Saint Patrick ☘ (shamrocked_) wrote in nevermore_logs, @ 2010-11-28 09:29:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | joseph van der berg, saint george, saint patrick |
Who: Patrick, George and a bit of Joseph
What: So you 'walked out into traffic' hmm?!
Where: Hospital room where Patrick has to spend the night.
When: A bit after this.
Patrick's head hurt. Whether it was from the alcohol or the head injury was difficult to say, but Patrick didn't think it really mattered. All he knew was that he was sitting in a hospital room which he had been told he couldn't leave because he needed to be observed or something.
And somewhere close, there was an archangel who had looked like he quite wanted to kill Patrick for his disobedience.
Patrick didn't really blame Michael for being upset, though he had certainly never seen the angel this angry before. It was unsettling. Almost as unsettling as being chased by a ghoul and pushed out into traffic by a crow. At least he knew (hoped?) Michael wouldn't actually hurt him.
When his door opened, Patrick looked up in terror, expecting it to be Michael coming back to do his angry talk some more. Michael's version of yelling was being really quiet and smouldering and Patrick found it spooky. It wasn't Michael though. It was George. And yet again Patrick felt horrible because he had to apologise to his brother. Again. His warrior brother Patrick put on what was probably the highest pedestal known to man. "Georgie," Patrick said, glad that his worst injury was hiding under his hospital gown and that there was a bandage around his head to hide the other one. He hated seeing George in pain and he in turn knew that seeing Patrick hurt would hurt George. "I...I'm sorry."
'I'm sorry' was starting to take over for 'hello' between them.
George was caught somewhere between the urge to start yelling at Patrick and to hug him. Or maybe to hug and then yell. It would be some version of that, he was sure. It was all made slightly worse by the fact that George was feeling stubborn and had refused to smoke before he came here.
He was going to be addicted to opium by the end of the winter anyway, but that didn't mean he had to hurry the process along.
"How are you feeling?" George said, sitting down in the chair next to the head of the bed.
Patrick rolled his eyes upwards just for something else to look at while he tried to put into words how he was feeling. "Uhm...stupid and sore. So...probably exactly how I should be feeling."
Except that it shouldn't have happened.
"I should have called you to tell you Gabriel and Michael went out, but I knew if I did I couldn't drink, so...I didn't."
"Yeah, yeah you should have," George said, rubbing the bridge of his nose tiredly. At least when he'd been keeping Sebastian away from his addictive substance of choice, that substance hadn't been available in every restaraunt and advertised on TV.
"Patrick, I need you to be honest with me here," George said, looking at his brother. "You've said before that you felt like alcohol was, I don't know, a part of your worship. Something tied into it deep. Do you seriously think that, or is that addiction talking?"
He probably could have found a more polite way to phrase the question, but George was very, very tired.
Patrick took a deep breath and he reached out to try to pull his brother towards him but he stopped short, letting his hand fall to the mattress. Maybe he didn't deserve comfort yet. "I seriously think that," Patrick admitted, though he didn't sound pleased to say it. "I was at Michael's and it was...George, it was starting to hurt. It felt so wrong. And when I was at the bar- Oh God-" Patrick's voice suddenly sounded just a little orgasmic. "George, it felt so good. So right. Until I left and the creepy lady was on the corner."
Well, that sure as hell complicated things. At least George could take comfort from knowing that Sebastian didn't need opium. But Patrick...
George remembered, with a pang of guilt, that he'd spent the last St. Patrick's Day getting completely shitfaced on green beer and toasting his brother. He'd been one of millions of people doing that.
"Then we'll--wait? Creepy lady on the corner?"
Patrick nodded and he looked terrified there. "George, she was following me. And she was just normal at first, but then she- Her eyes bled and her face melted. And this crow-" He should probably start at the beginning because he realised he sounded insane.
