Troubled Thoughts

five

Patrick

It took a few minutes until the noise broke through to Patrick's sleeping mind and slowly woke him up. Still sleep drunk he hurried out of his bed and into the hallway. He hit his foot on the way to the front door, but didn't realise, because he was still half asleep. The thing that fully woke him up was the shock he got when he opened the door.

In front of him stood a messed up, way too thin and clearly drunk Pete Wentz.

"What the hell are you doing here?!" Patrick whispered in surprise. He kept his voice down to not get into more trouble with his neighbours, after Pete clearly woke most of them up already.

"You didn't answer your phone." Pete said, surprisingly well articulated, judged by how drunk he looked.

"And so you just show up at my door in the middle of the night?"

"Yes! Aren't you happy to see me?" Pete leaned a bit towards Patrick, so the doctor could clearly smell the alcohol in his breath.

"Of course I am! Damn, come in here! You're waking up all my neighbours! How did you even find me?" he opened the door a bit further, to let Pete in. The man hold up a tiny piece of paper, that Patrick recognised as the one he gave Pete three days ago.

Patrick closed the door behind Pete and turned around to see him standing in the middle of the hallway. He couldn't help but smile. Patrick was happy to see him. To know he was okay, kind of. To know he was alive.

"I missed you." Pete said.

"You're drunk." Patrick replied.

"Yeah, that too. But I really missed you." Pete moved a bit closer. There was still a lot of space between them. Too much, Patrick thought for a second, but he immediately pushed that thought away, because Pete still was this straight, drunk guy he would never be confident enough to confess his love to.

"I missed you, too." Patrick finally answered.

"Good." Pete took a big step to close the distance between them but stumbled over his own feet and half-fell into Patrick's arms. His face and especially his lips too close for Patrick to handle. It would've been easy to just kiss him. And in this state, Pete would barely have fought Patrick off. And even though he wanted it so badly, Patrick pushed Pete up on his own feet again, still holding him with both hands. Pete leaned in a little more, curling his lips a little, like he was expecting a kiss. And again Patrick was tempted to just do it. But instead he used all his willpower to take a sharp breath and whispered "You're drunk. You better get some sleep. I can't let you go home alone like that."

Patrick carefully dragged him over to his bedroom and dropped him onto the bed.

Pete cuddled into his blanket right away, already forgetting how close they were to kiss each other and Patrick watched him dozing off. That was the good thing about drunk people. They would fall asleep everywhere, as long as it's cozy enough.

He always loved to watch Pete fall asleep and the fact that he didn't sleep in a hospital bed anymore made it even better this time.

After a moment Pete lifted his hand a little and patted the blank space next to him. "Come here." he mumbled into the pillows, already half asleep. Patrick wasn't sure if it was a good idea to sleep next to a drunk Pete... but after a moment of hesitation he obeyed and as soon as he lied down, Pete's head sunk against his chest and Patrick couldn't help but smile happily. And the constant breathing next to him brought him back to sleep as well. And it was far more peaceful than his last few nights, now that he knew that Pete was save, even if it's only for this one night.

Pete

Again, Pete woke up in an unfamiliar room, with a bad headache and without any memory of the last night.