short and it’s like a light switches on in his brain. Then there’s a long moment where his brain is nothing but a loop track of shitshitshitshitshit. He finds himself shaking his head frantically. “I didn’t say that.”He wasn’t there. He can’t regret shit he didn’t do. But even if it were his to regret, he would say just about anything to make Mikey stop looking like that, like Pete is breaking him. Like he fucking broke Mikey’s heart.It’s an unfamiliar feeling, disgusting and vindicating at the same time. He didn’t mean to do this, didn’t mean to say any of that but there’s an intense sense of and now we’re even drifting through Pete that is totally insane.This Mikey never hurt him, never walked away from him and left him bleeding from the chest for two years. There’s no reason he’d want to hurt him. But it’s like every old hurt and loss he’s been dragging around with him had exploded out of him through these ridiculous borrowed issues.“I don’t regret loving you,” Pete says and is shocked to realize that’s true. He feels like a bastard but he feels oddly better too. It’s like all of a sudden he can actually see Mikey, not this version or the specter of a doomed relationship in particular. It’s weird but right now, he can look through both to the guy he fell in love with, the last big leap he made with his heart. And Jesus Christ, he really missed him.“You just regret marrying me,” Mikey says and leans back into the wall like he could sink into it and disappear if he tries hard enough. For Pete, looking at that is like going from having vision problems to wearing glasses, things are all at once clear and beautiful and hurt. And Mikey’s crushed face compels honesty.“No. No, I don’t regret anything like that. I just…I’m desperate Mikey.” Truer fucking words, Pete thinks.“Yeah. I’m starting to get that. But uh,” He blinks up at the ceiling for a second. “I need to go for a walk or something. I can’t really stay here right now.”“Are you coming back?” Pete hates to ask but has to know.“I live here.”“I know I just thought-““What?” Mikey snaps. “That I’d pack my shit and go because you’re a motherfucking asshole? Tempting but no. I don’t think our life’s pathetic, Pete. I love it and I love you but you can enjoy the fucking basement tonight.”Pete deserves that. More than fair. Sucky because it means he won’t sleep. Without a sleep aid or Mikey’s presence he’s only looking at a half an hour to an hour of actual rest. But it’s fine. It gives him time to get acquainted with all the songs he doesn’t know and to figure out how to fix the mess he’s made.~*~*~Pete practices until his hands cramp and his eyes water. He likes the songs on New London Hearts on Fire more than he was expecting to and he wonders about what the mindset the other him must’ve been in to write this stuff. It’s all about jumping head first and risk and shaky new hope.His curiosity sends him trolling through the portable hard drive labeled “homemade porn and other adventures”. There’s no actual porn because he would never be that obvious. Half of it is show footage that goes back more than ten years. The other half are home movies.Anything that’s not the other Pete, Mikey and a littler Bronx doing the ridiculous things that small children and new parents do is pretty much invariably shot by Bob Bryar. Pete remembers the way the man hated to get in front of the camera but if the videos are any indication, he never puts it down.The night and most of the next day crawls by as Pete digs through file after file. He hears Mikey come back less than half an hour after he stormed out and the muffled sound of them having dinner and going to bed. In the morning he can hear Mikey wake up and get Bronx off to school and then the house is empty again. He fills all of that time watching the videos.A lot of them are boring. They’re just a record of repetitive tour shit that the fans would eat up but that don’t have much in them unless you count the handful of incidents where he or Joe or Frank are caught on video doing shit that no doubt got them in trouble.Most of it is just more tour shit. Mostly one band or another in bus lounges and venues talking about stupid shit like whether or not Smurfs are mammals (Pete agrees with his video self that they are because fucking hello Papa Smurf’s got a beard and Smurfette has long blond hair) or someone carrying/talking to/playing with/looking after Bronx. It’s boring but he can’t help noticing that 90% of the time when there’s a Mikey and a Pete in the same frame, they find a way to touch each other at least once and about half the time they’re practically on top of one another.There a few that make him stop though. There’s one in a tattoo shop with words on the wall that are in Latin-based letters but are incomprehensible. Pete guesses France, maybe Belgium or the Netherlands.“So I know you’re married and all but ink’s a life time commitment,” Bob calls from behind the camera as he pans onto where a twenty-five year old Mikey, flat ironed hair, glasses and all, is sitting back on the tattoo artist’s recliner, his arm thrown over his head. “You shouldn’t let this crazy fuck talk you into things,” he adds, panning over to where the other Pete is standing next to him, grinning.“Mikey did all the convincing on this one,” the Pete on screen laughs. “I don’t have to mastermind every plan.”“Just most of them,” Frank cackles from off screen.“I’m trying to emulate Love A Lot Bear,” Mikey says. “It’s the shit.”“So this was Gerard’s idea?” Frank asks, rolling into the frame on the same kind of chair the tattoo artist is sitting on. The artist ignores all of them as he lowers the needle to the left side of Mikey’s chest.“Smack him for me, baby?” Mikey hisses through clenched teeth over the bowed head of the artist. The video Pete obliges and pops Frank upside the head.Pete drags the time bar across the bottom of the screen to watch the tattoo take form. There’s a lot of flailing conversation between the version of himself on the video and Frank and a considerably less flailing Mikey. Finally the artist pulls away and hands Mikey a mirror. Bob zooms the camera in tight on the design and Pete hits play again in time to hear Mikey say, “Awesome. Fuck that came out way better than I was expecting.”On first glance it looks like a particularly intricate heart over the general vicinity of Mikey’s actual heart with looping script inside it. But on second glance, he can see that it’s two interlocked Ws.“Fuck, Mikey,” He hears his own voice say through the headphones he has plugged into the computer’s speakers. “Fucking fuck.”“Your turn next, you pussy,” Mikey declares, sliding off the chair.“Please,” Pete on screen shoots back, tugging his shirt off over his head. “I just wanted to get you topless in public.”Bob jerks over to Mikey’s face in time to catch him laughing. “You’re a greedy slut, sir.”“You know it’s one of my best traits.”“That should be your next tattoo after the couple one. Just the words ‘Greedy Slut’ right where a tramp stamp goes.” Frank giggles and makes a clicking noise in the side of his mouth. “Super classy.”Pete clicks out of that one. He doesn’t need to watch the rest of it to know that there should be a matching heart under the necklace of thorns to match this Mikey’s that’s missing on him. It’s a fucking miracle he hasn’t been seen without it yet. Maybe less a miracle and more a sign of how shitty Mikey and the other Pete’s sex life is or at least how much Pete’s presence has fucked that up.He’s half unconscious but not far enough gone to actually sleep when he clicks on a file simply labeled “30”. It’s a small party backstage at a venue and from the plethora of black clothing and notable absence of Patrick, Pete guesses this is from a My Chemical Romance tour date. Mikey’s sitting on a couch with a tiara on his head talking to a tech and eating a piece of cake while Frank makes faces at the toddler Bronx on his lap.“All right, all right,” his video self calls above the din of people talking and while the rest of the group doesn’t stop talking they get quieter and the camera zooms in on Pete. “Shut up and let me talk. I didn’t come a thousand miles to listen to you ladies gossip.” There’s a little laughter and then Pete raises his soda can in Mikey’s direction. “I just wanted to say happy birthday to the most amazing partner a person could have. I love you, babe, welcome to the thirties. They suck and you’re going to hate them.”“You’re thirty-one, asshole. Some of us have actually been in this decade for awhile,” Gerard mutters sullenly and Frank laughs at him.“Anyway, I’m supposed to be in New Mexico performing right now but I couldn’t miss your birthday. Unfortunately, I did kind of promise Patrick I would perform tonight, so Ray, help me out here.” Bob pans the camera across the room to Ray who’s got a guitar in his lap before yanking it back to video Pete who laughs and says, “Everyone I’m not married to, I’m sorry in advance. This will never happen again.”Ray plays the opening notes of fucking Faithfully by Journey. Then that Pete, the crazy one with who apparently doesn’t have any pride, starts to sing, badly and off key. It’s a reminder of why he does not fucking sing anymore. Ever.It seriously sounds awful but Bob keeps cutting to Mikey’s face, charmed and so fucking in love like this is the best present he could get. And when his cat yowling dies away, Pete watches his doppelganger kiss Mikey long and hard before breaking away to smile at him. “Happy thirtieth, Mikeyway.”“You’re nuts and you sound like you killed a duck,” Mikey laughs, rubbing the side of his nose against Pete’s but it sounds like “I love you.”“Kiss, Daddy,” Bronx demands from Frank’s lap. He presses his hand sloppily to his little mouth and then pulls it away in an attempt to blow a kiss. “Gimme.”“Okay,” video Pete sighs, mock put out. “I guess you can have one too.” Then he leans over and gives Bronx a smacking kiss before giving Mikey another one. “To grow on.”Pete manages to pull himself out of the basement after that. He can’t look anymore. He crashes out on the couch in the living room but doesn’t sleep. The fight loops on a reel in his head, obsessive and pressing and noisy in a way that reminds Pete of how crazy he is.The longer he lies there the more the whole thing bothers the hell out of him. It’s not just because with the new context of how Mikey’s life is supposed to look, the things he’s said are actually a hundred times more horrible. Though it does and fucking then some.It’s just that for the first time, lying there on a couch that's actually comfortable for all its worn out appearance, Pete wishes he could fit here. Knowing he isn’t the man who belongs here makes his stomach twist. He’s actually glad when carpool drops Bronx off from school.Bronx shuts the door behind him and crosses to where Pete’s lying. A little more than two weeks and the impulse to hold out his arm to Bronx is already starting to be second nature. Bronx crawls up on top of him and sits on his stomach.“Papa said you’re gonna leave,” Bronx says, looking down at Pete. He’s got blue eyes that have to be from whoever Bronx’s birth parents are. But they’re beautiful and they are looking at him waiting for answers.“Yeah. He’s right. I’m leaving next month.”Bronx traces the lettering on Pete’s t-shirt like it’s very important. “Where you going?”“I’m going to go work. I’ll be all over.”“On a bus? The ones with all the beds?” Bronx bounces a little on Pete stomach. It makes him feel vaguely nauseous. “Those are fun.”“Yep.”“How’m I gonna do school?” Bronx asks. He folds his legs so that his sneakers don’t dig so deep into Pete’s ribs, a move he’s clearly made before. “Can I not go?”“No, buddy, you’re gonna stay and keep going to school here.”Bronx frowns. “But we always go on the buses together. And then Uncle Gee or Uncle Patrick sings and we play freeze tag. ”Fucking damnit. Mikey sent this to him on purpose. It’s probably step one of a really complex revenge scenario for the fight. “No, you’ve got school and you’ve gotta take care of everyone while I’m gone.”“But-” Bronx’s lower lip pushes out and his eyes get huge and wet. “But we always go on the buses together.”“Not this time, buddy. You have to stay here so you can go to school and be normal. Trust me, weird is way overrated. And it’s difficult.”“How long’re you gonna be gone?”“Three months.”Oh god, no, Bronx’s crumpling and crying into his chest. “That’s like forever,” he whimpers into Pete’s chest, tears and snot wetting his shirt.“No, hey, it’ll go really fast. I’ll be back before you even have time to miss me. Now tell me what you did at school today.”“We learned about what animals are mammals,” Bronx mumbles.“Yeah? What’d you learn?”“They’re all furry.” Bronx sniffs, sitting up right and wiping his eyes. “Piglet and Hemmy and Bunny are all mammals. Real bunnies are too.”“Very cool. What other animals are mammals?”Bronx is waxing poetic about how dolphins are not fish and also are really pretty and super smart when Mikey comes back. He looks at both of them, kisses Bronx on the forehead and disappears into kitchen. He doesn’t look Pete in the eye.~*~*~Pete’s on the couch again three nights later, still up at three in the morning and feeling every hour of it. He’s got his bass in his lap, trying to get the chord progression in the second single off the Believers Never Die doppleganger right when he hears it. For a second he thinks it’s the TV, which he has down low enough that he can hear the voices on the That 70s Show rerun but not loud enough for them to make any sense. Then Pete hears it again, a soft whimper calling for Daddy and he finds himself taking the stairs two at a time before he knows what he’s doing.He pushes open the door to Bronx’s room and finds him sitting up in bed, his hair rumpled. He’s got his face buried in a bear that’s almost half as big as he is. He’s sniffling a little but he’s otherwise fine and Pete lets out the breath he didn’t realize he was holding.Pete sits down on the bed and pulls Bronx into his arms, bear and all and rocks him back and forth. He presses his mouth into Bronx’s hair. “It’s okay, baby, I’m here. I’m here. Shh, I got you, it’s okay.”Bronx sniffles and fists his hands in Pete’s t-shirt. “I dreamed you were lost,” he says into Pete’s neck. “You were lost and I couldn’t find you and I tried to get you but you were too far away and I couldn’t find you.”“I’m here. I’m not lost. Daddy’s right here,” Pete murmurs, not realizing what he’s saying, his whole being focused on getting Bronx to stop being afraid and calm his crying. “I’ll always be where you can find me.”“You promise?” Bronx asks on hiccupping breaths.“I swear.”“Pinky swear?” He holds up his pinky finger and Pete smiles, hooking his much larger finger with Bronx’s.“Pinky swear.”“Stay, Daddy, please?” Bronx lets go of his bear and Pete’s shirt to wrap his arms around Pete’s neck. “Just till I fall asleep? It’ll keep the bad dream away. ”“Yeah let go and scoot back.” Bronx’s bed is a twin but he’s small enough that when Pete lays down there’s plenty of room for Bronx to curl into his chest. Bronx’s head rests against his chest and after about a minute he seems settled. “Good to sleep now, baby boy?”Bronx nods against his chest. “Sing to me.”Pete has a moment of panic. Really he doesn’t sing and he has only the vaguest freaking idea what bedtime rituals with Bronx involve. He’s done the best he can but he’s been so out of it that Mikey’s pretty much taken over the role that Gerard assured him he was supposed to have.But he can’t say no. He’s never let ignorance stop him before and he’s not going to now. “Okay. What do you want me to sing?”“Sing me my bear song.”“Your bear song,” Pete repeats. Figures there’s something special and not just a regular lullaby like Twinkle Twinkle or maybe tamer Bowie or something. He pulls an overdramatic thinking face. “Hmm, I don’t remember that one.”Bronx laughs a little. “The silly bear with the honey. It’s our favorite.”“How about you sing it to me, and then I’ll sing it back to you?”Bronx frowns, considering. “How come?”“Because your dream scared me too and it’ll make me feel better.”This seems to satisfy him and he nods into Pete’s shoulder and it has the added benefit of being true. Pete’s pulse is only just now getting back to normal speed.“Kay.”Bronx’s voice is high but clear and the melody is clearly one of Patrick’s but it’s easy and Pete picks it up the first time. He sings quietly because he gets growly and off key when he tries for any kind of volume and even then its not any good. It doesn’t seem to matter though because it only takes one time through on his own for Bronx to relax and fall back asleep.Pete strokes his hair for a long time, watching him breathe. He must fall asleep too at some point because the next thing he knows it's morning and Mikey is standing over them.“Hey,” Mikey whispers. Bronx stirs a little but doesn’t wake.“Hey.”“I’m still fucking pissed at you,” Mikey adds in that same soft tone that doesn’t actually do anything to cut away at said anger. Pete nods and Mikey sighs. “It’s your day.”His day. Oh. Right. His day to get Bronx out the door to school. The last rundown Gerard gave him, the one after the fuck up with the rules list, had been the schedule, the way they switched every other day so that neither of them had to get up at the ass crack of dawn five days a week. “Yeah, okay.”“You got this?” The unspoken because you haven’t been hangs in the air.“Yeah.” Pete swallows then says, “You wanna stay? Have breakfast with us?”Mikey’s not wearing his glasses and somehow that makes him even more unreadable. He doesn’t answer Pete, instead he drops down to put a hand on Bronx’s shoulders, shaking him gently. “Rise and shine, Superman. Time to save the world.”“No,” Bronx moans, pushing his face deeper into Pete’s shoulder. “Just a little more.”“Nope. Up and at’em. Daddy’s going to make pancakes if you both can get your lazy butts out of bed and you can get dressed faster than a speeding bullet,” Mikey heaves a put upon sigh. “But not if you’re going to be late.”Bronx bolts out of bed and Pete and Mikey watch him go. He gives Pete a small smile, the first since the fight. “I’d hurry if I were you.”Pete drags himself downstairs and manages to get breakfast started before Bronx or Mikey can get there. He doesn’t really know what he’s doing but the instructions are on the box and he can make do. He’s kind of had a crash course in it.He manages not to ruin breakfast. Bronx just seems happy that Mikey, who’s got his glasses on now, is letting him get away with wearing his Superman cape and drowning the pancakes in a lake of maple syrup that’s going to make him hell for his teacher to deal with. The mess is epic but more than worth the way it feels to sit down with the two of them like this is normal. It makes him feel calm, happy even. It’s a little scary actually.Mikey catches him at the door by the arm as he grabs the keys and stops him. “I’ve got to run into the city but I’m gonna call Gee, see if he and Frank can take Bronx tonight.”Pete stares at him for a moment trying to figure that out. It makes no real sense so he just wings it. “Yeah. Okay.”Mikey kisses him briefly on the mouth and says, “I’m still really freaking angry at you, Pete. I just think we need-” he breaks off and sighs. “I don’t know. I’m going to talk to Gee.” Then he gives Bronx a hug and ushers them both out the door.The majority of the drive to school is fairly uneventful. Pete manages to remember all the driving snow roads skills he’s lost since leaving Chicago for southern California and Bronx chatters about dolphins and how Superman should get a talking dolphin to work with Krypto and other five year old musings that makes Pete grin. But when they’re about three blocks from the school (which Pete had had to program into his phone’s GPS to find) when Bronx, secure in the backseat with one of those little kid seatbelt adjusters, asks, “You and Papa aren’t gonna get a divorce are you?”Pete slams on the breaks so hard that the tires make a screaming noise. He throws it into park and turns in his seat so that he can look Bronx in the face. “Why would you ask that?”“Because you’re on the couch all the time,” Bronx says. “Marianna Sylvester’s dad spent a bunch of weeks on their couch then he moved into an apartment. It has a pool. Are you going to get an apartment with a pool?”“No.”“Can we get a pool?”“No.”“Daddy, are you sure?” He sounds so precise when he says that, like he’s trying to be like the grown-ups he’s seen on TV.“About the pool or about getting divorced?” Pete’s fingers dig into the headrest and his throat feels tight as he waits for an answer.Bronx shrugs. “I dunno. I don’t want you and Papa to get divorced. Can we just get a pool?”Pete wasn’t much older than Bronx is now when his parents took that break. He doesn’t remember a lot of it, just shuttling back and forth and wondering what was wrong with everyone, why his parents couldn’t just fix it. They fixed everything back when he was little but for months it had seemed like they couldn’t repair themselves. It’d shaken him even if he hadn’t really understood.Damnit, he’s not going to shake Bronx’s world, or Mikey’s for that matter. Not anymore. He’s not going to be the one to ruin this family. He’s less surprised than he’s expecting to be when he realizes that they both matter way too much to him for him to let that happen. “I’ll talk to him about it.”All of it. Well, as much of it as he can. The glimpse thing is still pretty far beyond him but he’s going to try. Really try, for now on.“Really?”“Yeah.”Bronx grins and bounces to himself, talking about plans to get a dolphin for the hypothetical pool the whole rest of the way to school. Pete watches him unbuckle himself and jump out of the car. He watches until Bronx disappears inside the school building.Then he sits a little longer, taking the time to try and regroup. He’s got a lot of shit to sort out before he can face Mikey again.~*~*~
Allison gets him Mikey’s email address, his real one not the one on the MCR blog or his Twitter. She gets it about ten minutes after he asks her because she is the biggest motherfucking badass ever. He thinks that she might be half ninja despite having absolutely no Japanese ancestry.

