ninasfic

So…this is weird. Someone requested a fic based on Fireflies by Owl City. I highly recommend you listen to that before reading this fic. I use snippets of the lyrics, but not all of them. I’m also not sure how I feel about the fic. Fireflies is a song that makes me unbelievably happy, but the fic came out very, very angsty.




Pete knows there’s something wrong with him. He knows that it’s not healthy, it’s not normal to stay up all night like this. He’s been writing for almost five hours, and his hand is so cramped that nothing is coming out but gibberish. He has to write though, he has to. He’s shivering. He could turn the heat on, but he’d have to put down his pen to do that and he can’t, he can’t.

There are bright spots dancing around the paper, and Pete blinks. He hasn’t slept in daysweeksmonths and he knows they’re a symptom. He knows. He knows there’s something wrong with him but he won’t, he can’t lose this. If he gets better he’ll lose this, and if he loses this he loses everything.

You would not believe your eyes

He hears the front door open and he knows it’s Patrick. He knows because his phone sang “For The Longest Time” four times tonight and that’s Patrick’s ringtone. He knows because he didn’t pick up, and Pete always picks up, always. But he didn’t pick up, and he can’t explain.

If ten million fireflies lit up the world as I fell asleep

Patrick opens the door and he’s an angel. The light from the hallway haloes him like a heavenly thing, and Pete loves him. Pete loves him and he wants to tell him so, but his mouth is full of air and nothing comes out. He wants to give Patrick a thousand empty promises.

You’d think me rude but I would just stand and stare

Patrick’s words flow over Pete and he doesn’t comprehend, he tries to write them but his hand won’t move any more, his arm is stiff and twitching. He hears anger first and then worry and sympathy. Patrick’s arms enfold him and Patrick says he wants to help, he wants Pete to get better.

I’d like to make myself believe

Angel, angel, Patrick is an angel. Patrick lives with Pete now, Pete thinks. He’s there always, making sure that Pete remembers to eat and take his pills. He helps, he makes Pete food and orders him pizza and he wants Pete to be better. Pete doesn’t want to be better, but he wants to make Patrick happy, so he swallows the pills.

That planet earth turns slowly

He swallows them, even though they make him sick, even though they make him see things. There’s a haze around his head, and everything seems smoky and somehow wrong. Pete feels wrong, he feels displaced from his body. He doesn’t feel anything.

A disco ball is just hanging by a thread

Patrick takes him back to the doctor, Patrick shouts and swears, he makes the doctor listen. Pete has never seen Patrick really angry, not like this, but he’s unfocused. He’s unbalanced and off kilter and wrong. He wonders if he’s died, if he’s dreaming all this in his last few minutes between earth and…whatever happens after.

I'd like to make myself believe

The doctor gives him a new prescription and apologizes. Patrick makes Pete take the new pills, and there’s only one a day instead of three. It’s not long before the haze goes away, and Pete can see right again. He can see Patrick’s face, he can see his eyes and his mouth and his hair. Patrick is still an angel, he always will be to Pete.

Everything is never as it seems

That night Pete is tired. He’s never tired, he doesn’t sleep like normal people. He drives himself until his body collapses, he doesn’t get tired and fall asleep, and the new sensation scares him a little. Patrick offers to stay with him, in case he has nightmares, and Pete will never let Patrick leave, not ever.

I fall asleep

Pete sleeps that night. His dreams are all Patrick, wound around him and through him and in him. In his dreams Patrick holds him under golden wings, and he’s safe. Pete wishes he could tell Patrick all this, wishes he could tell Patrick anything and everything, wishes he could pour himself into Patrick and never let him go. He needs words, he needs the words that he finds in dark places when his mind is everywhere.

Leave my door open just a crack

Pete sleeps that night and most of the next day and when he wakes up Patrick tries not to look worried. He’s not good at it, and he hugs Pete. Pete can see him. Pete can feel him. Pete stretches his arms and sighs and he remembers dreams. He wonders if this is how normal people feel after they sleep, and Patrick tells him yes.

Please take me away from here

Patrick asks him how he is. Pete doesn’t know. Patrick pulls him close, strokes his hair and tells him they’ll go back to the doctor if they need to. He tells him they’ll keep going back until Pete is okay, until they find something that works.

'Cause I feel like such an insomniac

Patrick feels real. His words are real. Pete presses his nose against the soft skin of Patrick’s neck and breathes in. There are so many things he’s never noticed. He’s written about the sun on Patrick’s hair, the sky in Patrick’s eyes, all PatrickPatrickPatrick wrapped in metaphor and symbolism a thousand times over.

Please take me away from here

But Patrick is real. Patrick is here and real and now, and Pete leans up and kisses him. Patrick stays rigid for a moment, but melts into Pete and kisses him back. And Pete explains, or tries to, he tells Patrick how much he’s afraid of losing himself. It scares him, that somewhere under the insomnia and the mania and the madness there might be a person. He asks if Patrick will still like him, will still be his friend.

There are no promises, Patrick says. He needs to meet this other Pete, the real Pete, the Pete who comes out between the manic and the depressive. He asks Pete if he feels real now, if he thinks he might be getting closer to the real Pete. Pete says yeah, he thinks he is.

And that’s okay.

To ten million fireflies
I'm weird 'cause I hate goodbyes
I got misty eyes as they said farewell
But I'll know where several are
If my dreams get real bizarre
'Cause I saved a few and I keep them in a jar