"Remember how I was having those nightmares? They stopped while I was with Michael, but there was always this ghoul in them. And crows everywhere. And I didn't realise it then but it was from my dream. And I ran and there was a crow and it startled me. I didn't run out into the street on purpose. I was actually feeling great when I left the pub, not 'walk in to traffic' depressed. But it was like I was pushed there."
"And Satan and Lucifer wouldn't be able to send you nightmares," George mused. "At least, I've never heard of them doing that. Oh hell." George ran his hands through his hair, leaving a few blonde curls sticking out at odd angles.
"Can you think of anyone who might have a grudge against you, besides the Gruesome Hell Twosome? I'm assuming it'd be an immortal, but there are crows and ghouls in a whole lot of mythologies."
"I don't know," Patrick said, lamenting. "Though the one that makes the most sense is the belief system I pretty much eradicated. It makes sense if you think about the snakes in my apartment. Someone has a fucked up sense of humor," Patrick growled and then he looked horrified because he had said 'fuck'. "Oops."
George couldn't help but smile at his brother, because even in very grim moments, Patrick had a way of lightening the mood.
"Okay, I guess we'll start with the Celtic deities and work our way from there," George said, already considering where to start. "We can maybe ask Britannia if she's heard anything through the grapevine. And Michael and Gabriel are dealing with our Hell problems, at least temporarily, so that leaves us with alcohol." He picked at his fingernails. "What do you think you oughta do, Patty?"
Patrick groaned and he lifted his hands to cradle his aching head. "I don't know, George. God I don't know. Pray. Pray is what I should do, because I don't want to spend my entire life drunk." Patrick pulled his hands away and he couldn't help himself any more. He reached out for George. "Georgie, please hug me. I'm freaking out. I should be above all of this bullshit." He had sworn again, but this time he didn't acknowledge it. He had done worse.
George moved towards Patrick instantly, wrapping his brother up in a hug. "Hey," he murmured against Patrick's shoulder, voice light and joking, "watch your fucking language."
Sitting back a little, with his arm still wrapped around Patrick's shoulder and his voice more serious, he said, "I was really scared, Patty. I heard you'd walked in front of a car, and I was terrified that it might have been on purpose."
Patrick chuckled against George's shoulder, just for a moment. It felt good to laugh, even if it was over with quickly.
When George pulled back, Patrick looked up at him, just as serious. "No. No, George, I meant it when I said I'm going to try to learn to like myself. I couldn't do that to you. You looked so terrified the other day and- I really hate upsetting you, which is why I hate that I am the way I am. But I couldn't leave you. Never again, okay."
George hugged his brother again, burying his head in Patrick's shoulder for a long moment. He'd lost too many people in his life to pretend like the thought didn't scare him.
Pulling back, he ruffled Patrick's hair a little, smiling down at him. "Good. Because you being unhappy is what upsets me, okay? If you were happy being a living statue, I'd be happy for you. Even though living statues seriously creep me out." He leaned back against the head of the hospital bed. "And if that involves drinking, then it does. It's not like I don't knock one back pretty regularly. I just...I want you to be okay."
Patrick actually snorted when George suggested he would support any statuesque tendencies Patrick might be harboring. Then he covered his nose and laughed. "If I was a living statue, it'd have to be of a leprechaun and then Liam would find some way to do something horrible to me. Like stealing all my buttons. Don't worry, I don't think I'll be doing that."
And then George mentioned that it could be okay if Patrick drank sometimes and he groaned. "It's not the drinking, it's that I can't stop! I don't just drink, I drink and drink and it makes me stupid. I wish I didn't need it, but without it I'm so..." Patrick sighed. "It hurts without it, it hurts with it because it's just so wrong."
"There's got to be something you can do, though," George mused, trying to think of an angle that would help Patrick. "Maybe we could talk to Alcohol about it? She's the god of it, and she's got to get some kind of power boost from you. It might give you room to negotiate. Like, if you start heading into blackout drunk territory, she'll stop letting it affect you or something?"
Patrick looked a little nervous at that, but it was worth a try. "I can talk to her. I don't know if she'll listen though. She was pretty...adamant the other day that I would come back to her. And clearly I proved her right," he said with a groan. "ARGH it's so frustrating!"
