Archive of Our Own

Patrick usually doesn’t mind children. Really, he has a five-year-old niece and she’s pretty cool. One day, he hopes he can become functional and wantable enough to stop crying into his pizza each night and find somebody who might want to have a kid or two with him. That’d be nice.

But sometimes. Sometimes kids are absolute little shits.

“I swear to fucking God,” Patrick mutters as a wet beach ball bounces over to his dry sun lounger for the sixth time in about ten minutes. He reaches a foot down and kicks it hard in the vague direction of the pool. There’s a group of four or five kids who are doing this on purpose, he’s sure. “Why are we here?” he asks.

“Because you needed cheering up,” Will says from the lounger next to Patrick’s -- or more specifically, from where he’s sprawled on top of Gabe on the lounger next to Patrick’s. To anyone else the fact that they’re sharing one sun lounger might seem at least a little necessary, since every seat surrounding the pool is otherwise taken, but Patrick knows this is just because they want to be disgusting. Which, considering the state of Patrick’s love life right now, is just incredibly insensitive. 

“How is getting splashed by preteens while I sit here sweating enough for my own pool cheering me up?” Patrick sits up, pulling his knees to his chest, which really doesn’t help with all the sweating admittedly. His shirt feels very damp, his hair feels plastered to his head, his balls feel fucking sticky.   

“Why don’t you take your top off and get in the pool?” Gabe asks, eyes closed and still managing to look sun kissed and tanning underneath Will’s skinny form. “You’re the only one here with a shirt on.”

“Why don’t you fuck off?” Patrick grumbles. “Can I please just go home?”

“And what will you do when you get home?” asks Will.

“I’ll-- I’ll play some music and clean the apartment and-- I have like, a shit ton of errands to do, so I’ll do them all. And I have work from the store to do, and--”

“You’ll get into bed and mope and order Chinese and watch reruns of Jeopardy in your underwear and you’ll still be sweating because it’s as hot as Hell’s balls everywhere,” Will says, giving Patrick a look like he’s being at all accurate. (It’s a little accurate.) “And then me and Gabe will have to drag you out again.” 

“So what?” Patrick shifts his cap on and off his head, frowning. “I can mope if I want! Nothing wrong with moping. I deserve to mope!” He rests his chin on his knees and watches the dozens of bodies swim and play and shout in the pool. “You’d mope too, if you were me.”

Next to him, Gabe seems to shift under Will, Patrick can feel both their eyes on him now. “Michael is a piece of shit and he doesn’t deserve you,” Gabe says sagely.

“If anything,” adds Will, “you should be glad Michael’s getting married. It means there’s less of a chance he’ll try and get into your pants only to hurt you again.” 

Patrick considers the success rate of pushing Will and Gabe’s sun lounger into the pool before they clamber off and push him in themselves. He decides it’s probably negative-ten and sinks into his seat, waving a hasty middle finger in Will’s direction.   

The thing is, there’s a logical part of his brain that knows Will is right. Michael - ex-boyfriend, ex-future-everything, and destroyer of Patrick’s heart, esteem and record player - is getting married, and this means that he’s moved on, it means Patrick should move on. It means they’ll never have to cross paths again. Except...  

Except Patrick doesn’t understand why Michael sent him an invitation to the wedding. He sent Patrick an invite to the wedding of him and his new flame - their destination wedding, on a beautiful island in the Bahamas, with all expenses paid (minus the flight) - a week and a half before the date of the wedding. Doesn’t… Does that mean something?  

Opposite the three of them, a lifeguard perked on his seat above everyone blows on his whistle and yells at a kid (one of those little shits that keep throwing that goddamn ball at Patrick) for dunking his friend’s head under the water. Once the kids separate, bashful, the lifeguard leans back in his chair, scanning the pool again. 

Patrick watches him for probably too long. He’s handsome. He has nice eyes and dark hair that reminds Patrick of Michael. 

The lifeguard’s gaze moves around the pool before meeting Patrick’s eye; Patrick quickly ducks his head away, realising he’s been staring steadily for several minutes. 

He clears his throat, looking down at his knees, and tells Gabe and Will, “I think I should go to the wedding.” 

There’s several beats of quiet besides the noise of the pool around them. “What?” That’s Gabe. Patrick can feel serious and confused eyes on him. 

He sighs, and turns to look at the both of them. They’re staring at him like he just grew two heads. No - Patrick is not being crazy here. This is a perfectly logical, valid thing to do. “He invited me! Why the hell shouldn’t I go?”

“What are you planning on doing when you get to your ex’s wedding?” asks Will.

“I don’t know, watch the ceremony? Eat cake? Fuck the best man?” Patrick looks back over the pool, his eyes finding the hot lifeguard again. “What do people normally do at weddings?”

“This is the worst idea you’ve ever had,” Will says.

“You know what you need?” Gabe asks.

“New, more supportive friends,” Patrick mutters with a sigh.  

“A boyfriend!” Gabe is sat up now; he must mean business. “We know this guy — Brendon, he works at the bar with Bill — I think you’d like each other—”

“I don’t need a fucking boyfriend,” Patrick insists. “Except maybe for the plus-one at this wedding...”

He frowns, wondering. He means it as a joke, but the more he thinks on it, the more that seems like the perfect idea. He’s going to the wedding to prove he’s over Michael, right? As over it as Michael — who’s getting married and invited Patrick to the fucking ceremony, (almost) all expenses paid. What better way to prove that he’s over it as well than to take a new boyfriend to this wedding?  

Of course, the main problem here is… well, there are two main problems. The first is that he does not have a boyfriend. The second problem is that he may not be quite as... over Michael as he’d like to be. 

He doesn’t have time to think about this much more as a wet beach ball flies over Gabe and Will and bounces with a wet thump on Patrick’s head, knocking his sunglasses askew. 

He hears laughter and swears under his breath, ripping his glasses off, grabbing the ball and marching over to the edge of the pool, where four kids no older than twelve are staring at him with varying levels of mischief in their bright grins.

Patrick opens his mouth, about to say something cutting and cool, something that makes these twelve year olds stop laughing at him and think he’s a super cool grown up and stop throwing beach balls at him. Before he can follow through with this totally cool, cutting remark he hasn’t thought of yet, however, his feet shift against the edge of the pool, his heel losing footing, and suddenly he’s not standing up anymore.

He’s not lying down either. No, he’s underwater, kicking out desperately until his head finds clean warm air and he’s desperately searching for footing that doesn’t exist.

Here’s the thing: there’s many reasons Patrick’s wearing a t-shirt in 90 degree heat and has been sat on the side, with no intention of getting into the pool. One of the reasons is he’d rather not take off his shirt in front of so many eyes; these kids are making fun of him enough already. But another reason is, simply put: Patrick can’t swim. 

So now, in the deep end of the pool, gasping in as much air as possible while his limbs flail desperately, Patrick realises there’s the very real possibility that he may actually be about to drown. This is a realisation met with panic, which doesn’t help. Patrick can’t see anything other than the bopping heads of laughing kids that don’t seem to notice he’s about to have lungs full of water. Does anyone at all see that he’s about to die? 

He kicks harder, like that could at all make things better. His head slips under again, mouth filling with water, panic coursing through him. He’s just thinking, this is it, I’m going to die because a twelve year old threw a beach ball at me, when he suddenly feels something strong and firm close around his middle and hoist him up. He has a quick view of dozens of still faces watching him around the pool when he’s lifted up out of the water and onto solid ground. 

Patrick sits back and keeps his shaking palms down on the pavement, breathing in deeply and catching the eye of one of the wide eyed 12-year-olds watching him from the pool. Then suddenly, he can’t see anything but a pair of wide, whiskey brown eyes. Patrick blinks, and takes in brows pinched in worry, wet black hair dripping water down tanned cheeks and a pink mouth, moving as the lifeguard Patrick had been staring at five minutes ago says softly, “You okay, man? Hey, catch your breath.” 

Patrick catches his breath, nodding slightly as he takes in more of the man who just saved his life. There’s still a whistle hanging round his very bare chest. He has tattoos; ink winds around his collar in the shape of thorns. He’s very close, one of his knees between Patrick’s legs, a hand on his shoulder. Patrick tells himself it’s simply because it’s been a while since he’s been this close to so much naked skin that his dick is pressing urgently against the crotch of his trunks right now.  

“Hey,” the lifeguard’s frown deepens, his face suddenly leaning in even closer. “You’re red in the face. You okay? Maybe you should sit in the shade for a while.”

There are a lot of responses Patrick could give to that. He could say thank you, for one. ‘Thanks for not letting me drown.’ He could say, ‘yes, shade would be great,’ considering how hard he can feel the sun beating down on him right now. 

He’s willing to blame what he says instead on the oppressive heat, or maybe on the fact that he’s probably inhaled some chlorine water that ended up in his brain somehow, or that this handsome stranger’s nose looks so like Michael’s, or all the blood that’s bolted from his head right to his dick. Something must be blamed for the fact that Patrick doesn’t reply like he should, and instead says dumbly, “Can you be my boyfriend next weekend?”

There’s a moment in time, a split second of stupidity, wherein Patrick is convinced he hasn’t said the most idiotic thing known to man. That this is actually a perfectly normal request. Then he comes to. The lifeguard’s frown changes from concerned to confused, and the realisation hits Patrick that he’s just asked this gorgeous model-esque man — who must be at least an eight and a half out of ten, while Patrick struggles on a solid four most days — to be his boyfriend for a weekend.  

He wishes suddenly that he was still drowning in the pool. Take him back, let him die in there.

“I mean— I don’t— Um,” Patrick says ineloquently. “I’m fine. I meant to say I’m fine.” 

“Do you have heat stroke?” asks the lifeguard. “Are you nauseous? Faint?”

“No,” says Patrick quickly. Everywhere is hot and his face may be on fire. He struggles to his feet; it’s suddenly very important he get as far away from this man as possible. “Sorry. I don’t know what I was… Thank you! For saving me. I’ve gotta go.”

“You sure you’re—?”

“Yeah — thanks.” Patrick glances at Will and Gabe’s sun lounger, but neither of them seem to have realised he almost died, both sprawled out with eyes closed. He doesn’t really want to join them and points to the shaded bar at the other side of the pool instead. “I’ll get to the shade. Like you said. Um.”

He’s turning for the bar before this beautiful man can say anything else, before Patrick can embarrass himself any further in front of him. He doesn’t run, because there’s very clear ‘No Running’ signs all around the pool, and because he suspects it’ll achieve the opposite of what he wants if that lifeguard blows his whistle at him. He does speed walk to the bar though, sitting himself down on a stool and feeling his face continue to boil with red hot embarrassment. His wet t-shirt is sticking to his body uncomfortably, but there is absolutely no way he’s taking it off.  

“What’ll it be?” the bartender asks, and Patrick eyes the drinks behind the bar. 

Truthfully, what he’d love right now is something strong and alcoholic. Unfortunately, this bar does not have a liquor licence and everything Patrick can see is very child friendly. Well, child friendly with extra additives. “Um. Coke. And a Snickers.”

If he can’t drown his sorrows in a strong scotch, he’ll try drowning them in sugar instead. 

He’s eaten his already half melted chocolate and is staring into the glass of coke, thoughts stuck between dark amber eyes and beautiful distant weddings, when somebody sits themselves down on the barstool next to his own. Considering there’s at least three seats free either side of Patrick, and considering this somebody is the beautiful lifeguard from before, this causes Patrick to very quickly glance up.  

“Hey, so,” says the lifeguard, smiling and apparently oblivious to the fact that Patrick is already planning out several exits from this bar - most including a nose dive back into the pool he’d really like to die in for real now. “I’ve been thinking about it.”

Patrick has no idea what this man’s talking about, but he nods like he isn’t about to be on the front end of an anxiety attack. “Uh.”

“I’m Pete, by the way,” the lifeguard — Pete, apparently — adds with a hand held out. 

Patrick shakes it, still confused as to why this gorgeous man is sitting next to him. To laugh at him, Patrick assumes. He wouldn’t even blame Pete that much; Patrick’s well aware he’s a mess. When he realises Pete is staring at him, waiting, he rushes to introduce himself. “Oh, uh. Patrick. I’m... Patrick.”

Pete smiles widely. “I was thinking about what you said before.”

Patrick knows it’s a lost cause, but he still can’t help but hope that Pete is only talking about something inconsequential he said in their brief conversation. The part about needing shade, perhaps. Or the thank you. He bites his lip and says, “Shouldn’t you be— uh, yelling at kids and saving dumbasses who can’t swim.” He gestures vaguely in the direction of the pool behind them.

“I just finished my shift,” Pete says. “Kids are still being yelled at, don’t worry, just not by me.”

“Okay,” says Patrick. He clears his throat. “Look, can we just forget what I said before, please? You’d just saved me from drowning — and I appreciate that! I do! — I just… I was clearly not in the right state of mind.”

“So, you didn’t mean it?” Pete asks, an eyebrow raised. “‘Cause you know, you’re—”

“There’s nothing to mean,” Patrick cuts in. “I had a dumb thought. I was… I don’t know why I asked you...”

“A dumb thought?” Pete repeats, sounding amused.

“I— My ex is getting married and I need a plus-one. A date, with like a long-term boyfriend. Which I do not have.” Patrick has no idea why he’s saying any of these honest, horrific things. He’s beginning to suspect that Pete’s earlier concerns that he may have heat stroke are correct. He’s clearly delirious. “But I don’t… I shouldn’t have asked a stranger. Obviously. I have friends who can like, help me with this.”

Patrick thinks of Gabe and Will and their complete lack of enthusiasm for this brilliant idea. He thinks of Andy, Joe and Vicky, friends that work with him at Nervous Breakdance, his record store, and how unenthused they’ll no doubt be too. None of his friends really liked Michael. It wasn’t until a few months ago he realised they maybe had legitimate reasons for that dislike. He doubts even bribing Joe with money for his weed habit will work this time.

“Really?” says Pete, looking torn between amusement and confusion. “Wait, you were asking if I’d go with you to your ex’s wedding? As a date?”

“As a pretend date. So I can say, you know, I’m over him. It comes with an all paid trip to the Bahamas. So, uh. Free vacation.” Patrick clears his throat. “But no, I’m not… I’m not asking you.” He turns back to his coke, but his gaze keeps sneaking up to those pretty dark, golden eyes despite himself. “I mean, unless you… were thinking about it.”

Pete taps his fingers against the bar for a moment, frowning. “You want to know if I’m thinking about being a stranger’s fake boyfriend for his ex’s wedding on a tropical island somewhere? Just… uproot my life for a weekend, for a complete stranger.”

“And a… free vacation,” Patrick mutters, already wondering how long it would take to knock himself unconscious if he starts banging his head repeatedly against the bar.

“This was a lot easier when I thought you were just asking me out,” Pete murmurs on a sigh.

Patrick sucks in a breath and decides not to ask what the answer to that question would be. (It would be no. He’s 95% sure it would be a no. The eight and half would never date the four.)

Pete sighs dramatically and gets up from his stool. “Don’t move. I’ll be right back,” he says, before leaving the bar. Patrick assumes that’s code for ‘you’re a weirdo and I’m just gonna leave now.’ It would’ve been more polite if he’d not told Patrick not to move, but well. He’s probably just trying to be nice.

Patrick slumps on his stool and knocks back his coke, wishing more than anything it was full of something far stronger than carbonated sugar and caramel. He wonders if he could possibly convince Michael he’s over him by showing up alone.

No. That’d just seem sad, probably. Or… it’d seem sadder.

He should probably get back to Gabe and Will before they start wondering where he’s gone.

“Okay,” says a voice behind him, and Patrick turns to see Pete standing there. Just as shirtless and pretty as before, except now he’s holding a cellphone in his hand. “What’s your phone number?” he asks.

Patrick stares at him. “Huh?”

