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If Patrick had to guess, he would say that Pete liked Halloween…from a scale from one to ten, one being the lowest and ten being the highest…at about a six and a half. Because, like, there is that Nightmare Before Christmas sleeve on his arm, but that’s basically a Christmas movie to begin with. And Pete’s really into scary movies, but that might just be because it always ends in sex for the two of them. Pete’s not too big on candy and the only time Patrick’s ever seen him make an attempt at dressing up was for their six month anniversary. And, with all of that considered…sure, Pete could like Halloween. Patrick guesses.
So, clearly, it comes as a fucking shock to Patrick when he wakes up on September 1st to Pete’s entire living room covered floor to ceiling in Halloween decorations.
“Uh…” is all Patrick manages to say as he looks around the room from his spot at the bottom of the staircase. There’s a fog machine hidden somewhere so Patrick can’t even see the floor and there’s a bunch of huge fake tarantulas nestled in the corners of the ceiling…and speaking of the ceiling, there’s shit hanging from that too! It’s this weird sort of shredded sheet dyed with red so it looks like blood. In the fireplace, there’s a skull resting in a bed of orange LED lights…! Tons of jack-o-lanterns on the coffee table where, just last night, the only thing on there was day old Chinese food. Fake bats taped on the wall make it look like they’re flying out of the fireplace. Orange and red leaves that trail up and down the staircase railing. Patrick would be scared that he woke up in a weird sort of reality where this is normal but Pete is singing along to Psycho Killer in the kitchen terribly and Patrick knows that’s got to be his Pete.
“Hi,” Patrick says, wiping some leftover artificial cobweb from his shoulders as he walks into the kitchen. Which is…also fucking decked out in Halloween stuff. There’s a skeleton wearing sunglasses propped up on the counter and the entire room, the same one Patrick was in five hours ago when he walked down to get some water, is now bathed in hot pink and purple light. “What the fuck is going on.”
“Happy Halloween!” Pete exclaims from his spot by the stove, where it looks like he’s cooking actual goo. And when he turns around, Patrick sees that he’s wearing a skeleton apron. “Hi!”
“...hi…” Patrick gulps a little. Halloween? Did he accidentally slip into a two month long coma? “What is—what is this?”
“Do you like it?” Pete asks, batting his eyes all, like, Pete-like. The same thing he does when he shows Patrick a new poem or when he’s asking Patrick to try out something new in bed. It’s nervousness tinged with excitement mixed with some please validate me and tell me I’m not crazy. “It took me forever and my arms fucking acheeeee.”
Patrick looks around the kitchen again and considers all that he saw a couple minutes ago before he musters out a measly response. "Y-yeah…yeah, no, I do….like it. But where did you—I got up five hours ago, none of this was—and how did—today’s still today, right? It’s September?”
“Oh! Okay, good, it’s just shock,” Pete says, more to himself than to Patrick. “I thought you hated it. No, yeah, it’s September. But it’s the first day of Halloween too, duh, summer’s over!”
“I’ve never heard that before in my life,” Patrick says honestly. “What are you making?”
“Eggs,” Pete shows Patrick the pan of what definitely does not look like eggs. “I put purple food dye in it though. And look, I mixed some black in with the maple syrup so your french toast looks fucking nasty.”
Patrick’s stomach twists, just a little, when he sees yet another fake spider, except this time it’s been cut open and there’s black maple syrup oozing out of it from on top of his toast. And there’s just a jelly eyeball rolling around on the plate too.
“...oh wow…!”
Patrick is doing a terrible job at pretending he’s loving this.
“Okay, what’s wrong?” Pete asks, frowning as he leans over the counter. “You look spooked. And not in the way I want you to be? You look spooked like you hate your life and wanna die.”
“No…!” Patrick winces. “I just. I don’t really. Like Halloween? I guess? I don’t like Halloween.”
And Pete’s jaw drops like Patrick just told him his favorite hobby is kicking dogs. He steps back, looking so hurt that Patrick momentarily forgets that they’re talking about a stupid childish holiday.
“How is that possible…” Pete’s voice comes out so soft it isn’t even a whisper. “No…no, but you, but you like scary movies!”
“You like scary movies!” Patrick immediately gets on the defense. “I don’t like scary movies.”
“You’ve never told me that, we watch one every single week!”
“Okay, but it’s not like we ever finish them or even get past the first ten fucking minutes. What’s the longest we’ve gone before we’ve just said ‘fuck it’ and started having s—”
“Oh my God, Patrick, what? Patrick, what? Don’t like Halloween like ‘you don’t like Halloween, but you’ll dress up?’ Or don’t like Halloween like ‘you hate Halloween and you’re just trying to be nice because I spent five hours decorating my entire fucking house’.”
“Um…don’t like Halloween like I hate Halloween. But I am proud! Of everything! Those eggs totally look scary.”
Upon mention of them, Pete turns back around so that he can finish up Patrick’s breakfast. He plates the eggs and frowns as he hands everything over along with a mug of coffee. A mug that is, unsurprisingly, Halloween-themed. Patrick doesn’t understand how Pete even hid all of his decorations or how he replaced almost every single piece of dinnerware in one night. But, if he thinks about it, Pete’s always been like this, always dedicated to a good surprise. And he loves big gestures…if the dramatic first day of Halloween breakfast wasn’t saying that already.
“Well, this fucking sucks,” Pete says. “I still don’t get it, how could I not have known? What else do you hate, Patrick, do you hate puppies and happiness? Do you?”
“I’m pretty sure puppies and happiness are the complete opposite of Halloween, but okay. And I mean…I don’t know why I didn’t realize you loved Halloween? It just never crossed my mind…”
Pete blinks at Patrick before he extends his forever unfinished Nightmare Before Christmas sleeve as a form of evidence. Which is fair and Patrick’s a fucking idiot for not considering that one sooner. “Um…?”
