Archive of Our Own ^beta

It starts out with the whisper of a promise in the dark.

Words slip unbidden into Patrick’s mind, and that’s it – he has his first song.

It’s not great – of course it isn’t – but it’s something. It’s his first. And that night, when he goes to bed, he gives thanks, and somewhere else, in the darkness of potential, something hears him.

—

They say your first believer gives you shape. If they do, then Pete would like to have words with his.

Couldn’t they, at least, have made me taller, he thinks, but there’s no heat to the thought, just a familiar sort of fondness that he’d have trouble explaining to anyone who wasn’t at least part divine themselves.

Anyway, it could always be worse. Look at Manilow… look at Nickleback; what he lacks in height he makes up for in looks and charm, if he does say so himself, and his ass is fine. Still, he wouldn’t have turned down an extra couple of inches if he’d been asked.

He wishes he had a better range of musical skills as well. Music is important – he can feel that in his bones – but no matter how hard he tries he struggles with every instrument he picks up, and as for singing, the less said of that the better. Words, yeah. They flow like water. Sometimes it feels like he’s nothing but words, held together with skin and good intentions. But music? Well. He’s enthusiastic, but that’s really the best that can be said about his technical abilities. He’s got no idea why – his believer is clearly musical, they just… don’t seem to care if he is.

He’ll meet his believer one day – he’s sure of that – and he’ll ask. For now, though, there’s bands and shows in dark rooms, and even if he’s not the greatest bassist, he’s good enough to get a small handful of followers, and even that is belief of a sort.

It’s enough. Enough that he starts to grow, gets a sense of himself echoing back in the eyes of an audience. Enough that he’s not just shaped by one mind any more, and that’s more freedom than he’s had in a long while.

“Come back home with me,” says a girl with laughing dark eyes, and he does, his smile matching hers. He wakes up in the morning with a tattoo he’s never seen before winding around his neck.

He’s staring at it in the pitted glass of her bathroom mirror when she comes in, younger looking in daylight and without makeup.

“I like your ink,” she says, and bites at the skin of his shoulder, leaving a mark next to the art she created just by thinking it was there.

He’s not sure he cares. It’s another thing anchoring him to this world, and it lasts even after he’s sure he has passed from her memory.

It doesn’t happen all the time, just sometimes when he meets a fan whose interest burns more intensely than most, or after a show that resonates with the crowd, and he’ll come away with his hair different, a subtle change to the way he walks, a desire to dress differently and he knows that he is changing; becoming what is needed, is expected.

Somewhere in his head there’s still a sense of marking off days on a calendar, counting down to some nebulous deadline, but it’s almost comfortable. He’ll get there, he thinks. And until then, he’s going to damn well enjoy the ride.

—

In the end it takes him years to meet his believer, and by then Pete has managed to win himself quite the flock. It’s not like he’ll be challenging any of the big names any time soon, but that was never his scene anyway, and he has more than enough believers for a no-name trickster god.

His first believer has never gone away – Pete seems permanently aware of him on some level, even if he doesn’t really want to be – but they have yet to meet each other.

It’s got to the point where Pete isn’t even sure he wants to meet the guy any more, but that doesn’t stop him sending inspiration when he can, when the believer’s mind is open to him. It seems like a small enough price to pay, and he can feel the payback immediately, constantly. A tiny flame of devotion lighting up the darkness of his mind when things get hard.

And they do get hard. He’s not sure if it’s another fluke of being incarnate, like the height or the teeth, if it’s something his believer felt when he first pictured Pete, or if it’s a price he pays for being a god who’s chosen to live in the world rather than beyond it, but he’s fairly sure that the humans he meets don’t have the dizzying highs and deep lows that he does.

It starts to stabilize when he meets Joe, when the cloud of chaotic hair and enthusiastic movement from the pit of a show hangs around afterwards, and Pete looks into his eyes and there is the burn of instant recognition.

This is important, Pete knows. Joe is important. Not his believer – or not his first believer – but his worship is more substantial, more nourishing than anything else Pete has experienced from his music.

That fades. Of course it does. There is no way to sustain the hero-worship of a teenager when they get to know you, but it doesn’t vanish completely, and it’s replaced by the benefit of practical support. Like when Pete loses his licence and Joe becomes his personal driver, or when Pete agrees that they can start a band together and Joe begins bringing offerings from his mom to rehearsals.

Human sacrifice might have been all well and good for the old gods, Pete thinks, but he’d choose Mrs Trohman’s brownies any time.

So when he takes to the stage with Arma Angelus one night and screams a welcome to the kids in the crowd, he’s doing better than he ever has been. Still waiting, still wondering, but less frantic now, more present.

He’s not expecting anything other than the usual when he relaxes into performing, not intending anything other than to ride the high of the crowd and let it anchor him even more steadily to the world. So the shock of knowledge, that his believer is here, now is a revelation. The temptation to stop, to search through the crowd and winnow them – weigh who is worthy – is almost overwhelming. But he doesn’t. He could make some excuse about not letting the band down, being a professional, but the truth is it’s equal parts pride and fear.

