New fic
Story Title: Caught
Story Type: Slash, AU
Characters: Pete Wentz, Patrick Stump, Ryan Ross
Pairings: Pete/Patrick
Rating: PG-13/NC-17
Fandom: Bandom (FOB)/Merry Gentry series
Series: Sequel to Chased
Disclaimer: Not mine, guys -even more so than usual. The people belong to themselves and any other information you recognize probably belongs to Laurel K Hamilton.
Warnings: Slash, language, blood, off stage torture, magic
Summary: Patrick knows he can trust Pete and that's all he really knows.
A/N: Set directly after 'Chased'. This is still candy_belle's fault -she asked for more of this fusion... crossover...thing. And, generally, when she asks me for stories, I deliver. Plus, since I'm responsible for her Bandom addiction, I try to supply her with the goods whenever possible.
A/N 2: Rian -Ryan. Tá sé Mo Chroi, Mo Shaol -He is My Heart, My Life. Tá grá agam duit tah grah ugam ditch -I love you. Ceannaire -leader. Aghrá -love.
A/N 3: lj fucked up the font size for this really badly -I've tried messing around with it, but I can't get it fixed. Sorry, guys, and I hope it doesn't annoy you too much :/
Patrick tried to pull Pete's shirt off as they stumbled into the bedroom. Pete broke away long enough to swat Patrick's hands away and peel his shirt off.
He pushed Patrick onto the mattress and crawled over him, his head dropping so he could place a few biting kisses along Patrick's throat.
“I have been waiting for this for ten years,” Pete murmured, a predatory grin on his face. He shifted back far enough to press his hand against Patrick's dick. Patrick made a groaning noise and thrusted up into his touch.
When Patrick's skin started glowing, lighting room up like he had swallowed the moon, Pete just smirk and said, “Watch this, aghrá,” before he pulled Patrick's pants and boxers down in one move.
Patrick noticed Pete's skin start lighting up to match his, the white and tan mingling together, before Pete deep throated him and his eyes rolled in back of his head.
Later -minutes, hours, Patrick had no clue, really, when it was- when his eyes were focused again, Patrick narrowed his eyes at the smug look on Pete's face. Surging up, he flipped Pete onto his back and growled, “Don't move,” before he showed him exactly how good he was with his mouth.
Afterwards, sprawled out on his back, with Pete next to him, Patrick couldn't quite keep the grin off his face.
“Your mouth, 'Trick,” Pete said, his voice still rough from shouting. “It should come with a warning label or something, fuck.”
“Give me a few minutes and I'll really show something,” Patrick said and Pete grinned when it broke off into a yawn.
“Go on, take a nap,” Pete told him fondly. “We've got plenty of time for sex tonight.”
“'hut up,” Patrick mumbled even as his eyes slipped shut.
*
The next time he woke, Patrick realized he was alone and sat up quickly, his head spinning. Once his eyes adjusted, he could see Pete standing in front of the door to the bedroom, his head tilted to the side like he was trying to listen to something.
Before Patrick could say anything, Pete was next him, his mouth up against Patrick's ear. “Someone's trying to get through the wards,” Pete said, the words barely audible. “It's Rian -I recognized his voice when he started cursing after he couldn't get through the wards.”
Patrick didn't bother wondering why Pete could hear Rian when he himself couldn't; Pete was pure sidhe, his hearing and sight were better than Patrick's. And if Patrick concentrated enough, he could hear footsteps out in the main hallway, so he had no doubts that Pete could hear whatever Rian was saying.
“Can you let him in?” Pete asked, his hand squeezed Patrick's thigh when he made a disbelieving noise. “I'm almost positive Maja sent him and I want to find out why.
“Between the two of us, we can keep him in line, 'Trick; I wouldn't ask you to do this if I wasn't sure. I'm not about to risk your safety on this, trust me.”
After a quick internal battle, Patrick nodded; he did, after all, trust Pete. Once the wards were down, Pete silently made his way to the bedroom doorway where he waited for Rian to try to enter.
When Rian did open the door Pete used the flat of his blade to shove Rian back into the living room and then cut him open enough so he started bleeding.
