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booshslashhavenTitle: Anamnesia: A Love Story
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thickets, art by ftw302
Fandom: Sweet ... with complications.
Pairing: Pete/Stitch
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: some fluff, some angst, some brain hurtiness
Word Count: 1900 (this chapter), 15000 (entire thing)
Disclaimer: Neither Sweet nor anything else mentioned in this fic belong to me.
Summary: Pete and Stitch meet a mysterious stall vendor and get more than they bargained for.
Part One: Wonders and Amusements
Part Two: All of These Things Are Real
Part Three: Dreams Don't Mean Anything
Part Four: Let the Chips Fall Where They May
5. The Only Thing Left of the World
Human beings have a remarkable capacity for explaining away the unexplainable. When faced with that which defies reason, they will twist and bend logic until it suddenly makes sense. They don't even realize they're doing it, most of the time.
It wasn't until the day the world finally began to fold up on them that Stitch realized how long he and Pete had been doing exactly that – putting order to something that could not be ordered. They'd forced so many things to make sense. Poppy was only the least of them. There were all the strange gaps in their own pasts, for one thing. Stitch had a vague recollection of having a family, but when he pushed hard at his memory, it crumbled under the pressure like a sand castle. He couldn't remember his parents' names. He couldn't remember his first day of school. He couldn't remember when he'd moved to London. He couldn't remember when he'd first met Pete – it seemed he'd always known him. The only memories which he could summon up, in fact, always had Pete attached to them, like a double act. In his mind he could, if he tried, picture the two of them in their early twenties; in their teens; in gawky, pre-adolescence; as babies, even. It didn't make any sense, did it? He couldn't trust those memories, either, any more than the ones he thought he ought to have but which were missing.
Though they didn't speak of it, Pete seemed to have come across this problem on his own. When they got back to the flat, adrenaline still pumping through their veins, Pete curled up in his suspended bubble chair and hung there, drifting gently, drumming his fingers against the plastic.
"When'd I get the stall?" he asked abruptly.
"I ... don't know."
"I feel like I got it by chance, somehow, like I won it in a bet, maybe? But I can't remember how. How d'you forget something like that?"
Stitch had nothing to say. A few minutes later, Pete restlessly climbed out of the chair and picked up the phone to make a call. After a few minutes he hung up. "Rang Daisy and Poppy," he said. "No answer."
"Did you get their voicemail?"
Pete shook his head. "It just rang and rang."
After that he tried calling lots of people they knew, but there was no answer from them either. He even called the pizza place down the street. After awhile he ran out of people, or rather he ran out of names, because they were both certain they knew more people than this, but everything got very foggy when they tried to remember more of them. This avenue of reasserting reality thwarted, Pete started up with the questions again: When had he bought that chair? When had he cut his hair like this the first time? Had Stitch ever worn glasses? Had he ever had a moustache? Had either of them ever been to France? How about America?
Suddenly, and with a hint of panic – he'd been remarkably calm, if uneasy, since they'd gotten inside, until this point – he asked, "When did I get the puppies?"
Stitch did not know. The puppies had always been there. Now that he thought of it, they shouldn't really be puppies anymore, should they?
"I don't know either," Pete whispered, and swallowed hard. "Where ... where are they?"
Stitch looked at him with alarm. He hadn't thought about them, not all day.
The flat was not particularly large. There weren't many places for a puppy to hide, and they certainly looked every conceivable place they could. The puppies were nowhere to be found. It was as if they had ceased to exist.
After two hours of looking over and over again in the same spots, calling out to them, and even walking down the eerily quiet hallways and stairs of their block of flats – both of them were too frightened to go outside again – Pete gave up. He lay down on the settee and cried for a good long while. Stitch sat on the floor next to him, not sure of what to do, wanting to cry himself but unable to, because seeing Pete so sad was killing him. He felt confused and lost and useless. Eventually, he stood up and wandered over to the window and drew aside the curtain. In the hours since they'd come home, it had gone dark out – no, more than dark. Black. Impenetrably black, and lifeless. He and Pete were alone.
#
When he was all cried out, Pete sat up on the settee and stared at the carpet, an emotionless expression on his face. Stitch sat down next to him and touched him on the arm. "Pete?"
Pete turned to him. He looked a mess, his hair rucked up and damp in some spots from his own tears, his face both blotchy and pale at the same time. He smiled unevenly at Stitch, and reached out to place his hands on either side of his face, a gesture that was simultaneously affectionate and desperate. "At least you're still here, Stitch," he said.
"Of course I am," he said. That was one thing he was certain of: no matter what happened to the world around them, he and Pete would be together.
