Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Have you seen Patrick at all?”

Pete is too polite to stare uncomprehendingly at the barista. He buys himself time shucking the wrapper off his plastic straw and punching it into his iced mocha.

Last year, if someone at this cafe had asked him if he'd seen Patrick, he would’ve smiled and leaned over the counter and said “Yeah, I've seen him,” and they would laugh and ask him for a discount on a Christmas tree. They would be joking, and Pete would remember anyways and slide the tip to the relevant parties.

This year, he just swirls the ice in his cup and says, “Nah, I've been pretty busy. Holiday shit, y’know.”

She nods sympathetically. “You should go up there if you have the chance,” and another customer steals her away before he can ask why she would say that.

It's not like Pete didn't expect this, he thinks as he breaks out into the crisp winter air. That's what happens when you spend five years dating the heir apparent to the most preeminent Christmas tree farm in the state. Everyone knows you, so everyone knows when you break up. The barrage of sympathy texts was one thing, the probing comments from every neighbor and local business owner was another. It wasn't the only reason, but it certainly didn't hurt his impulsive plane ticket purchase to NYC, and he hasn't looked back.

Pete’s friends might tell you that looking back is the only thing he does and that he spends every other weekend crying over the memories his photo app recommends him. Pete would concede that maybe he’s not as over it as he could be. He would argue that it’s unfair to expect anyone to get over losing the love of their life in a timely manner. He’s basically a widow, except there’s a ghost out there, wearing his lover's face. He’s not being dramatic at all.

Snow crouches under his feet as he treks through the main street. Their little suburb, out in the very fringes of Chicagoland, is ruled with an iron fist by a town council comprised of little old ladies and their husbands with woodworking skills. He eyes the glittering ornaments hanging from the lampposts as he tries to juggle three bags and curses himself for the iced drink freezing his other hand.

If it were up to Pete, he might have stayed on the east coast, as far away from the ghost of Patrick as humanly possible. But he had to come home for the holidays—he couldn’t ruin another Christmas. He argued that because of his track record with the holidays, it would be best for him to stay away, and he really didn’t want to show his face around town besides. Which just made his mom insist even harder. Go figure.

Pete liked Christmas when he was dating Patrick, liked the idea of living in some fairytale. With that cleanly severed, he was really into the idea of wallowing in sadness in his childhood bedroom and remembering his days in the sun, but as soon as he landed he was handed a to-do list and shoved out the front door. No one wants to walk on eggshells around him anymore. He curses his family for knowing him so well.

He'd barely had time to get his feet under him before his mom was on him, firm hands brushing hair behind his ears. “How are you? You haven't been calling, I know you must be busy with getting your feet under you, but…”

We've been worried, she doesn't say. I love freaking out over my unstable and erratic son who moved hundreds of miles away with no warning after violently breaking up with his long-term boyfriend is what he hears anyways.

Pete is probably a little too old to enjoy being fretted over by his mom this much, but he leans into it anyways. He doesn't get to be the baby very often. This is why he has to stay away, because he’ll regress the second he's back home.

“I'm alright,” he says. “I've been working and sh—stuff.”

“You need to tell me everything,” she says firmly, already leading him into the kitchen. She doesn't need to open the fridge for him to know that it'll be filled with gatorade and chocolate milk and excessively fake sugary shit. He's been on a protein kick for the past several years.

But what the hell. He can have a cheat month. He deserves to have a cheat month, and if the odd disconcerted comments Joe has been giving him are any indication, a cheat might actually be more of a mandatory thing at this point.

Joe is fairly lazy but sitting here, Pete is starting to realize his point. And it’s Christmas. So he lets his mom make him a hot cocoa, and he lets her hand him a shopping list.

Probably Pete can go two weeks without seeing Patrick in the town they grew up in. If there’s any benefit to this, it’s that Pete knows exactly where he needs to go to avoid Patrick. He’d held out hope that without him Patrick would’ve stayed in LA, wrapped himself in work and mailed a few gifts to his parents. Pete knows Patrick well enough that when his sister dropped that they'd said hi to him when they were picking up their tree last week, he’d dropped his mug on his foot.

So he’s not that surprised that the folks at Log Cabin Coffee Roasters asked him about Patrick. Nor is he as thrown when the teenage hire at the bakery, with a negative amount of subtlety, says, “So, Patrick, right?”

Nice to know that his status as town gossip is still intact with the younger generation. He starts to get worried when Maggie from the general store scoffs “I can’t believe you haven’t given Patrick a piece of your mind yet.”

“Why would I do that?” Pete asks, vaguely amused. Maggie is older than his mother and has known him since before he could walk, which explains a bit of her defensiveness. It’s nice. She shakes her head as she wraps a glittery ribbon around the handle of his gift bag.

“Well, I don’t mean to cause drama, but really, he’s been saying such awful things. He’s lucky we all know you, Pete! You’re such a sweet boy, I know you would never…”

Pete kind of tunes out the rest of that. Not only is Patrick here, getting put to work on the farm, but he’s been taking time out of his day to…complain about Pete?

A dopey grin breaks out over his face. Maggie hands the bag over to him. “...water under the bridge, I say. There you go! Don’t be a stranger now!”

Pete submits to the cheek kisses and high tails it out of there. He corners Hillary the second he gets home, barely taking time to stomp the snow out of his boots.  

“Yeah, he got here, like, a week ago? I think he’s trauma dumping on the customers or something. Don’t ask, I don’t know.”

Hillary is a good sister. She had sworn off Patrick after the breakup, though it’s difficult to avoid the entire Stump clan. That’s fine. Pete knows he’s still in Patricia’s good books.

If Patrick wasn’t here, Pete wouldn’t mind stopping by and saying hi. But Pete knows that Patrick is here, and he’s terrorizing the paying customers of the Stump Family Christmas Tree Farm. Pete should avoid Patrick, if the words he shouted at him last Christmas are any indication. Certainly, the blocked phone number, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter are all indications that Patrick wants nothing to do with him.

Before Pete had left New York, Joe had taken his face in his hands and said, “You. Are not going back to Patrick.”

Good ‘ol Joe. He offered his couch up to Pete after the breakup. He was the one who introduced them, so maybe he felt liable for Pete's state after the breakup. He had also cleanly advised Pete not to date Patrick, though whether that was because of his knowledge of Patrick’s neuroticisms or because of his lingering crush on him was unclear. Joe was over that now. Unlike Pete.

He’d been kinda torn over this whole coming home for Christmas thing. He would be reminded of one of his top five worst moments—or, he could make new memories to prove to himself that he didn’t need Patrick involved in every area of his life.

But. Somehow, magically, against all odds, Patrick is here. And by the sound of things, he’s still got Pete on his mind. You can’t blame Pete for reading the cosmic signals right now, can you?

He shouldn’t have bothered with the boots. He’s shouting, “I’m going out!” to the world at large and slamming the front door shut.

Andrew pads into the kitchen a few minutes later. “He’s going to see Patrick?”

“Yep.” Hillary sips her coffee.

“Awesome.” Andrew checks his phone. Too early for something stronger. “Can’t be worse than last year.”

Hillary raps her knuckles on the wooden cabinet.

-

“...and I know they were sleeping together, even if Pete told me they weren’t, like, how stupid does he think I am? That’s weird right?”

“Can I have my change?”

“Right, yeah.”

Patrick sifts through the till, handing the appropriate bills back. “So what would you have done?”

“Thanks,” the guy says, dragging his tree along with him.

“You're supposed to help them with that,” his mom appears behind him. “Kevin! Can you get this gentleman’s tree?”

Kevin rushes over to shoulder the tree. That's technically Patrick’s job, but Kevin is taller than him, so it makes more sense for him to do the dirty work of lugging pine trees around. Frankly, neither he nor Kevin are really fit enough for this job, but they’re stuck with the work until the rest of his stepsiblings get in. At least he’s not alone anymore. He’d had a week where it was just him doing grunt work.

