Work Text:
If he had to pick his strongest suit, he’d most likely choose digression.
He told himself, he only needed candied orange peels covered in vegan chocolate. Have that wrapped in plastic and tied with an expensive-looking velvet ribbon, and he’d be good to go. And then he would return back home to write a small note that would say—To Andy. Happy birthday, man. Love you forever. Quadruple X’s written at the bottom with leaking ink, and then he’d give it to Andy next week at band practice.
He doesn’t know what propelled him to take a detour. A strange one, at that… but he can’t help but to let his gaze divert towards the soft pink interior framed by strict, stark black lines. The perfume bottles, elegant as ever as they sit on black shelves up-front, on display. The lovely looking sales-girl at the sideline, staring up at possible customers with a gentle, hopeful smile. Her hair is teased and put into some elaborate hairdo that Pete can’t quite fathom. Just by walking past it, the store’s lulls of faint raspberry seems to have wrapped its lace-quilted fingers around his wrist and pulled him right inside with a coy smirk.
And then he finds himself browsing through the perfume shelves at the other side of the store. Beautiful glass bottles, corners cut into jagged diamond-shaped edges in koi-translucent colours, curved like hearts with ribbons tied at the top. Pink and bright and flowery with those 1950’s puffs connected to a tube so that it slightly dangles, and if you push on the felt puff you’d get spritz on any area you point the tip towards.
He reads the labels, printed on with cursive letters and classy serifs.
Midnight Bloom.
Love Spell.
Bombshell.
Each scent girlier than the other. If that even makes sense. (He puts Love Spell in the shopping basket that he managed to snatch half-way).
And then he finds himself browsing through the lingerie rack.
It’s not like hasn’t done this before–he has gifted one of his past girlfriends lingerie before.
He just hasn’t done it while single, ever, and it is in this moment that he realises he hasn’t got anybody in mind other than himself when he lets the tips of his fingers run through the lacework on a burgundy piece that criss-crosses at the back and reveals the stomach at the front through mesh, curtain-like cuts. The front billows when he lets his palm pass through it, and he simply can’t help but to picture the way his tattoos would appear beneath them, a little coy, as if you could do something as innocuous as scratching a spot of your ribcage and let more than a sliver of skin peek through, a show, a glimpse that begs the attention of a hawk-like gaze, hungry for harm as a night-watch seeks the stars on the ground. A pleasant rush flows within him, and he isn’t quite clear what causes it.
The thought of an attentive phantom, or perhaps the seduction of seeing one’s self be beautiful in a reflection that he knows would and could never reflect the real thing. No emanated light can envision the right kind of shadow that falls upon the gentle curve of a waist, the sharp lines of hip bones and the softness of stomachs. Nothing draws the picturesque sight of a trembling breath once satisfaction hits the ego like a freight train coming to crash, only to be surprised into a halt at the very last minute, relief sighed between parted lips like a promise, or a whisper.
The set on the hanger in front of it is fuschia, a little more opaque with a pair of ‘bishop’ sleeves (yes, he remembers what they’re called), with ribbons that connect one side of the sleeve to the other. He imagines that one would tighten it and loosen it to undress. And then it becomes his hands that he is picturing, the tips of his fingers - chipped nails bending with urgency - connecting and unraveling and grazing and caressing.
If he was sane, he’d text Gabe. Gabe would know what to say to him—he muses. The man wears dresses and skirts and lace on the daily to the point that they may have been stitched onto his skin.
Or he can ask Ryan for advise? Now that is a man who wears lingerie, and looks damn good in it.
(Question of the day is: How’d Pete know?)
(Answer of the century is: Although they are the bestest of friends nowadays, there was a point in Pete’s youth - for heaven’s sake, he’s not middle aged! barely even so - where he and Ryan had… an agreement of sorts. One that requires the shedding of clothes and decree and shame, and one that ends in tears and sweat and gasps and euphoric giggles because what the fuck just happened?! Oh, wow, I dunno, man. Next week Tuesday? Hell yeah.
Cue handshake. It’s quite the miracle that they didn’t - had never once - dapped each other. Pete would much rather shoot himself in the head.
But Ryan has always looked gorgeous in a sage green, sheer babydoll dress with thick, silk ribbons criss-crossing around his boney thighs like a present waiting to be unwrapped. Pete would rather not think of his friend like that, though. But a wicked corner of his mind would, shamelessly still, accept the offer, should it be given to him again these days. He would be waterboarded first, though, before he would ever admit that fact. Or maybe just one hit of Joe’s weed pen or a sip of whiskey.)
He is one moment away from taking his phone out of his jeans pocket and typing a quick Hey Ry, can i ask u smth :} with his free hand, the other still occupied with browsing through the series of sheer satin until someone interrupts him.
“Hey, welcome, I’m Patrick, I’m here to help you today if you, uh, need anything.”
It takes a second for him to comprehend that it’s a male voice. A guy. A guy who works here. A guy who works here who caught him checking out their lingerie. Worst case scenario, the guy would just think he’s looking for something to give to his girlfriend.
Worst case scenario, the guy knows that he’s scouring for himself. (Or would that be the best…?)
Pete’s fingers still - or rather, hover - over the velvet, black hangers as he slowly turns his head around to peruse upon the countenance that owns the awkward tone that highlights his deep, slightly gravelly voice. It’s not like he expects some buff bodybuilder to work in a lingerie store, but he truly did not expect this… boy.
Although, to be honest, he doesn’t know how old the guy really is. Something about him tells him that he might be in high school with the youthful glow on his pink cheeks, but there is also a strangely mature - prepared, competent, ready-for-anything - glint in his eyes, or the way his eyes flicker towards the door when the bell rings. And then he averts his gaze back to Pete, and he doesn’t quite know how to react. Again, it’s not everyday you see a guy working at a store like this… and he’s dressed just like all the other girls here.
Black shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal their forearms, black dress pants, black loafers. The store logo etched in gold stitching on his left breast pocket, from which the tip of a measuring tape peeks out, its red lines faded and the metal bent.
His tag reads: Patrick • Shop assistant
He’s blonde. Bleached, pale-yellow, peroxide blonde, with some tufts of ginger strands left untouched. Or perhaps unnoticed. He has a fairly long fringe - not as long as Pete’s though, that is a fight he simply refuses to lose, no way Jose - and he has styled it slightly swept to the right side of his face and pushed back, revealing his wide forehead, with some product-coated strands hanging down his face. He reminds Pete a little of old Hollywood, suave movie stars in an oddly-charming nerdy way. It’s a good look on him.
(Correction: it’s a really good look on him.)
His eyes keep blinking, and his smile is friendly when Pete returns it. There is something so… easy about the way he behaves, and Pete can’t help but to notice the scar over his eyebrow that just begs for attention like a beacon, reflecting the light of his eyes when he fans another bat of his sparse lashes.
“Hey… uh,” Pete begins. “I don’t need any help as of now, though, but thanks.”
Patrick smiles, again, friendly and approachable as ever. The corners of his eyes crinkle, gentle crow’s feet emerging; they only serve to highlight the maturity that Pete saw before, the one that merges strangely with the baby-faced brightness that he still emanates. Pete has so many questions right now. This dude looks like an HR’s wet dream. “That’s no problem. I’ll be around if you need me, okay? I’ll let you browse in peace.”
“Thanks a lot, man, I appreciate that.”
Patrick nods, and finally takes his leave.
Pete muses that the hairstyle - and hair colour as well? - might be new, with the way the boy keeps fussing over it, running his hand through it and fluffing it up and flattening it down as if his whole life depends on it. He walks away seemingly a busy, busy man, whistling as a girl approaches him with a smile.
And then things seem to come easy for Patrick • Shop assistant again.
Pete’s wandering fingers seem to stop upon a dark-deep red lingerie set, complete with a corset top, halters and garters and all the other -ters that Pete has no memory of. He pulls it off of the hanger and bolts towards the changing rooms, gripping the lace and feeling the gentle-coarseness meeting the skin of his fingers in the briefest of kisses.
Thankfully, the changing rooms are mostly empty.
He claims one, pulling the curtain closed behind him as he lets out another heavy exhale. There is something oddly secretive about all of this, he muses. Although it shouldn’t be, although it very much isn’t. The pit of his stomach churns at the excitation of taking the set with him as if it’s something forbidden, as if it’s something perverse. When it isn’t. When he doesn’t quite feel like it is anything but a pretty piece of clothing. Whatever. Women wear it all the time, so why can’t he?
