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Chapter Text

When Patrick sees the house in Vermont, well, he has his doubts.

Bebe had called it a “lake house” and the image that conjured in Patrick’s mind was not this grandiose mini-castle thing. He misses the safety of his hat (“The camera can’t get a clear shot,” Bebe had explained, and Patrick had wanted to reply, That’s the point) and this overcoat someone had thrust upon him was very not him and also clearly sized for a much taller man, the sleeves were comically long and it hit at a weird place on his legs. He had fought against the monstrous bouquet of poinsettias that had been pitched to him and the whole ride up the driveway of this absurd estate – surely several miles long -- he keeps looking at his bouquet of chrysanthemums and one cheerful daisy and hoping that any of this was the right choice. Like, there’s no guarantee Pete’s going to want to see him again after the things Patrick said to him that night, after how much Patrick’s managed to explode Pete’s life, after how little Patrick thought of Pete to think he would have set them up like that. Patrick’s been drowning in guilt, and maybe he’s doing this to try to assuage this, and not for Pete at all.

Of course, Vicky told him to do it. Vicky had said, You walked away from the only guy I’ve ever seen you really like for something that wasn’t even his fault.

Patrick had said, Yeah, and doesn’t that prove I shouldn’t be doing this at all? I should just get back to music and give up on this whole stupid thing.

Vicky had just given him a look. She was right. There was never any question in Patrick’s mind that he couldn’t just give up on Pete. Not really. And so now here he is...doing...this. And it would serve him right if Pete just punches him in the face. Right in front of all the cameras.

That’s not what Pete does.

Pete catapults into a tight, desperate hug, and Patrick knows this was the right choice. In fact, Patrick can’t believe how long it took him to come find Pete and help him. Pete is trembling against him, and Patrick murmurs something nonsense soothing at him and thinks how he will do literally anything in the future to make sure he never hurts this man ever again. 

So Patrick stands there in clothes that barely fit him and lets Pete burrow into him in front of all the cameras. This is going to be viral in ten minutes, Patrick thinks. 

Patrick thinks how it would have been awesome to fall in love with someone, you know, slightly less complicated.

But then he probably wouldn’t have fallen in love.

“Okay,” Patrick says loudly, deciding to take some control here, “I think you got enough footage, Pete and I are going inside now.” And then he nudges Pete inside and closes the door.

Pete, his hands still clinging to Patrick’s coat, blinks at him in astonishment. “What are you doing here?” he asks. “What are you doing here?”

“Um,” says Patrick, looking beyond Pete to a woman hovering in an alcove. Next to an enormous pile of glossy tinsel snowballs. This family does not fuck around with the Christmas decorations. Which Patrick probably should have expected. The foyer is huge and it is like stepping into the North Pole if Santa decorated the North Pole entirely in Pottery Barn. “Hi,” Patrick says awkwardly. No wonder they wanted him to carry poinsettias. He is very obviously the not-Christmas thing in this scene, the thing that doesn’t belong.

Pete looks over his shoulder and says, “Oh, that’s my mom,” sounding faintly surprised, like maybe just everything is surprising to Pete now.

“Hi,” Patrick says to Pete’s mom.

“Hello,” she says, beaming at him. “Welcome.”

“Mom, I need to talk to Patrick,” Pete says.

“Don’t let me stop you,” Pete’s mother replies happily, but makes absolutely no move to leave them alone.

Pete rolls his eyes and lets go of Patrick’s coat to grab his bouquet-less hand and drag him up the garland-festooned staircase, and then down sixteen different hallways, the place is a fucking maze. Finally the end up in a room that is utterly devoid of Christmas decorations. A Christmas vacuum. The room is basically the size of Patrick’s entire apartment. It has walls and ceilings painted jet black, and a row of windows overlooking the lake and the mountains and the early sunset. There’s a cozy window seat reading nook, and the floor is covered in piles of books and notebooks. It’s cluttered chaos, and it feels very Pete.

“Nice,” Patrick remarks, and then wonders if that sounded sarcastic, considering the mess. “I mean, it really is nice. It feels like you. Which I mean in a good way. And it’s a nice view.”  

“Why are you here?” Pete asks breathlessly. “What is going on?”

“Bebe said that—”

“If this is some kind of trick,” Pete cuts him off, “if this is just all some kind of new marketing gimmick she’s come up with, don’t even tell me, just…just leave, because I can’t deal with—or maybe stay. Maybe stay but don’t tell me it’s fake and then—No, that sounds unhealthy, I take it back, just go. Just go, don’t make me…don’t make me do these things for the cameras.”

Patrick looks at Pete, who looks jittery and unsettled. His hair is frizzing into curls, his bun is bedraggled, and his eyes are surrounded by dark circles. He looks worn down, the package of him coming undone, a ribbon that’s unraveled. Patrick decides that what Pete needs is calm, because Pete’s life has been stormy these past few days. So Patrick says, calmly, “Okay, look around.”

Pete, confused, looks around. “Is this about the black paint?” he asks. “I was a kid and…I don’t care enough to change it now.”

“No, this isn’t about the black paint. Do you see any cameras in this room?”

Pete looks around himself again, as if to double-check, then looks back at Patrick. “I do not,” he replies carefully, like this is a trick question.

“Okay, then,” Patrick says, and kisses him.

Pete makes a tiny sound, and lets Patrick kiss him. His hands grasp Patrick’s coat tentatively, uncertain of their positioning, in stark contrast to how he’d grabbed him before. He feels shaky and unsettled to Patrick, like he might crumble to pieces, like too-fluffy snow that won’t hold the shape of a snowball, so Patrick kisses gently and persuasively, hoping to put words into the kiss, because he’s pretty terrible at real words.

“There,” Patrick says softly, drawing back from the kiss to rest his forehead against Pete’s. “How’s that?”

“More confusing,” Pete replies, his voice small. “More confusing that you would do that without cameras.”

“Why? You weren’t the reason there was a camera crew outside your building, were you?”

“No.”

“Right. So. The flowers are my apology, for not believing you that night. I’m sorry. I was…a little out of my head, and…yeah.” Patrick decides he doesn’t need to get into how much Pete terrifies him, how he never lets anyone inside him as far as Pete has achieved, how they’re in uncharted territory and there is no map. There’s time for terrified admissions like that later, Patrick assured himself, cowardly.

Pete takes a deep breath. It still sounds shaky, but Pete shifts away from Patrick before he can offer more comfort. He takes the flowers out of Patrick’s hands and walks over to place them carefully on his nightstand. Then he sits on the bed and clasps his hands between his knees and looks at Patrick and says, “Okay, so. I wasn’t the reason there was a camera crew outside my building. Why is there a camera crew outside this building?”

“Yeah,” Patrick says awkwardly. “So. Bebe came to see me at the bar and she explained to me how awful things have been for you over the past few days—”

“Jesus,” Pete interrupts dully, “are you here out of pity?”

“No,” Patrick says firmly, and doesn’t wait to be invited, he just sits on Pete’s bed. “I’m here because it turns out I don’t think I realized how much I wanted to be with you until I thought I couldn’t be with you.” Patrick huffs out a breath. Fuck, he is going to have to get into all of this, because Pete’s golden eyes look thoroughly unconvinced. “You surprised me, okay? I don’t usually…let anyone make me feel that way. And, I don’t know, I think I’d like to know more about…how that could work. That’s why I’m here.”

Pete blinks slowly, then says drily, “I am no expert in how any of this works.”

“Obviously,” Patrick can’t help retorting.

And that does the trick. Pete starts laughing and then can’t seem to stop. He collapses against Patrick, boneless in his mirth, snorting and braying into Patrick’s shoulder, until abruptly the laughter collides with tears, and Pete lets out a little hiccupping sob and turns his face more fully into the collar of Patrick’s coat, breathing deep.

Patrick wants to say that he’s here now and it’s all going to be okay but that feels like the kind of hollow reassurance that’s only going to work once, so he cups his hand to the base of Pete’s skull and just holds him. He says, feeling foolish, “I don’t know, I think I might be smitten with you.”

Pete trembles against him. “No one uses that word.”

“Yeah, you’d think that, wouldn’t you?” Patrick rejoins.

Pete says fervently, “I have missed you a fucking lot this weekend. Which is stupid because there is basically no event of my life at which I have had you, so how can I miss you being here? But I am really happy to see you. Emo boy.”

“Yeah, yeah, who’s the emo boy now?” Patrick teases gently.

“Shut up,” Pete says without heat, and just rests against Patrick for a companionably silent moment.

Patrick hates to interrupt it, but he thinks they really should talk about the camera crew. “Bebe says you need a redemption arc,” he murmurs, stroking at Pete’s hair. His bun completely disintegrated at some point in the emotional drama.

“Ohhhhh,” Pete breathes softly. “The protagonist of my very own Christmas Magic movie.” Pete sits up to look at Patrick. “That’s what this is, right?”

“Basically. So I’m told. Give the people what they want: All the Christmas tropes teaching the Scrooge of an overworked CEO the true meaning of Christmas.”

“While making a Wentz family Christmas look as Christmasy as possible,” concludes Pete. “Oh, she is good. No one can say Bebe Rexha isn’t really good at her job.”

“Will it help?” Patrick asks anxiously. “I have no desire to be the star of a series of Christmas Magic movie viral videos unless it’s going to help you.”

“You don’t have to do this at all,” Pete tells him. “You can—”

“Pete. I flipped out on you for no reason—”

“You had a reason,” Pete points out.

“Yeah, but I didn’t trust you, I didn’t believe you, when—”

“You had no reason to trust me—”

“I had no reason not to. And maybe that’s a lesson I’ve learned: to try to be more trusting.”

“Do not be more trusting, Patrick, most people are assholes,” Pete informs him solemnly.

Patrick chuckles. “Yeah, okay, true. But you hadn’t been an asshole, you should have earned some benefit of a doubt from me.”

Pete is silent for a moment, before saying, “I don’t know, my exes have opinions on my assholishness you might want to consider.”

“My exes think I’m a selfish prick who only cares about music, so, you know, let’s agree not to care too much about the assessments of exes. To get back to the point, I’m the reason you’re in this predicament, if I’d listened to you and just gone inside, you would never have been recorded saying what you said and you wouldn’t be dealing with all of this.”

“This isn’t your fault,” Pete says.

“It isn’t yours either. So stop being a martyr and let me help. This is how I can help, right? So this is what we’re going to do.”

Pete’s silence stretches much longer this time, and then he chokes out, “I cannot believe your exes would ever call you selfish.”

***

Every day of Pete’s life is a performance, so this shouldn’t feel radically different, but it does. The gaze of the camera feels unrelenting, and he’s unsure how to behave, how to make himself so likable that this redemption arc plan of Bebe’s works. Patrick’s being so incredible doing all of this for Pete, the least Pete can do is be some kind of halfway-charming person that everyone will consider decent enough to keep supporting his company. But he can’t just be CEO persona on camera; a businessman attitude, no matter how laidback Pete normally tries to be, will still come off as stiff and cold in a Christmas Magic movie, when he needs to be romantic and soft. The whole point of a Christmas Magic movie is to eliminate CEO personas in favor of ideal Christmas-spirit-filled boyfriend material.

And, on top of having to play a part for the cameras, he’s also trying to play a more important part of Son Introducing Boyfriend to Mom. He wants to be perfect for Patrick. He’s done this before, introduced significant others to his parents. This is not the first time he’s brought someone home. Those never turned out to be fairy tales and he’s not sure why he should think any different this time. But hey. Hope or stupidity spring eternal for Pete Wentz.

Under the table, Patrick hooks his foot around Pete’s ankle, and that’s when Pete realizes he’d been desperately bouncing his leg up and down. Patrick’s touch is grounding, and out of sight of the cameras, which Pete appreciates. It feels like a straightforward Patrick-to-Pete touch, no Christmas magic fakery about it, and Pete lets himself lean into it subtly, trying to reassure himself. Patrick is here because he wants to be, he reminds himself. That’s not an act for the cameras.

They are drinking hot cocoa out of red-and-green striped mugs stamped with W monograms. In the center of the table is a pile of marshmallows, a bowl of whipped cream, and a saucer of red and green peppermint pieces. Why have simple Swiss Miss when you can go all Christmas Magic on the hot cocoa, after all? There is also a plate of snickerdoodles.

Pete’s mom says to Patrick, “Please. Have a snickerdoodle. I baked them myself. They’re Pete’s favorite.”

Patrick flickers a smile and obediently takes a cookie. “Mmm, good choice.”

“What’s your favorite?” his mom asks. “We always try to bake everyone’s favorite Christmas cookie for Christmas.”

And that’s…true. Pete’s internal sarcastic commentary skids to a halt as he realizes that, actually, his mother does always bake their favorite cookies for them. Snickerdoodles for Pete, magic cookie bars for Maeve.

“I like peanut butter blossoms,” Patrick says.

“Ooh, a classic. Good choice. We don’t have enough peanut butter on our dessert table.”

Patrick says, “You really don’t have to go to any trouble.”

“It is no trouble at all,” Pete’s mother insists. “Now that you are part of the family.”

Pete lifts his eyebrows and says, “Well, that is laying it on pretty thick,” before he can stop himself. Which he probably should have. Whatever, it can be part of his redemption arc, he’s not redeemed yet.

His mother sighs. “When you show up at a family’s house for Christmas, you’re part of their family, for at least that little while. There are no strangers at a Christmas table.” His mother smiles sunnily.

It really is mind-boggling how she can speak entirely in Christmas Magic aphorisms, thinks Pete.

His mother continues, “Well, I know how you two met.”

“Yes, apparently the whole world knows how we met,” Patrick agrees drily, and nudges a snickerdoodle in front of Pete like it will dissipate his gathering storm clouds.

His mother laughs lightly and says, “Okay, so we can skip over that question. What do you do, Patrick? Aside from moonlighting as a piano player at a bar.”

Pete frowns at his mother. Way to make Patrick feel self-conscious about his job. He says, “Patrick’s a fabulous musician.”

“Yes, I got to hear you sing a little bit of something on the video you sent in to Pete,” his mother agrees.

“Not just a singer,” Pete continues staunchly. “He writes songs. He writes incredible songs.”

“They’re not… Pete’s exaggerating, they’re not that great,” Patrick protests.

“Well, this is wonderful!” his mother exclaims. “Pete writes songs, too!”

“Not really,” Pete says. “And ‘wrote.’ The correct tense is past.”

“Oh, but, honey, now you have someone to write with.” His mother gestures to Patrick helpfully.

“Patrick doesn’t want me writing music with him,” Pete grumbles self-consciously.

“I’d love it, actually,” Patrick interjects.

Pete looks at him in surprise. He can’t tell if this is for the benefit of the Christmas Magic movie they’re making together, or if Patrick really means that. “Really?”

“My lyrics are weak. You said it yourself.”

“Pete,” his mother chides. “That’s not how you sweet-talk a date.”

“No, he’s right,” Patrick says, “I liked him more for saying it.” Patrick turns back to Pete. “You’re a word person. I could use some help from a word person.”

Pete thinks of the journals piled all over his room, scribbled in with angsty turns of phrase that Patrick could lyrify. He’s not going to talk about that on camera, though; he’s not going to get into the fact that the therapists advised writing as a coping mechanism and so Pete spilled everything out, Pete trapped his true self in ink on paper and sent a hollow husk out into the world. And now maybe he can give Patrick that self and Patrick would take it and make it beautiful. Yeah, Pete’s not saying any of that. He croaks out, “I mean. Maybe. If you really think so.”

Patrick smiles, and feels like he means it. “I really think so.”

“Oh, this is wonderful,” his mother says enthusiastically. “The two of you can write a Christmas song together!”

***

The American public apparently most wants to see Pete Wentz fall in love while sledding.

“There isn’t any snow,” Pete says when Bebe tells them. They’re on the back terrace, away from the cameras, having a briefing on their romance. He really, really is the worst person in the universe to date.

“I know. Inconvenient. So we’re using fake snow.”

“You’re trucking in fake snow?” Patrick asks.

“No, the ski resorts have helpfully already done that for us. We’ve hired out a bunny slope for the two of you.”

“Okay,” Patrick says, and nods. “Sounds good.”

He is so calm and collected and such a trooper about all this, it’s amazing to Pete. Pete says to Bebe, “So what are we supposed to talk about on our date?”

Bebe looks perplexed. “I don’t know. What do the two of you talk about on your dates? Do I need to write a script for you? Just…stay PG, you know the Christmas Magic content guidelines.”

“I’m sure the viewers want, I don’t know, to hear me open up about my struggles with depression or something,” Pete asks sarcastically.

“Don’t do that,” Patrick says, sounding aghast. “You’re not doing that on camera. We’re just going to talk about, like, how ridiculous sledding is as an activity.”

Pete is silent for a second. Then he says honestly, “Actually, I really like sledding, I would totally pick sledding for a date activity.”

“Really? It’s not too Christmas Magicky?” Patrick sounds surprised, and Pete doesn’t blame him.

“Shut up,” Pete tells him, embarrassed. He likes snow and snow activities. It’s his one Christmas Magic weakness. It’s humiliating, okay?  “It’s, like, the only Christmas Magic thing I do,” Pete grumbles. “I’m sure I’ll hate all the other dates.”

Patrick laughs. “Very flattering, thank you.”

Bebe says, “This. Do exactly this on your date.”

But that’s easier said than done. They stand at the top of the bunny slope clinging to their separate sleds and the cameras are carefully arranged around them and it’s the least romantic thing Pete’s ever experienced.

Patrick says, as they regard the hill in front of them, “I bet none of your other sledding dates were ever like this one.”