Pete laughed a little and nodded, and tugged Stitch close to him. They sat there for a few minutes like that, enjoying the feeling of each others' familiar bodies. Pete pushed his face against Stitch's neck and inhaled deeply. "You always smell so nice," he said in a quiet voice.
Stitch buried his face in Pete's hair. "You do too." Pete's scent was so vivid and intense, it had to be real. He was more real than anything Stitch had ever encountered.
#
They did not try to leave the flat after that, or even look out the windows. They didn't talk about what was wrong, or about the puppies, or about Poppy or Daisy or anyone else they knew, or, as the case seemed to be, didn't know after all. They stayed close together, thinking only about each other, putting up their own sort of feeble resistance to the crisis at hand: they pretended it wasn't even happening.
They both were aware that everything was wrong though. Stitch found he couldn't concentrate on anything. He'd forget what he was doing partway through. He could barely read a sentence without losing track of himself. Pete played Kate Bush's Hounds of Love on repeat, and though he said nothing of it, Stitch knew Pete only listened to that album when he was particularly unhappy.
I've always been a coward, and I don't know what's good for me.
Pete tugged the duvet off the bed and brought it over to the settee, and wrapped it around the two of them. Stitch wasn't sure how much time had passed. The hours, like everything else, seemed to have disappeared from their notice. He couldn't even hear the ticking of any clocks. When he looked at the one in the kitchen, it had stopped. They couldn't get reception on the telly, only static. Outside, in the breaks between songs on the record, there was utter silence. It occurred to Stitch suddenly that the flat might be the only thing left of the world. What would happen if they opened the door? He didn't want to know.
It didn't matter. Pete was here.
They fell asleep like this on the settee, all in a jumble, almost entirely covered by the duvet, as Kate crooned at them that mother stands for comfort.
When they woke up next, the record was skipping and the world was shaking.
With a shout, Pete rolled out of Stitch's embrace and hit the floor; Stitch followed him and grabbed his arms, pulling him close. It was no longer dark outside. It was incredibly bright, light streaming in through the closed curtains. Stitch was certain that if they were opened, they'd be blinded. A sinking feeling developed in Stitch's chest. Did we really think we could ignore it forever?
He turned to Pete, whose face bore an expression of anger and, even more uncharacteristic, determination. Stitch touched his cheek, and Pete blinked. "It's over, Stitch."
The unease in his heart blossomed into panic. "Pete, don't –"
"Can't you see it?" Shaking, Pete stood up. "I can't ... I can't just sit here, waiting around for it to happen, knowing it's going to happen."
"What are you going to do then?" Stitch asked, standing up to join him. Another tremor rippled through the flat, and the turntable fell off its stand and broke into pieces.
Pete frowned. Then he took Stitch by the hand and pulled him along into the bedroom. In the doorway the world shuddered and pulsed again, and they had to hold onto the frame for a few minutes until it quieted down.
"Where is it?" Pete said, when it had passed. "Wasn't it on the bedside table yesterday?"
"What was? What are you talking about?" Stitch asked helplessly.
"The kaleidoscope!" Pete opened the drawer of the table. "Here!"
"What do you want that for?"
"It all started because of this, didn't it? Ever since I got this bloody thing from that madman ... I wish I never had ..."
"Pete ..." Stitch said, but he didn't need to finish. They both knew that it was pointless to say anymore. The kaleidoscope hadn't caused the problem. It had only revealed it. "What are you going to do?" he asked, and laid his hands over Pete's, which were holding the kaleidoscope cupped between them.
For the first time since they'd woken up, Pete's face crumpled and he again looked on the verge of tears. "End it all."
"Pete ... what ... what do you think's going to happen?"
"I don't know."
Stitch tightened his grip on Pete's hands. "Don't do it."
"We have to, Stitch."
"What if there's nothing on the other side of ... this?"
"There has to be! I don't know what it is, but I can't ... we can't exist if there ain't something real at the core of it all, can we?"
There must be ... but ... "Pete ... even if there is. What if ... who are we? What are we? What if ... what if we don't remember any of this? What if we don't remember each other?"
Pete grimaced. "Of course we will," he said. "We have to." A tear ran down his cheek, and then another. "I'll remember, Stitch. You say it too – say you'll remember."
Stitch stared at him, burning this moment into his mind. "I'll remember."
"Promise?"
"I'll remember, Pete. I promise! I'll remember."
"Good." Pete held Stitch's hand firmly in his own. Then, kaleidoscope in hand, he raised the other arm high and swiftly brought it down, slamming the kaleidoscope against bedside table.
