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Fridays are already Pete’s favourite day of the week, but they hit an all-time high this week when the band Pete’s been working with actually manages to finish up early. It’s maybe a minor miracle, although he knows better than to say so out loud. Once he would have, of course, but he’s a little less dumb than he used to be.
The house is quiet when he gets home. That’s unprecedented too: most days he comes back to raucous laughter, intensive make-believe games that take over whole levels of his house, or the sound of instruments and Patrick’s voice rising over it all, clear and sweet. There’s a momentary flare of panic in his gut when he opens the front door to a still house, but it only lasts the second it takes him to notice Patrick’s note taped to the coat rack.
Pete –
Gone to the park at 12th and Gloucester. Should be back before you but I thought I’d leave a note just in case!
-- Patrick
Patrick’s handwriting is a messy scrawl but the letters are carefully spaced far apart enough that it’s still easily decipherable. A smile tugs at Pete’s lips; he’s only known Patrick a few months now, but that little detail is so characteristic of what he does know of the guy that he can’t help but grin. Stupidly thoughtful and considerate and conscientious. Pete half-wonders if they made Patrick in a factory somewhere because people really aren’t supposed to be this good.
He folds the note up carefully and tucks it in his coat pocket before heading back out again.
It’s a chill autumn day but the sun is still up – again, it’s a literal miracle how early he got out. He reaches the park in a matter of minutes, hands tucked in his pockets against the cold. Patrick is the first thing he sees, a stark figure at the edge of the park backlit by the low sun, his breath clouding in the air.
“Hey,” Pete calls as he approaches, and Patrick turns and beams.
“Pete, hi! You’re out early,” he says. He’s wrapped in about five layers, the hat he’s wearing has earflaps, and his cheeks are flushed bright red. It’s all kind of horrifically cute.
“Yeah,” Pete says after a moment of staring. Seriously, earflaps. This guy was made in a factory. “The group I was working with managed to suck less than usual. They might be pod people, actually, but I kind of don’t care since I got to leave.”
“Good on the pod people,” Patrick says, his smile quirking wryly. “He’s down by the swings, by the way – he wanted to test out that remote control helicopter you got him but I told him to do it away from the street so it doesn’t wind up roadkill or flattened on someone’s windshield.”
“Good call.” Pete smiles as he makes out the helicopter whizzing wildly above the field, followed by a small, mischief-minded shadow. “You know, I could maybe ditch the pod people if someone gave me something to run by the label guys. I’d rather be working with that someone than these hacks any day.”
Patrick chuckles and ducks his head, his cheeks going even redder than before. “I told you, I don’t have the whole picture yet. I don’t want to, you know, count my chickens.” He glances sidelong at Pete, a hint of a grin just peeking past his scarf. “But that’s really nice of you, man. If I haven’t said so yet – thanks.”
Pete tries to ignore the way something in the region of his stomach flutters when he holds Patrick’s gaze. He manages a grin. “Hey, you’ll be doing me a favour. All the mediocrity I’ve got going on right now is exhausting.”
“And how do you know this won’t be more of the same? You haven’t heard any of it yet.”
He nudges at Patrick’s side with his elbow, although Patrick probably doesn’t feel it through all his layers. Patrick is warm, actually, and Pete shuffles a little closer. His workwear isn’t exactly made for non-studio temperatures. Patrick lifts an eyebrow at him.
“I know you’re not going to be mediocre because I know you,” Pete says. “Jesus it’s cold. Can you possibly spare a layer? I’d take one from the kid but I think that’d be bad parenting.”
“Most likely,” Patrick says, a laugh hidden in his voice. “Here,” he says, and he unwinds a massive scarf from around his neck and reaches over to wrap it around Pete’s. His knuckles – he’s as bare-handed as Pete – brush at the side of Pete’s throat for the slightest of seconds before they’re replaced with warm, thick wool.
Pete clears his throat. “Uh,” he says. “Thanks.”
They stand in silence for a moment, watching the helicopter do loops around the field. An old woman Pete has seen around the neighbourhood but never spoken to crosses the street, two little dogs on two little leashes at her feet. She comes up to them with a wave and a polite smile; Pete returns the wave and out of the corner of his eye sees Patrick return the smile.
