[mood| 
satisfied]
[music|Big Fish original soundtrack, Danny Elfman]
Title: The Phrase That Pays [1/?]
Author:![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
vinylsigns, posted at my writing journal ladyofthequill
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Fall Out Boy, with appearances by Panic! at the Disco, My Chemical Romance, and Cobra Starship
Pairing: Pete Wentz/Patrick Stump
Warnings: Teaching hospital AU (omg wtf, brain?), cussing
Disclaimer: I don’t own anything except the fic; don’t sue, please?
Summary: Pete had eyes and ears stationed throughout the hospital, but for all the payoffs and background checking he and his connections could muster, nobody had any dirt on the new guy.
Notes: Yeah, I’ve been watching way too much House, MD; can you tell? ^__^ They share similarities, definitely, but I mixed it up. Any medical errors, I blame on the show :-P And forgive Pete; he’s pretty damn insensitive toward cancer patients in this fic, so if that offends, I’m sorry! Patrick is 28, Pete is 33. Title credit to The Academy Is...
Pete had eyes and ears stationed throughout the hospital, but for all the payoffs and background checking he and his connections could muster, nobody had any dirt on the new guy. As far as anyone could tell, he was squeaky clean, possibly even married, and it bothered Pete beyond reason. He hadn’t even seen the man in the two months he’d been there (not for lack of trying, just extreme business Pete had less to do with than his boss, along with a hell of a lot of bad luck), but people were already making comparisons between the two which Pete would rather like to avoid.
“Yeah, man, give him a couple years and he’ll be on the top of the payroll,” Brendon commented one day, chewing on a pen cap while attempting to fill out a crossword puzzle. He’d completed a grand total of seven, four using the answer key in the back of the booklet (“To give it a head start,” he defended, naïvely believing he’d crush it) and one by Ryan’s input.
Pete frowned out of the window from where he’d been watching other doctors and nurses use the employee-only entrance in the courtyard several stories below, peering like a nosy neighbor snooping for a juicy bit of gossip. Which wasn’t entirely far from the truth, technically speaking.
“The only list he’ll be at the top of is kiss asses and phonies,” he grumbled, absently fingering his Rubik’s cube. “He’ll be out of here before the year’s out.”
Ryan, another intern, glanced quizzically over at Victoria, who cocked an eyebrow that plainly stated Jealous egomaniac, anyone? Ryan had to nod in agreement.
“Well, whatever,” Brendon dismissed, “I’m pretty damn impressed. Graduated from Hopkins by 23, top of his department by 28. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if he fought crime on the side.”
“In all fairness, you’re also a kiss ass, Urie,” Ryan chimed in. “And don’t lean back on two legs; you’ll destroy the chair or carpet one of these days.”
“Gee, thanks for being concerned for my health, Ross. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were a doctor,” Brendon snarked back. He shrugged and did as he was told, then covered the latest edition of Us Weekly on the table with his puzzle book. “Maybe this guy, Stump or something, he’s the real deal. I’ve seen him in action and he’s just as brilliant as you are, Wentz.”
Pete scowled at him. “Do I need to send you off to do some gels until the end of your shift? Because you know I will.”
Brendon raised his hands in a surrendering gesture, eyes wide. “Hey, I was just saying—”
“He can’t replace me,” Pete cut in, stalking to the coffee pot. “He’s in a different department; there’s no way.”
“Then he’ll be dean,” Brendon said lightly. “Point is he’s you without the hassle and emotional baggage.”
“Oh, how hard could his job be?” Pete asked exasperatedly, throwing up his arms. “He’s in oncology. All he’s gotta do is let his minions do the dirty work and then he looks at some x-rays. If there’s a snowstorm brewing in the lungs, it’s Hey, you’re dying! Would you like to look at our selection of deluxe coffins? If not, it’s Well, it’s not cancer, but you could be dying from something else entirely. Good luck with that!”
Victoria stirred a little creamer into her mug. “So, again, he’s you. Minus the oncology part. And the stuff Urie mentioned.”
Thoroughly annoyed (damn, even the suck-up had abandoned him), Pete glared helplessly at them, his brain working quickly for ways to regain a little power over his underlings and also to track down the Golden Boy and lay down the law. “Why aren’t you all running tests or something?”
Ryan had occupied himself by hovering over Brendon’s shoulder, murmuring answers into his ear, then replied, “We don’t have any cases to run tests for, and the last one we had was a week ago, if you didn’t notice. You always seem to ensure that you do as little work as possible.”
“I’m pickey,” he said sourly, lifting his cup to take a sip. “Okay then, go find me another patient, and swear to god, if it’s another case of bad diarrhea, I’ll personally make sure that laxatives find their way into your morning coffee.”
Victoria rolled her eyes, but got up anyway. “What if we brought thermoses or bottled drinks instead?”
“Then you shouldn’t’ve told me,” Pete answered, waving his hands at them. “Go forth and conquer.”
Victoria and Ryan filed out of the lounge, their white lab coats fluttering in their wake, and leaving Brendon with his face screwed up at the crossword, furiously gnawing at the cap. “Five letter word for auto immune disease, starts with ‘l’.”
“Loser, like you.” Pete snatched it out of his hands, not without a cry of indignation from the younger man. “Now go on before I have to beat you with this thing.”
Pete watched Brendon chew his bottom lip and grudgingly spill out into the hallway, soon getting lost in the morning sea of passers-by. Then he turned to the crossword and filled in the squares: L-U-P-U-S.
~
It was by a nice bit of fortune that Pete decided to take his lunch hour earlier than usual that day, which was saying something, since he normally cut out at 11:00 or so to avoid the huge rush of concerned mothers dragging in kids with nothing more serious than runny noses. No doubt the dean, Dr. Gerard Way, was on the prowl for Pete in a one man crusade to make Pete do all his required clinic hours, so Pete invaded the cafeteria and positioned himself so that he was covered by one of the numerous fake trees populating the area, but also such that he could monitor the entrance so that he knew when Way entered.
In his haste to scramble for cover, he’d forgotten to grab the massive amount of ranch dressing he enjoyed drowning various leafy greens in, so he sat and waited for a tray with legs to float by with his beloved topping. Unfortunately, no victims came by to satisfy their curiosity as to why the eccentric doctor was playing safari with the plastic branches, thus he was forced to pick up his tray and browse for anyone willing to let Pete take his or her supply (the lunch lady glowered at him for having snuck a piece of cake under his salad without paying for it once again). He stopped in his tracks as he laid eyes on a man he’d never seen before, and could only assume was the mysterious Dr. Patrick Stump.
He wasn’t much to look at, that was for sure. Despite his young age, he sported a little heft around the middle and it also hung around his face, giving it a soft, rounded appearance. On his defined nose rested a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, and good lord, was that a pocket protector? Was nerd chic back in? Otherwise, the man had full lips, the pink color contrasting with his smooth, pale skin, his face outlined by strands of prematurely thinning hair. It was longish, at least past his chin, strawberry blonde, and framed by sideburns Pete could only describe as intense. Presently, he was nibbling on a granola bar and pouring over patient files, making small, meaningless marks with his pen.
He looked like a sucker.
Truly. The picture of a bleeding heart that studied his patient files with such vehemence and dedication; really, Pete couldn’t expect him to be anything more than a complete push over who agonizes over every minute detail, every twitch of pain a patient has, cries over every one he loses. The moment he sat down, Stump would probably try to talk him into working at a food shelter for the weekend, or buy a basket of homeless kittens desperate for a kind hearted owner or some rubbish like that. Though the thought made him shudder, Pete was still determined to scope out the man who, not withstanding his apparent popularity, was sitting alone.
Pete schooled his face into a careful balance between blankness and polite interest and sauntered over to the oncologist’s table, taking a seat across from him without asking permission. Stump lifted his eyes from his work, a gentle sort of green-blue with more emphasis on the former, and watched his company, not saying a word of protest or encouragement. Pete took his prompt to speak.
“You’ve got two people, both male, both in their middle age,” he started. “Not that attractive sort of middle age, like Johnny Depp or George Clooney, but a pair of real ugly mofos. One on the left, has a bad case of adult acne, a bit of scarring on his cheeks, maybe a little rosacea, is wheelchair bound, and has a septic infection in a place of your choice. One on the right, missing his right arm, sick as a dog and dying of Erdheim-Chester, but neither care because the two of them are lifelong lovers and aiming to get married finally.”
He stole a can of Stump’s diced peaches and popped them open, completely forgetting about his quest for ranch in favor of thinking about how obnoxious he could make himself out to be before Stump was grossed out. Or at the very least, he could figure out where the man stood on his made up scenario. “Riddle me this: are you the paraplegic, the dead man, the straight guest sitting with his wife in the pew, or the police officer busting in to arrest all their sorry asses because gay marriage is a legal offence in that state? Suspend disbelief if you must.”
Stump’s eyes seemed to take on a gradual gleam of amusement, which vexed Pete a little more than he’d like to admit. He leaned closer over the table, twitching his fingers to indicate that Pete should do the same, which Pete did, to a small degree. His lips parted to deliver his answer, Pete watching avidly, but instead he jammed his fork onto Pete’s plate and removed a sizable chunk of his cake.
“Hey, my free cake,” Pete objected, eyebrows furrowing as Stump spilled it onto a crumpled sheet of foil and cut off a smaller piece to eat. Frosting decorated the corner of his mouth as he grinned impishly, and Pete found himself wanting to smile back at him, a feeling that he stubbornly stamped down.
“Oh no you don’t; don’t think you’ve avoided the question.”
Stump shrugged lopsidedly and sipped at his water before countering with, “Can I be the slightly balding midget who catches the bouquet?”
His voice immediately struck Pete as appealingly sardonic, and enunciated with such clarity that there was no mistaking the self-deprecation lacing Stump’s question. It was strangely fitting; not at all what Pete was expecting and in spite of himself, the immense, utterly irrational dislike Pete had built up for the man crumbled in eleven wry words. Pete felt a ridiculous grin spreading on his face and broke out into a stifled laugh, Stump following close behind.
“Good answer.” He held out his hand. “Dr. Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III,” he announced loftily, gripping Stump’s hand. “Double specialty in immunology and cardiology, and head of the former department.”
Stump’s eyes widened. “Are you half as pretentious as your name implies?”
“There should be songs written about my ego,” Pete smirked.
He hummed lightly and shook Pete’s hand again. “Dr. Patrick Stump, oncology and, if you need it as I so have heard from your rampant reputation, unlicensed therapist.”
Pete waved him off and fixed himself back into his seat, resuming his picking at the diced peaches with his fork. Oh, his team was going to give him so much shit for this. “The last thing I need is a Greek chorus, thank you very much.”
“You’d be surprised,” Stump responded, leaning back in his chair. “I don’t want you approaching random strangers with bizarre hypothetical situations; it’s unhealthy and will only feed your fixation on drawing attention to yourself in any way you can.”
“Then if I need help, I shall ask you first, Dr. Stump,” Pete said, raising his carton of milk in salute.
“Patrick.” A correction.
A nod. “Patrick.”
Stum—Patrick appeared to be satisfied. “Aren’t you going to ask me to call you Peter?”
“Only my friends call me Peter,” he said dismissively. “But since I don’t have any, you may call me Pete.”
A shadow of a frown crossed Patrick’s face, but he replaced it with a weak quirk of his lips. “Oh ho, so this all was just a plan to get the benefit without the hole in your pocket, hmm? Haven’t you got anyone else that’ll psychoanalyze you?”
“Oh plenty,” Pete said with forced glibness, “but they know me too well.”
“And you’d prefer an objective opinion?”
Gazing into the air above his head, Pete pretended to measure his words. “If possible; most people I know already believe I’m an incurable jackass jockeying for the spotlight, so their judgement is usually skewed.”
