Fic: Too Heavy For Me Part Six
Part Five
Pete got back to the apartment very late. Linda and Sharon were already in bed, but Luis was sitting up in bed reading, and came out into the living room when he heard Pete come in.
“Hey,” he said, “you’re really late.”
“Yeah,” said Pete, and he described the situation with Alice which had delayed him.
“You should have got one of us to come help you,” Luis said. “Sharon said we could help if you needed someone.”
“Oh,” said Pete. It had honestly never occurred to him to do that. And Sharon had offered help, he remembered that now, and still he’d never considered it.
“Have you had anything to eat?”
Pete hadn’t, after everything, so Luis reheated some leftover chilli. After the first bite Pete realised how ravenously hungry he actually was, and he wolfed the rest down while Luis sat and watched. At first Pete was preoccupied by his meal, but after a few minutes Luis’s attention struck him as odd.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Luis said, flushing and looking away. “Just. Sharon said I had to keep an eye on you.”
Pete bet she had. “I’m fine,” he said wearily. Lying so much probably wasn’t healthy.
“Linda said...” Luis trailed off and looked guilty. “I mean, I wasn’t trying to... be nosy or whatever. I just wanted to make sure I didn’t say the wrong thing. I. Um...”
“Just ask, Luis,” Pete sighed.
“Linda said you were bonded?” Luis said, and it wasn’t really a question even though he made it sound like one. Pete nodded anyway. “And she said the Sentinel was a jerk.” Pete nodded again. “And that’s why...” Luis didn’t finish that sentence, so he apparently wasn’t quite tactless enough to say ‘that’s why you’ve been behaving like a deranged nutcase.’ Score one for Luis.
“What’s your question?” Pete prompted eventually, because they’d come this far and he figured they might as well get the discussion out of the way.
“I don’t - I wondered.” Luis stopped, took a breath and started again. “Why did you bond with him?”
Somehow, that wasn’t what Pete had expected. “Uh,” he said. “Well... he asked me.” Luis just looked at him, and Pete figured it was kind of a weak answer. “It was the first time I’d been asked, and I wanted to bond,” he added, because he didn’t really want to get into the specifics with Luis. The kid had to be barely out of Guide training, he was so fucking naive.
“But...” Luis looked like he was struggling with something. Pete waited. “But... why couldn’t you wait, and bond with someone else? I mean - I’m sorry. I guess maybe he was probably different then.”
“He wasn’t,” said Pete. At the time, he honestly hadn’t expected anyone else to ever ask him. He hadn’t really expected Trent to ask him, so when he had, Pete had said yes without thinking about it. And he didn’t want to describe the intense calculations he’d done afterwards, of whether it would be better to be bonded to Trent permanently or stick out four more years in the Navy, probably more. “I just thought... it would work out.” He’d thought he’d be able to handle it, was what he’d thought. And he had. Sort of. “It’s easy to convince yourself something will work out if you really want it to.”
Luis looked incredibly crestfallen. Pete must not have done as well at protecting his innocence as he’d wanted, but it was probably for the best anyway. “Come on,” said Pete. “It’s late, and I so need some sleep.”
***
He did okay, slept for over four hours before he woke up. He got up then, slightly shaky and still kind of tired, to drink coffee, watch the shopping channel and scribble fragmentary, nonsensical lyrics which he threw straight in the trash without rereading. At half past four, he went back to bed and tried to sleep a little bit more, but without much success. All he managed to do was make himself bleary-eyed and stupid when he actually had to get up for the day.
It was better than yesterday. Anything would have been better than yesterday. He got to Patrick’s apartment that night without incident, helped Patrick cook something and checked his email.
Jon had replied, just funny stories from Fort Lewis and small talk, but it was nice to read. Ray had written back too. ‘If anyone tries to tell you that you should go see the Blues Brothers sequel,’ he said, ‘they are lying, and not to be trusted.’
Pete read both emails twice, trying to look extremely absorbed in the computer, because Patrick was using his new prosthesis to play the guitar and he didn’t want to make him self-conscious about it. He listened, though, and it sounded like it was working really well, Patrick playing without getting tired and with only the occasional awkward pause between chords. Pete smiled to himself and refreshed his inbox.
There was nothing from Mikey. Maybe he felt guilty. Maybe he was letting Pete make the first move, making sure that Pete was okay with being contacted. Maybe he’d finally realised that there were ten thousand better uses for his time than worrying about Pete.
He tried five times to write a light-hearted email which would reassure Mikey that everything was fine, but something kept holding him back and eventually he figured it out.
It’s not up to you to save me from myself, Mikey. Whatever I keep fucking up is on me, not you. I think it’s just how I am, or something. He wanted to add more, but he couldn’t come up with anything that wouldn’t make Mikey worry even more, so he sent the email, feeling like it wasn’t really finished.
It had become difficult to focus on writing the email because at some point, Patrick had progressed from playing quietly to humming along and finally singing the chorus of the Ramones song he was playing at full volume. Pete listened, rapt, until Patrick looked up and saw him watching, and stopped playing abruptly.
“You shouldn’t have stopped, man!” Pete said. “You’re good!”
Patrick was already turning red. Pete had no idea what someone as talented as Patrick could have to be embarrassed about, but he tried to reassure him. “Seriously,” he said. “I told you you should try singing, your voice is great!”
Patrick shrugged and looked away. “Oh, knock it off, Pete,” he grumbled.
“But-”
“Listen, I wanted to talk to you about something,” said Patrick, and he sounded serious enough that it distracted Pete from trying to convince Patrick he could sing.
“What?”
“Uh,” Patrick said. “So. I’m probably going to. I mean. I think I’m going to be discharged in a week or so. My shrink’s been talking to me about it. And my ortho.”
Oh. “Oh,” said Pete. He winced; his ‘oh’ had sounded decidedly flat. “Hey, that’s great!” he said, trying to inject a little enthusiasm into his voice. “What are you going to do?”
“I’ll probably go home,” Patrick said. “To my parents’ place, I mean. My mom’s kind of insisting.” He made a face, like he wasn’t completely looking forward to it.
“Well,” Pete said, trying to think of something supportive to say, “I guess you’ll have a chance to figure some stuff out, then.”
“Yeah,” said Patrick without enthusiasm.
“And you’d better take care of yourself.”
Patrick looked down at his knees, and Pete’s stomach did a sort of swoop. Oh no.
“Actually, I wanted to ask you about something, sort of related to that,” said Patrick. “Um. Well. I feel like we... we are... we work well together, and stuff. And. So, I don’t see why we couldn’t... I’d like to have you come with me, if. If you want. If we could...”
“Could what?”
“Well, bond.” Patrick met Pete’s eyes and looked away, so quickly that he really might have missed it if he’d blinked. “Do you... um. Would you? Want that?”
Pete twitched and sprang up from the couch as though it had turned into an ant hill underneath him. He really should have tried to find a tactful way to refuse, but instead he said “No!” in a hoarse sort of cry. And then, because just like he’d pointed out to Mikey, Pete just couldn’t seem to avoid ruining his own life, he added, “Why would you ask me that?”
Patrick looked kind of affronted, and he said, “I thought you - you’d want - I mean, I guess I was wrong.” He shook his head. “But I thought it would work better for you - you could get into therapy, I wouldn’t interfere. Hell, my therapist could probably recommend someone. It just seemed like a good...” He trailed off and looked down at his hands; he’d developed a habit of wrapping his real hand around the prosthesis, like the urge to poke at a scratch, maybe, or perhaps to keep it hidden.
Oh no, no way. Nothing on earth could convince Pete to agree to something like that. He’d be in Patrick’s debt for the rest of his life, unable to repay him or leave. Maybe he’d made some stupid decisions in the past but at least, please God, he could learn from them.
“I’m never going to bond again,” he said fiercely. “Not with you, not with anyone. I don’t want that.” And he was shaking again, and his vision was tunnelling until all he could see was Patrick’s disappointed face, and no matter how hard he breathed there wasn’t enough air. “I don’t want that. No. No.”
Patrick reached out like he was going to touch Pete, and Pete sprinted for the door. He didn’t think running away from Patrick was likely to fix anything, but he’d never really had the chance to try it before. It was worth a shot.
***
Pete shut the door to his room like he could close out the world, but he couldn’t shut out the conversation Linda and Sharon were having out in the kitchen. They were being quiet, to be fair, but the walls were thin and when Pete thought he overheard his name he went to the door to listen.
“We can’t do that,” Linda was saying. “Just imagine what they’d do.”
“This is too much for us, Linda. None of us is getting any sleep and he’s not getting better. Of course I don’t like to suggest it, but we can’t keep this up long term. Pete can’t keep this up long term. I think we should...”
And she dropped her voice even lower. There was nothing more Pete could hear except Linda saying, “No, Sharon!” He backed away from the door and sat on his bed.
He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but after a while Luis came in and stared at him. “Should I get...” he asked, taking a step back towards the kitchen.
Pete shook his head hard and Luis stopped, gulped, and closed the door. “Uh,” he said, “Should I do something?”