"A lot of them, they're just so smug," George said, making a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a snort. "I think it comes from being made up of something that people love and worship without ever really knowing that they worship it, you know? Humans turn away from their gods, they try to make deals with them, they pray for their intervention. But all the stuff that the New Gods are, people turn to them instinctively. No thoughts or prayers or any of it. Just...automatic. 'This makes me happy, this makes things better.'"
George shook his head. He'd possibly been giving this too much thought.
"Yeah...makes a lot of sense. Except it doesn't make me happy. It makes me feel like crap afterwards." Not while he was drunk though. While he was drunk, he felt complete. "I'm a saint and I should be converting people or comforting people or helping people, not indulging my own addictions."
George looked down. He was tempted to start off with 'promise me you won't get mad', but he knew that wasn't fair. He'd be mad, if it was him in Patrick's place.
But he'd been dying to talk to someone about it all, and he didn't want to burden Sebastian with it.
"Speaking of addictions...remember when I said I had something to tell you, a couple of days ago?"
Patrick immediately forgot about his own worries and he reached out to touch George's shoulder gently. "Yes." It had been when Patrick had gone off to find Lucifer and Satan, so he remembered it particularly well.
"What's going on, are you okay?"
"Yeah," George said, smiling a little even if his heart wasn't in it. "I'm fine, and I feel bad about being fine, and..."
He'd kept Patrick abreast with some of the things having to do with Opium. His brother knew that the Drug wasn't on George's 'Potential Antichrist' list, but...
"I'm so afraid for Sebastian," George said, reaching out to hold onto Patrick's hand. "He's the strongest person I know, and I'm still so afraid for him. I'm scared that something will happen that neither of us can control and he'll be gone. And I'll be gone with him. I've spent so long without him, I feel like even another minute without him would be the end of me, you know? Like, I'd keep walking, keep talking, but my heart would be gone."
He rubbed at his eyes, swallowing roughly. "And he's still struggling with his addictions, because addiction doesn't just go away. I'm afraid that'll be used against us. I can't let that happen. I can't let them hurt Sebastian.
"Opium offered me a deal, a while ago. We smoke, give him power to get through the winter, and he'll take away the addictions come spring. December's hard on Sebastian. Really, impossibly hard. And so it was already tempting. But then Satan and Lucifer reared their heads, and..." George looked away. "A couple of days ago, I said yes to the deal."
Patrick blinked and then he sat there numbly, trying to think of something...anything to say. When George was just talking about Sebastian and his fears, Patrick felt like his heart might break for George. He didn't have someone he was in love with like George did, but he knew how he would feel if he lost any of his brothers. He could imagine that with Sebastian, the feeling of loss and horror would be ten times worse. Patrick didn't want George's heart to be gone. He loved George's heart.
And then George had kept talking.
"You...you what!?" Patrick didn't think it was fair of him to be angry with Sebastian for indulging an addiction since he clearly did too, but George... "Are you doing this too!?"
George nodded, closing his eyes.
"I couldn't let Sebastian do it alone. I'd feel, God, I'd feel like I was pimping him out. At least this way, we're doing it together." He looked down. "And if we're making a mistake, it's together."
"George!" Patrick wailed, and he grabbed his brother's shoulders. "What in the Hell!?"
Sebastian was one thing. Patrick worried about his brother-in-law and he wanted him to be safe and if this was how to do it, it was how to do it. But George going along with it made Patrick angry. And maybe it shouldn't have, since George had absolutely never purposefully made Patrick feel guilty for drinking, but Patrick still did.
"You sent me to AA meetings and you got me all those fliers for rehab places and it was all for something I couldn't help and then you do this?!" Patrick dropped his hold on George then, unable to think about anything else but his indignation.