“Well, I figure we’ll need to stay in touch, right? You could just give me the plane details now, but they might change, y’know? Flights do that sometimes. We should take each other’s details.”

“I, uh.” Patrick stares at him. “You… You want my number? You wanna… do this?”

Pete shrugs. He seems completely at ease with this bizarre and outlandish plan. It’s only as Patrick’s silence stretches he looks a little uncomfortable. “That’s what you wanted, right?” 

“Yeah! Uh, yeah.” Patrick’s waiting for the butt of the joke to appear. He’s waiting for Pete to start laughing. But Pete just hands him the phone and says, “Put your number in. I’ll text you.”

Patrick does as he’s told, rechecking he’s entered the right digits about four times because his fingers are so sweaty, wet and shaky, he keeps messing it up. Once he’s entered the right number and put in his name, he hands the phone back to Pete. “Are you sure?” he asks.

Pete shrugs. “Like you said, free vacation.” He gives Patrick a stunningly bright grin and turns away from the bar, toward the changing rooms. Patrick stares after him for a moment and can’t help but wonder if he did actually die in that pool after all. Perhaps he fell unconscious and has just imagined this handsome stranger offer to pretend to be his partner in order to get at his ex.

Free vacation, he thinks to himself. That was probably why he agreed to it. Who wouldn’t want an all-expenses paid trip to a beautiful island in the Bahamas?

**

“I’m sorry, you’re going where with who?”

Patrick sighs, picking up and putting down a Tom Waits vinyl for the fourth time in as many minutes. He’s supposed to be sorting the blues section out, but he’s become a bit distracted by more of his unsupportive friends judging him for a perfect plan of action to do what they’ve been telling him to do for weeks — get over his ex-boyfriend.

“Michael’s wedding,” Patrick repeats himself, dropping the vinyl and doing his best to ignore the glare he can feel Vicky bore into him. “With Pete.”

“Who?” 

“Pete,” Patrick says. “He’s a lifeguard. Gabe and Will know who I’m talking about.”

Gabe and Will are not here to confirm or deny this, which is good because they’d definitely deny it. Patrick told them, of course. He told them he now has a (pretend) date for the wedding. They seemed about as enthused for it as Vicky is now.

“You’ve never mentioned this Pete guy before,” Vicky tells him. 

“I mean, I don’t mention every friend I have to you.”

“He’s a friend?” Vicky sounds doubtful.

“Sure,” says Patrick. In the sense that every stranger is a potential friend, he decides, it’s not that big of a lie.

“What’s his last name?” she asks, obviously suspicious now.

“I don’t know, I don’t ask the last name of every single person I meet.”

“You said he was a friend.”

“He’s a new friend.”

“Oh, my God. You just met him, didn’t you?”

“He’s…” Patrick gives up on pretending he’s organising the already completely organised vinyl and sighs, staring out the window. “He seemed okay. I asked and he wanted to do it.”

“Patrick, he could be anyone! He could be a murderer for all you know.”

“He saved me from drowning, Vick, he’s not a murderer, he’s a lifeguard.”

“He saved you because that’s his job. It doesn’t mean much,” she says. Then she frowns at him. “Wait, he saved you from drowning? What were you doing in the pool when you can’t swim?”

“Drowning,” Patrick mutters. “As we established.” He moves away from the blues vinyl and toward the counter so he doesn’t have to see her roll her eyes. 

“He’s probably a total creep. This is a Bad Idea, Patrick.” He can practically hear her capitalisation of the words.

Honestly, Patrick doesn’t know why he bothers telling his friends anything when they’re just dicks about it. This isn’t even the worst idea he’s ever had. Where were they when he thought surprising Michael with a trip to the Tate Modern for his birthday while they were in London last year was a good idea? Michael had hated it because he wanted to go to the Tate Britain and Patrick had spent a fortune on the apology cake for getting it wrong; that had been a Bad Idea. This isn’t a Bad Idea.

Well, it... probably isn’t a bad idea. Although, he can’t help but feel a bit concerned that it’s been several days since he met Pete at the pool and he still hasn’t had any text from him. Pete definitely said he would text him; Patrick remembers this clearly. So, there is a bit of worry there. A bit. There is a chance, after all, that Pete considered further the idea of going anywhere with Patrick and decided (like Patrick’s stupid friends) that this is a Bad Idea and deleted the number Patrick put in his phone.

He’s not about to tell Vicky any of this, of course.

“Bad idea?” a voice behind them says, and Patrick sees Andy appear from the back room with a box full of teen’s pin badges built for backpacks. ‘I’m the emo one’ claims one of the badges when Patrick peeps at the top of the pile. Patrick’s not sure who the hell turned his record store into Hot Topic, but he really needs to have words with them at some point. Andy turns to Vicky. “Patrick told you about his plan to crash Michael’s wedding, huh?”

“I’m not crashing anything,” Patrick complains.   

“You say that,” Andy says. 

“I’m not sure he’s going to be happy to see you,” Vicky says.

“He invited me!” Patrick says, and he’s about to point out the importance of this fact when he feels his phone vibrate in his pocket.

“That doesn’t mean much,” Andy says, putting the box of badges down on the counter. “Dude, did you even RSVP?”

“I don’t know if I need to,” Patrick says, but he’s not paying much attention to Andy and Vicky’s disapproval anymore, eyes on his phone, where a text from a phone number he doesn’t recognise asks, big favor??

He frowns at the screen for a moment. Vaguely, he recognises that Andy and Vicky are still berating him, but he chooses to ignore them, focussing on his phone as he types out, Who is this? before hitting send.

pete from the pool, the reply says innocently, and Patrick feels some strange mix of anxiety and relief. He considers how to respond, wondering if Pete means that the big favour Patrick’s asking of him is simply too big and he’s decided to back out. Not two seconds later though, another text comes: be my d8 2nite?? 

Patrick stares, trying to make the words make sense, before sending quickly: ???

Apparently that’s the only way he can really express all the confusion coming at him right now.

“What’s wrong?” Vicky has apparently stopped expressing her disappointment in him long enough to realise his attention is entirely focussed on his phone. “Patrick?” 

Patrick closes his hand around tightly around his phone, afraid suddenly that she and Andy will snatch it away in the name of an ill conceived intervention. He’s about to tell them both that it’s just his mom asking about dinner plans when his phone vibrates again. Except this time, it doesn’t stop vibrating and Patrick realises Pete is trying to call him.

He panics for a second, but Vicky looks suspicious enough to want to snatch the phone from him, so he quickly answers, shoving the phone to his ear and making a fast escape to the back room, though not before he says into the phone, loudly, “Hell— Hello, mom?”

The line is quiet for a moment as Patrick shuts the door behind him. “Huh,” Pete says eventually. “Not really the kind of relationship I was thinking we’d be getting from this.”

Patrick leans back against the shelves of unselling vinyl they keep at the very back of the room and listens for a moment to make sure Vicky and Andy aren’t following. It seems quiet. 

“No?” he finally asks Pete. “You know, this is all totally platonic. I told you, I just need a fake date.” It seems important to reiterate this point, for his own sake as well as Pete’s. He wants Pete to know that he’s aware Pete is well out of his league. He’s not going to try and be desperate or anything. 

Pete laughs. “I’d still rather you didn’t call me mom.” 

“I wasn’t calling you mom,” Patrick says. “My friends are just… Anyway, what, uh. Why were you calling?” What did that text mean? is what he doesn’t ask, but hopes Pete plans on answering anyway.

“Okay, so. Here’s the thing,” Pete says, which is never a good way to start a conversation. “I told my mom, you know, about the whole wedding thing, and now she wants to meet you.”

“Meet me?” Patrick repeats, confusion ebbing through him further. “What? Why?”

“What?” Pete doesn’t sound like he thinks confusion is an appropriate response. “Your mom doesn’t wanna meet me?”

“No,” says Patrick, alarmed. “Because I haven’t told my mom I’ve got myself a fake boyfriend for my ex’s wedding.” His friends are annoying enough; his mom would go ballistic. 

“Well, no,” says Pete. “Me neither. I told her I've got an actual boyfriend who’s taking me on a wedding vacation.” 

“Why would you tell her that?” Patrick asks, eyes widening as he feels the dull throb of panic course through him.

“Because telling her it’s something fake would probably make both my parents wanna talk me out of it and think it’s kinda weird,” Pete points out. “Which it... sorta is, by the way.” 

“Nobody’s forcing you to do this. You can back out if you want,” Patrick bites out, hating the words as they come out his mouth. Pete can’t back out, Patrick needs Pete for this to work. He has to go to this wedding and he can’t go alone.

“I’m not backing out,” Pete says. “I’m asking you to come be my boyfriend in front of my mom and dad tonight so they’ll stop asking who I’m disappearing to a desert island with next week.”

“It’s not a desert island, it’s a tropical Bahamas island,” Patrick mutters, frowning now. “I don’t know about this. Can’t you… get out of it? I’m not good at this sort of thing.”

“My mom won’t stop hounding me since I told her,” Pete says. “And she’s bummed I’m missing out on dinner plans with them since I’ll be at this wedding. C’mon, dude. Please?”

Pete sounds genuinely distressed and Patrick feels something heavy squeeze his chest. He shouldn’t hate disappointing a stranger this much. 

He sighs deeply. “Okay,” he says. “Fine, I’ll do it. What time?”

“Awesome,” Pete sighs in some relief. “You can come round at about six. I’ll text you the address.”

“Right.” Patrick nods though he knows Pete can’t see him, already trying to form some excuse for his friends as to why he’ll have to leave the store earlier than usual. A thought comes to him. “Wait. What’s your last name?”

“Uh, Wentz,” Pete says. “But my parents will probably prefer Peter and Dale, so don’t worry about the whole Mr and Mrs Wentz thing.”

“I’m not worried about that,” Patrick says, deciding on something. “I’ll see you tonight.”

Patrick is walking back out onto the shop floor less than a minute later, and Vicky and Andy both look up from where they’re in close conversation behind the counter.

“Wentz,” Patrick tells Vicky, shutting the door behind him. “Pete’s last name is Wentz. He’s absolutely not a creepy murderer. ...Probably. And I’m going over to meet his parents tonight, so you guys will have to survive without me. I’m leaving early.”

Andy and Vicky are giving him looks that tell him he’s just admitted to Bad Idea Number Two. Patrick decides to ignore them both.

**

Patrick is beginning to regret everything about this grand plan of his. He regrets telling Pete that he’s down for this stupid meet the parents farce. He regrets asking Pete to be his boyfriend for a weekend. He deeply regrets managing to slip on concrete and being saved from drowning by a hot lifeguard. And he figures from there he might as well regret choosing trumpet lessons over swimming lessons as a child too, since that’s probably the main reason he can only ever gasp and kick and struggle in water above chin level. There are many regrets.    

In fact, by the time he’s riding the bus in an uncomfortable too-tight smart button up, on his way to the address Pete texted him earlier, Patrick is on his way to regretting his own conception, to be frank. Would Pete be that upset if Patrick sends him a text cancelling the entire goddamn thing?

He tries to remember why he’s doing this in the first place: to prove to Michael that he’s totally over him. It’s important, because there’ll be a moment at the wedding where Michael will look over at Patrick, see him with a boyfriend, holding hands or something, and he’ll realise how little Patrick cares about him or their breakup. It’s going to be perfect. 

It’s this thought he keeps in his mind as he gets off the bus and takes the ten minute walk toward Pete’s parents’ house.

It’s only after he’s knocked on the door that Patrick comes to contemplate that he and Pete are not prepared at all for this. He literally knows nothing about Pete’s family. He knows nothing about Pete. They have no story for how they met, he doesn’t know how long they’ve supposedly been dating. Why didn’t they talk about any of this? Or at least text? They could not be less prepared. 

Shit. 

He mutters his internal monologue out loud, “Shit, shit, shit—”

The door opens and a woman with dark hair and Pete’s smile stands in the doorway. “Oh, hello,” she says, looking honestly thrilled to see him.

Patrick clamps his mouth shut, then opens it again, and says, “Hi. Hi, I’m Patrick.”  

“Of course you are. Come in,” says Mrs Wentz — Dale; Patrick does remember Pete saying to call her Dale. She shuts the door behind him as he shuffles into the hallway. Their house is unfairly large. Perfect suburbia, reasonably wealthy levels of large. “Pete’s told us so much about you.”

“He has?” Patrick is pretty sure Pete knows nothing about him. Strangers talking in online chatrooms only two messages in (with the first message, of course, being, “asl??”) know more about each other than Pete knows about Patrick at the minute. He sure doesn’t know his age, or where in Chicago he lives, he doesn’t know where he works… Patrick is a little bit terrified of exactly what Pete’s been telling his parents about him. If it’s anything mildly accurate, it must be something to the effect of: So, he’s called Patrick, and he’s kinda chubby and awkward and he can’t swim.   

“Well, he’s told us bits and pieces. I’m sure you’ll fill us in.” 

As Dale smiles at him and gestures toward the end of the hallway, Patrick realises just how unprepared he is. He didn’t even bring something for dinner. Shouldn’t he have brought a bottle of wine or something? That’s what people do when they meet the parents, right? He never met Mihael’s parents like this, he met them at a birthday six months into their relationship, after Michael couldn’t put it off anymore.

“Pete and his dad are in the kitchen,” Dale says.

She leads him through the door at the end of the hallway, where Pete is standing by the table next to an older man who must be his father. Pete looks as gorgeous as he did at the pool, but he’s wearing a shirt now, of course, unlike their last meeting, which Patrick decides should make the chances of him embarrassing himself in front of an eight and a half (possibly a nine, now Patrick’s looking more closely) less likely. Hopefully.

“Babe!” Pete is hurrying over and wrapping Patrick in a tight hug before Patrick’s through the door. He smells nice, like aftershave and hair gel and something unmistakably boy. Attractive boy. It’s been a while since Patrick has been hugged by anybody this good looking and he can feel his face heating up magnificently. Pete pulls back, but not fully, bright eyes meeting Patrick’s, and for a second Patrick is absolutely terrified Pete is about to kiss him. 

Unprepared. Unprepared. He is so unprepared for this. 

Luckily for Patrick’s heart rate and blood pressure, Pete does not lean forward to kiss him, but does keep an arm around his shoulder as he turns to his parents. “See? One handsome boyfriend right here,” he tells them. 

Handsome...? Well, if nothing else, it’s comforting to know that Pete seems to be a pretty good liar.

Pete’s dad chuckles. “It’s good to meet you, Patrick,” he says, sounding sincere.

From there Pete’s parents continue to prepare dinner, while Patrick follows Pete into the dining room where he begins setting the table. Patrick’s starting to wonder if he overdressed a little. Pete and his parents don’t look badly dressed or anything, but Pete is wearing a Metallica sleeveless vest while Patrick stands next to him in the smartest shirt he owns. He really hopes they don’t expect him to take his fedora off.

He shifts uncomfortably as Pete sets down knives and forks on the dining room table, listening to the voices of Mr and Mrs Wentz in the kitchen as he murmurs quietly to Pete, “Hey, um, can we talk in private for a moment?”

Pete glances at the doorway to the kitchen for a moment before his gaze his shifts back to Patrick. He nods, and motions Patrck to follow him out the room. “Just showing Patrick around, ma,” he calls down to his parents cheerfully as they ascend the stairs and Patrick takes a moment to cringe internally. There’s no way his parents think this is some innocent bathroom trip or something. 

“Did you have to say it like that?” Patrick hisses at him as they reach the top of the stairs. 

Pete just grins back. “You’re the one that asked for a ‘word in private’. I’m making this believable, Tricky.”

“Don’t call me that.” 

“Would you prefer Pattycakes?” 

“Definitely don’t call me that.” 

Pete looks likes he’s considering that as they climb up yet another set of stairs to the third storey (seriously how big is this house?). “Tricky it is then.” 

