Be My Baby Boy

The living (with the) Dead

The next morning Peter woke to an empty bed. When he walked into the living room he found Wade on his laptop, muttering to himself. "Too far... Too big... Ugly. No convenient back alley... Oh hey, baby boy," Wade said and made space for Peter on the couch.

Peter snuggled against Wade, warming himself contentedly in Wade's heat. "Whatcha doing?" he mumbled, his eyes still partly open.

"You look like a sleepy kitten," Wade cooed and kissed Peter's nose. "I'm looking for apartments. Want to help?"

"What, why?" Peter gasped, suddenly all sleepiness gone.

"Well I can't stay here forever, now can I?" Wade asked distractedly, his eyes back on the apartment rentals on his laptop.

"Why... why not? Don't you want to?" The hitch in Peter's voice whipped Wade's focus completely on him.

"No no, baby boy, come here." Wade set the laptop on the coffee table, pulled Peter in his lap and yanked the blanket to cover them both. "I want to, I just didn't want to assume. Hell, waking up with you every morning and falling asleep with you every night is all I could have ever hoped for."

"Yeah?" Peter asked with a small hopeful smile.

"Yeah," Wade confirmed.

"Good. Then you'll stay?"

"As long as you want me to,"Wade said and rubbed his nose against Peter's.

"Stay forever," Peter whispered, almost too quiet for Wade to hear. Almost, but not quite. Wade thought his heart would explode into confetti.

Of course living with Wade was quite a different prospect than dreaming about living with Wade. First it was the food.

"Wade, we've had Mexican for four nights in a row," Peter said in the first week.

"I know," Wade said and sighed happily.

"Something else tonight? Anything else. Something with vegetables. Thai?"

"But... tacos?"

"Thai," Peter said firmly and Wade gave in.

Three days later they had the same argument. That time they got Indian. And another four days later, Italian. "And I don't mean pizza!" Peter cried when Wade finally conceded.

It was a constant, recurring battle that would have been more heated if Peter didn't also like Mexican. But not all the time.

Later they forgot how the tradition started. It was probably with the Indian they had when Peter suggested a movie from India. They ended up watching a Bollywood movie that kept them riveted. For weeks afterward, they kept breaking into Bollywood style dancing at random moments. One would take the pose, the other would follow and off they went.

They watched 'The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly' to go with their pasta and it made Wade wheezy with laughter. "They're so cute, pretending to be tough," he giggled after another Mexican standoff.

After about the fifth time they watched a movie made in the country whose food they were eating, Wade actually suggested something else than Mexican food himself. "I've never seen a Lebanese movie. And there's that little Lebanese place just around from that place with the best chimichangas."

"The one with the chef who sings?"

"No, thats the place with the best tacos. The other one."

So, Wade could be persuaded to eat other cuisines as long as Peter made it interesting. There was a whole world of cuisines and movies they could be catching up on.