This human – this kid if he’s anything like the rest of the room – has shaped him, and Pete owes him too much. The obligation nags at him. He wants to meet him – he needs to meet him – but he doesn’t want to feel like this. Like some sort of fucking supplicant.

No. He wants to even out the balance first. His believer has given him shape and purpose; he’s kept him going when the bright lights and sharp edges of being incarnate felt too hard to bear. All Pete has given is a scant few moments of inspiration and this half-assed show. Pete cares what this kid thinks, and he needs to make his believer feel that way too. There are ways he could force that, ways he could influence how the world moves on from here, but when it comes down to it, he chooses not to.

He wants his believer to want to meet him; he wants his believer to choose to worship him -– not because of smoke and mirrors and half-truths spun into something bigger through showmanship and tricks, but because he looks at Pete and sees something worth worshipping.

For the first time in his existence, he wants to have earned it.

So he sings his fucking heart out, throws himself around stage. Dances like nobody (or everybody) is watching, and hopes against hope that this is enough.

And afterwards, when the sweat is cooling on him backstage, he takes five minutes and reaches out. He can feel his believer there, familiar and loved, but has the strength of his devotion changed? Pete isn’t sure and he’s struggling to name his feelings. In the pitted reflection of the mirror, his eyes look almost bruised and when he reaches out towards it, his hand is trembling slightly.

He drops it and shivers. Outside the door he can hear his band. They’re shouting for him, and he can hear the clink of bottles, the hubbub of fans and girlfriends. It grounds him. He’s barely shaking by the time he opens the door, and by the time he’s drunk his first beer, the world has reclaimed him and he’s almost forgotten how he felt.

–

He’s reminded, with blinding clarity, the first time he meets Patrick. When he humors Joe and lets him drag them across town to the nicer areas of suburbia, when the front door opens and he sees a stranger who he knows as intimately as he knows himself, who he knows he would follow anywhere in the world if he would only ask.

Patrick, he thinks, blinking. The name suits him. And then he blinks again, takes in what Patrick is actually wearing, and yeah. His mouth takes over and any chance he had of making a good impression flies right out the window.

Patrick scowls, and that just makes things worse, because Pete is damned if he’ll show weakness now, and for a second he thinks this might be the only time they actually meet, because, seriously, this is not going well.

But then Patrick drums, and he’s good. More than good enough for what they need, but Pete… well. Gods test their believers, don’t they? He’s sure he’s read that somewhere, and even if he didn’t, there is something about Patrick that makes Pete want to ruffle him up and lay him open. So he gets Patrick to sing, and the future changes.

And if he was a good god he would leave it at this, but Pete is under no illusions about himself and he is the furthest thing from good.

He tests Patrick, torn between a dispassionate scientific interest he didn’t know he was capable of and a desperate hopefearhope of what this could become. He taunts and cajoles Patrick, and Patrick sings for him, keeps singing, sings during rehearsals and for Pete alone, again and again. He tempts Patrick with visions of the future and with the immediate rewards of belonging and friendship and Patrick joins the band. He tests and he tests, in every way he can think of, and then he sits back, assesses Patrick, tries to work out what effect this has had on his faith.

It burns as bright as ever, but it doesn’t increase, and Pete is disproportionately disappointed. For some reason he thought that getting to know him would increase his believer’s devotion, but now his believer is Patrick – his believer wears fucking disastrous clothes and even more ridiculous hats, his believer is a fucking musical genius with anger management issues, his believer is still in school and is already worried about his fucking hairline – and Pete isn’t quite sure how to process all this.

He’s Patrick’s – he’s accepted that as his central truth – but beyond that, Pete isn’t sure what to do. He watches Patrick, sitting in the corner of the garage they’re practicing in, frowning at a line of music and singing under his breath as he tries to make sense of it, and on some level far beyond the mundane realities of daily life Pete is blinded by his light, his beauty.

He’d be the envy of the other gods, he’s sure, if he knew any other gods he could talk to right now – or if he would be willing to let Patrick come to their greedy and capricious attentions.

—

“So, what are you up to at the weekend?”

Patrick blinks at his lab partner, momentarily distracted enough that there is nearly another acid related disaster to doom his grades.

“Dunno. Borders, maybe? Might catch a band if mom doesn’t want me to babysit.”

Nate shrugs. “Fun. So you’re not going to the party then?”

“Not my scene.” Patrick switches his attention back to the beaker in front of him, and frowns. Is it supposed to be the… purple thing now? Or (he squints) the … other thing? He might say more, but the resulting exothermic reaction renders conversation unnecessary.

He’s mostly relieved.

It isn’t that Patrick isn’t enjoying high school (although he isn’t) but he is kinda counting the days until he can leave and do the music thing permanently. It’s weird (and Patrick knows weird) but he knows he can do it. He’s had a sense of music from when he was tiny, and even now he feels like he’s being guided.