“Are you sure you don’t want a different hat? A warmer one?” His mom eyes the top of his head dubiously.

Patrick ignores this. “I mean, what part of I need space does he not understand? I spent every minute with him while I was here, I was only in LA for half the month. Two weeks. If you can’t handle two weeks, maybe you need to reconsider your priorities.”

Patricia doesn’t respond to this because she’s heard some variation of it every other day for the past two weeks. She just pats his shoulder. “There’s another family in the short field.”

Patrick huffs out an annoyed breath, but treks dutifully outside to advise on tree circumference and watering schedules. He really doesn’t want to be here. He should be holed up in his studio mixing his latest project, but after a missed email (or three) from the director, his deadlines all got pushed to the new year. He has nothing to work on, and with the whole thing about the farm and the family name, he has nothing to do but hang around pine trees and stew over everything that had happened last time he was home. Last Christmas.

Ok, he didn’t have to fly back right when he did. But without any distractions, his little LA apartment felt fairly sparse and oddly quiet. He’d moved in permanently after last Christmas, and his place is still a ruin of half-unloaded boxes. At least Pete didn’t bother lifting any of his furniture after the breakup, so Patrick still has his big TV. The point is, he bought a new plane ticket, and now he’s here.

It’s fine. Patrick doesn’t even care what Pete is doing, if he’s coming home or not. He’s on his own, which is what he always wanted. And he’s better off that way too, because Pete is a mess who didn’t understand him. Which he’s told his mom, and Aaron, and now Kevin numerous times, and they’re avoiding him so he can’t affirm that anymore.

His chances of avoiding Pete are slim. Pete is a mama’s boy. Patrick had actually been here when the Wentzes—minus Pete, because he was too busy yupping it up in New York with all his hot New York friends—came to pick a tree. His attempt to hide in one of the woodsheds had been thwarted by his mom starting a fifteen minute conversation with Dale that Patrick inevitably got roped into. She was perfectly polite, but Patrick knows. She was judging him. Pete’s sister definitely gave him a few token glares.

Good thing they won’t need to come back when Pete is here, since they already have a tree. Unless their tree happens to die early, which wouldn’t be Patrick’s fault, because his mom is the one who led them over to one of the taller pines in the farm, one that had signs of root rot in the lower branches. He wasn’t on the clock, so why would he say anything?

If Pete comes around, Patrick’ll give him a piece of his mind. That’s what he’ll do. Being back here is bringing old memories back. He doesn’t appreciate being reminded of Pete’s clinginess, his stupid smile, his weird trashy gifts…

If Pete comes around. Which he will, because he always does the exact opposite of what Patrick wants.

-

“You dyed your hair.”

Pete jerks his head over. Patrick’s not even looking at him. Through the legs of the ceramic reindeer, he can see the fedora-clad top of his head. He still wears fedoras, Pete thinks, relieved and probably the first man in history to be so pleased by this.

Patrick is apparently totally focused on stocking novelty snow globes, his back to Pete. The first option here is that he saw Pete walking into the little store attached to the farm and decided to hide out in the aisles. This is normal and plausible.

But Pete has a hat pulled tight over his head, scarf bundled around his neck, and a hood thrown on top of the whole ensemble. The only thing anyone can see of him right now are his eyes, squinted against the cold.

Patrick can't have known Pete bleached his hair impulsively before flying out to New York. And unless Pete is really blind (he's not—that's Patrick's thing) and Patrick was somehow hiding from him while he was out and about town—the only explanation here is that Patrick was stalking Pete's instagram and saw his recent photodumps.

Reason would say that there are many other ways for Patrick to have come across this information. It's not like it's a secret. Allow Pete this moment of bliss or possibly delusion, where he can imagine that Patrick is just as torn up and obsessive as he is and is still logging into a burner account to look at his posts.

Look, when Pete does shit like that, it’s just him. That’s kind of his thing. Patrick loves to pretend to not understand how Instagram works, but Pete knows what his screen time is.

In the past year, one of the artists Patrick worked with charted in the Billboard top fifty. Clearly, Patrick is finding success without Pete—which Pete knew he would, because he knows Patrick is magical and is just waiting for the rest of the world to catch up on that realization.

But beyond that. Patrick’s budding career rocket ship isn’t stopping him from putting in the hours social media stalking, and that lifts Pete’s spirits like nothing else.

“You like it?” Pete asks, tugging his beanie off his head. He runs a hand through his hair, knows that the dark roots are already peeking through. Patrick finally looks up at him, eyes raking over Pete from the top of his head to the soles of his shoes—and jerks his head. “Wipe your feet off before you get mud everywhere. I have to clean that up.”

“Sure.” Pete turns to tap his boots on the festive rug by the door. In the dark, he can see Patrick’s reflection in the window, the way his eyes don’t leave Pete for a second. Walking away now is just a pipe dream.

“You been back long?” Pete asks, padding forwards to lean an arm on the rustic wooden counter that makes up the register. Patrick’s sigh is so loud, eye roll so obvious, it makes Pete smile into his scarf. Same old Patrick.

He’s always been hilariously obstinate about his family business, for no real reason other than the fact that he feels like he should be. Pete, of course, was immediately charmed by the whole thing, more than happy to insert himself into family affairs, and easily won over Patrick’s mom, his parents, and stepdad. Because even though it’s the Stump Family Christmas Tree Farm, when Patrick’s parents got divorced twenty-something years ago and his dad moved out to the city, Aaron was more than happy to take over in his stead.

“We don’t have to pretend to be normal,” Patrick says bluntly, snowglobe held in a death grip. “When I said I didn’t want to see you again, that wasn’t an invitation.”

“Uh huh,” Pete is unaffected. He knows when Patrick is just acting put-on. He jerks his thumb over his shoulder. “Sorry about that. I just need a garland.”

“A garland,” Patrick drops the souvenir and strides out of the cabin without looking back. Pete catches the door and follows him out. “You’re doing exactly what you always do.”

“What’s that?” Pete matches stride with Patrick. Fresh snow crunches under their feet.

“What you think is best,” Patrick throws out like it should be obvious. It is. Pete remembers him shouting that at him in the freezing cold, haloed by the glittering Christmas tree in front of town hall. Pete still doesn’t really get the issue. What he knows is that Patrick is still too far away, just like he’s been for the past year.

“You can never leave well enough alone. And you never tell me anything and expect me to be grateful?” Patrick ducks under a stray branch. It’s getting hard to see, this far from the cabins that make up the body of the tree farm.

“I never know what you’re thinking. It’s like…” he trails off. They’re not at the barn where they keep the garlands. Pete knows where that is. He's led them to some dark corner of the Stump Family Christmas Tree farm. The only company is the trees. It might as well be a forest.

Pete steps closer to Patrick. Their noses are almost brushing. Pete knows just the right distance to stay at, so Patrick’s glasses aren’t pressing into his face. Patrick swallows. His jaw works, but no words come out. Pete holds his gaze. Patrick’s tongue darts out to wet his chapped lips.

And then Pete is fumbling for the hold of Patrick’s pants. “Huh?” Patrick says. Pete curses as he realizes he’s wearing mittens, and yanks one off with his teeth so he can work his way into Patrick’s pants, fighting through the layers.

“What, you want me to stop?” Pete asks sardonically, spitting the stray mitten out and shoving it into one of his pockets.

“Well, no,” Patrick says, and Pete drops to his knees.

Several minutes later, Patrick is glaring at the ground as he shoves his shirttails back down. “I still don’t forgive you.”

That’s funny coming from someone whose nose and cheeks are cherry red at the moment. Pete heaves himself to his feet, dusting snow off his jeans. “No, yeah. I don’t even, I wasn’t even thinking that.”

