Saint Patrick ☘ (shamrocked_) wrote in nevermore_logs, @ 2011-01-08 11:24:00 |
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Entry tags: | saint george, saint patrick |
Who: Patrick and George
What: So...uhm...about this torture you apparently did to me...
When: Friday night
Where: George and Sebastian's place
Warning: Talk of torture
Patrick had remembered being tortured by George and he had to know whether or not it was a real memory. He didn't want to believe it was. The memory of it turned his stomach even as he made his way to George and Sebastian's. How could George have caused him such pain?
It had to be someone messing with him. The Morrigna maybe? Or Aine. Someone. It had to be someone because it couldn't be true.
When Patrick arrived at the apartment, he knocked and he waited, farther away from the door than he would usually stand. George usually hugged him when he answered the door, and Patrick didn't know if he could handle it right now. He was glad George was small still, even if he was worried for George. It was better that George wasn't his usual hulking self while Patrick was afraid of him.
George glanced up when he heard the knock at the door, dropping his comic book on the floor. Sebastian was out running errands (George had been more or less banned from leaving the apartment until he was of a normal size), and this would be a perfect time for someone to attack.
Or maybe it was just a normal visitor.
Standing on his tiptoes, George peered out the peephole. He sighed in relief that it was just Patrick.
"Hey you!" George said, throwing the door open.
"Hi," Patrick said warily, hanging back away from George. He put his hands up so George wouldn't hug him, though now he felt guilty because George looked so tiny. If he made puppy-dog eyes, Patrick might just break.
"Uhm...can I come in, George?"
He had been seconds from launching a hug at Patrick when his brother put his hands up. George frowned a little, since he'd never known Patrick not to want a hug, but he stepped aside and let his brother in the door.
"Sure. Is, uh, everything okay?"
Patrick sort of bustled in through the door, and then he realised George was between him and the door and that he didn't like at all. He felt ill, and Patrick wrapped his arms around his stomach.
"I don't- I don't know. George, I uhm...I remembered something. I mean, I think I did. But it's uhm, quite scary. And uhm...about you."
He'd also never known Patrick to care much about personal space. Which made him keeping several feet between himself and George all the more worrying.
And then Patrick spoke, and George felt something close to terror. Patrick sounded afraid. Patrick sounded afraid of him.
"Um, what was it?" George asked hesitantly.
Patrick expelled a shaky breath and he looked at George for a few seconds before looking away because George looked so small and worried and all Patrick wanted to do was hug him.
"George?" Patrick asked in a tiny voice. "Uhm...did-" Patrick groaned and he rubbed his eyes. He had been in bed for three days and he was still so tired. And now this. It was hard to say. How did one ask such a question of their brother they loved more than anything. "I remembered you torturing me. But it wasn't real was it? It was a fake memory, right?"
He so wanted to be told it was a false memory and it had never happened and everything be okay forever.
"You..." George took a step back to grab onto the back of the couch. "You don't remember?"
And some part of George wanted to say that of course Patrick didn't remember, because Patrick didn't seem to remember anything that had happened then. But that had been something so huge, something that had stuck with George for so long...
You remember too much, and all of the wrong things, he thought to himself.
As George didn't deny it, Patrick felt his knees go a little weak. His head spun a little and he thought he might vomit again. Instead he moved over to a chair so he could sit down, still holding himself tightly.
The memory hadn't been clear or complete. But he remembered George whipping him and cutting him and burning him. He didn't remember George being as careful with him as he could. He didn't remember the circumstances or the drugs. He remembered his fingers breaking and the look on George's face. The look that was pain, which Patrick mistook for something else. Something aimed at him.
"George," Patrick whispered. "George, why?"
"How much do you--" George shook his head. He wanted to go to Patrick, and he knew that would be a bad idea. "Okay. I'm just going to assume you don't really remember anything. Besides that it happened."
He looked down, biting at his lip. "It was the 1540s. Henry VIII had broken away from the church, and was on to wife number five. Henry was trying to arrest Cardinal Pole. Um, Reginald Pole. He'd arrested most of the Cardinal's family by that point. You were helping priests and other Catholics to hide from the pseudo-witch hunts. I was a double agent, I guess. See, the monarchy knew who I was, had known who I was for centuries. And Henry knew that my loyalties were torn between England and the Church. He didn't trust me."
George decided standing was for people who weren't currently explaining why they tortured their brothers. He slide down the back of the couch onto the floor and drew his knees up under his chin. "They caught you. Or you let yourself get caught to let the Cardinal escape. They brought you to the Tower and were going to torture. We saw a way...a way to kill two birds with one stone. I could win Henry's trust by torturing an enemy of England, and we could keep you safe. Relatively safe, anyway."