If Rian was startled to see either Pete there or to be dripping blood every where, he hid it well.
“You're slipping, Peadair,” Rian sneered, glancing down at the wound on his chest; despite the blood that was seeping out of the cut, it was already starting to heal. “That barely even hurt.”
“I didn't forget anything,” Pete smirked, stepping to the side. “But I think you've gotten dumber with age.”
He glanced at Patrick and raised his eyebrow; it took half a second for Patrick to realize what Pete wanted.
Patrick raised his right hand, palm out, and said one word; only one word, but it was enough to drop Rian to his knees.
“Bleed.”
The look of shock on Rian's face before he schooled his features almost made up for the fact that he been trying to break into the apartment. Almost.
Pete watched him drop, an almost gleeful look on his face.
“Do you understand now, Rian?” Pete asked, his voice low and smug. He crouched down next to the fallen sidhe, careful to keep out of the blood that was soaking into the carpet.
“I would have followed him into exile even if he was powerless; more human than sidhe,” Pete went on. “Because Tá sé Mo Chroi, Mo Shaol.”
Patrick inhaled sharply; he had known, of course, that Pete felt that way -there was only one reason why Pete would have left Faerie and followed Patrick to exile in California. But to hear it in Gaelic touched him in a way he couldn't explain.
“Tá grá agam duit tah grah ugam ditch,” Patrick murmured, not taking his eyes off of Rian.
Pete tilted his head toward Patrick, a warm smile on his face for a second before he he started talking to Rian again.
“You should have done your research before you left; even if I hadn't been here, Patrick is more than capable of protecting himself,” Pete said, his lips twisted into a smirk. “Any sidhe with two hands of power should be feared -regardless of how much human blood they carry in their veins. And a sidhe who has the Hands of Flesh and Blood should be left alone by anyone who doesn't have magic to match theirs.”
“Rumors,” Rian spit out as he pressed his hands against the blood still spilling from his body in a vain attempt to stop it. “No one with as much mixed blood as this mongrel could have been so gifted by the Goddess.”
“It amazes me that you can still be so arrogant while you're on your knees,” Patrick told him, his voice bland; he had been called worse than mongrel before and it would take more than words to hurt him.
“If you believe him so weak, maybe he should touch you with his left hand,” Pete added mockingly. “After all, a Fae as strong as you should well be able to defend himself against such an unsubstantial threat.”
When Patrick took a step toward the kneeling sidhe, Rian flinched away from him.
“That's what I thought,” Pete said and got to his feet. “Now, why did Maja send you?”
Rian remained stubbornly silent, his face completely blank. If it wasn't for the puddle he was kneeling in and the labored way he was breathing, they could have all been sitting down somewhere, exchanging pleasantries.
Patrick stepped closer, until he was standing next to Pete and reaching for Rian.
“Fine, I'll talk,” Rian snarled, his voice rough. “Your word you won't let him touch me, Paedair.”
“Let?” Pete repeated, genuinely amused for the first time since he had heard Rian in the hallway outside Patrick's apartment.
He shifted slightly so he was in between Patrick and Rian; the other sidhe might have been on his knees and coming close to unconsciousness, but that didn't mean he couldn't hurt Patrick if he got a chance.
“I don't 'let' Patrick do anything, Rian; Patrick's my ceannaire, my everything. I knelt at his feet and gave him my sword -do you even remember what that means?” Pete asked, a thread of anger buried underneath the words.
“You...” Rian trailed off, perplexed. “You knelt at his feet? Him? You are one of the most powerful sidhe in the court -Unseelie and Seelie, if you
want the absolute truth.
“Now, you're tied to him forever, Paedair; you of all people should know how long forever can be for our kind. I don't understand why you...”
“I know you don't,” Pete agreed and for a second, his faced showed pity for him. “And I doubt you ever will.”
“I, however, give you my word that as long as speak the truth, I won't touch you with my hand of flesh,” Patrick said, his voice confident and steady. He brushed a hand across Pete's lower back briefly to reassure them both that they were alright.
