Work Text:
Patrick's afternoon is going pretty well. He has awesome headphones and five thousand of his favorite songs to choose from on his phone which he remembered to plug in last night so for once it's still charged, and the stop outside his work is early enough on the route that he got a seat, so no clinging to cold metal poles or straps he can barely reach, not today. One of the ladies who he recognizes from the bus stop near his house is sitting next to him, and she smells like baby powder and is knitting, which is pretty calming to watch. And since she recognizes him too, she hasn't started giving him weird looks for basically staring at her lap for fifteen minutes. The bus is getting more crowded now, but he's got his seat claimed and none of the people getting on are old or pregnant so it looks like he won't have to give it up anytime soon.
He's just begun to get complacent, looking back down at his phone to choose the next song and turn the volume up, when a loud, obnoxious laugh cuts through his music. He looks up in passive aggressive irritation.
It's some asshole and his friends, one of whom says something else and makes the guy laugh again. It's just as grating the second time around, and Patrick glares in their direction as they negotiate their way down the narrow bus aisle. There's not much room left, and the only real space is between the two doors, which of course is right in front of Patrick. The four of them cluster in a group, clutching the thin metal poles and leaning toward each other. Their heads are really close together, so Patrick wonders absently if they'll knock into each other when the bus stops next. It happens more than you'd think, especially with the particularly jerky bus drivers.
The whole group laughs again, looking at something on the tallest one's phone, and Patrick can't turn up his music anymore without making it loud enough to start bothering the people around him. Even that might not block them out entirely. He huffs to himself and hits pause. The old lady next to him is listening to an audiobook, he saw the screen when she pulled her mp3 player out after she sat down next to him, but she's still knitting peacefully. He has no idea how she's not bothered by their noise. Maybe the noise is less of an interruption to an audiobook, or maybe she's more patient than he is.
He's got another half an hour until his stop, hopefully they'll get off before then.
Patrick's just managed to convince himself he's overreacting when the bus stops quickly at a light. At the final jerk into stillness the group in front of Patrick stumbles, and they don't bump heads but the closest one, the one with the obnoxious laugh, isn't kept upright by the press of bodies and stumbles backwards.
He flops into Patrick's lap.
Patrick blinks in surprise at his back.
"Oops," the guy says, laughing again, and struggles back to his feet. "Sorry, dude."
Patrick pretends not to hear him, flicking a quick glance up under the pretense of readjusting his headphones. He meets warm brown eyes for a minute, registers that the guy doesn't even seem embarrassed, and feels himself blush instead. Of course. He jerks his eyes back to the knitting and listens to the guys talking.
"Dude," one of the friends says.
"What," the guy says. "It happens."
"It wouldn't if you'd just hold on," a different friend says, sounding exasperated.
"I was holding on!" the guy protests.
The bus lurches forward.
The guy falls over again.
"Are you kidding me," Patrick says, then feels his blush deepen.
The guy doesn't even get up before laughing this time. Patrick can feel the vibrations through his coat. "Sorry," the guy says again. "They don't give you much warning, do they?"
Patrick just pushes a hand against the guy's lower back, helping him stand up. Baby powder old lady glances over at him, and he feels her watching him as he drops his hand again. He pulls his phone out of his pocket, clicking the screen on and off, and waits for the bus to stop again, because he suspects—
It isn't even a full stop this time, just a slight jerk as the driver applies the brakes to avoid hitting a pedestrian who had to dart across the road that instant.
And yep, Patrick has another lapful of warm person. He hears himself make a disgruntled sound.
The guy stands up again and pats Patrick's shoulder companionably. Patrick wants to kick him, but thinks that might seem disproportionately rude.
This time one of the friends puts his hand over the guy's on the pole, but it's not going to do any good. The guy doesn't have his feet spread at all, and he's holding onto the bar with his arm at least half-extended. He might as well not be holding onto anything.
It might help a little, because the next light the bus comes to, the guy stays upright. Of course, the bus started slowing down at least a block before, so it was hardly a sudden stop. It probably doesn't count.
Sure enough, at the next stop, the bus jerks again, and hello, squirmy body.
"You know what," the guy says, "I think I'll just stay here."
And then he wiggles further into Patrick's lap.