She doesn’t ask why she wants it. She doesn’t give him any suggestions. She just warns him that restraining orders are a pain in the ass and if she has to deal with one in court she will make him very sorry. She’s fucking scary in a way that would do Jersey proud but with an LA edge and he completely believes her threat.

Allison’s less severe on the foster parent situation. She actually goes from automaton face to real human being when she tells him about the legal proceedings where Bronx is concerned. Apparently, money both talks and shuts people up at the same time.

“The fact that you keep visiting is good,” she says. “Your stalker tendencies are paying off for once. It looks really good that you care that much and the kid obviously adores you.” She quirks an eyebrow at him and lights a cigarette in blatant protest of the California smoking ban and the no smoking sign on the door of the restaurant they’re meeting in. “Though I can’t figure out why.”

Pete smiles at her. She’s his new hero, she really is. But then, anyone who was getting Bronx out of a fucking orphanage would be. She’s just extra awesome. “Hey, I’ll have you know I’m humble and lovable.”

“Yeah, sure you are Shoe Shine Boy.”

Pete grins at her, loving that she gets the Underdog reference and is a graduate magna cum whatever from Harvard Law who knows how to use her degree at the same time. The Empty Pete’s a fucking idiot on so many levels but at least he’s got good taste in representation. “Do you know when I can take him home?”

“My best guess is that it’ll be about a month before I can get a judge to place him with you. Maybe a little more.” She blows a graceful plume of smoke at the ceiling and other patrons glare at her in a judgmental fashion Pete’s starting to realize is pretty standard for LA regardless of her rule-breaking. Then she fixes him in her level gaze. “How’s your health?”

Her tone leaves no doubt that she’s not asking about old soccer injuries or his cholesterol. He doesn’t know what the Empty Pete’s state is like but he’s properly medicated. Aside from the way he wakes up in a thick sweat and a desperate panic from nightmares every night – chasing after Mikey unable to reach him no matter how fast he runs, Bronx slipping through his fingers – he’s okay.

Sure, he’s tired and he’s homesick but he’s mostly sane. As much as anyone can be when they’ve been ripped through universes. “I’m fine.”

“You sure?” She looks doubtful. He can’t blame her.

“Yeah. I finally got my meds adjusted.” And threw away all the others. That had been unbelievably satisfying, flushing bottle after bottle of pills down the toilet. “I’m balanced.”

“Good, good. Get a doctor to back that shit up just in case and it should go smoothly. You’re hardly the first celebrity to pull this and at least I don’t have to fly to Malawi to take care of it.”

“I promise I’d never make you do that.”

“That’s good because I hate flying and if you make me do it unnecessarily, I’ll kill you.” There isn’t a hint of sarcasm in her voice. So totally ninja.

Pete plants his elbows on the table and puts his chin in his hand. “You’re my favorite.”

“Patrick’s your favorite.”

After his husband and his son, yeah. “You’re my second favorite.”

“Then you can get the check for your second favorite.” She taps the ash on her cigarette into his coffee. It’s okay. He wasn’t really drinking it. His insomnia’s bad enough without the help. “I’m going to ask one more time, there’s not a restraining order coming down the pipe for me to worry about is there?”

Pete shrugs and she doesn’t ask any more questions. He just pays her check and makes an abortive effort to give her a hug, which she stops with a level “No, Pete”, and heads back to the house in the hills.

He’s sent a handful of emails to Mikey so far but they’re all mostly chatty. It’s been “How’ve you been, here’s what I’m up to(sort of), here’s what I watched on TV yesterday, we should talk sometime” type shit and so far he hasn’t gotten an answer.

It’s just that he’s not used to this is all. He doesn’t remember not knowing Mikey, not having him as the first number in his speed dial. Every talk they have back where he belongs seems to pick up mid-conversation, even the screaming fights they have with Bronx safely at Mikey’s parents’ or brother’s place for the night that end with them tearing one another to pieces and fucking each other senseless to rebuild from something closer to scratch start with both of them on a fairly level playing field.

But this starting from the beginning all over again shit? It’s hard and being sane about it isn’t really working. Mikey hasn’t responded back once. It’s driving Pete crazy.

“Don’t do it,” Patrick says when he comes over that evening. Rihanna’s got an event in San Francisco and Pete has gathered that leaves Patrick with nothing better to do than try and talk Pete down from his own impulsivity.

“You don’t even know what I’m going to do.”

“Is it going to involve emailing him rambling verse disguised as a letter professing your undying love? Because if it is, then yes I do.”

Pete drums on the space bar of his laptop, adding to the white space in the open email. “Okay, so maybe you do but that doesn’t mean you’re right.”

“I am though. I’m right and you’re setting yourself up for a fiery crash,” Patrick sighs, rubbing his face with his palms. “And then who’s going to deal with the fall out? Me.”

“You know, I am a grown fucking man, Patrick. I’m almost thirty-five. I’m pretty sure I can police my own emotions.”

Patrick’s look is pure disbelief but he doesn’t say anything to that out loud. He does the Patrick thing instead and takes a different road trying to get to the same place, his way.

“You’re trying to adopt a child all of a sudden,” he says, his barely restrained frustration trying to sound calm and reasonable. Like he doesn’t want to beat Pete about the head with a drumstick until he sees sense. “A real child, not a puppy or a band you want to nurture. It’s crazy and also a huge fucking commitment that I’m not even sure I understand. On top of all that you’re trying to reopen old wounds with the one who got away. Do you see what you’re doing? Because from where I’m standing, it looks you’re digging yourself a really deep hole that’s going to cave in on you.”

“Okay, one? He’s mine,” Pete shoots back, holding up his index finger. “He’s my son, Patrick. He just is, okay? I can’t tell you how and I can’t tell you why but I know he belongs with me, all right? I swear to God, he’s supposed to be mine.” He holds up a second finger. “And two, Mikey’s the one who got away because I’ve spent this life being a fucking idiot and let him get away. It’s not like there was a huge fight right? It just ended.”

“Maybe that’s for the best.”

“And maybe it’s not.”

“Yeah, but Pete, maybe it is.”

Pete swallows hard around that possibility and shakes his head. This is fucking purgatory compared to the life he had with Mikey. “It’s not. And even if it were, I can’t just stop loving him. I don’t want to.”

Patrick looks like he wants to smack him. “Just, let me check it for you before you send him anything confessional all right?”

Pete’s fingers click on the keyboard. He doesn’t think before he hits send. He just does it. “Yeah, no.” Patrick stares at him and slams the monitor shut, almost catching Pete’s fingers. “Watch it.”

“What did it say?”

Pete puts on his best innocent expression. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Tell me or I swear to god, Pete, I will cut all your strings and then I’ll go through your laptop and delete everything you’ve written in the last six months.”

“Nothing. Just, you know,” Pete shrugs. “How I feel.” It had been four words, simple and to the point. “I didn’t ramble or make an extra ass of myself.”

“And that’s it?”

“That’s it.”

Patrick doesn’t lift his hand off the top of the laptop. “You know the My Chemical Romance guys will come and kick your ass if you’re messing around here.”

“The Way camp’s harmless. They’re like sharks. Sharp teeth aside, they’re more afraid of you than you are of them.”

“You and I both know that’s not true,” Patrick says. He keeps his hand on the laptop, shifting so that he can pull it into his lap. “He hasn’t answered yet. You think being crazy’s going to change that?”
“I don’t know but it might.” He hopes at least. He sighs and glances over at the TV that’s on mute. The opening credits to Revenge of the Sith are rolling and he jerks his head at it and makes a grabbing gesture for the remote. “Did you want to watch this? We could play the Hayden Christensen drinking game. Every time Anakin whines we drink.”
“The last thing you need is to be drinking right now,” Patrick mutters, clutching Pete’s laptop to his chest. But he unmutes the TV anyway.

His phone buzzes before Palpatine pushes Samuel L. out the window with the Force lightening bolts. He shifts to pull it out of his pocket and there’s a text message with a string of numbers he doesn’t recognize but the area code is straight out of New Jersey.

The text message makes a little beeping noise as he opens it. No heading, no title just wtf staring up at him from the screen accusing.

Pete’s fingers shake a little as he punches in a reply. mikey?

His phone buzzes again and Pete doesn’t fucking care about the fall of the Republic anymore if he ever did to begin with. wut the fuckin fuck pete

i kno Pete texts back. He waits a full scene with no response before he sends another one. i miss u

The reply of r u kidding me? comes fast and now Patrick is looking him. But the phone buzzes again and Pete figures Patrick can look at whatever the hell he wants so long as he doesn’t take Pete’s phone like he took the laptop. u cant do this seems more like a challenge than the protest it actually is.

sorry glad u got the emails tho The cursor blinks at Pete cheerfully, inviting him to continue. i didnt think you still had my number

He can’t remember ever feeling this nervous in the entirety of his relationship with Mikey. He was always so fucking sure of everything, of Mikey and how he felt and how they connected. Sometimes he wondered if he was crazy or moving in the wrong way at the wrong speed but talking to him never twisted him up in knots.

This is worse than dating was in high school because there was no texting to fuck with back then. They would’ve had to have had a real phone call conversation. Pete’s a lot better at those than texts, especially with Mikey. So much gets lost in translation.

i didnt bob got it from patrick after the first email

Pete stares at that for a long time. He texts back </b>call me? I really want to talk to you</b> and hits sends before he turns on Patrick. “You talked to Bob?”

Patrick has the good grace to look sheepish but not sheepish enough by a fucking long shot. ““Um, you weren’t supposed to know? Also, I warned you. I did. You never fucking listen, Pete.”

“You fucking talked to Bob.” Pete still can’t get over that. That Patrick’s had contact, that he might know how Mikey is and could not tell him feels like a punch in the gut.

“Yes, Pete, I talked to Bob. You broke up with Mikey, not me. So excuse me for not letting your personal life dictate who I could be friends with.” Patrick points at him with his laptop, accusing and a little angry himself. “I didn’t decide I couldn’t be friends with them anymore. Maybe if you’d talked to me before you started doing all this crazy shit I could’ve told you.”

“You could’ve told me you were still talking to them on fucking Christmas.” Pete’s fingers clench around his phone, praying for it to ring or vibrate again. “You should have said something.”

“I thought you were having a nervous breakdown. I didn’t want you to do anything crazy.” Patrick pulls the back of his cap and glares back. “But that’s all you’ve been doing lately is crazy so fuck it. Me and Bob still talk and sometimes I trade emails with Gerard but motherfucker, none of that has any bearing on what you’re doing.”

“I’m trying to put the pieces of my life together in a way that makes sense. How is that crazy?” He waves his hands at the huge empty space that is the living room. “How is that worse that settling for this? This is fucking nothing.”

“You’re trying to adopt that kid Bronx and you’re in love with Mikey again after almost ten years. All of it, all of a sudden with no fucking catalyst,” Patrick shoots back. “That is fucking insane.” He drops the laptop onto the couch and is suddenly up in Pete’s face, his cheeks red with anger. “And I’m worried, all right? I’ve been with you when you’ve burnt out too many times Pete. But you wouldn’t just be dragging me down when you hit bottom this time. ”

“I’m not going to hit bottom.”

“Pete.”

“I’m not going to hit fucking bottom.” Pete snarls, hating that his best friend in any reality would think this about him. He can only imagine what the Empty Pete was like but that’s not him. “I’m not self-medicating anymore.”

“Since when?” Patrick cuts in, sounding suspicious, doubting and hopeful all at once.

“Before New Year’s.” Years before, he thinks. Since the mess at the Paramour and the day he realized that he needed to be stable for himself before he could be stable for Mikey. “It’s a mood stabilizer and an anti-depressant and that’s it. I’m clean and sane otherwise and I know what I’m doing.”

“I know you think that.”
“I know. I’m not deluding myself with how much work being a single parent for Bronx is going to be and I’m not in love with Mikey again. It’s not again. It’s still. It’s continuous. ‘Again’ implies that I ever fucking stopped.”
He wants to shake Patrick and he wants to throw his phone at the wall but he does neither. He tries to remember how he manages to stay calm when Bronx tears up the living room or when Mikey let his parenting impulses spill over into their marriage. He can barely remember but it’s a lot of deep breathing and Patrick watches him the whole time.

