Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Pete wakes up in a bed that, after a few moments, he’s able to identify as his own. That’s not so weird—the waking up in his own bed thing. What’s weird is that it simultaneously is and is not his bed; the comforter is close-but-not-quite the same color, the book on the side table is not the one he’d been reading the night before, and the picture of him and Patrick isn’t the right picture of him and Patrick. It’s a good one, to be sure, but he doesn’t own that shirt, and Patrick’s hair is styled differently than he’s worn it in at least a decade. Looking at their faces, the picture was taken a year, maybe two ago. Pete can’t remember it ever happening.

He reaches for his phone to see if he’s maybe skipped forward in time or forgotten a large chunk of his life, or something, and swears when it’s not plugged in on his bedside table like it should be.

Okay. Okay, so he doesn’t have a phone, but he does have a weird picture of him and Patrick. That’s, that’s a starting point for figuring out what the hell is going on. Pete climbs out of bed, wishing whatever had zapped him into not-his house had zapped some clothes along with him, and goes to pull the curtains back. The street outside does not look like Los Angeles.

Sweat starts to bead at Pete’s hairline and his heart pounds in his chest. 

No. No, he can’t let himself panic. Spiraling out in an unfamiliar place is his worst nightmare. Pete takes a deep breath and holds it for a count of five. His brain is frantically trying to fill in the gaps, and if he lets that happen, he’ll jump to the worst possible conclusions. He needs more information. Then he’ll be fine. 

That last bit isn’t quite believable, but it gives Pete enough strength to start looking around the room. Notable finds include a wardrobe that was clearly tailored to his tastes if not his brand preferences; a journal that’s empty but for the jagged remains of a few torn-out pages; and a drawer of clothes that looks similar to the collection of Patrick’s stuff Pete has accumulated over the years. It almost feels like a touch added to this bizarre, knockoff house to make him feel comfortable. The problem is, he’s not sure he wants to feel comfortable here.

Pete figures he’s not going to make things worse by availing himself of anything in this room, plus he’d rather be wearing something more than boxers when he learns what’s going on. He rifles through the closet, eventually settling on a pair of dark red jeans that end right above his ankle, a t-shirt with a screen printing that he can’t identify the meaning behind but likes, and a fluffy fleece jacket that’s covered in a leopard print.

Thus armored, he ventures out into the hallway.

There’s a linen closet and an empty guest bedroom next to him, neither of which offer any more clues. Pete peers down the stairs, listens closely for signs of anyone else, and then gingerly makes his way to the first floor.

The library/study at the bottom of them gives him pause. It, like the rest of this house, looks like it was set up for him: Some of the titles on the bookshelf are familiar favorites; others are unfamiliar, but on topics (politics, history, law) he used to spend more time with. But Pete has never cared about having a home office. He would have made this space into a music room. Is the obvious discrepancy a clumsy dig at his life, a suggestion that he change his interests?

Pete leaves the books be. If they are part of some plot, he’s not about to go along with it. Besides, next to the study is a closet filled with a mishmash of stuff. Some of the boxes have his writing on them, or a perfect imitation. The fact that someone apparently studied his handwriting enough to copy it faithfully is a little weird, so he moves on.

An open concept living room-dining room-kitchen takes up the rest of the bottom floor of his house, and Pete almost smiles as he steps into it. The decorations are eclectic, almost chaotic, but they work. Except none of their records are framed on his wall. No awards. No band memorabilia at all—just a collage of pictures artfully arranged over the couch.

Pete goes to look closer. Half of the photos are of him and Patrick, which seems about right. What’s wrong is that none of them are things they’ve actually done. He sees the two of them all around Chicago, at various ages between Pete’s late 20s and now. Joe and Andy show up in a few snapshots, along with a few people Pete recognizes from the scene days but fell out of touch with.

One glaring omission in this collage: There’s not a single, solitary picture of his band. 

“Fuck,” Pete says. This situation just went from extremely weird to existential threat. He can’t bring himself to believe he’s at the mercy of some freaky stalker. The books, the photos—everything is too detailed to be a setup. There’s only one conclusion to draw: this house, these clothes, and the wall of pictures are his life. 

In another situation, Pete might appreciate the irony. He’s been so sure, at various times, that everything he has—Patrick, the band, the label—is nothing more than a dream. That would explain the strangeness of this morning. But if none of it actually happened, if he’s finally woken up, shouldn’t he remember something of the life that’s apparently his?

He’s not sure how long he stands there in front of the picture wall, staring blankly at it. All those pictures of him, all those places and experiences, don’t spark any sense of recognition. Pete reaches out to slide his fingers along the bottom of one of the polaroids. It’s obviously real. So why does his imagined life feel more authentic than anything about where he is now?

He retraces his steps to the bedroom to grab the journal he’d seen, and a pen. Even if it was a dream, he can’t let himself forget it. Maybe he can even go back, if he saves enough of it. There aren’t any clues around him to why it had ended—is it because he’s spent too much time lately reflecting on the band’s past instead of thinking about its future? Because he’s had so many doubts about his writing lately that his brain stopped believing its own fantasy?

“We thought we had it all,” he’d written, but what if he’d never had anything?

Wait. Even in a dream, Pete never could have written music to go with those words. Which means Patrick had to be involved somehow. There’s no reasonable explanation for how he could have been, but nothing that’s happened today has seemed reasonable.

Pete snaps the journal shut and jumps up. He really needs to talk to Patrick.

And thank god he still has Patrick to talk to. With the amount of weirdness going on, he’s the only person Pete can trust. To listen to him, to believe him, and hopefully to tell him what the fuck is going on instead of just referring him to a psychiatric hospital.

It doesn’t even matter that Pete doesn’t have his phone. This feels like it needs a face-to-face, and also some hugs.

A set of spare keys hangs on the hook next to the door, and Pete assumes one of them will unlock his car. He has no idea where his actual keys are—but he also has no idea what his actual life is like, so that seems like less of a big deal right now. All he needs is to get in his car, behind the wheel, and surely muscle memory will kick in and take him to Patrick’s.

A copy of the Chicago Tribune is waiting on Pete’s porch when he opens the door. Still in his hometown, as he’d thought. But he does a second take when he sees the words “Wednesday, May 4, 2022” in the folio. That’s the day it’s supposed to be—and it’s strange he knows that, that he remembers the exact date from his (their?) dream. Does he have some weird form of amnesia, and the rest of his life is going to be 50 First Dates?

But as Pete skims the headlines, nothing here is right either. There’s no articles about a leaked Supreme Court decision. Nothing mentions Ukraine. The photos from the Met Gala mention the theme was “heavenly bodies,” which Pete would swear happened two years ago.

Then Pete realizes another hole in his dream theory. If everything was fake, a fantasy life, why wouldn’t his brain have made it perfect? Yet, it wasn’t a bad dream, either. That would have ended with the band never getting back together, with Patrick drifting away until they never talked anymore. Pete’s tempted to think today is the nightmare. But it feels too real for that.

Fuck. Maybe this isn’t 50 First Dates at all. Maybe this is the new Doctor Strange movie, and he’s America fucking Chavez. It’s not that his band was a dream. It just…doesn’t exist here.

That, or he’s lost his mind entirely.

Pete can’t let himself dwell on that. He walks back inside to toss the newspaper on the table and then finds the door to the garage, which he should have been looking for anyway, so he can get in the fucking car.

It’s not what he’s used to: A lot smaller, for one. But it’s a car to which he has the keys, and it can get him to Patrick’s.

It’s not until Pete has backed out of the garage that he realizes he still has no idea where Patrick is.

“Dammit,” Pete says, looking around as if he’ll find a sticky note with Patrick’s address. Then he realizes his car probably has a navigation system, and after three minutes of poking at it, he finds the location that says “Patrick” and sets it as his destination.

He’s just in time to hit rush hour traffic, which only ratchets up his anxiety again. What if he’s not the only one here? What if all of them got spat out in this strange universe? Patrick will be so confused if he wakes up all alone in an unfamiliar house. He’ll find out they’re not in a band together and Pete won’t be there to assure him that they are and they always will be. That they can go back to it as soon as they find a way out of whatever weird science fiction nightmare they’ve stumbled into.

Pete’s finally about to pull into the driveway of the house he hopes is Patrick’s when he sees a red motorcycle already parked there. He hits the brakes, his car jerking to a halt in the middle of the street. Surely there’s no universe in which Patrick has a motorcycle.

The person behind him honks impatiently. “Shit,” Pete says, pulling in anyway. This was definitely the only place marked with Patrick’s name, so it’s his only lead. He’ll just go try the third key on the keyring he took and hope it works. If it doesn’t—well, hopefully whoever lives here has already left for the day.

Pete walks through the gate, up the sidewalk, and climbs two steps onto the porch. He fumbles the key in his nervousness, but once he can control the shaking in his hands, gets it into the lock and turns it.

Okay, good. This is Patrick’s place.

Pete enters the house quietly, because waking Patrick—any Patrick—up while sneaking into his place is not a good call when things are already so weird. But then he hears noise from the kitchen. Surely alternate-universe Patrick isn’t a morning person? At least the sound of running water is enough to cover the muffled whump of the door and the snick of the lock. He steps out of his shoes and creeps forward, peering around the doorframe.

Huh. The person at Patrick’s sink is not Patrick. It’s…it’s him.

Pete considers trying to talk to his other self for a moment, but he’ll probably have so many questions Pete can’t answer, and the first priority right now is Patrick. Pete tiptoes slowly into the kitchen, glad his other self is absorbed in the dishes. He’s made it halfway across the room when Pete, the other Pete, turns around with a dishcloth in his hand to grab a knife and catches sight of him.

“Uh,” Pete says, freezing mid-step.

His other self freezes, too. Pete watches the shock and anxiety flit across his face before his expression settles into general confusion. It seems neither of them have any idea how to react to this situation.

“What are you doing?” the other version of himself asks, finally.

“Um,” Pete says. “Going to find Patrick?”

“Right, that was.” The Pete at the sink turns around to shut off the water and puts the knife and dishcloth down carefully. “Uh, okay. Options. When did you come from?”

“May 2022,” Pete says. He doesn’t look that old, does he? Or maybe his other self is actually complimenting Pete and his skincare routine.

“Where did you come from?”

“Uh, Los Angeles?” Pete says. “Another one, though, I’m pretty sure.”

Other Pete, this universe’s Pete-prime, rubs a hand over his forehead. “And if I ask you how you ended up in this Chicago…”

“Trying not to think about it,” Pete says. “The plan was to see if my Patrick was here, stop him from freaking out, and then he could stop me from freaking out. Or if he wasn’t here, to find a Patrick to stop me from freaking out.”

“Okay,” Pete-prime says. “Okay, we can, we can deal with this. Um, coffee. You probably need coffee. Patrick hates that sweatshirt, by the way, so I’m psyched you wore it.”

“It’s a perfect sweatshirt,” Pete says, offended on its behalf.

“Dude, I know, he just makes that face at it,” Pete-prime says as he grabs a mug out of the cabinet and fills it.

Pete knows the exact face Pete-prime is referring to. “Where did you get it?” He asks. He’s not sure if it exists in his universe, but if it does, he kinda wants it.

“Women’s section of Macy’s.”

“Huh,” Pete says, tucking his hands into the sleeves. It’s just so soft. “Wouldn’t have thought of that.”

Pete-prime hands over a perfectly doctored coffee and leads Pete into a living room that he would recognize as Patrick’s in any universe. The vinyl collection has overflowed its initial allotted shelf space and is encroaching on a few DVDs. The decor is comfortable and homey and colorful-but-not-loud, which is something Pete never really got the hang of. There’s a tiny model drum set on the mantelpiece, because of course there is. (Actually, Pete wants to know where that came from, because his Patrick would love it.)

“Okay,” Pete-prime says, sitting down on the sofa and gesturing at Pete to have a seat as well. “So alternate universes are real and you somehow showed up from one so I’m talking to myself right now.” Pete isn’t surprised to hear a hint of panic under the words.

“I’m trying not to think about it,” he offers. “Especially—I have to stay calm in case Patrick shows up.” He looks around in case mentioning Patrick might summon him, but apparently it doesn’t work that way.

“He’ll be up soon,” Pete-prime promises. “And if another him has appeared, he’ll come get me. So, okay.” He takes a deep breath. “Yeah, let’s try to figure out what we can tell him, I guess.”

Pete shrugs. “I woke up this morning in…your house. No idea why. Sorta freaked out, poked around, guessed what was going on, decided to find Patrick. So I took your car and made it tell me where he lived.” Pete is putting together a few pieces in his head as he tells the story. “Dude, that’s your bike out front?”

“Yeah,” Pete-prime says. “Patrick hates it and also loves it? It’s a whole thing. You don’t have one?”

“Nah,” Pete says. “That would be a privacy nightmare, god.” It’s possible he wouldn’t be recognized under a helmet and sunglasses, but it’s not worth the risk.

“Privacy?” Pete-prime asks. “You, wait, L.A. What the fuck do you do that you’re concerned about privacy?”

“Uh, I have a band,” Pete says.

Pete-prime laughs, and then stops a few seconds later when he realizes Pete isn’t joking. “No shit. How the fuck did that happen?”

“Found the fucking golden ticket and didn’t let go of him until I’d made us super famous?” Pete says. “What do you do, how do you not have a band, how do you know Patrick?”

“I’m on the city council,” Pete-prime says.

“Politics?” Pete considers. “Guess that explains the books. Shit, you finished college, didn’t you.”

“You didn’t?”

“Golden fucking ticket, man,” Pete says. “But then…Patrick. How did you and Patrick…?”

“Like fifteen years back. I was at a show Andy was playing,” Pete says. “Andy Hurley, you remember, from—”

“Yeah, I know Andy,” Pete says.

“Right, good. Anyhow, afterward I was chilling with him and the other guys and this, this dude with these very loud sideburns who was wearing a cardigan to a hardcore show came up and told him how his drum part could be better.”

“Oh my god,” Pete says, delighted.

“Yeah. And,” Pete-prime says leaning forward. It’s clear he loves telling this story, and that he hasn’t gotten to do so in quite some time. “They got into this whole argument about it, and somehow also about the history of Motown? And by the end he’d managed to convince Andy he was right.”

Pete laughs. “Shit. Did Patrick go, like, demo the part for him?”

“Not then and there,” Pete-prime says. “But yeah, I think he did down the line, and then the two of them kinda started hanging out. This was back when Andy and I would still jam together, like, I didn’t really have any bands at the time but thought someday we still might. And Patrick was there sometimes and he was just, like. Well, you know. So I decided I was keeping him.”

“Yeah,” Pete says. He very much does know.

“Anyhow, that’s me and Patrick,” Pete-prime says. “You managed to have a band. A successful band? Don’t tell me Arma didn’t fuckin’ self-immolate in your world?”

“We’re called Fall Out Boy,” Pete says. “It was, remember when Arma was sort of becoming a mess and you, we, decided to start something with Joe?”

“Kinda? Never found a singer, so it fizzled pretty quick,” Pete-prime says.

“Well,” Pete says. “For me, this fuckin’, this music genius kid starts arguing with Joe in a Borders, remember Borders? I mean, we didn’t know he was a music genius yet but I guess he got Joe’s attention by being opinionated. Because next thing I knew Joe told me I had to meet him, like, he would not shut up about it. He answered the—oh, you’ll love this. He was wearing an argyle sweater vest when he answered the door. Shorts. And socks. With sandals. I was just like, who the fuck is this guy? But Joe told me he knew his shit and we were looking to do something different anyway so I was like, yeah, okay, I’ll hear him out. Except we didn’t really need a drummer, we knew so many drummers, so I made him sing something and he had the literal voice of an angel? So, yeah, singer.”

“Not someone from the local scene, then?” Pete-prime says.

“Dude. It—that was. That’s how I met Patrick.”

Pete-prime laughs again. “A fuckin’—no way he’s a singer. He hates his voice. And also being the center of attention.”

“Best singer in the goddamn world right now,” Pete says. “I promised him I’d be the band’s frontman if he would sing, still handle most of it, but yeah, Patrick was it.”

“This is starting to feel like a really weird wish-fulfillment sort of dream,” Pete-prime says. “So you, Patrick, Joe Troh, and..”

“Andy,” Pete says. “A real live band.”

Pete can tell more questions are about to happen when there’s footsteps on the stairs and then an adorably rumpled Patrick emerges. Patrick looks at the couch, with the two of them on it, and then closes his eyes. Ten full seconds pass before he opens them again.

“Fuck,” he says, rubbing his eyes. “Not dreaming. Pete, what did you do.”

“It was him,” Pete says, pointing at his other self. He doesn’t know that for sure, but the last thing he wants is for this universe’s Patrick to be mad at him. Unfortunately, Pete-prime seems to be thinking along the same lines.

Patrick frowns at the pair of them.

“Come on, dude, you think I figured out how to pull someone here from an alternate universe and chose myself instead of you?” Pete-prime says.

Patrick squeezes his eyes shut like he can make this all go away by just ignoring it. “I hate that I believe that,” he says. “Why. God, just, coffee?”

It’s definitely this universe’s Patrick—Patrick-prime, Pete supposes. Pete looks at him, trying to catalog all the differences, but most of what he sees are similarities. The most notable change (aside from the hairstyle) is the fact that it’s morning, and Patrick-prime is awake.