He stands there, right in front of the full length mirror. Brightly-lit, taunting. He’s heard his girl friends (the space between those two words highlighted for emphasis) complain about how clothing store mirrors are a total fucking scam. They can make you look slim, with longer legs and a much more radiant complexion that seem to suit any piece of clothing with any undertone of colour. And then they would take the piece home and try it again in front of their mirror and suddenly it looks like something else entirely. Meagan even told him once: “Those fucking mirrors, bane of my existence. I swear they put some optical illusion mojo in there cos what the hell?”
Honestly, Pete gets it now.
He has shed his hoodie and hung it on the little knob to his right, leaving him in his tank-top and jeans. Women’s jeans, mind you. They fit a little odd around his hips and waist - the wrong kind of shape that the jeans were made for, but it’s not like he gives a fuck - and for some odd reason, his body looks… different, through this perspective, under this lighting. Perhaps he doesn’t try to ‘analyse’ it this intently before, since he used to shop for ‘normal’ clothes. Not fucking lingerie. He turns his body this way and that way, pulling the tank over his stomach just so he can see the way his stomach and abs look. His tattoo peeks a little from above the hem of his boxers, sharp and fresh-fading the way they always do. The changing room lights have a slight yellow-marigold undertone, and they only work to make him look tanner, more radiant and healthy. Fresh-cheeked and so, so young.
And then the hanger above his head reminds him what he’s here for.
He takes off the rest of his clothes, leaving his socks on, because it’s a bit cold, and his boxers behind, because he doesn’t think he’s quite ready for that yet. Also, he’s not sure if that’s even allowed. (That’s got to be unsanitary, right?)
The item that he takes first is the bralette-corset top. The boning is malleable and extremely flexible; when he holds it up to light to see the way it stands on its own, he pictures that it must function to cinch the waist only slightly, not cinching it the way those online dominatrix look, draped in painted-on latex that make their waists look about one palm wide. It’s got simple red ribbons as straps, thin yet not too fragile like they’d snap if he ever accidentally pulls on one of them a little on the side of too rough or reckless. The back design is a little strange; there are small holes, akin to eyelets that no doubt are made for a ribbon to go through in knots and laces intricate enough to make the delicate piece even prettier. At the bottom hemline of the ‘corset’ is a lace trimming, yet not the kind that is made to lay over one’s body like a dress. It only adds another layer of detail, one more lacing that makes the piece painfully, gorgeously feminine.
It’s something that he’d gladly spend money on for a girlfriend.
But he supposes he isn’t that far away from that.
Stupidly, he tries to put on the thing a little like a tank top. He doesn’t quite understand how he should ‘get through’ all of the stray ribbons and lace, the intricate fabrics that seem to lay upon one another. They remind him of waves, or the fins of mermaids, somehow. (If they’re drenched in blood, perhaps.) He manages to duck his head this side and that side, and lo and behold.
When he stares in the mirror, his hair is askew everywhere, and his lips part in slight exertion. (God, I gotta work out more.)
The top drapes over his body well, to his liking, albeit a little awkward. Some parts hang over his body, while some are flush against his skin and fitting perfectly. He swallows the lump in his throat.
“Fuck,” he hisses. “Ugh, shit, I need help.”
So he braces himself, and lays his fingers upon the side of the curtain that is currently separating him from the rest of the world. He pushes it just a little…
Oh.
(Perhaps the world is kind to him this afternoon.)
Just outside the changing room and humming to himself is one blond shop assistant with a gait that makes Pete bite back a grin.
“Oh, Patrick?” he whisper-screams.
The boy stops in his tracks, a measuring tape in hand. He looks back with urgency in his eyes, alarm bells in icy blue, ringing loud loud loud, and Pete plasters the kindest smile he could ever conjure in that moment. He tries to be sweet, and he’s underlying the word try heavy, here. Patrick seems to immediately put on his Trying To Be Sweet face on as well, those cheeks flushed with exertion from work, from walking and jogging around, perhaps, to try and fulfil the needs of every damn customer in here.
“Yes?” he asks, gently as he approaches. Pete can’t help but to gaze at the way he pockets the tape. “You need anything?”
“I need your… um,” he clears his throat (oh this is humiliating), “I need your input.”
“On…?” He appears genuinely curious this time, walking a little closer as if they’re doing some secretive rendezvous.
“Um. My, um. So.” Pete’s tongue feels heavy. He can’t even believe himself. He’s not some blushing virgin, for god’s sake. He sighs, looking everywhere but Patrick’s unwavering gaze. “I need your opinion on this thing I’m wearing.”
“Oh, sure!” He begins to nod. “No problem, yeah, definitely.”
And then something within him pulls on the strands of his hair, lighting the metaphorical bulb–”Oh, sorry, I’m Pete, by the way.”
“Heya, Pete.”
Pete smiles, waiting for Patrick to open the curtain and let himself in.
And Patrick is just standing there. Unmoving with that plastic-genuine smile.
“Dude.”
Patrick blinks. “Yeah?”
“Come in here.”
“I… what do you…?” He furrows his eyebrows, and then his head turns at every direction, akin to a camera practising surveillance. “Inside?” he whisper-screams.
“Yes!”
Patrick looks short of morticied. “Are you… is that even allowed? I think I’m gonna get fired.”
“Man, just get in here!” he whines. (Desperate measures!)
With eyes widened, Patrick hurriedly gets inside the changing room.
And then those eyes are directed at his direction, scanning him.
Pete scratches on the back of his neck.
He doesn’t know what Patrick’s looking for, but to have him this close, to the point that he can smell Patrick’s cologne… good god. Those eyes are even brighter, and some damned being is pushing at Pete’s back, coaxing him to close the proximity inch by inch until there isn’t any left between them. (There should be barely any space for oxygen, his mind quips, let alone Jesus.)
Patrick is just silent. He has even changed his stance–his previously hunched form is now straightened, rigid yet slightly relaxed with the way he’s got his arms crossed in front of his broad chest. He’s barely blinking, but he’s taking everything in, it seems. And he’s doing it a little too long.
Pete wouldn’t quite say that he’s insecure. That would be a bit ridiculous–he looks good. But he just can’t tell what Patrick is thinking or seeing, and it makes his stomach churn.
“What, you think it doesn’t fit me good?”
He feigns nonchalance.
Patrick is looking everywhere but his direction. And then a flicker beat of his attention over the side of his body, and then another aversion. As if the dressing rooms are prettier sights to behold, those deep pink curtains conjuring a momentary break from the shared silence that permeates the room with a twisted wrist and a heavy-set coat of weariness. Pete turns a little, cocking his hip as he tries to catch another glance at the mirror, his reflection straightened and slightly elongated beneath the yellow lighting.
He looks good.
(Fucking amazing, even–his mind supplies. Shaking his mind off it, it’s just him being single. It’s almost adolescent, almost bearable. Almost makes sense.)
“Patrick? I need your input here, man,” he says, teasing just slightly. He quirks an eyebrow, the tip of his tongue teasing the back of his teeth.
He hears Patrick clear his throat, and then he catches him from the reflection, one hand poised on a black velvet hanger.
“I think you look great,” he says in one breath. He sounds steady enough that Pete doesn’t know what to think of it.
His mind is functioning in an odd way at the moment. He doesn’t know where he wants this conversation to lead to. He feels like he’s standing right at the centre, X-marked point between two lanes, and all he needs to do is choose. (Is he flirting or is he just teasing for fun?) At this point he doesn’t even know the answer to his own question, but what he does know is that he could do a lot better with this goddamn lingerie.
(Since when has some dude’s opinion on his clothing matter? he asks himself. But then he watches the way Patrick’s eyes scan his figure - to conclude his ‘input’, of course - and he finds that he wants those assessing, calculated eyes on him forever. He likes the way it burns a little, like every movement Patrick makes from one point to another, eyes hawk-like and sharp as the tip of a pencil drawing lines and jagged curvatures that make up the way Pete simply is.)
“I’ll… look, I’m…”
“…Yes?” he coaxes, feeling the corner of his lips twitch with the kind of giddiness that reminds him faintly of cotton candy first kisses and rusted, dim carousels.
