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Pete looked back at Patrick, who was absentmindedly stroking Pete's hair and chewing his lip. Currently, Pete was bent over a toilet, retching his guts up. "There's no more."
Patrick blinked and snapped out of his daze. "You sure?"
He gazed worriedly at Pete. Pete nodded, and Patrick offered a hand to haul him up.
Sighing, Patrick yanked his sick boyfriend into a hug. "Not kissing you right now, no offence. This is the second day you've been like this though, I'm worried about you. We have health insurance now, please let me take you to get checked out?"
Pete shook his head. "M'fine."
"Well, I'm calling my mom."
That lost Pete. "She's a doctor?"
Patrick's frown had Pete thinking that maybe he'd done something important wrong and he desperately tried to wrack his brains for anything he could've done recently. He knew Patrick's mom wasn't a doctor but couldn't really understand why else he would want to call her just because his boyfriend was slightly sick. "You're the one who bought me the goddamn calendar to write it on and you don't even read it!"
Bitch mode, activated, Pete thought mearly - it was true though. Patrick got irritated pretty easily at times, although seemingly only at Pete, and once he did it was like a switch flicking and he was suddenly irretrievably grumpy for the rest of the day. "Ugh, sorry... I did look at it at some point," Pete paused to wipe his forehead, which was starting to drip with sweat again, "I forget these things sometimes, don't be so pissy." Crossing his arms, Patrick huffed and started dialling his mom, rolling his eyes at Pete as it rang.
She picked up on the fourth ring and Patrick put her on speakerphone.
"Rick?"
"Hey mom."
"Hi Mrs- Pat!" Pete called.
"Oh, hi Rick, Pete! Are you boys still coming here tomorrow?"
Patrick sighed, not looking at Pete and flushing slightly with anger. She remembers, he mouthed. He was beautiful, and Pete was glad people couldn't read thoughts because if Patrick knew that Pete was totally ignoring his rage and just finding his pink cheeks and angrily tapping fingers adorable, he would probably rant about objectification for months. It was his mom's fault, with all her feminist stuff.
To be fair, Pete had learned a lot from Patricia over the last few months and realised that feminism was a lot different to crazy middle-aged widows burning their underwear and harassing innocent men, and a lot more like fighting a lot of the things that had driven him from the hardcore scene.
"Uh, yeah that's why I'm calling you. Pete is pretty sick and I-"
"Oh my gosh, is he okay? Peter, honey, are you-"
Another huff-slash-growl from Patrick. Woah, did he just stamp his foot? Pete eventually decided that teasing 'you're not a toddler yet' wouldn't go down well.
"He's fine - I mean, according to him. But he's too sick to look after me here and I don't really want to be in a car with him driving, either so, I mean, it looks like you'll have to come over here and pick us up? Uh, like, if you could."
"Of course, baby!"
Huh. If Pete tried to call Patrick baby, he usually got a kick in the leg - even after they'd started dating, Patrick wasn't really one for pet names, particularly infantilising ones like baby and honey, for some reason. So far 'Trick' and 'love' and 'babe' had previously gone without comment so long as they were used sparingly.
"Okay. Thanks mom - sorry. Love you! See you tomorrow!"
"I love you too, Rick. I miss my baby! You're a rock-star now, remember to save time for your mom." It was hard to tell over the phone but Pete thought he detected a hint of sarcastic self-parody. He really liked Patrick's mom. Less difficult to discern, she sounded proud. It made Pete smile, maybe with a hint of smugness, as it was his doing.
They weren't really at rock-star level yet - one indie record deal and one full length album (the band came to a unanimous decision not to count evening out with your girlfriend) - but they were definitely going to be and Patrick's mom and Pete knew it, even if Patrick didn't.
They said goodbye to each other and Patrick hung up. Pete pouted. "You're so mean to me. I loooooove you, Patty-Pat-Pat."
Patrick, squinting at Pete, seemed somewhat diffused. "I'm just worried that you would forget - I mean, it's fine this time but what if you booked us for a show on that day, or- you went out without telling me? It's... I'm just anxious about it, okay? I- I have to rely on you more than I'm comfortable relying on anyone."
