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Patrick knew that something was different about Pete.
Something had been different since the concert in Milwaukee several months ago, when Pete disappeared immediately after the show and left the three of them to pack up all their gear. It had been no big deal. Annoying as fuck, yeah, but that was Pete for you.
The play-irritation had faded into actual irritation after an hour, and then into worry another hour after that. Right when Andy was standing up to go look for him at the bar, the van door had flung open and Pete had staggered inside looking like he’d run the gauntlet of people who wanted to beat him up (of which there were a lot). With the black eyes and pallid skin, he had looked “half-dead,” which was what Joe had said thoughtlessly when he was trying to scrub blood stains out of Pete’s hoodie. “I mean, dude, the black eyes, the blood—too bad it’s not Halloween, or you could totally go as a zombie!” Only Patrick had seemed to notice how Pete tensed on the word zombie before he laughed and hit Joe upside the head.
They’d completed the next few shows no problem and driven back home no problem. Pete was the same reckless, fun-loving idiot he always was. Patrick had figured Pete had said something stupid to the wrong guy and gotten his ass kicked. Just another Tuesday. Whatever.
But there were other things about Pete that were giving Patrick pause. He’d been eating a lot of meat recently, which of course wasn’t a big deal, but it was just unusual to see him eating a burger every day instead of once a week as usual. He’d been wearing hoodies a ton, which was, again, not a big deal. Pete wore hoodies like a second skin when he was feeling particularly melancholic. But that was just it. Pete had been nothing but his usual cheerful self, and maybe he was faking it, but Patrick didn’t think so. There was no reason for him to hide his emotions around the rest of them and he never did. But here he was, draped over Patrick’s lap, chattering excitedly about the new Tim Burton flick he couldn’t wait to see, wearing a fleece hoodie. In the middle of fucking July.
Patrick was pretty certain that he would never reach an understanding of Pete Wentz.
Anyways, it was all nothing. Just a bunch of stupid shit Patrick noticed because he was Patrick and a little obsessed with Pete. Because who wasn’t obsessed with Pete?
Things became a little less hard to deny, though, when he started noticing the physical changes. These were more obvious than the behavioral changes. Or at least, they seemed obvious to Patrick. No one else seemed to see what he saw. Granted, Patrick was by his own admission obsessed with Pete. But he really wasn’t sure how no one else noticed what was going on.
The speed, for one thing. They had been doing a show in some shitty venue in Northern Indiana and Patrick had decided to be gutsy during a vocal break and (gasp!) step out from behind the microphone and move a little bit. Of course, the second he did, he slipped on some sort of liquid on the stage (again, shitty fucking venue) and fell.
Or rather, almost fell. Pete had somehow traveled from where he was standing halfway across the stage and caught him by the front of his shirt, hauling him upright. He barely missed a note. Patrick shot an incredulous look towards Pete, who was walking away like nothing had happened. He shook it off and kept playing, but cornered Pete right after the show. “How the fuck did you do that, man?”
Pete tilted his head. “Do what?”
“Catch me, man! During Mick?”
Pete looked everywhere but his face when he replied, “I was just there, man. No big deal.” He grinned teasingly, slinging an arm around Patrick’s shoulders. “Can’t have my favorite lead singer busting his head, can I? We don’t have insurance for that.”
Patrick blushed. He shrugged the arm off with a grumble of “Whatever,” but Pete just put his arm right back where it was. He was secretly happy about that, but pretended he hated it all the way back to the bus.
Then there was the teeth.
You may be wondering, how did Patrick notice that Pete’s teeth were different? Well, the answer was that Patrick stared at Pete’s mouth a lot. Because he was insane. And, again obsessed. So of course he was the one who was watching when Pete laughed loudly at one of Andy’s jokes, opening his mouth wide, exposing pointed canines.
The first time it happened, Patrick blinked quickly and thought he had to be hallucinating, because what else could it possibly be? He shrugged it off and went about his business.
But he kept seeing them. In pictures, in videos, in person.
Well, in person was kind of an understatement.
It was midnight. Joe was visiting some friends across town and Pete was…somewhere, so Patrick was alone in the apartment. He was fucking around with his guitar when he had heard the door creak open very quietly. For a minute, he thought it might have been Andy dropping in, because he was the only one who ever opened the door quietly. Joe and Pete both flung the door open with all the dramatics in the world.
But this time, it was Pete, seemingly trying to be as sneaky as possible. Instead of kicking his sneakers off, he bent down and untied the laces, quietly setting them by the door. He glanced around a little bit and started to shut the door very quietly.
