FIC: Count Sheep, Count Heartbeats
Yeah, sound the trumpets, I'm posting fic.
I wrote this story in 2008, and found it in my documents folder last night. I make no claims about quality--I just realized as I reread it that...idk, I still love the idea. And I was sorry that it never got finished or posted.
Count Sheep, Count Heartbeats
3,200 words
Pete & Patrick
bad language, no sex
When Pete can't sleep, he tries every trick that ever successfully helped him drift off. Counting backwards from 100, taking three breaths between each count--it worked once or twice when he was, like, 14. Sometimes he pictures he's in an elevator going down while he counts, watching the numbers light up, 87th floor, 86th floor, 85th. It doesn't work, but he tries it night after night, pressing his jittery fingers into his own stomach to still them, trying to ignore the restlessness in his legs. Most nights he just gives up, but sometimes he gets down to zero, and then he goes negative, imagining the elevator sinking underground, deeper and deeper through basement after basement.
He lies on his stomach and pushes his face into the mattress next to his pillow. His breath makes it hot and damp and claustrophobic and he holds himself like that as long as he can, taking big gulps of air through the cotton. He tenses every muscle, presses his face down harder until he just can't stand it anymore, then he rolls over on his back and relaxes all at once, feels the cool air on his cheeks and breathes with his mouth open. He fell asleep like that once, on a camping trip somewhere, in a tent with his dad.
He tries staring at the backs of his eyelids and relaxing his jaw; he tries playing solitaire in his head, shuffling the cards back and forth.
They're in Bowling Green, OH, and it's 4:39am, and he keeps losing track of his 7's. That morning, he had a fight with his parents about Jeanae that somehow devolved into the same old fight about college. Then, after dinner, he had a vicious fight with Jeanae that ended with tears and his cellphone skittering across a parking lot. Now, his mind won't shut up.
At home he gets up a million times on nights like this, when it's this bad. He goes into the bathroom and looks at himself in the mirror, picks at his face, sits on the edge of the bathtub with his head against the tiles and cuts his toenails. But here, Patrick's asleep in one of the double beds, and Joe's in the other. Pete's on a cot, and Andy's--well, God knows where Andy is. The point is, Pete will wake everyone up if he doesn't stay put.
He props himself up against the wall. It's wood panelled, to go with the mustard yellow carpet. There's even a little wood panelled box next to each bed that says, "For your comfort and relaxation, this bed is equipped with Magic Fingers Relaxation Service". They'd tried it when they first got into the room, pooling all their change on the bedside table and piling onto one of the beds. Andy had almost vibrated right off the side of the bed, and Patrick kept cradling his head all night--it had a real kick.
Light from a convenience store sign is blinking in between the curtains and flashing over the comforter where it's tucked up around Patrick's shoulders.
Pete thinks about sneaking out of the motel room and going down to the van, but he doesn't know where the keys are--there's something shiny on the table, but it's just pocket change. He looks around the dark room for the shape of his duffel bag, or his jacket, then remembers that they're both between Joe's bed and the wall.
He thinks about going out to the parking lot, anyway, walking around.
His knees are bouncing under the sheets.
He thinks about going into the bathroom, maybe if he doesn't turn the light on, maybe he can close the door quietly and then--do some sit-ups or something. He scoots forward until his feet are on the floor and his knees are over the edge of the cot.
Motel bathrooms are really dark, with the light off and the door closed. The sheets are already making him feel too trapped. He leans all the way over and weaves his fingers into the carpet next to his feet, rests his chin on his knees.
Joe is just a dark lump across the room, with the covers pulled up over his head. Patrick's on his back now, head lolled sideways and chin on his chest. He looks young, and peaceful, just... sleeping.
Pete has the urge, suddenly, to scream in his face, and once he's thought it, it's an itch under his skin. Like the whisper that tempts you to put your hand on a hot burner or step off a balcony.
His eyes fall on the metal quarter slot above the little magic fingers box, and he feels it tug at him stronger, the temptation to break the awful, thick oppression of the dark room.
