Delivering Just What You Need - Part Four
[[It starts without Gabe really noticing. It’s not like, one day, Bill is talking to Vicky-T like she’s there-he slips it in, now and again, slowly. Like he doesn’t just believe Gabe-like he wants to know her, too.
Vicky-T, of course, is having none of it, and doesn’t do a damn thing except scowl and roll her eyes when Bill stares in completely the wrong direction and says things that include her. Like, “How did you guys sleep?” in the morning, or, “Do you guys want to go get pizza or something?”
Gabe, though. Gabe looks at Bill, at the way he’s obviously taking Gabe on faith, at the way he doesn’t hesitate for a second before he believes, and Gabe feels like his ribs are too tight over his lungs and heart. To make up for Vicky-T’s stubborn, sullen silence, he tells Bill stories of things she does, things she says, the way she’s kicked his ass and made him feel like something other than a waste of space, and then he kindly pretends not to notice when she occasionally turns her head to hide a smile. Bill listens intently to Gabe’s strange version of bedtime stories, smiling when Gabe tells him the especially insane things they’ve done, and doesn’t once question it.
When they have sex, Bill puts on the sort of show that Gabe knows he doesn’t put on when he thinks no one else is in the room. Not that Bill doesn’t always show off a little, but this is a step past that, a step beyond.
And whenever Bill leaves for work, or to go back to his own apartment, he tips them a lazy salute and says, “Love you guys, see you later.”
The first time, Gabe totally reacts like an adult and waits until after Bill leaves, until after he goes and hides himself in the bathroom from Vicky-T, to let all of his insane, ridiculous giddiness at this, whatever the fuck this even is, bubble up and spill out from the corners of his eyes.
All the times after that, he doesn’t bother to hide it from Vicky-T.]]
--
“So why do you get to be an angel?” Pete asks, skimming light fingers down Patrick’s side in the dark. It’s sometime after three am, but that’s nothing unusual when dealing with Pete.
Patrick shudders involuntarily and tries to force himself to wake up. “I-what?” he asks, blinking to clear the tremor from his skin.
“Why do you get to be an angel?” Pete asks again, his hand settling over Patrick’s stomach, thumb rubbing little circles into the soft flesh there. Patrick squirms a little, but he can’t scoot back, away from it-he’ll just end up pressed up against Pete, and, well. “Like, if I offed myself right now, I wouldn’t be like you.” He pauses, hums a little. “Would I be like Brendon? I mean, would I be a ghost?”
“Maybe,” Patrick says, kind of unwilling to really explain it, because if Pete understands, it’s entirely possible that he’ll be even more reckless than he already is. “The ghost thing is kind of a toss-up, really.”
“Liar,” Pete accuses, but he doesn’t sound particularly bothered about it.
“Mmm,” Patrick agrees, because he’s not going to tell Pete, but there’s no use trying to lie to him, either. “But I’m an angel as kind of-It’s like the idea of purgatory, but kind of less... Cut and dry.”
Pete nods, waiting, and after a minute of silence, Patrick huffs and goes on.
“It’s like. It’s a chance at a second chance.” He doesn’t like the word redemption, because that has a religious context, really, and it makes him sound like such a martyr. He doesn’t know a damn thing about God or anything that useful-he just knows what Victoria told him on the day he woke up in her dark apartment with big, white wings stretching their way out of aching shoulders. “It’s a chance to see why life is worth living, sort of-I guess, kind of, we see what we missed.”
“Then what?” Pete asks, voice just a low rumble of curiosity.
Patrick hesitates, then decides that if he’s telling Pete, he might as well just fucking tell Pete. “Once we see-once we get it, whatever there is to get, we get a second chance.”
Pete’s arm tightens around him, fingers digging into Patrick’s belly a little. “A second chance how?”
Patrick tries to shrug a little, but he’s not very good at being nonchalant. “We get-can we not talk about this?” he asks weakly.
Pete nips at the nape of Patrick’s neck, sending a shiver through him, and says, firmly, “No.”
Patrick sucks in a breath and tells him. “We get-we get reborn. Like reincarnation. Like, we start-“ he can’t catch his breath, can’t get the words to come out right. “We start over. From… scratch.”
--
“It’s happening, isn’t it?” slips out of Pete’s mouth.
Patrick doesn’t say a word, which is all the answer Pete needs.
“No,” Pete says without actually meaning to. “No, that’s not fucking-no.”
Patrick sighs. “Pete, it’s not like I get to decide-“
“Then don’t,” Pete snaps. “Patrick, don’t get it. Don’t, don’t, don’t get whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing this to understand. If-if you don’t, then-“ his voice cuts out, and he has to swallow around the lump in his throat. “Patrick,” he says, quieter this time, desperate.
Patrick carefully untangles the hand Pete’s got fisted in the fabric of his shirt. “Pete,” he says, and he sounds tired. “Pete, you know that’s not how-it doesn’t work like that.”
Pete knows, Pete knows you can’t just will yourself not to understand something, but. “Trick,” he says, and this time it’s kind of pleading, whether he means for it to be or not.
“Pete,” Patrick says again, and it’s got a hard edge to it.
“What if,” Pete says, seizing on an idea, “What if doing that, what if getting it-what if that meant leaving your charge in danger?”
Patrick goes completely rigid in his arms. “Don’t even fucking joke about that, Pete,” he hisses. “Don’t you fucking pull that card on me.”
Pete has no problem being an asshole if it means getting to keep Patrick. “I’ll pull any goddamn card I have to,” he retorts, pressing himself tighter along Patrick’s back. “Any fucking thing I have to do, Patrick, I’ll do it, if it means not losing you.” He buries his face in the soft, short hair at the back of Patrick’s neck and reminds himself to breathe. “I can’t, Trick, I can’t.”
All the tightness melts out of Patrick with one breath. “We’re supposed to see why being alive is worth it, Pete,” he says softly. “You’re what showed me that. Shouldn’t that be enough?”
Pete clings to Patrick, arms and legs wrapping around him and squeezing tight. Patrick winces, a little, but he doesn’t pull away, either, just sighs and leans back against Pete, and that’s. That’s something. “Is it enough for you?”
Patrick is still and silent for a long, long time.
Pete waits.
--
[[“You’re a stubborn ass,” Vicky-T tells him.
Gabe ignores her and hums thoughtfully while contemplating the fridge. “I’m thinking rice and beans tonight, hmm, querida?”
She glowers at him. “Why are you being like this?”
“Baby,” he says, looking over his shoulder and winking, “I’m always like this.” He wiggles his ass, because no matter what she says, she likes his ass, and he’s not actually a terribly nice man.
“It’s ludicrous. You’re my charge,” she insists, an edge to her voice.
“You’re my forever,” he retorts, pulling a beer from the fridge and kicking the door shut. He grins lazily at her, says, “You’re my diamond girl, Vicky-T.”
“Bill is your forever,” she snaps. “I’m not your diamo-ugh, Gabe, I’m your guardian, and he’s your-it doesn’t work like this, Gabe.” Her nostrils are flaring in that weirdly appealing way they do when she’s really brassed off.
“What,” Gabe says, forcing a smirk, “I can’t have more than one forever? That’s terribly restrictive.”
“Your other forever can’t even see me,” she says, narrowing her eyes at him. “That kind of puts the kibosh on the weird kinky soulmate threeway plan you’ve got laid out in your head.”
“I have nothing of the sort,” Gabe lies smoothly. Gabe is a very smooth liar.
Except with Vicky-T, which is really just more proof that they’re destined to be. “You are full of shit,” she says, but she sounds halfway to defeated-probably because she’s realized that she said his other forever. Basically admitting that she’s one of them. And therefore at least partially condoning Gabe’s weird kinky soulmate threeway plan.
Gabe smirks. “Want a beer?” he asks, offering her the unopened bottle in his hand. Because he’s a gentleman.
“Fuck,” she says, sighing, and, “God, yes, you rat bastard.”
Gabe doesn’t hide his shit-eating grin. “Throw your fangs up, baby,” he says, dangling the beer in front of her.
She scowls, but puts up a set of very lazy fangs and snatches the beer from his hand. “Ass,” she says, chugging half the bottle in one go.
Gabe likes to think of it as a term of endearment. ]]
--
“Pete,” Patrick finally convinces his mouth to say. He kind of hopes that Pete’s fallen asleep, but it’s Pete, so he’s not going to get that lucky.
“Trick,” Pete murmurs into the skin of Patrick’s nape.
Patrick carefully, slowly, extricates himself from Pete’s octopus-like grip and turns around to face him. “No,” he says, and the sound cuts his tongue like razors on the way out.
“No?” Pete repeats, tongue darting out to wet his lips. There are fine lines around his eyes, Patrick sees, actual grooves, from age or stress he can’t tell. He’s never noticed them before, and he wants, for one, sharp, shining instant, to do nothing more than kiss each and every one of them until they fade into smooth skin. “No--?”
“No,” Patrick says, and it’s easier, this time, even if it burns like liquor going the wrong way in his throat, “No, it’s not enough for me.”
Pete grins, beams at him, all childish delight, and for a moment, Patrick feels so young. He’s young and reckless in the face of that smile, how can he not be? “Good,” Pete says, pressing his forehead to Patrick’s and kissing his nose, of all things, because Pete is ridiculous. “Then you’re not going anywhere.”
“I don’t know if it works like-“
Pete’s hand is tight on Patrick’s arm. “If you go anywhere,” he says firmly, “you’ll be neglecting your duty as my guardian, and they-whoever the fuck they are, they can’t do that.” He looks Patrick dead in the eyes. “Because I’ll do it, I swear I will.” Patrick believes him; Pete has never bluffed about suicide-when Patrick first found him, sitting on the floor of his and Ashlee’s bathroom, there’d been no one to impress; he was nothing but calm, miserable intention.
“I don’t-It might not work, Pete,” Patrick says, feeling small and helpless in the face of that kind of quiet, sincere meaning.
“It will,” Pete says fiercely, and he sounds so sure.
Patrick brushes Pete’s hair away from his eyes, studying him, looking for the source of that certainty. It doesn’t take him long at all to find it-Pete’s heart is an open thing, and all its contents are bare for Patrick, at least, to see-and he feels something like helium flood all his veins at once. “If how much I want something has anything to do with whether or not I get it,” he says, pressing his lips to Pete’s, once, lightly, and hoping it says what he means for it to say, “then you’re absolutely fucking right.”