“Why are you vertical, anyway?” Pete asks. “It’s, like, way too early for you, dude.”

“Work?” Patrick-prime says. “Which I cannot be late to just because you decided to hop over here, by the way.”

Pete-prime comes back out of the kitchen with a mug of coffee and passes it over to Patrick-prime. With a kiss.

Well, that explains why Pete-prime is here this morning. Pete doesn’t really want to think about this development any more than he has to, so he files it in a part of his brain he won’t be revisiting. He can’t tear his gaze away, though, as Pete-prime explains why he’s been sitting here talking to another version of himself. It doesn’t seem to reassure Patrick-prime, but then again, Pete’s not sure why it would.

“Okay,” Patrick-prime says, after the whispered discussion wraps up. “Pete, it’s been very nice to meet you, in case you disappear before we get back. But if you don’t, you should probably stay here, inside, so no one notices that there are two Pete Wentzes in this world. I can give you my laptop password, and there’s plenty of food here, so you should be fine until we get back home? And then we can, uh, I guess figure out why you’re here?”

Pete wants to argue, but Patrick-prime is being very calm and kind about this. He has a feeling Pete-prime knew he would take the request better if it came from a Patrick. 

“You didn’t see another you?” Pete asks. If he’s here without Patrick—well that’s probably better in the long run, because it means he doesn’t have to worry about getting Patrick out of this, or what happens if he can’t. But his Patrick, the one back home, will freak out when Pete doesn’t come to the studio, or answer his phone, or open the door when Patrick knocks on it frantically instead of just letting himself in. And Pete can’t even reassure Patrick that he’s fine.

“Sorry,” Patrick-prime says. “You’ll be okay, yeah? And we’ll get you back to your Patrick soon.”

Pete nods, and then Patrick-prime heads out into the kitchen. “Pete,” he calls, causing both of them to look up. “What happened to ‘I’ll do the dishes in the morning’?”

“I was,” Pete-prime protests, “Until another me showed up.”

“I’ll do them,” Pete says, because at least that gives him something to focus on. He goes out in the kitchen to take over as Pete- and Patrick-prime get back to their morning routine. Not ten minutes later, Patrick-prime reappears dressed and ready to go.

“Have a good day,” Pete-prime says, trailing after him with a jacket in hand. He hands it to Patrick-prime and then leans in for a kiss. “Love you.”

“Love you too,” Patrick-prime says, stealing another kiss. “Now go get dressed, you have meetings to go to.”

Pete-prime disappears, and Patrick-prime turns to give Pete a small smile. “You’ll be okay?” he says, donning the jacket. “I won’t be home until dinner, because I’ll probably be recording right up until I have lessons, but Pete will try to wrap up early if he can. Here’s the password to my laptop.” He rips a page off the pad of paper that’s mounted on the fridge and scrawls something on it.

“Thanks,” Pete says, grabbing it from him.

“Leave us a note if you figure out how to get back to your world,” Patrick-prime says. “If you don’t, I’ll see you later.”

“What, no kiss for me?” Pete jokes.

Patrick-prime sighs. “I guess you’re not from a universe where I managed to convince you pouting wasn’t cute,” he says. Then he leans in and kisses Pete. It’s brief, gentle, but so full of love. “There. Sorry you don’t have your Patrick right now. I’m probably a pretty poor substitute.”

Pete can only stare as Patrick-prime puts his shoes on, double checks that he has his phone, wallet, and keys, and heads out the door. That was not supposed to happen. Patrick-prime wasn’t supposed to just—and he still doesn’t get what he is in this universe, like seeing him, even though he wasn’t Pete’s Patrick, didn’t make Pete’s day infinitely better, and—

Fuck.

Chapter Text

After Pete has recovered from the kiss (at least, as much as he ever will), he finishes the dishes on instinct and then opens Patrick-prime’s fridge to look for breakfast. There are eggs, which is good enough for him right now—he just needs something he can make without having to think too hard. After he’s fed himself and made more coffee, because today seems like a day that needs it, he picks up the note Patrick-prime left him with his laptop password.

He could go on the internet and research this world’s Pete Wentz, stalk this world’s Patrick Stump, or dig through various, like, conspiracy theory groups in hopes of finding something about multiverse travel that would help him get back.

Or, he could just look around Patrick-prime’s house some more.

The latter is infinitely more appealing, because he has to know: What’s different about this Patrick? What did this version of himself do to get everything Pete has ever wanted? He’s not sure the answer will be hiding in Patrick-prime’s kitchen cabinets, but they’re closest to him, so he figures they’re as good a place to start as any.

The kitchen, it turns out, doesn’t tell him much, and the coat closet mostly tells him that Pete- and Patrick-prime have a lot of coats (he suspects at least half of them are Pete-prime’s, because surely no Patrick would wear plaid with that combination of colors). The living room is a bit more fruitful. Pete flips through the record collection, noting the worn edges on Patrick-prime’s favorites and spotting a few albums he’s sure were Pete-prime’s contribution. Some of them come with notes that have familiar handwriting—and the messages range from a simple “Happy birthday to my favorite person” on a sticky note to “Surprise, when you find this. Miss you.” tucked inside to “love you, love you, love you” scrawled on the sleeve in sharpie. That last one has the feeling of an “I’m sorry, please forgive me” sort of gift, which tracks.

After poking through every last item on the shelves, Pete ventures further into the house. He finds another bathroom and Patrick-prime’s stuff closet, which he might dig through if he weren’t worried removing one thing would cause a collapse of the entire stuff pile. The final room downstairs is a small office; Patrick-prime’s laptop is balanced on a small folding table while a keyboard on a stand, a guitar rack, and a drum set fight for the remaining space. Pete smiles to see it, because a Patrick without music is too unsettling to think about.

Upstairs, Pete comes first to a guest room. It’s not notable, nor is the linen closet that’s next down the hall. But then he reaches Patrick-prime’s bedroom.

Bingo. Pete smiles at the familiar messy-but-not type of chaos he’s learned how to understand. He quickly identifies the parts of the room that have things-to-deal-with and turns instead to the parts of the room that are things-to-keep. He finds a small picture album tucked in the bedside table, filled with polaroids and printed photos of the two of them. Some of them are the same ones Pete-prime had put on his wall; others are new, and Pete drinks them in greedily. Because while Pete-prime had pictures of all of their friends, this album isn’t Patrick-prime’s whole life. It’s his relationship with Pete-prime, all the important parts as he understands it.

Pete slides some of the pictures out of the sleeves and flips them over to see notes: 3/19/12, Art Institute. Modernism is starting to grow on me. Don’t let Pete loose in the arms and armor hall. 7/20/18, Pete dragged us to Jersey City to see Britney live, ???? He had fun. Behind that picture he finds a printout of their tickets, folded up and creased from being in one of their pockets. A few pictures later, he comes to a shot of them in suits, arms around each other. The dimensions suggest Patrick-prime cut them out of a larger photo. Pete slides it out and flips it over: 11/11/21, Andy’s wedding. He can almost see the pause Patrick took while deciding what to say next in the way the words Pete kissed me? look so uncertain beneath it.

Jesus. They’d met fifteen years ago, Pete-prime had said, which means it took them over a decade to get together. He doesn’t know the exact situation; maybe Patrick-prime had someone else, but he’s certain Pete-prime wanted him far before November of 2021. Why had it taken him so long to make a move? 

He gets waiting. Patrick has always needed convincing before he lets himself be loved. But everything about this suggests it wasn’t just patience on Pete-prime’s part. The picture, cropped from a larger shot because they hadn’t taken one of just them. The occasion. The confusion in Patrick-prime’s caption, showing he’d had no idea it was coming. Pete would put money that his other self hadn’t planned to kiss Patrick-prime at all that day. Had just been overwhelmed by Patrick in a suit (fuck, he looks good), emotional because that’s how he always ends up at weddings, and tipsy on too much champagne.

Is this a sign from the multiverse that Pete should just go for it, even though there’s more at stake for him than there was for Pete-prime? Or is it a reminder that if he does, he’ll lose the only other thing he’s ever loved as much as Patrick?

Pete shakes his head; it’s a loop he’s gotten stuck in so many times in the past without ever coming to a conclusion. But he also settles in, leaning back against the bed, to go through the album picture by picture. He reads Patrick’s notes, sparse because Patrick isn’t the person to show his love in words. He’s the type to show it by keeping a collection of pictures, a greater number for each year that passes, and jotting notes on the back about what they meant to him.

After Pete catches up to the most recent photo (4/27/22, Pete took me to Topolobampo, really interesting!) he slides the album back in its place and keeps looking around. There’s a bookshelf with various books on music theory (he feels himself smile at that), plus a fiction section Pete-prime must have contributed. The top of the dresser has tchotchkes seemingly from every trip Patrick-prime has taken. On the closet shelves, Pete finds a battered shoebox that opens to reveal pages full of familiar handwriting. 

Apparently Patrick-prime can identify love poems when he sees them, which makes Pete question for the millionth time whether his Patrick knows and is just choosing to ignore it, or truly has no idea.

Pete reads them all, greedy for every scrap of their relationship he can find. He notes a few phrases in his mind that will make good lyrics (it’s not copying if it’s his own work) and then replaces the papers carefully in the box. He’s busy poking at the other boxes and bins in the closet to determine whether they’ll uncover more secrets he needs to know when he hears Patrick say, “Pete?” from behind him.

Fuck. He thought he had all day, and that he’d at least hear the door opening if anyone came home.

“I can explain,” he says, spinning around. But Patrick-prime’s not in the door, like he’d expected. Patrick, his Patrick, is in bed, wearing pajamas and a look of extreme confusion.

“Oh thank god,” Pete says, dropping to his knees by the bed so he can pull Patrick into a hug. “You’re here, finally, god, I didn’t leave you behind.”

“Pete,” Patrick says again, gripping Pete as tightly as Pete is surely holding him. “What’s going on? Why are you here?”

Pete pulls back and looks at Patrick. He’s already starting to look moody, which isn’t much of a surprise after how they left things last night.

“Do you want caffeine first?” Pete asks.

“No,” Patrick says, which Pete thinks is a mistake. Patrick would probably do a lot better accepting everything after coffee. “I want to know what’ going on. I don’t remember this place. Am I...”

“You’re not going crazy,” Pete says, smoothing Patrick’s hair. Not that it’s too messy right now, but every moment he’s not touching Patrick is a moment Patrick might disappear back to their world and leave him behind. “We’re in Chicago.”

Patrick sits up fully and looks around the room. “In…someone’s house?” he asks. Pete can see the phantom familiarity he’d felt in Pete-prime’s room tickling at the edges of Patrick’s consciousness.

“Yeah, so,” Pete says. “Um, it’s not my fault?” Patrick’s face settles into the look he gets when he knows he’s about to end up unwinding some patented Pete Wentz bullshit. A lesser man might be discouraged by the fact that such a look existed, but Pete knows love when he sees it. “This isn’t our Chicago,” Pete says.

He watches as Patrick struggles to come up with a reply, then gives up on diplomacy entirely. “What the fuck does that mean?”

Pete should have insisted on the coffee. “It means it’s, um, an alternate univer—stop looking at me like that, Patrick, I didn’t do it.”

“Didn’t do what? Prank me?”

“Oh my god,” Pete says. “It’s not a prank.”

“Right,” Patrick says. “Because alternate universes are definitely a real thing. I know I got a bit irritated last night, but come on, Pete.”

“I’m not mad at you,” Pete says. “And I know what I sound like. But. Okay. Remember that time Gabe called and put us on the phone with someone he said was also him, and we were kinda worried about how high he was?”

“Yeah,” Patrick says. “Your point?”

“What if it was real?”

Patrick snorts.

“I know,” Pete says again, “But I don’t have another way to explain it. Look, get your—that place where you sometimes stick my notebook when you steal it from me.”

Patrick reaches toward the bedside table and retrieves the photo album. He looks at it, and then Pete.

“It helps if you open it,” Pete says.

Patrick huffs his irritation at Pete, but does so.

“What…is this?” He asks, turning pages. “I don’t remember this, none of this ever happened.”

“It did,” Pete says. “Just not in our universe, and not to us.”

Patrick leafs through a few more pages. “You expect me to believe there’s another you in this universe and he’s not also here, waiting for me to appear?” Patrick asks.

“No, they’re here, you and me, just, we have jobs in this world, Patrick.” Patrick looks confused again, so Pete says, “there’s no band.”

Patrick drops the photo album.

“It’s fine!” Pete says. “I mean, no, it’s not fine, it fucking sucks, but whatever, we have the band universe, so that’s okay.”

Patrick rubs his eyes. “None of this is okay,” he says. “Why am I here, Pete?”

“I don’t know!” Pete says. “I swear I didn’t do—I mean, I don’t know how it happened so if I did something, it wasn’t on purpose, which basically is the same thing!”

“You didn’t get here first and wish me here so hard I appeared?” Patrick asks, voice dry.

“Dude, if that worked you would have been here hours ago,” Pete says, because there’s no use trying to deny that allegation. “I think it might be that we get here when we wake up.”

“We?” Patrick asks. “Joe and Andy, too?”

“Fuck,” Pete says. “This morning we thought it was just me.”

Patrick closes his eyes, trying to wish things normal again. “Did you say there was caffeine?” he asks, opening them again. “This house has to have a computer, right? It’s…mine? Maybe I can guess the password.”

“Oh,” Pete says, feeling dumb. “I have it. The other you, Patrick-prime, gave it to me so I could, I dunno, research.”

“Which explains why you were digging through his bedroom like a creep?” Patrick asks. Pete really wishes he’d insisted on the caffeine; a properly awake Patrick would have been nicer about the delivery of that accusation.

“I was curious,” Pete defends. Besides, Pete-prime must know everything in this house. That basically means he’s allowed to do whatever he wants. 

“It’s called privacy, Pete,” Patrick says. “And you don’t get to invade mine just because you’re insecure over whether your lyrics are too revealing. Go be curious about how the coffee maker works, if you need something to do.”

Pete opts to leave the room rather than have that fight. He’d rather wait in the kitchen while Patrick finishes waking up, adjusts to the changes, and hopefully cools down a bit. As he pulls down another mug and fills it with coffee, he tastes the ghost of Patrick-prime’s kiss on his lips. God, if Patrick finds out about that, he’ll never hear the end of it.

When Patrick finally makes it downstairs, he sits at the laptop Pete has helpfully set up and logged into for him and absolutely ignores it in favor of the coffee.

After a few minutes of communing with his caffeine, he looks over at Pete, who is trying not to hover on the edges of the kitchen. “Sorry,” he says softly. “That was unfair, about your lyrics. I was hoping I would wake up with a breakthrough on how to fix the song and instead…” He nods his head at their surroundings.

“You know it doesn’t work like that, right?” Pete asks.

“Sometimes it works!” Patrick defends.

“Yeah, because even your musical genius brain requires a certain amount of sleep to work,” Pete says. “I’m sorry, too. I promise I didn’t uncover anything too embarrassing.”

“That’s because you’re not embarrassed by anything,” Patrick says. He sets the mug down and swipes the laptop’s trackpad to switch it out of screensaver mode. “Hey,” he says, his face brightening. “It’s us!”

The desktop picture looks like it was taken on a holiday, maybe Thanksgiving or Christmas of last year. They’re beaming, arms around each other, and Pete-prime thankfully is not kissing Patrick-prime. The way he’s looking at him is a little revealing, but Pete is pretty sure there are pictures of him looking at his Patrick the same way, so, whatever.

Patrick opens a new browser tab and hesitates. “Facebook?” he says. “Do you think?”

“Well I don’t think any version of you has Instagram,” Pete says. “And you mostly did Twitter for publicity. One of us probably bullied you into setting up a Facebook at some point, though.”

Pete’s thankful to find that they did, and that the password autofills and dumps Patrick onto his homepage. He pulls up the messages screen and scrolls through the various unread birthday wishes, and Christmas wishes, and, Christ, those ones must be from his birthday last year. Finally, they see Joe’s name.

Hey, can I ask you a weird question?, Patrick types into the box.

They wait for a few moments until Joe’s picture gets a green dot indicating that he’s online.

Can I ask you a weird question?? what the hell are you doing on facebook

Pete bats Patrick’s hands out of the way so he can send a rolling-eyes emoji

oh hey pete

oh fuck are you two making an announcement? pete I can’t believe u didn’t say something

NO, Pete types quickly, accidentally sending it in caps lock. He just—he needs some sort of game plan before he tells Patrick what’s going on between the two of them in this universe. Something that gently suggests they could totally take that part of the multiverse home with them, should Patrick want, and manages to do so without freaking him out more.

Patrick gives Pete a look, but he’s used to Pete being weird, so he just pulls the laptop toward him and asks, Did a version of you from an alternate universe appear in your house today?

After he sends the message, both he and Pete stare at the words, like reading them will make today more believable.

oh shit u got hacked Joe says

that makes way more sense k i’ll text u

weird ass scam, though

The online indicator goes grey again.

“I guess that’s a no?” Patrick says.

“Probably,” Pete says.

“Oh fuck,” Patrick says. “He said he was going to text me, that means he’s about to tell the other me.”

“The other you already knows,” Pete says, in a calming voice. “He gave me his laptop password, remember?”