“I’ve never had any other sledding dates,” Pete replies.

Patrick gives him an arch look. “Oh, the cameras come on and your story changes? I thought this was totally a dating activity you would pick.”

“I mean,” says Pete, “it is. It totally is. I’ve just never dated anyone who agreed with me.” Pete studiously avoids Patrick, keeps gazing down the hill.

“I see,” Patrick says slowly. “So did I fail some kind of test when I said it was ridiculous?”

Pete shakes his head. “Trust me, sparky, you have not failed in any way since the day I met you. Or not-met you, I guess.”

“You are a sweet talker,” Patrick tells him.

“I try to sometimes be okay with words,” Pete rejoins.

“Yeah? And how are you on a sled?” Patrick asks.

There’s this tone Patrick’s voice gains, this warm, silky, teasing tone. Pete really loves it, the idea that Patrick speaks to him in this way that makes Pete think of fuzzy blankets and apres-ski fires roaring in chalets. “I think I’m decent,” Pete answers, trying to achieve even half an appealingly affectionate tone.

“I’ll race you down,” Patrick says.

“Well,” Pete starts, “I wouldn’t want you to—”

And then Patrick is off, kicking a spray of snow in Pete’s face.

“—hurt yourself,” Pete finishes, and then, “Son of a bitch,” which violates all sorts of Christmas Magic content guidelines, but whatever. He sends his sled careening after Patrick.

***

There are only so many times you can lug a sled up a hill before it becomes more effort than it’s worth. So at a certain point they collapse into the snow at the bottom of the hill and just stay there, heads companionably close and bodies spread out diagonally. The cameras positioned at the bottom of the hill seem like they’re likewise huddling close to them.

“I think it was a draw,” Pete says.

Patrick snorts. “I definitely beat you more times than you beat me.”

“I think you’re really bad at counting,” Pete informs him lightly.

“You keep telling yourself that, Wentz.”

“So what do you think of sledding? Still ridiculous?”

Patrick smiles up at the stars spangled over his head. He’s never been to Vermont before. It’s really pretty. Not as pretty as the man in the snow next to him but that would be impossible. But it’s a crystal clear winter night, with more stars overhead than Patrick’s ever seen before in one sky, his cheeks burn pleasantly with cold, and he’s still winded from chasing Pete up and down hills like they’re kids.

He turns his head so he can see Pete, who’s likewise looking at him. He says, “Good dating activity.”

“It’s no punk show in someone’s basement,” Pete says, “but hey, I don’t have that kind of cred to get us in.”

Patrick laughs and watches the way Pete smiles at him, pleased and smug, like making him laugh is some kind of genius achievement that he can’t believe he accomplished. Patrick thinks he could spend the rest of his life being looked at like that, like his laughter is a wonder of the world, like there’s nothing more satisfying in the universe than looking at Patrick. It’s a dizzyingly self-centered desire, and unfamiliar: Patrick’s the one who doesn’t like anyone looking at him ordinarily, who tries to hide behind instruments whenever he can. But Patrick feels like he could always handle being looked at if Pete’s the one looking at him.

And Patrick wants to kiss him so badly, and he is keenly aware of the cameras all around them, and how much he doesn’t want to kiss him on-camera.

So he says instead, voice rough with desire to do otherwise, “Should we make snow angels?”

Pete laughs. “That is the most Christmas Magic cliched thing I have ever heard of two people doing, we are totally doing it.”

“See?” Patrick says, as he waves his arms and legs childishly in the snow. “Who’s emo now?”

“Still you,” Pete assures him. “Making a snow angel doesn’t make you un-emo. This is the starburst part of you.” Pete sits up, and there’s fake snow sticking in his hair, which has come undone and is curling damply to his shoulders, and he beams wildly at Patrick, that incandescent, all-in, all-out smile he has.

You’re the starburst, Patrick thinks, and you don’t even know it. “Maybe it’s the starburst part of you,” he suggests, sprawled on his back and looking up at Pete as he leans over him.

Pete’s smile fades slowly, like he’s absorbing that. Then he says hoarsely, “You’re--” and then he cuts himself off and looks at the cameras all around them. He looks back at Patrick and clears his throat and says, “Anyway, you make a good snow angel, emo boy.”

***

Their next scheduled stop is some kind of family dinner. “Cozy” and “festive” were the words Bebe used to describe it. Pete wants nothing to do with it. He’s got Patrick hoodwinked into thinking he’s some kind of starburst-y guy, he doesn’t want him talking to his father about what a disappointment Pete is as a person generally and as a son specifically. So Pete nods his head as Bebe explains what’s going to happen when they get back to the house and then he gets in the driver’s seat of his car with every intention of meeting the camera crew back at the house. Patrick gets in the passenger seat, pulling his gloves off with his teeth and reaching his hands eagerly toward the heat Pete blasts on.

Pete puts the car in drive and starts driving and drums his fingers on the steering wheel and wishes he could think of some way to escape. “Do you know how to ski?” he asks suddenly.

“No,” Patrick answers.

“Do you want to learn?” Pete asks.

“You’re one of Those People, aren’t you?”

Pete considers the question. “Rich people?”

Patrick laughs. “No. Although you are that, too. Athletic People.”

Pete can hear the capital letters. “I don’t know. Am I?”

“Yes. I can tell. You say ‘want to learn to ski?’ like I’m not going to break my leg in the effort.”

“You’re not going to break your leg. I won’t let you break your leg. I’m a good ski teacher,” Pete defends himself.

“Have you ever taught anyone how to ski before?”

“I am going to teach you how to ski,” Pete says confidently, without answering the question.

Patrick snorts and says, “Okay, Wentz,” in that softly skeptical tone of voice that Pete feels belongs to him and he likes that. A softening of skepticism around him is just what he needs. Why does Patrick have just the best way of speaking to him at all times?

And Pete will do anything in the fucking universe not to lose that.

“Want to start now?” Pete asks casually.

“Start what now?”

“Learning how to ski.”

Patrick looks around them. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“Patrick, it’s five o’clock.”

“Well, it feels like the middle of the night. It’s so dark. How would I see anything? I’m definitely going to break my leg.”

“Night skiing exists, you know. And I know the ski resort operators around here. I could probably get them to close down a mountain for us, if you wanted me to.”

“No, I don’t want you to do that. What’s this about? What’s up?”

“Nothing’s up,” Pete lies. “I just really love skiing.”

“Stop the car,” Patrick says.

“What?”

“Stop the car.”

“I can’t just stop the car, the roads are narrow and, as you just pointed out, dark.”

“Pull over up there.” Patrick points.

“In the parking lot of the Christmas tree farm?” Pete checks disbelievingly.

“Yes. What’s wrong with that?”

“It’s...a little Christmas Magicky, isn’t it?”

“Shut up and pull into the fucking parking lot,” Patrick says in exasperation. 

Pete pulls into the parking lot.

It’s busy, people milling all around, calling to each other, laughing. It is very fucking Christmas Magicky, so Pete scowls out the windshield.

Patrick comments, “All these people are here getting a Christmas tree the day before Christmas Eve?”

“It’s a whole stupid winter carnival event festival thing,” Pete explains, and gestures. “They’re all drinking hot cocoa and caroling and looking at arts and crafts and, you know, all that Christmas shit.”

Patrick considers, looking out at the crowd. Then he says, “We should do this.”

Pete looks at him. “What?”

“Let’s go to the Christmas carnival thing,” says Patrick.

“We’re supposed to have dinner with my parents.”

“The prospect of which put you in a foul mood. So let’s ditch it. You were the one who just proposed night skiing.”

“Yeah, night skiing is…not a winter carnival.”

“Come on, I’m going to buy you one of those blinking Santa hats,” says Patrick, and gets out of the car.

***

The truth is that, well, Pete Wentz, King of Christmas Magic or whatever the fuck, has never actually been to one of these Christmas festival things. Patrick buys him hot cocoa and a necklace of glow-in-the-dark holly sprigs and holds his hand while they stroll along booths selling various arts and crafts, and it smells like pine tree and cinnamon and smoke from the fires periodically crackling away, and the night air is so crystal clear with cold that laughter rings in it like bells and everyone’s breath sends up puffs of joy, and Pete is…a little overwhelmed. And bewildered.

“So this is Christmas,” he remarks thoughtfully, watching the throngs of people wander through festive greenery along twinkling paths. It feels so remote to him, this particular sort of Christmasy world, and it’s ironic that probably most of these people identify his company with what they’re doing right now.

“A type of Christmas, anyway,” Patrick agrees.

And Pete remembers that not everything is about him. He says, “How old were you when your parents divorced?”

“Seven,” Patrick says. “And there wasn’t really any Christmas after that. I mean, as a kid, you kind of stop believing in Santa when Santa starts getting competitive between houses. You know, my mom saying things like, ‘Bet Santa didn’t bring anything this nice to your dad’s house, huh?’ Kind of undercut the magic.”

Pete winces. “Ouch,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

“It was a long time ago,” says Patrick.

“No such thing,” Pete says. “Ancient history is a myth. Ancient history is everything we are.”

“Maybe,” says Patrick.

Pete frowns. “You don’t agree? You and I are talking to each other at this very moment because of the ancient history of your parents’ divorce causing you to work on Christmas Eve. This moment right here that we’re having is all ancient history.”

“I see what you’re saying,” says Patrick, as they continue milling their way through the crowd, past the crowded craft booths, around the throngs of people in line for roasted chestnuts. “But this moment right here is really the culmination of a series of choices we both made. Choices to be here, with each other, now. Sure, I was playing in a bar on Christmas Eve because I’m a child of divorce, but that’s not why I agreed to meet you for a drink, or why I kept saying yes to dates, or why I’m here in Vermont. There’s some ancient history in us, but I like to think that most of us is just us.”

Pete considers this, sipping on his hot chocolate. And then he admits, “Maybe you.”

“Hmm?”

“Maybe you are mostly yourself. You seem like you… You seem like you’re chasing your dream, trying to be exactly who you want to be.”

Patrick snorts. “You have got me all wrong.”

“What? Your dream isn’t music?”

“I don’t know. I guess. Yes. It’s complicated, I guess.” Patrick looks frustrated. “I mean, my mother would tell you I’m just wasting my life, the same way my father wasted his life. Chasing a dream, sure, that’s never going to amount to anything.”

“Is giving up on your dream and settling down to a life you don’t even want to live amounting to something?” Pete asks seriously. He’s never really understood that theory, even as he implemented it in his own life. “I don’t know if it’s all it’s cracked up to be.”

Patrick makes a noncommittal sound.

Pete steals a glance over at him as they keep walking. His lush lower lip is caught between his teeth thoughtfully. Look what he’s done, made Patrick all reflective and sad. “I’m so sorry,” Pete says, “this is the fucking worst date.” Why can’t he just be the kind of date who people have fun with, what is wrong with him?

But Patrick smiles a little and looks over at him with such visible warmth that Pete gets that cozy apres-ski feeling again and feels better. “You’re not the worst date, I’ve been on the worst dates, believe me. I once had a guy hit on the waitress while on a date with me. Got her number and everything. You haven’t done that yet.”

There’s a moment of silence. “Well, that’s a pretty low bar but I’m happy to have cleared it,” remarks Pete.

“See, you’re doing okay.” Patrick bumps their shoulders together as they walk.

“I didn’t think I’d end up, I don’t know, here,” says Pete, morosely.

“At a Christmas carnival thing with some random loser piano player you met at a pretentious dive bar?”

Pete says, “You are not a loser.”

Patrick nudges his shoulder again. “Right back at you, Wentz.”

Pete shakes his head and huffs out a breath and looks over at Patrick. He’s wearing blinking snowmen around his neck. How can you not find a man with blinking snowmen around his neck impossibly sweet and charming. Pete says, “Okay, okay, point taken.”

They’ve reached the Christmas tree lots now, the crafts and food booths all behind them. The Christmas tree lot is much less crowded, the sounds seem muted by the heaviness of the pine scent all around them. Most people already have their trees. These are the picked-over remnants, with signs over their heads that proclaim them to be half-off.

Pete’s heartstrings twinge a little bit. These are the cast-off trees, the ones that nobody wanted, the ones somebody needs to scoop in and grab so they feel loved. Okay, maybe he’s projecting too much onto a pine tree that’s been cut down in the heart of its life to be pressed into brief service as some harbinger of joy and love -- ‘tis the fucking season.

Pete hears himself saying, “Do you want to get a Christmas tree with me?”

“A Christmas tree? Don’t you already have a Christmas tree?”

“We have, like, fifteen perfectly manicured twelve-foot trees from New Brunswick or something.” Pete looks at Patrick. “Let’s get a Christmas tree together.” 

After a moment, Patrick says, “Okay.” 

***

“No, I think—No, it definitely has to be taller than you, Pete—”

“Fuck you,” Pete rejoins good-naturedly, “you’re no hulking giant over there, you know.”

“I’m not claiming to be, but I’m not the one picking out five-foot-tall Christmas trees.”

“They’re cute,” Pete says. “Like you. Cute little starburst packages. Emo ones.”

Patrick rolls his eyes. “Trees can’t be emo.”

“Short trees are emo because of their shortness. They’re emo about being short.”

“Okay,” Patrick drawls.

“Don’t even question me, I know everything about Christmas, I am the King of Christmas, I speak the language of pine trees and jingle bells.”

“Do you speak the language of my middle finger?” Patrick asks.

“Patrick,” Pete chides him playfully, “there are children around here.” Pete grins at him, then wanders over to look at taller trees. “How about this one? It’s taller than me.”

“By, like, two inches.”

“You requested a tree that’s taller than me, here we have one. Taller, still cute enough to be an emo starburst. Come and hold it so I can inspect how it looks from afar.”

Patrick obediently holds the tree for Pete. Patrick obediently turns it this way and that.

“It’s perfect,” Pete eventually declares. “And the tree’s not so bad, either.”

“Ha ha,” Patrick says, feeling the blush on his face, but he’s so pink from the cold by now that hopefully it’s not that obvious. “Let’s go buy it.”

“Do you like it?” Pete asks anxiously. “I don’t want to get it if you don’t like it. Do you want something taller?”

Patrick looks at Pete. Patrick says, “No, I don’t want something taller. Also, the tree is okay, too.”

Pete bursts into startled, delighted laughter, and Patrick is pleased with himself as he hoists the tree over to the checkout stand, where they give it a fresh cut and tuck it into a net and ask if they need help getting it on their car.

“Oh, dear,” Pete says. “Um.”

The teenager working the checkout stand looks between them.

“The tree was kind of a spontaneous purchase,” Pete admits.

“So?” says the kid.

“He’s trying to say he’s got this tiny, ridiculous sports car,” Patrick says, and then starts laughing.

“Don’t laugh at my car!” Pete protests. “We’re totally going to make the tree fit, it’ll be fine.”

“Cool, dude,” says the kid, shrugging. He definitely doesn’t care.

“I never carry cash,” Pete says suddenly. “Why do I never carry cash?”

“Oh, we can’t take tips,” the kid says.

“No, for the Christmas gift collection.” Pete nods toward the little jar on the table labeled Gifts for Local Families! Pete slides his scarf out from around his neck and hands it to the kid. “It’s cashmere, make sure you get your money’s worth it for it.”

“Okay,” blinks the kid, confused.

Pete turns back toward Patrick and says immediately, “What? Don’t look at me like that.”

“I want you to know something,” Patrick says seriously.

“Let’s just get the tree in the car,” Pete replies, clearly trying to distract Patrick. He grabs the tree and starts dragging it into the parking lot.

“You’re more than one daisy,” Patrick continues, following him, picking up the tree’s trunk so it’s not dragging anymore.

“More than one daisy?” Pete throws over his shoulder, sounding confused.

“In your bouquet. You’re not a whole bouquet of emo and a single daisy. You’ve got more starburst to you than you give yourself credit for. You’re more than one daisy.”

There’s a moment of silence, then Pete says jovially, “Well. That’s not something anyone’s said to me before.”

The tone doesn’t disguise Pete’s emotion at all but Patrick lets him get away with it. “That’s because you know a lot of assholes,” Patrick rejoins lightly.

Pete laughs.

They’ve reached his tiny car by now, with its nonexistent backseat and fictional trunk. Patrick says, “Do you want to tie it to the roof? I mean, it’ll probably destroy the paint job, but our only other option is for me to sit with the tree on my lap hanging out the window.”

“Hmm,” says Pete. “The car has a sunroof.”

And that is how Patrick finds himself sitting in the passenger seat of a very expensive sports car, balancing a tree between his legs, the top of which is poking out of the sunroof.

Pete says to him, slanting a look at him as he drives, “You know. It’s kind of phallic.”

Patrick gives him a look. “Given the car you drive, I’d be very surprised if your dick was anywhere near big enough to justify that comparison.”

Pete laughs. “That’s very mean, Patrick, and also you have no idea how wrong you are about the size of my dick, sparky.”

“Uh-huh,” says Patrick drily. “Don’t oversell yourself too much.”

Pete laughs again. “The idea that you’re the love interest in a Christmas Magic movie is hilarious.”

“I’m not a love interest in a Christmas Magic movie,” Patrick corrects him, “I’m just your love interest.”

Pete smiles at him, looking a little quizzical, like he’s not sure how they ended up here but he’s willing to take it.

Speaking of this whole movie thing, though. “Listen. The dinner with your parents. I think it was just meant to be another fluff piece. I’m sure there wasn’t going to be any drama. I’m sure your parents wouldn’t be mean to you.”