Pete nips at Patrick’s lower lip, says, into the corner of his mouth, “I love you, too, Trick.”
--
Pete wakes up every morning for a week after their conversation and holds his breath, not opening his eyes, until he feels Patrick’s soft snores, or quiet, just-barely-awake-breaths, feathering over the back of his neck, counting the minutes until Patrick shifts, making soft noises, and wakes up. It’s never very long-like Patrick feels Pete’s awareness, and comes up to meet it.
Eventually, Pete stops holding his breath, and just wakes up and revels in it, in the heavy weight of Patrick’s arm slung over him, in the slight shift of Patrick’s hand over his abdomen when one of them breathes, in the way Patrick’s lips skim over the back of his neck when he makes sleepy sounds before waking up completely, in the way Pete feels like the sun is sinking into his bloodstream when Patrick murmurs a drowsy good morning.
Pete doesn’t stop counting the minutes, though. He likes to know.
--
[[“What the fuck are you doing?” Victoria asks Bill, making a face. Well, she doesn’t really ask him, since he can’t hear her, but she asks the air. The air doesn’t answer her, either, but she doesn’t really need it to.
Bill has a piece of paper and a pen, and, slowly, neatly, he writes, Hello, Vicky-T, and then holds up both the pen and the paper, like he’s expecting her to take it.
She doesn’t, of course, because that would only encourage him-not to mention Gabe. Even if Gabe is asleep on the bed, and unable to be currently, actively encouraged. Bill would show him, and Gabe would get smug, and then all hell would break loose, Victoria is sure of it.
Bill is undeterred by her lack of response. He writes, Come on, I believe in you. Just give me a sign that I’m not the crazy one here.
She doesn’t actually want to, doesn’t want to appease him or make his life easier, except.
Except that he makes Gabe’s life easier, and, for whatever reason, Victoria’s own existence has mostly become centered around Gabe’s happiness and continued desire to stay alive. And if Bill isn’t busy worrying about whether or not she’s real, he can focus on doing the things for Gabe that she can’t do, won’t do.
So she gives in. Sort of.
She doesn’t take the pen and paper, because there are limits to her generosity, and she’s pretty sure she’d have to mock herself forever for acting like a ghost in a crappy movie.
Instead, she bites him, hard, on the arm he’s using to hold the pen out for her.
He manages to wince and beam at the ring of tooth-shaped indents at the same time. It sort of makes her want to punch him, but she resists, because that would make him even more self-satisfied, and there is no way she’s contributing to that sort of nonsense.]]
--
They’re folded up on the couch in front of Iron Man 2, because Pete is still insistent upon convincing Patrick that he’s secretly Pepper Potts with wings and a trucker hat.
Patrick’s sitting with his wings draped over the arm of the couch, and Pete’s spread out on top of him, wearing nothing but his ridiculous Iron Man sleep shorts, nuzzled into Patrick’s chest. Pete’s eyes are bright, reflecting the flickering glow of the television, and his skin is nearly glowing, gold and smooth in the low light. Patrick is suddenly, painfully seized by this desperate need to touch.
He skims his hands over Pete’s shoulders, down his chest, and says, next to Pete’s ear, “Shut the TV.” His voice is strangely hoarse.
“If this is just your way of getting out of admitting your resemblance to Pepper-“ Pete turns his head and looks at him, eyes going immediately dark. “Yeah,” he says slowly, thumbing the power button on the remote and tossing it carelessly aside, “yeah, okay.” He turns over, so they’re chest to chest, and watches Patrick’s face.
Patrick’s hands, mostly without any permission from him at all, are sliding over Pete’s sides, scraping his nails lightly over skin, stroking his thumbs over curves of bone. Pete doesn’t move, just waits, lids at half-mast, while Patrick feels. If he could, Patrick thinks Pete would be purring.
Something about Pete’s skin is calling to Patrick, singing to his bones, begging him to touchtouchtouch. Patrick’s fingers brush over the ink at Pete’s shoulders, his arms, around his neck, Pete shivering and leaning into the touch. There’s something, something weird and inexplicably breathtaking about the way Pete’s skin moves under Patrick’s fingers, moves without Pete himself meaning to move at all, and Patrick watches, mesmerized, as his hands call vibrations up to meet them.
“Patrick,” Pete says, finally, softly, when Patrick’s hands run out of new places to touch. He’s shaking without Patrick having to do anything at all, now, and his hands are clenched into the fabric of Patrick’s shirt. “Patrick, I-“
“Turn over,” Patrick murmurs, urging him up, around, so Pete’s leaning back against Patrick’s chest, head on Patrick’s shoulder, body tucked neatly into the vee of his legs. Patrick’s hands trace over Pete’s chest, counting ribs, stroking soft shapes between each of them, smoothing over the lines of the ink on his abdomen, digging his nails in a little over the arches of his hips. He licks over the circle of thorns around Pete’s collar, closing his teeth over the place where it intersects his shoulder.
When his hands finally make their way to the waistband of Pete’s shorts, Pete is breathing heavily, cock already straining against the fabric, a damp spot spreading from the tip.
“You’re so easy,” Patrick teases, kissing Pete’s ear to take the sting out of the words.
Pete turns his head, just far enough that he can press a kiss to the curve of Patrick’s jaw. “For you? Always.”
Patrick leans down enough for their mouths to meet, sloppy and awkward and somehow perfect, as he slips his fingers under Pete’s waistband and wraps them around his cock.
Pete groans into Patrick’s mouth, hips stuttering up, pushing into Patrick’s fist. His head rolls back as Patrick flicks his wrist, eyes slipping shut.
“Yeah,” Patrick breathes against Pete’s open, panting mouth, tightening his hand, moving it faster. Patrick is hard, is dizzyingly aroused, but it’s a distant sort of thing, secondary to watching, entranced, as Pete moves under his hands.
Pete’s hips twitch with every stroke of Patrick’s hand, jerking up to try to meet his fist. Patrick twists his hand, once, and Pete makes this helpless little huh-uh sound, whole body arching up. Patrick’s wrist slips into the short, smooth, back-forth he uses on himself, and Pete’s hands clench on Patrick’s arms, trembling.
“Please, Trick, I-“ Pete’s voice is raw, wrecked, broken, and Patrick just thinks, Mine.
Patrick licks into Pete’s mouth again, messy and hard, and Pete leans up to meet him, gasping into Patrick’s mouth. Patrick twists his fist again, hard, and then Pete is crying out, body tensing in one long, gorgeous line, cock pulsing in Patrick’s hand, hips jerking erratically as he comes. Patrick pushes his own hips up, against the curve of Pete’s back, once, twice, and then he’s following.
--
[[Victoria has spent the last decade holding back.
She’s held Gabe-and okay, yes, Bill-at arm’s length, because that’s her job. And maybe Gabe is the reason she cares about her job in the first place, is the only reason she’s ever cared about the job, but she does care, now.
And if she doesn’t keep herself at a distance, she runs the risk of ruining everything, for Gabe and herself. If she gives him what he wants, what he’s never held back asking for, either it would work out perfectly, and she’d be blissfully happy, and she’d think life was worth living, and she’d get her second chance-and have to leave him. Leave him alone, leave him and be alone. And if she gives in, and it doesn’t work, and she hurts him-
He’d stop listening. He’d stop listening, and then Victoria wouldn’t be able to do a thing against all the miserable, sharp things inside of him when they get too big for him to handle alone, and she’d lose him. She wouldn’t even get the second chance, then, she’d just be reassigned, she’d just have to keep watching over meaningless life after meaningless life, knowing she’d let him-
So she keeps herself at a distance. And when he looks at her with those dark, wanting eyes, she swallows down the sharp pain in her throat and reminds herself how much worse it could be. ]]
--
When Pete opens his eyes, he’s still breathing hard, head tucked into the crook of Patrick’s neck. He licks his lips, swallows. Patrick’s eyes are heavy-lidded, ginger lashes brushing his cheeks with every blink. His pupils are completely blown.
“Trick,” Pete rasps, voice a little rough, and he’s suddenly, blissfully exhausted. “I-“
Patrick looks at him, eyes soft, and smoothes his thumb over the slope of Pete’s cheekbone. “Sleep. I’ll let you convince me that I’m Gwyneth Paltrow in the morning, okay?” He’s smiling a little as he says it, like maybe he doesn’t mind being Pete’s very own Pepper Potts if it means it’ll make Pete happy.
Pete beams at him. “We should really clean up,” he points out then, voice cracking on a yawn.
Patrick nods sleepily. “We should. Just use the afghan, I’ll wash it tomorrow.”
Patrick never lets Pete get the afghan dirty. Patrick has very strict rules about the afghan. Already half asleep, Pete drags it off the back of the couch, seizing his chance, and uses it to wipe the mess off his stomach, off Patrick’s hand. Grinning to himself, Pete tosses it to the floor and cuddles close, wrapping himself around Patrick and burrowing drowsily against the warmth of his chest.
Patrick slides down as far as his wings will let him, tucking Pete up against the back of the couch and enfolding him in his arms. Pressing his lips to Pete’s temple, Patrick murmurs, “I love you.”
And then, before Pete can respond, there’s a small woman with very large brown wings standing in the middle of the room.
--
[[“I love you,” Gabe says, smiling dreamily, head on Victoria’s lap. He looks pleasantly distant, like he’s drunk, except that she knows he hasn’t had a drink in days. Bill is still asleep, sprawled out over the entire left side of the bed, and Gabe and Victoria are on the floor, ostensibly so they don’t wake him, but mostly because Victoria doesn’t like sitting close enough that she might actually touch Bill-by accident or otherwise.
She smiles tightly down at him, stroking the side of his neck, and resists the immediate, painfully strong urge to respond in kind. Instead, she says, “I’ll help you make breakfast for him.” It’s a peace offering, sort of, an, I love you, and an, I’m sorry, all at once.
Gabe knows. His smile only falters for a second before it’s back, brighter and more focused than before. “Waffles?” he asks, like he’s testing. They take the longest, out of all the options in the house, but much more importantly, they’re Bill’s favorite.
She rolls her eyes and bites her lip so she doesn’t smile. “For you? Waffles.”
He pokes her in the side. “Not for me.”
