Progress Report.
1/1
“I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”
And Pete’s falling. They’re sat in the kitchen and the windows are open, letting in warm air and sticky heat. It’s July. Pete recalls hearing a thunderstorm has been predicted that evening and the pathetic fallacy isn’t lost on him for a moment. The room is silent now apart from the soft wisps of air escaping lungs. Hearts breaking. And Pete’s falling.
-
It started between shows at a gas station (except petrol because they were in England now. Because they’d made it) somewhere they didn’t find familiar. Pete was awake and staring out at the brightest stars, wondering what they were thinking. He hadn’t had to turn around when he felt the seat dip next to him to know who it was. He knew it from instinct.
“Penny for your thoughts.”
Patrick had sounded unsure and his eyes were filled with tenderness when Pete turned to look at him. It made Pete’s heart hammer uncomfortably, made him feel vulnerable like he was on display for the whole world to see. So he pressed himself against the singer’s side and tried to find solace in the way they fit together close to perfect.
“None of them shine as brightly as you do.”
Their lips were messy as they moved against each other. One set dry, the other slick with tongue and teeth. Pete pulled away, eyes drooping and it hurt inside his chest.
“One day you’ll leave me.”
His voice sounded drained, emotion lacking as Patrick pressed his forehead against Pete’s cheek. Oxygen and nitrogen tickled against his skin.
“I would never do that.”
Pete turned to face the stars again and wondered if they thought about destiny.
-
Patrick’s talking now. Or maybe it’s just the drone inside Pete’s ears, he can’t tell. His voice feels clogged inside his throat and the words are pasted against the underside of his tongue. They taste like yesterdays coffee and a bad blowjob.
“I love you Pete. But I’m not in love with you anymore. Can you understand?”
He stands up, the sound of wood on stone making him shudder and he goes to the window. Puts his forehead on the glass. Breathes. Patrick’s voice is high pitched now and the bassist imagines he’s fiddling with the edge of his sleeve, tugging on the brim of his hat, heart racing. Pete imagines crawling inside his chest and wrapping himself around that heart, just to know it’s there. Sit inside it and write across the walls with old poetry and declarations of love just so Patrick will never forget. Pete imagines it would feel like burning on the insides, and for a moment he imagines inflicting pain on the only heart he’s ever wanted more than his own.
Pete can’t feel his heart. He thinks it maybe has ceased beating.
-
Their first fight happened on a Sunday. Pete was on a new round of medication that kept him sleeping and sedated. Patrick thought it was ruining him. So Pete stopped taking them and spent too much time locked in the bathroom counting veins and listening to his lover beg him not to do anything rash. So he took the pills again and repeated the cycle.
“This isn’t just about you, you selfish fuck!”
The shouting reverberated off the walls, echoed in Pete’s head and made him wince.
“It’s not about me or you. It’s about the pills.”
It was monotone and routine and it made Patrick stops in his tracks. Look at him as if he wasn’t the same person he was the night before. Push him against the wall and lean so close that specks of saliva shined on Pete’s cheek when Patrick spoke.
“Fuck you.”
It was gone midnight when Pete felt a pair of arms wrap around him, face buried in his hair and gentles apologies whispered in his ear. Pete fell asleep to the sound of love, counting seconds.
-
“I don’t want to leave you Pete, and I’m not. I mean, I’ll still be your friend when you need me. This isn’t… this can’t be goodbye. But fuck, this can’t keep happening. We’re tearing each other apart every single day. It’s killing me and it’s killing you. Can you see that? Please dude, say something. I just want you to be okay, for us to be okay at the end of all this. I can’t lose you. I need you, Pete.”
The ramble makes Pete’s eyes sting and when he turns to look at Patrick he can’t help but scoff because yes, he understands. He understands that this is fear conquering all. This is nothing but a sordid one night stand telling him he’s nothing but a failure.
“True love tastes like metal in the mouth.”
-
Pete sat in his bathtub and counted droplets. They clung to his hair, the porcelain tiles, his skin, condensed moisture against the walls. Like an infection.
He thought about the way the water ran down his cheek and pooled at his collarbone, became cold, made his skin itch. He felt dirty, as if there was something crawling inside of him begging to be let out. Burst from his chest and paint the scenery with every dark thought he’d ever had, every regret, every wasted wish. Pete thought about poetry and the way the words formed on his fingertips, how at home they felt, how home is where the heart is. Pete thought about his pills and the way Patrick was downstairs crying, packing a bag and threatening to leave. How they’d make up and another of their nine lives would be lost and their time was running out.