The pocket change he spotted earlier on the bedside table taunts him, and he glances back at the quarter slot next to Patrick's pale forearm on his white pillow.
Patrick will kill him. No, really, Patrick and Joe together will pummel him to death, and the ruckus will probably wake up the old guy in the next room who will join in with his walker, and--really, this is exactly the kind of impulsive behavior Pete spent a lot of time discussing with his high school guidance counselor, and he shouldn't.
He stands up.
He tells himself that he's just stretching his legs, and it's true. He does stretch them, he pushes himself up onto his tippy toes. He tells himself that he'll go crazy if he doesn't move, and that's definitely true as well. He tells himself that he's not going to do it, no sir, not at all, and that's less true, especially once he has the quarter in his hand, ridged edges pressing into his fingertips.
After that, it happens really fast. Patrick doesn't exactly wake up from the shaking alone, just kind of whines a complaint and tightens in on himself. After shifting from foot to foot for a moment, Pete thinks, "What the hell," and launches himself onto the bed with a yodel.
Patrick makes a hilarious noise when Pete lands on him, like an air mattress decompressing. A moment later, he's shouting and kicking, but his feet are all tangled up in the awful orange bedspread, so mostly his face just turns red while Pete straddles his waist and bucks up and down, laughing so hard he has to grip his side with one hand. Joe doesn't so much wake up as start pelting things--whatever he can reach without extracting his head from the bedding, spare pillows and dirty laundry and the alarm clock.
Patrick finally gets a leg free at the same time he gets one hand wrapped in Pete's hair. He pulls hard while he uses his leg to brace himself and buck up, and Pete topples sideways and rolls off the bed, and--see, if Pete showered more often, his hair wouldn't have slipped right out of Patrick's fist of fury, and he wouldn't have been able to hotfoot it to the bathroom before Patrick finished untwisting himself from the sheets. As Pete's said many times, questionable personal hygiene has served him well.
Patrick is shouting, swearing, "It's 5:12 in the morning, cocksucker!" and Pete slams the bathroom door and fumbles with the handle, still giggling and finally turning the lock on the third try. He calls back, "Didn't you want a wakeup call?" and he's laughing with his cheek against the door, feeling the vibrations as Patrick throws himself into it. The door is cheap, and the handle was loose to start with, so Pete figures it's only a matter of time before Patrick breaks in, if he's angry enough to keep trying. Really, you can always tell how angry Patrick is by the swear words he uses. "Cocksucker" is defcon 2, so Pete predicts he'll keep at it.
Patrick jiggles and tugs at the handle. The screws holding it to the door are loose, and the whole handle mechanism is about to pop off completely, so Pete scrambles back into the tub, ripping the shower curtain closed behind him and huddling down with his arms around his knees and his head below the ledge.
He hears the door bang into the wall, and then the shower curtain flies open. Patrick is standing there, face bright red. His hair is all standing up on one side and all flat on the other and his boxer shorts are twisted sideways so that the fly is almost over his hip. Pete catches his breath for a moment, slides further down in the tub, and makes his biggest eyes up at Patrick.
"What the fuck, fucker?" Patrick rubs at his eye. He doesn't have his glasses on, and he looks like a 2 year old woken up from a nap. He doesn't sound that angry anymore, but he kicks the side of the tub and the echo makes Pete flinch.
Pete shrugs and pokes at the complimentary shampoo bottle. "I couldn't sleep."
"I could. I was."
"My cot was, like, trying to eat me. It looks like a cot, but it's a fucking coffin."
"Do you want the bed and I'll take the cot?" Patrick asks, hostile, like he's barking an epithet and not a thoughtful offer.
Pete shakes his head.
Patrick crosses his arms and grabs his elbows, shivering not because the room is so cold but because his bed was so warm. "We don't have to be up for hours, Pete," he tries again, whining a bit. "I'd like to get some more sleep, if you're done being an asshole."
Pete shrugs. "I'm good here," he says, pressing his cheek against the cool ceramic. "Go back to sleep." He pauses for a moment, closing his eyes, then adds, "Sorry I woke you." He can feel Patrick's gaze, so he opens his eyes.