She slaps his hand away and stands up, snorting. “Stop pushing.” She turns to glare at the unconscious form on the bed, remembering the pen-and-paper incident. “Both of you. You’re terrible.”
He beams at her and draws her close, reeling her in until she’s pressed to his chest. His arms wrap around her, bringing with them that incongruous, still-startling sense of safety. “You know you love us cause we push,” he teases, brushing his lips over her temple.
She doesn’t give him anything more than a grumpy noise that could potentially be taken as assent, but she knows he knows it’s true. Smiling a little bit, she lets him lead her to the kitchen, and, subsequently, to endless waffle preparation and good-natured ribbing about how she’s gone soft.
She steals bites out of each of the most perfect waffles-because they look delicious, really, not because she knows it’ll make Bill smile to see-and smacks Gabe’s hand with the whisk when he tries to do the same.
When he cheerfully smears a streak of batter over her eyebrow and smudges it with a fleeting press of lips, Victoria smiles so hard it hurts.]]
--
Gabe frowns and snaps his fingers in front of Vicky-T’s face. “Yo,” he says, a little irritated, “are you even listening to me?” He’s trying to explain this idea he has, about forming a band in the image of the Cobra, and teaching the emo kids to wear bright colors and dance.
She hums a little, a small smile quirking the corner of her mouth, and just says, oddly, disconcertingly distant, “I need to go talk to Patrick.”
Gabe has time to blink, to think, Patrick? and, Pete’s Patrick? and maybe a hint of, What the fuck? before the place where Vicky-T was standing is empty, and Gabe is alone in the living room.
Pretty much all he thinks after that is, That can’t be good, and, Well, shit.
He gets his car keys and fucking tears out the door.
--
Victoria shows up when Patrick says, “I love you.”
Smiling, she says, “Oh, congratulations, Patrick, it looks like you figured it out.”
Patrick looks up from where Pete is still curled around him, says dumbly, “What?”
Victoria beams at him. “You get your second chance. I felt the pull to you-you figured it out, you get to start over.”
A hand squeezes around Patrick’s lungs. “What-“ He looks from Victoria, smiling, to Pete, stricken and frozen.
“Come now,” Victoria says chidingly, “it’s time to go.”
Patrick can feel something sharp, tugging at his insides, and he can’t tell if it’s whatever magic is going to send him back, or just bitter, gnawing terror. “I can’t,” he finally manages to push through his clenched teeth. His hands are white-knuckled fists, clenching and unclenching as he tries to push the sensation away so he can stay, so he can speak.
Victoria’s smile falters. “Don’t be silly. You’ve been waiting for this for-“
“No,” Pete says sharply, shoving Patrick out of the way and clambering messily off the couch. “No,” he repeats, “he can’t go.”
Victoria blinks at him. “He has to go. It’s not a choice.” She turns to Patrick, and Pete doesn’t waste a second, just skids around the back of the couch and makes a run for the kitchen. She lets him go, brow furrowed. “Patrick, I’ve never met someone who wanted to start over as badly as you did. What’s-“
Patrick’s shaking his head-frantically, helplessly, and the rest of him is maybe shaking a little, too. The pulling sensation is worse now, a firm grip right under his breastbone that urges him to go go gogogogo. “Victoria, I can’t leave him.”
All of a sudden, the tugging sensation lessens, and for one blind, stupid moment, Patrick thinks it’s what he said.
Pete says, “He’s not leaving.” There’s an iron undercurrent in the words, and Victoria’s eyes go almost comically wide.
“What the hell are you doing?” she demands, striding into the kitchen.
Gripped by what is definitely fear, now, Patrick follows close behind.
And then he sees Pete.
--
“This is a gross violation of the intent behind the rules,” Victoria says, crossing her arms and glaring at them.
“I could make it grosser,” Pete offers humorlessly, his mouth a flat line. His hand is clenched around the steak knife, the tip digging into the flesh over the vein in his left wrist. His hand doesn’t shake at all, and some part of Patrick is fiercely proud of him for that.
A muscle twitches at the corner of her mouth, and if Patrick didn’t know better, he’d swear it was something related to a smile. “Don’t forget, it’s down the road-“ she starts dryly, like she’s bored.
“Not across the fucking street,” Pete finishes, and digs in a little harder with the knife. A tiny spot of blood wells up against the steel, and Pete doesn’t even wince.
“Don’t be a moron,” Victoria snaps. “You’re happy now, you’re safe, you have a good life-there’s no reason to throw it away.”
Pete’s mouth tightens, and he hisses through clenched teeth, “I’m happy because of Patrick.” He presses the knife down a little harder, laughing a little, and it’s somewhere between bitter and hysterical. “My life? My life is Patrick.”
Victoria pulls a face. “Don’t be so fucking melodramatic,” she says, but there’s something like fear under her voice. Patrick can feel it, knows why it’s there-if Pete dies while they’re both there, they’ll both lose any shot they have at a second chance, they’ll both be reassigned and stuck in this loop for a damn long time. And Patrick might not give a flying fuck about being reborn if it means having to leave Pete, but he knows that’s not why Victoria’s still around, knows she can’t take reassignment, can’t take leaving Gabe to look out for himself with his life the way it is and then trying to look after someone else, too. “You’re not a martyr, Wentz, you’re just making an ass of yourself.”
Pete grins at her, and it’s ugly, all sharp corners and jagged edges. “I can make an ass of myself all over the fucking floor, bitch,” he says, and there’s no bravado there, just raw sincerity and hope squeezed through gritted teeth. “You know I’ll do it.”
“Oh, you will not,” she retorts, but her hands are clenched at her sides. “You’ve got everything going for you. You’ve got a wildly successful label, real friends-“
“Fucking try me,” Pete dares her, angling the knife down, like he’s getting ready to drag it towards his elbow. “All I want going for me,” Pete says firmly, “is Patrick.”
Patrick does not, does not have tears sliding down his cheeks. He doesn’t. “Victoria,” he croaks, voice stupidly hoarse.
She doesn’t even look at him. “Shut up,” she tells him, voice flat and icy. “I swear to god if you ruin this whole thing for me because of a stupid infatuation with this jackass-“ she cuts off, breathing hard, and stares at the doorway, eyes wide.
“You know it’s not like that, Vicky-T,” Gabe says softly, leaning on the doorjamb casually, for all the world like it’s just another day, like his best friend isn’t standing at the counter, ready to slit his wrists.
Her face softens a little, and she says regretfully, “Gabe, these aren’t rules we can just break.”
Gabe’s mouth twists into something between a grimace and a real smile. “Baby girl,” he says, shaking his head, like he’s in charge of her, not the other way around, “People like you and me can break all the rules.”
She laughs, and it’s wet and a little helpless. “Gabe,” she says, squeezing her eyes shut, and there’s something that might be a tear glimmering on her cheek. “Gabe, you know if I let him stay, somebody else has to-“
“Go, querida,” he says gently. “I’ll be waiting when you find your way home.”
“What about Bill?” she asks, and there’s a note of something almost bitter in the question. Patrick doesn’t know if she means, What about you being in love with Bill?, or-
Gabe’s face breaks out into a real smile, then, and he says, “He’ll be waiting, too.”
Victoria’s voice cracks on a sob when she says, “You’re an ass.” She bites her lip and takes a breath, then, and says, in a very small voice, “What if you’re-what if you-“
Gabe pushes off the doorframe and crosses the kitchen. Tilting her chin up with his finger, forcing her to look him in the eye, he shakes his head and says, “I swear, I will take such good care of myself, you won’t know a day has gone by.”
She snorts. “Liar,” she whispers, tipping her head to kiss the tips of his fingers. “You are such a liar.”
“Guilty,” he says, smiling down into her eyes and stroking a thumb over the curve of her jaw. “But I’ll be around, corazón.” He bends down just a little, leaning his head against hers. “We both will.”
Patrick holds his breath in the silence that follows. It spins on, and on, Gabe and Victoria searching each other’s faces, Pete holding perfectly, utterly still with the knife digging into his wrist.
Finally, Victoria breaks the silence. “Okay,” she breathes, then, louder, “Okay.” To Gabe, she says, “I swear to god, if you’re not there when I come looking for you, I will search the afterlife for your sorry ass and make your eternity a living hell.”
He beams at her. “I would expect no less from you.”
To Patrick she says, “I don’t actually know what happens to you now, you know. No one’s ever tried to-this is unprecedented.”
Patrick nods, mouth dry. “I know.” He’s not really worried, if it means he gets to stay.
Finally, she turns to Pete. “I don’t know what they see in you,” she says, but it sounds almost fond.
Pete shrugs, not letting the knife even twitch. “Me neither,” he says wryly, “But I’ll take what I can get.”
She laughs, a startled, almost unwilling sound, and spreads her tawny wings with one fluid snap. Turning back to Gabe, she says, “Leap of faith, yeah?” and it’s like it means more than just the words alone do.
“Jump, baby,” he says, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I’ll catch you.”
Her eyes linger in the room longer than the rest of her, still bright once her skin has faded into shadow. Gabe doesn’t look away until they’re long gone, and when he does, it’s to look at Patrick, which is pretty impressive, since he’s not actually trying to show himself to Gabe, and humans can’t usually see him unless he wants them to-actually, can’t see him even if he does want them to. Gabe can’t usually see him at all, in fact.
“You kept him alive when the rest of us didn’t,” he says to Patrick. There’s no regret in his voice when he adds, “I can’t pretend that means anything less than it does.”
Patrick feels lighter than he has since he died, lighter than he’s ever felt, really, even in the air. “This is everything,” he says back, because there really aren’t any other words for what Pete is to him.
Gabe’s mouth curls a little. “For me, too.” And with that, and with a nod to Pete, he’s crossing the kitchen, leaving the room. Leaving them alone.
“Trick,” Pete says, and for the first time today, his voice is shaking. The tip of the knife is still digging into his skin, the blood around it mostly dry and flaking now.
Patrick’s at his side before he even thinks to move, one hand curling around the handle of the knife, prying it from Pete’s trembling fingers. “It’s okay,” he says, lips still numb with shock. He drops the knife on the counter with a clatter and reels Pete in, crushing him close. “It’s okay,” he repeats. “We’re okay.”
Pete draws in a shuddering breath. “I thought it wouldn’t be-I didn’t-“ He lets the breath out, and it’s no less shaky this time around. “I thought I was losing you.”