Patrick thinks back to what Vicky said about choosing a potential murderer as a fake date. He still doesn’t think Pete is a murderer, but he is beginning to question not getting to know Pete a little better before committing to this. Patrick isn’t convinced he won’t want to commit murder by the end of this ordeal. 

He follows Pete into the room at the end of the hallway. It seems to be a bedroom; two double beds taking up most of the space, a TV in the corner on top of a chest of drawers, various posters of punk and metal bands Patrick recognises covering the walls.  

“Do you have a brother?” Patrick asks, glancing around.

“I do, but this was my room, not his.” Pete collapses down onto one of the beds. “I moved out of here a few months ago.” He leans back against the headrest and smirks up at Patrick before saying, “So, is this the part where we make out?”  

“What? No!”

Pete shrugs. “I mean… make believe make out then?”

“No,” snaps Patrick, wondering what the hell that would even mean. He lowers himself on the bed, a few inches from where Pete’s feet are sprawled out; Pete’s wearing socks with Starscream’s face plastered on them — ones Patrick’s pretty sure he’s seen at the kid’s department at Target. “Nice socks.”

“Thanks. He’s by far the best Transformer.” Pete’s right, of course, but Patrick just rolls his eyes, rather than dignifying that with a response. “Did you bring us up here to talk about my socks?”

“No, I brought us up here because I was thinking that maybe we should prepare a little for any questions your parents might have,” Patrick retorts. “We know nothing about each other!” He’s starting to panic a little, maybe.

Pete seems to consider that. He sits himself up and scooches closer to Patrick, Transformers socks now on firmly on the carpet and hand on Patrick’s shoulder. “Alright, dude, alright. Don’t lose your sideburns. What do you wanna know?”

Patrick frowns, considering. “Okay, um. Where did you take me on our first date?” he asks. He can feel face flushing, which is ridiculous. It’s not real, it shouldn’t give him this reaction. 

“The coffee place round the corner from the very pool we met at,” Pete says immediately. “They do an amazing cinnamon roll...”

Patrick nods; he knows exactly which coffee place Pete is talking about. “Yeah — Yeah, I know that. It’s opposite my record store.” Pete’s right. It does do an amazing cinnamon roll. That wouldn’t be a bad first date, he has to admit.

“Wait,” Pete is frowning at Patrick now. “Your record store? You own Nervous Breakdance?”

“Uh, yeah. You know it?”

“Dude! I buy all my vinyl from that store! Shit, man... I’ve never seen you in there before though.”

“I usually stick to working at the back. Except when customers get ratty and ask for the manager, I guess.” He supposes he should be glad Pete hasn’t ever ticked the ‘customers we’d cheerfully murder’ list that he and his employees have drafted.

“Well, you have a great collection. Your metalcore needs some work though.” Pete leans back on his hands, looking Patrick over with a curious expression on his face. “Heard of Arma Angelus? You should get their album in your store.”   

Patrick frowns. He recognises the name; he’s pretty sure Andy has tried to get that album in before, but Patrick took one listen and declared it to be complete shit. Not his genre, true, but he’s not letting in just anything. There are standards. He shakes his head. “They’re shit, dude,” he says bluntly. “Not coming near my store.”

Pete scowls like Patrick just deeply insulted him. “Fuck you, they are not!”

Patrick is a little taken back by the vitorol in that. Music is that one area he refuses to fake though, and if Pete’s mad at him because their musical interests don’t entirely match up... then whatever. He’ll get over it. Patrick shrugs.

“What’s wrong with them?” Pete demands. Downstairs, Patrick is pretty sure he can hear Pete’s mom calling them, but Pete either doesn’t hear or has chosen to ignore her.

“It’s just noise,” Patrick says, a little worried now about how worked up Pete looks. It’d be just his luck if Pete bailed on this whole thing just because Patrick insulted his favourite band. He tries to think back on the two songs Andy showed him in the store several months ago, looking for anything positive. “I think some of the lyrics were... okay?” he tries. “But honestly, I can think of other bands of a similar genre that--”

“My lyrics are better than ‘okay’, asshole!”

“I mean, yeah, I think, probably, they were good, but they were kind of hard to hear at all over the—” He stops speaking abruptly. Wait a minute. “Wait— Your lyrics?”

“Yeah, my lyrics. That’s my fucking band, dude!” 

Patrick’s eyes widen in a moment of dawning horror. “Oh,” he says. “Well, they’re, uh... Do you like, play guitar or drums or…?”

“I’m the singer,” Pete says huffily, arms folded across his chest.

“Oh.” 

Patrick was afraid of that. He’s not entirely sure ‘singing’ is even an adequate description for the use of vocal cords going on in the Arma songs Andy played for him. He’s not entirely sure what to say either. But he is pretty sure the old adage his mom used to repeat, the classic “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all,” is pretty apt here.

So, instead he performs a great impression of a bobblehead and nods repeatedly in acknowledgment. “I see,” he says. Pete continues to scowl like this is somehow more insulting. “I didn’t know you were in a band,” Patrick tries eventually when his quiet acknowledgement doesn’t seem to be doing very well.

Pete’s eyes narrow for a moment as he seems to consider what to tell Patrick. “We’re... not so much anymore,” he admits. “We broke up like a year ago.” He sounds frustrated as he says this, looking away like he doesn’t really want to admit it at all.    

“Oh.” Patrick bites his lip, watching Pete frown at his bedsheets, before muttering, honest, “I’m sorry, dude.”

Pete shrugs, but before he can say anything else, another shout from Pete’s mom comes from downstairs, louder now. Pete sighs. “Shit, we’d better get down there before she comes up here to murder me for letting the lasagne get cold.”

“No, wait!” Patrick grabs Pete’s wrist as he gets up from the bed. “We’re still not ready! What-- How did we even meet?”

At that, Pete has fixed his grin back in place. “I saved you from drowning,” he says proudly.

Patrick glares at him. “I meant in this... delusion we’ve created.”

“So did I,” Pete says with a shrug. “It’s what I told my mom and dad.”

“You told your parents you actually saved me from drowning? Why?” Patrick can’t help his horror. He was hoping for this to be at least a mild escape from embarrassing realities. 

“Why not? Isn’t it cute? You were so overcome by my good looks, you practically asked me out right there on the spot, remember?”

Patrick can feel himself get suddenly warm all over. He decides that this has to be because one of Pete’s parents must have turned the heating on for some reason, not because he’s blushing so hard he fears his sideburns might be about to catch fire. “That’s not what happened--”

“Pete!” There’s a definite edge of serious annoyance to his mom’s tone now. 

“Okay,” Pete says, grabbing Patrick’s hand and pulling him toward the door. “We’ll bluff our way through it, let’s get down there before my mom kicks us both out.” When they’re hurrying down the stairs, he adds, “I’ll say you had a bathroom emergency or something.”

Patrick pulls a face. “No, you won’t! I thought you wanted me to make a good impression here.” Though Patrick’s diligently following him now, Pete still hasn’t let go of his hand. Patrick could probably pull away, but… well, they’re making this believable, right?

“Shh,” Pete says through something close to a laugh - Patrick isn’t about to describe it as a giggle, despite that that may be exactly how it sounds. 

Mr and Mrs Wentz are already sat at the dinner table and Patrick feels a quick flood of hot guilt as he sees them both frowning at him and Pete as they enter the room. “I’m really sorry,” he tells them quickly, before Pete can offer up something embarrassing. “I wanted to take a look around Pete’s old room and I distracted… us.” He cringes at himself as soon as he’s said it. It might have been better for them to think he was having stomach issues in their bathroom.  

Rather than show any annoyance about this, Pete’s mom only shakes her head. She holds up a hand as Pete’s dad laughs and says, “We’d prefer you kept any making out to your own apartment, Pete.” 

Pete only shrugs like this is no big deal, sitting down and looking pointedly at Patrick until he follows suit and sits down next to him.   

The meal is pleasant enough; Pete’s mom is a good cook, and Patrick wastes no time in telling her she makes a mean lasagne, much to Pete’s amusement, judging by the snort of laughter he makes. 

“So, Patrick,” says Dale — not Mrs Wentz, she insists, when Patrick forgets — ten minutes into dinner. “Pete tells us you’re whisking him away to some sort of wedding next weekend?”

“Oh, uh. Yeah.” Luckily Patrick has already thought a little about this. “My cousin. He’s a last minute kinda guy, you know? Engaged for a year before booking this huge thing, two weeks notice for everyone. It gave me a plus one, and me and Pete haven’t been dating long, but… I can’t imagine taking anyone else.” 

He looks at Pete with what he hopes is a sincere, loving expression. Annoyingly, his cheeks still feel unnaturally warm, which only gets worse as Pete looks back at him with laughter in his brown eyes. 

Pete’s parents, at least, seem to buy it.

**

Miraculously, the dinner goes off without a hitch. Pete’s parents are more content to talk about their own lives than ask many details about their son’s new relationship. By the time Pete’s calling a cab for him a few hours later, Patrick may dare even say it went well. 

Pete stands with him outside, waiting for the taxi, relief washing through both of them. “They bought it,” Pete says, grinning while Patrick watches the road.

“Somehow,” Patrick agrees, smiling a little as his gaze catches Pete’s. 

“Hm,” Pete pauses for a moment, looking at his parents’ house behind Patrick. “They’re watching.”

“What?”

“My parents. Or… well, my mom, at least. She’s watching us from the window. No, don’t look,” he adds as Patrick begins to turn his head. “We’re going for casual here.”  

“I have a confession,” Patrick says, eyes locked on Pete’s while the back of his head burns with what he assumes is the curious gaze of Pete’s mother. “I suck at this. I’m not a good actor. I played the donkey’s ass in Sunday school nativity plays and I was still the worst thing in it.”

Pete smiles. His eyes move, briefly, to the house behind Patrick, to the window through which Dale Wentz must be looking, before flicking back to Patrick’s eyes. He takes Patrick’s hand. “You’re doing well for it, dude. Trust me. That probably went better than most actual dates I’ve bought back here.”

Patrick clears his throat, squeezes Pete’s hand and sees the taxi driving up the road toward them. He looks back into whiskey eyes and blurts, “Should we like, kiss?” as the cab pulls to a stop beside them. And God, what the fuck is wrong with him? Patrick really isn’t sure what it is about staring into Pete’s eyes that makes him spurt stupid, humiliating things.  

Pete doesn’t laugh at Patrick though. He smiles, and nods sharply. “You know… my mom would think it was weird if we didn’t,” he says. 

And yeah. Exactly. That’s Patrick’s reasoning too. They’re dating. It would be weird if they didn’t kiss each other goodbye. Patrick used to kiss Michael goodbye all the time. Well, until the last time — shit, don’t think of that, don’t think of that.

Luckily, with Pete putting a hand to the small of Patrick’s back, and his crooked smile suddenly much closer than it was, it becomes strangely easy to forget all about Michael.  

All he’s thinking as Pete’s lips press against his own is the shape of them, the warmth, the way their noses bump and it’s awkward until it isn’t anymore. Pete’s hand cups against Patrick’s chin. He’s a good kisser, of that Patrick is pretty damn sure. Him being a good kisser must be the reason Patrick’s stomach swoops like the first time kissing a crush, it must be.  

Patrick finds that his arms are working around Pete’s back without his permission, pulling him close until they fit neatly together; he doesn’t have to lean up and tiptoe like with Michael— 

Patrick pulls back first, swallowing as he presses his lips together and appreciates the gentle buzzing tingle that lingers there. Pete’s not smiling, an odd look in his eyes as he watches Patrick, tongue wetting his lips.  

“I, uh.” Patrick scratches at the back of his neck, wondering if Dale saw that. She must have believed it. Everyone who saw that must have believed it. Why, Patrick himself could almost… 

“I think that was good,” he says, trying to convince himself that leaning back in for more would be a bad idea. They don’t need to do it again, he shouldn’t be thinking of kissing Pete again. “Believable, I mean.” 

“It was,” Pete agrees after a moment. Beside them a car horn beeps; the cab driver, apparently annoyed to be kept waiting while they kiss and stare at each other.  

Patrick shakes himself and takes a step back, toward the car. “I’ll see you at the weekend then. At the airport.” His hand feels sweaty against the door handle of the car. “I’ll like— text you.”

Pete’s grin returns as Patrick gets into the passenger side of the car. “See you soon, Tricky,” he says softly. 

Patrick turns toward the front window only after they’ve turned a corner and totally hidden Pete from view. His lips are still buzzing. 

Shit, he thinks. 

Okay, so. There’s a slight chance he may have some sort of very real crush on his fake date.

**

Patrick’s not going to make a big deal out of this. He’s not. 

So, he has a crush on Pete, maybe. That doesn’t mean much. Really, it doesn’t. He gets lots of crushes. He has a crush on Jared Leto too, but he’s not thinking about him constantly as he lies in bed at night. Well, not lately. 

But then. He didn’t kiss Jared Leto under the moonlight shortly after meeting Jared Leto’s parents in an ill conceived plan to get back at his own ex-boyfriend. 

Patrick is doing his best not to focus on how attractive Pete is right now. Instead, he’ll focus on the plan. The plan to make Michael see that he doesn’t care about him because he has a new boyfriend. Ill conceived and slightly terrifying as it may be, it’s still an absolutely perfect plan. 

A perfect plan that Patrick is growing more and more fearful Pete could be regretting.

It’s the day they fly out of Chicago and Pete has grown quieter and quieter the further they go through the airport. By the time they’re sat side by side on the plane, which remains still on the runway as passengers continue to clamber aboard, shoving bags in overhead storage and shuffling into seats, Pete’s staring out the window and the playful grin Patrick has grown to associate with him is not there. 

Honestly, Patrick’s starting to get more than a bit worried that the kiss they shared several days ago was a mistake. Where kissing Pete had left Patrick giddy and wanting more it seems to have left Pete looking bereft and much more nervous than he was before. 

Patrick tells himself that the fact that they’re here now, due to take off within minutes, means that Pete would have trouble backing out. The only connecting flight back home once they get there is the one Patrick’s already booked for them on Sunday. What’s Pete gonna do in the meantime, if he gets cold feet? Sleep on the floor at the airport?  

(Yes, Patrick paid for Pete’s flights too; he has a feeling the odds of Pete being here at all would’ve dropped significantly if he’d asked for several hundred dollars for the cost of the flights -- this is a far more expensive plan than he’d hoped it would be.)  

Of course, one thing Pete could do if he regrets ever going along with Patrick is tell Michael everything. Which would be worse than simply not going along with the plan by a factor of about a thousand.

“Hey,” he touches Pete’s arm lightly and Pete immediately jumps, eyes flying from the window to Patrick in alarm, almost as though he’d forgotten he was there. “Are you okay…?” Patrick trails off. He’s so scared Pete’s going to get up and walk off the plane. He still could, probably, if he’s stubborn enough. They haven’t started moving yet; the doors may still be open, Patrick’s not sure.

Pete frowns at him, then shakes his head, just slightly. He turns away and his gaze moves to the Macbook Patrick has placed neatly under the seat in front of him. “You brought your laptop?” he asks. 

Patrick gets the feeling Pete’s trying to change the subject, but decides to let him if it means he won’t start running off the plane in a mad panic to get away from this weirdo who’s clearly a bad kisser and a terrible fake boyfriend—

 “Yeah,” he says, offering a tentative smile. “I’ve been working on some songs, and this flight might give me a long enough time to finish at least one of them.” Patrick decided long ago that GarageBand is one of the best investments he ever made.

“You write songs?” Pete seems to perk up a little in his seat, and Patrick is relieved to see a small smile fall across his face. “Shit, I thought you just collected in your awesome little record store, but you write too? Do you perform?”

“No, no,” Patrick says quickly. He doesn’t add not anymore. “I… I write my own songs a lot, but it’s just, I don’t know, for fun. I’d like to maybe... license one to someone else, but no one’s picked any of them up yet.” 