Pete gave a harsh laugh. “I’m not gonna explode,” he said.
Luis didn’t look reassured. “I know that,” he said. Christ. The kid was as fidgety as anything. “What’s wrong?” he asked, as tentatively as someone trying to pull a book from the bottom of a stack without toppling it over.
Pete considered telling Luis the truth. If Jon were still around, he’d probably have gone to talk to him. Or Mikey. Too bad they were both only contactable through Patrick’s computer. There was Linda, too, he might have talked to her once, but right now he didn’t want to give her any more evidence of how fucked up he was. “Bad day,” he said. Luis licked his lips and nodded.
“Is there anything I can do?” he asked. Pete had a feeling Luis had recently been on the receiving end of a talk from Linda about How To Be A Supportive Friend.
“Nah,” he said, “I’m fine.”
Luis looked indecently relieved, and it sort of made Pete want to laugh. Only sort of, though; he wasn’t really in a laughing mood.
He would have avoided Patrick, maybe asked one of the other Guides to look after him instead if it hadn’t suddenly seemed very important to appear competent and capable. But it did, and so the next morning he got in and out of Patrick’s apartment as quickly as possible, trying to avoid eye contact the whole time. Patrick, for his part, didn’t mention anything that had happened the day before, which Pete knew he should be relieved by. He knew his initial fear - of being bonded to another Trent - was irrational, but that didn’t mean that bonding with Patrick would be any less of a bad idea, done for the wrong reasons.
He went back that evening, meaning to do the same thing, get in and out while minimising contact. Patrick looked so miserable, though, and was clearly being so careful about not saying anything to upset Pete, that he relented and said, “Hey, anything worth watching on TV tonight?”
Patrick brightened up so much it gave Pete a bit of a rush. Making a Sentinel happy was an addictive feeling. There wasn’t anything on TV that he wanted to see, but he stuck around anyway, just because Patrick seemed so happy.
After an hour or so of watching TV, Pete went to use the computer and found that Mikey had sent him a chat message.
mikey: Pete are you there?
wentzp: hey mikey
mikey: I got your email, I’m glad you’re ok
wentzp: yeah, im doing good
mikey: I want to come out and visit again this weekend. Is that ok?
Pete stared at the screen for a minute or two. What should he say? Did he even want Mikey to come back and visit? He hardly needed another witness for his probably inevitable breakdown. On the other hand, if he could see Mikey in person, he’d be able to discuss the Patrick Situation with him.
wentzp: i guess
mikey: I don’t have to if you don’t want, I just thought it might be good.
wentzp: no yeah it would be good
mikey: Okay. I was thinking Saturday, what’s a good time for you?
They figured out the details and Pete signed off.
***
Saturday was a warm day, a first taste of the coming summer. Pete had talked to the other Guides who had arranged things so he could have some time with Mikey. He’d be up late paying back the favours, but that didn’t matter.
At twelve o’clock exactly, Pete was waiting outside the building where Mikey had found him last time. Mikey, however, was ten minutes late. Not his fault, Pete was sure. It was a long way, and the roads could be fickle.
Mikey jumped out of his car and raced over. Pete hugged him hello and said, “Want to come upstairs?”
Mikey looked around. “Is there somewhere we can take a walk?”
They wandered through the grounds, which Pete hadn’t really seen much of. It was pretty. They stopped at a bench which had a nice view of a pond and sat down. Pete licked his lips, suddenly unsure of what to say.
“Uh,” he said. “Thanks. For coming out.”
Mikey smiled at him, but it was a thin sort of smile. “I wanted to come,” he said. He looked down and toyed with a rip in his jeans. He dug the toe of his shoe into the dirt nervously. Yes, he was nervous. Surely he couldn’t be about to say what Pete thought he was about to say?
“I’ve been emailing Patrick,” Mikey said. Oh. Not what he’d been thinking at all, then. Pete was relieved. Yes, definitely relieved. “He said he asked you to bond.”
“Everyone’s been talking to Patrick,” Pete said rather resentfully.
Mikey looked guilty, but he set his jaw, narrowed his eyes, and continued on. “He said you said no.” He waited, and when Pete said nothing, added, “So?”
“You’d know better than me,” Pete said. “Apparently.”
Mikey sighed. “Are you sure that’s the right decision?”
“You tell me,” Pete said snarkily.
“Damn it, Pete!”
“No, seriously,” Pete added. “I don’t... I can’t decide something like that. I’ll get it wrong. It’s what I do.”
“That’s ridiculous, Pete. I think you’re overreacting.”
Pete opened his mouth, but the prospect of explaining to Mikey that it wasn’t just one crap decision, but every decision he’d made since he was thirteen or so, before he’d even known he was a Guide, was just too much. He could review all the different ways his life had become a clusterfuck and trace each one back to his own choices. It was pretty depressing, though, so he usually didn’t.
Pete closed his mouth again. “Am not.”
Mikey shrugged and sighed again. “Would it be so awful, to bond with him?”
“Of course not,” Pete said. “Not at first.” Mikey just gave him a blank look, and it was Pete’s turn to sigh. “He wants to fix me, Mikey. ‘Let’s bond, Pete,’ he said, ‘you can have all the therapy you want.’ He wants to, fucking, rescue me, and for a month, maybe two, he’ll be happy with that. He’ll feel just like when he was a special forces soldier, saving people and kicking asses and shit. Then it’ll wear off, he’ll realise that I’m just a fuckup - like, independent of all this bullshit,” he waved his hands to indicate the medical centre, “I’m still a fuckup. And I don’t get better. And he’ll be stuck with me. Forever. And it won’t be special and happy anymore, and he’ll resent me for ruining it. And we’ll be stuck together. Forever.”
Mikey was looking at him like Pete’s impromptu monologue had been delivered in a language he didn’t speak. Pete supposed it sort of had. He should have said it to Ray, who, he’d gathered, had a few fuckups of his own. Ray could have translated it into normal-person-speech. Never mind.
Mikey pinched the bridge of his nose. “I think you’re wrong,” he said slowly, like it was an effort.
“Prove it,” Pete retorted, because he wasn’t about to put his faith in hopes and wishes, not again.
Mikey closed his eyes. “Alright,” he said. “Let’s leave that for now. I’ve been emailing Patrick.”
“You mentioned that,” said Pete. “It’s funny how you’re so keen to make sure I’m informed all of a sudden.”
“And we agreed,” Mikey snapped, “that it would be better if I talked to you first.”
Pete dropped his head and breathed hard through his nose. “Talked to me about?” he growled.
“Patrick made a request to G-TAC, that you be assigned as his Guide once he’s discharged.”
Pete turned away, shaking his head. He should have been expecting that, but somehow it had taken him by surprise. “Fuck you, Mikey.”
“I thought you didn’t want to decide anything?”
Pete moved to walk off, but he only got a couple of steps before he felt Mikey’s hand on his arm. He shook it off angrily.
“I’m sorry,” Mikey said, although he sounded more pissed than sorry. “It’s shitty, and if there was another way... but we only had so much time, and it seemed like the best choice.”
Oh, yeah, Pete knew how that went, alright. “I don’t need your help,” he said.
Mikey was kind and didn’t call him out on that enormous lie. “Okay,” he said. “I’m sorry. I guess... I guess I should go. Stop bothering you.” He didn’t move for a couple of seconds, like he was waiting for Pete to stop him, and then he started to walk away.
“Mikey, wait.” Pete caught up to him. “What did Patrick say?”
Mikey looked at him. “He said you... he said you’re ‘the only person in this hole that doesn’t make him feel like a freak.’ His exact words. It’s not... he needs you too, Pete. You both - I think Patrick hopes you can help each other.”
“I’m not someone who helps people, Mikey.”
“Pete-”
“What if he has a flashback and I don’t know what to do? Or I can’t... you know how Sentinels and Guides feed off each others’ emotions. If it was one of us, we could cope, but we’re both so messed up - what if we make each other worse?”
Mikey didn’t answer, which Pete took to mean he didn’t know either. Pete sighed.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t make it better for you,” Mikey said in a small voice, and guilt left Pete feeling about three inches tall.
“It’s fine, Mikey,” he said. “It’s good. I’m just. Just scared, I guess.”
Mikey nodded. Pete could see him trying to understand, but Mikey seemed to have that sense about people that all Guides were supposed to have. He probably had no idea what it was like to have to work so hard at getting along with people.
“Hey, Mikey?” Pete asked after a few minutes of walking. “Do you think, if I’m Patrick’s Guide, will he want to fuck?”
Mikey tripped and nearly fell. He looked surprised, so Pete figured Patrick hadn’t made any comments along those lines.
“Would you... want to?” Mikey asked.
“Well, I - I mean, if it. I don’t know. Do you think it would help?”
“Pete-” Mikey pressed his lips together, looking annoyed. “I thought you guys were friends.”
“We are.”
“He shouldn’t coerce you into things you don’t want to do if he’s actually your friend.” Mikey looked pissed.