“You were so brave.” Patrick presses kiss after kiss into Pete’s hair, whispers fiercely, “You were so fucking brave.”
“Not brave,” Pete says, words damp against the skin of Patrick’s neck. “Just honest.”
Patrick finally lets the tears run down his face, unhindered, and hides his face in Pete’s hair while his shoulders shake.
--
Patrick has Pete bent over the arm of the couch, two fingers twisting roughly into him, hands shaking.
Pete chokes out a dirty, ragged gasp as Patrick shoves gracelessly into him, thrusting hard, panicked, breathless.
Patrick’s hands scrabble over Pete’s sides, back, shoulders, frantically trying to memorize, to prove that they’re both still here.
Pete’s voice catches on a sob when he comes, clenching hard around Patrick, fingernails tearing thin lines in the couch cushions.
Patrick’s mind is still so white with fear, it takes him long, long minutes to follow after, still moving urgently while Pete whimpers, boneless, under him. When he finally goes over the edge, he literally blacks out with the force of it, clinging desperately to Pete’s hips and jolting forward into darkness.
--
Pete hadn’t known about Victoria, hadn’t known she was Gabe’s-that Gabe even had a guardian. Although it probably explains why Gabe hadn’t thought he was insane, even from the start.
“What-“ he asks Patrick when they finally have a quiet moment that isn’t filled with totally unmanly crying or really ferocious I’m-alive! sex. “What even-I mean, Gabe and Bill.” They’re curled up in bed, wrapped haphazardly around each other, and Pete is maybe still clinging, monkeylike, but he almost lost Patrick today, and Patrick doesn’t seem to be clinging any less.
Patrick shrugs, rubbing the tip of his nose against Pete’s collarbone. “Bonds with angels are different for different people,” he says, sort of uncomfortably, which Pete takes as his way of saying that he doesn’t know, and doesn’t want to know.
That’s kind of fair-Pete hasn’t ever really wanted to see more of Gabe’s sex and/or love life than he gets shoved in front of him on a regular basis. “He saved us, pretty much,” Pete says, and it feels weird, feels wrong. “Not that Victoria was doing anything other than-“
“She was just doing her job,” Patrick agrees quietly. “The thing is, she’s never been very good at the job, not until Gabe. She never really got the whole ‘giving a shit about people’ thing down until him. Even then, I think-I think she kind of kept herself at a distance.”
“So she could stay.” Pete doesn’t know that’s what he means until he says it.
Patrick shrugs. “So she wouldn’t hurt him.”
Pete squeezes Patrick’s hand, tangled up with his. “That’s not how we work,” he reminds him, because no matter how hurt Pete ever is, he’s relatively sure that if Patrick tells him seriously not to do something, he’s going to fucking listen.
Patrick presses a kiss to Pete’s jaw. “I know,” he says, and Pete can feel his smile. “I’m just answering your question.”
Pete nods, says, “I know, I was just-“
“Reminding me,” Patrick finishes, kissing his mouth this time. “Like I ever need reminding about the way you are,” he says, half laughing, half affectionate.
Pete closes his eyes, lets himself fall into the warm slide of Patrick’s mouth against his, the softness of Patrick’s skin under his hands.
They fall asleep like that, sheer exhaustion swamping them, and Pete drifts off feeling, finally, like the other shoe has dropped, and like maybe they’ve caught it.
--
Patrick wakes up to Pete pressing his mouth to the juncture of Patrick’s wing and his shoulder, to the smooth, delicate skin that merges feathers and flesh.
“Hey,” Pete murmurs.
His tongue darts out, wet and warm and careful, and Patrick's whole body jerks.
"Sorry," Pete mutters, and backs off. Like it's a bad thing. Like Patrick would have said no, would have pushed him away, even after everything that’s happened today, that’s happened over all this time.
Patrick hesitates, just for a second, then leans back against him, presses close enough to make himself clear without pushing.
Pete's breath catches, and he runs a tentative hand up Patrick's arm, down his shoulder. "You're-- you don't mind?"
Patrick swallows and shakes his head, doesn't trust himself not to embarrass himself if he says anything.
Pete gets it, though, and his mouth is less hesitant this time. His lips graze the thin, translucent skin that covers the place where the feathers fuse with Patrick's shoulder, and his tongue slips out to trace the cord of muscle that runs from Patrick's shoulder into his right wing. Pete's breathing is heavy, and his hands slip down Patrick's sides and around to his chest, skimming over his skin and tugging him closer. Patrick obligingly presses back.
This is something different than the mindless, panicked touches from earlier today. This is a process of claiming, of reminding.
Pete pants a little, grinding up against Patrick's tailbone, and his mouth closes over a spot on the underside of Patrick's shoulder blade and sucks. Patrick feels a shudder run through him, down his back and into his thighs, and his neck arches back with the force of it. Pete clearly takes it as a suggestion, because then his mouth is on the side of Patrick's throat, nipping and sucking and tracing nonsense shapes with his tongue, and all Patrick can hear is his own ragged breathing and Pete's muted noises of arousal.
Pete's teeth close around Patrick's earlobe. "Trick," he pants, damp, against the shell of Patrick's ear. "Please, please.” And then his hand is skimming lower on Patrick's stomach, tracing the waistband of Patrick's boxers, and Patrick is suddenly so hard it hurts.
Pete moans, actually moans, when Patrick turns all the way around and presses him back into the bed. "Patrick, Patrick," he whispers, over and over, like it's some sort of safety net, a reminder, and Patrick can't help himself. He rolls his hips, hard, and nips at Pete's lip, licks his way into Pete's mouth. The recollection that he’d almost lost this today, almost never been able to have this-any part of this-again, still makes him frantic, puts a desperate undercurrent into every movement, every instant.
Pete arches up, opens for him, and Patrick can't think anything but, want, want, and, Pete, and, mine. He surrenders to it, and the blood drums behind his eyes and in his ears as he finds his way through Pete's motions and breaths and sounds.
--
Gabe doesn’t say anything when Bill answers the door, just buries his head in Bill’s shoulder and falls apart.
Bill tightens his arms around him and holds on. When Gabe has fallen into silent shakes and the shoulder of Bill’s shirt is soaked through, he says gently, “Bed, Gabe. Come on, let’s go.”
Gabe looks up at him with red, tired eyes, and says, “I told her-I said we’d-“
Bill kisses the corner of his mouth. “We will,” he assures him. “I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you.” He pulls back just enough to smile, a little wryly. “Except to bed.”
“Mother hen,” Gabe accuses as Bill leads him down the hall, voice a little raw.
Bill sits him down on the bed and kneels to unlace his boots. “Yeah,” he says agreeably, pulling off one boot, then the other, “But I’m only filling in.”
When he crawls into bed beside Gabe, he pulls the covers over both of them, and Gabe huddles uncharacteristically close, curling around Bill and holding on tight.
“Not going anywhere,” Gabe murmurs, squeezing a little.
Bill shakes his head. “Not going anywhere,” he confirms. Victoria is as much a part of Gabe as his voice, his hands, his smile, and Gabe is the only place Bill’s ever wanted to be.
--
When Patrick wakes up the morning after everything, he’s lying on a pile of feathers, and his shoulders ache like hell.
“Trick,” Pete says, blinking from Patrick to the mess of slightly bloodied feathers and back again. “What the fuck happened?”
Patrick lifts one feather, spinning it between his forefinger and thumb. “I guess-I guess this is just what happens now,” he says slowly. He reaches over his shoulder, gropes at his shoulder blades, and winces when his fingers dig into flesh that feels like raw meat. “Fuck.”
Pete doesn’t say another word, just gets up and goes to the bathroom, coming back with a pack of gauze squares, a roll of medical tape, and a tube of Neosporin. “C’mere,” he says, tugging a little on Patrick’s arm to turn him.
Patrick does his best not to wince when Pete smears the ointment over his-wounds, cuts? Patrick doesn’t know what the right word is for holes where wings used to be. The gauze squares rub strangely, but they don’t hurt as badly as they could, and Pete’s uncharacteristically careful with the medical tape around the edges.
“There,” Pete murmurs finally, when he’s done, tenderly stroking a finger around the edge of one neat square of tape and gauze. He follows it with a soft kiss between Patrick’s shoulder blades. “Good as new.”
And the thing is, Patrick is.
--
EPILOGUE:
Eighteen years later:
Bill is asleep, draped over Gabe’s chest, when the knock on the door comes. Gabe shows no signs of waking up, so Bill grumbles a little to himself, but drags himself out of bed. He doesn’t bother to do more than tug a pair of sweats over his hips-if whoever it is has a problem with his disheveled state, they can talk to Gabe and his mad debauching skills.
The girl blinking up at him when he opens the door is seventeen, maybe eighteen, if Bill pushes it, all sharp edges and crocodile eyes. She hasn’t even really grown into them yet, but her legs are already lethal. Bill knows who she is; he’d have to be blind not to.
“Bill,” she says, like she’s surprised. She doesn’t sound disappointed, though. She licks her lips a little, a look of worry flickering over her features, and says, “I didn’t actually think-is he okay?”
“He’s fine, not dead, just sleeping like it,” Bill says, and before he actually gives himself permission to do it, he’s slipping a hand under her jaw, tilting her head up, licking his way into her mouth.
She doesn’t hesitate for even a moment, opening her mouth under his, curling her hand over his and shifting closer until Bill’s pressed up against the doorframe.
When Bill manages to pull away, they’re both flushed and breathing hard. “We should maybe wake him up,” he says faintly, and it’s an understatement, really.
She grins up at him, and it’s no different than he knew it would be, all teeth and a little too wide. It warms something inside him, tugging at something not even really sexual at all. “Lead the way,” she says softly, threading their fingers together.
Bill squeezes her hand and presses a kiss to her temple. “We missed you,” he says, low enough that she can ignore it if she wants to.
She doesn’t argue that Bill can’t have missed her, that Bill didn’t even know her, and Bill’s pretty sure it’s because they’re both too old for that kind of bullshit now. Instead, she knocks her hip against his and ducks her head and whispers, “I missed you, too.”