Patrick takes a step back. He hesitates for a moment before whipping around to hurry back to the warm glow of the cabin.

Pete watches him go. He doesn’t even care that his pants are soaking wet now. He smacks his lips. Maybe this will be a merry Christmas after all.

-

Pete’s on a cloud. He floats home and jerks off immediately before falling asleep, the best he’s had in a while. He’s supposed to be off, but he wakes up bright and early and decides to go through his inbox, fielding a few emails and shooting some texts out. The new fabric samples have just touched down in the warehouse, which means he’ll have something to look forward to when he gets back to New York.

He wanders into the kitchen at the smell of bacon and toasting bread. Hillary, oven mitts on, takes one look at him and sighs.

“You didn’t,” she says as Pete pours a glass of juice for himself and chugs it. He drops it in the sink.

“Hahaha, you know…”

“Pete,” Hillary says, just as mom comes in from the garden with a bunch of herbs in her hand.

She looks between them. “Pete, honey, what’s wrong?”

“He’s going back to Patrick,” Hillary announces.

Pete waves his hands. “I can’t! He doesn’t even want me!”

“He wants to use you,” she mutters as she clatters a pan into the sink. Mom takes over, shakes her head at the two of them.

“I would like it if you made up with Patrick,” she says. “Because you were such good friends. Don’t let him push you around.”

“Sure, mom,” Pete says, instead of He’s the best I’m gonna get or This is the end of the line for me. She thinks he’s over Patrick because she facetimed him once when a girl was sleeping on his couch. She’s also friends with Patricia, which doesn’t make this situation any less complicated or embarrassing.

Pete thinks the situation is looking up. Last night, he got a taste of Patrick he never thought he’d have again. If he’s here, he’s going to savor every moment he can get. Patrick can hate him, or not. He doesn’t hate him enough to turn down the sex.

Pete has an in. Awesome. He’s going to use this week to thoroughly ruin Patrick for anyone else.

(He was trying to do that while they were dating. It clearly wasn't enough. He's gonna have to work double time.)

-

“Shit,” Patrick gargles out through his now burnt tongue, splattering dirty chai onto the snow. He plops his hand into the ice. Some dark part of his mind considers scraping some of the powder up to soothe his stinging mouth.

“You gotta eat it, dude.”

“Yeah, only if you try it first,” Patrick snorts, offering the icy handful to Pete. He blinks. He yanks his hand back.

“What are you doing here?” Patrick snaps, straightening his fedora. “And what are you wearing?”

It’s thirty-five degrees out right now. Pete is wearing a muscle tank with the sleeves cut down so you can see his chest and jogging shorts. His sweatshirt is falling off his shoulders. He’s kind of steaming in the cold.

“Just the morning workout,” Pete stretches casually. “Andy’s letting me borrow his crossfit gym.”

“It’s not morning. And you don’t do crossfit,” Patrick eyes Pete suspiciously. Not his chest. Pete’s kept himself toned for most of their relationship, but he definitely bulked up over the past year. Patrick’s gotten enough of Pete’s gym videos on his feed to ascertain this, but it’s different. In person.

Pete’s always been a bit of a chameleon, but Patrick was fine with that. He knew Pete, inside, the part that didn’t really change (so he thought). It’s still disconcerting. This Pete isn’t the one he started dating and it’s not the Pete he left. Pete has the audacity to rub it in Patrick’s face like this…

“Close enough?” Pete shrugs his sweatshirt on a bit more. His sweat is cooling. He must be freezing. “It’s morning for you.”

Patrick would concede to that. He’s performed poorly enough at the farm that his mom kicked him out, on the condition that he run some errands for her. So now he’s dropped a hummingbird cake off at the neighbors and he’s ready to burrow himself in bed again.

He shoves his drink at Pete. “Hold this.”

Pete cups the chai delicately as Patrick leans over to tie his shoe. He sneaks a sip when Patrick looks away. By the time he’s straightened up, Pete is drinking like he ordered it.

“You don’t drink chai,” he says.

“I do now,” Patrick lies primly. The shop was out of the honey tea he liked. (So they said—the barista looked at him funny. Maybe she was homophobic.) He had a nostalgia for the way chai smelled because it was the only hot thing Pete would drink for a while, until he googled the macros. Whatever macros are.

“You’ve got something…” Pete points at Patrick’s shirt. He looks down. There is, in fact, a large chai stain on the front now.

“Ugh,” Patrick mutters. He doesn’t know how he didn’t notice it sooner. It chills his skin.

Pete takes another sip of chai and shakes a keyring at Patrick. “I could, uh, let you into the gym if you wanna wash that off. You know, it has nice bathrooms. Clean.”

So they fuck in the shower of Andy’s gym. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time. Patrick is just a little worried that no one’s found the KY stashed under the sink. He emerges, shirtless, wringing his shirt out on the floor, and freezes.

“Hey Patrick,” Andy says. “Have a good workout?”

Patrick drops his shirt. Pete, towel wrapped low around his waist, trots out of the locker room. “That was fast!” he says cheerfully, dropping the keys in Andy’s palm, who shakes his head.

“You know I’m not letting you in here unsupervised again, right?”

“Patrick was spotting me.”

“Don’t bring me into this,” Patrick says stiffly. He likes Andy, had a perfectly cordial tree purchasing interaction with him the other day, but he wouldn’t put it past him to have some alliance with Pete thanks to the fact that they’ve known each other long before he and Pete ever said a word to each other. Not to mention the breakup losing all of them a band. The last thing he wants to do is to explain that he’s not back together with Pete, they’re just like.

What are they doing? What’s Patrick doing? Exactly what Pete wants? No. That’s what he’s been trying to avoid. It’s actually not even about Pete, really. Patrick is…blowing off steam.

He needs this. Right after the breakup he’d had about two and a half tinder dates before giving up. The LA dating scene is a cesspool. Pete, he can guess, was not celibate after. He chases physical sensation with worrying abandon. Which is not Patrick’s problem anymore. Except when Joe would text him asking him for advice. Look, they broke up, but Patrick doesn’t want Pete dead in a ditch.

He goes to throw his shirt on and remembers that it’s still wet. Andy looks at him. “You’re not busy, right?”

-

Pete imagined a lot of couples costumes for him and Patrick. Some—like Maverick and Iceman—were realized. Others, like their matching black suits with emerald accents, were not.

He never dreamed of the bright green elf costumes they’ve got on now. Maybe he should have. Andy’s little dogs are matching them too. He’s not sure why this is a necessary step in handing vegan candy canes with business cards tied to them out to the people passing their table at the weekly winter market, but Pete doesn’t actually want to be banned from Andy’s gym, so.

“How long have you been back?” Pete asks casually, between visitors.

“Since the sixth. None of your business,” Patrick answers.

“That’s early,” Pete is a little stunned. Patrick is a workaholic, to put it mildly.

“They postponed all my projects,” Patrick huffs.

“All of them?” Pete finds that difficult to believe. Patrick can’t even stick to one industry and he jumps at almost anything. He used to, at least. Maybe he’s too busy now. “I heard that EP you worked on. It was good.”

“Thanks.”

He thinks Patrick’s getting less frosty with him. Nothing like a blowjob to break the ice. Pete gives a candy cane away. He shouldn’t be admitting that he’s still keeping up with Patrick, he should probably want Patrick to think he’s vindictively moved on from him, which was Pete’s modus operandi with most of his other exes.

He watches Patrick drop into a crouch to give two candy canes to a pair of siblings. He doesn’t want to do that.