“I mean, that’s practically a Christmas—”
“Don’t. Do not.”
“But it is!” Patrick argues. “It is, and you know it.”
“It really fucking isn’t,” Pete pulls his exposed arm back and rolls his eyes. “The whole—okay, I can’t get into this right now. Patrick! Did you always hate Halloween and happiness and puppies? Or is this a new thing?”
Pete’s joking around a little, but he genuinely does look curious. He sits next to Patrick at the island and digs into his own plate, identical to Patrick’s except he’s got candy corn sprinkled over everything. Gross.
“Um…I guess ever since I was little…? I wasn’t really into dressing up or anything and I didn’t have a lot of friends to go trick-or-treating with…and what little kid likes getting scared all the time? It just made me super anxious.”
“You didn’t like candy?” Pete asks. “I was forced to trick-or-treat with my siblings too ‘cause I had to watch them and whatever, but there was free candy. That’s any kid’s kryptonite.”
“I was a fat kid,” Patrick shrugs a little. “My dad always made fun of my weight and I always felt shitty about it, so…I wasn’t too big on candy.”
Pete hums sympathetically. “Your dad is annoying. So…okay, what about in high school? Did you just sit around and do nothing on Halloween then?”
“Pete,” Patrick sighs exasperatedly because Pete's not, like, getting it. “I was a fucking loser. Yeah, I sat at home and did nothing.”
“Oh. That sucks. I was cool in high school, I went to tons of parties, so…”
Patrick blinks at him. “...good for you?! I—”
“Isn’t your favorite movie Ghostbusters?” Pete interrupts. “That’s a Halloween movie and you can’t argue with me on that one, there are ghosts!”
“Yeah, but that’s a comedy. Doesn’t count.”
“I think you’re making up your own rules here, Trix,” Pete teases. “Let me finish my coffee and then I’ll think of something else.”
And then they begin to talk about boring couple stuff that Patrick never thought he’d actually enjoy, like what Pete dreamed about the night before, and what Patrick’s plans to do at work are. In that time, Joe, one of Pete’s housemates, comes down and strolls into the kitchen like this Halloween shit is normal, and he actually laughs when he finds that Pete put a fake bug under the mug that he uses.
“Oh, I’ve got one,” Joe says, having been caught up on the whole thing. Pete had relayed the story to him like he was informing him of a death and Joe patted Pete’s hand afterwards as if he were consoling him. “You love Michael Jackson, don’t you?”
Patrick already knows where this one is going and he hates it. “...yeah…”
“Do you just skip Thriller every single time it comes on?”
There’s a terror-stricken look on Pete’s face. “Wait… he does…”
“The music video scarred me! I used to have nightmares, okay?! My dad showed it to me and I couldn’t sleep for days, I just kept imagining werewolf Michael with the, with the yellow eyes just watching me. My mom was so mad at him, they didn’t talk for weeks. And Human Nature is the better single off that album anyway.”
“Okay, bye,” Joe says, getting up all dramatically. “Pete, he’s insane.”
“I know,” Pete says, shaking his head. “I can’t believe it.”
Patrick throws his hands up. “It’s just a fucking holiday! Like…it’s really not that big of a deal.”
“Halloween is a way of life,” Pete says fiercely. Joe nods along just as seriously. “I’ve only just started decorating. And we’re having a huge party.”
“Are you guys really…” Patrick internally screams a little. “Do I have to come…”
“Yes! Plus, it’s Frank’s birthday on Halloween, so it’s like a thing.”
Frank is Pete and Joe’s other housemate. And Patrick likes Frank well enough…but not enough to dress up and go to a fucking Halloween party for him, regardless of the fact that Pete’s the one hosting it. He can picture it now…a night full of his least favorite things…
“Oh,” Patrick says. Because there’s nothing else to say. “Well, I guess I can suck it up. For you. Did you want to do a matching couples costume or—”
“But I don’t want you to not enjoy yourself,” Pete whines. “I want you to have the best time. I want you to like Halloween. Scratch that, I’m gonna make you love Halloween.”
“Ew, is this gonna get gross?” Joe asks. “I gotta go anyway. Thanks for the breakfast, man.”
“Yeah, no problem, man,” Pete says, and Patrick laughs a little to himself. Man. “Happy birthday, by the way.”
“It’s his birthday?!” Patrick’s eyes widen and he elbows Pete a little because hello, that would have been nice to know. “Why didn’t you start with that?!”
“Because it’s the first day of Halloween,” Pete says plainly.
“Yeah, it’s the first day of Halloween,” Joe agrees. “That shit takes precedent.”
“Jesus Christ,” Patrick moans miserably, burying his head in his hands. Joe’s birthday starts Halloween, Frank’s ends it…and Patrick had no fucking clue. He feels like the idiot who joined the group late and still doesn’t understand all the inside jokes. Not that Halloween is a joke, of course—it’s a cherished holiday.
“I forgot you guys didn’t meet till November,” Joe says. “Sometimes it feels like you’ve been here forever.”
“In a good way or a bad way?” Patrick asks.
And then Joe shrugs ominously before taking his leave
“He’s kidding,” Pete says. “Probably. Listen, I think I know a way to get you to love Halloween.”
“Is it sex because I have to go soon."
“No! We’re gonna take baby steps. First step, watch the Thriller music video together.”
Patrick’s expression dampens quickly. “Pete. No. Seriously.”
“We’ll keep the lights on! Come on, you fucking love Michael Jackson, it’s familiar territory! It’s a music video from the 80s, the make-up and special effects are fucking dog shit. I bet you’re gonna laugh when you watch it.”
“I bet you I’m not!” Patrick argues. “I can’t even watch Twilight without wanting to vomit.”