Pete considers Patrick for a long moment. “Does this mean I could listen to one of these songs you wrote?” he asks. “When you’ve finished?”

“I… I don’t know about that,” Patrick frowns, thinking of the files of his own voice singing the lyrics he wrote himself. The good thing about emailing all those labels and small time recording artists is that he doesn’t have to actually see them listening to his music. 

“Dude,” says Pete. “You can’t tell me you write music too and then not show me some of your stuff! If I remember correctly, you’ve heard my songs, right?” Here, Pete raises his eyebrows. “They were “shit,” remember? Don’t worry, I promise I’ll be more tactful to your stuff.”

Patrick feels his face flush red. “You— You didn’t say you sang for that band! I didn’t know…” 

He trails off. Pete is staring at him steadily, looking torn between amusement and annoyance. Patrick is about to list off many more reasons it was perfectly valid of him to insult Pete’s band, but before he can, an announcement rings out to tell everyone to turn their attention to the air hostesses who have started demonstrating the correct way to fasten a seatbelt. Patrick listens to the announcer explain plane safely in silence for several minutes, wondering if their plane crashing would be better or worse than the embarrassment of Pete revealing all to Michael later, before the demonstration finally comes to an end.    

“Look,” he sighs as he turns back toward Pete, “I wasn’t trying to be a dick before. Your band is…” Here he hesitates. Calling Pete’s band ‘good’ would be an outright lie that he simply cannot say out loud to a man he wants to respect him. Not that bad, maybe? He’s heard worse? 

Has he heard worse? ...He’s probably heard worse.

As he’s thinking of the correct way to word this though — your music is not the worst thing I’ve ever heard is not the compliment he wants it to be — he notices that Pete isn’t really listening to him. The plane has begun to move slowly toward the runway and Pete is staring ahead and gripping his arm rests so hard he looks ready to tear out the fabric. 

It becomes achingly clear just what Pete has been so worried about. “You’re a nervous flyer.” Patrick hopes that doesn’t sound too much like an accusation. 

“I’m not great,” Pete admits, casting a frustrated frown in Patrick’s direction before turning to stare back at the seat in front. “It’s... whatever. I’ll be fine once we get in the air.” Patrick watches his jaw tighten as the plane comes to a stop at the bottom of the runway, a long road of concrete ahead of them.

Patrick hesitates, words caught on the back of his tongue. He recognises Pete’s expression. It’s one he used to get just before he’d go up on stage at local bars and karaoke, sometimes with Joe or Gabe and Will, sometimes not. That was before he met Michael, when he actually thought singing was something he could do, but he remembers the feeling well. It’s nerves. It’s panic. It’s terror of what could happen. 

He tries to think of the things he wanted said to him back then, but can’t think of a single word of comfort. Everything his friends said always just felt empty. So instead, Patrick pulls Pete’s hand from where it’s dug into the arm rest and folds their fingers together, squeezing softly. 

Pete’s frown flickers back to Patrick. He looks like he might say something, but the roar of the engines rises up beneath their feet and the plane begins to move, fast; Pete’s grip tightens to uncomfortable levels. Patrick squeezes Pete’s hand back, not nearly as hard, and says softly, “Hey,” just to try and distract him from the feeling of weightlessness pushing them back, the way he can practically see every nightmare scenario play out behind Pete’s eyes.  

Patrick can’t tell if his attempts at comfort are helping or not as the plane takes off. He certainly hopes the painful way Pete is cutting off all circulation to his fingers is helping in some capacity. Jury’s out on whether this will be worth broken bones. Eventually though, the plane stops rising and starts flying, the fasten seatbelts sign above them flickers off, and there’s a more comfortable chatter and click of unbuckling belts around them as passengers ready themselves for the long flight ahead.

Pete certainly looks somewhat more relaxed, his grip on Patrick’s hand slackening as his eyes meet Patrick’s again. Before either of them can say anything further, a confused female voice behind them says hesitantly, “Patrick?”

Patrick turns in time to see dark hair tied up into a high ponytail, blue eyes and a deep and familiar frown. Michael’s sister, Emma, is standing in the aisle and staring at him in open confusion. Patrick has a mad moment of wanting to pull his hand away from Pete, like Emma has just caught him fondling hands with a man other than her brother. But of course, that doesn’t matter. Michael (and by extension, Emma) stopped caring who he holds hands with a long time ago. And more to the point, he wants her to notice this, needs her to.

He smiles pleasantly. “Oh. Hi, Emma.”

Patrick has never disliked Emma. They were never especially close or anything, but they bonded a little by teasing Michael in the early days of their relationship. She was always nice to him. Which is why it’s quite a shock when she frowns between the two of them, raises an eyebrow at Patrick and asks with surprising vitorol, “What… Patrick, what are you doing here?”

Patrick blinks at her. “Same as you, probably. Flying. To, uh. To Mike’s wedding.” There’s a pause. Emma only stares at him. For a moment the silence is deafening in its awkwardness.

“Hi! I’m Pete,” raising their still linked hands between them, Pete grins, charming, and holds out his other hand for Emma to shake. “Patrick’s boyfriend.”

Emma’s eyes dart between them both, as though waiting for Patrick to contradict Pete. Patrick does not contradict him and Emma does not shake Pete’s hand. “You’re serious?” she says, blinking at Patrick. “Wow, I never thought you’d sink so low as to follow Michael like a lost puppy on the best day of his life?” 

“Excuse me? I was invited,” Patrick points out, and hates himself a little for keeping the invitation in his suitcase rather than his carry-on as Emma’s eyebrows rise to her hairline. It’s clear she doesn’t believe him.

She shakes her head. “What are you hoping to accomplish by coming all this way? Michael doesn’t know you’re coming.” 

“Yes, he does. He invited me. Me and my plus one,” he adds, with a glance at Pete, who’s frowning at Emma with more open hostility than Patrick expected. “I RSVP’d.”

Emma scoffs, a sharp laugh from the back of her throat, but apparently has nothing else to say to that, as she turns around, ponytail whipping behind her, and marches back to her seat a few rows in front of them.

“Well, she seemed nice,” Pete mutters quietly.

Patrick doesn’t answer. He pulls his hand away from Pete’s and grabs his laptop and headphones from under the seat, face heating up and blood simmering close to a boil. It shouldn’t really be surprising that Emma is being hostile; Michael has had several months to give his own version of the story to his sister. He’s also had time to give his version of the story to every guest at that wedding, something Patrick realises he was stupid for not seeing. 

He can feel Pete’s eyes on him as he opens GarageBand and he really hopes that Pete isn’t expecting any riveting conversation for the next few hours, because all Patrick really wants right now is to lose himself in the safety of his music.  

Pete seems to sense that leaving Patrick alone is best, luckily, as Patrick doesn’t hear a word from him for a while. 

He spends the next two and a half hours staring at the screen of his macbook and listening to his own voice, his own melodies, over and over again. He feels like he’s listened to the same verse so many times, in such short succession, that honestly his voice has lost all meaning. And yet after two full hours, when he finally pulls away and listens to his song back in full from start to finish, he’s actually happy with how the whole thing has turned out.  

He knocks off his headphones so they hang around his neck and blinks around the plane, with that same disconcerting feeling as waking up after a long nap. Spotting Emma in her seat ahead of them, resting her head back on a travel pillow, that sticky hot embarrassed anger rears its head again. He ducks his head away. Pete is frowning at him, pen poised above a notebook he has open on the fold out tray next to a can of coke. Patrick realises he also now has a full can of soda in front of him too, and vaguely remembers mumbling an affirmative when Pete asked if he wanted a drink about an hour ago. 

“You finished your song?” Pete asks, putting his pen down. 

“I think so.” 

“Does this mean I can listen to it now?”

No, Patrick thinks immediately, fingers stroking lightly over his keyboard protectively, but when he looks up at Pete’s curious gaze, part of him wonders… 

“It’s not that good,” Patrick says, eyeing him warily. “Like, if you’re expecting something… groundbreaking-- I mean, I like it a lot, obviously, I love it, but--”  

“Do you think it’s better than my band’s songs?” Pete asks, raising an eyebrow. 

Yes, but that’s not hard, Patrick doesn’t say, though his expression alone must give him away. 

“Then let me listen to what you think a real song sounds like,” says Pete. “One that’s not ‘just noise’, as you put it.” 

Patrick gets the feeling for the second time on this flight that he should reassure Pete about Arma Angelus’ music. Unfortunately, that’s probably impossible without accidentally insulting Pete further, so instead Patrick sighs and takes off his headphones before handing them to him.

Pete looks thrilled, but Patrick can’t help but hesitate as Pete puts the headphones on, shifting in his seat. “Just… I’m not much of a singer, so try not to focus too much on my voice, okay? Focus on the melody and stuff. There’s— There’s a part in the middle that I’m not sure about, I know the bass line there isn’t quite right, but I think—”

“Tricky,” Pete interrupts, headphones firmly in place, smiling at Patrick with something akin to fondness. “Just play the song, dude.” 

Patrick hesitates only a few more seconds before clicking play and staring down at the screen. He can hear his own voice faintly through the headphones, but he deliberately keeps his eyes away from Pete’s face, avoiding his reaction entirely in favour of staring down at the screen, at the passing seconds and minutes as the song plays. Twice, Patrick heavily resists the urge to click the stop button. 

Finally though, the song ends and Pete takes off the headphones. When Patrick finds the courage to turn his gaze on him, Pete’s grinning ear to ear.

“You’re really fucking good, man.” Pete looks much more awed than Patrick would think from one little demo. “Your melodies are awesome, your lyrics are... well they’re mostly okay, but your voice-- Dude! You play this stuff at shows and stuff? Tell me you do.”

“What?” This is unprecedented; new and odd and not at all what Patrick’s expecting. “Of course I don’t. I told you, I— This is for like, other people to sing. I’m looking for the right voice, I guess? I don’t know. I really like writing songs... I figure I could write for other people to sing, so—”

“Why would you ever think somebody else could sing that song better than you?” Pete interrupts, looking confused beyond belief for some reason.

Patrick blinks at him. “I can’t sing,” he says honestly.

“Who the fuck told you that?” demands Pete. 

Patrick opens his mouth, a name on his lips. Then closes it abruptly. 

(You were a bit pitchy, Pat. 

Singing isn’t for everyone, babe. Maybe you should just stay home with me tonight. 

You sure you have the right... look for that song? I’m just worried you might get a bit embarrassed if you’re on stage singing that.) 

“I can read the room,” Patrick says finally. “I’ve never really been a singer.” 

“Patrick,” says Pete, grabbing Patrick’s wrist and leaning in close. Patrick has never seen him look so serious. “You are a fucking amazing singer.”

Patrick stares at him, waiting for the punchline. It doesn’t come; apparently Pete is serious. Patrick shakes his head and turns away, closing up his macbook and muttering, “If you’re trying to make me feel guilty ‘cause I said your band sucks, then well, I’m sorry, okay?”

 “You’re sorry my band sucks?”

“Yes,” Patrick says before realising how that sounds. “I mean— No! I just…”

Pete laughs, a lovely low sound that Patrick knows he wants to hear all the time. “Relax, music man. I promise you I wasn’t trying to make you feel guilty. I think you’re amazing.”

When Patrick looks up at him, Pete is still smiling softly. There’s no one around, no reason for him to fake an expression like that. 

Patrick’s not sure he believes the words, Pete’s insistence that his singing has much merit, but he can’t help but believe that Pete believes it.

**

Patrick had thought that Chicago was hot. Patrick had been wrong. Chicago is nothing compared to the heat that hits Patrick as he and Pete disembark the cool air conditioned plane. Even the airport feels like the confines of hell itself. Patrick considers the pros and cons of dying via melting into the tiled floor below. Pros include not being subjected to this heat. Though cons include not being subjected to the fact that Pete, who is walking ahead of Patrick, has taken his shirt off. 

Actually, that’s making Patrick hotter the more he stares. So, it may be a con.

He can’t be more grateful when they both get into a cab destined for the address typed out on Patrick’s invite to the wedding, and it’s wonderfully air conditioned. Not cool enough for Pete to put his shirt back on though, apparently. Patrick watches him, out of the corner of his eye, rather than outright staring. He thinks Pete may still be noticing.  

“Aren’t you sticky?” Patrick asks, and then immediately revisits his desire to die via melting into a puddle.

 Pete blinks at him. “What?” 

“I mean.” Patrick coughs, and considers. An asthma attack would also be a fine death. “The… seats are leather. You took your t-shirt off. Seems like it might be a little sticky. Sweaty. Uncomfortable.” He really needs to shut the fuck up.

Pete smirks, considering Patrick. “You don’t like me with my shirt off, Tricky?” he asks, putting on a show of pouting at him. “Can you fake it, for our friends at this little wedding?”

“I…” Patrick swallows. He’d really like Pete to stop smirking at him like that, like he knows full well that Patrick appreciates every inch of skin and ink on Pete’s bare naked chest. He frowns and turns to look out of the window instead. There’s a beautiful view of the ocean as they drive closer to the apartment complex. A part of Patrick still wishes he were staring at Pete. Fuck. “I guess I’ll cope,” he says finally. “Don’t flatter yourself though.”

He hears Pete chuckle as they drive on.   

The reception of the hotel is more crowded than Patrick expected, though he really should have seen that coming. Most of Michael’s guests will be staying here. As they make their way over to the reception desk, Patrick recognises some of the faces lingering around and lowers the brim of his hat over his eyes to avoid another mishap like the one with Emma on the plane. Even from the lobby Patrick can tell this is a nice hotel. At least four stars. Nothing but the best from Michael, Patrick thinks bitterly.   

“Stump,” Patrick tells the receptionist when she asks for his name after he’s explained he’s there for the big Brown-Mccoy wedding. 

There’s a quick tap of cleanly manicured nails against the keyboard before the receptionist looks back up at them both with a frown. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I can’t find your name here.”

Patrick feels something squeeze his stomach, something horribly close to panic. “Are-- Are you sure? It could be down as Stumph with a ‘h’ on the end. I… I was invited.” How often has he said that lately? How long until it no longer matters?

There’s more tapping, but again she shakes her head. “I’m sorry,” she says gently. “We do have a one-bed available if you’d like to book for the weekend.”  

Beside him, Pete shifts awkwardly. If Pete is uncomfortable, Patrick is about to die of mortification. A voice that sounds suspiciously like Vicky’s is berating him continuously in his own head. The invitation, Patrick is beginning to suspect, may not mean a whole lot.   

“Patrick?” 

Instinctively, Patrick stiffens. He knows that voice all too well and feels dread pool to his stomach as he turns slowly toward it. Michael stands behind him and Pete, brow raised and mouth parted. Patrick can do nothing but stare for a long moment. He looks exactly the same as he did the last time Patrick saw him, in a shouting match at what is now Michael’s house but was once theirs. Though he’s, of course, far more composed now. 

Patrick had thought, weeks ago, that when he saw Michael again he would have just about a million things to say. Most of them shouted bitterly and wittily. Yet now all he can do is stare. The more he stares the more he realises how bad of an idea this all was. His friends were right. Fuck, why didn’t they talk him out of this?

“Hey, dude,” Pete says when Patrick remains stock still. “I’m Pete, Patrick’s boyfriend. You must be one of the grooms.”

“Michael,” shaking Pete’s hand, Michael’s eyes narrow. 

“Ah, the man himself,” says Pete, and his arm cushions itself firmly around Patrick’s waist, which does a perfect job of shaking Patrick from his dazed staring. 

Patrick feels himself shift closer to Pete almost without meaning to. He doesn’t know why, exactly, but he feels much braver all of a sudden. “I was invited,” he says — again. It’s his only excuse for why he’s here, the only thing he can think to bring up. “You sent me an invitation to your wedding. So, here I am.”