“My parents are never really mean to me, Patrick,” Pete sighs. “It wouldn’t just be the fact that we’re on camera, they’re never really mean. They love me very much. I know that. We just don’t always agree on what love looks like, I guess. Or on what would be best for me. Or on what would be best for them. I don’t know. They’re never mean to me, and that makes it worse. They have this tone of voice they use, this ‘oh, Pete’ tone of voice. ‘Oh, Pete. Done it again. Our silly, foolish, disappointment of a son. Go hide in your room while we clean up your mess.’ I hate that tone of voice.”

“I just can’t imagine you’re as disappointing as you think you are in your head,” Patrick says honestly.

Pete’s look is arch and knowing. “Patrick, you are here right now because I am in the process of destroying our family company.”

“No, I’m here right now because I like you.”

“Patrick,” Pete sighs, shaking his head and focusing closely on the road.

“I’m a disappointment as a son, okay? I don’t even go home for Christmas. At least you still do that. I don’t have any kind of degree, I never went to college, I barely graduated from high school. I have a patchwork of jobs that barely pay me enough to survive and waste all of my time on music that’s never really gotten me anywhere. It kind of puts you in perspective.”

“I don’t know, I think my parents would think I was cool if I was a musical genius instead of just really bad at everything I try to do.”

“You’re not really bad at everything you do. You’re an excellent kisser. With, apparently, a really big dick. So. You know.”

He’s rewarded with a laugh. “I mean,” says Pete. “I’m alright in bed.”

“Just alright?”

“Someone just told me not to oversell myself too much, I think,” says Pete, and puts the car in park outside the family mansion and looks at Patrick. “Ready to make our entrance?”

“Yes,” Patrick answers. “Are you?”

“I think I could make any entrance if I got to do it with you,” Pete replies, and then gets out of the car.

Together they manage to wrestle the tree out of the car, with Patrick thoroughly covered in sap by the end of it. Pete thinks this is hilarious, the way Patrick’s hair is sticky with the stuff.

“It’s, like, extra-festive,” Pete is saying as they carry the tree up the porch steps. “It’s so Christmas magic, I’m dying. You’ve even got pine needles in it.”

“I hope I’m not allergic to sap,” Patrick says, trying to swipe a sticky hand through his hair.

The front door opens before they can reach it, and Pete says to whoever’s standing in the doorway, “I know, we’re late, but look! We got a Christmas tree!”

“Where did you get that?” a male voice asks incredulously. “It’s like a Bonsai Christmas tree.”

“It’s the day before Christmas Eve, there wasn’t a huge selection,” Pete explains. They’re now standing in the entrance hall, and Patrick puts his half of the tree down gratefully. The front hall is crowded with the camera crew, and Pete’s mother, and a man Patrick has to assume is Pete’s father. “Some lights, a few ornaments, and this tree will be gorgeous. Christmas magic, am I right?”

“On the subject of Christmas magic,” Pete’s mother says.

“Just so you know,” Pete’s father adds, “we didn’t have anything to do with this. They just showed up.”

“We assume you know, Patrick?” Pete’s mother finishes.

Patrick has no idea what they’re talking about. “Know what?”

“That your parents are here,” says Pete’s mother.

And Patrick says, “What?”

***

Patrick is out on the back terrace with his parents, and Pete is trying not to spy through the window while hissing at Bebe, “How did you not warn him that his parents were showing up?”

“I tried to,” Bebe hisses back. “Neither one of you picks up your phones!”

His phone is very deliberately off. Oops. “We were…ignoring you,” Pete admits.

“Yeah, you’ve got to stop doing that,” says Bebe. “I really am only trying to help you, you know.”

She maybe has a point. “Well, I was trying to, I don’t know—” Pete tries to defend himself.

“Hide?” suggests Bebe.

Yes. Pete says, “You said it was dinner with my parents, you didn’t say anything about his parents.”

“His parents weren’t supposed to be here! They just showed up! I asked him if we could interview them for, you know, the movie we’re making here. Patrick said they’d never want to be interviewed but we could totally make his excuses for why he couldn’t spend Christmas with them. So I called them up and explained what was going on and I guess later they called my assistant and got all the information about where we are now because my assistant thought I must have approved them coming and, well, here they are.”

“It’s alright,” Pete’s mom says.

“It’s not alright,” Pete snaps. “Patrick is already doing all this for me, and now he has to deal with his parents on top of it.”

“Yes,” Pete’s dad says drily. “Because parents are so inconvenient to have to deal with.”

“You know what I mean,” Pete says impatiently. “His parents are divorced, they don’t get along, it’s a whole thing.”

“Well.” His father shrugs. “Just got to make the most of it now. Help me set this tree up.” He lugs the tree over to a miraculously unoccupied corner of the great room.

“We don’t need to set it up,” Pete says awkwardly. The tiny tree looks ridiculous in a room of this scale, in the middle of the forest of all the other epic, perfectly shaped Christmas trees in the room.

“Of course we do,” his mother says. “You and Patrick chose it.”

“And you don’t like Christmas,” his father says, propping the tree up. “So this is a noteworthy event, you coming home with a Christmas tree. Talk about Christmas magic.”

“I…I like Christmas,” says Pete feebly.

His mother and father both give him a look.

“I mean,” Pete tries, and falters, because, well, he doesn’t like Christmas, and he knows that makes him weird and disappointing, like usual. “Never mind,” he sighs.

“Do we have another Christmas tree stand?” his dad asks his mom.

“Somewhere we must. Probably in the basement.”

“I’ll go down and look,” his dad says, and ambles off.

And for the first time, Pete realizes he’s in the great room with his mother alone. Even Bebe’s left. He says, “Where are the cameras?”

“We refused to let them film dinner,” his mother answers. “Not that you showed up to dinner.”

“We—I—Why?”

“Because, Pete. We can’t have every interaction with your boyfriend be on film. We’d like to get to know who he is without a camera in his face.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” says Pete automatically.

“Fine. Whatever you young people call it these days.” His mom waves her hand around dismissively.

“No, I mean.” Pete pauses, confused. “We’re just. You know.” Taking it slow didn’t seem right, considering now Patrick was at his house for Christmas. Being filmed for it. “I don’t know,” Pete says, staring at their little tree. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Well,” his mother remarks. “I admit you have made it complicated. But that’s a very you thing, isn’t it?”

“I know,” Pete grumbles, pushing his hands into his hair, “I make a mess of everything.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call this a mess,” his mother surprises him by saying. “It’s just different. That’s all I meant. You’ve never liked doing things the usual way. You’re happiest when you’re turned all around. Aren’t you?”

Pete stares at his mother, considering. “I…guess?”

His father arrives back in the room, brandishing a cheap, plastic tree stand. “Aha! I didn’t even have to look very hard, I tripped right over it at the bottom of the stairs. And luckily, you’ve picked out a tiny tree, so it doesn’t need a very sturdy stand. Come over here and help me.”

Pete goes over to hold the tree, pretending he knows what he’s doing, watching his father on the floor. Probably Pete should be the one on the floor, his father is too old for this, but Pete doesn’t know how to put a tree in a stand, really. “I felt bad for it. The trees were all picked over and nobody wants the little one.”

“Of course you felt bad for it,” his father says, nudging the trunk into the stand. “You’ve always been like that. You would never let your mother throw away any of the broken ornaments when you were a kid. You felt bad for them.”

“I still have them in a box,” his mother remarks.

Pete looks at her, startled. “Wait, you kept them?”

She looks bewildered. “Of course I kept them. You asked me to.”

“They were never out on any of the trees.”

“You can’t put shattered ornaments on a tree, Pete, someone would get hurt.”

“I thought you threw them out.”

“Pete.” His mother sounds exasperated. “Why would I do that after you asked me not to?”

He doesn’t have a good answer to that. Because I just assumed the worst? That’s the best he can come up with.

Bebe clears her throat, knocking on the doorjamb since there is no door to the great room. “Sorry to interrupt.”

“Quite alright, Bebe,” his father says genially. He’s always been a gallant kind of boss, Pete thinks. “We are just getting Pete and Patrick’s tree set up.”

“Looks good,” Bebe says. “Cute tree. I thought we should talk. Because I don’t think anyone’s read my dossier.”

“Nobody’s read your dossier,” Pete agrees. He doesn’t even know where his goddamn dossier is.

His parents say in unison, “We read the dossier.”

Of course they fucking did. Pete sighs, as his father stands up.

“Let go,” his father says, “we’ll see if it’s straight.”

Pete lets go, and the tree magically stays standing.

“Great. We’ll decorate it tomorrow,” his father decides. “Bebe, you said you wanted a tree-trimming for the cameras, right?”

“There’s always a tree-trimming scene,” Bebe agrees. “As for the next scene.”

“Gingerbread houses,” his mother says. “They’re all set up in the kitchen.”

“Yes. We’ve managed to get a couple more, now that Patrick’s parents are here.”

“Gingerbread houses?” Pete echoes.

“Second-most vote-getter,” Bebe explains. “For a Christmas trope date.”

“Look,” Pete says, “I don’t know if Patrick’s going to be in the mood to—I mean, I’m not going to make him go through with all of this if he doesn’t want to. This is… He doesn’t have to.”

There’s a moment of silence.

Bebe says, “He kind of has to.”

Pete sighs. “Is it actually helping?”

Bebe hands Pete her phone. It’s a YouTube video, Pete flinging himself unabashedly into Patrick’s arms. Pete winces a little at the rawness of his action, but finds himself transfixed by the way Patrick folds him in and ducks down to whisper in his ear. Maybe it’s up on YouTube, but it feels genuinely intimate and private. It’s a thousand times better than any Christmas Magic movie could ever have achieved.

“More people have watched that than watched the original video,” Bebe says.

“It’s not just helping,” adds his father. “Everything is up: web traffic, viewing numbers, last-minute store sales.”

“You were the feel-good story on the NBC Evening News tonight,” Bebe finishes.

This is, like, the first actual good thing he’s ever done for the company. This.

Pete takes a shaky breath and gives Bebe back her phone. “If Patrick doesn’t want to, I’m not going to make him.”

“Of course,” Bebe agrees.

But Pete can hear everyone in the room thinking how much they need Patrick to want to.

***

“What are you doing here?” Patrick demands.

“Patrick,” his mother says. “Look at where we are. What are you doing here?”

Which is possibly a fair question. Patrick says, “I’m. Like. It’s very complicated.”

“We know,” his father says. “Bebe explained everything to us. How much are they paying you?”

“They’re not—they’re not paying me. Look, you need to go.”

“We’re not going,” his mother says. “Are you kidding me? This was the first interesting thing I’ve gotten to post on Facebook in forever. Everyone’s so jealous, everyone watches Christmas Magic movies all season, and now I’m going to be in one! This is incredible!”

His mother’s eyes are shining with joy. Patrick’s never seen his mother shine with joy because of him before. He says falteringly, “No. No, that’s not what this is. It’s not really a movie, it’s like… It’s like my life, with cameras. It’s… It’s a lot and I can’t have the two of you here while I’m trying to deal with it.”

“That’s not very nice, Patrick,” his father says disapprovingly. “You just heard your mother say how much this means to her.”

That is the first time Patrick’s ever heard his father talk about his mother without cursing. “Okay, hang on, since when do the two of you even talk, never mind…do whatever this is?”

“That was all a long time ago,” his mother says.

“Water under the bridge,” his father agrees.

Patrick stares at them. “Water under the fucking bridge? You made all of our lives hell sniping at each other our entire childhoods, and now you’re just like, ‘water under the bridge’?”

“I think you’re being a little dramatic,” his mother says. “I guess it’s okay for the sake of the movie.”

“I am not making it dramatic for the sake of the movie,” Patrick clips out. “In fact, I am trying very hard to not have any of this drama be in the movie. This is for Pete, so that I can help him save his company. This isn’t for us to air our dirty laundry on national television.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” says his father. “What dirty laundry? What could you even have to say?”

Patrick stares at them. Patrick looks around the terrace. “Is this still being filmed somehow? Are we on camera right now? What is even happening?”

“Here’s what’s happening,” his mother says. “Have you taken a look at this place? This guy, whoever it is, has got money. Don’t fuck this one up.”

“Pete,” Patrick says icily. “‘This guy’ is named Pete.”

“Yeah, right, exactly, Pete.”

“His parents seem like nice people,” his father remarks.  

Patrick, aghast, suddenly wonders how long his parents have been here. “What have you been saying to his parents?”

“Nothing but good things,” his mother says soothingly.

“She was even complimentary about your music,” his father adds drily, “which God knows she never managed when we were married.”

Patrick’s mother rolls his eyes. “Oh, please,” she scoffs.

“There we go,” Patrick says. “Much more like the parental interactions I know and love.”

“Don’t worry, I was really supportive of your art.” The word is heavy with that faint sarcasm his mother always has when she talks about his music.  

“And I may have pretended you did a little better in high school than you did, these people seem like they would care about grades and shit, but who hasn’t pretended they did better in high school, eh, sport?” His father does this awkward thing where he punches Patrick’s shoulder, like that’s a thing they do.

Patrick says, “Ow.”

“Oh, come on, that didn’t hurt.”

“Don’t do that again. In fact, don’t do any of this ever again. You’re going to suddenly remember that you need to get home and—”

“But they’ve already invited us to stay for Christmas,” says his mother.

“For Christmas? No, no, you can’t stay for Christmas, you need to leave tonight. Who spends Christmas with perfect strangers? Don’t be ridiculous.”

His mother frowns. “You’re spending Christmas with them. Them instead of us.”

“I never spend Christmas with you,” Patrick points out.

“I know,” says his mother.

“I don’t spend Christmas with you because if I spend Christmas with you, he calls me up to tell me all about what an ungrateful son I am after he kept paying child support while you spent the checks on your hair and your nails.”

His mother makes a shocked sound at his father.

His father says, “Well, I mean.”

“You were always behind with the child support,” his mother snaps, “because your music never made any money.”

“And I don’t spend Christmas with you,” Patrick continues, pointing to his father, “because if I spend Christmas with you, she calls me up to remind me how you abandoned the family and didn’t care about your children as much as you cared about your music and your dick.”

“What?” says his father.

“Well, I mean,” rejoins his mother mockingly.

“So,” Patrick concludes, “you’re absolutely right, I do not spend Christmas with you. And now it’s time to—”

Someone clears their throat, and Patrick looks over his shoulder to find Pete standing sheepishly on the terrace with them. “Um,” Pete says. “Sorry.”

“Nope.” Patrick shakes his head. “Don’t be sorry. My parents were just leaving.”

“Oh, okay,” Pete says brightly. “Cool. Well. It was really nice to meet you—”

“Leaving to go do the gingerbread houses,” Patrick’s mother says gaily, and sails past him into the house.

“The what?” Patrick echoes blankly.

“Nice place you’ve got here, Trevor,” Patrick’s father says, shaking Pete’s hand.

“Uh, it’s Pete,” says Pete.

“Right. Pete. Sorry.” He steps past Pete into the house.

Pete looks at Patrick. “Did you used to date a Trevor?”

“I’m going to kill them,” Patrick says.

“Please don’t,” says Pete.

“No, I am. They heard ‘Christmas Magic’ and they saw dollar signs and now they’re like vultures and I’m so sorry.”

“Do not apologize. Are you serious? You’re here doing me a massive favor and look what you’ve gotten for it. I feel awful about all of this.”

“It’s not your fault,” says Patrick.

“I still feel awful,” Pete replies. “I think you should go back to Chicago.”

Patrick, distracted by the disaster of his parents’ existence, is startled by how completely this throws him for a loop. He…emphatically does not want to go back to Chicago. He wants to stay here with Pete, even with everything going on, and he didn’t know it so clearly until this moment. He says, “You want me to go back to Chicago?”

“No, I don’t want you to go anywhere. I want you to stay right here, with me, so I don’t have to go through the misery of Christmas by myself. But that’s very selfish of me, and you should go back to Chicago and be done with this whole mess I’ve made for us.”

Patrick considers. Then Patrick says lightly, “You coward, you want me to face my disappointed parents all alone?”

“Never,” Pete says quickly. “That’s not what I meant. I—”

“What are we doing next? Decorating gingerbread houses?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Then that’s what we’re doing. Decorating gingerbread houses.” Patrick closes the distance between him and Pete, takes his hand firmly. “Can we just make a deal that we’re both just going to ignore each other’s parents?”

“Can we make a deal that I’m going to steal us a bottle of liquor and we’re going to drink heavily in my room when this is over?” asks Pete.

“Yes,” agrees Patrick. “Excellent deal.”

***

Pete and Patrick stand with cameras trained on them and face a heap of gingerbread pieces, a pile of frosting, and a variety of gumdrops and M&Ms and licorice. On the other side of the kitchen, more cameras are trained on their parents. Patrick is watching them with dread.  

Patrick says, “What kind of liquor?”

Pete’s lips twitch with amusement. He says, “Good liquor.”

Patrick takes a deep breath and says, “Okay.” Then he pokes at the gingerbread pieces. “Have you ever made a gingerbread house before?”

“Ours were always professionally done.” Pete grabs some M&Ms, tosses them into his mouth. “Have you?”

“I am sure my parents are making up a heartwarming story right now about all the gingerbread houses we used to make together, but the answer is no, I have never done one of these before. Oh, I think this must be the chimney, right?” Patrick holds a piece up.

“Oh, yeah.” Pete takes it out of Patrick’s hand and says, “That’s not very important, then,” and bites the top of it.  

“Hang on, how is Santa getting down the chimney if you ate the chimney?” Patrick asks.

“You know what I just realized?” says Pete thoughtfully. “I don’t like gingerbread.”

Patrick laughs and goes back to poking at the pile of gingerbread pieces.

“Do you like gingerbread?” Pete asks him.