“Me too, but that’s just because Twilight sucks,” Pete grins. “How about this, how about if you watch Thriller with me and finish the other two mystery steps…I’ll let you fuck me in my slutty Halloween costume before Halloween. And you know I love to keep a surprise.”
“So you are gonna bribe me with sex.”
And even though this is so predictable…Pete’s not wrong about the fact that he loves to keep a secret. And now that Patrick knows Pete loves Halloween, who even knows what this slutty costume could be…
Suddenly, this is way more of a tempting offer than Patrick thought it would be. Curse Pete Wentz and his fucking perfect dick.
“Do I…have to watch the entire thing?” Patrick asks sheepishly, hating himself just a little for giving in so easily.
“Yup,” Pete says, still with that shit-eating grin on his face. “But I’ll allow three pauses. Trix, I swear, it’s gonna be amazing. Just the sheer fucking fact that you haven’t listened to the song is gonna make it great but it’s—fuck! Fuck, I’m so excited. By the time I’m done with you, you’re gonna be. I don’t know. Singing Thriller all the time!”
Patrick laughs a little, against his better judgment. Because even if he really didn’t want to do this, it’s worth it to see all of the happiness that’s radiating off of Pete. Still, though, he’s got some concerns.
“Okay, but wait. I need to know what the other mystery plans are, if I’m gonna agree to this. If you plan on kidnapping me and leaving me in a haunted house, I will fucking kill you.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Pete says. “I’m gonna take you to a haunted house with me.”
And then the easy smile on Patrick’s face disappears once again, and he glares at him. “There’s no way that’s happening. None.”
Pete holds Patrick’s gaze for a moment, like he’s trying to see how far he can push this, but there’s something in Patrick’s eyes that warns him not to. “Okay, we don’t have to do that. But I want to at least take you to Spirit Halloween. And then maybe we can graduate to something else. You trust me with this?”
Patrick rolls his eyes. “I guess. I trust that you know that I will never forgive you if you do something fucked up to me.”
“And I never would,” Pete says. And the weirdest thing is that Patrick actually believes him? Well, it’s not weird, but it kind of is…considering the fact that when Patrick met Pete, he was so chock-full of trust issues he didn’t even want to give Pete his number. He thought Pete was asking him out as a joke. He thought he was just going to be a meaningless hook-up to Pete, which would have been fine, except Pete said he was actually into Patrick, and how could that be possible? But then Pete proved it again and again, his love for Patrick. He still does. “It’s gonna be fun, I promise!”
And with a kiss, they seal the deal: Three halloween-themed challenges and Patrick gets to fuck Pete in his Halloween costume early. In retrospect, it’s kind of an unfair arrangement…but then again, Patrick’s not even really doing this for himself. He’s doing it for Pete. Because there’s no way he’ll actually like Halloween.
Watching a music video really should not fill Patrick with this much dread.
And yet. Here he is. So full of dread that whenever Pete looks over to him, Pete can’t help but laugh a little.
“It’s not funny,” Patrick says. His hands shake as he holds the TV remote. “I feel like I’m gonna faint.”
“Well, don’t faint,” Pete reaches over to hold Patrick’s hands in his. “We really don’t have to watch it if you don’t want to, you know. I just think you’re gonna love it, that’s why I’m going so hard.”
Patrick narrows his eyes a little. Because…well, yeah, he knows Pete isn’t a dick and wouldn’t force him to do anything he didn’t want to do, it’s not even about that. In fact, one of the things he loves the most about Pete is that he’s always sort of pushing the envelope and encouraging Patrick to try new things. And Pete’s not wrong about the fact that maybe it is time to get over this stupid Halloween grudge... but…
“I just don’t get why you love Halloween so fucking much,” Patrick says. He curls up even more under Pete’s blanket and leans into his side. Even though Pete’s living room, which has become micariously even more Halloween inspired, isn’t exactly the most private place, Pete insisted that they watch Thriller on the big screen. In his words: You need the true experience! “Like, Frank loves Halloween because he’s a horror movie fanatic and it’s his birthday…and Joe loves Halloween because he only ever eats candy…but what about you?”
“I’m an emo gay kid,” Pete says after a moment. He drapes the tiny bit of the blanket that isn’t being used by Patrick around his shoulders too. “Loving Halloween’s gotta be in my blood. Plus, it was the only time I could put on makeup, and no one would really think anything about it. Or, I could wear a scary mask and people wouldn’t be scared of me, they’d be scared of the stupid other thing.”
“I thought you were Mr. Popular in high school,” Patrick teases a little, nudging at Pete’s foot.
“I mean, I was, but they didn’t…I mean, I wasn’t always out, you know?” Pete asks. “I was already used to wearing a mask so around the time that I got to, like, physically wear one? It was just comforting, knowing that I could just be myself. You know?”
Patrick nods a little and he brings a hand up to brush some of Pete’s hair behind his ear. “I get it.”
Seeing Pete be vulnerable always makes him feel mushy inside. Especially since he covers everything so easily…which is only a testament to his point. Now, the part where all of that translates into slutty Halloween costumes is sort of lost on Patrick, but he gets it…finding comfort in something unconventional and being able to relate to it.
“And plus…you know I have a permanent hard-on for Jack Skellington, so—”
“You ruined a heartfelt moment. Are you proud of yourself?”
Pete grins at him, that familiar smile that Patrick knows better than the back of his hand, probably. “Yup. Now come on, Trix…click the video.”
With YouTube already set up on the TV, the only thing left to do is to unpause the video. And so, with shaky hands, Patrick does.
And then he immediately goes to pause it again.
“Are you fucking kidding me,” Patrick says, pointing at the screen. It reads, Due to my strong personal convictions, I wish to stress that this film in no way endorses a belief in the occult — Michael Jackson. “No, I’m not watching this.”