"Don't be stupid, you can't sleep in the bathtub," Patrick says, finally, but the funny thing is, Pete is pretty sure he could. He's actually pretty sleepy right now. He pulls the sleeves of his hoodie down over his hands and closes his eyes. Above him, Patrick sighs, then he hears Patrick leave.
A moment later, though, he's back. Pete opens his eyes when a pillow hits him the face. He looks up and Patrick's got another one clutched in his hands.
"Move over," he says, sticking one foot into the tub and kicking at Pete's ankles. Pete draws his knees up again and Patrick climbs in, squishing at the other end of the tub between the faucet and the wall. It's a tight fit, but they're both pretty tiny, so it's not impossible.
"It's bright," Pete says, wedging his bare toes under Patrick's thigh. Patrick levers himself up until he can pull on the shower curtain, making it rattle back across until it blocks most of the light, and it's like twilight inside the bathtub.
"Better?" Patrick asks, and Pete nods and leans into the tile. Patrick still isn't wearing his glasses, so his gaze is unfocused. Also, he keeps yawning. He starts mumbling at Pete about the show and the strange odor in the club and the joke Joe told on the ride back, and the spaces between his comments grow longer.
Pete doesn't remember exactly when he drifts off, but he wakes up in the morning mostly upright with Patrick's foot in his stomach and his own knees pulled up tight to his chest.
A month later, Pete finds out that Jeanae is cheating on him two days before they leave Chicago, and when he lies in the motel bed in Detroit and counts backwards from 100, he tries to picture stabbing her in the heart with every number. After about 80, though, he realizes he's just picturing Jeanae, smiling at him and snuggling up next to him on the couch and the million other things she did that were lies, lies, lies. And this time when he rolls over and presses his face into the bedding and tenses all his muscles, he opens his mouth and lets out a silent scream.
Joe's on the cot, this time, and Patrick's on the other bed. No magic fingers, and the carpet is dark blue instead of goldenrod, but the flashing light coming in through the window looks exactly the same.
He's looking at Patrick across the bedside table, so there are empty soda cans and paper plates blocking his view, along with the contents of Joe's shaving kit. Pete doesn't even lie to himself when he picks up that can of Gillette shaving cream and gently uncurls Patrick's right hand.
This time, Joe doesn't even seem to register the shouting. Pete runs to the bathroom again, trying to thumb the lock behind him with slippery hands, and when Patrick climbs into the tub where Pete's crouching, it's less about comfort and more about trying to strangle him.
Patrick's got shaving cream in his hair and up his nose, and his eyes are watering like crazy. Pete's eyes are watering, too, but it's because he's laughing so hard he's choking on it, wheezing and trying to squirm away from Patrick's slippery hands.
By the time Patrick stops taking clumsy, narrow swings, they're both hurt. Patrick is clutching his left knee, which he banged into the faucet, and Pete has cracked his head on the cheap shower surround loud enough to provoke a response from their neighbors.
"You're a fucking fuck," Patrick says, trying to lever himself up and wincing. His hand slips off the tub ledge, and he falls back onto Pete's foot. "Shit."
Pete tugs his knees in, letting Patrick's ass hit the ceramic, and rubs his palm over the lump at the back of his skull.
"Couldn't sleep," he says, twisting his mouth sideways. "And, dude, you should have seen your fucking face--ow!" His chuckle breaks off as Patrick kicks him viciously in the thigh.
"I hate you." Patrick breathes, cleaning his red face with the hem of his green t-shirt. "I'm gonna find a new band...one where everyone sleeps through the night..."
He's just grumbling, but Pete can't stifle a flinch.
Patrick's eyes fly to Pete's face and he freezes. "Shit, Pete--no." He reaches for Pete's arm, fingers curling around tight. "I didn't--don't mean that."
Pete tries to smile, and tilts over until his forehead is resting on the cool faucet. He can smell rust. He nods a little.