END
--
Awesome Fanmix: http://frankie-ann.livejournal.com/14117.html
Part One: http://frankie-ann.livejournal.com/13256.html
Part Two: http://frankie-ann.livejournal.com/13558.html
Part Three: http://frankie-ann.livejournal.com/13814.html
Vicky-T, of course, is having none of it, and doesn’t do a damn thing except scowl and roll her eyes when Bill stares in completely the wrong direction and says things that include her. Like, “How did you guys sleep?” in the morning, or, “Do you guys want to go get pizza or something?”
Gabe, though. Gabe looks at Bill, at the way he’s obviously taking Gabe on faith, at the way he doesn’t hesitate for a second before he believes, and Gabe feels like his ribs are too tight over his lungs and heart. To make up for Vicky-T’s stubborn, sullen silence, he tells Bill stories of things she does, things she says, the way she’s kicked his ass and made him feel like something other than a waste of space, and then he kindly pretends not to notice when she occasionally turns her head to hide a smile. Bill listens intently to Gabe’s strange version of bedtime stories, smiling when Gabe tells him the especially insane things they’ve done, and doesn’t once question it.
When they have sex, Bill puts on the sort of show that Gabe knows he doesn’t put on when he thinks no one else is in the room. Not that Bill doesn’t always show off a little, but this is a step past that, a step beyond.
And whenever Bill leaves for work, or to go back to his own apartment, he tips them a lazy salute and says, “Love you guys, see you later.”
The first time, Gabe totally reacts like an adult and waits until after Bill leaves, until after he goes and hides himself in the bathroom from Vicky-T, to let all of his insane, ridiculous giddiness at this, whatever the fuck this even is, bubble up and spill out from the corners of his eyes.
All the times after that, he doesn’t bother to hide it from Vicky-T.]]
--
“So why do you get to be an angel?” Pete asks, skimming light fingers down Patrick’s side in the dark. It’s sometime after three am, but that’s nothing unusual when dealing with Pete.
Patrick shudders involuntarily and tries to force himself to wake up. “I-what?” he asks, blinking to clear the tremor from his skin.
“Why do you get to be an angel?” Pete asks again, his hand settling over Patrick’s stomach, thumb rubbing little circles into the soft flesh there. Patrick squirms a little, but he can’t scoot back, away from it-he’ll just end up pressed up against Pete, and, well. “Like, if I offed myself right now, I wouldn’t be like you.” He pauses, hums a little. “Would I be like Brendon? I mean, would I be a ghost?”
“Maybe,” Patrick says, kind of unwilling to really explain it, because if Pete understands, it’s entirely possible that he’ll be even more reckless than he already is. “The ghost thing is kind of a toss-up, really.”
“Liar,” Pete accuses, but he doesn’t sound particularly bothered about it.
“Mmm,” Patrick agrees, because he’s not going to tell Pete, but there’s no use trying to lie to him, either. “But I’m an angel as kind of-It’s like the idea of purgatory, but kind of less... Cut and dry.”
Pete nods, waiting, and after a minute of silence, Patrick huffs and goes on.
“It’s like. It’s a chance at a second chance.” He doesn’t like the word redemption, because that has a religious context, really, and it makes him sound like such a martyr. He doesn’t know a damn thing about God or anything that useful-he just knows what Victoria told him on the day he woke up in her dark apartment with big, white wings stretching their way out of aching shoulders. “It’s a chance to see why life is worth living, sort of-I guess, kind of, we see what we missed.”
“Then what?” Pete asks, voice just a low rumble of curiosity.
Patrick hesitates, then decides that if he’s telling Pete, he might as well just fucking tell Pete. “Once we see-once we get it, whatever there is to get, we get a second chance.”
Pete’s arm tightens around him, fingers digging into Patrick’s belly a little. “A second chance how?”
Patrick tries to shrug a little, but he’s not very good at being nonchalant. “We get-can we not talk about this?” he asks weakly.
Pete nips at the nape of Patrick’s neck, sending a shiver through him, and says, firmly, “No.”
Patrick sucks in a breath and tells him. “We get-we get reborn. Like reincarnation. Like, we start-“ he can’t catch his breath, can’t get the words to come out right. “We start over. From… scratch.”
--
“It’s happening, isn’t it?” slips out of Pete’s mouth.
Patrick doesn’t say a word, which is all the answer Pete needs.
“No,” Pete says without actually meaning to. “No, that’s not fucking-no.”
Patrick sighs. “Pete, it’s not like I get to decide-“
“Then don’t,” Pete snaps. “Patrick, don’t get it. Don’t, don’t, don’t get whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing this to understand. If-if you don’t, then-“ his voice cuts out, and he has to swallow around the lump in his throat. “Patrick,” he says, quieter this time, desperate.
Patrick carefully untangles the hand Pete’s got fisted in the fabric of his shirt. “Pete,” he says, and he sounds tired. “Pete, you know that’s not how-it doesn’t work like that.”
Pete knows, Pete knows you can’t just will yourself not to understand something, but. “Trick,” he says, and this time it’s kind of pleading, whether he means for it to be or not.
“Pete,” Patrick says again, and it’s got a hard edge to it.
“What if,” Pete says, seizing on an idea, “What if doing that, what if getting it-what if that meant leaving your charge in danger?”
Patrick goes completely rigid in his arms. “Don’t even fucking joke about that, Pete,” he hisses. “Don’t you fucking pull that card on me.”
Pete has no problem being an asshole if it means getting to keep Patrick. “I’ll pull any goddamn card I have to,” he retorts, pressing himself tighter along Patrick’s back. “Any fucking thing I have to do, Patrick, I’ll do it, if it means not losing you.” He buries his face in the soft, short hair at the back of Patrick’s neck and reminds himself to breathe. “I can’t, Trick, I can’t.”
All the tightness melts out of Patrick with one breath. “We’re supposed to see why being alive is worth it, Pete,” he says softly. “You’re what showed me that. Shouldn’t that be enough?”
Pete clings to Patrick, arms and legs wrapping around him and squeezing tight. Patrick winces, a little, but he doesn’t pull away, either, just sighs and leans back against Pete, and that’s. That’s something. “Is it enough for you?”
Patrick is still and silent for a long, long time.
Pete waits.
--
[[“You’re a stubborn ass,” Vicky-T tells him.
Gabe ignores her and hums thoughtfully while contemplating the fridge. “I’m thinking rice and beans tonight, hmm, querida?”
She glowers at him. “Why are you being like this?”
“Baby,” he says, looking over his shoulder and winking, “I’m always like this.” He wiggles his ass, because no matter what she says, she likes his ass, and he’s not actually a terribly nice man.
“It’s ludicrous. You’re my charge,” she insists, an edge to her voice.
“You’re my forever,” he retorts, pulling a beer from the fridge and kicking the door shut. He grins lazily at her, says, “You’re my diamond girl, Vicky-T.”
“Bill is your forever,” she snaps. “I’m not your diamo-ugh, Gabe, I’m your guardian, and he’s your-it doesn’t work like this, Gabe.” Her nostrils are flaring in that weirdly appealing way they do when she’s really brassed off.
“What,” Gabe says, forcing a smirk, “I can’t have more than one forever? That’s terribly restrictive.”
“Your other forever can’t even see me,” she says, narrowing her eyes at him. “That kind of puts the kibosh on the weird kinky soulmate threeway plan you’ve got laid out in your head.”
“I have nothing of the sort,” Gabe lies smoothly. Gabe is a very smooth liar.
Except with Vicky-T, which is really just more proof that they’re destined to be. “You are full of shit,” she says, but she sounds halfway to defeated-probably because she’s realized that she said his other forever. Basically admitting that she’s one of them. And therefore at least partially condoning Gabe’s weird kinky soulmate threeway plan.
Gabe smirks. “Want a beer?” he asks, offering her the unopened bottle in his hand. Because he’s a gentleman.
“Fuck,” she says, sighing, and, “God, yes, you rat bastard.”
Gabe doesn’t hide his shit-eating grin. “Throw your fangs up, baby,” he says, dangling the beer in front of her.
She scowls, but puts up a set of very lazy fangs and snatches the beer from his hand. “Ass,” she says, chugging half the bottle in one go.
Gabe likes to think of it as a term of endearment. ]]
--
“Pete,” Patrick finally convinces his mouth to say. He kind of hopes that Pete’s fallen asleep, but it’s Pete, so he’s not going to get that lucky.
“Trick,” Pete murmurs into the skin of Patrick’s nape.
Patrick carefully, slowly, extricates himself from Pete’s octopus-like grip and turns around to face him. “No,” he says, and the sound cuts his tongue like razors on the way out.
“No?” Pete repeats, tongue darting out to wet his lips. There are fine lines around his eyes, Patrick sees, actual grooves, from age or stress he can’t tell. He’s never noticed them before, and he wants, for one, sharp, shining instant, to do nothing more than kiss each and every one of them until they fade into smooth skin. “No--?”
“No,” Patrick says, and it’s easier, this time, even if it burns like liquor going the wrong way in his throat, “No, it’s not enough for me.”
Pete grins, beams at him, all childish delight, and for a moment, Patrick feels so young. He’s young and reckless in the face of that smile, how can he not be? “Good,” Pete says, pressing his forehead to Patrick’s and kissing his nose, of all things, because Pete is ridiculous. “Then you’re not going anywhere.”
“I don’t know if it works like-“
Pete’s hand is tight on Patrick’s arm. “If you go anywhere,” he says firmly, “you’ll be neglecting your duty as my guardian, and they-whoever the fuck they are, they can’t do that.” He looks Patrick dead in the eyes. “Because I’ll do it, I swear I will.” Patrick believes him; Pete has never bluffed about suicide-when Patrick first found him, sitting on the floor of his and Ashlee’s bathroom, there’d been no one to impress; he was nothing but calm, miserable intention.
“I don’t-It might not work, Pete,” Patrick says, feeling small and helpless in the face of that kind of quiet, sincere meaning.
“It will,” Pete says fiercely, and he sounds so sure.
Patrick brushes Pete’s hair away from his eyes, studying him, looking for the source of that certainty. It doesn’t take him long at all to find it-Pete’s heart is an open thing, and all its contents are bare for Patrick, at least, to see-and he feels something like helium flood all his veins at once. “If how much I want something has anything to do with whether or not I get it,” he says, pressing his lips to Pete’s, once, lightly, and hoping it says what he means for it to say, “then you’re absolutely fucking right.”