“He wouldn’t!” Pete said. He was pretty sure Patrick wouldn’t, anyway. “I was just wondering. Most Sentinels want a Guide who’ll, you know. Be available for that.” Mikey probably didn’t really get that, being sibling bonded.
“If he makes you feel like you’re obliged to have sex with him, I’ll break his face,” Mikey said. He looked like he meant it, too, which was hilarious because Patrick was an (ex-)Special Forces soldier whereas Mikey had been known to take a space heater into the shower because it was too cold.
“You can’t do that,” Pete said. He was laughing a little bit, but he tried to answer Mikey seriously just in case he thought he could make good on the threat. “It’s not that big of a deal.”
“It is,” Mikey disagreed. “I thought - I mean, if that’s what you want, then that’s great! But I kind of thought. I sort of - it seemed like-”
Mikey went quiet, and his expression was thoughtful and a little sad. Pete blinked at him, because even with all the times he’d imagined this moment he’d still managed to somehow be unprepared for it.
That was probably why he reacted as impulsively as he did. It was one thing to convince himself that he could turn Mikey down when he was hours away in New York, but another when Mikey was right in front of him. So Pete grabbed Mikey’s wrist and kissed him, although his aim was a little off and he sort of got Mikey’s lower lip and a bit of his chin. It certainly had a noticeable effect, though.
Mikey stopped, turned, and stared at him. “What-?” he asked.
Shit. “Sorry,” said Pete. “Sorry, I - I must have read that wrong.” He looked away, his face burning. He should have known better. He had known better, had just decided to ignore his own better judgement out of pure obstinate stupidity.
“No,” Mikey said, sounding frustrated. “I just... come on, Pete. You ask me whether screwing Patrick is a good idea, and then you kiss me? What am I supposed to think?”
Pete hadn’t thought of it like that. “I thought you wanted me to,” he said in a small voice.
“I - but. What do you want?” Mikey asked. When Pete just looked at him, he added, “Do you even know?”
“I want-” Pete started, then clamped his mouth shut before he could say something mortifying like, ‘I want you to like me.’ He wasn’t far gone enough to expose a weakness like that.
They walked in silence for a few minutes, and then Mikey let his knuckles brush the back of Pete’s hand. “Pete,” he said, and waited till Pete looked at him. “When you figure it out, let me know?”
***
By the time he received an official notice that he’d been reassigned, Pete had sort of accepted it, even though he still half-expected it to turn into a disaster at some point. He still hadn’t decided how he was going to break the news to the other Guides when Linda seemed to notice his preoccupation and asked what was on his mind.
“Huh? Oh, nothing. It’s nothing,” Pete said, not very convincingly. His attention started to wander again, but he couldn’t miss the significant look that passed between Linda and Sharon.
“Actually,” he said, “I need to tell you - well, Patrick approached G-TAC about them assigning me to him once he’s discharged. So I don’t think I’ll be here for much longer.”
The other Guides didn’t seem quite surprised enough. Had they known too? Did everyone know what was happening in his life before he did? Probably. Pete couldn’t even work up any indignation about it; he’d used it all up on Mikey.
Whether or not they’d been plotting with Patrick behind his back, all the Guides seemed happy for him. The night before he left, Sharon sat down with him and handed over a disposable razor.
“Uh... thanks?”
“You dropped this in the bathroom. Thought you might want it.”
“Oh, right. Thanks,” Pete said, more sincerely this time. He got up to put the razor in his washbag, but Sharon stopped him.
“Pete, I wanted to say... good luck. I hope everything’s okay, with Patrick.”
“Oh, I - thanks. I mean, it will be.” Pete nodded, and Sharon sort of smiled at him.
When Pete was lying in bed that night, waiting to fall asleep, he heard Luis ask, “Pete? Pete, are you asleep?”
“What would you do if I said yes?” Pete asked, rather grumpily. He’d just been in that nice, dozy, half-asleep state. Judging by Luis’s silence, he had no answer for that, and after a few seconds Pete groaned and tried to wake himself up a bit.
“What is it?” he asked.
“You and Patrick haven’t bonded, have you?” Luis asked.
“No.”
“Do you think you will? Eventually?”
This was obviously something that had been keeping Luis awake, so Pete took a minute to really think about his answer. He wished he could come up with something better than, “I’m not sure.” Luis kept quiet, so Pete added, “It’s forever, you know? And last time I bonded, it turned out to be such a mistake, so...” His voice trailed off, and he cleared his throat and made himself admit, “I’m kind of scared.”
Luis asked, in an uncertain voice, “So... is it ever worth it?”
“Well...” Pete so wasn’t qualified to have this conversation. “I guess so. I know some bonded Guides that are really happy. Look at Edward.”
“But how did they find their Sentinels? How did they know it was the right one?”
Pete sighed. “If I knew that, kid, I’d sleep a lot better.” He peered at Luis’s bed, but it was too dark to make out more than a blurry shape. “You really want to bond, huh?”
“I thought I did,” said Luis in a small voice. “But so many of the Sentinels here are kind of... jerks. And I don’t want to pick... wrong.”
Like Pete had. “Being unbonded isn’t so bad,” he said, although he remembered hating it a lot at the time. Every new Sentinel had seemed to think they needed to whip him into shape, and he’d hated the Navy fiercely.
“You wish you hadn’t bonded, now?” Luis asked. Pete was still stumped by the question. Would he have been better off? He had no way of knowing, but it did nothing to take away his certainty that he’d made the wrong choice. “Pete?” Luis asked. “What do you wish someone had told you, back then?”
And somehow, that was a question Pete could answer. “To trust my gut,” he said at once. “I knew he was bad news, but I wanted to believe it would work out. When you see them at their worst, can you stand it if it’s always like that? It doesn’t matter if they’re usually a bucket of sunshine. What are their worst days like? Maybe that’s when you see... they’re actually a control freak, or they literally can’t comprehend ever being wrong about anything, or they think it’s funny to hurt people. Or maybe,” Pete paused and swallowed. “Maybe you’ll see that they’re just scared, or hurt, and they’ll still sit with you because they know you had a crappy day.”
“And that’s the one to bond with?”
“Huh?”
“The one who takes care of you even when they’re dealing with their own problems, that’s the one you should bond with?”
Pete straightened his blankets out to give himself time to think. “I don’t know, man,” he said at last. “You’ve got to make these decisions for yourself.”
In the morning, Pete tidied up the last of his belongings and stripped the sheets off the bed. Linda found him when he was returning from the laundry.
“Hey,” said Pete. “Um, it’s going to take an hour for the washing to finish, and I think I’ll be gone by then, sorry...”
“It’s fine, Pete, I figured,” Linda said. “We’ll take care of it.”
Pete nodded and kind of smiled, and Linda nodded, and it was so awkward Pete wished he hadn’t already stripped his bed so he could go hide under the covers. But that was rather melodramatic, even for him, so Pete took a breath and said, “Look, Linda, I wanted to say... thanks for everything. I don’t know what I would have done without your help... all of you, really, but... I know it’s not enough, but I wanted to say thank you.”
“You don’t have to say anything, Pete. We take care of each other, that’s just... what we do.” And Pete could hear the unsaid, ‘because no one else will’, but he ignored it and just swallowed down another thank-you.
“Do you think you’ll be okay?” Linda asked hesitantly, like she wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do. And like with Luis the night before, Pete had a practiced answer ready to go, but made himself try to say something sincere instead.
“I don’t know,” he said eventually, “but I think it might work out.”
Linda nodded and even seemed to stand a little bit straighter. She said, “Good,” and before Pete could walk away, she hugged him tightly.
“I’ll be fine,” Pete said quietly.
“Yes, you will,” she said.
***
They travelled to the airport by taxi. The flight was delayed, which Patrick didn’t seem too bothered by.
“Come on,” he said, “I was hoping we’d have time to look at this.”
“Look at what?” Pete asked, but Patrick was already on his way and Pete had to hurry to keep up.
Patrick made his way to a cell phone store and Pete caught up with him there. Patrick held out a Nokia towards him with an expectant expression; Pete waited for a clue about what he wanted.
“It’s nice,” Pete said, when a few seconds passed without Patrick explaining anything. “Don’t you have a cell already, though?”
“Yeah. I was thinking for you,” said Patrick.
“Oh! Right.” It made sense that Patrick would want to be able to contact him whenever he wanted, now he was Patrick’s Guide. He’d had a cell, with Trent, but he’d had to leave it behind. “That looks fine.”
“What colour do you want?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Shit, it wasn’t like they charged more for the cool colours. “Red?”
Once they were on the plane, with Pete’s new phone in its box tucked safely in his carry-on luggage, Patrick said, “When we get home, I’ll call my cell company and get you added to my plan. It’s good, you get 1000 minutes of calls a month.”
“You think I’ll be calling you that much?” Pete asked, laughing.
“Well, I figure you’ll have some other people you want to call, too.”
Pete started and stared at Patrick, wide eyed. “What?” he said. “Um. Huh? Who?”
“Well...” Patrick raised his eyebrows. “Like Mikey. I thought it would be easier than emails.” He smiled uncertainly.
