CATEGORY: Fluff, could be considered a Halloween AU
FEATURING: dating!Peterick
TRIGGER WARNINGS: None
PROMPT: Pete teases Patrick about being a scaredy-cat, and he decides to jump scare Pete to prove himself.
WORD COUNT: Approximately 1,040

"So, how was the date?"

Patrick smiled, a light blush on his cheeks from Joe's question. He fiddled with one of the buttons on his denim jacket. "It was great." He leaned into his boyfriend's shoulder. "Right, Pete?"

Pete didn't say anything, so Patrick nudged him, and he looked up from his phone for a moment. "Right." Patrick would've been concerned by his lack of a reaction, but a flicker of a grain crossed Pete's face, and so he knew he'd been listening.

Patrick and Pete had known each other for years, since middle school. They'd been a bit more than platonic throughout high school--flirting with one another (mostly Pete flirting with Patrick, really), maybe stealing a kiss in between classes, whenever they were alone--but only recently, Pete had asked Patrick to make it official. Their first real date had been last night.

Now, they were at Pete's apartment with their friends, Andy and Joe. The latter two were on the floor, playing MarioKart on Pete's crappy television, and Patrick was cuddled into Pete's shoulder on the couch. Pete himself was scrolling through Twitter on his phone, with Patrick switching now and then between watching him and watching the race on the screen.

"What'd you guys do?" Joe swerved his kart on the screen, firing a green turtle shell at Andy.

Andy expertly swerved around the shell, and elbowed his friend. "Dude, you can't just ask that."

"No, no, it's fine." Patrick put his hands, shrouded in black fingerless gloves, back in his pockets. "We saw a movie."

"Was it the Jumanji remake?" Joe fired a banana peel ahead of Andy, who easily drove around the obstacle. "I keep meaning to see that one."

Pete turned off his phone and put it in his pocket, putting his arm around Patrick. "Nah, we saw a reshowing of Psycho. The original," he added, for clarification.

"Didn't take Patrick as the type," Joe said, his smile turning to a frown as Andy hit him with a red turtle shell, and zipped across the finish line. "Dammit, Andy!" The latter man raised his fists in the air in victory.

"I'm not," Patrick admitted, "but Pete coaxed me into it."

"Patty's a bit of a scaredy-cat," Pete added.

Patrick scowled. "I am not!"

"The bruises on my arm indicate otherwise," Pete teased. "You were clinging onto me so hard, I thought I was gonna lose feeling in my hand."

"Hmph." Patrick crossed his arms, but didn't protest as Pete wrapped a loose arm around his shoulders and kissed his cheek.

Over the next few days, Patrick kept thinking about how Pete had teased him. He knew his boyfriend hadn't meant it, and he wasn't really hurt, but he felt like maybe Pete had underestimated him.

The thought bounced around in his mind, and after thinking about it, he realized that he could take advantage of this. It was time for the scared to become the scarer.

So, on Tuesday, Patrick went to Wal-Mart after work. Halloween was in a few weeks, and so there were lots of things in the seasonal section that Patrick could use to scare Pete.

To be fully honest, Patrick was a little scared by some of the masks in the costume section, but he ignored it. He picked out the mask that seemed scariest to him--a wolf mask made of rubber, with brown fur, slitted eyes, and bared teeth, with drool hanging from its jaws.

He paid for the mask, and went to Pete's apartment building. He knew that Pete was still at work--he had two different restaurant jobs, one in the morning and one in the evening--and so he would likely be back before too long.

Patrick had a key to Pete's apartment, and thought about pranking Pete there. He still officially lived with his parents, but he spent much of his time staying with Pete, usually at least three nights a week. He was fortunate that his parents were okay with them being together--they didn't always approve of Pete's slightly wild antics, but they knew that the two boys shared a very close bond, and that Pete would never intentionally harm their son.

In the end, Patrick decided to just wait at the top of the stairs for Pete. His boyfriend was the only one living on the fifth floor of the run-down apartment building, except for the old lady down the hall; since it was past nine o'clock, Patrick assumed she wasn't out.

He pulled the mask over his face. It was a little less scary to him, now that he was the one wearing it. After that, he stood just around the corner at the top of the stairwell, waiting for Pete to come home.

Patrick started feeling kind of silly after about fifteen minutes. Was he really standing in a hallway, wearing a wolf mask, and waiting for his boyfriend to get home from work, just to prank him?

Before he could consider backing out of the practical joke, Patrick heard footsteps in the stairwell, and his heart raced. He pressed his back to the wall, waiting, and just as the figure started to take the final step up the stairs, Patrick jumped in front of him, and let out the most fearsome wolf growl that he could muster.

Pete fell down the stairs.

Or rather, he jumped back, and since there was only a small ledge to support him, he quickly fell backwards. Pete half tumbled, half fell down the stairs, stopping just at the hallway to the fourth floor.

Patrick yanked off his mask. "Pete! Oh, my God!" He quickly ran down the steps, two at a time, rushing to his boyfriend's side.

Pete was just laying there, laughing his ass off. "I can't believe you got me."

"Are you okay? Did you hit your head?" Patrick quickly checked Pete over for any obvious injuries, but his boyfriend seemed mostly unscathed. He was lucky the stairs were carpeted.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Pete promised, brushing him off. "A little banged up, maybe, but I think otherwise I'm pretty good."

Patrick helped him up, linking his arm with Pete's and helping his slightly limping boyfriend go up the stairs. "I'm so sorry, Pete."

"Don't be, sweetheart." Pete just kissed his cheek, a grin plastered across his face. "You got me real good. Maybe I'm the real scaredy-cat here, eh?"

A/N: I think this one came out well, I enjoyed writing it ^^