The Problem with Patrick || Fall Out Boy

never the same person when i go to sleep as when i wake up

Not that Pete would ever admit this, but he liked spending time with recovering-from-a-coma Patrick. He was still so very out of it, and was often confused and misunderstood, but he was happy. Pete hadn't seen his best friend this happy in a very long time.

Obviously he knew this was temporary, and he knew that Patrick was just recovering from an injury and had quite a bit of head trauma, but it was hard not to smile when Patrick would wake up from a nap and vividly and excitedly explain a dream about pancakes. He didn't really understand a whole lot about where he was (he was often surprised he had an IV in his arm and would gasp in alarm whenever he spotted it), or how injured he was, but he was happy to just lie in bed and talk to Pete, or watch the TV in the corner which usually was set to some teen dramas.

And not that Pete would admit it, but teen drama wasn't that bad of a TV channel to watch.

It had been a week now, and Patrick had made a couple of improvements in his memory (He knew how old he was, and he knew his last name, and Pete's address, and the name of his band), but it still had quite a number of gaps (He had no idea who Joe was, couldn't remember going to high school and couldn't name his parents). It was a little bit worrying, and the doctors seemed concerned, but Andy and the label showed no signs of slowing down the plans to tour.

Pete just hadn't been speaking to them. Andy had visited Patrick two more times in the past week since he woke up, and generally brought gifts of stuffed animals, which Patrick loved. He had a little family of teddy bears living on the bed with him now, and refused to let anyone touch them. Even the doctors and Pete got a talking to if they went to move one. That meant that Patrick always wanted to see Andy, and Pete would let Patrick see whomever he wanted.

Today the doctors had finally given Patrick clearance to get out of bed. He was to go for a walk around the hospital with two nurses and Pete, and some crutches as well. Part of this was to get him some exercise, and part of this was to test if his physical co-ordination had been affected by his injury. Patrick, of course, had no idea what that meant, and was just excited to go look around.

"Could we walk all the way to the kitchen?" Patrick asked Pete the morning of, sipping his cup of milk through a straw.

"I don't know buddy, we'll just go where the nurses say we can go."

"Okay..." He mumbled, jutting his bottom lip out.

"Awwww, is it really that important?"

"Uh huh." Patrick moped.

"Well, just ask the nurses and see what they say, alright?"

"Okay... is Andy gonna come and visit today?"

"I... don't know. I had a bit of a fight with him yesterday..." Pete trailed off nervously, thinking of the phone call the night before. Andy had called with the dates of the new tour, and then Pete yelled that they weren't going anywhere until Patrick was better, then Andy said they would just tour without Patrick because Brendon could play guitar anyway, and then Pete got angry and hung up.

"Aww... okay." Patrick mumbled.

"Don't worry too much about it, yeah? He'll come and see you soon, don't worry." Pete gently patted his shoulder.

"Will he bring more bears?"

"I don't know, 'Trick. Maybe."

"Because I really like the bears. I think they're pretty cool." Patrick smiled down at his collection.

"Yeah, I realised." Pete chuckled softly, reaching out to grab the one on the end. Patrick quickly held his hand out, and pushed him away. Pete wasn't surprised, and just gave his friend a look before leaning back in the chair that had become his own.