Who: Patrick, Michael, and George What: You have been re-soulenated When: After George's re-emergence from Hell Where: Evil!Patrick's grotty apartment Warnings: Probably swearsies and ickiness. And Evil!Patrick's lady of the night.
The apartment that Patrick had killed Saint David in has proved adequate even though Patrick had flat out told George the address. Killing Saint David and being the only one who knew where all the parts of him were hidden was excellent protection, or so he thought. They couldn't kill him, or they wouldn't get David back.
It was probably fortunate that having an overwhelming abundance of pride meant that he was very easy to find and he wasn't afraid of George and Michael when they came through his door. He was on his sofa, doing a woman he had paid from behind.
When the door opened, the poor woman cried out and jumped away from him. Patrick straightened up, kneeling on the sofa, stark naked. He scowled at the woman who started grabbing for her clothes. "I wasn't finished!" he hissed at her.
"You didn't pay me for company!" she yelled back at him. And, half-dressed, she ran out of the apartment.
Patrick turned to his brother and Michael and he arched the eyebrow over his good eye. "Well thanks for that!" he said, sounding more frustrated than worried that two large and powerful men had walked into his home with business-like looks on their faces. "What do you want?!"
All George could really feel was exasperation as the woman ran past them. Exasperation and a strong desire not to look at Patrick until he was wearing pants.
"For you to put on some jeans," George snapped, arms crossed over his chest.
Patrick grumbled at George, but he complied. He grabbed his jeans and he shoved himself back into them, muttering all the while about how if they'd just been five...no ten...no a half hour later then he would have been finished and he would have been a hell of a lot happier. Just in general. He pulled a black t-shirt on as well and then he sniffed it to see if it was dirty. It wasn't so bad.
"All dressed now, you pansy ass saint," he said, holding his arms up in an expression of 'ta da!'. "Afraid you'd be distracted, were you?"
"Good," George said, smiling thinly. Then he cocked his fist back and punched Patrick squarely across the jaw.
There'd have been a time when hurting his brother, or even hurting something that used to be his brother, would have been unbearable. But times had changed.
"I have a present for you."
"FUCK you," Patrick yelled at him, cupping his sore jaw. He stepped towards the curtain which was hanging down, separating the living room from the dining room. He yanked the curtain open, revealing the table he had killed David on, stained with his dried blood. "Remember I killed your brother!" he growled. "So unless you're here to deal or you brought me another whore, I am not interested!"
Michael stared at the dried blood on the table for a moment and then he finally stepped forward.
Patrick took a step backwards.
"Stay behind George there, buddy," Patrick warned him. "If you want David back, you can't hurt me. And I'm not just going to tell you."
Michael didn't argue, he just jumped to action, pouncing on Patrick like a jungle cat. Patrick whirled around, but Michael was too fast for him. He slammed a fist into Patrick's side and while Patrick doubled over, Michael grabbed the saint's arms and pulled them backwards.
"Now, George!" Michael yelled.
George pulled the small jar containing Patrick soul out of the backpack he'd been carrying. He looked down at it for a moment, seeing the way it seemed to grow brighter in proximity to Patrick.
Satan's words echoed back at him. "I didn't know you had this sort of cruelty in you."
"I'm sorry," George said, voice dangerously close to cracking. And then he threw the jar to the ground at Patrick's feet.
It shattered, and Patrick was quite suddenly engulfed in light.
Patrick realised what was about to happen to him seconds before it did. He gasped and then screamed, "No!" but before he could even struggle, his soul was surrounding him, prying it's way back inside his body.
He felt the hold on him release and the floor rushed up to meet with his side. He fell into the broken glass and he hardly noticed. Patrick groaned and he rolled onto his back so he could breathe. He felt like he was being smothered and pulled apart and put back together all at once.
Another scream escaped Patrick's lips and then he fell silent, lying there on the floor of his dingy squat.
Michael knelt beside Patrick, trying to see if the glass has seriously injured him.
Patrick flinched when Michael's hand reached to lift up his shirt. "Wh-" Patrick opened his eyes and raised his head. "Michael? Ow...ow, what happened?" he said, pulling up his own shirt then and glancing down at his now bleeding side.
He didn't remember yet. His soul was back in his body and Patrick was Patrick again, but he didn't remember the things he had done.
Patrick looked up and he saw George standing above him. He looked strange. And Patrick couldn't see him very well. He reached up to touch the patch over his now missing eye. "...wh- George?"
George felt something waver in him, like a hairline crack running through him that was growing wider by the second. He knelt down next to Patrick's head.
Keep it together, he told himself. Just for a little longer.
"Are you injured?"
George was sitting beside him and Patrick turned to look at him. "I don't know," he whispered. "My eye-"
"It was taken from you," Michael grumbled, reaching for a piece of glass that was jutting from Patrick's side. It was small and Michael pulled it out and then he pulled a bandage out of his pocket and he tried to mop up the blood with it.
Patrick gasped at little at the pain, but he kept his eye focused on George. "Someone took my eye?! Someone-" Patrick paused, his face frozen as if he was remembering something.
