TW:: MENTIONS OF SELF HARM & SUICIDE ATTEMPTS

((some references to both trohley and peterick but neither are canon))

HURLEY

Joe is speaking, but I can't be bothered to listen. I've already proven my loyalty to him — stayed with him when I could've gone with Patrick or Pete. Everyone knew I'd go with Joe, there's no way I couldn't — and agreed to start another band. Another band.

I feel as if I'm betraying Fall Out Boy and everything it's given to me — everything it's taken from me — by even just thinking about starting another band. Our band is all I can think about. The fans, the sold-out shows, the fucking music.

It's funny that music is what started this all, and music is what ended it, too. My mind flashes to Pete, how his eyebrows would furrow and his voice would raise if he'd heard what I just thought. He has high hopes — hopes that the band will reunite.

Joe swears he'll never go back. Swears he'll never be in a band with Pete fucking Wentz again. It's funny, now that I'm thinking about it. It seems as if everytime any of us mention Pete, he's got a new middle name — as if he didn't already have enough. Patrick blames him, Joe blames him, but me? I don't know.

I think it was all of us. We were tired — of being famous, of each other, probably — of everything that had to do with Fall Out Boy. Yet Pete was footing the blame.

Don't get me wrong, Pete played a part. He played a huge part. Picking fights over minuscule things and laughing at the big things — something he's always done. Eat the last bowl of cereal? He might punch you. Get upset over him swallowing a bottle of fucking pills? He'll laugh.

Patrick seems to be taking it the worst, even though he's bound to have the most success. He's got the voice, he's got the charm — both courtesy of one Pete fucking Wentz — he's got it all. He doesn't need us, never did, but he hasn't realised it.

Patrick is the voice. He's the band. Any three random guys would be just as good tourmates as the three of us were, maybe better, and his name could be the only one affiliated with it — there are plenty of guys just trying to play music, not caring if their names are involved and actually prefer them not to be — and they and it will. Not Fall Out Boy, not anymore.

I wonder if he could go back in time, back to when he was fifteen and sweet and pretty and innocent, would he run away from Pete fucking Wentz? Would he not strike up that conversation with Joe in Borders? Would he be content living a nine to five with two kids, a pretty wife, and a dog?

I find myself thinking he wouldn't — he knows how much our music has helped the kids around the world, has helped us. How four kids from the Midwest took the world by fucking storm but just.. didn't make it.

I'm still thinking about it hours later, when Joe's gone back to his own apartment and the sun has gone into hiding. Something I wish I could do, something, I realise belatedly, I still could do.

Then I think back to the look on Joe's face when I chose him, how his eyes lit up and his smile widened. And I realise that, even though everything's just .. gray, I wouldn't do a single thing differently.

STUMP

My mom tells me not to be angry with them — but I know she only means Pete. I didn't say a word about Andy or Joe, just him. I find myself screaming about how he wanted this, even though I know it's not the truth.

Nobody wanted this. Not me, not Andy, not Joe, and especially not Pete. The three of us and our music saved him more times than I can count on fingers and toes.

My mom tries once more to calm me before hanging up but is unsuccessful. I think back to when I was seventeen — young and dumb and eager to grow up — and wonder just why she let me go on the road with Joe from Borders and Pete fucking Wentz.

Pete jokes about charming her all the time, but it's not true. Of course she loves him — loves him like she loves me and Kevin. Like he's her third son — but certainly not enough to let her child travel the country, not even old enough to buy a pack of smokes.

I think she did it because she believed in me. My father thought it was idiotic and said so, but I went anyways. I wonder if he regrets never putting his foot down and saying no, and then I think about the house I bought him a few years back and realise that he doesn't regret anything. I wish I could say the same.

I drop my phone on the table and sink into the couch, sitting on my hands so I won't do something stupid like text Pete or slit my wrists. A part of me can't believe it's over, while another is grateful that it is.

There's no more screaming, no more chaotic writing sessions, no more Pete. I'm no longer one half of Pete and Patrick. I'm just Patrick, something that I have never been known for, and I'm alone. My head — or maybe it's my heart — throbs at that thought, at being away from him for an extended period of time for the first time ever.

I wonder if I'll get a call that he's done something stupid and actually succeeded this time. If everything I've worked towards becoming will shatter — along with my heart — into a million tiny pieces.

A part of me is missing — I'm not whole without him — and I know how fucking pathetic that sounds. I know how pitiful I am without them, without him, but my pride is too fucking overbearing to suck it up and do something about it.

And now everything's just .. gray.

TROHMAN

I'm dialling the number before I can stop myself, ready to thank Andy again for coming with me. For choosing me. Ready to tell him I love him.