Patrick's protest comes out as a squeak. His face flames, and without his permission, his hands go to the guy's waist. He has some thought of shoving the guy off, but he can't bend his elbows enough to get the leverage without hitting the old lady on his right, and the plastic wall on the other side certainly isn't going to move. He could maybe lean back, but he doesn't want to ruin his sort-of neighbor's knitting if he bumps her with his shoulder.
The asshole friends are laughing. The guy pats one of Patrick's hands. Patrick lets go like he's been burned, but has to curl his fingers to keep ahold of his phone and he catches some of fabric of the guy's hoodie with it, tugging lightly. The guy's head twitches, like he was going to turn and look. Patrick grits his teeth and curls both his hands into fists.
That still leaves him with the question of where to put his hands. He can't put them in his pockets without elbowing the lady next to him and probably having to touch the guy, and he can't put them on his legs because the guy's legs are already there. But he's pressed hip to hip with the lady and the wall, so if he doesn't put them on his legs, he'll be putting them on hers and, well, the guy's, probably. Patrick believes the guy deserves a little personal space invasion in return, but he doubts the guy would care, and moreover, Patrick doesn't want him to get the wrong idea. This is awkward enough. Eventually he settles his arms down as gently as he can, sort of on the outside of his own thighs. He leaves his right wrist cocked uncomfortably upward so his hand isn't touching anything and clutches his phone very tightly. The last thing he needs right now is to drop it.
The bus comes up to the next stop and slows abruptly again. The guy wobbles a bit, but Patrick resolutely doesn't try to steady him. He's already become a human seat, he doesn't owe the guy anything.
As if in punishment, the guy turns a little to the side, putting most of his weight on Patrick's left leg and leaning into the plastic divider. He also manages to wrap his arm around Patrick's shoulders, clinging to support himself. He puts his other hand flat on Patrick's chest. It presses in when the bus starts moving again and Patrick's breath stutters. The guy doesn't notice, too busy talking to his friends, though Patrick isn't listening to what he's saying.
He does notice when the guy starts looking at him, breathing lightly on his face. It's mildly unnerving, but Patrick hasn't said anything to him so far. It would be weird to start now.
"You're very accommodating," the guy says, almost right in his ear.
Patrick pretends he can't hear him again.
"Yeah, well, you're a menace," one of the friends says.
Patrick agrees wholeheartedly, and decides he likes that one friend.
The bus takes a corner, and the guy's palm slides across his chest. It seems unintentional, but Patrick doesn't normally have people's hands all over him. He twitches a little and tries to press himself backwards.
The guy's hand moves again with the motion, and when he repositions his grip he ends up rubbing his thumb and then tapping his fingers. He keeps twitching his hand and there's the occasional wiggling in Patrick's lap, and his heel is drumming against the floor too, Patrick can feel his leg moving. The guy may not notice he's doing it, but Patrick cannot ignore it.
He catches the guy's jiggling ankle between his heels and squeezes as hard as he can. The guy jerks his knee upwards, doesn't manage to pull his foot away, and finally kicks his whole leg free, swinging himself forward. He elbows Patrick in the stomach in the process, which Patrick doesn't think is an accident.
Just as Patrick starts to congratulate himself on his victory – he actually doesn't care that much if the guy sits on his knees; it's unconventional, sure, but he doesn't mind – the guy slumps back against him, nearly suffocating Patrick until he tilts his head to the side and ends up with his chin sort of propped on the guy's shoulder. In turn, the guy has dropped his head back against Patrick's shoulder. He's basically covering every inch of Patrick, and seems completely okay in this position too, but like this Patrick can see the rest of the bus easily and he notices they're getting weird looks, or careful not-looks. Patrick also has to avoid the attempts of the guy's friends to make eye contact. He ends up staring upwards, but after a little while of that he runs out of patience. He lifts his left hand and digs his knuckles into the guy's side.
The guy yelps and sits upright again. Then he has the temerity to give Patrick a wounded look. Giving up on the 'ignore it and it'll go away' approach, Patrick glares back as hard as he can.
"Fine," the guy mutters, and sits forward on Patrick's knees.
His friends, having watched this exchange with interest, are making exaggerated faces at the guy. The one Patrick likes flicks another glance at Patrick, which Patrick avoids by pretending to stare off into space on the other side of the bus, and then says, "Do you really think he can't hear us through his headphones?"
