That's Because It is a Good Idea
Title: That's Because It is a Good Idea
Pairing: Pete/Patrick
Summary: Patrick goes to Peru and becomes a friend of alpacas.
Notes: 6300 words~ For fledmusic, for funsies. Liz and I were loling about these alpacas and Singer calling Patrick 'Pat' in the same night. This world was the result. I hope this makes it come to life for you, Liz! Title is from that Los Campesinos! song. I made bluejbird and kissingchaos9 both read this at some point, so thank you to them.
One day Patrick wakes up and decides he's done. He was planning on waiting until Pete was done, because Pete's his best friend, but he's not sure now if Pete will ever be done. He's glad for that; he doesn't want Pete to be done with anything. Patrick is done now, though, with all of this. He can't wait anymore. He's too self conscious for this, putting himself out there, getting up in front of people. He can't put himself in front of Pete like that anymore either.
"Stick a fork in me," Patrick says to himself.
Last night things got a little weird. That's all. He's still in Pete's bed, fully clothed, although not for lack of trying on Patrick's part, when he wakes up and decides being in a band like this, with Pete next to him, is too much for him to do. Pete's not awake to stick a fork in him for once. Patrick takes it as a sign.
He writes a note on a piece of paper and magnets it to Pete's fridge. Patrick always forgets about the dry erase board on the fridge, so he balls up the paper and throws it away to write a new note on the dry erase board. The marker squeaks when he presses down.
"Gone fishin'," it says. He's at a loss for words beyond that, so he just signs it, "Love, Patrick."
Patrick takes only the clothes he's wearing, hat included, and his wallet, which contains his credit cards, ID, passport, a condom, some cash, some notebook paper Pete wrote something on which at the time was really funny but is now indecipherable because they were laughing really hard when he wrote it down, and a picture of his mom from the 1980s. He drives himself to the airport and parks in the long-term parking. He looks at the outgoing flights.
The one going to Peru catches his eye. Patrick suddenly gets a fire in his heart for Peru, like he needs to go there or he'll explode like a car at a gas station as soon as someone strikes a match. He buys a one-way ticket and stands at the gate waiting to board.
"Sir, this flight doesn't board for another hour and a half," the attendant at the desk says.
"Oh," Patrick says.
He sits down in the chairs by his gate and waits.
~*~
Eventually Patrick ends up wandering down a path in Peru. When he arrived at the airport, he took a taxi to a certain point and then got out. If nothing else, all this roving around Peru will make him thinner.
It's mid-morning, and he's hot from all the walking, even though the current temperature feels like new spring in Chicago. Patrick is incredibly tired and on his way to becoming incredibly angry with himself. What has he done? He doesn't even know. He just left his friends and his family and his entire life, and for what? To become a roadside bum in a foreign country.
There's a hill up ahead on this path he's on. He figures it's as good a metaphor as any, so he shrugs to himself and climbs to the top to look at what's around him.
Everything is all sorts of beautiful green and brown colors like you find in nature, probably because it is nature, Patrick figures. There are bigger hills and mountains off in the distance. There's a little house at the bottom of the slope on the other side of the hill he's on. There are a few alpacas grazing around it.
A cool, sweet breeze blows against Patrick's skin. He feels fresh and new, like this is his what for. This is what he left for, for this, and the fire in his heart is stoked at the feel and sight and smell of it. It's sublime.
Patrick wants to twirl around, Julie Andrews style, and sing. There's nobody around but the alpacas, so he thinks, why not.
"The hills are alive," Patrick sings, twirling once. He feels stupid after that, so he stops. Maybe being here will help him like himself and what he does more, whatever he chooses to do.
~*~
The little house at the bottom of the hill is really, really little. It's built out of stone with a hay roof or something, Patrick doesn't know anything about building stuff. He pokes his head in the door and is expecting to find like, the decaying body of an elderly person resting eerily in a rocking chair, but there's nobody, dead or alive, inside.
"Hello?" Patrick says. "¿Hola?"
There's no answer, so he goes all the way inside. The house is one room, so he doesn't even know if it qualifies as an entire house or not. Maybe it's more of a bungalow or whatever.
On one side of the room there's a little bed that looks clean and made up. There's a poncho and a straw hat hanging on the wall next to the bed. There are shelves on the opposite side full of jars of what appears to be food. Patrick absently drifts towards that side of the room and opens a jar without looking away from the rest of the room; he's starving.
The place just doesn't look lived in at all. There may not be a dead body currently visible, but Patrick thinks it's a little eerie anyway. Who lived here, and who left here? He wonders if someone is wondering the same thing about his room.
For the first time since he left, which he knows isn't that long ago in real time, he thinks about Pete, and the note he left for him. It was such a piddly little note, and there was nothing of what Patrick meant to say in it at all. He thinks about Pete's face when he discovered it, whether it was amused or worried or devastated. There's no way Pete could know where Patrick really is. He probably believes Patrick has literally gone fishin', and for now, Patrick wants to keep it that way. Pete probably doesn't want to know where Patrick is anyway.
Patrick puts his fingers in the jar he's opened and eats whatever he pulls out. It's some sort of fruit, like a passionfruit. He eats the rest of it and puts the empty jar back where it was, just in case this is a magical house with magical refilling jars and the jars need to be in the right spot to be magically refilled.
There's a rustling outside the door. Patrick walks slowly towards the noise with his hands raised. He honestly isn't sure that this house is abandoned, and he doesn't want anyone to think he was breaking in with malice in his heart. When he gets outside, there's an alpaca standing there staring at him.
"Hello," Patrick says softly. "Excuse me, hola."
He reaches his hand out and lets the alpaca sniff his hand. He knows you're supposed to do that with dogs, but not if you're supposed to do it with alpacas, so he does it just to be safe. The alpaca sniffs him and doesn't bite his hand off, so Patrick pets its neck.
It stands there and stares at him.
"Do you have a name?" Patrick says. "Obviously you wouldn't be able to tell me if you did. That'd be weird if they gave alpacas collars, too. So maybe I can give you a name, right? Oh, well, let me introduce myself first, I'm sorry, my name is --"
Patrick hesitates. His hand pauses in stroking the alpaca, and it looks annoyed at him for it, so he starts it up again. What's Patrick's name, here, in this place? He feels like it should be different from what it was.
"My name is Pat," Pat finishes.
The alpaca stands there and stares at him. It moves its head to the side and puts its mouth against Patrick's forearm, like it's giving him a little kiss. It starts to hum, and Patrick feels soothed by it, like he's going to be all right here. The alpaca is white with dark brown patches and a dark brown head, and the wool around its face is so long it covers its eyes.
"I'm gonna call you Peter," Pat says. Peter the alpaca stares at him and hums. Pat hums back.
~*~
The two other alpacas' wool is very long as well. One of them is a dark auburn brown and it has a long neck and is kind of gangly, if an alpaca can be gangly. Pat names it Andrew. The other is just white, or an off-white, because it's probably not super clean, and he names it Joseph.
There are a bunch of tools leaning against the back of the house. There's an old looking walking stick, some barbed wire, some empty jars and lids, an axe, a few barrels, some stuff Pat doesn't understand, and a pair of sheers.
Pat carefully cuts the wool from the alpacas. He's never done it before, but it's not like he can give an alpaca a bad haircut. They stand still and content while he does it, like they're glad to be rid of it finally, after such a time with it on them. He knows how they feel. Hair can be so oppressive, along with other things, like feelings. The only time one of them gives him any trouble is when he tries to cut the wool around Peter's face and he keeps turning away. Pat guesses he likes it like that and leaves it be.
