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A three-year break from around-the-clock Pete exposure didn't break Patrick of his finely honed sense of being stared at when he's asleep. He knows there are Wentz eyes on him before he manages to blearily blink his eyes open and focus on the small child standing by the side of his bed.
"It's morning."
Patrick buries his head in Pete's guest room pillow. It's the softest guest room pillow he's ever slept on, and on top of him is the warmest, lightest comforter he can remember sleeping under. He doesn't want to lose this bed's embrace.
"Uncle Patrick."
"Five minutes, buddy," Patrick manages. His voice must be muffled because he's talking into the pillow, though, so he's barely surprised at the clammy hand on his cheek and a sunny voice loudly asking "What?" right in his ear.
Patrick sighs, bids the pillow goodbye, and sits up. Bronx looks at him seriously. "It's time for breakfast."
"Right," says Patrick, coughing into his hand. There's gunk in his throat that can only be dislodged with the application of strong coffee. "What's for breakfast?"
"Waffles!" Bronx says brightly once Patrick starts making getting-up motions, making a circle around the room and trailing his hand over every book and knick-nack at four-year-old height. "Waffles, waffles, waffles!"
Patrick watches him for a minute, grinning despite the fact that he can't have gotten more than three hours of sleep, what with the drive from the studio and Pete discovering that the bed in the guest room had no sheets.
"Your dad is up already?" he asks, turning to grope around for his glasses on the nightstand.
"Uh-huh. It's late," comes Bronx's voice, and Patrick nods. Obviously. Then there's an excited little noise from the corner of the room where Patrick remembers folding his clothes, and Patrick finally understands the urgency of mornings.
He finally locates the glasses and manages to grab them instead of knocking them onto the floor, a true 7 a.m. victory.
He puts them on.
Bronx is on his tiptoes in front of the vanity, trying to peer into the mirror, one sock half-off and Patrick's hat on his head, blond curls spilling everywhere in a halo around it.
Patrick sighs and gets out of bed. He's not going to wear it to breakfast anyway. Breakfast at Pete's house is strictly a pajamas affair. He walks up to the mirror and gives Bronx a lift so he can see himself in the hat. Bronx's mouth and eyes go round and he grabs the brim of the hat and adjusts it until Patrick nods in approval.
"Okay, I'm ready for breakfast," Patrick tells Bronx's reflection. "Will you show me where the kitchen is?"
Bronx giggles and squirms out and down to the floor. "You know where."
"I forgot," Patrick insists. "Can't find it. Is it upstairs? In the attic?"
Bronx laughs delightedly and tugs Patrick out of the guest room and through Pete's classy upstairs to the nice staircase and even nicer downstairs, where Patrick nearly trips over a puppy and then Bronx himself, because Bronx forgets all about the kitchen and sits down to accept the puppy's kisses.
"That's Bear," Bronx tells Patrick, craning his neck to look up. The hat falls off.
"We've met," says Patrick and puts the hat back on Bronx's head. "Hi, Bear."
Bear sniffs at Patrick's legs, nosing wetly at his bare feet, and Patrick has to bite his lip to keep the ticklish yelping inside. "I think it's breakfast time, B, what do you think?"
"Oh yeah!" Bronx scrambles up and claps a hand to his head, gripping the hat tightly. "Waffles!"
Pete's watching them from the kitchen already in a soft worn shirt and old baggy jeans, happy crinkles around his eyes.
"Morning, Trick."
"I fetched him," Bronx says proudly, launching himself at Pete and hanging from his knees. "Look at my hat."
"Awesome look for you, dude. Get in your chair, I made you juice."
Bronx says, "Ooh," scrambles up into his chair, and attaches himself to a glass of OJ. There's a plastic plate with Spongebob in front of him, the rest of the table's set with Pete's regular dishes, and there are hash browns and a bowl of fruit, syrup and ketchup bottles, and Patrick's suddenly starving.
"You made him juice?" Patrick asks, leaning back on the counter.
"Fresh-squeezed, yo." Pete ruffles Patrick's hair and grins happily when Patrick slaps his hand away. "Man, I knew I should've kept the Kiss the Cook apron my mom gave me."
"You could just Sharpie it on your t-shirt," Patrick suggests. "Where are my waffles?"
"Freezer," Bronx says in a "duh" kind of voice.
"Oh yeah, thanks!" Pete says and opens the freezer. "Eggos like promised."
"Food of the gods," Patrick says dryly. "Is there coffee?"
Pete turns to him with a box of Eggos in his hands and says, "Patrick, baby, you know that I would make you waffles from scratch if I knew anything about baking. And coffee's over there."
"You don't bake waffles."
Patrick pours himself coffee into the largest mug Pete has and settles leans back against a wall so he can watch both Pete slice open the plastic waffle packet and Bronx slurp up his juice. It's homey, morning quiet and domestic noises mingling, so different from Patrick's own apartment and the chaos of Butch's household. Patrick's missed this.