"Yeah, and I'm sure the headphones are blocking the feel of someone's ass on his lap," the tallest one says.
"And the near groping," the third one agrees.
"That's not what I meant," the one Patrick likes protests mildly.
"Maybe he's just very zen," the third one suggests.
"He'd have to be," says the one Patrick likes.
"Hey," the guy in Patrick's lap – and there's a phrase Patrick never thought he'd use in this context – complains, "I'm not that bad."
"You sat on a complete stranger and made yourself comfortable," the one Patrick likes says. "Deliberately. Several times."
It sounds, Patrick reflects, a little dirtier when you put it that way. Never mind that the guy was fondling his chest, that wasn't intentional. He feels himself going red again, and hopes nobody will notice, or will assume it's because the bus heating is on too high like usual. Or maybe assume it's because he has someone in his lap, but not like – it's hot, and Patrick is hot, and he can see a few other people sweating too so probably nobody will notice his face as long as he can keep control of his expression.
"Yes, and now we've bonded," the guy says.
"Yeah," the tallest one says, deeply sarcastic. "You've bonded with the deaf-mute whose personal space you've invaded."
"It's great," the guy in his lap says, completely sincere for all Patrick can tell.
In normal circumstances, Patrick has a hard time keeping a straight face for long. Right now, though, he doesn't feel like he could react if he wanted to. It's probably shock.
He doesn't have long to ponder his shock though, because the bus stops again and Patrick notices where they are.
He pulls his headphones down to his neck and clears his throat. Then he clears it again, more loudly, as guy and friends ignore him completely. When that still doesn't work, he says, "Hey!" and his voice comes out loud enough that half the bus stops talking. After a second's pause, the guy on his lap wiggles around until he's facing Patrick as best as he can. His face is about four inches away. Patrick looks religiously out the windows on the opposite side of the bus.
"What's up?" the guy asks.
Still staring straight ahead, Patrick says, "My stop is next."
"Oh," the guy says.
Patrick nods.
"I guess I'll have to let you up," the guy says. All the friends snicker.
"Yes," Patrick says woodenly. "You'll have to do that."
"Too bad," the guy says. "This is the most fun I've had on a bus in ages."
"Wow," Patrick says. "That's not weird."
The guy shrugs. And doesn't move.
Patrick grits his teeth. "So could you get up, please."
"But you're so comfortable."
Patrick scowls. "I'm actually very uncomfortable," he says pointedly.
The guy laughs in his face. Patrick starts to stand.
The guy's not much bigger than he is, but Patrick has no way of pushing himself up, so there's no way he could actually stand if the guy didn't move, but it's enough to get his point across. The guy finds his own feet, stepping away and putting his back to the pole.
Of course, the bus is still crowded, and baby powder lady is getting up too, so Patrick has to step into the guy to stand. They end up nose to nose for a minute, and then the bus starts to slow down and Patrick lurches.
He does the sensible thing, which is reach a hand out and steady himself on the seats, but the guy, held up by the pole and, Patrick can't help but notice, feet that are a sensible shoulder-width apart, decides to be helpful.
Patrick stares at him, because that? That is a hand on his ass.
"Whoops," the guy says. "Sorry."
Then he puts his whole arm around Patrick's waist.
"Don't want you knocking down the nice old lady," he says cheerfully.
"No, wouldn't want that," Patrick says, only all the sarcasm gets lost along the way and it comes out faint.
The guy gives him a companionable squeeze.
Patrick's stop is a major one, so probably a third of the bus empties when the doors open. He goes along with the crowd, following baby powder old lady, and catches himself tugging at his coat when the guy's arm drops from his waist, trying to get rid of the phantom heat of it.
On the sidewalk, Patrick shakes out his shoulders and puts his headphones back on. He glances back curiously to see what the guy and his friends are doing now that there should be plenty of seats, and double-takes.
The guy got off the bus too. Through the window, Patrick can see his friends are still laughing uproariously and two of them have claimed the seats Patrick and baby powder old lady have vacated. Patrick ducks his head down and starts walking as quickly as is safe down the street. Probably the guy getting off is just a coincidence. Hopefully he just lives a few blocks down the other direction.
