Indifference
A Two Shot
Today is the day they move in. Pete is hiding behind a wall, peering from the corner to watch them, as if he was scared to be seen. It was stupid, really, since it's utterly impossible. The last time he talked to the living was 50 years ago, and that family didn't think twice before packing up again and leaving. Pete had just watched from the window and the youngest boy of the family (fifteen year old Joe Trohman) had smiled regretfully and waved as they drove away.
It's scary how fast time moves. One moment people are yelling about a bomb landing in the town and hiding under the houses, and the next there's these little things from where people's voices come out of. Like being at two places at the same time. Cell phones, they are called.
At the moment a couple of men were helping bring in the couches and heavy stuff while a brunette lady, probably the woman of the house, instructed where to put them. A man between his 40s and 50s with short blonde hair walks in and gives her a quick kiss before murmuring something about a meeting with his boss. He leaves and the woman sighs before yelling at one of the work men about putting the small shelve down delicately.
Pete stays standing there and he's grateful to know no one has spotted him, or ever will. He ends up comfortably sitting cross-legged in the hallway entrance and laughs slightly as he notices how everyone who walks past him –their leg crossing straight through his body- shiver with cold. He still finds it entertaining.
Then, the family's child arrives. Mrs. Stump, as Pete had learned she was addressed by, opens the door and starts yelling for a certain Patrick. She truly seems angry and starts demanding that 'he gets his ass off the car seat and does something useful' and Pete faintly hears a dramatic sigh.
Patrick Stump is short. He has a mass of blonde hair on his head that reach his ears and a baseball cap placed on his head. His hair is painfully straight and has squared black glasses perched on his nose. When he walks in, Pete by instinct jumps up to hide behind the wall and is careful with his staring. It's not a problem, really, but even after all these years he still shudders at the thought of -possibly- anyone able to see him.
Everyone in Summerlin is human, living and breathing. Pete is simply not. His life was taken away from him a long time ago and he can't seem to leave this dumpy planet.
Heaven? Heaven my ass, why the fuck am I still doing here? Even Hell's better than having to see these old people slowly die.
Why does everyone get to leave once they pass away and Pete doesn't? He was a good boy. Sort of.
"Yes?" Patrick says with a sigh, eyeing his mother calculatingly, trying to figure out whether she was just annoyed or clearly just pissed off.
"Don't just stand there," She snaps, "Get the boxes from the trunk and help set them up."
Patrick sighs. "Sure."
He turns away and begins walking towards the front door again before looking over his shoulder to roll his eyes, but his figure froze just for a millisecond as he caught eyes with a figure who could barely be seen from behind the wall that led to the hallway where the stairs to the next floor are.
The figure's eyes widened and quickly moved back behind the wall to avoid any more eye contact with a human. Patrick, at this point, had hurriedly moved back to the car and is struggling to keep the heavy box labeled 'BOOKS' from falling and smashing into his toe. It has happened before and from being distracted -and wondering if he's gone mad- he might end up in the hospital with a purple toe again.
At 5:30 pm, when Patrick's gone to 'walk around and get to know the city', Pete is sitting on the new bed in his room. The same room he was killed in. He swears he saw the boy's eyes connect with his. Not go through him like everyone else. And the way Patrick had scrambled out the door and refused to look back also said enough.
"I don't get it?" Pete mutters and he leaned to the headboard, sighing.
"What don't you get?" A new voice spoke. Pete immediately turns and stiffens once he sees none other than Patrick Stump standing in his doorway. Wasn't he supposed to be home in, like, three hours like he told his mother?
Pete's eyes flicker to the old clock –one Patrick refused to throw away, for which Pete was grateful- and realize it is three hours later.
8:45 pm flashes as the second hand ticks, marking with the distant noise every second that passes. It's when Pete counts ten that he realizes that he hasn't answered.
But is he supposedto? He could pretend to be one of Patrick's crazy illusions so he thinks he's going mental and then leave. Patrick could tell them and Pete would have to wait another 10 years before he gets company again, even though he never communicates with them.