Pete sat in his bathtub and counted droplets and dropped the pill down the plug hole. Went downstairs. Didn’t sleep.
-
Pete’s mouth was attached to Patrick’s skin, was biting too hard as he trailed his teeth down the exposed skin of Patrick’s neck. He ignored the way it tasted of someone else’s perfume. Patrick was purring in his lap, grinding down as Pete slipped his fingers inside his boxers, ghosted a finger over Patrick’s hardening dick.
“Pete, oh god, Pete.”
His voice came out in breathless pants, hips stuttering forward as Pete wrapped his hand around Patrick’s erection, finding a rhythm that was just off kilter. Something inside him curled unpleasantly as he squeezed his hand too tight and his dick twitched at the sound of Patrick groaning in pain. Pete closed his eyes and swallowed back bile and kept them closed even when Patrick nuzzled at his face, murmured in Pete’s ear to look at him.
It wasn’t long before Patrick was writhing in Pete’s lap, friction almost unbearable as he hummed that he was close. Pete’s hand was slick with precum and Patrick had his legs bracketing Pete’s thighs. The angle was slightly awkward and the older man’s arm ached with perseverance and for the first time in their relationship, Pete was bored.
Patrick came soon after, moaning out Pete’s name laced with lies and pressing their lips together in a kiss that bruised. He rolled off of Pete’s lap and struggled for breath with a blissed out smile on his lips. Pete tried not to throw up.
“Your turn.”
Patrick announced a minute later, reaching for the zipper of Pete’s pants but Pete was faster than that. More afraid than that.
“I’m not in the mood.”
He didn’t say anything else; left his boyfriend sat on the sofa with tears in his eyes. Went to the bathroom and took a pill. Choked on it.
-
Patrick has his hand curled around Pete’s and is looking at him with earnest eyes that tell Pete a thousand things about the way this was going to work. The sky is growing darker now and the clouds curl about his thoughts like they know him better than anyone.
“I’ll be back, y’know, to pick up some stuff later.”
Then there are footsteps and the closing of a front door and Pete feels anger claw at the lining of his stomach. It ripples across his muscles and sparks from his skin as he throws the mug of cooling coffee in his hands across the room.
Emotion. It feels good.
The room shrinks on him as he stands still, breathing laboured as carbon dioxide layers his lungs and collapses in on him. His head swims and a mist in his eyes causes the world to spin about him. He thinks he remembers it all going black, but maybe it was just his imagination.
-
“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.”
Pete let out an unenthusiastic groan as a small pair of hands tugged at his arm. He could tell it was late by the smell of coffee mixed with freshly showered skin powdering the house. The bassist inhaled deeply, eyes remaining closed for just a fraction longer. It didn’t take long for the persistent whine of a young boy to get him out of bed and he scooped the toddler into his arms as he went into the kitchen.
Long red hair, soft and elegant and carefree. He knew she was beautiful like he knew it was a dream, a memory of something that never really was. Maybe if things were different, maybe if he’d lived more in a different time. It took a gentle laugh to make him realise he’d been saying those things out loud and a pair of raspberry lips pressed against his cheek. The girl smelt like home. The young boy wriggled in his arms and Pete took note of golden curls and cherubic smiles.
“What is this place?”
Pete thought he should already know the answer but he asked anyway and ignored how her eyes watched him with content.
“You made a choice a long time ago.”
The girl walked to the window and her skin was soft under Pete’s hands. He wrapped his arms around her and inhaled soft make-up scent and the warmth of a family. The young child looked up at Pete and curled his mouth into a playful laugh, but it twisted into a snarl.
Pete’s pocket suddenly became heavy and he fell to his knees, pills marked with lies spilling across the kitchen floor. The woman and child disappeared and Pete was drowning on his own secret life. His own undercover world. His clandestine industry.
-
“This is Patrick, my partner.”
The doctor looked at the both of them from beneath thick glasses and grunted vaguely. Pete felt Patrick’s fingers tighten around his but Pete was used to the doctor’s noncommittal ways. Found them comforting.
“So, how have you been finding this new course of medication?”