Patrick listened though at the beginning all he had wanted to do was run out of the apartment and return to John's arms so he could cry that apparently his big brother was mean. But by the end of George's explanation, Patrick didn't want to run any more.
"Oh," Patrick breathed, and then he slid from the chair as well, ending up on his knees on the floor. He shuffled a little closer to George, though he still left some distance between them. "I really did all that? And then you-" Patrick chewed on his lip for a moment. "You did it to help yourself or to keep me safe? And uhm...I'm sorry, George, but how did torturing me keep me safe?"
"We did it to protect the people Henry was after," George said, picking at a stray thread on his jeans. "If I'd have had my way, I'd have broken you out of the Tower and made a run for it. But being in Henry's good graces meant I could persuade him away from some of his more...insane ideas. And give you a head's-up when they were planning to start grabbing people."
He glanced at his brother. "And Henry had some pretty good torturers working for him. There was a chance they could make you talk. Whereas I fed you enough opium to sedate a horse and tried to make it painless. It was all I could do."
Patrick's jaw actually dropped then, and he stared at George in disbelief. "I took...opium?" Though he supposed if he was being tortured he couldn't really blame himself. "George-" Patrick whispered, inching closer to his brother again. "You didn't do it to hurt me? It wasn't...because I was Irish or...expendable or something horrible like that?"
"It was basically the only painkiller worth a damn that existed back then," George said with a shrug. "If there'd been something closer and more legal at the time, I'd have given you that."
His head shot up at Patrick's next words, and despite not wanting to possibly scare his brother, he had to move closer. "Patrick, no! Hurting you killed me. I never forgave Henry for any of it, and I...I had a hard time forgiving myself, even when you told me to. I would never want to hurt you, Patty."
Patrick reached out for George's hand then. George looked so distraught and Patrick couldn't let him stay that way, no matter what. "I'm sorry," he said then, though his voice was still a little weak. "You just looked so...angry."
George practically threw himself at Patrick, wrapping him in a hug. It was easier to do now that he was smaller.
"I was angry at myself, and at Henry, and at everyone helping him," George muttered against Patrick's shoulder. "But never at you, Patty."
Patrick hugged George right back, keeping tight hold on his brother now that he wasn't afraid of him. "It scared me," Patrick admitted. "Seeing you like that. I don't remember pain at all, just watching you doing horrible things to me. I suppose...I have you to thank for not remembering pain. Though I...god, I always thought the scars on my back were from my captivity. Not from my brother." Patrick's scars were faint. You had to squint to see them. But they hadn't always been. As recently as twenty years ago, they had been much more visible. And those, he remembered.
"You still have the scars?" George asked, horrified. "Seriously? I would have thought...I mean, all of my injuries usually heal without a scar. Yours are still there?"
Patrick nodded silently and then he reached out for George's hand. "Not very much. But you can see them if you look hard. But that's why I assumed they were from my captivity. Because people remember that. And maybe they are, George, but I have no way of knowing now..."
"I hope it's from when you were a slave," George blurted out. He winced, because wow, did that ever sound insensitive. "I'm sorry, I just--I don't want to have scarred you. I don't want that to be the one permanent reminder of me that you've got."
"You hope-!?" Patrick shook his head. He knew what his brother meant, and now that George had explained the torture, Patrick wasn't afraid of him any more. He didn't like it, but George apparently didn't either.
"George," Patrick breathed. "The permanent reminder of you I have is how happy I am every time I hear your voice. And how calm you make me feel-with...the exception of today-when I am with you. Unless the aim is to feel hyper or excited. I...I never have to worry about being who I am around you, George. I don't have to worry about you judging my alcoholism or the stupid choices I've made. You listen to me go on and on about John. All of that is the reminder I have of you, okay? I never want to go away from you again. Ever. What do scars matter anyway?"
And that pretty much guaranteed another hug from George, complete with him almost climbing onto Patrick. He couldn't surround people with a hug anymore, and he was making up for it.
"I feel the same way about you, you know," George said, from where his head was buried against Patrick's shoulder. "I'd never want to hurt you." He smiled up at Patrick. "I hope you remember more about that whole time period, you know. We were pretty cool. Like spies."
Patrick chuckled at that as he held his tiny brother close. Then he looked down at the smiling George and he shook his head. "I was a spy? No way I was ever that cool!" Of course the thing he remembered first would be the most horrible thing.
"George, I spent the last few days in bed because I just couldn't move. I remembered a lot. Obviously...some of it not so pleasant. And I have to admit I'm sort of glad you're not huge right now because if you looked like you had then I don't know if I could have listened to you explain. I'm calm now though. And...you know...sorry you're still small." Patrick ruffled George's hair. "And yeah, a lot of stuff has been coming back to me."