So, no. He’d prefer not to bother with parties, not when he knows he can spend the weekend listening to music and working out things of his own on his guitar and (if he's lucky) putting words to the tune.

Of course, things don’t always work out like Patrick plans, and a chance conversation in the bookstore on Saturday afternoon leads to a… thing. On Sunday. When Patrick isn’t even half ready for it – much less dressed for the occasion.

Not that Patrick’s sure there’s anything he could be wearing that would make this any better – this is Pete Wentz. From Arma Angelus and Racetraitor. And Patrick has seen him throwing himself around the stage like he owns it, has seen him beaming that stupid goofy smile into the audience like they’re the reason he lives, and now he’s here. Sneering at Patrick’s clothes like he’s lifted a rock and found an argyle covered bug there.

Well. Patrick might have some problems with authority – he knows this – and he certainly knows his own worth. He might be too short, too pale, too soft around the edges, but he’s a fucking musician, not a model, so he scowls at Wentz and leads the way to the basement. If he’s such a huge star he can’t look past Patrick’s sweater to listen to how he plays the drums then he’s an asshole who doesn’t deserve to have him in his band.

It’s not the best frame of mind, but it works for drumming. Honestly, Patrick isn’t sure he’d have survived school till now if he hadn't had a kit to take out his frustrations on.

And he loses himself in the song, barely pausing to notice when Joe joins in halfway through except to smile slightly. Nothing feels as right as playing in a group. It makes it all worthwhile.

“Well?” he says as the last echoes of Joe’s chords fade away. He’s relaxed a bit, but he can’t help jutting his jaw out in challenge.

Pete shrugs. “Not bad,” he says, though Patrick definitely saw him tapping his foot at one point. “Can you sing, though?”

“Why?” Patrick squints at him. “You expect all your drummers to sing as well?”

Pete just raises an eyebrow in response and Patrick sighs. “I dunno,” he says. “I’ve never tried.” The noise Pete makes falls halfway between a cough and a laugh, but manages to be pure mockery.

“Everyone sings,” he says. “In the shower, in front a mirror, on stage… it’s all the same.”

Patrick laughs. “It really isn’t.”

“Well,” Pete blinks at him, and his lashes are really unfairly long. “If you’re scared…”

He starts to turn away and Patrick is not fucking taking this. He opens his mouth and starts to sing, vicious pride taking hold of his heart as Pete stops in his tracks and turns round, mouth hanging slightly open.

“Yeah,” Pete says when Patrick finally runs out of words. “Yeah.” He nods at Patrick, eyes slightly glazed, and turns to Joe. “So, we’ve found our lead singer, then.” He glances back at Patrick, forehead furrowing slightly. “Still need a drummer, though. Do you think Andy’ll do it?”

Joe shrugs. “Dunno, dude. He seems fairly committed to that band of his. Whichever one it is now.”

“Meh.” Pete throws off his pensive manner. “He’ll get over that.” He turns back to where Patrick is still standing, uncomprehending in the middle of the basement. “Rehearsal next Tuesday. We can use my place, does that suit you, Pat?”

“It’s Patrick,” Patrick snaps, mouth apparently on autopilot because he’s not a lead singer. He’s not any kind of singer, but Pete apparently takes it for agreement.

“Whatever,” he says, and he’s gone, out of the basement and dragging an apologetically shrugging Joe behind him.

—

The thing about Pete, Patrick decides, is that he has some sort of force-field around him. It drags you along unless you use all of your energy resisting it.

So, he turns up at rehearsal, and he sings – just because Pete expects it of him.

“C’mon,” he says after the third practice. “I can’t do this, y’know?”

Pete just sticks his tongue out and spins away, counting them in on the next song so Patrick has no choice but to sing.

He means to argue about it properly later, but later never comes. It’s partly because he’s in a real band with people who want him, but it’s mostly because he has the hardest time saying no to Pete. He’s constantly buzzing with the unreality of this – it’s like a prayer he never expected to be granted; like a dream come true.

But the problem with dreams is that you inevitably have to wake up, and Patrick’s alarm call comes a couple of months in, while they’re packing up after yet another practice session.

He’s only listening to Pete with half an ear, more interested in keeping the wires organised than in anything else, so he misses the first half of what’s being said, only zoning in when Pete calls out: “And you can make next Saturday, can’t you, Trick?”

“Sure,” he says on autopilot, before pausing. “Wait. What?”

“I got us a show,” Pete says carefully, like he’s explaining things to an idiot. “At school. I mean, it’s not much, but we’ve got enough material for a set, and we’re not going to get anywhere if we stay here.”

“Sure,” Patrick says again, a broken record. “Yeah. That’s… that’s great.” He turns back to his cables and starts piling them into the box now, haphazard. “So, I got some homework to do.”