“I kissed Mikey,” Pete blurted out.
Patrick’s smile dimmed. “Yeah,” he said. “Uh, yeah, I sort of figured.”
Pete just couldn’t figure Patrick out at all. “That doesn’t bother you?”
Patrick looked down at his hands. “I can’t - I can’t say I’m as cool with it as I’d like to be,” he said slowly. “But I’ll work on it. You should be able to date someone if you want to.”
“Yeah,” said Pete. “I thought that - I wondered if you’d want that to be you, that’s all.”
Patrick looked surprised. “Um,” he said. “I don’t really go for guys much.”
“Even Guides?” Pete asked.
“Well, Guides... but yeah, even then, I’m more into women.” Patrick sighed and fiddled with his left shirt cuff. “But honestly, I don’t think I’m really ready for anything like that. Probably won’t be for a long time.”
Pete stared down at his knees. This just raised a stack of new questions he wished he could have answered, but there wasn’t much privacy on the plane and Patrick was looking stressed. A lot of Sentinels hated flying. Pete put held out a hand and Patrick took it; they opened a working link and Patrick’s forehead smoothed.
Patrick reached for his bag and looked through it for a minute. He put it down with an annoyed grunt. “I put my book in my suitcase,” he grumbled.
Pete shifted and looked at the notebook sticking out of his bag. “Shit,” he said, “that sucks.” He put his hand on the notebook, started to lift it out of his bag, then pushed it back. “Maybe you can get a magazine or something.”
“Gosh, I was wondering if Drew Barrymore had got a new haircut,” said Patrick sarcastically.
“Okay then,” said Pete. His fingers reached for the notebook again, and he pulled it out and held it on his lap.
He wished he could put it back, but Patrick looked over and said, “What’s that?”
“Uh.” Pete opened the notebook to a blank page and grabbed a pen. “Tic-tac-toe?”
Patrick gave him an odd look, but he took the pen and put a cross in the middle square.
After that, they moved on to hangman, and from there to drawing increasingly elaborate and grotesque hangmen. Patrick’s best seemed to be using a guitar to behead his victim, which Pete argued meant he wasn’t really a hangman at all, and by that time they could see Chicago out the window. It felt like the flight had lasted about twenty minutes.
Patrick stared down at the city, looking way more excited than he had when they took off. “I used to know a lot of musicians in this city,” he said. “I wonder if any of them are still around.” He bit his lip. “I wonder if any of them will remember me.”
“Of course they will,” Pete said. Patrick looked at him.
“We should get you a bass guitar,” he said. “There used to be this awesome music shop not far from Mom and Dad’s house, they had the best range.” He glanced at Pete quickly. “I mean, if you’re okay with that,” he added hesitantly.
“I’d like that,” Pete said, softly. He looked at his bag again. He wouldn’t show Patrick the lyrics he’d written. He’d write something else, something new, and give him that.
***
It was raining when they left the airport. A stiff blustery wind rattled the automatic doors as they slid open. Pete carried the luggage out to the car - a dark green station wagon - and loaded it into the back while a middle-aged woman hugged Patrick and kissed his cheeks no less than five times. Pete hung back in case she wanted to give him the same treatment, but she restrained herself to a handshake and a warm smile.
It took an hour to drive to Patrick’s parents’ home. Patrick bickered with his mother about the fact that his bedroom had been turned into a guest room. Pete had a cot set up in the study. “We have dial-up,” said Patrick’s mother, “but Nathan needs the phone line free before eight pm.”
It was a pretty comfy set-up. Pete put his bag down by the desk and dropped his coat on top of it. He sat on the cot and stretched out on it. Then he got up again and went to see how Patrick was doing.
Patrick was sitting in his own room, the one that was now a guest room. It looked bland in the way that guest rooms tended to, and Pete tried to imagine what it would have looked like before Patrick had left home. Maybe he would have covered the walls with band posters like Pete had. Maybe he’d kept it neat and filled his shelves with debate team trophies. Maybe he’d only been able to reach the bed by carving a trail through layers of books and dirty clothes, like Lewis and Clark trying to get to Oregon.
Patrick’s guitar case was leaning up against the wall by the door. His mother walked by and picked it up.
“I’ll get this out of the way for you, honey,” she said. “And then do you want something to eat? What about some soup? Or a toasted sandwich?”
“Leave the guitar, it’s fine,” said Patrick.
“Oh, you don’t want it in here, cluttering things up,” his mother said. Rather than arguing, Patrick got up and took the guitar case from her. She sighed and let it go without comment. “What about some eggs? Maybe with toast?”
“Whatever you think,” Patrick said, and opened the guitar case. His mother wandered off with another sigh, and Pete moved into the room.
“How’s your guitar playing going?” Pete asked. Patrick kept his head down.
“Yeah,” he said after a second. “It, uh.” He looked up at Pete and bit his lip. “It’s been getting a lot better. The prosthesis is kind of weird, but I’m getting used to it.”
Pete smiled and Patrick switched his prosthetic hand over. He got the guitar settled on his knee and started to play. He was good. It made Pete itch to grab an instrument himself. He settled for listening, and, as he began to recognise the songs Patrick was playing, to sing along. He sang as badly and obnoxiously as he could, hoping that he could goad Patrick into singing and trying to drown him out. Patrick rolled his eyes, so maybe he could tell what Pete was up to, but after a few minutes he began to sing anyway.
***
Being in Chicago was strange - busy, but in a different way to the hospital. Pete saw a psychologist, and a psychiatrist who prescribed an antidepressant. Patrick bought him a bass guitar, even though the process of buying it was sort of an ordeal. They went to the store three times, and each time Pete convinced himself that letting Patrick spend that sort of money on him was a horrible idea and made a weak excuse for why they had to leave right then and there. The fourth time, Patrick withdrew the cash and gave it to Pete before they reached the store, and told Pete that he wouldn’t accept it back, whether Pete chose to spend it in the music store or not. That did the trick.
Pete kept scraps of paper under his pillow, in his duffle bag, and in the case for his bass guitar. Slowly, he covered them with his messy, loopy writing. He might have deliberately scrawled a bit more than he normally would have, in the hope that other people who happened upon it wouldn’t be able to read it.
It took him a long time to write something he was willing to share with Patrick. It needed to be good, and not reveal anything he didn’t want to reveal. The more time passed, the more he almost felt he could make up his mind to trust Patrick, but he wasn’t there yet. Eventually, though, a day came when he took Patrick a page with a mostly finished song on it, and let him read it.
“This is good, Pete!” Patrick said, something in his voice that Pete didn’t recognise.
“It’s not really done yet,” said Pete. “And I’m not sure the meter in the bridge works.”
“Oh, no, you could totally tweak that,” Patrick said, reaching for his guitar. “Just use a triplet here, and here...” He sang the line, and the rhythm was much more effective than the one Pete had been battling without success. He sat down next to Patrick on the bed.
“Okay,” said Pete. “What would you do with this line, then?”
Patrick’s mom called them for dinner an hour later, but they didn’t hear her.
***
A few weeks later, that song was finished and four more were well underway. Patrick was as happy as Pete had seen him, but he could see that Patrick was eager to do more with the music than they had so far.
“If I’d wanted to leave the Army to start a band, they probably wouldn’t have let me,” Patrick had said a few days before. “But now...” He held up his left arm. “The SRB doesn’t care what I do anymore, and I still can’t do what I want.”
“Sure you can,” Pete insisted. “Your playing keeps getting better and better. Your singing too. This doesn’t have to stop you.”
Patrick sighed. “I wish I was still in touch with the guys I played music with back in school,” he said. “Two musicians doesn’t quite make a band.”
“You don’t have any of their numbers?” Pete asked.
Patrick pursed his lips. “I’ll have to make a couple of calls,” he said.
An hour later, Patrick got off the phone with some guy called Andy, and said, “Well, he wants us to come around tomorrow to rehearse together, see how it goes. What do you think?”
“Sounds good.”
“He seemed really pleased to hear from me, actually. He said he’s got this tape I’ve got to hear, some anonymous group writing songs about Guides and opposing G-TAC.”
Pete did his best to hide his reaction. Could Gerard and Mikey’s music really have made it all the way to Chicago, copies of copies passed from one person to another? Maybe it was a different group.
“That sounds...” Pete said, and paused long enough while searching for an appropriate adjective that Patrick seemed to forget he’d spoken.
“It would be good to find another guitarist, I think,” he said. “In case we need someone who... well, in case we need one.”
“Yeah,” said Pete. “Do you know anyone?”
Patrick thought about it. “Just Joe,” he said, “and he’s got at least three months of enlistment left. But I could write to him, ask what his plans are after that.”
“Three months isn’t all that long,” said Pete.
Patrick smiled. “That’s true,” he said. “It gives us time to get a few songs written. If you want to keep writing lyrics.”
Pete breathed deep and gathered up his courage. “I’ve got more,” he said. “I have - I can show you. If you want.”
Patrick looked at him, keeping still like he thought he might frighten Pete away. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I’d like that.”