Patrick slides his hand down until it's clutched over Pete's fist, which is clenched in his hoodie sleeve. It's strange, feeling Patrick's sticky palm on his knuckles. After a moment Patrick lets go.
They're both quiet, not looking at each other, and Pete feels his eyes starting to drift closed, hears Patrick's head quietly thump back on the wall.
"She was a bitch," Patrick offers, minutes later, vehement.
It's the last sound in the room until Joe comes in to take a piss at 7:30 and shrieks like a monkey when he notices Pete staring at him from behind the shower door.
He takes Jeanae back, because he's stupid, and the relationship ends again two weeks later, because he's also shitty. Of course she's shitty, too, but that doesn't eat Pete up inside nearly as much as his own failures: jealousy and crippling, furious desperation.
They're in Des Moines, and he's restless and angry. Right then, being in the motel room feels like breathing through a pillow.
He mumbles something about finding the ice machine and takes off, reveling in the sting of cool air when he slips out onto the sidewalk, then into and across the parking lot.
He walks for a while, then stops and curls up on a park bench in front of a Kum N Go, where he catalogs the things people buy at 2:45 in the morning, the things that have the power to keep them away from sleep, to drive them out into the world: condoms, tampons, antacid, cigarettes. Things you really want; things you really need.
It's close to 4 by the time he heads back, and just as he expected, the room is dark.
Joe is in the bed closest to the door, and Andy is curled on the couch, but the other bed is still made. At first, Pete thinks Patrick took the cot and left the bed for him, but when he creeps over toward his bag, he notices that the cot is also empty, sheets undisturbed.
He frowns as he ditches his jacket and sneakers, wondering where the hell Patrick could be at this time of night. He chews on his thumbnail and debates waking Andy to ask, then decides to take a piss first.
Pete slips into the bathroom and flicks the switch and then bangs his elbow into the door, he starts so hard. Patrick is there, curled up in the tub and blinking into the harsh light.
Pete takes a shaky breath and relaxes, hissing, "Damn, Patrick--what the shit are doing there?" Even as he asks, Pete notices the pillow folded in half under Patrick's head and the velour blanket wadded over his feet.
The look on Patrick's face is similar to the one he wore when Pete turned on his magic fingers bed: sleepy, uncomprehending surprise. Then it morphs into something shyer.
He pushes himself up on one forearm. "Uh," he croaks, "I was waiting for you."
Pete blinks uncomprehendingly. "Why?"
Patrick shrugs, then sits up further with a frustrated sigh. "I thought you might..." he trails off and closes his eyes.
Pete can feel his heart beating across the line between his shoulder blades and behind his eyes.
When it doesn't seem like Patrick is going to continue, Pete tries to imagine what could keep Patrick from sleep, pull him out of bed in the middle of the night. Things you really want, he thinks.
Then Patrick opens his mouth. "I thought I'd...I don't know. That maybe this time, I'd just meet you here." He knocks his knuckles softly against the bathtub.
Now Pete's the one who can't seem to talk. He looks around the bathroom. "It's not--" He swallows hard against the pressure rising into his throat from his chest.
Patrick's wearing the same green t-shirt that had gotten covered in shaving cream in Detroit, and Pete remembers the itch that pushed him out of bed that night, that drove him to wake Patrick. Things you really need. He swallows again.
"This tub is actually a bit bigger," Patrick offers. He looks unsure, but Pete feels frozen. The bed in other room is large and empty, and Pete imagines tossing and turning across it's width, watching Patrick's eyes twitch as he dreams on the cot in the corner.
He clears his throat. "Move over," he says, leaning on the door while he kicks off his shoes. Patrick doesn't curl his legs in to make room at one end of the tub--instead, he pushes himself up against the backrest, so that when Pete climbs in, he finds himself half-sitting with his back to Patrick's chest.
They don't speak again, and Pete tries to relax into sleep.
It doesn't seem like it's working this time--he can't quite drift off, but it's not unpleasant. Through his shirt, he can feel Patrick's breath on his shoulder, and doesn't pull out any of his tricks--no counting or solitaire. His brain is still spinning, and the strange pressure is still perched in his chest, but he feels absolutely no desire to move.