If Patrick was unamused at—or even aware of—Pete’s acting, he didn’t mention it, preferring to continue their banter. “Which brings up two points: once again, your ego, and the fact that you’re, for lack of a better phrase, making a new friend. I shall be biased within the week, unless you can manipulate me otherwise.”
Pete smiled again and bit his lip. “Well, my mother always wanted me to play nice with the other boys,” he said smoothly.
Patrick had the grace to blush slightly and duck his head down toward the premade lunch he had brought it in, vaguely wondering why he hadn’t just decided to eat in the oncology lounge rather than walking all the way down to the cafeteria. Then he decided he didn’t quite mind the company.
“Can I call you Lunchbox?” Pete asked suddenly, his face lighting up in childish hope.
“Absolutely not,” he said flatly, eyebrow arching.
“Lunchbox it is.”
Patrick sighed and stole another cut off his cake.
~
Given roughly a week and the two were thick as thieves, terrorizing the hallways together (Patrick, not so much), eating lunch, which consisted of Patrick buying food and Pete stealing it while the lunch lady looked at them strangely, throwing about jokes about Dr. Way’s ambiguous sexuality, and using consults as excuses to see each other when they should be working on cases or doing clinic hours; again, Pete was more guilty of it.
From the get-go, Pete had an immense appreciation for Patrick’s frankness and dry wit, evidently a product of a bored childhood in the suburbs of Chicago, a history which Pete could identify with easily. Afraid that their son wasn’t going to do anything with his life after he was unsuccessful in making anything of his talent at soccer, Pete’s parents sent him to medical school before his graduation cap hit the trampled, poorly tended grass of the football field in the hopes that it would instill some care and sorely needed maturity into the young man. For the most part, the plan failed miserably since Pete still thought it entertaining to throw small, round objects at the janitors who got stuck on the graveyard shift in the hospital, but at least now he had a good education and career to fall back on if he ever considered it romantic to start a rock band or something similarly far off in left field. It was also quite convenient, Pete reasoned, that when he used his pickup lines at a local bar (where he would not drink, thank you very much), it helped and was simultaneously hilarious that Hey, I’m a doctor was actually true.
Patrick’s family, on the other hand, didn’t have the convenience nor the money Pete’s had to fully support Patrick though med school. Indeed, if it weren’t for the numerous scholarships he’d garnered while in high school, under the table cash for doing stints in several bands in bars and clubs—underage, nonetheless—, and pulling night shifts at a local video store, he’d have never made it. Student loans weren’t easy to come by from the fact that most med students stumbled and fell off at some point, leaving their debts unpaid for years, but he somehow managed to acquire them by gaining their (Pete was not even sure who “they” were) confidence and working out a deal which allowed him to keep receiving loans as long as he was employed at a low income clinic for the duration.
Pete’s initial view of him as the absorbed, overly caring doctor wasn’t incredibly off base, as he found out, but at the same time he was caught completely off guard when, during lunch one day, Patrick wondered aloud if he could get a raise if he polished his cancer patients’ bald heads. Pete handed him a five and said (through a mouthful of peanut butter and jelly) that he wanted to be able to see his face. Patrick smirked back and asked if Pete wanted them to be as white as his teeth.
Patrick’s office quickly became one of Pete’s favorite spots to hide from Dr. Way in, if not just for the interesting things that occupied the many shelves adorning the walls. If he didn’t know any better, Pete would think Patrick lived out of his office. One complete side of the room groaned under the weight of his gargantuan collection of DVDs, which consisted of everything from old school films like Casablanca and Some Like It Hot to Tarantino flicks and The 40 Year-Old Virgin (“Dude, Hair. How much funnier can it get?”), and CDs that Pete couldn’t even contemplate the awesomeness of, though he questioned Patrick’s interest in Björk when he could just listen to John Lennon’s Double Fantasy if he wanted a wailing banshee of a woman damaging his eardrums.
Behind the desk were cabinets laden with files and official-looking documents, which confused Pete until he realized Patrick hadn’t taken on any interns yet, and thus didn’t have anyone to take care of the large amounts of paperwork he had to deal with on a daily basis. Pete pitied him a bit. On his desk was a Mac laptop, hand sanitizer and lotion, which made Pete ask if he was a girl. Patrick threw a pen at him. Pictures of his family littered the remainder of the space, a happy bunch that waved enthusiastically at the camera at every opportunity, with the exception of Patrick’s shy smile, usually hidden behind a thick scarf (or his brother’s arm thrown around him from behind), his glasses, and a hat. None of the hats in the pictures ever repeated, indicating to Pete that Patrick was exceedingly self conscious when it came to his hair and it took a great deal of building up his confidence for him to walk about the hospital all day without one, save for when he scrubbed up. Pete made a mental note not to make fun of his hair.
In one corner sat an extra set of shoes atop a pair of swimming trunks, which Patrick used occasionally when he wanted to swim in the pool normally reserved for physical therapy classes. Apparently the instructor had a massive crush on him, so he could effortlessly sweet talk her into letting him in most of the time. In the opposing corner was an acoustic guitar, obsessively smudge-free and well-used, if not by Patrick’s love of music, then by Pete’s bidding him to play while he lay on Patrick’s couch and rode the waves of melody and multi-layered chords that bewitched his senses and got him wondering what the hell Patrick was doing in a doctor’s office.
“I very well couldn’t make a living on music,” Patrick said oddly, picking at the strings in meandering lines of beatific melancholy. “Not that I could afford to take a chance on it and fall short, monetarily or not; I didn’t want to end up looking at music in hatred…how I’d pick up my guitar and inevitably only see the failure.
“That’s me though,” he breathed, smiling in a way he meant to be self-disparaging, but came out with a restrained bitterness. “Always concentrating on my flaws. Can never just…enjoy it.”
Pete wasn’t in the mood to argue, having been yelled at by Dr. Way that day for using “dangerous techniques” in order to force a diagnosis on one of his patients. Okay, a few of them. The point is he didn’t feel he was in a delicate enough state of mind to handle an issue that was so personal to Patrick, lest he say something insensitive and Patrick break the guitar over Pete’s head. Then make him pay for a new one. Instead, he asked Patrick to sing whatever he felt like, mainly because Pete had come to absolutely adore his voice and he was a selfish bastard, but also because he wanted Patrick to privately live out his musical fantasies to his one man audience. He had a feeling Patrick enjoyed their little concerts, too, judging by the fervor that Patrick threw into the songs, how Pete could hear his concentration and desire to just get it right. Sympathy shot through him like a bullet to his head.
He rolled over onto his back to watch Patrick where he was seated in a chair adjacent to the couch, noting how he was drilling holes into the ground with his eyes, a crease between them. Before he realized what he was doing, Pete’s hand floated out to settle on Patrick’s knee. An indignantly discordant twang emitted from the guitar as Patrick’s fingers froze and his voice dried to a squeak. His eyes were green today, fixated on the point of contact while Pete watched him intently and absently pressed his thumb into the coarse material of his pants in small circles. There it was, that moment of weightlessness, that cruel uncertainty born of Pete’s sudden will to comfort him, to be the good friend he never was to anyone else in his life. Because this Patrick. He actually deserved it, whatever Pete could offer him, if only because he put up with Pete and his frequent bouts of insanity (“Hey, want to go hang out with the coma patients?”) and caustic ways toward the world, and Pete could appreciate that. Or maybe it was because Patrick actually made him happy and didn’t make it feel like he was just indulging Pete and his whims. He was a genuinely good person, and Pete felt like a complete ass for ever thinking otherwise, nevermind that it was before he’d even seen the younger man. Before he’d discovered how much he missed the relaxed company of others, the companionship that bound him to Patrick, how he’d stay with him for hours and let himself be enveloped in warmth and music and Patrick’s gentle laugh and easy smile that made Pete’s throat constrict and heat pool in his stomach. Yeah, he’d missed that.
Pete couldn’t remember the last time he gave so much to, or wanted as much from, another human being. Though he had many connections in the hospital, and did the occasional ‘80s movie marathon with Joe “The Straight Nurse” Trohman and the thin pharmacist William Beckett, he couldn’t say that he held either of them closer than arm’s length. Because people were shit. Because people could reel him in with pretty words and pearly smiles, a flash of golden skin, before Pete realized he should probably stop thinking with his dick and start pushing them away before he got hurt. Again. Sometimes it wasn’t even being scorned by lovers; it was putting trust into friends not to go behind his back and fuck him over, like in med school. Once, he’d spent too much time with one of his conquests from a club on the night before an exam that could make or break his grade. Instead of faking sick (make up tests were roughly twice as hard and were put to an extremely unfavorable curve), Pete used an inside man, the TA Mikey, to get him a copy of the answers several hours beforehand so he could lock himself in his dorm and spend the time typing them up in a smaller font to make them less noticeable during the test. When his roomie Gabe used his key and accidentally caught him, Pete’s paranoia was dissolved Gabe’s reassuring smile and Hey, you think I could glance at those, too?
Three hours later Pete was being threatened with expulsion, a fate avoided only because his parents had contributed large amounts of cash for lab equipment and computers on campus. For the rest of his time there, Pete paid extra to room alone and hoped that the open glares and slurs (spoiled little rich kid…oh look, there he goes to pay off another professor…I heard he sucked off Prof. Neimitz the other day) would eventually stop hurting. Yeah, he knew he was wrong in the matter, but he couldn’t help but feel a geyser of rage and betrayal surge through his body and set his nerve endings on fire, tears of self loathing stinging at the back of his eyes and Why couldn’t you have just taken the make up, Wentz? It was about the same time that he went on anti-depressants, a suggestion made when the university subjected him to a mental examination as a sort of punishment for the whole ordeal, but Pete was glad in a twisted way that he had a crutch, an excuse with which he could keep people—even those who didn’t know a thing about him—away. With the meds came the rumors that he was either suicidal or a serial killer and the dean of the school only kept him there because of the money and an overwhelming sense of obligation and pity for the boy. Pete didn’t bother to quell their reactions anymore. His voice would be lost like a weak whisper in a monsoon of lieshatediscriminationcondemnation. He bit his lip and closed that door in his life.
But this Patrick.
His mouth opened like he was going to ask Pete what the hell he was doing, and Pete was suddenly terrified that maybe he didn’t like to be touched or he thought Pete was coming on to him. He gazed up at him with pleading eyes, but Patrick’s expression was inscrutable, refusing to look at him. Pete felt his heart sink into his stomach. Sadly, he let his fingers slip, lethargic, as if he was watching it float in water. His arm flopped listlessly off the edge of his cushion and Pete trained his sight on the ceiling, counting the infinite amount of dots and cracks, the water damage in one neglected corner, a lightbulb that needed replacing. He made it all the way to the seventy eighth dot before he felt a hand rest on his shoulder and burn through the thin cotton of his shirt, thumb hooked over it, fingers stretching all the way to his collarbone. It was still warm from strumming at strings, textured lumpy with calluses, and Pete might’ve shuddered at the sensation of his loose grip if he knew Patrick wasn’t going to feel the vibration. Instead, his hand sprung back to life and covered Patrick’s, fingertips wedging between his palm and Pete’s shoulder and squeezing gently. Patrick’s fingers closed around Pete’s, reciprocating the squeeze and eventually returning to the guitar. As he launched into Across the Universe, a small smile played at Patrick’s lips.
~
For what it was worth, Pete figured eating crow was outweighed by seeing the looks on the faces of his team when Patrick popped his head in the door asking, “Hey, do you know that Way is running an inquisition looking for you?”
“What’s wrong with searching my office if he wants to see me?” Pete asked no one in particular, motioning Patrick inside. He took the seat across from where Pete was sitting at his desk, briefly nodding his head in greeting at Pete’s interns, who promptly gawked (and, in Brendon’s case, almost dropped the patient file) at the unique turn of events. Pete furtively glanced at them. Brendon was openly shocked, jaw slightly ajar; Victoria, inquisitive and reserved, but cynical; Ryan, completely unphased, maybe even a little exasperated at the surprise blooming on Brendon’s face than anything.