Pete got back to the apartment very late. Linda and Sharon were already in bed, but Luis was sitting up in bed reading, and came out into the living room when he heard Pete come in.
“Hey,” he said, “you’re really late.”
“Yeah,” said Pete, and he described the situation with Alice which had delayed him.
“You should have got one of us to come help you,” Luis said. “Sharon said we could help if you needed someone.”
“Oh,” said Pete. It had honestly never occurred to him to do that. And Sharon had offered help, he remembered that now, and still he’d never considered it.
“Have you had anything to eat?”
Pete hadn’t, after everything, so Luis reheated some leftover chilli. After the first bite Pete realised how ravenously hungry he actually was, and he wolfed the rest down while Luis sat and watched. At first Pete was preoccupied by his meal, but after a few minutes Luis’s attention struck him as odd.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Luis said, flushing and looking away. “Just. Sharon said I had to keep an eye on you.”
Pete bet she had. “I’m fine,” he said wearily. Lying so much probably wasn’t healthy.
“Linda said...” Luis trailed off and looked guilty. “I mean, I wasn’t trying to... be nosy or whatever. I just wanted to make sure I didn’t say the wrong thing. I. Um...”
“Just ask, Luis,” Pete sighed.
“Linda said you were bonded?” Luis said, and it wasn’t really a question even though he made it sound like one. Pete nodded anyway. “And she said the Sentinel was a jerk.” Pete nodded again. “And that’s why...” Luis didn’t finish that sentence, so he apparently wasn’t quite tactless enough to say ‘that’s why you’ve been behaving like a deranged nutcase.’ Score one for Luis.
“What’s your question?” Pete prompted eventually, because they’d come this far and he figured they might as well get the discussion out of the way.
“I don’t - I wondered.” Luis stopped, took a breath and started again. “Why did you bond with him?”
Somehow, that wasn’t what Pete had expected. “Uh,” he said. “Well... he asked me.” Luis just looked at him, and Pete figured it was kind of a weak answer. “It was the first time I’d been asked, and I wanted to bond,” he added, because he didn’t really want to get into the specifics with Luis. The kid had to be barely out of Guide training, he was so fucking naive.
“But...” Luis looked like he was struggling with something. Pete waited. “But... why couldn’t you wait, and bond with someone else? I mean - I’m sorry. I guess maybe he was probably different then.”
“He wasn’t,” said Pete. At the time, he honestly hadn’t expected anyone else to ever ask him. He hadn’t really expected Trent to ask him, so when he had, Pete had said yes without thinking about it. And he didn’t want to describe the intense calculations he’d done afterwards, of whether it would be better to be bonded to Trent permanently or stick out four more years in the Navy, probably more. “I just thought... it would work out.” He’d thought he’d be able to handle it, was what he’d thought. And he had. Sort of. “It’s easy to convince yourself something will work out if you really want it to.”
Luis looked incredibly crestfallen. Pete must not have done as well at protecting his innocence as he’d wanted, but it was probably for the best anyway. “Come on,” said Pete. “It’s late, and I so need some sleep.”
***
He did okay, slept for over four hours before he woke up. He got up then, slightly shaky and still kind of tired, to drink coffee, watch the shopping channel and scribble fragmentary, nonsensical lyrics which he threw straight in the trash without rereading. At half past four, he went back to bed and tried to sleep a little bit more, but without much success. All he managed to do was make himself bleary-eyed and stupid when he actually had to get up for the day.
It was better than yesterday. Anything would have been better than yesterday. He got to Patrick’s apartment that night without incident, helped Patrick cook something and checked his email.
Jon had replied, just funny stories from Fort Lewis and small talk, but it was nice to read. Ray had written back too. ‘If anyone tries to tell you that you should go see the Blues Brothers sequel,’ he said, ‘they are lying, and not to be trusted.’
Pete read both emails twice, trying to look extremely absorbed in the computer, because Patrick was using his new prosthesis to play the guitar and he didn’t want to make him self-conscious about it. He listened, though, and it sounded like it was working really well, Patrick playing without getting tired and with only the occasional awkward pause between chords. Pete smiled to himself and refreshed his inbox.
There was nothing from Mikey. Maybe he felt guilty. Maybe he was letting Pete make the first move, making sure that Pete was okay with being contacted. Maybe he’d finally realised that there were ten thousand better uses for his time than worrying about Pete.
He tried five times to write a light-hearted email which would reassure Mikey that everything was fine, but something kept holding him back and eventually he figured it out.
It’s not up to you to save me from myself, Mikey. Whatever I keep fucking up is on me, not you. I think it’s just how I am, or something. He wanted to add more, but he couldn’t come up with anything that wouldn’t make Mikey worry even more, so he sent the email, feeling like it wasn’t really finished.
It had become difficult to focus on writing the email because at some point, Patrick had progressed from playing quietly to humming along and finally singing the chorus of the Ramones song he was playing at full volume. Pete listened, rapt, until Patrick looked up and saw him watching, and stopped playing abruptly.
“You shouldn’t have stopped, man!” Pete said. “You’re good!”
Patrick was already turning red. Pete had no idea what someone as talented as Patrick could have to be embarrassed about, but he tried to reassure him. “Seriously,” he said. “I told you you should try singing, your voice is great!”
Patrick shrugged and looked away. “Oh, knock it off, Pete,” he grumbled.
“But-”
“Listen, I wanted to talk to you about something,” said Patrick, and he sounded serious enough that it distracted Pete from trying to convince Patrick he could sing.
“What?”
“Uh,” Patrick said. “So. I’m probably going to. I mean. I think I’m going to be discharged in a week or so. My shrink’s been talking to me about it. And my ortho.”
Oh. “Oh,” said Pete. He winced; his ‘oh’ had sounded decidedly flat. “Hey, that’s great!” he said, trying to inject a little enthusiasm into his voice. “What are you going to do?”
“I’ll probably go home,” Patrick said. “To my parents’ place, I mean. My mom’s kind of insisting.” He made a face, like he wasn’t completely looking forward to it.
“Well,” Pete said, trying to think of something supportive to say, “I guess you’ll have a chance to figure some stuff out, then.”
“Yeah,” said Patrick without enthusiasm.
“And you’d better take care of yourself.”
Patrick looked down at his knees, and Pete’s stomach did a sort of swoop. Oh no.
“Actually, I wanted to ask you about something, sort of related to that,” said Patrick. “Um. Well. I feel like we... we are... we work well together, and stuff. And. So, I don’t see why we couldn’t... I’d like to have you come with me, if. If you want. If we could...”
“Could what?”
“Well, bond.” Patrick met Pete’s eyes and looked away, so quickly that he really might have missed it if he’d blinked. “Do you... um. Would you? Want that?”
Pete twitched and sprang up from the couch as though it had turned into an ant hill underneath him. He really should have tried to find a tactful way to refuse, but instead he said “No!” in a hoarse sort of cry. And then, because just like he’d pointed out to Mikey, Pete just couldn’t seem to avoid ruining his own life, he added, “Why would you ask me that?”
Patrick looked kind of affronted, and he said, “I thought you - you’d want - I mean, I guess I was wrong.” He shook his head. “But I thought it would work better for you - you could get into therapy, I wouldn’t interfere. Hell, my therapist could probably recommend someone. It just seemed like a good...” He trailed off and looked down at his hands; he’d developed a habit of wrapping his real hand around the prosthesis, like the urge to poke at a scratch, maybe, or perhaps to keep it hidden.
Oh no, no way. Nothing on earth could convince Pete to agree to something like that. He’d be in Patrick’s debt for the rest of his life, unable to repay him or leave. Maybe he’d made some stupid decisions in the past but at least, please God, he could learn from them.
“I’m never going to bond again,” he said fiercely. “Not with you, not with anyone. I don’t want that.” And he was shaking again, and his vision was tunnelling until all he could see was Patrick’s disappointed face, and no matter how hard he breathed there wasn’t enough air. “I don’t want that. No. No.”
Patrick reached out like he was going to touch Pete, and Pete sprinted for the door. He didn’t think running away from Patrick was likely to fix anything, but he’d never really had the chance to try it before. It was worth a shot.
***
Pete shut the door to his room like he could close out the world, but he couldn’t shut out the conversation Linda and Sharon were having out in the kitchen. They were being quiet, to be fair, but the walls were thin and when Pete thought he overheard his name he went to the door to listen.
“We can’t do that,” Linda was saying. “Just imagine what they’d do.”
“This is too much for us, Linda. None of us is getting any sleep and he’s not getting better. Of course I don’t like to suggest it, but we can’t keep this up long term. Pete can’t keep this up long term. I think we should...”
And she dropped her voice even lower. There was nothing more Pete could hear except Linda saying, “No, Sharon!” He backed away from the door and sat on his bed.
He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but after a while Luis came in and stared at him. “Should I get...” he asked, taking a step back towards the kitchen.
Pete shook his head hard and Luis stopped, gulped, and closed the door. “Uh,” he said, “Should I do something?”