Because Patrick was kind of an asshole, he chose that moment to say, “I can see you, you know.”
It was worth it for the way Pete jumped about a foot. The door slammed shut loudly. Patrick cackled as Pete glared in his direction. “Very funny, Trick. Fuck you.”
“It was kind of funny,” Patrick snickered. “Why are you sneaking in like that?”
Pete’s eyes darted around the room. “Didn’t wanna wake you up.”
Patrick frowned at that. Pete had never been particularly worried about that before. But he let it go. Sort of. “Where’d you go?”
Pete shifted on his feet. “Went out to dinner with a friend.”
“Oh. Okay.” The shiftiness did not convince Patrick of that, but it didn't really matter. He’d seen Pete drunk and/or high before, and this was not that, so he wasn’t too bothered. He stood up, tilting his neck from side to side and wincing at the loud crack. He'd been sitting way too long. “You gonna go to bed?”
Pete shrugged. “Probably not.”
Patrick didn't bat an eye. Pete was an insomniac even on his best days. “Want me to sing to you?”
“Nah, I'm good. Probably gonna go write or something.”
“Okay.” Patrick should’ve just let him go. But he couldn’t, because something was still nudging the back of his brain. “Hey.”
Pete turned back around. “Yeah?”
Patrick bit his lip. “How did you catch me at that show at Greased Pig?”
He swore that Pete’s eyes darted to where his teeth snagged his lip, but that might have just been him being delusional. And horny. “What show at Greased Pig?”
“You know the one. During Mick. You were halfway across the stage and you managed to sprint over and catch me? How?”
Pete grinned, the same way he had the first time Patrick had asked him that. “Why do you care so much, Trick? You impressed with my muscles?” He flexed his skinny arms and winked. “I’ve been working out lately. Thanks for noticing.”
Patrick felt his pale cheeks go bright red (damn his pale-as-a-ghost ancestry). “Doesn’t account for the speed.”
Pete tilted his head to the side, mouth twisting into a smirk that made Patrick swallow hard, throat suddenly very dry. “You’ve been watching me a lot, haven’t you, Trick?”
His first instinct was to deny, which was exactly what he opened his mouth to do. But Pete held up a hand. “Don’t lie. I’ve noticed. You’re not really subtle about it.”
Patrick’s mouth clicked shut. Pete smirked again. “What’s going on?” All of a sudden, Pete had gone from being maybe seven feet away to one foot away, just like at Greased Pig. He leaned forward, lips pulled back into a sort-of-not-really smile. That was when Patrick saw it again: those ivory canine teeth sharpened into otherworldly points.
He wanted to step back, the warning lights in his brain flashing red. But his feet were rooted in place, weights like cinder blocks holding them down. Pete tsked, shaking his head. He took another step closer. Up close, he could see that the pointed canines were sharper than when he last saw them, and it might have been his overactive imagination, but he swore he could see pale red stains on them. “Don’t you think you should run away? Don't I scare you, Patrick?”
Patrick shook his head firmly. The lights in his brain were flashing, yeah, and he was remaining alert, but he had a strong feeling that if Pete was going to hurt him, he would have (or could have) done so a while ago. “Why would I be scared of you, Pete? You’re my friend.”
There was a long pause before Pete finally scoffed. “Right.” He was trying to sound flippant, but he’d always been a horrible actor, because Patrick heard his voice shaking. “Sure. But that doesn't answer my question. Why are you looking at me, Patrick?”
“Because I like you,” Patrick blurted out, then slapped his hand over his mouth. At least he hadn’t said the full truth, the one involving the other word beginning with L.
Pete looked completely taken aback, like that had not been what he was expecting. He schooled his face pretty quickly, though. “Ha. Very funny, Trick.”
“I’m telling the truth,” Patrick said stubbornly. Admitting it was humiliating, yeah, but it was true. He’d been watching Pete because he loved him for a couple years at this point; Pete was just only noticing it now. “I like you. Romantically. And in other ways, but that's the main one.”
Pete shook his head quickly. “No, you don't.”
Patrick clenched his jaw. “Seriously? You're gonna tell me how I fucking feel? I wouldn't lie to you about that. What am I going to have to do to convince you that I'm telling the truth?!” He waited for Pete to respond, but Pete was looking everywhere but his face.
Patrick then did the most impulsive (and most stupid) thing he’d ever done. He grabbed Pete’s face and kissed him hard.