"You were totally a spy," George said. "You snuck around and had a secret identity and protected priests."
George was reasonably certain he'd have made James Bond jokes throughout the whole ordeal, had 007 existed at the time. He reached out to revenge-ruffle Patrick's hair.
"No worries. I'm glad I'm still hobbit-sized if it makes things easier on you." He frowned at Patrick. "Have you really been in bed all this time? Are you all right?"
Patrick pointlessly smoothed his hair as he nodded. "I was in bed all that time, but I'm alright. John was with me. Er- That shouldn't sound like it was a fun time. Uhm. Mostly it was horrible, but I wasn't alone. I sort of didn't realise that going to street parties is like an addiction as well. And I can get high on it, but then I have to come down too. And it felt horrid, but I remembered a lot of things. And...not all of them were about torture. You've forgiven yourself for what happened by now, right?"
George gaped at his brother.
"Patrick, that's terrible! You have withdrawals from parties?" It made George want to wrap his brother up in another hug and not let him go until life was a little less mean to Patrick. "And, yeah, I'm okay. I mean, I don't like to think about it. Ever. But seeing you alive and okay and getting to hang out with you afterwards made it a lot better."
Patrick kissed George's hair and then he shrugged. "Not all parties. The big ones. Like parades and stuff. Since parades are part of my worship, I got a little crazy and then...well, I suffered the consequences. I'm alright though. I actually spent a long time in prayer and it was really good. And I'm glad you're better too. And...sort of sorry I burst in here and accused you of things. I should...I should have known you wouldn't hurt me on purpose, George. I'm sorry."
"Are you all right now?" George asked, still worried. "You've eaten, haven't you? Do you need to eat, because we have tons of food here."
He shrugged. "It's okay. If I suddenly got some really vivid memory of someone whipping me, I don't think I'd be very calm about it either."
Patrick leaned his head down on his older brother's shoulder for a moment, letting himself feel taken care of. Even though George was smaller now than Patrick, he was still Patrick's big brother.
"John fed me," Patrick said to calm George down. He lifted his head and he looked slightly guilty. "And then I threw up because I- ahem." The sudden and vivid memory of someone whipping him had made him significantly less than calm and vomit sometimes happened when Patrick wasn't calm. "And then John fed me again before letting me leave the house. I won't say no to food though. I mean, I don't need it, but it's been a few days so I feel like eating everything in the world." And just maybe George needed to take care of Patrick right now in the wake of having his brother remember something terrible that had happened between them. And Patrick was more than happy to oblige.
"Hmph," George said, keeping his arms wrapped around Patrick. "Then you clearly need like a ton more food."
He got up, pulling Patrick to his feet and hustling him over to the sofa. He was going to get Patrick food, because feeding Patrick would make some of the terrible residual guilt go away.
"You were so happy to eat when you got out of the Tower," George said over his shoulder, standing on his toes to grab some of the chips and pretzels in the cabinets. "I think you ate enough food for three people. Everyone at the safehouse was seriously impressed, because you looked too skinny to pack all that food in."
Patrick hadn't remembered anything else about being in the Tower of London, but as George spoke about it, Patrick went a little pale and he felt just a tad ill. Patrick had a lot of food issues, and he kept reading that he used to fast quite a bit during his life and with the exception of the past few days, he couldn't imagine doing that now. He didn't eat much when he was worried, but most of the time, he ate quite a bit and burned it off by having the energy of a tiny child.
He ate because it reminded him he could. He was no one's slave. No one could keep him from eating when he was hungry.
"George," Patrick breathed. "How long was I there? How skinny could I have gotten?"
George dumped the bags of pretzels and chips on the coffee table, then went back to the kitchen to get bowls, salsa, and cheese dip. This was therapeutic junkfood, and therefore served an important purpose.
"A couple of months," George said, sitting down on the other end of the couch from Patrick. "Not quite a year, but close. I tried to get your case hurried through the courts so you'd be out faster, but red tape was red tape even back then."
George wasn't sure if Patrick remembered the circumstances under which he'd left the Tower. Namely, that he'd been dead and headless. George was going to need to ease into that, probably.
Patrick stared down at his hands and he curled them up into fists. The sleeves of his sweater came down over his hands and he looked handless then. Patrick stared at his sleeves for a moment before saying, "almost a year, hmm? Jesus. Oh, I really need to stop saying that as an exclamation. His cousin is my boyfriend. A year is long though. I...I had no idea. And no wonder I wanted to eat everything in sight. I-" Patrick narrowed his eyes, making his 'I'm remembering something' face.
"When I got home from Ireland that first time, my family- they were shocked to see me because they had believed I was dead or lost forever. And then they were shocked at the state of me. I think I ate everything I possibly could then too." At that, Patrick reached out and he took a handful of pretzels because he couldn't not.