“Did he know you were you?” Patrick says. “Wait, did you wake up here too?”

“No,” Pete says. “I woke up in, uh, other me’s house.”

“Oh,” Patrick says, “and of course he brought you here, okay.”

Pete decides he should keep the conversation moving before Patrick has a chance to think about that assumption. “So it’s just you and me. It has to be something we did.”

“Or something one of us did,” Patrick says. “And the multiverses felt bad about separating us. Oh god, you would have panicked so hard.”

“I did panic!” Pete says. “What if you woke up alone and confused, or back in our world and thought I’d ditched you?”

“Of course you didn’t ditch me,” Patrick says, fondly.

“But you wouldn’t know I hadn’t ditched you.”

“Pete,” Patrick says. “Yes I would.” He sounds so unshakeable in his belief. That trust, so carefully rebuilt over the past decade, is what Pete can’t afford to break. But if he’s going to say something, he feels like he should do it while Patrick is riding that wave of emotion.

Pete reaches out and grabs his hand.

“I know,” Patrick says, squeezing back. “But look, even the multiverse knew, right? This universe sucks, but at least you and I are still friends.”

“We’re not friends,” Pete says. Patrick shoots him a questioning look, so Pete corrects, “We’re not, um, just friends. The. You and me from this universe.”

“What?” Patrick says. “Oh. You mean we’re…”

Pete nods. He’s looking for anything hopeful in Patrick’s expression, but it’s mostly just confusion.

“Well, that’s,” Patrick says. “Different. Hold on, do you think—”

Pete leans forward. He can’t believe that was really the answer, that all he had to do was—

“If we’re, like, if our relationships are different in every universe. Do you think there’s one where we didn’t, you know, after Folie?”

Right. The band. Of course Patrick would think about the band.

“I don’t know,” Pete says. “I guess anything is possible?”

“Well, yeah, obviously, if this you-and-me are dating.” Patrick reclaims his hand and gets up. “Hey, do you want some coffee?”

“No,” Pete says, as Patrick walks into the kitchen, unaware as he ever is that Pete’s heart is breaking just a little bit more. “No, I’ve had enough.”

Chapter Text

Unfortunately for Pete, escaping the pain of Patrick’s rejection isn’t as easy as googling “how to get home from an alternate universe.” He tries every variation of the theme he can think of, but (aside from a WikiHow article of dubious quality) doesn’t turn up anything useful. Patrick keeps frowning over his shoulder, and after Pete strikes out again with “alternate universe + accidental travel + worse here,” nudges him out of the way.

“I’ll look for a bit,” he says. “Is there anything in this house about, like, multiverses?”

“Maybe,” Pete says. He makes his way back to Patrick-prime’s room and gives a half-hearted glance around. There’s a slim copy of This Is How You Lose the Time War in the book collection Pete-prime has been building up, but when Pete pulls it out, it just looks like an ordinary book.

He replaces it, then looks over his shoulder to make sure Patrick hasn’t snuck up on him before returning to his search of Patrick-prime’s things. Maybe the clue he needs is one that explains how Patrick-prime fell in love with his Pete. If he can learn what his other self did to make Patrick-prime want to kiss him back, he can replicate it and then they can go home.

He doesn’t find that—not that he really expected to—but he does find a generous stash of sex toys. Pete shoves that right back where it was and sits down behind the bed, facing Patrick-prime’s wall, just in case Patrick were to walk by and wonder why Pete was so flushed.

Patrick doesn’t walk by, and when Pete eventually makes it downstairs, Patrick has found a more comfortable place to sit and a pair of headphones.

Pete leans on the back of the sofa and slides one of the ear cups off Patrick. “Um,” Patrick says, looking back at him. “So hey, did you know Whitney Houston is still alive in this world?”

“Oh, so now this world is fine.” Pete grins down at him. He can’t imagine anything more Patrick than getting to an alternate universe and immediately looking up every musical act he’d ever liked.

“Google was a lot more helpful with this than with the multiverse travel,” Patrick says.

“Did you think about learning about, um, us?” Pete asks. Maybe all Patrick needs is to see how happy they are together.

“Oh, like there might be some clue there? I guess it’s worth a try,” Patrick says.

“I’ll make lunch if you check,” Pete says.

When he comes back with sandwiches, Patrick unfortunately is not gazing wistfully at pictures of Pete- and Patrick-prime being all couple-y. “Thanks,” Patrick says. “Pete, people here want you to run for mayor.”

Pete, about to dig into his own sandwich, pauses. “Are we talking about the same me?” He leans closer, ostensibly to see where Patrick found this tidbit but in reality because he’s bad at having personal space around Patrick.

“Don’t,” Patrick says. “You know how good you are at, at handling people and press and publicity, of course you’d be an excellent politician.”

“Hmm,” Pete says. He wonders how he got stuck in another job that required that of him. Maybe he’s just cursed.

“I think it’s amazing,” Patrick says. “The things you achieved. By yourself.”

“First off,” Pete says. “If you think I achieved that by myself—Patrick, there is no way I would make it without your support. Second, you better not be thinking this is somehow cooler than what we have. You know I wouldn’t give the band up for anything.”

“You always said that,” Patrick says. “But before you didn’t really…you never saw yourself in the other options, I don’t think.”

Categorically false: Pete has spent so much time dreaming about a life where Patrick knew what he was saying every time he sent lyrics. A life where Patrick felt the same way. 

“I wouldn’t trade it,” Pete says. “I don’t care, Patrick, I could be president and I wouldn’t…god, I would go grey so much faster if I were president.”

“I don’t say it enough, but you did so much for me,” Patrick says. “For all of us. It’s amazing that I found you.”

“You say it all the time,” Pete says, but he goes for the hug anyway and clings to Patrick a bit. Like always, he stays close enough that if Patrick wants to turn his head and kiss him a little, he can do so. Like always, Patrick declines to take advantage of the opportunity.

Pete stays like that until Patrick elbows him off gently so he can get started on his lunch. “Did you find anything?” Patrick says. “Or were you just looking through my private stuff again?”

“It’s not your stuff,” Pete says, because he doesn’t think Patrick will react well if Pete admits to looking through Patrick-prime’s sex toys.

“It’s not your stuff either,” Patrick shoots back. “I hope this me had a chance to establish some boundaries before he started dating you.”

The words sting, not least because boundaries have been the subject of more than one big discussion between them and Pete had thought they’d figured it out. Sure, he always walks up right to the edge of Patrick’s, whereas Patrick tends to hang back from his, but Pete thinks that’s probably because his boundaries are about a hundred times more permissive. At least when it comes to Patrick. Maybe he should find a way to remind Patrick that the two of them are actually great at boundaries now, and that looking through Patrick-prime’s stuff wasn’t indicative of anything to the contrary.

“There was a book,” he says, letting go of Patrick. “About, like, time travel but also multiverse travel?”

“A science book?” Patrick asks.

“No, one of mine. Other-mine,” Pete says. “I’ve read it, too.”

“Oh,” Patrick says. “So I guess nothing helpful there.”

“I can check,” Pete says. “Like, re-read it, if you want to keep searching online.” It is also a love story; maybe the book is somehow the key to getting Patrick?

“Guess it’s worth a try,” Patrick says, so Pete pushes himself up off the sofa to get it.

Pete fully intends to go back down to the living room, but Patrick-prime’s bed looks so inviting, plus it smells like him, so Pete snuggles up in it instead. At some point, he registers a soundtrack of drums coming from downstairs, which makes him smile to himself.

Pete’s jerked back into reality by the sound of the front door slamming shut. He jumps—he hadn’t thought it was so late—and sets the book aside. He was supposed to be around for introductions so Patrick didn’t have to weather them alone.

“How the hell did you beat me home?” Pete-prime is saying, as Pete skids down the stairs. His doppelgänger looks at him and apparently reads the entire situation off his face. “Oh fuck! We got a Patrick, too!”

Pete doesn’t know why he wasn’t expecting other him to go in for the hug immediately. It still raises his hackles, though.

“Uh, hey, Pete,” Patrick says. “Sorry to crash your universe.”

“You just decreased my stress levels like five hundred percent,” Pete-prime says, “just thinking about you two being separated. And I’ve had my Patrick this whole time so I had it easy.”

“Yeah, that was kinda my Pete’s response too,” Patrick says. “A bit more desperate on the hug.”

“Hey, shut up,” Pete says. “You were scared, too.”

Patrick smiles at him fondly, and Pete-prime smiles at them fondly. Pete wonders if it’s nostalgia he’s feeling. Maybe the only thing he has to do in this universe is make Patrick see that their relationship has the foundation it needs to turn into something more.

Now is not the time to bring it up, though. Not when Pete-prime is suggesting that they get started on dinner and Patrick is agreeing as if he regularly cooks anything. Then again, Pete’s never minded Patrick being around while he makes food. He’s used to maneuvering around Patrick as he talks and taps out rhythms with whatever cooking implements Pete has set down too close to him.

The lack of space in Patrick-prime’s kitchen gives Pete an excuse to put a hand on Patrick’s back each time he passes behind him. It feels dangerous, but Patrick doesn’t even seem to notice. He just follows Pete-prime’s instructions, and between the three of them, they almost have dinner ready by the time Patrick-prime comes home.  

“Babe, there’s another you!” Pete-prime shouts, as he hears the door shut.

“Keep your imagination to yourself,” Patrick-prime replies dryly. He greets Pete-prime with a kiss, which makes Patrick suddenly extremely interested in the peppers he’s already finished slicing.

“I’m so glad fame didn’t turn me into a total asshole,” Patrick-prime says, turning to look at Patrick. “Famous-me doesn’t look like a total asshole, right?”

“Dude,” Pete says. “You should see famous-you in the studio.”

“You should see the ridiculous shit famous-Pete buys,” Patrick shoots back.

“I’d love famous-you even if you were the biggest asshole ever,” Pete-prime says. “Also, can normal-you get some plates, maybe?”

Dinner is filled with questions about so-how-did-you-meet-then (Patrick) and what-is-the-band-like (Pete-prime) and you-actually-sing-for-real-why-would-you (Patrick-prime).

The relationship thing somehow doesn’t come up. Pete wasn’t about to start asking questions about it in front of Patrick; that would be too obvious, even for him. He’s just surprised Pete-prime doesn’t get into it. Pete is absolutely the sort of person who would ask his alternate self why he wasn’t dating the same person. Maybe actually dating a Patrick has made his alternate self more chill. Or maybe it’s just because Patrick-prime cuts off Pete-prime’s attempt to guess how many celebrities Patrick has slept with by saying, “Okay, so that’s the basics about you, but it doesn’t explain why you’re here.”

“Oh, yeah,” Pete-prime says. “Right. Did you do something that made you turn up here?”

Patrick shrugs. “We were in the studio,” he says. “Recording some new songs.”

“Is it weird to record your own stuff?” Patrick-prime asks. Pete-prime doesn’t manage to hide his smile and Patrick-prime adds, “Right, sorry, off-topic.”

“Patrick gets so stressy,” Pete confides in them.

“We were recording some new songs,” Patrick says again, before Pete can go on. “And one of them wasn’t working, so both of us stayed late to try to fix it.”

“Was Patrick stressy?” Pete-prime teases.

“Yes,” Patrick says, the hints of a sulk in his voice. “But I wasn’t the only one arguing.”

Talking about their fight would only make Pete feel like more of a loser in front of the version of him that’s managed to date his Patrick, so he keeps his mouth shut.

“Well none of you, like,” Patrick-prime says, “wished you didn’t have a band or anything, right?”

“Of course we didn’t wish that!” Patrick denies. He’s too vehement, and Pete is certain the other two don’t miss the look Patrick shoots at him.

“We didn’t,” Pete agrees, reassuring Patrick as much as he is their alternate-universe selves. For a second, he thinks Patrick-prime is about to press them on the issue, but he doesn’t.

“Maybe it was a universe-mandated vacation,” Pete-prime says. “Come here for one day without the pressure of being in a band so you can cool off, and tomorrow you’ll be back.”

“You think?” Patrick asks. From the hope in his voice, it’s clear what he wants the answer to be.

“It could be,” Pete says, even though he feels certain they’re here, with these versions of themselves, for a reason. “We can wait and see, maybe? It’s not like we did anything different that could have caused it.”

“If you’re sure,” Patrick-prime says. “Here, let me take your plates. No, you helped with dinner,” he protests, as Pete stands up to help him.

Pete lets him go out into the kitchen alone, then turns to Patrick. “You should play our songs for them.”

“Is that…allowed?” Patrick says. “They don’t exist in this world.”

“Definitely,” Pete-prime says. “It is so allowed, do you play guitar? Do you sing from behind the drums?”

Patrick glances nervously at the kitchen. “I don’t know if it’s the type of music you listen to,” he hedges. Trust him to be worried his alternate self is about to judge him for getting famous with the wrong type of music.

“I listen to all your stuff,” Pete-prime says. “Or at least, my you. Come on, we have tons of instruments.”

“They’ll love it,” Pete adds in the voice he uses to talk Patrick down from scrapping perfectly good songs he’s started to question.

By the time Patrick-prime returns from the kitchen, they’ve managed to convince him. “Uh, can I borrow a guitar?” Patrick asks his other self. “Also, I sort of played one of them earlier. Sorry.”

“Well, you know how to take care of them,” says Patrick-prime. He leads the way into the music room and Pete watches fondly as the two of them get into a discussion about whatever guitar Patrick has picked up.

“I know I can’t promise this, but he’s not going to disappear if you look away,” Pete-prime says. “Whyever you’re here, he’s here too. The multiverse isn’t about to separate you now.”

“I guess,” Pete says, turning around and sitting down on the sofa. “I have no idea why this happened to either of us, though.”

“Feels sorta like a sign,” Pete-prime says. “I’ve been thinking I want to talk to Patrick about moving in together, but what if I annoy the shit out of him, you know? But seeing that you two can make it work with a band…”

“Maybe,” Pete says, around the lump in his throat.

The Patricks eventually make it back, both with guitars in hand, and for a second Pete wonders if Patrick is about to teach himself how to play their music. Then, Patrick-prime hands an acoustic bass over to Pete.

Pete takes it, looks at it, and tries to hand it right back.

“If I have to play, you do too,” Patrick says, sitting down next to Pete and tuning his guitar. (It’s already perfectly in tune. Pete recognizes the move as a signal that he will not be accepting any arguments.)

“Fine,” Pete says, when it becomes clear no one is coming to his rescue. “When I ruin the songs it’s your fault. Uh. What are we playing?” Maybe Patrick will pick something Pete doesn’t know the part to. Then again, he’s not sure which would look worse to Patrick-prime: him flubbing a part, or him begging off because he doesn’t know his own songs.

“Some older stuff, I was thinking?” Patrick says. “The newer stuff is not, uh, really ready for an actual audience.”

Pete doesn’t acknowledge the zing of validation he gets from hearing that Patrick- and Pete-prime count as outsiders, while Pete gets to hear everything. “Okay, yeah,” he says.

Patrick starts with “Sugar,” so Pete expects it to be like the short sets they do, just their biggest hits. But after they make it through the basics, Patrick detours into “Heaven’s Gate” and starts picking out an acoustic version of “Save Rock and Roll.”

“Dude,” Pete says. Sometimes Patrick forgets that the rest of the world can’t just make up a bass part on the fly and have it sound decent.

“Oh, yeah, this was originally on the piano,” Patrick adds, before launching into the vocals.

“You don’t do lyrics,” Patrick-prime observes afterward. “I mean, unless you took some class or something and got way, way better at writing them? Um, no offense.”

Patrick laughs. “No, Pete does,” he says. “He’s a way better writer than me, so, yeah.”

“Oh,” Patrick-prime says, looking as if the world makes more sense to him now. “Of course he does, the poetry, duh.” He and Pete-prime share a look that’s full of adoration and no doubt related to the stash of poems Pete had found earlier.

To no one’s surprise, the lyrics are only the first of Patrick-prime’s questions about songwriting. Pete sets the bass aside as they get into it. He could watch Patrick talk music for hours—has done so many times in the past.

“So, hey, there’s a guest room here,” Pete-prime says to him. “I can make sure it’s ready and show you where everything is?”

“Sure,” Pete says, tearing his gaze away from Patrick’s hands as he walks Patrick-prime through one of their songs. He follows Pete-prime upstairs, accepting the towels from the linen closet and then waiting in the hall while Pete-prime grabs pajamas and a pair of unused toothbrushes.

“Anything else you need?” Pete-prime asks. “Extra pillows? Lube? Ball gag?”

“Ha. As if,” Pete says. Then he realizes Pete-prime must think he and his Patrick are together. Maybe all he has to do is pretend, and he’ll be able to manifest them into coupledom. “Got any handcuffs?” he asks.

Pete-prime laughs. “The bed frame in the guest room is, uh, not very strong?” he offers. “It used to be Patrick’s. But we, we learned from experience that you should not try a lot of things in that bed.”

“Damn,” Pete says. “Guess I won’t be tying Patrick to it after all, then.”

“Wait, you tie Patrick up?” Pete-prime asks. Pete supposes he would rather be on the other end of that transaction normally, but right now he’s too scared about Patrick leaving. Both from the universe they’re currently in, and from the offer Pete’s been trying to imply.