“I didn’t realize you were so against the occult,” Pete says, really trying his hardest not to burst into laughter once again. “I’m counting this as a pause, by the way.”
“Why would he feel like he had to say that if this wasn’t fucking dark-sided as shit! See, now I feel like all of my nightmares as a kid were valid and I definitely didn’t deserve all of the shit my dad gave me for it.”
“Yeah, it messed you up when you were little. But it’s—Patrick, I swear to God, swear on my life, I would not make you watch it if it was actually scary. This is supposed to be the easy one…like, to warm you up. And it’s Michael Jackson. Didn’t you say that you grew up on his music after your parents get divorced and whatnot?”
Just the mention of the divorce sends a chill up Patrick’s spine that feels so cold and sharp that it leaves him speechless for a moment. And when he comes to, returning back from reliving brief snapshots of lonely memories, Pete’s still blinking at him and waiting for a response.
“Oh,” Patrick says, trying to recover. “I mean, yeah. I did. It got me through stuff, I guess. But…”
And it’s either talk about all of that or shut up and watch the music video. Patrick picks the latter.
“This is some shit you would do…” Patrick grumbles, when Michael tells his date, on screen, that the car is out of gas. “Also, I don’t wanna hear you say that I’m like her, all scared and shit, because I’m not.”
“You so are,” Pete laughs, curling in closer to Patrick. “Also, don’t let the music freak you out.”
“But that’s the whole point of having a good score,” Patrick says, wincing a little as Michael confesses ‘I have something I wanna tell you. I’m not like other guys…’ “It’s freaking me the fuck out, my heart is racing.”
And Patrick practically punctures a hole in Pete’s wrist, that’s how hard he grips him when Michael transforms into a werewolf under the full moon. “Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, Pete, ew.”
True to Pete's word, though... the special effects really are sort of terrible. In Patrick's head, this scene was a lot worse. He remembers sitting in front of the TV screen in the living room in his childhood home, the one they had to move out of when his parents broke up, and he remembers crying afterwards as he listened to his parents argue with each other through the walls. But watching this now? It just... kind of makes him laugh. Maybe this, maybe everything, wasn't as bad as he remembers...
“See, it's okay!” Pete laughs too, especially when he notices that Patrick has let go of his wrist and is now watching the TV with the same sort of bewilderment you get when you’re watching something so terrible you can’t look away. “It’s not that bad.”
“Okay, to be fair to me, imagine a seven year old watching this,” Patrick says. Michael, after running after and catching up to his girlfriend, stands over her and he's about to claw her chest out. Patrick closes his eyes, preparing for the worst…and then, it cuts to the ‘real life’ Michael and his date watching everything from a movie screen.
“Is that the worst of it?” Patrick sighs in relief when the signature Thriller bass line kicks in. “I can’t remember, besides the part at the end.”
“It gets a little worse,” Pete says. “But now you can listen to my terrible singing as I serenade you.”
“Oh, good,” Patrick says. “Actual horror.”
And okay, Patrick really doesn’t end up watching a lot of what’s happening on the screen, just because Pete bursts into dramatic singing that takes all of his attention and more importantly, any of the weird residual shit that was floating around his head about the divorce, away. And then, because this is Pete and Patrick, everything starts getting kinda hot. Like, Pete pinning Patrick’s hands to the couch because he was going to jokingly cover his ears…but then there’s just Pete pinning Patrick’s hands above his head. And then just at the right time, Pete’s voice gets deeper as he recites diligently, “Darkness falls across the land…the midnight hour is close at hand…” and then it’s like, how is Patrick supposed to not get a little turned on by this?
“So, instead of associating this with scary stuff, I’m gonna associate it with you being hot,” Patrick moans a little as Pete moves one of his legs so that he can situate himself between them. His eyes have been closed for a little because Pete’s been making out with his neck and for a moment, he forgets they’re even watching this shit.
“I totally did not mean for this to happen,” Pete offers as sort of an apology, as if Patrick were even looking for one. “But you’re so fucking—”
After the spoken word bridge, there’s a point in the music video where all of the monsters come around and surround Michael and his date. But there’s the whole Pete and Patrick are making out and there’s a hand sliding up Patrick’s shirt thing that has the both of them a little distracted. Until a loud sound and the reveal of a zombied-out Michael brings the both of them back to reality.
“What the fuck!” They both yell, looking at the TV screen in horror before looking back at each other and bursting into laughter. Pete buries his head in Patrick’s chest and yells, “Oh my God, I wasn’t fucking expecting that!” and then Patrick starts coughing because he can’t catch his breath from laughing so hard.
And then after that, it’s pretty smooth sailing since Patrick can’t knock the fact that Thriller’s chorus and the dance break are iconic. Patrick pushes Pete away when he starts laughing maniacally in his ear along with the video as Michael with his creepy yellow eyes once again leads his girlfriend into the unknown, but that doesn’t count for anything. He’s completed one challenge, and now it’s two to go.
Challenge two is Spirit Halloween. Pete told him it was going to be, but Patrick’s still surprised because…well, it’s just a store. One that Patrick probably wouldn’t have minded going in anyway. Okay, that’s a lie. But the point still stands.
“Are you sure you brought me here because you want me to love Halloween, or because you need someone else to push another cart,” Patrick asks as Pete pulls into a spot. Because as much as he loves running dumb errands with Pete by his side, he doesn’t really see the point in this.
“Well, it’s Spirit Halloween. Where else can you truly get the spirit of Halloween besides at a haunted house?” Pete rationalizes. “This way, you can still see all of the scary stuff and all of the animatronics, but it’s not there to scare you right now. It’s just there to entice you and then you have to pay a hundred fucking bucks for it.”
“I don’t understand how you have the money for this,” Patrick says plainly. “Or how that fog machine is still going.”
“Budgeting, babyyyyy!” Pete grins. “Also, I brought you here because I want you to pick out something. That way, you feel connected to the party and will come.”