Patrick is simply impossible, and Pete doesn’t know how to handle it.
He watches the way the boy’s eyesight diverts, taking slow tumbles on his tiptoes, trudging towards him to scan every softened edge and curvatures of his body, wrapped in lace now. He doesn’t bother to stare at the mirror anymore; the minor divergences, flickers, and blink-of-an-eye turns in Patrick’s expressions tell him more than any contorted reflection could ever convey. He tries to smile, properly this time, but finds that it gets harder and harder the more Patrick stares at him, unblinking and coy in his boyishness.
“Too big?”
He cocks his hip a little, feeling the lace dig into his skin as Patrick’s gaze swiftly catches the movement in a vice-phantom grip.
“I…”
Pete bites back a smile, turning to face the mirror again and checking the way the fabric drapes over his physique. He finds that he likes it, but contemplates that some minor adjustments could be made. (Thinking in retrospect, perhaps the odd fitting is caused by wrong sizing.)
“I think I can do with a smaller top… what do you think?” he voices, nearly bursting out laughing when he sees the way Patrick’s eyes widen in the slightest way. At this point he might be one millisecond away from a full-blown aneurysm.
“I think…” Patrick starts, and then a beat. For some odd reason, a second between them passes like a goddamn century. Pete doesn’t know for certain if it’s because of Patrick’s fleeting, glittering eyes, or the way he averts his body sideways when Pete moves in the slightest way. As if a single touch between them would make something within him switch and tilt and topple and crash and burn. “I think that’s a wonderful idea, I’ll go and check if we have one in the back.”
He looks oddly thrilled to leave the fucking place, and Pete snickers as he closes the curtain behind him.
He doesn’t know what to think of this situation. (Is it alright… is he being creepy… is Patrick returning the favours… is he even… is he…)
A shuffle of scuffed soles.
“I found… the size you asked for, by the way,” comes a voice from behind the curtain. Uncertain, but still trying his best to be helpful.
Pete smiles, and stares at himself in the mirror. He musses his hair a little more, making it appear dishevelled, like he’s been barely ravaged. “Okay, get in.”
Patrick’s blond head comes peeking through the velvet, those eyebrows raised as he takes another look at Pete, as if he’s some strange sighting. He puts the new hanger on the wall, and Pete sheds his top, before folding it neatly and placing it on the little box at the side of the room.
(From the corner of his periphery, he catches Patrick averting his eyes. Ha, he nearly laughs–what a gentleman. He’s a little too sweet and it hurts.)
And then Patrick just blurts: “You know what, I’ll go outside to give you some privacy for a bit.”
He just dashes out. Pete barely had any time to hear what he said.
He wants to laugh so bad. Jesus. The dude is so ridiculous yet so charming that he’s exactly Pete’s type down to a T. And this charming dude just brought him a new set of lingerie, only a size smaller, it seems.
He does the exact same thing he did with the previous piece, yet this time there is a little more struggle with the top because of the heightened restriction.
When he has it on, however, it does drape over his body a little better. The areas that previously fit him well now cling to him, and the loose bits are not comfortably snug around his curves, or the slight lack thereof.
It’s time, he ponders.
“Um, Patrick?”
“Yes?” Patrick squeaks from outside.
“Cause it’s smaller I can’t really… Goddammit, man, please come help me out here?”
“Just a sec—wait, please!”
A scuffle of soles against carpet.
“Got it.”
A second passes. He doesn’t know if this will be a sane enough plan.
“Okay, I’m back here, what do you need.”
“You can step in, you know. We’re both guys anyways. And you’ve done it. Like fifteen minutes ago.”
“That’s not—“
“Just. Get your ass in here, Patrick.”
“Jeez. Fine.”
The curtain opens gently, revealing the boy with sleeves rolled up a little higher upon his forearms. Pete’s eyes linger.
“I need help with the ribbons in the back,” he begins, voice scratchy as he raises his gaze to meet Patrick’s stony eyes, “can you help me lace it up? Please?”
“I… um.”
Patrick’s face is beetroot. There are about a dozen expression floating across his features, contemplating one over the other.
“Yes. Absolutely. Wait a sec. Is it okay if I touch you?”
Pete bites on the insides of his cheeks. Is that a real question?—good god, he might be winging out a fucking sweetheart here.
“I’ve been waiting all my life, Patrick.”
“Hush.”
Patrick places a gentle, yet sturdy hand on the spot between his shoulder blades out of nowhere.
Pete nearly topples.
His hand feels huge. Slightly bony. The tips of his fingers have calluses and they’re rough against his skin. Any moment now he’d be a flinging debris piece, sandpaper scarred.
“Stay still for me,” Patrick says, or rather commands. His voice is low and Pete spots the note of focus on the glint of his eyes through the mirror’s reflection. “You’re stretching the back if you move too much. Okay?”
“Okay,” Pete whispers, surprised at himself at how quickly he echoes.
“Good.” Patrick smiles, bright and cheery as if this is just some shopping deal at the market and not the incredibly intimate moment that seems to be the thing that only Pete considers. “That’s good, I’m happy to hear that.”
His fingers have a kind of dexterity that Pete likes. They’re steady; they know what they’re doing. He thinks it’s sweet - or, he ponders in a crashing train of consciousness beneath all the chaos of his off-beat rapid heart - that Patrick is actively trying to avoid his skin. As if the barest of touches could set him off–or both of them off. Or maybe Pete is slowly gnawed and chewed thoroughly by wishful thinking, but a part of him denies that it’s wishful—he’s slowly, but very surely, manifesting reality.
He stands as still as he can under Patrick’s low command, and the gentle hum of the store AC is the background music to their heavy-tension scene pulled straight out of the banks of Pete’s imaginary romance film. It’s barely tension, the sane section of his sanity reels back, it’s barely anything! It’s a fantasy, or again: wishful thinking.
And then the sound of Patrick’s throat bobbing from a gulp cuts through the quietness, and Pete smiles at him through the mirror’s reflection. Patrick briefly stares back, eyes wide as if he’s caught doing something red handed, but then he returns to his work like he hasn’t been interrupted. Pete can barely feel the tremble of his thick fingers, the curve of his veins when the back of his hand grazes the sharpness of his shoulder blade, the rough-coarseness of the sparse hairs on his forearm.
Pete holds back a shiver. Patrick has pulled on the ribbon a little too hard, looping it through the holes to cinch the boning around his waist. He instinctively sucks in his stomach, one hand braces on the wall next to the full-body mirror.
He flashes a look towards Patrick. Panicked, surprised.
Taken aback with a frenzy-flurry inside his stomach that makes his toes curl.
“Sorry,” Patrick says, sheepish. He bows his head a little in apology.
“That’s,” Pete clears his throat, “that’s okay.”
“It’s just. I’m just checking if it fits if you tighten it.”
“That’s fine, man, don’t worry about it.” Pete smiles - or tries to - though it looks more like a grimace. And then he tilts his head, attempting to catch Patrick’s beacon gaze through the mirror once more. “So what d’you think?”
“Hm?”
He barely tries to conceal the choked off noise in his throat. It’s astounding how that little sound Patrick made - inquisitive and patient and curious and… surprisingly coy - has set something within him alight with a burst of warm, low-simmering desire to retaliate and reply with something just as, if not more, charming. He feels slightly foolish, child-like, as if he has to be coaxed out of his shell to tell Patrick precisely what he needs. Be it attention or assistance.
At this point Pete doesn’t know which of the two he’d prefer.
(A part of him scratches at the edges of his insides when Patrick’s fingers have become much gentler with him, looping one ribbon with such a light hand that he barely feels it if it isn’t for the slightly ticklish sensation that the silk ribbon gives him when he pulls the line to meet the other loop hole. With each drag that it makes, Pete barely holds his breath. It almost feels like the tip of a finger drawing criss-cross lines across his back, teasing, gentle and kind with care.
“Sir? You asked me something?”
Pete has forgotten about what he said.
“I… what?” He blinks, taking a brief look at himself in the mirror and schooling his expression. “I forgot–and please just call me Pete, I’m not that old.”
Surprisingly, Patrick lets out a gentle laugh. “No, that’s not what I mean, Pete, it’s just.” A gentle hand reaches up towards his own head with a languidness that makes Pete pay attention; and Patrick is only messing about with his hair, scratching a spot and then ‘tidying’ it up again until the strands stick up. (Charming.) “Regulations?”