“He’s hardly going to be tying me up in someone’s guest room,” Pete points out.

“Did you know Patrick told me I couldn’t ask if you two wanted to have a foursome?” Pete-prime says. “He has absolutely no shame when it’s just the two of us, but introduce another person and he gets all puritan on me. Even when that other person is literally him.”

“Uh, yeah, sounds like Patrick, though?” Pete says. His brain is stuck on “absolutely no shame.” What the fuck is he missing out on?

“Well,” Pete-prime says, “Anyway, I’m not asking, nor am I telling you that my bed is a lot bigger than the one here. Just so you know.”

“I think that’s probably, um, not going to happen,” Pete says. “But thanks?” He can’t even let himself imagine having two Patricks—he’d already do just about anything if it meant he could have even one.

“I figured,” Pete-prime says with a grin. “Is your Patrick aware he’s a rock star?”

Pete laughs. “He’s never really gone for the cliché bits.”

“God,” Pete-prime says. “You know, I literally didn’t think he could be more perfect.”

“Yeah, he’s, uh, like that,” Pete says. “Sort of all the time, really.” He’s about to get into his favorite endearing Patrick habits, but then he hears footsteps on the stairs and decides he should maybe close his mouth before the wrong person overhears him. “Thanks for the…everything,” he says, instead. “Uh, goodnight.”

“Sleep well,” Pete-prime says. “Or let him keep you up all night, I don’t mind.”

“Oh my god,” Patrick-prime says, walking into the room. “Last time I let you be alone with yourself. You have everything you need?” The last part is directed at Pete.

“Is Patrick—”

“About to come up to bed,” Patrick-prime says. “Hey, if you two disappear again overnight, it was good to meet you. And hear our music.”

“Good to meet you, too,” Pete says. Though, he’s not sure good covers it; it’s more complicated than that. “Night.”

He makes it back to the guest room and hands a set of pajamas and a toothbrush over to Patrick. Pete puts on his shorts and tee advertising the Santa Hustle 5K, trying not to think about how one room away, there’s a Patrick who doesn’t mind changing in front of Pete. He takes his turn in the bathroom, mourning the absence of his fancy serums, then slips back into the guest room and quietly shuts the door.

“You gonna be able to sleep?” Patrick asks, as they turn out the lights.

Pete shrugs, then realizes Patrick can’t see. “I’m really glad you’re here,” he whispers. “And I’m sorry you are, if it is my fault. I swear I didn’t wish that about our band. ”

“I know you didn’t,” Patrick says. “You’re gonna, like, be here when I wake up tomorrow? No matter where that is?”

Pete reaches out and grabs Patrick’s hand. “‘Course,” he says. “I’d cross any number of universes to find you.”

He can just see Patrick smile in the dark of the room. Patrick doesn’t say anything, but he laces their fingers together, and Pete drops off like that, tethered to Patrick.

Chapter Text

Sometime in the middle of the night, Pete and Patrick stopped holding hands, but they’re still together and in the same place when Pete wakes up. He breathes a sigh of relief. Patrick stirs as he’s getting out of bed, so Pete combs his hair back from his forehead and says, “I’m here, okay? Just gonna go downstairs.”

Patrick mumbles a sleepy assent and rolls over. Pete goes downstairs to find the other two already awake in the kitchen.

“Oh,” Pete-prime says. “I figured you two going back overnight would be too easy, but I still really was hoping that was it.”

“Yeah,” Pete says, though he’s not sure he agrees. The longer they spend in this universe, the more time he has to search for the key to making a relationship happen.

“So, what’s the plan?” Pete-prime fixes another mug of coffee and passes it over.

Pete curls his hands around it, comforted by the warmth. “I dunno,” he says. “If it’s something we did, try to figure it out and reverse it? The internet doesn’t have a how-to for multiverse travel.”

“You’ll find the answer,” Patrick-prime says, with that quiet confidence he always has in Pete. It shakes Pete a bit to realize how thoroughly Patrick-prime trusts he can fix this. The weirdest, most confusing situation Pete could imagine, and Patrick-prime doesn’t seem at all concerned, just because he’s there.

“I hope,” Pete mutters. He gets the feeling his counterpart is feeling similarly touched by Patrick’s regard and vacates the kitchen before Pete-prime decides to demonstrate his gratitude. Certainly neither Patrick would want him watching that.

He’s surprised to find a tired-looking Patrick walking down the stairs, his hair sticking up the way it always does the first thing in the morning. “Thought I heard you get up,” he mumbles.

“There’s coffee,” Pete offers, like Patrick won’t see the half-full pot in a moment anyway. Once they both have some caffeine in them, maybe they can sit down and make a timeline of—

“Augh, shit,” Patrick says. “Sorry.” Pete very suddenly remembers why he’d left the kitchen.

“No, I’m sorry,” Patrick-prime says. “Pete, stop it, we have guests.”

“Oh come on,” Pete-prime says. “From what I’ve heard, they’ve gotten up to way worse, and probably in wilder places than kitchens.”

Oh, shit. Pete is going to be in so much trouble.

“What?” Patrick asks, sounding suddenly very awake and very angry.

“I mean, um, I haven’t heard anything about your sex life?” Pete-prime says. Patrick has already turned around and is glaring at Pete.

“What the fuck,” he says slowly, “is wrong with you.” Then, he storms back upstairs. A few moments later, Pete hears a door shut—Patrick’s past the point where he slams doors to make a point, but he’s very good at conveying all the attitude without actually completing the slam.

“I’m sorry,” Pete-prime says, appearing in the entryway to the kitchen. “I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s fine,” Pete mutters, looking down into his almost-empty coffee mug.

It’s actually very much not fine. Pete is starting to realize how very fucked he is. He should have stuck to his plan of mining this universe for information that would help him win Patrick over. Instead, he’d decided to take it one step further—hadn’t been able to resist the temptation to pretend. Just like always. And now Patrick knows about his moment of weakness.

Pete prays he hasn’t shown his hand. If Patrick thinks too hard about the lie, the last shred of deniability between them will evaporate. Patrick will no longer be in the superposition of both knowing but not reciprocating and not knowing at all. He’ll settle into his final state. And if that balance collapses now—before Pete finds the key to their counterparts’ relationship—Pete will have lost his chance forever.

“I’m going to go talk to him,” Pete says, because both Pete- and Patrick-prime are there now, looking at him. “Sorry for getting you mixed up in this, too.”

Patrick-prime looks like he wants to say something, but Pete really isn’t in the mood. He heads upstairs, taking a deep breath and then tapping on the guest room door.

Patrick yanks it open, letting Pete in before shutting it forcefully behind him.

“Am I a fucking joke to you?” he demands.

Pete doesn’t know how to react to that. “Uh—” he says. He’d expected Patrick to yell at him for overstepping. He doesn’t think he’s ready for the conversation Patrick seems to be having.

“Because if you think this is funny, it’s not.”

“I don’t think it’s funny,” Pete protests. “I didn’t—it’s not a joke.” As soon as he says that, he realizes Patrick is going to ask what it is, and he doesn’t have a good answer to that.

“You have ten seconds to convince me of that,” Patrick says.

“He was looking for a sign,” Pete rushes out. “The other me. He wanted to ask his Patrick to move into him and I thought—I didn’t want him to think the multiverse was telling him they should break up.”

Unfortunately, Pete has never really been able to lie to Patrick. “Fuck off,” Patrick says. “I can’t stop you from playing stupid games, but the fact that you made it about me, too—”

Pete winces; this is the opposite of the direction he wanted their relationship to go. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal.” At least not to Patrick. To Pete, it’s the biggest deal.

“Not—!” For a second Patrick just stands there with his mouth hanging open as he searches for words. “You didn’t think making up details about us having sex was a big deal?”

“I—it wasn’t that many details,” Pete says. “I mean, it wasn’t any details, really.”

“I don’t care how many details it was,” Patrick says. “It’s the fact that you said it at all.”

“It’s not like they think any differently of you,” Pete says. “It’s, I mean, it’s what they expected, you know?”

“And?” Patrick says. “I have to lie about—about…that because it’s what they expect? Actually, that’s not even it. I have to lie because you decided to make shit up, for some reason you won’t even tell me. You didn’t even—” Patrick huffs in anger and looks to the side rather than letting Pete catch his eye. “You can’t react proportionally to anything, so you make it my problem. Jesus Christ.”

“I can’t react proportionally?” Pete says. “I’m not the one who’s been on edge since we got here and learned things were a tiny bit different—”

“I don’t care if they’re different!” Patrick shouts. “But fuck, if this is how you respond, can you even blame me for wondering what this world’s me is thinking?”

His words go straight to Pete’s chest, a volley of heavy impacts that leave him unable to breathe for a second. “If you think that,” Pete says, when he gets his voice back. “Then why the fuck do you even bother with me in the first place.”

He really doesn’t need to hear Patrick’s response, so he spins around and storms out of the guest room. Thankfully, neither Pete- nor Patrick-prime is in the hallway; as Pete makes his way downstairs, he realizes they’ve probably both left for the day. Good. He doesn’t really need more witnesses to the breakdown he’s headed for.

Pete only just makes it out onto Patrick-prime’s tiny back porch before the tears begin to fall. He sits down on the steps, curling into himself as his heartbreak tries to claw its way out of his chest. There are tears over the fact that Patrick won’t ever love him and tears over the fact that he’s pathetic enough to still think it could happen after two decades and tears over the fact that if he lived in a different universe with a different Patrick he wouldn’t have to live on that hope. It’s a tattered thing, barely intact after everything they’ve been through, but Pete doesn’t know who he’ll be if he lets it go.

There’s still enough of a morning chill to the air that Pete can pretend he’s shivering from cold rather than the weight of his grief. The tepid sunlight doesn’t do anything to help either problem; it’s nothing like the all-encompassing heat of L.A. that settles around him when he feels like he can’t breathe, like he’s about to shake apart. Pete needs that intensity—the same way he needs more than whatever love Patrick may feel for him. Pete wants badly to be the type of person who can be okay with only getting a sliver of what he hopes for, but he’s never figured out how.

The tears exhaust themselves eventually, as they always do, and Pete comes back to himself. His back hurts where the porch railing is digging into it uncomfortably. There’s a hole in his chest because of Patrick. Only one of those problems is fixable.

Pete pulls himself up, shaking the stiffness out of his legs. He has no idea how he’s going to go face Patrick now—not that it’s the first time he’s had to do so after crying his eyes out over him. But it seems more likely that this time, Patrick will know why Pete was so upset.

Pete warily opens the door a crack and hears the soft sound of a guitar. It’s enough to make him pause on the doorstep; because it seems for a second like his only other option is to storm in and unload on Patrick for daring to take solace in the music that’s a monument to Pete’s eternal heartbreak. Then the part of him that knows better kicks in, so he walks sedately inside instead.

Patrick, absorbed in the song, doesn’t seem to notice when Pete passes by him to get to the kitchen. Pete doesn’t want to spend long downstairs, even so; he raids the cabinets for the snackiest foods he can find, then retreats to the guest room. It still feels fraught from their argument—an illusion, Pete is sure, but he can’t shake it. Besides, he craves the comfort of something familiar. He ends up in Patrick-prime’s room, leaving the door cracked just enough that he can hear the music from downstairs.

Pete never did finish reading his book yesterday, so he grabs it and crawls into Patrick-prime’s bed. The next thing he knows, there’s a hand on his shoulder and he blinks awake to find Patrick next to him.

“Rough day?” he asks. Oh, so it’s Patrick-prime, then.

“No, it was great,” Pete says. “That’s why I’m hiding up here.”

Patrick-prime strokes his fingers through Pete’s hair in a way that makes his head go delightfully fuzzy and says, “Can I help?”

“Keep doing that,” Pete says, closing his eyes again. “Fuck, did he tell you to come up here and kick me out?”

“Of course he didn’t,” Patrick-prime says. “He hasn’t said anything. I just wanted to check in.”

Oh, so either Patrick has gotten over his anger extremely quickly or he’s still so mad he doesn’t even want to talk about it. Pete is pretty sure he knows which one it is. Part of him wants to ignore the situation and let Patrick go on pretending he doesn’t exist. He knows he shouldn’t. But god, confessing might piss off two Patricks at once, which would be a new personal low.

“Pete?” Patrick-prime asks. He doesn’t seem like he’s about to let this go, so like always, Pete caves.

“I may have,” Pete says, “said a thing or two that wasn’t quite true, and then people came to the wrong conclusions about a fairly major aspect of our lives.”

Patrick-prime lets out the sigh of a person who has been here before. “Okay,” he says. “Let’s hear it.”

Pete shoves his face into the pillow so there’s no threat of catching Patrick-prime’s eye.

“Patrick and I,” he says, “my Patrick, we aren’t. We’re not together.”

There’s silence for a bit, and Pete hopes it’s not the precursor to another Patrick lecture. Two in a day would be a lot.

Instead, Patrick-prime says, “what do you mean?” He sounds so honestly shocked and confused that Pete rolls over to look at him. It doesn’t make him feel better to know that this Patrick apparently can’t conceive of a world where the two of them aren’t dating in the same way his Patrick can’t conceive of a world where they are.

“Well,” he says, “when a man and another man don’t like each other that way—”

“Cut the shit, Pete,” Patrick-prime says. “I’ve seen the way you act around him.”

“What do you want to hear?” Pete says. “That I’ve been in love with him basically since the moment I’ve met him? That half of everything I write is about him? That he takes it and turns it into songs and hasn’t said anything, ever?”

Patrick-prime’s hand stills in Pete’s hair, a shadow crossing over his face. Before Pete can get mad at him for the pity, he realizes it’s just sorrow. Like always, the sadness spurs Pete to attempt damage control. “It’s fine,” he says, quickly. “It’s, seriously, I’ve learned to deal with it, being here is kind of just a lot.”

“Was it true, what I said?” Patrick-prime asks. “About not wanting the band?”

“I want the band,” Pete says.

“He seemed worried that you didn’t.”

“Yeah,” Pete says. “That’s my fault, I guess. When he told us he wanted to get back in the studio, I said no. He had to call me and convince me. But I am in the band still, so he’s happy.”

“But do you actually want to be there?” Patrick-prime asks. “I mean, I know when Pete is just pretending to like something for me. I can see that making him mad.”

“Even if he thought I was lying, he hasn’t been this mad,” Pete says. “Not until…”

“I’m not saying it wasn’t a stupid lie,” Patrick-prime says. “But it just seems like something else might have contributed to your fight.”

“I think you’re right,” Pete says. “I just don’t know what it is. And I always know, but this time I don’t. He said something about me thinking he was a joke?”

Patrick-prime’s face turns thoughtful.

“What?” Pete asks.

Patrick-prime shakes his head. “I’m not going to get in the middle of your argument, Pete. This is something for you two to figure out. Yeah?”

“But if you know why he’s mad—”

“I don’t, for sure,” Patrick-prime says. “It just made me think of when…well, never mind. Maybe it’s just the stress of being here or, or anything else. I’m just not always good at putting my emotions in, you know, the right place when I’m not doing music.”

At Pete’s surprised look, he gives a sheepish smile. “Pete suggested I do some therapy,” he says. “I was kinda bad at it. But I picked up a couple of things.”

“Was that before you were together?” Pete asks, his heart pounding in his chest.

“Pete,” Patrick-prime says. “You can’t send someone to therapy to make them have major revelations about their sexuality. It doesn’t work like that.”

“Then what does work?” Pete begs. “What the fuck did he say to you that made you want to be with him?”

Patrick-prime is quiet for a moment as he thinks over it. “I don’t know if there was one thing,” Patrick says. “I had an embarrassing crush on him for so long and then one day he kissed me—”

“At the wedding,” Pete says.

“He told you?” Patrick-prime says with a small smile. “Then yeah, you know there wasn’t a big gesture, or moment, or anything. It was just—he became my best friend pretty quickly because he got how I thought when no one else did. We didn’t hang out all the time, because I’m bad at that, but he was good at convincing me to do things I didn’t think I would like so we could spend time together. He was the first person I came out to—honestly, I don’t think he was surprised.” Patrick-prime’s smile at that is wry. “But he was really supportive and didn’t, like, call me an idiot for taking so long to realize it or whatever. He let me figure it out at my own pace.”

“So I have to sit here and wait some more,” Pete asks. “That’s your advice?”

“Pete, I don’t know,” Patrick-prime says. “I’m not him. I didn’t meet you when I was still a kid, I didn’t write music with you, I didn’t become famous with you. I just have my normal life where no one really cares who I’m dating. I can’t imagine the pressure of being famous enough to sell out stadium tours, that is just…so far from anything I know. I didn’t have to make the decision with all that hanging over me, I just had to decide whether I liked Pete, and I already did, so it was easy. You know?”

“But you are him,” Pete says. “Just in different circumstances.”

“And those circumstances matter,” Patrick-prime responds. “I’m sorry. I wish it was different for you, yeah? I wish I could give you what you need.”

“You could have pity sex with me,” Pete suggests, looking up at Patrick-prime through his eyelashes.

“That kind of desperation doesn’t look good on you,” Patrick-prime says. “Anyway, dinner is almost ready.”

“What kind of desperation does look good on me?” Pete asks.

“The kind you are when I want to make you beg,” Patrick-prime says. “Get up; sulking doesn’t look good on you either and you two need to work things out so you can get back home.”

