The Problem with Patrick || Fall Out Boy

i wonder if your therapist knows everything about me

The next day, Patrick marched into his psych's office after Pete dropped him off, let out a huge sigh and buried his head in his hands. "I'm not ready to tour."

She opened her mouth to respond, but Patrick immediately cut her off with a growl of frustration, before sighing again. "Look, I, I know what I said at the beginning of these sessions, and I know that I told myself it wouldn't come to this, but I can't do it alone anymore. I-I, I just can't go on this stupid tour and let my bandmates down. Y-You need to prescribe me something. Anything. Just make s-sure that it takes all the stupid fear away and lets me go on stage like any other normal person and sing well."

"Patrick, take a deep breath, okay?" She told him gently. "I'm a psychologist. I can't prescribe you medication. You'll have to go see your GP for that. But you don't need medication to help you on tour. You just need to remember the strategies that we've been working on to ground yourself."

Patrick shook his head, and stood up before wandering over to the shelves in the corner and going through all the drawers. "You've got to have something you can give me. Anything. I can't fucking do it anymore. I can't be this disappointment to everyone anymore. You're supposed to be teaching me not to be a ball of stupid insecurities, right?! Clearly I can't do it on my own, so you're gonna have to give me something!"

It was the look on his doctor's face after his alarming outburst that made Patrick well up with tears and quickly slump back into the chair. He'd never had an outburst at her before. She was just trying to help him, and had been putting up with his sessions for almost a month now on practically a daily basis. She genuinely cared, and he was just being an asshole to her, just like he was being an asshole to Pete whenever Pete tried to help him out.

"God, I'm, I'm so sorry-"

"It's okay, don't worry." She wrote something down on her clipboard, before putting a piece of paper on the coffee table between them. "Look, this is the last session before you leave for tour, so for today, let's just go through the strategies we've done, and we'll make a list that you can take with you. So that way when you're on the road, you always have this to refer back to when it gets overwhelming. Does that sound alright?"

"Yeah, yeah, that'll be good." Patrick grabbed a tissue from the box and quickly blew his nose before grabbing a pen and beginning to work.

-------------------

If there was anything that hyped Pete Wentz up for tour, it was the arrival of the bus. And this bus was the biggest bus that they'd ever toured on. It had a TV, it had a playstation, it had 8 bunks, it had a bathroom with a shower, and most importantly, it had a really, really big fridge that Pete was out shopping with Joe to fill.

It was a good distraction from the Patrick situation, and together they marched down the isles of many supermarkets and candy stores to source only the very best of the best for the best tour they'd ever done. It didn't matter that they actually hadn't done it yet, all that mattered was that they were prepared for the best tour of their lives.

"Are we gonna have room for all of these condiments?" Pete asked with a slight smirk, glancing down at their shopping cart full of various different hot sauce varieties.

"Obviously." Joe responded with a sly smile, tossing another one in.

"What if we can't?"

"Then we're just gonna have to eat them, aren't we?"

"Fair enough then."

The two returned to the bus and began stocking their pride and joy (the refrigerator) with condiments and candy (Pete believed that marshmallows always tasted better cold), before laying down on the bunks. Pete stuck a few photos on the top of his, one of his Mom and Dad, one of his entire family, and one of him and Patrick just because it was cute and he liked to wake up to the view of cute things that made him smile.

"Do you reckon we'll use the shower on board or wait until we get to the hotel to clean up?" Joe asked, sticking his own photos up.

"I dunno. Depends how many nights we go between hotel rooms."

"True. I've heard from a couple of guys that the water pressure in the bus is terrible though."

"Interesting." Pete pondered that for a moment. "The hotel would probably come with free toiletries too."

"Oh, yeah, that's true." Joe laid back and rested his hands on his chest. "Can you honestly believe we're about to tour the entire country in the coolest tour bus ever? I mean, we all dreamed of this and now we get to like, actually do it."

"Yeah, it's pretty amazing." Pete laid back in a similar fashion and stared at the photos. "It still kinda feels like a dream though. Like it's not actually happening. I dunno, it'll probably hit me once we start travelling and playing shows and being like, actual rock stars." He laughed to himself. "I still don't think of myself as a rockstar. I'm just like, a pretend rockstar who's faking that they know what they're doing."

"Isn't that what all rockstars do though?"

He thought back to his conversation with Patrick a few days earlier about professionals faking it till they make it, and smiled. "Yeah, I guess so."

"I guess that makes us rockstars then."

Pete laughed and got up out of his bunk. "Joe Trohman and Pete Wentz: Rockstars. It's got a ring to it."

"Definitely." Joe agreed.

Pete nodded, before checking the time. "Hey, I gotta go get Patrick, can you keep an eye on the bus?"

"Why are you still driving him around everywhere?" Joe asked. "I mean, he's gotten so much better and stuff, why are you still doing it? He's got a car of his own, you know. I feel like I don't see you anymore, you're always with Patrick."

"Yeah, well, he's doing it tough, and his car is still at his place and we haven't been there in over a month and-"

"What?"

"Nothing."

"No, that was obviously something."

"Look, it's not my place to tell..."

"Well, it obviously is. We're a band, dude. You gotta let me and Andy know what the hell is going on all the time with you two. Do you have some kind of thing going on, or what?"

"I mean, okay, um... so after Patrick had that little hospital visit he moved in with me. Just because he was going through a rough patch and wasn't really looking after himself and had a little problem with alcohol for a while. But it's all good now, so don't worry."

"If it's all good now then why is he still there?"

"Uh... because it's not like, completely good now, like there was an incident at a karaoke bar and shit and it just got messy..."

"Karaoke bars?" Joe questioned. "Seriously? I thought that was a whole band thing to do!"

Pete sighed and sat down. "He just wanted to practice singing in front of crowds so he didn't fuck up tour for the rest of us."

Joe's face turned to one of realisation, and sat down beside Pete in silence. "So, he's not better yet then."

"We don't really know until he gets up there."

"Shit."

"Well, I mean, he played to about 150 people the other night, and that was pretty good." Pete did attempt to defend his friend a little bit.

"That's not the 9000 that he's gonna be singing to tomorrow night."

"You think I don't know that?!"

"Well, what are we gonna do if he can't do it?! Do we have a backup plan?! The label is gonna drop us if we can't play this tour, Pete."

"I know, I know, Bob has some guy, um... lined up to take his place, I think..." it made Pete and Joe both feel uncomfortable as those words hung in the air. Fall Out Boy was the four of them, Patrick included, and it didn't feel right for him not to sing their songs. Plus, having some stranger come in and sing something that was so meaningful to the four of them, it made Pete visibly shudder. But this was the label, and this was money, and this was the tour that was going ahead whether Patrick could sing it or not.