“Your word?” Rian sneered, his face as arrogant as before, like that brief moment of puzzlement had never happened. “How do I even know you are Fae enough to tell the truth?”
Pete let out a low growl and brought his sword up to Rian's throat. “Did you just insult his honour, Rian? Surely even you are not that stupid.”
To call another Fae a liar was to say they were forsworn and being forsworn was the worst thing you could accuse anyone with Fae blood of being.
“Perhaps he wants to find out if he's still powerful enough to survive having his head separated from his shoulders,” Patrick suggested in a bored tone, sounding for all the world like they were studying math or something equally boring.
“Fine, I apologize,” Rian said through gritted teeth, not liking the gleam that had appeared in the older Fae's eyes at the words. “Swear to me, Patrick, that you will not use the hand of flesh against me.”
The way Rian called him 'Patrick' instead of 'Padraic' was another subtle insult, especially since Rian clung to the old ways; it said, simply, that Rian didn't consider Patrick sidhe or even remotely Fae, for that matter. That Patrick wasn't deserving of the Gaelic name his father had given him.
“My word that I won't use the hand of flesh on you tonight,” Patrick amended, raising an eyebrow at the way Rian scowled briefly. “I can't promise what will happen tomorrow, Rian, or next month, next year. The time may come when I will have to protect me and mine from you and I may need all the power at my disposal.”
It was the closest Patrick could come to saying that he didn't trust Rian and he counted him as an enemy with Rian being able to call him on it. It was a thin line, yeah, but it stopped Rian from being able to lodge a complaint with the Queen over it.
Rian looked murderous for a second and as Patrick looked him in the eye, he knew he had made an enemy for the rest of his life, how ever long that turned out to be. Before now, Rian had barely acknowledged him; despite his closeness to the throne, and Rian's fondness for his cousin Maja, Rian had never had a reason to bother with Patrick. Patrick wasn't strong enough, wasn't sidhe enough, for Rian to worry about.
But now, Patrick had brought Rian down to his knees and that was an insult he would never be able to forget.
“Maja sent me,” Rian finally said; his words were directed at Pete but he was careful to keep an eye on Patrick, too.
“I already knew that,” Pete told him, his voice hard. “You've been her toy longer than we've been in this country. Try again.”
“You accuse me of being her toy?” Rian hissed angrily and struggled to his feet. “At least I haven't swore the most binding of our oaths, swore fealty, to some mongrel. Maja -”
He was cut off when Patrick narrowed his eyes and concentrated on the blood still seeping from his wound. Rian dropped back down to his knees with a grunt, his face twisted in a painful grimace for a brief second before he got himself back under control.
“I doubt anyone wants to hear your whining,” Pete continued as if he hadn't been interrupted. Patrick could hear the distaste in his voice and it made him wonder what Rian could have done to him to make this so personal. “So, I suggest you try to stay on subject.”
“She wanted me to find out if you were going to come here like you told the Queen,” Rian said finally, looking away from Pete to glance at Patrick. “Maja thought you had another reason to leave Faerie; she thought you would go somewhere else first. She couldn't think of any other reason why you would turn her down.”
“It couldn't possibly be because I wasn't interested,” Pete said dryly. “Especially since you were offered up, too.”
“It didn't make sense,” Rian reiterated. “Turning us down for...”
Pete growled again and this time it sounded more animal than human or sidhe. It reminded Patrick, forcibly, that one of Pete's other shapes was a wolf almost as tall as Patrick was. Rian swallowed loudly and then went on.
“Maja asked me to see if you were here and if you weren't,” Rian hesitated and focused his gaze on the wall past Patrick's shoulder before he went on. “She wanted me to...persuade Patrick to stay out of Chicago.”
Patrick exchanged a grim look with Pete; neither one of them were surprised. Maja had never been fond of Patrick; his proximity to the throne was far too close for her liking. His mixed blood didn't endear him to her, either.
What Patrick didn't understand was why now of all times; once he had left court, he had known he was throwing away any chance he had at ruling the Unseelie court, no matter how remote it might have been to begin with. Patrick hadn't wanted it, not then and not now.