"Georgie, where am I?" he asked, reaching out for his brother's hand, injuries or no.
"Here," George said, voice strange as he handed Michael the roll of bandages he'd brought with him in the bag. They'd been anticipating injuries.
Keep it together, keep it together, keep it together-
"The apartment you've been staying at," George said, letting Patrick take his hand. Patrick, this was Patrick, this was his brother on the floor in front of him.
Keep it together, keep it together, keepittogether
Patrick gave George's hand a squeeze and then he dropped it as if it had burned him.
An image of cutting into George's flesh just passed before his eyes.
Patrick stared straight ahead as Michael continued to pick bits of glass out of his side and patched him up with the help of George.
"I've been staying here? W- Why do I smell?" Patrick asked and then his jaw dropped. "Oh...oh no-"
Slowly, steadily, the memories of the things he had done over the last year and change came back to him. "Stop!" Patrick hissed at Michael and George. "Stop it!" Patrick pushed them both away from him and he crawled backwards, shrinking away. He wrapped his arms around himself and he stared at the ground, his eyes wide and terrified.
It all came back. Torturing George and Sebastian. Being tortured by the denizens of Hell. Having his eye taken. Raping Agatha. Taunting his brothers.
Killing David.
Patrick slammed a hand over his mouth but it wasn't enough to keep himself from vomiting all over the floor in front of him.
Keepittogetherkeepittogetherkeepittogether-
Fuck it.
"Patty," George said, voice raw as if he'd been screaming. "Patty, it's going to be okay."
Patrick felt like his stomach was turning inside out. He felt dizzy and sick and wrong and-
A sob escaped his lips when he had nothing left to vomit, and Patrick covered his face, turning away from them. "Oh god no!" he wailed. His heart was shattered.
He remembered the deal. He had gone to Lucifer and Satan to ask to just sleep. He had been in such anguish and he had wanted it to stop. He had signed his soul away hoping for oblivion. Instead he had gotten Hell.
"Agatha!" Patrick cried out, mourning for his friend. His friend he had broken. "Oh...oh god, Dewi!"
George was breathing heavily, and he knew he was about to cry. For the past several months, he'd refused to cry, fought off every hint of tears. And now...
Yeah. Fuck it. He curled his legs up, rested his forehead against them, and just started to cry.
He was very, very tired.
"You need to tell us where you put David," George said, his voice hitching a little.
Where he had put David. When he had choked the life out of his little brother and then cut him into pieces and sent George the head.
Patrick would have vomited again, but there was nothing left so he dry heaved in the middle of a sob.
Michael, who patted George's shoulder as he walked by, knelt beside Patrick. "Saint Patrick, I know this is hard but the sooner you tell me where David is, the sooner he will be back."
David had forgiven him. Patrick had wrapped his hands around David's neck and David had raised his hands to Patrick's face and choked out the word 'forgive' before the life had left his eyes.
Patrick gasped for air and then he tried to focus. Dewi. Think about Dewi. Oh god, what have I done?
"There's-" Patrick gulped. "I...in the freezer over there. M-most of him. A-and some I...I buried. Outside Saint Pa- the cathedral. Oh god. George." Patrick looked towards his crying big brother. "George, I'm so sorry."
"We just have to get him back," George muttered, not bothering to wipe his eyes. He felt strange, disjointed, like some tension he'd held within him had snapped violently.
He wondered if he was about to throw up.
"It's going to be okay," George repeated numbly. "We just have to put him back together."
They just had to put him back together? And then everything would be okay?
Somehow, Patrick didn't think that was the case. He could hardly breathe through his panic. He had sold his soul and done unimaginable things. "It's not going to be okay," Patrick whispered, wiping frantically at his face. "George- How could you-" Patrick made himself stop speaking, because at that moment, he remembered cutting into George's flesh and screaming at him to give up his soul too. He his behind his hands again, curling in on himself in horror.
In retrospect, it might have been a better idea for George to leave the room for a while, considering that neither of them were in a very balanced mental state.
Instead, George surged to his feet, furious, and picked Patrick up by his shirt. He slammed his back against the wall.
"It's going to be fine, Patrick," George growled, "because it never being fine again makes all this for nothing."
Patrick squealed when George, who was stronger and far bigger than he, picked him up and slammed him back against the wall. He cried out with pain at the sudden contact with the wall, and instead of reacting with anger or amusement has he would have for the past year, Patrick reacted with genuine fear.
"Ow! I'm sorry!" Patrick squeaked quickly, willing himself not to cry, lest that anger George more. His throat ached with the effort. "I'm sorry, I'll show you where Dewi is, please! Please don't hurt me, George, please!"
George dropped Patrick just as quickly as he'd grabbed him, feeling the bile rise in his throat.
"I'm not-" he swallowed, trying again. "I'm not going to hurt you. Just...come on. Let's get in the car, okay? You can show us where David is."
Patrick curled his hand in his shirt over his head which was racing and breaking all at once. He nodded quickly, refusing to look at George now. He was too afraid to panic or feel or do anything that he might consider wrong. He already had to deal with what he had done; he didn't want broken bones on top of that.