It broke surprisingly easily, as though it had been waiting for this moment, the tin denting in on one side, and the plastic cap on the end cracking and flying off. As Pete raised it again, a torrent of colorful plastic beads flew from the open end, and there was an incredibly loud noise like something delicate being shattered – mirrors. The mirrors inside the kaleidoscope were breaking. Delicate splinters of glass fell from the ruined kaleidoscope, and then ... everything seemed to be breaking. It happened so seamlessly that Stitch was barely aware of it at first; then he grabbed at Pete desperately.
"Stitch!" Pete shouted, because suddenly it had gotten very loud. He wasn't holding the kaleidoscope anymore. It had disappeared. In an instant everything had disappeared. They were nowhere at all. "Don't forget, Stitch!"
"I promise, Pete! I won't forget!"
Then all he had were those words. Then there was nothing.
to be continued ...
Author:
thickets, art by ftw302Fandom: Sweet ... with complications.
Pairing: Pete/Stitch
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: some fluff, some angst, some brain hurtiness
Word Count: 1900 (this chapter), 15000 (entire thing)
Disclaimer: Neither Sweet nor anything else mentioned in this fic belong to me.
Summary: Pete and Stitch meet a mysterious stall vendor and get more than they bargained for.
Part One: Wonders and Amusements
Part Two: All of These Things Are Real
Part Three: Dreams Don't Mean Anything
Part Four: Let the Chips Fall Where They May
5. The Only Thing Left of the World
Human beings have a remarkable capacity for explaining away the unexplainable. When faced with that which defies reason, they will twist and bend logic until it suddenly makes sense. They don't even realize they're doing it, most of the time.
It wasn't until the day the world finally began to fold up on them that Stitch realized how long he and Pete had been doing exactly that – putting order to something that could not be ordered. They'd forced so many things to make sense. Poppy was only the least of them. There were all the strange gaps in their own pasts, for one thing. Stitch had a vague recollection of having a family, but when he pushed hard at his memory, it crumbled under the pressure like a sand castle. He couldn't remember his parents' names. He couldn't remember his first day of school. He couldn't remember when he'd moved to London. He couldn't remember when he'd first met Pete – it seemed he'd always known him. The only memories which he could summon up, in fact, always had Pete attached to them, like a double act. In his mind he could, if he tried, picture the two of them in their early twenties; in their teens; in gawky, pre-adolescence; as babies, even. It didn't make any sense, did it? He couldn't trust those memories, either, any more than the ones he thought he ought to have but which were missing.
Though they didn't speak of it, Pete seemed to have come across this problem on his own. When they got back to the flat, adrenaline still pumping through their veins, Pete curled up in his suspended bubble chair and hung there, drifting gently, drumming his fingers against the plastic.
"When'd I get the stall?" he asked abruptly.
"I ... don't know."
"I feel like I got it by chance, somehow, like I won it in a bet, maybe? But I can't remember how. How d'you forget something like that?"
Stitch had nothing to say. A few minutes later, Pete restlessly climbed out of the chair and picked up the phone to make a call. After a few minutes he hung up. "Rang Daisy and Poppy," he said. "No answer."
"Did you get their voicemail?"
Pete shook his head. "It just rang and rang."
After that he tried calling lots of people they knew, but there was no answer from them either. He even called the pizza place down the street. After awhile he ran out of people, or rather he ran out of names, because they were both certain they knew more people than this, but everything got very foggy when they tried to remember more of them. This avenue of reasserting reality thwarted, Pete started up with the questions again: When had he bought that chair? When had he cut his hair like this the first time? Had Stitch ever worn glasses? Had he ever had a moustache? Had either of them ever been to France? How about America?
Suddenly, and with a hint of panic – he'd been remarkably calm, if uneasy, since they'd gotten inside, until this point – he asked, "When did I get the puppies?"
Stitch did not know. The puppies had always been there. Now that he thought of it, they shouldn't really be puppies anymore, should they?
"I don't know either," Pete whispered, and swallowed hard. "Where ... where are they?"
Stitch looked at him with alarm. He hadn't thought about them, not all day.
The flat was not particularly large. There weren't many places for a puppy to hide, and they certainly looked every conceivable place they could. The puppies were nowhere to be found. It was as if they had ceased to exist.
