Work Text:
"Patrick. Patrick. Rick. Babe. Angel. Pattyca-"
"What the fuck do you want, it's like... four a.m! Go back to sleep, fucker." Or that's what Pete deciphered, from 'nghhhmmn... four'm! Sleeepy, lea'own, fuck.'
"'Trick, please. I'm sorry but it's like-" Pete felt his throat close over, swallowed, "It's really bad."
Patrick wriggled up from where he'd been snuffling into the pillow, blinking at Pete with eyes squinty from sleep. "Mnfff, sorry, baby. S'bad again?"
If Pete admitted it to himself, it hadn't been this bad in a while. Optimistically, he'd attributed it to Patrick's constant presence at night, but it was starting to seem like nothing more an a coincidental cycle, and now it had swung all the way back around and knocked Pete off his feet.
"...Yeah."
Patrick sighed, his soft eyes flickering helplessness before he inched towards Pete and enveloped him carefully, like he might break. In all fairness, it was a possibility - had already happened once recently, as proved by the cast around his wrist from their recent venture with horse riding. Patrick wanted to go again, Pete vowed never to go within ten miles of a horse ever again. So naturally, Pete had been calling various riding stables in the area to see if they had any free spaces for lessons for very young kids.
"Can I do anything?" Patrick sounded increasingly awake with each sentence and as the disturbance of his sleep grew, so did Pete's guilt.
"It's just... I stayed up too long, and you were asleep and it was quiet and freaky and I just started- I dunno, there were weird sounds outside and stuff, and I just started freaking out for no reason and I'm not good at calming myself down, you know, and I..."
Patrick's fingers carded softly through his hair, looking down at him with parted lips and a fond expression.
"Ok, baby. So you're not freaked out about anything specific? You sure? Don't feel guilty about keeping me up, because I'd feel guilty about leaving you to suffer by yourself. Anyway, it's not like I can't just sleep in tomorrow."
"When have you ever slept in when you're small? I'm worried for myself as much as you; sleepy Patrick is mean Patrick," Pete joked, feeling Patrick's calm bleed into him through the cracks. He shuffled back to lying down, curled into Patrick, starting at the pinch and the devious expression he was more used to coming from a smaller face and hands.
"I think I can. I think I'll be able to sleep now. Just... I just couldn't sit there in the dark any longer. Can I leave your night light on?" Pete's eyelashes fluttered nervously, eyeing the night light sitting currently disused on the side.
"Mm, course, baby," Patrick mumbled, voice slowly tripping back into the barely audible grumble he'd used when first woken up.
"Sleep well."
"Bit late for that."
***
Pete was aware, distantly, of a pen dragging across his skin. The bit of his mind that was worried about the likelihood that this feeling was caused by a small child with a permanent marker - not a good combination with Patrick's expensive sheets with a thread-count of a shittrillion, that he didn't even let Pete drink coffee near - was imprisoned by the part of his mind that didn't want to stop making out with the cute, short guy whose thighs were clamped around his waist with pale skin and little webs of stretch marks visible where his shirt rode up, but Pete figured he could just have the real thing in a day or so, anyway, and forced himself awake.
It wasn't a good context for Patrick to be placed in Pete's early-morning mind; irritation at his not being in a state to re-enact Pete's dream before he forgot it again, and at being woken up at all when he'd only gotten about three hours of sleep, with insufficient amounts the whole week and finally a chance at a lie-in, ruined. It wasn't fair to be mad at tiny Patrick already, when he'd done nothing intentionally wrong, and Pete forced the curls of irritation away, turning groggily to where he still felt the pen's scrawl.
Patrick was sitting cross legged on the bed, tongue out in concentration, and a couple of different coloured markers in his left hand. He wasn't meant to have markers at all, but any remaining pockets of anger immediately bubbled away at the sight. Finally noticing Pete awake and watching him, Patrick smiled shyly and snatched his hand away.
"Mornin'."
"Morning, little guy," Pete retaliated with a smile that widened when Patrick reached behind himself and mumbled bashfully, "I did breakfast. It's not good, but I know you're tired today so I didn't wanna make you get out of bed."
Pete's mouth made an 'o' of surprise and he gasped delightedly when Patrick brought out a tray with toast, bacon, eggs, and a mug of coffee, which had spilled a little and sat in a puddle on the tray, but seemed okay to drink.
Although, "Aw, Tricky! This is so sweet of you, thank you, baby. I love you. But, you're not meant to mess with with hot water or cooking, are you?"
Patrick rolled his eyes, and Pete considered getting his mom to tell Patrick all about the time Pete tried to make tea when he was seven and spilled hot water all over himself, his brother and, most importantly to Patrick, his dog, but then Patrick explained that, "I got up extra-early so I could make it all while I was still big. It might be a little cold, but I put it all in the microwave when you looked like you were waking up."
Pete's heart clenched. "I'm so lucky," He breathed. "You're the best, most thoughtful boyfriend, I just- love you."
Flattered as always by any kind of praise, Patrick blushed and folded his arms across his chest, shrugging self-consciously.