Brendon’s mouth worked fruitlessly for a few seconds while Patrick responded dryly, “Maybe because you haven’t been known to be in your office during work hours. In fact, you actively try not to work when you’re on duty, which, call me crazy, is a little contradictory since you can’t exactly help people when you’re avoiding them.”
“Dude…” Brendon started.
“You calling me lazy, my enabler?” Pete asked knowingly.
“Hey…”
“Hmm, it would appear that way,” Patrick said, taking off his glasses to rub at them with his eye searing tie. Seriously, did he have temporary color blindness when he bought his ties? More than ever, Pete was glad he went with the classic white Oxford with a loosened black tie; if he wasn’t wearing a lab coat, he’d look like he could fit in Pulp Fiction.
“Umm, you—”
“Oh come on, you know I do it for the benefit of the patients. Most these cases can be fixed by a monkey with a bottle of Motrin anyway, so why should I be dragged into it? I’ll only emotionally scar them.”
“…”
Patrick looked at him incredulously, fixing his glasses back on. “Oh no, god forbid you’re forced to practice medicine at a hospital. Damn that thing called logic.”
“Hey—”
“Damnit, Urie, if you’re going to say something, stop doing your impressive imitation of a goldfish and speak up!” Pete barked coldly.
“Fine!” Brendon groused and brandished a finger at Patrick. Pete thought it a bit melodramatic, then admitted he was far worse than the kid. “What the hell is he doing here? Weren’t you just complaining and talking shit about him last week?”
Patrick’s eyebrows shot up as he threw a sidelong glance at Pete. “You talked shit about me? I don’t know if I can hang with that.”
“That was before you gave me that blowjob; my opinion’s totally changed,” Pete said seriously.
A feigned look of realization flitted across Patrick’s face. “Ah yes, that’d do it.” He nodded sagely while the others looked on, horrified.
“We’re still picking out rings, right?”
“Mmhmm, most definitely.”
“Good,” Pete finished, then blew a kiss at Patrick and turned to Brendon, who was positively mortified. “Patient?”
“W-well…”
Pete pointed at the blue file in his hands. “I meant that kind, not you.”
“O-oh,” he stuttered, flipping it open and shuffling the papers and reading off of one. “Patient admitted about five hours ago, presenting slight anemia from low platelet and white blood cell count. All that’s really known about her is that she takes pharmaceuticals for the iron deficiency, but she pretty much collapsed without warning.”
“Hmm,” Pete frowned, “Not very helpful, huh?” Brendon handed him the file and he fingered through the pages, analyzing stats and results of the few preliminary blood tests. “I want a full body MRI, check for blood clots, because we’re definitely in trouble if one’s there and it’s thrown another that’s headed for the heart.”
“Blood clots?” Victoria questioned, arms crossed. “But why would she have a clot if she’s got a low platelet count?”
“Just trust me on this, okay?” Pete said confidently. “If it turns out positive, put her on blood thinners.”
“She’ll bleed out—”
“That’s for us to see, isn’t it?” Pete cut in severely. “The numbers are low probably because of antiphospholipid antibody syndrome, which is a thrombotic disorder, hence the chance of clotting and why we need to put her on blood thinners. If I’m wrong, we’re still looking for antibodies; low white blood cells are bad news any way you slice it.”
He gave the file back to Brendon. “Asher and Urie, take care of the MRI. Ross, would you do some blood tests to confirm the APS, please,” he stated more than asked, but Ryan nodded anyway. Brendon and Ryan set out to their tasks, while Victoria stayed put, arms still crossed, and looked between the two men.
“Are we alright, Vicky?” Pete asked, overly saccharine sweet. Victoria glanced at Patrick, then turned and threw her hands up, muttering something that sounded curiously like boys.
“Have a good feeling about this one?” Patrick asked, leaning back in the chair and closing his eyes.
Pete shrugged and pulled out his medication, popping the childproof cap open easily. “‘Good feeling’ is subjective. I feel confident that it’s syphilis, though.”
“Mmm, the STD of choice for authors whose books are most commonly found in high school required reading,” Patrick commented. “Nice. She’s got a chance then, but the white blood cells should be higher in that case. Would it be monotonous of me to say that I’m worried?”
The older man shook his head. “No, that’s just part of your caring protocol, my little cutie pie.” Patrick stuck out his tongue, making Pete grin at him before he downed whatever was left in his coffee mug.
“Wh—oh hey…” Patrick removed the pager from his belt, grimacing and covering his face with his hands when he read the message.
“Patrick?”
“Shit,” Patrick cursed softly, reluctantly pushing himself out of the chair and rubbing the back of his neck. “Newbie, possibly leukemia.” He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “They want me down in the lab to take a look at the slides and confirm it.”
“Well, too bad; I want you, too,” Pete said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. He saw a flash of teeth as Patrick tried his damnedest to suppress the smile struggling to break free.
“Yeah, well, pout as you will. I’m yours at every time but times like right now.”
“Good to know it remains effective,” Pete said proudly. “Stop by later, would you? I want to make some plans while we’re both young, unattached men.”
“Will do, oh ye of dastardly double entendres,” Patrick panned, heading for the door.
“Watch out down there; I hear there’s a war to end all wars concerning the lab time for each department; wouldn’t want you to catch any stray scalpels or shrapnel, now.”
“If I do, you’re pulling it all out,” Patrick replied, shutting the door solidly. Pete scrounged around for some water to chase the pills.
~
Pete was half asleep on the floor by the time his fellows made it back up to his office, curled up around a copy of Gray’s Anatomy—the book, not the show, hence the different spelling— and waiting for their answer. At the gentle prod in his side, he slowly peeked open one eye to find Victoria’s unamused face hovering above him.
“You were right,” she stated, unwilling to feed his ego more than she absolutely had to.
“What was that?” Pete asked muzzily, raking a hand through his now unruly black hair.
“You were right.”
“What?”
Victoria rolled her eyes and prayed for patience. “About the syphilis diagnosis, you self-absorbed jackass.”
“Oh no, I just wanted to hear you say the other thing again,” Pete smirked up at her. She took up the classic bitch pose: hands on her hips, the tip of her pointy shoe tap-tap-tapping in annoyance. Pete ignored her and snuggled up to his book once more, yawning widely. “Load her up with penicillin and all shall be right in the world.”
“Yes, O Captain, My Captain,” she mock saluted and ushered the others out as well, save for one set of feet, which seemed to be on its way toward Pete’s spot on the floor.
“Why, hello there, ‘Trick. How lovely it is to listen to your footsteps this evening.”
“A pleasure, I’m sure,” Patrick replied tiredly, planting himself near Pete so that he towered over him. “The leukemia diagnosis was wrong, by the way. It’s actually small cell carcinoma. Lungs.”
“Fuck,” Pete breathed, glancing up at Patrick’s closed face. “Inoperable?”
He nodded silently. “He’s got two months, tops, even with treatment and meds. He’ll probably only go one, maybe even less, but you never know…”
“I’m sorry, Patrick,” Pete said, reaching out for his hand and touching Patrick’s somberly. “Jesus, makes me feel like a complete ass for asking you to come back like this, man.”
He shook him off. “No, it’s alright. What did you want to talk about?”
“What are you doing on Thanksgiving?”
Patrick frowned, racking his brain for plans and dates, people, places, times. “Nothing, really. My parents called and said they were planning on doing a huge family reunion. I said I’d be busy with the newest cases I’d taken on.”
“You lied,” Pete corrected, receiving a nod from the oncologist. “Why?”
Patrick winced, wrinkling his nose in distaste. “I don’t do big shindigs; there are too many people who want to talk to me and not enough of me to go around. And then after everyone’s satisfied with the knowledge that I’m a positive force in the world, I usually end up like Tom Hanks in Big: hanging out at the appetizer table and nibbling on mini corn.”
“An adorable mental picture indeed,” Pete responded, chuckling a little. “And, as it so happens, it plays right into my little scheme.”
“You want me to spend Thanksgiving with you?” Patrick asked, eyes widening imperceptibly.
“Mmhmm,” Pete hummed, “I mean, I don’t mean to play it up like it’s a huge deal—”
“Why the hell not?”
Pete’s dark eyes shot up to Patrick’s, full of hope. “Really?”
“Really really,” Patrick agreed.
“Oh man, no quoting Shrek while in my office or at my apartment. That’s just wrong.”
“Is that where we’re going?”
“Bet your sweet little ass,” Pete said, then raised both of his hands toward Patrick and wiggled his fingers. “Now that that’s settled, there’s one more thing. Get. Me. Dinner.”
Patrick laughed weakly in that exasperated Oh, Peter way of his, which he’d perfected in the three weeks that he’d known the tanned man. “Come on, then. You need to at least see a menu, lest I decide that you deserve a box of Count Chocula with no milk.”
Pete squirmed and curled up once more. “No. Comfortable.”
“There is no way in hell that that’s more comfy than, say, my couch?” Patrick tempted him, knowing that if he could get Pete off the ground then he could get him to go along to get food.
“Mmm, fine,” Pete grumbled, sending a wave of relief through Patrick. He held out a hand for him until, “I’ll meet you in your office then. Step to it, my flying monkey.”
“Charming,” Patrick groused, backing toward the door. “What do you want?”
Pete turned over bonelessly. “Use your instincts and if I’m not satisfied, then we’re not meant for each other.”
Patrick’s melodic laughter rung even after the door shut. Pete twisted himself around just in time to see two sets of feet nearly collide (by virtue of a small section next to his door being a stylized sort of glass); one was Patrick’s, the other, judging by the severity of the design and discomfort factor, could only be Victoria. Their voices were too low for Pete to hear, but the exchange was brief enough not to set off any flags in Pete’s mind before he passed out soundly.
~
In another two weeks, the patient was dead. Nightfall found Pete on the rooftop of the hospital, half encased in shadows, close to one of the ledges like some gargoyle perched on a gothic cathedral, sculpted to look as grotesque and loathsome as possible to ward away demons and all manner of evil. It was a role Pete failed miserably at. The thought tore through him with an almost audible rip of flesh from bone, mind from body, the wretchedness of failure and ignorance and the weight of repressed tears filling him hollowly.
A distant scrape of rubber against slicked cement sounded behind him, but Pete didn’t need to turn around yet; he already knew who it was.
“Not out to ruin a perfectly good lab coat, are you, Patrick?” he asked hoarsely. “It’s starting to rain, if you haven’t noticed.”
Sure enough, Patrick approached Pete cautiously, in pristine white, pale and perfect in the darkness, lighting the blackness like a radiant angel sent to save a poor wretch like Pete. Christ, even a streak of water was falling down his slightly flushed cheek, the first droplet of freezing rain to stain the younger man. He looked for all the world as though he mourned for Pete and his mistake, like the good little seraph he was. Then again, Pete never really believed in Heaven.
“I suppose you’ll be wanting to hear what happened,” Pete assumed bitterly, his face etched like stone.
Patrick stopped in front of Pete, aglow in the lights that peeked over the edge of the roof and shined from the courtyards below, stoic, but concern bled through his eyes, unhindered by the presence of glasses. “I’m here for whatever you need to say, whether you want to or not.”
“Oh god, you’re caring, aren’t you?” Pete rhetorically asked.
Patrick gave him a stern look, setting his jaw. “Well?”
A white puff hovered where Pete shakily exhaled into the cold night air, then wrapped his arms around himself. “It was a false positive. But I ignored the signs like a goddamn idiot.”
“Shit.” Realization dawned on him before his head bowed, a pained expression marring his young features. “It was lupus, huh.”
“Yeah,” he ground out, shutting his eyes tightly to fight the onslaught of emotions threatening to overwhelm and crush his body.
Patrick swore softly and tilted his head skyward while Pete stood stiffly, quietly fuming. The oncologist reached for Pete’s wrist in what he hoped was a comforting way. “Shit, I’m so sorry—”
Pete yanked his hand away viciously, snarling at Patrick’s confused countenance. “What the fuck do you have to be sorry for? I’m the one that screwed up!”