Patrick has this funny trait where he doesn’t know what’s best for him. He’s very single-minded. There was magic there when they first started dating. More than magic. Don’t tell anyone this, but Patrick is the first guy Pete really wanted to change for. Wanted to try. He would do just about anything for Patrick, and despite his reticence and his put-upon belligerence, he knew Patrick was the same.

On a good day. Patrick got distracted at the end, always busy, though that wasn’t exactly unusual. It came in waves. Still not really the note Pete wanted to end on. Not that he had an ending in mind. The story in his head went on forever.

“Have you seen the new Batman movie?” Pete tries.

“I don’t really want to do this,” Patrick says. “Like, are we pretending to be normal right now?”

“I don’t think it’s physically possible for us to be normal,” Pete says. He sees the way Patrick’s mouth twitches at that, even as he tries to hide it in his elf collar. “But we’re both here. We’re gonna be here. Can’t we do ourselves a favor and just...not?”

Pete’s really taking a risk here, because Patrick is so stubborn and contrarian. So is Pete. But he knows how to negotiate, unlike Patrick. “Just while we’re in town. For Christmas. I really can’t ruin Christmas again.”

“That would be pretty sad for you,” Patrick concedes. “And humiliating.” He sticks a candy cane in his mouth. “If I do anything it’s for your mom. She sent me cookies. Don’t get any funny ideas.”

He regrets the words the second they’re out of his mouth, Pete can tell. He’s the funny idea guy. This, Patrick knows more than anyone. Pete doesn’t say anything. He just flicks the brim of Patrick’s fedora, elf hat pulled extremely stupidly over the top, and says “No funny business. I swear.”

“Yeah, I believe you,” Patrick says. “Like that time you said that and then we had llamas in the backyard.”

“That was a good birthday party. Why are you lying?”

“Stop ignoring the people,” Andy says, snatching the candy canes out of Patrick’s hand and tossing one to a sturdy man perusing Andy’s vegan protein bar offerings. Pete grins sheepishly at him. Welp. Andy knew what he was getting into when he contracted the two of them, broken up or not.

-

“What are you wearing?” Kevin asks when Patrick tromps back into the house that evening.

“Shut up.” Patrick shuts himself away in his room. His old shirt, still wet, is shoved in a plastic bag helpfully provided by Andy.

Patrick makes a face at the soiled garment. He shakes it out, ready to toss in the wash, when a stray candy cane falls out of the pocket.

Patrick picks it up, the card at the end still damp. He’s halfway to the trash can before he notices the ink smeared on the back, messy scrawl he could recognize by touch alone.

Cornflower blue

I miss missing you

Patrick stares at the note. A breath hisses out between his teeth. He walks over to his laptop sitting on top of his messy sheets, rummages around and pulls a moleskine out from the little back pocket of his backpack. Slips of paper tumble out as he cracks it open.

Patrick tugs his headphone on and opens a folder five layers deep in his hard drive. He’s got a spare guitar somewhere around here.

-

“What is this?” Pete stares at the disaster that is their kitchen. His mom kind of stopped cooking like this several years ago, so he can’t really comprehend the sticky wooden floors and parchment paper scattered around the counter.

“Pete! You can help me take these to the school, can’t you?”

Oven heat blasts Pete’s face as his mom unearths a giant rack of cookie squares.

“I guess?” he doesn’t mean to sound whiney, but he’d been planning another visit to the tree farm today.

“All the local businesses will be there,” his mom says knowingly. “For the gingerbread decorating contest.”

“I can't believe I forgot about the gingerbread decorating contest.” Pete pops a gingerbread arm in his mouth. “If it’s for the community, I can carve some time out…”

His mom smacks him. “Put something decent on, please.”

He concedes that his SUCK MY RICHARD shirt, while a sharp seduction tool, might not be the best fit for one of the busier family events of the holiday season, and goes to tug one of his new hoodies over the whole thing.

Pete is glad that the gingerbread contest is being held at the school on the other side of the neighborhood instead of the prep school he attended. To the city council’s credit, you can barely tell that it’s a school, done up into a winter wonderland with prop candy canes and fake icicles dangling from the ceiling. The tastefully decorated trees are courtesy of the Stump family, he’s sure.

He’s using all the physical dexterity he has to make sure he doesn’t drop any of the three cookie containers he’s juggling, lest he crack one of the load-bearing walls and be responsible for a gingerbread OSHA violation. Cookies settled at the gingerbread intake center, pleasantries exchanged with his mom’s friends, ignoring the whispers he hears every so often behind his back, he’s glad when the crowd quiets down for some opening remarks by the chair of the city council.

“...and a big thank you to our sponsors: Union Bank, Log Cabin Coffee Roasters, and the Stump Family Christmas Tree Farm!”

A spotlight pans over to Patrick, standing next to his stepdad. He gives a token wave at the shoutout. Pete locks eyes with him. Patrick inches back.

“How are you, Pete?” Aaron asks as Pete sidles up to him, clapping him firmly on the back. Aaron is real friendly. Pete still plays iMessage chess with him. It’s never occurred to him that this might be weird. Pete shakes his hand back. “Alright, keeping busy. Farm doing good?”

“Yep! We miss you there. Come around sometime, Patricia will make you some cider before putting you to work.”

Patrick is steadily ignoring this exchange. Too bad at that very moment, an assistant comes to whisper in the chairwoman’s ear.

“We’re missing a player for the decorating contest! Are there any volunteers willing to take on this challenge?”

Pete’s hand shoots up immediately. The chairwoman points at him. “Swell! Where’s the rest of your team?”

Pete grabs at Patrick, yanking him back. Patrick pulls his arm out of Pete’s grip. “What are you doing?” he hisses.

“The contest will be ruined if no one helps. I’m supporting our community.”

“There are a hundred people here, I’m sure someone else will step up.”

“Wonderful! Thank you Pete and Patrick.” It doesn’t escape Pete’s notice that she already knows both of their names. He doesn’t recognize her. “Please head to the cookie intake center to be briefed on your roles.” Aaron claps.

It’s like going to war. Patrick stays frowning as they go through cookie intake. “Ok, well, we’re also both awful at decorating, so. We’re going to lose.”

“What’s with this, like, closed mindset you have—”

“Are you a teacher now? Is that why you’re explaining elementary concepts to me?”

“You can’t win if you think you’ll lose,” Pete hands Patrick a piping bag of icing. “You work at a Christmas tree farm, isn’t this like, in your blood?”

“It’s just a regular tree farm nine months out of the year,” Patrick surveys their decorating station critically. He eats a gumdrop. “I can see your play, Wentz. I meant what I said. We are never, ever getting back together.”

“I liked her last album.”

“It was alright. The production—”

“Hey, it could be worse.”

Patrick levels his icing bag at Pete. “Could be worse.”

“Sorry, mister virtuoso, I forgot you know everything,” but Pete’s grinning. The crowd begins the countdown to the start of the timer. “Shit, it’s already—”

“GET DECORATING!” Cheery jingle bells interrupt him and there’s no time for any more banter.

Patrick fumbles to get the house together while Pete dresses their gingerbread couple. He holds the cookies up at Patrick. “Aw, they gave us two boy cookies.”

“How do you know they’re men? They could be anything.” Patrick already has icing on his glasses, somehow.

“Right, sorry, they gave us two butch lesbian cookies.” Pete attempts to draw a pair of overalls on one of the figures. “What the fuck, switch with me, what are you doing?”

Patrick’s gingerbread house has three walls. “Triangles are the most structurally sound shape!”

Pete delicately unsticks the cookies to add the fourth. Only then is the gabled roof placed, and by then, he notices that “Fuck! They’re already decorating their houses!”

It’s true. Some of the other teams already have candy cane fences boxing their gingerbread in. “Go, go! Get the candy!”