Part of the reason he had moved was to distance himself from all the plotting and political maneuvering that was such a part of daily life in the courts; he didn't have the temperament for it and Patrick knew that it was only a matter of time before someone stronger challenged him to a duel -or didn't even bother with the formality of a duel.
Even after his powers manifested, he still left; one of things Pete had taught him when he was still taking fighting and strategy lessons was that no matter how strong, how skilled, you were there was always someone stronger and better than you out there. When that happened, you could only use everything at your disposal and hope luck was in your favor that day.
“Why now?” Pete asked as he looked Rian over coldly. “If Maja sent you here today, she must have already known where Patrick was; she could have sent you out as soon as she learned where he was. If she's as worried about inheriting as she seems to be, it makes no sense to wait this long.”
“Despite your words to the Queen after Patrick left, Maja thought you could be convince to see things her way. You know how much she loves a challenge; you've frustrated her beyond belief the past few years.
“You've turned her down, time and again, and then you came straight here as soon as five years were up. You've made an enemy out of her, Paedair; she'll never let such an insult pass,” Rian said, looking thoughtful.
“The Queen may have given you her word that she would let you be as long as you stayed out of Chicago, but she will not always be on the throne and Maja would love to bathe in your blood.”
“Maja will be sorely disappointed,” Pete said and there was a certain smugness to his voice, as if he took pleasure in Maja's frustration. “She should be used to not getting what she wants from me by now.”
Patrick could guess why Maja had been chasing after Pete for so many years.
-Probably longer than I've been alive, Patrick thought wryly. Hell, she's most likely been after him for centuries-
Besides his dark good looks, Pete was one of the oldest among them still -and unlike most of the Fae, Pete had kept almost all of his power when they relocated to the United States. He wasn't what he used to be, but Pete hadn't diminished as much as most of the other sidhe.
Added to that, his skill with any kind of blade was almost legendary among the courts. There weren't very many weapons that Pete didn't have at least a passing familiarity with; “Thousands of years of existing gives you a lot of free time,” Pete had told him once when he was eight or nine and still young enough to ask questions about everything. “You can either sit on your ass and be content with being mediocre or you can learn more about almost everything. You can hone your skills in your chosen field until you're better than almost everyone. It's a matter of choice, Patrick -one you might have to make for yourself one day. Besides, boredom gets old after a few decades.”
Part of Patrick was still in disbelief over the fact that this was the same Fae that had followed him into exile, to California and knelt at his feet, offered him his heart and sword, and completely changed his life.
“Is she sending anyone else?” Pete asked and Patrick mentally shook his head and focused all his attention on the two other sidhe in the room; he noticed that Pete's sword had disappeared again, back to where ever Pete called it from when he needed it.
“She never told me she was,” Rian answered, shrugging elegantly. “That doesn't man anything, necessarily, but as far as I know, she's not planning on it.”
Pete exchanged a long look with Patrick. “I think that's all we're going to get from him -I doubt she would have told him anything else.”
“You're going to let me go now,” Rian said and there was no mistaking the rasping quality to his voice and the shuddering breathes he was starting to take with more frequency. Draining his blood might not kill Rian, but it was still painful. His body would be able to heal itself, but for that to happen Patrick would need to stop using his power.
Patrick hesitated for a minute before answering him; there was no way he wanted to let Rian lose to do whatever he wanted. There was no doubt in Patrick's mind that if they did that, Rian would find a way to attack them, sooner rather than later.
“Let you go?” Pete repeated, a vicious smirk twisting his lips. “Why would we do that?”
It took a moment but when Pete's words sunk in, Rian made a noise like an angry cat. “You swore you would let -”
“I swore that I would not use the hand of flesh on you tonight,” Patrick interrupted him; he had no idea what Pete was planning, but he trusted Pete more than he did Rian. “And that is all I swore.”
Rian looked from Patrick to Pete and paled at the look on the latter's face.
“You can't -the Queen won't like -Maja will -” Rian stuttered and it was obvious the blood loss was wrecking havoc on his system. His eyes, however were coldly furious and Patrick knew if the chance came up, he would rip them apart with his bare hands.