"I was very apt in naming you," Pat tells Peter, petting his newly shorn neck. "Just perfect."
Pat puts the wool in a barrel that has some older fibers from before in it. He doesn't know what he's supposed to do with it yet, but he keeps it in there. It seems like it'd be a waste to just left it drift away, anyway.
~*~
Pat leaves the alpacas outside to wander. He feels like he wants to babysit them, like when you get a new pet and you want to watch them through the night to make sure they're okay, but they've been living here for some amount of time, so he goes back inside the house. The jar of fruit he ate earlier hasn't magically refilled itself. He picks out another jar and eats it. It's another type of fruit, so at least he won't get scurvy.
The bed is still empty and made, so Pat feels comfortable sleeping in it since it appears not to belong to anybody else. It's bigger than a bunk, so he could share the bed if someone needed it. He's shared his bunk with Pete and they both fit, so if Pete wanted to visit, they could share this bed. That's how it would have to go, if Pete ever wants to spend time with him, because Pat isn't going back.
No matter how soon he misses everybody, no, he's not going back.
~*~
Pat wakes up one morning pretty early. The sun is up, but just barely. He stumbles over to the wall of jars and picks one out. The only thing in it is water, but he figures he better drink some of that. He takes the lid off and his nostrils are immediately on fire, because it's not water at all. It's some pretty serious moonshine.
"I'll just, I'll save you for later," Pat says, putting the jar back. He picks another jar (of fruit, of course) and eats it. He should go look to see if there's a well or a river or something, because he'll need to bathe and cook stuff and whatever at some point. He's gone more than a few days without showering, but he doesn't want to see if he can go the rest of his life.
The poncho and straw hat are still hanging on the wall. Pat touches the poncho, and it's soft and worn but still in good condition. He wonders what it's made of. He puts it on over his own clothes, half expecting it to make him invisible, because this place is still unreal to him. He just happened upon it and it was exactly what he needed. That never happens. He goes back and forth on the straw hat, but decides to wear it. He's going to town, and he doesn't want to look like a tourist.
Joseph and Andrew are sleeping next to the house. Pat laughs to himself, at the way alpacas look when they sleep, because it looks like they got wasted and then just passed out face first on the ground. Peter is awake, but he's just standing there not doing anything, like he doesn't want to disturb anyone.
"Hola, Peter," Pat says. He pets Peter's neck. "I'm gonna go into town. I'll be back soon, or whenever, you know, I don't know how long it'll take me to walk into town. Like an hour, right? I'll be back though, so you keep an eye on everything."
Peter hums at him like he's agreeing to whatever Pat is saying.
"Okay, I'll see you later," Pat says.
~*~
It takes more than an hour to walk to town. Pat took off the poncho after a while when he couldn't take the weight of it in the sun anymore, but when he hits civilization, he puts it back on, even though he's sweating balls. The town is a smaller town on the outskirts of Lima, and there's a marketplace. It looks to Pat like an art fair back home, like when they close off some streets for a weekend and everyone sets up booths to sell their art. There's all sorts of things besides art, though. He notices there's some wool for sale, like the wool he left in the barrel back at the house.
There are a few booths making things out of the wool. One thing is ponchos, so Pat figures out what his poncho is made of. There's one particular lady making a poncho, and there's all sorts of other clothes in her booth thing. She's working with the same tools that Pat has behind his house but he didn't know what they were for before.
While he's watching a poncho being made right in front of him, some combination of sunlight and dander tickles Pat's nose and throat. He sneezes into the crook of his elbow. Luckily it's a spray nozzle type sneeze and not a snot glob one, so he doesn't need to get a tissue.
"Salud," says the lady making a poncho. She looks at him and smiles, and Pat knows she knows he's not from around here. She reaches over and takes a corner of his poncho in her fingers to feel it. She says something in Spanish, and it doesn't sound like she's disgusted by the state of it, so Pat figures it's something about the craftmanship it.
"Gracias," Pat says to her. He points at a basket she has that's full of wool. "Do you need wool? It's just that, the thing is, I have all this wool I'm not using, and I can bring it to you, if you need any. I mean, you have a lot here, but if you need more, so you can have like, a surplus, that'd be cool."
"Okay," the lady laughs and puts her hand up. "Okay."
"Okay," Pat says. "My name is Pat."
He puts his hand out and she takes it in hers but doesn't shake it. She just holds it, and he wants her to be his mom. He wants this lady to be his mom because his isn't here, because he left. The lady says something to him in Spanish, and it makes him feel good about being here, like if he hadn't left, he would never have met her. He thinks she introduces herself as well, but he doesn't catch her name.
Pat buys some stationary, some bread and some sort of spread, and on the way out of town he sees another lady riding a bike. He buys that off her, and bikes back to the house. It takes about an hour less than walking.
~*~
The alpacas are all waiting for Pat at the top of the hill when he gets back. He wonders if alpacas have dog hearing, like they heard him coming up the path from miles away, or if they just hang out on the hill sometimes. They turn their heads to look at him as he bikes up. His thighs and calves are on fire, and he gets off it and throws it to the ground so fast, he practically falls off it.
"Hey guys," Pat says to the alpacas. He walks down the hill, and the strain on his legs burns even worse, but he makes it. The alpacas trail slowly after him, like they're not following directly behind him but they'll catch up with him when they get the chance.
Pat hangs up his poncho, contemplates leaving the hat on, but decides to hang that up, too. There's nobody around; his head can live freely without shame. He puts his food on the shelves and his stationary on the bed. He wants to lay down with the stationary, because his legs feel like they're going to fall off, but he pushes himself to go back outside.
The sweat on Pat's skin makes the breeze feel colder than it is. The alpacas are wandering in the opposite direction of the house and the hill, towards another hill. Pat goes around the house and grabs the walking stick to help him not fall over, and then he follows them.
"Isn't this kind of backwards?" Pat says to the alpacas. "I'm supposed to be shepherding you. Right? This is just weird."
The alpacas all hum back and forth to one another, and maybe to Pat, too, he's not sure. It sounds like a traveling song, although it's pretty tuneless. Pat joins them in their humming.
Pat reaches the top of the other hill with the alpacas. Andrew and Joseph flop over to lay in the grass. Pat joins them, but he lays on his back to look up. Only after Pat settles in does Peter lay down as well. He lays closest to Pat and stares at him from under the wool around his face.
"You remind me of someone," Pat says to Peter the alpaca. "You don't know him, so you can't really know what I'm talking about, but the point is, you're like him but in alpaca form. That's probably weird, because you have the same name. That was creepy of me to name you after him."
Peter stares at him and makes a gurgling noise.
"That's right," Pat says.
Pat ends up falling asleep. He wakes up when the sun is going down surrounded by alpacas, like he's a baby Jesus and they're keeping him warm. He's slept surrounded by dudes before, in a van, years ago, and it felt the same way, even if it probably wasn't intentional. He gets a little emotional at the idea, that these alpacas are his friends now and they seem to really care for him.
He gets up and tries not to disturb the alpacas. The house is dark, but there's still some light coming in from the setting sun. The stationary is on his bed, and he sits down and takes out a piece of paper and the pen. He thinks he should write his -- his mom. He should write his mom a letter.