Pete nips at Patrick’s lower lip, says, into the corner of his mouth, “I love you, too, Trick.”
--
Pete wakes up every morning for a week after their conversation and holds his breath, not opening his eyes, until he feels Patrick’s soft snores, or quiet, just-barely-awake-breaths, feathering over the back of his neck, counting the minutes until Patrick shifts, making soft noises, and wakes up. It’s never very long-like Patrick feels Pete’s awareness, and comes up to meet it.
Eventually, Pete stops holding his breath, and just wakes up and revels in it, in the heavy weight of Patrick’s arm slung over him, in the slight shift of Patrick’s hand over his abdomen when one of them breathes, in the way Patrick’s lips skim over the back of his neck when he makes sleepy sounds before waking up completely, in the way Pete feels like the sun is sinking into his bloodstream when Patrick murmurs a drowsy good morning.
Pete doesn’t stop counting the minutes, though. He likes to know.
--
[[“What the fuck are you doing?” Victoria asks Bill, making a face. Well, she doesn’t really ask him, since he can’t hear her, but she asks the air. The air doesn’t answer her, either, but she doesn’t really need it to.
Bill has a piece of paper and a pen, and, slowly, neatly, he writes, Hello, Vicky-T, and then holds up both the pen and the paper, like he’s expecting her to take it.
She doesn’t, of course, because that would only encourage him-not to mention Gabe. Even if Gabe is asleep on the bed, and unable to be currently, actively encouraged. Bill would show him, and Gabe would get smug, and then all hell would break loose, Victoria is sure of it.
Bill is undeterred by her lack of response. He writes, Come on, I believe in you. Just give me a sign that I’m not the crazy one here.
She doesn’t actually want to, doesn’t want to appease him or make his life easier, except.
Except that he makes Gabe’s life easier, and, for whatever reason, Victoria’s own existence has mostly become centered around Gabe’s happiness and continued desire to stay alive. And if Bill isn’t busy worrying about whether or not she’s real, he can focus on doing the things for Gabe that she can’t do, won’t do.
So she gives in. Sort of.
She doesn’t take the pen and paper, because there are limits to her generosity, and she’s pretty sure she’d have to mock herself forever for acting like a ghost in a crappy movie.
Instead, she bites him, hard, on the arm he’s using to hold the pen out for her.
He manages to wince and beam at the ring of tooth-shaped indents at the same time. It sort of makes her want to punch him, but she resists, because that would make him even more self-satisfied, and there is no way she’s contributing to that sort of nonsense.]]
--
They’re folded up on the couch in front of Iron Man 2, because Pete is still insistent upon convincing Patrick that he’s secretly Pepper Potts with wings and a trucker hat.
Patrick’s sitting with his wings draped over the arm of the couch, and Pete’s spread out on top of him, wearing nothing but his ridiculous Iron Man sleep shorts, nuzzled into Patrick’s chest. Pete’s eyes are bright, reflecting the flickering glow of the television, and his skin is nearly glowing, gold and smooth in the low light. Patrick is suddenly, painfully seized by this desperate need to touch.
He skims his hands over Pete’s shoulders, down his chest, and says, next to Pete’s ear, “Shut the TV.” His voice is strangely hoarse.
“If this is just your way of getting out of admitting your resemblance to Pepper-“ Pete turns his head and looks at him, eyes going immediately dark. “Yeah,” he says slowly, thumbing the power button on the remote and tossing it carelessly aside, “yeah, okay.” He turns over, so they’re chest to chest, and watches Patrick’s face.
Patrick’s hands, mostly without any permission from him at all, are sliding over Pete’s sides, scraping his nails lightly over skin, stroking his thumbs over curves of bone. Pete doesn’t move, just waits, lids at half-mast, while Patrick feels. If he could, Patrick thinks Pete would be purring.
Something about Pete’s skin is calling to Patrick, singing to his bones, begging him to touchtouchtouch. Patrick’s fingers brush over the ink at Pete’s shoulders, his arms, around his neck, Pete shivering and leaning into the touch. There’s something, something weird and inexplicably breathtaking about the way Pete’s skin moves under Patrick’s fingers, moves without Pete himself meaning to move at all, and Patrick watches, mesmerized, as his hands call vibrations up to meet them.
“Patrick,” Pete says, finally, softly, when Patrick’s hands run out of new places to touch. He’s shaking without Patrick having to do anything at all, now, and his hands are clenched into the fabric of Patrick’s shirt. “Patrick, I-“
“Turn over,” Patrick murmurs, urging him up, around, so Pete’s leaning back against Patrick’s chest, head on Patrick’s shoulder, body tucked neatly into the vee of his legs. Patrick’s hands trace over Pete’s chest, counting ribs, stroking soft shapes between each of them, smoothing over the lines of the ink on his abdomen, digging his nails in a little over the arches of his hips. He licks over the circle of thorns around Pete’s collar, closing his teeth over the place where it intersects his shoulder.
When his hands finally make their way to the waistband of Pete’s shorts, Pete is breathing heavily, cock already straining against the fabric, a damp spot spreading from the tip.
“You’re so easy,” Patrick teases, kissing Pete’s ear to take the sting out of the words.
Pete turns his head, just far enough that he can press a kiss to the curve of Patrick’s jaw. “For you? Always.”
Patrick leans down enough for their mouths to meet, sloppy and awkward and somehow perfect, as he slips his fingers under Pete’s waistband and wraps them around his cock.
Pete groans into Patrick’s mouth, hips stuttering up, pushing into Patrick’s fist. His head rolls back as Patrick flicks his wrist, eyes slipping shut.
“Yeah,” Patrick breathes against Pete’s open, panting mouth, tightening his hand, moving it faster. Patrick is hard, is dizzyingly aroused, but it’s a distant sort of thing, secondary to watching, entranced, as Pete moves under his hands.
Pete’s hips twitch with every stroke of Patrick’s hand, jerking up to try to meet his fist. Patrick twists his hand, once, and Pete makes this helpless little huh-uh sound, whole body arching up. Patrick’s wrist slips into the short, smooth, back-forth he uses on himself, and Pete’s hands clench on Patrick’s arms, trembling.
“Please, Trick, I-“ Pete’s voice is raw, wrecked, broken, and Patrick just thinks, Mine.
Patrick licks into Pete’s mouth again, messy and hard, and Pete leans up to meet him, gasping into Patrick’s mouth. Patrick twists his fist again, hard, and then Pete is crying out, body tensing in one long, gorgeous line, cock pulsing in Patrick’s hand, hips jerking erratically as he comes. Patrick pushes his own hips up, against the curve of Pete’s back, once, twice, and then he’s following.
--
[[Victoria has spent the last decade holding back.
She’s held Gabe-and okay, yes, Bill-at arm’s length, because that’s her job. And maybe Gabe is the reason she cares about her job in the first place, is the only reason she’s ever cared about the job, but she does care, now.
And if she doesn’t keep herself at a distance, she runs the risk of ruining everything, for Gabe and herself. If she gives him what he wants, what he’s never held back asking for, either it would work out perfectly, and she’d be blissfully happy, and she’d think life was worth living, and she’d get her second chance-and have to leave him. Leave him alone, leave him and be alone. And if she gives in, and it doesn’t work, and she hurts him-
He’d stop listening. He’d stop listening, and then Victoria wouldn’t be able to do a thing against all the miserable, sharp things inside of him when they get too big for him to handle alone, and she’d lose him. She wouldn’t even get the second chance, then, she’d just be reassigned, she’d just have to keep watching over meaningless life after meaningless life, knowing she’d let him-
So she keeps herself at a distance. And when he looks at her with those dark, wanting eyes, she swallows down the sharp pain in her throat and reminds herself how much worse it could be. ]]
--
When Pete opens his eyes, he’s still breathing hard, head tucked into the crook of Patrick’s neck. He licks his lips, swallows. Patrick’s eyes are heavy-lidded, ginger lashes brushing his cheeks with every blink. His pupils are completely blown.
“Trick,” Pete rasps, voice a little rough, and he’s suddenly, blissfully exhausted. “I-“
Patrick looks at him, eyes soft, and smoothes his thumb over the slope of Pete’s cheekbone. “Sleep. I’ll let you convince me that I’m Gwyneth Paltrow in the morning, okay?” He’s smiling a little as he says it, like maybe he doesn’t mind being Pete’s very own Pepper Potts if it means it’ll make Pete happy.
Pete beams at him. “We should really clean up,” he points out then, voice cracking on a yawn.
Patrick nods sleepily. “We should. Just use the afghan, I’ll wash it tomorrow.”
Patrick never lets Pete get the afghan dirty. Patrick has very strict rules about the afghan. Already half asleep, Pete drags it off the back of the couch, seizing his chance, and uses it to wipe the mess off his stomach, off Patrick’s hand. Grinning to himself, Pete tosses it to the floor and cuddles close, wrapping himself around Patrick and burrowing drowsily against the warmth of his chest.
Patrick slides down as far as his wings will let him, tucking Pete up against the back of the couch and enfolding him in his arms. Pressing his lips to Pete’s temple, Patrick murmurs, “I love you.”
And then, before Pete can respond, there’s a small woman with very large brown wings standing in the middle of the room.
--
[[“I love you,” Gabe says, smiling dreamily, head on Victoria’s lap. He looks pleasantly distant, like he’s drunk, except that she knows he hasn’t had a drink in days. Bill is still asleep, sprawled out over the entire left side of the bed, and Gabe and Victoria are on the floor, ostensibly so they don’t wake him, but mostly because Victoria doesn’t like sitting close enough that she might actually touch Bill-by accident or otherwise.
She smiles tightly down at him, stroking the side of his neck, and resists the immediate, painfully strong urge to respond in kind. Instead, she says, “I’ll help you make breakfast for him.” It’s a peace offering, sort of, an, I love you, and an, I’m sorry, all at once.
Gabe knows. His smile only falters for a second before it’s back, brighter and more focused than before. “Waffles?” he asks, like he’s testing. They take the longest, out of all the options in the house, but much more importantly, they’re Bill’s favorite.
She rolls her eyes and bites her lip so she doesn’t smile. “For you? Waffles.”
He pokes her in the side. “Not for me.”
She slaps his hand away and stands up, snorting. “Stop pushing.” She turns to glare at the unconscious form on the bed, remembering the pen-and-paper incident. “Both of you. You’re terrible.”