A shower starts upstairs and Pete automatically looks in the direction of the stairs with a goofy grin that turns a little embarrassed when he catches Patrick looking. Patrick wasn't even thinking of giving him shit for it. He just smiles, and Pete smiles back, and then they're caught in a loop of smiling that Patrick's too tired to figure out how to break. He doesn't really want to anyway.
"Waffles," Bronx reminds them with an emphatic, imperious gesture. "Oops."
"Why don't you pick out a seat for Patrick," Pete suggests, fishing out the first two waffles from the toaster with a fork while Patrick soaks up the lake of spilled juice with a paper towel. "A good one. You can offer him your high chair."
Patrick can't flip him off in front of a child, but he rolls his eyes at Bronx, exaggerated so it makes Bronx giggle and cover his mouth with a juice-sticky hand. "I'm sitting in my chair!"
"Oh shoot," Pete says. "Pick out another one, then."
Bronx assesses the table with a frown and a calculating look. "Here," he says, pointing at the chair to his left. "This one next to me. And, and... and Meg can sit there, and Daddy across from me."
"Awesome, man," says Patrick and sits where he's told. "Good choice."
Pete looks on approvingly and fishes more waffles out of the toaster. "Baby?" he calls in the direction of the stairs, and Patrick realizes the shower sounds have stopped. "Breakfast!"
Meagan shouts something Patrick can't decipher, but it makes Pete's cute, dopey smile come back. Patrick leans over on impulse and gives him a smacking kiss on the cheek. "Thanks, cook. Pass the syrup?"
Pete looks even happier and above all stunned, but nudges the bottle of syrup with a finger right away. "Eat and don't upset my equilibrium, Stump."
"Wouldn't dream of it," Patrick says, gently patting Pete on the cheek and pouring a light drizzle of syrup over his Eggos.
He's half-done with his waffles by the time Meagan makes her way downstairs in drapey lounge clothes, t-shirt damp where her wet hair is slung over her shoulder, and for a moment Patrick's not sure how she fits into the reality this kitchen because she's so gorgeous, glowing and perfect. Then she smiles, friendly and happy, and settles into her surroundings, and Patrick gets it again.
"Patrick, hi!" she says, then kisses Pete upside-down, bending over him from behind his chair. "B, you're so handsome this morning. Something's different about you."
Bronx giggles. "That's Uncle Patrick's hat!"
“Oh.” Meagan sits down across from Patrick and adjusts the hat so it sits at an angle on Bronx's head. "There, now you look rakish."
"Rakish," Bronx says, mouthing it with satisfaction, then attacks his waffle with renewed vigor.
Meagan grins at him and then at Patrick, and starts giggling quietly. "Oh my god, I should've put my contacts in."
"Huh?" Patrick looks at her, confused. "Oh." He touches his glasses. "Do we actually go to the same optician?"
"Don't take them off," Pete asks one or both of them, Patrick isn't sure. "I'm in heaven."
Meagan rolls her eyes but keeps the glasses on, her mouth curling into a faint smile. Patrick ducks his head and focuses on his food, because Pete isn't cute, at all, except he is and Patrick isn't going to be able to resist if Pete asks him to stay over again.
Patrick can feel Pete's eyes boring into the side of his head, but Pete mercifully lets it go and passes him a plate of hash browns.
"How's Elisa?" Pete asks.
Patrick chews to stop from grinning like a doofus the way Pete does at Meagan. "Got a Skype date this afternoon."
"Awesome," Pete says, genuinely meaning it, no possessiveness at all, and this time Patrick does let himself smile at Pete and Meagan and Bronx the way he wants to.
They have a good thing.
"I gotta Skype Gabe," says Pete, propping his chin up on his hands. "Offload. Process."
"Receive wisdom," says Meagan. "Be mocked."
"It's a solemn dance between us," Pete nods. "Hang out while we talk?"
"'Course," Meagan says. "Can't miss out."
Bronx puts down his chewed-up waffle. "Can I say hi to Uncle Gabe?" he asks in a tone that suggests there's a right answer.
"Duh, little dude. Trick?"
Patrick bites his lip. It's tempting, but now he's thinking about everything they recorded the night before, how none of it is ready yet, and he's itching to get back to work.
Pete quietly laughs. "You go to the studio now, you miss your date with your wife. I know you."
It's a low blow. "I have a phone reminder!"
Bronx suddenly makes a tragic face, alarmed mouth and big wet eyes. "I want to wear the hat more."
It's the even more classic Wentzian tactic of talking Patrick into shit. Patrick looks up at Meagan desperately, but she's calmly cutting apart a piece of cantaloupe with a fork. Meagan's pretty young, and Patrick thought she'd be more of an ally, or at least more sympathetic to the effect upon Patrick of big solemn eyes. He did meet Pete at a more formative age. Dammit.
Then again, it's one morning and it's not that big a deal. The recordings will be there in the evening for him and his band to pick up. And Patrick doesn’t really want to leave.
"Yeah," Pete crows. "I win again."
He's insufferable, but Patrick loves him anyway.
"Fine, jeez, I'll stay." He smiles at Bronx. "Keep the hat. I've got another one at home."