Pat's throat feels dry and his mouth feels gummy from his nap. He gets up and takes the moonshine off the shelf. He's not much of a drinker, so he just takes a quick swig of it. It feels like his throat just took a really long bike ride and now it's on fire, but it's all right. He brings it over to the bed with him and lays down on his belly, his feet at the head of the bed and his head at the foot, to write his letter.
Dear Pete,
How are you? I am fine. This letter is really lame already. I left. You must know that, since I'm not there right now. The thing is, I was feeling stupid.
Pat wishes he'd brought his laptop with him. He needs that little Microsoft Word paperclip friend to help him with his spelling. That guy was great. He was a real pal.
I was feeling stupid. You were there, and I was there, and it was weird. But I miss you being there when I'm there. I'm here now and you're not, and it's weird. I'm OK though, I got some new friends here. They're all pretty hairy because they're animals. You weren't hairy everywhere, remember? I remember that. I miss that.
Pat really misses that, all of a sudden. He wants to -- he wants to put his hands on Pete and feel the places where he's hairless. He wants Pete right now like he wants that little paperclip buddy. Pete is the paperclip of Pat's life. He like, he keeps it all together for Pat, and maybe he's not as secure as a staple or those things with the tabs you fold over, but that's who he is, and that's how Pat loves him.
Maybe I'll see you soon. I live in this town. It's pretty easy to find if you have a bike. Maybe I'll see you later.
Love,
Pat
P.S. Say hi to everyone for me, but not my mom or dad, but everyone else. Thanks.
Pat folds the letter hot dog style without reading it again. His folds are crooked and uneven, but he puts it in an envelope anyway. He writes Pete's address on the front, but he's not sure what to write as the return address. He's not even sure he has an address at this place. He writes P.V. Stump, Lima, Peru and hopes it'll go through like that.
The moonshine is half gone by the time he's done. He takes one last swig from it and puts the lid back on. The burn in his throat is dull, like there's a padding around it now to protect him from pain. His entire body feels like that, actually, like he could run into walls and he wouldn't feel it.
Joseph and Andrew are still up on the hill, but Peter is waiting outside the house. He makes that gurgling noise again, and Pat puts a hand on his neck and leans slightly on him as they walk back to the top of the hill.
"You guys," Pat says, gesturing broadly and vaguely at the alpacas, "you guys are really, like, you guys are great. You guys are my best friends. It's like, it's like, here's an analogy, let me tell you this."
Peter gurgles at him.
"Shh!" Pat points at Peter. "I'm telling you something important and you're just like, orgleorgleorgle, just like, just like that other guy. He's always doing that and I'm like, whatever. Like, I was like, maybe we should do it, you know? Like, totally hardcore do it with our dicks out and everything."
Patrick rubs his two index fingers together to demonstrate what he means. It looks like he's shaming the alpacas.
"Not that, look, your dick isn't anything to be ashamed of, you know what I mean? You should be proud of your dick, but not like, in a weird way. People get weird about their dicks, and become flashers and whatever, so don't do that."
Peter stares at him.
"Yeah, so this guy was like," Pat puts on a big dumb voice for the biggest, dumbest person he knows, "'I don't know, maybe we shouldn't,' which obviously means no. Like, why even tack the maybe on there? If you don't want to do it with me, then whatever."
Pat pauses. Instead of putting a soft padding around his emotions to make them feel less painful and burning, the moonshine is making them more painful and burning. He breathes in and out deeply to keep from crying. He doesn't want to cry, he didn't cry at the time, but it's just hard to think about now, Pete rejecting him. He told Pete he wanted him, and Pete didn't say, I want you too. He didn't say it. Pat stayed in Pete's bed all night, only half asleep, hoping he'd change his mind. He didn't; Pete just slept the whole night through, for once in his life, on the worst night to do so.
"So my point was," Pat continues, "it's like, in like, The Lion King, remember that movie? You guys gotta see that movie, it's a classic. So it's like in that, when Simba is like, in the jungle, and then those guys come out and help him eat bugs. You're those guys to me, you guys. You guys."
Pat passes out like an alpaca, humming with his face in the grass.
~*~
When Pat wakes up, he throws up on the side of the hill that doesn't face his house. He found a well a few hills down the other day, where another house and a farm are. He should really go make friends with his neighbors, even though they aren't exactly nextdoor. He gets some water out and splashes his face, rinses his mouth. He doesn't feel very ill after that, so he decides to go into town again. He writes a letter to his mom telling her he's okay, a letter to his dad telling him he's okay, and puts his letter for Pete with them without thinking too much about it. He gathers his barrel of alpaca wool to bring along.
Pat finds the post office in the town and buys some stamps. He sends the letters off and hopes they find the recipients well. He should've written that in his letters; he always thought that was a classy thing to say. Hope this letter finds you well.
The poncho lady from before is there again. Pat wasn't sure if the market was like, a daily thing, or a weekly thing, or what. He's relieved that she's there; she's the only familiar thing to him apart from his alpacas, and he's pretty sure he embarrassed himself in front of them last night. They'll probably forgive him.
Pat sits and watches the lady turn the fiber into clothing. It's fascinating. Pete always liked to watch Pat do things, like write or play or anything, and Pat never understood it. "You just make something out of nothing," Pete would say. "It's really cool to see." Pat understands that only now, for some reason.
The lady must notice something in his watching her make stuff, so she scoots over and pats the spot beside her. He sits down, and she shows him what she's doing very slowly so he can get it. She puts his hands where hers were and he does what she showed him. She speaks softly to him as he weaves, or whatever he's doing. He thinks he's weaving.
It takes him forever to get through about one-eighth of a poncho. He has quick fingers, but they're not used to making things like this. Eventually Pat's hands start to cramp up and he gives up. It still feels nice to have made something with his hands, no matter how small.
"Gracias," Pat says. "Thank for you showing me."
She smiles at him and says something he doesn't understand and hands him some already made alpaca fiber.
"Thank you," Pat says. She understands him perfectly.
~*~
Pat spends the week at home practicing with his own weaving stuff at the house. He takes it inside and sits on the bed to make a poncho, but the alpacas keep trying to get inside with him, so he takes it outside. He sings to them, and he doesn't care how he sounds. He doesn't have to sound like anything for them, because they're alpacas. They hum while he wails soulfully and loudly, and it's like they're their own band. He should take them back with him, if he ever goes back, and get them signed.
The poncho Pat makes is small and slightly lopsided. The edges aren't straight, but the hole is big enough for his head. He tries it on and it only goes down to his bellybutton, like a cutoff poncho. He goes to the well and washes his face and scrubs his hands in his hair to make himself look decently presentable. It feels just like the hundreds of gas station baths he's taken in his life, only cleaner somehow. He wears his poncho to town to show his poncho lady friend.
When he finds his poncho lady, she laughs at him and says things to him he doesn't fully understand linguistically but he feels that he understands them in his heart. He laughs at himself too, instead of getting upset with himself. He made a new thing, for the very first time, and it doesn't have to be perfect.
Pat buys some fresh bread and is walking his bike through the crowd to the path back to his house when he hears, "Patrick! Hey!"
He keeps walking because this isn't what he wanted. And, that's not really his name anymore. There could be some other Patrick here, right now.
"Hey!" A hand grabs his shoulder and he turns around, and Pete is there. Pat is set to push him away, physically, and keep walking, but then Pete punches him in the face.
It's not the hardest punch Pete's ever thrown, especially not at Pat. It surprises Pat enough that he drops his bike to the ground and holds his face. Pete's fist hits him square in the cheekbone and it'll bruise pretty good, but Pat figures he deserves it in some way. He doesn't even have it in him to punch back.