“I’m gonna come,” Patrick says, frowning a little. “I wasn’t ever going to not come. Especially not after I was the deciding vote for the cake.”
Pete raises his eyebrows. “You were?”
“Yeah, Frank couldn’t make up his mind. It’s gonna be red velvet. Also, random, but he told me his favorite song off Thriller is The Girl is Mine?”
“Oh, yeah,” Pete says. “He loves the skit at the end.”
“That’s what he told me too! I thought he was just pulling my leg or something.”
“Yeah, he does that. No, he fucking loves the skit at the end. Michael, we’re not gonna fight about this, okay?”
“Paul, I think I told you I’m a lover, not a fighter!” Patrick recites back.
And then they get back to their conversation. This happens a lot with them.
“But…yeah, I wasn’t. I wasn’t gonna ditch you or anything. Even though this is really not my thing, I wanna be there with you. Like I said, I don’t even mind dressing up.”
“I know…” Pete says, sounding like he doesn’t know. “But I just don’t want you to feel like you’re obligated to do it just because I want it. Even though I’m forcing you to come here with me…and even though I’m putting you through all this other—”
Patrick interrupts him. “Not forcing me. Please don’t think that.”
And they both share an exasperated sort of look.
“I want to do this because I want to like Halloween,” Patrick explains. “I don’t even really get why I hate it so much either, I just do. But since I get to do this with my favorite person, it’s even better. There’s just some things that I don’t wanna do, but I’ll. Like, come on, Pete, I’ll come with you to Spirit Halloween. You know?”
Pete turns a little so that Patrick can’t see the shy smile on his face. “I’m your favorite person, huh.”
“Shut up,” Patrick rolls his eyes playfully. “Obviously. I’m pretty sure Joe and Frank think I’m fucking homeless, I spend every free night with you.”
“They don’t think you’re homeless… ” Pete trails off into a laugh that just confirms Patrick’s beliefs that his friends totally do think that Patrick doesn’t have his own place. To be fair to them, Patrick forgets sometimes too. Until he has to pay rent. “Hey, for what it’s worth, you’re my favorite person too.”
“Cute,” Patrick says, as Pete turns the key and pulls it out the ignition. “Wait, hold on.”
Patrick reaches into the backseat and pulls out one of the bottles of Absolut that they picked up from the liquor store. “I need to take a shot.”
Pete blinks at him. And then at the bottle. “What.”
“I need to take a shot! Do you have anything I can use to chase this down.”
And it takes a second for Pete to realize that Patrick’s actually being serious. “You need to take a—you just said-- you said it was going to be fine!”
“It’ll be fine once I loosen out my nerves," Patrick says. “This can’t hurt.”
“It’s gonna hurt,” Pete says. “I threw my gatorade away so I’ve got nothing.”
And then Patrick shrugs before he takes way more than one shot, drinking straight from the bottle. He brings a hand up to his mouth just to be sure that he doesn’t spit any of it out and his face twists into a sour face as he breathes through the burn. “I think I need another one.”
Pete winces as Patrick takes another swing. “Okay, slow down after this one. You’re taking like four.”
“I got it,” Patrick promises, twisting the seal back on. “Okay, let’s go!”
Needless to say, Patrick definitely doesn’t have it. They’re strolling through the aisles of Spirit Halloween and then suddenly it hits like nothing else. Pete looks over to Patrick, and Patrick smiles at him, half-way gone, and Pete face-palms. “Shit.”
“How’d you know?” Patrick asks, trying his best not to sound super whiny.
“You haven’t stopped grinning.” Pete says. He doesn’t look mad, really. Just kind of worried.
“Oh,” Patrick smiles. “Hehe. Whoops.”
Now that he’s got all of that alcohol in him, though, he can kinda be down for Halloween. Like all of these cheap costumes that surround the two of them are reminiscent of his fucking childhood, or whatever childhood he had until his parents got divorced…before he only ever saw his dad for holidays…and it’s nice…it’s nice to think about all of that without wanting to cry all the time. Ever since he and Pete have been getting more into Halloween, everything has been brewing in his head…all green and blue and bubbly like in a cauldron…and he hasn’t gone near it in ages, but now it’s like. All of it is here. And it’s fucking weird.
But the alcohol helps.
Uh…sorta.
Whatever Pete had planned for the final challenge, it definitely changed after the whole Spirit Halloween fiasco. Not that pumpkin picking isn’t a Halloween or fall activity, because it is…but Patrick knows it’s not what Pete had planned because Pete just isn’t like that. But the line of questioning goes like this:
- “Why are we going pumpkin picking?”
- “Why did you really start crying in the middle of the costume aisle?”
- “Why does it matter?”
- “Why can’t you just tell me?”
- “Why can’t you leave it alone?”
- “Why are you so fucking secretive?”
- “Why can’t you leave me the fuck alone?”
- “Why do I even love you?”
- “Yeah, why do you?”
Which is super dramatic and both he and Pete are better than that. But sometimes Patrick just gets like that…and he becomes super paranoid of people leaving him…and then before he knows it, it ends. And he doesn’t want things to end with Pete.
“Ew,” Patrick says as he finishes dumping all of his pumpkin seeds into the bowl Pete gave him. “I kind of forgot how disgusting this is, I haven’t done this in forever.”
“Since when?” Pete asks. And it’s an innocent enough question even though Patrick fucking knows where this is going, he knows it. It’s like he can feel it in the air, something as sure as the fuckin’ leaves falling.
“I don’t really know,” Patrick lies.
Pete raises his eyebrows.
“What,” Patrick says. “Fucking what?”
“Nothing!” Pete tries to salvage the situation. He does this badly. “It’s nothing. I just—Trix, it’s not anything to be, like, ashamed of.”