"Wait," the guy says. "Hey!"
Of course. Patrick goes back to pretending he can't hear and walks faster.
The bus closes its doors and starts past him. He hears the guy swear, voice growing fainter as Patrick keeps walking. The next one won't be along for a good twenty minutes, and Patrick feels vindictively pleased. Serves the asshole right.
He's just relaxed a little when, at the corner, he feels someone tap his shoulder and he startles so hard he nearly slips. When he jerks around, though, it's not the guy - it's baby powder lady. She gestures at his head and, though he can hear perfectly fine with them on, Patrick takes off his headphones respectfully.
"Dear," she tells him, "you left your boyfriend behind. And I wasn't going to say anything in front of everyone, but you really should control yourselves in public. I saw his wandering hands, and you can bet I wasn't the only one."
Patrick could happily die of humiliation. "He's not my—" he starts, weakly, but she nods firmly at him and then continues around the corner. "Oh my god," he mutters.
"Dude! Pretend-deaf lap-sitting dude! Hold up!"
That's hardly fair. That makes it sound like Patrick was the one doing the lap-sitting. Patrick realizes he's constructing an argument about something which nobody will ever hear about, then realizes the guy is still coming towards him. He debates running, realizes he's genuinely curious about what the guy wants, realizes he wants to see if he can get an explanation for the lap-sitting, and thinks very hard about what his mother says about strangers, public transportation, and robbery. He compromises; he turns to walk away, but he doesn't put his headphones back on and he walks very slowly.
The guy skids around in front of him, slipping on the icy sidewalk and wheeling his arms. He almost smacks Patrick, which is why Patrick reaches out and grabs his waist again.
"Good catch," the guy says, grinning, apparently completely unashamed that what Patrick had been catching was him.
"Thanks," Patrick says, instead of fuck off or a dozen equally well-deserved things, and realizes he's still holding on. He lets go quickly.
"I should be thanking you," the guy says.
"You really should," Patrick agrees, and then mentally kicks himself, because what is he doing. He should be waving it off, putting his headphones back on and leaving, anything to get rid of the guy. You don't encourage these people.
"Okay, so listen—Wait, what's your name?"
"Patrick," Patrick says automatically, then wonders why he just gave his name to a public menace. His mother is going to kill him if she ever finds out about any of this.
"Hi, Patrick," the guys says, and grins hugely again. "Now listen, you should give me your number."
"Why?" Patrick asks suspiciously.
"Because I basically just took you to third base on a bus and I should probably buy you dinner for that," the guy says, still entirely unashamed. Patrick flushes again. His complexion is never going to recover. "And I'm about to come home with you," the guy adds.
"What, why," Patrick says, then finally gets his legs under him, metaphorically speaking, and rallies. "No. No, you're not. What the hell is wrong with you?"
"I don't know if you noticed," the guy says, "though the evil smirk you gave the sidewalk sort of makes me think you did, but the bus just drove off without me. And it'll take forever to catch the next one, and it's cold, and by the time I get to where I was supposed to be going my asshole friends will have ditched me."
"Well," Patrick says, "you chased a stranger off a bus. You think they should have to wait for you?"
The guy grins again. "Exactly. So because you ruined my plans for the evening—" Patrick opens his mouth to object, but only gets an indignant noise out, which the guy talks right over, "—you should make it up to me."
"Are you kidding," Patrick says, though it's a rhetorical question at this point.
"So I'll come home with you, and we'll get to know each other, and then we'll get dinner, and the next time we ride a bus, we'll be riding it together." Extremely dumb metaphor delivered, the guy waits, clearly expectant.
"Is this how you ask everyone out?" Patrick asks.
"Nope," the guy says. "You're special."
"I certainly feel like it," Patrick says acidly.
The guy ignores him and adds, "And I'm Pete, since you've forgotten to ask."
"I didn't forget," Patrick says. "I didn't want to know."
"Liar," Pete says cheerfully, and somehow they've resumed the walk to Patrick's house. They've covered almost two blocks without Patrick noticing. "Come on, you don't spend half an hour getting up close and personal with someone and then refuse dinner."
"You got up close and personal with me," Patrick says. "I was a passive participant."
"But still a participant," Pete says.