Pete puts his arms around Pat then and hugs him. He hugs him around his middle, around his shoulders, his head. He's only wearing a t-shirt, and Pat feels his bare arm's against his neck. He says into Pat's shoulder, "God, you fucking reek."
"Sorry," Pat says, not to the thing about reeking, but to what Pete really means. "I'm sorry."
"Do you live in a barn or something, Jesus," Pete says, pulling his face out of Pat's shoulder.
Pat doesn't know how to answer that. He doesn't live in an actual barn, but he does spend a lot of time hanging out with alpacas, which are barnlike animals.
"Hey," Pat says, "how did you know I was here?"
"I recognized your gait," Pete says. He sucks in a breath through his nose, hard, and his nose is full of snot like he's crying, but he's not crying. He's not right now, anyway.
"I meant, like, here," Pat says, waving his hand around.
"Oh, I just asked around," Pete says. He doesn't offer any further explanation, so Pat takes what he gets.
"Here, come on," Pat says. He picks up his bike and walks it, and Pete walks next to him.
~*~
"I'm not gonna, you know," Pete says, after a long silence on their walk to Pat's house. "I'm not gonna ask why."
Pat thinks Pete already knows why, so it's good he's not going to ask.
"We all have our times where we just snap," Pete continues. "Like, you know." He waves his hand around and tries to come up with an example. Pat can think of a few snapping points, some of Pete's, but he doesn't bring any of those up.
"Like when Britney shaved her head," Pat offers.
"Yeah, like that," Pete says. "This is your head-shaving incident."
"Yeah, I guess," Pat says.
"James Montgomery totally wrote an article about it," Pete says.
"Oh, of course he did," Pat says.
When they reach the hill, the alpacas are waiting.
"Oh, awesome," Pete says. He goes up to Andrew, who is the closest, to pet him, and Andrew backs away.
"These are my friends I told you about," Pat says.
"Hey, dude," Pete says to Andrew. He tries to pet him again, and Andrew spits at him. Pete freezes where he is and calls over his shoulder, "Does that mean they like you?"
"They've never spit on me," Pat laughs.
"Maybe they don't like you," Pete says. He wipes his arm off on his pants, but he doesn't try to pet any of the alpacas again.
"I dunno, man, we've been through some times together," Pat says. He pats Andrew on the neck when they walk by to go down the hill to the house.
They go inside and Pat hangs his hat up without thinking. He hasn't been hatless in front of anybody but the alpacas in a while, but he feels okay about it. Pete doesn't say anything, just looks around the house. Pat takes off his lopsided poncho and tosses it on the bed.
"This is like the fucking best clubhouse," Pete says. "It should be in a tree."
"I know," Pat says. "I just found it here, too, like, just like this."
Pete sits down on the bed, partly on the poncho, and looks up at Pat. He notices that he's sitting on the poncho and yanks it up from underneath him. His thighs sitting on Pat's bed look really good. God, Pat wants to give him his punch back now. He's so fucking angry all of a sudden, like, Pete didn't want to sit on Pat's bed before, with his thighs everywhere. Or the other way around, he didn't want Pat's thighs on his bed. The point is, Pete wanted nothing sexual to do with him before, so Pete's being here like this just makes him feel pissed off and humiliated all over again.
"Did you make this?" Pete says. He holds it up and considers it like he's going to try it on.
"You know, why the fuck are you here, anyway?" Pat says. He has an entire spiel racing through his head, things that he's been gathering in his mind at different times to say, and he's about to get into it pretty seriously.
"For you," Pete answers immediately, stalling Pat's spiel.
"Sure," Pat says.
"Patrick," Pete says soothingly. He runs his hand down Pat's forearm until he takes Pat's hand in his own. "Look, what do I have to do to get you to come back?"
Pull me onto the bed, Pat thinks. "Nothing," Pat says.
"I don't have to do anything?" Pete says, laughing to himself.
"No," Pat says. "There's nothing you can do. You don't want me at home anyways."
Pete lets go of Pat's hand and looks at him like he's an alpaca that just spit on him, with fond disgust.
"Patrick," Pete starts.
"It's Pat now," Pat interrupts.
"Pat," Pete starts again. He laughs at the name, with his big dumb idiot laugh. It makes Pat smile, he thinks since the first time he's been at this house. Pat is a pretty terrible name. "I want you at home," Pete finishes.
"I don't know," Pat says. "You should wear a poncho while you're here, though."
Pete is still clutching the poncho Pat made in his hand, and he puts it on right away. He stands up and it goes down only to his bellybutton, too. It looks like one of his hoodies, god awful and too small.
"I actually like it like this," Pete says.
"You would," Pat says. "You should go make friends with my alpacas, too."
Pat leaves the house and Pete follows right behind him. Like, right behind him, with his hand on Pat's hip.
"You know, Pat," Pete says, and that name really does sound retarded when it's not just in Pat's head and is coming out of someone's mouth. "I bet it got pretty lonely here, with just the alpacas to keep you company for weeks and weeks."
"I know where this is going," Pat says.
"Did you get intimate with any of your special friends?" Pete says.
"No, I did not," Pat says.
The alpacas are all standing around outside the house, like they're ready to intervene and toss Pete out whenever Pat gives them the go-ahead. Pete goes up to Peter like he's approaching a shiny surface with his reflection in it.
"Who's this handsome fellow?" Pete says.
"His name is Peter," Pat says. "And he's either gay or a female, because I saw Joseph mounting him the other day."
"Hey," Pete says with something new in his voice. He hasn't sounded like anything but gently amused or gently glum since he's been here. That's all Pete lets out in person sometimes, small waves, so it's like those underwater volcanoes that cause tsunamis. "Just because an -- alpaca has another alpaca mount him, it doesn't make him gay or a woman. They're in nature. It's natural."
"What?" Pat says. Pete's his best friend; he can figure out what Pete means by anything in a second. "Is that what your problem is? I didn't mean it was unnatural, and it doesn't make him less of an alpaca. I'm just saying maybe his name is no longer appropriate for what he is!"
The volume of Pat's voice climbs while he's talking and by the end of his point, he's yelling.
Pete stares at him and hums to himself. "You really snapped, didn't you, Pat?"
Pat covers his face with his hands. "You don't have to call me Pat," he says.
"What should I call you? Anything I want?"
"Patrick is fine," Patrick says.
There are hands on Patrick's wrists then, pulling his hands from his face. Pete tries to replace them with his own, but Patrick hunches his shoulders defensively and pushes Pete's arms down and away like Pete's trying to attack him. Patrick raises his arms in front of his chest when Pete tries again, so Pete's arms end up bracketing Patrick's, and gets his hands cupped around Patrick's cheeks.
Patrick turns his head away but puts his knuckles against Pete's chest, not to punch, but just to rest. Pete kneeds his thumbs around Patrick's cheeks like he's trying to make Patrick's face look funny. Patrick's been deadpanning his way through his life with Pete for years, though, so he keeps himself from laughing at it.
Patrick winces when Pete touches the spot on his cheek where Pete punched him earlier, and Pete runs his thumb over it more lightly to say sorry.
"I want you at home, Patrick," Pete says. He pushes Patrick's lips together so they're pouting and presses his own lips to them like Patrick's knuckles on his chest, just resting.
"Okay," Patrick says. "Okay, let's go home."
Patrick leaves the house there, with his alpaca friends, for the next person who needs them.