“Cold out, huh?” she says when she reaches them. She nods out to the field. “He yours? I was hoping to let the dogs off the leash, if that’s all right. They’re gentle, I promise, and very well-trained.”
Pete hunkers down and offers his palm to the dogs, both of whom sniff at him lazily then turn away. He scratches one behind the ears. “Yeah, no worries – they seem easy-going enough, and he knows not to approach animals he doesn’t know anyway.”
He gives the other dog a quick pet then sets his hands on his thighs to push back up. At that moment, though, he hears above him: “Thank you so much. They’re really quite sweet, I promise your son will be perfectly safe.” And it’s not directed at him, it’s directed at Patrick.
Pete maybe falls over a little bit.
His ass hits the ground hard and he ends up with his back against Patrick’s shins. For a whole second, Patrick doesn’t even seem to notice; Pete tilts his head way back to see Patrick’s reaction and finds him frozen with a comical look of shock on his face. After a long moment in which Patrick’s cheeks flush steadily darker, he reaches a hand down to steady Pete by the shoulders. “Please don’t break your neck, I really don’t want to be the one to break that news,” he says. “And, uh, we’re not – I mean. Pete’s the father. Uh. The only father.”
The woman snorts, completely unselfconscious about the gaffe she’s just made. Pete can’t wait until he’s old enough to pull off that particular trick. It would come in real handy right now, actually, as he scrambles to his feet with Patrick’s assistance; he can feel Patrick’s palm warm on his elbow all the way through his coat and for the life of him he can’t make himself meet Patrick’s eyes.
“My mistake,” the woman says. She bends down to unleash her dogs and they start slowly off across the grass. “I’ll see you boys around maybe! Enjoy your evening – I think autumn’s just so romantic, don’t you?”
And now Pete’s the one blushing and he does not blush easily, so, that’s great. Just fucking great.
“Uh,” Patrick says.
Pete clears his throat. Patrick’s scarf feels just the tiniest bit too tight around his neck and he tugs it looser. He throws a quick glance at Patrick just in time to meet Patrick’s gaze as it flickers over to him. Patrick’s eyes go wide, then he grins sheepishly. “I mean, there are worse things to be confused for,” he says, and Pete thinks maybe his voice sounds a little rougher than usual. That could just be the cold, he thinks, but -- maybe --
“You don’t look nearly old enough to be a dad,” he blurts, and then slams his eyes shut at his own completely unbelievable stupidity. “Jesus fuck. That was so not what I meant to say.”
Patrick laughs, high and a little breathless. “Yeah, because you’re so damn ancient.”
“I just – I meant –“
“Pete,” Patrick says, “It’s fine, dude, seriously. And – I just meant that – he’s a great kid. You know.”
Pete smiles at that and feels himself begin to relax again. He lets out a long exhale and watches it mist in the air; firmly, he squashes away the tiny bit of disappointment that had tried to wriggle into his chest at Patrick’s words. Not – Patrick’s not wrong, obviously. Pete had maybe just been hoping –
“And. I mean.” Patrick’s gaze flickers to him, then away again nervously. “There are worse assumptions that could be made than being your... “
Pete’s pulse jumps from zero to sixty in a second flat and he’s pretty sure it’s audible in the silence left when Patrick trails off. There are a million words on the tip of his tongue and he’s lost somewhere in the flood of them. He gapes at Patrick until Patrick begins to lose the colour in his cheeks.
“I’m sorry, that was so completely inappropriate of me. Pete. Shit, I –“
The panic on Patrick’s face is all it takes to knock Pete out of his daze, and then he’s grinning, smiling, and he reaches out to tap the knuckle of his thumb under Patrick’s chin. Patrick’s mouth snaps shut immediately. He stares at Pete in bemused silence.
“I was thinking of taking B out for dinner tonight,” Pete says. “So. Do you maybe wanna join us?”
It takes a second to sink in, but then Patrick is smiling brilliantly back at him. Pete winds his fingers around the note in his pocket and thinks, this could work.