Pete follows him out of the room. “You’re not going to tell him, right?” he says, pausing at the top step.

“No,” Patrick says. “I’ll let Pete know though, so you two can go back to his place for the night.”

“No, don’t,” Pete says. “We can stay here.” At Patrick-prime’s look, he adds, “It’s fine, we’ve shared so many beds it doesn’t register anymore.”

“Okay,” Patrick-prime says. “I’ll tell Pete and you two stay here. And work things out.”

Pete sort of thinks there’s no working this one out, unless science fiction was also right about the potential for time travel. But Patrick-prime looks so hopeful, and like he still trusts Pete, even after everything.

“I’ll try,” he promises, and he tells himself that he means it.

Chapter Text

It turns out Patrick’s anger had spurred him to conduct a research binge while Pete was busy having a breakdown. Unfortunately, his time with Google was no more helpful that Pete’s. “I’m trying to think through everything Pete and I did over the past few days,” he says, after summing up the fact that physicists aren’t even sure a multiverse exists and therefore have not started on the problem of how to traverse it. “But we’ve been in the studio most of the time.”

And unless it’s something they did in the studio, Pete can’t imagine what the fuck else sent them here, because their lives are fairly routine otherwise. And if it is something to do with the studio…“What if whatever it was is in L.A.?” he asks.

“Fuck,” Patrick says, apparently forgetting for a moment that he’s not talking to Pete. “And in a place we have no way of getting access to in this world…fuck.”

It’s the weirdest thing ever to watch Patrick-prime talk his alternate universe self out of the impending spiral, but he does manage it. Apparently the therapy really did help. Pete keeps his head down and finishes his dinner, avoiding the looks he can feel Pete-prime trying to send him.

Pete finally escapes to the kitchen to do the dishes, feeling the tension bleed out of his shoulders as he scrubs and rinses. He’s considering whether it’s worth deep cleaning the stove just for something else to do when he turns around and finds Pete-prime watching him.

“Uh, hey,” Pete says. “Sorry if I’m in your way.”

“Patrick told me about earlier,” Pete-prime says. Good fucking god, Pete would think someone who’s literally almost him would know better. Or at least go easy on him.

“Cool,” says Pete. “So now you know everything and we don’t need to go any further into it.”

“Look,” Pete-prime says, “I get it, but ignoring it won’t help. I, uh, do therapy—“

“Yeah, so do I,” Pete says. “It turns out my actual coping mechanism is ignoring it, because making a big deal out of it makes things worse and there’s no getting over it. Trust me, I’ve tried.”

Pete-prime pulls two glasses down from the cupboard and pours them both some sparkling water, which means this is about to turn into a talk. “Patrick said—my Patrick—said the two of you had never talked about it,” he says.

“Yep,” Pete says. “Also an excellent coping mechanism. Don’t tell Patrick you’re in love with him.”

“I know why you think that. But what if you’re just…leaving all this love you could have on the table?”

“Your Patrick did explain what happened this morning, right?” Pete says. “What about any of that makes you think I should press the issue further?”

“That wasn’t the best way to go about it, maybe,” Pete-prime says. “But you know how Patrick is, like, how he’s really bad at letting himself be cared for?”

“He used to be,” Pete says. “But go on.”

“Well I guess it turns out we’re sort of the same way,” Pete-prime says.

“Again. Used to be.” At Pete-prime’s look of disbelief, he adds, “Look, I told you, I’m in therapy, too. And I wasn’t great at being around Patrick, or caring for him, always. But I’m not doing whatever you think, subconsciously pushing him away or anything. He does love me, and the way he shows it is by coming over to write with me when I’m having a hard time, and letting me be the one to hear all the songs he thinks are horrible, and getting onstage with me to sing my words just because I asked him to. I know yours loves you in, you have the other ways, but if I push too much for anything like that it just makes things worse.”

“So it’s better because you’re consciously pushing him away?” Pete-prime volleys back.

“I’m not pushing him anywhere,” Pete says. “He doesn’t want me, okay, he’s had so much time to do literally anything if he did. I think you know how easy I am for him.”

“But does he know?” Pete-prime asks. “Because he’s the one who has to.”

“I can’t,” Pete says. “You don’t get it, it would ruin everything. He can’t even deal with things second-hand, being here like this. It would fuck up the band, and the last time we fucked up the band it was actually the worst part of my life, so.”

“You think you can’t have him and still be in the band together,” Pete-prime says.

“I know I can’t have him and still be in the band together.”

Pete-prime taps a nervous rhythm on the counter. “Is that why you’re not sure you want to be in the band?”

“Did Patrick make you ask me that?” Pete says. “Because I told him—”

“He said there might be things you weren’t mentioning,” Pete-prime says.

Pete takes a deep breath. He’s not sure he wants to go into this with anyone, but if he’s going to, it might as well be himself. “I do,” he says. “I do want it, you have no idea what it felt like when I got here and didn’t have it.”

“Then why did he have to convince you to do another album?”

“So you know Patrick,” Pete says. “He’s impossible not to love. Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Pete-prime agrees, smiling to himself.

“So he’s especially impossible not to love when he’s making your words into songs,” Pete says. “And that just makes it harder when he doesn’t love me back. So…”

“So you want it, but you don’t,” Pete-prime says.

“I want it, but I shouldn’t,” Pete corrects.

“Okay,” Pete-prime says. “But he could still write songs for you, right? Even if you gave up the band? And maybe—he’s Patrick, there are so many things I love him for that I didn’t know before we were together. What if it would be worth the tradeoff?”

“Does yours write with you?” Pete asks.

“No,” Pete-prime says, “But that doesn’t mean—”

“Then you don’t get it,” Pete says. “You don’t…there is nothing that’s worth that tradeoff to me. Okay? It’s the priority. It has to be the priority.”

“Even if that’s true,” Pete-prime says; and Pete’s defensiveness kicks up a notch at his tone, “what if this is how you lose Patrick, not how you get to keep him? You don’t actually think Patrick would walk away from everything just because he figured out you had feelings for him?”

Pete actually does think that, after Patrick’s reaction earlier today; but he knows that during better days his beliefs don’t run that catastrophic.

“No,” Pete says. “No, but it will make things weird. I’m—I told you, I have to watch what I say and do around him anyway. If he knew, I’d have to be even more careful and I would mess it up. Plus, he’d feel guilty for hurting me, even though it’s not his fault. And he’d probably get pissed at me, again, for not telling him or doing…I don’t know, whatever he thinks I should have done about it.” Pete looks down at his hands. “We’d get past it. We’d still be friends. But I’d get less Patrick.”

Pete-prime gives him a sad smile. “Maybe I could talk to him. Not about you, but—”

Pete shakes his head. “The less he has to acknowledge it…look, he’s really good about, like, just not registering the things he doesn’t particularly want to think about. Okay? Just help me figure out how to get us back home and things will go back to normal.”

“Okay,” Pete-prime says, soft. “I’m…I’m really sorry.”

Pete shrugs. He can’t say it’s fine, because it’s really not fine, but he’s also not going to hold anything against this version of himself. If he was the one who had Patrick and a heartbroken alternate-reality self looking on, he would do the exact same.

“Be kind to yourself, okay?” Pete-prime says.

Pete forces a nod—he’s not sure what kindness even looks like, here. Probably it looks like returning to his home universe so he doesn’t have to spend all day surrounded by the one thing he wants, but can never have. “I may hide in the kitchen for a bit,” Pete says.

“Your Patrick went upstairs anyway,” Pete-prime says. “I think he just needed some space. Come hang out with us, at least.”

“Yeah, okay,” Pete says. He allows himself to be led into the living room because he knows it will make Pete- and Patrick-prime feel better. Patrick-prime looks up when they enter, like Pete-prime is the brightest thing in the universe. It’s the way Pete always looks at Patrick, and Patrick never quite returns, and it awakens the same pain in him. Pete’s always thought of it as a special kind of torture: a thing that tears him apart, but also sustains him. He knows he should want nothing more than to walk away—to get himself and Patrick home. But instead of making his excuses and trying to fix things, he watches Pete- and Patrick-prime cuddle on the couch as they explain the plot of the show they’re watching to him. He lets himself steal the belief in that domesticity and lock it away with all his other feelings regarding Patrick. Just like the rest of them, it doesn’t want to stay put.

Chapter Text

It turns out years of being forced to coexist in limited spaces despite being pissed off at each other has given Pete and Patrick the ability to do so without causing any fuss. Pete didn’t go to bed until after Patrick was asleep the night before, but he still wakes up early and hauls himself out of bed to go for a run. He does three miles and a full set of stretches in Patrick-prime’s yard and almost feels better afterward.

He makes it all the way through breakfast and the morning’s socialization with Pete- and Patrick-prime, and sees them off before he hears the sound of someone moving around upstairs. Pete listens to Patrick’s morning routine and ducks into the downstairs bathroom when he figures Patrick’s about to head into the kitchen. He only has to wait a few moments until he hears Patrick’s footsteps pass him by. He darts upstairs while Patrick is getting coffee and grabs some clean clothes before stealing Patrick-prime’s shower. Of course, that’s only a temporary avoidance measure—but when he emerges, it’s clear he and Patrick are still on the same page, because Pete can hear the sound of piano downstairs.

An outside observer might think nothing was wrong. But Pete knows how much Patrick hates being stuck here with him when he’s mad. It hits him suddenly that things might not get better until they’re back home. A large part of him doesn’t want to leave, but he can recognize that part of him is driven by his feelings. He has to set it aside if he wants to actually fix things.

Pete walks carefully down the steps, trying to avoid the boards that creak, and nabs the laptop. Back upstairs, he claims his now-familiar spot on Patrick-prime’s bed and settles in to research.

He starts by searching for multiverse travel again, not expecting to find anything helpful. If someone had figured out how to universe hop, they would probably either be a billionaire or have been kidnapped by the government.

That is, if other people had believed them when they told the story.

Pete tabs over to Facebook and types Gabe Saporta in the friend search box. He wishes Patrick-prime had any social media that belonged in this decade, but at least the picture of Gabe that pops up doesn’t look too outdated. Pete crosses his fingers and sends a message: Hey, do you know anything about multiverse travel?

He goes back to Google while he’s waiting, but it’s only a couple of minutes before he gets a notification that Gabe has responded.

One of me does

Well, that’s hopeful. Do you know how he does it? Pete asks.

Didn’t think to ask. But if you’re wondering, the sex is wild.

Pete doesn’t quite know what to do with that, so he just moves past it. Any ideas on what I could try?

Separate your soul from this plane. Free yourself of the worries and belongings holding you down. Let go of your need for control. Allow yourself to dream, and live in that dream.

Well, it’s something else to Google, at least. Thanks, Pete says.

Hope you have fun with you, Gabe replies.

Pete doesn’t tell Gabe that he’s definitely had days that were more fun. He just goes back to Google and types in soul travel. From there, it doesn’t take him long to turn up a ritual for astral projection. He’s always been a bit willing to believe in magic—after all, he found Patrick, didn’t he?—so he figures he might as well give it a try.

The ritual itself doesn’t seem hard to set up. He’s certain he can find a bowl and some salt in this house. He’ll need to go shopping for the other bits—or to send someone else shopping, since he and Patrick are supposed to stay home lest they break the multiverse or something.

Pete reads the instructions twice over, then starts googling ritual setups. If he’s going to do this, he may as well do it the right way.

Learning about ritual magic, herbs, and crystals manages to eat up the whole morning, plus most of the laptop’s battery. It’s with trepidation that Pete heads downstairs, but Patrick has a pair of headphones on and doesn’t register his presence. Or at least he doesn’t remark on it, as Pete makes his way into the kitchen and grabs a pad of paper printed with the St. Jude’s logo. He makes a shopping list of the various crystals and herbs he spent the morning learning about. Then, he realizes that if this works, it might take him back alone. So he writes down the website that had the ritual on it and notes on what he wants to try. He’ll have to record the rest of his process as he goes.

The work is able to calm his mind in a way sheer force of will couldn’t. It feels better to have a plan, one that’s not as open-ended as “hang around here until Patrick falls in love with you.” He knows Patrick will be glad, too—Pete still has to apologize, but maybe doing it with proof he’s been looking for solutions will make forgiveness more likely.

Pete taps on the office door and waits until Patrick looks up. His expression clouds over as he does, but he takes the headphones off.

“Hey,” Pete says. “Um, so I found a ritual that might help us get out of here. And, um, I’m sorry.”

Patrick sighs. “Do you even know why you’re sorry?” he asks.

“Because of the reasons you said,” Pete says. “The, the lying about you. The lying, and including you in my lie.”

“Not the lying to me about why you did it?”

“I—he really did say that he was looking for a sign.”

“And you thought a lie would help?”

Pete shrugs.

“Why did you do it, Pete?” Patrick asks. His question hangs in the silence that follows as Pete tries to collect his thoughts.

“I don’t know,” he says, quietly. That’s the most honest he can get.

The silence falls again after his half-answer. “Even if you weren’t trying to be funny and massively miscalculated and came out on the asshole side, even if you really had a good reason for what you did, I just…” Patrick shakes his head. “I think I need some time.”

“Time,” Pete repeats, his throat suddenly heavy.

“Yeah,” Patrick says. “Just. To think about things, I guess. It doesn’t need to, like, change anything. We’ll still be fine for band stuff. It’s just an…”

“Okay,” says Pete, backing out of the room.

Time. Patrick needs enough time that he has to specify it won’t affect band stuff. And if he’s thinking about what Pete’s motive could have been—if he’s about to figure it out—

Panic grips down on Pete’s chest. Before, he’d thought he was racing the clock to win Patrick over before the truth got out. But now, he realizes he doesn’t want Patrick to ever know. No matter what Pete-prime says. Pete may be stuck with this horrible half-hope, but it’s a place he’s grown familiar with. Any change in the balance could send him spiraling. He’d rather have his desperation than no hope at all.

Pete forces himself to walk away rather than barging back in to interrupt Patrick from whatever thoughts he might be having. He hasn’t had lunch yet; he might as well make something for himself. Maybe he’ll make some food for Patrick, too, because he always forgets to eat when he’s composing. Or maybe, he thinks, as he hears the door open, Patrick-prime is hungry and will be extremely grateful if Pete hands over the set of mini-sandwiches he just put together.

“Christ, I love you,” Patrick-prime says, as Pete holds out the plate. “I mean—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Pete says. He already knows that love isn’t meant for him. To prevent things from turning awkward, he says, “You’re not, like, skipping out on work early to get home because we’re here, right?” He starts on another set of sandwiches, because Patrick really is going to need to eat at some point.

“No,” Patrick-prime says. “I got all my parts laid down in the morning. I rarely work eight-hour days.”

“It’s either like three, or seventeen?” Pete asks, because he figures recording is probably pretty similar across the board.

“Pretty much,” Patrick-prime says.

He snags the pad of paper Pete’s been documenting his ritual on. “What’s this?”

“Figured it was worth a try,” Pete says. “We’ll—someone will need to go shopping, though.”

“Crystals?” Patrick-prime says. There’s a tinge of judgment in his voice.

“Science hasn’t exactly had an answer,” Pete says.

“I guess that’s true,” Patrick-prime says. “How much do you need of these things?”

“Not very much, I don’t think,” Pete says. “It’s just supposed to strengthen the ritual, it’s not actually a required part of it. Also I need a bowl and some salt, but you have those, right?”

In response, Patrick-prime walks over to one of his cupboards and opens it. He takes his time considering the options before standing on his tip-toes to pull out a gorgeous clay bowl. “This seems like something that should be good for a ritual, right?” He says.

“Yeah,” Pete says. “Yeah, that’s perfect.”

Patrick-prime hands him the salt next.

“I don’t know if I can find everything that’s on this list,” he says. “Honestly, Pete might do a better job than me. But I’ll get what I can, yeah?”

“Thanks,” Pete says. The next moment, Patrick-prime has slipped his shoes back on and disappeared out the door again. Pete adds the note about the pottery bowl and salt to his ongoing ritual log and then picks them up.

Patrick is singing softly when Pete walks through the living room. It’s another one of the songs they’ve been working on. He doesn’t get why Patrick has picked this one, out of everything: It had been frustrating them back home, when they were both getting along and collaborating. Now, displaced and working alone, Patrick’s unlikely to get further. Still, he pauses at the bottom of the stairs to listen.

“In another life,” Patrick sings, trying a different chord, “you are my babe,” and Pete’s breath catches in his throat.

Of course. Of course. It was something Pete did, because he’d dared to wrap his melancholy in wishes and hand it over. The gods, or whatever mysterious powers are out there, had heard it this time because Patrick’s music is nothing short of magic. So they’d been sent here, to that other life, so Pete could see it for himself. So he could look at the proof of what his heart has always known: There is no having Patrick and having the band. They’re two possibilities that don’t overlap.

Pete can feel the tears collecting in his eyes again and swipes at them, but that doesn’t prevent them from falling. He sinks down to sit on the stairs. At least this breakdown has the decency to be a silent one so he can stay there, fist stuffed in his mouth, and listen to his last, desperate, utterly stupid hope in Patrick’s voice.

He’s still there when Patrick-prime comes home, a small bag in his hand. “Hey,” Patrick-prime starts, then he sees the expression on Pete’s face. “What’s up?” he asks, quieter.