“You call the girls ‘ma’am’ here, too?”
“No.” He shakes his head, before looking up at catching Pete’s gaze in the mirror through his right shoulder. His eyes seem to be much more piercing from the way the bright bright bright lights behind the mirror. Pete just can’t look away.
“No?” he only manages to get out.
“I call them ‘miss’.”
“Oh…”
Pete doesn’t know what he’s feeling right now. It’s a little like curiosity. A little like jealousy—and this word he examines with little skip in the beat of his heart.
“I feel real special,” Pete says, but it sounds more like a whisper.
Patrick chuckles, looping the ribbon into another hole. “You want me to call you ‘miss’ too?”
He shrugs. “If you want to.”
“I’m supposed to be attending to your needs… miss,” Patrick quips, the smile in his voice audible as the tone slightly lowers, perhaps emanating a gentlemanly-charade, like he’s courting. Jokingly, of course.
(But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect him in any way.)
Pete forgoes the excited, small shiver that runs through his spine and hopes to the heavens that Patrick misses its emergence as he places his hands all over his skin. All over might be excessive, but Pete wants his presence in excess, he finds. He can feel the tip of Patrick’s blunk thumbnail scraping against the mesh fabric over his skin when he loops another ribbon and gently pulls - tugging on his heartstrings like the strands of his hair, akin to those of a boneless marionette’s - and goosebumps break through his skin like pinpricks of ants, running up and down his body in a steady line before each one runs amok and spreads like gentle, blue-dim wildfire across him.
He takes in another breath.
“Oh yeah?” he asks, just to challenge Patrick’s composure a little. He still doesn’t know how to interpret Patrick’s behaviour.
“Mhm,” the other hums as a reply. “It’s on my nametag, you see. What my job is. I assist you, you get what you want, you use or wear it, fast forward, you look beautiful.” He pauses, looking up briefly in a way that baffles Pete. “Or you think you do. Then you come back here, you buy more stuff, the cycle repeats. Boom, capitalism.”
Pete finds himself biting on the insides of his cheeks at the word, even though he knows that that isn’t the point of this at all. Beautiful—how easy it is for Patrick to say it. The words you and beautiful uttered in the same breath, the same sentence, lingering in the same heavy air around them that they both share. Pete can almost taste the way the syllables and vowels wrap around Patrick’s tongue, verbalised and given for Pete to take and bask in and preen at. His fingers tremble against the side of the mirror when he attempts to right his posture back to nonchalant steadiness.
“And do you?”
“Do I what?” Patrick snipes back, jokingly harsh and a touch cruel - the kind that lingers on his tongue like a sweetness that you can’t and won’t wash down - and then he emphasises the word with an extremely tight pull of the ribbon. The boning cinches his waist even more, closing around his torso to the point of delicious suffocation, and Pete finds himself gasping, hands braces on either side of the mirror. His reflection draws the picture of a man undoubtedly surprised beyond his wits, shadowy eyes impossibly wide with his lips parted. Redness begins to emerge behind the skin of his cheeks, the highest points blushing from the attention.
Patrick has gotten himself hidden behind his back; Pete can only catch the tousled crown of his yellow-silver-orange-blond hair. It’s a mess, Pete doesn’t know how many times the kid has run his fingers through it. He imagines that he does it even when he’s walking around, not just in front of a mirror, figuring out desperately what works and what doesn’t. A middle part or a side sweep, pushed back or tumbling down his forehead like wispy, burning feathers that make his eyes look much more piercing, icy blue.
“Do you think it looks beautiful?” Pete manages to get out, mouth cottony and tongue heavy with nerves.
“The lingerie?”
(No, Pete wants to retaliate. Me.)
He just nods instead.
“Of course I do,” says Patrick, distracted by the ribbon. Goddamn, it feels like forever. “I always find it admirable when guys are comfortable with themselves.” And another loop. “And of course, you’re a good looking guy, pretty sure you know that already. It suits you. The colour’s nice, too.” Another pull. Drag. Pete lets out a sigh. “But for this model, specifically, my favourite’s the red one. This one you’re wearing, this shade. The jewel tone one, not the bright red that’s on display… That one kinda hurts to look at,” he trails off, before leaning in slightly closer to the point that Pete can feel his breath against the ball of his exposed shoulder, “but don’t tell the management that, please.”
“I won’t,” Pete releases in a whisper.
“Good.”
(Pete is 0.1 second away from combusting, he feels. He doesn’t know what causes the low, warm hum in his belly; he doesn’t know if it’s because of how Patrick’s voice has suddenly gone so quiet and low, deeper than anything he has ever heard in the past twenty? thirty? forty? minutes he has spent here. He doesn’t know if it’s the satisfied tone in his word - something so, so simple and singular and succinct but so salaciously seductive, perhaps without even meaning to be. Good, he says. One word. Pete envies the way Patrick’s lips wrap around the syllable so surely. Good. Simple as that. As if it didn’t just turn Pete’s limbs weak and nerve set alight with embarrassment burning hot behind his eyelids.)
“There you go,” Patrick says with a sigh, tying the last two ends of the ribbon together, possibly into a neat bow. Perhaps he doesn’t know that he has completely pulled Pete out of his wicked train of thought by being so efficient, but he did. It’s as if Patrick has wrapped his fingers around Pete’s wrist, gripping tight to drag him away from a counterpull, throwing him to the ground in a fucking lingerie set.
Even though it’s not a set yet. He’s still wearing his fucking boxers - thank fuck it’s not the Batman one jesus fucking christ - because this set is a full set—so full in fact, that Pete might as well buy a perfume that’s got a suitable, seductive scent and a pair of red shoes to match.
(If he clumsily clicks his heels together would his fantasies come true?
Would it be correct to call them fantasies and not perversions? Lucid, lascivious thoughts and near-daydreams of Patrick. Patrick and himself and the goddamn lingerie. Patrick and his clever, steady fingers and hands and his sweet mouth and even sweeter words. His commanding yet gentle tone, his kindness, his slight awkward-charming gait, his efficiency. Pete feels near humiliated from how unabashed he is thinking these thoughts about someone who’s only doing his goddamn job.
But he would be lying, sinning through his fucking teeth if he says that his mind is not halfway filled with soft-blurred thoughts of Patrick’s hands on him again, one on the back of his neck and the other cradling his cheek or anywhere else - grounding him and his flurried, frenzied mess of a mind - coaxing him down down down under with a finger eventually hooked into one of the straps of the see-through slip he’s probably going to buy in the future. He imagines Patrick pulling it down, exposing more of himself like a self-imposed torture to withheld a present. He imagines those eyes on him and only him, freezing-scorching icy blue, piercing fucking witchcraft! Narrowed at him once challenged, widened with satisfaction upon witnessing beautiful compliance.
“Good,” is what the voice says in his ear, pressed onto the crown of his head and buried within those jet black strands, licked into his mouth and branded there, bitten onto his hip bones and neck and shoulder blades and thighs. “Good” and “beautiful” tattooed on both of his forearms, branding praise and pride.
Jesus. He ought to go away.
He can save these images for tonight, he muses, when he’s alone and safe in the cage of his bedroom. There, perhaps, he can picture this more clearly. The voice, the eyes, the lips—everything, drawn into a picturesque carbon copy of the real thing. He doesn’t know what he wants, though. With Patrick, that is.
But the kid is too sweet, and uncertainty would only lead such sweetness into a mindset Pete would rather anyone not have.)
“It’s done?” is what he says, voice slowly breaking.
“It’s gorgeous, dude,” Patrick replies, smoothing his hands down over his criss-crossing work, adjusting the centre of attention: the bow that he has tied. Pete only wishes that he stops making sure it’s laid flat and straight against his fucking lower back, good god—
“Oh, thanks,” he says, turning his head and eventually, body, to catch a glimpse of Patrick’s work in the mirror. Biting back a smile - and the faintest flush that threatens to reveal itself on his tanned cheeks - “Way to compliment yourself, yeah?”
Patrick chuckles, seemingly caught off guard. “No, I didn’t mean it like that,” he says. “It’s. I don’t know; it looks nice on you.”