Patrick tips his head back a little to better look Pete in the eye. “I’m just worried about you,” he says again like repeating it will make it go away.

“I know. But how about you believe in me instead? You’ve believed in me before.”

“It’s not a matter of believing in you or not Pete.”

“Yeah. It really is. Please,” Pete grabs both of Patrick’s shoulders and prays to Clarence or whoever might be listening that Patrick listens and hears what he’s saying. “Trust me to know what I’m doing. Just this once.”

Patrick looks like he wants to say no. He’s got his “hell no” face on and his jaw is clenching like he’s about to start shouting again. But it’s flickering and Pete squeezes his shoulder, pressing the phone still in his hand against Patrick’s shoulder.

“I’ll try, all right? Because you do seem better.” The admission sounds like it’s ripped from Patrick. “You seem.” He sighs. “You don’t seem happy but you seem healthier maybe? Crazy but better. So, I’m behind you.” Patrick laughs a little at himself. “I don’t know why I bother to try and resist.”

Pete grins and doesn’t argue that he’s not really better. Better would be getting home. But he’s making do and he has to have faith that Patrick’s going to believe in him on this. He wraps his arms around Patrick’s neck and pulls him into a tight hug that makes Patrick groan a little over the background noise of Anakin being a whiny homicidal douche.

“Thank you. I’m just doing what I need to.” He smooshes his face into Patrick’s hat. “I’m not crazy. I swear.”

The phone buzzes against Patrick’s back before he can say anything. Pete pulls away like he’s burned and flips open the message. Mikey’s text response of maybe i don’t know well see isn’t the answer Pete was looking for but it’s contact. It’s something and after all these weeks it’s more than a start.
~*~*~
Part 5