“The Queen gave her word to me that as long as I stayed out of Chicago, that she would let me be,” Patrick informed him, his voice several degrees below freezing. “The same she swore to Pete. Her word is law, Rian -or have you forgotten that? She won't be happy once word gets back to her about this; you've turned her into a liar and no liar can sit on a throne of Faerie. She won't stick her neck out for you, Rian, she will let whatever we do to you go unpunished. In fact, I would not be surprised if she used this as a warning to anyone else who has ideas about going against her.”
“And Maja only cares for herself,” Pete added with the same smirk was still on his face. He dragged his left thumb absently down one of the many tattoos that decorated his right arm. The knife that appeared in his right hand had a plain black handle and unlike all of Pete's other blades, it wasn't gleaming and well cared for; it had a dull sheen to it and it looked ordinary.
When Rian saw it his eyes widened and he used what must have been almost the last of his strength to scramble backwards away from Pete.
“She won't ask her mother to intervene on your behalf, it would make her look bad,” Pete went on, his voice seemed vague as though he wasn't really concerned with what he was saying. Patrick couldn't figure out why Rian looked so terrified all of a sudden.
Pete ran his thumb along the edge and hissed as the scent of burning flesh filled the room. Pete eyed the wound impassively before he sucked into his mouth and grinned at Rian. Patrick let out a breath at the sight of the cut surrounded by burnt skin; the only thing that would burn a sidhe that way was cold iron. His eyes met Pete's and he saw a question in there, almost as if he was asking permission.
It took a second for it to sink in -he was asking Patrick's permission. Patrick was in charge and for a split second, it scared the shit out of him. But the weight of the trust in Pete's face helped ground him. He looked over Rian, the way he was pressed against the wall and he knew as soon as Rian got the chance he would try to kill them and he would definitely make sure Maja put them in the Hallway for as long as she could get away with. Even before Patrick saw the slight smirk on Rian's face, he knew what his answer was going to be.
“Do whatever you have to,” Patrick told Pete, his voice even; he ran his hand down Pete's back and rested it on his lower back for a minute.
“Do you want me to stay in here?” Patrick asked, his voice barely a murmur. Pete looked surprised before he shrugged.
“If you want, this won't take long,” Pete answered quietly. “I just need to make sure that if Rian survives having his head separated from his shoulders, he knows to give us a wide berth.”
Patrick nodded and after a brief debate with himself, he went to sit on the couch. Even though the first cry from Rian made him flinch slightly, he stayed where he was. One thing he had been taught, both by his father and Pete, was that you should never ask someone to do something you wouldn't do for them. And when it came to Pete, there wasn't much Patrick wasn't willing to do.
*
A few hours later, they crawled into bed, Pete pressed against Patrick's back. He wrapped an arm around Patrick's waist and tangled their legs together.
“You sent him back?” Pete asked as he nuzzled Patrick's neck. Most Fae were tactile to begin with, but Pete was worse than any other Fae Patrick had ever run into.
“Yeah,” Patrick answered, yawning a little. He stretched and then relaxed back into the other sidhe's embrace. “I sent him to the palace -the throne room, actually. It was the easiest way to guarantee that someone found him fairly quickly.”
“You were able to do that?” Pete asked, surprised. He pushed up one elbow to look down at him. “Just break through the wards and everything to transport him there?”
“Well, the sithen remembered me, I guess,” Patrick admitted and blushed a little. “It opened right up for me and let me dump his body, so...”
“Hmm.” Pete said and laid back down. “Takes care of that problem -Maja will know it was us, though.”
“The Queen will, too,” Patrick told him, his voice hardening. “I sent a note to along with the body; it was addressed to the Queen and told her that Maja should take better care of her toys before anyone else got hurt.”
There was a beat of almost shocked silence before Pete burst into laughter.
“Goddess, I love you,” Pete chuckled, his arm tightening around Patrick. “Very nice job of making sure Maja gets at least a tongue lashing for her little stunt. Awesome, 'Trick.”
“Whatever,” Patrick mumbled but he couldn't stop the pleased grin on his face.