“Ashamed of?! What am I ashamed of?!” Patrick’s voice comes out shrilly.
“Your daddy issues!” Pete yells back, matching Patrick’s nearly hysterical tone.
Patrick’s eyes widen. And Pete’s do too, like he’s just now realizing that was a terrible way of phrasing the thing. Patrick’s daddy issues. Like, God, what the fuck. What the fuck.
“I don’t have—I don’t have that. I don’t have that! Pete, fuck you.” Patrick immediately goes into the flight of his fight or flight response and he storms up past all of the stupid Halloween shit to Pete’s room. Which is, you know…not the most convenient place for him to escape to considering it’s Pete’s fucking bedroom. But he’s glad for it when Pete doesn’t follow him up the stairs to talk about this because there’s no fucking way he’s talking about this. Not now, not ever. Fuck that. And fuck Pete.
He doesn’t have daddy issues. He doesn’t. He just—
Okay, yeah he has daddy issues. Clearly. But it’s not like Pete had to go and broadcast that to the entire—well, just to Patrick. He just broadcasted it to Patrick. And he wasn’t really broadcasting it either…it was Patrick who pushed him into saying it. And he probably wasn’t even going to be a dick about it when he started that whole conversation…it was Patrick who made him be a dick about it.
Patrick buries his face in Pete’s pillow and he screams into it. Fuck everything. And most importantly, fuck Halloween.
Eventually though, Pete makes his way up to the room. Patrick has his back turned to the door so he doesn’t see the expression on his face, and at this point, he’s not sure if he can ever truly look at Pete the same. Or, at the very least, without the reddest face in the world. How fucking embarrassing. Pete rests a hand on Patrick’s shoulder gently and waits to see if Patrick shoves him off angrily.
“I’m not mad at you,” Patrick says, his voice still a little stuffy. He rubs at whatever wetness is left on his face. “I mean, I was. But mostly just mad at me. You know?”
“Yeah, but I was still kind of an asshole,” Pete says. “Here, I made you an apology pumpkin.”
Patrick rolls over on his side and then he stifles a laugh when he sees Pete’s apology pumpkin. It’s just got the saddest look on its face and there’s a note sprawled on its head. Sorry for making fun of your trauma :(
“I’m not traumatized,” Patrick says, moving over so that Pete can crawl into bed next to him. “I just. It’s stupid. Who has unresolved daddy issues at age 23?”
“A lot of people,” Pete says. “At ages a lot older than us, too. I meant what I said, you know. About it being nothing to be ashamed of. And hey, if you want to call me Daddy—”
“I’m not in the mood for jokes right now,” Patrick says plainly, even though he cracks a smile when Pete starts laughing.
“Okay, sorry, I just wanted to lighten the mood. But seriously. We can talk about it and I’d never judge you… Talk about it whenever you’re ready or we don’t have to talk about it at all. It just freaked me out a little, watching you have to get fucked up just to go to Spirit Halloween. Like, I didn’t realize—”
“I didn’t notice it either, really. Maybe during Thriller I realized that a lot of my weird feelings about Halloween are just weird feelings about my dad and how my parents got divorced right around Halloween and how I never—like, fuck, this is fucking humiliating. ”
“It’s not,” Pete emphasizes. He brings a hand up to touch Patrick’s face and Patrick leans into the touch even though Pete’s hands smell like pumpkin and that's not helping the whole I associate Halloween with my shitty dad thing. “Do you want me to talk about my weird fucked up relationship with my parents? We could get into that. Trix, I’m telling you, everyone has daddy issues—”
“For the love of all things holy, please stop saying ‘daddy issues’, I’m gonna have a fucking aneurysm—”
“—and that’s just the name of the game. Our parents fucked us up, and their parents fucked them up, and the two of us are gonna fuck up our kids. Generational trauma and whatnot.”
“I’m not gonna fuck up our kids,” Patrick defends himself. “I’m gonna be good to our kids.”
“That’s what you think,” Pete says. “But it’s the name of the game!”
“What fucking game are you talking about?!”
“Life!”
And then Pete gives Patrick a sideways sort of glance. The same one from the first day of Halloween. Nervousness tinged with excitement mixed with some please validate me and tell me I’m not crazy. “Also. You said ‘our kids’ by accident.”
“Did I,” Patrick says, an easy smile on his face. “Because I was just going along with what you said.”
“Oh,” Pete hums. He hides a smile behind his hands. “Cool.”
“Awesome,” Patrick laughs. “I’m still not fucking up our kids though, I don’t care what you have to say about, uh. Generational trauma. Like, what the fuck. Also, I feel like that’s not the right word for what you mean?”
“Are you calling me stupid?! I’m taking my apology pumpkin back.”
And then Patrick laughs as he pulls Pete in for a kiss. They can have their daddy issues talk later…just, y’know, not when they’re in Pete’s bed making out.
“Oh! Oh. You lied to me?!”
This is a terrible greeting, but it’s the greeting that Pete gets when he swings the door open on Halloween night to invite Patrick in.
Pete’s not wearing the costume that Patrick fucked him in. Which isn’t a big deal, except for the fact that Patrick came prepared to deal with all of the sexiness that came with Pete dressing up as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. He didn’t come prepared to deal with all of the sexiness that came with Pete dressed up in a huge faux fur dalmatian print coat with practically nothing underneath it. He definitely wasn’t fucking prepared for the ruby red gloves that cover Pete’s hands that match the shade of lipstick on his mouth…or the comically large cigarette holder in Pete’s hands.
But this is Pete and Pete, as it’s been established a thousand times, fucking loves Halloween and dressing up.
“I didn’t mean to lie,” Pete says, stepping aside so he can let Patrick in. The music is so loud, Patrick can feel it in his chest. And it’s a little hard to hear Pete because of it, but he reads his, uh. Red lips. The lipstick doesn’t even look messy, it looks like it took him time. Patrick sometimes can’t believe his life, believe his boyfriend. “But when we were watching 101 Dalmatians, I couldn’t get it out of my head. What’d ya think?”