~*~THE END~*~
Pairing: Pete/Patrick
Summary: Patrick goes to Peru and becomes a friend of alpacas.
Notes: 6300 words~ For fledmusic, for funsies. Liz and I were loling about these alpacas and Singer calling Patrick 'Pat' in the same night. This world was the result. I hope this makes it come to life for you, Liz! Title is from that Los Campesinos! song. I made bluejbird and kissingchaos9 both read this at some point, so thank you to them.
One day Patrick wakes up and decides he's done. He was planning on waiting until Pete was done, because Pete's his best friend, but he's not sure now if Pete will ever be done. He's glad for that; he doesn't want Pete to be done with anything. Patrick is done now, though, with all of this. He can't wait anymore. He's too self conscious for this, putting himself out there, getting up in front of people. He can't put himself in front of Pete like that anymore either.
"Stick a fork in me," Patrick says to himself.
Last night things got a little weird. That's all. He's still in Pete's bed, fully clothed, although not for lack of trying on Patrick's part, when he wakes up and decides being in a band like this, with Pete next to him, is too much for him to do. Pete's not awake to stick a fork in him for once. Patrick takes it as a sign.
He writes a note on a piece of paper and magnets it to Pete's fridge. Patrick always forgets about the dry erase board on the fridge, so he balls up the paper and throws it away to write a new note on the dry erase board. The marker squeaks when he presses down.
"Gone fishin'," it says. He's at a loss for words beyond that, so he just signs it, "Love, Patrick."
Patrick takes only the clothes he's wearing, hat included, and his wallet, which contains his credit cards, ID, passport, a condom, some cash, some notebook paper Pete wrote something on which at the time was really funny but is now indecipherable because they were laughing really hard when he wrote it down, and a picture of his mom from the 1980s. He drives himself to the airport and parks in the long-term parking. He looks at the outgoing flights.
The one going to Peru catches his eye. Patrick suddenly gets a fire in his heart for Peru, like he needs to go there or he'll explode like a car at a gas station as soon as someone strikes a match. He buys a one-way ticket and stands at the gate waiting to board.
"Sir, this flight doesn't board for another hour and a half," the attendant at the desk says.
"Oh," Patrick says.
He sits down in the chairs by his gate and waits.
~*~
Eventually Patrick ends up wandering down a path in Peru. When he arrived at the airport, he took a taxi to a certain point and then got out. If nothing else, all this roving around Peru will make him thinner.
It's mid-morning, and he's hot from all the walking, even though the current temperature feels like new spring in Chicago. Patrick is incredibly tired and on his way to becoming incredibly angry with himself. What has he done? He doesn't even know. He just left his friends and his family and his entire life, and for what? To become a roadside bum in a foreign country.
There's a hill up ahead on this path he's on. He figures it's as good a metaphor as any, so he shrugs to himself and climbs to the top to look at what's around him.
Everything is all sorts of beautiful green and brown colors like you find in nature, probably because it is nature, Patrick figures. There are bigger hills and mountains off in the distance. There's a little house at the bottom of the slope on the other side of the hill he's on. There are a few alpacas grazing around it.
A cool, sweet breeze blows against Patrick's skin. He feels fresh and new, like this is his what for. This is what he left for, for this, and the fire in his heart is stoked at the feel and sight and smell of it. It's sublime.
Patrick wants to twirl around, Julie Andrews style, and sing. There's nobody around but the alpacas, so he thinks, why not.
"The hills are alive," Patrick sings, twirling once. He feels stupid after that, so he stops. Maybe being here will help him like himself and what he does more, whatever he chooses to do.
~*~
The little house at the bottom of the hill is really, really little. It's built out of stone with a hay roof or something, Patrick doesn't know anything about building stuff. He pokes his head in the door and is expecting to find like, the decaying body of an elderly person resting eerily in a rocking chair, but there's nobody, dead or alive, inside.
"Hello?" Patrick says. "¿Hola?"
There's no answer, so he goes all the way inside. The house is one room, so he doesn't even know if it qualifies as an entire house or not. Maybe it's more of a bungalow or whatever.
On one side of the room there's a little bed that looks clean and made up. There's a poncho and a straw hat hanging on the wall next to the bed. There are shelves on the opposite side full of jars of what appears to be food. Patrick absently drifts towards that side of the room and opens a jar without looking away from the rest of the room; he's starving.
The place just doesn't look lived in at all. There may not be a dead body currently visible, but Patrick thinks it's a little eerie anyway. Who lived here, and who left here? He wonders if someone is wondering the same thing about his room.
For the first time since he left, which he knows isn't that long ago in real time, he thinks about Pete, and the note he left for him. It was such a piddly little note, and there was nothing of what Patrick meant to say in it at all. He thinks about Pete's face when he discovered it, whether it was amused or worried or devastated. There's no way Pete could know where Patrick really is. He probably believes Patrick has literally gone fishin', and for now, Patrick wants to keep it that way. Pete probably doesn't want to know where Patrick is anyway.
Patrick puts his fingers in the jar he's opened and eats whatever he pulls out. It's some sort of fruit, like a passionfruit. He eats the rest of it and puts the empty jar back where it was, just in case this is a magical house with magical refilling jars and the jars need to be in the right spot to be magically refilled.
There's a rustling outside the door. Patrick walks slowly towards the noise with his hands raised. He honestly isn't sure that this house is abandoned, and he doesn't want anyone to think he was breaking in with malice in his heart. When he gets outside, there's an alpaca standing there staring at him.
"Hello," Patrick says softly. "Excuse me, hola."
He reaches his hand out and lets the alpaca sniff his hand. He knows you're supposed to do that with dogs, but not if you're supposed to do it with alpacas, so he does it just to be safe. The alpaca sniffs him and doesn't bite his hand off, so Patrick pets its neck.
It stands there and stares at him.
"Do you have a name?" Patrick says. "Obviously you wouldn't be able to tell me if you did. That'd be weird if they gave alpacas collars, too. So maybe I can give you a name, right? Oh, well, let me introduce myself first, I'm sorry, my name is --"
Patrick hesitates. His hand pauses in stroking the alpaca, and it looks annoyed at him for it, so he starts it up again. What's Patrick's name, here, in this place? He feels like it should be different from what it was.
"My name is Pat," Pat finishes.
The alpaca stands there and stares at him. It moves its head to the side and puts its mouth against Patrick's forearm, like it's giving him a little kiss. It starts to hum, and Patrick feels soothed by it, like he's going to be all right here. The alpaca is white with dark brown patches and a dark brown head, and the wool around its face is so long it covers its eyes.
"I'm gonna call you Peter," Pat says. Peter the alpaca stares at him and hums. Pat hums back.
~*~
The two other alpacas' wool is very long as well. One of them is a dark auburn brown and it has a long neck and is kind of gangly, if an alpaca can be gangly. Pat names it Andrew. The other is just white, or an off-white, because it's probably not super clean, and he names it Joseph.
There are a bunch of tools leaning against the back of the house. There's an old looking walking stick, some barbed wire, some empty jars and lids, an axe, a few barrels, some stuff Pat doesn't understand, and a pair of sheers.
Pat carefully cuts the wool from the alpacas. He's never done it before, but it's not like he can give an alpaca a bad haircut. They stand still and content while he does it, like they're glad to be rid of it finally, after such a time with it on them. He knows how they feel. Hair can be so oppressive, along with other things, like feelings. The only time one of them gives him any trouble is when he tries to cut the wool around Peter's face and he keeps turning away. Pat guesses he likes it like that and leaves it be.