Patrick flinched violently at his outburst. Wasn’t Pete the one that was there for him when he had a hard time? “Pete…”
“No!” Pete yelled, startling him further. “Fuck that! You’re not gonna stand there and try to make me feel better about fucking killing someone!”
Patrick held out a hand. “Pete calm down.” Pete snorted, rolling his eyes and starting to pace. “I know you’re extremely emotional about this, but you have to take it down a notch because you’re going to do or say something you’ll regret…”
The older man stopped and turned toward him, looking at Patrick like he’d never seen him before in his life. “Then what the hell are you doing up here?” he asked, voice bordering on dangerously low. “Did it ever cross your mind that talking about it would only piss me off more? Or were you just trying to make sure I didn’t off myself, because hey! I’m on anti-depressants!”
“Well, gee, since I’m your best friend, I figured maybe talking would be a good idea, since one doesn’t usually shout at his friend,” Patrick said, somewhat sarcastic. “And no, I didn’t think you’d kill yourself over this.”
“Oh, you’re going to be the noble friend then,” Pete smiled terribly. “Gonna come up here and let me know it’s okay to care.”
“Pete—”
Pete plowed on. “Next thing you’re gonna tell me is that you cry over each and every one of your little cancer kids.”
“Pete. Don’t,” Patrick warned, knuckles turning bone white. Heavy drops of rain began assaulting them
“Oh no, I think I do,” Pete replied angrily. “You’re no saint, Patrick. You think you’re some big goddamn hero for giving the little bald kids another month or two, maybe more than that. And for what?! So their parents can give them a proper goodbye? So they can go to the Make-A-Wish foundation for a last kick? For a few extra weeks, months of agony and taking twenty different kinds of painkillers, nineteen of which make them nauseous, fatigued, constipated, and oh yeah, kill their livers with acetaminophen? Fuck, you’re not doing them any fucking favors!”
Patrick’s cheeks had lost their rosy quality. White as a sheet, his face crumpled piteously, his wet hair clinging to his skin, but he couldn’t make himself back down from his raging friend. He could only stand stock still, desperately wishing for the storm to be over.
Pete ignored the pang in his heart. “So don’t stand here and try to fucking tell me that it’s okay to have patients die on me, because it’s not! Yours might have a long, drawn out death, but at least I was stupid enough to miss that my treatment was killing mine faster! So just leave me the fuck alone, Stump!”
Pete chest heaved from over exertion, icy wind and rain stinging his skin and lungs, piercing his flesh like millions of needles as he watched Patrick’s seams (he ripped, tore, gnashed, chewed, sliced, everything but sewed) fall apart, rent asunder at the hands of his best friend. He couldn’t distinguish the tears of hurt that boiled over and mingled with the rain, scourging his face hot, cold, disappointed, shattered.
“So that’s how you really feel?” Broken, croaked out, like they were barely more than grunts an animal would make, almost not words at all. It wasn’t a sound Pete associated with everything music, everything inviting, everything Patrick, and the saddest part was he couldn’t bring himself to care.
“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it,” Pete said cruelly, crossing his arms.
He couldn’t hear Patrick sniff over the roar of blood in his ears, but the sight of him turning around and jerkily disappearing through the roof access door was more satisfying than hearing anymore useless pity spill from his mouth.
~
Victoria slapped him.
“What the hell did you do to him!?” she shrieked, absolutely livid. Pete didn’t bother even clutching a hand to the pain biting into his slick skin, taking it in stride. He pushed past the intern, stalking down the nearly empty hallway.
“Whoa watch it there, Vicky, you might actually show real emotion, there,” he bit out, turning the corner.
“You complete asshole. What were you thinking!?” She pursued him, screeching like the harpy she was. “When was he ever anything but supportive of you!?”
Pete stopped and abruptly wheeled around to face her. “I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about, so if you’ll excuse me…”
Victoria stood in stunned silence for a moment, then, “Bullshit!” She tore after him again, hauling the door he just disappeared into. “You know exactly who I’m talking about! What did you do!?”
“It doesn’t matter, now,” Pete said tersely, rummaging around his office for a set of fresh clothes.
“Of course it does!” Victoria shot back. “Pete, he was crying, and I happen to know that you could make Disney characters massacre eachother, so of course it had to be you.”
“That’s kind of you to think of me first; really, I’m warmed by the notion.” Pete smirked, pulling out a dry hoodie and laying it on the back of a chair.
“Fuck you, Wentz,” she said coldly. “Tell me.”
Pete tugged off his saturated tee shamelessly and wrapped the hoodie around his torso, reveling in the comparatively lush warmth. “What’s there to say? I didn’t need him telling me how to handle my patient’s death,” he explained poorly, leaving out his unprovoked attack on the blonde.
“There’s got to be more to it than that,” Victoria said disbelievingly. “I probably won’t get it out of you, but Patrick won’t talk either. He’s locked himself in his office and won’t open it for anyone.” She buried her face in her hands and sighed while Pete began formulating ways to kick her out of his office, barring threatening to fire her. “Jesus Christ, I can’t believe you did that to him, on today of all days.”
“Today’s no more special than any other day,” Pete argued stubbornly. “He should’ve minded his own fucking business.”
Her hands dropped, revealing her wide, incredulous eyes. “What right did you have? I don’t care if you thought he deserved it, he went outside of himself so he could help you, you selfish prick, and you threw it back in his face.”
Pete rolled his eyes. “You say it like he can’t take a little judgment.”
“You’re a sorry excuse for a human being, you know that? Jesus, the sacrifices he makes for you…”
“What the fuck are you going on about?” Pete asked tiredly, rubbing at his eyes.
“What?”
At Pete’s blank stare, a crease formed between Victoria’s eyebrows, then comprehension spread across her face. “He didn’t tell you.” A statement. Her hands engulfed her mouth once more.
Pete’s fingers twitched, the ominous shadow of doubt injecting itself into his spine and crawling upward, outward, through the veins and capillaries, through the arteries, finally gripping his heart. “Tell me what?”
“Oh my god,” she breathed, “he really didn’t…”
“What, Victoria?” he asked, equal parts irritated and fearful. “You tell me then!”
She bit her painted red lip, then answered, “Three of them. Young ones.” Her breath came out in shuddering bursts, hugging herself and blinking too rapidly. “Three of his patients died today, but he thought you were more important than moping around about them.” She ducked her head, tracing the mind numbing patterns in the carpet with her eyes. “Guess he was wrong, huh?” she asked, choking on a laugh that quickly turned into a sob.
Pete didn’t remember much after that except for the dry heaving.
~
The door to Patrick’s office had never looked more unwelcoming than it did that night. The wood was cool under the pressure of Pete’s ear, betraying nothing of what was going on inside, but Pete had an idea anyway. He gently knocked on the surface, each sounding like a gunshot that rang rampant in the halls of his mind.
“Patrick?” he tried tentatively. “Patrick, please.”
No answer.
“God, please, let me in, ‘Trick.” Oh, this was absolutely pathetic, resorting to his bag of nicknames for the man, but desperate times…
Again, no answer.
“Patrick…” he whimpered, leaning against the door brokenly. God, what had he done? He’d probably destroyed the best thing to ever happen to him because he didn’t want to listen, of all things. Patrick had laid himself out there, balled up his own hurt and despair for the sake of Pete’s, and now Patrick couldn’t even speak to him.
His hand wound its way down to the handle and tried it, nearly falling in when it actually opened, despite what Victoria had said. He stumbled inside and tripped on some fabric balled up in near the entryway because there wasn’t a light on in the room. Pete landed hard on his side, burning the skin on his side where the hoodie rode up. Dazed, he lifted himself off the ground and glanced at the offending object illuminated in the light spilling in from the hall: a drenched white lab coat.
“Don’t drip on my carpet,” came Patrick’s voice, making Pete whip his head in his direction. There he sat, balancing on the corner of his desk and looking at the floor morosely. Pete felt self loathing writhe in every cell in his body, but his heart ached at how small Patrick looked and sounded, swinging his legs back and forth and keeping his head bowed like a reprimanded child. Pete didn’t bother to tell him that he was also dripping, instead choosing to close the door only to where there was enough light to navigate, and warily planted himself in front of Patrick.
“And don’t apologize,” he said quietly.
“Patrick…”
“I said don’t.” Patrick met his eyes, his face so raw and thoroughly scrubbed, from what Pete could tell, that he was thankful of the sparse lighting, because he didn’t know if he could hold it together if he saw the full devastation he’d wrought on the blonde. “Are you actually going to listen to me now?”
It hurt. A lot. But Pete tried anyway. “Patrick,” he croaked, “I didn’t know—”
“No, Pete, just stop,” Patrick managed, swiping at his eyes (gray, Pete noted absently). “No more talking. Talking is what got us into this. Just.” He didn’t quite know what to do with his hands, flexing the fingers, running them through his slowly drying hair, over his face. “Just—”
He clamped down on Pete’s wrist and tugged hard, Pete’s arms instinctively going up and around Patrick’s shoulders so he could bury his face into the crook of his neck, inhaling deeply the smells of rain and dampened vanilla covering the vague scent of death that clung to them both. He didn’t mind the water soaking through his hoodie because Patrick’s hands pressed tightly to the expanse of Pete’s back, pulling him ever closer, hanging on like a drowning man to the line thrown to him from a ship, though Pete couldn’t imagine how he could save Patrick. It wasn’t his to question, only to mold his body to Patrick’s, listening to his feverish whispers of Pete’s name in his ear and feeling the solid thump of his heart against Pete's while the rain and wind and hellish storm beat the panes of the broad window, separating the darkness outside from that within.
Part two coming soon!
Notes: In the medieval period, gargoyles were thought to ward away evil spirits and protect the lives of good Catholics, as far as I learned in advanced art history class ^__^
Concrit is love!
satisfied][music|Big Fish original soundtrack, Danny Elfman]
Title: The Phrase That Pays [1/?]
Author:
vinylsigns, posted at my writing journal ladyofthequillRating: PG-13
Fandom: Fall Out Boy, with appearances by Panic! at the Disco, My Chemical Romance, and Cobra Starship
Pairing: Pete Wentz/Patrick Stump
Warnings: Teaching hospital AU (omg wtf, brain?), cussing
Disclaimer: I don’t own anything except the fic; don’t sue, please?
Summary: Pete had eyes and ears stationed throughout the hospital, but for all the payoffs and background checking he and his connections could muster, nobody had any dirt on the new guy.
Notes: Yeah, I’ve been watching way too much House, MD; can you tell? ^__^ They share similarities, definitely, but I mixed it up. Any medical errors, I blame on the show :-P And forgive Pete; he’s pretty damn insensitive toward cancer patients in this fic, so if that offends, I’m sorry! Patrick is 28, Pete is 33. Title credit to The Academy Is...
Pete had eyes and ears stationed throughout the hospital, but for all the payoffs and background checking he and his connections could muster, nobody had any dirt on the new guy. As far as anyone could tell, he was squeaky clean, possibly even married, and it bothered Pete beyond reason. He hadn’t even seen the man in the two months he’d been there (not for lack of trying, just extreme business Pete had less to do with than his boss, along with a hell of a lot of bad luck), but people were already making comparisons between the two which Pete would rather like to avoid.
“Yeah, man, give him a couple years and he’ll be on the top of the payroll,” Brendon commented one day, chewing on a pen cap while attempting to fill out a crossword puzzle. He’d completed a grand total of seven, four using the answer key in the back of the booklet (“To give it a head start,” he defended, naïvely believing he’d crush it) and one by Ryan’s input.
Pete frowned out of the window from where he’d been watching other doctors and nurses use the employee-only entrance in the courtyard several stories below, peering like a nosy neighbor snooping for a juicy bit of gossip. Which wasn’t entirely far from the truth, technically speaking.
