"Patrick, it's time to get up," a familiar voice coos, a gentle kiss pronging the tip of my nose as I release a disfavored groan and curl the pillow around me to block out the real world.

"Five more minutes," I screech through the muffler of cotton.

Pete chuckles a twitterpated rhapsody, still unrelenting. "It's Christmas."

I spring from the bed in an abrupt hurricane of elation, glee popping in my skin. "Christmas?"

"Yeah, and everyone's gathering around the tree." While I'm too stunned to react, Pete uses the chance to hybridize his hand with my hair as he pushes it back and sinks his lips into mine with an indomitable warmth.

The warmth is so thorough and genuine that he must have forgotten about what I did last night, how he wouldn't fulfill the mistletoe tradition because of it. He'll be prodded about it soon, though, when he sees the distrustful stare of Dallon around the Christmas tree as it clashes with the conventional merriment of the season.

This anxiety gores any sort of pleasure from being so close to Pete, but I would be living a lie if it weren't present, and it's been made evident that I abhor lies, yet I hate this sensation even more, but we're now moving towards the living room after peeling away, so I can't be distracted by my own nervousness.

Everyone but Ryan is domesticated on the couch near the cackling fire as they await the remainder of their party, and only one is absent.

"Where's Ryan?" Gerard's wondering discorticates the color from his usually hazel irises as it sticks to every area of the room in the expedition to find the milky Ryan Ross.

Brendon removes his legs from under him, rising from the couch with a proposal. "Should I find him?"

"If that'll wake him up."

With a cheerful nod, Brendon skips away to locate the slumbering Ryan, whom he'll probably tackle upon sight until he begs for mercy, and the guests wait excitedly for his return, glasses of egg nog poised a tad too fervidly in their clutch.

"Did you sleep well?" Lindsey greets, her face confined to sophistication, and I glance over at Pete.

"This asshole woke me up."

Pete nestles into me, his tone a scalding breeze in my ear. "We let you sleep for long enough, Patrick."

"Not long enough. I'm still tired."

Still tired from last night, that is. The night where I was chased around the house by an ostensible hallucination, which is the most logical thing I can think of, seeing as I've never been one for the supernatural, and my heart is still pumping.

Dallon is busying himself with something on his nail, probably something fake that will redirect him away from his old friend on the sofa, because like me, he's miffed about what happened last night, just without the plethora of possibilities and only the notion that I'm not all right in some shape, and there's a certain mystery that arises from those circumstances.

My analysis of Dallon is interrupted when Ryan stumbles into the room with an eager Brendon cleaving to his neck and burning hickeys into the flesh, but Ryan is too knackered to stop him, with his lids barely open and functional.

"Brendon, how about you get me some milk?" he grumbles, smacking away the all too fluorescent boy attached to him.

"We already have egg nog, though." The homosexual desquamates himself from his boyfriend long enough to gesture towards the platter of oddly colored substances foaming in glasses upon the coffee table.

"Egg nog is sketchy."

Brendon huffs, but he loves Ryan to the point where he complies anyway, distributing his abilities to the kitchen to pour some milk for his friend, and our interval continues, but we don't reflect our peevishness and dampen the Christmas mood.

The man rebounds into the room again with a full glass of milk, placing it in Ryan's hold with a scowl before crashing into the couch with his boyfriend as the kid struggles to keep the liquid inside the cup.

Lindsey's on an expedition to administer presents to each of us, but Dallon dispenses mine before she can get to me, a peculiar expression adulterating him.

As the woman disperses Pete's present to him, she winks to both of us, saying, "I think Patrick would like you to unwrap yours first."

Pete peers over at me, searching for my approval, which I kindly give with the only hidden version of fear. He begins, meticulously shucking the wrapping paper and tossing it to the floor for a precise Frank to sweep up into a trash bag, and upon discovering the boxed figure of the gift, Gerard supplies him with some scissors, which he uses to slice through the seal.