He doesn't wait for a response, just heads for the door and the cool of the night outside. He’s fairly damn sure he can feel Pete’s eyes boring into his back as he leaves, but that just adds fuel to the fire of his panic and he doesn’t slow down until he’s blocks away.

He misses the next practice. And the next.

He kinda assumes that it’ll be enough to get him out of the band – he hopes it is – but he tells his mom not to pass any calls onto him just to be sure.

He’s cautiously optimistic that he’s succeeded in this when he swings out of school on a damp Thursday and straight into a gaggle of girls giggling to themselves in front of the school.

“No,” one of them hisses. “I’m sure it’s him. I’ve seen Arma Angelus like, five times.”

Patrick doesn’t need to hear any more, he ducks behind the girls and uses them as a human shield to make a bid for freedom. Not that it does any good though. Fucking Wentz seems to have a specialised Patrick-sense, and he’s down from the hood of his car and after Patrick before Patrick’s got more than five paces.

“Trickster!” he says, slinging an arm around Patrick’s shoulders, and Jesus Patrick can hear the whispers and giggles from here. “Where’ve you been dude? I thought you’d been eaten by bears or something?”

“No, ‘m fine.” Patrick tries to get out from Pete’s grasp without making it obvious he’s doing it, but Pete seems to have been taking courses in Patrick wrangling or something, because he just Does. Not. Let. Go. “I just had a fuckload of homework to get done, and my mom said I had to deal with that before I could do more band stuff.”

“Your mom?” Pete looks at him, and for a second Patrick thinks he’s going to call him on his lies, but instead Pete just grins. “You shoulda said, dude. I’ll talk to her. Moms love me.” He pauses, winks at Patrick in a way that leaves Patrick shuddering. “I promise I’ll leave her virtue intact, though.”

Which is how Patrick ends up introducing Pete to his mom, and finding out that yes, apparently Pete can charm middle-aged ladies everywhere, and apparently Patrick’s mom thinks he needs feeding up.

“He’s such a nice boy,” she says once he’s gone. “And it was so thoughtful of him to come around and check that the band wouldn’t cause a problem with your school work.” She pets Patrick’s hair. “But you’re a sensible kid, and provided you don’t let your grades drop, you can play with them if you want.”

She smiles at him, and it makes his chest tight, because he can’t tell her – can’t tell anyone – that the idea of getting up on stage and singing is making him sick with nerves.

She doesn’t pick up on it though – just turns away and starts to load the dishwasher.

“Just make sure you do everything Pete says when you’re out at shows though,” she says. “He’s a sensible boy, I’m sure he’ll keep you safe.”

And really, it’s unfortunate that Patrick had just taken a mouthful of juice, because it makes a hell of a mess when he snorts it out his nose.

--

It’s taken time, but Pete now has a handful of followers. Enough that he can exist; enough that his hunger isn’t desperate or consuming him. It makes him lucky, blessed. There are small gods beyond number back in the before space that never get this opportunity; there are scores more who have had their chance and now lie, forgotten, on the edges of reality, watching the human world with hungry eyes. Pete could survive like this indefinitely – or he thought he could, at least. But now he’s finally met Patrick – and Patrick is something completely different.

Maybe it’s that Patrick is his first believer that makes him so special, but Pete doesn’t think so. There is something about Patrick, something that sets him apart from most of the massing ranks of humanity. Pete can’t find the words to express it – it’s like a light only he can see, a note only he can hear.

“No, not like that. Can’t you hear how it should go?” Patrick scowls at Joe, and even though Pete can feel how affronted he is, Joe shuts up and lets Patrick correct the bridge.

It makes Pete smile to himself, though he’s careful to hide it, ducking to tune his bass. His believer is fierce, knows his own mind and is ready to fight for it with a vicious determination that’s utterly at odds with the soft curve of his lips. The best thing is, Patrick doesn’t seem to notice how he changes the world around him every time he interacts with it.

Joe is nothing like this. Now he sees them together he can feel how different they are – how Patrick shapes him, makes him want to be more; how Joe’s laid back acceptance and love gives him space to understand who he is, what he’s becoming.

He couldn’t be without either of them, and watching them now, fighting over what the best Michael Jackson song was, he’s almost overwhelmed by how much he loves them. It’s not something he’s used to feeling, and he’s so discomfited that he resorts to type, surreptitiously detuning Joe’s guitar in a move that leads to shouted accusations and a bout of impromptu wrestling that leaves Pete with pinch marks all over his arms, because Patrick fights dirty and Pete cannot escape his nature.

And that’s the rub. The modern world might have a fondness for the trickster, but historically humanity has known better than to worship the likes of him. Oh, tricksters have always held a place in the hearts of humanity, but it was nothing compared to the gods of war or of love. No one builds temples to them, or writes hymns. There’s something in the nature of both god and believer that shuns dogma, so the likes of Pete have had to learn to survive on the edges of belief, in stories and jokes, on the lips of old wives and young boys.