“The only list he’ll be at the top of is kiss asses and phonies,” he grumbled, absently fingering his Rubik’s cube. “He’ll be out of here before the year’s out.”
Ryan, another intern, glanced quizzically over at Victoria, who cocked an eyebrow that plainly stated Jealous egomaniac, anyone? Ryan had to nod in agreement.
“Well, whatever,” Brendon dismissed, “I’m pretty damn impressed. Graduated from Hopkins by 23, top of his department by 28. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if he fought crime on the side.”
“In all fairness, you’re also a kiss ass, Urie,” Ryan chimed in. “And don’t lean back on two legs; you’ll destroy the chair or carpet one of these days.”
“Gee, thanks for being concerned for my health, Ross. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were a doctor,” Brendon snarked back. He shrugged and did as he was told, then covered the latest edition of Us Weekly on the table with his puzzle book. “Maybe this guy, Stump or something, he’s the real deal. I’ve seen him in action and he’s just as brilliant as you are, Wentz.”
Pete scowled at him. “Do I need to send you off to do some gels until the end of your shift? Because you know I will.”
Brendon raised his hands in a surrendering gesture, eyes wide. “Hey, I was just saying—”
“He can’t replace me,” Pete cut in, stalking to the coffee pot. “He’s in a different department; there’s no way.”
“Then he’ll be dean,” Brendon said lightly. “Point is he’s you without the hassle and emotional baggage.”
“Oh, how hard could his job be?” Pete asked exasperatedly, throwing up his arms. “He’s in oncology. All he’s gotta do is let his minions do the dirty work and then he looks at some x-rays. If there’s a snowstorm brewing in the lungs, it’s Hey, you’re dying! Would you like to look at our selection of deluxe coffins? If not, it’s Well, it’s not cancer, but you could be dying from something else entirely. Good luck with that!”
Victoria stirred a little creamer into her mug. “So, again, he’s you. Minus the oncology part. And the stuff Urie mentioned.”
Thoroughly annoyed (damn, even the suck-up had abandoned him), Pete glared helplessly at them, his brain working quickly for ways to regain a little power over his underlings and also to track down the Golden Boy and lay down the law. “Why aren’t you all running tests or something?”
Ryan had occupied himself by hovering over Brendon’s shoulder, murmuring answers into his ear, then replied, “We don’t have any cases to run tests for, and the last one we had was a week ago, if you didn’t notice. You always seem to ensure that you do as little work as possible.”
“I’m pickey,” he said sourly, lifting his cup to take a sip. “Okay then, go find me another patient, and swear to god, if it’s another case of bad diarrhea, I’ll personally make sure that laxatives find their way into your morning coffee.”
Victoria rolled her eyes, but got up anyway. “What if we brought thermoses or bottled drinks instead?”
“Then you shouldn’t’ve told me,” Pete answered, waving his hands at them. “Go forth and conquer.”
Victoria and Ryan filed out of the lounge, their white lab coats fluttering in their wake, and leaving Brendon with his face screwed up at the crossword, furiously gnawing at the cap. “Five letter word for auto immune disease, starts with ‘l’.”
“Loser, like you.” Pete snatched it out of his hands, not without a cry of indignation from the younger man. “Now go on before I have to beat you with this thing.”
Pete watched Brendon chew his bottom lip and grudgingly spill out into the hallway, soon getting lost in the morning sea of passers-by. Then he turned to the crossword and filled in the squares: L-U-P-U-S.
~
It was by a nice bit of fortune that Pete decided to take his lunch hour earlier than usual that day, which was saying something, since he normally cut out at 11:00 or so to avoid the huge rush of concerned mothers dragging in kids with nothing more serious than runny noses. No doubt the dean, Dr. Gerard Way, was on the prowl for Pete in a one man crusade to make Pete do all his required clinic hours, so Pete invaded the cafeteria and positioned himself so that he was covered by one of the numerous fake trees populating the area, but also such that he could monitor the entrance so that he knew when Way entered.
In his haste to scramble for cover, he’d forgotten to grab the massive amount of ranch dressing he enjoyed drowning various leafy greens in, so he sat and waited for a tray with legs to float by with his beloved topping. Unfortunately, no victims came by to satisfy their curiosity as to why the eccentric doctor was playing safari with the plastic branches, thus he was forced to pick up his tray and browse for anyone willing to let Pete take his or her supply (the lunch lady glowered at him for having snuck a piece of cake under his salad without paying for it once again). He stopped in his tracks as he laid eyes on a man he’d never seen before, and could only assume was the mysterious Dr. Patrick Stump.
He wasn’t much to look at, that was for sure. Despite his young age, he sported a little heft around the middle and it also hung around his face, giving it a soft, rounded appearance. On his defined nose rested a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, and good lord, was that a pocket protector? Was nerd chic back in? Otherwise, the man had full lips, the pink color contrasting with his smooth, pale skin, his face outlined by strands of prematurely thinning hair. It was longish, at least past his chin, strawberry blonde, and framed by sideburns Pete could only describe as intense. Presently, he was nibbling on a granola bar and pouring over patient files, making small, meaningless marks with his pen.
He looked like a sucker.
Truly. The picture of a bleeding heart that studied his patient files with such vehemence and dedication; really, Pete couldn’t expect him to be anything more than a complete push over who agonizes over every minute detail, every twitch of pain a patient has, cries over every one he loses. The moment he sat down, Stump would probably try to talk him into working at a food shelter for the weekend, or buy a basket of homeless kittens desperate for a kind hearted owner or some rubbish like that. Though the thought made him shudder, Pete was still determined to scope out the man who, not withstanding his apparent popularity, was sitting alone.
Pete schooled his face into a careful balance between blankness and polite interest and sauntered over to the oncologist’s table, taking a seat across from him without asking permission. Stump lifted his eyes from his work, a gentle sort of green-blue with more emphasis on the former, and watched his company, not saying a word of protest or encouragement. Pete took his prompt to speak.
“You’ve got two people, both male, both in their middle age,” he started. “Not that attractive sort of middle age, like Johnny Depp or George Clooney, but a pair of real ugly mofos. One on the left, has a bad case of adult acne, a bit of scarring on his cheeks, maybe a little rosacea, is wheelchair bound, and has a septic infection in a place of your choice. One on the right, missing his right arm, sick as a dog and dying of Erdheim-Chester, but neither care because the two of them are lifelong lovers and aiming to get married finally.”
He stole a can of Stump’s diced peaches and popped them open, completely forgetting about his quest for ranch in favor of thinking about how obnoxious he could make himself out to be before Stump was grossed out. Or at the very least, he could figure out where the man stood on his made up scenario. “Riddle me this: are you the paraplegic, the dead man, the straight guest sitting with his wife in the pew, or the police officer busting in to arrest all their sorry asses because gay marriage is a legal offence in that state? Suspend disbelief if you must.”
Stump’s eyes seemed to take on a gradual gleam of amusement, which vexed Pete a little more than he’d like to admit. He leaned closer over the table, twitching his fingers to indicate that Pete should do the same, which Pete did, to a small degree. His lips parted to deliver his answer, Pete watching avidly, but instead he jammed his fork onto Pete’s plate and removed a sizable chunk of his cake.
“Hey, my free cake,” Pete objected, eyebrows furrowing as Stump spilled it onto a crumpled sheet of foil and cut off a smaller piece to eat. Frosting decorated the corner of his mouth as he grinned impishly, and Pete found himself wanting to smile back at him, a feeling that he stubbornly stamped down.
“Oh no you don’t; don’t think you’ve avoided the question.”
Stump shrugged lopsidedly and sipped at his water before countering with, “Can I be the slightly balding midget who catches the bouquet?”
His voice immediately struck Pete as appealingly sardonic, and enunciated with such clarity that there was no mistaking the self-deprecation lacing Stump’s question. It was strangely fitting; not at all what Pete was expecting and in spite of himself, the immense, utterly irrational dislike Pete had built up for the man crumbled in eleven wry words. Pete felt a ridiculous grin spreading on his face and broke out into a stifled laugh, Stump following close behind.
“Good answer.” He held out his hand. “Dr. Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III,” he announced loftily, gripping Stump’s hand. “Double specialty in immunology and cardiology, and head of the former department.”
Stump’s eyes widened. “Are you half as pretentious as your name implies?”
“There should be songs written about my ego,” Pete smirked.
He hummed lightly and shook Pete’s hand again. “Dr. Patrick Stump, oncology and, if you need it as I so have heard from your rampant reputation, unlicensed therapist.”
Pete waved him off and fixed himself back into his seat, resuming his picking at the diced peaches with his fork. Oh, his team was going to give him so much shit for this. “The last thing I need is a Greek chorus, thank you very much.”
“You’d be surprised,” Stump responded, leaning back in his chair. “I don’t want you approaching random strangers with bizarre hypothetical situations; it’s unhealthy and will only feed your fixation on drawing attention to yourself in any way you can.”
“Then if I need help, I shall ask you first, Dr. Stump,” Pete said, raising his carton of milk in salute.
“Patrick.” A correction.
A nod. “Patrick.”
Stum—Patrick appeared to be satisfied. “Aren’t you going to ask me to call you Peter?”
“Only my friends call me Peter,” he said dismissively. “But since I don’t have any, you may call me Pete.”
A shadow of a frown crossed Patrick’s face, but he replaced it with a weak quirk of his lips. “Oh ho, so this all was just a plan to get the benefit without the hole in your pocket, hmm? Haven’t you got anyone else that’ll psychoanalyze you?”
“Oh plenty,” Pete said with forced glibness, “but they know me too well.”
“And you’d prefer an objective opinion?”
Gazing into the air above his head, Pete pretended to measure his words. “If possible; most people I know already believe I’m an incurable jackass jockeying for the spotlight, so their judgement is usually skewed.”
If Patrick was unamused at—or even aware of—Pete’s acting, he didn’t mention it, preferring to continue their banter. “Which brings up two points: once again, your ego, and the fact that you’re, for lack of a better phrase, making a new friend. I shall be biased within the week, unless you can manipulate me otherwise.”
Pete smiled again and bit his lip. “Well, my mother always wanted me to play nice with the other boys,” he said smoothly.
Patrick had the grace to blush slightly and duck his head down toward the premade lunch he had brought it in, vaguely wondering why he hadn’t just decided to eat in the oncology lounge rather than walking all the way down to the cafeteria. Then he decided he didn’t quite mind the company.
“Can I call you Lunchbox?” Pete asked suddenly, his face lighting up in childish hope.
“Absolutely not,” he said flatly, eyebrow arching.
“Lunchbox it is.”
Patrick sighed and stole another cut off his cake.
~
Given roughly a week and the two were thick as thieves, terrorizing the hallways together (Patrick, not so much), eating lunch, which consisted of Patrick buying food and Pete stealing it while the lunch lady looked at them strangely, throwing about jokes about Dr. Way’s ambiguous sexuality, and using consults as excuses to see each other when they should be working on cases or doing clinic hours; again, Pete was more guilty of it.
From the get-go, Pete had an immense appreciation for Patrick’s frankness and dry wit, evidently a product of a bored childhood in the suburbs of Chicago, a history which Pete could identify with easily. Afraid that their son wasn’t going to do anything with his life after he was unsuccessful in making anything of his talent at soccer, Pete’s parents sent him to medical school before his graduation cap hit the trampled, poorly tended grass of the football field in the hopes that it would instill some care and sorely needed maturity into the young man. For the most part, the plan failed miserably since Pete still thought it entertaining to throw small, round objects at the janitors who got stuck on the graveyard shift in the hospital, but at least now he had a good education and career to fall back on if he ever considered it romantic to start a rock band or something similarly far off in left field. It was also quite convenient, Pete reasoned, that when he used his pickup lines at a local bar (where he would not drink, thank you very much), it helped and was simultaneously hilarious that Hey, I’m a doctor was actually true.