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

1|2|3|4|5|6|7

Gerard’s pissed at him for causing this mess when he comes to get Bronx. He reminds Pete of a wet cat, put out and uncomfortable and angry but still kind of cute. But he’s a better guy than Pete is because as they watch Bronx pack his backpack with the most ridiculous things that he will never need four doors down Gerard pulls him into the doorway to warn him.“Don’t be weirded out when shit gets intense okay? This is just how you guys work shit out. You send Bronx over to me and Frank so that you two can fight.”Pete nods and smiles fondly as Bronx grabs out a pair of mismatched pajamas – tops with the X-men, bottoms with candy canes. “Whose idea was that?”“I don’t know. The two of you tend to take it out of each other when you fight and it’s not something Bronx should have to see or hear. Last time you guys did this, you both picked him up the next morning looking like you’d gone ten rounds with a rabid wolverine on no sleep but,” he shrugs as they watch Bronx try to choose between his Séance action figure and the one of the Wolfman. “You got it out of your systems.”“So this is good?”“No, moron, it’s not. You’re missing like ten years of history you need and if you had been less of a selfish douche you wouldn’t need to work out anything else.”“I forgot, all right?” Pete hisses back, wondering how he managed to do that when all he can think about now is Bronx and Mikey and this life that he’s getting more and more at home with. “I’m still getting used to caring this much.”“I know. I know and that’s why I’m even speaking to you.” Gerard elbow checks him, hard, then adds under his breath, “Be fucking careful, okay? Because I love my family and I don’t need you breaking them.”Pete folds his arms over his chest and frowns at Gerard. “I love them too.” He’s still getting used to that. It’s a little uncomfortable like a pair of new shoes but it’s like he’s the one being broken in.“Well that’s something,” Gerard mutters before walking the rest of the way into the room. “You ready to go, little dude? Uncle Frank’s dying to see you. He’s got this new video game and he thinks he can beat you at it. It’s got zombies.”Bronx’s eyes get big. “Fast zombies or slow zombies?”“Both,” Gerard whispers, like it’s a secret.“Are they bloody?”“Very.”“Should he be playing that?”Gerard looks at him incredulously over his shoulder. Then he grins and hoists Bronx – bag and all – onto his hip. “Look at you, mirror Kirk, you’re becoming a real boy.”“At least I’m Kirk in this scenario,” Pete calls after Gerard as he walks down the stairs. He runs after them and catches Gerard before he hits the front door and presses a kiss to Bronx’s cheek. “Have a good night, buddy. Don’t drive them too crazy. Love you.”Bronx wrinkles his face and wipes at his cheek with his hand. “Ugh, Daddy, that’s gross. Slobber.” Gerard’s laughing hard enough that Pete can still hear him after the door’s closed behind them.It’s awhile before Mikey gets back from Manhattan. When he does there’s another hour of strained quiet where Mikey looks at him like he’s a really difficult Sudoku square before Pete snaps. He’s never been patient and he completely lacks impulse control. The tension is making those two flaws act up like freaking shingles under stress.“Fucking stop it, Mikey, Jesus. Just stop staring at me like that. You look like the kid from the fucking Shining.”“That’s because you went Jack fucking Torrance on me and turned into another person. I’ve been trying to figure out how to talk to you about it without you taking the door down with an axe,” Mikey snaps back, looking hurt.“I’ve been a little unstable lately, but I’m getting my shit together and I don’t know why you’re still upset,” Pete says, taking a few steps towards Mikey. “I’m not that different.”Mikey pinches his nose above the bridge of his glasses. “The fact that you can’t see how wrong you are about that is such a fucking sign, you don’t even know.““Look, I’m fucking sorry about the tour okay? But the rest of the guys have already committed and I can’t not go.”“Fuck the tour. It’s not about the fucking tour. I don’t care about the tour. What the fuck about that don’t you get?” Mikey hisses.“I don’t know. If you don’t care about the tour then what?”“I don’t want to fight with you. Okay? You’re trying, I can see that you’re trying so fuck it, I’m trying too. I don’t want to spend the time we have before you leave fighting with you.” He reaches out and slides his hands up Pete’s to his shoulders and wow, this was not what Pete was expecting from this fight at all. Gerard clearly left out some very important details about what the metaphorical wolverine actually got up to.Pete looks down at his hand then up into his face. He’s so close that Pete would barely need to lean forward to kiss him. “I- But- You’re supposed to be pissed at me.”“I am fucking pissed at you. You were selfish and fucking thoughtless but you’ve been off balance for awhile and I’m trying to be fucking patient all right?” His thumbs are rubbing circles that are making it hard for Pete to think. “Maybe touring’s what you need. But I need you to be here, like mentally here, until you leave.”Pete swallows hard and takes Mikey’s thin wrists and lifts them off of him. “I’m here. I just don’t know that we should do this with all this shit between us.”The skin where the long sleeved shirt Mikey’s wearing has pulled back is smooth and warm and he has to fight to focus on what he’s trying to do, which would be the right thing. Probably.“We fuck angry all the time,” Mikey says, stunned. “That’s how we deal with the goddamn angry.”“I just don’t think it'd be a good idea this time.”Mikey jerks his hands back. “Let go of me.”“Mikey, no.”“Let me fucking go, Pete.” He yanks his arms in a way that looks painful. “Now.”Pete tightens his hands on impulse for a brief second before releasing them. Mikey stumbles back a few inches and Pete stares at him, trying to figure out what the fuck just happened. “Sorry. I just - sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”“Of course you didn’t. That’s the first time you touched me with anything like intent in weeks, Pete!” Mikey explodes, charging back into Pete’s space and shoving him a little. “Weeks! I know we’ve got Bronx and everything but fuck. The last time you kissed me was goddamn New Years and I- I don’t fucking know what’s wrong with you. Are you cheating on me? Are you bored? Do you just not fucking care anymore? Just fucking tell me, you asshole, what?”“I’m not thinking or doing any of that. Fuck, Mikey, don’t be stupid, of course I want you.” So much. For so fucking long that when Pete thinks about it makes him feel kind of sick over all the time lost. He’s always prided himself on being self-aware so it’s kind of amazing how deep down he pushed everything.He reaches out and skates his fingers along the strong line of Mikey’s jaw down to his lips. Mikey’s mouth goes from a hard line to soft and inviting under his thumb and this is not fair.None of this is fucking fair. It’s cruel to put Mikey in front of Pete like this, to give him everything he didn’t realize he still wanted more than pretty much anything and have it be someone else’s. Even if that someone is another version of himself. Pete isn’t going to be that guy. He wants to be a better person than that. He’s trying here to be a better person period.“I don’t believe you,” Mikey says. He can feel Mikey’s lips moving.“I do though. Fuck, Mikey, all these years and you’re still the most beautiful fucking thing I’ve ever seen.” Pete shakes his head. “How the hell did you manage that?”Mikey’s hands grasp his waist and pulls their hips together. Mikey’s body isn’t as bony as he was when they were younger but he still fits to Pete’s smaller frame like they were made to click together. He feels so good that Pete is having a hard time keeping his thoughts strung together.“Fuck me, then,” Mikey murmurs, nuzzling Pete’s ear. He’s kind of weak for that one. “I don’t want to keep missing you before you go.”Oh, God, if Pete ever sees Clarence again, he’s going to kick his ass so fucking hard for doing this to him. Mikey’s breath is hot against his skin. He gropes for anything he can think of to say. “This is why Frank and Gerard took Bronx isn’t it?” is not the best response to Mikey working his belt out of his jeans but it’s the best he can manage.“It’s one reason,” Mikey agrees, pulling Pete’s belt free and dropping it to the floor. “One of the better ones actually.”“I can’t, Mikey, fuck, I love you but I can’t.” It’s his last try. Really, it’s all he’s got left. Mikey’s kissing him before he can get out the last “can’t” and he’s powerless.“Missed that too,” Mikey breathes into his mouth. The house is quiet aside from his muted voice and the sound of zippers coming down. “You haven’t told me you loved me since last year.”That’s enough to wake Pete up to the fucking wrongness of this. But it’s not enough to make him stop or pull away or say no again. He’s becoming a better guy but he’s not that good.Instead he lets Mikey press him backwards until they hit the old faded couch. They trip out of their pants on the way and Pete lands under Mikey on the cushion. Pete moans as Mikey’s long thin hands wrap around his cock, his mouth open and wet on Pete’s neck. Fisting his hand in Mikey’s hair and tugging back so that he can get at Mikey's mouth just seems like the thing to do.They’re both gasping when Mikey lets go and pulls back long enough to yank his shirt off over his head. He grabs the hem of Pete’s shirt and tugs it up and alarm bells go off in his head loud and screaming. He pushes at Mikey’s hands. “Don’t.”“Pete what-?”“Just don’t all right?”“I’ve seen all of you, Pete,” Mikey says, like he’s being ridiculous which he is. But there are things missing that Mikey’s going to notice and he might be greedy but he’s not suicidal. “I keep coming back because I like it.”“Then leave it, okay? Just- leave it.”“Did you get a tattoo and fuck it up without telling me or something?”“No I just…I don’t want to.” Pete shrugs and gives him his best reserve smile. “Call it a new kink.”Mikey stares at him for a long moment, clearly debating whether or not to push the issue. Pete holds his breath until Mikey shakes his head and says, “Fuck it.” And then he does, tugging Pete’s boxers the rest of the way down and climbing on top of him on the couch.It’s high school, grinding together with sweaty hands and blind mouths. Pete comes first, guilty and blissed out pulling on Mikey’s hair so hard it has to hurt. He’s glad though because it gives him the presence of mind to watch and listen while Mikey fucks into Pete’s fist.It’s new and familiar at the same time. He’s still quiet during orgasm and he still bites, in this case it’s the fingers of Pete’s free hand. It hurts but Pete’s too caught up in the way the past and present are colliding on top of him to care.Afterwards, they collapse mostly naked on the couch and lie there tangled together under a throw in the narrow space. It reminds him of being crammed into a bunk on Warped. He just doesn’t realize he’s said so out loud until Mikey goes, “Yeah, but this is a little less coffin shaped.”“You ever wonder,” Pete asks, completely unable to help himself. “About how things would be if we’d done things differently after Warped?”Mikey shrugs against him. “Sometimes but not seriously. I mean, this is good, isn’t it?” He tips his head back a little so that Pete can meet his eyes. “I mean, I’m about as happy as anyone gets to be, Pete. Not lately, but you know, in general. I don’t want it to have gone differently.”“Me either,” Pete says, wrapping his arms tighter around Mikey. “I know it doesn’t seem like it but I swear, Mikey, this is better than it could’ve been.”Mikey rolls his eyes from beneath his askew glasses so hard that it looks like it’ll give him a headache. “Well, gee fucking wiz baby, I’m glad you think so.”“So, hypothetically speaking, in a Twilight Zone episode or It’s a Wonderful Life remake or whatever, where we didn’t make it through that summer, do you think we’d still find our way back to each other?” Pete licks his lip against the sudden dryness in his mouth and tastes Mikey on them. It shouldn’t make him more nervous about the answer but it does.“Fuck you, are you serious?” Mikey pokes him in the side where he’s a little sensitive and a lot ticklish and sighs. “You’re an idiot. I married a fucking idiot.”Yeah, that’s not an answer and Pete kind of has to know. He needs the hope. “So that’s a yes?”“When you talk like this I wonder,” Mikey mutters then he pushes up on an elbow and kisses Pete, slowly invading every busy thought crowding his mind. He pulls back long seconds later, a half smile on his lips. “You’ve always been it for me, Pete. I learned patience for you. You think I’d do that for just anyone?”Pete’s throat burns a little and he squeezes the back of Mikey’s neck. “It just kind of blows my mind you know? It’s been all these years and I never stopped loving you.”“I’d hope not,” Mikey says, that half smile turning into a full one that makes Pete feel lit from the inside.“I’m trying to be worth this shit, Mikey. I’m getting there.”“I know. And you know, the tour’ll probably be good for you, get that shit out on stage and come back saner. I’ll punish you for being a fucking douche about it when you get back.” Mikey traces the collar of Pete’s shirt with a finger, pushing the fabric down to brush briefly over his thorns. “Besides, I’ll totally expense trips out to visit you. You know how Bronx loves to fly.”He doesn’t know. He wants to though. He wants to know everything and keep all of it. “Sounds like a plan.”“You just keep your shit together until you guys leave, all right? We’ve got two weeks. Let it be good.” He flattens his hand against Pete’s chest over his heart and the skin where their matching tattoos should be. “Please.”“As you wish.”Mikey lets out of a burst of surprised laughter. “You did not just Farm Boy me.”“Oh I totally did, Buttercup.”“Jesus,” Mikey groans, pressing his hand to his face. “Do not call me that when I’m naked. It’s not sexy.”Pete wiggles his eyebrows and maneuvers as best he can on the narrow space of the couch until he’s on top of Mikey. He pulls Mikey’s glasses off and tosses them onto the coffee table. “I bet I can make it sexy. Buttercup.”Mikey blinks at him, getting used to the new perspective. Then he gives a doubtful snort. “Yeah. I’d love to see you try.”That’s a challenge if Pete ever heard one. And he’s never been able to resist, not a challenge and certainly not Mikey. He dips his mouth to take Mikey’s, and face both head on.They make it to the bed sometime after that. Mikey has him grabbing at the sheets like they’ll anchor him to Earth. Mikey pulls the back of his shirt like it’s a handle, choking Pete in the best way as Mikey fucks him and they collapse in a disgusting heap sometime after Comedy Central turns into infomercials.Frank looks positively smug when he drops Bronx off the next afternoon. He rocks back and forth on his heels, wiggling his eyebrows at the bite marks and bruises in the shape of fingers that paint both of their skins. “You kids have fun?”“Bite me, Frankie,” Mikey shoots back with a flat expression. He ruffles Bronx’s hair absently as he passes into the kitchen.“Looks like Peter took care of that for me.” He giggles a little. “You sure you don’t want me and Gee to take him for another night? Covert shower blowjobs were kinda fun. I’m pretty sure it’s the sneaking,” Frank adds, mostly to Pete. “We never really had to sneak.”“Thanks for that, Frank,” Pete replies, trying not to laugh. It’s an uphill battle but he’s willing. Mostly. Okay he’s totally grinning back. “It’s not like little ears can hear you or anything.”“You two got so lame.” Frank sighs. “It’s sad it really is. What little cool you had to begin with got leached right out of you.”“You wanna stay for dinner?” Mikey calls from the kitchen. He’s already moved on from the conversation.“Pasta?”“Yeah. I saved some of the sauce without meat in it from last time if you want.”“Hells yes.” He’s already fishing his phone out of his pocket. “There’s room for Gerard right?”Mikey makes a rude noise from the kitchen which Bronx parrots. Pete grins at Frank who smiles back and shrugs. It’s a weird moment of understanding as if to say “Ways, they’re crazy but you gotta love them.” And he does. Jesus Christ he really does.~*~*~Pete wakes up to Mikey kissing the back of his neck that way he fucking loves, mostly soft lips with just a little bit of teeth. He sighs a little and leans back into it, glancing at the clock. The alarm’s going to go off in about thirty seconds.“We don’t have time,” Pete murmurs, reaching back to rub the back of Mikey’s neck. “And it’s my day.”“I’ll call him in sick,” Mikey murmurs. His hand slides up the back of Pete’s t-shirt tracing the bad ink on his back. “You’ve only got a few days left.” He bites at a fading bruise. “We should play hooky.”“I thought you were the responsible one.”“Dude, who told you that lie?”Pete rolls over to face Mikey. He shouldn’t be able to look this good this early with the blanket around his waist and his hair sticking up in fifty different directions from the way he slept. Pete’s gotten used to this way too fast and he’s starting to dread the tour as much as he’s looking forward to it. This is too good to leave.“His teacher already kind of hates us.”“She doesn’t understand our progressive lifestyle.”“Patrick, Joe and Andy are coming over to practice,” Pete sighs. “They’re going to be here before I even get done dropping Bronx off at school. I’ve already pushed this back twice.”Mikey flops back in defeat. He groans and throws an arm over his face. “Fine. Go. But we’re rain checking this. I demand a fucking rain check.”“Sir yes sir.”Mikey kicks at him under the covers. “Get out of here before I change my mind.”“Get up, Superman. Time to go save the world,” Pete calls, wondering at how Bronx has managed to turn himself upside-down in his sleep without waking himself up. He nearly falls off when he comes awake and Pete barely manages to catch him. “Easy there. You can’t fly yet.”“Daddy?” Bronx blinks up at him a little confused. “It’s morning.”“For the next few hours.”“And I have to go to school?” Bronx sighs. Pete’s finally figured out that the kid loves school but hates getting up. Pete can relate. Early mornings were always the worst part. Well, that and the shallow, vapid idiots around him. The actual learning was pretty awesome.“Yeah but we’re running late so we’re gonna just grab an Egg McMuffin on the way. Chop chop.”Bronx mutters to himself about stupid school and stupid face teachers making them get up early as he gets dressed a little slower than he probably would if Mikey were the one watching. Pete misses California a little as he helps Bronx pull on a second sweater and ties his shoes. The weather anyway. He misses the weather but as Bronx jumps into clumps of snow on his way out to the minivan, he’s pretty convinced that snow’s got its perks.There’s coffee when he gets back from the school. There’s also Joe, Andy and Patrick clustered in his basement. Andy’s drumming absently on his leg with his sticks while Joe tries to get the tentative set-list for the first few shows printed out on the computer.“I don’t know why you’re bothering with that,” Pete says with a wave at the desktop. “It’s not like we’ve got it finalized.”“It’s easier for me to fight with you when I have it in front of me,” Joe says, distractedly. He finally finds the print button and the list of songs that spits out of the printer across the room is only half recognizable to Pete.“This one,” Pete says, tapping on the third down. “Are we really set on this one? Because the bass line’s been tripping me up for like a week.”Patrick gives him the old familiar “Where did that second head growing out of your neck come from?” look that Pete’s gotten used to over the past few weeks. “You’re kidding right? That’s one of your favorites.”It’s off New London Hearts which means that his grip is shaky at very best and there’s history he still doesn’t know because the journals only gave so much. He’d rather dig up tracks from Take This to Your Grave that he hasn’t played live since he was twenty-five than risk fucking up songs off that album in particular. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea.” He taps on one seven down. “This too.”“Which one?” Andy asks. “I can’t see.”“Uh,” Pete looks down at the paper. “I’m a Car Wreck Under Halogen Glare. It’s not one of the singles.”Andy frowns over the top of his glasses. He looks confused but then Andy and Joe haven’t been around for the worst of the crazy Pete’s been putting everyone through this time. “Dude, we put that one on there so you wouldn’t have to fight for it.”“I’m just not sure it fits there.”“I’m gonna tell Mikey you wanna axe his song,” Andy rubs the back of his neck with one of his sticks and starts up the stairs. “He deserves to know.”“Andy hey, don’t-”Pete is out of shape because Andy’s got the door closed before Pete gets to the bottom of the stairs. It’s a joke, typical shit. But it makes Pete feel sick when Andy sticks his head back in and goes “Your spouse wants to know why you don’t love him anymore.”“I hate you so much.”“Car Wreck stays,” Andy declares. “I like it. Car Wreck’s got one of the best drum parts we’ve ever written and you’ll break Mikey’s heart otherwise.”“Car Wreck stays?” Joe asks. Pete sighs and nods and Joe makes a star next to it.Joe with lists is weird but it goes faster from there. The rest of the band meeting has more music actually being played and there’s an epic fight about whether the Wicked Brew single should go first or last (he says last because you have to keep people waiting, anticipation’s half the fun). It resurfaces in between each song they rehearse and only stops when Mikey opens the door at the top of the stairs.“You guys missed lunch. How are you not dead?”“I eat music,” Patrick replies evenly.There’s a brief pause before Mikey decides that’s insufficient. “Yeah so does Gee. I’m gonna throw you guys down some PopTarts or something.”“I love you!” Joe calls up the stairs.“Me too.” Pete adds, because he can. He can’t argue that everybody’s a little bit less crabby after they eat, even if it is food that reminds Pete of the desperate days in the van or practicing in his parents' garage.Of course rehearsals back then usually ended with Patrick’s mother calling and demanding that they bring him home because it was also a school night. Mikey opening the door at the top of the stairs and saying “Frank’s stealing our son. Come say bye and then kick out the band so I can get my rain check. They’ll get you when you leave.” is a lot better reason to stop than fucking school. At least he thinks so. He’s always found sex to be its own higher education.It takes longer than Pete’s expecting to get the band out and he kind of forgets where he’s supposed to be. He’s still struggling with the songs off that phantom album and his fingers fumble on the bass. It’s frustrating and he frowns down at the strings so intently he doesn’t notice Mikey standing over him until he speaks.“Is that I’m a Car Wreck?”“It’s supposed to be.”“Yeah but what the fuck are you doing to it?”Pete shrugs and frowns down at the bass in his hands. “It’s giving me trouble. I don’t know. I can’t get the bridge right.”“We wrote the bridge together. You usually leave it to do with Patrick but this one we did together. Pete.” Mikey grabs the piece of paper with the tabs resting on Pete’s knee and folds it closed. “Tell me what the chord progression is.”Pete’s fucked. Really truly fucked. “I, uh, I can’t.”“You can’t. You’ve been playing this song for years and you can’t.” Mikey stares at him for a long moment, arms crossed over his chest, the folded tabs for I’m a Car Wreck resting against his chin. “Take off your shirt.”“What? No.”“Take off your fucking shirt, Pete or I will rip it the fuck off you.”Pete sighs and sets the bass on the floor. He gets to his feet carefully and kisses Mikey, with the fight that’s going to ensue, this might be the last chance he gets for a long time. Mikey leans into it, pressing his fingers into Pete’s face. But his eyes are still hard when they break apart and Pete feels sick as he tugs his shirt off over his head.Mikey doesn’t say anything for the longest time. He’s staring at Pete’s chest, hand over his mouth. He stands like that for what feels like hours but is probably just a few seconds before he can figure out what to say.“I… Where is it?”“Where’s what?”“Where’s what? Fuck you. Is that what you’ve been doing? Getting it fucking removed?” His fingertips drag across the smooth skin over Pete’s heart. “It was there Christmas Eve,” Mikey says, mostly to himself, like he’s trying to make sense of this and the gaps and the behavior and all of it. “It should still sort of be there. It takes months. There should be something there so where the fuck did it go?”Pete swallows hard because this is so much harder than it was in the beginning, with Gerard. This is crazy and bizarre and it matters. “It was never there.”“Yes it was.”“No, Mikey, it wasn’t. Not on me.”“Yes it was. We were in the Netherlands and we’d been married like two weeks and you-““That wasn’t me. I was on tour in the US when that happened. I was single and I was fucking bleeding missing you but I wasn’t there.” He catches Mikey by his upper arms. “That was a different me. There’s a me who wasn’t fucking stupid, who held on to you and made this life with you, but that isn’t who I am. I’ve never been him.”“This isn’t funny.”“No,” Pete agrees. But he’s laughing anyway. It’s still too crazy. “It’s so fucking not.”“So what?”Mikey asks, moving carefully away from Pete. Like Pete’s not going to notice the space he’s putting between them. “You think you’re a goddamn alien doppelganger or something? Is that what I’m supposed to believe?”“No. I’m not an alien or anything. I’m Pete Wentz. Just Wentz. No Way. And I’m…” Pete looks at the floor because he can’t deal with the look on Mikey’s face, shock and disbelief and fear all coated in a thick layer of deep aching hurt. “I don’t know, Mikey. I went to bed Christmas Eve alone in my living room in L.A. and I woke up in bed with you.”“And I’m supposed to believe that. I’m supposed to believe that apropos of fucking nothing you traveled from an alternate fucking universe to this one?”“Yeah. Cause it’s the fucking truth.” It’s cold down in the basement and Pete rubs his arms for a moment before he holds them out.“The one you got when Bronx was born is gone too.” Mikey says and that’s news to Pete although it’s not surprising. He watches Mikey’s shoulders sag a little as if under some heavy weight because they both know that even if Pete were really truly trying to up and leave, he’d never try to get rid of any part of Bronx. “You don’t even have a scar.”“That’s because it was never there. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.““Tell me what we did on our second anniversary?”“I don’t know.”“Do you know where you wrote Car Wreck?”“No.”“Our first kiss,” Mikey sounds more than a little desperate and Pete aches for him. “Do you remember our first kiss?”“Yeah. We’d been on Warped all of a week and I stole some comic book from Gerard. He sent you to come get it back and when you reached for it, I kissed you.” Pete gives what he hopes is a warm smile. It feels twisted on his lips though. “I was there for that. I don’t think things changed until after that summer. Pretty much everything after August of ’05 happened different for me.”“Pete,” Mikey says, pleading. He’s begging for him to be kidding, for this to be a joke. Pete bets that he’d be happier if this was a real psychotic break. But he knows it’s not and that has to be worse.“I don’t know how I got here. There was this guy on Christmas Eve and I tried to help him but he, I don’t know, he said I needed to learn something so here I am. I don’t have an explanation beyond that. But Mikey, it doesn’t matter because I love you okay?” He takes a step forward and Mikey flinches so he stops. “I love you and I love Bronx. I know I’m not the guy I’m supposed to be here. We made different choices, me and him, but I’m still Pete. I’m still me.”Pete can see the moment that Mikey switches from fear and confusion to belief and utter heartbreak. It’s like everything in him drops and his eyes get fucking shadowed. He wraps his arms tight around himself like he did during every awful fight and word Pete’s thrown at him and he shakes his head. “No you’re not.”“Mikey-““No.” Mikey hisses through clenched teeth. “Don’t you come fucking near me.”He drags in an audible breath through his nose, processing in his way before he speaks again and Pete waits. He owes him that much. More, but this he can give.“If you’re here where the fuck is my Pete?” Mikey looks up at the ceiling, blinking away tears. When he looks back at Pete his eyes are bright in the low light and his jaw is clenched tight.“I don’t know.”“You don’t know? You don’t fucking know? This is my partner, my fucking life. You know. You know how much I -“ His voice breaks sharply and Pete watches Mikey squeeze his eyes shut.“I think he’s in my life. I mean, he should be right?” Pete asks, hoping for comforting. “My life’s not great but he’s not in any danger, I don’t think. Most of my documented stalkers are pretty harmless.” He grins but the lines around Mikey’s mouth deepen if anything.“He’s trapped there,” Mikey says. “And…you don’t know when- if he’s coming back?”“No,” Pete says. “But Mikey, I mean, he’s me and we love you. I know it doesn’t seem like enough but it’s like…the universal Pete default is to love you. I’m trapped here too but I found you and maybe he’ll find my version of you. Because you’re it for me too. You are.”Mikey’s head is shaking and he’s started to pace. He looks terrified and small despite his height and Pete wishes he could hold him. “I knew you were wrong. God, I fucking knew it and I didn’t do anything.”“What would you have done?”“I don’t know! Anything but this. Jesus Christ,” Mikey moans, rubbing his face with his hands. “I left you alone with my child.”“No,” Pete bursts out. “Okay? No. I would never hurt Bronx. I love that kid so much it fucking hurts, all right? So worry about everything else, but don’t ever worry about Bronx.”Mikey says nothing to that. He just pushes his glasses onto his forehead and presses his hands over his eyes. He doesn’t say anything or make a sound beyond his raspy, choked breathing.“It’s not your fault,” Pete says, finally remembering to pick up his shirt and put it back on. It’s cold but also, maybe if Mikey doesn’t have to look at the evidence it’ll be easier for him when he can look at him again. “I worked really hard to be right and I only told Gerard because, you know, he’s Gerard. And he kind of cornered me my first day.”“Gerard knew about this?”“I…Yeah.”“Since fucking Christmas,” Mikey swore. “He fucking knew and he let me- you both- I’m married, okay? I’m married to Pete and yet I’ve been fucking you for the last two weeks and do you not see how fucking wrong this is?”“I’m Pete.”“You’re not my Pete.” Mikey sounds strangled. “Goddamnit I’m a cheater. You made me a fucking cheater. And he’s… he’s been gone for weeks.” He actually doubles over like he’s been hit. “Fuck, oh fuck.”“He’s me. He’ll forgive you. Hey.” He reaches out to Mikey who flinches away from him.“Don’t touch me.”“I’m sorry.”“Don’t fucking touch me.” Mikey rubs at his face, because he’s crying now and God. Pete really is the worst person fucking ever. “Don’t. Don’t. Just don’t.”“I’m going to go to Gee’s,” Pete says softly. “I’m sorry, Mikey, I really am.”“No,” Mikey says, taking a deep breath and righting himself. “You stay here. You don’t get my brother and my fucking band too. Bad enough you broke into my life.”“This wasn’t my choice. But if I could’ve, I would’ve chosen this life with you.”Mikey doesn’t answer. He just slams up the stairs and out of the basement. Pete follows him and catches the back of him yanking the front door shut so hard that the window in the wall shakes a little.Two hours later Gerard shows up on the porch looking rough as fuck. “You weren’t supposed to tell.” He sighs, flopping onto the couch.“I wasn’t supposed to be here period. That’s kind of the problem.”Gerard nods. “Frank and Bronx have set up shop in a fort in the living room. Mikey locked himself in my guest bedroom. He told me to tell you, on top of fucking yourself, that you’re not to talk to him again unless he talks to you first.”“This fucking sucks.”“It’s fair though. Except for the part where helping you got me kicked out of my own fucking house.”“Sorry.”“You’re the sorriest fucker on planet Earth, Pete.” Gerard sighs, his feet hanging off the arm of the couch. “I don’t see that changing any time soon.”Gerard turns out to be right. They orbit each other for Bronx’s sake in tense silence and Pete sleeps on the couch because that at least feels almost normal. He’s loading his shit onto the bus parked in the driveway before Mikey speaks to him again.“What if he doesn’t come back?” Mikey says, his scarf half hiding his mouth. His bare hands are buried in the pockets of his coat as he watches a tech gently try to place two of Pete’s basses. “You go and you tour and then what?”“I don’t know,” Pete admits. He’s been thinking about it pretty much nonstop since Mikey found out. It’s starting to feel more likely the worse things get. What he’s come up with doesn’t seem sufficient. “I just love you, I guess. And you decide if that’s enough for you if I’m not quite right.”“But you were there in Florida and at Warped?”“Yeah, in ’04 and ’05. I was at the VMAs too although we weren’t together for that so...” He shrugs and lets the implication of difference hang in the air. “There’s other places in between before things broke I think. I’m not quite sure of the specifics but I just missed a lot of the stuff that came after.”Mikey’s glasses are a little foggy around the edges from the winter cold and his body heat warring with each other. But behind them he looks so sad and contemplative and fucking fathomless that Pete has to fight to keep his hands to himself.“It’s not the same.”“No. It wouldn’t be.”“Jesus, Pete, I don’t know here. I don’t fucking know.” Mikey sounds fucking wounded, his breath curling around him in the freezing air.Pete’s natural impulse is to hug but he knows that it’ll make him pull away that much faster. “You decide and let me know okay?” he says instead of reaching out physically. He gives Mikey a wide smile and holds up his cell phone, his fingertips uncovered by the gloves he stole from Frank. “I’m on the other end if you decide you want me to come back.”“You have to. It’s not fair to Bronx if you just disappear.”Or to you, Pete thinks but he just nods. “Then I’ll come back.”“And I’ll, fuck, I’ll call you I guess. Just…” He rubs his head. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. I can’t do this.”“It’s okay,” Pete says because really, he does understand. It’s been what feels like ages for him to adjust but this is all sharp and jagged for Mikey. He remembers the fear and the loss and the unsteadiness that still hasn’t gone away. “I’m going to go say good-bye to Bronx. And, you know, if I don’t see you before I leave.” He stops and manages to give Mikey a wide smile, a real one this time. “I’m sorry it hurt you, Mikeyway, but I’m not sorry I found you again.”“Fuck you so much,” Mikey chokes out. “You’re the biggest asshole I have ever met.”“Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s universal too. And I think you had to have known that when you married the other me.”Mikey laughs, broken and ragged, but it's laughter none the less. And he wraps his arms around Pete’s neck and hugs him tight and silent. Pete hugs him back and wonders if Mikey is hugging him or if he’s pretending that he is Mikey’s Pete.Bronx is easier. He practically leaps into Pete’s arms and Pete clings right back. “I’ll be back before you can miss me,” Pete promises, pressing a kiss to Bronx’s temple.“But I miss you already.” Bronx argues, obstinate and on the verge of tears. Fuck, so is Pete so he doesn’t really care that Bronx is choking the air out of him.“Me too. I love you so much, buddy.” He kisses Bronx on the cheek. This time Bronx is too busy failing at not crying to complain about slobber.Pete pretty much runs onto the bus after that because he may occasionally wear eyeliner even though thirty-four is way too fucking old and write emo songs and shit but he’s not going to cry in front of a little boy. He’s just not. Even after everything there are some lows he won’t stoop to. And Patrick’s a bit of a wreck too, texting with Rihanna before they even pull onto the Jersey Turnpike and that comforts him a little in a vindictive sort of way.The first show is in San Diego – so that the label can get them in on the talk show and late night cycle in L.A. before the still building buzz from Wicked Brew can burn out, Brian tells them – and it’s supposed to be two full days of driving. Pete texts Mikey every time they cross into a new state and he gets a response to his text of im wallowing in missouri.u make me come Mikey texts and follows it seconds later with pletely missourable 2. Pete laughs and exhales for what feels like the first time since everything came out. He smiles a little as Missouri rolls by mostly flat outside his window.They pull into a truck stop in north Texas in the oh-dark-hundred hours of the second day. Everyone needs to eat and restock on junk food and other essentials and Pete goes in search of Skittles and Mountain Dew. He bumps into a guy with a blue trucker hat Patrick would envy pulled low over his face on his way to the wall of coolers and nearly topples them both over. He reaches out and manages to catch the guy and steady them both. “Sorry about that.”“No sweat, Tripp,” The guy says smiling and tilting his head back so that Pete can see movie-star white teeth and a long straight nose. He brushes imaginary lint off Pete’s shoulders. “Accident.”“No,” Pete says, jerking back and shaking his head so fast it makes him a little dizzy. “Fuck you, no. No!”Clarence sighs and rolls his eyes. He’s in flannel and jeans and looks perfectly at home here. “I missed you too.”“You stay the fuck away from me,” Pete says, wondering if crosses will work on whatever the fuck Clarence is like it’s supposed to on vampires. And then he remembers he doesn’t have one on him anyway.“I’m hurt,” Clarence presses a hand to his chest, affronted. “Really. What happened ‘I want my fucking life back’? My god, you are so fickle.”“I’m happy here. I’m not going back, understand? I’m not.”“I love how you think you have any fucking say in the matter.” He’s laughing at Pete with his eyes and his smug fucking face. “It’s cute.”“You can’t do this,” Pete whispers because Patrick is the next row over and he doesn’t want to explain again. He can’t. “You can’t come in and out of innocent people’s lives fucking things up. It’s not fair goddamnit. It’s not right.”“Tripp,” Clarence says, his voice steel and softness all at once. “Relax.”“You fucking relax. This is my life. There’s Bronx and Mikey and I can’t just leave them. I can’t go now. I’m so close to fixing things for them.” He grabs at the flannel shirt Clarence is wearing. “I can’t. Please.”“Look at that. Emotional investment,” Clarence observes, sounding slightly charmed. “Superstar, this was a glimpse. A glimpse is by its very definition temporary.” He rubs Pete’s shoulder gently. “This is not your life, Pete. It never was. You can’t have what’s not yours.”None of that matters. None of it has any fucking weight and Pete has to fight not to drop to his fucking knees and beg.“Hey,” Clarence lets go and steps back, still smiling that People Magazine cover-boy smile. “It’ll be fine.”“Please.” Pete says again, his eyes dropping to the dirty linoleum because he is begging now. And he can’t look at Clarence’s too-pretty face to do it. “Please don’t.”There’s no answer and when he looks up, Clarence is gone. There’s just Andy, standing in front of him with a handful of sunflower seeds and an Arizona tea.“Hey, man, are you crying?” Andy asks, a little stunned.“Allergies.” Pete lies and shoves past him, Mountain Dew forgotten.He curls up on his bunk for hours texting nonsense at Mikey, most of which doesn’t get answered until Patrick pulls open the curtain. “You’re scaring Andy.”“I’m fine.”“Bullshit.”“Patrick-” Pete begins but what the fuck can you say? What the hell is appropriate for this?“Yes?”He decides to go for what he knows because this Patrick deserves to be as happy as his Patrick. Shoving him in that direction is all he can think to leave for his best friend. “You’re going to hang on to her right? Rihanna? Because she’s so good for you, man. She really is.”“I… Pete, it’s kind of new and totally not relevant.”“You should. She’s amazing.”“You met her once.”“I just know.” He gives Patrick a reassuring grin. At least that’s what it’s supposed to be. “I love you, man, you know that? I can’t remember if I’ve told you lately but I do. So fucking much.”Patrick has his worried face on now. Full force. “Are you okay?““I’m just tired.” Patrick doesn’t look convinced but Pete stares back until he leaves him alone. He tugs the curtain closed when Patrick walks back to the lounge and coils around his phone again. He texts thank u to Gerard and as he gets more and more sleepy, he tries calling Mikey one last time. He answers on the fourth ring.“I didn’t think you’d pick up.”“I didn’t know if I would either.”“I just…” Pete rolls onto his back and stares up at the low ceiling of his bunk. There’s a picture of Mikey with Bronx in his arms taped there. “Do you remember when we talked about that Twilight Zone universe?”“The one you actually come from?” Mikey asks, no small hint of bitterness coloring his tone.“Yeah.”“Yes.”Pete drapes his hand over his eyes, a pale imitation of Mikey’s. “Do you think the you there still loves me?” There’s a long silence on the line. It’s long enough that he clears his throat and asks “Mikey?”“I’m here. I’m just thinking.”“Oh. Okay.”There’s more silence and then Mikey sighs. “Probably. I don’t know if I could’ve gotten over you. Him. Fuck, Pete. What the fuck do I know?”“I never got over you. Not really.”“You didn’t?”“No.” Pete says, his voice ragged. A tear pushes past his closed eyelids and wets his palm. “I didn’t. I wrote you a whole fucking album, Mikey. I don’t think I ever get to stop loving you.”“Pete.” Mikey’s voice is strained and thin.“Stay? Will you just…will you stay on the line? Please, you don’t have to say anything, just stay okay? Until I fall asleep.” He wipes at his eyes and blinks back up at the ceiling and the picture taped there. That’s worse than before.“Okay.”“Thank you.”“It’s no big.”“It is. I love you and it is.”“Close your eyes, Pete.”Pete can’t tear his gaze away from the picture above him and wonders how he’s supposed to live without that. “They’re closed.”“No they’re not. Close them.”Pete chuckles a little and shuts his eyes. “They’re closed now.”“Good. You’re safe, Pete. You can rest now,” Mikey says and then he gets on with whatever he’s doing back in Jersey.The phone catches rustling background noises and Pete listens to Mikey breathe as he drifts off. He dreams of shoveling snow off a driveway and the sound of Bronx’s giggles and the taste of Mikey’s skin.~*~*~
Part 6