"I didn't want to be," Patrick complains. "You didn't give me much choice."
"Whatever," Pete says. "You could've shoved me off. Or said something."
"I was listening to music," Patrick says feebly, which is a useless defense that excuses nothing.
"Like that would matter," Pete says dismissively. "And besides, I saw your phone. It was paused the whole ride."
Patrick has no response to that at all. He stares at his feet, and from there it's easy enough to stare at Pete's, too. He's wearing dirty canvas sneakers which are soaking wet with melted snow and must be freezing. Patrick's boots are eminently more practical. He wonders if maybe Pete wasn't planning on a half-mile walk from a bus stop.
Pete throws an arm around him. "You don't recognize me, do you?"
Patrick turns his head to blink at him, and finds Pete's face less than a foot away again. He sort of gets the feeling he's going to have to get used to it if he plans to continue talking to him. "What?" he asks.
Pete raises his eyebrow. "We ride the same bus like four times a week. I always see you nodding along to your music."
"Oh," Patrick says.
"Sometimes you hum," Pete adds.
"Ugh," Patrick says.
"It's cute," Pete says reassuringly. "Hey, are we close to your house, I'm freezing."
"Really," Patrick says skeptically. He's almost too warm down the side Pete is pressed against. "I'm not."
"I got used to the body heat on the bus," Pete says, face completely straight.
"Your friend was right, you are a menace," Patrick says.
"Hey, after dinner we can share body heat again."
Patrick narrows his eyes at Pete, taking in the non-sequitur and Pete's smile. "If that was your terrible attempt at a come on, I'm shoving you into a puddle."
"I know it wasn't a very good one," Pete says apologetically. "I'm sorry, you deserve better."
Patrick doesn't have the heart to shove him into a puddle.
At Patrick's house, Pete sheds layers of hoodies until he ends up in a raggedy old shirt. He kicks off his shoes without being asked and then invites himself out of the entryway into the rest of the house.
"Do you have any pets?" Pete asks. "Or what about roommates, I mean, I assume you'd have said already if you had a boyfriend, but if not, you should probably cop to it now. Or a girlfriend, I guess. Seriously, do you live here by yourself?"
"With my mom," Patrick says, and since he's expecting it, he catches Pete's wide-eyed, quickly hidden look of panic. Patrick feels himself smirking again but Pete's too busy worrying to notice.
"Wait," Pete says. "How old are you?"
Patrick raises his eyebrows. "Shouldn't you have asked that before you sat on me?"
Pete pulls a ridiculous face, half leer, half heartbreak.
Rolling his eyes, Patrick says, "I'm in college."
"Hey, cool," Pete says. "Where's your room?"
Then he's wandering off again.
Patrick huffs a laugh and follows him. "Seriously though, won't your friends worry about you?" Patrick's friends wouldn't let him follow a stranger home. Of course, Patrick's friends also wouldn't let him sit in a stranger's lap - or anyone's, probably, so they're clearly not a good comparison.
"Nah," Pete says. "They'll assume everything went according to plan."
"Did it?" Patrick asks mildly, because he doesn't want to admit to being charmed by the incredibly dubious so-called plan.
Pete flops spread-eagled back onto Patrick's bed and grins at him. "Dunno. Ask me again tomorrow morning."
Yep. Patrick's complexion is doomed.
Pete convinces him to get dinner, then convinces him they should go back into the city for it, but when they head out it's late enough the bus is half empty. Pete shoves Patrick down before sitting on him.
"No," Patrick says firmly, and dumps Pete sideways into another seat.
Pete grumbles and turns to drop his legs into Patrick's lap instead, folding his knees over one of Patrick's legs and hooking his toes around Patrick's calf on the opposite side. Since this allows Patrick to warm his fingers faster by tucking them into the warmth under Pete's knees, Patrick lets him stay.
Pete settles in, toes twitching occasionally against Patrick's leg as punctuation to what he's saying. His hand has migrated to Patrick's neck. His fingers are cold, but Patrick doesn't mind returning the favor. The constant physical contact is kind of nice, once he's had a chance to start getting used to it.
Patrick has a realization.
"Oh god," he says. "You're going to make me miserable during summer."
"Probably," Pete says unapologetically, and goes back to telling Patrick about his dog.