"Why are you emphasising the 'you' like I'm unreliable or something?" Pete teased with a grin. He was nothing if not the emo king of self-deprecation. He let his voice soften out along with his grin and slid his arm around Patrick's waist. "I'm sorry, I messed up. You're the top priority to me, though, and I promise none of those things will ever happen. I want- you can rely on me, I promise. Maybe a lot of people can't but you can."
Patrick nodded and reciprocated Pete's sideways embrace with a small smile.
***
Pete barely slept, spending the night in a feverish haze of trying not to wake Patrick. At some point, he blacked out, awaking to the guest room at Patrick's mom's house and Patrick's smile set in someone else's face. "Are you feeling any better, sweetie? You're still white as a sheet."
"Nhhyeahh, 's Trick?" he moaned, hoping Patrick would chose this moment to appear, admit to being an angel and use his celestial powers to heal Pete, who was definitely dying. He wanted to at least see Patrick before he passed.
There was a smattering of footsteps like someone running headlong and clumsily into the room and then, "Uh oh, you're sick."
Pete smiled to himself at the thud of a small body all but throwing itself onto the bed, then a warm mass pressing itself up against his side . "Yeah, Ricky, I'm still pretty sick. Actually-" he gagged, "Very sick. Someone bring me a bowl like right now."
Pat started to move but Patrick leapt off the bed, "I'll get it, I'll get it!" The two left in the room were silent, listening to the series of thuds in quick succession as Patrick dashed down the stairs, silence as he walked the corridor to the kitchen, clattering from directly below as he rummaged in the cupboards for a suitable container, and then more thuds as he ran all the way back up and appeared in the doorway, hair stuck to his forehead from exertion.
"I, got it," he panted, and Pat carried him to the bed and deposited him next to Pete because he looked too put out to manage the intrepid climb from floor to bed at this moment. He wriggled in under Pete's arm and sat on his leg, holding out the bowl. In the small-Patrick-induced chaos, Pete had almost forgotten how ill he was. "Uh, Tricky, you might wanna move, buddy. I really, um, appreciate it, but I don't want you getting puke in your hair."
Patrick grumbled and didn't move entirely, shifting until he wasn't sitting on Pete and snuggled into his side. Pete couldn't really do anything about it, because he'd started gagging again. He felt a small, chubby hand slip into his and squeeze tightly and heard a little distressed whimper from Patrick. "Are you okay, Petey?" he asked softly from behind the fingers of his other hand.
Patricia glanced at Patrick, who now had his face pressed into Pete's side. "He doesn't like people being sick, honey, but I don't think I'll be able to get him to move. He gets really worried about people."
Pete tried to reply but last night's dinner came sailing out of his mouth and into the bowl. Wrinkling his nose, he waited a few moments to speak, until his throat stopped burning with acid. First putting the bowl down on the bedside table out of view, he shifted to face Patrick and ruffled his hair to get his attention. Slowly, Patrick drew back from Pete's side. Pete laughed. "Hey, Trickster, I'm all right. It's just a little bug, okay, you don't need to worry about me." He smiled encouragingly and pulled Patrick back onto his lap.
When Pete glanced back at Patrick's mom, she was watching him and her son with a fierce happiness in her eyes. Seeing Pete's gaze on her, she looked up from where her eyes had been fixed on Patrick's smile and flashed almost the same smile back at Pete. "I've got chicken to go in the oven so I need to go and sort that out downstairs, okay, boys? You can just shout if you need me," she noticed Patrick looking like he wasn't listening, playing his game of trying to twist around and look at Pete without getting noticed; smiling cheekily when he got caught. "D'you hear that, Ricky? I'm going downstairs, I'll be in the kitchen."
"Yeah, yeah, I heard, whatever."
Slightly shocked at his tone when he was usually so polite, Pete tightened his hold on Patrick's arm. "Excuse me? We don't talk like that, especially not to our mommies who look after us, Tricky. That was really rude."