My teeth battement through the impatience, observing as Pete peels back the layers to the cardboard contraption and predicting the worst. What if he doesn't like it? What if he's disappointed with me? What if he hates me for it?

The opposite is the reality, though, for as Pete beholds the crystal finch I had purchased for him, a gasp is all that is manageable as adoration devours his entire body, stretching until he can no longer speak properly without whispering. "Patrick, this is amazing."

In his love for the object, he forgets to ogle me just the same as the bird, but he soon requires that of himself, embracing my lips with his own while the strawberry fields edify my spirit.

The room thrives with applause from everyone but Dallon, who frowns in the corner of his chair with his gift tapping along to the beat of his knee. "Perhaps you should go next, Patrick," he advocates, hints of mischief ramming into his words sporadically.

Disregarding his obvious ill-will, I accept the challenge and ventilate the box as its top scampers away to unmask something that could only be a joke. "Are you fucking serious?" I scream.

Dallon's brows lance with pother, caught in the turmoil. "Yes?"

I fit my hand around the menacing bottle of hydrogen peroxide to display it to the guests. "This has to be a prank."

"Do you not like it?" Frank inquires in lieu of his friend, attempting to filter the situation and procure a conclusion.

My elocution is a whirlwind of pneumatic hell set on murder, propped at the apex of human chords. "What kind of sick person gives hydrogen peroxide as a Christmas gift?"

Dallon shrugs sardonically. "Well I don't know, because that's not hydrogen peroxide."

Taken completely by surprise, my breathing halts. "What?"

"Those are gloves," Dallon clarifies, posing in a manner that denotes spelling it out for me. "I heard you needed these."

"I heard you did, too," I retort with an unwillingness to submit to Dallon's logic.

He neglects my spite, just muttering, "Merry Christmas, Patrick."

"Hey, are you okay?" Pete murmurs in my ear, and I shy away from him, uncomfortable from the prior experience.

"Whatever. It doesn't matter."

Osmosis bends through us until Pete's curled into me as he inhales the evergreen of my skin and rushes a sigh out of his lungs. "If that's what you want."

However, Gerard isn't so easygoing and never ceases his flow of questions. "Do you need to talk?"

"Please don't damage your Christmas because of me."

"You're not damaging our Christmases, Patrick," Gerard assures, face tempering. "We're all atheists anyway, just looking for extra geniality."

"I'd rather you open your presents and enjoy yourselves."

The man's brows enfeeble, asking once again, "Are you sure?"

I nod. "Absolutely."

He continues to stare in the hopes that I'll change my mind, but I don't, so he finally relents. "Well okay then."

Pete again constitutes an orchestra of denial in my ear, and in an escape, I shift so that I'm reclining on his chest as I infuse a route of kisses into his jaw.

"Stop trying to divert me," he warns half jokingly and half seriously.

"I can't even stop diverting myself." It seems like a simplistic game that I'm playing, but we both know that I've never had full control over myself and what goes on inside me, though it's supposed to be a holiday of fun and sometimes games, so we pay no mind to it.

"I've offered you help, but you have always refused it."

"I told you to enjoy your Christmas, Peter." I swat my friend away in partial jocularity, then diving back into him.

"I will if I get what I want."

Pandering to his possibly perverted comment, I fix a hand to his chest, alive and aching, and ask what it is that he wants.

"I want every bit of you — every morsel, every crumb, every speck amidst a galaxy that still means the most out of all other things — but I know I cannot have such wonders, because they are not mine to take. But Patrick, if you'll give them to me, then I'll devour any apprehension and fucking drown in you."

Paused by the unexpected depth of Pete's wish, though nevertheless consenting, the man registers it as a call to cushion his lips on mine, not fretting about the guests' responses.

"Merry Christmas, Pete Wentz," I sigh.

"A merry Christmas indeed."

~~~~~

A/N: JUST THROW ME IN A FUCKING RIVER

HOW IS THIS LEVEL OF CUTENESS LEGAL

current vibe: when I Hate Everything mocked damn daniel and ended up accidentally making a meme

~Dankota