Pete does a little twirl for Patrick once he's situated at the only free seat left, the bottom step on the staircase, and has a drink in his hand. Patrick thought it was impossible for the living room to be even more cramped than it already was, but apparently there's been a Halloween miracle? There's about thirty people just in the living room alone but Patrick's only got eyes for Pete. And when Pete shows off his entire costume, Patrick gets a better look at the sheer black slip underneath the coat—it looks expensive. Feels expensive when Patrick runs his hand over Pete’s hip. There must be a dark look in Patrick’s eyes because when he looks back to Pete, Pete’s already beaming. “You can fuck me in this one too. But the coat and gloves both have to stay on.”
“You’re really dedicated to this costume, huh.”
“Um, yeah, what part of Halloween is my favorite holiday did you not understand,” Pete brings the cigarette holder to his mouth just to prove his point and he smokes out of it. And then he chokes over the smoke. “Also…I thought you were gonna dress up.”
Patrick’s wearing a striped green shirt and some brown khakis with a black belt.
“I am!” Patrick says. “You don’t know who I am?”
“Uh…you on a regular Wednesday?” Pete asks. He turns to Frank who’s been busy making out with his boyfriend about three feet away from the two of them the entire time, and he pokes him hard. “Hey. Hey. Do you get Patrick’s costume?”
Frank flips Pete off, but he turns to look at Patrick for a brief second anyway. “He’s Steve from Blue’s Clues.”
“I’m Steve from Blue’s Clues!” Patrick exclaims. And then he does jazz hands. “Duh!”
Pete gives Patrick a once-over and then he shrugs. “Six out of ten.”
“Hater,” Patrick rolls his eyes. “I dressed up as Steve because you kept asking if I also hated puppies and happiness when I told you I didn’t like Halloween. I don’t know, I kind of connected puppies and Blue’s Clues? Oh, and look.”
Patrick reaches into his back pocket and he pulls out a notepad. “See? I deserve at least an eight or a nine.”
“I don’t want to give you an eight or a nine, considering the fact that this is literally an outfit you would wear on the daily...” Pete begins to say. He goes to sit next to Patrick on the staircase and Patrick moves over for him easily. When Patrick was younger, he thought parties were stupid. And even now, Patrick thinks parties are kinda stupid. But he likes this... getting to be so intimate with his person in such a crowded place. It's like, so much is happening around them, and there's so much commotion, but they're just in their little bubble. It's so hot in the house due to sheer amount of people, and Patrick can see all the sweat in Pete's hair, and this isn't a sudden thought, but Patrick just wants him.
“But…” Patrick urges him to continue.
“But… I love that we’re kind of matching even though I told you that matching is too corny. Like, Blue is a puppy. Cruella hates puppies and wants to kill them for her coat. What a Halloween match.”
“What?! That’s not nice, that’s fucked up!”
Pete wraps an arm around Patrick’s shoulders and kisses his cheek. “Exactly. The perfect Halloween match!”
“Whatever,” Patrick says. He can feel the lipstick all sticky on his cheek and he doesn’t wipe it off because…well, he kinda likes that everyone can see that he’s all Pete’s. “So, what did I miss?”
“Eh…” Pete scans the room. “Joe cried about Pop Smoke again and then he puked in the bushes outside like, directly after we did whiskey shots. It went in and then right back out.”
“Disgusting,” Patrick says. “Also, R.I.P Pop.”
“Oh, and I saved a song off my Halloween playlist for you,” Pete says before he pulls himself off the stairs. “I was waiting for you to grace my dance floor.”
Pete scrolls through his phone for a brief moment and Patrick expects it even before he hears the iconic synths because he sees the giddy drunk smile on Pete’s face. Thriller.
“I hate you,” Patrick says fondly, taking Pete’s hand when he offers it. And then he follows Pete the three steps to the right that it takes to get to the dance floor because this song actually is so good. Still doesn’t beat Human Nature though…
It's reached that part of the night where all the novelty of being at a party with his hot boyfriend has worn off and now Patrick is just...bored. He’s half grinding against Pete’s front as Pete sings along in his ear to the Travis Scott song that’s fucking vibrating throughout the house. Me and my bitch, I swear we like the same sex. Fuck with all my chains on, let’s have chain sex. “Can we?” Patrick turns his head to ask. “Have sex, I mean.”
“Right now?” Pete asks, his voice muffled against Patrick’s hair. “Like, right now right now?”
“Yeah,” Patrick says. “You’re not fucked up, right?”
“Nah. I feel like you’d be able to tell,” Pete says, referring to when Joe threw up again, that time in the kitchen sink. It hasn’t been a good night for him. “Okay, shit, let’s go.”
They chase each other up the steps, past all of the leftover plastic cups, and they make sure to check up on Joe to make sure that he’s not actually dead before they stumble into Pete’s room and almost immediately start taking off Patrick’s clothes. Pete drops to his knees and starts unbuckling Patrick’s belt as Patrick pulls his shirt over his head and he gasps out an “I love you” as Pete slides down both his pants and boxers, and he swears it isn’t only because Pete’s gonna suck his dick. It’s because this is the first Halloween in fucking ages that he’s actually enjoying and it really is all thanks to Pete.
“Wait,” Patrick says right as Pete‘s leaning in to suck him off. “Wait, tie me down.”
Something hot flashes in Pete’s eyes and then it begins to simmer. Patrick gets the feeling in his stomach that he gets right when he takes a shot, instant fire. He loves when they get like this. “Wow,” Pete says, getting up off his knees to rummage through his drawer. “What did I do to deserve this?”