And now a god like Pete has attracted a human who has the strength and purity of belief to shape the world, and what on Earth can Pete do to deserve that? He barely knows if he should cling to Patrick or run to the hills.

It’s a cautious dance. Pete is twisted both by his nature as a god and his incarnation, and Patrick is beautiful and fragile. Pete has read enough stories from mythology to know that the love of a god isn’t always the healthiest thing for a human to endure, but bathed in the light of Patrick’s belief he can almost love himself, and that alone would be enough to leave him prostrate at Patrick’s feet.

So, given the circumstances Pete feels he’s being as restrained as he can possibly be expected to be. He doesn’t turn up at Patrick’s house in the form of any animals, he neglects to send Patrick prophetic dreams, he doesn’t even bother turning up at Patrick’s school to embarrass him in front of his friends (much).

Instead he stops sleeping, gets too caught up in trying to make the perfect words for their band, for their songs (for Patrick), and fills page after page of his notebooks while the night wears away into the dawnlight and his eyes get gritty with exhaustion. Not that he gives the words to Patrick. When push comes to shove, he just can’t. It makes him itchy and vulnerable to think that he should, so he takes refuge in all his old god tricks and sends whatever inspiration he can to Patrick.

It’s exhausting and it takes its toll. Arma Angelus folds, and that’s okay, Pete’s sure of it, because Patrick plays drums for the last gig and it’s a glimpse of a future Pete can already taste.

It’s not there yet – but he’s sure of this. They’ll find their drummer; he’ll be able to nail the whole music thing if he tries hard enough; and Patrick’s lyrics are … good. They’ll be great in time, Pete knows this. After all, the problem is probably the quality of inspiration Patrick is getting, and Pete just needs to make himself better to fix that.

The only thing that worries him, really properly worries him, is how unenthusiastic Patrick is about the band. Sure, he has school, and Pete knows that his folks aren’t too stoked about him joining a band with someone so much older than him… but even under that Patrick is oddly reticent, and it eats away at Pete.

He can’t dwell on it, though. If he’s learnt anything in his few short years as a human, it’s that the whole fake it till you make it strategy fucking works, and he figures the easiest way to persuade Patrick is to present him with the fait accompli of a successful band.

So, he gets them a gig, and yeah, it’s at his school, and it’s in the cafe, but it’s a first gig, and standing there, playing bass like his life depends on it (because, you know, it does in so many ways) Pete knows beyond time, space, and faith that this will work.

—

Patrick doesn’t pray much anymore – well, that’s kinda a lie, but it’s too difficult to explain how he tries to express his prayers these days, so it’s a convenient lie – but the night before the first show he is literally terrified and he can’t think of anything else that might help.

His mom tried to be helpful, but she doesn’t know what it’s like to sing in front of people and when he called Joe they ended up feeding off each others nerves until they were both nervous wrecks. He thinks Pete would help, but Pete is off the grid somewhere with his phone switched off and his emails going unanswered, so really Patrick has no choice now.

He gets down on his knees, feeling stupid as fuck thank you very much, and folds his hands, bows his head… but there’s nothing, only the faintest echo of what he usually feels and nothing like what he needs right now. He waits for a bit, but the connection is just not there, so he climbs onto the bed and collapses on his back, arm over his eyes.

It’s only then that he notices the hint of tune, right at the edge of his consciousness, and he follows it, unconsidering, until suddenly he’s right in the space that he recognises, brought there by his music when his words won’t work. It’s fleeting – he knows it will be because it always is – but it’s there. Don’t let me fuck it up, he thinks as loud as he can. The show. Just let me get through it. Don’t let me fuck it up for the others.

It calms him, even as his rational mind laughs its ass off at him, and the show itself goes surprisingly well. Pete takes one look at him and takes over the front of the stage, so Patrick can sing and play guitar and not worry about the crowd, and he can’t explain how grateful he is so he doesn’t even bother trying.

And before he knows it, they’re a real band, with a name and everything, and a handful of shows under their belts, and Pete has taken to grinning at him like he hangs the moon in the sky.

It would be so easy to fall for it, to believe he has a place in this, but he can’t relax into it. He’s not a singer – he’s a drummer – and sooner or later someone, the band, the kids, someone is going to notice. Besides, there’s something whispering in the back of his brain that he’s better than this. It’s the voice he’s learnt to listen to, to pay attention to, and it never steers him wrong, so it puts him on edge when everything else seems so damn right.

Maybe it’ll resolve itself, he thinks as he comes off stage, buzzing with a frenetic energy. He looks at Pete, dripping sweat and already on his way to pack up his bass and get partying, and he strums an unconscious chord on his guitar. Please let this work out for me.

Across the room Pete pauses and looks back at Patrick, eyes narrowed.

“What’s up?” he asks. “Trick? You okay?”

“Yeah.” Patrick shrugs. Like he’s about to admit his doubts or the fact he’s apparently praying to his guitar to Pete. “Just an idea for a new song.”