Patrick’s family, on the other hand, didn’t have the convenience nor the money Pete’s had to fully support Patrick though med school. Indeed, if it weren’t for the numerous scholarships he’d garnered while in high school, under the table cash for doing stints in several bands in bars and clubs—underage, nonetheless—, and pulling night shifts at a local video store, he’d have never made it. Student loans weren’t easy to come by from the fact that most med students stumbled and fell off at some point, leaving their debts unpaid for years, but he somehow managed to acquire them by gaining their (Pete was not even sure who “they” were) confidence and working out a deal which allowed him to keep receiving loans as long as he was employed at a low income clinic for the duration.
Pete’s initial view of him as the absorbed, overly caring doctor wasn’t incredibly off base, as he found out, but at the same time he was caught completely off guard when, during lunch one day, Patrick wondered aloud if he could get a raise if he polished his cancer patients’ bald heads. Pete handed him a five and said (through a mouthful of peanut butter and jelly) that he wanted to be able to see his face. Patrick smirked back and asked if Pete wanted them to be as white as his teeth.
Patrick’s office quickly became one of Pete’s favorite spots to hide from Dr. Way in, if not just for the interesting things that occupied the many shelves adorning the walls. If he didn’t know any better, Pete would think Patrick lived out of his office. One complete side of the room groaned under the weight of his gargantuan collection of DVDs, which consisted of everything from old school films like Casablanca and Some Like It Hot to Tarantino flicks and The 40 Year-Old Virgin (“Dude, Hair. How much funnier can it get?”), and CDs that Pete couldn’t even contemplate the awesomeness of, though he questioned Patrick’s interest in Björk when he could just listen to John Lennon’s Double Fantasy if he wanted a wailing banshee of a woman damaging his eardrums.
Behind the desk were cabinets laden with files and official-looking documents, which confused Pete until he realized Patrick hadn’t taken on any interns yet, and thus didn’t have anyone to take care of the large amounts of paperwork he had to deal with on a daily basis. Pete pitied him a bit. On his desk was a Mac laptop, hand sanitizer and lotion, which made Pete ask if he was a girl. Patrick threw a pen at him. Pictures of his family littered the remainder of the space, a happy bunch that waved enthusiastically at the camera at every opportunity, with the exception of Patrick’s shy smile, usually hidden behind a thick scarf (or his brother’s arm thrown around him from behind), his glasses, and a hat. None of the hats in the pictures ever repeated, indicating to Pete that Patrick was exceedingly self conscious when it came to his hair and it took a great deal of building up his confidence for him to walk about the hospital all day without one, save for when he scrubbed up. Pete made a mental note not to make fun of his hair.
In one corner sat an extra set of shoes atop a pair of swimming trunks, which Patrick used occasionally when he wanted to swim in the pool normally reserved for physical therapy classes. Apparently the instructor had a massive crush on him, so he could effortlessly sweet talk her into letting him in most of the time. In the opposing corner was an acoustic guitar, obsessively smudge-free and well-used, if not by Patrick’s love of music, then by Pete’s bidding him to play while he lay on Patrick’s couch and rode the waves of melody and multi-layered chords that bewitched his senses and got him wondering what the hell Patrick was doing in a doctor’s office.
“I very well couldn’t make a living on music,” Patrick said oddly, picking at the strings in meandering lines of beatific melancholy. “Not that I could afford to take a chance on it and fall short, monetarily or not; I didn’t want to end up looking at music in hatred…how I’d pick up my guitar and inevitably only see the failure.
“That’s me though,” he breathed, smiling in a way he meant to be self-disparaging, but came out with a restrained bitterness. “Always concentrating on my flaws. Can never just…enjoy it.”
Pete wasn’t in the mood to argue, having been yelled at by Dr. Way that day for using “dangerous techniques” in order to force a diagnosis on one of his patients. Okay, a few of them. The point is he didn’t feel he was in a delicate enough state of mind to handle an issue that was so personal to Patrick, lest he say something insensitive and Patrick break the guitar over Pete’s head. Then make him pay for a new one. Instead, he asked Patrick to sing whatever he felt like, mainly because Pete had come to absolutely adore his voice and he was a selfish bastard, but also because he wanted Patrick to privately live out his musical fantasies to his one man audience. He had a feeling Patrick enjoyed their little concerts, too, judging by the fervor that Patrick threw into the songs, how Pete could hear his concentration and desire to just get it right. Sympathy shot through him like a bullet to his head.
He rolled over onto his back to watch Patrick where he was seated in a chair adjacent to the couch, noting how he was drilling holes into the ground with his eyes, a crease between them. Before he realized what he was doing, Pete’s hand floated out to settle on Patrick’s knee. An indignantly discordant twang emitted from the guitar as Patrick’s fingers froze and his voice dried to a squeak. His eyes were green today, fixated on the point of contact while Pete watched him intently and absently pressed his thumb into the coarse material of his pants in small circles. There it was, that moment of weightlessness, that cruel uncertainty born of Pete’s sudden will to comfort him, to be the good friend he never was to anyone else in his life. Because this Patrick. He actually deserved it, whatever Pete could offer him, if only because he put up with Pete and his frequent bouts of insanity (“Hey, want to go hang out with the coma patients?”) and caustic ways toward the world, and Pete could appreciate that. Or maybe it was because Patrick actually made him happy and didn’t make it feel like he was just indulging Pete and his whims. He was a genuinely good person, and Pete felt like a complete ass for ever thinking otherwise, nevermind that it was before he’d even seen the younger man. Before he’d discovered how much he missed the relaxed company of others, the companionship that bound him to Patrick, how he’d stay with him for hours and let himself be enveloped in warmth and music and Patrick’s gentle laugh and easy smile that made Pete’s throat constrict and heat pool in his stomach. Yeah, he’d missed that.
Pete couldn’t remember the last time he gave so much to, or wanted as much from, another human being. Though he had many connections in the hospital, and did the occasional ‘80s movie marathon with Joe “The Straight Nurse” Trohman and the thin pharmacist William Beckett, he couldn’t say that he held either of them closer than arm’s length. Because people were shit. Because people could reel him in with pretty words and pearly smiles, a flash of golden skin, before Pete realized he should probably stop thinking with his dick and start pushing them away before he got hurt. Again. Sometimes it wasn’t even being scorned by lovers; it was putting trust into friends not to go behind his back and fuck him over, like in med school. Once, he’d spent too much time with one of his conquests from a club on the night before an exam that could make or break his grade. Instead of faking sick (make up tests were roughly twice as hard and were put to an extremely unfavorable curve), Pete used an inside man, the TA Mikey, to get him a copy of the answers several hours beforehand so he could lock himself in his dorm and spend the time typing them up in a smaller font to make them less noticeable during the test. When his roomie Gabe used his key and accidentally caught him, Pete’s paranoia was dissolved Gabe’s reassuring smile and Hey, you think I could glance at those, too?
Three hours later Pete was being threatened with expulsion, a fate avoided only because his parents had contributed large amounts of cash for lab equipment and computers on campus. For the rest of his time there, Pete paid extra to room alone and hoped that the open glares and slurs (spoiled little rich kid…oh look, there he goes to pay off another professor…I heard he sucked off Prof. Neimitz the other day) would eventually stop hurting. Yeah, he knew he was wrong in the matter, but he couldn’t help but feel a geyser of rage and betrayal surge through his body and set his nerve endings on fire, tears of self loathing stinging at the back of his eyes and Why couldn’t you have just taken the make up, Wentz? It was about the same time that he went on anti-depressants, a suggestion made when the university subjected him to a mental examination as a sort of punishment for the whole ordeal, but Pete was glad in a twisted way that he had a crutch, an excuse with which he could keep people—even those who didn’t know a thing about him—away. With the meds came the rumors that he was either suicidal or a serial killer and the dean of the school only kept him there because of the money and an overwhelming sense of obligation and pity for the boy. Pete didn’t bother to quell their reactions anymore. His voice would be lost like a weak whisper in a monsoon of lieshatediscriminationcondemnation. He bit his lip and closed that door in his life.
But this Patrick.
His mouth opened like he was going to ask Pete what the hell he was doing, and Pete was suddenly terrified that maybe he didn’t like to be touched or he thought Pete was coming on to him. He gazed up at him with pleading eyes, but Patrick’s expression was inscrutable, refusing to look at him. Pete felt his heart sink into his stomach. Sadly, he let his fingers slip, lethargic, as if he was watching it float in water. His arm flopped listlessly off the edge of his cushion and Pete trained his sight on the ceiling, counting the infinite amount of dots and cracks, the water damage in one neglected corner, a lightbulb that needed replacing. He made it all the way to the seventy eighth dot before he felt a hand rest on his shoulder and burn through the thin cotton of his shirt, thumb hooked over it, fingers stretching all the way to his collarbone. It was still warm from strumming at strings, textured lumpy with calluses, and Pete might’ve shuddered at the sensation of his loose grip if he knew Patrick wasn’t going to feel the vibration. Instead, his hand sprung back to life and covered Patrick’s, fingertips wedging between his palm and Pete’s shoulder and squeezing gently. Patrick’s fingers closed around Pete’s, reciprocating the squeeze and eventually returning to the guitar. As he launched into Across the Universe, a small smile played at Patrick’s lips.
~
For what it was worth, Pete figured eating crow was outweighed by seeing the looks on the faces of his team when Patrick popped his head in the door asking, “Hey, do you know that Way is running an inquisition looking for you?”
“What’s wrong with searching my office if he wants to see me?” Pete asked no one in particular, motioning Patrick inside. He took the seat across from where Pete was sitting at his desk, briefly nodding his head in greeting at Pete’s interns, who promptly gawked (and, in Brendon’s case, almost dropped the patient file) at the unique turn of events. Pete furtively glanced at them. Brendon was openly shocked, jaw slightly ajar; Victoria, inquisitive and reserved, but cynical; Ryan, completely unphased, maybe even a little exasperated at the surprise blooming on Brendon’s face than anything.
Brendon’s mouth worked fruitlessly for a few seconds while Patrick responded dryly, “Maybe because you haven’t been known to be in your office during work hours. In fact, you actively try not to work when you’re on duty, which, call me crazy, is a little contradictory since you can’t exactly help people when you’re avoiding them.”
“Dude…” Brendon started.
“You calling me lazy, my enabler?” Pete asked knowingly.
“Hey…”
“Hmm, it would appear that way,” Patrick said, taking off his glasses to rub at them with his eye searing tie. Seriously, did he have temporary color blindness when he bought his ties? More than ever, Pete was glad he went with the classic white Oxford with a loosened black tie; if he wasn’t wearing a lab coat, he’d look like he could fit in Pulp Fiction.
“Umm, you—”
“Oh come on, you know I do it for the benefit of the patients. Most these cases can be fixed by a monkey with a bottle of Motrin anyway, so why should I be dragged into it? I’ll only emotionally scar them.”
“…”
Patrick looked at him incredulously, fixing his glasses back on. “Oh no, god forbid you’re forced to practice medicine at a hospital. Damn that thing called logic.”
“Hey—”
“Damnit, Urie, if you’re going to say something, stop doing your impressive imitation of a goldfish and speak up!” Pete barked coldly.
“Fine!” Brendon groused and brandished a finger at Patrick. Pete thought it a bit melodramatic, then admitted he was far worse than the kid. “What the hell is he doing here? Weren’t you just complaining and talking shit about him last week?”
Patrick’s eyebrows shot up as he threw a sidelong glance at Pete. “You talked shit about me? I don’t know if I can hang with that.”
“That was before you gave me that blowjob; my opinion’s totally changed,” Pete said seriously.
A feigned look of realization flitted across Patrick’s face. “Ah yes, that’d do it.” He nodded sagely while the others looked on, horrified.
“We’re still picking out rings, right?”
“Mmhmm, most definitely.”
“Good,” Pete finished, then blew a kiss at Patrick and turned to Brendon, who was positively mortified. “Patient?”