His pointy teeth (fangs. They were fangs) scraped at his lips roughly. That was the only thing Patrick noticed before he pulled away quickly, immediately regretting his actions.
Pete looked like he’d been hit by a truck, facial expression dazed and confused. He brought a hand up slowly, touching his lips gently. He pulled his hand down almost instantly. The haze faded from his eyes in record time, replaced with a shine that looked very much like tears. “You don’t love me,” he ground out slowly, like every word was gravel in his mouth. “You don’t even like me. Leave me alone.” With that, he turned sharply on his heel and strode away.
Patrick stared after him, his arms hanging limply by his sides. He retreated back to the living room, grabbed his guitar, and went to bed in a dull haze; dreams filled with teeth on his lips and piercing eyes and a low voice whispering in his ear.
Things became uncomfortable after that. Patrick and Pete were ignoring each other completely now. Joe and Andy had approached Patrick individually and asked him what the fuck was going on (presumably to reconvene and compare stories), and Patrick didn’t have an answer. He didn’t really know what was going on.
Well, he did, but there was no way he was going to tell his bandmates his wild suspicions until he had definitive proof. Otherwise, he was going to get himself put in an insane asylum, and he was too young for that. But he was stuck between a rock and a hard place now. He desperately wanted to know if his insane hunch was correct, but the only way he’d be able to figure that out was by asking Pete, and they weren’t talking.
A week after their weird, sexually-charged confrontation had happened, they played a show at a dive bar called Shori's. The show had gone fine, even though Pete and Patrick were clearly not interacting onstage like they always did.
Now, Andy and Patrick (drinking water) sat at a table separately from Joe and Pete (drinking alcohol). Andy was giving Patrick a lecture that he’d clearly been crafting for a while: “Why can’t you just talk to each other like normal fucking people? It would make things so much better.” Patrick was half-listening; he was busy watching Joe, who was side-eyeing a glowering, beer-chugging Pete. “Joe and I wouldn’t have to deal with your bullshit, you guys would probably be happier, maybe you’d finally kiss and we’d get that out of the way too—”
That got Patrick’s attention. He choked on his water. “What?!”
“You heard me.” Andy didn’t even look at him, just took another drink of water like they were discussing the weather. “You guys clearly want to, and I think it would make interacting with you guys a lot more pleasant when that tension is out of the way—”
Patrick threw his hands up in the air. “Well, we tried that, and it made everything worse, okay?” He only realized the admission when he looked over at Andy and saw him staring slack-jawed. “Oh,” he said quietly. “Oops.”
Andy looked like he was about to have a heart attack. “You kissed?!”
“Shut up!” Patrick hissed frantically. People were looking over at them, including Pete and Joe, and Patrick didn’t need the majority of the Chicago hardcore scene knowing about this. They already got picked on enough as it was. “It was bad. It went horribly. We’re never doing it again. Does that satisfy your curiosity?”
“No!” Andy whisper-yelled back, eyes huge behind oval-shaped glasses. He had shown more emotion in the last few seconds than he had in the several years Patrick had known him. “What happened? More importantly, when did it happen, because Joe and I kind of have a bet going—”
Before Patrick could muster up an appropriately indignant response to the reveal that Joe and Andy had a bet going about his love life (which he was honestly unsurprised about), they heard someone clear their throat. They both turned to look, and saw a tall man with colorful tattoos lining his pale arms. His hair needed a dye job, shocks of blond poking through his shaggy black hair. He was looking down at them with a smirk.
“Hello,” Patrick said pleasantly. It was always best to be friendly. “Can I help you?”
The man’s smirk deepened. “You’re the singer for that band, right? Fall Out Boy?”
The question was one Patrick had heard before, but never in this mocking tone. “Uh.” Patrick shot Andy a look, who just shrugged. “Yeah, I am.”
The man leaned down. Patrick tried not to make a face at his rancid breath. “Got a question for you: what do you even bring to the band?”
Patrick squirmed, letting out an anxious laugh. “Um—”
The guy kept talking. “All you do is stand there like a fucking statue and sing. Wentz and Trohman do all the jumping around, they sing your backup, and Pete can write lyrics that are definitely better than yours. You don’t do anything. They’d be better off without you.”
Patrick had been willing to laugh off the comments until the last sentence. The simple, razor-sharp statement of they’d be better off without you began pinballing around his brain like an evil DVD screensaver. (Yeah, the simile was god-awful. Patrick blamed it on the dark cloud taking over his mind.) Because he’d thought that for months, and every time, the other three had reassured him that he belonged there, and he’d believed them. And now, there was a “fan” who seemingly liked everything about his band but him. His hands were shaking. Fuck, was he going to cry? That was so fucking pathetic.