He doesn’t think Pete will buy it, but then Pete beams at him and literally bounces over to grab his guitar off him.

“Now is not a time for songs, Pattycakes. Now is a time for loading vans, and underage drinking, and all the groupies you can persuade to let you sleep over.”

“Ugh.” Patrick tries to fight Pete off, but Pete is sweaty and gross and not afraid to rub himself against Patrick to make him drop the guitar. “Fine. Sure. No songs, I get it.”

“No songs now,” Pete says. “We’ll write together tomorrow or something, but now is time to reap the benefits of being in a band, kid.”

His smile is so wide that Patrick finds himself grinning back and relaxing, and it’s only later as he’s dozing in the back on the van on the way back home that he realises that Pete’s kinda answered his prayer. He already feels like this is starting to work itself out.

—

One of the problems with being a god is that there is no one you can pray to. There’s no hope of divine intervention lending you a helping hand. There’s no passing muse who will gift you with the inspiration you need to get things done.

Instead there’s approximately a metric fucktonne of hard work and drudgery and bandmates putting their faith in you, only not in the old, comfortable ways, but in new, unsettling ways that mean Pete drives halfway across the country for the chance of a show and then tries to make sure that the others have at least eaten something before they go on stage.

He might do better at the first part than the second.

Teenaged boys are a nightmare to wrangle and Pete’s not in the market to be anyone’s mom. Sure, he got Patrick a hoodie in the last town they passed through because he’d been shivering at night, but that means nothing. Pete will steal it back as soon as he’s out of clean clothes.

It’s a gesture, and it means very little in the face of what Pete really is. A night running through the woods, playing hunter and hunted, or leading drunken frat boys onto swamped up paths and into near misses with alligators or bears feeds some part of himself that the crowds never will. Belief is one thing when it’s freely given, but there’s something intoxicating about belief born of fear and blood, and in the dark of the night modern men are all too susceptible to the glimmer of a will o’ the wisp that leads them on a merry chase.

He tries to keep the band out of that side of things. He’s watched other bands – he knows what is appropriate. So, he limits himself to sharpie drawings on faces or unpleasant things left in clothes when he’s with them, and when he needs to let that other part of himself off its leash, he seeks out safer prey and leaves the van behind.

It’s a tightrope walk, and he teeters between the horrors of responsibility on one hand and the chaos of his nature on the other, putting one foot in front of the other even though he’s not sure what’s waiting for him at the end of the rope.

There are moments though, that will stay with him forever. A night drive through the desert with Patrick sitting next to him, singing Total Eclipse of the Heart like a hymn to the goddess of pop music; learning to commandeer Patrick’s clothes when he’s starting to feel low, wearing them like stealth armour, as a reminder that he’s not in this alone, he has his band, he has his Patrick.

These give him the courage to continue. He doesn’t have some greater power to believe in, but he has faith in the future, and surprisingly it’s enough.

“Dude,” Patrick says, sweaty and disgusting and beautiful after a show. “We’ve been paid in pizza again?”

“It’s pepperoni!” Joe grabs the box out of his hands before he can complain. “We’ve done more for worse.”

“They even got me vegan pizza,” Andy says, like it’s a big deal. Which, for him it is, but he’s an atheist and Pete still isn’t sure how he feels about that yet.

“But the kids loved us.” Pete snags his own live of pizza and passes the box back to Patrick. “And this’ll make a cool story in interviews when we’re famous.”

“If,” Patrick says, his voice arch, and Pete shakes a finger at him.

“When,” he repeats. “We’re on the way, Trick. I can feel it.”

He just wishes that everything was as effortless.

For a group of people who are so passionate about music, they seem to be making very heavy work of writing their own.

Patrick is struggling with the lyrics, and Pete is absolutely clear where the problem is – it’s with him. He does what he can – he uses every bit of energy at his disposal to try and inspire Patrick to write lyrics that work, but then Patrick turns up with words that just miss the point and seems more interested in the music, and Pete can’t seem to make him understand that there’s no point in bothering to sing these songs if the words don’t mean anything.

The solution is obvious, at least to Pete. He needs to leave the band.

He obviously can’t inspire Patrick if he’s in the band with him – he’s been trying his best for months now and it just isn’t working. So. The band is more important than he is – Pete knows he can succeed if he puts his mind to it, and if he doesn’t want to bother with that then he can always fuck off back home to where he really belongs.

Patrick though – this kid is something special, and he deserves his chance to shine.

Unfortunately he is also stubborn as a mule, and doesn’t agree with Pete’s so-called obvious solution. Instead he turns on Pete in an argument that Pete will remember for the rest of his existence and tells him that he just wants to concentrate on the music and maybe Pete should write the lyrics himself if he has such fucking strong opinions about them.

Pete tries it, and watches, open mouthed, as Patrick fits his words to music and sings them back to Pete.