"If anything, that gives you more of a right to say his name," George said, pouring out some salsa into a bowl and opening one of the bags of tortilla chips. "Except maybe not when you'd prefer no one was looking in." George smiled at Patrick. "I bet they were so happy to see you."
Under normal circumstances, Patrick might had laughed and explained that John's cousin's name may have almost slipped out a few times when he would prefer no one else was looking in, but more important things were being discussed.
"My mother cried," Patrick said wistfully, as if he had just remembered. And he had. "For days. I was twenty one then. She had last seen me when I was sixteen. She wasn't there when I was taken so she came home to find me gone. I remember, she didn't let me out of her sight, but the feeling was mutual there. I didn't want to be out of her sight either. I wish I'd brought my tape recorder," Patrick groaned. "John bought me one. So I can record the things I remember to write down later. Doesn't matter. I don't know why I'm remembering this but not the stuff about the Tower. I just can't- There's just nothing. I mean...torture, but then nothing."
Patrick smiled at the tone in Patrick's voice, the expression on his face. Patrick hadn't talked much about his family in the past. But then, he'd probably never assumed he'd forget them. That brought George's memories of his own parents, and he looked to the side for a moment.
"Maybe it's easier for you to remember things that brought up strong emotions?" George suggested. "Your time in the Tower definitely wasn't fun, but I think it was pretty boring. Just the same thing, day after day. Do you, uh, remember how you ended up getting out?"
Patrick looked up at George and that reminded him there was food on the table in front of them. He grabbed a chip and loaded it with salsa, eating it before he answered. "No. Did you do some kind of awesome spy jail break thing?"
Yikes.
"Not exactly." George stuffed several chips in his mouth to buy himself some time. "So, by the time this was all happening, we'd both been saints for a long time. We knew that we tend to bounce back from little things like death as long as our bodies are reasonably intact and all." Otherwise, coming back tended to take much longer than just a few minutes.
"And by that point we'd both been through so much to avoid letting anyone know who you really were. So, uh, you kind of got out by-" he said the next part very quickly "-execution by decapitation."
Patrick stared at George for a moment, frozen in the middle of bringing a chip to his face. He sat there and then he put the chip back in the bag and turned to face George again. "Wait, like...full on execution? In front of people!? With...the axe and the black hood and the people throwing vegetables?!"
"They weren't throwing vegetables!" George said quickly. "But yeah. Black hood, the whole shebang. And then I went and got your head, got your body, and we headed out to someplace with food. Food and a distinct lack of executioners."
Patrick screwed his face up at the idea of George collecting his body parts. "Ew. I mean...I'd do it for you, but gross. Collecting my body parts. It doesn't sound like fun. Not that...beheading does. Was I...okay about it?" Patrick bit his lip. "I mean, was I afraid?"
"It was easier than torturing you," George said. He figured this might be an inappropriate time to eat more salsa. "You were very brave. I think you just wanted it to be over, you know? It was months out of your life that you'd spent in the Tower, and they hadn't been fun. You wanted to get back to work."
"Back to the work that got me in there in the first place?" Patrick looked both impressed and horrified. "Well that's...terribly clever. But I'm not surprised really. So I was okay? I mean, after torture and death, the food and the safe place were enough and I was alright?"
"You'll be happy to know that you never had a sense of self-preservation," George laughed. "You went right back to work. I'm not sure how you were after the torture. I didn't get to see you again until I came to tell you about your upcoming execution. You seemed okay. Just glad that it was over, you know?"
Patrick nodded quietly and somehow he was glad George hadn't seen him after the torture. George had said he had given him drugs to keep the pain away, but drugs didn't last forever. He was glad he couldn't remember too.
"Thank you. For explaining. I sort of remembered while eating toast and I threw up and then I calmed down, but I knew I had to talk to you." Patrick leaned back against the sofa and he covered his face with his hands. "Argh. I'm so tired. I spent a week in bed and I'm tired."
George wrapped his arms around Patrick's shoulders. He wasn't exactly sure what would make this better, but hugging seemed to help. And it reassured him that Patrick was here and all right.
"You can always nap here on the couch," George said. "I fall asleep here all the time playing video games, so I know personally that it's comfy."
Patrick chuckled and he moved to lean his head against George's shoulder. "No, I'll be okay. I really will be okay. It was just a bad time that ended up being okay. Though I wouldn't say no to the video games..." Blowing off steam in such a ridiculous way seemed like a good idea.
"Then we'll fire up the video games and lay waste to zombies," George said, smiling a little and petting his brother's hair. After a moment, he added quietly, "I'd never want to hurt you, Patty. Never."
Patrick nodded quietly and he leaned into his brother's hand as George stroked his hair. "I believe you."