Pete glanced at Patrick with wide eyes and the doctor played with the end of his pen as he waited for an answer. Pete untangled his fingers from Patrick’s and buried them deep in the pockets of his hoodie. He didn’t tell the doctor about the dreams, or the anger, or the paranoia or the way the Sun felt like it was burning. He didn’t explain the way his heart beat or the end of the world.
Pete lied and they gave him more pills and that night Patrick slept on the sofa and Pete didn’t sleep at all.
-
Pete wakes up to bits of his consciousness cracked across the tiled floor.
-
“Patrick, this is Pete. Pete, this is Patrick. Please be nice.”
And then Joe was gone and the college student on the edge of hardcore was mocking the choice of outfit of a teenager too young to fight back.
Later Pete will apologise in a way that suggests he doesn’t really mean it because Pete never says sorry. Pete never grows up. Patrick will just nod because he knows that it wasn’t meant personally and he’s already a little bit in love.
Later Pete will pull Patrick into his arms, kiss his neck and spin him in circles because their song was played on the radio. Pete will say a hundred things that don’t make sense but seep underneath the surface of Patrick’s skin anyway, stick there long into the night when they’re both slick with sweat and Patrick is coming hard to the sound of Pete’s cries.
Later Pete will sit in the parking lot with a bottle in his hand that beckons with please die. He’ll take every single one and will end up in a hospital surrounded by unfamiliar faces telling him it will be okay. Patrick doesn’t come to visit but sends a card that says ‘Never leave me.'
Later the irony of that sentence will reveal itself to Pete in the form of all-consuming heartbreak.
-
Pete’s sat at the kitchen counter and the pills are in front of him inside their plastic casing and they’re smiling at him.
The bottle read “Clandestine Industries” on the side.
It’s night now and it’s cold but Pete doesn’t feel it. Pete opens his palm and looks at the black, circular release sitting there. It doesn’t look a bit like heartache but is tinged enough with regret to make it seem familiar.
Pete looks at the stars and swallows the pill. And the next one. And the next one. And the next one gets stuck inside his throat and he’s choking on his own prescription.
The room is silent apart from the soft wisps of last gasps for air escaping lungs. Hearts breaking.
And Pete.
Pete’s falling.
And Pete’s falling. They’re sat in the kitchen and the windows are open, letting in warm air and sticky heat. It’s July. Pete recalls hearing a thunderstorm has been predicted that evening and the pathetic fallacy isn’t lost on him for a moment. The room is silent now apart from the soft wisps of air escaping lungs. Hearts breaking. And Pete’s falling.
-
It started between shows at a gas station (except petrol because they were in England now. Because they’d made it) somewhere they didn’t find familiar. Pete was awake and staring out at the brightest stars, wondering what they were thinking. He hadn’t had to turn around when he felt the seat dip next to him to know who it was. He knew it from instinct.
“Penny for your thoughts.”
Patrick had sounded unsure and his eyes were filled with tenderness when Pete turned to look at him. It made Pete’s heart hammer uncomfortably, made him feel vulnerable like he was on display for the whole world to see. So he pressed himself against the singer’s side and tried to find solace in the way they fit together close to perfect.
“None of them shine as brightly as you do.”
Their lips were messy as they moved against each other. One set dry, the other slick with tongue and teeth. Pete pulled away, eyes drooping and it hurt inside his chest.
“One day you’ll leave me.”
His voice sounded drained, emotion lacking as Patrick pressed his forehead against Pete’s cheek. Oxygen and nitrogen tickled against his skin.
“I would never do that.”
Pete turned to face the stars again and wondered if they thought about destiny.
-
Patrick’s talking now. Or maybe it’s just the drone inside Pete’s ears, he can’t tell. His voice feels clogged inside his throat and the words are pasted against the underside of his tongue. They taste like yesterdays coffee and a bad blowjob.
“I love you Pete. But I’m not in love with you anymore. Can you understand?”
He stands up, the sound of wood on stone making him shudder and he goes to the window. Puts his forehead on the glass. Breathes. Patrick’s voice is high pitched now and the bassist imagines he’s fiddling with the edge of his sleeve, tugging on the brim of his hat, heart racing. Pete imagines crawling inside his chest and wrapping himself around that heart, just to know it’s there. Sit inside it and write across the walls with old poetry and declarations of love just so Patrick will never forget. Pete imagines it would feel like burning on the insides, and for a moment he imagines inflicting pain on the only heart he’s ever wanted more than his own.