He beams at her and draws her close, reeling her in until she’s pressed to his chest. His arms wrap around her, bringing with them that incongruous, still-startling sense of safety. “You know you love us cause we push,” he teases, brushing his lips over her temple.
She doesn’t give him anything more than a grumpy noise that could potentially be taken as assent, but she knows he knows it’s true. Smiling a little bit, she lets him lead her to the kitchen, and, subsequently, to endless waffle preparation and good-natured ribbing about how she’s gone soft.
She steals bites out of each of the most perfect waffles-because they look delicious, really, not because she knows it’ll make Bill smile to see-and smacks Gabe’s hand with the whisk when he tries to do the same.
When he cheerfully smears a streak of batter over her eyebrow and smudges it with a fleeting press of lips, Victoria smiles so hard it hurts.]]
--
Gabe frowns and snaps his fingers in front of Vicky-T’s face. “Yo,” he says, a little irritated, “are you even listening to me?” He’s trying to explain this idea he has, about forming a band in the image of the Cobra, and teaching the emo kids to wear bright colors and dance.
She hums a little, a small smile quirking the corner of her mouth, and just says, oddly, disconcertingly distant, “I need to go talk to Patrick.”
Gabe has time to blink, to think, Patrick? and, Pete’s Patrick? and maybe a hint of, What the fuck? before the place where Vicky-T was standing is empty, and Gabe is alone in the living room.
Pretty much all he thinks after that is, That can’t be good, and, Well, shit.
He gets his car keys and fucking tears out the door.
--
Victoria shows up when Patrick says, “I love you.”
Smiling, she says, “Oh, congratulations, Patrick, it looks like you figured it out.”
Patrick looks up from where Pete is still curled around him, says dumbly, “What?”
Victoria beams at him. “You get your second chance. I felt the pull to you-you figured it out, you get to start over.”
A hand squeezes around Patrick’s lungs. “What-“ He looks from Victoria, smiling, to Pete, stricken and frozen.
“Come now,” Victoria says chidingly, “it’s time to go.”
Patrick can feel something sharp, tugging at his insides, and he can’t tell if it’s whatever magic is going to send him back, or just bitter, gnawing terror. “I can’t,” he finally manages to push through his clenched teeth. His hands are white-knuckled fists, clenching and unclenching as he tries to push the sensation away so he can stay, so he can speak.
Victoria’s smile falters. “Don’t be silly. You’ve been waiting for this for-“
“No,” Pete says sharply, shoving Patrick out of the way and clambering messily off the couch. “No,” he repeats, “he can’t go.”
Victoria blinks at him. “He has to go. It’s not a choice.” She turns to Patrick, and Pete doesn’t waste a second, just skids around the back of the couch and makes a run for the kitchen. She lets him go, brow furrowed. “Patrick, I’ve never met someone who wanted to start over as badly as you did. What’s-“
Patrick’s shaking his head-frantically, helplessly, and the rest of him is maybe shaking a little, too. The pulling sensation is worse now, a firm grip right under his breastbone that urges him to go go gogogogo. “Victoria, I can’t leave him.”
All of a sudden, the tugging sensation lessens, and for one blind, stupid moment, Patrick thinks it’s what he said.
Pete says, “He’s not leaving.” There’s an iron undercurrent in the words, and Victoria’s eyes go almost comically wide.
“What the hell are you doing?” she demands, striding into the kitchen.
Gripped by what is definitely fear, now, Patrick follows close behind.
And then he sees Pete.
--
“This is a gross violation of the intent behind the rules,” Victoria says, crossing her arms and glaring at them.
“I could make it grosser,” Pete offers humorlessly, his mouth a flat line. His hand is clenched around the steak knife, the tip digging into the flesh over the vein in his left wrist. His hand doesn’t shake at all, and some part of Patrick is fiercely proud of him for that.
A muscle twitches at the corner of her mouth, and if Patrick didn’t know better, he’d swear it was something related to a smile. “Don’t forget, it’s down the road-“ she starts dryly, like she’s bored.
“Not across the fucking street,” Pete finishes, and digs in a little harder with the knife. A tiny spot of blood wells up against the steel, and Pete doesn’t even wince.
“Don’t be a moron,” Victoria snaps. “You’re happy now, you’re safe, you have a good life-there’s no reason to throw it away.”
Pete’s mouth tightens, and he hisses through clenched teeth, “I’m happy because of Patrick.” He presses the knife down a little harder, laughing a little, and it’s somewhere between bitter and hysterical. “My life? My life is Patrick.”
Victoria pulls a face. “Don’t be so fucking melodramatic,” she says, but there’s something like fear under her voice. Patrick can feel it, knows why it’s there-if Pete dies while they’re both there, they’ll both lose any shot they have at a second chance, they’ll both be reassigned and stuck in this loop for a damn long time. And Patrick might not give a flying fuck about being reborn if it means having to leave Pete, but he knows that’s not why Victoria’s still around, knows she can’t take reassignment, can’t take leaving Gabe to look out for himself with his life the way it is and then trying to look after someone else, too. “You’re not a martyr, Wentz, you’re just making an ass of yourself.”
Pete grins at her, and it’s ugly, all sharp corners and jagged edges. “I can make an ass of myself all over the fucking floor, bitch,” he says, and there’s no bravado there, just raw sincerity and hope squeezed through gritted teeth. “You know I’ll do it.”
“Oh, you will not,” she retorts, but her hands are clenched at her sides. “You’ve got everything going for you. You’ve got a wildly successful label, real friends-“
“Fucking try me,” Pete dares her, angling the knife down, like he’s getting ready to drag it towards his elbow. “All I want going for me,” Pete says firmly, “is Patrick.”
Patrick does not, does not have tears sliding down his cheeks. He doesn’t. “Victoria,” he croaks, voice stupidly hoarse.
She doesn’t even look at him. “Shut up,” she tells him, voice flat and icy. “I swear to god if you ruin this whole thing for me because of a stupid infatuation with this jackass-“ she cuts off, breathing hard, and stares at the doorway, eyes wide.
“You know it’s not like that, Vicky-T,” Gabe says softly, leaning on the doorjamb casually, for all the world like it’s just another day, like his best friend isn’t standing at the counter, ready to slit his wrists.
Her face softens a little, and she says regretfully, “Gabe, these aren’t rules we can just break.”
Gabe’s mouth twists into something between a grimace and a real smile. “Baby girl,” he says, shaking his head, like he’s in charge of her, not the other way around, “People like you and me can break all the rules.”
She laughs, and it’s wet and a little helpless. “Gabe,” she says, squeezing her eyes shut, and there’s something that might be a tear glimmering on her cheek. “Gabe, you know if I let him stay, somebody else has to-“
“Go, querida,” he says gently. “I’ll be waiting when you find your way home.”
“What about Bill?” she asks, and there’s a note of something almost bitter in the question. Patrick doesn’t know if she means, What about you being in love with Bill?, or-
Gabe’s face breaks out into a real smile, then, and he says, “He’ll be waiting, too.”
Victoria’s voice cracks on a sob when she says, “You’re an ass.” She bites her lip and takes a breath, then, and says, in a very small voice, “What if you’re-what if you-“
Gabe pushes off the doorframe and crosses the kitchen. Tilting her chin up with his finger, forcing her to look him in the eye, he shakes his head and says, “I swear, I will take such good care of myself, you won’t know a day has gone by.”
She snorts. “Liar,” she whispers, tipping her head to kiss the tips of his fingers. “You are such a liar.”
“Guilty,” he says, smiling down into her eyes and stroking a thumb over the curve of her jaw. “But I’ll be around, corazón.” He bends down just a little, leaning his head against hers. “We both will.”
Patrick holds his breath in the silence that follows. It spins on, and on, Gabe and Victoria searching each other’s faces, Pete holding perfectly, utterly still with the knife digging into his wrist.
Finally, Victoria breaks the silence. “Okay,” she breathes, then, louder, “Okay.” To Gabe, she says, “I swear to god, if you’re not there when I come looking for you, I will search the afterlife for your sorry ass and make your eternity a living hell.”
He beams at her. “I would expect no less from you.”
To Patrick she says, “I don’t actually know what happens to you now, you know. No one’s ever tried to-this is unprecedented.”
Patrick nods, mouth dry. “I know.” He’s not really worried, if it means he gets to stay.
Finally, she turns to Pete. “I don’t know what they see in you,” she says, but it sounds almost fond.
Pete shrugs, not letting the knife even twitch. “Me neither,” he says wryly, “But I’ll take what I can get.”
She laughs, a startled, almost unwilling sound, and spreads her tawny wings with one fluid snap. Turning back to Gabe, she says, “Leap of faith, yeah?” and it’s like it means more than just the words alone do.
“Jump, baby,” he says, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I’ll catch you.”
Her eyes linger in the room longer than the rest of her, still bright once her skin has faded into shadow. Gabe doesn’t look away until they’re long gone, and when he does, it’s to look at Patrick, which is pretty impressive, since he’s not actually trying to show himself to Gabe, and humans can’t usually see him unless he wants them to-actually, can’t see him even if he does want them to. Gabe can’t usually see him at all, in fact.
“You kept him alive when the rest of us didn’t,” he says to Patrick. There’s no regret in his voice when he adds, “I can’t pretend that means anything less than it does.”
Patrick feels lighter than he has since he died, lighter than he’s ever felt, really, even in the air. “This is everything,” he says back, because there really aren’t any other words for what Pete is to him.
Gabe’s mouth curls a little. “For me, too.” And with that, and with a nod to Pete, he’s crossing the kitchen, leaving the room. Leaving them alone.
“Trick,” Pete says, and for the first time today, his voice is shaking. The tip of the knife is still digging into his skin, the blood around it mostly dry and flaking now.
Patrick’s at his side before he even thinks to move, one hand curling around the handle of the knife, prying it from Pete’s trembling fingers. “It’s okay,” he says, lips still numb with shock. He drops the knife on the counter with a clatter and reels Pete in, crushing him close. “It’s okay,” he repeats. “We’re okay.”
Pete draws in a shuddering breath. “I thought it wouldn’t be-I didn’t-“ He lets the breath out, and it’s no less shaky this time around. “I thought I was losing you.”
