Hell's Reign (Patrick Stump/Fall Out Boy Fanfiction)

Chapter 28 - One Night Alone

            By nightfall, Tori awoke with a start. She had been dreaming of her family, of Aaron knocking on her bedroom door in the middle of the night because he'd had a nightmare. The second she climbed from bed to open the door, she opened her eyes instead. She was alone inside the truck, but a blanket had been wrapped around her. Her gun and knife lay on the dashboard, but Patrick was missing. She sat up slowly, blinking until her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and realized that the truck was parked in the middle of an open field. There wasn't any sign of danger around her, but the feeling of anxiousness wouldn't leave until she knew where Patrick had gone.

Tori looked around, pulling the blanket from her shoulders, and finally noticed the pair of feet lying stretched out toward the opposite end of the truck bed. She quickly moved to open the passenger side door, and climbed out into the dewy grass, carrying the blanket with her. She closed the door and walked around to the back of the truck, where she could see Patrick lying on his back, his arms bent with his hand and hook resting beneath his head. He made no move as she climbed into the truck, but she realized that he was, in fact, awake. He was staring up at the sky, the ominously starless, dark sky.

Tori lay down to the right of him, wordlessly claiming the makeshift pillow he had obviously left for her, and mimicked what he was doing. She stared up at the sky, a feeling of emptiness falling over her. Patrick breathed slowly and heavily beside her, the only noise he made, but after a moment his hand moved to fall beside him, grasping Tori's fingers in his. He still didn't say anything, but Tori squeezed his hand. "Patrick?" She whispered, but he didn't answer; He simply cocked his head slightly towards her. She continued anyway. "What do you think happened to the stars?"

Patrick finally looked at her fully, his head rolling lazily to meet his gaze with hers. He looked thoughtful for a long moment, as if he couldn't make up his mind. It wasn't too long before he realized that he simply had no answer. "I don't know," he whispered back to her, "They just...left, I guess."

"The sun is still here, though," Tori replied, a painful glimmer of hope stuck in her voice. "They're not all gone, if the sun is still here."

"It's burning itself out," Patrick whispered carefully, his fingers constricting tighter over hers. "It's getting hotter and hotter every day, Tori. Eventually, it'll just stop burning, like the rest of the stars." He looked back up at the sky again, a frown creasing his brow and a darkness clouding his eyes.

Tori stared at him in disbelief. "You don't know that," She mumbled, "Maybe they'll come back." She didn't want him to be right, but she couldn't deny that it seemed a very possible explanation.

Patrick shrugged, taking no offence to her tone, and kept staring at the sky. "You asked what I thought," he mumbled in response, an Tori knew better than to push the issue. She didn't want to fight with him. Instead, she shifted closer to him, laying her head on his chest and sighing with content as he wrapped his arm around her. He was silent for a while again, shifting so that his hook was resting on her stomach. Tori stared at it, the dull metal covered with dried blood. He couldn't wash it until they found a real place to stay. It's point was facing her directly, and for a moment, she thought that she should be threatened by it. He could hurt her so easily, whether he meant to or not, and she had no way to stop him. Even without the hook, he had the power to do that. He had her heart; Even the zombies couldn't get to that.

Patrick, as if sensing her unease, began to run his hand up and down her arm, before gently massaging his fingers into her shoulder. "Tori?" He asked softly, his voice barely above a whisper. She turned her head up to him, and his lips gently collided with her forehead. He lingered there for a moment, sighing through his nose and squeezing his eyes shut. He opened them slowly, keeping his lips against her head as he spoke. "I really fucked up."