Pete can’t feel his heart. He thinks it maybe has ceased beating.
-
Their first fight happened on a Sunday. Pete was on a new round of medication that kept him sleeping and sedated. Patrick thought it was ruining him. So Pete stopped taking them and spent too much time locked in the bathroom counting veins and listening to his lover beg him not to do anything rash. So he took the pills again and repeated the cycle.
“This isn’t just about you, you selfish fuck!”
The shouting reverberated off the walls, echoed in Pete’s head and made him wince.
“It’s not about me or you. It’s about the pills.”
It was monotone and routine and it made Patrick stops in his tracks. Look at him as if he wasn’t the same person he was the night before. Push him against the wall and lean so close that specks of saliva shined on Pete’s cheek when Patrick spoke.
“Fuck you.”
It was gone midnight when Pete felt a pair of arms wrap around him, face buried in his hair and gentles apologies whispered in his ear. Pete fell asleep to the sound of love, counting seconds.
-
“I don’t want to leave you Pete, and I’m not. I mean, I’ll still be your friend when you need me. This isn’t… this can’t be goodbye. But fuck, this can’t keep happening. We’re tearing each other apart every single day. It’s killing me and it’s killing you. Can you see that? Please dude, say something. I just want you to be okay, for us to be okay at the end of all this. I can’t lose you. I need you, Pete.”
The ramble makes Pete’s eyes sting and when he turns to look at Patrick he can’t help but scoff because yes, he understands. He understands that this is fear conquering all. This is nothing but a sordid one night stand telling him he’s nothing but a failure.
“True love tastes like metal in the mouth.”
-
Pete sat in his bathtub and counted droplets. They clung to his hair, the porcelain tiles, his skin, condensed moisture against the walls. Like an infection.
He thought about the way the water ran down his cheek and pooled at his collarbone, became cold, made his skin itch. He felt dirty, as if there was something crawling inside of him begging to be let out. Burst from his chest and paint the scenery with every dark thought he’d ever had, every regret, every wasted wish. Pete thought about poetry and the way the words formed on his fingertips, how at home they felt, how home is where the heart is. Pete thought about his pills and the way Patrick was downstairs crying, packing a bag and threatening to leave. How they’d make up and another of their nine lives would be lost and their time was running out.
Pete sat in his bathtub and counted droplets and dropped the pill down the plug hole. Went downstairs. Didn’t sleep.
-
Pete’s mouth was attached to Patrick’s skin, was biting too hard as he trailed his teeth down the exposed skin of Patrick’s neck. He ignored the way it tasted of someone else’s perfume. Patrick was purring in his lap, grinding down as Pete slipped his fingers inside his boxers, ghosted a finger over Patrick’s hardening dick.
“Pete, oh god, Pete.”
His voice came out in breathless pants, hips stuttering forward as Pete wrapped his hand around Patrick’s erection, finding a rhythm that was just off kilter. Something inside him curled unpleasantly as he squeezed his hand too tight and his dick twitched at the sound of Patrick groaning in pain. Pete closed his eyes and swallowed back bile and kept them closed even when Patrick nuzzled at his face, murmured in Pete’s ear to look at him.
It wasn’t long before Patrick was writhing in Pete’s lap, friction almost unbearable as he hummed that he was close. Pete’s hand was slick with precum and Patrick had his legs bracketing Pete’s thighs. The angle was slightly awkward and the older man’s arm ached with perseverance and for the first time in their relationship, Pete was bored.
Patrick came soon after, moaning out Pete’s name laced with lies and pressing their lips together in a kiss that bruised. He rolled off of Pete’s lap and struggled for breath with a blissed out smile on his lips. Pete tried not to throw up.
“Your turn.”
Patrick announced a minute later, reaching for the zipper of Pete’s pants but Pete was faster than that. More afraid than that.
“I’m not in the mood.”
He didn’t say anything else; left his boyfriend sat on the sofa with tears in his eyes. Went to the bathroom and took a pill. Choked on it.
-
Patrick has his hand curled around Pete’s and is looking at him with earnest eyes that tell Pete a thousand things about the way this was going to work. The sky is growing darker now and the clouds curl about his thoughts like they know him better than anyone.
“I’ll be back, y’know, to pick up some stuff later.”