Patrick’s heart races as Pete pulls out a pair of handcuffs that, shocker, match the Dalmatian theme of his entire outfit— they’re fuzzy and black and white on the inside. “Oh, what the fuck, there’s no way you planned this out that much.”
“I actually didn’t,” Pete admits, sounding pained because he wishes that he did. “But, you know. It’s a Halloween miracle! Everything is falling into place.”
Like everything, Patrick falls into his place too. Whenever they do stuff like this, his head goes to interesting places, but he doesn’t even care because he just feels so safe with Pete. Even as he cracks the dumbest jokes in between kisses that he’s handcuffing Patrick to the bed because he’s Cruella de Vil and he’s gonna skin Blue to make a coat and he has to stop Steve from doing anything about it. This backstory does nothing besides make Patrick laugh because of the sheer stupidity, but then Pete stops running his mouth and then he just starts looking. Patrick’s all spread out on the bed, naked and waiting, and Pete’s wearing lipstick and a sheer slip and a huge ass fucking coat and Pete’s gonna fuck the shit out of him. Patrick’s head spins way more than it ever would if he were drunk but he loves it. Pete always has him on his toes and trying new things but he’s always his safety net too. There to catch him if he needs it.
“Fuck,” Patrick tugs at the cuffs as Pete fucks him with three gloved fingers. Every time Patrick opens his eyes, he looks right back at Pete looking at him. Looking at him as if he’s art even though it’s— it’s Pete! Pete’s the one who deserves this, the one that deserves to be looked at like there’s nothing else in the world.
Patrick’s getting sentimental about latex-covered fingers in his ass. Like, it’s too much. But it’s true, Pete makes him feel so fucking seen. So protected. He knows when to let up when he sees Patrick’s about to come, knows how to get him on that line of nearly hysterical because of how badly he wants it. When Patrick gets there, when he’s thiiiiiiis close to fucking losing it and flat out begging Pete for it, Pete shushes him and promises him he’s got him, that he always will.
Pete shrugs out of the coat and he pulls the slip off over his shoulders. And then he peels off the red gloves and the panties.
“What’re you doing?” Patrick asks. His legs practically shake with anticipation. “I thought. Halloween.”
“Don’t know,” Pete crawls back onto the bed. Back in between Patrick’s legs. “Kind of didn’t want to wear a costume anymore. Don’t have to with you.”
A pause. “Also, that shit was heavy. And my gloves were all…”
“Just get in me,” Patrick makes it a point to tug hard on the handcuffs. “Please.”
Pete’s hand cradles his face warmly. He touches Patrick so tenderly, like he’s afraid he’s gonna break. And sometimes, even though he hates admitting that shit, Patrick feels like he always is going to break. Hell, it happened at fucking Spirit Halloween. He has these moments where he spirals out of control and he doesn’t know how to rein any of it in. But it’s like, Pete does . He knows how to fix it. Even if he’s fixing it with his dick.
It happens right in the thick of it, when Patrick’s already been shouting a bunch of gibberish alongside his moans. The music still vibrates all throughout the house, but even if it weren’t Patrick’d still be making these noises. Pete hits that spot in him with every stroke and he doesn’t ever give Patrick a free moment, between the kisses and the way that his fingers grip his hips. In simpler terms… Patrick’s fucking lost in the sauce, and Pete is too, when it happens —
“Daddy!” Patrick practically shrieks when Pete momentarily pulls out of him to spit over his hole. Out of all the inappropriate moments for this to happen during sex, this is definitely the most inappropriate of them. Unfortunately for the both of them, they’re not even thinking about terms like appropriate or kosher. It just happens. “Please, get the fuck— Daddy, need you, need you.”
“I’m here,” Pete promises him. He doesn’t laugh at Patrick or pause to confirm what they both heard. He just goes with it. Gives Patrick everything he needs. “Here, baby. Never gonna leave, promise.”
Patrick whines when Pete slides back into him. The added slickness makes Patrick’s toes curl and he grips the headboard best as he can while still handcuffed. “Love you, love you, fucking love you.”
“Gonna come for me?” Pete asks, bringing a hand down to Patrick’s dick. “Gonna be good for me?”
“Always,” Patrick promises back. “Pete.”
Three strokes and Patrick’s gone. He almost laughs when he comes, that’s how drunk on this feeling he is. Safe safe safe. A word he’d never fucking associate with Halloween before this year, that’s for sure. Pete comes inside him a couple moments later and he leans down to lick out the mess till Patrick’s kicking at him, all overstimulated. And when Pete goes in for a kiss, Patrick kisses him back, kisses till he’s breathless.
“Wow,” Patrick says, bringing his freed hand up to cup Pete’s face. “Thanks. That was. Thanks.”
“Are you seriously thanking me for sex?” Pete laughs, reaching up to touch Patrick’s hand on his cheek. “You indulged in the handcuff kink and you’re thanking me.”
But there’s just the slightest change in his demeanor, though, that makes Patrick know that Pete knows what Patrick’s really thanking him for. “But yeah, no. Don’t thank me for it. I got you forever.”
“Forever is a long time,” Patrick says. Not trying to kill the mood, just trying to be realistic. “Just saying. You’re promising a lot here.”
“Yeah, I am,” Pete nods. “And I’d do it again. I really fucking love you.”
Patrick smiles at him, all sex sleepy. He’s never been this exposed with anyone ever. Never called anyone else that . Never trusted anyone else with that . Hell, he’s never even laid next to anyone else right after they’ve had sex. He’s just so used to running away, putting his clothes on quickly, bottling everything up until it explodes at, you know, Spirit Halloween for example . Not anymore though. Maybe being vulnerable really isn’t a terrible thing after all?
“I love you too,” Patrick says, curling into Pete’s side. “And fuck, I love Halloween.”
And so, Pete’s challenge ended up working out after all. It’s a win for the both of them.