Saint Patrick ☘ (shamrocked_) wrote in nevermore_logs, @ 2010-11-23 09:23:00 |
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Entry tags: | michael, saint patrick |
Who: Patrick and Michael
What: He'll get there eventually...
When: The morning after! (I don't know what day it is any more :( )
Where: Michael's apartment.
The moment Patrick and Michael had returned to Michael's apartment, Michael had directed Patrick to go to his room and get some sleep. And one did not argue with an archangel. Especially when one had been caught nearly selling one's soul for some peace. Patrick went into Michael's room and he curled up in the angel's bed, strangely able to ignore the fact that it was not really evening yet at all, and it was Saint Michael the Archangel's bed. Patrick hadn't been sleeping lately. He'd been dreaming of snakes and self-medicating with drink when sleep wouldn't come to him. While he thought he would find it hard to relax in Michael's house especially given the circumstances, Patrick fell into the first deep sleep he had had in weeks, and he slept for nearly seventeen hours straight, unburdened by the events of the day at least while he slumbered.
When Patrick woke up he was well-rested, confused as all get out as to where he even was, and when he remembered the events of yesterday, deeply disappointed in himself. So disappointed he very nearly went right back to bed in the hope that he could just stay asleep forever.
And then Patrick smelled something that made his stomach growl loudly. It smelled like breakfast and happiness and a little bit like need. Patrick pushed himself out of the bed that wasn't his, knowing that for once he didn't have to panic that he might have slept with someone last night. If that were all he had to panic about, things might have been okay. This was so much worse.
Patrick made a pit-stop by the toilet, only just managing not to look inside Michael's medicine cabinet. He was curious as to what an angel might keep around the place but he didn't think he needed to add snooping to his list of things Michael was probably going to kick his ass for. He couldn't avoid Michael forever. He had to see him some time. And he was hungry, which was only going to get worse if he didn't do something about it.
When Patrick emerged in the kitchen he found Michael dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, standing over the stove, flipping a pancake. Patrick had to stare for a moment before he could properly express anything. The leader of Heaven's Army was standing in a small apartment's kitchen, dressed casually and making pancakes. "I...hi-" Patrick said, too ashamed and slightly dumbstruck to say anything more coherent.
Michael turned and he pointed to one of the chairs that surrounded his small table which stood in the middle of the kitchen. Then Michael flipped the pancake into the air and caught it on a plate and Patrick was sure he was having some sort of strange dream. Michael poured more batter onto the griddle, some of which slopped onto the stove. He wiped it away with his thumb and then he glanced at Patrick, who was still standing in the same spot, completely frozen in place. "Sit," Michael commanded him and then he sucked the batter from his thumb and Patrick couldn't take it any more.
"You're...making pancakes."
"I do eat, Patrick. And you should to," he said, handing Patrick the plate he had used to catch his perfectly round pancake. "There's syrup over here."
Patrick glanced in the direction Michael was pointing, but he didn't care about syrup, or pancakes right now. Not any more. "Michael, I-"
"Shh. Eat your breakfast." And at that, Michael pulled Patrick out a chair with his foot and Patrick finally obeyed, as quickly as possible. He ate not one, but six pancakes because Michael continued to give them to him until he was so full he felt that saying 'please, really, no more' was more prudent than vomiting in Michael's apartment. Then he watched in silence as Michael sat and proved that he did, in fact, eat.
He ate pancakes with ice cream on them, smothered in maple syrup. Somehow, it made Patrick feel just a little less overwhelmed because Michael ate like a five-year-old boy.
When Michael finished and the kitchen was cleaned, Patrick started to feel like the elephant in the room was going to crush the both of them if he didn't bring it up. Yesterday he had asked Satan and Lucifer for help. He had wanted oblivion. And he had nearly signed away his soul to get it. "Michael," Patrick said, following the angel into his living room. He sat on a chair, opposite the angel who had perched on his sofa in front of the coffeetable he kept his case file on. "Uhm...I don't mean to be a bother-"
"You're not a bother," Michael said absently, lifting up one of his pages of notes on a case he was still working on.
He wasn't even looking at Patrick.
"I..." Patrick sighed, wondering if he could possibly leave the apartment without Michael noticing. Then he remembered Michael nearly cutting off Satan and Lucifer's heads and he decided that he shouldn't try it. "Why did you come for me yesterday?"
"George asked me to," Michael said absently.
"Oh."
Michael looked up at Patrick's disappointed tone, his case notes still in his hand. "You wanted a different answer?"
How could he answer that? Patrick decided if this was going to happen, he should probably answer with the truth. What did he had to lose now? Yesterday he had tried to sign his soul over to the Devils and Michael had stopped him. He didn't have anything worse to hide from Michael. "I...wanted to know why you bothered."
Michael studied him for a long time, slowly lowering the case notes to the table. Michael looked at him for so long that Patrick started to feel more than a little bit uncomfortable. He jumped slightly when Michael finally spoke. "Because you matter."
