Hum Hallelujah

I. You're Someone Who Knows Someone Who Knows Someone I Once Knew

Pete was sitting with his friend Joe and two of his former band members in a club, they themselves liked to call it a studio, and were fumbling with their different instruments – or just simply reading the latest magazines in the club and talking.

Joe did not stop to babble about the band he wanted to start and the other three men just looked at each other and rolled their eyes. The way Joe put it, it seemed like starting a band was the simplest thing to do, and to be known would not be so hard after that – according to a certain Joseph Trohman . The three men knew different, the way to fame was hard, they themselves had tried it a long time ago – they had gone a bit on the way but then quit, it wasn't their time right then and they wondered if it ever would have been.

Still Pete had agreed to be the bassist in Joe's band, to play twice a week would not lead to something special, right?

"There is this kid, I've met him a while ago, and he knew someone who I knew for a long time ago." Joe babbled while glaring at his old guitar that did not seemed to want to be tuned right today. "His friends say that he is a great singer. And apparently he is good on the drums, too."

"So what are you looking for?" Pete asked with an amused smile. "A drummer or a singer?"

"We'll see." Joe shrugged. "I'll bring him here for the next practice and we can decide."

Pete had shaken his head and thrown a mean glance at his two friends who had shaken their heads, too. Joe could dream, but that was all he ever would do about the band. Who would listen to two nerds from Chicago and a drummer who sang?

II. I Just Want To Be a Part of This

"Pete! This is the guy I was talking about."

Pete, who sighed deep and tried to ignore the fact that Joe just had called for him, kept his eyes glued on the magazine he just had bought half an hour ago. It was good that Joe had his dreams, but Pete had heard Joe nag about the singer/drummer for five days now and Pete had gotten tired over it. A small part of him had even gotten a little disappointed when he heard that the kid had agreed to come in and test the drums.

"Pete. I know you can hear me, I'm right behind you."

Pete sighed again and stood up before turning around. The first he saw was Joe's irritated glare, and then his glance landed on the blond boy standing next to Joe and was looking up at Pete with a shy smile – as if he did not really know what to do.

"Is this the kid?" Pete asked while looking over the blond boy.

"The kid has a name Pete," Joe said with an eye roll. "Pete, this is Patrick. Patrick, this is Pete, the worlds most irritating and probably the childish bassist ever."

"Thanks for that, Trohman." Pete muttered, still looking at the boy who started to squirm around by the uncomfortable look he got from the brown haired man. Pete smiled a little and held out his hand. "Hey, how are you?"

Patrick hesitated a little before shaking Pete's hand. "Good, you?"

"Just great. Now get up and play so we can hear you." Pete let go off Patrick's hand and motioned to where the drum kit was.

"Already reach a decision?" Joe asked with a smirk while Patrick hurried up to the drums.

"Oh, yeah." Pete smiled. "He is in."

III. A Teenage Vow in the Parking Lot

Pete was looking at the nineteen-year-old boy with a smile, they had just had a small performance in a club a mile from Chicago and the strawberry blond man was leaning tiredly against the car hood.

"Good job in there, 'Trick." Pete smiled and leaned against the car.

Patrick looked up with a look of disbelief. "You're kidding me right? I froze."

"Just in the beginning." Pete smiled softly and stroked Patrick over his cheek. "You did well later and I don't think anyone noticed."

"What says that no one noticed if you did?"

"'Cause I know you, 'Trick. The people in there have no idea if you froze or just looked over them and felt like king of the world. And, 'Trick? You are king of the world. King of this band."

Patrick had shaken his head with a laugh and leaned his forehead against the older man's shoulder. "Can you promise me one thing, Pete?"

"What, sweetie?"

"That even if the band ends, you will be there for me and make me feel better?"

"I promise." Pete nuzzled his face in Patrick's hair. "Just one thing."

"Tell me."

"You always have to put up with me," Pete mumbled into Pete's hair

"Just that?" Patrick chuckled. "Trust me, that won't be too hard. You're my best friend; I think I will put up with you."

"Is that a promise, Stump?"

"In a parking lot, yeah."

