Just Once - A Peterick Fic

Chapter 4

        A few days later we were at my apartment, having just finished watching a movie that I'd cried during and Pete hadn't.

        "At least we've already established who the girl is in this relationship," Pete joked, noting our cuddling position. We were on my couch, his arm around my shoulders and me curled up against him, resting my head on his chest. I'd pulled my feet up next to me onto the couch and loosely wrapped an arm around him.

        "Hey, I've got a dick just as much as you do," I told him, feigning offense but unable to keep the smile from my lips. "Just because I'm a little more submissive doesn't mean I'm a girl." I stuck my tongue out at him playfully as if I were two years old.

        "Oh don't worry Pattycakes. You're man enough for me." A small smirk played on his lips as he said that, clearly amused.

        "Psh, I'd better be," I said, smiling a little and Pete laughed, a smirk curving his lips still afterwards.

        "So who do we tell?" I asked him after a moment, serious now. I knew we'd have to let people know about our relationship soon enough and I doubted it would be fun. Shouting it from the rooftops for all to hear didn't sound like a good idea, though.

       "Well we've definitely got to let Andy and Joe know soon," he started and I nodded in agreement. "Our immediate families and really close friends should know, although not immediately. I want to give us some time before my family starts pressuring us to get married after the first date." At that last bit, he laughed a little but it was hollow, like the idea of telling his family about us scared him to death and he was trying to hide it.

        I smiled a little but let it fade before I spoke again. "We'll tell them together and hope both families react well," I said in a meager attempt to reassure him. Quite frankly, I was not looking forward to telling my parents either.

        "There's not much else we could do," he said, leaning down and kissing the top of my head.

        "I don't want to tell the fans," I told him after a moment, more afraid of their reactions than my parents'. They'd either love it and persist with invasive questions or hate it and we'd get death threats again. "At least for quite a while anyway."

        He sighed, nodding and saying, "Yeah, me neither. I mean, I love 'em but I don't think they need to know about us for a decent amount of time."

        We fell into silence after that, just sitting there, content with each other. I wasn't an awkward silence, but rather a comfortable one. It wasn't long before Pete broke it, though.

        "Why'd you let me?" he asked, onto a different topic already. Quite frankly, I much preferred the earlier one.

        The question caught me off guard, though, and I sat up, pulling away a tad. I knew exactly what he meant but I asked anyway. "What do you mean?"

        "Why'd you go along with me? Y'know...On the bus?" he asked, sounding nervous. It was as if he didn't want to actually say it and I found that odd. Pete wasn't one to avoid saying something we both knew.

        I sighed, my eyes falling. "I don't know," I admitted, my voice quiet, just loud enough that I knew Pete would hear. It was the same question I'd been asking myself since then and still didn't have the answer to. The arm he'd had draped around me dropped to his side then, so I pulled mine back too, moving so I was sitting cross legged and facing him a little farther away than I had been before. I couldn't go to much farther, though. The couch was only so big.

        "Why are you with me now?" was his next question. He, too, had his eyes locked on the floor. It was as if a wall had suddenly formed between us and I wasn't a fan of the feeling.

        "Because I enjoyed that night. I thought we made a connection. To me, it felt like more than just sex," I told him, pausing before tacking on a "but I don't know" and a shrug that he probably wouldn't see at the end.

        "Pattycakes, I don't know either. This is foreign territory for me. I don't typically have too many feelings for people I decide to fuck on a whim but I guess I should've seen this coming. You're my best friend. I'd just never given myself the chance to think of you in the way I did that night until then," he said, sounding tired like the whole thing was a burden. A burden that needed to be dealt with yesterday. "Maybe it was a mistake," he suggested, his voice barely audible as if he didn't want to hear himself.

        "What was a mistake? The sex or the decision to date?" I asked, a slightly panicked tone to my words.

        "Both?" he said, his response coming out as more of a question than the answer it was supposed to be.

        "Pete, I don't think either were wrong, let alone both. I like you. Really like you and if you'd never jumped up in my bunk that night, I never would've realized that or if I did, I would've been too chicken to ever act on it. I'm glad you're my boyfriend," I told him, taking his face gently in my hands and forcing him to look at me as I said the last line.

        "Why?" he asked as I dropped my hands back down into my lap. "I'm no good for you; I never have been and quite frankly, I never will be. You deserve somebody that'll be able to treat you like you deserve to be treated. You're an angel and, in all honesty, I'm Satan or at the very least, one of his helpers."

        "Then maybe we balance each other out. We've always fit together with everything else we do, and this is no different," I told him, worried that he was having these thoughts.

        "Writing a song isn't like being in a relationship. They couldn't be more different, really," he countered, shooting me a look that suggested he thought I was crazy or at least on my way to it.

        "I'm not saying the two are alike or even require the same things," I started, explaining what I'd meant to him. "I mean we've always been like two halves, only a whole when we're together. When we do things or create things, they never seem quite right until the other has helped, even if it's just a little bit. Pete, you've always been like the part of me that was missing and I don't think I mean just when it comes to songwriting."

        "You complete me - You know that, right?" he said and I nodded, knowing he had more to say. "I just don't feel like I'm good enough for you; I feel like I've fooled you just long enough for you to think that you might actually like me in this way. There's no legitimate reason for you to want to be with me." The pain in his voice was audible, almost like it physically hurt him to be saying this and that bothered me. I hated to see him like this or for him to be thinking that.

        "Pete, I don't know what I can say to make you believe me. I want to be with you because lately, all I can think about is you. You've been giving me butterflies when you walk in the room. I get excited when I know I'm going to get to see you because I hate spending time apart and it scares me how fast you've become this to me," I told him, watching his face and gauging his reaction as I spoke. I'd never been great at expressing my feelings and this was no exception by any means but I was doing my best and had to hope it meant something to Pete. I felt like I was about to lose him and that scared me to death.

        He pulled me into a hug, wrapping his arms around me tightly so I did the same, just maybe not quite as tight.

        "I couldn't stand to lose you, Pete," I told him while his face was buried in my chest, arms holding me as close as possible.

A/N: So I realize this chapter is super late and I'm so sorry. I had it all written out and was about to post it then wattpad decided it was going to delete it so I had to rewrite it and it took me forever because I was trying to remember what all I'd written and now it's just kinda shitty but you don't want to hear my excuses so bottom line: I'm sorry for being a little shit.

But, on the plus side, this is the longest chater yet at 1518 words without this A/N so yay!