I wrote this story in 2008, and found it in my documents folder last night. I make no claims about quality--I just realized as I reread it that...idk, I still love the idea. And I was sorry that it never got finished or posted.
Count Sheep, Count Heartbeats
3,200 words
Pete & Patrick
bad language, no sex
When Pete can't sleep, he tries every trick that ever successfully helped him drift off. Counting backwards from 100, taking three breaths between each count--it worked once or twice when he was, like, 14. Sometimes he pictures he's in an elevator going down while he counts, watching the numbers light up, 87th floor, 86th floor, 85th. It doesn't work, but he tries it night after night, pressing his jittery fingers into his own stomach to still them, trying to ignore the restlessness in his legs. Most nights he just gives up, but sometimes he gets down to zero, and then he goes negative, imagining the elevator sinking underground, deeper and deeper through basement after basement.
He lies on his stomach and pushes his face into the mattress next to his pillow. His breath makes it hot and damp and claustrophobic and he holds himself like that as long as he can, taking big gulps of air through the cotton. He tenses every muscle, presses his face down harder until he just can't stand it anymore, then he rolls over on his back and relaxes all at once, feels the cool air on his cheeks and breathes with his mouth open. He fell asleep like that once, on a camping trip somewhere, in a tent with his dad.
He tries staring at the backs of his eyelids and relaxing his jaw; he tries playing solitaire in his head, shuffling the cards back and forth.
They're in Bowling Green, OH, and it's 4:39am, and he keeps losing track of his 7's. That morning, he had a fight with his parents about Jeanae that somehow devolved into the same old fight about college. Then, after dinner, he had a vicious fight with Jeanae that ended with tears and his cellphone skittering across a parking lot. Now, his mind won't shut up.
At home he gets up a million times on nights like this, when it's this bad. He goes into the bathroom and looks at himself in the mirror, picks at his face, sits on the edge of the bathtub with his head against the tiles and cuts his toenails. But here, Patrick's asleep in one of the double beds, and Joe's in the other. Pete's on a cot, and Andy's--well, God knows where Andy is. The point is, Pete will wake everyone up if he doesn't stay put.
He props himself up against the wall. It's wood panelled, to go with the mustard yellow carpet. There's even a little wood panelled box next to each bed that says, "For your comfort and relaxation, this bed is equipped with Magic Fingers Relaxation Service". They'd tried it when they first got into the room, pooling all their change on the bedside table and piling onto one of the beds. Andy had almost vibrated right off the side of the bed, and Patrick kept cradling his head all night--it had a real kick.
Light from a convenience store sign is blinking in between the curtains and flashing over the comforter where it's tucked up around Patrick's shoulders.
Pete thinks about sneaking out of the motel room and going down to the van, but he doesn't know where the keys are--there's something shiny on the table, but it's just pocket change. He looks around the dark room for the shape of his duffel bag, or his jacket, then remembers that they're both between Joe's bed and the wall.
He thinks about going out to the parking lot, anyway, walking around.
His knees are bouncing under the sheets.
He thinks about going into the bathroom, maybe if he doesn't turn the light on, maybe he can close the door quietly and then--do some sit-ups or something. He scoots forward until his feet are on the floor and his knees are over the edge of the cot.
Motel bathrooms are really dark, with the light off and the door closed. The sheets are already making him feel too trapped. He leans all the way over and weaves his fingers into the carpet next to his feet, rests his chin on his knees.
Joe is just a dark lump across the room, with the covers pulled up over his head. Patrick's on his back now, head lolled sideways and chin on his chest. He looks young, and peaceful, just... sleeping.
Pete has the urge, suddenly, to scream in his face, and once he's thought it, it's an itch under his skin. Like the whisper that tempts you to put your hand on a hot burner or step off a balcony.
His eyes fall on the metal quarter slot above the little magic fingers box, and he feels it tug at him stronger, the temptation to break the awful, thick oppression of the dark room.
The pocket change he spotted earlier on the bedside table taunts him, and he glances back at the quarter slot next to Patrick's pale forearm on his white pillow.