“I don’t even know. I don’t mind ginger, so I guess I like it. I’m not trying any because we’re supposed to be making a house here.”

“You can try the chimney,” Pete suggests, and promptly clamps what’s left of it between his teeth, so it’s extending outward a bit for Patrick to bite. The bite, of course, will take him in close proximity to Pete’s lips.

Patrick looks at him, looks at the positioned chimney, and gives him a smile that provokes a little zing of reaction in all of Pete’s nerve endings. Patrick’s got a cherubic smile that he can turn wicked and the way Patrick is everything all at once makes Pete’s mouth water.

Patrick leans forward and nibbles at the end of the chimney, mumbles, “Yeah, it’s good, I like gingerbread,” and then keeps nibbling all the way up until, just shy of Pete’s lips, he murmurs, “No kissing in a Christmas Magic movie until the very end.” Then he shifts to whisper directly into Pete’s ear, “And absolutely no sex, of course.”

Pete sways on his feet, light-headed, and by the time he manages to flutter his eyes open, Patrick has settled calmly into gingerbread-house construction mode, like nothing just happened. If it weren’t for the self-satisfied tilt to Patrick’s smile, Pete could have supposed he’d fantasized the whole thing.

Patrick says, “Here, pipe some of that glue frosting stuff between these two sections.”

Pete grabs the frosting bag and obeys blindly, saying, “You’re really into, like, a lot a lot of foreplay.”

Patrick chuckles, watching Pete’s gluing job. “I don’t know. Am I? I just…” Patrick’s eyes flicker to the cameras trained on them, and then he says, “Oh, fuck it, whatever. It’s been a while since I felt like I had something to really look forward to. It’s been a while since I felt like I just wanted to…savor every second of it.”

Pete, glue forgotten, stares at him. “Really?” he says.

“Can we not get into my dating drought with all the cameras watching us? Just finish gluing.”

“No, I just mean…I look forward to you, too.”

Patrick looks at him, and his smile is so soft and sweet, the apres-ski angel smile that Pete can’t believe actually exists on a human being. Patrick says, “It’s been a while since I enjoyed this part of it. So…thanks for that, I suppose.”

“I always want to enjoy this part of it,” Pete replies, “but I think this is the first time I ever really have. So, thanks for that.”

“I don’t think it’s like this very much,” Patrick remarks, placing more pieces of gingerbread into whatever arrangement he’s working on. “I think popular culture makes us think it’s like this more than it actually is.”

“I don’t know,” Pete says, marveling at Patrick, next to him, making a gingerbread house. “I guess you only need it to happen once, right?”

Patrick flickers a glance at him. “Spoken like the CEO of Christmas Magic,” he teases.

“You are very sexy with that gingerbread house,” Pete says. “Turns out Christmas Magic movies are onto something with gingerbread house construction, who knew?”

Patrick is the most delicious shade of pink. “Stop,” he says.

“Very sexy builder, you are. Architecture is hot.”

“I hope they broadcast all of this live on the internet so everyone can see how terrible you are at flirting,” says Patrick.

“I am the best at flirting, do not even slander me like that.”

“Can you help me tile the roof, please?” Patrick holds up some gumdrops.

“I can absolutely help you tile the roof, baby.”

“That’s not a euphemism.”

“Oh, it’s a euphemism, baby.”

“You can’t just make everything into a euphemism by adding ‘baby’ to the end of it.”

“You’re laughing.”

“I’m not laughing.”

“You’re totally laughing, you think I’m very funny and cute.”

“Yeah, do you want to go to prom with me?” asks Patrick archly.

“Totally.”

“You were fucking, like, prom king, weren’t you?” jokes Patrick.

Pete laughs because he knows he’s supposed to, then says, “No, actually, I didn’t go to my prom. I…” Pete tries to think of how to put into words the way he’d felt at that point in his life. “I wasn’t in the mood for it,” he decides captures it the most accurately he wants to say with all these cameras on him.

Patrick puts a gumdrop on his roof and doesn’t pursue that further, and really, Pete could not be any more in love with Patrick, he thinks. Patrick says, “Well, I did not go to mine because I was busy playing a gig.”

Pete tries to imagine seventeen-year-old Patrick playing a gig somewhere. “Really? Where?”

“It was the opening of a new carwash.”

Pete laughs. “It was a what?”

“Look, you take what you can get, okay?”

“Did they pay you in carwashes? Please tell me that there’s someplace in suburban Chicago where you have free carwashes for life.”

“You’ll have to marry me to get that benefit,” Patrick says, and it’s not even a moment of awkwardness there.

Pete just says, “Then I guess we’re getting married,” and Patrick just smiles at him, and Pete is so hopeless, just, so hopeless.

Patrick says, “Should we make the door out of Twizzlers?” so they do.

*** 

Patrick, impossibly, in spite of everything, had a really nice evening. He cannot remember the last time he had a nice evening with both of his parents in the same room together. He was maybe five years old. Or four. It was a long time ago, is the point. But he had a good time making a ramshackle gingerbread house with Pete. Pete has a well-developed sense of fun silliness and Patrick appreciates that. It’s surprisingly difficult to find someone who doesn’t think they should have grown out of that years ago. Pete is ridiculous, and if you’d asked Patrick what he was looking for in a mate, he might not have used that word, but now it’s really high on his list. Pete is ridiculous and it’s adorable and hot and Patrick didn’t mind his parents squabbling so thoroughly that their gingerbread house was a literal pile of rubble, and didn’t mind that next to it Pete’s parents managed to construct the goddamn Buckingham Palace of gingerbread houses. Patrick minded nothing because he was standing next to Pete.

Talk about Christmas magic.

How’s it going with your hk????? Vicky texts, the phone buzzing next to him on the bed in the palatial bedroom he’s been given.

Patrick doesn’t even know how to put it into words. Astonishing? Amazing? He didn’t think he could be so in love with another human being? He didn’t think stuff like this even happened? He texts back, Really good.

Oh Patrick coming from you that is head over heels language!!!!! Followed by a heart-eyes emoji.

Patrick rolls his eyes and is about to text back when Pete texts him instead.

Come to my room. Ive got really excellent bourbon here. 

Bourbon? Patrick texts back, smiling. Are you 87 years old? 

Shut up you want me to get you pabst blue ribbon???? Is the response.  

Patrick laughs out loud. He can’t help it. He texts back, I have no idea where your room is, this house is a fucking castle. 

Step outside your bedroom and look to the right, Pete’s text says.  

So Patrick rolls himself out of bed, grabs his laptop, opens his bedroom door, and peeks to the right. Pete is standing in the hallway, waving.  

Patrick steps out of his bedroom, heading down the hall to him. “Why didn’t you just come knock on my door?”  

“I wasn’t entirely sure which one was yours. Anyway, the texts were romantic.”  

“Romantic?”  

“Or something. This way.” The house really is a maze and Patrick is grateful that nobody is giving him a quiz on how to navigate it. But eventually they reach Pete’s goth bedroom again, with its partially-crushed bouquet of chrysanthemums set up on the nightstand, and, as promised, a bottle of bourbon in the reading nook by the window, in the middle of the messy piles of well-worn books and heaps of moleskines. Pete leads him over to the window seat and they settle into it. There’s a sense of midwinter rural darkness outside and just the dim glow of the lamp by the bed inside, and it’s incredibly cozy.  

Pete pours fingers of bourbon into cut-crystal glasses and hands Patrick one.  

Patrick says, “Is this how rich kids rebel against their parents?”  

Pete leans back against the opposite side of the window seat and tangles their legs together and laughs. “No. Rich kids rebel against their parents by drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon in red solo cups.”  

Patrick laughs and looks at Pete, who tips his head against the window and watches him back steadily. Pete is impossibly beautiful at all times, but he’s made for a cozy moment like this. Patrick finds his presence to be the human equivalent of a fuzzy blanket. Nice to have around, desirable to grab and pull on top of you. Patrick is aware of the way air between them thrums, a sensation against his skin like brushing a finger against a vibrating guitar string.

Patrick says softly, “I’ve got an idea for a date.”

Pete smiles. “Yeah? Are we allowed to come up with our own dates? I thought America had voted on them for us.”

“America is the worst at dating. That’s why I don’t date America.”

“Yeah, they never call the next day, they fucking suck,” agrees Pete.

Patrick says, “Do you want to write a song with me?”

Pete stills. He had been rubbing his socked foot absently against Patrick’s calf, and the soothing motion pauses. “What, now?”

Patrick holds up the laptop he brought with him. “No time like the present, right? I thought we could write a Christmas song, really knock everyone dead.”

Pete laughs a little. “What kind of Christmas song would I write? ‘Merry Christmas, I could care less.’”

“Don’t come home for Christmas,” Patrick suggests.

“You’re the last thing I want to see underneath my tree,” Pete continues.

“See, look at that, we’ve got a whole chorus already. I would have to write an emo Christmas song, I don’t know any other type of Christmas song, right?”

“Look at you,” Pete grins, “finally embracing your inner emo.”

“In exchange for you finally embracing your inner starburst,” Patrick proposes.

“I don’t know how to write a song with someone,” Pete says, like a confession.

Patrick shrugs. “We’ll figure it out.”

“Do you want the words first, or do you want to play me a song and I’ll try to fit words into it?”

Patrick considers. “It might be fun to have the words first. I’ve never composed like that before. Do you have any words?”

“Patrick.” Pete picks up the nearest moleskine, waves it around. “I am nothing but words.”

“Okay.” Patrick puts his bourbon on the windowsill and opens his laptop. “Let’s do this, then.”

***

Pete really is nothing but words, the pages of his journals are full of them, crowded with them, they seem to fly off his pen.

“They’re all totally unedited,” Pete says. “I mean, I don’t know. They’re probably all unusable.” He’s sitting in the middle of his bed, surrounded by notebooks that he’d collected from various places all over the bedroom, flipping through and discarding all of them. He looks anxious and uncertain and very young. Patrick feels like he can very clearly see the teenager Pete must have been, the one who didn’t go to prom, the one in an emo band.

Patrick says cautiously, where he’s still sitting on the window seat, “You don’t have to—”

“No, I want to,” Pete interrupts, sounding frustrated at himself. “I really want to, I just—I don’t know which words to give you, can you just take all of them?”

Patrick regards the piles of notebooks. “That…seems like a lot.”

Pete also looks at them. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I know, totally.”

And Patrick thinks back to their first date, not even a week ago (not even a week ago?) and on that date Pete suggested that everyone found him a little too much. Patrick doesn’t know when he decided to commit to an internal promise that he would strive never to find Pete too much, but it manifests itself firmly in that moment, in the impulse that drives Patrick to get to his feet and cross the room to the bed.

“Can I?” he asks for permission, and when Pete nods he sits on the bed with him and looks at the sea of notebooks. “I’ll just start,” he says, and plucks one up at random. These are your good years, don’t take my advice, you never wanted the nice boys anyway.

“I had some really bad breakups,” Pete says.

“So did I. At least you made poetry out of yours.” Patrick reads the lines over again, and thinks of Vicky telling him that nice boys weren’t always Patrick’s specialty, and he smiles.

“What?” asks Pete, suspicious, like his words could never make anyone smile.

Patrick reads the lines out loud, then says, “You are a nice boy, you know.”

“Not that nice,” Pete purrs, all flirt for a moment.

Patrick says, “You know what I mean. You are.”

Pete drops the flirt. “Is this you insisting on the starburst inside of me again?”

“More than one daisy,” Patrick agrees.

“Yeah, no, keep reading those notebooks and get back to me on that one.”

“‘I hope you dedicate your last breath to me before you bury yourself alive,’” Patrick reads aloud.

“See? Super-starburst-y.”

Patrick chuckles. “I don’t know, it sounds like someone who loves a lot.”

Pete rolls his eyes. “Okay.”

“Who loves a lot, and that means you get hurt.” That silences Pete. He looks across at Patrick, his amber eyes intent, and Patrick wonders if Pete’s thinking of how exposed he is to hurt right at this very moment. Because Patrick has been thinking it since practically the moment he met Pete. Patrick swallows and says, “I really admire that about you.”

Pete says, trying and not quite achieving sarcasm, “That I get hurt a lot?”

“That you imagine possibilities, even though that means you might be disappointed, you still see them. You’re—You’re—Like the possibility that some guy you heard play the piano one night might be worth talking to. I’m not good at possibilities.”

“That’s not true,” Pete protests softly. “You emailed me back, didn’t you? The strange dude who made you the subject of a national advertising campaign, like, you took a chance on that possibility.”

“You make me believe in possibilities in a way I usually don’t,” Patrick says. “Meanwhile I…wrap myself in my music and tell myself I don’t need anything more than that, and then I hide myself behind a drum set because I’m too scared I’ll be laughed off the stage as a lead singer of a band.” Patrick laughs self-deprecatingly. “Jesus, what a mess I am.”

“Patrick,” Pete murmurs. “You’re not a mess.”

“No, I am. I am. You think I’m chasing my dreams or something but I’m really not. I’m just hiding, all the time. Because the only possibilities I ever imagine are full of failure. Failing at a relationship, failing at my music.”

“You think I don’t imagine failure?” Pete asks. “Constantly? All the time? Because I do. Look at the notebooks full of angry words. Sometimes I get so depressed at what a failure I am that I can  barely get out of bed.”

“So then how do you do it?” Patrick whispers. “How do you reach out and try to grab someone again? How do you meet a guy in a piano bar and think in possibilities?”

“I don’t know,” Pete answers softly. “It’s just… No matter how many times I—One of them has got to come through, Patrick. I swear to God, one of them has to come through, and that’s going to be worth it. I always just keep thinking that someday, good things are going to happen, and happen, and happen, and they’re going to be magnificent.”

Pete is impossibly beautiful, and Patrick is so very lost. “When you say it like that, I think I believe it,” Patrick says.

Pete tips a smile at him. “I’ve been starting to believe it lately, too.”

***

Patrick doesn’t notice when Pete falls asleep. That’s how deep in the songwriting he is. He just knows that at one point he looks up from GarageBand to find him curled up, sound asleep, breathing deep and heavy. Oops, thinks Patrick, looking at him sleeping, and wonders what he should do. Well, first things first. He leans over and tugs a blanket up over Pete so he won’t be cold.

And then he brushes the back of his hand lightly over Pete’s hair. Pete scrunches his nose at the contact but doesn’t wake, instead turning more fully into the pillow he’s sleeping on.

Patrick whispers, “Sorry I’m really awful to write a song with.” And then, upon reflection, “Sorry I don’t really know how to date like a normal person. I hope I’m not doing too terribly.” Pete sleeps on. Patrick says, “You really are a nice boy. I can’t imagine you know this about yourself but you’re basically the nicest boy I have ever met, and you make me want you to be my specialty. Look at that, there’s a possibility for you. You feel like my possibility, and that the possibility of you makes everything else possible, and if I fuck this up I am never, ever going to forgive myself. So. How’s that for pressure, huh? So I’ve got this request, and if you’re just pretending to sleep right now so that I’ll tell you all these things, then I figure this is my opportunity to say it.”

Patrick falls silent and watches Pete. He doesn’t look like anything other than sound asleep. There’s not a twitch or an eyelid flicker out of place. Patrick says softly, “Please never stop looking at me the way you look at me. Like I’m something amazing. Like I could stand in front of an arena and lead them in song. Like I could have you. If you could keep that up, I would appreciate it very much, okay?”

Pete gives no indication of having heard any of this.

Patrick adds, “Also, you have terrible taste in clothes.”

Pete doesn’t react to that, either.

Patrick takes a deep breath and kisses his cheek very gently. He murmurs, “Emo starburst,” fondly into Pete’s skin.

And then he turns back to his song.

***

Pete wakes slowly and deliciously, and that’s so unusual for him, his relationship with sleep is always so fraught and complicated, he usually wakes up fretful and unrested, frowning and resentful. But he wakes now with the thought that he is perfectly comfortable, curled up, warm and toasty, and isn’t sleep wonderful.

He stretches luxuriously and opens his eyes, and, in a patch of bright sunlight streaming over the bed, there is Patrick, right next to him, sleeping heavily, slumped uncomfortably, half-sitting-up, his glasses askew on his nose and his laptop sliding off his lap into the scant space between him and Pete. At first Pete is surprised, and then he tries to recall the conclusion of last evening and can’t. All he can remember is Patrick sitting up next to him in bed, laptop on his lap, intently composing music while Pete watched and thought about how impossibly much he was in love with him. So he must have fallen asleep, and then Patrick also fell asleep. And that’s… That’s… Isn’t sleep wonderful, Pete thinks again.

Pete rescues Patrick’s laptop and also his glasses, placing them behind him on the bed to keep them out of harm’s way, and then he inches a little bit closer to Patrick. He’s not touching him – he doesn’t want to cross whatever invisible line is shimmering between them – but he’s close enough to feel the rhythm of Patrick’s breaths. Pete closes his eyes, still floating in the feeling of safe contentment he’d woken with, which now he can put a name to: Patrick.

Next to him, Patrick’s breath hitches suddenly, and Pete opens his eyes to see Patrick blinking at him blearily.

“What time is it?” Patrick asks, his morning voice rough.

“I have no idea,” Pete says. “Not time to get up yet.”

“No?” Patrick’s eyes fall closed again. “’S good. Sorry, I didn’t mean to crash in your bed.”

“I am not complaining,” Pete replies firmly.

“Hmm,” says Patrick, and slides down to lay more fully, stretched out next to Pete. “I feel like we just skipped several steps, jumping straight to ‘sharing morning breath.’”

“We haven’t shared any morning breath yet,” Pete points out.

“Mm-hmm,” murmurs Patrick. His eyes are closed, and Pete suspects he’s about to fall asleep again.

