"So I guess we won't ever see each other again," Dallon notes, wobbling back and forth on his feet with extremities poking into his pockets awkwardly.

Gerard is packing the van with Lindsey's suitcase, proceeding with his and then mine to grant time for me and Dallon to say our goodbyes, and he's equipping himself for a bumpy ride back to New Jersey, while Ryan and Brendon are about an hour down the road to Newark with their own luggage in their odd vehicle that should only fit a cat yet has much more aptitude than people would expect, and once Gerard finishes loading the car, I'm forced to acknowledge Dallon.

"I guess not." Nodding, I add, "We had some horrible times together, so at least those will be over."

"You're blunt as always" is his chuckle

A smile instruments my lips higher, and I offer my hand for the man to shake. "How about we leave on good terms, yeah?"

Dallon accepts my hand, kissing it like an old-fashioned royal, and with a laugh, he's off on his way far from me, and I know I'll be doing better.

"Are you ready to go?" Gerard inquires and swallows my shoulder with his touch, guiding me towards his van before I can respond, because he knows that I won't be able to after all that's happened this Christmas break.

I'm okay with that, though, because he's always had my best interest in mind, even when I hated him for it and didn't understand that he was always considering me in his actions, and it's nice to have an unwavering friend, especially after I just lost the one who loved me so dearly to something as worthless as amnesia.

Pete's gone, however, and I'll have to register that through my brain soon enough, but for now, all I know is that something is absent from my life and that I want it back.

~~~~~

I'm not quite prepared fully to see my mother again, not after she dropped that bomb of news on me while I was still recovering from a fucking seizure, and now there's also that shitstorm of Gabe Saporta wallowing in my house and claiming that it's his own when he could be kicked out at any moment, if not by my mom then by me, and while that may only last for a few hours, at least until my mother notices that something is missing, it'll be productive enough to soothe my qualms about this "psychologist" guy.

What's missing with me is Pete fucking Wentz, and he won't be back. Perhaps returning to my home in Newark would've been less bothersome if he were here with me, but for all I know he could still be at the hospital, abandoned by Joe, and it could be my fault for leaving him there. There's no one to portray the fact that he left me with forgetfulness, but they won't ask about that, so it's unimportant.

We have been doomed from the start, with that measly panic attack in the Belleville Child Development Center that Pete happened to spy and take action upon, yet he persisted in loving me despite my many faults and anxieties and fears, and we fucking messed up in the end. We could've gone strong, but we didn't, because there are simply these points that are unavoidable and are bound to kill us one way or another, but we were young and reckless and didn't care about any of them, so where we are is essentially our own doing.

I realize that if Pete and I continued our relationship, people would ask how he's faring all the time, and I would have to lie and tell them that he is just splendid, but that's not exactly a lie, because I never really knew how well he was, and now I do. I know that he's forgotten about everything we went through, and I'm not with him to foster a plague that'll just bury him again. He's really mending himself, and he doesn't need me anymore.

When you are someone like Pete Wentz, when you are someone with potential, a candle perhaps, people will light you so that they can watch you burn and then replace you with someone stronger, but I challenge everyone to dare themselves into replacing that candle with them and only them, just better versions of the same spark, and that's what my companion is going to do, for he's struck his memories with amnesia and has become whole in his own mind again.

Because he's always been whole in my mind, but he would always contradict that phenomenon in honor of his own pity for himself and hatred of anything wonderful to be derived from his magnificence that's ostensibly only obvious to me and shunned by Pete.

None of that's really significant anymore, on the contrary, because all I have is my mother and Gabe Saporta in the frequent moments at home, huddled under blankets on the laptop as I scroll through blog posts of people who don't know the tiniest detail about me, and I like it that way, because it's comforting, but sheltering my own psychologist in the house that I grew up in is beyond my tolerance, and I soon won't be comfortable any longer.

And there he is, chopping vegetables to stir into a soup or something equally as suburban intended to poison us so he can steal our possessions like he stole my mother's heart and my sanity, and he's so nonchalant about it all, attention zoomed in on the foods to craft the potion with unmatched precision and knock us out more efficiently.

"Ah, Patrick!" Dr. Saporta exclaims upon seeing me, hands bouncing in the air in an unnecessary gesture, unnecessary mostly because we both hate each other vigorously and aren't ever excited to see the opposite person.

Glaring at the man wickedly, I tighten my clutch around the straps to my bag. "What are you doing here, rat?"

"You must've heard that your mom and I are dating." He appears genuinely miffed by the assumption that my mother never informed me of this information, but I dismiss him.

"All too well," I snarl, tossing my bag onto the stairs for further transportation to my room. "My mother intruded into my hospital room while I was healing from a seizure and told me that you're getting all lovey dovey together. What a fantastic Christmas treat."

My psychologist pauses his duty of slicing vegetables into minuscule pieces to pose a burdensome question. "Why don't you like me?"

I pivot ferociously, teeth raining down on each other with the adhesive of anger. "Because you're fucking shit, Saporta, and you don't belong here."

The man's brow fondus, somehow surprised that I absolutely abhor him. "And why is that?"

"You're my psychologist — and a terrible one at that. Your opinions are only constructed out of sophism, but I see through it, and I know that you're complete and utter trash." Before he can protest, I sprint up the stairs and into my room where I can be safe, but I bump into my mother on the way.

"Patrick, you're back!" she squeals, bagging me in a constricting embrace and only releasing me after ten painful seconds. "I was thinking that we could do something together."

"Sorry, I have plans." I seal the door to my room so that she can't pester me further, only allowing her to shout things through the wood, such as asking whom I'm doing the activities with, but I say nothing, instead sliding over to my bookshelf in search of the exact hydrogen peroxide that chauffeured me through my hectic post-traumatic stress disorder.

Maybe it's a better friend to me than Pete ever was, and maybe I shouldn't be saying such things right after he just lost himself and his identity to amnesia, but it's always there for me, so I might as well utilize it for my own purpose and fuck the consequences, because the upside of Pete being gone is that he can't reprimand me for being so dangerous towards myself, arguing that these precautions exist to protect me, but hydrogen peroxide is the only thing that protects me, not those precautions, so I'll do as I please with it.

With that all figured out, a bottle of the substance customizes my hand to its shape with the hopes that it'll be employed for its traditional role in cleansing me from germs and obsessions and everything that Dallon did to me two years ago that isn't even connected to him anymore after all of the complications, and it will receive its wish.

The cap to the bottle flakes away onto the floor for me to neglect, and the only thing that matters right now is the liquid sloshing against the sides as it struggles to keep itself contained, but its plans are foiled when I press a single drop to my skin.

It's a beautiful affliction, an affliction I desire to experience more often, so in a reaction to that, I gradually increase the waterfall's power until my lids are closed behind the current of peroxide lapping against me, until I'm coddled by a desert, and an old friend arrives for the grand farewell.

You made it, psycho.

And I just laugh, because I really did.

~~~~~

A/N: it's been a good run, famlettes (but there's an epilogue, so we're not quite done yet)

I s2g I cut out two chapters because I just wanted to finish this thing but like it has too many plot holes due to devastation by a shitstorm that rolled in when I started this in January so I'm sorry about that (patrick was kind of inaccurate, so was pete wtf) ANYWAY

current vibe: having a chat with myself about petekey at 10:30 at night

~Dartota