Andy’s firm hand on his wrist snapped him out of his spiral of self-loathing. He fixed their “fan” with a glare that could make stone weep. “Jesus. How old are you? Twenty-five? You're too old to be acting like a fucking high school bully.”
The guy held up his hands defensively. “I’m just being honest, man. I thought you’d appreciate me finally saying something. He can barely even play guitar.”
Patrick shot up, hands clenched into fists. He could deal with a lot, but for whatever reason, this particular insult drove him over the edge. He learned how to play the fucking guitar for the band, and he was actually good at it, thanks so fucking much. “I'd like to see you fucking play guitar the way I d—”
“Hi there!” Pete had appeared out of nowhere, a huge grin affixed to his face. It looked genuine to anyone who didn't know him very well, but Patrick saw the strain around the edges of his lips. “What's going on over here?”
Their “fan” instantly straightened up, grinning nervously. Patrick rolled his eyes. “Holy shit, you're Pete Wentz! Your band is so cool, man.”
Pete's eyes grew hard, even as his smile stayed in place. “You really think so?”
“Of course, dude!”
“Glad to hear that!” Pete's grin had become even more strained. Patrick saw those fangs again, sharpening the fake smile into something dangerous. “You wanna talk about my band? Let's talk. Outside.” Without waiting for a reply, he grabbed the taller man by the arm and dragged him along. The idiot just followed, completely starry-eyed.
“See?” Andy said, taking another drink of water. “Pete still cares about you, even when he's pissed at you.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Patrick stared at Pete pulling the man out of the bar, out of the back door. “I guess,” he repeated. He took his own drink of water and figured that now was a good time to ask. “Hey, have you noticed anything weird about Pete lately?”
Andy pursed his lips, thinking hard. “Eh, not really? Not more so than usual.”
“Okay. Have you noticed his teeth?”
Andy stared at Patrick incredulously. “What?”
“Nothing,” Patrick said, slumping in his chair as he felt his face get hot. “Forget I said anything.”
“No, no, his teeth? Patrick, what the fuck?”
“Whose teeth?” Joe had entered the conversation with impeccable timing, sliding into a chair next to Andy. “Hey, where’d Pete go?”
“Beating up some asshole who was rude to Patrick,” Andy replied, passing Joe his water. “Want some?”
“Please.” Joe took a long, long drink of water. “You okay, man?”
“Yeah. It was no big deal.”
“Good.” They sat there in silence, waiting for Pete to emerge. Five minutes passed. Then ten minutes. Joe broke the lull that had settled over the trio. “You think he needs help?”
Patrick rose. “I’ll go check on him.”
Andy and Joe both looked incredulous, so he rushed to explain himself. “He might be brooding in the alley, and I need to go thank him anyways. If he’s getting his ass kicked, I’ll get you guys.”
His bandmates nodded. They still didn't look all that convinced, but they weren't stopping him, so. Patrick walked across the bar and pushed open the same door Pete had.
The alley was empty. There was no blood on the ground, no bruised body collapsed against a wall, nothing. Patrick turned in a slow circle a couple of times, trying to spot anything out of the ordinary, but there wasn’t anything. He frowned to himself, confused. Two people didn’t just disappear, so where did Pete go?
He pulled out his phone and sent Joe a text: Pete’s not here. I think he might be at the apartment. Don’t hurry back. He wanted him and Pete to be alone when they finally talked. Joe sent a response of: If I come home and you guys are having sex on the couch I’m quitting the band, which Patrick ignored.
The apartment was only a couple of blocks from Shori’s, and it only took Patrick a measly five minutes to walk to the building.
The door wasn’t closed all the way, which made the uneasy knot in Patrick’s stomach tighten even more. He pushed open the door and walked inside as quietly as possible. The living room was empty, with no signs of life. However, his sharp musician’s ears picked up a very faint sound coming from another room. It was unintelligible, but the mere presence of any kind of strange noise made the hair on the back of Patrick's neck stand up.
The several feet to Pete’s bedroom door felt like miles. It felt like the dark hallway shrunk with every step Patrick took. His hand lingered on the metal doorknob for a moment. He had a feeling deep within his bones that if he opened the door to Pete’s room, nothing would ever be the same. Everything would change. He twisted the doorknob and pushed. It opened to reveal a gruesome sight.