So Pete whispers very softly, half-hoping Patrick doesn’t hear it but unable to stop himself from saying it, “You’re really nice to sleep with.”

Patrick hears it. Eyes still closed, his mouth curves into a rueful smile. He says, “Really? Am I? And all I did was lay here.”

Pete knows Patrick is making a joke, and that probably a normal person would giggle about this, but Pete can’t help that he says seriously, “I don’t sleep very much. So this was nice, thank you.”

Patrick opens his eyes. He looks at Pete across from him on the pillow. He opens his mouth, then closes it. Then he tries again, managing, “Pete—”

Pete doesn’t want to have an intense conversation about his messed-up head and how it keeps him up all night like an asshole. So he says instead, “Is that really why you’re not the singer in your band? Because you’re scared?” Because that has honestly been bothering him since he saw the set.

Patrick, after a moment, says, “I get stage fright.”

“You don’t get stage fright at the bar,” says Pete.

“My stage fright is irrational.”

“Yeah, brains are fucking like that, aren’t they?” Pete says, trying not to leak bitterness all over the place. “Anyway, you are the most incredible singer, and you would be an incredible front man in a band, and I just wanted to make sure to tell you that.”

“I am no one’s idea of a front man,” Patrick says.

“I want to make some kind of Odysseus joke right now,” Pete replies.

“I wear glasses.”

“That’s allowed, you know. It’s not a rule that only people with perfect vision can become rock stars.”

“People who look like you become rock stars. People who look like me go behind the drum sets.”

“I tried to be a rock star. Trust me, I was not a success, because I cannot actually sing.”

“We’re quite the pair. Together we make one whole entire successful rock star,” Patrick notes drily.

“I guess we should stick together then,” Pete says, and really kind of means it, and hopes Patrick can see that.

“Yeah,” Patrick says softly, looking across at Pete with eyes that are incredibly bright in the morning sunshine. He says suddenly, “My dad’s a musician, too. He’s been one my whole life. I mean, of course he has, that’s how it works, music lives in your soul and it doesn’t—But he never… He loved his music more than he loved us, and it never even gave him anything. He never got anywhere. He never did anything. He just…spent his whole life loving his music more, and he doesn’t have anything to show for it.” Patrick takes a deep breath and meets Pete’s eyes. They’re curled nose-to-nose, Pete under his blanket and Patrick on top of the duvet. Patrick says, “I don’t want to end up like him. I don’t want to go nowhere with my music and I’ve dedicated my whole life to—You are the first time I’ve ever thought that I also don’t want to end up alone. You…” Patrick seems to run out of air, starts up again in a whisper. “You make me want everything.”  

“Good,” Pete says in a low voice. “That’s what you deserve.”

Patrick takes a shaky breath. “How do you not see how much you’re the starburst?”

Pete kisses him because he has absolutely no choice. Patrick is a lovely, gorgeous, too-good-to-be-true thing, and Pete kisses him because that kind of thing doesn’t come around very often, and how can you resist kissing a person like this? You can’t, you can’t, it’s impossible, Pete has no ability to resist.

Patrick kisses him back, and Pete sinks into the kisses, the heated back-and-forth of them, the scratch of Patrick’s stubble across his chin, the bite of Patrick’s teeth against his lips. Patrick is a good kisser, a little bit of an asshole about it in the best kind of way, and Pete really, truly can’t believe how well Patrick kisses him.

He crawls out of blanket to get on top of Patrick, to straddle him in the bed, to line up their erections through the scant layers of cotton they’re wearing and grind against him.

Patrick’s hands go to his hips, his mouth curls into a smile under Pete’s lips, tugging away from Pete’s tongue for a moment. He says, “Hey, there’s no sex in a Christmas Magic movie.”

“Is it sex if we both keep our underwear on?” Pete asks breathlessly.

Patrick laughs, just as breathless but sounding joyful, and Pete likes that, Pete kisses the laughter off his lips. Patrick mumbles, his hands caught up in Pete’s hair now, “Fucking—get us out of our underwear—I’m not—going to—in boxers—Jesus Christ.”

“I can make you come in your boxers,” Pete says thickly, dragging his tongue up Patrick’s neck.

Patrick gets his hands inside Pete’s boxers and it does make Pete reconsider his plan to not wait long enough to get out of them. “I have no doubt,” Patrick says, his hand the perfect amount of tightness, and Pete drops his forehead to Patrick’s shoulder, panting. “I just—”

There’s a knock on the door. Pete freezes and looks down at Patrick, sprawled underneath him, kiss-flushed, pupils blown wide.

“If we don’t say anything,” Pete whispers, “they’ll go away.”

“Pete?” his mother voice calls, and Pete feels like a goddamn teenager, what the fuck. Patrick pulls his hand out of Pete’s boxers like he was just caught with it in the cookie jar, looking aghast. “Is Patrick in there with you?”

“No!” Pete shouts back automatically.

“It’s just that his sister is here,” says Pete’s mother.

Patrick startles and sits up, tumbling Pete off him. “My what?”

***

Pete is out-of-sorts, and who can blame him? An hour ago he had Patrick’s hand on his dick, and now he’s standing outside in the freezing cold being taught the rudimentary basics of how to drive a one-reindeer sleigh. Merry fucking Christmas. Luckily there is no camera crew documenting this event. He’s supposed to be able to instinctively know how to drive a sleigh when the whole debacle gets broadcast later.

“There’s my brother,” Maeve remarks, striding up to the tableau. “Mr. Christmas himself.”

Pete rolls his eyes and allows himself to be hugged. “Whatever. When did you get here?”

“Five minutes ago. And I immediately came looking for you. Because. Peter Lewis Kingston et cetera. Tell me what the fuck is going on in that house.”

“A lot,” Pete says, and sticks his hands in the pockets of his coat. “Are we done here?” he asks the irritable man who was giving him lessons. Granted, he wasn’t the best student, but whatever.

The man grumbles something under his breath as he leads the reindeer away.

“Not Santa’s jolliest elf,” Pete tells Maeve, once the guy is out of earshot.

“People in sulk houses shouldn’t throw jolly stones,” Maeve replies.

“Well, that didn’t make sense,” says Pete.

“Pete, seriously, what is happening? That last time I talked to you you did not have a boyfriend.”

“I don’t really know if I have a boyfriend now,” Pete grouses.

“According to Mom, you have a film crew following you around to document the epic romance of your relationship.”

“They’ve turned my life into a literal Christmas Magic movie,” Pete complains.

“Is this about the stock plummeting thing? Did they hire some actor to play your boyfriend? Is he hot? Wait, did they go het?”

“It’s Patrick,” Pete admits.

“Patrick…?” Maeve lifts her eyebrows.

“Hot redheaded piano player.”

Maeve’s eyes widen now. “Pete. The guy you’re in love with and making out with in the viral video? He came back?” She gives him a playful shove. “Why didn’t you tell me? You are the worst brother ever.”

“It’s been complicated.”

“Of course it has, that’s your specialty.”

Pete scowls. “Why does everyone always say that?”

“Because it’s true.”

“I want to be simple,” says Pete. “I met a nice boy, I kissed a nice boy, this should be so simple, and instead I’ve got a camera crew following me around and America has voted on our dates.”

“How did the camera crew thing happen?”

Pete sighs. “Bebe says I need a redemption arc, and she isn’t wrong. And somehow she talked Patrick into it.”

“How?”

Pete sighs again. He squints over to the house through the day’s hazy non-sunshine. Somewhere inside that house, Patrick is dealing with the fact that now his sister has abruptly joined the festivities. He says, “Patrick’s being nice to me.”

“Does Patrick like you?” Maeve asks matter-of-factly.

Pete squirms. “I don’t know, he’s nice to me.” He starts walking toward the house because honestly, a camera crew is better than Maeve.

“Yeah, but does he liiiiiiiike you?” sing-songs Maeve, skipping after him.

“I—I don’t—He says he does. Whatever.”

“Whatever,” Maeve repeats fondly. “Pete. You met a nice boy who likes you. What more could you ask for on Christmas?”

“Socks,” Pete replies laconically.

“Do you like him?” Maeve asks.

“Oh,” Pete answers lightly, “I have never been so fucking in love in my entire life.”

“Pete,” Maeve says, sounding surprised, and stops him entering the house with a hand in his arm.

He sighs and turns to face her reluctantly.

“Pete,” she says, and now she sounds soft and concerned, like Pete just said he had a life-threatening illness. “I knew you liked him, but I didn’t know it was so—”

“Stop it,” he says. “I’m fine. It’s fine. It’s not a big thing. It’s, you know, it’s just, it’s whatever.”

“Does Patrick know?”

“Patrick knows more about me than he needs to know, frankly. And Patrick knows... I don’t know what Patrick knows right now. Half of our lives is for the cameras and the other half is...” Is feverish interrupted kisses. Is whispered bedtime confessions. Is songwriting.

“Okay,” Maeve says soothingly, and hugs him.

Pete hugs back hard this time.

“When do the cameras go away?” Maeve asks.

“Tomorrow,” Pete says into her shoulder.

“Okay. So tomorrow you should probably talk to Patrick.”

“I don’t know how to keep someone, Maeve. I don’t know how to act in a way that—”

“Pete, this guy got convinced to show up here and put his life on camera. I think he might want to keep you.”

***

Patrick is out-of-sorts, and who can blame him? An hour ago he had his hand on Pete’s dick, and now he’s sitting in a room bigger than his apartment with his mother, his father, his sister, his sister’s husband, and his sister’s two kids, and honestly, Patrick has never been in the same room as all of these people, ever. It is incredibly awkward. And Pete’s poor mom is trying to be a hostess and serving hot cocoa all around and for some reason the cameras think that this is what they should be capturing for posterity and Patrick can feel the close-ups on his horrified face when his sister says something like, “Wow, Dad, I bet Oscar wouldn’t be so wary of you if you ever came around to see him.”

And then his father says, “I’d come see him more often if you made me feel even the least bit welcome in your life.”

And then Patrick’s sister says, “When have I ever—"

Patrick says, “I think,” at the same time Pete’s mom says, “Why don’t,” and Patrick looks at her gratefully.

She finishes with, “Why don’t we play a game? I think we have cards around here somewhere. I wish I could find some toys for the kids but we don’t have little ones around anymore—"

The door to the terrace opens and closes and Pete walks in, followed by the woman who looks strikingly like him and who Patrick deduced, from Pete’s mom greeting her earlier, must be Pete’s sister. Patrick is so relieved to see Pete that he feels like he would crawl across hot coals to get to him. Luckily he doesn’t have to. Pete comes over and sits right next to him and leans over to kiss his cheek, murmuring, “How are you?”

“I would like to die now,” Patrick breathes back, pressing his nose against Pete’s cheek to cover the statement.

Pete chuckles and kisses his temple and draws back, saying under his breath, “Lucky you, I have it on good authority that this is literally the only thing I do well: charm people’s pants off.”

“Don’t charm the pants off my sister, please,” Patrick says.

Pete winks and turns to Patrick’s sister, extending his hand. “Hi. I’m Pete. Sorry I rushed off as soon as you came in, I had to learn how to drive a sleigh.”

“I’m Hannah,” Patrick’s sister says. “This is my husband Steve.”

“Cool,” says Pete, his smile wide and welcoming. “Welcome. And who are these important personages?” He sits on the floor, the better to be close to Patrick’s nephews, who look at him with cautious interest.

“Don’t worry,” someone says softly, sitting next to him. “He’s really good with kids.”

Patrick looks up at Pete’s sister, and says truthfully, “He’s really good with most people, in my experience.”

“Yeah, it is his talent. He doesn’t think it’s a big deal.”

“He’s wrong,” Patrick says immediately.

“He’s wrong a lot,” she replies, sounding amused. “I’m Maeve.” She holds out her hand.

“Patrick,” he says, shaking it. On the floor, Pete seems to have convinced his nephews to show him something on YouTube on their iPad. Hannah is directing them and smiling at whatever remark Pete is making, so Patrick thinks that’s a disaster that may have been averted. His parents and brother-in-law are still sitting stony and awkward but Patrick can’t do anything about that, and anyway, Pete’s mom seems to be running interference. Patrick says, “He takes after your mom that way?”

“Being wrong a lot?”

“No, being good with people.”

“Oh. Both of my parents, I think. Lots of socializing in this house.”

“Kind of the opposite in my house,” Patrick says, and turns from the tableau of his family to look at Maeve.

“Welcome to the Christmas Magic,” Maeve says drily. “How are you holding up?”

“It’s fine,” Patrick says. “It could be worse.”

“How?” Maeve asks curiously.

“I mean, I could be doing all this not with Pete.” Patrick’s not sure he meant to be so honest, but there you have it.

And it makes Maeve smile. “Good. I think that’s how Pete feels, too. Thank you for this, you know. I think, if you would have asked Pete, he would have said that he didn’t think he knew anyone who would help him out of the mess he made. So thank you.”

“I caused him the mess in the first place,” Patrick confesses. “This is kind of the least I could do.”

“This is definitely not the least, Patrick. This is more like the most.”

“Patrick,” Pete says, bringing Patrick’s attention over to him. “Your nephew agrees with me about Star Wars.”

“My nephew is five,” Patrick says.

Pete laughs and his mother asks something about what the kids will eat for lunch and Pete takes advantage of the lull to shift to sit at Patrick’s feet, leaning against his leg and looking up at his sister. “Maeve, meet Patrick. Patrick, Maeve.”

“We took care of that,” Maeve says.

“Did you learn how to drive a sleigh?” Patrick asks him.

“I’m going to get us killed,” Pete says.

“Us?” Patrick says in surprise.

“Oh, they didn’t tell you? It’s part of our romantic Christmas journey, Patrick. I’m going to take you on a sleigh ride.”

“There’s no snow,” Maeve points out.

“I think they’ll CGI it in,” Pete says.

“Are there seatbelts on this sleigh?” asks Patrick, alarmed.

Pete laughs. “We’ll wear helmets, how’s that?”

“The most romantic part of our Christmas journey would be if you don’t get us killed trying to drive a sleigh,” remarks Patrick.

“So,” Hannah says loudly, “Pete.”

Pete turns from Patrick to face her, while Patrick worries about what she’s about to say.

“Thank you so much for the invitation to spend Christmas with you. When Mom said we were going to spend Christmas with Patrick’s boyfriend’s family, I was delighted,” she continues sweetly. “Patrick never introduces us to his boyfriends, he’s a very private person.”

“Yeah,” Patrick mutters, glancing at the cameras.

“Well,” Pete says heartily, “we’re so happy you could come.”

“How did the two of you meet?” She sounds genuinely interested.

Pete says slowly, “You don’t know how we met?”

“Patrick doesn’t tell me anything,” she replies.

“I just mean—" begins Pete.

“Pete came into the bar where I play,” Patrick says, because that seems simplest and he doesn’t want to get into more than that. He wants it to be just that simple, honestly, and if Hannah somehow missed the whole complicated story of how they really met, then, Patrick can just pretend it really is that simple.

“Oh, that’s right, you still play music,” Hannah says vaguely.

“He plays the best music,” Pete says immediately. “I could not get him out of my head. He’s the best.”

“Anyway,” Patrick’s mother says, because she can’t bear to ever be talking about music for very long. “We’re very happy about this whole situation.”

“Us, too,” chimes in Pete’s mom.

“The matriarchs have spoken,” Maeve drawls. “You guys are as good as married now.”

***

There’s a corner of the house that Patrick thinks is deserted and he ducks into it to hide for just a minute, from the cameras and the awkward tension of his family interactions, and he puts his face in his hands and takes a deep cleansing breath, and when he puts his hands down instead of being all alone there is Pete’s dad sitting in a chair behind a desk.

“Oh,” Patrick realizes, and looks around himself. “This is definitely your office. Oops. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, it’s my hiding place, too,” he says kindly. “Can I do something for you?”

“No, no, I’ll just…” Patrick makes vague hand motions, like, go back out to my reality TV life.

“Sure I can’t get you a scotch?” he says, gesturing to the decanter on his desk. “I hear that next they’re going to film you and Pete decorating a Christmas tree together.”

“Okay,” Patrick says, “maybe just a quick drink.”

Pete’s dad quirks a smile. He has Pete’s mouth, generously amused. He says, “Have a seat,” as he pours the drink, and then hands it across to Patrick. “These are odd circumstances,” he says.

“A little,” Patrick allows, and sips his scotch. Pete’s dad does not have Pete’s eyes, and where Pete’s eyes are all warm and molten, Pete’s dad’s eyes are cold and laser-sharp and incisive, pinning Patrick in the chair. He takes a bigger sip of scotch.

“I don’t dislike you,” Pete’s dad says slowly.

Patrick has the sense this is high praise. “Thanks?” he says.

Pete’s dad chuckles. “I just mean that usually Pete brings home idiots. He has a weakness for…opportunistic strays, shall we say. You don’t strike me as being terribly opportunistic.”

“Because I’m a failure?” Patrick asks a little hotly. Maybe he’s a little sensitive about that, okay?

“Because you obviously actually care about Pete and keep hiding from the cameras,” Pete’s dad answers calmly.

Oh, thinks Patrick. “I’m still a stray, though,” he says.

Pete’s dad laughs again. “That’s okay. So is Pete.”

Patrick takes a deep breath. Maybe this is crossing a line and inappropriate but also maybe Pete has never had anyone to say this for him before. “Pete wants a lot not to be disappointing to you. I just wanted you to know how very much he wants to make you happy.”

Pete’s dad blinks, looking surprised. “Pete always makes me happy. Pete’s not disappointing.”