"Okay," he said, breathless. "Okay, we...I'll show you. Part of him is in...he's in there," Patrick gestured towards his freezer.
George nodded, swallowing a few times. He was going to throw up, he could feel it already.
"All right. We'll leave the...pieces in there for now." He glanced at Michael. "I'm going to be in the car."
George got all the way to the stairwell before he started retching.
Patrick watched George leave and then he turned to Michael who was watching him silently.
Indignant anger rose up inside Patrick's aching chest and he hissed, "where were you?! Aren't you supposed to stop things like this from happening!?"
"I'm sorry, Patrick," Michael said, indeed sounding sorry. "I didn't get to you in time to stop you signing your soul over. But the fault of that does lie with you."
"I thought I was just going to sleep!" Patrick yelled. "I didn't- Oh , God, I didn't ever think this would happen! How did He let this happen!"
"I think," Michael said, putting a hand on Patrick's shoulder so that Patrick immediately stopped screaming and instead smouldered away quietly, "that it would be best if we hurried. They will hear your soul has been returned to you, Patrick. They will retaliate."
Patrick went muted and he let Michael lead him out of the apartment. When they reached George on the stairs, Patrick just stared at his brother, unable to help. When he looked at George, he saw the man he had hurt in so many unimaginable ways. All his instincts told him to hug George and to kiss his hair and to tell him they would save David and it would be okay. But they were saving David from him.
Comfort wasn't his to give.
It did make him think of something else, however. "Saint Peter. They...they have Peter."
"Tell us on the way," Michael informed him, reaching out to pat George's back.
George worried for a moment about having thrown up in the stairwell. After glancing around it for a few seconds, he realized there was a good bet that no one that lived here would really notice. He followed Michael and Patrick out of the building silently.
When they reached the car, George slid his hand around the back of Patrick's neck and pulled him into the backseat of the car with him. He was actually barely aware that he was doing it, operating on an autopilot of some kind. Keep Patrick with me. His grip was tight, but he was sort of petting Patrick's hair with his thumb.
This was possibly what a psychotic break looked like. George didn't really care.
"We've got his head with us," George said flatly, nudging the cooler with his toe.
Patrick squeaked when George grabbed him, but he didn't struggle. He let himself be dragged into the back seat, though he did shy away from the cooler which held David's head in it.
"We're going to the cathedral," Patrick told Michael, who climbed into the driver's seat and started the car.
Patrick turned to his brother who was still holding him. "George...what are you doing?"
"I don't know," George said, turning to look at Patrick and not letting go of him. After a moment of staring, he turned to look out the window.
"We're all living in a house outside the city now," George said, watching the streets pass. "You probably shouldn't go in first."
Patrick's head snapped around and he turned to look at George. "Don't take me there!" Then he reached out, gripping the seat. "Michael, don't take me there!"
"I am taking you to the cathedral at the moment so we can retrieve Saint David."
"I don't want to go," Patrick hissed, ignoring Michael's words. How the hell was he supposed to face everyone after- "I'll just...I'll find other place to stay!"
"They will be coming after you," Michael informed them as he drove.
"I don't care," Patrick growled. "I really don't care. I'll tell you where David is and how to save Peter but after that- They can have me."
"Patrick," George said calmly, tightening his grip on the back of Patrick's neck like he was about to pick up a misbehaving kitten, "do you know how I got your soul back? It's a fun story. I went into Hell. So I'd really appreciate if you didn't throw all my hard work away."
Patrick winced at the feeling of George tightening his grip. George had snapped his neck once. In the park. Patrick felt he had deserved that and he wished George had done it sooner.
And then George spoke and if Patrick didn't think his heart could break any more, he was wrong. "You...you went to Hell for me? You went to Hell so you could-" Patrick breathed out shakily.
He wanted to hug George now, despite the constant memories of torturing him for days. The last time he had been here, in control of his body, he had been a very affectionate person and George had always been the same. Everything was different now, but Patrick couldn't stop himself.
"I-" He couldn't say thank you. But he did try to pull George into an awkward, backseat hug.
George was so startled that he almost squeezed down dangerously hard on Patrick's neck. He stopped himself just in time, and instead carefully hugged Patrick back.
"I missed you," he murmured. And that probably went without saying, but it seemed important to say anyway.
Just hearing poor George, George who had fought through Hell for him, say those words was enough to make Patrick start sobbing all over again. He buried his face into George's shoulder and he curled his fists in George's shirt and he sobbed that George had ever had to miss him, let alone deal with something that wasn't him walking around hurting so many people George loved.
Michael cleared his throat uncomfortably. "We're getting close," he informed them.
"I'm so sorry," Patrick cried against his brother.
"I'm sorry too," George sobbed out, practically yanking Patrick against him. And God, he'd be embarassed to be crying in front of Michael in any other situation. But this was his baby brother, back from the dead, and George could see some kind of light at the end of the long, terrible tunnel he'd been in. "So, so sorry."
Things wouldn't be perfect. Never even close to perfect. But Patrick was back, and George felt a little closer to sanity.