Pete gave a harsh laugh. “I’m not gonna explode,” he said.
Luis didn’t look reassured. “I know that,” he said. Christ. The kid was as fidgety as anything. “What’s wrong?” he asked, as tentatively as someone trying to pull a book from the bottom of a stack without toppling it over.
Pete considered telling Luis the truth. If Jon were still around, he’d probably have gone to talk to him. Or Mikey. Too bad they were both only contactable through Patrick’s computer. There was Linda, too, he might have talked to her once, but right now he didn’t want to give her any more evidence of how fucked up he was. “Bad day,” he said. Luis licked his lips and nodded.
“Is there anything I can do?” he asked. Pete had a feeling Luis had recently been on the receiving end of a talk from Linda about How To Be A Supportive Friend.
“Nah,” he said, “I’m fine.”
Luis looked indecently relieved, and it sort of made Pete want to laugh. Only sort of, though; he wasn’t really in a laughing mood.
He would have avoided Patrick, maybe asked one of the other Guides to look after him instead if it hadn’t suddenly seemed very important to appear competent and capable. But it did, and so the next morning he got in and out of Patrick’s apartment as quickly as possible, trying to avoid eye contact the whole time. Patrick, for his part, didn’t mention anything that had happened the day before, which Pete knew he should be relieved by. He knew his initial fear - of being bonded to another Trent - was irrational, but that didn’t mean that bonding with Patrick would be any less of a bad idea, done for the wrong reasons.
He went back that evening, meaning to do the same thing, get in and out while minimising contact. Patrick looked so miserable, though, and was clearly being so careful about not saying anything to upset Pete, that he relented and said, “Hey, anything worth watching on TV tonight?”
Patrick brightened up so much it gave Pete a bit of a rush. Making a Sentinel happy was an addictive feeling. There wasn’t anything on TV that he wanted to see, but he stuck around anyway, just because Patrick seemed so happy.
After an hour or so of watching TV, Pete went to use the computer and found that Mikey had sent him a chat message.
mikey: Pete are you there?
wentzp: hey mikey
mikey: I got your email, I’m glad you’re ok
wentzp: yeah, im doing good
mikey: I want to come out and visit again this weekend. Is that ok?
Pete stared at the screen for a minute or two. What should he say? Did he even want Mikey to come back and visit? He hardly needed another witness for his probably inevitable breakdown. On the other hand, if he could see Mikey in person, he’d be able to discuss the Patrick Situation with him.
wentzp: i guess
mikey: I don’t have to if you don’t want, I just thought it might be good.
wentzp: no yeah it would be good
mikey: Okay. I was thinking Saturday, what’s a good time for you?
They figured out the details and Pete signed off.
***
Saturday was a warm day, a first taste of the coming summer. Pete had talked to the other Guides who had arranged things so he could have some time with Mikey. He’d be up late paying back the favours, but that didn’t matter.
At twelve o’clock exactly, Pete was waiting outside the building where Mikey had found him last time. Mikey, however, was ten minutes late. Not his fault, Pete was sure. It was a long way, and the roads could be fickle.
Mikey jumped out of his car and raced over. Pete hugged him hello and said, “Want to come upstairs?”
Mikey looked around. “Is there somewhere we can take a walk?”
They wandered through the grounds, which Pete hadn’t really seen much of. It was pretty. They stopped at a bench which had a nice view of a pond and sat down. Pete licked his lips, suddenly unsure of what to say.
“Uh,” he said. “Thanks. For coming out.”
Mikey smiled at him, but it was a thin sort of smile. “I wanted to come,” he said. He looked down and toyed with a rip in his jeans. He dug the toe of his shoe into the dirt nervously. Yes, he was nervous. Surely he couldn’t be about to say what Pete thought he was about to say?
“I’ve been emailing Patrick,” Mikey said. Oh. Not what he’d been thinking at all, then. Pete was relieved. Yes, definitely relieved. “He said he asked you to bond.”
“Everyone’s been talking to Patrick,” Pete said rather resentfully.
Mikey looked guilty, but he set his jaw, narrowed his eyes, and continued on. “He said you said no.” He waited, and when Pete said nothing, added, “So?”
“You’d know better than me,” Pete said. “Apparently.”
Mikey sighed. “Are you sure that’s the right decision?”
“You tell me,” Pete said snarkily.
“Damn it, Pete!”
“No, seriously,” Pete added. “I don’t... I can’t decide something like that. I’ll get it wrong. It’s what I do.”
“That’s ridiculous, Pete. I think you’re overreacting.”
Pete opened his mouth, but the prospect of explaining to Mikey that it wasn’t just one crap decision, but every decision he’d made since he was thirteen or so, before he’d even known he was a Guide, was just too much. He could review all the different ways his life had become a clusterfuck and trace each one back to his own choices. It was pretty depressing, though, so he usually didn’t.
Pete closed his mouth again. “Am not.”
Mikey shrugged and sighed again. “Would it be so awful, to bond with him?”
“Of course not,” Pete said. “Not at first.” Mikey just gave him a blank look, and it was Pete’s turn to sigh. “He wants to fix me, Mikey. ‘Let’s bond, Pete,’ he said, ‘you can have all the therapy you want.’ He wants to, fucking, rescue me, and for a month, maybe two, he’ll be happy with that. He’ll feel just like when he was a special forces soldier, saving people and kicking asses and shit. Then it’ll wear off, he’ll realise that I’m just a fuckup - like, independent of all this bullshit,” he waved his hands to indicate the medical centre, “I’m still a fuckup. And I don’t get better. And he’ll be stuck with me. Forever. And it won’t be special and happy anymore, and he’ll resent me for ruining it. And we’ll be stuck together. Forever.”
Mikey was looking at him like Pete’s impromptu monologue had been delivered in a language he didn’t speak. Pete supposed it sort of had. He should have said it to Ray, who, he’d gathered, had a few fuckups of his own. Ray could have translated it into normal-person-speech. Never mind.
Mikey pinched the bridge of his nose. “I think you’re wrong,” he said slowly, like it was an effort.
“Prove it,” Pete retorted, because he wasn’t about to put his faith in hopes and wishes, not again.
Mikey closed his eyes. “Alright,” he said. “Let’s leave that for now. I’ve been emailing Patrick.”
“You mentioned that,” said Pete. “It’s funny how you’re so keen to make sure I’m informed all of a sudden.”
“And we agreed,” Mikey snapped, “that it would be better if I talked to you first.”
Pete dropped his head and breathed hard through his nose. “Talked to me about?” he growled.
“Patrick made a request to G-TAC, that you be assigned as his Guide once he’s discharged.”
Pete turned away, shaking his head. He should have been expecting that, but somehow it had taken him by surprise. “Fuck you, Mikey.”
“I thought you didn’t want to decide anything?”
Pete moved to walk off, but he only got a couple of steps before he felt Mikey’s hand on his arm. He shook it off angrily.
“I’m sorry,” Mikey said, although he sounded more pissed than sorry. “It’s shitty, and if there was another way... but we only had so much time, and it seemed like the best choice.”
Oh, yeah, Pete knew how that went, alright. “I don’t need your help,” he said.
Mikey was kind and didn’t call him out on that enormous lie. “Okay,” he said. “I’m sorry. I guess... I guess I should go. Stop bothering you.” He didn’t move for a couple of seconds, like he was waiting for Pete to stop him, and then he started to walk away.
“Mikey, wait.” Pete caught up to him. “What did Patrick say?”
Mikey looked at him. “He said you... he said you’re ‘the only person in this hole that doesn’t make him feel like a freak.’ His exact words. It’s not... he needs you too, Pete. You both - I think Patrick hopes you can help each other.”
“I’m not someone who helps people, Mikey.”
“Pete-”
“What if he has a flashback and I don’t know what to do? Or I can’t... you know how Sentinels and Guides feed off each others’ emotions. If it was one of us, we could cope, but we’re both so messed up - what if we make each other worse?”
Mikey didn’t answer, which Pete took to mean he didn’t know either. Pete sighed.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t make it better for you,” Mikey said in a small voice, and guilt left Pete feeling about three inches tall.
“It’s fine, Mikey,” he said. “It’s good. I’m just. Just scared, I guess.”
Mikey nodded. Pete could see him trying to understand, but Mikey seemed to have that sense about people that all Guides were supposed to have. He probably had no idea what it was like to have to work so hard at getting along with people.
“Hey, Mikey?” Pete asked after a few minutes of walking. “Do you think, if I’m Patrick’s Guide, will he want to fuck?”
Mikey tripped and nearly fell. He looked surprised, so Pete figured Patrick hadn’t made any comments along those lines.
“Would you... want to?” Mikey asked.
“Well, I - I mean, if it. I don’t know. Do you think it would help?”
“Pete-” Mikey pressed his lips together, looking annoyed. “I thought you guys were friends.”
“We are.”
“He shouldn’t coerce you into things you don’t want to do if he’s actually your friend.” Mikey looked pissed.