Then there are footsteps and the closing of a front door and Pete feels anger claw at the lining of his stomach. It ripples across his muscles and sparks from his skin as he throws the mug of cooling coffee in his hands across the room.
Emotion. It feels good.
The room shrinks on him as he stands still, breathing laboured as carbon dioxide layers his lungs and collapses in on him. His head swims and a mist in his eyes causes the world to spin about him. He thinks he remembers it all going black, but maybe it was just his imagination.
-
“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.”
Pete let out an unenthusiastic groan as a small pair of hands tugged at his arm. He could tell it was late by the smell of coffee mixed with freshly showered skin powdering the house. The bassist inhaled deeply, eyes remaining closed for just a fraction longer. It didn’t take long for the persistent whine of a young boy to get him out of bed and he scooped the toddler into his arms as he went into the kitchen.
Long red hair, soft and elegant and carefree. He knew she was beautiful like he knew it was a dream, a memory of something that never really was. Maybe if things were different, maybe if he’d lived more in a different time. It took a gentle laugh to make him realise he’d been saying those things out loud and a pair of raspberry lips pressed against his cheek. The girl smelt like home. The young boy wriggled in his arms and Pete took note of golden curls and cherubic smiles.
“What is this place?”
Pete thought he should already know the answer but he asked anyway and ignored how her eyes watched him with content.
“You made a choice a long time ago.”
The girl walked to the window and her skin was soft under Pete’s hands. He wrapped his arms around her and inhaled soft make-up scent and the warmth of a family. The young child looked up at Pete and curled his mouth into a playful laugh, but it twisted into a snarl.
Pete’s pocket suddenly became heavy and he fell to his knees, pills marked with lies spilling across the kitchen floor. The woman and child disappeared and Pete was drowning on his own secret life. His own undercover world. His clandestine industry.
-
“This is Patrick, my partner.”
The doctor looked at the both of them from beneath thick glasses and grunted vaguely. Pete felt Patrick’s fingers tighten around his but Pete was used to the doctor’s noncommittal ways. Found them comforting.
“So, how have you been finding this new course of medication?”
Pete glanced at Patrick with wide eyes and the doctor played with the end of his pen as he waited for an answer. Pete untangled his fingers from Patrick’s and buried them deep in the pockets of his hoodie. He didn’t tell the doctor about the dreams, or the anger, or the paranoia or the way the Sun felt like it was burning. He didn’t explain the way his heart beat or the end of the world.
Pete lied and they gave him more pills and that night Patrick slept on the sofa and Pete didn’t sleep at all.
-
Pete wakes up to bits of his consciousness cracked across the tiled floor.
-
“Patrick, this is Pete. Pete, this is Patrick. Please be nice.”
And then Joe was gone and the college student on the edge of hardcore was mocking the choice of outfit of a teenager too young to fight back.
Later Pete will apologise in a way that suggests he doesn’t really mean it because Pete never says sorry. Pete never grows up. Patrick will just nod because he knows that it wasn’t meant personally and he’s already a little bit in love.
Later Pete will pull Patrick into his arms, kiss his neck and spin him in circles because their song was played on the radio. Pete will say a hundred things that don’t make sense but seep underneath the surface of Patrick’s skin anyway, stick there long into the night when they’re both slick with sweat and Patrick is coming hard to the sound of Pete’s cries.
Later Pete will sit in the parking lot with a bottle in his hand that beckons with please die. He’ll take every single one and will end up in a hospital surrounded by unfamiliar faces telling him it will be okay. Patrick doesn’t come to visit but sends a card that says ‘Never leave me.'
Later the irony of that sentence will reveal itself to Pete in the form of all-consuming heartbreak.
-
Pete’s sat at the kitchen counter and the pills are in front of him inside their plastic casing and they’re smiling at him.
The bottle read “Clandestine Industries” on the side.
It’s night now and it’s cold but Pete doesn’t feel it. Pete opens his palm and looks at the black, circular release sitting there. It doesn’t look a bit like heartache but is tinged enough with regret to make it seem familiar.
Pete looks at the stars and swallows the pill. And the next one. And the next one. And the next one gets stuck inside his throat and he’s choking on his own prescription.
The room is silent apart from the soft wisps of last gasps for air escaping lungs. Hearts breaking.
And Pete.
Pete’s falling.