“W-well…”
Pete pointed at the blue file in his hands. “I meant that kind, not you.”
“O-oh,” he stuttered, flipping it open and shuffling the papers and reading off of one. “Patient admitted about five hours ago, presenting slight anemia from low platelet and white blood cell count. All that’s really known about her is that she takes pharmaceuticals for the iron deficiency, but she pretty much collapsed without warning.”
“Hmm,” Pete frowned, “Not very helpful, huh?” Brendon handed him the file and he fingered through the pages, analyzing stats and results of the few preliminary blood tests. “I want a full body MRI, check for blood clots, because we’re definitely in trouble if one’s there and it’s thrown another that’s headed for the heart.”
“Blood clots?” Victoria questioned, arms crossed. “But why would she have a clot if she’s got a low platelet count?”
“Just trust me on this, okay?” Pete said confidently. “If it turns out positive, put her on blood thinners.”
“She’ll bleed out—”
“That’s for us to see, isn’t it?” Pete cut in severely. “The numbers are low probably because of antiphospholipid antibody syndrome, which is a thrombotic disorder, hence the chance of clotting and why we need to put her on blood thinners. If I’m wrong, we’re still looking for antibodies; low white blood cells are bad news any way you slice it.”
He gave the file back to Brendon. “Asher and Urie, take care of the MRI. Ross, would you do some blood tests to confirm the APS, please,” he stated more than asked, but Ryan nodded anyway. Brendon and Ryan set out to their tasks, while Victoria stayed put, arms still crossed, and looked between the two men.
“Are we alright, Vicky?” Pete asked, overly saccharine sweet. Victoria glanced at Patrick, then turned and threw her hands up, muttering something that sounded curiously like boys.
“Have a good feeling about this one?” Patrick asked, leaning back in the chair and closing his eyes.
Pete shrugged and pulled out his medication, popping the childproof cap open easily. “‘Good feeling’ is subjective. I feel confident that it’s syphilis, though.”
“Mmm, the STD of choice for authors whose books are most commonly found in high school required reading,” Patrick commented. “Nice. She’s got a chance then, but the white blood cells should be higher in that case. Would it be monotonous of me to say that I’m worried?”
The older man shook his head. “No, that’s just part of your caring protocol, my little cutie pie.” Patrick stuck out his tongue, making Pete grin at him before he downed whatever was left in his coffee mug.
“Wh—oh hey…” Patrick removed the pager from his belt, grimacing and covering his face with his hands when he read the message.
“Patrick?”
“Shit,” Patrick cursed softly, reluctantly pushing himself out of the chair and rubbing the back of his neck. “Newbie, possibly leukemia.” He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “They want me down in the lab to take a look at the slides and confirm it.”
“Well, too bad; I want you, too,” Pete said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. He saw a flash of teeth as Patrick tried his damnedest to suppress the smile struggling to break free.
“Yeah, well, pout as you will. I’m yours at every time but times like right now.”
“Good to know it remains effective,” Pete said proudly. “Stop by later, would you? I want to make some plans while we’re both young, unattached men.”
“Will do, oh ye of dastardly double entendres,” Patrick panned, heading for the door.
“Watch out down there; I hear there’s a war to end all wars concerning the lab time for each department; wouldn’t want you to catch any stray scalpels or shrapnel, now.”
“If I do, you’re pulling it all out,” Patrick replied, shutting the door solidly. Pete scrounged around for some water to chase the pills.
~
Pete was half asleep on the floor by the time his fellows made it back up to his office, curled up around a copy of Gray’s Anatomy—the book, not the show, hence the different spelling— and waiting for their answer. At the gentle prod in his side, he slowly peeked open one eye to find Victoria’s unamused face hovering above him.
“You were right,” she stated, unwilling to feed his ego more than she absolutely had to.
“What was that?” Pete asked muzzily, raking a hand through his now unruly black hair.
“You were right.”
“What?”
Victoria rolled her eyes and prayed for patience. “About the syphilis diagnosis, you self-absorbed jackass.”
“Oh no, I just wanted to hear you say the other thing again,” Pete smirked up at her. She took up the classic bitch pose: hands on her hips, the tip of her pointy shoe tap-tap-tapping in annoyance. Pete ignored her and snuggled up to his book once more, yawning widely. “Load her up with penicillin and all shall be right in the world.”
“Yes, O Captain, My Captain,” she mock saluted and ushered the others out as well, save for one set of feet, which seemed to be on its way toward Pete’s spot on the floor.
“Why, hello there, ‘Trick. How lovely it is to listen to your footsteps this evening.”
“A pleasure, I’m sure,” Patrick replied tiredly, planting himself near Pete so that he towered over him. “The leukemia diagnosis was wrong, by the way. It’s actually small cell carcinoma. Lungs.”
“Fuck,” Pete breathed, glancing up at Patrick’s closed face. “Inoperable?”
He nodded silently. “He’s got two months, tops, even with treatment and meds. He’ll probably only go one, maybe even less, but you never know…”
“I’m sorry, Patrick,” Pete said, reaching out for his hand and touching Patrick’s somberly. “Jesus, makes me feel like a complete ass for asking you to come back like this, man.”
He shook him off. “No, it’s alright. What did you want to talk about?”
“What are you doing on Thanksgiving?”
Patrick frowned, racking his brain for plans and dates, people, places, times. “Nothing, really. My parents called and said they were planning on doing a huge family reunion. I said I’d be busy with the newest cases I’d taken on.”
“You lied,” Pete corrected, receiving a nod from the oncologist. “Why?”
Patrick winced, wrinkling his nose in distaste. “I don’t do big shindigs; there are too many people who want to talk to me and not enough of me to go around. And then after everyone’s satisfied with the knowledge that I’m a positive force in the world, I usually end up like Tom Hanks in Big: hanging out at the appetizer table and nibbling on mini corn.”
“An adorable mental picture indeed,” Pete responded, chuckling a little. “And, as it so happens, it plays right into my little scheme.”
“You want me to spend Thanksgiving with you?” Patrick asked, eyes widening imperceptibly.
“Mmhmm,” Pete hummed, “I mean, I don’t mean to play it up like it’s a huge deal—”
“Why the hell not?”
Pete’s dark eyes shot up to Patrick’s, full of hope. “Really?”
“Really really,” Patrick agreed.
“Oh man, no quoting Shrek while in my office or at my apartment. That’s just wrong.”
“Is that where we’re going?”
“Bet your sweet little ass,” Pete said, then raised both of his hands toward Patrick and wiggled his fingers. “Now that that’s settled, there’s one more thing. Get. Me. Dinner.”
Patrick laughed weakly in that exasperated Oh, Peter way of his, which he’d perfected in the three weeks that he’d known the tanned man. “Come on, then. You need to at least see a menu, lest I decide that you deserve a box of Count Chocula with no milk.”
Pete squirmed and curled up once more. “No. Comfortable.”
“There is no way in hell that that’s more comfy than, say, my couch?” Patrick tempted him, knowing that if he could get Pete off the ground then he could get him to go along to get food.
“Mmm, fine,” Pete grumbled, sending a wave of relief through Patrick. He held out a hand for him until, “I’ll meet you in your office then. Step to it, my flying monkey.”
“Charming,” Patrick groused, backing toward the door. “What do you want?”
Pete turned over bonelessly. “Use your instincts and if I’m not satisfied, then we’re not meant for each other.”
Patrick’s melodic laughter rung even after the door shut. Pete twisted himself around just in time to see two sets of feet nearly collide (by virtue of a small section next to his door being a stylized sort of glass); one was Patrick’s, the other, judging by the severity of the design and discomfort factor, could only be Victoria. Their voices were too low for Pete to hear, but the exchange was brief enough not to set off any flags in Pete’s mind before he passed out soundly.
~
In another two weeks, the patient was dead. Nightfall found Pete on the rooftop of the hospital, half encased in shadows, close to one of the ledges like some gargoyle perched on a gothic cathedral, sculpted to look as grotesque and loathsome as possible to ward away demons and all manner of evil. It was a role Pete failed miserably at. The thought tore through him with an almost audible rip of flesh from bone, mind from body, the wretchedness of failure and ignorance and the weight of repressed tears filling him hollowly.
A distant scrape of rubber against slicked cement sounded behind him, but Pete didn’t need to turn around yet; he already knew who it was.
“Not out to ruin a perfectly good lab coat, are you, Patrick?” he asked hoarsely. “It’s starting to rain, if you haven’t noticed.”
Sure enough, Patrick approached Pete cautiously, in pristine white, pale and perfect in the darkness, lighting the blackness like a radiant angel sent to save a poor wretch like Pete. Christ, even a streak of water was falling down his slightly flushed cheek, the first droplet of freezing rain to stain the younger man. He looked for all the world as though he mourned for Pete and his mistake, like the good little seraph he was. Then again, Pete never really believed in Heaven.
“I suppose you’ll be wanting to hear what happened,” Pete assumed bitterly, his face etched like stone.
Patrick stopped in front of Pete, aglow in the lights that peeked over the edge of the roof and shined from the courtyards below, stoic, but concern bled through his eyes, unhindered by the presence of glasses. “I’m here for whatever you need to say, whether you want to or not.”
“Oh god, you’re caring, aren’t you?” Pete rhetorically asked.
Patrick gave him a stern look, setting his jaw. “Well?”
A white puff hovered where Pete shakily exhaled into the cold night air, then wrapped his arms around himself. “It was a false positive. But I ignored the signs like a goddamn idiot.”
“Shit.” Realization dawned on him before his head bowed, a pained expression marring his young features. “It was lupus, huh.”
“Yeah,” he ground out, shutting his eyes tightly to fight the onslaught of emotions threatening to overwhelm and crush his body.
Patrick swore softly and tilted his head skyward while Pete stood stiffly, quietly fuming. The oncologist reached for Pete’s wrist in what he hoped was a comforting way. “Shit, I’m so sorry—”
Pete yanked his hand away viciously, snarling at Patrick’s confused countenance. “What the fuck do you have to be sorry for? I’m the one that screwed up!”
Patrick flinched violently at his outburst. Wasn’t Pete the one that was there for him when he had a hard time? “Pete…”
“No!” Pete yelled, startling him further. “Fuck that! You’re not gonna stand there and try to make me feel better about fucking killing someone!”
Patrick held out a hand. “Pete calm down.” Pete snorted, rolling his eyes and starting to pace. “I know you’re extremely emotional about this, but you have to take it down a notch because you’re going to do or say something you’ll regret…”
The older man stopped and turned toward him, looking at Patrick like he’d never seen him before in his life. “Then what the hell are you doing up here?” he asked, voice bordering on dangerously low. “Did it ever cross your mind that talking about it would only piss me off more? Or were you just trying to make sure I didn’t off myself, because hey! I’m on anti-depressants!”
“Well, gee, since I’m your best friend, I figured maybe talking would be a good idea, since one doesn’t usually shout at his friend,” Patrick said, somewhat sarcastic. “And no, I didn’t think you’d kill yourself over this.”
“Oh, you’re going to be the noble friend then,” Pete smiled terribly. “Gonna come up here and let me know it’s okay to care.”
“Pete—”
Pete plowed on. “Next thing you’re gonna tell me is that you cry over each and every one of your little cancer kids.”
“Pete. Don’t,” Patrick warned, knuckles turning bone white. Heavy drops of rain began assaulting them
“Oh no, I think I do,” Pete replied angrily. “You’re no saint, Patrick. You think you’re some big goddamn hero for giving the little bald kids another month or two, maybe more than that. And for what?! So their parents can give them a proper goodbye? So they can go to the Make-A-Wish foundation for a last kick? For a few extra weeks, months of agony and taking twenty different kinds of painkillers, nineteen of which make them nauseous, fatigued, constipated, and oh yeah, kill their livers with acetaminophen? Fuck, you’re not doing them any fucking favors!”
