Tessa was right, Patrick was really glad he’d put the guitar down.
When he opened his eyes, he was greeted by a sight not entirely familiar to him. Over the years that he’d known her, he’d seen many different faces of Tessa. He’d seen happy, he’d seen sarcastic, he’d seen angry and yes, thanks to the trip to 2012, he’d even seen said and, he was pretty sure, afraid. This, though, was something else, something he had no frame of reference for. Was it…hesitance? Could Tessa be hesitant? Even as he spoke, he dedicated some background part of his brain to going through his memories like a rolodex to see if he could find any other time he’d seen her like this. He didn’t think he had, but he didn’t have much time to try, either. Her voice cut through his thoughts and he was pretty sure she’d just dropped a big clue as to why he was suddenly seeing this new face.
“Oh for fuck’s sake, stop looking at me like I’m about to shove you off the roof before I just do it.”
Confusion was the first thing that struck him about that. He was looking at her like he expected her to shove him off the roof? That wasn’t what he thought at all. What he was afraid of was, once again, himself. He was afraid he’d fucked things up irreparably between them, either with the Michael-bomb or the l-bomb, he wasn’t sure. His fear had nothing to do with being shoved off the roof and everything to do with the fear of her leaving him alone up here, driven away because of something he’d done. Why did she think-
-and then it clicked, and Patrick felt like a heel as soon as it did. She must have read the fear on him, which wasn’t really surprising, she could always read him. She read the fear but thought it meant something other than what it did, thought it meant that he was afraid of her rather than being afraid of losing her. Even though he hadn’t seen her react to that, he was almost certain he’d just inadvertently hurt her. He knew people could be afraid of her power, or sometimes could be afraid of her, but he’d never once felt that himself. He trusted her implicitly, and knew that no matter what she did with her powers she never really, truly wanted to hurt anyone. She just wanted to have fun, to live and laugh and enjoy life, and Patrick never really understood what there was to fear in that.
He opened his mouth to tell her so, to explain that he didn’t think she was going to shove him off the roof, but then she was suddenly in front of him and then she was kissing him, and suddenly his lips were occupied with something one hell of a lot better than saying some stupid words. That was probably for the best, because in the second between then and now, he seemed to have misplaced all the words that were supposed to be in his head, anyway. For a moment, one single moment that barely even registered as such, he went rigid with surprise and for that moment, one thought flitted through his head. Tessa is kissing me. It was there and gone in an instant, because he was suddenly overcome with the realization that this wasn’t a goodbye kiss, this wasn’t a ‘you’ll never see me again’ at all, this was a kiss kiss, a real kiss, an ‘I want you’ kiss. The realization of that blew away every other thought in his head, blew away every wall and mask he put up, and banished even the surprise of the moment. The chill he’d felt less than a minute ago was gone, replaced with a deep warmth that enveloped him and filled the cold dead world in his head with light and life and passion. Going off of pure emotion for maybe the first time in his life, Patrick relaxed into the kiss and let his instincts take over. One arm snaked around her waist and tugged her close, as close as he could, while his other hand slid up her back and came to rest at the base of her neck. A second later and the kiss was over, but the pleasant haze it left in his mind and the intense staccato of his heart rate remained.