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

1|2|3|4|5|6|7

Between going to see Bronx and hanging out with Patrick and Rihanna, Pete’s been doing a lot of publicity lately. Like really a lot. Allison apparently called his PR agent Shauna, who Pete still hasn’t met face to face, and she got him on every radio and TV program she could manage. Including SNL which was both really fun and completely humiliating because as much as he loves acting, Jesus he’s incredibly bad at it.

“It’s preemptive positive press,” Shauna declared. “You wanna look good when you turn up with a little boy MJ style. Less crazy creepy rock star, more philanthropic adult with purpose. The Uganda thing is good and the shit you’re doing with group homes is local so it’s better. People eat that shit up.”

“Thanks.”

“Thank me later when you don’t get crucified by Access Hollywood.” She coos at him before continuing to tell him how he’s going to swing by and have a cameo on the Soup later and shoot the intern who replaced Matt.

Pete doesn’t protest because actually? He loves it. He loves all of it so much more than he cares to admit. It’s fun and fuck if he doesn’t love the attention. This part? Is honestly what he always wanted. He likes talking to people and he likes being heard. Hell, he likes putting on a show and really, deep down, maybe he has been a little disappointed that he never got to this point on his own.

The money’s just kind of a bonus. One he’s been incredibly grateful for because it’s made everything with Bronx easier, but definitely not the real prize.

What’s flooring him, now that he’s steeled himself to actually go out in the world on a regular basis, is the people who recognize him on the street. Nervous guys and girls in their teens and their twenties corner him in the supermarket or Starbucks to tell him how much his music means to them, that a lyric he wrote made them feel finally understood. Pete usually ends up hugging these people because, well, he has to.

He’s writing a lot too, more than he has in years. His mind’s in fucking panicky chaos about 80% of the time and he can only call Patrick so often.

Allison calls him and tells him that the judge she wanted is out of the country, family issues with a relative in the UK, and won’t be back for another month. It makes Pete feel sick and he fills up a notebook with ramblings before he gives up and goes over to Patrick’s. He’s not there but Rihanna is. She answers the door in one of Patrick’s argyle sweater vests and a pair of baggy blue jeans over bare feet. She takes one look at him and ushers him inside.

“What if I don’t get him?” Pete says once she’s got him on the couch. “What if something happens before the paper work clears?”

“Nothing’s going to happen, Pete,” she says taking his hand. “And if you’re really worried then be careful crossing the street and wear your seatbelt.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know what you mean. You’re going to be fine. Anyone who’s seen you with him knows that he belongs with you.”

“Patrick thinks I’m crazy.”

“Patrick loves you maybe more than he loves me and his worrying doesn’t have an off switch.” She squeezes his hand. “He supports you, he’s just seen what people say about you can do to you.”

Pete nods and looks down at her tattooed fingers tangled with his. She’s going to be an awesome mom and Patrick’s going to be an amazing dad. The idea actually makes Pete feel a little lighter, a little less afraid.

“You’d talk Patrick into looking after him right?” Pete asks, tracing the webbing on her hand. “If something happened to me.”

“Bronx?”

“Yeah. I mean, I don’t know if you’ve seen me lose it but… If I lose it or can’t take care of him, he can’t say there, in the system. He belongs at home and if not with me-“

“Pete, why are you talking like this?”

“I don’t know. I just – the kid deserves a real life, you know? He deserves a family.”

“You’re going to be his family.”

“So are you,” Pete says. “I mean, you guys are my family so you’re his. It’s the only thing that makes sense. If you can convince Patrick.” His palm is sweaty and he makes himself let go of her so that he can wipe it off on his pants. “Then I’ll call Allison, just in case.”

“If it’ll make you feel better, you know I’ll try.” She tilts her head and her bangs fall over her face. “But you really shouldn’t worry. Things will work out, you’ll see.”

“You’re so certain,” Pete sighs, sinking back into the cushions of the sofa. “I want to live in your brain for like ten minutes. It’d be like a vacation.”

“Your brain’s brilliant, baby.” Rihanna soothes, pulling his head onto her shoulder, her fingers weaving through his hair. “Enjoy it.”

He doesn’t argue with her even though he knows she’s wrong on this one. He just soaks in the contact instead. He’s fucking touch starved without Mikey and Gerard and Frank and Bronx. Leaning against her like this, it’s almost like he’s not hungry anymore.

“So Patrick tells me you’ve been chasing the one that got away,” Rihanna says after a long stretch of companionable silence. “How’s that going?”

Pete turns his face into her shoulder. The fabric smells like Patrick and her soap and he sighs. “It’s not. I mean, we’ve texted a few times.” Short and shallow surface texts that Mikey doesn’t always answer.

“It’s been almost ten years, right? That’s not bad considering. I haven’t spoken to my ex from ten years ago since.”

“Yeah but you had to get a restraining order against him.”

She waves a hand. She doesn’t like to talk about it. “He’s talking to you at all. Trust me, it’s something.”

“I just don’t know if something’s enough.”

“Well let it happen naturally. There’s no rush you know.”

Pete does know and that’s half the goddamn problem. He could have all the time in the fucking world. But sitting with her like this, with Patrick arriving not an hour later, he’s getting better at coping.

“What are you two up to?” Patrick asks, eying them warily as they sit piled together like puppies in a box.

“Pete wants to give us his first born,” Rihanna says as she tugs him down into the mess of limbs. “I told him we’d accept provisionally.”

“What? No.”

“Oh, come on, lover, you know you want to say yes.”

“Yeah lover,” Pete laughs. “Say yes.”

“That is so disturbing,” Patrick shudders but he doesn’t pull away or protest. Rihanna nuzzles her face against his shoulder and Patrick reaches for Pete’s shoulder and squeezes. Pete actually falls asleep like that, his head on Rihanna’s, a little too bony, shoulder and Patrick’s hand anchoring him.

They’re still there when he wakes up, watching TV and whispering to each other. He watches them quietly, envying the easy way that Patrick dips down to kiss her. It’s hard not to miss Mikey so much that it hurts.

He spends the next morning with Bronx and Lilly actually lets Pete take him off campus for breakfast. Bronx’s affinity for pancakes is universal and Pete tries not to watch, enchanted as Bronx makes faces on his chocolate-chip pancakes with the whipped cream. “It’s happy to see us,” Bronx says. Then he turns his plate to face Pete. “Especially you.”

“Can’t be happier than me,” Pete argues. He’s got crepes and they’re way less entertaining that chocolate chip pancakes with banana slice eyes.

Bronx drags his spoon through the whipped cream. “Nuh-uh, see. His smile’s bigger.” Then he looks at Pete. “Okay, maybe not bigger than yours.” Pete laughs and Bronx points, as if that proves his argument. “See!”

“What big teeth I have.”

“The better to eat with,” Bronx agrees around a mouthful of pancakes. “They’re not wolf teeth though. That’d be cool.”