Patrick’s cheeks had lost their rosy quality. White as a sheet, his face crumpled piteously, his wet hair clinging to his skin, but he couldn’t make himself back down from his raging friend. He could only stand stock still, desperately wishing for the storm to be over.
Pete ignored the pang in his heart. “So don’t stand here and try to fucking tell me that it’s okay to have patients die on me, because it’s not! Yours might have a long, drawn out death, but at least I was stupid enough to miss that my treatment was killing mine faster! So just leave me the fuck alone, Stump!”
Pete chest heaved from over exertion, icy wind and rain stinging his skin and lungs, piercing his flesh like millions of needles as he watched Patrick’s seams (he ripped, tore, gnashed, chewed, sliced, everything but sewed) fall apart, rent asunder at the hands of his best friend. He couldn’t distinguish the tears of hurt that boiled over and mingled with the rain, scourging his face hot, cold, disappointed, shattered.
“So that’s how you really feel?” Broken, croaked out, like they were barely more than grunts an animal would make, almost not words at all. It wasn’t a sound Pete associated with everything music, everything inviting, everything Patrick, and the saddest part was he couldn’t bring himself to care.
“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it,” Pete said cruelly, crossing his arms.
He couldn’t hear Patrick sniff over the roar of blood in his ears, but the sight of him turning around and jerkily disappearing through the roof access door was more satisfying than hearing anymore useless pity spill from his mouth.
~
Victoria slapped him.
“What the hell did you do to him!?” she shrieked, absolutely livid. Pete didn’t bother even clutching a hand to the pain biting into his slick skin, taking it in stride. He pushed past the intern, stalking down the nearly empty hallway.
“Whoa watch it there, Vicky, you might actually show real emotion, there,” he bit out, turning the corner.
“You complete asshole. What were you thinking!?” She pursued him, screeching like the harpy she was. “When was he ever anything but supportive of you!?”
Pete stopped and abruptly wheeled around to face her. “I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about, so if you’ll excuse me…”
Victoria stood in stunned silence for a moment, then, “Bullshit!” She tore after him again, hauling the door he just disappeared into. “You know exactly who I’m talking about! What did you do!?”
“It doesn’t matter, now,” Pete said tersely, rummaging around his office for a set of fresh clothes.
“Of course it does!” Victoria shot back. “Pete, he was crying, and I happen to know that you could make Disney characters massacre eachother, so of course it had to be you.”
“That’s kind of you to think of me first; really, I’m warmed by the notion.” Pete smirked, pulling out a dry hoodie and laying it on the back of a chair.
“Fuck you, Wentz,” she said coldly. “Tell me.”
Pete tugged off his saturated tee shamelessly and wrapped the hoodie around his torso, reveling in the comparatively lush warmth. “What’s there to say? I didn’t need him telling me how to handle my patient’s death,” he explained poorly, leaving out his unprovoked attack on the blonde.
“There’s got to be more to it than that,” Victoria said disbelievingly. “I probably won’t get it out of you, but Patrick won’t talk either. He’s locked himself in his office and won’t open it for anyone.” She buried her face in her hands and sighed while Pete began formulating ways to kick her out of his office, barring threatening to fire her. “Jesus Christ, I can’t believe you did that to him, on today of all days.”
“Today’s no more special than any other day,” Pete argued stubbornly. “He should’ve minded his own fucking business.”
Her hands dropped, revealing her wide, incredulous eyes. “What right did you have? I don’t care if you thought he deserved it, he went outside of himself so he could help you, you selfish prick, and you threw it back in his face.”
Pete rolled his eyes. “You say it like he can’t take a little judgment.”
“You’re a sorry excuse for a human being, you know that? Jesus, the sacrifices he makes for you…”
“What the fuck are you going on about?” Pete asked tiredly, rubbing at his eyes.
“What?”
At Pete’s blank stare, a crease formed between Victoria’s eyebrows, then comprehension spread across her face. “He didn’t tell you.” A statement. Her hands engulfed her mouth once more.
Pete’s fingers twitched, the ominous shadow of doubt injecting itself into his spine and crawling upward, outward, through the veins and capillaries, through the arteries, finally gripping his heart. “Tell me what?”
“Oh my god,” she breathed, “he really didn’t…”
“What, Victoria?” he asked, equal parts irritated and fearful. “You tell me then!”
She bit her painted red lip, then answered, “Three of them. Young ones.” Her breath came out in shuddering bursts, hugging herself and blinking too rapidly. “Three of his patients died today, but he thought you were more important than moping around about them.” She ducked her head, tracing the mind numbing patterns in the carpet with her eyes. “Guess he was wrong, huh?” she asked, choking on a laugh that quickly turned into a sob.
Pete didn’t remember much after that except for the dry heaving.
~
The door to Patrick’s office had never looked more unwelcoming than it did that night. The wood was cool under the pressure of Pete’s ear, betraying nothing of what was going on inside, but Pete had an idea anyway. He gently knocked on the surface, each sounding like a gunshot that rang rampant in the halls of his mind.
“Patrick?” he tried tentatively. “Patrick, please.”
No answer.
“God, please, let me in, ‘Trick.” Oh, this was absolutely pathetic, resorting to his bag of nicknames for the man, but desperate times…
Again, no answer.
“Patrick…” he whimpered, leaning against the door brokenly. God, what had he done? He’d probably destroyed the best thing to ever happen to him because he didn’t want to listen, of all things. Patrick had laid himself out there, balled up his own hurt and despair for the sake of Pete’s, and now Patrick couldn’t even speak to him.
His hand wound its way down to the handle and tried it, nearly falling in when it actually opened, despite what Victoria had said. He stumbled inside and tripped on some fabric balled up in near the entryway because there wasn’t a light on in the room. Pete landed hard on his side, burning the skin on his side where the hoodie rode up. Dazed, he lifted himself off the ground and glanced at the offending object illuminated in the light spilling in from the hall: a drenched white lab coat.
“Don’t drip on my carpet,” came Patrick’s voice, making Pete whip his head in his direction. There he sat, balancing on the corner of his desk and looking at the floor morosely. Pete felt self loathing writhe in every cell in his body, but his heart ached at how small Patrick looked and sounded, swinging his legs back and forth and keeping his head bowed like a reprimanded child. Pete didn’t bother to tell him that he was also dripping, instead choosing to close the door only to where there was enough light to navigate, and warily planted himself in front of Patrick.
“And don’t apologize,” he said quietly.
“Patrick…”
“I said don’t.” Patrick met his eyes, his face so raw and thoroughly scrubbed, from what Pete could tell, that he was thankful of the sparse lighting, because he didn’t know if he could hold it together if he saw the full devastation he’d wrought on the blonde. “Are you actually going to listen to me now?”
It hurt. A lot. But Pete tried anyway. “Patrick,” he croaked, “I didn’t know—”
“No, Pete, just stop,” Patrick managed, swiping at his eyes (gray, Pete noted absently). “No more talking. Talking is what got us into this. Just.” He didn’t quite know what to do with his hands, flexing the fingers, running them through his slowly drying hair, over his face. “Just—”
He clamped down on Pete’s wrist and tugged hard, Pete’s arms instinctively going up and around Patrick’s shoulders so he could bury his face into the crook of his neck, inhaling deeply the smells of rain and dampened vanilla covering the vague scent of death that clung to them both. He didn’t mind the water soaking through his hoodie because Patrick’s hands pressed tightly to the expanse of Pete’s back, pulling him ever closer, hanging on like a drowning man to the line thrown to him from a ship, though Pete couldn’t imagine how he could save Patrick. It wasn’t his to question, only to mold his body to Patrick’s, listening to his feverish whispers of Pete’s name in his ear and feeling the solid thump of his heart against Pete's while the rain and wind and hellish storm beat the panes of the broad window, separating the darkness outside from that within.
Part two coming soon!
Notes: In the medieval period, gargoyles were thought to ward away evil spirits and protect the lives of good Catholics, as far as I learned in advanced art history class ^__^
Concrit is love!
adding this to meh list of AU Fic Recs.
...I mean, what? :D
Patrick's actually the one whom I really wanted to get right, so when I read your comment, I was all *EPIC FLAIL* Thank you! ♥♥♥
I would quaote my favorite part, but that is the whole fic.
Can't wait for part two, so please post it soon! =^-^=
~mmrs~
Also, icon love :)
Although - are all chapters going to be this long? Although I do love long juicy goodness, maybe this should be divided up a little, I dunno' :S
And no, not every part is going to be this long (oh em gee, this was just six words away from being 9000 words O__O). I just wanted to get some momentum and establish characterizations and the, I guess, hierarchy of characters so I could get a good feel for it. Otherwise, I had a hard to thinking about where I was supposed to stop it without feeling like I was cutting off a limb :-) Yes, the next parts will be shorter.
Can't wait for part two.
The amazingness that is your writing can't even be put into
words (and, okay , I cried at the end).
♥
Memories, anyone?
The fierce dialogue was just fantastic. It was smart and dry and snippy and sarcastic and all the things I enjoy about House's character.
The next part had better be up soon. Because I don't even know if I can wait.
♥
Thank you!!! I felt like I had to get the dialogue right in order for anything to work in a Housian way, definitely, so this is like validation of my existence :DDDD I'm already writing part two, no worries!
guh i love this, just so wonderful!
i'm just trying to get my infulences right so.....
Pete=house
Patrick=Wilson
Ryan= Foreman (kinda?)
Vicky=Cameron
Brendon=Chase
Gerard=Cuddy?
And yes, your character comparisons are correct :D
I don't watch House or any Medical dramas for that matter- but I'm in love with this.
going to the midnight premier of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollowsyou are bringing two of my greatest loves together! in one AU! although privately i really kind of don't like Wilson that much.
i DO, however, love Dr. Stump. he,(and you, and the fact that there is new footage of Patrick Stump Shirtless) make me very happy.
I can forgive you though ^__^ And yes, the new footage of Patty Cakes shirtless makes my heart flutter with joy. Thanks!
Am looking forward to the next part. :)
OHEMGEE!
I ACTUALLY HAD TO STOP EATING MY BISCUIT TO ACTUALLY GET A GOOD READ!!
D=
AMAZING!!
...you know, i probably stop with the caps lock...
BUT!
THIS WAS JUST TOO AWESOME!!
I LOVED IT!
THE DOCTORS!
AND THE HOUSE!
AND THE GREY'S ANATOMY JOKE!
MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
can't WAIT for the next chapter.
^__^
I hate Grey's Anatomy with a fiery passion, so I just had to take a shot at it one way or another.
THANKS FOR LEAVING A COMMENT! THERE'LL BE MORE SOON, PROMISE! (and omg, and Aerith icon! *flail*)
*hands you shoes*
I adore this, like whoa.
*waits for more, bites nails, and stares at screen with huge eyes*
I'm impressed at how natural Pete and Patrick feel and how well they fit into the roles of House and Wilson. Incredibly hilarious and witty dialog also, and I must say I laughed at the mention of Lupus because...well...you know. XD Great story, I hope you continue it soon. Mem'd!
(Can't believe no ones posted with an House icon yet. XD *changes that*)
It's weird, ya know? From the very start of my time in the FOB fandom, I've got an intense H/W vibe from those two just from the way they interact, so it was only a matter of time before I actually turned them into House and Wilson XD And thanks so much for the feedback about the dialogue; I have serious security issues about dialogue, especially when dealing with a naturally snarky and witty sort of pairing like this. And yes, of course I had to have lupus in there :D That one's specifically for the House fans.
Thanks for the mem! And yes, I'm almost done with the next part ♥
I love this fic.
Re: I love this fic.
Although the mushy side of me thinks they are where they belong: in eachother's arms:D I intend on milking this plot bunny for all it's worth, and I've definitely got ideas for where it's going and the twists and turns already, so fear not; I'm not done yet. Again, thanks a ton for the feedback, love ♥♥♥:]