Pat's look was unreadable when Patrick cast his eyes down and amended, "Sorry, Mommy. You're gonna be in the kitchen. Sorry for being rude."
His mom smiled widely, more at Pete than Patrick, and didn't even reply, just quirked the same strange look back at Pete again, smiled at her son, and quietly shut the door behind her.
"Well, I'm going to look after you," Patrick declared proudly, "'Til you're better. Since you always look after me."
Pete chewed his lip. "Tricky..."
"Nuh-uh I am the best looker-afterer ever and I'm going to do it for you because you're sick! Like yesterday, when you were asleep and I carried you to the car and I drove us to Mommy's and then I carried you up all the stairs all by myself. And then I got the bowl by myself too, really fast so there wasn't a mess. And... okay, that's all I got. But I am a really good looker-afterer."
Pete blinked. "You carried me?"
So as to be eye level with Pete, Patrick turned one-hundred-and-eighty degrees and knelt up. When he laughed, his nose crinkled up. Amazingly, like his eyes seemed to (and like Pete joked that his height did), Patrick's laugh stayed relatively the same as when he was big, complete with slapping his thigh when he found something really funny. He inched forward until their noses touched, crossing his eyes to make Pete laugh. "Not when I was small, silly. But... I'm still good at looking after!"
Pete shrugged. He really didn't need that much looking after anyway, so why not? He tickled Patrick's tummy lightly. "I'm sure you are, squirt. Why don't you show me what you've got by getting me something to read? You can pick what."
Judging by his scrambling to his feet and jumping off the bed - whimpering when he jumped too hard and jarred himself - Patrick liked this idea a lot.
He reappeared in what seemed like seconds with 'The Story of Ferdinand'. Pete grinned. "That's my favourite!" It was easy to make Patrick, regardless of size, blush like crazy. He plastered himself back against Pete and handed the book to him. Pete pushed back the hair from Patrick's forehead so he could kiss it, and Patrick went even pinker. "How 'bout you read it to me, baby?"
"Oh, uhh, I... That book looks hard..." He wrung his small hands nervously.
"It's ok, I'll help you. I always do, right? And you've got loads better at your reading lately. Try?"
Patrick sighed and took the book back, holding it open. He knew the first line off by heart anyway. "Okay, um. 'Once upon a time in Spain, there was a little bull called Ferdinand...'"
***
Pete woke up for the second time that day to see Patrick sitting at the foot of the bed, playing with his ninja turtle figures. It seemed like they were currently some kind of band, judging by the sound effects, complete with Donatello, apparently the lead vocalist, swaying and singing something Pete didn't recognise and couldn't really make out the words to.
Rafael was in the middle of a really sick fill - beatboxed by Patrick - when Patrick became aware of being watched and got stage fright, going silent and dropping Rafael face first. Pete watched him fall.
"Is Rafael okay? He just faceplanted on stage - low blood sugar or something?"
Smiling shyly, Patrick shrugged. "You're more sicker. Me and Mommy made you some soup, 'cause I said sick people usually get soup - he can have some too though, I guess. I'll go get it..."
Still red from being caught losing himself in his band game, he disappeared down the stairs, socked feet making little padding sounds on the wooden surface.
Pete kind of felt too sick to eat but he knew he should anyway - besides, he couldn't really resist Patrick when he'd carried the bowl so carefully from the kitchen and presented it so proudly and immediately curled back into Pete's side as soon as it was taken: he carefully settled himself not to get in the way of Pete's eating.
Once satisfied that Pete was eating, Patrick crawled out from under his arm and resumed aiding Rafael's pioneering work on the air drums. He started off quietly, peeking shyly back at Pete every time he made someone say something - doing silly voices for each one - then blushing and looking quickly away, but he slowly lost himself again, loudly imitating a bassline as he pressed Leonardo back to back up against Donatello.
Things escalated quickly from there, with Leonardo ramming his face up against his vocalist's neck and moving in a way that was possibly indicative of licking it, sticking an arm out in a wooden embrace and then the two turtles began hitting against each other in the least fluid kiss ever, causing their legs to do things that they really shouldn't be, considering that they were only teenage mutant ninja turtles.