They knock into each other and shout and yell as edible glitter, icing, and candies are thrown with reckless abandon. Pete’s mom and Patrick’s stepdad are standing at the sidelines shouting encouragement. The crowd counts the seconds down as the clock hits sixty. Patrick performs emergency surgery on an amputated gingerbread limb.

“Time’s up!”

Pete knows how Chopped contestants feel as he stands back from their creation, sticky hands in the air. He shoots a breathless smile at Patrick, fedora dusted with powdered sugar. Patrick smiles back.

“Holy shit this is ugly,” Pete says as he takes in their gingerbread house. Lopsided, part of the roof sliding off, completely asymmetrical. There’s no pattern to the candies thrown on the sides and the windows are crooked, feeble things. The gingerbread butches haven’t fared much better. You can barely read the plaid pattern Patrick attempted.

“I told you,” Patrick accuses as the judges survey their work, notating on their clipboards. “You’re trying to seduce me and now we look like a couple of idiots.”

“We are a couple of idiots.” Pete pops a gummy off the roof. Patrick yelps. “What are you doing!”

“We’re not gonna win, so,” Pete shrugs. He holds a gumdrop out to Patrick. Patrick snatches it out of his hand.

“Don’t try to do the cutesy Hallmark feeding me shit,” Patrick instructs.

“I wasn’t doing that,” Pete denies. Patrick glares as he sticks the candy in his mouth. They’re sour. His favorite.

“We appreciate all your lovely creations. Unfortunately, there can only be one winner. And that is…Mark and Sharon!”

The mother-son duo at the table next to them cheers. Pete claps politely. Patrick leans over to shake their hands. “You deserve it.”

“Why do you pretend to be nice?” Pete asks as Patrick settles back. “It’s way more fun when you’re like, normal.”

“I don’t pretend to be nice. I am nice.”

“Not to me.”

“You like that.”

They’re standing shoulder to shoulder. Patrick’s so warm. His face, when Pete looks, is soft, eyes dragging sticky on each other for just a moment.

Their parents rush over. “I’m proud of you for trying,” Aaron says to Patrick, eyeing the setup hungrily. Patrick frowns and tugs the lesbian gingerbread family closer. Pete’s mom snaps a picture. Other people begin flitting around, observing the houses.

“So you’re back together?” A girl asks. It’s the barista from the other day.

Pete laughs nervously. “No, why would—obviously not.”

“Ok,” she says, skeptical, and walks away. Pete flicks his eyes to Patrick. He’s determinedly chewing on another gumdrop.

“Break up with him again,” Hillary says disapprovingly.

Pete jumps. “When did you get here?”

She’s already gone. Pete looks forlornly at the lopsided smiles of their gingertheys. He wonders if they ever lost the love of their life while they were standing right next to them.

Aaron is chewing guiltily. So there’s the answer to one question.

“Shit, you took Pete back?” That really throws Pete for a loop.

“Chris!” he hisses. He shouldn’t even be here. He moved into the city like every normal person here. Chris waggles his fingers at him.

“I didn’t do anything,” Patrick snaps. “What, are you worried? Trust me, Pete’s all yours.”

Pete’s face twitches at that. Patrick notices. “Am I not supposed to know? It’s not really a secret.”

Patrick is the one who thinks he knows everything. Pete knows it’s his fault he has a reputation for sleeping around and being a manwhore or whatever, his fault that he never told any of his friends to stop it with the jokes. Shit hurts a little, but he would never tell anyone that. No one knows that he doesn’t even do it because he likes it. But you can’t tell anyone that, because they start to act funny around you.

“You’re being unreasonable,” Pete says slowly. “We already broke up. You shouldn’t even care. Not that there’s anything to care about.” Damn Patrick’s possessive streak. He hated sharing music, and Pete, when the occasion arose.

“I thought I had a chance,” Chris snarks from the side.

Pete pokes him with a candy cane. “Can you just go please?”

“I remember how you were,” Patrick says. “You couldn’t ever let anything go. Anyone.”

“You think I’m still pining after Chris?”

“Who knows! Probably!” Patrick’s voice raises. “You certainly can’t stop bothering me, no matter what I say.”

“You’re different. And you like it when I bother you.” The gingerbread cracks under Pete’s nervous hands.

Patrick is stepping one, two paces away. “Of course I do. I like whatever is convenient for you. I like everything you like.”

Patrick is gone. Pete stares at his gingerbread crumbs. He should be used to this by now.

-

Before they officially met, Pete had known vaguely of Patrick as that guy with sideburns who hung out with Joe sometimes. Later, when asked, Patrick admitted that he had seen one of Pete’s shows once, but otherwise was oblivious to his presence, which charmed Pete.

It’s a minor miracle they didn’t meet sooner. But they were both at the bar for Joe’s twenty-fourth birthday, and Patrick took the seat next to him.

“Hey,” Pete says. “You shaved your sideburns!”

These were the first words they had ever exchanged. Patrick’s head thumped onto the counter. Pete jumped, alarmed, wondering how much this guy drank.

“I’m just the sideburns guy? Seriously?”

“No way,” Pete lies. “I’ve seen your band, what’s the name…?”

“Whatever,” Patrick turns around to look at him. “You’re the fifth person to say that to me today, and the fourth guy I don’t even know.”

“Sorry,” Pete scooches closer. “I’ll buy you a drink?”

Patrick blinked at the dark fringe covering Pete’s eye. “Why not,” he says, and after a few more of Pete’s beers he got up to use the karaoke machine, and it’s a wonder that Pete didn’t take him home that very night.

They started dating two months after that. Patrick was music to Pete, sweet and funny and grumpy. He questioned Pete on the important things, and didn’t bother psychoanalyzing him even if he was fond of suggesting prescription refills when Pete got testy. He was brilliant. He could read Pete. Pete could do the same. They started a band, tagged Joe and Andy in, but it was hard to manage between all that random life crap.

When they met, Patrick had been working out of Chicago for the most part. But he’d produced enough hardcore and grunge rock records. He was over it. He didn’t really have the capacity to dream bigger, but Pete did. He’d been working some admin job at his dads office and he didn’t mind being the company nepo hire, but that didn’t take too much time out of his week. He spent his free days editing Patrick’s resume, making calls, updating his website. And soon enough he was getting a call from an old college buddy asking Patrick to come in and get coffee.

It spiralled from there, naturally, and then Patrick netted his first job in LA It was just some short film, an indie project, but it was enough. So Patrick needed a roost, and Pete followed, because moving was a lot of work on your own! And he got bored when Patrick was at the studio, so he picked a spot up at a skate park with a space for gigs on the side.

That’s what they did for a while, Patrick keeping up with his clients in the midwest and fielding new offers on the west coast. Pete was there with him. And it was good. They made friends. They had a routine. Pete played at being Patrick’s agent. They were in love. It was fun.

Then Patrick got more established, and he was in LA for longer. The more projects he had, the bigger clients, he started making noise about his creative process and needing space. Pete could take a hint. He liked the skate park more than the law firm, and they liked him back, but it was hard to get his feet under him when Patrick was so…mercurial. So he started spending more time at home. But it was fine, because when he was with Patrick, it was good.

So that’s where they were when Patrick finally got an offer from a studio—a big one. Part time gigs between LA and Chicago didn’t make sense. Patrick would have a full-time job, with a salary and benefits. Pete was there when he got the offer, snuggled up against Patrick on his parents’ couch watching Die Hard.

“That’s awesome,” Pete’s lips are pressed to Patrick’s before he can even hit the end call button. “Baby, that’s amazing, this is the coolest shit ever, I’m so proud of you—”

Patrick giggles as Pete peppers his face with kisses. He liked to play at being annoyed with Pete’s overzealous and focused affection sometimes, but not right now. Right now, he’s wrapping his arms around Pete’s shoulder and tugging him closer, until they topple off the couch and onto the floor.