“You were so brave.” Patrick presses kiss after kiss into Pete’s hair, whispers fiercely, “You were so fucking brave.”
“Not brave,” Pete says, words damp against the skin of Patrick’s neck. “Just honest.”
Patrick finally lets the tears run down his face, unhindered, and hides his face in Pete’s hair while his shoulders shake.
--
Patrick has Pete bent over the arm of the couch, two fingers twisting roughly into him, hands shaking.
Pete chokes out a dirty, ragged gasp as Patrick shoves gracelessly into him, thrusting hard, panicked, breathless.
Patrick’s hands scrabble over Pete’s sides, back, shoulders, frantically trying to memorize, to prove that they’re both still here.
Pete’s voice catches on a sob when he comes, clenching hard around Patrick, fingernails tearing thin lines in the couch cushions.
Patrick’s mind is still so white with fear, it takes him long, long minutes to follow after, still moving urgently while Pete whimpers, boneless, under him. When he finally goes over the edge, he literally blacks out with the force of it, clinging desperately to Pete’s hips and jolting forward into darkness.
--
Pete hadn’t known about Victoria, hadn’t known she was Gabe’s-that Gabe even had a guardian. Although it probably explains why Gabe hadn’t thought he was insane, even from the start.
“What-“ he asks Patrick when they finally have a quiet moment that isn’t filled with totally unmanly crying or really ferocious I’m-alive! sex. “What even-I mean, Gabe and Bill.” They’re curled up in bed, wrapped haphazardly around each other, and Pete is maybe still clinging, monkeylike, but he almost lost Patrick today, and Patrick doesn’t seem to be clinging any less.
Patrick shrugs, rubbing the tip of his nose against Pete’s collarbone. “Bonds with angels are different for different people,” he says, sort of uncomfortably, which Pete takes as his way of saying that he doesn’t know, and doesn’t want to know.
That’s kind of fair-Pete hasn’t ever really wanted to see more of Gabe’s sex and/or love life than he gets shoved in front of him on a regular basis. “He saved us, pretty much,” Pete says, and it feels weird, feels wrong. “Not that Victoria was doing anything other than-“
“She was just doing her job,” Patrick agrees quietly. “The thing is, she’s never been very good at the job, not until Gabe. She never really got the whole ‘giving a shit about people’ thing down until him. Even then, I think-I think she kind of kept herself at a distance.”
“So she could stay.” Pete doesn’t know that’s what he means until he says it.
Patrick shrugs. “So she wouldn’t hurt him.”
Pete squeezes Patrick’s hand, tangled up with his. “That’s not how we work,” he reminds him, because no matter how hurt Pete ever is, he’s relatively sure that if Patrick tells him seriously not to do something, he’s going to fucking listen.
Patrick presses a kiss to Pete’s jaw. “I know,” he says, and Pete can feel his smile. “I’m just answering your question.”
Pete nods, says, “I know, I was just-“
“Reminding me,” Patrick finishes, kissing his mouth this time. “Like I ever need reminding about the way you are,” he says, half laughing, half affectionate.
Pete closes his eyes, lets himself fall into the warm slide of Patrick’s mouth against his, the softness of Patrick’s skin under his hands.
They fall asleep like that, sheer exhaustion swamping them, and Pete drifts off feeling, finally, like the other shoe has dropped, and like maybe they’ve caught it.
--
Patrick wakes up to Pete pressing his mouth to the juncture of Patrick’s wing and his shoulder, to the smooth, delicate skin that merges feathers and flesh.
“Hey,” Pete murmurs.
His tongue darts out, wet and warm and careful, and Patrick's whole body jerks.
"Sorry," Pete mutters, and backs off. Like it's a bad thing. Like Patrick would have said no, would have pushed him away, even after everything that’s happened today, that’s happened over all this time.
Patrick hesitates, just for a second, then leans back against him, presses close enough to make himself clear without pushing.
Pete's breath catches, and he runs a tentative hand up Patrick's arm, down his shoulder. "You're-- you don't mind?"
Patrick swallows and shakes his head, doesn't trust himself not to embarrass himself if he says anything.
Pete gets it, though, and his mouth is less hesitant this time. His lips graze the thin, translucent skin that covers the place where the feathers fuse with Patrick's shoulder, and his tongue slips out to trace the cord of muscle that runs from Patrick's shoulder into his right wing. Pete's breathing is heavy, and his hands slip down Patrick's sides and around to his chest, skimming over his skin and tugging him closer. Patrick obligingly presses back.
This is something different than the mindless, panicked touches from earlier today. This is a process of claiming, of reminding.
Pete pants a little, grinding up against Patrick's tailbone, and his mouth closes over a spot on the underside of Patrick's shoulder blade and sucks. Patrick feels a shudder run through him, down his back and into his thighs, and his neck arches back with the force of it. Pete clearly takes it as a suggestion, because then his mouth is on the side of Patrick's throat, nipping and sucking and tracing nonsense shapes with his tongue, and all Patrick can hear is his own ragged breathing and Pete's muted noises of arousal.
Pete's teeth close around Patrick's earlobe. "Trick," he pants, damp, against the shell of Patrick's ear. "Please, please.” And then his hand is skimming lower on Patrick's stomach, tracing the waistband of Patrick's boxers, and Patrick is suddenly so hard it hurts.
Pete moans, actually moans, when Patrick turns all the way around and presses him back into the bed. "Patrick, Patrick," he whispers, over and over, like it's some sort of safety net, a reminder, and Patrick can't help himself. He rolls his hips, hard, and nips at Pete's lip, licks his way into Pete's mouth. The recollection that he’d almost lost this today, almost never been able to have this-any part of this-again, still makes him frantic, puts a desperate undercurrent into every movement, every instant.
Pete arches up, opens for him, and Patrick can't think anything but, want, want, and, Pete, and, mine. He surrenders to it, and the blood drums behind his eyes and in his ears as he finds his way through Pete's motions and breaths and sounds.
--
Gabe doesn’t say anything when Bill answers the door, just buries his head in Bill’s shoulder and falls apart.
Bill tightens his arms around him and holds on. When Gabe has fallen into silent shakes and the shoulder of Bill’s shirt is soaked through, he says gently, “Bed, Gabe. Come on, let’s go.”
Gabe looks up at him with red, tired eyes, and says, “I told her-I said we’d-“
Bill kisses the corner of his mouth. “We will,” he assures him. “I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you.” He pulls back just enough to smile, a little wryly. “Except to bed.”
“Mother hen,” Gabe accuses as Bill leads him down the hall, voice a little raw.
Bill sits him down on the bed and kneels to unlace his boots. “Yeah,” he says agreeably, pulling off one boot, then the other, “But I’m only filling in.”
When he crawls into bed beside Gabe, he pulls the covers over both of them, and Gabe huddles uncharacteristically close, curling around Bill and holding on tight.
“Not going anywhere,” Gabe murmurs, squeezing a little.
Bill shakes his head. “Not going anywhere,” he confirms. Victoria is as much a part of Gabe as his voice, his hands, his smile, and Gabe is the only place Bill’s ever wanted to be.
--
When Patrick wakes up the morning after everything, he’s lying on a pile of feathers, and his shoulders ache like hell.
“Trick,” Pete says, blinking from Patrick to the mess of slightly bloodied feathers and back again. “What the fuck happened?”
Patrick lifts one feather, spinning it between his forefinger and thumb. “I guess-I guess this is just what happens now,” he says slowly. He reaches over his shoulder, gropes at his shoulder blades, and winces when his fingers dig into flesh that feels like raw meat. “Fuck.”
Pete doesn’t say another word, just gets up and goes to the bathroom, coming back with a pack of gauze squares, a roll of medical tape, and a tube of Neosporin. “C’mere,” he says, tugging a little on Patrick’s arm to turn him.
Patrick does his best not to wince when Pete smears the ointment over his-wounds, cuts? Patrick doesn’t know what the right word is for holes where wings used to be. The gauze squares rub strangely, but they don’t hurt as badly as they could, and Pete’s uncharacteristically careful with the medical tape around the edges.
“There,” Pete murmurs finally, when he’s done, tenderly stroking a finger around the edge of one neat square of tape and gauze. He follows it with a soft kiss between Patrick’s shoulder blades. “Good as new.”
And the thing is, Patrick is.
--
EPILOGUE:
Eighteen years later:
Bill is asleep, draped over Gabe’s chest, when the knock on the door comes. Gabe shows no signs of waking up, so Bill grumbles a little to himself, but drags himself out of bed. He doesn’t bother to do more than tug a pair of sweats over his hips-if whoever it is has a problem with his disheveled state, they can talk to Gabe and his mad debauching skills.
The girl blinking up at him when he opens the door is seventeen, maybe eighteen, if Bill pushes it, all sharp edges and crocodile eyes. She hasn’t even really grown into them yet, but her legs are already lethal. Bill knows who she is; he’d have to be blind not to.
“Bill,” she says, like she’s surprised. She doesn’t sound disappointed, though. She licks her lips a little, a look of worry flickering over her features, and says, “I didn’t actually think-is he okay?”
“He’s fine, not dead, just sleeping like it,” Bill says, and before he actually gives himself permission to do it, he’s slipping a hand under her jaw, tilting her head up, licking his way into her mouth.
She doesn’t hesitate for even a moment, opening her mouth under his, curling her hand over his and shifting closer until Bill’s pressed up against the doorframe.
When Bill manages to pull away, they’re both flushed and breathing hard. “We should maybe wake him up,” he says faintly, and it’s an understatement, really.
She grins up at him, and it’s no different than he knew it would be, all teeth and a little too wide. It warms something inside him, tugging at something not even really sexual at all. “Lead the way,” she says softly, threading their fingers together.
Bill squeezes her hand and presses a kiss to her temple. “We missed you,” he says, low enough that she can ignore it if she wants to.
She doesn’t argue that Bill can’t have missed her, that Bill didn’t even know her, and Bill’s pretty sure it’s because they’re both too old for that kind of bullshit now. Instead, she knocks her hip against his and ducks her head and whispers, “I missed you, too.”
END
--
Awesome Fanmix: http://frankie-ann.livejournal.com/14117.html
Part One: http://frankie-ann.livejournal.com/13256.html
Part Two: http://frankie-ann.livejournal.com/13558.html
Part Three: http://frankie-ann.livejournal.com/13814.html