"I was very apt in naming you," Pat tells Peter, petting his newly shorn neck. "Just perfect."
Pat puts the wool in a barrel that has some older fibers from before in it. He doesn't know what he's supposed to do with it yet, but he keeps it in there. It seems like it'd be a waste to just left it drift away, anyway.
~*~
Pat leaves the alpacas outside to wander. He feels like he wants to babysit them, like when you get a new pet and you want to watch them through the night to make sure they're okay, but they've been living here for some amount of time, so he goes back inside the house. The jar of fruit he ate earlier hasn't magically refilled itself. He picks out another jar and eats it. It's another type of fruit, so at least he won't get scurvy.
The bed is still empty and made, so Pat feels comfortable sleeping in it since it appears not to belong to anybody else. It's bigger than a bunk, so he could share the bed if someone needed it. He's shared his bunk with Pete and they both fit, so if Pete wanted to visit, they could share this bed. That's how it would have to go, if Pete ever wants to spend time with him, because Pat isn't going back.
No matter how soon he misses everybody, no, he's not going back.
~*~
Pat wakes up one morning pretty early. The sun is up, but just barely. He stumbles over to the wall of jars and picks one out. The only thing in it is water, but he figures he better drink some of that. He takes the lid off and his nostrils are immediately on fire, because it's not water at all. It's some pretty serious moonshine.
"I'll just, I'll save you for later," Pat says, putting the jar back. He picks another jar (of fruit, of course) and eats it. He should go look to see if there's a well or a river or something, because he'll need to bathe and cook stuff and whatever at some point. He's gone more than a few days without showering, but he doesn't want to see if he can go the rest of his life.
The poncho and straw hat are still hanging on the wall. Pat touches the poncho, and it's soft and worn but still in good condition. He wonders what it's made of. He puts it on over his own clothes, half expecting it to make him invisible, because this place is still unreal to him. He just happened upon it and it was exactly what he needed. That never happens. He goes back and forth on the straw hat, but decides to wear it. He's going to town, and he doesn't want to look like a tourist.
Joseph and Andrew are sleeping next to the house. Pat laughs to himself, at the way alpacas look when they sleep, because it looks like they got wasted and then just passed out face first on the ground. Peter is awake, but he's just standing there not doing anything, like he doesn't want to disturb anyone.
"Hola, Peter," Pat says. He pets Peter's neck. "I'm gonna go into town. I'll be back soon, or whenever, you know, I don't know how long it'll take me to walk into town. Like an hour, right? I'll be back though, so you keep an eye on everything."
Peter hums at him like he's agreeing to whatever Pat is saying.
"Okay, I'll see you later," Pat says.
~*~
It takes more than an hour to walk to town. Pat took off the poncho after a while when he couldn't take the weight of it in the sun anymore, but when he hits civilization, he puts it back on, even though he's sweating balls. The town is a smaller town on the outskirts of Lima, and there's a marketplace. It looks to Pat like an art fair back home, like when they close off some streets for a weekend and everyone sets up booths to sell their art. There's all sorts of things besides art, though. He notices there's some wool for sale, like the wool he left in the barrel back at the house.
There are a few booths making things out of the wool. One thing is ponchos, so Pat figures out what his poncho is made of. There's one particular lady making a poncho, and there's all sorts of other clothes in her booth thing. She's working with the same tools that Pat has behind his house but he didn't know what they were for before.
While he's watching a poncho being made right in front of him, some combination of sunlight and dander tickles Pat's nose and throat. He sneezes into the crook of his elbow. Luckily it's a spray nozzle type sneeze and not a snot glob one, so he doesn't need to get a tissue.
"Salud," says the lady making a poncho. She looks at him and smiles, and Pat knows she knows he's not from around here. She reaches over and takes a corner of his poncho in her fingers to feel it. She says something in Spanish, and it doesn't sound like she's disgusted by the state of it, so Pat figures it's something about the craftmanship it.
"Gracias," Pat says to her. He points at a basket she has that's full of wool. "Do you need wool? It's just that, the thing is, I have all this wool I'm not using, and I can bring it to you, if you need any. I mean, you have a lot here, but if you need more, so you can have like, a surplus, that'd be cool."
"Okay," the lady laughs and puts her hand up. "Okay."
"Okay," Pat says. "My name is Pat."
He puts his hand out and she takes it in hers but doesn't shake it. She just holds it, and he wants her to be his mom. He wants this lady to be his mom because his isn't here, because he left. The lady says something to him in Spanish, and it makes him feel good about being here, like if he hadn't left, he would never have met her. He thinks she introduces herself as well, but he doesn't catch her name.
Pat buys some stationary, some bread and some sort of spread, and on the way out of town he sees another lady riding a bike. He buys that off her, and bikes back to the house. It takes about an hour less than walking.
~*~
The alpacas are all waiting for Pat at the top of the hill when he gets back. He wonders if alpacas have dog hearing, like they heard him coming up the path from miles away, or if they just hang out on the hill sometimes. They turn their heads to look at him as he bikes up. His thighs and calves are on fire, and he gets off it and throws it to the ground so fast, he practically falls off it.
"Hey guys," Pat says to the alpacas. He walks down the hill, and the strain on his legs burns even worse, but he makes it. The alpacas trail slowly after him, like they're not following directly behind him but they'll catch up with him when they get the chance.
Pat hangs up his poncho, contemplates leaving the hat on, but decides to hang that up, too. There's nobody around; his head can live freely without shame. He puts his food on the shelves and his stationary on the bed. He wants to lay down with the stationary, because his legs feel like they're going to fall off, but he pushes himself to go back outside.
The sweat on Pat's skin makes the breeze feel colder than it is. The alpacas are wandering in the opposite direction of the house and the hill, towards another hill. Pat goes around the house and grabs the walking stick to help him not fall over, and then he follows them.
"Isn't this kind of backwards?" Pat says to the alpacas. "I'm supposed to be shepherding you. Right? This is just weird."
The alpacas all hum back and forth to one another, and maybe to Pat, too, he's not sure. It sounds like a traveling song, although it's pretty tuneless. Pat joins them in their humming.
Pat reaches the top of the other hill with the alpacas. Andrew and Joseph flop over to lay in the grass. Pat joins them, but he lays on his back to look up. Only after Pat settles in does Peter lay down as well. He lays closest to Pat and stares at him from under the wool around his face.
"You remind me of someone," Pat says to Peter the alpaca. "You don't know him, so you can't really know what I'm talking about, but the point is, you're like him but in alpaca form. That's probably weird, because you have the same name. That was creepy of me to name you after him."
Peter stares at him and makes a gurgling noise.
"That's right," Pat says.
Pat ends up falling asleep. He wakes up when the sun is going down surrounded by alpacas, like he's a baby Jesus and they're keeping him warm. He's slept surrounded by dudes before, in a van, years ago, and it felt the same way, even if it probably wasn't intentional. He gets a little emotional at the idea, that these alpacas are his friends now and they seem to really care for him.
He gets up and tries not to disturb the alpacas. The house is dark, but there's still some light coming in from the setting sun. The stationary is on his bed, and he sits down and takes out a piece of paper and the pen. He thinks he should write his -- his mom. He should write his mom a letter.