“This is crazy,” Patrick was saying, breathless. “I need to find a new apartment, and I can get a studio, but I’ll need to buy a car too, ugh—”

“You can have mine,” Pete presses his nose into Patrick’s neck. “I’ll drive it up there, we can make it a road trip—”

Pete can feel the way Patrick pauses at that. “You’re going…to drive there?”

“Yes?” Pete sits back to look at Patrick. “Is that ok? It was just a suggestion, I can ship it or…”

“You’ll have to fly back, then.”

“Fly?” The bubbling joy from earlier is turning flat. “I’m staying with you.”

“Indefinitely?”

Pete has to take a minute there. Indefinitely? Like, forever? Yes, obviously. Forever, because he was Patrick’s boyfriend? Forever, because they had that inevitable, windows down dreaming kind of love?

“...Yeah,” Pete tugs the blanket around himself. “Y’know, I don’t care about working for my dad, I can find some permanent shit in LA and we can finally…”

Settle down. No more transience. And Pete thought of the little velvet box shoved tightly, carefully, into his old wardrobe. Be real.

“You don’t need to baby me,” Patrick says. “I can take care of myself.”

“‘Course I know that.” Pete knows Patrick can survive. He just doesn’t know if he can thrive. Patrick is amazing. Pete thinks he must be one of those genius artist types who can’t keep both feet on the ground, because his head is just so full of music.

Patrick can take the shit in head and turn it into something useful, beautiful. Pete has a pile of notebooks, a therapist, a mile-long sheet of prescriptions, and a few zines with his name in the contents floating around. Pete knows he’s not much of anything. Patrick can’t hear what Pete hears when he sings.

Patrick also can’t answer his emails, which isn’t as romantic, but is necessary if you want to do anything in this world. It’s kind of astonishing how bad he is given how often he’s on his computer. So yeah, Pete knows Patrick could stay booked and busy without him. He also knows that Patrick would stay comfortable. He can do anything, he just…needs help. And Pete will take any plunge for Patrick. That’s why they work, Pete thinks, and he thought Patrick knew that too.

The frown on Patrick’s face is obvious. They’ve argued before, over stupider stuff. “You don’t. You don’t trust me.”

“I know you more than anyone else on the planet,” Pete defends.

“And you don’t believe in me! You don’t think I can do anything without you!”

“That’s not true!” Suddenly they’re standing, and now they’re fighting, like when they first started dating. “What, you wanna do long distance for real? I thought you’d be happy, I’m giving my shit up for you! We don’t have to do this weird half-on-half-off shit!”

“So you’re just a martyr for me now? I should feel bad?”

“What are you saying?” Frustration and confusion are tugging at Pete right now. “I don’t think we’re on the same page.”

“Clearly.” Patrick’s pulling his coat on and storming out. “I need some space.”

He’s gone, and Pete’s parents find him on the couch a few hours later.

So Pete went to the Tree Farm the next day, and he apologized. He said that he would stay, if that was what Patrick wanted. He could pay the rent on their one-bedroom in Wrigleyville, even though paying two rents was stupid. And for some reason Patrick seemed pleased by this arrangement, even though Pete couldn’t understand it. Patrick was the one who was attached to Chicago. Pete felt more at home in the sun and palm trees than Patrick. And Patrick liked Pete. Why he was enforcing this arbitrary space between them, Pete didn’t know. He didn't think Patrick's career was that important. But if that’s what it took…

That night, they stumbled out to the Christmas Eve tree lighting, right in the town square. The whole neighborhood was there. They cheered when the lights went on, tree—courtesy of the Stump Family Farm—decorated like a fairytale, with golden bells and tinsel and wooden cardinals perched on the branches.

The crowd tumbled into Town Hall for the afterparty and Pete and Patrick were alone, hands in each other’s pockets, still tender. Pete fingered the box in his other hand, turned around, and got on one knee.

He had some kind of speech written, ready to fumble through it, ad-lib the rest, but the expression on Patrick’s face froze him. Shock, he expected. Not the dark cloud gathering over his head.

“You’re doing this now?” His voice is icy.

“Patrick, you’re my true blue,” Pete fumbles for words. “I’ve waited—”

“You want to trap me,” Patrick says stonily. “I’m trying to do something, so you need to get me back.”

That shocks Pete. “Trap you? I’m proposing right now! You don’t believe all that ball and chain crap, your mom is a feminist! And we’re a gay couple!”

“What are you talking about?” Patrick wipes his glasses off, agitated. “It’s just like you to do this. I finally have a chance to—spread my wings, prove myself. You can’t stand that! That I can do it without you!”

Pete feels ready to cry, which is a weird one for him. “That’s not true,” he says pathetically. His leg is cold and damp. “I’ve only ever done anything because I fucking love you! I’m trying to help you!”

“I don’t need your help. You think you know everything.” Patrick takes a step back. “You think you know what’s best for me. You just want what’s best for you because you can’t do anything on your own.”

Now Pete’s angry. He staggers to his feet. “I’m just like, a leech to you, that’s cool. Not like I thought you liked me or anything. I don’t know where I would’ve got that impression in the past five years we’ve been dating.”

Now Patrick looks torn. “I don’t—do we need a break?”

“A break?” Pete’s taken breaks before. “If you’re too scared to actually break up with me just say that. Or if you want to fuck every other guy in LA while I’m gone, that’s cool too.”

He shouldn’t have said that. Patrick’s gaze shutters. “You think I don’t notice you hanging out with Chris every other day when I’m gone? Fuck you, Wentz. We’re done.”

Pete watched him walk away. And then he looked over to town hall, where half the party was standing on the steps, watching with their hands over their mouths.

“Show’s over!” he calls. “You can all go home now!”

They guiltily disperse. Pete cups the ring in his hands, stones glittering in the Christmas lights, and tries not to feel the future falling apart around him.

-

Pete watches the ring roll on the dining table, clattering to a quiet end. He wonders how long he has to wait for Patrick to cool off. Hillary picks it up and puts it back in the box. “You shouldn’t have kept it. That’s expensive.”

“I know,” Pete says miserably. “I couldn’t give it up.”

“Yes you can.” Hillary snaps the box shut firmly. “Hey, you’re better than this. You’re better than stupid Patrick.”

“Am I?” Pete squeezes his eyes shut, watches the lamplight flash under his eyelids. “I know he was it. That was endgame for me. I can’t just forget about it. I can’t just move on.”

“You literally have!”

“Jane wasn’t actually my girlfriend, you know—”

“I’m not talking about that.” Hillary gets up, rustles around the kitchen. “What have you been doing in New York?”

“Just some bullshit,” Pete mutters. “Whatever, it’ll be over soon enough and I’ll move back here and stay at dad’s office. Forever. That’s all I’m good for.”

“You think it’s just some bullshit?” Hillary thumps two mugs down. “Pete, you were in the New York Times! Art and design!”

A few months ago he was briefly interviewed about Clandestine, the t-shirt business he started out of Joe’s apartment with a spare screen printer. It spiralled a little when Pete started talking to a guy who ended being a board member for some nonprofit, and in a few blinks he had a foot in the development department. Basically, Pete sourced some goods for an up-and-coming street artist he chatted up at a solstice party and suddenly he was neck deep in textile manufacturing for artist collectives in the city while juggling some weird fundraising gig on the side.

“It was just a small segment.”

“You need to value yourself.”

“My therapist says the same thing.”

“So I’m extra right?” She sips her drink. “Pete, you don’t need him, or anyone else, to be something great. You just are. Stop letting this guy do whatever he wants!”

“You’re obligated to say that ‘cuz you’re related to me.” Pete slurps at his cocoa. Yeesh. Spiked.

“That actually means we’re obligated to bully you.” Andrew arrives to steal his mug.

“Does everyone know about me and Patrick?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Anyways, Hillary is right. You let Patrick get away with way too much.”