“Just nice?” Pete casts his eyes downwards, to the way his waist is cinched comfortably. “Man, you need to sell your products better.”
He laughs again, but this time the hand that was previously splayed over his ribbonwork is curled into a loose fist, pushed urgently to land a gentle punch over the boning. “Okay, mister PR.”
“Nah, I’m joking, sorry. And thank you. That’s, really kind of you to say.”
“No worries.”
He waits with bated breath, and then says: “You’re not too bad yourself, you know?”
And then Patrick stops behind him, and the changing room is way too small for both of them again. This was not a good idea at all - not even sane - but Pete has dug the hole now, the last thing he’d do is lie in it. And then he’d bury himself and hope he’ll never see Patrick or anyone else again. But perhaps if he dies now, he’d be roaming around on Earth with a lingerie on, and he doesn’t quite know if that’s the end that he wants–that would be a strangely blasphemous afterlife.
“What are you doing, man?” Patrick asks, voice small and tinged with a tired sigh. There is a slight softness to his tone - something akin to fragility? or perhaps insecurity? - and also an edge, the rasp that comes in tandem with defensiveness. Pete can’t quite discern it. “Are you hitting on me?”
“I…” He lets out a sigh, letting his eyes flutter shut because he feels a little nauseous all of the sudden. Maybe Patrick isn’t interested, after all. “Yeah, kind of.”
(But at least he tried, right? And now Patrick knows his intentions, too, so anything left unsaid and solely verbalised within the safe confines of his void mind is now bared and alright.)
“Oh,” Patrick says suddenly, sounding a little startled. “Okay. Um…”
He still has his eyes closed, heavy hearted and - a little - humiliated. “Look, I’m sorry. If you don’t–”
“Just–”
Pete nearly jolts when he feels the coldness of Patrick’s hand along the area between his shoulder blades, wide and steady. The pad of his thumb rubs a quick, gentle movement on his skin - so swift that Pete might’ve not noticed it if he wasn’t so goddamn delusional - phantom like with how flashing-fleeting it is. But he blooms beneath it, he can almost feel his body shiver. He doesn’t know what that meant. Is Patrick reciprocating or is it just what it simply is, as said on the rusty tin, merely a touch?
He stills, frozen in time. He can feel Patrick’s fingers shift against his skin, those tendons pulsing like dulled spitfire. Each change of movement that Patrick makes is another taste of blue fire—like tenseness pulled taut, lax, before it forcefully pulls at him again, only to be released with a sigh. He feels giddy, floaty and dreamlike from how much this is making him shake and simply feel. (Patrick is barely touching him, yet his heart is about to jump out of his chest.)
He reckons if he swallows the lump in his throat right now, Patrick would hear it.
The sigh that he hears himself let out emerges shaky, trembling fragile from phantom whispers of Patrick’s body heat, what a joke. (What is he, fourteen?)
“Just,” Patrick starts again, a little slower this time. From the corner of his eye, Pete spots Patrick nodding to himself from the reflection in the mirror; it’s a little effortless considering that their stature isn’t that different from each other. Patrick stands there like a blonder, pastier, stranger shadow that looms - or not loom, but hover - behind him. “Okay. Yeah.”
“Yeah?” Pete sputters. (What the fuck does that mean?”) So he says: “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You need the rest of the set,” the blond says. Nonchalant, as if nothing happened.
“I–what–” Pete turns around.
“So, you know the drill right?” Patrick asks, tone professional as he wraps his hand around his wristwatch, adjusting its position. Pete’s eyes briefly fall towards it, squinting at the sight of blue-green veins curving stark against his pale, pale skin. His fingers seem much larger from the movements he’s making, twisting and turning as if he’s trying to offhandedly, nonchalantly tame a wild being.
Pete just can’t stop looking at his veiny, strong, muscular, masculine fucking hand—
“Pete?”
“Yes.”
(Good job. Great job, even.)
“Um. Yeah, sorry,” Patrick scratches the back of his neck, sheepish all of the sudden - and of course Pete’s eyes briefly diverts towards the slight bulge of his arm - jesus fucking christ get your shit together! - and Pete stares at him unblinking as he continues, “I was just asking if you know the drill with those,” he points at the rest of the set propped on a hanger inside the changing room, “thingy.”
“These thingy?” Pete points at it.
“Yeah. That thingy.”
The ‘thingy’ is the rest of the set. The pair of soft, ruby red panties with an opaque, silk base at the centre and gentle lace tendrils upon mesh fabric at the sides; the line between these is embellished with matching tiny red bows, the ends of ribbons cut short to direct attention to the thighs and crotch of the person who wears them, and not precisely the thingy as they are—sexy and inviting. The panties are clipped with metal clamps that are connected to the black velvet hanger, and laid upon its softness is a pair of thin thigh garters, complete with their matching belt and mock-up knee-high stockings that can be replaced for any other colour. At the moment, they’re sheer, soft red. Not as garish as everything else.
He imagines the way the red garter straps would press onto his thighs, pinching the skin closer closer closer and making the sides look wider, fuller than they are. He would say that he’s a pretty skinny guy - slim, maybe - but nothing holds him back when he trails the tip of his index finger over the straight line of one of the thigh garters, picturing a pair of soft hosiery pulled taut against the clamps that are attached to a beautiful belt.
Interestingly, he finds that it’s the most alluring aspect of the entire thing. Not the bralette, not the corset top, not the garters.
The belt is absolutely gorgeous—it’s a little thicker, made to completely cinch the waist and gives it an illusion of an even smaller midsection, accentuating the chest area that Pete lacks and the upper thighs that Pete prays would look good when he shows them off to Patrick later.
“You know how the garters work?”
“No,” he dumbly replies, eyes wide at Patrick’s searching gaze. The blond looks so adorably serious that it stuns Pete a little; he can’t think about anything else and he can’t quite pay attention to anything else, tunnel vision, one track minded.
“Do you have stockings at home? But not the full-length ones, I mean the ones that stop at like, the mids of your thighs.”
Pete can feel his face flaming.
(This guy can’t be real. He can’t be serious right now.)
“Uh.” He licks his lips, one hand raised to scratch an area on the back of his neck. Patrick is looking at him with wide eyes, genuinely questioning as he hadn’t just asked the most ungodly question of all time—for Pete, that is.
“No,” he says.
“Do you want to buy a pair, maybe?” Patrick asks. “Cos I can just open the packaging and show you how to do it for real. Like, how to use the garters with the stockings on. They’re pretty self-explanatory, anyway. But if you’re not really interested in buying overpriced stockings here, I also completely understand…”
Pete is so unbelievably charmed out of his mind that Patrick could probably talk him into buying a penis-shaped salt shaker. (Or wait, no, he would buy that of his own volition, actually. Most likely.) “No, no–I want to!”
Perhaps that was a little - a tad bit, a touch - too enthusiastic. There is not a single molecule in his body that is even remotely interested in buying a pair of stockings. But whatever embarrassment Pete feels is forcefully melted right away, and the expression on his face gradually transforms into something much more coy, the corners of his lips crooked in a smile.
“I mean, I’m gonna buy them, Patrick.”
“Great,” he says, nodding like he’s found a new purpose in life. “Alright, please wait here–I’m gonna go for a bit to find some stockings for you. What’s your size and what colour do you want? Personally, I think the white ones look the best with these,” he shrugs, the apples of his cheeks flushing ruddy ruby red - gorgeous - “but we also have nude, red, and black, of course.”
Pete can feel his own cheeks warming at the thought of his thighs, the sheer layer - overcoat - of fragile fabric over them like a bastardised peek of what’s beneath. Not completely bare but only a touch so. He rocks a little on his feet, clearing his throat as he forces his eyes to meet Patrick’s again. The boy is simply looking at him, truly doing his job.
“I’m, uh. I’ll follow your advise and go for white then. And usually M’s fit me. For everything in general. Or maybe an S, but if it’s tight then maybe an M.”
Whatever cryptic message Pete has managed to utter from the space of his cottony mouth, Patrick seems to understand. Deciphering confusion seems to be a strong suit of his…
“Okay, perfect. I’ll be right back with you.”
And then he walks, or rather sprints, or rather runs… nearly bumping into a black-haired girl along the way as Pete hurriedly covers his body with the curtain. The girl smiles at him upon catching a sight of his frazzled head, and he grins, shooting her a quick nod that hopefully does not translate to dickhead.