Patrick will kill him. No, really, Patrick and Joe together will pummel him to death, and the ruckus will probably wake up the old guy in the next room who will join in with his walker, and--really, this is exactly the kind of impulsive behavior Pete spent a lot of time discussing with his high school guidance counselor, and he shouldn't.
He stands up.
He tells himself that he's just stretching his legs, and it's true. He does stretch them, he pushes himself up onto his tippy toes. He tells himself that he'll go crazy if he doesn't move, and that's definitely true as well. He tells himself that he's not going to do it, no sir, not at all, and that's less true, especially once he has the quarter in his hand, ridged edges pressing into his fingertips.
After that, it happens really fast. Patrick doesn't exactly wake up from the shaking alone, just kind of whines a complaint and tightens in on himself. After shifting from foot to foot for a moment, Pete thinks, "What the hell," and launches himself onto the bed with a yodel.
Patrick makes a hilarious noise when Pete lands on him, like an air mattress decompressing. A moment later, he's shouting and kicking, but his feet are all tangled up in the awful orange bedspread, so mostly his face just turns red while Pete straddles his waist and bucks up and down, laughing so hard he has to grip his side with one hand. Joe doesn't so much wake up as start pelting things--whatever he can reach without extracting his head from the bedding, spare pillows and dirty laundry and the alarm clock.
Patrick finally gets a leg free at the same time he gets one hand wrapped in Pete's hair. He pulls hard while he uses his leg to brace himself and buck up, and Pete topples sideways and rolls off the bed, and--see, if Pete showered more often, his hair wouldn't have slipped right out of Patrick's fist of fury, and he wouldn't have been able to hotfoot it to the bathroom before Patrick finished untwisting himself from the sheets. As Pete's said many times, questionable personal hygiene has served him well.
Patrick is shouting, swearing, "It's 5:12 in the morning, cocksucker!" and Pete slams the bathroom door and fumbles with the handle, still giggling and finally turning the lock on the third try. He calls back, "Didn't you want a wakeup call?" and he's laughing with his cheek against the door, feeling the vibrations as Patrick throws himself into it. The door is cheap, and the handle was loose to start with, so Pete figures it's only a matter of time before Patrick breaks in, if he's angry enough to keep trying. Really, you can always tell how angry Patrick is by the swear words he uses. "Cocksucker" is defcon 2, so Pete predicts he'll keep at it.
Patrick jiggles and tugs at the handle. The screws holding it to the door are loose, and the whole handle mechanism is about to pop off completely, so Pete scrambles back into the tub, ripping the shower curtain closed behind him and huddling down with his arms around his knees and his head below the ledge.
He hears the door bang into the wall, and then the shower curtain flies open. Patrick is standing there, face bright red. His hair is all standing up on one side and all flat on the other and his boxer shorts are twisted sideways so that the fly is almost over his hip. Pete catches his breath for a moment, slides further down in the tub, and makes his biggest eyes up at Patrick.
"What the fuck, fucker?" Patrick rubs at his eye. He doesn't have his glasses on, and he looks like a 2 year old woken up from a nap. He doesn't sound that angry anymore, but he kicks the side of the tub and the echo makes Pete flinch.
Pete shrugs and pokes at the complimentary shampoo bottle. "I couldn't sleep."
"I could. I was."
"My cot was, like, trying to eat me. It looks like a cot, but it's a fucking coffin."
"Do you want the bed and I'll take the cot?" Patrick asks, hostile, like he's barking an epithet and not a thoughtful offer.
Pete shakes his head.
Patrick crosses his arms and grabs his elbows, shivering not because the room is so cold but because his bed was so warm. "We don't have to be up for hours, Pete," he tries again, whining a bit. "I'd like to get some more sleep, if you're done being an asshole."
Pete shrugs. "I'm good here," he says, pressing his cheek against the cool ceramic. "Go back to sleep." He pauses for a moment, closing his eyes, then adds, "Sorry I woke you." He can feel Patrick's gaze, so he opens his eyes.