Because it turns out the worship of a crowd, the growing wave of belief he can feel buoying him up, even the stolen moments of fright in the dark… all that is nothing compared to the feeling of Patrick singing Pete’s actual words in some dubiously clean basement they’ve found to rehearse in away from the eyes of their manager and band.

It distracts him. Makes him forget what he is. Their roles are reversed now, and he’s Patrick’s believer, sending him email after email of words to be turned into hymns by Patrick’s mind and voice. He fills a notebook and hands it over without a second thought until later when he’s alone and it’s too late, and he realises how open he’s left himself.

Everything, but everything, is there for Patrick to read, and Pete… isn’t sure he can stop this crazy, clenching feeling in his body… or that he want to.

The book of Patrick he thinks, suddenly hysterical and locks himself in a washroom to laugh until he’s sobbing.

—

Patrick is really starting to doubt his own sanity here.

Okay, being in a band is cool – cooler than cool – even if it means spending most of his time in a van that smells like ass and getting paid in junk food.

Even the bad parts are amazing. So what if Pete has stolen his last clean hoodie – the one he actually bought Patrick that time? Patrick’s going to steal it back just as soon as he’s asleep and he’s going to get the last pair of clean socks he knows Pete’s been hoarding in case of rain. Who cares if Pete’s singing along to Total Eclipse of the Heart in the middle of the night, in the middle of the desert? Patrick doesn’t care that Pete sounds like a distressed vulture arriving late to the dead donkey – he sings along with him, enjoying the absurdity of the emotion, until Andy threatens to punch them both.

It’s all amazing, right up until other people get involved.

Because he doesn’t like what people expect of him. Show them a lead singer and they expect to see a front man; sing songs for them and they expect you to be able to come up with lyrics.

It fucking sucks.

The guys are nice enough about it, and Pete does more than his share of picking up all the slack Patrick leaves, but Patrick feels it like a burn blister on his skin. He’s letting them down and it hurts, and he should be able to do this.

He should – but all he wants to do is write music and hide from everything else, and the more he struggles with words and people the worse it gets.

The logical part of his mind knows he should ask for help – Pete’s already made it abundantly clear that he will do anything he can, anything Patrick asks – but that just seems to make it worse. His mom used to call it oppositional defiance disorder and ruffle his hair, but the guys are… well. Less tolerant.

So, he knows Pete is just trying to help when he picks apart the lyrics Patrick has spent all night writing. He knows he’s just helping when he produces shitty chord progressions and expects Patrick to be able to do something with them. He knows this. it just doesn’t fucking stop him from wanting to kill someone, Pete for preference.

“Dude,” Joe tells him, “you need to chill. You got this.” And Patrick cannot vocalize any of the responses he wants to (mostly involving Joe’s face and how stoned doesn’t equal wise in the real world) because he so desperately wants Joe to be right.

And then, because this shit-fest can’t get any better, Pete tries to quit.

“Oh, no,” Patrick rounds on him. “No. You do not get to fucking do this to me.”

“Do what?” Pete asks, looking honestly baffled, as if he hadn’t expected Patrick to object to his stupid fucking plan. It’s all Patrick needed to fan his anger into something thermonuclear.

“You do not get make me care about this stupid fucking band and then walk out on it,” Patrick all-but-screams.

“But…” Pete blinks at him, and it’s a lot closer than Patrick thought, because somehow he seems to have Pete pinned to the wall. By his throat. “It makes sense, Patrick.”

Patrick gapes, because. No. It really doesn’t. He takes a step back, lets Pete slump down the wall to the floor, where he stays, looking up at Patrick and radiating confusion.

“It’s not fair,” he says, fighting to keep his voice level. “You can’t leave me with this band. You don’t make me kind of like this band and then leave it. That’s bullshit.”

He steps back and offers a hand to Pete, wincing at his weight as Pete hauls himself upright.

“But if I don’t leave, what are we going to do?” Pete sounds lost, and it scares Patrick worse than his offer to leave. Pete’s always coming up with stupid ideas. He never sounds this bewildered. Ever.

It makes Patrick stop and shrug. “You just write the fucking lyrics, dude,” he says. “I’ll work out the music around them.”

Pete’s mouth thins, and for a second Patrick thinks he’ll argue, but in the end he nods tightly, and Patrick decides to take his victories where he finds them.

And he’s right to do so, because even if it doesn’t get easier straight away, they find a way of making it work until he looks up while he’s singing the latest lyrics and catches the look on Pete’s face. It’s not disapproval, he realises with a shock, and it’s not disgust. It’s awe.

It makes something warm unfold in his chest, strengthens his voice, and even though Pete’s gone the next time he looks up, it’s enough.

“Thank fuck for that,” Andy says when they get together again to record, and Patrick winces, because he really shouldn’t have taken his frustrations out on everyone else like that.

He kinda wants to apologise to Pete as well, but somehow there is never the chance. They’re always with someone, and whenever he spots Pete by himself, he’s scribbling in a notebook, and Patrick’s fucked up enough already. He’s not about to eat into whatever time Pete’s found for himself right now.

