"An Aquarium, huh?" I muse, trying hard not to sound... well, slightly disappointed. Patrick notices my lack of enthusiasm and half-smiles, nudging me in the arm. "Yes, an aquarium. It'll be fun, don't worry." He assures me, grabbing my hand and interlacing our fingers.
Yeah, I'm okay with the aquarium now. Funny, that.
Patrick hands a girl in a ticket booth a couple of dollars which she exchanges for two tickets and hands them to us. "Thank you." Patrick says absent-mindedly while she smiles sweetly at our joined hands.
"Okay, fish-boy: What's the plan?" I mock, watching him study one of the maps. He scoffs and points to a spot on the map which is labelled 'Shark Tanks'
"Oh, shark-boy, excuse me."
Patrick stops reading the map to look at me with a smirk, "Sharks are still fish, Pete."
I take a step away from him, detaching our hands in the process, and point a finger at him in surprise, "Only a fish-boy would know that!" I accuse.
He puts his hands on his hips, shaking his head with a smile. "You're such an idiot." He decides, stepping towards me, maintaining his smile.
The smile that captivated me from day one.
His hands find their way to my hips, dipping into my back pockets to pull me closer. I slide my arms around his waist and then we're so... close.
"That's not what my midterm report says." I say in a surprisingly low voice.
I sound pretty seductive if I do say so myself. Or, as seductive as you can be saying something like that.
"I know, I'm proud of you." He says affectionately, kissing my nose lightly. "How proud?" I tilt my head challengingly and lean into him. Patrick shrugs, grin slowly fading into a smirk, "Lemme show you."
And he does, because suddenly he's pulling me down the hall, ignoring all the people staring at us with raised eyebrows, and we reach a dark room. Inside I can hear a narration from a video playing. Part of the room's lit up by the projector showing the video on a wall in front of kids and their parents.
I have no idea why he brought us here and I'm about to ask when he pulls me to the right of the doorway behind a statue of a giant fish.
I think I know where he's going with this. And I think I'm okay with it.
"This is very teenager-y of us." I tell him in a whisper. Patrick's eyes flicker to my lips and back to my eyes, he licks his bottom lip. "The hiding or the fact we're about to make out?"
"Oh, are we?" I ask, feigning shock. "I'm not to sure about that, actually." I tease, walking slowly backwards. He grabs my arm and pulls me into him and in one swift motion I press him against the wall, making him blink in surprise.
He regains his focus and smiles crookedly, "That was pretty smooth."
"Thanks." I say, not leaving any time for him to say anything else before I connect my lips to his.
His lips are warm and dry and inviting and one hand drops to his waist while the other's fingers curl around his neck, protectively.
He's mine. You can't have him.
Our lips run over each other, our breaths mixing to create a whole new blend. The kiss is wet and hot now, every second becoming hungrier and hungrier. His fingers dig into my shoulders like I'm his only chance of survival.
He licks my bottom lip and slides his tongue inside my mouth. My hand on his neck rushes to grip his hair and bring him closer. I place my legs on either side of his, pushing our hips together in the process. Patrick's hands glide to the small of my back, curling into fists when a moan escapes from his lips, tangible and flawless.
I feel a hard tap on my shoulder. We break apart with a wet smack and I hear someone say, "You can't do that in here." In a furious snap. I look over my shoulder immediately and am faced with an angry looking grey-haired man with a security guard uniform on.
Patrick squirms out of my grip to fix his hair and wipe his mouth, which is as red as his cheeks, but not from embarrassment.
He's breathtaking, he always is.
"Come on, didn't you hear me? Get out! You can't do that here!" He hisses, veins basically popping out of his forehead.
"Okay, okay. We're leaving." I grumble, taking Patrick along with me by his hand. He hangs his head with embarrassment and begins to walk to the front entrance from where we came in. I put a hand on his shoulder and ask, "What are you doing?" Which makes him stop and turn to face me with perplexed features.
"Leaving? Like we're supposed to?"
I almost laugh. Almost. Instead I shake my head in partial disappointment. "Since when have we done what we're told?"
"Fair enough, but-"
"We're going to finish this date, even if it gets us banned." I must admit, it sounded a lot more heroic in my head.
Patrick shrugs to himself and begins walking in the opposite direction of the exit with me, hurrying when we walk past the same security guard with his back turned.
"Ooh, ooh." I whine, noticing a sign blinking the words 'Gift Shop.' Patrick doesn't and stares at me with a blank expression, "Is there something wrong?" He asks, sounding as if he doesn't really want to find out.
"Dude, there's a gift shop. We have to go check it out!" I plead, dragging him to it's entrance without waiting for his approval.
Inside, the shop is completely ocean themed. Seaweed floors, bubbles decorating a blue wall, employees dressed in sea creature costumes, looking like they hate life.
Can't say I understand their pain.