"What are you doing here?" Pete replies question with question. Patrick seems startled and he ignores the fact that he could see through him. Patrick, for this same reason, has always been weird. Bullied at school for being a chubby fag and reacting to things so strangely and out of ordinary.
"This is my room." Patrick responds. Pete narrows his eyes at him and doesn't move. He refuses to have to stick around in the basement again just not to scare the poor boy and family, only able to walk around at night when everyone's asleep.
"No it's not. It's mine. Has been for years." Pete snaps. Patrick stares at him and blinks.
"How many?" He asks. Pete seems confused.
"Huh?"
Patrick purses his lips. "For how many years have you been here?"
Pete stares after him hopelessly as he fades away.
X-X-X
"Patrick! Wash the dishes, will you? I'm going out to have coffee with Mrs. Ross!" Cindy, Patrick's mom's, voice rang in the air.
Pete remembers the Ross family. They have this one 18 year old kid, Ryan, a year younger from Pete's physical age. Ryan's… odd. Pete would stand at his bedroom window (which was directly in front of Ryan Ross' own window) and if he was lucky and Ryan had left his curtain open, he'd be able on spy him. Ryan, as far as Pete knows, is friendless. Has no one in life but his shadow. Ryan's always solemn and emotionless and never smiles. There was only once when Pete saw him laugh.
Once Pete had sat on his window sill and stared into the neighbor's window just because he was bored. Ryan had walked into his room, looking as glum as ever, but soon his eyes spotted his bed and his eyes lightened up. He began talking to plain air and soon he was laughing over nothing. Between laughs and gasps for air Pete made out words that suspiciously sounded like 'Brendon' and Pete had backed away and rolled his eyes while thinking that Ryan was a bit too old for imaginary friends.
"Yes, mom." Patrick replies considerately. The sound of a door slamming fills the air and soon the sound of water running and banging of porcelain.
Pete slowly walks down the stairs, being careful on being quiet. Silence is the only thing he's good at. That, and freaking the shit out of people.
Patrick is singing under his breath when Pete makes it to the kitchen. It is a quiet chant, the words barely being heard over the sound of his humming.
"You like to sing." Pete states after recalling hearing Patrick hum occasionally for the past two weeks they have been here. Patrick jumps about a foot in the air and the plate he was holding slips through his hold, clattering onto the floor and breaking into various small, sharp pieces.
"Shit." He mumbles and looks through the corner of his eyes to see Pete. His eyes are wary, "It's you."
Out of all the possible reactions Pete could have gotten, he did not expect this one. Patrick seems irk and seeming to have expected Pete anyway. He calmly steps over the glass and opens a small closet, which the Stumps have decided to use as a small storage room for cleaning supplies.
"You scared me." Patrick mutters and starts pushing the pieces into a small pile on the floor with the broom.
"I see you like stating the obvious, Patrick." Pete deadpans. Patrick freezes before narrowing his eyes at him.
"How do you know my name?" He asks. It is a stupid question, and both know it. But Patrick seems to be stubborn and asks it anyway.
"You have lived here for quite long time now, and I'm a good listener." Pete responds and actually grins. Patrick blinks.
"Aren't you supposed to, like, walk to the light?" He inquires. Pete snorts and shakes his head in disbelief.
"Oh, geez, sorry. I guess I forgot to mention that if I had the option to leave I would have left this shithole ages ago." Pete hisses the last part and Patrick instantly backs away, by instinct.
"Sorry." He replies with a sigh and continues cleaning the floor, pushing in on the dustpan.
They stay in silence for a long while and by the time Patrick finally has all the sharp objects in the trashcan Pete has had enough with it.
"Where are you from?"
Patrick looks startled at first but he plays along, composing himself quite quickly and he almost kicks the trashcan. It would have been the last straw.