He clunks back up the stairs. Pete doesn’t like being a family affair, but that’s how it’s always been. He props his chin up on his hand and studies the reflection of light on the ring.

-

Another reason Patrick never bothered to unpack his apartment: he never had any guests over. See, after he and Pete broke up, Patrick realized something—all his friends were Pete’s friends.

It’s not that Patrick can’t talk to people. Ask anyone. He can talk. But his job was already half remote, sporadic. He didn’t have much space to develop meaningful relationships with his coworkers. Pete would meet these guys, at gigs, at the skate park, at the club, and drag Patrick out of his cave until they were his friends too.

It’s not that he can’t text any of them or anything, but he just. Doesn’t. Maybe it would be weird. Maybe they would hate him. He doesn’t know. It’s easier to not, easier to always have one thing or another on the backburner so he’s never bored. He likes his job. It’s not hard.

Still, you can only do the same thing for so long. Pete and Patrick did a lot of things together. They went to the store. Pete took him to art galleries he was thoroughly uninterested in, and zoos that he was. They went on walks and to parties both professional and unprofessional, saw film screenings. Pete tried teaching Patrick how to skate. Patrick taught Pete guitar.

In that, there were songs. The band was fractured across state lines more often than not, but Patrick liked to write. He always wrote. Pete was always writing too. Not music obviously. Other things. It was fun to take Pete’s words, piece them together into something that made Pete feel more whole. That helped Patrick see a little of the things Pete couldn’t say. He found something in Pete’s words he couldn’t find anywhere else.

Patrick wasn’t thinking of that after Pete proposed, couldn’t think in terms of what he’d lost. It wasn’t until weeks later, when he opened his guitar case for the first time since flying back, and found a sticky note stuck inside—me+u under the honeymoon.

That stung. But the notes were playing all the same. And Patrick, when he sang those words, could feel close to something.

-

“It’s cold as fuck,” Pete tugs his hood-scarf on tighter. “How are you not freezing?”

“It’s like an ice bath,” Andy says, but his serenity is clearly forced.

“Lucky you, playing right at the beginning,” Pete says. It’s the annual Christmas concert. One of Andy’s random hardcore bands is booked to play metal covers of Christmas songs. Pete might try and start a circle pit. That’ll go over well.

Evening light flickers over the stage. The opener, Andy’s band is starting early, before the sun sets. By the time they finish playing it will be dark, and the stage will be gloriously lit by Christmas lights. Pete made Andy a new shirt that says X V X-MAS. He thinks it’s hilarious. Hopefully Andy will be wearing it by the end of the night.

Pete’s family is somewhere in that crowd. He caught Kevin buying a batch of cider, so the Stumps probably are too. Pete wonders if Patrick is here somewhere. He wants to go find him. He wants to get on his knees and beg Patrick to take him back. If words fail, Pete’s mouth has worked persuasively in other ways in the past.

Andy’s band starts soundchecking and the thought floats out of his mind. He jumps, he headbangs, he thrashes to the music. He screams. He’s panting by the time it’s over, smiling at the dragon-breaths in the cool night air.

Pete slips backstage, ready to coerce Andy into his fun new shirt. And stops.

Patrick’s sitting there, tucked away from the curtains, holding a black acoustic guitar. He doesn’t look at Pete. Like always, it’s a pretty shit act.

“You’re playing?” Pete asks, mildly breathless. He loves Patrick’s music. More than sex, maybe. Sometimes.

“I’m just backup.” Patrick strums a chord. “The acapella group is worried their tenor might be sick.”

Patrick adamantly refused to identify as anything other than a producer last Pete had seen. He also disliked singing for people other than Pete. “You’ve been taking vocal lessons?”

“Yeah. The new studio recommended it.”

“Cool.” Pete’s pretty sure he threw that idea out there once upon a time, but better late than never.

Patrick sets his guitar to the side. He doesn’t say anything. Pete looks at him.

“What?” he says.

Patrick coughs. “I mean, this is usually the part where you…”

Patrick is right. This is usually the part where Pete gets on his knees, or bends over, or gets on his back, and twists himself up as close to Patrick as he can before they peel apart again. That’s true.

“You remember the last time we were here?” Their band had played at the Christmas concert, just once, at its infancy. They were the first act on stage, like Andy is now. It had been the biggest crowd they’d seen at the time. Pete forgot half his notes. Patrick was wearing some dumb hat. They very quietly fucked in the excuse for a green room moments before playing. It was fun. Patrick doesn’t say anything, but Pete knows he’s thinking the same things.

“It was a really fucking good time,” Pete says.

“It was.”

“After that, I went out and bought a ring.”

“What?” Patrick’s eyes are wide now. They’d only been dating a year.

“Yeah.” Pete shoves his hands in his pockets. “You can admire my restraint, because I had my eyes on it the week after we started dating.”

That makes Patrick snort. This is something he knows about Pete.

“I finally got rid of that thing. Stopped by the jewelers right before the show.”

Pete won’t meet Patrick’s eyes. “I want my last memory of us here to be good. I don’t think I can let go of that but—shit, Patrick. I know you. You know me. So I gotta do this before we’re both sixty and we have long ass ugly beards.”

“What?” Patrick is clearly stuck on the image of long ass ugly beards. “Ok, what?”

“You broke up with me,” Pete announces. “I have never broken up with you. I’m doing that now. Patrick Stump, we are donezo.”

Pete turns and walks off the stage. He high-fives Andy.

-

Here's a funny story no one knows: Right after the breakup, Patrick bleached his hair too. He didn't know what he was doing, but he had seen Pete messing with the chemicals often enough and figured he could manage. He spent far too long googling numbers and ratios before saying fuck it, and when he emerged several hours later, he didn't recognize the person in the mirror. He loved it.

For all of five minutes. Fuck, what was I thinking? I'm not Pete. I can't just do whatever I want and look hot and have it work out for me. I'm an idiot and everyone will be able to tell that I've never bleached my hair before…

Only the fear of fucking up and melting his remaining hair off kept him from throwing some box dye on top of the whole affair. He made sure not to see anyone he knew in the two months it took for his roots to grow out enough for him to hack away his mistake. It wasn't too hard now that Pete wasn't around.

Pete was kind of like a puppy. He might run away, but he always came back. It was one of the reasons Patrick was fine leaving him in Chicago while he tried his hand at this LA thing. Sure, he said some things. He didn’t really mean that.

For the longest time Patrick thought Pete was joking. So obsessed with Patrick, clinging in a way that didn’t make much sense because Patrick was nothing special at all. So he was a little insecure. So it made him lash out. We all make mistakes!

This might be worse than the red light he ran while taking his driving test in high school. Patrick tried without Pete. He tried really hard. He’s worked to the bone. He’s clawing his way up through the industry.

And he still hates going to parties. He still hates responding to emails. He doesn't like sharing his best work with people who don't really care. He’s still lonely. He’s still missing something.

Pete loved taking Patrick to art galleries. He would stand and stare at the odd-shaped sculptures, and brightly colored canvases. Patrick tried, but he lost it, a bit. He couldn’t study a hole in a piece of linen for that long.

“Think about, like, what’s not there,” Pete had said. And Patrick did. That was Pete’s thing, never satisfied. He pushed himself, to find some odd internal marker of perfection. He pushed Patrick, too. Not as much. There wasn’t often a time where Patrick didn’t have Pete right next to him, if not on speed dial. But he did. He told Patrick when he didn’t like the bassline. He shoved him out the door in his nicest polo for that interview. He packaged the demo tracks Patrick hated into neat little MP4s for public consumption.

It freaked Patrick out. He didn’t want Pete to be some sort of crutch, for his career or for his creativity or for whatever else. So he left him back home and he knew Pete would be there when he got back.