Pat's throat feels dry and his mouth feels gummy from his nap. He gets up and takes the moonshine off the shelf. He's not much of a drinker, so he just takes a quick swig of it. It feels like his throat just took a really long bike ride and now it's on fire, but it's all right. He brings it over to the bed with him and lays down on his belly, his feet at the head of the bed and his head at the foot, to write his letter.
Dear Pete,
How are you? I am fine. This letter is really lame already. I left. You must know that, since I'm not there right now. The thing is, I was feeling stupid.
Pat wishes he'd brought his laptop with him. He needs that little Microsoft Word paperclip friend to help him with his spelling. That guy was great. He was a real pal.
I was feeling stupid. You were there, and I was there, and it was weird. But I miss you being there when I'm there. I'm here now and you're not, and it's weird. I'm OK though, I got some new friends here. They're all pretty hairy because they're animals. You weren't hairy everywhere, remember? I remember that. I miss that.
Pat really misses that, all of a sudden. He wants to -- he wants to put his hands on Pete and feel the places where he's hairless. He wants Pete right now like he wants that little paperclip buddy. Pete is the paperclip of Pat's life. He like, he keeps it all together for Pat, and maybe he's not as secure as a staple or those things with the tabs you fold over, but that's who he is, and that's how Pat loves him.
Maybe I'll see you soon. I live in this town. It's pretty easy to find if you have a bike. Maybe I'll see you later.
Love,
Pat
P.S. Say hi to everyone for me, but not my mom or dad, but everyone else. Thanks.
Pat folds the letter hot dog style without reading it again. His folds are crooked and uneven, but he puts it in an envelope anyway. He writes Pete's address on the front, but he's not sure what to write as the return address. He's not even sure he has an address at this place. He writes P.V. Stump, Lima, Peru and hopes it'll go through like that.
The moonshine is half gone by the time he's done. He takes one last swig from it and puts the lid back on. The burn in his throat is dull, like there's a padding around it now to protect him from pain. His entire body feels like that, actually, like he could run into walls and he wouldn't feel it.
Joseph and Andrew are still up on the hill, but Peter is waiting outside the house. He makes that gurgling noise again, and Pat puts a hand on his neck and leans slightly on him as they walk back to the top of the hill.
"You guys," Pat says, gesturing broadly and vaguely at the alpacas, "you guys are really, like, you guys are great. You guys are my best friends. It's like, it's like, here's an analogy, let me tell you this."
Peter gurgles at him.
"Shh!" Pat points at Peter. "I'm telling you something important and you're just like, orgleorgleorgle, just like, just like that other guy. He's always doing that and I'm like, whatever. Like, I was like, maybe we should do it, you know? Like, totally hardcore do it with our dicks out and everything."
Patrick rubs his two index fingers together to demonstrate what he means. It looks like he's shaming the alpacas.
"Not that, look, your dick isn't anything to be ashamed of, you know what I mean? You should be proud of your dick, but not like, in a weird way. People get weird about their dicks, and become flashers and whatever, so don't do that."
Peter stares at him.
"Yeah, so this guy was like," Pat puts on a big dumb voice for the biggest, dumbest person he knows, "'I don't know, maybe we shouldn't,' which obviously means no. Like, why even tack the maybe on there? If you don't want to do it with me, then whatever."
Pat pauses. Instead of putting a soft padding around his emotions to make them feel less painful and burning, the moonshine is making them more painful and burning. He breathes in and out deeply to keep from crying. He doesn't want to cry, he didn't cry at the time, but it's just hard to think about now, Pete rejecting him. He told Pete he wanted him, and Pete didn't say, I want you too. He didn't say it. Pat stayed in Pete's bed all night, only half asleep, hoping he'd change his mind. He didn't; Pete just slept the whole night through, for once in his life, on the worst night to do so.
"So my point was," Pat continues, "it's like, in like, The Lion King, remember that movie? You guys gotta see that movie, it's a classic. So it's like in that, when Simba is like, in the jungle, and then those guys come out and help him eat bugs. You're those guys to me, you guys. You guys."
Pat passes out like an alpaca, humming with his face in the grass.
~*~
When Pat wakes up, he throws up on the side of the hill that doesn't face his house. He found a well a few hills down the other day, where another house and a farm are. He should really go make friends with his neighbors, even though they aren't exactly nextdoor. He gets some water out and splashes his face, rinses his mouth. He doesn't feel very ill after that, so he decides to go into town again. He writes a letter to his mom telling her he's okay, a letter to his dad telling him he's okay, and puts his letter for Pete with them without thinking too much about it. He gathers his barrel of alpaca wool to bring along.
Pat finds the post office in the town and buys some stamps. He sends the letters off and hopes they find the recipients well. He should've written that in his letters; he always thought that was a classy thing to say. Hope this letter finds you well.
The poncho lady from before is there again. Pat wasn't sure if the market was like, a daily thing, or a weekly thing, or what. He's relieved that she's there; she's the only familiar thing to him apart from his alpacas, and he's pretty sure he embarrassed himself in front of them last night. They'll probably forgive him.
Pat sits and watches the lady turn the fiber into clothing. It's fascinating. Pete always liked to watch Pat do things, like write or play or anything, and Pat never understood it. "You just make something out of nothing," Pete would say. "It's really cool to see." Pat understands that only now, for some reason.
The lady must notice something in his watching her make stuff, so she scoots over and pats the spot beside her. He sits down, and she shows him what she's doing very slowly so he can get it. She puts his hands where hers were and he does what she showed him. She speaks softly to him as he weaves, or whatever he's doing. He thinks he's weaving.
It takes him forever to get through about one-eighth of a poncho. He has quick fingers, but they're not used to making things like this. Eventually Pat's hands start to cramp up and he gives up. It still feels nice to have made something with his hands, no matter how small.
"Gracias," Pat says. "Thank for you showing me."
She smiles at him and says something he doesn't understand and hands him some already made alpaca fiber.
"Thank you," Pat says. She understands him perfectly.
~*~
Pat spends the week at home practicing with his own weaving stuff at the house. He takes it inside and sits on the bed to make a poncho, but the alpacas keep trying to get inside with him, so he takes it outside. He sings to them, and he doesn't care how he sounds. He doesn't have to sound like anything for them, because they're alpacas. They hum while he wails soulfully and loudly, and it's like they're their own band. He should take them back with him, if he ever goes back, and get them signed.
The poncho Pat makes is small and slightly lopsided. The edges aren't straight, but the hole is big enough for his head. He tries it on and it only goes down to his bellybutton, like a cutoff poncho. He goes to the well and washes his face and scrubs his hands in his hair to make himself look decently presentable. It feels just like the hundreds of gas station baths he's taken in his life, only cleaner somehow. He wears his poncho to town to show his poncho lady friend.
When he finds his poncho lady, she laughs at him and says things to him he doesn't fully understand linguistically but he feels that he understands them in his heart. He laughs at himself too, instead of getting upset with himself. He made a new thing, for the very first time, and it doesn't have to be perfect.
Pat buys some fresh bread and is walking his bike through the crowd to the path back to his house when he hears, "Patrick! Hey!"
He keeps walking because this isn't what he wanted. And, that's not really his name anymore. There could be some other Patrick here, right now.
"Hey!" A hand grabs his shoulder and he turns around, and Pete is there. Pat is set to push him away, physically, and keep walking, but then Pete punches him in the face.
It's not the hardest punch Pete's ever thrown, especially not at Pat. It surprises Pat enough that he drops his bike to the ground and holds his face. Pete's fist hits him square in the cheekbone and it'll bruise pretty good, but Pat figures he deserves it in some way. He doesn't even have it in him to punch back.