Pete shrugs.

“Come on,” Patrick-prime says, offering him a hand. “I didn’t get everything, but I’ll show you what I found and maybe we can figure it out. Okay?”

“Okay.” Pete doesn’t believe his own words, but he lets Patrick-prime help him up and leads the way upstairs. He sets the bowl he’s been carrying down in a corner of the room, as the ritual writeup suggested, then sits on the bed while Patrick-prime arranges crystals and herbs on the nightstand.

“So I was thinking I could ask Pete where else to look when he gets home,” Patrick-prime says, “because shopping for this stuff really isn’t my forte.”

“It’s fine,” Pete says.

“I want to give you the best possible chance of getting home,” Patrick-prime insists.

“No,” Pete says, “I just. I figured out why we’re here.”

“Will you tell me?”

Pete kind of hates that he’s getting Patrick’s gentle-voice, the one that used to cajole him out of bed in the mornings, or convince him it would be okay to brave the world outside his house, or talk him out of saying things he’d regret later. But he can’t deny that it’s effective.

“I wrote a song,” Pete says. “I mean, the lyrics, Patrick made it a song.”

Patrick-prime nods, like it’s only natural for him to weave Pete’s lyrics into tunes. “Did my Pete write the same poem? Is that what got you here?”

“No,” Pete says. “No, he couldn’t have written it. Not in this universe. I just wrote about your universe, and I didn’t know it.”

Patrick-prime takes a few moments to digest that information before saying, “Well that’s something, right? So you just have to make the song be about your universe instead.”

“I don’t know how,” Pete says. “It was about how I want what you two have. And I know it’s not mine, not really, but I don’t know how to not—”

Patrick-prime sits down next to him. “Pete,” he says softly.

Pete looks up to find him closer than expected. Patrick-prime telegraphs his intention as he tilts his head, and Pete closes his eyes and lets it happen. The press of Patrick-prime’s lips against him is a monsoon blown in to end a protracted drought. Pete can hardly breathe from the force of the emotions battering at him, and he reaches out and clasps Patrick-prime’s hand to keep himself from being swept away in them. Then he realizes what he’s doing, what they’re doing, and pulls back.

“I can’t,” he says. “I’m not—”

“You’re still Pete,” Patrick-prime says, softly. “And I, neither of us can change how your Patrick feels, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do something. Especially if it might help you get back where you belong.”

Pete wants to belong here, in this bed with this Patrick, hiding in his own cocoon of comfort. His Patrick deserves better than that, but for the moment, Pete lets himself pretend. He lets himself be kissed by Patrick-prime, who does so with the assurance of a man who’s done this a hundred times and will do it a hundred more. He knows just what Pete likes, while it takes everything Pete has just to keep up. Each kiss lingers on Pete’s lips, the sweetness a crucial threat to every wall Pete has built inside himself to keep his feelings contained. He can feel the wetness building in the corners of his eyes. And it’s Pete who pulls away, in the end, tears streaming silently down his cheeks.

Patrick-prime pulls Pete close in an all-encompassing hug and lets Pete sniffle into his hair. “I love you,” Pete whispers into his ear. “I love you so much.” Patrick-prime squeezes him tighter. Pete knows, from his years of therapy, how powerful it can be to say the words he’s been hiding from himself. He just hadn’t realized that this was another set of them. By keeping his feelings for Patrick locked away, he’d made it so they could simultaneously serve as his hope and his heartbreak. But the secrecy had dragged on him, bending him and his relationships and his life out of shape. The words were never his to hoard that way. It feels better, leaving them with Patrick-prime, who will safeguard them for him. And it feels less impossible, now, to tell the Patrick who needs to hear them so he can take them back home.

Patrick-prime’s arms stay locked around Pete and Pete clings to him, letting himself be held afloat while he catches his breath.

With Patrick-prime’s hand stroking his hair, he eventually manages to center himself again. He feels lighter, somehow, like maybe all those walls now laying in ruin were part of the problem.

“Next time it hurts,” Patrick-prime whispers. He has tears in the corners of his eyes, too. “Next time, no matter where you are. Remember me?”

“It’s okay,” Pete says, his voice coming out in a whisper, too. “It’s okay that it hurts. Because that’s how I know I love him still.” Pete sniffles again. “And because I love him, we have a band, and we get to travel the world and play our songs together.”

“That sounds...really nice,” Patrick-prime says. Pete knows he’s serious, just that he’s never been good at putting words to his bigger emotions.

“It’s everything,” Pete says. “It’s everything, and I would give it to him all over again if I got the chance.”

“Thank you,” Patrick-prime says, “for always being my person. For believing in me.”

“I always will,” Pete says. He takes a deep breath and then sits up. He knows he must look like a mess, but that seems apt—and he has to do it, now, before he loses his nerve. “Thanks for helping me figure myself out.”

Pete stands up and heads downstairs, his hand trailing against the banister like it can ground him. Patrick is right where Pete last saw him, staring at the keyboard like it’s offended him in some way. Like it’s his fault the song isn’t right, and the world isn’t right because of it.

“Uh, hey,” Pete says. Before Patrick can ask why Pete looks like he’s just spent the past half hour crying, Pete grabs a pen and reaches for the page of lyrics.

In another life, he’d written, you are my babe. And it’s true, but not in the way Pete wishes it were. He crosses out the offending word and replaces it: were instead of are. Four letters, and an entire universe of possibilities that aren’t his and were never meant to be.

“What?” Patrick says, when Pete slides the page back.

“Um,” Pete says. “So if you sing it like that, uh, I think we can go home. Because. I get it now. It is real, but it’s not mine.”

His legs are shaking and he wants to run, go hide under a blanket and never acknowledge anything or anyone else again, but he knows that would be unfair. He’s basically dumping half a life’s worth of his dysfunction on Patrick; the least he can do is stick around to answer questions.

“Pete,” Patrick says. He’s frowning slightly.

“We don’t have to talk about it,” Pete says. “We can if you want to. But it’s okay.”

“It’s not okay,” Patrick says, pushing the paper to the side. “Why didn’t you…?” Pete assumes there’s a ‘say something, before we ended up in an entirely different universe’ that Patrick didn’t feel the need to vocalize.

Pete takes a shaky breath. He can’t quite meet Patrick’s eyes, so he stares at the high-hat just over his shoulder. “It was easier,” he says, “if I didn’t know whether you had no idea, or whether you knew and just didn’t want it. I’m sorry.”

“I,” Patrick says. He stops, like he’d been hoping the rest of the sentence would come to him if he just started talking. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” Pete says. “It’s my problem. It’s not yours.” He catches the pained look on Patrick’s face and wishes he hadn’t. “Patrick,” he says, to forestall any disagreements, “It’s okay. We can go back, and do the album, and tour wherever you want, and I’ll give you all the time you need. It’s okay.”

“All right,” Patrick says. He looks like he doesn’t quite believe Pete, but he’s willing to go along with it. Just like Patrick always does, because that’s another way he loves Pete. There are so many, and Pete hates that he’s making it seem like none of them are enough. “I’ll play the song.”

Chapter Text

Pete wakes up, alone, in his bed, and for a moment he doesn’t even register how unexpected it is. Then he realizes what it means and sits up so fast it makes him dizzy. “Oh, fuck,” he says, running his hands over the sheets. They’re his ridiculously high-thread-count linens that Patrick always makes fun of. When he pulls the curtains back, it’s his backyard outside. Pete’s closet is a glorious riot of color and textures and patterns. “Thank god,” he breathes. And because this is his universe, the right universe, their albums are right where they should be when Pete looks, all seven of them. “Thank god,” he says again, reaching out to run his fingers along the edge of each of the sleeves. He’s always thought they were more precious than gold, but now he knows they’re absolutely invaluable. 

Patrick is going to be so relieved, too. To be back in the universe with their band, and where he doesn’t have to walk around knowing there’s another him who is dating Pete. And Pete knows Patrick asked for time, but he thinks he should also call, just to let Patrick know they made it back. Okay, and to check that Patrick did make it back. Not that he could have stranded Patrick; Patrick’s music was the thing that made this whole multiverse travel possible, he’s pretty sure. But he’ll feel better to hear Patrick’s voice.

Then he picks up his phone and sees an overflow of notifications: panicked texts, missed calls, and voicemails from Joe and Andy.

Right. Because they’d been in the studio when he and Patrick had decided to hop across to another universe. Pete swipes the first notification and unlocks his phone, dialing Joe.

The phone barely rings before it’s answered. “Pete?” Joe says, from the other end. He sounds desperate. Somehow, even after all these years and everything they’ve been through, Pete is amazed that anyone could care about him so much.

“Hey,” Pete says. “I’m back, I’m so sorry, things got weird for a bit, we’re okay.”

“Weird for a bit,” Joe repeats, like he’s trying to figure out if this means he should be upset with Pete.

“I can’t,” Pete says. “It’s a lot over the phone, can you maybe come over, I’m going to call Andy?”

“Is everyone okay?” Joe asks. “When you say weird, do you mean—”

Pete cuts him off because there’s no way to partially explain it in a way that will make sense, and he really thinks they should just all be in the same room. Mostly because otherwise it sounds too improbable. “We’re fine,” Pete says. “We kind of went through a lot, but we’ll tell you about it, okay?”

“Keep your fucking phone on you until I am there,” Joe says. “Do you understand that? Please confirm your understanding of that.”

‘Yes,” Pete says. “Yes, I have to call Andy and, and Patrick, but it’s in my hand.”

“Okay,” Joe says. “I’m leaving right now. You’d better be there when I show up.”

“I promise,” Pete says.

Joe doesn’t hang up right away; stays on the line, and it’s a comfort to hear each other breathing through the phone before the call goes dead. See u soon, Pete texts Joe, because he thinks it will probably make him feel better. Then he goes into his missed calls and dials Andy.

The reaction is more or less the same. “Pete? Is that you?” Andy answers.

“Yes, hey,” Pete says. “We’re okay. Joe is coming over?”

“Is it bad?” Andy says. “That sounds bad.”

“It’s not bad,” Pete promises. “I’m fine, Patrick’s fine, Patrick and me are fine, we just need to talk to you?” He actually doesn’t know that Patrick and him are fine, but he’s not sure how much of that mess Patrick wants the others to know.

“That sounds bad,” Andy repeats.

“It’s not,” Pete says. Andy is hardly ever anxious, so the fact that he is right now is making Pete’s heart rate rise. Probably he should have spent less time over the past few days freaking out about the status quo of the other universe, and more time trying to get back to his own. “I’m so sorry. I promise it’s not bad. Okay?”

“I will feel a lot better about this when I see you two,” Andy says, finally.

“Yeah,” Pete says. “Yeah, me too.”

After Andy hangs up, Pete flips through his phone. He didn’t miss anything else urgent, which is a relief because it means he doesn’t have to try to explain what happened to anyone outside of their band. But it also means he has nothing else to do but call Patrick.

The phone rings a few more times than on the previous two calls, and Pete realizes Patrick may still be asleep. Or maybe he’s not here yet, given how Pete’s pretty sure they didn’t show up in that alternate universe until they woke up. But right before the phone clicks to voicemail, it stops ringing, and Pete hears someone fumble it before getting a sleepy, “Yeah?”

“Hey,” Pete says. “It’s me. We’re back.”

“Mmm,” Patrick says. Pete can almost see him rolling over and trying to go back to sleep. “Back? Oh. Pete?”

“Yeah,” Pete says, smiling a bit at the fact that Patrick had answered his phone without looking who was calling.

Patrick lets out a huge sigh of relief, breath gusting over the microphone in a way that’s not the most pleasant on Pete’s ear. He doesn’t say anything else

“I just wanted to let you know we made it,” Pete says, before Patrick can doze off again. “I called Joe and Andy. I think we probably can’t tell them this over the phone, so they’re on their way here.” He waits to see if Patrick has anything to say, but there’s silence from the other end of the line. “I can tell them you need a bit more sleep if you don’t want to come right now,” he offers.

“No,” Patrick says, and he sounds more awake now. “No, I’ll be there. Are you okay?”

“We’re back,” Pete answers.

“Yeah.” Pete can hear in Patrick’s voice that he gets what Pete means by that. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

“Good,” Pete says, and then lets Patrick end the call. Then there’s nothing to do but wait. Pete fiddles with his phone, not wanting to get into the various messages that have piled up until he has time. He absentmindedly navigates to the Macy’s site and actually finds the sweatshirt he’d found in his alternate self’s closet, available for next-day delivery. Pete isn’t entirely sure what his size is for a women’s line, but he makes a guess and happily clicks the purchase button.

That takes approximately three minutes, which is not near enough time for Joe or Andy to arrive. But since they’re driving all the way, he figures he should at least try to be a good host. He puts on some coffee and looks in his fridge. The results are not encouraging, since he’s always bad at grocery shopping when they’re in the studio and the leftover Thai food he got at the beginning of the week may or may not be good anymore. But it feels better than he could have imagined to be looking into his fridge.

Pete feels like he’s snapped as he turns to the nearest cabinet and opens it, just so he can see all of his stuff. The fancy china he got but never uses, the mug with a huge crack down the side that he hangs onto even though it’s unusable, the stack of plates that’s one too short because Pete never learned his lesson about balancing things on the side of the countertop. Everything here comes with a wealth of emotions. It’s the kind of thing that can’t be manufactured, or added into a life. The kind of thing he’d built on his own, one day and one experience at a time.

Pete’s made it through almost the whole kitchen by the time Andy knocks on his door.

He barely gets it open before Andy is right in front of him. “Oh,” Pete says, pulling Andy into a full-body sort of hug. He feels like he’s about to start crying again, though he’s certainly done enough of that over the past few days. “Andy. I missed you so much, I am so un-chill without you around. Come on, I was making coffee.”

He barely gets a mug poured for Andy when there’s another knock at the door, and Joe’s there, a grocery bag in hand.

“I figured you didn’t have food,” he says.

Pete bundles him into a hug, too, even though the bag makes it a bit awkward. “Joe,” he says. “Joe Trohman, my rock, holy fuck am I glad to see you.”

“What the fuck happened to you?” Joe asks, and Pete realizes that the way he’s been handling this has probably not made anyone less freaked out. The sound of a car door slamming outside makes them both look up, and Pete looks up to see Patrick making his way toward the house.

He takes the groceries from Joe before they can get tangled in the hug with Patrick, too, and heads back into the kitchen to pour more coffee. Andy takes the grocery bag from him and unpacks it, which is how they have a spread of coffee plus bagels and fruit when Joe and Patrick make it out into the kitchen.

“Hey,” Patrick says, reaching out for Andy. Pete fills a coffee mug for when they’re done and pushes it across the counter for Patrick to grab.

“Make it back okay?” he asks.

“I don’t have the song,” Patrick answers.

Pete reaches over and taps Patrick’s temple. “I think you have the song.”

“Can you tell us where you went, please, without warning us, and why?” Andy asks. “And why we need to talk about it?”

“We need to talk?” Patrick says, shooting Pete a worried look. He mouths, I thought we said band stuff was okay, or Pete assumes that’s what he’s going for. The attempt at silent communication does not defray the tension in the room.

“No, I shouldn’t have said it that way,” Pete says. “I just meant, we couldn’t do it over the phone because it’s weird as fuck, and also I really, really wanted to see you guys.”

“What’s weird as fuck?” Joe says.

“We were,” Pete says. He has no idea how to say this without sounding like the world’s biggest asshole who is playing the least funny prank in the history of ever. “I know it sounds like bullshit but we, we got yanked to another, um, universe and had to get back.”

“Another universe?” Andy questions, his brow furrowing.

Pete looks at Patrick for support. “You know,” Patrick says, “Like Doctor Strange.” It is both the most Patrick response, and the least helpful explanation anyone could have offered.

“You do realize that Doctor Strange is fiction,” Joe says.

“Okay,” Pete says, “But do you remember that one time Gabe called and said he had another version of himself there?”

“Gabe,” Joe says. “You’re using Gabe as evidence?”

“Well, for multiverse travel, Gabe seems like a good reference,” Patrick says. “You know?”

Joe buries his face in his hands. “If this is some kind of prank…”

“It’s not,” Pete says. “It would be totally unfunny. No one is making fun of anyone here.” He’s maybe a bit too zealous with his denial, because he sees Patrick give a slight frown at his words. He adds, “I swear I’m not lying.”

“Right,” Andy says. “Just. Another…universe…?”

“Yeah,” Pete says. “It was, it was a world with its own, you know, Pete and Patrick and Joe and Andy. But different.”

“Different how?” Joe asks.

“We didn’t have a band,” Pete says, right as Patrick says, “Pete and I were dating there.”

The silence that falls in Pete’s kitchen after that feels a bit weird, so Pete adds, “It wasn’t on purpose. The, um, ending up there.”

“Really,” Joe says, looking at Pete. If he hadn’t already confessed to Patrick, Joe’s complete lack of subtlety might have given him away here and now.

“Not on purpose,” Pete repeats, quieter.

Joe sighs. “Fine,” he says. “Sure, okay, we’re all Doctor Strange now, and I’m going to try to not think about that. Why you two, specifically?”

“Well,” Patrick says, “probably because we were the ones working on the song.” Pete thinks it’s more likely they were chosen because they were the subject of the song, but if Patrick wanted to mention that, he could have.