Pete, in the form of the discarded Michelangelo, decided to put an end to this before it graduated to full-scale turtle porn. He put the finished soup aside and crawled to join Patrick at the bottom of the bed "Hey, uh Donatello," he interrupted, in a terrible impression of Joe, "Shouldn't you, um, be singing?"
Patrick glared at Pete and renewed the efforts of the presumable Pete and Patrick substitutes. Pete sighed, discarding Joe/Michelangelo. "Trickster," He said warningly, not sure how to punish a kid for re-enacting a performance of his own band, "C'mon, that's not very - what's my middle name?"
Patrick sighed and let the figures fall from his hands into an embrace on the floor. "Sorry, Peter 'Proprut."
Pete tickled Patrick's hips, laughing when he squealed and tried to squirm away. Pete remembered the rules of discipline he'd been reading up on online. "You know what you did wrong?"
The last thing he wanted was Patrick to think he was in trouble because his turtles were gay, or something. "Yeah," he rolled his eyes, "It wasn't 'proprut that Donatello and Rafael were doing the naughty."
Unable to hold back a laugh at that, Pete ruffled Patrick's hair and pulled him into his lap. "That's one way of putting it, yeah. Let's keep our turtle-relations PG from now on, huh?" Patrick nodded guiltily and lolled back against Pete. "You feelin' better?"
"A little, thanks, Ricky-pie. It's definitely down to your looker-aftering."
"I don't think aftering is a word," Patrick raised a skeptical eyebrow. He sprang from Pete's lap again and stood up, pressing a hand to Pete's forehead. "'S warm," he nodded seriously, then stood on his tiptoes to kiss the spot when his hand left it.
"D'you actually know anything about checking for a temperature?"
Patrick shook his head. Pete snorted. "Yeah, me neither. We know I'm not dead, I guess."
Patrick smirked. "I think you'll be okay. Was worried... when you kept throwing up. I don't like that I can't protect you as good when I'm-"
Pete squeezed him tighter. "Hey! Don't say that. You're a very good protector, little guy. I love you very much and that's what matters - cause if I'm happy it makes life a lot easier. For me, being sad is a lot more important to be protected from than feeling a bit sick. And you make me super happy."
At that moment, the door creaked open and revealed Patrick's mother, carrying a plate of chicken and vegetables. It was pretty obvious she'd been at the door for some time: she seemed unable to contain the smile that was splitting her face.
"Ricky and I ate earlier, but I thought you might want some once you woke up, Pete."
Gratefully accepting the plate, Pete shifted Patrick to his other knee so he could get at the food, stroking Patrick's hair absentmindedly as he did. "Thanks, Pat."
"thank you, Pete," she said quietly.
***
On the drive home, Patrick offered to drive to give Pete a rest. Pete was still ill, in Patrick's opinion - he had thrown up once more since lunch, and Patrick said you weren't truly better until forty eight hours had passed since you'd been sick. Too exhausted to fight, especially not with Patrick, Pete had shrugged and given in. "No Motown, though," he'd conceded when Patrick reached for the CD compartment.
While driving, he got to watch Patrick's delicate frown at misconduct on the road; if it was really extreme he would rant angrily to Pete. "Gosh, some people just don't respect- ugh!" He clenched his hands around the steering wheel.
"You have the most loveable road rage ever," Pete commented idly, then slipping in his age-old favourite, "You're beautiful." Patrick took his eyes off the road to glance incredulously at Pete like he didn't hear the same thing from Pete five times a day. His eyes were slightly widened and his mouth seemed at war between a pleased grin and a downturned mouth 'ugh Pete, please' look. He turned his eyes back to the road and was quiet for about five minutes. Keeping his eyes on the road, he mused, "My mom thinks I should marry you."
Faux casual, Pete shrugged but couldn't hold back a grin. "Sure."
Patrick smiled and kept driving and there was no more road rage the rest of the journey.