Pete puts his arms around Pat then and hugs him. He hugs him around his middle, around his shoulders, his head. He's only wearing a t-shirt, and Pat feels his bare arm's against his neck. He says into Pat's shoulder, "God, you fucking reek."
"Sorry," Pat says, not to the thing about reeking, but to what Pete really means. "I'm sorry."
"Do you live in a barn or something, Jesus," Pete says, pulling his face out of Pat's shoulder.
Pat doesn't know how to answer that. He doesn't live in an actual barn, but he does spend a lot of time hanging out with alpacas, which are barnlike animals.
"Hey," Pat says, "how did you know I was here?"
"I recognized your gait," Pete says. He sucks in a breath through his nose, hard, and his nose is full of snot like he's crying, but he's not crying. He's not right now, anyway.
"I meant, like, here," Pat says, waving his hand around.
"Oh, I just asked around," Pete says. He doesn't offer any further explanation, so Pat takes what he gets.
"Here, come on," Pat says. He picks up his bike and walks it, and Pete walks next to him.
~*~
"I'm not gonna, you know," Pete says, after a long silence on their walk to Pat's house. "I'm not gonna ask why."
Pat thinks Pete already knows why, so it's good he's not going to ask.
"We all have our times where we just snap," Pete continues. "Like, you know." He waves his hand around and tries to come up with an example. Pat can think of a few snapping points, some of Pete's, but he doesn't bring any of those up.
"Like when Britney shaved her head," Pat offers.
"Yeah, like that," Pete says. "This is your head-shaving incident."
"Yeah, I guess," Pat says.
"James Montgomery totally wrote an article about it," Pete says.
"Oh, of course he did," Pat says.
When they reach the hill, the alpacas are waiting.
"Oh, awesome," Pete says. He goes up to Andrew, who is the closest, to pet him, and Andrew backs away.
"These are my friends I told you about," Pat says.
"Hey, dude," Pete says to Andrew. He tries to pet him again, and Andrew spits at him. Pete freezes where he is and calls over his shoulder, "Does that mean they like you?"
"They've never spit on me," Pat laughs.
"Maybe they don't like you," Pete says. He wipes his arm off on his pants, but he doesn't try to pet any of the alpacas again.
"I dunno, man, we've been through some times together," Pat says. He pats Andrew on the neck when they walk by to go down the hill to the house.
They go inside and Pat hangs his hat up without thinking. He hasn't been hatless in front of anybody but the alpacas in a while, but he feels okay about it. Pete doesn't say anything, just looks around the house. Pat takes off his lopsided poncho and tosses it on the bed.
"This is like the fucking best clubhouse," Pete says. "It should be in a tree."
"I know," Pat says. "I just found it here, too, like, just like this."
Pete sits down on the bed, partly on the poncho, and looks up at Pat. He notices that he's sitting on the poncho and yanks it up from underneath him. His thighs sitting on Pat's bed look really good. God, Pat wants to give him his punch back now. He's so fucking angry all of a sudden, like, Pete didn't want to sit on Pat's bed before, with his thighs everywhere. Or the other way around, he didn't want Pat's thighs on his bed. The point is, Pete wanted nothing sexual to do with him before, so Pete's being here like this just makes him feel pissed off and humiliated all over again.
"Did you make this?" Pete says. He holds it up and considers it like he's going to try it on.
"You know, why the fuck are you here, anyway?" Pat says. He has an entire spiel racing through his head, things that he's been gathering in his mind at different times to say, and he's about to get into it pretty seriously.
"For you," Pete answers immediately, stalling Pat's spiel.
"Sure," Pat says.
"Patrick," Pete says soothingly. He runs his hand down Pat's forearm until he takes Pat's hand in his own. "Look, what do I have to do to get you to come back?"
Pull me onto the bed, Pat thinks. "Nothing," Pat says.
"I don't have to do anything?" Pete says, laughing to himself.
"No," Pat says. "There's nothing you can do. You don't want me at home anyways."
Pete lets go of Pat's hand and looks at him like he's an alpaca that just spit on him, with fond disgust.
"Patrick," Pete starts.
"It's Pat now," Pat interrupts.
"Pat," Pete starts again. He laughs at the name, with his big dumb idiot laugh. It makes Pat smile, he thinks since the first time he's been at this house. Pat is a pretty terrible name. "I want you at home," Pete finishes.
"I don't know," Pat says. "You should wear a poncho while you're here, though."
Pete is still clutching the poncho Pat made in his hand, and he puts it on right away. He stands up and it goes down only to his bellybutton, too. It looks like one of his hoodies, god awful and too small.
"I actually like it like this," Pete says.
"You would," Pat says. "You should go make friends with my alpacas, too."
Pat leaves the house and Pete follows right behind him. Like, right behind him, with his hand on Pat's hip.
"You know, Pat," Pete says, and that name really does sound retarded when it's not just in Pat's head and is coming out of someone's mouth. "I bet it got pretty lonely here, with just the alpacas to keep you company for weeks and weeks."
"I know where this is going," Pat says.
"Did you get intimate with any of your special friends?" Pete says.
"No, I did not," Pat says.
The alpacas are all standing around outside the house, like they're ready to intervene and toss Pete out whenever Pat gives them the go-ahead. Pete goes up to Peter like he's approaching a shiny surface with his reflection in it.
"Who's this handsome fellow?" Pete says.
"His name is Peter," Pat says. "And he's either gay or a female, because I saw Joseph mounting him the other day."
"Hey," Pete says with something new in his voice. He hasn't sounded like anything but gently amused or gently glum since he's been here. That's all Pete lets out in person sometimes, small waves, so it's like those underwater volcanoes that cause tsunamis. "Just because an -- alpaca has another alpaca mount him, it doesn't make him gay or a woman. They're in nature. It's natural."
"What?" Pat says. Pete's his best friend; he can figure out what Pete means by anything in a second. "Is that what your problem is? I didn't mean it was unnatural, and it doesn't make him less of an alpaca. I'm just saying maybe his name is no longer appropriate for what he is!"
The volume of Pat's voice climbs while he's talking and by the end of his point, he's yelling.
Pete stares at him and hums to himself. "You really snapped, didn't you, Pat?"
Pat covers his face with his hands. "You don't have to call me Pat," he says.
"What should I call you? Anything I want?"
"Patrick is fine," Patrick says.
There are hands on Patrick's wrists then, pulling his hands from his face. Pete tries to replace them with his own, but Patrick hunches his shoulders defensively and pushes Pete's arms down and away like Pete's trying to attack him. Patrick raises his arms in front of his chest when Pete tries again, so Pete's arms end up bracketing Patrick's, and gets his hands cupped around Patrick's cheeks.
Patrick turns his head away but puts his knuckles against Pete's chest, not to punch, but just to rest. Pete kneeds his thumbs around Patrick's cheeks like he's trying to make Patrick's face look funny. Patrick's been deadpanning his way through his life with Pete for years, though, so he keeps himself from laughing at it.
Patrick winces when Pete touches the spot on his cheek where Pete punched him earlier, and Pete runs his thumb over it more lightly to say sorry.
"I want you at home, Patrick," Pete says. He pushes Patrick's lips together so they're pouting and presses his own lips to them like Patrick's knuckles on his chest, just resting.
"Okay," Patrick says. "Okay, let's go home."
Patrick leaves the house there, with his alpaca friends, for the next person who needs them.
~*~THE END~*~