“Right. Of course. Emma did say you were here.” Michael tilts his head. “Not petty at all, are you?”

Patrick feels Pete’s gripen tighten, just slightly. “You invited me.”

“Yeah, as a joke,” Michael says, a bark of laughter striking Patrick in the chest. “I didn’t think you’d be sad enough to show up.”

“Hey,” Pete says quietly. “Back off, man. Patrick has every right to be here.” 

Michael snorts, eyes flicking between Pete, whose mouth is a thin line, and Patrick, who feels ready to run out the lobby, taxi to the airport and sink into the walls there until Sunday arrives. Michael takes a deep, steadying breath and makes a face that seems to imply he’s being very patient with the two of them. “You know what? My cousin — Tom — he bailed this morning. Something about a cancelled flight. He’s full of shit, but he did leave a spare room for you, I suppose. I’m a nice guy. I’ll let you have that?” 

Patrick grits his teeth. He wants, so badly, to tell Michael to go fuck himself. He and Pete will take the room the receptionist offered, asshole, and also fuck you! 

Sadly though, after paying for both their flights, Patrick is aware he’s well and truly broke. He can’t afford this hotel’s prices, there’s no way.

“I’m being nice here,” Michael adds into the silence. “Considering all of this.”   

Patrick would really rather die than admit they have to take this offer, but luckily Pete assures that he won’t need to, dramatically waving up a hand in surrender. 

“Well, aren’t you just the kindest guy,” he says, and Patrick can hear the sarcastic fury, even while he sees the bright, too tight, smile. “God, who is it you’re marrying? Whoever he is must be the luckiest guy, huh? Can’t wait to see the two of you get hitched. Floods of tears ahead, for sure.” He turns around, keeping his arm neatly tucked around Patrick’s middle as he leads them both back to the reception desk. “C’mon baby, let’s get us a free four star suite, with thanks to Tommy, cousin of the most generous asshole I’ve had the misfortune to meet.”

It’s hard to say whether or not Michael heard that last sentence, Pete is muttering, but muttering quite loudly. Some self destructive part of Patrick kind of hopes he did hear it.   

One awkward conversation with the receptionist (who confers briefly with Michael while Patrick keeps his eyes on the desk) and a brief elevator ride later, and the two of them are looking around a bright and spacious hotel room. Patrick considers the benefits of simply staying here all weekend. It’s got plenty of amenities, and it’s all paid for by somebody else. He wonders if Michael will be charged for the room service. It’s a tempting theory to test. 

There is one thing he can’t help but notice, however. “Did you wanna take the bed in turns?” he asks, eyeing the one singular king sized bed in the middle of the room. 

Pete is peeking through the glass doors to the balcony. “Hm?”  

“The bed, there’s only one and we’re here for two nights. I guess we could play ‘rock, paper, scissors’ for it if you want.”

Pete stares at him. “Where would we sleep other than the bed?”

Patrick looks over at the couch in the corner of the room pointedly. This is a four star hotel room; it can’t be that uncomfortable. Even though, looking at it, it may be here more for aesthetics than the comfort of the person sitting… or lying down.

Pete looks over at the sofa, before his eyes travel back to the large and very comfy looking bed. “Dude, that bed is huge. I’m sure you’ll manage to sleep in it with me without catching the cooties.” 

Patrick frowns at him. “I’m not being childish,” he objects. 

“Uh huh. Look, Tricky, this doesn’t have to be a big deal. I mean, we’ve already kissed,” says Pete with a shrug. As though to prove his point he lifts his suitcase up onto the bed and sits down next to it. “Besides, what if Michael surprises us with a visit? Gotta keep this believable, right?”

Patrick feels heat creep up his neck. He wishes Pete hadn’t brought up that kiss.  

“Fine,” he mutters. “Whatever. Just don’t touch me in your sleep. And I don’t care how hot it gets, you’re keeping your pajamas on.”

Pete grins at him. “I don’t have any pajamas.”

Patrick finds strength from a place he didn’t know he had and does not do what he wants right then and push Pete and his smug smirk off of the bed. 

**

“We should go out,” Pete says half an hour later, the contents of their suitcases strewn out across the room in an attempt to settle in, Patrick lying back on the bed (his side of the bed, he’d told Pete, without room for compromise) as Pete turns off the TV. He’s been flicking through channels for ten minutes, with little luck besides some weird cartoon they’d both been drawn in by for several minutes.   

“Out,” Patrick repeats, frowning.

“We can’t stay cooped up in here all weekend, c’mon man. You seen the view? This place is fucking beautiful.”

“I’m not holding you hostage,” Patrick says with a shrug, staring up at the white tiled ceiling. “You’re free to go wherever you like.”

There’s a shift of bed springs as Pete crawls up the bed until he’s kneeling next to Patrick. “I don’t like exploring by myself,” he says. “C’mon. I’m starving, and you didn’t eat on the plane either, so there’s no way you’re not hungry too.”

Patrick’s eyes flicker to Pete and he immediately wishes they hadn’t. Pete is practically pouting, golden eyes wide and so hard to say no to. “We could get room service,” he says weakly.  

“If I know assholes like Michael,” says Pete, “and I do know assholes like Michael, I know he’s instructed anything on room service in here to be charged to you, not him.”

Patrick scowls, pulling himself upright. That bland sandwich he ate at the airport in Chicago was a while ago. He can’t deny he’s getting pretty hungry. “Fine, fine. But we’re not eating at the hotel restaurant.”

This request is only proved to be entirely necessary as they pass the restaurant downstairs and Patrick hears the unmistakable gawfuls of Michael’s laughter through the glass doors. He speeds up, Pete jogging to keep up, and doesn’t slow until they’re out of the hotel and onto the road by the beach.  

“Could you eat pizza?” Pete asks as they walk. It’s getting late, but the sun hasn’t set yet and it’s still somehow absolutely, horrifically hot. Patrick is regretting not smothering his legs, arms and face in sunscreen. “I really want pizza.”

“Sure,” Patrick mutters. His thoughts are still stuck behind them, at the hotel where Michael is laughing and eating and utterly uncaring of anything about what Patrick came here to do.    

A hand threads itself into Patrick’s and he almost jumps out of his skin, glancing sideways as Pete squeezes his hand softly and nods pointedly toward the beach, where a couple Patrick recognises are frowning over at him from where they sit on the wall between sand and road. “I think you might have a couple of friends over there. Thought we should keep up appearances.”

“Michael’s parents,” Patrick says, panicked. He pulls on Pete’s hand urgently, dragging him into the nearest restaurant he sees. 

“Y’know,” says Pete after they’ve found a table inside at the very back of the building. “This is not going how I thought it would go. Kinda thought the point of this whole thing was to make a show of being a couple, you know, grind on each other at a wedding, make a groom jealous.”

“What?” says Patrick vaguely, hiding behind his menu as he casts long glances at the entrance. Michael’s parents don’t seem to be following. It’s several seconds before he fully realises what Pete’s just said and whips his head around to frown at him. “That was never how this was going to go,” he says, feeling his face grow hot. “There’s— There’s no grinding— And I’m not making anyone jealous. That’s not the goal here.”

“Really?” Pete raises his eyebrows, the very definition of skeptical. “This whole thing wasn’t so you’d get him wishing he’d never left you, jealous of your new flame and then do like that one episode of Friends and say your name at the altar?”

Patrick stares at him. There’s a lot to unpack there. “Did you just compare me to Ross fucking Gellar?”  

“No, I compared your douchey ex to Ross. I guess in this scenario, you’re Rachel.”

“Are you ready to order?” 

The waiter has terrible timing. Patrick is desperate to tell him no, they are actually ready for this one awkward and important conversation before they look at any food, thank you very much. But apparently Pete really is very hungry because he doesn’t even look down at his menu before saying immediately, “The chef’s special pizza and whatever the local beer is.”

The waiter nods, smiles, and turns to Patrick, who can only blink, startled, and mumble, “Yeah. Same here.”

The waiter takes their menus and disappears into the kitchen. Pete immediately starts chewing on the bread left in the middle of the table. “It’s not gonna be as good as Chicago Pizza, but beggars can’t be choosers.”

“I’m not trying to make Michael jealous,” Patrick says quietly. Pete keeps his eyes on his bread, and Patrick frowns, insisting, “I’m not! I’m… This is like, to prove I’m over him. I thought... if he’s mature enough to invite me to the stupid wedding, then maybe I could prove I’m mature enough to… go and watch it. Preferably with a cu-- a boyfriend.” Patrick stares down at his hands resting on the tablecloth. Now that he says it out loud, it feels a little more childish than he’d considered before.

As though reading his mind, Pete reaches over to take his hand. “Michael isn’t mature, dude, he’s a childish brat. He invited you, what, just to fuck with you? That’s messed up.” 

With great courage, Patrick looks up at Pete’s face. He’s frowning at him, no teasing grin or raised eyebrow, nothing but sympathy in his wide whiskey eyes. Patrick finds his own gaze dipping, without permission, to the soft pink lips beneath them. He clears his throat. “Yeah,” he mutters quietly. “Thanks, I mean. He was never… the most mature person, so I-- I shouldn’t even be surprised.”

There’s a slight pause. “We don’t have to go to the wedding.”

Patrick frowns at him. “What do you mean?” 

“Think about it. We’re on a beautiful island, with a free four star hotel room, for a whole weekend, to do whatever we want. You don’t need to prove anything to those assholes.”

Patrick thinks of going to that wedding, of knowing Michael’s laughing at him, deeply amused by his very presence here, everybody fully thinking him as the sad bitter ex, just as Michael’s surely told them he is. It’s not really tempting anymore.

But… if there’s no wedding to attend, Patrick thinks, if there are no people to convince, then what is this relationship with Pete? What are they doing? Is it wrong to want to keep doing this, just so he can make believe somebody like Pete would be okay with dating somebody like him? Probably... 

“I don’t know,” he mutters. “We… I mean, it’s why we’re here.”

Pete considers him for a moment. “What if we just show up to the ceremony then? We don’t bother with the reception, we go get drunk somewhere else, on our own terms?” 

Patrick frowns, nodding slightly. “Maybe,” he admits.

“And until then…” Pete grins at him. “You, Tricky, are a man in severe need of a relaxing vacation, and you can bet your ass I’m gonna give you it. I’ll make you forget all about the assholes back there and enjoy yourself, trust me.” 

Patrick watches him smile at their waiter as their beers arrive. “You know, Michael is just up the road. We’ll be sleeping in the same building. Gonna be kinda hard to forget that.”

Pete raises his bottle, and after a moment Patrick does the same, clinking them together. “Trust me,” says Pete after taking a long drink. “Fun times ahead, Tricky.

**

Fun times ahead turns out to involve several more beers after that first one. It also involves Pete ordering giant bowls of ice cream as soon as they’ve finished their pizza.

“Are you trying to get me to eat away my feelings about Michael?” Patrick asks as their sundaes arrive.

“Nope,” says Pete with a grin. He pushes Patrick’s beer closer to him. “The drinks were actually the main plan here.” Then he digs into his ice cream, making a show of licking the spoon clean. “I just think no relaxing vacation is complete without ice cream.”

Patrick takes a long gulp of beer, murmuring appreciatively. Truthfully, his eyes can’t seem to stray away from the way Pete is rolling his tongue over that spoon. It’s only after Pete has dipped it back into the bowl of ice cream that Patrick is able to glance away. 

Pete insists on paying for the meals and Patrick is feeling full and pleasantly buzzed as they wander back to the street outside. The sun is setting now, the sky full of bright and brilliant reds, oranges and yellows as it meets the ocean. It’s finally cooler too, which Patrick is extremely grateful for, his arms a dull pink from the heat earlier. 

As they walk, Pete holds Patrick’s hand in his own. “We should still keep up appearances,” he says when Patrick glances at him. Which… yeah. There’s a lot of people around. Any one of them could be Michael or Michael’s family...   

Patrick finds that he doesn’t really care all that much that anyone from his old life with Michael could be watching and judging him right now. He squeezes Pete’s hand in his own and pretends for a moment that Pete really is his boyfriend. There’s no Michael or wedding or misinformed guests. They’re boyfriends on vacation here.

Patrick’s pretend boyfriend is apparently a fan of tacky little gift shops though, which is not a direction he’d hoped this fantasy might take. He pulls Patrick along, and Patrick expects them to go into one of the many bars they pass as they wander along the shorefront, but instead he finds himself pulled into a tiny store with an ‘I LOVE BAHAMAS’ t-shirt hung up above the door.

The shop is full to the brim of little knick-knacks and tacky novelty items that Pete immediately begins to admire. Patrick eyes a couple of car plaques that say things like ‘Honk if you’re horny!’ and ‘Bad girl on Board’ and reevaluates what it is that makes Pete so attractive to him. Between this and the terrible band he was a part of, Pete Wentz clearly has terrible taste. More distressing are the pins and badges he sees that look just like the ones in a box at Nervous Breakdance back in Chicago. He really needs to talk to his staff about that.   

“Oh, dude,” Pete says, picking up a hat with the words ‘I ♥ Bingo’ inscribed on the front, a $1 sticker stuck on the side. 

He has a look in his eye that immediately has Patrick backing away. “Absolutely not,” he says, trying to be firm, but beginning to laugh as Pete grabs his hand and pulls the trucker hat from his head, replacing it with the Bingo hat and grinning proudly. 

“Suits you,” Pete says. “Who doesn’t love Bingo?” 

“I’m not my Grandma!” Patrick complains. Pete’s grin only widens and Patrick tells himself that it’s not the smile Pete keeps flicking over at him that keeps him from taking the hat off, and instead has him sifting through his pockets for a dollar. He just likes hats; this would add to his collection, it doesn’t matter that Pete loves it. 

Before he finds change for the hat, he hears Pete say loudly, “Oh, man! We have to get these.” 

Pete is holding up two bracelets, both silver, one with three tacky little plastic turtles attached and the other with three tacky little plastic sharks attached. When Patrick looks closer he can see the words ‘best boyfriend’ written on the silver of both. 

“No,” Patrick says. There’s a line, okay? Those are the ugliest bracelets he’s ever seen, and also, when laid out side by side -- they’ve gotta be that line.  

“Aw, c’mon,” Pete insists. “They’re like friendship bracelets -- boyfriendship bracelets. If we leave here without these bracelets it’ll absolutely ruin the charade, you know? There’s no way I’d not buy these for myself and my boyfriend.” 

“Nobody here knows you, asshole,” Patrick says dryly. “I think we’ll get away with it.” 

“What if I call my mom and tell her, huh?” 

“You’re not doing that. You’re not even making sense anymore.” 

Pete shrugs, smirks, and takes the bracelets over to the cashier in the corner. On his way, he snatches the Bingo hat from Patrick’s head and puts that on the counter too.

“I can… get the hat,” Patrick says, a little weakly.

“I got it, babe,” Pete says with a wave of his hand. Embarrassingly, the girl behind the counter gives them a look that clearly tells Patrick she thinks they’re adorable. Patrick bites his tongue and tries not to think too hard about the fact that Pete just called him ‘babe’ in front of nobody they need to put on a show for.

Before they’re fully out of the store thirty seconds later, the Bingo hat back on Patrick’s head, Pete is already grabbing hold of Patrick’s hand and wrapping the turtle decorated bracelet around his wrist. Patrick watches Pete’s tongue peek between his lips as he focuses on clipping it together, and tries not to think about how inviting that mouth looks. His neck feels a little warmer as he makes himself look away. 

Pete grins up at him once he’s done and Patrick holds his wrist up to inspect, Pete now wrapping the shark bracelet around his own wrist. It’s the ugliest thing Patrick’s ever seen on his own skin. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t take the thing off and throw it into the ocean right now. That’s only what it deserves.  

“Don’t be surprised if these disappear in the middle of the night,” Patrick says as they walk along the shorefront again. “Mysteriously.”

