Last Year's Wishes

The truth was, Pete was a mess.

He had always been a mess, from day one; he was a puzzle that no one could figure out how to put together properly. No one even bothered, really: not his parents, not his siblings, not his teachers, not his band mates, and definitely not any of those jerks from boot camp.

The truth was he was born a mess and he didn’t know how to put himself back together.

When he had met Patrick—who, back then, was just this scrawny little hardcore kid who barely scraped by school with C grades—at least Patrick had tried. He had picked up the pieces, actually managed to piece together the edges of the puzzle, enough of them that Pete could sort of manage to hold himself together for a little while, and he did. He met Ashlee and they fell for each other hard and fast, and the next thing he knows he’s a father and seven years into a career as the bassist of what was possibly the most popular pop-punk band in America.

But he was still a mess.

He sometimes got carried away with having “just one more” drink. He sometimes got into an argument with the wrong person at a club. And sometimes, he forgot that it wasn’t him who had to pick up after himself, but Patrick. It was Patrick who had guided him away from the bar, and drove him home; it was Patrick’s house he drove to when he came out of a fight with a black eye, Patrick who gave him more than just ice for it; and it was Patrick who forgave him, years ago, when Pete was fed up and sleep-deprived and strangled (young, naïve, still-just-a-kid) Patrick against the van in a blind rage.

So when Pete knocks on the door to his apartment one day, and sees him for the first time in a few months, the few pieces left sticking together fall apart.

Patrick is slimmer, blonder, bolder than before—he isn’t the scrawny punk kid he first met, full of energy, ready for anything, or the slightly overweight professional singer that he had slowly evolved into, shy and cautious—but Pete doesn’t know what to do with that, because what he needs right now is home, familiarity, Patrick.

“Pete?” slim-blonde-and-bold Patrick asks, looking surprised.

“Uh, yeah. Hi, Patrick.” Pete doesn’t say much else—he looks at Patrick, clean-shaven and in a white button-up and were those skinny jeans? before looking down at himself, his rumpled T-shirt he’s been wearing for the past three days, and thinks maybe he should have cleaned up, just a bit. “Sorry about, like, not warning you or anything. I was just in the area, and I haven’t seen you in a while, so. I thought I’d drop by.”

Patrick frowns. “Pete, are you alright? You look, sort of… run-down. And like you need to shave, unless you’re planning on growing out your beard again. Which I strongly do not recommend.” He crosses his arms and leans against the door frame. There’s something different about the way he’s holding himself, and Pete realizes, for the first time, that it’s because Patrick is relaxed—comfortable in his own skin, and it hits him like a bullet—that in the entirety of the time he’s known him, for ten whole years, Patrick has been tense, wound up, folding into himself, and Pete feels so, so guilty for never noticing it before.

“No, it’s just, uh, I haven’t really—um—” Pete sniffs once, before just simply asking, “Can I come in?”

X

“You don’t like it, do you?” Patrick asks. They’re sitting at his kitchen table, drinking out of hot mugs full of green tea, and Pete stops at the question.

“I don’t like what?”

Patrick sighs and rolls his eyes, “Me, Pete. This.” He gestures loosely at himself, and Pete doesn’t know what to say, because he really doesn’t know how he feels about it. So he just sits there, staring at Patrick and gaping like a fish.

Patrick sighs and looks down into his mug. “You know, it’s okay, if you don’t. You don’t have to. It’s just, I’d thought I’d be the best me I can be, instead of being the me that will make you into the better Pete.”

Pete says nothing, takes a deep breath.

“You can be the best you, too, you know.”

Pete shakes his head. “No, that’s just it, I can’t. I can’t. I’m a mess, Patrick, you know I’m a mess, I’ve always been a mess.”

“You don’t have to be. You could clean yourself up, lay out your options. Do something. You’ve got Black Cards, right? Come on. A new band’s good for you.”

Not one without you.

“…I miss you, Patrick.”

There’s silence, and then—

“I know. I miss me, too.”