IV. It Was Just How You Looked In the Light (I Love You in the Same Way)

The first time it happened, Pete stopped playing and just stared at the strawberry blond man. Joe had yelled at him later and said that he destroyed the whole song; Patrick had looked worried at him and wondered if he felt all right.

After that, it happened more often. When Pete looked to the side on stage and he saw Patrick sing and play his heart out for the crowd who had come there to see them his heart forgot to beat for a while, but he learned to continue to play anyway – he didn't wanted to be killed by their first guitarist.

For a long time Pete tried to ignore his feelings, after all; it was only when Patrick was on stage his heart changed the rhythm – never somewhere else. However, he could never keep himself from moving up next to Patrick on stage and kiss him on his cheek, or just lean his sweaty forehead against Patrick's blank cheek. The first times Patrick had give him a weird look, but soon he got used to it. After all, it was just Pete; he always did something like that.

It was first when the two men was laying in Pete's bunk, Patrick reading some book he had borrow from William and Pete looking over the singer, that he got what he felt.

"'Trick?" he asked carefully.

"Mm?" Patrick looked up and met Pete's questioning glance.

"I thought I loved you in a weird way. But I'm just in love with how you look in the light, on stage," Pete said, a tone of understanding in his own voice.

Patrick had smiled sweetly and nodded. "I love you in the same way, Pete."

V. Sometimes We Take Chances, Sometimes We Take Pills

Pete had always though that it would get better by the time and that is why he kept quiet. No one knew about his feelings of being insufficient, like he never would be good enough for anyone at all. At the beginning, he tried to push away the thoughts, telling himself that he was good enough for everyone – why else would Patrick have him as a best friend?

Sometimes your mind does not listen, sometimes you just stop listen to what you tell yourself and listen to the voice inside your head telling you you are not good enough.

That is what happened to Pete when, after a bad day, he tried to call Patrick; he tried seven times before realizing that the younger man would not answer. Then Pete tried to call Joe, and it was Joe's girlfriend who answered, and she told him that Joe was in the shower and that he just had missed Patrick.

No matter how much Pete tried to tell himself that Patrick just had the sound and vibration off on the phone it did not work, and neither did it to convince himself that maybe Patrick had left the phone at home. He would not leave Pete like that, would he?

Eventually, Pete got tired over his own thoughts and false hopes, and sat down on his couch with a bottle of Attvan, playing some sort of blues CD that he had got from Patrick a long time ago.

He never knew quite how it happened, or why really. He only knew that he had went out to his car, somehow fixing it all to slowly kill himself, when someone had dragged him out from his car.

A voice crying that he, "better hold on, or I will be alone", and, "my best friend just tried to kill himself", while slapping him over the cheek. After five slaps Pete was waken enough to defend his pounding cheek from more slaps and in amazement, look up at the strawberry blond man over him that was crying and holding a phone tightly to his ear.

"Patrick?"

"You gave me a promise," Patrick cried and hugged the brown haired man. "You would always be there to make me feel better, don't break that."

"Sorry." Was everything coming out from Pete before passing out.

VI. It's All a Game of This or That, Now Verses Then

Pete smiled at the journalist while having his arm around the tired Patrick's shoulders, they had already been there for half an hour and Patrick got more and more tired.

"Do you remember the first time meeting everyone in the band?" the woman asked.

"I remember Joe being drunk." Patrick shrugged.

"That was what he was when I met him, too." Pete shook his head with a laugh. "Andy was… quiet, he didn't say much – just impressed with his drum skills."

"And do you remember the first time you met Patrick?"

Pete nodded. "I can't forget. He was very shy."

"You were intimidating." Patrick chuckled. "Just stared at me for eternity."

"'Cause you looked so amazing." Pete also chuckled and grinned at the woman. "Is this over soon? My singer is jet lagged and I think that I need to tuck him in."

The woman laughed with glittering eyes. "Of course, erhm… which is the most important song for you on the latest album?"

Pete looked at the woman with a wide grin that made Patrick role his eyes.

"Hum Hallelujah." Pete grinned. "Definitely."