tell me you love me (peterick)

xiv.

it was three am, and it was the kind of night where you stood outside watching the stars, making wishes on every twinkle, hoping that one of them will be lucky. pete was running down the sidewalk, feet pounding against the concrete. with every step, it felt like more words were being squeezed out of him, more lyrics freed and fears crushed underfoot.

he and patrick hadn't spoken in four days now, and pete was a flood of regrets. he should have protested more, he shouldn't have kissed him so passionately, he shouldn't have sighed against patrick's lips, he shouldn't have smiled to himself when patrick stepped away. he shouldn't have, he shouldn't have, he shouldn't have.

but now he was on a familiar street, the shadows of the trees raising in familiar forms, the cracks in the sidewalk not enough to trip him over. he stopped at a gateway to an old apartment building, and took a deep breath.

he took the elevator eight floors up, knocking on the door, pounding with the weight of fists that wanted to hold hands that kept slipping away.

the door swung open, revealing a man of many masks, his hair still bleeding sleep, one hand rubbing a barely awake eye.

"patrick."

a whisper of a feather, a fallen costume at a masquerade. "pete."

"we haven't spoken in four days."

"you've been counting."

"can i come in?"

patrick had never hesitated before, but he did now. now, he was wracked with something that was not quite an unsureness, but not quite a reluctance. "of course."

pete stepped in, and the took sat down gingerly on a couch, but it was as if they were walking on shattered glass. it was like they had been fighting again, it was like pete was tearing down the world to get to someone who wasn't there.

"i'm sorry," pete whispered. he stared at his hands, detailing the lines in his palms, the ones that ached to be held. "i'm sorry."

"why?" patrick asked, lines appearing between his eyebrows. "you haven't done anything wrong."

"i enjoyed it," pete said, and he couldn't hear himself over the sound of his own blood pumping to his shallow heart. he shouldn't be telling patrick this. this was dangerous, this was territory that they never meant to get into.

"enjoyed what?"

"kissing you," pete breathed. "i liked it. i liked kissing you, and i want to do it again, but you don't want to, and so i'm sorry. i'm sorry."

patrick sucked in a gasp of air, a breath of renewal, a touch of terror. "what?"

his voice was so cold, and pete froze. he couldn't bring himself to breathe.

"you - you liked it," patrick whispered, trying to wrap his head around it, around the concept that pete liked him, around his newfound ability to breathe underwater.

pete liked him back.

"i should just go - i - i'll go - i'm sorry - "

pete stood up in a rushed moment, every piece of him heavy, every weight he had left on the streets outside suddenly haunting him. he took a step forward, and it was like he was caught in an avalanche, he was tripping over rocks and boulders, his knees bending forward, grappling with rejection amongst the ancient fossils and the graveyard dirt.

then patrick's hand was gripping pete's shirt, taking a fistful of fabric between sweating fingers. "you liked kissing me."

patrick was staring straight ahead. his eyes were focused on chlorine summers and bleached hair and crushed grass and all of the things that were so intrinsically pete and now there was this, and this was that pete wanted to kiss him again.

"yes," pete confessed. his words were a whisper in the nighttime, a canary in a coldmine, and patrick was a rush of poison in his lungs. this was the end of everything.

patrick closed his eyes. "kiss me again."

and hope was rushing pete's mind like a riptide of glory, like patrick's words were a new symphony, a sunrise over a burning ocean, the relief of knowing you've lived to see another day.

patrick stood up, the edge of pete's shirt still in his hands. "kiss me again."

and pete did.