𝒹𝑜𝓁𝑜𝓇 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒹𝒾𝑜𝓇 .•* PATRICK BATEMAN

5. you can shake my hand and feel flesh

Rejection was not unfamiliar, but something about this one was new. You just met Patrick, yet you were so quick to hook up with him, grasping for morsels. Hookups weren't off the table for you in theory, but going through with it was unprecedented.  This was new. The more you learned, the more you needed to know.

Patrick Bateman took up the majority of your head at any given time.  It wasn't like he hadn't been there before, but now you had a concrete image of him, a set of questions to ruminate about. 

Why was it so important for you to leave?  Did he ever have any interest at all?

All he did was build more mystery.

Since that night, Patrick managed to evade you no matter what you did or where you went.  The few times he crossed your path you were speaking with Paul Allen, whom you felt you had to constantly appease now that he knew you weren't going to fall for him.

You wanted your first interaction, the big reveal, to be something special, but after a week of no contact you weren't feeling very picky. So when you ran into him outside of the bathrooms, you grabbed his hand before he could coolly walk away. He wasn't going to escape you, not this time.

You were surprised that he was the first to speak, turning around to gaze at you with harsh eyes. "I'm surprised you didn't run into me this time," Patrick commented. He looked smug, waiting for your move.

"I've gotten a lot more oriented with the building now," you replied curtly, matching his energy.  Before you could lose your nerve, you asked,  "Have you been avoiding me?"

For just a moment, Patrick's façade slipped. His weight shifted backwards slightly, almost completely unnoticeable if you hadn't been looking so closely.

"For me to avoid you, you'd have to be worth avoiding," Patrick replied. To your disappointment, this response didn't answer the question at all.

Patrick shifted his arm out of your grasp, making it clear he had dedicated enough of his time to you.  Your confidence was beginning to falter; you were running out of time.   You knew full well you wouldn't be trying again a second time, at least not for a while.  And by then, anything could happen.

It was now or never.

"Wait, Patrick," you called.  Although he plastered a smile on his face, this one seemed pointedly fake.

"I'm running late, (Y/N)," Patrick replied.  The fact he even responded was a favor to you.  "Whatever you're planning to say, say it now."

"Look, I wouldn't normally do this, but I can't keep being distracted by someone who isn't even interested," you explained, nearly holding confident eye contact with him. "I don't want to just be one of your hookups.  Either quit ignoring me or reject me so I can move on."

Patrick was taken aback. Your attitude rustled him, but your words piqued his curiosity. "What're you saying?"

"I want to go out with you," you declared. "A formal date."

He pursed his lips, nodding his head slowly. Every millisecond you waited for a response was a moment in Hell.

Patrick would be lying to himself to suggest he hadn't been thinking about that night. Because he had been thinking about that night, almost every hour of every day ever since it happened. Nothing about it made sense, and Patrick hated things that didn't make sense.

You should be dead. You should've both finished at the end of the night, at least. But now some random woman was decomposing in the garbage bin behind his building, her entrails removed completely and body littered with stab wounds, and you were standing here all pretty and safe, your nervous eyes tracing his. And he had no idea why.

It was infuriating. And until he could figure it out, he couldn't kill you. Which meant he couldn't be around you, because he wasn't sure if he would be as strong as he was the last time.

Even more upsetting was the way you weren't even afraid of him. Intimidated, sure, but you hardly suspected he'd been trying to kill you. You still had this desire to be around him. You were so naïve.  It almost amused him how much effort you were putting in.

It fleetingly crossed his mind that nobody had tried to put in the effort for a real romantic date with him.

Patrick had never been the curious type when it came to other people. He didn't care what they were doing or what they were thinking, but he did care about himself. And he was curious why he was acting this way, and he knew somehow it came down to you.

You were a science experiment to him.

So in his most calculated voice, flashing his most charming smile, he replied, "Sure. Dinner, tomorrow night?"

Even though he knew he shouldn't.

He watched your eyes light up, clearly not expecting that answer. A smile blossomed across your face, likely imagining an innocent date. Something all sweet and romantic.

Just when he thought there would be no more surprises, you hesitantly asked, "Would Dorsia be alright?"

Patrick continued to smile calmly, trying not to clench his jaw or seem too excited or too surprised or too angry or too disappointed. Just casual. You couldn't have known how impossible it was to get into Dorsia without weeks of advance planning, you'd probably never been in there. From the looks of it, you'd never been anywhere close.

But Patrick hated the idea he wouldn't be the man to get in the night of, so he replied, "Of course. I'll set up the reservation tonight."

You shook your head, once again surprising him. "I can do it, you're probably busy enough."

Now he almost had to contain a smile. Somehow your words had solved every problem he had about this interaction - there was no way you'd get a reservation at Dorsia if he couldn't. There would be no chance, then, that he'd have to look like a commoner and he'd be there to comfort you when it didn't happen and bring you to a high esteemed, yet slightly less coveted, restaurant. And when you were already in his debt for getting you into the restaurant, he'd be free to ask as many questions as he wanted. You could've had no idea what you were doing for him, but you were.

"Great, that sounds great," Patrick replied, smoothing out his suit cuff that had gotten slightly creased as you touched it. "If you give me your address my driver will pick you up at 7."

The bashful smile across your face was all he needed to see. Nothing would feel better than to rub this moment in Paul Allen's face, but if he did that, he wouldn't have an alibi.