The conversation turns to the pros and cons of having wolf teeth. By the time the check comes, Bronx has a superhero idea that would do Gerard proud. Pete writes the details down on a napkin at Bronx’s insistence and pockets it. “For later,” Bronx says.

It kills him to drop Bronx off at the end of the morning but this limbo’s supposed to be over soon. One day he’ll get to take Bronx home and tuck him in and make sure, in person, that he’s safe. But the morning buoys him to the Soup studio and Joel McHale is funny enough that Pete forgets his drama for a little while they rehearse.

It’s weirdly cathartic to shoot the intern on screen. Joel cracks him up so hard he has to dart off camera to keep from snorting on national television, even if it is cable.

There’s a photo message from Mikey in his phone when they call wrap. It’s a picture of Bunny in a lizard hat batting at a plastic model of a city a laughing Frank is holding in front of her. The text reads bunzilla attacks tokyo. shes moderately successful. It’s also forwarded to Mikey’s Twitter but Pete so doesn’t care.

It’s completely random and totally unsolicited and it makes him smile so hard his face hurts. He leaves the E! studios grinning into the mild California weather. im terrified. let me know before she gets to chicago so i can warn my mom he texts back and manages to not stress out about whether or not Mikey’s going to respond right away. An open door’s almost an invitation and he tries to remember that.

He just drives around downtown LA for awhile after that, clearing his mind and actually enjoying the moment alone. He doesn’t get that very often. For once he’s not running from his own thoughts so it’s kind of nice. He pulls into the Coffee Bean on Sunset because he’ supposed to meet up with Patrick and Rihanna for some premiere tonight and after almost a decade as an honorary Way, he’s become nothing if not moderately caffeine dependent.

Someone joins him at the table halfway through his frappachino. He looks up from the notes he’s making in the Empty Pete’s shiny iPhone and can feel the air sucked out of the room. Clarence is sitting across from him, a cup of black coffee in his hands in khakis and a Zoo York shirt. “Hello, Pete.”

“You.”

Clarence smiles at him. His smile makes Pete’s look positively restrained. “Me.”

“You came back.”

“What? You doubted me? Ye of little fucking faith, son. I’m so disappointed.”

“What are you doing here?” Pete’s dropped to a whisper because he’s suddenly very aware that people watch him, are watching him right now.

“We had our first date here. It was very romantic. I’m trying to recapture the good old days.” He puts his elbows on the table and plants his chin on his knuckles. “Admit it, you miss our witty repartee.”

“You can’t do this.”

“Unbelievable. What is it with you telling me what I can’t fucking do? What gives you the delusion that you have any power to tell a being who ripped you through the fabric of the universe what they can and can’t do.” Clarence shakes his head on his hands. “The hubris inherent in your make up is staggering sometimes. I honestly can’t figure out how you ended up a good person.”

“Hard work and dumb luck?” Pete offers. “Seriously, you can’t take me right now.”

“Oh I can’t?”

“No. I- Bronx. I have to make sure he’s okay.”

“He’s fine.”

“He’s in a fucking orphanage. That’s not fine.”

“He’s where he belongs in this universe. Things are going to happen the way they’re meant to.” Clarence drops one hand to bring his coffee to his lips. “Haven’t you learned to trust that by now?”

Trusting fate, in general, isn’t Pete’s problem. But where Bronx is concerned? “ Fuck no.”

“Too bad, kiddo. The ball’s not in your court anymore. You just have to believe me when I tell you that it’s all going to work out.”

“Can you promise me that he’ll be safe?”

“I don’t need to. I think you know that he’s going to end up exactly where he should be.”

“That’s with me,” Pete says, trying not to squeeze his cup so hard that it spills out all over him. “He belongs with me. Your manipulative power trip shouldn't fuck with a kid. ”

“I’m letting your obnoxious bullshit slide because you’ve been under a lot of stress these past couple months. But don’t fuck with me Peter. The protective dad thing is sweet but the aggressive shit is boring. Be glad I gave you the courtesy of a warning. ”

“I’m boring you? You can’t keep fucking with people’s lives like this if-“ Pete stops when he realizes that there’s no one there. The black coffee is the only thing sitting opposite him.

He texts Patrick that he’s going to be late and tears across town to the group home. With traffic on the 405 he gets there just in time for dinner. Lilly catches him at the door. “You’re supposed to call first.”

“I know. I’m sorry. It’s just…I might be leaving tomorrow and I didn’t want to go without saying goodbye.”

Lilly likes him all right but she loves her kids so she allows it grudgingly. He helps her cook and he eats dinner sandwiched between Bronx and Dylan, who is the oldest now that Vanessa’s found a foster home.

He stays through the evening. He watches Bronx color and somehow manages to broach the whole leaving thing. It’s harder to start that kind of conversation with a five year old that it’d seem. “I’m not leaving because I don’t love you though, okay? And hopefully I’ll be back really soon okay?”

Bronx nods, distracted. “Okay.”

“I love you so much, Bronx. Don’t forget that.”

Bronx nods again, his tongue peaking out the corner of his lip as he tries to get the teeth on his wolf man right. Pete settles for watching him and doesn’t press it further.

Lilly lets him help tuck Bronx in. It’s alien and awful to have to be given permission to put his son to sleep. At least he gets to be there, securing the covers around Bronx and singing his lullaby to him in a low voice. Lilly watches from the door and Pete kisses Bronx’s forehead and whispers that he loves him one last time before he pushes to his feet and forces himself to walk out of the bedroom that Bronx shares with another boy a year older than he is.

“You’ll take care of him?” Pete asks Lilly, lingering at the front door. Her face softens at that.

“I took care of him fine before you got here, Pete. I’ll be able to manage while you’re away.”

Pete bites his lip to keep from arguing or protesting and begging that she just send him to Patrick and Rihanna, that she do something. Instead he hugs her, quick and tight, and then darts to his car before he can say or do anything else stupid.

He meets up with Patrick inside the premier, which is for Wicked Brew which Pete still can’t get over not being a part of in this universe. They’re milling around in the lobby, snagging hors d'oeuvres off passing plates and enjoying each others company more than the famous teen set that’s enjoying their first blush of fame. He grabs both of them into a group hug when he sees them and clings long enough that a few flash bulbs go off.

“Pete,” Patrick chokes out, slapping him on the back a few times with one hand while trying to hold his hat on with the other. “I can’t breathe.”

Pete lets go with a jerky movement and gives them both a sheepish smile. “Sorry. I can’t stay long. I just wanted to tell you I love you both.”

“That’s sweet and weird of you,” Rihanna laughs.

“So standard,” Patrick agrees, amused but confused.

Pete darts in and kisses them both on the cheek. They’re amazing and his words are failing him so he leaves it at that. Then he’s out of the theater and on his way back to the house.

He writes for hours, leaving notes and pieces of torn paper and post-its everywhere he can think of. There’s so much he needs to get across and not enough time. He falls asleep on the couch half way through scrawling a sentence in a paper notebook, the pen falling from his limp fingers onto Hemmy’s back where he sleeps on the floor.
~*~*~Pete wakes up on the couch of his living room in LA to see Hemmy panting in his face, his fifteen foot ceiling over his head. There’s a moment where Pete genuinely can’t move, can’t even breathe for the loss. When he can, he gets up off the couch, pads to his huge empty bed in his bedroom and pulls the covers up over his head. It’s a solid two days before he can pull his shit together enough to do anything but feed and walk Hemmy.He drifts through his house in a daze, trying to relearn the terrain and reacclimatize to the absence. It’s like none of it every happened; all these people who he loved have as good as died for all that he can reach them. Here he hasn’t spoken to Mikey in years and Bronx … Thinking about Bronx is about half the reason he can barely move.It sounds stupid to say, though. Patrick calls him a couple times the first day, but Pete can’t talk to him. What do you say anyway to someone who isn’t as far out in the stratosphere as Gerard Way? “So, you know the last two months? Well I don’t remember any of it because I wasn’t here. I was in a parallel universe.” Yeah, no.He can’t do it again. He can’t. He’s supposed to be in San Diego, he’s supposed to be- it doesn’t matter, really. None of it does, because even if it did happen, it didn’t happen here.Pete’s a good wallower. He’s let his thoughts drag him down so far that he couldn’t see fucking daylight over less damaging shit than this. So he just needs some time to remember how to function alone, that’s all. That’s what he tells himself when he turns his phone off and lets himself sink into thoughtlessness. He’s just bouncing back.Part of bouncing back is remembering to eat, so he lets Hemmy’s concerned whining push him up and into the kitchen. He’s fishing in his surprisingly full refrigerator for something that won’t trigger a sense memory of missing Bronx and Mikey and Gerard and Frank when he realizes there’s something on the door. It’s a note taped in his own handwriting, Memento style with two drug names he’s come to recognize, and underneath which it says Take with food, x2 a day. Don’t forget. Pete stares at it for the longest time before it hits him why everything in his fridge is familiar. It’s like one of those find the hidden picture illusions, where it’s all swirling shapes until you know where to look, and then it’s obvious. There’s a string of post-its on the cabinets. Go check your computer the first one reads. Computer or notebook – go now on top of the water faucet.Now is underlined twice, and Pete’s a little afraid to see what the man he’d been holding the space for has left for him. There’s one on the door to his bedroom that’s a full sheet of paper that reads Bronx is here too – if you have a fucking soul, get it together and handle this, and Pete’s more afraid if anything. But he doesn’t put it off anymore.He wants to cry with relief when he opens his laptop. There’s a list of directions to Word documents ranked in order of importance, and the number one file is full of Bronx. He’s not sure if it’s better or worse, this proof of how fucking real it all was, that he didn’t just go to sleep and have some crazy dream after too many pills and too much eggnog.But it was real and the married Pete was here, living his own life better than Pete did. He got him properly medicated and found Bronx and was just generally more skilled at living life than Pete seems to be. It’s kind of humiliating, actually, to know that no matter which world he’s in, the other version was clearly superior.At the bottom of the Bronx Word doc, the font changes from standard Times to a curving Papyrus that Pete probably would’ve picked himself. Try. I know you can do this. Don’t make me wrong about me.For once, Pete actually waits and reads the rest of the files before he acts. It’s night, so he can’t run off to find his Bronx, but he’s trying to be sane about things. He learned that shit the hard way, and he’s not doing it again. That part he can get right in his own life. Or he can try to, anyway.Things with Mikey are less cut and dried than with Bronx. He’s afraid to open the emails that got sent while he was away. He doesn’t want to see, because as long as he doesn’t, he can cling to what Mikey told him, to the possibility of possibility. It’s easier, and he’s not that brave when it comes to Mikey, not like he is with Bronx.He charges his phone and manages to get about two hours of sleep before he comes all the way out of his skin. It’s more than he would’ve been able to manage before. But really, he’s only got so much self-control.“Back from your trip already?” Lilly the social worker or whatever says when he calls. “Or is your lack of faith in me so deep that you had to check to see if your boy’s still in one piece?“Is he?” Pete asks, trying for casual but feeling like he’s thirteen and asking a girl to a dance for the first time. Only times a billion.“He misses you. There’s art waiting for you.”“I’m supposed to call ahead before I come over, though.”“Are you calling ahead?”“Um, yes?”There’s the sound of rustling papers. “What time? Because he has school, and then there’s the after school art program.”“Whenever.”There’s another pause. “You’re far less pushy than usual today.”“I’ve kind of had an attitude adjustment while I was away,” Pete says. Then he laughs because if that’s not the understatement of the century, he doesn’t know what is.“You’re not less serious are you?”“You just tell me what time and I’ll be there.”“Four thirty.”“It’s a date then. What color’s your dress? I want to get the right corsage.”“Not that big an adjustment then,” Lilly sighs before hanging up on him. It shouldn’t comfort him to know that’s the kind of person in primary care of Bronx, but it does.The hours drag by to four thirty, kicking and screaming. He doesn’t really know how to fill the day without music or family. Pete tries to remember what he did with all his time before the glimpse. There’s Clandestine and Decaydance, but he can’t really make himself focus on any of that.“Patrick will you drive me to see Bronx?” Pete asks, the phone pressed tight to his ear. It’s the first he’s spoken to Patrick since he got back, but his hands are shaking and the last thing he wants to do is wreck.“Why? You’re not drunk or anything, are you?” Patrick asks, mostly teasing.“I just miss your face.”“Seriously.”“Seriously, I need a ride. Pretty please?”“Now?”“So we get there by four thirty.”Patrick’s constancy is possibly the most amazing thing in the universe, because he gets there twenty minutes later, even with traffic. He doesn’t ask any questions when Pete comes out with unwashed hair and his most worn out pair of jeans, but otherwise sober and sane. Pete can only guess what he’s been putting up with lately if this request doesn’t even raise an eyebrow, but he’s grateful. And he missed him.“You going to come in?” Pete asks when they arrive at the group home. He’s hoping Patrick will say yes and no at the same time. It’s vaguely dissociative and it does nothing for the panic that has taken over his nervous system in the time it’s taken them to cross town.“I’m good here,” Patrick says, pulling his phone out of his pocket.“Right. Okay.” He tries to think of something else to stay, to stall. He’s scared, but he also doesn’t want Patrick to give him the second head look. So he clambers out of the car and up the steps of the group home, which is an actual house.He was expecting something more Dickensian and sad. Lilly’s a lot younger than he was expecting, too. And she’s smiling at him. “You’re late.”“I’m right on time.”“Well, you might as well be. Someone missed you.”It’s like Christmas morning, the way Bronx throws himself at Pete. It makes his breath catch and his heart stop as he looks down at the boy who’s trying to squeeze him in half and grin up at him at the same time. The eyes, the ears, the hair, the fucking light is all the same. But he’s different, just a little, in intangible ways that call to Pete on a primal level that screams “mine” through Pete’s whole body.“Hey,” Pete laughs, trying not to cry as he hugs back as best he can with Bronx all the way down there and clinging tight. “Hey, I missed you.”“I missed you morer.”“More.” Pete corrects on impulse, a habit he doesn’t want to break. “And I bet I missed you the mostest.”“Most.”Pete reaches down and picks him up, and Bronx laughs. He laughs, and Pete can take a deep breath in without it hurting because one of the missing pieces clicks into place. “So what’ve you been up to while I was gone?”Bronx talks with his hands more than the one Pete’s used to, like he’s fighting to get noticed, and it nearly takes out his eye. But, Jesus, Pete really doesn’t care. He doesn’t care because Bronx fits in his arms perfectly. It’s hard to be upset about anything when Bronx smiles like Pete remembers, except now one of his bottom teeth is loose.“I can wiggle it with my tongue like this,” Bronx says and then shows him, opening his mouth extra wide in case Pete can’t see. Pete watches way longer than your average parent would probably indulge in because it’s something to watch, and as long as he’s looking at Bronx he can remind himself that this is real. It’s happening. He doesn’t have to be hollow and empty anymore just because he can’t have that life he left that was never really his.“And Angela pulled her tooth out with a string around the door, but it looked stupid and it got all bloody everywhere, and besides Dylan says there’s no tooth fairy anyway.”“Yeah, well, maybe Dylan’s not cool enough for him to come, because there’s definitely a tooth fairy.”“There is?”“Totally. His name’s Frank and he’s like this big.“ Pete squeezes his fingers together. “His tattoos are magic, and he only visits the most awesome kids when they lose their teeth. No wings, though. He wears tiaras sometimes, though. Those are magic, too.”Bronx is rapt and Pete somehow manages to translate an old Warped story into a G-rated tooth-centric fairytale. It’s new and familiar, all at the same time. Pete cracks up at the idea of Frank Ireo as the tooth fairy. Mostly, he wants Bronx to meet him one day. And Gerard, who he’s pretty sure he can cast as the Easter Bunny and-He makes himself stop because the “and” encompasses lots of things. Too many, too far away to think about right now. That was one of the notes the other Pete left him, that he can only pull things together one piece at a time.“How do you know he’s real?”“We used to be friends.”“Did you make him mad?” Bronx frowns. “Is he still gonna take my tooth if you adopt me?”“When I adopt you.” Fuck if. “And yeah, he definitely will.”Bronx grins and rests his head on Pete’s shoulder. Lilly watches them and Pete’s pretty sure he catches her smiling at them. He smiles back at her, and she rolls her eyes before leaving the room to go handle an issue with another child.“When are you going to adopt me?”“I don’t know. As soon as they let me.”“Who’s they?”“I have no idea. But I’m gonna make sure they stop messing around already.”“Good. Because I want you to be my dad already.” Bronx sighs, annoyed, like he's waiting for a favorite TV show to come back from hiatus. Pete doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t trust himself to speak, but it’s okay because Bronx has enough to say for both of them.Lilly kicks him out before dinner, which sucks, but he understands. She and the rest of the people running the house are trying to keep things normal and Pete’s presence, although clearly familiar, is anything but.“Sing me the bear song before you go?” Bronx asks when Pete says goodbye, a little shyly, like he’s embarrassed. “I know it’s not bedtime, but I like it.”“It’s our favorite,” Pete agrees. He kneels so that Bronx can curl up in Pete’s lap and rest his head on Pete’s shoulder. Pete sings softly into Bronx’s ear and rocks him back and forth as best he can at the awkward angle.He doesn’t know how he lets Bronx go, but he does somehow. He feels crushed at having to walk away, but mostly he’s so elated at having found him. It’s almost too much to deal with after everything, and Pete feels shaky.Patrick’s moved onto the hood of his car by the time Pete comes out, and he looks when Pete comes to stand beside the car. He tilts his head and smiles. “Feel better?”“Happy’s too simple. I just feel period,” Pete replies and slides into the car. “I can’t believe he’s right there, Patrick. It’s like a miracle, you know? He’s here. He’s really here.” He looks upwards and blinks a few times because he’s not going to cry. This is a good thing.Patrick stares at him, the key unturned in the ignition. His expression has a tinge of confusion, but it’s not hostile confusion like the second head look. It’s more like trying to read in a foreign language that hasn’t been studied in years, all slow understanding.“You’re serious.”Pete feels a little like he’s just been smacked. “You think I’m kidding?”“No. No, I know you meant it. It’s not you.” Patrick sighs and adjusts his hat. “It’s just been hard for me to get where you’re coming from. I see it better now, though. You really love that kid. Really.”Pete chuckles, an almost soundless burst of air and leans back. “Yeah. So fucking really.”“I’m sorry.”Pete waves a hand. He doesn’t know what Patrick’s talking about and it doesn’t matter. Not compared to this. “It’s forgotten.”“No, Pete-““Trust me. It’s forgotten. Everything, whatever, it’s good, Trick. Thanks for taking me out here.”“No problem. Just call me earlier next time, okay?” Patrick smiles at him sideways for a moment, then starts the car. “I’ll come in with you.”Pete nods and tips his head back. It’s not the same, but this Patrick is his, the one he built this life with. Fuck, but Pete really did miss him, this, the ease and fearlessness and comfort that is Patrick beside him. It’s another piece, and he drags it towards him. “You wanna be Bronx’s godfather?”Patrick laughs and swerves a little towards the curb. “Fuck you.”“I’m totally serious. You should be. I bet he’d be cool with it. Besides, you’re going to be Uncle Patrick anyway.”“That sounds weird.”So does “father,” but Pete’s dying for it. He’s aching for Bronx and for Mikey, a country and almost a decade away. He wants it all and he wants it to be worthy. “Weird but good.”“Yeah. Weird but good.” Patrick keeps his eyes notably on the road when he says, “I guess I can if he doesn’t mind.”“He won’t. He’ll love you,” Pete says, feeling sure for the first time since he woke up back on his couch. “Trust me.”~*~*~
Part 7