“That is definitely not what Pete thinks,” Patrick replies grimly.

“We just want Pete to be happy. That has always been difficult to achieve. He’s never been happy with anything we’ve ever done.”

“Maybe because they weren’t the things that were going to make him happy. Have you ever asked him what would make him happy?” asks Patrick.

“Trust me,” Pete’s father replies, “he has no idea what would make him happy.”

“I don’t actually think that’s true,” Patrick says evenly. “I just think that maybe he didn’t think you would listen to what he wanted, so there was no point in saying it.”

Pete’s father looks struck by that, like it’s never occurred to him.

In the silence that follows, Pete knocks on the door and says, “Um.”

“Oh,” his father says, a little dazedly, standing from the desk. “We were just… I was just leaving so you two can have the room. It was…nice chatting with you, Patrick.”

Pete watches his dad leave the room, and then looks at Patrick. “What does that mean? He said that funny.”

“I don’t know,” Patrick says, impatient and frustrated. “Why does it never occur to parents that what they could do is just support what their kids want? Instead of thinking that the key is that they have to know what their kids wants? You know?”

Pete regards him, leaning up against the doorjamb. “Is this about you or me?”

“Both of us.”

“Well, in the case of your parents, now that I’ve gotten to know them, don’t take this the wrong way but I think they’re so caught up in their own dramas where they and only they are the protagonists and everyone else is just, like, the B storylines, that you’ve just got to go off and be your own protagonist and fuck whatever story they’re writing in their heads about you, you write your own story, you know what I mean?”

Patrick stares at him. “That’s…actually pretty spot-on.”

Pete shrugs.

“You’re so good with people,” Patrick realizes. “I mean, I knew this, but you’re really good with people. You just read them well, and you know how to flatter them.”

“I’m not just flattering you,” Pete says immediately.

“I’m just saying that it’s a real talent and I don’t know if you give yourself enough credit for it. Also, your father says you make him very happy and he would like for you to be happy, too.”

“Yeah, well, he could, I don’t know, ask me what would make me happy,” mutters Pete.

“Yes,” Patrick agrees. “And, if you would like me to repay your favor just now, I think you’re not enough like your parents for them to understand how to make you happy, and so you’ve just got to go off and be your own happy, and don’t feel guilty about it, or apologetic, because that gives them the impression that you’re half-hearted. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, actually,” Pete says, blinking. “It does.”

Patrick feels like maybe he accomplished something. He puts his unfinished glass of scotch on the desk and gets to his feet. “Okay. So are we off to decorate a Christmas tree?”

“Yes.”

Patrick walks over to Pete. “And are you really going to drive us in a one-horse sleigh tonight?”

“One-reindeer sleigh, and I am going to be pretty damn sexy as I do it, if I do say so myself.”

Pete looks drolly ridiculous and Patrick can’t help but smile and flirt back. “Are you going to be wearing a Santa hat?”

Pete reaches out to run a finger along Patrick’s collar, skimming his skin. “Would a Santa hat do it for you, sparky?” He looks up at Patrick through his lashes.

It’s fucking devastating and Patrick wishes a fingertip on his chest wasn’t getting him hard right before they have to go trim a tree on camera. He says thickly, “Don’t wear a Santa hat, how’m I ever going to watch Rudolph ever again?”

“Santa hat and tie,” Pete says, “that’s totally what I’m wearing for you.” And then he drops his finger and the coquettish act and says abruptly, “Are you okay? This has been a lot. I want to make sure you’re okay.”

He says it with such simple and earnest concern, clearly the real reason why he showed up here in the first place, to check up on Patrick. “I’m okay,” Patrick says, but it’s as he says it that he realizes that he’s not. He’s absolutely emotionally exhausted. When he takes a breath, it’s shaky. He was handling this all much better when it was just Pete’s family dynamics in play.  

“You would not believe how much you can just let me handle this,” Pete says seriously. “I’m good with people, remember? It’s not effort for me. Whatever you need from me, I’m here for you.”

“Wow, you’re really good at this,” Patrick says, trying to joke. “I finally understand why people like to have significant others.”

Pete smiles, looking pleased. “Me, too, actually.” And then he moves in for a hug.

Patrick wasn’t quite expecting it, but he droops into it, his head against Pete’s shoulder, and he closes his eyes, and for a second he just is.

There’s the sound of jingle bells and a ho ho ho! from somewhere on the other side of the house.

“Is that Santa Claus?” Patrick murmurs.

“Honestly?” Pete replies. “Probably.”

***

It’s Santa Claus.

Patrick’s older nephew is delighted. Patrick’s younger nephew is screaming in terror that they let this monster into the house.

“Oh, dear,” Pete’s mom says, watching Patrick’s sister try to calm the kid down. “I thought hiring a Santa to come would be a good thing.”

Pete looks at his watch. Patrick’s sister has been here all of three hours. “When did you have time to organize this?”

“It takes no effort to get a Santa Claus.” His mother shrugs.

“Last-minute on Christmas Eve?” Pete is dubious.

“Alright, I may have used the name ‘Wentz,’” his mother admits.

“Uh-huh,” says Pete sardonically.

“By the way, everyone at the Santa rental agency is really rooting for you and Patrick, they think he’s such a nice young man.”

“Oh, my God,” says Pete.

“I think he’s a nice young man,” she continues.

And now Pete’s going to get a lecture about how he should try not to fuck this one up the way he usually fucks up everything about his life. “Can we not talk about this right now?” Pete begs.

“I know this is a tough day for you—”

“This isn’t a tough day for me—” Pete denies.

“—you hate Christmas—”

“I don’t ‘hate’ Christmas—”

“—I’ve never seen you smile so much on Christmas Eve.”

“That’s because we’re not surrounded by two hundred of our closest friends and investors yet,” Pete rejoins.

“That’s not true, you’ve just never liked Christmas. Blame it on the parties if you want, but you’ve never liked Christmas. You’ve never enjoyed it, you’ve always just sat in a corner and pouted, no matter what we did to try to appease you.”

“Hey, it looks like maybe I need to break things up here,” Maeve says sunnily, stepping in between them.

“There’s nothing to break up,” Pete says sullenly. “When the fuck can we decorate this goddamn Christmas tree and get that over with?”

***

The Christmas tree they picked out together looks tiny in the great room, barely the height of the fireplace hearth it’s sitting next to. Someone’s strung it all around with classy white lights. Bebe is setting out collections of ornaments for them to put on the tree, all perfectly matched, complementary colors of the season.

Pete looks at them and thinks he’s going to have a panic attack.

“Okay,” Bebe’s saying, “all you have to do is just, you know, put a few ornaments on the tree, maybe smile at each other a little bit. Just…be you.” She smiles at them brightly. “Be you decorating a tree. Happy fun times, right?”

Happy fun times, Pete thinks. He’s always such a goddamn failure when it comes to happy fun times. He always ruins all the happy fun times. Everyone always wants so little from him – just a smile for the camera, Pete! it’s a tree! It’s fun! – and Pete just can never deliver it, he tries and tries but he’s never what people want, not really, he--

“You okay?” Patrick asks him.

He is possibly going to vomit on their tree, he thinks. He’s cold and clammy and he knows a panic attack when it comes on, it’s like standing on the sand of the ocean when all the water’s been sucked away, knowing the tsunami is rushing up to you and what good would it do you to run?

Pete closes his eyes and says wetly, “Just one of these years I would like to go to bed and just sleep through fucking Christmas, instead of having to be a goddamn Christmas show pony. Fa la la la la la fucking la.”  

Patrick’s voice is so sharp that Pete feels it lash through the air. “Stop recording,” he says harshly, clearly to the camera crew, and then, maybe to Bebe, “He’s not doing this.”

“Is he going to faint?” Bebe sounds alarmed.

“Nope, he just needs air,” Patrick’s voice says, sounding very far away, and then Patrick’s hand is on his arm, searingly hot, and then Patrick is propelling him somewhere, and then they’re outside, and it’s very cold, and Patrick is saying, “Hey, what—” and Pete keeps his eyes squeezed shut, turns blindly into him, says desperately, “I don’t want to hate Christmas.”

“Hey.” Patrick’s voice is soft and sure. His arms come up and enfold Pete against him. “It’s okay. Whatever happened, it’s okay.”

“I didn’t go to my prom because I was too depressed,” Pete babbles. “It was a bad episode and I couldn’t—I couldn’t conceive of the energy it would take to get out of bed and get dressed and pretend to be happy for everyone, like, that’s what takes the energy. You’re so tired you just want to sleep for a million years but no one can leave you the fuck alone, everyone’s got to be like, ‘Smile for the cameras, Pete!’ and that takes so much energy. The idea of going to the prom and smiling for all the cameras felt unbearable. I couldn’t go.”

Patrick is silent for a second in the wake of this outburst, just breathing, and Pete hiccups for breath in his arms. Then he says, “Don’t worry, you didn’t miss much. I’ve heard from lots of people that proms are overrated.”

Pete swallows around the lump in his throat. “Everyone in the universe thinks you should be happy at Christmas. Everyone in this family, like, it’s practically our reason for existing. Especially when you’re a kid, everyone expects you to be happy, there’s so much pressure to be happy. I hear the word ‘Christmas’ and I think about sitting on the couch wanting to cry and instead having to smile and say ‘thank you’ for the gifts. Like, that’s what an asshole I am, Patrick. I would get showered with gifts and I hated them, I hated having to pretend, like, God, it’s so goddamn much fucking energy, Christmas, and it is relentless, it never goes away, it just keeps coming at you, over and over, you cannot avoid fucking Christmas. Every year Christmas comes and it doesn’t make me feel as happy as it makes everyone else and I just have to pretend and pretend and I fucking dread it. Even the years when I feel okay, I’m worried I don’t feel okay enough, that I just really don’t feel what everyone else around me seems to be feeling. That’s why I was in a bar drinking alone on Christmas Eve, Patrick. Because every year I freak myself out that I don’t feel like smiling enough to satisfy everyone, and I’m just so tired.” Pete stays with his face pressed tight against Patrick, because as long as he stays just like this, the rest of the Christmas-drenched world seems a little farther away. “So there you have it,” he says wearily. “Tell me again what a goddamn starburst I am.”

“Pete, you’re not a starburst because you smile all the time. That’s not what I mean when I tell you that. And I don’t want you to pretend with me. Okay? I don’t want you to feel like you need to spend the energy pretending. If you don’t feel like smiling right now, then you don’t have to fucking smile. I promise. I will never force you to smile when you don’t feel like it.”  

“But, Patrick, you deserve the smiles,” Pete tells him achingly. “You deserve every single smile in the universe, not a guy who can be handed the world on a silver platter and still feel dead inside.”

Patrick presses his lips to Pete’s head. “I will never make you smile when you don’t feel like it,” but I will always remind you that I’ll be right there with you, that I’ll never leave you, and that you will want to smile again, and that you are never going to be too much. Okay? I one-hundred-percent promise you.”

That sounds like a heady and impossible promise, but Pete accepts it greedily.

“Fuck Christmas,” Patrick says feelingly. “We never have to celebrate Christmas ever again. We never have to put all that pressure on one random day. We’ll celebrate Christmas any day we feel like it, any day we’re smiling, that’s Christmas.”

“You can’t just change when Christmas happens,” Pete says.

“If it would make you feel better, yes, I fucking can,” Patrick replies.

Pete’s never really had someone say anything like that to him before. Pete’s never had someone listen to a torrent of his too-much-ness and say, Cool, we’ll do it your way, whatever you need. The tight tense dread that had curled up in him when his mother reminded him that usually he’s a disappointing depressed mess on Christmas, that expectation that that cold darkness will rush back onto him, retreats a little, Patrick’s starburst beating it back.

“No pressure,” Patrick whispers into his hair. “No pressure.” Like a mantra.

And Pete feels better and better. No pressure. He just is who he is, and there is no pressure to that.

“Thank you,” Pete whispers.

“Dude, fucking anytime,” Patrick says, and it’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to Pete.

***

“We’re not trimming this tree,” Patrick tells Bebe, and that’s the end of that.

She says, “Okay,” warily, like she’s not sure where the boundaries are anymore. She looks at Pete, who looks exhausted and fragile and small, and Patrick wants to tuck him into bed and feed him chicken soup. Bebe says cautiously, “What about the sleigh ride?”

“I’m fine,” Pete says. “I’ll do the sleigh ride.”

Patrick looks at him. “You don’t have to—”

“I want to do the sleigh ride,” Pete says firmly. “I just don’t want to have to trim the tree.”

So they’re doing the sleigh ride.

Bebe has procured for Patrick a suit and tie, because Christmas Eve at the Wentzes is that kind of event. He eyes it and wonders what the rest of his family is going to wear, and then decides not to care. He’s got enough to worry about without their drama. Make yourself your own protagonist, he reminds himself, and in his movie, he’s not going to worry about his opportunistic family.

Vicky texts as he’s getting dressed. Merry xmas! Still over the moon for your boy????? There’s a heart-eyes emoji again, and then an eggplant, and then another eggplant. Vicky is not subtle.

Patrick picks up his phone and considers what to write back. They have just a few more hours of this nonsense, and then he and Pete can just…be. Be whatever they are going to be to each other. They can figure it out, away from the cameras, without all the pressure, when it’s no longer supposed to be the world’s most perfect Christmas.

Patrick can’t wait.

He writes back, tired of being on camera, but theres only a few more hours and merry xmas.

He gets a you can do it! gif in response of a mouse trying to eat a strawberry.

There’s a knock on the door, and Patrick glances at himself in the mirror. He’s respectable except for his tie not being tied, so he goes to answer the door.

It’s Bebe, who says, “Oh, hey. You look good.”

“I look like I’m playing dress-up,” Patrick grimaces. “I don’t wear suits.”

“Hey, at least you’ve still got a hat on, right?” Bebe starts absently tying his tie for him. “The perfect Christmas Magic movie boyfriend version of you wears suits. Listen, should I stop this? I can stop this.”

And could he and Patrick just run away, right now, and spend Christmas Eve cocooned in an empty motel room somewhere? “What, like, cancel Christmas?” Patrick asks.

“No, I can’t cancel Christmas. Patrick, this company’s entire raison d’etre is Christmas. We’ve got to have Christmas. But it doesn’t have to happen on camera.”

Patrick considers. “But Pete’s got to be here?”

Bebe nods and steps back, examining her handiwork on his tie.

She’s right, of course. They’d undo all the good they’d done by disappearing at this point. “If we’ve got to stay, then we might as well do it for the cameras.”

She looks at Patrick worriedly. “Is Pete okay? I don’t know him very well and I feel like all I’ve done is fucked up his life.”

Pete hates Christmas because he has to pretend, and your solution was to make him pretend even more, Patrick thinks, but that’s unfair; he went along with the scheme, too, after all. And he didn’t think it would get as confusing as it’s gotten, the real and the pretend all mixed up, no wonder Pete’s wound so tight. Patrick totally gets it.  

He says, “There’s only a few more hours to go, it’s going to be okay.” Maybe this is wishful thinking on his part, who knows.

Bebe, after a second, nods, totally willing to let Patrick tells her what she wants to hear.

Patrick goes downstairs, anxious. He should talk to Pete and make sure Pete’s okay with all of this. But Pete said he wanted to do the sleigh ride, so yeah, Pete must be okay, right?

Pete’s mother is in the foyer and hands him a peanut butter blossom, smilingly pleased with herself.

Patrick’s mother is in the foyer and fusses over his suit. “Look at you. I never thought your music would get you anywhere, and look where it’s gotten you. I was wrong. I’m very proud of you, Patrick.”

Apparently she seems to think that’s going to make him feel pleased. It doesn’t. Patrick says sourly, “I’d rather you were proud of me for me and not who I’m fucking.”

His mother makes a soft shocked noise. “Patrick.”

“Okay, here we go,” Pete interrupts with perfect timing, and smiles sunnily at Patrick’s mother and whisks Patrick away.

“Thank you,” Patrick whispers meaningfully.

“Anytime,” Pete replies.

They’re being driven to the top of the driveway, which is ridiculous, but that’s how long the driveway is. So they sit in the back of the car together and Patrick says, “We are the two prickliest people to be chosen to demonstrate Christmas magic.”

“Ho ho ho,” Pete says. And then, “Remember, you’re just her B story. Be your own protagonist.”

“And you’re supposed to grab your own happiness,” Patrick reminds in return. “So tell me: do you want to grab it and just keep driving right now and not do the rest of this?”

Pete considers for a moment. “I realize we’re being shuttled up to a one-reindeer sleigh I’m supposed to escort us to the detested Christmas Eve gala in, but…I actually do feel happy right now. Like, not about all this nonsense, but I’m happy I’m here with you. I really am. For whatever reason, it doesn’t feel like effort and I don’t have to pretend. I was getting ready for this and I realized I was weirdly looking forward to doing all of this with you.” Pete reaches for Patrick’s hand, squeezes it. “I don’t know. This may change at any time because I’m an asshole like that, but for this moment, for the time being, I’m really happy.”

Patrick doesn’t know what to say except, “Me, too.”

Pete smiles. “Was that, like, the cheesiest Christmas Magic movie thing to say? I’m embarrassed.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” says Patrick, and gives in to his desire to kiss Pete, just light and sweet. He murmurs against his lips, “Also, that’s not why you’re an asshole.”

Pete laughs, as the car pulls to a stop by their sleigh. “I just want to tell you that you look very handsome. Lucky me, I got the best Christmas Magic movie hero of them all.”

Patrick feels himself blush. He grumbles, “Stop being ridiculous and drive this stupid sleigh.”

Pete laughs. “I’m not sure that’s going to be conducive to my not being ridiculous.” He gets out of the car.