Another lovely trait that came from his worship. Patrick rarely got angry because it wasn't in his personality, but when he did, he did it spectacularly. "You...you made me feel like I should try to change who I am, and- Goddamit, George, you sent me to Lucifer and Satan because I felt so guilty for letting you down again and again!"
He was going to feel really badly for that one in a moment.
George couldn't have been more startled than if Patrick had pulled out a gun and shot him. He dropped Patrick's hand, standing up abruptly.
"What?" he asked, voice choked and small. "I did what?"
Patrick glared at George as he explained. "You made me feel so guilty about slipping and I just wanted to be free of the pain so I asked Lucifer and Satan if they could help me..."
George felt his heart sink like it was weighted down, and he sat down hard in the chair next to Patrick's bed.
He had done this to his brother? He had driven Patrick to nearly destroy himself?
"I'm sorry," George murmured, surprised to find his hands were shaking. "Patty, I'm so sorry. I never meant to..."
The second Patrick saw George react, he felt guilty and his indignant anger melted away.
He had told the truth, but the reality was that Patrick had been the one to take George's words and twist them. And Patrick had been the one who had been debating asking them for help for a while before that anyway.
"I'm sorry! Georgie, it's okay doesn't matter!" There was no anger in his voice now, only panic. "I went to them. It was my fault. I'm sorry!"
"It's okay," George mumbled, wiping at his eyes with the heel of his hand. "It's fine. It's good that you told me."
He was silent for another few moments, trying to collect himself enough to keep talking. Later, much later, he could go home and sob it all out to Sebastian like some heartbroken teenager, but he wasn't going to make his brother feel bad about telling him the truth.
"I know that what I'm doing makes me a hypocrite," George said, still carefully studying the floor tiles. "I'm so sorry, especially that I made you feel bad about yourself."
Patrick had made George cry.
It made Patrick cry.
He sniffled and then he shook his head, reaching his hand out to George yet again. "No. Well...okay a little bit... But-it doesn't matter!"
Patrick shook his head. "George, come back. Come back up here. Look. I may have gone because of something you said, but it was me who decided. And you're one of the reasons I would never do it again. You're one of the reasons I want to get through this. You're worth all the shit, George. You mean more to me than all of that. Which is why I am going to panic about you smoking opium."
George wiped his eyes one more time, a quick, sharp movement, and sat in the same spot on Patrick's bed that he had been, feeling huge and awkward and completely inadequate.
"I'm actually sort of panicking about me smoking opium," George said, tugging at the fraying thread on the cuff of his jacket and not meeting Patrick's eyes. "I wake up every morning with this little voice in my head saying 'Hey! You're an idiot!', and I'm pretty sure it's the voice of reason, and it continues on throughout the day, and I'm afraid of Opium sometimes and-"
George shook his head, cutting himself off. "Sorry. I'm sorry. This isn't about me."
"It sure as hell is now," Patrick said in a firm voice. He was definitely less guilt-ridden and panicky when he was focusing on someone else. He could be firm and attempt to be reassuring.
"George," Patrick reached out and he pulled George towards him quite hard, but not roughly. "I don't think- No...argh. I don't like it. But I guess I get why you're doing it. If I had someone I loved as much as you love Sebastian I would do anything I could to keep them safe too. Even something I knew wasn't really all that safe. I don't like it. But I love you. Both of you. Will you tell me if anything bad happens?"
George was still feeling badly off-balance, and he gladly curled around Patrick. It had long been his philosophy that it was hard to feel at your worst in the middle of a hug.
"Yeah," he said, nodding against Patrick's shoulder. "It hasn't been bad so far, not really. Sebastian trusts him, and that makes me feel weird and paranoid for being afraid. But he can, like, play around in someone's mind if he wanted to, once they've inhaled enough opium. Make them forget things, make them do things. I don't like giving that kind of power to someone I don't even trust all that much."
"He can what!?" Patrick said, panicking anew even though alcohol could probably do that to him if she wanted to.
"George! I- I don't want to lose you. He can't take you away from me, can he?!"