"You are," Pete insisted, yanking Patrick towards him with his unbandaged hand - his right, leaving him still pretty functional.
Patrick cast his eyes down, holding them there with his eyelashes fluttering against his cheek until Pete melted completely, and then he brandished the markers which he wasn't allowed to have and shouldn't have been able to get hold of.
"You're so pretty, Petey, I wanna colour you in. On all the tattoos." His lip jutted out, but Pete knew from experience how long sharpie took to wash off, and he didn't particularly want to be covered in it for a month, plus there was the sheets to contend, and the fact that Patrick when he was bigger had specifically instructed Pete never to let him touch markers, ever, like he'd had a particularly haunting personal experience: he had, and Pete had laughed so hard he almost peed himself and had to sprint to the bathroom when Patrick told him about it.
Pete shook his head, deftly removing the markers from Patrick's clutches. "No way. You're not even allowed to have these, Stumps, and not that I don't love your art, but I don't want to be covered in pen from head to toe when my cast comes off next week and we start playing shows again."
Patrick mewled in protest, reaching for the pens, but when the trembling bottom lip didn't work, he gave up and curled into Pete's arm.
"Eat your breakfast, Petey. I did egg which is protein, for bone fixing right?"
***
Pete was so tired. He couldn't remember feeling this level of exhaustion before: he always slept soundly after a day with little Patrick, from the sheer amount of energy it took out of him, leaving him exhausted, but this kindergartener-induced fatigue was combined with days of not sleeping probably, and by midday he was about to keel over.
Patrick was playing with his trains, making chugging sounds and putting on a deep voice to be the announcer. He must've got to a point where Pete was meant to do something, because he started hitting the train repeatedly against Pete's leg. "Come on," he moaned, "You're not even paying attention!"
"Huh, s- wha?" Pete spluttered, on the threshold of sleep. Patrick sighed. "I can't have you as the safety officer when you keep falling asleep. I think you should just watch, maybe. If you're too sleepy, you should just take a nap. I'm okay by myself."
"M-no, I'm okay. Anyway, I'm not leaving you unsupervised while there are sharpies around, for some reason. I'll just watch."
Pete lay down on his front, watching Patrick re-arrange the tracks and watch the trains speed past eachother, in a constant cycle of almost drifting off, startling himself awake, and drifting asleep again, for a few seconds. He caught concerned glances from Patrick every now and then, and smiled thinly at him. Patrick looked skeptical, wrinkling his nose up and shaking his head to himself, or sometimes to Pete.
He slowly lost himself in his trains, and Pete lost himself to sleep, collapsing on the rough carpet.
***
From the waning rays of sunlight slipping through the half open curtains, it was early afternoon when Pete woke again. He struggled to place himself, until he realised he was in Patrick's room. The room was barely slept in any more, used almost exclusively as a playroom and for storage, but the bed was left made up, and Pete was still on the floor, but the blanket from the bed was draped over him, and his head was rested on a pillow.
As his sleep clogged brain whirred to life, he felt a weight on his chest. Looking down, he realised it was Patrick, curled on his torso with thumb in his mouth, muttering softly around it. Pete noticed that his shirt had been removed, and so had Patrick's.
He realised that Patrick must've put the blanket over him when he'd fallen asleep, and then joined him for a nap. Patrick looked adorable in sleep, eyelids flickering gently, mouth working non audible sounds out around his thumb, one hand splayed across Pete's chest. Then, Pete noticed the smudgy ink marks on Patrick's hand and groaned. He'd told Patrick not to draw on Pete, but never actually stopped him from drawing on himself.
Closer examination of Patrick's shirtless torso revealed scratchy, childlike copies of all Pete's tattoos, with a more interesting colour palette. It was oddly touching, the wonky crown of thorns it must have been tricky to reach, the bright pink sleeve on his left arm that was mainly just squiggles, like Patrick couldn't exactly remember the tattoos covered by Pete's cast.
The best part, though, was when Pete peeled Patrick's spread hand from over his heart and saw that, aside from a few splashes of colour on his stomach, Patrick hadn't disobeyed Pete and drawn on him. Or Pete thought so, until he pulled Patrick's hand gently away and saw an orange love heart roughly over where his actual heart should be, with just the word 'Patrick's' inside it.
When Pete was about to burst with love for the tiny, snuffly creature sleeping on his chest, said tiny creature shifted to reveal a matching heart on his own skin, high enough that the chain with his ring on just brushed it, with 'Patrick Wentz' written on like a middle-schooler wrote in their notebooks in bad kid films. He opened his eyes and regarded Pete with unfocused eyes, unclear if he was really awake or not, but he smiled hazily when Pete touched a hand to the words and stroked fingers across them gently, so maybe he was in a vaguely aware inbetween state.
Patrick's sheets, the small section of Pete's psyche that didn't correspond exactly to an embarrassingly lovestruck scene teenager, and Patrick's chances of convincing Pete to take his last name, were all ruined. They were going to have to have a secret wedding, and keep the same names, anyway, but Pete was smug and blissful over the useless victory regardless, and had just fallen asleep again.