So Patrick follows suit.

And it’s not a sleigh, of course, because there is no snow on the ground. It’s a wagon. Rickety and rundown. It smells very strongly of manure, which Patrick suspects was its previous job. A hasty bright red blanket has been tossed over the contents in the back, and, actually, Patrick suspects that there really is manure back there.

Pete is clambering up into the driver’s seat of the wagon.

Patrick says, “Did they really stick us in a wagon full of shit?”

Pete grins at him. “Totally appropriate for our Christmas Magic movie, don’t you think?” Pete picks up the Santa hat laying on the seat next to him and plops it on his head, beaming like he’s a Chippendale dancer and it’s a bowtie.

“That’s not hot,” Patrick tells him.

Pete laughs. “Get up here,” he says, and holds out his hand to help pull Patrick up.

Bebe comes from out of nowhere, with a fuzzy fleece blanket that she tucks around Patrick’s lap. She’s saying, “Again, thank you so much for all of this, I’m so sorry, it’s just a little while longer.”

“It’s fine,” Pete says, “Bebe, honestly, I don’t think I’ve been appropriately grateful. I think you saved my career for me with all of this, and thank you for that.”

Bebe pauses in adjusting the blanket and looks up at Pete. She says, “Well, to be fair, I was the reason your career was almost destroyed in the first place.”

“You’re also the reason Patrick is here,” Pete rejoins sunnily, “so you’re coming out ahead so far. And I can totally be Pete Wentz for the cameras for a few more hours, I’m an expert at playing that version of Pete Wentz.”

Bebe pauses, then says, “Well. Thank you.” She clears her thoat. “We, uh, want people to think this is a very romantic sleigh ride.” Bebe pauses as Pete and Patrick both look at her. “Wagon ride,” she corrects herself.

“We are literally transporting shit at this moment,” Pete points out.

“Yeah, I’m depending on your acting skills. Just keep looking lovesick at each other, it’ll work. We’re only taking wide shots, so we won’t be able to hear you.”

“We don’t look lovesick at each other,” Patrick says.

“Yes, we do,” says Pete, and then, “Watch this,” and he slaps the reins.

Nothing happens.

“The reindeer is supposed to move,” Pete explains.

“Yeah, I got the general idea,” says Patrick.

“We’ll get the reindeer started,” Bebe says, and gestures someone over. The reindeer-handler, Patrick supposes.

The reindeer-handler slaps the reindeer’s ass and the reindeer jerks forward, taking the wagon with it, and Patrick grabs for the wooden bench he’s sitting on to keep from tumbling backward into the manure.

“Oh, fuck,” he says, hanging on for dear life. “Bebe, if I die during this, tell Vicky I really will haunt her like I always promised.” He has to shout the last, because the wagon is moving so quickly, Bebe is far behind them.

“You’ll be fine!” Bebe shouts back to him.

“We’ll be fine,” Pete says confidently. He looks very relaxed, barely holding the reins, while the reindeer stomps down the driveway, the jingle bells on its harness keeping time.

“Something tells me you are well-acquainted with promising people that madcap ideas will turn out fine.”

“Madcap,” Pete echoes. “I like that word, use it again.”

“Madcap, noun, illustrated with a photograph of us sitting in this wagon behind a reindeer.”

Pete laughs. The reindeer snorts and keeps plodding down the driveway.

Patrick considers what a good job Pete is doing driving this one-reindeer wagon.

Pete says, “I am doing a pretty good job driving this one-reindeer wagon, wouldn’t you say?” He sounds very smug.

“Nope,” Patrick replies.

Pete laughs again. He nudges their shoulders together. He says in a low voice, “I am a spoiled rotten bastard who can’t get out of bed some mornings no matter how awesome and lucky I have been in life.”

“That is not what depression is,” Patrick responds, just as softly.

“I just want to say again – because for me it can never be said enough -- that you really have made me incredibly happy. On Christmas. And if my head fucks me over tomorrow and I forget how you make me feel, I’m hoping you won’t forget. That I’m super-happy you’re here, Patrick. Like, that’s what I meant to say before when I said I was happy. All of that.”

Pete shrugs like it’s all nothing, and Patrick murmurs, “Hey, can you take your eyes off the road while you’re driving this wagon thing?”

“It’s a driveway,” Pete says, “and the reindeer’s been trained, so yes, I’m not really doing anything impressive.” He looks at Patrick, meets his eyes.

And Patrick is aware of the act of bravery that is, for Pete to say everything he’s said, to be as vulnerable as he’s been, and to meet it head-on. “You are the bravest person I’ve ever met,” Patrick says suddenly. That wasn’t what he was planning to say but it feels apt and undeniable.

Pete smiles the small and self-deprecating version of his smile. “Because I’m letting a reindeer decide where this wagon should go?”

“No,” Patrick answers gravely. “Not for that. I want you to teach me how to be half as brave as you.”

Pete is silent for a moment, studying Patrick’s face. And then he says, “Well, I’ve got news for you, sparky. You’re about to attend the Wentz Christmas Eve Gala. Gather all of your courage.”

***

The Wentz Christmas Eve Gala contains a glittering array of the fanciest assemblage of people Patrick has ever witnessed outside of a film.

“It’s like a freakin’ Gossip Girl party,” Hannah comments.

Or a television show, Patrick supposes.

“Except it’s kind of a boring party,” Hannah continues. “Do you think they’ll play the Macarena later? Spice things up?”

There’s a small coterie of instruments in the corner crooning very traditional Christmas songs.

“Do you think they would know what the Macarena was if you went and requested it?” says Hannah. “Aren’t you the golden boyfriend? Go and request the Macarena, see what happens.”

“Look,” says Patrick, “the one redeeming feature of this party is that it doesn’t have the Macarena.”

“Ah, I notice you didn’t dispute the golden boyfriend thing.”

Patrick sighs. “I’m not the golden boyfriend.” He is far from it. He is an awkward curiosity at this party. Everyone is furtively or not-so-furtively staring at him. He and Pete started the evening together, and Pete shone so brilliantly, so charming and winning to everyone he spoke to, that Patrick felt he was just weighing him down, and went in search of more of the Christmas punch that was being served, and promptly got cornered by Hannah.

“For what it’s worth, I like him. Although it’s not worth anything because you don’t care what the rest of us think.”

“I care what you think,” Patrick says half-heartedly.

“So what was the reason you didn’t tell any of us about your hot, rich boyfriend, then?”

“Look at me. Why do you really think I didn’t tell you about him? How long do you really think this is going to last?” He knows what Pete thinks about how he feels, but, come on, Patrick is trying to cling to realistic expectations here.

“You’re staying with his parents for Christmas, Patrick. I’d say it’s pretty serious.”

“I’d say it’s at least fifty percent marketing gimmick,” Patrick corrects.

“What?” Hannah asks blankly.

“Seriously, do you live under a rock?” Patrick demands.

“I’ve got two kids five and under and a full-time job, Patrick. A real full-time job.”

“Right,” Patrick agrees. “Unlike me. That is definitely my cue to go and find Pete, I saw Mom and Dad bickering over near the bar area, you can totally go and join in the debate over how unsuitable music is as a career.”

“Patrick, don’t be like that,” starts Hannah.

“Merry Christmas, Han,” Patrick says, with a little salute, and ducks into the crowd.

The problem is that he has no idea where Pete is. He’s not in the general area where Patrick left him, so Patrick steps back, out of the fray, scanning the crowd for Pete. This is when it would be useful if either one of them were taller, he thinks, frustrated.

Patrick texts Vicky: Help, I’m lost in a crowd of fancy people.

Vicky texts back, Where’s the hot kajillionaire you’re dating?

Then the hot kajillionaire shows up. Pete stands in front of him in his tuxedo with his ridiculous Santa hat still on his head and looks very hot indeed and says, “Um.”

“Hi,” Patrick says, relieved. “I couldn’t find you. Here’s your punch.”

Pete takes the punch automatically, saying, “Did you purposely stand under the mistletoe?”

Patrick looks up. “What the fuck, is that actually mistletoe? Who the fuck has actual goddamn mistletoe, Pete, I’ve never seen that in my fucking life!”

“It’s a Christmas Magic party, Patrick, of course we have mistletoe. Now I have to kiss you and literally every single person at this party is waiting for it.”

“Don’t use tongue,” Patrick warns.

“Patrick,” Pete says, softly fond, and then he leans over and kisses the very corner of Patrick’s mouth, more his cheek than anything else, a sweet brush of a kiss across Patrick’s skin. He lingers there just a second, pressing his nose against Patrick’s cheek briefly, and that’s weirdly what undoes Patrick, whose breath catches in his throat.

This fucking CEO guy, Patrick thinks, stunned and dizzy. This fucking CEO guy kissing his cheek under the mistletoe in front of hundreds of eyes and a camera crew -- for some reason Patrick is completely overwhelmed by this. Patrick fists a hand into Pete’s velvet lapel and tugs his lips against his. No tongue, but a mouth-to-mouth kiss. Patrick feels like he needed that.

“Mistletoe isn’t satisfied by a kiss on the cheek,” Patrick murmurs into the scant space between him and Pete, because neither of them has really moved away.

“Oh, now you know all the rules about mistletoe?” Pete jokes.

“These are my own made-up mistletoe rules,” Patrick says.

“I approve. And because I’m the Christmas CEO, that makes them official rules.” Pete grins, quicksilver, followed by an equally flashing kiss, and then he takes Patrick’s free hand and tugs him directly into the crowd of onlookers. “This way,” he throws over his shoulder, and then leads them this way and that, zig-zagging through, with a determined sense of purpose. People call out to them and Pete acknowledges with brief pleasantries, and then abruptly they come through the other side of the crowd, and then immediately outside.

The cold air feels like a slap in the face, waking Patrick up. “Oh,” he can’t help but exhale, a little dizzy from how quickly everything just happened.

“I’m an expert at getting through a crowd in order to make my exit,” Pete explains. “I have perfected it over many years of Christmas Eve Galas.”

“And this is where you go?” Patrick looks around the dark terrace.

Pete shrugs.

“Nobody looks for you here?”

“Maeve does. Nobody else really cares.”

“I can’t believe that’s true,” Patrick points out. “You’re a tremendous hit, I’ve been watching you charm everybody all evening. I know you don’t think so but you’re incredibly good at what you do.”

“So are you,” Pete rejoins.

“Touche,” Patrick allows.

“And I’m a hit because you’re next to me,” Pete says, coquettish, crowding into Patrick’s space.

“Well,” Patrick says, as he gives himself the early Christmas present of an ample handful of Pete, “I guess that makes two of us.”

“Two of us?”

“My mother is very proud of me because you’re next to me.”

Pete huffs impatiently. “The one thing I want for Christmas this year is for everybody to see how amazing you are.”

And that is so expectedly Pete, it’s everything Patrick’s heard out of Pete all along, but still, he says stunningly lovely things like that like they’re nothing, and Patrick is always left wishing he had half of Pete’s words to repay the favor with.

Instead of Patrick coming up with something incredibly sweet to say to Pete, someone clears their throat, stepping out onto the terrace with them. Patrick looks up to see Pete’s dad.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he says, “but I believe it’s time for a toast.” He smiles at Pete. “Your favorite time of the evening, I know.”

Pete makes a face at Patrick and says, “I’ve got to be merry and cheerful. You should go stand under the mistletoe so I can get another kiss when I’m done. Give me something to look forward to.” He grins, bright-eyed and adoring, before stepping away and into the house.

Pete’s dad says, “I’m only going to steal him for a second. I have been trying to pay attention to what makes him happy.” Pete’s dad sends him a secretive smile, so like the way his son smiles sometimes, followed up by a little wink, and then he also goes inside.

The answer Pete’s dad has arrived at is clear: Patrick. Patrick is what makes Pete happy.

Patrick wants to text Vicky. Help, I’m so in love. But Vicky would just say something like tell me something I don’t know.

Patrick goes inside, where he can see Pete making his way to the small stage occupied by the band. He’s being pulled in for little conversations the whole way there, tugged into handshakes and hugs, and Pete has quick smiles for all of them, a few little words, and Patrick thinks how Pete really is so good at this and doesn’t even realize it, thinks the opposite of himself. If Pete would just trust himself a little more, Patrick thinks Pete might be able to relax more.

Pete clambers onto the stage and greets the musicians and then makes a motion with his hands for quiet, the room growing obediently hushed all around him. He commands attention. If Patrick commanded attention the way Pete commanded attention, he wouldn’t hesitate to front his own band, Patrick thinks drily.

Pete says into the microphone, “It’s that time of year again. Time for my annual toast.” And then he falls silent. For long enough that there’s a little murmur in the crowd and Patrick wonders if something is wrong. Then Pete starts talking again. “Usually I write the toast out, because if I don’t write things out first, I end up just pointlessly rambling, and I never get to the point, and I feel like that’s a metaphor for my entire life so far: I’ve felt like I couldn’t find the point. And I tried, trust me, I tried, really hard, even though I know that it looked like most of the time I wasn’t doing much of anything at all. But I was always trying to figure out…how to be like everyone else. How to be happy. How to find the thing that makes you smile at Christmas. Because, you see, for most of my life I’ve never been able to smile at Christmas. Christmas was a grand, magnificent lie, when you had to pretend to get everything you wanted under the tree, when the thing you wanted was…”

Pete pauses, looks out over the crowd, finds Patrick’s eyes. “What am I even rambling about? What I’m trying to say is that someone told me recently that…that Christmas isn’t about this one day. Christmas should be every day. We should give each other the amount of love and affection we carry around on Christmas just, like, all the time.”

Pete takes a deep breath, keeps going. “Someone said to me recently…that I didn’t have to pretend. That I could just be me. No pressure. Just me. And I wouldn’t be too much. And he said that and I thought…that’s what Christmas should be. I kept asking for scooters and videogames and records, and that’s not what Christmas should be about.” Pete pauses. “Okay, maybe it should be a little bit about the records.”

There’s a little ripple of laughter over the crowd. Patrick doesn’t laugh because he’s too busy holding Pete’s gaze, dry-mouthed.

“But no,” Pete continues, sounding firm and sure, “Christmas should be… It should be the people you love, gathering around, exchanging presents that mean I love you just as you are. No pressure. Just as you are. You won’t be too much. And if that’s what Christmas is, then it should definitely be Christmas every day. We shouldn’t be selling one day a year. We should be selling this every day. I feel like… I feel like I could be saying this for the cameras but I’m actually not, I just… I think I finally get what Christmas is supposed to be. It’s finding a space where you can be emo, with someone who still believes you’re a starburst.” Pete smiles over the heads of all the people attending this fancy party, smiles right at Patrick, just for him and him alone. When he leans close to the microphone and speaks, it sounds intimate and impossibly sweet. “The true meaning of Christmas was an emo starburst all along.”

The crowd looks between them, not quite getting what Pete’s saying and also obviously aware that it’s not really for them.

“Merry Christmas,” Pete says, lifting his glass, “to all of you, and to Patrick, who’s so much more than he realizes.”  

“Merry Christmas,” the crowd repeats, and Patrick stands frozen on the edge of the crowd. Patrick thinks of Pete, doing all of this, making it through all of this, year after year, feeling alone and unseen and still being brave enough to just keep doing it. Pete, who seems to think he’s something amazing and remarkable when Pete the amazing and remarkable one. But Pete thinks Patrick is so much more, Pete thinks Patrick should be his own fucking protagonist, Pete…Pete thinks a lot of extraordinary things about Patrick and suddenly, abruptly, like a strike of Christmas magic, Patrick wants to deserve all of them.  

The way Pete looks at Patrick makes Patrick feel like he can do anything. So maybe he should start trying.

Patrick starts pushing through the crowd.

***

Pete meets Patrick shoving his way toward him and says, “That was supposed to be eloquent, that was supposed to be me saying—”

Patrick takes Pete’s face in his hands and kisses him hard. There’s tongue involved. It’s very good and very inappropriate.

“Oh, wow,” Pete says faintly, when Patrick moves back.

“I want to be the person you see,” Patrick says. “I want to be the person worthy of all that wild devotion. That’s who I want to be. I want to be that person.” Patrick is out-of-breath, like he’d just run a mile.

“You are that person,” Pete assures him, perplexed. “I promise, you—”

“No,” Patrick cuts Pete off, shaking his head, and then he climbs onto the stage. “Can I play a song?” he asks the piano player.

Pete is dimly aware of the cameras rolling in the background. He says, “Patrick, you don’t have to—”

“This is for you,” Patrick tells him, sitting at the piano.

“Right, that’s what I’m saying, you don’t have to—”

“I wrote this for you, and I didn’t know what I was going to do with it, and this is what I’m going to do with it.” Patrick cracks his knuckles and clears his throat and plays a couple of chords on the piano.

Pete wants to protest again but he also kind of wants to hear whatever this is going to be. He’s a little selfish, sue him. The crowd is buzzing with anticipation, they’ve never witnessed such an interesting Wentz Christmas Eve gala before.

Patrick says into the microphone, “Imagine that this starts with jingle bells, it’s supposed to have jingle bells.”

The crowd hushes, and Patrick sings. And it’s a fucking emo Christmas song. Patrick has written him an emo Christmas song, using his words. “These are your good years, don’t take my advice, you never wanted the nice boys, anyway,” sings Patrick, and Pete stares, open-mouthed, listening to Patrick’s incredible voice making his words sound beautiful. “All I want this year’s for you to dedicate your last breath to me before you bury yourself alive,” sings Patrick, and Pete’s eyes feel suspiciously wet, he might be fucking crying, okay? “Don’t come home for Christmas, you’re the last thing I wanna see underneath the tree,” sings Patrick, and looks directly at Pete when he sings, “Merry Christmas, I could care less.”