"Don't be stupid, you can't sleep in the bathtub," Patrick says, finally, but the funny thing is, Pete is pretty sure he could. He's actually pretty sleepy right now. He pulls the sleeves of his hoodie down over his hands and closes his eyes. Above him, Patrick sighs, then he hears Patrick leave.
A moment later, though, he's back. Pete opens his eyes when a pillow hits him the face. He looks up and Patrick's got another one clutched in his hands.
"Move over," he says, sticking one foot into the tub and kicking at Pete's ankles. Pete draws his knees up again and Patrick climbs in, squishing at the other end of the tub between the faucet and the wall. It's a tight fit, but they're both pretty tiny, so it's not impossible.
"It's bright," Pete says, wedging his bare toes under Patrick's thigh. Patrick levers himself up until he can pull on the shower curtain, making it rattle back across until it blocks most of the light, and it's like twilight inside the bathtub.
"Better?" Patrick asks, and Pete nods and leans into the tile. Patrick still isn't wearing his glasses, so his gaze is unfocused. Also, he keeps yawning. He starts mumbling at Pete about the show and the strange odor in the club and the joke Joe told on the ride back, and the spaces between his comments grow longer.
Pete doesn't remember exactly when he drifts off, but he wakes up in the morning mostly upright with Patrick's foot in his stomach and his own knees pulled up tight to his chest.
A month later, Pete finds out that Jeanae is cheating on him two days before they leave Chicago, and when he lies in the motel bed in Detroit and counts backwards from 100, he tries to picture stabbing her in the heart with every number. After about 80, though, he realizes he's just picturing Jeanae, smiling at him and snuggling up next to him on the couch and the million other things she did that were lies, lies, lies. And this time when he rolls over and presses his face into the bedding and tenses all his muscles, he opens his mouth and lets out a silent scream.
Joe's on the cot, this time, and Patrick's on the other bed. No magic fingers, and the carpet is dark blue instead of goldenrod, but the flashing light coming in through the window looks exactly the same.
He's looking at Patrick across the bedside table, so there are empty soda cans and paper plates blocking his view, along with the contents of Joe's shaving kit. Pete doesn't even lie to himself when he picks up that can of Gillette shaving cream and gently uncurls Patrick's right hand.
This time, Joe doesn't even seem to register the shouting. Pete runs to the bathroom again, trying to thumb the lock behind him with slippery hands, and when Patrick climbs into the tub where Pete's crouching, it's less about comfort and more about trying to strangle him.
Patrick's got shaving cream in his hair and up his nose, and his eyes are watering like crazy. Pete's eyes are watering, too, but it's because he's laughing so hard he's choking on it, wheezing and trying to squirm away from Patrick's slippery hands.
By the time Patrick stops taking clumsy, narrow swings, they're both hurt. Patrick is clutching his left knee, which he banged into the faucet, and Pete has cracked his head on the cheap shower surround loud enough to provoke a response from their neighbors.
"You're a fucking fuck," Patrick says, trying to lever himself up and wincing. His hand slips off the tub ledge, and he falls back onto Pete's foot. "Shit."
Pete tugs his knees in, letting Patrick's ass hit the ceramic, and rubs his palm over the lump at the back of his skull.
"Couldn't sleep," he says, twisting his mouth sideways. "And, dude, you should have seen your fucking face--ow!" His chuckle breaks off as Patrick kicks him viciously in the thigh.
"I hate you." Patrick breathes, cleaning his red face with the hem of his green t-shirt. "I'm gonna find a new band...one where everyone sleeps through the night..."
He's just grumbling, but Pete can't stifle a flinch.
Patrick's eyes fly to Pete's face and he freezes. "Shit, Pete--no." He reaches for Pete's arm, fingers curling around tight. "I didn't--don't mean that."
Pete tries to smile, and tilts over until his forehead is resting on the cool faucet. He can smell rust. He nods a little.
Patrick slides his hand down until it's clutched over Pete's fist, which is clenched in his hoodie sleeve. It's strange, feeling Patrick's sticky palm on his knuckles. After a moment Patrick lets go.