"Uh, Illinois." He responds while finishing the dishes. Patrick hopes his mother doesn't notice the absence of one of her favorite plates.
"That's far away."
"Yeah… it is."
"Why'd you come here?"
Patrick shrugs. "We move from state to state every two years. To get to know the world or something like that."
"You're leaving in two years?"
"Probably."
Pete hums in approval, happy to know he won't be stuck with them for the rest of… eternity. Or until the last one dies, at least. He enjoys stalking people and making their things 'accidentally' fall to the ground but having the same person around (one being able to see you, by worse) gets sickening.
Pete asks about Patrick's old life in all the other states he's lived in and listens carefully, just because he feels like it. Pete likes it when Patrick smiles, or when he laughs. Patrick is really pretty, Pete noticed. He wishes he hadn't.
Cindy Stump arrives with a huge grin an hour and a half later and has an apple pie in hand that Cynthia Ross gave her as a welcoming present. She says her son, Ryan, seems like a 'decent' young man and Patrick should hang out with him one day.
Pete bids his goodbyes with a beam and waves before fading away.
"You were saying, mother?" Patrick asks Cindy, and Mrs. Stump wonders why Patrick is smiling out of nowhere.
X~X~X
"I'm home!" Patrick announces after arriving to the house from his third week of school here in Nevada. Cindy's head pops out of the kitchen and she nods briefly.
"Alright. Pat, I need you to take a shower and do your homework as always. You have to set the table for dinner," She says, "And don't forget to wipe your shoes on the mat. I just mopped."
Patrick grumbles a response and nods before running upstairs with his backpack bobbing on his shoulder. He opens the door of his bedroom and kicks his shoes off, throwing his backpack full of stacks of books on the floor brutally.
"Well, aren't we violent today?" Pete greets, his eyebrow raised. But he has a smile placed on his lips. Patrick grins and laughs lightly.
"Sorry, my mother just gets on my nerves."
"Patrick, she's only asking you to set the table." Pete responds with a sigh. Patrick shrugs.
"Yes, but I have things to do."
"Like?"
"I don't know. Stuff every 18 year old teen should be doing."
"Sleeping?"
"Having fun." Patrick snaps. Pete snorts.
"No offense but your sense of entertainment is staying in your bed all day reading cheesy romance novels."
"Shut up."
"I only state the obvious."
Patrick shrugs and sits on his bed next to Pete. He's gotten used to Pete hanging around in his room, aimlessly walking around. What Patrick refuses to accept is the fact that Pete gives himself the liberty of looking through his stuff. Once Patrick found him looking through his notebook where he wrote some stupid song lyrics. He had snatched it away and chucked lamp in Pete's direction. Of course, it went straight through him and Pete just laughed and laughed endlessly before Patrick refused to talk to him.
"How was school?"
"Alright, I guess. This guy named Spencer introduced me to Ryan, the neighbor. And I also met William Beckett, who's pretty cool."
Pete nods and visibly begins thinking about something before shaking his head. "You like your school and friends?" He asks instead. Patrick smiles.
"Yeah, it could have been worse."
"Could have? What's wrong?" Pete seems concerned now and Patrick suppresses his smile from getting bigger.
"Ryan's… strange." Patrick hesitates.
Pete grimaces. And so I've been told.
"Whatcha means, exactly?" He questions instead. Patrick sighs and his arms fall to his face to cover his face from the light coming from the light bulb.
"He says he has another best friend. Brendon Urie. Spencer claims to not ever have met a Brendon and that he's never even seen him. Ryan just, like, walks up smiling to us and when we ask he just says he talked to Brendon last night. Ryan says Brendon stays most nights with him and its starting to worry Spencer." Patrick finished with an exhausted sigh and Pete forced Patrick to stand up.
"Don't fall asleep, 'Trick. You still have to shower and do your homework before helping your mother set the table." He said with a grin and Patrick groaned.
"See you, Pete." Patrick said groggily and Pete smirked.
"Have a nice time with Cindy and your father."