Pete just smiles over at him, still struggling to clip his bracelet on one handed. “You’ll have to pry this from my cold dead wrist. As soon as I get the damn thing on anyway.”  

“C’mere,” Patrick stops them both and drags Pete over to the stairs down to the beach, away from the groups of people passing by. He grabs Pete’s arm and starts fastening the clip for him, trying to ignore how close he is to Pete’s bare chest all of a sudden.  

“I thought you wanted these to disappear mysteriously,” Pete says, obviously delighted. “I thought you’d let me struggle.”

“If I’m going to look like an idiot, I’m not doing it alone,” Patrick mutters. Once the bracelet is successfully attached to Pete’s wrist, he lets his hands drop and meets Pete’s eye. 

Pete is smiling at him, eyes soft. “C’mon,” he says, and nods toward the beach. “Let’s go get our feet dirty.” 

He starts jogging down the steps to the sand before Patrick can protest. Patrick sighs, and he considers not following, he really honestly does. He’s not going to claim he knows Pete super well, but he sure knows him well enough now to know that this is probably going to end with both of them getting soaked.

Patrick remembers what Pete said about enjoying himself now they’re here and follows Pete down onto the beach.

Pete is already standing barefoot and letting the gentle waves wash over his feet when Patrick reaches him, sandals hanging from his hand. Patrick opens his mouth to ask Pete what the plan is here, then immediately closes his mouth again and begins to wonder if he’s in reality anymore. Because Pete has dropped his sandals and is tucking his thumbs around the waistband of his shorts, then pulling them down to his ankles before stepping out of them. He’s still wearing boxers, of course, but this does lead to a very close to naked Pete Wentz standing in front of Patrick, and Patrick can’t remember what he was going to say anymore. 

“Um,” he says ineloquently.

Pete grins and throws his shorts onto the dry sand next to his sandals. “Ready for a midnight swim, Tricky?”

“I can’t swim,” Patrick says, like Pete doesn’t already know that.

Pete is suddenly very close to Patrick, bare chest almost pressed up against Patrick’s t-shirt. “I can hold you real tight,” he says. “I won’t let you drown. Promise.”

Patrick opens his mouth. Then closes it again. His dick feels embarrassingly hard right now and he’s having trouble resisting the urge to push himself closer to all of Pete’s bare, bare skin.  

“C’mon,” Pete says, wetting his lips. “Just a quick paddle. I’m not even gonna ask you to skinny dip.”

Then Pete grins and, horrifying, breaks their contact, turning to jog quickly into the sea. The water splashes around his feet and he swears, loudly, “Fucking shit!” the deeper he gets into the water. He calls over to Patrick, waist deep in sea water, “Water’s awesome, dude!”

“Really? ‘Cause it sounds cold,” Patrick calls back, but he’s slipping his shoes off and dropping them next to Pete’s. His shorts come off next, and Patrick has never been more thankful he has on a pair of plain black boxers, rather than the embarrassing Ninja Turtle ones he’d considered this morning. He pauses here, fingers fiddling with the hem of his t-shirt. He watches Pete, still grinning over at him, all tight tanned muscles and thin stomach.   

Patrick does not take his t-shirt off, muttering, “fuck it,” and beginning to wade through the water toward Pete. It is fucking cold as he gets thigh deep, just as suspected, but Patrick endures and keeps going until he reaches Pete, the water at their chests, Patrick’s t-shirt very wet now.

“Your shirt’s wet,” Pete tells him, like he doesn’t know.

“It’ll dry,” says Patrick. He crosses his arms. “I was right. It’s cold.”

“It’s not that bad,” Pete shrugs, and it’s true. It could be worse. “And look.” Pete leans back and let’s his feet float to the top, so he’s floating on his back. At first Patrick thinks Pete’s asking him to look at him floating on his back, which - not that impressive. Patrick can’t can’t swim and he could do that easily enough, he’s pretty sure. But Pete’s gaze stays on the sky above and he says, “It’s pretty, right?”

Patrick looks up at the sky. Pete’s right. The sky is full of bright stars, far more than Patrick recalls seeing in Chicago, and the moon, almost full, hangs low above the sea. It is very pretty. “Mm,” he says softly. When he turns back to Pete, he finds Pete has his feet back on the sand beneath the water, and he’s leaning across above Patrick’s eye, touching his hat. At first, Patrick thinks he’s about to take it off, already panicking slightly about the state of his hair, but instead there’s a sound of scraping fabric and Pete’s fingers have a $1 sticker stuck to them. 

“‘Think you’re worth more than a dollar,” Pete tells him, chuckling. Then he takes Patrick’s hand and backs up, deeper into the water, pulling him Patrick with him. “C’mere, I wanna try something.”

They get deeper and deeper, Pete pulling Patrick along, until Patrick makes them stop, the water up to his neck. “I feel I should remind you I can’t swim,” he says.

Pete gently urges Patrick closer, until Patrick is gripping hard onto Pete’s shoulders, Pete’s arms around his waist. His toes dance against the sand, but he’s very aware that it wouldn’t take much for him to lose footing altogether, for his feet to struggle on nothing but blue water, and he clings a little closer to Pete, breath catching.

“It’s okay,” Pete says softly, holding tight. He doesn’t seem to be struggling at all, though Patrick’s clinging to him tight and he’s not a whole lot taller than Patrick. “I got you. You’re not gonna float away.” 

Patrick lets his breathing calm down, still holding tight to Pete’s bare skin. Pete’s confidence makes him relax a little, and he’s suddenly very aware of every inch of Pete he’s touching. He wonders if Pete can feel his cock against his lower stomach. Because Patrick can definitely feel something hard of Pete’s poking against his thigh. He lets his eyes drift back to the shore. There isn’t anyone else on the beach, besides a couple in the very distance, walking by the sea. There are plenty of people on the path though. Small crowds of people walking along the shorefront. Patrick can’t make any of them out; he can’t tell if anyone can make him out.

“Do you think any of them can see us?” he asks Pete.

Pete swallows. “If you can see them.” 

Patrick can’t, not properly. But he nods anyway. Pete is watching him curiously, eyes lidded, and Patrick says, “Maybe they can see this,” before leaning forward and catching Pete’s lips with his own. 

Pete’s surprised gasp lasts barely a second before he’s kissing back with just as much fervor, devouring Patrick like he needs to in order to breath. It’s not chaste and gentle like the last time, standing outside Pete’s parents’ house, it’s desperate, deeper, mouths and tongues exploring like they’ll die if they don’t. Patrick’s hands grope and press against Pete’s body, one of them finding the waistband of Pete’s boxers. 

“This okay?” he whispers, pulling away just slightly. Pete nods quickly, urgently, pushing Patrick’s hand down, and then suddenly there Patrick is, neck deep in the ocean, holding onto a beautiful life guard he met a week ago, with his hand down the man’s pants. 

As Patrick strokes his hand against Pete’s cock, letting his fingers palm around the length of it, Pete gasps into Patrick’s mouth, arms around Patrick’s waist jolting slightly.  

“Don’t let me go,” Patrick mutters, smiling as he pulls back and watches Pete’s expression.

“Fuck. I definitely couldn’t let go,” Pete says, and shudders. “Not, uh. Not sure if I’m brushing up against seaweed or something else right now, but— Don’t let anything alive get in my pants, man.” 

Patrick laughs, stroking faster. “I’ll try.” He’s never done this underwater before; his hand is getting more tired more quickly, that’s for sure.

“Fuck,” says Pete again, hips bucking against Patrick’s hand. Patrick kisses him desperately, and he’s so hard, grinding against Pete’s hip. It only takes a few more strokes for Pete to come, a gasping breath against Patrick’s lips. Pete’s swallows, breaths sharp, before leaning forward and kissing Patrick again, urgently. Patrick kisses back, hand moving from Pete’s dick to his hips, his ass.    

Pete hands are exploring the skin under Patrick’s shirt. Patrick’s dick is so hard, he desperately wants Pete’s hands to be travelling far lower than his pale chest. “Pete,” he whispers.

“I know. Your turn,” says Pete, but rather than push his hand down into Patrick’s boxers, like Patrick expects, he keeps his arm tight around Patrick’s middle and starts kicking them back toward shore. 

“What-- Where--?” Patrick is much too horny, much too hard, much too ready for Pete to understand where the hell they’re going. He considers whether he’ll really be able to wait if Pete wants to do this back at the hotel room. Fuck, no. That’s not fair.

But Pete stops them when they’re just below waist deep in the water, Patrick facing the horizon with his back to the beach. And then suddenly Pete's letting go of Patrick and sinking to his knees. “It’s okay,” he assures Patrick, pulling the waistband on Patrick’s boxers and finally letting his cock free from the confines of his underwear, where it hangs, hard and heavy, just above water level. “Nobody can see us,” he says, and then his mouth is closing around the head of Patrick’s dick, and Patrick almost forgets to breathe.

He should be thinking about those words, about “nobody can see us”, because they seem kind of important. Nobody should see this, of course, nobody but Patrick should see the way Pete sucks and licks and holds his hands against Patrick’s hips. Nobody should see how Patrick almost falls backward from the shock, grasping the top of Pete’s head, at his hair, before he can slip, and gasping, moaning, struggling not to shout, as he feels every nerve end about to snap and collide.  

But aren’t they supposed to know this kind of thing is happening? If Patrick were more capable of cognitive thought beyond Pete’s hungry mouth, maybe he’d consider the implications of why, of them doing what nobody can see, what nobody should see, of what this is. Right now though, all he can think of is the feeling of Pete’s hot mouth against his cock.    

Patrick should probably be more worried about the larger waves, brushing against them and getting close to Pete’s mouth and Patrick’s cock. He’s too busy groaning out Pete’s name like a prayer though, too busy considering how likely drowning will be if he straight up faints right here in the ocean, or possibly straight up fucking dies without drowning. He’s not sure if Pete can hear him moan out his name, but it seems like he can when he takes Patrick in even further and suddenly Patrick feels himself about to come undone. He pulls at Pete’s hair urgently, a warning, but Pete doesn’t remove his mouth as Patrick let’s his orgasm ride out, head tilted back and seeing the stars even with eyes closed.  

Pete reappears from Patrick’s cock a second later, leaning against Patrick’s stomach and laughing a little through the quick breaths.

“We would’ve been fucked,” Patrick gasps out, his own breaths coming out fast, feeling blissed out and half wanting to lie back on the water, float out to sea with this feeling full in his chest. “If those waves got any bigger.”

Pete manages to pull himself to his feet. “Mm.” His mouth is on Patrick’s a second later, tasting bitter and salty all at once, before he pulls back again, taking a deep breath. “We’re okay. The sea didn’t wanna ruin the moment,” he says, grinning. “And besides, I could hold my breath a really long time, anyway. It’s a lifeguard thing. You’d still get to come.”  

Patrick flushes. “Apparently you don’t mind the taste of seawater. That also a lifeguard thing?” he asks before he can stop himself, and Pete just laughs for a long moment.

“Was worth it, wasn’t it?” 

Patrick nods, a smile pulling his face. “We should get back to the hotel.”

Pete’s only reply is a returning fond smile, a small nod. He takes Patrick’s hand and they wade back together, toward the sand.  

**

Nothing else happens in the hotel room and Patrick’s not sure how to feel about it. He wasn’t really expecting them to fuck, exactly. He’s kind of spent, for one thing. Though his dick still twitches hopefully when he sees the bed in the middle of the room.

Patrick is a master of overthinking though, and now all he can think overly of is what they were doing out there, and what it means now.

He can’t be weird about it. So, they had some fun. Pete probably has fun like that all the time. Patrick should really, probably, just ignore everything he’s feeling about Pete, put it in a box in his mind to ignore… forever. It was probably an in the moment thing on Pete’s part. That’s the logical explanation here.   

The two of them shower (separately, obviously, though Patrick finds his thoughts and his hand soon wandering to the feeling of Pete’s mouth on his cock, the image of Pete sucking him off under the water), and they get into the same bed. After a while of overthinking, Patrick falls asleep listening to the sounds of Pete’s soft breaths.

When he wakes up, there’s morning light peeking through the curtains, the sounds of the birds and laughter from the bar below their hotel room. It’s also hot. Very, very hot. The AC must have clicked itself off in the night and Patrick is sweating in his pajamas something fierce. It doesn’t help that Pete has slipped closer in the night; an inked, tanned arm is slung over Patrick’s chest, Jack Skellington tattoo peering up at him from it.

The ugly shark bracelet is still hanging from Pete’s wrist and Patrick sees the words ‘best boyfriend’ clear on the silver. He feels a fond smile flicker over his face, neck and cheeks heating up as he recalls what happened last night.  

Beside him, Pete groans a little, and Patrick looks over in time to see his eyes open, a small smile appearing when he sees Patrick watching him. “Morning, sleepy,” he says. 

“It’s fucking hot in here,” mutters Patrick, though he doesn’t move Pete’s arm from his chest.

“You should try sleeping without your pajamas in 90 degree heat sometime.” 

Patrick shrugs, sitting up and watching Pete retract his arm. “I’d sweat without my PJs on,” he says, stumbling over to the AC gage and turning it on. “I sweat even when it’s cold.”  

“Well, hopefully this’ll help with that today -- we’re gonna go swimming,” Pete tells him, swinging his legs round and digging through his suitcase on the floor. 

“Um. Hi? Still can’t swim. Remember?”

Pete grins at him over his shoulder. “That’s why I’m gonna teach you,” he says.

Patrick frowns. “I don’t… I’m fine. I’ve gone twenty-one years of my life without being able to swim, I manage just fine.”

“Really? You know, me and you met ‘cause you almost drowned, right?” Pete straightens up, watching Patrick with a pair of bright red trunks in his hands. “What if I hadn’t been there?” 

“If you hadn’t been there, that pool would be violating some serious safety laws.”

“It’s not against the law not to have a lifeguard at public swimming pools in Illinois, as long as you have signs saying as much,” says Pete. Patrick stares at him for a moment, eyebrows furrowed. Why is the parroting of rules turning him on? “So, my point still stands. You should let me teach you to swim.”

Patrick sighs, collapsing back onto the bed. “Fine,” he mutters. He tells himself he’s not agreeing to this just because he wants to see Pete in the water again, just because there’s a chance it’ll lead to Pete touching him while he helps. 

“Perfect,” says Pete, grinning. Then he turns to face the wall and slips down his boxers and suddenly Patrick’s staring at Pete’s bare ass. He feels his face heating into a bright blush that makes the whole room feel warmer, even though there’s now cool air blowing around them. He finds it hard to turn away until Pete has pulled his trunks up.  

Patrick changes in the bathroom, because he unfortunately gives far more fucks about showing off his ass and his dick than Pete does. Even though, as his brain keeps reminding him while he changes, Pete has already seen his goddamn dick now. Fuck, he’s tasted his goddamn dick.

Don’t think of it.

He manages to mostly forget about the blowjob last night until they’re at the beach in front of the hotel an hour later. 

They ate pancakes for breakfast at the hotel restaurant and Patrick didn’t even care all that much that he was getting glares from a couple of guests from the wedding. Michael wasn’t there, but Emma was, and so were others Patrick knew, glaring daggers while Patrick laughed at Pete’s impression of the snooty waiters and Pete made a show of wiping maple syrup off of Patrick’s chin. 

Now though, they’re waist deep in the ocean again, and that alone is bringing back memories.  

But Pete has either totally forgotten about last night, or is far better at ignoring any weird feelings he might have about it, because all he seems to be focussing on is trying to get Patrick to “keep your stomach up, man, kick your legs out,” as he tries to do the impossible and make Patrick do a front crawl through the water. 

Or he just doesn’t care enough to overthink like Patrick is. 