After two hours of looking over and over again in the same spots, calling out to them, and even walking down the eerily quiet hallways and stairs of their block of flats – both of them were too frightened to go outside again – Pete gave up. He lay down on the settee and cried for a good long while. Stitch sat on the floor next to him, not sure of what to do, wanting to cry himself but unable to, because seeing Pete so sad was killing him. He felt confused and lost and useless. Eventually, he stood up and wandered over to the window and drew aside the curtain. In the hours since they'd come home, it had gone dark out – no, more than dark. Black. Impenetrably black, and lifeless. He and Pete were alone.
When he was all cried out, Pete sat up on the settee and stared at the carpet, an emotionless expression on his face. Stitch sat down next to him and touched him on the arm. "Pete?"
Pete turned to him. He looked a mess, his hair rucked up and damp in some spots from his own tears, his face both blotchy and pale at the same time. He smiled unevenly at Stitch, and reached out to place his hands on either side of his face, a gesture that was simultaneously affectionate and desperate. "At least you're still here, Stitch," he said.
"Of course I am," he said. That was one thing he was certain of: no matter what happened to the world around them, he and Pete would be together.
Pete laughed a little and nodded, and tugged Stitch close to him. They sat there for a few minutes like that, enjoying the feeling of each others' familiar bodies. Pete pushed his face against Stitch's neck and inhaled deeply. "You always smell so nice," he said in a quiet voice.
Stitch buried his face in Pete's hair. "You do too." Pete's scent was so vivid and intense, it had to be real. He was more real than anything Stitch had ever encountered.
They did not try to leave the flat after that, or even look out the windows. They didn't talk about what was wrong, or about the puppies, or about Poppy or Daisy or anyone else they knew, or, as the case seemed to be, didn't know after all. They stayed close together, thinking only about each other, putting up their own sort of feeble resistance to the crisis at hand: they pretended it wasn't even happening.
They both were aware that everything was wrong though. Stitch found he couldn't concentrate on anything. He'd forget what he was doing partway through. He could barely read a sentence without losing track of himself. Pete played Kate Bush's Hounds of Love on repeat, and though he said nothing of it, Stitch knew Pete only listened to that album when he was particularly unhappy.
I've always been a coward, and I don't know what's good for me.
Pete tugged the duvet off the bed and brought it over to the settee, and wrapped it around the two of them. Stitch wasn't sure how much time had passed. The hours, like everything else, seemed to have disappeared from their notice. He couldn't even hear the ticking of any clocks. When he looked at the one in the kitchen, it had stopped. They couldn't get reception on the telly, only static. Outside, in the breaks between songs on the record, there was utter silence. It occurred to Stitch suddenly that the flat might be the only thing left of the world. What would happen if they opened the door? He didn't want to know.
It didn't matter. Pete was here.
They fell asleep like this on the settee, all in a jumble, almost entirely covered by the duvet, as Kate crooned at them that mother stands for comfort.
When they woke up next, the record was skipping and the world was shaking.
With a shout, Pete rolled out of Stitch's embrace and hit the floor; Stitch followed him and grabbed his arms, pulling him close. It was no longer dark outside. It was incredibly bright, light streaming in through the closed curtains. Stitch was certain that if they were opened, they'd be blinded. A sinking feeling developed in Stitch's chest. Did we really think we could ignore it forever?
He turned to Pete, whose face bore an expression of anger and, even more uncharacteristic, determination. Stitch touched his cheek, and Pete blinked. "It's over, Stitch."
The unease in his heart blossomed into panic. "Pete, don't –"
"Can't you see it?" Shaking, Pete stood up. "I can't ... I can't just sit here, waiting around for it to happen, knowing it's going to happen."
"What are you going to do then?" Stitch asked, standing up to join him. Another tremor rippled through the flat, and the turntable fell off its stand and broke into pieces.
Pete frowned. Then he took Stitch by the hand and pulled him along into the bedroom. In the doorway the world shuddered and pulsed again, and they had to hold onto the frame for a few minutes until it quieted down.
"Where is it?" Pete said, when it had passed. "Wasn't it on the bedside table yesterday?"
"What was? What are you talking about?" Stitch asked helplessly.
"The kaleidoscope!" Pete opened the drawer of the table. "Here!"
"What do you want that for?"
"It all started because of this, didn't it? Ever since I got this bloody thing from that madman ... I wish I never had ..."
"Pete ..." Stitch said, but he didn't need to finish. They both knew that it was pointless to say anymore. The kaleidoscope hadn't caused the problem. It had only revealed it. "What are you going to do?" he asked, and laid his hands over Pete's, which were holding the kaleidoscope cupped between them.
For the first time since they'd woken up, Pete's face crumpled and he again looked on the verge of tears. "End it all."
"Pete ... what ... what do you think's going to happen?"
"I don't know."