That was it? He mattered? To whom? Patrick knew he mattered to George. He mattered to Andrew and Dewi and Sebastian and Agatha. He mattered to Neil Jones and Joseph Van der Berg. It was nice to know, but it wasn't enough. Not when he felt torn to shreds by his very existence.
"Patrick, why don't you tell me what you were doing yesterday, instead of asking me pointless and obvious questions."
Patrick ducked his head and he decided that a spotless patch of carpet on Michael's floor was so fascinating he was going to stare at it for a very long time. "I...I don't want to feel this way any more. I just wanted...I wanted to die. For real. Forever. And they told me they could help."
"You don't want to feel what way?" Michael asked, and Patrick wondered if talking to Michael was going to help at all. He didn't believe Michael could really understand emotions.
"You've noticed I'm not myself."
"I've noticed you have changed, Patrick. But you are still yourself."
"But I'm not!" Patrick protested. "I used to be...stronger, braver...more faithful. I don't even remember how it felt to be me, I just know I was. I converted an entire country and now I'm not even sure God wants anything to do with me because I've become a caricature of myself."
"God would not have chosen you to be a Saint in His Church if you were not worthy, Patrick."
"But I'm not a real saint, am I?" Patrick said miserably. "I've never been formally canonised-"
Michael held up his hands and Patrick fell silent immediately. "Does that matter? You are Saint Patrick. You are one of God's chosen. You are special, Patrick."
"So special that yesterday I almost struck a deal with two devils?"
"You wouldn't have signed that paper, Patrick," Michael said, almost as if he was commanding Patrick.
"How do you-"
"You would not have signed that paper," Michael repeated, inviting no arguments. "And I know, because I have faith in you. All I did was show up before you had a chance to refuse and they tried to force you."
Those words coming from the mouth of the angel who had previously expressed displeasure at the state of him meant more than a little. Michael had faith in him? He had seemed more interested in whether or not Patrick remembered how to use a hairbrush than believing he belonged in the Church. "You do? Have faith in me?"
"I do. Satan and Lucifer can spin a good yarn, but you would have seen through it. They never would have given you whatever it was you were going to ask them for, Patrick. They would have seen you as a trophy. I believe a part of you knows that. And if you know that, then you have to understand what a coup they would consider swaying Saint Patrick to renounce his faith is."
Patrick felt like his brain was going to melt right out of his ears, but he sat and he listened anyway. He was sure Michael was about to make some kind of sense.
"As you say, you brought the true faith to an entire nation. Can't you see what a prize that would be for them? It means you are important, Patrick, no matter what you think right now. If they bothered to meet you at all, you're important to God."
Patrick stared. He stared and he glanced back to check on his patch of carpet to see how that was doing, and when it hadn't changed, he stared at Michael some more. And still, no idea of how to reply to what Michael had said came to him. No sudden flash of inspiration on how to reply to an archangel who was finally making some sense and said something he had truly needed to hear. So he said, "...huh."
Michael rose and for several moments he could hear fussing about in the kitchen while he sat and stared some more. When Michael returned, a mug of tea was pressed into his hands, and Patrick took an immediate sip, just for something to do. Then he put it on the coffeetable and promptly forgot it even existed.
"Patrick, I know I am not going to be the first person you come to with how you are feeling. I don't even think I should be," Michael said, ever practical. "But you should go to one of your brothers or your friends. And when you have ideas like the one you had yesterday, that is when you should come to me. You matter, and I will not let Satan or Lucifer take you from us. From Him. Not without a fight."
"You think that even though I've become some time of a mockery, I'm still useful?"
"Patrick. I could mention your name to any one in this country and they would know who I meant." It was true of Michael as well, but Saint Patrick was different because he was softer, gentler. He was approachable. "You have a position to fill. You have a role to play."
"I just...I'm tired. And that man people worship on March 17th isn't who I am supposed to me."
"Maybe he is who you are supposed to be, and fighting it is why you are feeling so torn? Perhaps God need someone with that kind of popularity and when you truly accept these changes, He will show you how to use them for His will. God has a plan and you are part of it, Patrick. Can you have faith in that?"
Patrick wasn't so sure. Though if he thought hard enough about it and tried really hard to remember how he might have looked at this when he was younger, he came to an explanation. God had allowed Satan and Lucifer to tempt him to show him that he was important, as Michael had said. And he sent none other than his general to get the devils away from him. If God sent Michael, he did have to mean something. Which meant that his suffering was just his lot as a saint.
It hurt his brain a little, but he managed it. It made sense to him, and it was something he could believe in. "I can," Patrick said, surprising even himself. He had a lot to repent for, but he was human and humans made mistakes. He had no problem repenting for his sins, even though this one was pretty big. Still, if it meant he just so happened to get his faith back because of it, then perhaps it was worth it. It meant he couldn't have oblivion. He had to live his life even through the suffering. He could do it if God was on his side, as Michael said he was.
"I have faith it in too," Michael said, and then he added, "but you are still not leaving this apartment for the next few days."
Patrick bit his lip and then he leaned back against the chair, surrendering to his house arrest. "That's fair enough, really..."