Honestly, it’s the most beautiful thing Pete has ever heard.

And it’s his.

When Patrick is finished, he stands and bows a little awkwardly, and while the rest of the room is applauding, Pete is busy burying himself in Patrick’s arms. “Oh, my God, that was the most romantic thing that has ever happened,” he says damply into the curve of Patrick’s neck.

“Did you like it?” Patrick asks hesitantly, like there’s any fucking chance Pete didn’t adore it.

“I have a confession to make,” Pete says, and lifts his head up. “You really, really, one-hundred-percent just made me believe in Christmas magic.”

Patrick gives a relieved laugh.

“No, seriously,” Pete insists, “who’s going to get a better gift than that? No one, ever, not in any Christmas past, present, or future.”

“It wasn’t that good,” Patrick says, blushing beautifully.

“It was fantastic,” Pete assures him.

And then he doesn’t get to say anything else because everyone else is descending upon them. Maeve says, “That was the most perfect song to play for my brother, that was him to a T,” and Pete’s mother says, “It sounded just like when Pete was a teenager,” and Patrick’s father says, “When did you write that? What a pretty little tune,” and Patrick’s mother says, “I didn’t know you could sing like that,” and Patrick looks a little overwhelmed.

And Pete thinks that he just got everything he wanted for Christmas.

***

It’s late on Christmas Eve, and the last of the guests have gone. The camera crew has gone. Bebe has gone, with a tight hug and suspiciously misty eyes.

Pete is standing in the empty foyer with his parents and Maeve. All around them is the detritus of the party and the steadily glowing Christmas decorations. Somewhere in the house Patrick’s family has already settled into sleep, and in the other room, a few tinkling piano notes sound. Patrick, waiting for him.

Pete stands in the middle of Wentzes and, for the first time in a long time, doesn’t feel like running and hiding.

His mother hugs him suddenly, tight and fierce, and says, “We only ever wanted for you to be happy. Didn’t you know that? I’m sorry you didn’t know that. Everything we did was because we were hoping to make you happy.”

“Patrick says maybe we should start listening to you about what would make you happy,” his father adds.

“He’s like a wise little leprechaun,” says Maeve.

“With a beautiful voice,” adds his mother thickly, still hugging him tightly.

“He does have a beautiful voice,” Pete chokes out. “Also I need to breathe.”

“Merry Christmas, Pete,” his mother says, and kisses his cheek.

“No, seriously,” his father says somberly, “Merry Christmas.” The words land heavily, like they actually mean something, like they’re not just what Wentzes say because it made them a kajillion dollars.

Maeve says, “He gave you an emo song for Christmas, like, Pete.”

“No, I know,” Pete agrees, nodding frantically.

“Merry Christmas,” Maeve says, and hugs him, less tightly than his mother had but no less warmly. “I love you very much.”

“I love you, too,” Pete says into her shoulder. “And thank you.”

“For what?”

“I promised you I wouldn’t let him go if I ran into him again. And that’s the whole reason I emailed him. And…look.”

“And this is why you should always listen to me, always, without question,” Maeve informs him.

“Go to bed,” Pete says, and watches his family go up the stairs before heading back into the great room.

Patrick is still at the piano. His playing has formed the shape of a song. O Holy Night. Pete wishes he was singing along, because he bets Patrick sings the most gorgeous rendition of this song.

Pete brushes his hand along the Christmas tree they chose, standing still undecorated except for the lights. He breaks off a little sprig of pine that he tucks into Patrick’s hat as he reaches him, a festive dose of green with tinsel clinging stubbornly to it.

Patrick stops playing and says, “Hi.”

“Don’t stop on my account, that was beautiful.” Pete sits next to him on the piano bench.

“Not a song I play much at the bar,” Patrick says. “But a really pretty song.”

“Patrick,” Pete says, looking at him, and then falters, because he honestly doesn’t know what else to say. Patrick is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. Patrick is… Patrick is magic. There is no other way to put it. “You are magic,” he says.

Patrick shakes his head a little. “I’m just a kid from Chicago who’s not successful enough to live alone and has a terrible roommate named Jake who never washes any dishes,” he replies in a low voice. He lifts a hand up to brush through Pete’s hair, and Pete could swear it was trembling. “Who fell for a hot kajillionaire.”

Pete smiles. “Hey,” he murmurs, and leans forward to mouth along Patrick’s jawline.

“Hmm?” Patrick says, tipping his head for him.

“All I want for Christmas is your dick,” he whispers.

“Oh, my God,” says Patrick, laughing, “you are the worst.”

“Christmas magic, yo,” Pete says, nipping at Patrick’s Adam’s apple. Patrick’s hands are fully in his hair now, and he’s shaking with laughter against him, and Pete has literally never been so happy, it’s astonishing.

“Well, it’s a good thing that’s all you want, because that’s all I’ve got for you,” Patrick rejoins.

“Don’t say that’s all you’ve got, it feels like a lot,” Pete purrs at him, hands in appropriate places. “But also, shut up, you got me a gorgeous song for Christmas. I’m the one who got you nothing.”

“You got me you,” Patrick says, and then sucks in a breath, like he didn’t mean to really say that.

And that was all for Pete, Pete thinks. That was no cheesy line for any cameras. Pete, near enough to kiss Patrick, breathes against him for a moment, trying to regain his equilibrium. Finally he says, “O Holy Night, huh? I can think of a couple of relevant holes.”

“Do you want to get laid tonight?” Patrick asks.

“Yes,” says Pete.

“Stop talking,” says Patrick.

Pete smiles and kisses him. And kisses him. And kisses him. On a Christmas Eve that’s turning into a Christmas morning, surrounded by the fifteen perfectly decorated Christmas tree and one small, imperfect one shoved in a corner, all of them glowing Christmas blessings all over them. Pete is kissed and kissed, not because of mistletoe, but because he’s Pete, and Patrick is Patrick, and on any day, not just Christmas, they would have ended up here. Here and here and here, Pete thinks, leading Patrick through the darkened house to his room, pausing for kisses in stairwells threaded with garland, in little alcoves with creepy Santa statues, in forgotten corners with fake snow heaped up, against doors with scratchy, shedding wreaths.

In his room, on his bed, he undresses slowly, like it’s something new and rare and should take time, like there’s no objective beyond the hushed moment they’re in.

Patrick says, sounding punched, “Look at you. You’ve got…tattoos.”

Pete looks down at his chest. “Did you not know that?”

“If I’d known that I don’t think I would have let you keep your shirt on so much,” Patrick says, and rolls Pete onto his back so he can stretch over him and kiss his smile. “What happened to your Santa hat?” he mumbles. “You lost it.”

“Dude, it’s our first time, can we save the complicated kinks for later?” Pete asks, pulling Patrick’s tie off of him.

“A Santa hat is complicated?” says Patrick, and then his eyelashes flutter when Pete lightly wraps the tie around his wrist.

“Hmm,” Pete remarks, “definitely doing that later, I knew you had a thing for ties.” He tosses the tie aside and commences to working on the buttons of Patrick’s shirt.

“You should know,” Patrick says, “I don’t have any tattoos.”

“Don’t care,” Pete says.

“I don’t have, like, a rock star body.”

Pete just lifts his eyebrows at Patrick. “What are you talking about? You’re a rock star, and this is your body, so…QED.”

“QED?”

“I’m very fancy.”

“I’m not a rock star.”

“Merry Christmas, I could care less,” Pete sings to him.

“Don’t sing anymore,” Patrick says solemnly.

“You’re right, I should find something else to do with my mouth,” Pete agrees, and shoves to get Patrick onto his back.

Patrick looks up at him, spiky-haired, glasses askew, obscene mouth swollen with kissing, and Pete cannot imagine what Patrick sees in the mirror that isn’t perfection. “Hey, emo boy,” Pete says to him, walking a fingertip teasingly over his erection, “can we do this every Christmas?”

“Let’s do it this Christmas first,” Patrick suggests hoarsely.

Pete grins, and then Pete goes down like the champ he is. Patrick’s hands are tight in Pete’s hair, the perfect amount of pressure, and Patrick makes beautiful noises in the shape of Pete’s name, and Patrick’s hips twitch with aborted little thrusts he’s trying to hold back, and Pete is dizzy mostly with love and a little with lack of oxygen, oops, he has to pull back to gulp a breath and Patrick reaches for him, clumsy, and pulls him up and over, into a deep, filthy kiss. Patrick’s hands have guitar callouses that rub over Pete’s back as he shapes him against him, fitting them together, lining them up for friction. Pete was already breathless and Patrick isn’t helping but he fucking knows what he’s doing, his rhythm is flawless, Pete is only fucking drummers from now on.

“Fuck, Patrick,” he gasps, digging his fingers into Patrick’s skin for the grounding of it, for the one sure thing that this is Patrick.

“Uh-huh,” Patrick says, catching their mouths together in a kiss. “That’s basically—the idea—”

“I am never letting go of you,” Pete says, desperate and so, so close.

“You had better fucking mean that,” Patrick growls, and Pete comes.

***

Patrick wakes with a start, like the world tilted underneath him and tossed him unceremoniously off it. He sits up, disoriented, and realizes he’s alone in Pete’s bed, tangled up in rumpled sheets. He squints into the room around him. It’s oddly bright, a metallic sheen over the crowded contents. And Pete is sitting in the window seat, wrapped in a blanket from the bed, staring out the window.

“What are you doing?” Patrick asks. His voice sounds rough, and he feels…sticky.

“It’s snowing,” Pete answers, without looking away from the window. “It is fucking snowing, Patrick. On Christmas Eve.”

That explains the silver brightness in the room. Patrick drags himself out of bed and over to the window seat, peering out to see the snow. It’s a delicate icing on all of the pine trees, a frozen confection swept along the dead lawn. The moonlight bouncing off of it makes the sky look lit up, catches the flakes floating softly past the window. “It must be Christmas morning by now,” Patrick remarks. “Look at that, a pure white Christmas.”

“I love snow, Patrick,” Pete says suddenly, and Patrick’s surprised that he sounds like he’s on the verge of tears. “I love it. It’s so pretty, and soft, and bright, and I love it, and it’s snowing on Christmas, and that’s when the movie ends, isn’t it?”

“No, the movie ends before the sex,” Patrick says drily. Then he reaches out to smooth a hand along Pete’s riotous hair. “What’s the matter, love?” he asks softly.

Pete makes a sound like a sob, and then he turns wild eyes on Patrick. “I mean this, Patrick. I’ve meant every single second of everything between us. I am in love with you. I’m so in love with you. You are not a starburst, Patrick, you’re a freaking supernova in my life, you’ve lit it up in ways I could never have imagined, you’ve changed everything, you’ve made me want to be me, and I never want to be me! And I cannot go back to a life without you, I’m sorry, I can’t. So if there’s any little part of you that was acting for the cameras, that was doing this out of pity, that felt bad for the lonely kajillionaire loser, then—”

“I love you, too,” Patrick cuts him off.

Pete swallows thickly, staring at him, breathing hard. “What?”

“Nothing was ever for the cameras. Not a single moment of it. I’m in love with you, too. I was in love with you that first night when you were talking about how creepy the snowman is in ‘Winter Wonderland,’ like, I didn’t stand a fucking chance, Pete. You are the magic one. Not Christmas magic. Just Pete Wentz magic. I have never really cared if I ever found someone to go through life with and now I care very passionately that I get to go through life with you, I don’t want to do it with anyone else.”

“Really?” Pete sounds like he can’t dare to hope that this is true.

“Yes, really. Have I done such a terrible job communicating that to you? I’m sorry. Let me be much clearer.” He puts a finger under Pete’s chin, tips it to make sure Pete holds his gaze. “Pete Wentz. We’re waking up together every morning. Okay? You’re going to give me your beautiful words and I’m going to try to find music deserving of them and we will be the best versions of ourselves. I will make you smile, and on the days when you don’t feel like smiling, I will love you even harder until you find that you want to smile again. And none of it, no matter which side, emo or starburst – none of it will ever be too much. Is this all very clear to you?”

Pete nods, speechless.

“And I’m really hoping you feel the same way, because, really, Pete, I never, ever, ever do this, I’m supposed to be married to my music, I didn’t expect to ever want to make room in my life for anyone but my music. So, like…yeah.” Whatever, Patrick’s not the poet.

“Patrick,” Pete says, his voice trembling but sure, “I’m yours until the earth starts to crumble and the heavens roll away.”

It’s Patrick’s turn to be speechless. He manages a nod because he can’t manage anything else.

Pete says, his voice laden with what sounds like hope, “Do you want to run away with me? Like, let’s just get in the car and drive and wherever we end up, it’ll be just the two of us, together, wherever. Let’s just…be us now. Do you want to?”

Patrick nods again. He wants to very much. It sounds perfect.

Pete flings himself into Patrick’s arms, buries his face in Patrick’s neck. After a moment he says, “Does this mean I can get in on the lifetime free carwashes you got after your prom gig?”

Patrick hugs him tight, and then responds in kind. “You should know: I think CEOs are a drain on society and their salaries should all be redistributed.”

Pete laughs.

***

Next Christmas…and next Christmas…and next Christmas

It’s not Christmas.

But they don’t celebrate Christmas on Christmas. They celebrate Christmas at random times when Pete’s in the mood for it. Because why the fuck not. Free yourself from the tyranny of the calendar, Pete tells Tristan. Patrick says, Don’t raise our daughter to be terrible at dates, though, please.

So yeah, whatever, it’s September, and the windows are open to the early fall crispness drifting through, and Patrick is sound asleep on his back with Zaylee passed out on his chest, because Zaylee is getting a tooth and they were up half the night with her and that was after setting up Santa gifts under an out-of-season Christmas tree because Pete makes his family celebrate Christmas in September sometimes.

Pete is watching Patrick sleep, because Pete still doesn’t sleep much and because Pete has never gotten out of the habit of finding comfort from Patrick still being there next to him. It doesn’t matter how many years Patrick spends right next to him, Pete still likes to reach out and make sure. He does it on stage when they perform together, drifting over to be close while Patrick sings his words. He does it when he’s in CEO persona, in the office, texting Patrick nonsense to make sure he’ll text back. He does it when he’s so happy he could burst with it, setting new personal records for happiness all the time, grabbing Patrick to make sure he’s getting all the happy, too. And he does it when everything is too much and he doesn’t want to get out of bed, but he has to, because babies need their dads, and so what he does is he reaches for Patrick and Patrick says, Come on, no pressure, no pretending, just sit on the couch with us, and it’s something.

The door flies open suddenly and Tristan barrels onto the bed with all the energy of a six-year-old who’s been promised presents. “Santa came!” she exclaims, not even a little bit quiet.

Patrick stirs and squints at her, but luckily Zaylee is still dead to the world.

“Shh,” Pete says, trying to wrestle her into stillness. “Your sister had a rough night last night.”

“What time is it?” Patrick complains, rubbing at his eyes. “Why do all of these children take after you and never sleep?”

“I sleep, Daddy,” Tristan protests, “but Santa came.”

Patrick manages to smile at her through his sleepy grumble. “Yeah, I know. A special September trip just for Tristan Stump-Wentz, that’s what he said.”

Tristan’s jaw drops. “Did you talk to him? Hang on, do you know Santa?” Tristan turns her suspicious gaze on Pete. “Do you know Santa?”

“Never met the dude,” Pete tells her, and ruffles her copper-colored hair. Patrick was the one who wanted to have children, and when he proposed it, Pete had thought, Well, at least they’ll have Patrick around to be the good parent, and now Pete thinks, a zillion times a day, Thank fucking God Patrick wanted to have kids. Pete would never have done this on his own, but he cannot imagine a life without these children.

“Don’t listen to a word he says, your father is the king of Christmas,” Patrick says around a yawn. “How do you think we get the special out-of-season Santa visits? The Wentzes have pull.”

“Uh-huh,” Tristan agrees, unimpressed. “Please can we go open the gifts now?”

“Yes,” Patrick says, even though his eyes are closed. “We can totally go open the gifts.”

“Do you know what Santa said?” Pete tells Tristan.

“I thought you didn’t know Santa!” Tristan reminds him.

“He said we should make Daddy some pancakes before we open any gifts.”

“Oh, my God, really?” Tristan is outraged. “Did he actually say that!” Santa is clearly a traitor to the cause of little girls opening presents.

“Let me see the baby,” Pete says, sliding her carefully off of Patrick’s chest and nestling her in Pete’s arms. Her little head lolls against Pete’s chest, her mouth working once like she’s sucking a phantom bottle in her sleep. Pete smiles fondly and kisses her forehead. “I’m going to put Z down in the living room with us so she doesn’t miss all the fun if she wakes up,” he tells Patrick, as he gets out of bed. “And then, for a Christmas present, I’m going to let you sleep all day.”

“Oh, wow, have I told you lately how hot you are?” Patrick asks.

Pete laughs and says, “Two days ago, after the last show.” He leans down to kiss Patrick lightly, and then adds, “By the way, thank you for just putting up with me being weird when I want Christmas in September.”

“Pete,” Patrick says softly, “Christmas in September is you being a starburst, you know.”

Pete smiles and says, “Thank you, emo boy,” then turns to Tristan, who’s bouncing at the door. “Okay, here we go.”

“Pete,” Patrick says from the bed.

Pete glances back at him. He’s made enough progress that he’s propped himself up on his elbows. Pete has confidence he’s awake enough that he won’t fall asleep before opening the presents.

Patrick says, “Seriously. Merry Christmas.”

Pete winks as he says, “I could care less.”

The end.