“I’m trying,” says Patrick after the fourth time Pete has told him to keep his stomach up above the water. Pete has convinced him to take his t-shirt off, something Patrick has never regretted more, though thankfully he’s so focussed on trying to do what Pete wants, he’s not had much time to be still and get too self conscious. 

Unfortunately, the Atlantic ocean also seems to be against them. Whereas the waves last night had been pretty damn gentle, now they’re bigger, harsher, and absolute shit for learning any kind of swimming.

“Hold up your—” Pete is cut off as a particularly aggressive wave chooses that moment to crash over both of them. Patrick has a moment of panic as his mouth, nose and probably every other orifice in his body is filled with sand and seawater before he’s coughing and spluttering on the shore beside Pete. 

Pete is laughing like the whole thing is hilarious. Patrick squeezes his nose and rubs sand from his hair. He’d probably find the whole thing more amusing if he couldn’t feel sand in all the places it shouldn’t be. 

“Dude,” he says, crawling back to the beach and collapsing against the drier mounds of sand.

“We probably should do this in the pool, huh?” Pete admits, laughing still as they collapse onto the beach, the waves still just barely kissing at their feet. “If a riptide throws you out to the sea, it’ll be hell getting you back again. I’m not used to being a lifeguard out of clean, chlorine water.”

Patrick looks around the beach. Michael’s parents are several yards away; Patrick’s noticed that now and then, as Pete held Patrick up in the water, Michael’s mom would look around at Patrick and Pete and frown at them. 

Patrick scoots closer to Pete, putting down his hand on top of Pete’s in the sand. “Nah,” he says. “They’ll be getting ready for the wedding.” Patrick actually feels better about the whole thing, but he’s not sure he wants to see that.

“Hm. When is the wedding, anyway?” Pete asks. “Tomorrow?”

“Tonight,” Patrick says. “In the evening, I think. Sunset wedding.”

There’s a long pause as Pete considers this, staring at the waves crashing down in front of them. “That’s a very showy thing to do for the new hubby.” Then he turns to Patrick and asks, coy,  “Do you think he’s maybe overcompensating for something?”

Patrick can’t help the burst of laughter that overtakes him there. 

“Honestly?” Patrick asks, unable to keep the smile from his face even as his laughter dies down. “As somebody who’s seen his dick-- kind of, yeah. At least a... little bit.” He can’t help but start laughing again when he catches sight of how thrilled Pete looks about this.  

“I fucking knew it!” crows Pete. 

“The sex wasn’t why we stayed together for eighteen months,” Patrick admits. 

Pete’s smile slips somewhat, head tilted as his eyes meet Patrick’s. “Why did you?” he asks quietly. “I mean, I’m not trying to be judgy here, and I know I’ve only just met the guy, but… I don’t know. He seems like the world’s biggest asshole.”

“He wasn’t,” Patrick says, frowning now. “I mean, he wasn’t at the start. He made me feel like… I dunno, like I was for him, y’know? It was nice. We were great together, and he was super sweet.”  

Pete frowns. He looks like he wants to say something, but instead he just frowns at the sand for a long moment.

Patrick considers him before admitting, “He got kind of… weird though. He got mad whenever I went out without him. Like with friends and stuff.”

“He was jealous,” Pete guessed. “Of your… friends?” 

Patrick shrugs. “Yeah. I think maybe he was jealous of a lot of things.” Pete nods, still watching Patrick carefully. Patrick clears his throat and admits, “I used to sing… at local bars and stuff. Just at karaoke at first. But then like, on an actual stage at bars, with my guitar. I was fucking terrified every single time I did it, but… I did do it. Miicheal didn’t like it. And it was kind of stupid, I mean, Michael was at least partly right, I’d… I’m no singer. Not like that. Not on stages.”

“He told you that?” Pete asks quietly. “Dude, that’s… I know I don’t-- I’m not gonna pretend like I’m the Patrick Stump expert here, but… I’ve heard you singing. You’re fantastic, dude. I can see it. I can see you, up on a stage, wowing a massive crowd. Did anyone other than Michael say you weren’t fit for it? The bars and stuff, they kept asking you back, right?”

“Yeah.” Patrick digs his hand through the sand, letting it sift through his fingers. “I mean, everyone else was really supportive. I just…” Patrick frowns. He can still hear Michael’s voice in his head, even now. “I don’t know.” He shrugs. Horrifyingly, the back of his eyes have started to sting and he blinks rapidly. 

He feels Pete’s hand slip into his own again and squeeze tight. “I think you’re amazing,” he says. “And I’m gonna tell you that… everyday until you believe it.”

Patrick bites his lip, wondering to himself. Everyday? Is that everyday-everyday, or just everyday this weekend? He clears his throat, breathing through his nose and letting Pete’s hand tether him enough that his eyes stop stinging and he can meet Pete’s eye. “Thanks,” he says quietly. “It wasn’t just… all that. I broke up with him because one night I went out bowling with my friend Joe, and when I came back he accused me of cheating on him. I think it’s what he’s told everyone at this wedding too -- that I cheated. He went crazy and like, broke my fucking record player and woke up the neighbours and... I told him to go fuck himself and I left.”

“Fuck.” Pete frowns. “I’m glad you left. And fuck everyone who believed that shit.” He pauses, seeming to consider for a moment. Then he says quietly, “I’ll give them something to believe,” and he leans forward, lips pressing onto Patrick’s. He seems almost determined to put on a show as they kiss each other hungrily, pushing Patrick back into the sand, running a hand through his hair and knocking off his hat in the process. Patrick kisses back just as keenly. He has no idea if the various guests, Michael’s parents or anyone else he used to know that may be on this beach, can see them, or if they’re paying any attention. 

Right then he doesn’t even care. 

**

The hotel feels busy when they’re making their way through later. There are people — some Patrick recognises — rushing this way and that, dressed in fancy suits and dresses. The wedding is clearly getting very close. Patrick can feel himself getting a little antsy, despite himself. He knows he shouldn’t have to prove anything to Michael, and he wants not to care as much as he does, and yet there’s still something heavy in his stomach when he thinks of the wedding. It’s frustrating. It’s confusing. 

Pete makes it simultaneously less and more confusing somehow. As far as Patrick knows, he and Pete still aren’t going to attend the reception later. But they’ll be there, briefly, for the ceremony, to watch Michael marry someone else. Patrick isn’t nearly as nervous about watching it as he was a few days ago. Maybe that’s because he and Pete have plans to look forward to, afterward. They have plans to go and eat somewhere, somewhere away from the reception at the hotel; somewhere with pizza again, according to Pete. Then maybe they’ll go to a bar or two, get drunk.

Maybe they’ll do something else after. Something like last night. Patrick can’t help but let himself hope.   

Just before they’re about to step into the elevator to their room, to shower and change — God knows, Patrick has never wanted a shower more, he feels half sandman right now — Patrick hears a familiar voice call out behind him, “Patrick! Wait, Patrick!” 

It’s Michael, dressed in a suit, black bowtie so tight around his neck it looks like it may be strangling him. His jacket is slung over his arm, which is unsurprising, given the heat. Patrick’s glad he won’t be in his suit for very long.  

Michael smiles, and it’s odd — familiar, yet foriegn. “Can I... talk to you for a second?” His eyes flicker to Pete briefly. “Alone?”

Pete looks very much like he wants to object to that, but Patrick nods, placing a hand gently on Pete’s shoulder, meeting his eye. “It’s okay,” he mutters. He has no idea what Michael could possibly want, but the last time they talked only resulted in embarrassment, and if that has to happen again, it’s probably better that it’s not in front of Pete.

Michael leads Patrick to the lounge area next to the restaurant. It’s empty-- cordoned off for later after the ceremony, Patrick assumes. Michael shuts the door behind him, leaving it just slightly ajar, and then turns to Patrick, that same odd expression on his face. Patrick realises he hasn’t seen that look since the earlier days of their relationship.

“So?” Patrick asks, when Michael continues to stare, frowning slightly like he’s considering Patrick very carefully. “What did you want?”

“You know... how I invited you here,” Michael begins, and if Patrick didn’t know that Michael is an asshole constantly full of assholish confidence, he might almost say that Michael looks a little nervous.

“Yeah, you’ve said,” says Patrick, teeth gritted. “Big hilarious joke. Ha-ha, let’s see if the dorky ex actually believes I really want him at my wedding.” 

“I did tell you that...” Michael says slowly. There’s a pause, in which Michael stares at Patrick for a long moment, as though assessing him. Patrick shifts, uncomfortable, and tries not to let it bother him that he feels so judged right now. “You look good,” Michael says finally, which is… not what Patrick was expecting him to say. “The sun suits you. You don’t get enough of it.”

Patrick frowns. “Thanks.”

“It was always a shame, you know,” Michael goes on. “That we never went away anywhere like this while we were together.”

Patrick stares at him. He’s not really sure how to take that. Michael hasn’t been this… friendly in so long. “Yeah,” he says quietly.

Michael takes a step forward, suddenly way too close, verging on invading his personal space. “Did I make a mistake?” Michael asks. “Letting you go?”

“Uh, I walked out on you,” Patrick points out, rather than address the rest of what… that implies.   

“You wouldn’t have if I’d tried harder though. Right?”

“I wouldn’t have if you’d been less of a controlling piece of shit,” Patrick bites out. He can feel his face flushing in anger. 

“Okay, okay,” Michael sighs in that slightly patronising way he does, and that’s certainly more familiar with the latter half of their relationship. Why had Patrick never noticed how infuriating that was before? “I just… I invited you here because I wondered if maybe you still cared. And you came — you came because you do care. Because you still want me.”

“What?” 

Patrick shakes his head, wondering if he’s going insane. Or Michael’s going insane. And then Michael proves that he just might be by leaning forward and pressing his lips to Patrick’s.

And it’s in that moment that Patrick realises four things in quick succession:

1. This was what he wanted more than anything two weeks ago.
2. Pete is a far better kisser than Michael.
3. This is no longer what Patrick wants, and not just because of the kissing, because this hasn’t been what he wanted since he got onto this island.
4. Pete. All he wants now is Pete. He needs to tell Pete.

The last two points in particular are so jolting to Patrick he actually feels his entire body stiffen in shock for several seconds. He’s not giving back, but Michael’s mouth is still moving, tongue trying to explore Patrick’s mouth like all he needs is further encouragement. Patrick pulls his head back, sharply, away from the kiss, at the same moment he hears the door to the lounge creak a little behind them. 

Their heads both spin to face the door, but nobody’s standing there. However, it pulls Patrick from his reverie, makes him blink up at Michael and ask a very important question: “What the fuck was that?”  

Michael frowns back at him. “Come on. Don’t tell me you don’t still want this.”

“The fuck, dude? No!”

“No?”

“No,” says Patrick sharply. He takes a step back. “You’re getting married. Like, soon. It’s gotta be less than half an hour away if you wanna catch that sunset.” 

“Fuck the wedding. And fuck that emo piece of shit you brought too, how long you been with him? A few weeks? Fuck that, you know you and me, we’re special. We’re it.” He reaches for Patrick’s hand.

Patrick pulls his hand away, “No, we’re not.”   

“Patrick…”

“No,” Patrick interrupts sharply. “Let me get something into your head, Michael. We were not good together. We were not special. You treated me like garbage and I... I…” Patrick pauses for a moment, and instead of Michael’s voice in his head, he hears Pete’s. “I’m worth more than you,” he says quietly. “You don’t deserve me.”

“Oh, come on…” Michael says. Patrick’s not sure if it’s confusion or hurt that’s making him frown like that; he doesn’t stick around to find out. Patrick shakes his head, and before Michael can say anything else, he walks out the door.

**

Patrick needs to talk to Pete, and he needs to talk to him right now. 

He has no idea what Pete wants. He’s well aware that a few days on a beautiful island is the reason Pete is here, not the pudgy weirdo he has to put up with and pretend to like in order to get this free vacation, but…

But.

Pete didn’t need to return that kiss in the ocean last night, and he didn’t need to suck Patrick off. That’s their secret now. And maybe it was just for a bit of fun, maybe it was just to take Patrick’s mind off of the wedding and Michael. Maybe Patrick’s reading into it way too much. It’s not like Pete didn’t get anything out of that exchange; Patrick is pathetic enough to admit that frequent masturbation over the years has made him quite capable with his hand over a cock, thank you very much.

But maybe they could live in a world where somebody like Pete could maybe be okay with the prospect of a date with somebody like Patrick.  

All he wants is to go home tomorrow knowing that Pete will still be there beside him when he gets to Chicago. He wants to go get a cinnamon roll with Pete after work. He wouldn’t even mind hanging out at the pool with him. He’s not sure he’s ever wanted anything so badly in his life. 

But Patrick knows he’s never going to find out if Pete would be cool with the prospect of dating Patrick if he doesn’t just fucking ask Pete. Just ask, “hey, Pete, would you maybe wanna get a cinnamon roll together sometime, when we get back to Chicago?”

Simple, easy. It’s not like he’s asking for his hand in marriage or anything, just… a date. The possibility of something more, of seeing Pete again after this is all over. 

Patrick thinks about waiting until they’re at dinner, but honestly, he is way too fucking impatient, way too scared of backing out later. The words feel elasticated and ready to bounce out of him as soon as he walks through their hotel door, ten minutes after leaving Michael, after pacing and breathing and realising what he wants, really wants.  

However, they die on his tongue and leave a bitter, odd sort of taste when he sees Pete standing by their bed. He’s already dressed up smartly for the ceremony, black slacks and shoes, a white button down, tie hung loosely around his neck. He’s also stuffing clothes into his suitcase. 

There’s something about the stiffness of his spine, the lines of his frown, it halts Patrick for a moment, and he’s confused. 

“Pete?” he asks cautiously. He tries to smile, tries to joke, “I thought you were as big a slob as me, you’re tidying your shit up already?”

Pete looks up, and when their gazes meet, there’s something hidden in the gold of Pete’s eyes, something out of place. “I wanted to get ready to go. So we can leave as soon as possible tomorrow,” he says, and shrugs like it doesn’t matter. 

“Oh,” says Patrick. That’s okay. This is okay. Something is… wrong, but this is fine. Pete sighs, and Patrick knows what that out of place emotion he sees in Pete is — it’s awful, aching sadness. “Is there… Are you okay?”

“I was thinking,” Pete says, turning back to his suitcase. “I was thinking about what to tell my mom and dad, you know, when I get back to Chicago. I need to tell them we broke up, right?”

“I...” Patrick trails off. He honestly hadn’t even thought of that, of letting the only people in Chicago who think they’re dating know that they’re not dating. It’s honestly not something he wants to think about. “You… You’re thinking about that now?” he asks.

Pete shrugs as he murmurs, “Gotta happen at some point, hasn’t it?” 

And Patrick thinks to himself. He wonders, he hopes: is it possible Pete doesn’t want to do that, doesn’t want to end this? That he’s just gotten wrapped up in sadness about the possibility of it all being over. That maybe he wants it to be real, just like Patrick does. Patrick doesn’t know why Pete’s thinking about these things now, all of a sudden like this. But Patrick knows how these thoughts can creep up on you, and it would explain why he seems so melancholy, right?   

Patrick swallows, takes a steadying breath, and says slowly, “We don’t… have to do that.”

Pete balls up a pair of pants that look suspiciously like pajama pants and stuffs them into his suitcase. “We kind of do,” he says. “I’m guessing you haven’t got any other… flames back home you wanna— make jealous.”

Patrick bites back his urge to retort -- hadn’t he already told Pete that wasn’t the goal here? And even if it was at least in part before, it certainly isn’t anymore. 