“He wouldn’t!” Pete said. He was pretty sure Patrick wouldn’t, anyway. “I was just wondering. Most Sentinels want a Guide who’ll, you know. Be available for that.” Mikey probably didn’t really get that, being sibling bonded.
“If he makes you feel like you’re obliged to have sex with him, I’ll break his face,” Mikey said. He looked like he meant it, too, which was hilarious because Patrick was an (ex-)Special Forces soldier whereas Mikey had been known to take a space heater into the shower because it was too cold.
“You can’t do that,” Pete said. He was laughing a little bit, but he tried to answer Mikey seriously just in case he thought he could make good on the threat. “It’s not that big of a deal.”
“It is,” Mikey disagreed. “I thought - I mean, if that’s what you want, then that’s great! But I kind of thought. I sort of - it seemed like-”
Mikey went quiet, and his expression was thoughtful and a little sad. Pete blinked at him, because even with all the times he’d imagined this moment he’d still managed to somehow be unprepared for it.
That was probably why he reacted as impulsively as he did. It was one thing to convince himself that he could turn Mikey down when he was hours away in New York, but another when Mikey was right in front of him. So Pete grabbed Mikey’s wrist and kissed him, although his aim was a little off and he sort of got Mikey’s lower lip and a bit of his chin. It certainly had a noticeable effect, though.
Mikey stopped, turned, and stared at him. “What-?” he asked.
Shit. “Sorry,” said Pete. “Sorry, I - I must have read that wrong.” He looked away, his face burning. He should have known better. He had known better, had just decided to ignore his own better judgement out of pure obstinate stupidity.
“No,” Mikey said, sounding frustrated. “I just... come on, Pete. You ask me whether screwing Patrick is a good idea, and then you kiss me? What am I supposed to think?”
Pete hadn’t thought of it like that. “I thought you wanted me to,” he said in a small voice.
“I - but. What do you want?” Mikey asked. When Pete just looked at him, he added, “Do you even know?”
“I want-” Pete started, then clamped his mouth shut before he could say something mortifying like, ‘I want you to like me.’ He wasn’t far gone enough to expose a weakness like that.
They walked in silence for a few minutes, and then Mikey let his knuckles brush the back of Pete’s hand. “Pete,” he said, and waited till Pete looked at him. “When you figure it out, let me know?”
***
By the time he received an official notice that he’d been reassigned, Pete had sort of accepted it, even though he still half-expected it to turn into a disaster at some point. He still hadn’t decided how he was going to break the news to the other Guides when Linda seemed to notice his preoccupation and asked what was on his mind.
“Huh? Oh, nothing. It’s nothing,” Pete said, not very convincingly. His attention started to wander again, but he couldn’t miss the significant look that passed between Linda and Sharon.
“Actually,” he said, “I need to tell you - well, Patrick approached G-TAC about them assigning me to him once he’s discharged. So I don’t think I’ll be here for much longer.”
The other Guides didn’t seem quite surprised enough. Had they known too? Did everyone know what was happening in his life before he did? Probably. Pete couldn’t even work up any indignation about it; he’d used it all up on Mikey.
Whether or not they’d been plotting with Patrick behind his back, all the Guides seemed happy for him. The night before he left, Sharon sat down with him and handed over a disposable razor.
“Uh... thanks?”
“You dropped this in the bathroom. Thought you might want it.”
“Oh, right. Thanks,” Pete said, more sincerely this time. He got up to put the razor in his washbag, but Sharon stopped him.
“Pete, I wanted to say... good luck. I hope everything’s okay, with Patrick.”
“Oh, I - thanks. I mean, it will be.” Pete nodded, and Sharon sort of smiled at him.
When Pete was lying in bed that night, waiting to fall asleep, he heard Luis ask, “Pete? Pete, are you asleep?”
“What would you do if I said yes?” Pete asked, rather grumpily. He’d just been in that nice, dozy, half-asleep state. Judging by Luis’s silence, he had no answer for that, and after a few seconds Pete groaned and tried to wake himself up a bit.
“What is it?” he asked.
“You and Patrick haven’t bonded, have you?” Luis asked.
“No.”
“Do you think you will? Eventually?”
This was obviously something that had been keeping Luis awake, so Pete took a minute to really think about his answer. He wished he could come up with something better than, “I’m not sure.” Luis kept quiet, so Pete added, “It’s forever, you know? And last time I bonded, it turned out to be such a mistake, so...” His voice trailed off, and he cleared his throat and made himself admit, “I’m kind of scared.”
Luis asked, in an uncertain voice, “So... is it ever worth it?”
“Well...” Pete so wasn’t qualified to have this conversation. “I guess so. I know some bonded Guides that are really happy. Look at Edward.”
“But how did they find their Sentinels? How did they know it was the right one?”
Pete sighed. “If I knew that, kid, I’d sleep a lot better.” He peered at Luis’s bed, but it was too dark to make out more than a blurry shape. “You really want to bond, huh?”
“I thought I did,” said Luis in a small voice. “But so many of the Sentinels here are kind of... jerks. And I don’t want to pick... wrong.”
Like Pete had. “Being unbonded isn’t so bad,” he said, although he remembered hating it a lot at the time. Every new Sentinel had seemed to think they needed to whip him into shape, and he’d hated the Navy fiercely.
“You wish you hadn’t bonded, now?” Luis asked. Pete was still stumped by the question. Would he have been better off? He had no way of knowing, but it did nothing to take away his certainty that he’d made the wrong choice. “Pete?” Luis asked. “What do you wish someone had told you, back then?”
And somehow, that was a question Pete could answer. “To trust my gut,” he said at once. “I knew he was bad news, but I wanted to believe it would work out. When you see them at their worst, can you stand it if it’s always like that? It doesn’t matter if they’re usually a bucket of sunshine. What are their worst days like? Maybe that’s when you see... they’re actually a control freak, or they literally can’t comprehend ever being wrong about anything, or they think it’s funny to hurt people. Or maybe,” Pete paused and swallowed. “Maybe you’ll see that they’re just scared, or hurt, and they’ll still sit with you because they know you had a crappy day.”
“And that’s the one to bond with?”
“Huh?”
“The one who takes care of you even when they’re dealing with their own problems, that’s the one you should bond with?”
Pete straightened his blankets out to give himself time to think. “I don’t know, man,” he said at last. “You’ve got to make these decisions for yourself.”
In the morning, Pete tidied up the last of his belongings and stripped the sheets off the bed. Linda found him when he was returning from the laundry.
“Hey,” said Pete. “Um, it’s going to take an hour for the washing to finish, and I think I’ll be gone by then, sorry...”
“It’s fine, Pete, I figured,” Linda said. “We’ll take care of it.”
Pete nodded and kind of smiled, and Linda nodded, and it was so awkward Pete wished he hadn’t already stripped his bed so he could go hide under the covers. But that was rather melodramatic, even for him, so Pete took a breath and said, “Look, Linda, I wanted to say... thanks for everything. I don’t know what I would have done without your help... all of you, really, but... I know it’s not enough, but I wanted to say thank you.”
“You don’t have to say anything, Pete. We take care of each other, that’s just... what we do.” And Pete could hear the unsaid, ‘because no one else will’, but he ignored it and just swallowed down another thank-you.
“Do you think you’ll be okay?” Linda asked hesitantly, like she wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do. And like with Luis the night before, Pete had a practiced answer ready to go, but made himself try to say something sincere instead.
“I don’t know,” he said eventually, “but I think it might work out.”
Linda nodded and even seemed to stand a little bit straighter. She said, “Good,” and before Pete could walk away, she hugged him tightly.
“I’ll be fine,” Pete said quietly.
“Yes, you will,” she said.
***
They travelled to the airport by taxi. The flight was delayed, which Patrick didn’t seem too bothered by.
“Come on,” he said, “I was hoping we’d have time to look at this.”
“Look at what?” Pete asked, but Patrick was already on his way and Pete had to hurry to keep up.
Patrick made his way to a cell phone store and Pete caught up with him there. Patrick held out a Nokia towards him with an expectant expression; Pete waited for a clue about what he wanted.
“It’s nice,” Pete said, when a few seconds passed without Patrick explaining anything. “Don’t you have a cell already, though?”
“Yeah. I was thinking for you,” said Patrick.
“Oh! Right.” It made sense that Patrick would want to be able to contact him whenever he wanted, now he was Patrick’s Guide. He’d had a cell, with Trent, but he’d had to leave it behind. “That looks fine.”
“What colour do you want?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Shit, it wasn’t like they charged more for the cool colours. “Red?”
Once they were on the plane, with Pete’s new phone in its box tucked safely in his carry-on luggage, Patrick said, “When we get home, I’ll call my cell company and get you added to my plan. It’s good, you get 1000 minutes of calls a month.”
“You think I’ll be calling you that much?” Pete asked, laughing.
“Well, I figure you’ll have some other people you want to call, too.”
Pete started and stared at Patrick, wide eyed. “What?” he said. “Um. Huh? Who?”
“Well...” Patrick raised his eyebrows. “Like Mikey. I thought it would be easier than emails.” He smiled uncertainly.