Pete was crouched on his bed, leaning over a prone figure that was covered in blood. Patches on the person's neck looked like they had been mauled, blood trickling out of them in little streams and staining the gray sheets. There were other parts of skin that looked similarly mangled on the person's arms and their chest where their shirt had been ripped off. Patrick briefly wondered who the person was—and immediately got his answer when he glanced at the person's head and saw blond roots stained crimson. It was the asshole from the bar. His eyes were wide open in permanently frozen horror. Pete looked up from where his face was buried in the side of the man's neck, and his dark eyes gleamed like a predator when they met Patrick's. His mouth and chin were smeared with blood, and his bangs looked matted, stuck together with something dark.
Patrick should have run. Should have bolted out of the bedroom, out of the apartment, out of the building, ran to Shori's and told Joe and Andy the whole sordid, unbelievable tale. But he didn't. Just like a couple of weeks ago, an emotion (he didn't know whether it was fear or something else) glued his feet to the hardwood floor.
Their moment of eye contact was broken when Pete scrambled off of the bed, pressing himself into a corner of the room. His eyes were wild with panic; the predatorial glint transforming into a prey's feral, terrified look. Patrick held up a hand. “Pete, it's okay,” he said soothingly, taking a small step into the bedroom and out of the doorway. “I'm not gonna do anything. You're okay.”
“Get away from me,” Pete demanded, but his trembling voice removed any conviction from his words. “Patrick, you have to run.”
“I'm not going to do that, Pete.” Patrick was vaguely surprised by the conviction in his voice. There was no shakiness or hesitance, just a firm calm that he couldn't figure out was faked or not.
“You have to run,” Pete insisted, shrinking into the corner even more. “I'm a monster.”
That simple phrase broke Patrick's heart into a million pieces. “I'm not going to run. You're my friend. I'm not scared of you, Pete.” As Patrick said it, he realized it was true.
Pete was still cowering against the wall, but he scoffed like he always did, so Patrick hoped he was calming down a little bit. “I guess that makes sense. You never had any sense of self-preservation if you were hanging out with me in the first place.”
Patrick didn’t know what to say to that. He decided that going down that road would probably not end well for them, so he changed the subject. “Let's think about this logically, Pete. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're, like, a vampire now?” Fucking surreal, he thought absent-mindedly. My best friend is a fucking vampire who eats assholes from the bar.
Pete looked baffled at Patrick's casual tone, but he nodded shakily. “Yeah.”
“Yeah, okay. And you just, uh, ate.” He gestured jerkily to the corpse. Both of them had been avoiding looking at it, and when Pete looked at it, he flinched. “Right?” Patrick pressed. Pete nodded again.
“So it stands to reason that you're not going to lay a hand on me, because you're full. You have no reason to hurt me. Yeah?”
Pete looked hopeful for a moment, but just as quickly shook his head and wilted. “No, no. It doesn't matter. I'll hurt you.”
Patrick sighed. Using logic had been a long shot, because anxiety was immune to that sort of thing. But he needed to talk to Pete without him being scared that he'd hurt him, so he quickly developed a very reckless plan (which seemed to be the only type of plan he could create).
He took a step further into the bedroom, cringing as the metallic scent of blood hit him. Pete eyed him cautiously. “Trick, what are you doing?”
Patrick didn't say anything, just kept walking into the room towards Pete, who shrunk further into the corner. “Patrick, what are you doing?” he repeated, voice laden with fear.
Patrick came to a stop seven feet away from Pete and crossed his arms over his chest, hoping to portray confidence he didn't feel. “Pete, come here.”
“No.”
“Pete.”
“Patrick, please.” The brokenness in Pete's tone actually did make Patrick stop and look at him properly. Tears were shining in his eyes, and his whole body was shaking like a leaf. “I don't want to hurt you,” he said softly.
“And you're not going to,” Patrick said firmly. “Now come here.”
Pete gulped visibly, but took a very, very small step out of his corner. “Good,” Patrick said quietly. “But I need you closer.”
Painstakingly slowly, Pete took the several steps to Patrick, leaving maybe two feet between them still. He kept eyeing the door and repeatedly clenching and unclenching his hands in fists, but his feet stayed firmly rooted to the ground.
Patrick reached out his right hand, smoothing his thumb slowly over Pete’s blood-stained chin. His dark eyes fluttered shut and his lips parted a little bit. Patrick pressed the red-stained digit against Pete’s lips and he hesitantly opened his mouth and closed his cold, cold lips around the thumb, sucking on it slightly.