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

1|2|3|4|5|6|7

Pete wakes up in the dark. For a second he’s fucking sure that he’s somewhere else. He has a burst of panic that he pushed Clarence too far and now he’s in some fucked up new universe that doesn’t just suck but is an actual nightmare, and he’s dead or underground or something. And then he sees a hint of light from under a curtain and, well, he’s still not sure he’s not in the wrong place but at least he hasn’t arrived in a horror film.
Pete pulls the curtain back and blinks in the light. He’s on a bus which tells him very little. He could have done a Sliders and arrived in yet another Pete’s life.
But now that he can see, he’s lying in a bunk that has the very beginnings of tour mess beginning to accumulate. There’s an empty Skittles wrapper in the crease by the wall and his cell phone by his hand. But on the ceiling there’s a picture of Mikey and Bronx at a water park that Pete took himself with a waterproof disposable camera the last time they were on a summer tour. He snatches it off and is stopped by the sight of his wedding ring back on his hand, where it belongs. The gentle weight of the iron knuckles necklace is back too.

He scrambles for his phone because he hasn’t been on the road long. They can’t be too far right? He hits number one on the speed dial and holds his breath. It rings forever with no answer but Mikey’s voice mail message.

He tries ten more times before he gives up and rolls out of the bunk. He needs to see someone, anyone, familiar. Right now, he might as well still be back in that other life.

But the bus is empty and parked. Pete stumbles out into a venue he vaguely recognizes and wanders inside. He runs into Patrick backstage and clings to him.

It doesn’t even slow Patrick down. “Hey. I was coming to get you. We’ve got sound check.”

“Sound check.”

“Yes. Sound check. Come on.”

Pete’s figured out that he’s in San Diego by the time they’re done with sound check. But he can’t get a hold of Mikey and no one has any idea why. He even has Patrick try calling from his phone, but when Mikey does pick up all Patrick gets is that Mikey doesn’t really want to talk to Pete after last night though Patrick says Mikey didn’t elaborate on what happened. He has to fake it through the show and at the end of it all, he still doesn’t feel like he’s home.

He needs to get back to Jersey. He needs to get home to Mikey and Bronx. He did not come through the walls of fucking reality just to get stuck three thousand miles away, goddamnit.

Of course Andy’s lack of respect for his personal space gets him ratted out before he can finish buying his ticket. Then it’s a fucking powwow with the whole band, and Brian on speakerphone. Pete hasn’t been back long enough to have any idea what the fuck is going on beyond the fact that these people, who he loves and missed, are getting in the way of him seeing his family.

“I just need a day,” Pete says, fisting his hands in his hair and tugging. “One fucking day. This could be my marriage.”

“There’s not time,” Brian says, ever the business brain and tiny over the phone. “The Grammys are in 3 days.”

“Okay, so I’ll miss what, Anaheim and San Jose?”

“Oakland,” Joe says. “We’re not doing San Jose this time.”

“And four radio interviews, Kimmel and Conan,” Patrick says. “You can’t leave us alone for that.”

“Fuck, I don’t know. I’ll call in or something. But you can get someone to fill in for the next two shows and I will be back for the Grammys, all right? One night, two days if you count travel time. Guys. Please.” He’s begging but he lost his pride ages ago.

“If I got you on The View in the morning would you be willing to go?”Brian asks. Pete laughs, because really, he’ll play at a county fair in the livestock exhibit if they’ll just drive his ass to the airport already.

“Don’t ever fucking change, Schechter. Seriously.”

Pete doesn’t pack. He steals back the laptop from Andy and books the earliest flight out of San Diego to LaGuardia, which leaves at four in the morning. He grabs his phone, keys, wallet, and the picture out of the bunk when he goes.

The wait at the airport is two hours and the flight is another seven, and Pete spends the whole time coming out of his skin. He tries not to think too much. If he lets himself, he can imagine a hundred different ways the Empty Pete could have ruined his life.

He doesn’t realize he doesn’t have a car until he gets to New York. And his go-to New Yorkers are all out west. Well, there’s Brian, but Brian’s trying to do damage control and Pete doesn’t want to push him.

He’s weighing the train over grabbing a cab when his phone buzzes in his pocket. He wants it to be Mikey, but he’s relieved when he sees Gerard’s name.

“You’re in New York? Why are you in New York? I’m like ten minutes from the airport. Brian called me.”

“He’s fucking magic.”

“It’s scary. Just sit tight, all right?” Gerard pulls up five minutes later and Pete climbs in. He kind of forgot how much he missed his stupid face. Gerard is frowning at him, though, as best he can while driving.

“Just ask.” Pete says, sinking into the familiarity of Gerard’s car. “I can see it in your face.”
“Did you not learn the songs or something?” Gerard asks. “I know you were having trouble with learning the stuff of New London Hearts but you were getting pretty good at faking it.”
“Faking it.”

“Yeah.”

“Mikey’s not talking to me.”

“Well, you have to give him some time to get used to the whole-“ Gerard lets go of the steering wheel with both hands to make a wave hand gesture like Wayne and Garth calling forth a flashback. “Alternate reality thing.”

The idea that Mikey knows, hell that Gerard does, and that they both bought it makes him a little dizzy. “Gerard, hey.” Pete reaches out and grabs his shoulder. “Pull over.”

“We’re on the highway, I can’t. Why?”

“Because I don’t want you to wreck trying to find proof that I’m back.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“No, damnit, Gee, it’s me. It’s Pete. Come on, man. You’re my fucking brother. If you don’t believe me, who’s going to?”

Gerard yanks the car across three lanes of traffic and onto the shoulder. Pete’s gripping the inner door handle with white knuckles when Gerard comes to a rubber-burning halt. He hits his hazard lights and shifts in his seat. He studies Pete’s face for the full length of the song that’s playing on the car stereo, then his eyes get big and desperately hopeful. “Pete?”

Pete laughs. He hopes to fuck that Mikey’s this easy. “I missed you, Gee. I really fucking did.”

“I- Yeah. Yeah.” Gerard takes a few deep breaths, then turns his hazards off. Pete watches as Gerard looks resolutely at the road, ignoring the way tears are threatening. “I saved your Christmas present for you.”

Pete doesn’t say anything to that. He just squeezes the shoulder he’s still resting his hand on. They drive back to Jersey in a fragile quiet that is the most normal thing Pete’s experienced since Christmas Eve.

“Is he even there?” Pete asks, afraid of the answer.

But Gerard nods. “I don’t know why he wouldn’t be. It’s not like Bronx-“

“He won’t be out of school for another two hours,” Pete nods. “It’s just, he hasn’t been answering the phone. And maybe you told him I was coming.”

“I didn’t say anything. This is your – his – mess. Mikey didn’t ask. I didn’t tell. He’s been keeping to himself mostly since he found out, anyway.”

“But he’s there?”

“As far as I know. But it’ll be okay. He used to talk for fucking hours before it all came out, wondering what was wrong with him. He missed you even when he didn’t know you were gone.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Well, yeah.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Does it help that it’s because he loves you?”

“A little, yeah. Thanks. For pretty much everything.”

Gerard blinks at him. Then he makes an “oh yeah” face, like he just figured something out. He gives Pete a lopsided hug. “Thanks for coming back.”

“Yeah, well, I’m just fucking glad to be back.” That’s pretty much the thought Pete hangs onto as he steps out of Gerard’s car and onto his driveway. He missed this house and the yard and the front door with its welcome mat and the paint peeling on the corner of the door that he’s going to fix when it gets warmer.

He takes a deep breath when he opens the door. “Mikey?” he calls, needing Mikey to answer. He can’t go through the sensation of discovering an empty house again. “Mikey, are you here?”

There’s a pause where Pete’s sure that Gerard and the cars in the driveway were all wrong before he hears footsteps on the stairs from the second floor. Mikey’s pulling earbuds out of his ears as he approaches. His hair is sticking up everywhere and he’s wearing a pair of Pete’s jeans and one of his old Journey t-shirts, Piglet and Hemmy on his heels. He looks so good that Pete could fucking cry.

“Pete?” Mikey’s loose stance disappears at the sight of him. His whole body stiffens and he pulls back, visibly. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in California.”

“I’m back.”

Mikey frowns, his arms folded over his chest in classic defensive posture. “Yeah, I can see that. Just tonight?”

“Yeah but that’s not what meant, Mikey. Babe.” Pete swallows around the burning sensation in his throat. Maybe he’s crying a little. “I’m back.”

Mikey doesn’t move. He doesn’t blink and as far as Pete can tell, he doesn’t even breathe. Pete crosses the space between them and takes Mikey’s face in his hands, tears threatening to push free at the first feel of his skin.

Pete doesn’t think. He just kisses him, because it’s the longest he’s gone without kissing him ever, and he needs that streak to end now. He strokes his thumb over the spot under Mikey’s ear that will unlock him when nothing else will, and Mikey sinks into it.

A strangled whimpering noise claws its way into the kiss and they break for air. Pete doesn’t let him go far, not now. Not ever fucking again, if he has any say. “Mikey, God, Mikey, love you,” Pete breathes, nuzzling against the side of his face.

Mikey leans into it for all of half a minute before he pushes Pete away, head shaking. Pete watches as he hugs himself, Mikey Self Defense 101, and swallows hard. “Take off your shirt.”

Okay, that’s weird, but seriously what the fuck ever. If it gets Mikey to untangle himself and come back, he’ll do anything. He shrugs out of his coat and yanks his shirt over his head and drops it to the floor.

Mikey’s eyes take him in, darting across his chest. Then Mikey pounces, practically crawling up him and his back hits the nearest wall with a thud. Pete isn’t really prepared for the impact, but fuck it. Mikey’s hands are in his hair and his mouth is kissing every piece of skin he can reach, so Pete just braces himself against the wall as best he can and tries to hold them both up.

But he’s not a kid anymore and his knees only have so much to give after years of soccer. And even if he were a champion weightlifter, Mikey’s mumbling something over and over that Pete can’t make out and he sounds fucking broken about it, and Pete needs to figure out what he’s saying.

They stand together, leaning against the wall. Mikey has his feet firmly on the floor and is bent forward, mouthing along Pete’s neck, his hands clinging to skin murmuring over and over. “Mikey, hey, what?”

“I’m sorry,” Mikey chokes out. “I thought he was you and I- I didn’t know Pete. I didn’t know until after and I’m so fucking sorry.”

Pete strokes the back of Mikey’s neck and puts two and two together to discover he doesn’t give a flying fuck. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not. I just – I was trying to fix things and he was you. He was you but wrong, and I didn’t know. I love you. I wouldn’t have fucked up if I knew.” He sounds miserable and guilty. It isn’t really the reunion Pete fantasized about, alone in that big house for months.

“You thought he was me.”

“Yeah. It’s not- I’m just so fucking sorry.”

“No, I mean, you thought he was me, so it’s okay. It’s not like you called up your high school ex and fucked her or something. It doesn’t matter, okay, so kiss me again, all right? I missed you so fucking much, Mikey, you don’t even know.”
And because Mikey is the best husband a person can ask for, he obliges Pete, kissing him and tugging him back off the wall. They manage to get all the way upstairs to their bedroom without tripping over the dogs before the rest of their clothes come off and Pete loses himself in fucking his Mikey in his bed. It’s fast and messy and desperate and Mikey fixates on the tattoo on his chest, tracing it with his fingers and scraping over it with his teeth.
Pete barely has the energy to get under covers afterwards, but he does anyway because he misses being in bed with Mikey. They curl around each other and Pete tries to remember if this was always this good or if it somehow got better while he was gone. He’s going to go with both.

Mikey’s head is on his shoulder and he keeps tracing the Ws on Pete’s chest over and over. Pete drifts until Mikey stops and lifts his head to look at the clock. “Fuck,” he sighs, dropping his head a little bit too hard back onto Pete’s shoulder. “It’s almost two.”

“I’ll go get him,” Pete says, sitting up. “Stay. Just stay here like this.”

“Yeah, no,” Mikey says. Pete knows that tone, and that’s the end of it.

The normalcy of going to the elementary school to get Bronx is almost surreal. Of course Mikey taking his hand and refusing to let go is less than standard. So is the way they keep looking at each other, like they’re afraid that if they don’t, the other will disappear.