He closes the curtain, and is back here. Left to his own devices. Alone.
Standing like a goddamn fool in a lingerie that fits a little nicely now.
He twists his hips to the side, raising his arms slightly to see how his body looks pulled taut - ramrod rigid - spine slightly arched and curved. His edges are framed by the fabric, slivers of his tanned skin peeking thorough the parts that are sheer enough, like a coy little smile as one looks up through the shadowy curtain of sparse lashes, catching seduced glares like an ingenue.
The ribbons of his garters hang over his thighs, at loss. He can almost picture the way it’d look once everything is adjusted properly.
And then Patrick returns. (Oh, my dear, Pete inwardly sighs to himself with a barely-concealed giggle; finally, you’ve come back from the war.)
He’s got a small plastic covered bag in his hand, and those eyes glitter.
“Okay,” he says, “I’ve got a pair for you here. Luckily we’re loaded in stocks for S’s, so I managed to snag one. But even if it’s a little tight for now, if you wear them over and over they’re gonna stretch and grow to be accustomed to your body anyway. It’s gonna be fine.”
Pete takes the package and turns it. The woman on the front cover is the complete opposite of him; blonde, leggy, stick-thin and tall. She looks gorgeous with the stockings on—they appear spray-painted, emphasising the flawless gloss to her legs, that already go on for miles, and she twists her body in a way that accentuates the curve of her… lengthiness.
“You okay?” Patrick’s voice chips in, taking him out of his reverie.
He blinks, rapid before he looks up to shoot Patrick a quick smile. “Yeah, totally.”
“Have you ever worn stockings before?”
“For a high school play, yeah,” he says. “But that was years ago and it’s way different from what this… is.”
“I get it.” Patrick smiles. “Just take it easy. I’m here to help you.”
“Glad to have you with me,” he says, sighing as he opens the packaging. This way, he muses, he has a reason not to look at Patrick. “Seriously, man, they need to give you a raise.”
He laughs, and the sound chimes quite so. “Thank you,” he replies, easy as ever. His hand moves to secure the edge of the curtain so that a single movement won’t push it sideways, allowing anyone a glimpse of them inside. “I don’t know, I haven’t been here long enough. I could be a shift leader. Manager, someday? I dunno. I really don’t think I’m qualified enough. But thanks.”
“Dude, are you serious? This isn’t Wall Street, it’s a lingerie store.”
“You’ve got a point.” He shrugs, eyes glinting with a bright white flash when he looks back up. “But it’s not like those people are well-qualified to do what they do.”
Pete snickers. “Touche.”
“You ready to try the things on now?”
“I’ve prepared for this moment my whole life, Trickster.”
Patrick barks out a laugh. “Trickster?!”
“Mhm.” He nods, confidently.
The blond shakes his head, as if he can’t believe himself. There is something warm reflected on those glaciers, and Pete is so taken aback that he can feel his face filling up his heat, undoubtedly turning ruddy in idleness. “You’re really something.”
“Well.”
“Okay, so watch closely, alright?” Patrick tells him, his voice an odd concoction of gentle and firm, commanding his attention like a moth to a blinding light in an instant. “If you’re gonna be putting these on by yourself in the future, you gotta know, man.”
“That’s true, yeah, you’re… you’re right.”
Pete feels like a true fool at the moment.
“Yeah, so here you’ve got your stockings,” he explains, using the tips of his fingers from the exposed palm of his hand to point at the stockings’ hemline at the top, where they’re wrapped around his limbs the tightest. Pete longs to simply pull those hands closer to him, let the tips of his fingers graze the barest stitches of the thin nylon. A graze of his knuckles would be enough to send him to his knees, he muses. “And I mean. Self explanatory. You put them on, say.”
“Yeah?”
“And then,” Patrick lays the stocking over Pete’s thigh, where it would be worn, hovering so they don’t quite touch - and it actually makes him a little angry, not going to lie - “you see these clasps?” He points at the metal clasps attached to the garters. “You just open them, sorry for this.”
Pete freezes.
Patrick’s knuckles. They’re grazed against his thigh now. Sharp, sure.
All of that wavering, swaying-boat looks Patrick has been sending his way now has waned, melted away - lead-hot - into something akin to a hyperfocus glance. His lips are pulled straight, taut, composure willed to make Pete completely dissolve.
And then he drops to one knee, placing the stocking over his own thigh as his hand - those deft, clever fingers that makes him swallow a dry lump in his throat every time his eyes linger on them a little too long - moves to unclasp the metal, revealing the dulled teeth that will gnaw on elastics. Patrick’s barely looking at him now, even though he’s shock-still and stupefied. Not just from the touch, but from seeing fucking Patrick on his knees from this angle what the fuck?! He has to hold himself back from kicking the guy in the shins.
“Okay, so this,” he points at the metal, “clips and unclips. Okay?”
And then he stands up, and Pete feels like he’s swaying on both feet.
“Put the stockings on and clip them on the top hemline. I’ll give you some privacy, and if you need any help, just look for someone outside.” Patrick briefly looks away, and Pete searches. God, he longs for those eyes to be directed at him once more. “Yes.” He gives him the stockings back. “There you go.”
“Thank you, Patrick,” he replies, as slowly as he could possibly do.
“No problem.”
And as he moves to leave, Pete reaches out. “Wait, no. Please could you…”
Patrick looks at him with widened eyes, urgency and a question both reflected. (Finally, he exhales through bated breath–your eyes are on me and my fingers shake with anticipation.)
“Could you stay here and wait for a second?” And as Patrick’s mouth parts to let a serenading reply escape past his lips—oh how Pete envies those syllables—he interrupts, “I know you probably have other customers waiting for you but I’m,” he shrugs, “I’m a little… nervous…?”
Patrick looks at him for a moment.
“I mean, I don’t know if I can find you if someone else helps me out…”
“Oh...”
“And also,” he leans a little closer, feigning a whisper, “I don’t know if the others are as sweet as you…” And then, realising that it’s probably a little too forward by the rush of blotchy red on the boy’s high cheekbones, he continues with a small smile that he hopes won’t appear too obnoxious: “Kind, I mean. As kind.”
“Oh! I…” he says. “Yes, I can… I can definitely wait, yeah, for sure. I’ll, um. I’ll do some work nearby, just so I don’t look like I’m slacking off, you know, is that okay?”
“Yes!” His hands, completely on their own accord, fly out to grasp at Patrick’s rolled sleeve. The man is staring at him with wide eyes, cheeks growing redder in blotchy spaces. “Yes, of course, that’s okay.”
Pete flashes him his billion dollar smile… a twitch in his fingers that burn with the shocks of desperation, the need to see and be seen, the want to desire and be desired, the edges of his rationality corroding as if the caresses of Patrick’s brief, coy glances the splashes of water laced in sweet, saccharine acid that aims to destroy him whole. He doesn’t know what it is about the boy, he muses with a smile as he flattens the mesh over his stomach. He doesn’t know what it is that pulls him, or what makes him this delirious, but the changing room suddenly feels too cramped for him to be there on his own.
“But I do…” Patrick points at the curtain’s direction, lips quirked up in a Prince Charming lopsided, easy smile as he gently shakes an arm. Which he is gripping on to. “Have to get back to work…”
Pete’s face falls, and he releases his hold. “Oh… Oh, yeah, absolutely.”
And then Patrick shakes his hands in front of him, looking a little panicked. “No! It’s okay, just… you can call out for me if you need. I won’t be far. And I guess you can have some time to consider buying the thing without me breathing down your neck like a true salesman.” He shrugs, the corners of his lips pulled into an boyish, blooming smile.
(Honestly, a part of Pete’s mind digresses, it doesn’t sound too unpleasant to have Patrick breathe down his neck. Hypothetically, of course.)
Pete grins, nodding. “Yeah, absolutely.”
“Great.” Patrick shoots him a quick thumbs up–and Pete bites back a smile–(god, this kid is just a gift that keeps on giving.)
And then he’s left alone again.
The stockings hang from his open palm, lying awaiting in thorough idleness.
And then he moves to take off his socks, propping one leg on the little desk at the corner to fit the fragile thing over one calf, and then the other. And then he feels too bare, and the ground feels too dirty for him to be stepping on it with just these on. The fabric layers itself upon his skin like something airbrushed, tattoos peeking out still but slightly blurred.