“You’re totally taking Pete for granted, dude,” is what Joe has to say when Patrick calls him a few glasses deep. “Get him back so he stops hogging my couch.”

“Dale told me that Pete has been very stressed recently,” his mom says disapprovingly to him when he goes to get a glass of water from the sink. She was always opposed to the breakup. Obviously. Everyone loves Pete. The fact that he understands the Christmas tree business better than Patrick doesn't help.

Patrick sits next to his dad in the living room. He just got in last night. Mom is nice, but she’s very practical. Dad’s got more of a sentimental streak. After Patrick vomits up an hour’s worth of woes onto the carpet, he thinks for a moment before saying, “You know that it won’t be easy for you.”

Patrick thinks of his apartment, boxes and the photos of them still turned to face the wall. Just this once, maybe he should listen to someone else.

-

The theme for the tree this year is Spongebob. Which is really weird. It might coincide with the play that was being put on by the high school last month but that still doesn’t—whatever. Pete’s not on the city council.

It’s Christmas Eve and he’s hanging out alone in front of the tree. The annual party dispersed hours ago, town hall waiting expectantly for Santa’s arrival. The clownfish on the Christmas tree seem excited.

Even now, Pete thinks that this tree is from the Stump family farm. They spent two years growing this one. Patrick really is everywhere. Pete won’t be able to go a single Christmas without thinking of him.

Which is fine. Some lessons need to be learned the hard way. One day it’ll be the good kind of hurt, the ache after a workout. Pete is excited for New Years. He really believes in that clean slate shit.

“Hey.”

The thrill that runs through him at that is entirely involuntary. Pete curses his genetic predisposition towards Patrick Stump.

“It’s almost Christmas.” Pete can hear Patrick shuffle closer.

“Did you get a calendar?” Pete asks. He’s trying to be mean but it’s an honest question. Patrick has one of those freaky white people families that opens presents on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas day. This was the main con of marrying him.

“Doesn’t everyone get calendars for Christmas?” Patrick clears his throat. “I mean, I have a gift for you.”

“I am not interested in your dick,” Pete lies. “I downloaded a self help app. The counter resets every time I jerk off thinking of you.”

“Wait, are you serious?” Patrick’s voice sounds weird. Against his better judgement, Pete turns around.

Patrick sounds weird because he’s down on one knee in the snow.

“What the fuck,” Pete says. “You’re a sick, evil man. You think this is funny? My mental state is extremely delicate, which you know. You’re weaponizing my mental illness—”

Patrick opens the box. A ring is inside. A real one. (But still lower karat than what he’d picked out for Patrick, he notes.)

“I was wrong,” he says.

Pete’s hand presses against Patrick’s forehead. “Did you remember to get your flu shot this year?”

Patrick tolerates this with more grace than Pete would expect. “The past year has been fairly awful,” he says bravely. “I wanted to have control. I didn’t know what I was doing. I thought I was proving something to you…but I was really just getting in my own way. In our way. I love you, I miss you. You reminded me of that. Move to LA with me so we can get married and never do this again.”

Pete gapes at Patrick. Patrick shifts nervously. Pete carefully takes the ring out of Patrick’s hand. He observes it in the glow of the jellyfish lights.

“I’m not trying to be the same,” he says. “Like, we can’t go back to the way it was. If you’re trying for a reset—”

“That’s not what this is.” Patrick sits back a little. “I went to the jewelers. He had your ring, right there on the counter. I almost bought it back. But he told me it was out of style.”

“That’s very clever, Patrick, have you been working on your metaphors?”

“It actually happened!” Patrick defends. Pete scoffs. “I wouldn’t choose something dated.”

“Uh huh. I called my mom and your mom and they helped me pick this one.” A pause. “Hillary too, but she yelled at me.”

That makes Pete smile. But the ring he’s holding now is a classic. More tasteful than he would expect from Patrick by far. “You’re telling me everyone approves? You asked for my dowry?”

“They’re worried about what you’ll do when you’re single,” Patrick says bluntly, which Pete knows, but yowch. “Forget about them. You don’t care about that crap. I’m asking you for a second chance.”

“I should say no to you,” Pete says, slowly closing the ring box. “That’s the point of the app. To stop me from relapsing.”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m a bad habit,” Patrick says, but Pete’s already sliding the ring onto his finger.

“You got my size right.” His wonderment might be a little bit insulting.

“You left a bunch of your stuff in the apartment.”

“I would’ve thrown it away.”

“No.”

Pete tugs Patrick onto his feet. They’re nose to nose. “Hey,” he says. “If we break up after this, it will be really embarrassing.”

“Let’s save ourselves the trouble,” Patrick murmurs. Pete still tastes like that coconut chapstick he likes.

They break away as the church bell chimes. Midnight. Christmas is here.

“I didn’t get you a present,” Pete breathes. “Actually, I still have a few old backup gifts for you at the house.”

“What’s?”  

“Nevermind.” Pete pecks Patrick again. And again. The next one is pretty graphic.

“Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas!” Santa bursts out of town hall. Patrick jumps. “Isn’t the party over?”

Someone ducks down under the window. Pete shakes his head. “Fuck. The City Council Christmas Sleepover.”

“Oh, right, my aunt does that,” Patrick muses. City council files out behind Santa with presents in their hands.

“I’m over this. Let’s go have the craziest reunion sex ever.” Pete tugs Patrick away from the tree. As he admires his ring, he can see the pink glow of Gary’s shell, shining from the top of the tree, reflected in the gold. His future looks bright.

-

“I had this whole plan,” Patrick is saying Christmas morning, cuddled with Pete on the couch at the tree farm. “I was going to sing you a song that I wrote.”

“Why didn’t you?” Pete pouts. He’s missed his Patrick ipod.

“You refused to suck my dick, so.”

“The hell?” Pete’s brow furrows. “That’s why you had that guitar?”

“Sorry.” Patrick kisses the side of Pete’s head. Pete foolishly forgives him immediately.

“I want to hear the song.”

“I’ll show it to you after breakfast.”

Kevin wanders down the stairs, yawning. “Hey Pete.” He gets halfway to the kitchen before pausing. He turns around. “Are you going to hyphenate?”

“Yes,” Patrick says.

“Pete Stump,” Pete considers. Patrick pushes him. “That’s awful. It’s silly. See why my mom got rid of it? And now I have to come back for that stupid name thing…”

“What name thing?” Kevin asks over the bowl of cereal he’s pouring. Patrick frowns. “You know, the family name thing? Because mom and Aaron aren’t Stumps, so we need to stay here to make sure that the business title is, like, legal?”

Kevin chokes on his milk. Pete pets Patrick’s arm.

“Babe, you know that’s not real? Like, they made that up? They’re joking?”

“Huh?” Patrick is starting to look distressed. Pete waves it off and privately reminds himself to never let Patrick near anything resembling legal documents.

“I’m gonna need to sort out my stuff in NY before I can move,” Pete muses. “No more than a week. I bet I can move the workshop out. We needed a new perspective anyways.”

“I still don’t know what exactly you do.” Patrick frowns at him. Before Pete can explain, the door is flying open.

“You could’ve left a note,” Hillary announces, dragging a wagon full of presents behind her. “I would have packed everything up last night.”

“This family is so dramatic,” Patrick mutters, pulling the blanket over his head. Patricia and mom are comparing notes on some french toast casserole recipe. More people filter in through the door, crinkling packages dropped under one of the many Stump Family Christmas trees decorating the room.

“When’s the wedding?” Patrick’s dad asks cheerfully. They peer at each other under the quilt. Pete pokes his head out. “Next Christmas?”

Patrick groans dramatically. He ignores the multiple unironic groans that come from the rest of the family. Under the covers, his hand finds Pete’s, and traces the metal band.