Patrick smiled softly. He put his other hand on the back of Pete's neck, squeezing gently at the nape. “You’re not going to bite me, are you, sweetheart?”
Pete sagged into the touch, all the air leaving his lungs on a loud exhale. When he opened his eyes, the amber irises were almost swallowed by black pupils. He looked completely and totally wrecked, but he also looked relaxed in a way he hadn’t in weeks . Patrick decided right then and there that he wanted to keep making Pete look like that for the rest of his life. “No,” Pete said, letting the thumb slip out of his mouth. “No, I’m not going to bite you.” His voice was ragged and breathy.
Patrick’s smile grew. He moved his thumb to caress Pete’s cheek. “See? I knew you could do it. I knew you could be good for me.” He’d wondered if the last sentence was a bit much, but the groan Pete let out upon hearing it was reason enough for him to say it. “Feeling better?”
Pete nodded. “Yeah. Thanks, I guess.”
They stood in silence for a moment, Patrick’s thumb rubbing circles into Pete’s cheek and Pete making attempts to lift his arms that he didn’t follow through on. He mumbled something, and Patrick asked him to repeat what he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what was going on,” Pete said quietly.
“Why didn’t you?” Patrick asked.
Pete’s lower lip trembled. “Because it—everything happened so fast, and I didn’t want to put you in danger. God, everything happened too fast.” He took a shaky breath.
Patrick stayed quiet. He had a feeling the full story would come out if he just gave Pete a moment.
It did. Pete took another breath and began rambling. “I was in the bar and there was a guy. He was really handsome and he bought me a drink. We went into the back alley and were kissing and then all of a sudden—” He cut himself off, choking on a breath. “He turned me.”
Standing so close, Patrick saw a prominent scar on the underside of Pete’s chin, two points deeply indented in the skin there. He ran a finger over the spot and Pete shuddered and almost collapsed, catching himself on Patrick’s shoulders. “Jesus. Anyways, uh.” He shook his head. “It was fine for a little bit. Everything was so normal that I thought I like, hadn’t been turned or something, and then I was talking to a girl somewhere and started having very vivid fantasies of draining her blood.”
Patrick inhaled sharply. “God, Pete.”
Pete kept going. “Eating meat helped that for a little bit, but then I started to burn in sunlight, so I started wearing hoodies, and then—you get the point. Everything just got worse and worse and now I’m trapped in a body that hates me and is going to make everyone else hate me.” His voice broke on the last words and he began crying, burying his face in Patrick’s shoulder.
Patrick just shushed him gently, wrapping his arms around Pete and holding him close as he sobbed. “I don’t hate you, Pete.”
“But you should,” Pete bawled. “That guy on the bed is dead because I sunk my fucking vampire teeth into his neck and killed him. When I look in the mirror, I don’t even know who I am anymore. I’m a fucking monster.”
Patrick blinked away sudden tears, holding Pete tighter. “You’re not a monster. Please don’t call yourself that. And it’s okay if you don’t know who you are anymore, because I can be there to help you find it.”
Pete sniffled. “Do you promise?”
“Of course, sweetheart. I’ll always be there for you.” As Patrick said, he got the uncanny feeling that he was making some sort of oath, but hey, if he had to make an oath like that, it might as well be for Pete.
Pete looked up, brown eyes huge and watery. He straightened up, but didn’t remove his hands from around Patrick. “Um, Patrick,” he stuttered, eyes darting all over his face before finally resting on his lips. He swallowed hard. “Can I, like, uh—” He cleared his throat. “Can I kiss you? Please?”
All Patrick could do was nod. “Yeah,” he said breathlessly. “Yeah, you can.”
Pete turned his head carefully and brushed his lips against Patrick before finally committing and deepening the kiss.
The first thing Patrick noticed was the cold. The cheeks he pressed his hands to were cold, the hands that hesitantly rested on his waist were cold, the lips against his were cold. Patrick could feel Pete making an effort not to let his fangs touch him. The coppery taste of blood filled his mouth when Pete’s tongue pressed against his lips and he let him in. It was the best kiss he’d ever had.
There was a lot to work out still. They needed to tell the other guys everything, there was still a dead body lying on Pete’s bed, and Patrick really wanted to track down the bastard that had turned Pete into a vampire and kill him.
But for now, Patrick was content to stand and kiss Pete until the moon went dark and the world crumbled around them. One of Pete's fangs sunk into his lip. He didn't pull away.