He looks… softer, somehow.
His edges dulled yet sharpened, embellished yet rough. He can’t quite figure it out.
He stretches one leg out, watches as it appears elongated in the reflection. (And suddenly his mind returns to Meagan’s words–it’s a little true, he hasn’t appeared this tall in ages, good god.) He lets his upper body twist in a way, and it emphasises the curves that the corset top accentuated through its boning, the line now complete with the seamless illusion of his stockings.
And then he remembers Patrick’s words, those unclasped clamps facing the palm of his hands.
He pulls at the hemline and clips one on each. The ribbon garters are now pulled taut, pressing gently into the skin of his thighs and making them look more plush. When he turns to look at his backside, his ass also strangely looks a bit… different? A good kind of different, though, he looks like he’s been doing squats for about two weeks. He can’t stop fucking looking at his legs–!
Taking a deep breath, he closes his eyes and leans a little closer towards the curtain.
“Patrick?”
He peeks his head out, finding Patrick right there again.
The blond nods and walks over, almost like he doesn’t even have to guess anymore.
“Okay…” Pete slowly opens the curtains, letting Patrick back in as he places some space between them by walking a step backwards. (A little further and he’d be pressed against the wall to floor mirror—he tries to tamp the implications of that slowly corrupting his mind, not now! he whisper-hisses.) “What do you think…?”
It takes another moment for Patrick to reply.
He can sense those eyes all over him. It feels a little like being dissected - slow and torturous with the kind of patient, idle wait that makes you want to tear your hair out - and he barely gathers enough courage to capture the sight of Patrick’s eyes mapping the length of his body, now wrapped in lace and intricacies. If he takes a bit longer - snap a picture, et cetera - Pete feels like his self consciousness would kick in, and things will certainly not go well.
Now his head is letting his floating thoughts swim, drenched with worry. He wonders what he looks like, now, in Patrick’s eyes. Would he want himself, or that asking for too much? Wishful thinking or a speculation that - if he were lucky - would be too good to be true, yet good things come to those who wait?
The silence prevails.
He feels like he’d rather dig his own grave and bury himself in it.
And then,
“Fucking gorgeous,” Patrick exhales.
Pete’s own breath hitches. His gaze drifts up, swift and desperate with the hopes of capturing something, anything that might reveal a feeling. Envy, hatred, amusement, attraction—anything. His throat feels dry.
He doesn’t know what Patrick sees that he cannot. Or perhaps it’s the money talking - laced upon Patrick’s tongue like the sole subject of Pete’s unceasing jealousy, he can’t believe himself! - perhaps it’s the lie that demands such attention because of its proximity to Patrick’s entirety. Pete remembers what he saw in the reflection of his own body in the lingerie set: tanned skin, ruby red fabric, hair tousled form exertion of being inside this room for too goddamn long–and his fingers, jittery yet nervous with excitation of what he can show to Patrick, what bravado can he wear, which face he can make to ascertain himself as the prettiest thing Patrick has ever seen wearing the store’s pieces. Though he likes the way it looks, youth never lies—the way his feet move inward, the way his hip juts a little awkwardly, uneven, unbalanced. His blushing face, ruddy-rivaling redness, is barely concealed by the half-crooked smirk/smile he sends Patrick’s way.
Pete doesn’t know what to make of what he said.
Gorgeous. Two syllables, harsh and soft–the consonants cutting through the air as Patrick’s soft lips seem to wrap around them effortlessly. The way he pronounces his r’s, throat constricting to the point that Pete doesn’t know what to do with himself. He holds the high point of his own wrist, and finds his pulse beating fast fast fast, rapid and reeling and wild and so, so alive. Joyful, almost.
And then Patrick widens his eyes and runs a hand through his hair, moving and pacing on his feet. “Sorry!” he says. “I did not mean to say that, I am so, so sorry. I did not mean to swear at all–but you truly look amazing, Pete, I’m not… I’m serious. You. It’s… trust me when I say it is a completely objective opinion and I am in no way manipulating you into buying our stuff but you. They suit you so much–you look so beautiful.”
(As if swearing is the biggest fucking problem here like it’s the goddamn issue jesus christ you’re beginning to stress me out! My head can’t seem to stop spinning when you keep diverting your eyes like that when the only thing i want is them on me, i’m bared and i hope i look beautiful now can i catch your eye now or do i need to resort to something much more risque like the way it feels when i’m reaching out to touch you now without ever moving my fingers?)
Pete just can’t help the smile that blooms on his face, his lips stretched with a kind of giddiness that warms him on the inside. It’s unadulterated, and he might look ridiculous to the point that he begins to tip his head downwards lest Patrick fucking laughs at him, but that praise is truly something else.
He doesn’t consider himself insecure, but he does wonder what he appears to those icy-blue irises that can’t seem to stop staring at the floor, up to his chest, and up to his face, and back down again, repeating like a coy cycle of what-if’s and what-could-be’s and Pete feels like a desperate fisherman, coaxing him over and over, a never-ending search for something that he can discern and Patrick just doesn’t seem to let him–
“Um.”
“You,” Pete begins, his throat painful and parched. He hasn’t been this nervous since high school, he reckons. “You really think so?”
Patrick glances up at him briefly, those light lashes casting sparse shadows over his line of sight, cheekbones appearing sharper. Everything about Patrick is simply - unconsciously, most likely - vying for Pete’s attention like a blaring beacon. “I do.”
“Uh. Thank you, Patrick. I–I mean it, thanks a lot.”
Biting back a smile, he walks a little closer. Patrick doesn’t budge; he doesn’t get away or flinch. It’s as if they’re both anticipating something - that thing - that they know this might lead up to. He’s mere inches away from the boy, his socks so very close to the tip of Patrick’s shiny black brogues. A push forward and he’d be toppling, hands planted upon Patrick’s chest for support and the blond would have no choice but to have him that close, that warm and willing and starry-eyed. Patrick might have put some wicked, malicious spell over him—one that accelerates the rush of his thrumming blood, making him think about nothing but the lack of a consequence even though it would barrage every part of him once someone sane would kindly snap their fingers (loudly) in front of his eyes.
But of course, there is no phantom that pushes at Pete, nor Patrick. Maybe it’s pride that emerges in victory, because Pete’s breath catches with no intent to lean over and plant a kiss on those lips. He can do that. He can do that now, but of course, no. No, he can’t. Not until Patrick does so.
Patrick doesn’t make a move. To do anything. To leave him there, stuck in his own mind in a lingerie by himself.
Until he does.
“Sorry, I gotta,” he clears his throat, averting his eyes again so that the floor that was vying for his attention now has successfully won it, “I gotta get back to work.”
“Oh, yeah, of course.” Pete chokes out, voice scratchy as he blinks away the dryness in his eyes. The ‘spell’ now broken. “Thanks a lot, Patrick.”
Patrick flashes him a smile, easy as ever like he hasn’t just turned Pete’s mind into an incomprehensive series of scrawls of thought and feelings and entries that mean nothing and everything at the same time.
“No problem at all, Pete,” he says.
Pete finds that his name has never sounded more gut-wrenching than this. The way it sounds both languid and urgent, spilling out of Patrick’s tongue.
Patrick looks at him again for a wink-fast beat.
And then he leaves.
Standing there in his ‘normal’ clothes, he feels oddly overexposed. But also completely covered to the point he wants to shed a layer. Out of place, owlish when he stares at his own reflection with widened eyes and slightly smudged eye makeup.
So he opens the curtain, and holds the hanger in front of him.
Only to see Patrick still there, all by himself as he’s sorting out a rack full of clothes people have tried yet didn’t decide to buy.
“Um… Patrick…?”
His head turns.
“Alright, um,” Patrick clears his throat, taking the set in a hand that briefly trembles, “if you’d just follow me to the register, please?”
A part of him - foolish, selfish, impulsive, the one that always falls in love a little too fast and gets himself trapped and enamoured out of his own will - muses that he would probably follow this kid everywhere.
˚✧₊⁎
”Thank you for shopping,” Patrick says with a smile so devastatingly and devilishly handsome that Pete nearly melted right there against the counter. It’s crooked and unabashed and perfect and Pete wonders if he could ever see that again directed at him, with no purchases involved. “We hope to see you again soon.”