“I kissed Mikey,” Pete blurted out.
Patrick’s smile dimmed. “Yeah,” he said. “Uh, yeah, I sort of figured.”
Pete just couldn’t figure Patrick out at all. “That doesn’t bother you?”
Patrick looked down at his hands. “I can’t - I can’t say I’m as cool with it as I’d like to be,” he said slowly. “But I’ll work on it. You should be able to date someone if you want to.”
“Yeah,” said Pete. “I thought that - I wondered if you’d want that to be you, that’s all.”
Patrick looked surprised. “Um,” he said. “I don’t really go for guys much.”
“Even Guides?” Pete asked.
“Well, Guides... but yeah, even then, I’m more into women.” Patrick sighed and fiddled with his left shirt cuff. “But honestly, I don’t think I’m really ready for anything like that. Probably won’t be for a long time.”
Pete stared down at his knees. This just raised a stack of new questions he wished he could have answered, but there wasn’t much privacy on the plane and Patrick was looking stressed. A lot of Sentinels hated flying. Pete put held out a hand and Patrick took it; they opened a working link and Patrick’s forehead smoothed.
Patrick reached for his bag and looked through it for a minute. He put it down with an annoyed grunt. “I put my book in my suitcase,” he grumbled.
Pete shifted and looked at the notebook sticking out of his bag. “Shit,” he said, “that sucks.” He put his hand on the notebook, started to lift it out of his bag, then pushed it back. “Maybe you can get a magazine or something.”
“Gosh, I was wondering if Drew Barrymore had got a new haircut,” said Patrick sarcastically.
“Okay then,” said Pete. His fingers reached for the notebook again, and he pulled it out and held it on his lap.
He wished he could put it back, but Patrick looked over and said, “What’s that?”
“Uh.” Pete opened the notebook to a blank page and grabbed a pen. “Tic-tac-toe?”
Patrick gave him an odd look, but he took the pen and put a cross in the middle square.
After that, they moved on to hangman, and from there to drawing increasingly elaborate and grotesque hangmen. Patrick’s best seemed to be using a guitar to behead his victim, which Pete argued meant he wasn’t really a hangman at all, and by that time they could see Chicago out the window. It felt like the flight had lasted about twenty minutes.
Patrick stared down at the city, looking way more excited than he had when they took off. “I used to know a lot of musicians in this city,” he said. “I wonder if any of them are still around.” He bit his lip. “I wonder if any of them will remember me.”
“Of course they will,” Pete said. Patrick looked at him.
“We should get you a bass guitar,” he said. “There used to be this awesome music shop not far from Mom and Dad’s house, they had the best range.” He glanced at Pete quickly. “I mean, if you’re okay with that,” he added hesitantly.
“I’d like that,” Pete said, softly. He looked at his bag again. He wouldn’t show Patrick the lyrics he’d written. He’d write something else, something new, and give him that.
***
It was raining when they left the airport. A stiff blustery wind rattled the automatic doors as they slid open. Pete carried the luggage out to the car - a dark green station wagon - and loaded it into the back while a middle-aged woman hugged Patrick and kissed his cheeks no less than five times. Pete hung back in case she wanted to give him the same treatment, but she restrained herself to a handshake and a warm smile.
It took an hour to drive to Patrick’s parents’ home. Patrick bickered with his mother about the fact that his bedroom had been turned into a guest room. Pete had a cot set up in the study. “We have dial-up,” said Patrick’s mother, “but Nathan needs the phone line free before eight pm.”
It was a pretty comfy set-up. Pete put his bag down by the desk and dropped his coat on top of it. He sat on the cot and stretched out on it. Then he got up again and went to see how Patrick was doing.
Patrick was sitting in his own room, the one that was now a guest room. It looked bland in the way that guest rooms tended to, and Pete tried to imagine what it would have looked like before Patrick had left home. Maybe he would have covered the walls with band posters like Pete had. Maybe he’d kept it neat and filled his shelves with debate team trophies. Maybe he’d only been able to reach the bed by carving a trail through layers of books and dirty clothes, like Lewis and Clark trying to get to Oregon.
Patrick’s guitar case was leaning up against the wall by the door. His mother walked by and picked it up.
“I’ll get this out of the way for you, honey,” she said. “And then do you want something to eat? What about some soup? Or a toasted sandwich?”
“Leave the guitar, it’s fine,” said Patrick.
“Oh, you don’t want it in here, cluttering things up,” his mother said. Rather than arguing, Patrick got up and took the guitar case from her. She sighed and let it go without comment. “What about some eggs? Maybe with toast?”
“Whatever you think,” Patrick said, and opened the guitar case. His mother wandered off with another sigh, and Pete moved into the room.
“How’s your guitar playing going?” Pete asked. Patrick kept his head down.
“Yeah,” he said after a second. “It, uh.” He looked up at Pete and bit his lip. “It’s been getting a lot better. The prosthesis is kind of weird, but I’m getting used to it.”
Pete smiled and Patrick switched his prosthetic hand over. He got the guitar settled on his knee and started to play. He was good. It made Pete itch to grab an instrument himself. He settled for listening, and, as he began to recognise the songs Patrick was playing, to sing along. He sang as badly and obnoxiously as he could, hoping that he could goad Patrick into singing and trying to drown him out. Patrick rolled his eyes, so maybe he could tell what Pete was up to, but after a few minutes he began to sing anyway.
***
Being in Chicago was strange - busy, but in a different way to the hospital. Pete saw a psychologist, and a psychiatrist who prescribed an antidepressant. Patrick bought him a bass guitar, even though the process of buying it was sort of an ordeal. They went to the store three times, and each time Pete convinced himself that letting Patrick spend that sort of money on him was a horrible idea and made a weak excuse for why they had to leave right then and there. The fourth time, Patrick withdrew the cash and gave it to Pete before they reached the store, and told Pete that he wouldn’t accept it back, whether Pete chose to spend it in the music store or not. That did the trick.
Pete kept scraps of paper under his pillow, in his duffle bag, and in the case for his bass guitar. Slowly, he covered them with his messy, loopy writing. He might have deliberately scrawled a bit more than he normally would have, in the hope that other people who happened upon it wouldn’t be able to read it.
It took him a long time to write something he was willing to share with Patrick. It needed to be good, and not reveal anything he didn’t want to reveal. The more time passed, the more he almost felt he could make up his mind to trust Patrick, but he wasn’t there yet. Eventually, though, a day came when he took Patrick a page with a mostly finished song on it, and let him read it.
“This is good, Pete!” Patrick said, something in his voice that Pete didn’t recognise.
“It’s not really done yet,” said Pete. “And I’m not sure the meter in the bridge works.”
“Oh, no, you could totally tweak that,” Patrick said, reaching for his guitar. “Just use a triplet here, and here...” He sang the line, and the rhythm was much more effective than the one Pete had been battling without success. He sat down next to Patrick on the bed.
“Okay,” said Pete. “What would you do with this line, then?”
Patrick’s mom called them for dinner an hour later, but they didn’t hear her.
***
A few weeks later, that song was finished and four more were well underway. Patrick was as happy as Pete had seen him, but he could see that Patrick was eager to do more with the music than they had so far.
“If I’d wanted to leave the Army to start a band, they probably wouldn’t have let me,” Patrick had said a few days before. “But now...” He held up his left arm. “The SRB doesn’t care what I do anymore, and I still can’t do what I want.”
“Sure you can,” Pete insisted. “Your playing keeps getting better and better. Your singing too. This doesn’t have to stop you.”
Patrick sighed. “I wish I was still in touch with the guys I played music with back in school,” he said. “Two musicians doesn’t quite make a band.”
“You don’t have any of their numbers?” Pete asked.
Patrick pursed his lips. “I’ll have to make a couple of calls,” he said.
An hour later, Patrick got off the phone with some guy called Andy, and said, “Well, he wants us to come around tomorrow to rehearse together, see how it goes. What do you think?”
“Sounds good.”
“He seemed really pleased to hear from me, actually. He said he’s got this tape I’ve got to hear, some anonymous group writing songs about Guides and opposing G-TAC.”
Pete did his best to hide his reaction. Could Gerard and Mikey’s music really have made it all the way to Chicago, copies of copies passed from one person to another? Maybe it was a different group.
“That sounds...” Pete said, and paused long enough while searching for an appropriate adjective that Patrick seemed to forget he’d spoken.
“It would be good to find another guitarist, I think,” he said. “In case we need someone who... well, in case we need one.”
“Yeah,” said Pete. “Do you know anyone?”
Patrick thought about it. “Just Joe,” he said, “and he’s got at least three months of enlistment left. But I could write to him, ask what his plans are after that.”
“Three months isn’t all that long,” said Pete.
Patrick smiled. “That’s true,” he said. “It gives us time to get a few songs written. If you want to keep writing lyrics.”
Pete breathed deep and gathered up his courage. “I’ve got more,” he said. “I have - I can show you. If you want.”
Patrick looked at him, keeping still like he thought he might frighten Pete away. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I’d like that.”