The following evening, Pete wakes up to the sound of his phone ringing. Any other day he wouldn't mind the ringtone but today he just wanted to throw it out of the window. He needed the phone though, so the next best thing was to ignore it. It was already bad enough that he had the worst hangover known to man and a loud Green Day song definitely wasn't going to help. He shoves his head under a pillow.

He had a rough, blurred morning. He woke up on Brendon's couch with a sleeping Patrick trapped beneath him and he had to think back to the previous night. Everything that occurred before all the drinking was clear as a bell up until Pete answered the door... then he was waking up on a couch with Patrick, who was the only one who didn't drink himself half to death.

Everyone else woke up in a similar manner, confused and aching. Joe was complaining of back pains from sleeping on the coffee table, along with Josh and Tyler who slept on the floor, so that only left Pete and Hayley to sleep somewhat comfortably. Brendon was somewhere unknown but the only thing on everyone else's mind was to take some aspirin and go home to sleep off their hangovers. They all drove home or caught a ride and Pete took himself to his apartment to rest for literally six hours. Thankfully he had enough sense to change his clothes before climbing into bed.

And now... there's a persistently ringing phone on his nightstand.

He knows it's Joe calling, but sometimes it's not so bad to ignore a friend's phone call and pretend you had 'missed' it. Although being Joe's friend for so long has taught Pete a lesson; Joe will keep calling until Pete answers.

With a painful groan and a whine of annoyance, Pete blindly reaches over to the nightstand to grab his phone. The alarm clock falls to the floor with a loud clack, making Pete's face scrunch up in discomfort, before he finally picks up the phone and answers. He throws the pillow to the side and instantly regrets it as he's met with blinding sunlight.

"What the hell do you want?"

"Heart palpitations?!" Joe shouts with laughter from the other end and Pete hisses, pulling the phone away from his ear for a moment. His ears just may be bleeding.

"Heart- what? Dude... the fuck?"

"You told Patrick that his smile gave you heart palpitations!"

Pete immediately sits up in his bed at that, which was a terrible mistake, the throbbing in his skull gets about ten times worse than when he was laying down. There was no way he actually said anything like that to Patrick's face. "N-no I didn't."

"Yes, you did! Oh my god, Pete, that is priceless."

"Patrick told you I said that?"

"Duh. His face was so pink when he told me, dude. Oh and someone may or may not have a picture of you two on the couch. Cuddling and shit."

Pete let out another groan, this time of embarrassment as he covered his face with his free hand. Oh god, he should never be allowed to drink ever again because apparently he can't keep his big mouth shut when he's full of liquor. He swore into his palm before letting it drop into his lap, sighing into the receiver. "Well, I've got a picture of everyone else so, yeah."

"Really? Send them to me and I'll send you the one of you and Patrick."

"Oh god, Joe. No, don't send me that."

"Why not, you guys look --in Hayley's words-- cute as fuck."

"Hayley's seen it?!"

"Honestly, the only one who hasn't seen it is you."

Hopefully, sometime very, very soon, the floor will open up and eat Pete alive. Now he's in pain for more than one reason because, really, heart palpitations? Who the fuck says that to a living, breathing, human being? Pete does, apparently.

He takes a second to go through his phone's gallery to send the drunk and semi-blurry photos of his friends to Joe. Once they're sent, he presses the phone to his ear yet again, only to hear Joe having a separate conversation with someone in his apartment. That someone turns out to be Patrick as Pete recognized his sweet voice. No, no, not sweet. He has a regular, normal voice, he argues mentally with himself and upon realization that he's just done that he finds that he sounds insane.

His phone buzzes with a new message from Joe, most likely the picture of him and Patrick on Brendon's couch, before he decides to listen in.

"Patrick, you don't have to do that."

"I want to, though. At least until you get stable again."

"What about your family, dude?"

"My parents won't mind and my brother's in college. It'll be fine, seriously."

"Well, alright if you say-"

"Am I interrupting something?" Pete asks, only catching the middle of the conversation. He didn't feel bad about eavesdropping, it was something he did on a daily basis and Joe knew that. Despite the fact that hearing Patrick's voice made his belly flip, he stayed on the line in hopes that Joe will explain. And he does.

"Patrick was just saying he wanted to move."

"Yeah? Where?"

"Here. With me."

Well, shit. Now Pete's percentage of ridiculously stupid things will increase significantly due to the fact that Patrick was going to move in with Joe, probably because the latter had previously lost his job and wouldn't be able to financially support himself. Pete'll probably say much worse things than 'your smile gives me heart palpitations' in the future.

"Oh, and Patrick says 'hello, future husband'-"

"Joe, you fucking-"

There's some kind of struggle happening on the other end of the phone and Pete's expression turns to one of amusement, those two were like children. The phone loudly beeps a few times, indicating that the dial pad was being pressed and Pete grimaces again. Then finally, there's a shout of, "Gimme my phone, you ass!" Then there's a door slamming and someone breathing into the receiver.

"Hi, Pete." Patrick pants, out of breath from his and Joe's fight for the phone. Pete smiles automatically without even realizing he's done so.

"Hey, Patrick."

"Can you keep a secret?"

No, not really. "Uh, yeah." Pete lets out a giggle of some kind and it's foreign to Pete's ears. No one giggles anymore except for babies, so why the hell is Pete doing it?

"Everything about you gives me heart palpitations."

Pete's face is sweltering hot right about now and he tries to cover it with his free hand, although he's the only one in his house, then he seems to get a little breathless. "Fucking Christ, Patrick."

Patrick simply laughs on the other end, causing Pete more problems than he's ever had.