One, contrastingly cheerful, employee springs over to us with an obnoxiously apparent smile and big gleaming eyes. He's dressed in a seahorse costume.
"Hi!" He greets us, "I'm Adam, but you can call me Sisky! Everyone does." Sisky holds out a hand in front of him for us to shake. Patrick and I take it reluctantly, one after the other, making Sisky beam even more; if that was possible.
Maybe I should get Brendon a job here, he'd get along amazingly with Sisky.
He continues to smile at us as if he's waiting for us introduce ourselves. It's pretty creepy, actually.
I clear my throat, "Uh.. Pete. I'm Pete." Sisky smiles at me happily. Not that he hasn't already been doing that... But then he looks over to Patrick, his eyes widening along with his mouth and Jesus, that mental image is forever carved into my brain, I'm sure.
"Patrick?" Patrick says as if he's asking if that's what he's supposed to say. Sisky doesn't seem to notice and simply nods rapidly, "Well, Pete and Patrick, let me know if you need anything!" He gives us an enthusiastic wave as we both escape his line of sight.
"That was..." Patrick begins, but shakes his head with a small laugh, "I don't know how to finish that sentence." He says while I have a brief look around.
"No need, fish-boy; let this finish it for you." I hold up a small crawfish toy that has the words 'Totally crawzy!' on it. Patrick groans, rubbing his face with disbelief. "You're incredible."
"Don't you mean," I throw away the first toy and grab another that is marked with a different pun on it instead. "totally incrawdible?!"
Patrick buries his face into his hands, stifling a laugh. "And you're calling me fish-boy." He says before adding, "And that could have said crayzy. Crawfish and crayfish the same thing."
"That's why you're fish-boy."
"But crawfish are crustaceans, not fish."
I stretch my arms out in front of me, "See? You are a fish-boy." Patrick gives up at this point and picks up the toy I dropped. He holds it, looking down at it with a small smile on his face. Then he looks up at me, maintaining the smile. "I-" He's cut off when Sisky comes rushing over to us again.
Wh-what was Patrick about to say?
God damn it Sisky.
"Nice pick! You've got matching ones, that's adorable." He says, looking at the toy in my hands. "Tell you what, since we don't get many cute couples coming in I'll give 'em to you on the house!" He throws his hands up in the air in celebration and neighs.
I'm being serious. He neighs.
Seahorses don't neigh, as far as I'm aware.
Patrick seems to realise that too and begins to say, "Um, seahorses don't-"
"Neigh? Oh I know, just a little bit of fish humour!" He nudges Patrick in the arm who looks kind of annoyed that he cut him off again.
"Yeah... thanks for the toys and all Adam-" Sisky frowns immediately, "Sorry, Sisky." I say which makes him perk up again, "Yeah, uh thanks but we've gotta go."
"Awh, are you sure? You've barely looked around!" He whines, even pouting to go with it. I hesitate but when Patrick coughs loudly and nods in the direction of one of the doors and I see the same security guard from earlier, I decide a lot quicker, "Definitely got to go, sorry. And thanks!" I say again before running out of the door with Patrick, just missing the attention of the security guard.
"That was close." Patrick sighs, as we walk through several fish tanks. "Yeah." I agree, "I'm hungry, want to go get something to eat?"
"Dude, we should probably go, I mean that guy could catch us." He points to the exit then looks over his shoulder, presumably for the guard. "We're on a date, Patrick Stump. And unless you want to go visit Jack in the pizza place as an end to it, then we're going to complete it here." I say firmly, ending it with a nod to back it up.
Patrick just looks at me like I'm insane, but reluctantly agrees and grabs my hand again, continuing to walk with me through rows of fish.
"You're the one who wasn't up for this in the first place." He says when we pass a tank of crawfish. What a coincidence. I lift my toy and waggle it at the tank, resulting in absolutely no attention from the apparent crustaceans. It must be the horrible pun.
"And you're the one who was up for it. Now come on, we're getting some delicious food."
We reach a food court eventually that's generically named 'Cappn' Cod's'. I internally sigh, as we spot the huge menu that's displayed above the counter.
"Delicious food, huh Pete?" Patrick mocks, scanning the menu for something edible. I will admit, it doesn't sound great: Seaweed Strips, Fish Flavoured Biscuit Nuggets, Fish Chunks. Here's to hoping it's not any fish from this place. The worst part is, people around us are eating this stuff. I just heard someone ask for a sea-cake surprise, and I do not want to stick around to find out what the surprise part is.
"Maybe you're right, we should probably go." We turn around to leave when we're faced, one again, with the grey-haired dude from earlier.
"I think that'd be a good idea." He says, although he doesn't sound like he has any intention of letting us leave. this place just yet. "I thought I already told you two that you're not allowed to be here anymore."
"Don't remember that." I say, sounding unsure to my own ears. Patrick looks at me with a raised eyebrow and I shrug. "Really? Because I'm pretty sure. Right now, what you're doing is known as trespassing, because you're not welcome, and trespassing is illegal."