Stitch tightened his grip on Pete's hands. "Don't do it."
"We have to, Stitch."
"What if there's nothing on the other side of ... this?"
"There has to be! I don't know what it is, but I can't ... we can't exist if there ain't something real at the core of it all, can we?"
There must be ... but ... "Pete ... even if there is. What if ... who are we? What are we? What if ... what if we don't remember any of this? What if we don't remember each other?"
Pete grimaced. "Of course we will," he said. "We have to." A tear ran down his cheek, and then another. "I'll remember, Stitch. You say it too – say you'll remember."
Stitch stared at him, burning this moment into his mind. "I'll remember."
"Promise?"
"I'll remember, Pete. I promise! I'll remember."
"Good." Pete held Stitch's hand firmly in his own. Then, kaleidoscope in hand, he raised the other arm high and swiftly brought it down, slamming the kaleidoscope against bedside table.
It broke surprisingly easily, as though it had been waiting for this moment, the tin denting in on one side, and the plastic cap on the end cracking and flying off. As Pete raised it again, a torrent of colorful plastic beads flew from the open end, and there was an incredibly loud noise like something delicate being shattered – mirrors. The mirrors inside the kaleidoscope were breaking. Delicate splinters of glass fell from the ruined kaleidoscope, and then ... everything seemed to be breaking. It happened so seamlessly that Stitch was barely aware of it at first; then he grabbed at Pete desperately.
"Stitch!" Pete shouted, because suddenly it had gotten very loud. He wasn't holding the kaleidoscope anymore. It had disappeared. In an instant everything had disappeared. They were nowhere at all. "Don't forget, Stitch!"
"I promise, Pete! I won't forget!"
Then all he had were those words. Then there was nothing.
to be continued ...
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-10-29 12:03 am (UTC)I'm seriously in tears after reading this!
:'(
no subject
Date: 2010-10-29 08:44 pm (UTC)<3 NO TEARS, WE MUST BE STRONG
no subject
Date: 2010-10-29 09:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-29 12:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-29 08:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-29 03:27 am (UTC)This story is House of Leaves style creepy!! *shivers* BUT SO SO ADORABLE!!
no subject
Date: 2010-10-29 08:53 pm (UTC)Aw, House of Leaves XD NOTHING COULD EVER BE THAT WEIRD AND CREEPY! D:
no subject
Date: 2010-10-29 04:13 am (UTC)I like how everything slowly crumbles (THE PUPPIES! ;__;) and then everything suddenly falls apart.
Also I don't think I mentioned it before, but FTW's art really adds to the story, it's awesome. That last pic is genius. DON'T LET GO, GUYS! D: D: D:
no subject
Date: 2010-10-29 08:54 pm (UTC)You know what, I think that last one was actually the first pic she ever drew for this? Way before I wrote this chapter XD She hit closer to what I'd planned than maybe she'd realized! I wound up writing that scene purposefully to match the pic as much as possible, ha ha.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-01 10:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-02 04:03 am (UTC)gah it's such a perfect summary of this chapter: trying to hold on to each other, but getting torn apart.
*sobs more*
no subject
Date: 2010-10-29 06:08 am (UTC)I love it.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-29 08:55 pm (UTC)Thank you! <3
no subject
Date: 2010-10-29 04:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-29 08:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-29 04:39 pm (UTC)But I just want to add that I like the connection my mind made with the appearance of Poppy and reality-shifts. Like a preshock before an earthquake. I love it when a fanfic sheds light on something else.....
no subject
Date: 2010-10-30 04:07 am (UTC)THIS, RIGHT HERE.
*cries*
no subject
Date: 2010-10-31 04:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-31 10:37 pm (UTC)And then FTW's picture at the end and.... ;___;
no subject
Date: 2010-11-01 10:53 pm (UTC)STILL HOLDS TRUE. SNIFFLE. SNUFFLE. THE PUPPIES. PETE'N'STITCH :'((((((
Beautiful, though, man, this whole series, just...awesome. Breathtaking, yeah, that's more artistic sounding way of sayin' "beautiful"
Second thought: HEY IT'S THAT PICTURE!!! I didn't think you'd use that, I had forgotten about it and put it in my Doodles folder. I JUST DREW THAT TO EGG YOU ON. MAN. But I'm honored you felt it was good enough to go with the fic!??!
ONE THING: LENS FLARE. AWWW YEAH.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-02 03:59 am (UTC)Jesus christ, I'm a mess.
This is the most heartwrenching thing I've read in a long time.
God, you better bring them back together, Gya. I'm broken to bits right now.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-29 04:26 pm (UTC)