"Hey, no, it's okay, you won't," George said, hugging Patrick tightly. Hopefully, reassuring Patrick would help reassure himself, too. "When Sebastian went to him, it was just him and me in the city. Now there's tons of us here, and you guys would notice if we went missing. And I don't think Opium would do that, anyway. There wouldn't be a point, with us doing it willingly."
The idea of George going missing was terrifying enough. If Patrick tried to contact George and he was unable to, he would flip out and send Michael out looking for him.
Which probably meant that things would be just fine.
"Right, I...I really don't like this, George," he said again. "But I'm starting to understand how you can not hate me for doing the things I do..."
"Patrick, listen to me," George said, moving a little so he could look Patrick in the eye. "I could never hate you, all right? No matter what you did, and not for any of this. We can help each other get through our...somewhat questionable addictive substance choices together, okay?"
Patrick nodded, not looking away from George for a second so his brother could see he meant it. "Okay, George. Together." And then he buried his face in George's shoulder again, his arms around George who was lying beside him. He didn't care that he was wearing a hospital gown while cuddled up to his bear of a brother. All that mattered was that George was there.
Joseph had been one of Neil's emergency contacts since they had been friends for years and Neil didn't want his family contacted...ever. Joseph had been the person they had contacted when Neil died and now it was up to him to pass on the news.
And then he had heard Patrick was in hospital from some angry man when he had called Patrick's mobile.
To say Joey was in a tizzy was understating it.
Joseph barged into Patrick's room, not even thinking about knocking. One friend was dead and another had a head injury and one tended to forget about social niceties. When he found Patrick cuddled up to a rather attractive and large man, Joey felt confused, jealous and a little horrible that he was going to have to break poor Patrick's heart now.
"Oh god, I'm so sorry. I'm such a dick- Hi there..."
Patrick lifted his head in shock when he heard someone in the room and when he saw Joseph standing there, he suddenly felt a little exposed.
He was glad he had blankets over himself so the open back of his hospital gown wasn't welcoming Joseph to Ward A.
"Joey! Uhm...hello. This is my brother, George." Patrick said, inclining his head towards George and then regretting it because it hurt.
"Your brother, hmm? Hi, I'm Joey and I work with Patrick at the shelter sometimes." Joey smiled coyly at George and then he remembered why he was there and lost all interest in flirting with the very attractive man who may or may not have been Patrick's secret lover.
"How are you feeling?" When Patrick shrugged, Joey sighed inwardly. "Patrick...I'm so sorry. They called me about an hour ago. It's...Neil. He's gone, man. I'm so sorry."
Patrick felt like he had gone numb and then he felt his chest tighten. It was like he couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe at all.
Poor Neil. Poor little, kind-hearted Neil who had never hurt anyone and who had been so hurt himself. Lucifer had done this to Neil to taunt Patrick and instead of being by Neil's side while he died, Patrick had gone out drinking and got himself in trouble.
Patrick covered his mouth with his hand which he balled into a fist. He bit down hard on the first to keep from crying, but his attempt to thrwart his sobs only meant that they forced themselves out, tearing at his throat on their way.
"Oh, God, why, this is all my fault," Patrick said in Irish, and then he grabbed his pillow and hid underneath it, sobbing there in the dark for the friend he had gotten killed with his own callousness.
George's Irish was rusty, to say the least, but he understood the grief in Patrick's voice just fine. He practically picked Patrick up, holding his brother against him and petting his hair.
"No, Patty, shhh," George murmured. In grammatically bad Irish, he said, "Patrick, you can't blame yourself for what they did. They did this."
Joseph had no idea what was happening, but he hung out awkwardly near the door while Patrick and his brother spoke in tongues.
Patrick peered at George from under his pillow, sniffling and horrified. Then he buried his face in George's chest and he said, "they did it because of me."
"Yeah, they did," George said, still petting Patrick's hair. "But you didn't force them to do anything. They chose to hurt Neil, and they'll answer to God eventually for it."
And in the meantime, he'd take care of Patrick.