We look at each other and seem to both get the same idea.
"Look at that, over there!" I point behind him frantically. When he doesn't move an inch I groan, take Patrick's hand and run in the opposite direction.
We hear shouts of the guard behind us, "Stop! Hold on! Wait!" but we do none of the above and run straight out of the exit, which conveniently, was right down the hall from the food court from hell. We stop once we reach the parking lot and look behind us, not seeing the guard anywhere.
"So," I say, once we're sure he's not following us, "Food?"
* * * * *
"Hey, keep steady." I tell him, "Here, grab onto me." Patrick scoffs, "No way, I can do this." Before wobbling and nearly tipping over, but instead falling into me. We laugh and he mumbles, "Okay, maybe I can't. But it gives me a good excuse to do this, doesn't it?"
I think of the time I tried to teach him how to skate, and how different that ended up. I think of how easy everything's become with him now. How we've finally patched ourselves up, together though, instead of separately.
That's more than most people could wish for.
"Yep, and it gives me a good excuse to do this." I say quietly, kissing him on the lips, ever so slightly. "I'm not sure how that relates, but I'm glad it does." He admits, still unable to keep steady.
"Me too. Now, let's see how you handle on your own." I wink, letting him go. He appears to panic for a second, before he realises he's still standing up, and he smiles, "Look, I can do it." He boasts.
"Alright, now skate over to me." I challenge him, skating backwards a few feet. Patrick puts his hands on his hips and slides one foot in front of each other, he moves effortlessly, or so it seems, over to me but within seconds, his skates slip from out underneath him and he tumbles over, pulling me down with him in the process. We both end up on the ice, laughing manically with our eyes shut.
But when we open our eyes, the laughing dies down because then we realise that I'm basically lying on top of Patrick, and he's basically lying underneath me. He blushes wildly, as so do I, as I ungraciously get off of him and stand up.
"S-sorry." I apologise, giving a hand to him to help him up. He takes it, chuckles forcefully and says, "It's alright.. Yeah."
Well, that's killed it a bit.
My stomach growls loudly, making Patrick look at it with surprise, "Food. We forgot to get something to eat, didn't we?"
"Yeah." I manage. Don't ask me how I somehow thought 'ice skating' before 'food' right after suggesting we go get food. I just- he does something to me. He's more important to me than food, I guess that's it.
That, or ice skating is more important to me than food. I'll let you know once I figure it out.
"How about we go visit Jack in the pizza place as an end to this date after all?" Patrick laughs, purposely repeating what I said earlier. But now, it doesn't sound like such a dumb idea.
I think it might be that Patrick's more important. Maybe.
* * * * *
"Really? Chased by a security guard? An old security guard, that caught you making out behind a fish statue that was in the same room as a bunch of kids watching a fish documentary?" Jack repeats, as if he doesn't believe us. But at the same time, he sounds as if he totally does.
"Yup," I say, "You've pretty much got it spot on." Patrick finishes. Jack looks between us and makes a giant 'Aw' sound. "Finishing each others sentences!"
"Yeah, you and Alex doing that yet?" I strike back. Jack looks mortified and shushes me, looking in the direction of Alex who just so happens to be at the front of the parlor, reading a magazine. He looks up upon hearing his name and smiles at Jack.
Who I can see is freaking out inside. What an idiot. You would so not catch me freaking out over something like that. Pff, nope. Definitely not. Not even when Patrick asked me out for our date.
Well, except that one time.
But it didn't count because I was pretty much freaking out outside too.
"How's that going, may I ask?" Patrick questions, grabbing Jack's attention away from staring at Alex in awe.
"It's uh.. it's going."
"Nowhere." I finish for him. He looks as if he's about to object, but then realises that I'm right and leaves it. "Yeah, basically nowhere."
"Interesting," I conclude, "Why do you think that is?"
"Um, because we just haven't got there-"
I make a buzzer noise, loudly and obnoxiously. It earns the attention of Alex, and Jack, once again, looks mortified. "The correct answer was you have not made an effort to talk to him."
"I'll have you know-"
"Work related discussions don't count, Jack."
"Well-"
"Neither does school stuff."
Jack is at a lost for words now and simply shrugs, "I know, I suck at this." He sulks, hanging his head low. I frown sympathetically and sling an arm around him, he rises his head at this, just in time for me to give him a reassuring smile, "Leave it to me, Jacky-Boy, I'll have 'em swooning at your feet by winter break."
Jack laughs uncertainly and forcefully, "Good luck with that."
Trust me, Jack...
Trust me.
*I wanted to thank you guys for making this number six on the 'peterick' search page! That's awesome! Also, if next chapter goes as it's planned it should be kind of Christmas themed, being that it's set in the holidays. I know it's early but bare with me at least.*