I hang up as soon as he answers, not prepared to hear him use my full name — he always calls me Joseph when there aren't cameras and kids and paps watching our every move. He's the only one that ever calls me that other than my mother — and bring those butterflies back to my stomach again as I imagine his lips curling around the J. My phone buzzes in my hand as the image is playing again and again in my mind.

I don't need to check the caller I.D. to know it's him calling me back, probably thinking the call dropped. In reality, I'm just a coward, one that'll never end up with what I want, what I need.

I've always been a background character in the Pete and Patrick Show. Andy and I both have. And it's shaped me into who I am today — someone afraid to go after what I want in fear of failure, someone afraid to be happy.

I've imagined how the situation would play out time and time again in my head. It never ends with me and Andy together and happy and nowhere near Pete fucking Wentz, his sick head games, and beautiful words — I don't think I'll ever get rid of Pete Wentz.

My phone stops buzzing, and I realise — lost in my own head — I've accidentally let Andy go to voicemail. I let my phone fall out of my hand and hit the ground, probably shattering the screen, but I can't be bothered enough to care at the moment.

I walk over to the kitchen counter and push myself up on it. This place is so large and empty now that Patrick's gone. I always wondered why he wanted an apartment with me — why he didn't want one with Pete.

I find myself thinking that should tell me something, why we all made enough money to have our own places but always chose to stay together — Patrick and I and Pete and Andy.

It's odd that we paired off like that, all afraid of what we actually wanted. I love Patrick with everything in me — he's the reason we are so well off, after all — but he's not Andy.

I realise I've ended up with the best end of the deal, Andy by my side no matter what and away from Pete, but somehow, it doesn't feel like that — like it's enough. I'm missing two huge parts of me, Pete and Patrick, I know I am. Instead, everything's just .. gray.

WENTZ

My eyes are heavy — it's been so long since I've slept that I should probably remove the word from my vocabulary completely — and my thoughts are racing. I'm thinking about the band, about Patrick.

I wonder if he'll reach out or if he'll stay true to his word and 'hopefully fucking forget' me. I grab the bottle of pills from the cabinet behind the mirror. I could end this right now. Not my life, no. Just this .. weird area where none of us speak, except for Andy and Joe. A suicide attempt brought us together once before, who's to say it couldn't do it again?

I open the bottle, pouring the pills into my hand. I look up at myself — the dark circles around my eyes more prominent than ever — and almost cringe at the scowl I didn't know was on my face.

I turn my attention back to the pills, white against my skin. They remind me of Patrick's thighs, pale and powerful, and I drop them back into the bottle. Putting them back into the cabinet is the second hardest thing I've ever had to do.

The first? Leaving them.

I trudge to my bed — it's raining outside, the perfect time to sleep, if I knew how to do so — and fall into it, wishing I hadn't given Hemingway to my parents so that I wouldn't be alone in this house. It's not a home, because my home is seventeen hundred miles away, his smile as bright as the sun on the hottest day in L.A.

I pick up my phone, just to see if he's broken the no-contact rule he himself set in place and break my own heart when I know the answer before I look. Sure enough, nothing. Not from him, Andy, or Joe.

I'm throwing the phone as hard as I can — which doesn't turn out to be very hard at all. I need to sleep — before I can stop myself, listening to it crack and break apart. It reminds me of my heart when we declared it was time for a break. Really, when Joe and Patrick declared it was time for a break.

I realise a few weeks too late that I should've just let Joe beat my ass so he'd be over his whole 'I hate Pete Wentz' phase — that's how Patrick got over it — and let Patrick finally get his way when it came to the music when I had the chance. Maybe then I would be back with my boys, touring the world and cuddling up to Patrick every night — still afraid to tell him how I feel but at a close enough proximity to know he feels the same.

Now everything's just .. gray.

fin.

i'm going to be honest,, this is the first time ever that i've allowed myself to just write without trying to follow a set plot or storyline. i've never written a story with little to no dialogue, so i took a shot at it. i like how it turned out.

none of this is canon, but it's just my take on how everyone felt right after the hiatus began. obviously, joe and andy were most likely not in love, and neither were pete and patrick, but this is wattpad and i'm a slut for unrequited love.

if you're looking to find a point or moral or whatever in this, there isn't one. it's just a sad fucking story because it was a sad fucking time. just trying to make sure you guys aren't wasting times trying to read too much into this.

i hope you enjoy. i'm sorry for how depressing this is, but i think i needed to write this for myself. i needed to put some thoughts out to get it out of my system. what better way than to write the boys into it?

thank you for reading!