“Hope you had a pleasant experience, sir!” quips the red-haired girl standing next to Patrick, who was busy wrapping a box with gift wrapping paper. Hayley • Manager is displayed on her nametag, a small sticker of a pink star plastered right above the left side of her name.
Pete takes the shopping bag silently, still trying to process everything.
“I… I really did.” He chuckles, a little in disbelief. ”Thank you, Patrick. You were amazing, like. Thanks a lot for the help, it was really dope.”
Patrick lowers his head, cheeks bunched up in a smile, pink and ruddy at the edges—blotchy with joy and what seems to be embarrassment in the most pleasant way.
“No need to thank me, it’s my job.”
“Still.” He shrugs.
“I’d love to see you here again,” Patrick says, a little coy. As Pete looks downwards, he spots Patrick’s deft fingers fiddling about with the receipt, rolling it into a tube and nearly folding it in half before he seems to remember not to. “We have a new collection next month. For bralettes and camisoles, mostly, right, Hayley, what else…”
“Shapewear and babydolls…” Hayley chips in, sounding a little dreamlike with her attention solely directed towards a second gift box.
“That, too.” Patrick grins, and Pete notices just how awfully young he looks with his blond hair tousled above his ruddy cheeks, the mischief in his eyes and the playfulness in which a smile plays across his lips like poison, magic tricks, a promise made to be broken, and other lovely things Pete can’t think of right now. “I think you’ll like some of the new babydolls. I’m not allowed to say too much but I think they have one in deep red.”
Patrick says this with a saucy, dramatic, cheeky little wink that pushes a snort out of Pete’s nose.
“I’ll make sure to stay updated then.”
“Good,” Patrick says, low and certain like he knows just what it does.
(And what it does, precisely, is a lingering query that floats at the edges of Pete’s mind, hovering round and round like it’s waiting for his attention, waiting for him to grab onto the sharpness of consonants and the softness of vowels that verbalise just what he thinks–he wants to hear it all the time.)
“Yeah, um.” Pete nods to himself, or more so at the marble countertop that separates him from Patrick.
“Alright,” Patrick smiles, “thank you so much for shopping, again. And for trusting my judgement, of course.”
“Yours is the only one I’d listen to.”
He’s not sure if he’s joking or not when he says so.
But Patrick laughs–open and honest. “Charmed,” he says. “And honoured.”
“Lap it up, Tricky…”
He laughs again, and honestly, Pete can’t fucking get enough of that sound.
“Oh, and Pete?” He hears Patrick say, making him turn around.
“Yeah?”
There’s something odd in Patrick’s glacier-green eyes, something that glints with something more than mirth. Something that screams a promise, the touch of his hand, the graze of his fingers. Another grounding press between shoulder blades, perhaps another firmer twin at the back of his neck, pushing down down down, reminding him again of words he could never gather the courage to verbalise. Those calloused tips on the strands of his hair–Pete needs to get out of this reverie as soon as he can. Or perhaps a fantasy, rather than a train of thought that leads to absolutely nowhere, destined for destruction. (Or maybe that’s his pessimism talking; but how could he not listen to it when he has grown to be so accustomed to it that it has become more like a lover? At this point, his past lovers are manifestations of that voice in his head. He doesn’t feel wholly guilty anymore.)
“Check the receipt on your way, okay?” Patrick smiles, sweet and succinct. Still, Pete spots an odd glimmer within them, dulled with distance yet still as striking. He doesn’t know what it means, but his body still flutters at the attention, knowing perfectly how that look is meant to be directed at him, and not anyone else. (Even if it was, he can feign ignorance just fine, especially after so much practice.) “Make sure of it. I’ve written the items you can return according to our policy.”
“Got it, chief. Bye-bye.”
Patrick raises hand, and waves it. “Bye!”
His ‘walk’ is more like a ‘scurry’, his friendly ‘nonchalance’ more of a nervous ‘indifference’. He hopes that Patrick won’t notice how jittery his entire body is, absolutely engulfed in a low-trickle fire that makes him blush faster and stutter easier. He feels like he’s back in high school again, coy enough to charm yet awkward enough to still make him appear dorkish and tilted. The bag in his hand no longer reminds him of the slight shame that he had felt; it reminds him more of the feeling that he felt for the minutes - that were perhaps prolonged to hours - he spent in that changing room, in that store, with Patrick by his side.
His mind is running so, so fast. It rushes to replay him a fucked-up compilation of the things he had done and said to Patrick, making his entire body shrivel up inwardly. If he were alone in his house, he would’ve curled up into a ball and cried himself to sleep because that level of cringiness is a little too much for his body to handle. The reservoir is limited in size, anyway.
He decides to get coffee as he waits to calm down a little.
Sitting by the window with a concoction that consists mostly of sugar and processed salted caramel, he gathers up the nerve to look at the receipt again. The one that Patrick said was added with return information. They would mostly be circled orders, he assumes. Nothing but smeared pen marks and symbols that Pete won’t even understand. Nothing important, but Pete would still keep the receipts until the printed text won’t even be visible anymore.
It’s folded inside the bag, right on top of his ruby red lingerie.
When Pete looks at it, he notices a black marker scribble, the edges of its letters threatening to leak and smear and smudge like it would disappear should he avert his eyes from it for a mere second. He pauses in his tracks, furrowing his eyebrows as the writing covers almost the entire backside of his receipt. There is nothing that tells him about any return policy; there is nothing that meets his eyes but a reminder that his encounter with Patrick was truly, honestly real:
Pete –
Here is my number–call me if you need any more consulting, be it about lingerie or anything else. Preferably over coffee though.
Patrick VS :)
+1 (312) 444-2001
He finds himself biting back a smile in the middle of a fucking shopping mall, with the bustle of children and nagging parents around him a chaotic choir of his soaring, leaping heart. It’s not love, but it’s a close step. It’s not infatuation, but it’s a nudge away. There is something exciting about this, he’s sure of it—even though that’s what he thinks mere moments before he begins a relationship that ends with a crash and a ruin. And then he would wipe at his eyes, painful from the cotton, and compose himself and say: let’s start again.
If he has to be honest with himself, he’s quite sick of it.
Starting and re-starting, re-booting like a lovesick machine. Undoing his faults and redoing the things he did right with the adolescent hopes of gearing it towards the right direction this time. He has always missed by just a fraction; the stars have never aligned quite right like mismatched miracles, they need a little nudge from some merciful divine intervention that has never shown him any remorse nor mercy, nor have they intervened. Maybe they find joy in the way his cheeks grow damp with tears, heart torn to tired pieces that shatter weakly to the ground, all too familiar with the feeling already that they’ve only grown to resent him, and not the cause. (Which was probably him, anyway.)
Smeared and smudged and runny black eyeliner is a strangely charming look on him when he stares back at himself in the mirror, he finds, but he misses the stars more. He misses the love a little too deeply, like a mother who picks a favourite out of her countless children, grabby-hands set to the skies as they beg for her attention. Well, his emotions beg for his, too.
He misses his happiness more than ever, the smile that graces his lips in place of that salacious smirk that calls over beautiful men and women to cradle him at the corner of dingy bars every Saturday night. He wants to feel giddy again, and not just frisky—call him boyish, dreaming too far and too long, but the numbers that lay within his pocket seemingly vie for his heart, too. He doesn’t know.
About what he wants, about any of this.
Knowing has worn him out. Aged him a little.
He wonders: what could happen…?
(What’s the worst? What’s the best?)
He’s tired of settling for the best. Hoping for heaven when it doesn’t await him.
And what if this fails?
(So fucking what?)
So he leaves and moves on and tries again.
He might give up and sigh at any point, but the one thing that he is certain of doing is try.
He’ll always try, because he’d rather forgive himself of the regret that he gets from doing it, rather than the remorse that ties itself to the heartbreak of not doing; a chance that is perhaps lost forever.
His heart lifts a part of his own weight, the tip of his thumb never once leaving the corner of the slippery receipt paper that he wears in hiding, like a claim, like a brand, like a promise.
And then he finds himself gripping onto the straps of the shopping bag a little tighter, cheeks growing warmer with the kind of excitation that reminds him of summertime ice cream and heart-fluttering poetry because suddenly, a part of him muses that perhaps Patrick is worth the patience.