Patrick doesn’t want to argue though, he wants to tell Pete something else, something that will for sure squash any thoughts like that Pete might have. “No, I…” He opens and closes his mouth a few times, unsure of how to get the words out. Before, it seemed like all he wanted to do was say it, just tell Pete how much he liked him. Now though, the words are lost again. He tries and fails again, “There’s still-- I mean, I just thought…”

Pete is still frowning, but a low bark of something close to laughter croaks out of him as he shoves a bag of toiletries into his suitcase, pushing hard because the whole thing is close to overflowing. “You thought,” he mutters, swallowing visibly. “What did you think, Patrick?” Pete pauses in his shoving to stare up at Patrick, and now his mouth is a thin line, something harder in the set of his jaw. “This was a summer vacation for me, remember? And it was awesome -- I lied for you, pretended to like you, and I got to spend some time on a beautiful beach, blue skies, gorgeous sunsets.” Here he pauses, eyes flicking from Patrick’s face, back down to his suitcase. “But to tell you the truth it’s a massive relief that I won’t have to pretend like that anymore.”    

Pete goes back to wrestling with his suitcase and Patrick stands in the middle of the room, heart splintering apart in his chest with such velocity he’s surprised it’s not audible over the singing birds and chattering voices outside their window. Instead the only sound from him is a soft breath of air in the shape of the word, “Oh,” as he watches Pete continue the rigorous process of packing his suitcase out of here.

“Fuck! Why is this so much harder to pack on the way back? The only extra thing I had to put in it is that God damn bracelet!” It shouldn’t sting so much, so much further, to hear that and see the bare skin on Pete’s wrist where that ugly bracelet was. The bracelet that Pete had insisted he wouldn’t ever take off again. 

Pete sighs, finally giving up on the suitcase. “You should shower,” he tells Patrick quietly. “And change or whatever. If there is still a wedding to go to.” He looks at Patrick pointedly then, some sort of meaning hidden in his expression, his words, something Patrick doesn’t understand. It doesn’t look like anger though, it’s something far worse; dejection, almost. 

Patrick stares at him. “I-- I don’t want to go to the wedding,” he says quietly. It’s hard, feels like something’s lodged in his throat. He never meant to care this much, never so badly wished he didn’t care. He wants Pete to start grinning again, to tell him he’s just kidding around and of course he loves their game, of course he loves pretending with Patrick, so much so that it’s not even something pretend. 

But Pete scoffs, nodding like he’s thinking of some secret joke. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m sure you’ll say your peace.”

And then he leaves his suitcase openly overflowing and walks out the door, leaving Patrick numbly staring after him.  

**

Patrick stares at the door through which Pete’s disappeared long after he’s gone. He’s left aching, sick, bewildered, utterly steamrolled by Pete’s apparent anger and dismissal, a complete reversal from the overly friendly charming man that he thought he’d known. 

Patrick isn’t stupid though.

As he makes himself sit on their bed and blink away from the door, he comes to the conclusion that the cold and honest fact of the matter is that he doesn’t know Pete that well at all. It was stupid to believe like they could be anything close to what Patrick wished they were. It was stupid to think that the connection they made over the past week meant anything more to Pete than the lie it was. The entire relationship they formed was based on a lie, wasn’t it?   

Knowing that doesn’t stop it from hurting though. It doesn’t stop Patrick from feeling heartsick for a relationship that never actually existed. 

Patrick swallows thickly, lying back on the bed and grabbing the phone he’d left on the bedside table this morning. 

You guys should have locked me away so I never did anything so idiotic. This entire thing was stupid, he texts Will before he can stop himself.

Then he throws it onto the other pillow (Pete’s pillow) and turns away, staring miserably at the wall in front of him. He wonders idly if Pete meant any of it. All the things he said that made Patrick feel so much better about everything, about himself, about Michael being out of his life. Were they all lies?

From behind him, Patrick’s phone buzzes. Patrick ignores it, wondering if maybe he should change his clothes at least. They’re still damp from the seawater and getting the bed wet and sandy. He’s not going down to that wedding though. There’s no way.   

His phone buzzes again. 

And again.

And then it doesn’t stop, buzzing repeatedly and loudly because whoever it is — Will, probably — is calling instead of texting now.

Patrick sighs, frustrated, and grabs the phone. “What?” he grumbles into it irritably.  

“There you are,” says Gabe, because of course Will told him. And of course they’re both there, on speaker. 

“What happened?” asks Will. 

Patrick takes a steadying breath as he sits up, running a hand through his hair, knocking the stupid Bingo hat off in the process. It’s looking at that stupid damn hat, at the evidence of the fucking mess Patrick had put himself in, that breaks him. He closes his eyes, bites his lip, feels his eyes blink wet with tears, and mutters, “You guys were right.” 

And then he tells them. He sits there and he tells them why Michael invited him there, he tells them about the humiliation of all his old friends thinking he’s some lying cheater, he tells them about Michael kissing him. And he tells them about the how his dumb, horny, besotted brain has fallen head over heels for a man who clearly feels nothing for him. The only part he leaves out — for his own sake, it’d be all they would focus on — is the fact that they’ve had hands and mouths (well, a mouth) on each others cocks. 

“And now… I don’t know,” he’s saying several minutes later. “Pete’s at the wedding watching Michael get married and he can’t wait to leave. And I… I just want this whole thing to be over.”

There’s a long pause as Patrick finally stops talking. It stretches so far that Patrick can’t help but scowl before saying sulkily, “I swear to God, if either of you are just waiting for the right way to say I told you so...” 

 “I think you already said that for us,” says Gabe with a sigh. There’s another frustrating beat of silence. 

Then Will says quietly, “I think you should tell him.”

“What?” Patrick frowns down at his knees. “Tell who what?” 

“Tell Pete how you feel,” says Will. 

Patrick snorts. “Have you not been listening? He won’t care. He’ll just… tell me how much he can’t wait to get away from me.”

“I’m serious. If we were talking about Michael, I’d say do anything but. But from what you’ve said… Pete doesn’t sound like that kinda asshole. You said it came out of nowhere, how he just told you all that stuff about being tired of pretending, right?”  

“That does seem weird,” adds Gabe. 

“Yeah, but... “ Patrick shakes his head. “That doesn’t mean what he said was any less true.” 

“You don’t know that,” says Will. “It sounds like he was upset about something.”

“Mm, maybe find out what that’s about before sinking back into ‘Post Break-Up Jeopardy-On-Repeat Depressed Sadtrick’,” Gabe suggests. “And I am going to patent that title.”

Patrick frowns down at the bedsheets for a moment. “I kind of thought you guys would, you know… tell me not to go get my heart broken all over again.” 

“We would,” says Will. “But if we know you at all, we know you’re never gonna get over this if you don’t know for sure how Pete feels. And you’re never gonna find that out if you don’t tell him.” 

“Sadly true,” says Gabe. “And you know, if Pete hurts you, come right to us after you get back to Chicago, and maybe we’ll go talk to him.” He pauses, then adds, “He’s not a big guy, right?”

“Not really. Just a little taller than me,” Patrick mutters, and then wishes they hadn’t brought it up, because now he’s just thinking of how well they fit together. 

“Oh, good,” says Gabe. “Then we’ll talk to him.” 

“Speak for yourself,” mutters Will. 

Patrick straightens up on the bed, putting his feet down onto the soft carpet and sighing. “I’ve gotta go you, guys,” he says quietly. “I’ll talk to you later.” 

“Think about it—” He hears Will says, but he hangs up before he hears anymore.

Patrick holds the phone tight in his hand after the silence has settled, eyes down on his knees until his gaze moves to his wrist, where the ugly bracelet still clings. 

“Fuck,” he mutters, and heads for the door.

**

He doesn’t shower and he doesn’t change, but he does make himself walk down to the ceremony. 

It’s outside, of course, on a grassy hill overlooking the hotel and a few yards away from the beach. The whole thing is well done, Patrick can’t deny that. Michael and another man — Michael’s almost-husband, Patrick thinks he recalls the invitation stating that his name is Travie — are standing beneath a large palm tree, rows of neatly placed chairs facing them, the woman marrying them speaking loudly to everyone about love and beauty and relationships. The sun is beginning to set, bathing the whole scene in a pretty pink-orange light. It would be beautiful if it weren’t based on a lie, he thinks.  

People frown over at him as he sneaks quietly to sit in the chair next to Pete. He can’t blame them, he’s ridiculously underdressed in nothing but a pair of damp shorts and a David Bowie t-shirt, probably spilling sand everywhere and smelling of seawater.

He catches the eye of Michael’s fiance as he sits down, and is thrown momentarily. Travie is tall, dark, incredibly handsome, everything Patrick isn’t.    

The invitation hadn’t had a picture of them, just a picture of two plastic grooms on a beautiful wedding cake. Patrick’s glad now that the Patrick of a week and a half ago didn’t see a picture of Michael and Travie together like this. The Patrick of a week and a half ago would’ve probably hidden under blankets and pretended like he wasn’t crying because Travie is so damn pretty compared to him. 

The Patrick of now, however… 

Well, now Patrick can’t help but wonder if Travie knows what he’s getting himself into. If he knows Michael tried to kiss Patrick earlier. Patrick suddenly feels a cold stab of pity for him.  

For now, he puts that from his mind and focuses instead on the man beside him. Pete is staring straight ahead, obviously tense, obviously so very aware of Patrick. 

Patrick swallows, his eyes on Pete while everyone else looks ahead at the ceremony. “Pete,” he whispers. “I— I have to talk to you.”

“Now?” Pete murmurs back, still not looking at him.  

“If I don’t, I’m scared I’ll lose my nerve again,” Patrick admits. 

Pete frowns, finally sparing Patrick a glance, though only for a second. “You don’t need to. Emma told me, okay?” 

“Emma told you?” Patrick repeats, bewildered. “What the fuck did Emma tell you?”

Somebody in front of them hisses, loudly, “shhh,” but Patrick ignores them, eyes glued on Pete, who now stays staring, stony faced, ahead of him. 

“Pete,” Patrick whispers urgently. “What did Emma tell you? ‘Cause whatever it was — it was probably bullshit.”

Pete frowns again, and finally he looks at Patrick, looks at him properly. There’s sadness in the lines of his expression, but stubbornness in the lift of his chin as he says, “She said Michael wasn’t over you, that he was going to ruin his wedding to be with you. She said... you felt the same, and that why wouldn’t you, if you were here at all?”

“And you believed her?” Patrick is still baffled. 

“Not at first,” says Pete. “I’d heard you talk about Michael. I thought she was full of shit. But Patrick… you can stop pretending. I saw you.” He turns away. 

Everybody in their row, the row in front, and probably the row behind them, is scowling at them now. “Quiet,” says the lady next to Pete. Patrick recognises her as one of Michael’s mildly homophobic aunts.

Patrick ignores all of them. “Saw me? What—?” Then he remembers — the door to the lounge, the way it had creaked as Michael tried to kiss him, as Patrick pulled away. “You saw Michael kiss me,” he realises.

Pete sighs, glancing around at the frowning guests before he gets to his feet, slipping past Patrick and walking down the aisle, away from the ceremony. The clergy-woman is still talking, apparently oblivious to the small commotion Patrick and Pete have been making. Patrick doesn’t hesitate before following after Pete.

Pete pauses at the back row as Patrick hisses out after him, “Pete, wait,”

“Of course,” Patrick hears Michael say behind him, loudly, over the drone of the woman marrying him to Travie. She stops talking abruptly, and Patrick feels the eyes of every guest at the wedding on him. “Of course, here he comes, making a scene. Showing off. Can’t resist, can you, Patrick?”   

Patrick swallows, the dull throb of panic like a solid object in his gut. He feels like he’s in one of those dreams, one of those nightmares from which he can’t wake up, every eye on him. 

Patrick swallows back the panic, and his eyes turn to Travie, briefly, who looks horrified by just about everything right now. “Does he know, Michael?” Patrick asks quietly, though it seems loud through the silence of the whole ceremony. “Does he know that you tried to kiss me, like an hour ago? Or did you lie to him, like you lied to everyone else about how I cheated on you, huh?” 

The silence is deafening, but as Travie turns from Patrick to Michael, his horror and humiliation palatable, Patrick doesn’t stick around to find out whether any of them will truly believe him.

He turns and he leaves, because he can’t bare to do any more of this now, in front of all these people, a second longer. On his way away from them all, he grabs Pete’s hand, considering it a fairly good sign that Pete doesn’t pull away, that he goes with Patrick at all.

They keep walking until they’re on the beach, mostly deserted besides a few kids laughing in the shallow waves, throwing a beach ball back and forth. 

Pete says nothing, and Patrick swallows and says, “Pete. I don’t know what you think you saw, but I didn’t kiss him back, okay? I didn’t.”

Pete blinks at Patrick, still frowning a little, but he looks cautious now, unsure. “You… You didn’t.”  

“I guess you looked in and then left again at exactly the wrong time, but— I don’t want Michael.” He swallows, and admits at last, “I want you.”

Pete stares at him for a long moment as those words settle in the air between them. Slowly, a warm smile grows on Pete’s face. “You want me,” he says quietly. 

Patrick nods, face flushed hot. “I think I— I’m kind of... falling for you,” he whispers. He clears his throat, feeling somehow more put on the spot now than he did a few minutes ago, with dozens of eyes on him. “I just… I hoped, but— I mean, it’s fine, you know, if you don’t like me like that. I know I’m not… I’m probably not really,” attractive, “your type. but...”

Pete chuckles, stepping a little closer and disarming Patrick with a sharp smile. “Patrick, I sucked you off. Almost drowned in the process too, FYI. A real life-or-death BJ—” through his embarrassed, half hopeful bafflement Patrick rolls his eyes “—and I mean... I practically threw myself at you every chance I got.” He says softly, “How the fuck do you think I don’t like you like that?” 

“I… ‘Cause, you’re… you know—” He makes a vague, insistent gesture with his hands towards Pete’s general Pete-ness — ridiculously handsome, gorgeous, funny, sweet... “You’re at least a nine and a half out of ten,” he says hopelessly with a shrug. “And I’m like a… four and half. At best. I mean, look at me.” 

Pete shakes his head. “I’m looking. You’re amazing. You’re talented, you make me laugh, you’re… well, sorta grumpy, but in a like, totally endearing way. You’re an awesome kisser, awesome at underwater handjobs — top notch, really — and… dude, I think you’re super hot. Don’t like, freak out or anything, but… I think I might be falling a whole lot for you too, Tricky.”

Patrick thinks he may soon die from the heat currently radiating from his face. He ducks his head, bites his lip. “You,” clearing his throat, Patrick lifts his gaze to Pete’s, “You said it was all a lie though, you know?”

Pete nods slowly. “I’m sorry. I was… I thought you were just using me. And— And I also realised then that… I should be okay with that because, well, that’s what this whole thing was. That’s what I signed up for. But I— I wasn’t okay with it. I handled it... badly. I’m sorry.” Pete runs a hand through his hair, frowning. “God, I got jealous and I screwed up just like your stupid ex.”

“You’re not like him,” Patrick insists. “You weren’t acting out of paranoia. And you apologised too. He would never.” Patrick slowly takes Pete’s hand. It feels as it always did; right, like it should fit. Except, if anything, it feels even better wrapped around Patrick’s now. 

Pete smiles. “You remember when you first asked me to be your boyfriend at the pool back in Chicago?” he asks and Patrick nods, struggling not to wince because God, that memory is going to haunt him until the day he dies. “I thought — when I went to talk to you by the bar a little later — I thought you were actually asking me out. Like, on a date.”

“I think I remember you saying,” Patrick mutters.  

Pete’s smile grows. “Wanna know what the answer would’ve been, if you’d just asked me out then? Wanna know what it’d be if you asked now?” 

Patrick’s mouth feels dry, but he nods slowly. 

Pete grins. “So ask for real.”

So Patrick swallows and says quietly, “When we get to Chicago, would you… maybe wanna get a cinnamon roll with me? There’s a place opposite my store, I hear it’s pretty good—”

The kiss Pete pulls him in for, under the sunset, bathed in orange, is answer enough.