Pete has to restrain himself from running out of the car when the bell rings and Bronx’s teacher appears with a line of kindergartners behind her like ducklings. He gets out like a sane human being and not a crazy ball of fail, and he’s rewarded when Bronx spots him. His son’s voice yelling, “Daddy!” is possibly the best thing Pete has ever heard.
He comes at Pete at a run, like Bronx is the one who’s been alone for two months. Pete catches him and picks him up, and Bronx fucking laughs. He laughs and his face is red from the cold under the knit hat he’s wearing, and Pete finally feels all the way home.
“Careful,” Mikey chuckles, coming up beside him. He leans over and reaches out a hand behind Bronx’s back just in case, his chest flush against Pete’s side.

“He can fly. Can’t you, baby boy?”

“Yep,” Bronx says, giggling against Pete’s cheek. “I’m Superman.”

Mikey smiles, big like usually only happens in flashes, but this time it lingers. “Dad’s only here for one night, so we should go home. That cool with you, Kal-El?”

Bronx nods, but Pete has to shift him in his arms so he can kiss Mikey, right there on the pick-up lane of Bronx’s school. He can’t help it. He’s home. It doesn’t even matter that he has to leave again tomorrow. He’s finally, finally home.
~*~*~Pete throws himself into work now that he’s back, the more musically inclined side of it in particular, mostly so he won’t spend all his time badgering Allison. The other Pete left him all the paperwork from foster parenting classes completed and forms filled, so all that’s left is permission and that’s down to Allison’s legal Jedi powers.She’s annoyed, but then she always is. Three weeks into what’s become his ritual of calling her right around dinner time to try and make her understand this time why it sucks that there’s all this delay, she cuts off his ramble about half way through and tells him she’ll call him back later with news. Later, in Allison, is usually less than one business day, and she calls back at ass o’clock in the morning. Which is somewhere between seven and eight am.“Judge Mallory wasn’t happy to hear from me.”Fuck. Shit. Damn. “He wasn’t?”“No. He’s not fan of pushy celebrities with entitlement issues.” She pauses and Pete feels like his heart’s going to stop beating or explode or something. But then she sighs, loudly in his ears. “But he was also a product of the foster care system himself, so you lucked out.”“Fuck you.”“No, the correct answer is ‘Thank you Allison, you’re a goddess and I’ll be sending you a blank check for your birthday.’ ““You are. I am.” He has to make his hand relax on the phone so he doesn’t break it or slip it out of his hand. “Allison, are you serious?”“They’re releasing him to your custody Friday. Then it’s six months provisional period where you have to check in with a social worker, but then you can officially adopt. You can send me that check via courier.”Things go quickly from there. He internet shops like a madman and calls Rihanna a half a dozen times in a near panic. He manages to get pretty much everything he can think of that Bronx could need and still isn’t ready for it when Friday afternoon rolls around.Bronx stands with his Superman backpack over one shoulder and a tired, smaller version of the bear Pete remembers from that other life clutched in one hand, and looks up at him with wide eyes. He looks a little scared, a little happy and a lot unsure. “Does this make you my dad now?”He’s glad he dragged Patrick and Rihanna with him, because that is a lot to deal with. He glances over his shoulder at them, just long enough to be reminded himself that he’s done a couple things right in his life before leveling his gaze with Bronx’s.He’s nervous, too, that he’s making a mistake and that he can’t do this. But he also knows that he loves this kid like almost no one else can and definitely no one else is going to. “If you want me to be, then absolutely.”“Yeah. I’ve never had one before,” Bronx says, nodding the whole time. “Do I get to go home finally?”Pete can’t answer that. If he opens his mouth his voice is going to break like cheap plastic in front of Bronx and Lilly and his best friends. He nods instead and holds out his hand to Bronx.Bronx holds out his bear, and Pete tucks it under his arm so that he can take Bronx’s hand. It’s like the first time he got on stage, in that, for the first time in a long time, Pete knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’s doing what he's meant to.Of course it only takes three days for things to explode. They don’t even have time for Bronx to pick out what kind of wallpaper he wants on the walls of his bedroom (formerly the guestroom/office/storage for Pete’s DVDs) before the news breaks on TMZ. His hurt and outraged mother is the least of the problem.“You say ‘no fucking comment’ and you walk the fuck on,” Shauna orders. “If you have to comment, you say you and your son are currently in a period of adjustment and that you don’t want to answer any questions. We’ll give it a week, and you can talk with Barbara. She likes you for some reason.”And Pete goes with her edicts because Bronx is happy. And fuck it, Pete is happy. He’s crawling towards normal for the first time in his life, and he’s damned if he’s not going to make one for Bronx. Besides the people who matter – his real friends like Patrick and Rihanna and Gabe and Brendon and Joe and Andy and anyone who actually knows him– all understand, or at least try to.Even with the Barbara Walters interview (and it’s mostly a positive response interview), the buzz doesn’t go away. He can barely move without cameras going off in his face. They make it about two months before he gets an email link to TMZ from his sister, which contains a picture of Bronx on the jungle gym at his school during recess.The whole thing’s made Pete’s panic function a little less dramatic than it used to be. That’s how he manages to finish the meeting he’s in with that lyricist he met on Christmas Eve, Noelle. He gets all the way into the safety of his office in the Decaydance building with the door closed before he freaks out and punches his desk.His immediate reaction is to run, and a text to Shauna confirms that getting the fuck out isn’t the worst idea. Stay with a friend you trust and lay low for awhile, is her suggestion. The problem, besides the issues involved in pulling a kid out of school (which is less of a shocking thing for a rock star parent to do than it should be), is that all of his best friends are just as famous as he is.Calling Gerard isn’t a real thought. It’s more something he just does. Gerard seems a little confused but cheerful when he answers the number that Pete was really just hoping would work.“Uh, hello?”“Hey. It’s Pete. Wentz? How you doing man?”“Oh. It’s good.” He can actually hear Gerard’s nervous smile over the line. “How’ve you been, Pete?”“I’m mostly amazing, actually. But um, look, this is going to sound crazy, but I have kind of a huge favor to ask.”Gerard makes a curious noise. Pete was kind of counting on his inability to walk away from crazy.“Do you think my son and I could crash with you for a little while?“What? Wait, what?”“I know it’s a lot and I haven’t seen you in ages, but I couldn’t think of anyone else.” Well, that’s not true. Mikey was his first thought, but that’s so common he’s almost stopped counting it. “There are guys with cameras at his school and they’re pretty much stalking us. He’s five.”There’s a long pause then Gerard sighs. “That’s fucked up.”“It really is.”“When are you gonna be here?”“I don’t know. As soon as we can.”“No bothering Mikey if you do this, though. I mean, I know you still, uh.” Gerard stalls out and Pete can’t blame him. The Mikey situation is an emotional limbo. Pete can’t fully embrace it or stop poking at it, and he can only image what it looks like from the other side.“It’s not about that.” Pete sighs and rubs his aching hand. “I mean, fuck, it’s not ideal but I just don’t want Bronx to have to adjust to being part of a real family for the first time under a microscope.”Gerard makes a wounded noise in the back of his throat. “God, yeah, no. Just let me know when you get here, okay? Give me your email address and I’ll send you directions from Newark.”The fact that address is the same as the one in the glimpse makes Pete buzz, but he doesn’t let it bleed out too much. And if he weren’t sure this were the right thing to do, the fact that Patrick offers to look after Hemmy for him instead of trying to talk him out of it seals it.It takes Pete less time than he was expecting to pack up his stuff and Bronx’s and hightail it to Jersey. Being able to charter a jet and a private car helps with that, too. Bronx is in heaven because he’s never been in a plane before, let alone one where the pilot actually lets him come see how he flies the plane.Less surprising than how good he’s gotten at managing his own life and Bronx’s is the way he just hugs Gerard when he arrives on Gerard and Frank’s front doorstep. He picks up the conversation where it left off because, well, he never turned off the "trust Gerard implicitly” switch that got flipped in his brain during the glimpse. Gerard stares at him for a long moment, then just rolls with it.He does not mention how much he missed this house and Gerard and Frank. He also somehow (mostly all the self-restraint he’s learned in the past few months) manages to not ask if Mikey lives nearby. In the house four doors down, maybe?“You’re sure it’s okay for us to take over your guest rooms? I mean, I’m pretty sure I can find a hotel after tonight.”“It’s a room with a door, Wentz,” Frank calls from whatever room he’s hanging out torturing his dogs in. “That’s more than enough to make do with.”That’s a point none of them can argue with. Bronx is too busy exploring the crazy paintings Gerard’s done on the walls to care about much of anything. At least until he discovers Frank (whom Bronx is convinced is the actual tooth fairy) and the dogs, at which point Pete knows he’s lost him for a few hours.Pete talks to Gerard for a long time about the whole Bronx situation while Frank keeps Bronx entertained with the dogs. He spills shit about faith and belief and fucking epiphanies that definitely didn’t make it into the Barbara Walters interview. Gerard doesn’t say much, just nods and makes little noises to encourage him to continue until Pete doesn’t have anything else to say.“It’s like Anne of Green Gables, only with less Canada,” Gerard finally says. His complete seriousness makes Pete laugh. It’s heady, like a pressure valve releasing in his brain.“Dude, really?”Gerard ducks his head a little and sighs. “Screw you, it’s a great book. You should read it to him. Or I can. Whatever. You both can stay as long as you need.”“I shouldn’t need to,” Pete mutters. Down the hall there’s a sharp bark and then the sound of Bronx’s laughter. Pete leans forward a little and has to remind himself that it’s okay, that he doesn’t have to run and check, just in case. “I should be able to take care of him.”“Don’t judge yourself by anyone else’s standards, man. Trust me, that way lies madness. Besides, you seem like you’re taking amazing care of him to me. I mean,” Gerard waves a dismissive hand in his partner’s general direction. “Frank’s going to try and steal him, but that’s not an indicator.”“I’m sure it’s a good thing if I remember Frank at all. We’ll be out of your hair by the weekend.”“No, Pete, I’m serious. Stay, alright? It’s kind of weird, but it’s fine. Don’t move him again.”Pete can’t argue with that. The last thing he wants to do is yank Bronx out of anywhere else. So he doesn’t fight it and works from his laptop and acts like he’s in witness protection when he goes out in public – cash only, sunglasses, hats, incog-fucking-nito.Normal’s easier to find in the Iero-Way household that Pete was expecting. After about two weeks without getting spotted or having any real issues with Gerard or Frank, Pete starts to feel comfortable. They adjust to him and Bronx being there like they’re two new crew members on a tour. Pete actually manages to keep Bronx on a bed time and he’s going to be able finish out the school year for him with a tutor, which Bronx likes better than school because he doesn’t have to get up so early.Pete actually feels at home when Bronx wakes him up on a warm Saturday morning with a DVD boxset of the Gummi Bears he found in Frank’s DVD collection behind something with a melted face on it. They spend most of the day watching it, and they’re lying side by side on their stomachs on Gerard’s living room floor watching it when the front door opens. Gerard and Frank are both upstairs. Pete’s body tightens until he hears the visitor’s voice. “Hey, Gee, you can’t keep hiding man. I haven’t seen you in forever and there’s this thing called the sun-“Mikey stops dead in the living room doorway. He blinks a few times, and Pete is blindsided by how good he looks. He’s not wearing glasses and his hair is kind of slicked back and it works on him. It’s like a new advent of hot. It’s also not how he meant to tell Mikey he was in town.The texts they’ve exchanged haven’t broached this. Pete’s tried dozens of times – to call, or email or something – and failed. He’s better at improvising, anyway.“Hey, Mikey.” Pete takes a deep breath and gives him a smile. “You look good.”“Pete. You’re in my brother’s house. You’re on the floor.”“We’re watching Gummi Bears,” Bronx says, as if picking up on the thread of things Pete is currently doing. “You wanna watch with us?”Mikey does a double take and visibly softens a little. He shakes his head. “Maybe later? But, uh, Pete? When you get to a stopping place you think you and I could talk maybe? In the kitchen? Since you’re here. In Gerard’s house. In your pajamas.”“Yeah sure.” Mikey’s a living room fighter but the kitchen is the next best place. Pete has no idea why, but he waits until the episode finishes and Bronx is started on a new one before he joins him.Pete has about half a second after the kitchen door closes behind him before Mikey’s off. “What are you doing here? Have you been here the whole time Gerard’s been all missing in action?”He’s building up righteous anger, and Pete sighs. “I needed to get away.”“Pete, this isn’t all right. The emails and texts were okay you know? It’s like… it’s one thing. But this is like stalking. You’ve got my family in on it now?”“I’m not stalking anyone. The global media’ve got that shit handled stalking my kid. They staked out his school and the park, and we can’t even go fucking grocery shopping back in LA. Gerard’s letting us lay low here awhile,” Pete snaps. He’s not prepared for the ache in knowing that Mikey can look at Bronx and not have a siren of mineminemine go off in his head. Its absence is making him prickly.“Fuck. Sorry.”The wind goes out of Mikey’s sails and he visibly deflates. His arms go around himself and oh, God, Pete really missed him so fucking much. He’s been able to fill the holes with Bronx and putting his life in order, but now that Mikey’s in front of him the gaping empty space is sucking at him.“It’s fine.”“It’s really not. It’s just the last few months.” Mikey rakes a hand through his hair and Pete wonders if that’s a tick he picked up after he stopped wearing his glasses. “Can you blame me for thinking it?” he asks, really asks, waiting for an answer.“No. This isn’t about you, Mikey, it’s about Bronx. But-“ Pete stops and licks his lips. “But the stuff that is about you? That hasn’t magically gone away. If you think that we could maybe go grab a cup of coffee or something while I’m here, that’d be fucking amazing because I’m still completely in love with you.”“Sorry?”“I don’t know. I just keep thinking – somewhere out there there’s this universe where I wasn’t stupid and I didn’t let you go after Warped. And I know that’s not this one, but I thought I should probably say or do something so that I can fix this one. Because, Mikey, I think that one might be better. I think I could be better. With you.”Mikey’s face is impassive as the silence hangs thick and heavy between them. Pete meets his gaze until he just can’t make himself anymore. Then he shrugs and smiles at him, thin and strained but sincere.“Honestly, though, I’m really good with just coffee and a conversation.”There’s another long pause where Pete is fairly sure that he’s fucking shot himself in the foot, but Mikey is nodding. He nods and says, “I could do coffee,” and Pete has to fight to keep from punching the air.“You free tomorrow?”“I, uh, yeah. I am.”Pete’s about to say something. It’s going to be something winning and charming and on the same path when Bronx’s voice cuts through the moment.“Daddy! Daddy, Duke Igthorn’s trying to get in Gummi Glen!” He yells it with the same level of distress he might over an actual fire or a hurt puppy. Pete sighs and shrugs at Mikey.“I’ve gotta get out there. You can watch with us if you want. Or, uh, Gerard and Frank are upstairs. I think Frank’s helping him with a new project or something.”“No, it sounds cool. I wanna meet him. It’s Brooklyn right?”“Bronx.” Pete pushes open the door so that Mikey won’t see him wince. “I think you’ll like him. He’s kind of amazing. Possibly the best kid ever.”They join Bronx on the floor, Pete on his right and Mikey sitting cross-legged on his left looking slightly awkward. Bronx catches them up in a babble that takes almost as long as the remainder of the episode. But when he’s done, he realizes that Mikey is a new person. “Who’re you?”“Bronx, come on. You’ve got better manners than that ,don’t you?”“Yeah,” Bronx sighs, a little annoyed. “Nice to meet you. Who’re you?” It’s not actually better, but Bronx holds out his hand with it and Mikey chuckles. It’s sticky from the vegan candy Frank’s been sneaking him (which Pete totally doesn’t believe is actually sugar free if Bronx likes it that much), but Mikey shakes it anyway.“I’m Mikey. I’m Gerard’s little brother.”“You don’t look little.”“Neither do you.”Bronx tilts his head and Pete bites back a smile. “You like Superman?”“Dude, Superman’s the best.”Bronx then turns to Pete and nods. “Kay. Mikey can stay. But you have to be quiet we’re watching the Gummies.” He presses his finger to his lips to emphasize the point and Mikey chokes on a laugh.Pete watches them both sit in the glow of the TV. There’s this feeling in his chest that makes it hard for him to do much of anything but look at them and be a little amazed. He’s pretty sure it’s hope.