They're both quiet, not looking at each other, and Pete feels his eyes starting to drift closed, hears Patrick's head quietly thump back on the wall.
"She was a bitch," Patrick offers, minutes later, vehement.
It's the last sound in the room until Joe comes in to take a piss at 7:30 and shrieks like a monkey when he notices Pete staring at him from behind the shower door.
He takes Jeanae back, because he's stupid, and the relationship ends again two weeks later, because he's also shitty. Of course she's shitty, too, but that doesn't eat Pete up inside nearly as much as his own failures: jealousy and crippling, furious desperation.
They're in Des Moines, and he's restless and angry. Right then, being in the motel room feels like breathing through a pillow.
He mumbles something about finding the ice machine and takes off, reveling in the sting of cool air when he slips out onto the sidewalk, then into and across the parking lot.
He walks for a while, then stops and curls up on a park bench in front of a Kum N Go, where he catalogs the things people buy at 2:45 in the morning, the things that have the power to keep them away from sleep, to drive them out into the world: condoms, tampons, antacid, cigarettes. Things you really want; things you really need.
It's close to 4 by the time he heads back, and just as he expected, the room is dark.
Joe is in the bed closest to the door, and Andy is curled on the couch, but the other bed is still made. At first, Pete thinks Patrick took the cot and left the bed for him, but when he creeps over toward his bag, he notices that the cot is also empty, sheets undisturbed.
He frowns as he ditches his jacket and sneakers, wondering where the hell Patrick could be at this time of night. He chews on his thumbnail and debates waking Andy to ask, then decides to take a piss first.
Pete slips into the bathroom and flicks the switch and then bangs his elbow into the door, he starts so hard. Patrick is there, curled up in the tub and blinking into the harsh light.
Pete takes a shaky breath and relaxes, hissing, "Damn, Patrick--what the shit are doing there?" Even as he asks, Pete notices the pillow folded in half under Patrick's head and the velour blanket wadded over his feet.
The look on Patrick's face is similar to the one he wore when Pete turned on his magic fingers bed: sleepy, uncomprehending surprise. Then it morphs into something shyer.
He pushes himself up on one forearm. "Uh," he croaks, "I was waiting for you."
Pete blinks uncomprehendingly. "Why?"
Patrick shrugs, then sits up further with a frustrated sigh. "I thought you might..." he trails off and closes his eyes.
Pete can feel his heart beating across the line between his shoulder blades and behind his eyes.
When it doesn't seem like Patrick is going to continue, Pete tries to imagine what could keep Patrick from sleep, pull him out of bed in the middle of the night. Things you really want, he thinks.
Then Patrick opens his mouth. "I thought I'd...I don't know. That maybe this time, I'd just meet you here." He knocks his knuckles softly against the bathtub.
Now Pete's the one who can't seem to talk. He looks around the bathroom. "It's not--" He swallows hard against the pressure rising into his throat from his chest.
Patrick's wearing the same green t-shirt that had gotten covered in shaving cream in Detroit, and Pete remembers the itch that pushed him out of bed that night, that drove him to wake Patrick. Things you really need. He swallows again.
"This tub is actually a bit bigger," Patrick offers. He looks unsure, but Pete feels frozen. The bed in other room is large and empty, and Pete imagines tossing and turning across it's width, watching Patrick's eyes twitch as he dreams on the cot in the corner.
He clears his throat. "Move over," he says, leaning on the door while he kicks off his shoes. Patrick doesn't curl his legs in to make room at one end of the tub--instead, he pushes himself up against the backrest, so that when Pete climbs in, he finds himself half-sitting with his back to Patrick's chest.
They don't speak again, and Pete tries to relax into sleep.
It doesn't seem like it's working this time--he can't quite drift off, but it's not unpleasant. Through his shirt, he can feel Patrick's breath on his shoulder, and doesn't pull out any of his tricks--no counting or solitaire. His brain is still spinning, and the strange pressure is still perched in his chest, but he feels absolutely no desire to move.