“I don’t think I like this song,” Andy says.

“It’s a good song,” Pete protests. “And I fixed it.”

“You fixed it?”

“We fixed it, whatever.” Pete feels like it was really him who did the fixing, because it was the lyrics that were wrong, but getting into an argument over that seems silly in light of everything that’s happened. “And I’m fucking sorry we wasted like a third of our studio time, guys, that wasn’t planned.”

“None of it was planned,” Patrick says, tracing abstract shapes on Pete’s countertop.

“You two are back, and safe,” Joe says, “That’s number one. We can, like, you know we can just reschedule studio time, right? We’re not broke kids who have to scrounge together money before we can record anything.”

“Yeah, of course,” Pete says, some more tension dropping out of his shoulders. “I just know scheduling can be kind of a pain—”

“Well,” Andy says, “if you start jaunting to different universes every time we’re supposed to hang out, I’ll be pissed. But it seems unfair to blame you this time.”

It’s silent for a second, while they all decide if the joke is going to land, and then Pete laughs and Patrick laughs and Joe and Andy join in. “I’m so glad,” Pete says. “My band. I didn’t have a band and it was the worst.”

Patrick takes the moment to yawn into his cup of coffee.

“Did you sleep last night?” Joe says to him. “I’m beginning to feel like we shouldn’t have let you drive.”

“I was in bed by three,” Patrick says. Before Pete can call him on the lie, he says, “I mean, the hour was still three.”

“I think you should maybe get some more sleep,” Andy says. It’s half-past eight in L.A., which is a time Patrick typically does not experience when he doesn’t have somewhere to be.

“Yeah,” Patrick says through a yawn. “Can I call you guys later to figure out schedules and stuff? What day even is it right now?”

There’s a brief pause, Joe and Andy waiting for Pete to jump in with the answer, before Andy says, “Saturday. So take your time.”

“Kay,” Patrick says. “Thanks for the coffee, Pete. See you later.” And heads back down the hall toward the door.

“Patrick,” Joe says, looking between him and Pete in a worried manner. “There’s beds here!”

“I just,” Patrick says. Pete can see him struggling to think of an explanation that doesn’t get into Pete’s in love with me and I still don’t know what I’m going to do with that.

“He spent three nights in a house that wasn’t his,” Pete says, gently. “I think he needs to be around something familiar.”

Andy is also frowning between them now, but thankfully either Patrick doesn’t catch it or is too tired to remark on it as he leaves.

“Uh,” Joe says, as the door shuts behind him. “You said everything was okay.”

“It is,” Pete says. At Joe and Andy’s looks of disbelief, he says, “Really.”

“It’s not that I don’t believe you,” Andy says, which is never a good way for a conversation to start. “It’s just that.” He pauses.

“It’s that we would have expected you to be the one fixated on the fact that your counterparts are fucking,” Joe says. “Also, will you eat some food please?”

“They did feed us over there,” Pete says. He grabs a bagel and takes a bite anyway. It’s very good. “And I know what you’re thinking, okay, but I promise I’m okay.” Neither of them look like they believe Pete, so he says, “It, yeah, it wasn’t easy being there. Okay? But it turns out what I want is what Patrick and I have here.” Pete frowns. “I mean, I also want him the other ways. But my point is, they didn’t have the band, and that actually, that matters more. I kind of guess I’ve always known that, since I’ve never seriously thought about pushing the issue too hard. But being there helped me understand what that meant.”

“Which is why you’re just letting him walk out of the door instead of insisting he crash at your house?” Joe asks. “Even though it would literally be the easiest option for him to stay here?”

“I’m giving him time,” Pete says. Andy and Joe both look more worried at that. “Look,” Pete says. “I know it’s not going to be a surprise that I, like, I did not handle things well with the, um, way things were over there.”

“I want your therapist’s take on all this,” Joe says. “No offense.”

Pete’s laugh is a bit more real this time. “No, I think she’ll be really, um, happy, probably,” Pete says. “Can you get therapists gifts? I feel like I owe her the world’s biggest fruit basket. I owe all of you one, probably.”

“No, you don’t,” Andy says.

“Of course not,” Joe says.

“Well, I—”

“You don’t, Pete,” Andy insists. “We have your back. You have ours, and we have yours. Okay?”

“Okay,” Pete says. “I am going to try to be way less of a pain about the Patrick thing, though.”

“If you need to talk, we’re here, Pete,” Joe says. “Unless you’re in some fuckin’ universe where we’re not, but even then I bet you could find me and I’d listen to you, yeah?”

“Thanks,” Pete says. “Are you gonna, um, can you hang out for a bit?”

“Yes,” Joe says. “We are not letting you get yourself into another weird mess so soon after the last one.”

“Thanks,” Pete says. “I actually really appreciate that.”

“Also,” Andy says, “Joe and I wrote part of a song that first morning when we thought you two were just super late, you should hear it.”

“Still not doing a metal album,” Pete says, but he can feel himself smiling despite his words.

Chapter Text

Pete’s glad to have company for most of his Saturday, and uses Sunday to sort through various missed emails and reply to text messages (sorry, was in the studio is a good enough excuse for everyone who’s been waiting to hear from him). He also does a bit of writing, though he doesn’t send it to Patrick yet. Technically, he’s pretty sure he can reach out about band stuff at any time without getting snapped at for not giving Patrick enough time. But he thinks Patrick might appreciate having at least a day to himself, after everything.

Even though Pete isn’t sure how they’re going to move forward from this, he feels a rush of excitement when his alarm goes off on Monday. He gets to spend the day with his band. His favorite people in the world. He hasn’t felt like this for a long time—of course he loves the new stuff, loves what they’re doing, but this album was really Patrick’s baby and not his. He’d taken for granted that he could send Patrick his words and Patrick would send back songs; now he remembers just how special that is.

Plus, he gets to wear his new (soft) sweatshirt and everyone will give him shit about it and things will be normal, again, for once.

So he drives himself to the studio and doesn’t even hate the traffic he gets stuck in. He listens to the stuff Joe and Andy laid down before panicking about them being MIA. He re-familiarizes themselves with everything they were doing, and what they still have to do, and works out a rough schedule for the week with Joe. They have to cut a few of the songs they planned to record, but they weren’t planning to finish the album in these few days anyway. They’ll have plenty of time.

When Patrick shows up, Pete lets Joe run the new plan by him rather than do it himself. He’s pathetically proud of himself for being strong enough to let Patrick have his space. 

They slide back into the comfortable routine of recording, and as if in apology for the week Pete just had, the day goes smoothly. He doesn’t realize how late it’s gotten when Patrick sits down at his keyboard and starts playing the song from the other universe—or, more accurately, the song that brought them to, and then back from the other universe. Pete pulls the official lyric sheet over to update it and jots down a few more notes in the margins.

Joe is tapping his pen slowly as Patrick sings, a sure sign that he’s thinking up something brilliant. Andy is already air-drumming. And just when Pete feels like it’s going to be okay, Patrick cuts himself off. “I can’t,” he says, pushing back from the keyboard with alarming intensity. “I can’t sing this, I’m sorry.” Before anyone can say anything else, the door is already closing behind him.

“What was that about?” Joe asks, after a very long silence.

“I don’t know,” Pete says. “I mean, that was the song, you know, that sent us to the other universe, but we changed it and got back. I. He was about to sing the bridge with the, um, lyric.”

Joe and Andy share a look, and then Joe gets up.

“No,” Pete says. “I’ll go.”

“Do you think Patrick maybe wants to process this with someone else?” Andy suggests, kindly.

Pete shakes his head. He’s the one who caused the problem, and the rule is (has always been) that when he causes problems in Patrick’s life, he fixes them and then apologizes profusely. Neither Joe nor Andy look convinced, so Pete says, “If he tells me to fuck off, I’ll come right back and get one of you, okay?”

“All right,” Joe says, but he still doesn’t sit back down.

Patrick left the building entirely, which Pete had expected, and is standing in the alley staring blankly at the office building next door. “Hey,” Pete says, softly. He has a feeling that whatever Patrick is feeling about this whole mess is about to explode out of him.

Sure enough, Patrick buries his fingers in his hair and says, “I need to know how much of this is even real.”

“What?” Pete asks. Once again, Patrick has found a way to take him by surprise.

“You gave me this band, Pete,” Patrick says. “You gave me your lyrics, your life, and let me make it into songs and just put it out there wherever, and I did that without even thinking about it. And you’ve just been letting me make things worse for you, when you never should have let me do any of it in the first place.”

Pete isn’t sure where to start with that. “You haven’t made things worse,” he says. “I told you I wanted our band more than anything else and I meant it. I mean it. And I don’t think…it doesn’t matter to me why I did it.”

“Well it should,” Patrick snaps. “Because it matters to me, and now I don’t know why you did any of it.”

“You do know,” Pete says. “What you don’t get is that I would do it again, Patrick, because if I look at my life? That’s one of the things I’m actually proud of. I like myself better for it. And I can’t say I would have done it if it hadn’t been you. I don’t know. But it was you and I’m glad it was you because it gave me this chance.”

“No,” Patrick says, coming dangerously close to a yell. “Stop acting like that, I was the one who kept pushing for this album, when you said you didn’t want to. I was the one who took the lyrics that you told me you weren’t sure about and made them into songs and sent them to Neal. And I can’t do this album, because all it’s going to do is hurt you more.”

The easy way out would be to agree, and to go back into the studio and let Patrick tell Joe and Andy about his decision. But the easy way isn’t going to fix things. It never has.

“What if I want to do the album?” Pete says.

“I don’t—” Patrick bites his tongue before he can say that he doesn’t believe Pete, which is considerate, Pete supposes.

“Look,” Pete says. “That’s just how life works, right? You have to have dark to have light, and all that. And I can. I can just not torture myself with the dark, and be glad for the light?”

Patrick looks worryingly close to breaking, which is the opposite of what Pete was hoping this conversation would do. “You’re not getting it,” Patrick says, “I just—” he doesn’t finish his sentence with words, instead grabbing Pete’s t-shirt and pulling him in so he can press their lips together.

Pete puts his hands on Patrick’s chest and pushes him back gently. “Patrick,” he says. “No.” As much as he can’t bear not being with Patrick, it’s even worse to think that Patrick might be with him out of obligation. “We don’t have to finish that song, okay?” Pete says. “We don’t have to ever think about it again.”

Patrick drops his head to Pete’s shoulder. “I don’t know what to do,” he says.

“Yeah, you do,” Pete says. “Go write music about it. Come on. The rest of us can get stuff done without you for the rest of the day.”

Patrick looks dangerously close to crying as he follows Pete back inside. He grabs his laptop and headphones and sits down in a corner, where he’s out of the way.

Joe and Andy both give Pete expectant looks. “It’s fine,” Pete says. “He just needs to think about stuff. Um, I told him we would give him the rest of the afternoon off so he could write.”

“No offense, but it’s extremely obvious you’re not telling us something,” Joe says.

Pete looks over at Patrick, and then back at Joe. “It’s not mine to tell,” he says. And it’s not—they already know his side of things. Before either Joe or Andy can get any ideas, Pete says, “Just let him figure it out, yeah? He’ll probably want to talk about it at some point.”

“If you say so,” Andy says. “But Pete, if it gets in the way…”

“It’s not,” Pete says. “He told me it wouldn’t. We…promised each other.” What goes unsaid is that promises made to Patrick are sacred. Pete always finds a way to keep them. Even if it means handing over his heart. Even if it means hanging up the longing he’s been cloaking himself in for as long as he can remember. 

Andy nods once, accepting the pact as if it’s his own. “Then let’s get to work,” he says.

Chapter Text

Pete’s spent all evening keeping himself busy to avoid dwelling on what happened earlier, and he’s about to start getting ready for bed when he hears a knock on his door. He debates ignoring it, but it’s not like he’s about to fall asleep, even if he does go to bed. He could use another distraction.

He has no idea who it might be: He’s not waiting for any deliveries, he doesn’t think. Maybe Joe sent his neighbor over to make sure he’s not moping. Maybe Joe came over himself.

He opens the door, expecting anything but Patrick.

“You don’t have to knock,” Pete says, because that’s his line for when Patrick makes him answer the door instead of just letting himself in. If it were a one-time thing, Pete would think it was because they’re fighting or whatever, but it’s an every-time thing and Pete is going to break him of the habit someday.

Patrick follows him in silently, his computer bag still over his shoulder. Pete wonders if he’s come straight from the studio. He still has leftovers from dinner; maybe he can heat them up.

Then again, maybe Patrick is just here to tell Pete he meant what he said earlier, and he’s calling off the album even if Pete wants to do it. “Are we talking? Or—” Pete asks

“We were talking earlier,” Patrick says.

“Fine, but,” Pete says. “You wanted time.”

Patrick shrugs. “I, um. I wrote you a song?” He pulls his laptop out of his bag and hands his headphones to Pete while he types in his password. When Patrick pushes the computer toward him, Pete sees a GarageBand file waiting for him. He presses play.

It’s clearly not a song for the band, is Pete’s first impression. There are a lot of strings, and a smattering of horns, and what he’s pretty sure is synthesizer. It feels deep, like there are so many layers to it Pete can’t comprehend them all. It also, notably, does not feel happy.

“So,” Patrick says, when Pete slides the headphones off. “I know I’m really not as good at talking about things as you are. So I tried to write music about it?”

“I didn’t mean you had to do that for me,” Pete says.

“It helped, I think,” Patrick says. “I don’t know. I’m kind of tired.” Pete snorts at the understatement. “Honestly I kind of hoped you would just know what I meant when you heard it.”

Pete feels like he’s failing some sort of test. “Oh,” he says. “Um, you sounded. Confused?”

“Yeah. That was one of them,” Patrick says.

“Sad?” Pete guesses.

“Yes,” Patrick says. “I guess. See, I just. I realized I’m not happy?”

This sounds like a conversation that should not be had a scant few hours after Patrick had a breakdown in the studio, or possibly without a trained therapist present. Then again, Pete has done a lot of therapy. That has to count for something. “What part of you isn’t happy?”

“You know,” Patrick says, flipping his hand outward. The thing is, Pete kind of does know what he means.

“And you didn’t realize it until you saw the other you being happy?”

“Sort of,” Patrick says. “Yeah. And then I thought—it was so easy. And if I was better at things, it could also be easy for me.”

“I don’t think it’s ever easy in the way you want it to be,” Pete says. “It’s…simple, maybe. But that doesn’t mean it’s not work.”

Patrick sighs, as if this is the worst news he’s ever gotten. “Then why did you say no?”

Oh boy. This is definitely a conversation that should not be had a scant few hours after Patrick had a breakdown in the studio. “Because you were just upset?” Pete says. “Patrick, I have never wanted this to make you uncomfortable. And I know it does. So don’t do that for me.”

“But it could just not make me uncomfortable,” says Patrick, with the assurance of someone who’s just solved one of the world’s biggest problems.

Pete can’t fight the urge to chuckle. “I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“No, I mean it,” Patrick says. “You’re you. I have let you get away with literally everything because you’re you. I’m not explaining this well,” he says, seeing the look on Pete’s face. “I just meant. You’re not twenty-five anymore, you know?”

“Not the most clingy and annoying person you’ve ever met, you mean?” Pete says.

“No. Well, I mean, sort of, yeah. But the point is, you’ve changed, and if you can do that, then I should be able to, too, right? I should believe you when you tell me it’s okay. When you say you can be okay doing the band even though it makes you sad sometimes. So I should let you make that decision, right, but also, I could just stop making you sad?”

“You don’t make me sad,” Pete protests. “You—I’m happy to be in a band with you. And this…we’ve known each other for like half our lives, Patrick, and you’ve never…”

Patrick shakes his head. “Maybe not,” he says. “But writing with you, and then when you didn’t want to come back, it made me realize. We’ve always been something. You know? I just. I didn’t feel ready to talk about it.” Patrick says.

“What?” Pete asks. “If you’re not ready to—we don’t have to—”

“I think I could convince myself that I would never be ready,” Patrick says. “But that’s. Bad, right?”

“Right,” Pete says. “Well, for me it was.”

“Right. Bad. So,” Patrick says. “You know how when I met you, I always wanted to impress you?”

“Of course you did,” Pete says, fondly. “You were a tiny music snob. You wanted to impress everybody.”

“But never like I wanted it with you,” Patrick says. “And I was—it was so much. You know? So I kept backing away because it already felt like it would consume me. Like it was consuming me. I was too scared to consider the possibility of more. And then when you did things like last week—” Patrick waves his hand. “Right after, after I started thinking about it, I thought you knew. I thought you were trying to push me into telling you. And I took it as more proof that nothing I could give would ever be enough for you.”

“I didn’t know,” Pete says. “I swear.”

“Yeah.” Patrick smiles, just a bit. “I just felt transparent, I think. But that’s not the point, really. Because when we were there, I watched them be together. And the other you wasn’t like that, and it’s not because he’s a different person. It’s because you’re not like that.”

“You’re giving me too much credit,” Pete says. He’s not sure he wants to go into how much he absolutely is like that, not when Patrick’s forgiving him.

“Shut up, Pete,” says Patrick. “You, earlier, you pushed me away. Because I needed you to. I didn’t know it, but you did, because you care about me.”

“I’ll always care about you.” 

“I know,” Patrick says. “Which is why I can stop making myself uncomfortable about it. Because I can trust that you won’t make me uncomfortable, either.”

Pete barely manages to draw a breath. “Patrick,” he says.

“Pete,” Patrick says. “It’s okay.”

He cups a hand around Pete’s jaw and leans in slowly, giving Pete time to call it off. Pete isn’t sure this Patrick is able to make better decisions than breakdown-in-the-studio Patrick, but at least he took some time to decompress and write, like, 80-track compositions to get his thoughts in order.

Pete’s eyes flutter closed as Patrick’s lips press against his. It’s nothing like kissing Patrick-prime—none of that easy confidence, nor the innate knowledge of how to take Pete apart. It’s better, somehow. Better, because Patrick’s hand is jittery when Pete grabs it, but he’s doing this, improbably, because he wants to. Better, because it’s not a gift he’s giving Pete to help him through a hard day, but a comfort he wants them to share.

“I think I have, like. A hundred questions,” Pete whispers, when they draw apart, “for you, when you’re not about to collapse because you haven’t eaten since lunch; but just, promise me that you’re not doing this because you think it’s going to be easy.”

“I know it’s not going to be easy,” Patrick says. “It’s going to be complicated. I’m going to get so many disappointed looks from the guys. But like you said earlier. Even if it’s work, it can be simple. Because wanting you around is the simplest thing, for me.”

“Okay,” Pete says.

Patrick tries to lean in for another kiss, but Pete puts a hand on his shoulder. “Dinner,” he says. “You must be starving.”

“I’m fine,” Patrick says, right as his stomach growls. At Pete’s look, he says, “All right, fine, don’t put yourself out for me, though.”

“I have leftovers,” Pete says, opening the fridge again.

“Thanks,” Patrick says. He takes a seat at the bar as Pete fixes up a plate for him and puts it in the microwave. “Were you about to go to bed? I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Pete says. “This is the best surprise late-night visit I’ve ever had.”

“Okay,” Patrick says. He sits in silence for a few more moments, and then says, “How did you manage to steal that sweatshirt from the other universe and I couldn’t even bring the lyrics back with me?”

The microwave beeps, covering Pete’s laugh. “I asked where he bought it and got my own,” he says, grinning as he sets the plate down in front of Patrick.

“Oh my god,” Patrick says.

“Eat,” Pete says.

Patrick picks up the fork and then pauses. “Can I, um, stay with you tonight?”

“Of course.” Pete doesn’t know why Patrick has to ask. “Let me just make sure the guest room is ready.”

“No,” Patrick says. “Like, with you.”

“Oh,” Pete says.

“If that’s okay,” Patrick adds.

“That is beyond okay,” Pete says. “Um, I mean, I’m totally a normal amount of okay about that.”

“It’s good that it’s beyond okay,” Patrick says, with a small smile. “Go get ready for bed. I’ll be up in a bit.”

Pete goes through his nighttime routine, and he’s in bed with a book when he hears Patrick’s footsteps on the stairs. He looks up the second Patrick comes into his room, forgetting about his book entirely. Part of him can’t believe any of tonight has happened. Maybe he’s going to wake up tomorrow in another universe where Patrick doesn’t even know him.

He’s still ruminating on the improbability of the last half hour when Patrick strips off his jeans and climbs into bed next to Pete. “Hey,” he says.

“Hey.” Pete reaches out to smooth a hand through Patrick’s hair. “You good?”

“Long day,” Patrick says, stifling a yawn.

“Yeah.” Pete reaches behind him to switch off the light and settles down into bed. Patrick sets his glasses on the nightstand and follows suit, not staying on his side of the bed as he usually would, but moving over so he can curl into Pete. “Good night,” he says, kissing Pete gently.

Pete gasps; he can’t help it. “Patrick,” he whispers. Patrick leans forward for another kiss, slow and sleepy. Pete reaches out to grab Patrick’s hand and twines their fingers together.

“Yeah?” Patrick asks.

“I just,” Pete says. “Maybe I already went to bed and fell asleep. Maybe I’m dreaming all this.”

“You have a way of making dreams come true,” Patrick says. “But hey. This is real.”

“This is real,” Pete echoes, cupping Patrick’s cheek and running a thumb over his lower lip. Patrick’s eyes flutter shut, proof that Pete is having an effect on the world around him. Or maybe it’s just what his imagination wants him to believe.

But, “this is real,” Patrick repeats.

And it is.

Chapter Text

I first tried to write this fic in 2015 after seeing this tumblr post, and it did not take. I got it to an ending, but it wasn’t the ending. I think I realized then, and I definitely realized when I re-read my draft this year, that the issue wasn’t the ending. I didn’t have the right emotional arc/logic for this fic, and because of that I didn’t like my “reason” the band was yoinked through the multiverse (this version of the fic has like 75% less Joe and Andy, sorry, guys). So I had given up on writing it. But the lyric “In another life, you were my babe,” reactivated the part of my brain that had started this piece and really wanted it to exist, even if that meant figuring things out anew.

This time, I was coming from a different starting point because I was deep in my So Much (For) Stardust feelings. One of the things that initially struck me about this album was the stark difference in the lyrical tone between it and M A  N   I    A. And thinking about that helped me figure out what I was trying to do here, as a writer.

M A  N   I    A is filled with the idea that the best thing in the speaker’s life is also his destruction. “HOLD ME TIGHT OR DON’T” juxtaposes a pretty optimistic chorus (“This isn’t how our story ends / So hold me tight, hold me tight, or don’t”) with a lead-in that suggests it is not actually a real happiness, or a good happiness (“I took too many hits off this memory / I need to come down”). Notably, this song comes right after “The Last of the Real Ones,” which is more upbeat about love but teases the destruction that comes with it (“My head is stripped, just like a screw that’s been tightened too many times / When I think of you” and “I’m done with having dreams”) that will become a theme on this album.

Then, there’s the fuckin’ entirety of “Wilson (Expensive Mistakes),” which btw just about killed me when I saw it LIVE having never heard it before. That song really brings together the idea of an almost unreal love as expressed in “Real Ones” (“You’re the eighth wonder” + “That ultra kind of love”) and the addictive, and therefore destructive, nature of that love from “HOLD ME TIGHT” (“If we hadn’t done this thing / I think I’d be a medicine man / So I could get high on our own / Supply whenever I can” + see prev.) to demonstrate the catch-22 of ending up in this place that you know is killing you but also sustains and defines you.

In “Wilson,” the speaker can only wish for it to end: “If I can get my shit together, I’m gonna run away and never see / Any of you again, never see any of you again / I hope the roof flies off and we get blown out into space.” And that theme is revisited at the very end of the album in “Bishops Knife Trick,” which makes it clear this is an existential issue for the speaker: “I’m yours ’til the earth starts to crumble and the heavens roll / Away, I’m struggling to exist with you and without you”.

The bridge of “Knife Trick” more or less distills the sentiment the previous songs have explored: “I know I should walk away, know I should walk away / But I just want to let you break my brain / And I can’t seem to get a grip / No matter how I live with it” (I think I took psychic damage just typing that). BTW, closing with this song is also a CHOICE. As we see the speaker trying to live with it throughout the album until reaching this place where he realizes he can’t but he also has to because without it he doesn’t exist.

Anyhow, then Stardust came out and as I said, it’s markedly different. There is still absolutely that theme of unrequited love, but it’s no longer the same destructive force in the speaker’s life. In fact, the only time the “love is bad for you” concept really comes up in this album is in “Love from the Other Side” (“Inscribed like stone and faded by the rain: ‘Give up what you love / Give up what you love before it does you in…’”) and it is not the speaker’s words. It’s a quote from a metaphorical tombstone, perhaps suggesting the speaker has killed his habit of viewing love through that frame.

Throughout this album we instead see a speaker who has finally found his peace with this love, and the pain that comes with it. He no longer wants to leave; he recognizes the strength this love brings him. In “Hold Me Like a Grudge,” he asks the subject to hold him (no “or don’t” option this time!) because “The world is always spinning, and I can’t keep up / Faster and faster, can’t do it on my own.” And we get to see the process of him coming to that conclusion, because while it’s not in the last song on the album, it’s in the last song written for the album.

Like previous FOB albums, Stardust is steeped in pain and recognizes that love can harm as well as heal. We hear it in “Baby Annihilation” with the lines “Permanent head-cold dreams awash in your love, fallin’ in and out” and “Self-sabotage at best, under your spell / But you know what they say / ‘If you want a job right, you gotta do it yourself’” and, of course, “What is there between us, if not a little annihilation?” But by this point, the speaker has acknowledged his own agency in that destruction. It’s not “If I can get my shit together, I’m gonna run away,” which essentially paints him as helpless to stop this until something changes. It was “self-sabotage” and it may have been “under your spell,” but by acknowledging that he’s also acknowledging that he can stop sabotaging himself.

That brings us back to the love-as-a-drug metaphor from M A  N  I    A that’s continued in “The Kintsugi Kid (Ten Years).” During this song, the speaker comes to terms with the fact that “the highlights, the got too high life” were one and the same. In other words: The best parts of his life were the fake ones, either due to literal drugs/intoxication or the metaphorical “spell” of this love. Notably, this time he also realizes his love is destructive for its subject, too (“I know I’m not your intended dose”), and that by refusing to get a handle on it, he is hurting the subject in the same way he was hurting himself.

So he decides to change! He is not going to be the person who treats love like a weapon, whether it’s aimed at himself or someone else. “I Am My Own Muse” has him state, “I was faded in my own defense / So, drop a bomb on all the things we dreamed about.” This line realizes the things he wanted while “drugged” with that love should be destroyed so they don’t destroy him/them. Throughout the album, the speaker refuses to set himself up for the painful failure of expecting or wanting anything from this love (“I make no plans and none can be broken” in “Fake Out” and “I will never ask you for anything / Except to dream sweet of me” in “Heaven, Iowa”). In “Flu Game,” he straight up says, “I’ve got all this love I’ve got to keep to myself.”

Keeping the love to himself is a painful exercise for the speaker (anyone wanna talk about “But I swear I’m not sad anymore” in “Fake Out”?). But it’s not the same kind of pain it brought him before. There’s literally a song called “Heartbreak Feels So Good” where he finds joy in/despite that pain. In fact, the pain isn’t really a negative force in his life at all. Back to “Flu Game” for a second: He decides to “Confront all the pain like a gift under the tree.” Because the pain is giving him something. He’s realized that it’s not “I’m struggling to exist with you and without you;” it’s the pain and the love that can’t exist without each other. They’re a duality, and he has to find and live in the balance between them. Sort of like yin and yang, if you will. Peter, I swear to fucking god.

Anyway, because of that, he doesn’t want to get rid of it: “What would you trade the pain for?” he asks in “Other Side.” And this time, that is the ask, the theme that carries through this album. When we get to “So Much (for) Stardust,” we get all of these ideas—the love that was never reciprocated, the beauty and gift of it, and the pain—brought together. Once again, this unification of themes happens in the bridge: “In another life, you were my babe / In another life, you were the sunshine of my lifetime / What would you trade the pain for? I’m not sure.” The speaker has accepted the pain as a part of him, something that was a tradeoff for the life he has now. And would a life where he had the love in a non-painful way, i.e. it was requited, really be better? He can’t be sure.

The final step in his acceptance of this pain is his work to separate it from his mental state. Remember “If I can get my shit together, I’m gonna run away” from “Wilson”? It turns out that getting his shit together actually has nothing to do with any of this! The concept of “getting it together” used to be synonymous with “getting over you enough to get out/getting out to get over you.” But now he knows that is not how it works.

“Getting it together” is a concept that comes up three times in this album. First, we have “Grudge,” with “I thought I knew better, I thought it would get better / I figured somehow by now, I would have got it together.” In “Muse”, we have “I’m just tryin’ to keep it together / But it gets a little harder when it never gets better.” And, of course, we revisit this theme in “Stardust” because it is one of the key concepts of this album.

In fact, “Stardust” goes deeper into the concept, starting with the setup at the end of verse one (“The stars are the same as ever / I don’t have the guts to keep it together”) where the speaker acknowledges that getting/keeping it together is something he is fully responsible for. I would also argue that the concept is brought up three more times in the song. I am, of course, talking about the pre-chorus couplets that have all, at one point, absolutely bodied me. The first time we have “Life is just a game, maybe / I’m stuck in a lonely loop, my baby.” This is him accepting the permanently unrequited nature of his love (the “lonely loop”) but also, I think, how he’s trying to handle it by distancing himself from it (“Life is just a game”). The second time it comes up, we talk about the reason he doesn’t have it together. And he’s recognizing it’s not because of that love: “I think I’ve been goin’ through it / And I’ve been putting your name to it.” The love was, maybe, an easy excuse. But he can’t keep blaming it for his problems. That leads him to reject the idea that he should be chasing it because it will fix his life: “I used to be a real go-getter / I used to think it’d all get better.” Whereas in “Muse” he’s somewhat stuck on the idea that it hasn’t gotten better, in both this song and “Grudge” he’s putting to rest the idea that it will get better.

Even though none of these couplets explicitly mention “getting it together,” the final one clearly calls back to the concept that’s been previously linked with this phrase: The idea of things getting better. So here, at the end of the album, we see him peel apart that false definition of “getting it together” so he can move forward. Things haven’t gotten better, and might not, ever. But the love he’s speaking about is no longer a part of the bad. It exists separately, where he can access the good parts of it, where he can see it for the gift it is. It is actually the answer for the fact that he can’t get it together.

You know “Grudge,” the last song written for this album because Pete wasn’t sure about some of the other lyrics? The thematic callback of “I figured somehow by now, I would have got it together” is followed by the idea “And if you put your, put your heart in it, heart in it / We’ll do more than just get by together.” He’s no longer just looking for a way to survive this love, it’s become a thing that lifts him up so he can do “more than just get by.” This idea is also in “So Good Right Now” (the song Pete bargained to have included on this album): “I got doom and gloom, but I feel alright / I got love in my heart” and “I know I’ve made mistakes, / I know, I know, but at least they were mine to make.” That sentiment is a huge turnaround from “I hope the roof flies off and we get blown out into space / I always make such expensive mistakes” that’s central to “Wilson.”

So! I view Stardust as a very melancholy album, but also one that comes with a sense of peace and acceptance. It’s that feeling you have after you have finished ugly crying about something that devastated you—the pain isn’t gone, but you’ve had your catharsis and come to terms with where it sits inside of you. It’s that moment you reach in therapy after you’ve finally processed your pain, or trauma, or whatever ghost from your past has been driving you to act in ways that hurt you. Now that you understand it and have found some distance from it, you can finally choose how it’s going to be a part of your life, or if it’s going to be part of your life at all.

The journey we see between these two albums, that lands us in that place, is what I wanted to explore/emulate in this piece. I write a lot of fic where that desperate love is the driving force (for bad decisions that eventually turn out okay, because that’s how things work in romance stories), but there’s also something to be said for getting away from that mindset. Because that desperate love is also a destructive love. In other words, a relationship founded on it is planting the seeds of its own demolition. And it turns out this fic was not about how “in another life, you were my babe.” I thought it was going to be, because when I first heard that lyric I was ready to throw my computer (and myself) out a window, because? He just put that in a song?? About their band??? “Part-time soulmate, full-time problem” who???? (Sorry. I know we love that line. I just don’t know why everyone isn’t/wasn’t frothing at the mouth re: this one, too, because to me it is the thesis of this album and the speaker coming to grips with a pain that has been his driving force for many, many albums. aughhhhhh)

But like the fic I had before was not a full story, neither was that line that originally grabbed me (and eventually prompted me to return to this piece). For this fic to work, I actually needed the entirety of that idea: “In another life, you were my babe, / In another life, you were the sunshine of my lifetime / What would you trade the pain for? I’m not sure.” I did flip the melancholy mood of the album for this fic; the journey of becoming okay with the pain is ultimately what allows them to find a happy ending. Seeing that journey play out lyrically allowed me to find an ending that feels real and organic to me, because/and it works with the idea of “we got yoinked to a multiverse so we could learn something before we could get sent back” that many (most?) dimension-hopping stories of this sort have. (Learning your other selves are kissing doesn’t count for that concept, btw.)

That’s why I find it fitting that I was spurred to finish this fic by earlgreytea68’s Stardust lyrics fic challenge. This piece is more directly influenced by FOB’s lyrics than anything I’ve done before, even if I took a couple of liberties with them in its actual text. So I think what I’m saying is thanks, earlgreytea, for putting this idea out there for me to grab on to. Looking at the fic in the frame of the lyric I wanted it to be about actually helped me figure out what it was about (roughly 25k and 8 years after I started writing the wrong thing, but ya win some, ya lose some).

Big shouts outs to Jen, for sending me the link to the fic challenge; girlpearl, for telling me I had to write the thing for it; and my literature degree, because that analysis up there was the most I’ve used it in years (fun fact: This is posted as and was written to be an endnote, but I’m writing it before having actually taken a second whack at this fic, as sort of a guide for myself. Now I have to actually redo the fic, because otherwise this is just embarrassing and, like, egotistical?). Anyway, if you made it through all of this, thank you for reading and I hope you have enjoyed sharing my pain. Catch you on the other side.