So, he’s almost shocked when Pete puts a hand on his shoulder one evening and drops a notebook onto his lap before wandering off without saying another word.

Patrick recognises the book – it’s the latest one Pete’s been hunched over – but he’s not sure why Pete’s given it to him. He flicks it open though, squinting a bit to make out Pete’s writing, intending to just glance through it before he hunts Pete down and demands an explanation.

It doesn’t work out quite like that, though. Somehow when he looks up, the studio is deserted, only a few lights left on, and when he leaves it’s the night guy who’s on the front desk.

The need to find Pete is still there, but it’s a distant thought, one that’s lost way behind the melodies he can already hear in his head for songs he knows without a shadow of a doubt will make them famous.

Thank you, he thinks into the expectant darkness of the night. Thank you for leading me to Pete. Thank you for giving us this chance.

There’s no answer, but the darkness is warm around him, and when he gets into his car, he’s smiling.

—

For all that they’ve worked for it – that he’s worked for it – success, when it comes, is unexpectedly, breathtakingly huge.

Of course, Pete has always known theoretically that belief is power to his kind, but he’s never, ever felt anything like this.

It’s dizzying.

Not that he can take it for granted. Humans are fickle, and Pete knows the wave might crash out from under him at any minute, so he keeps working.

The media makes him uncomfortable. Interviews and press calls are one thing – they’re part of the job description almost – but Pete only wants to give up the parts of himself that he chooses, and even then, only on his own terms.

The hounding of the paparazzi almost feels too much, and he can feel himself retreating, until one night on a road between two towns Pete will never remember later, Patrick hands him a tiny talisman, a camera of all things, and tells him that it will ward off the cameras he doesn’t want to take photos of him. It’s a lie, but it’s a comforting one, and Pete takes refuge in it.

Afterwards he wonders how right he was in assuming it was a lie, because it marks a shift, and even though he still resents being stalked, it becomes just one more game he plays, one more chance to dance through the smoke and mirrors of belief in the twenty-first century.

Social media is different. He’s in control there.

He knows, better than most, how important a buzz is in communicating a message and winning followers, and while he doesn’t like to boast (much. Often) he’s starting to think that if he’d had access to social media back in the middle ages he’d have given Christianity a run for its money.

It’s weird, though. He’s used to presenting a version of himself for public consumption, but only ever in person. There’s a difference between performance and presenting himself through written words that unsettling, but intoxicating despite (or because of) that.

Other gods, he thinks, sitting down and opening up his blog, have humans do this for them. But me? I’m my own evangelist.

And he fucking loves it. Humans are so endlessly gullible. Show them a sparkling light and they fucking watch it and never keep an eye on what your other hand’s doing.

The others let him get on with it – they all bring something different to the band, and they all accept that Pete is the empire builder. In another time, Pete thinks, in another place, and with this power behind him, he really could be.

And success, fame, brings believers with it, believers in their thousands. He can hear their prayers constantly now if he listens for them and while he can’t answer all of them, he tries to answer some of them. And if (or when) he can’t answer them as a god, he discovers – with a shock – that he can answer them as a human.

To feel heard – to be heard – as you are, in the middle of your pain and confusion is a powerful magic, and it seems to Pete that it doesn’t matter if he does it through prayers and mysticism, or through autographs and the clench of a hand after a show.

It’s for the believers as much as for himself that he crafts the shows into rituals. From the high five before they go on, to Saturday at the end, the whole thing starts to take on its own momentum, and through it Pete discovers a way to cope with the prayers. It’s easier to cut free slivers of himself like this, safer, and he gets an immediate rush of faith in return, like the best sort of communion.

And through it all, Patrick is there, putting form to his words, making them accessible as he sings them out to the crowd, and the crowd chants them back at him.

He loves it. It’s everything he wants and has worked for, even though it comes with its own price.

He can’t run with the wolves so easily now, but he has followers, of a certain, specialised sort. He is the self proclaimed patron saint of liars and fakes after all – and like calls to like. Followers like Dirty are a godsend. There’s nothing he won’t do; no dare he won’t take and Pete loves it. And it’s a safety valve, not just for him, but for the band too. Pete steals Joe’s middle name one night before he realises he’s done it, tricking Joe with a bagful of pot and some easy lies over a game of cards. He wakes up in the morning with the name sitting heavily in the front of his mind, and knows he can’t do this over.

It’s a small enough thing, but it could have been worse, could still get worse, and he vows he won’t take the chance again. Much better, he thinks, for Dirty to get a new, unwelcome tattoo, or for some other kid to shoot Pete in the ass instead.

But that still leaves the dark watches of the night, when the others are sleeping and even the prayers are quiet and he is finally alone in his own head. Usually he takes the opportunity to crawl close to Patrick, to close his eyes and drift off so far as he can.

He doesn’t know if Patrick still believes in him, even as Patrick makes room for Pete next to him and snuffles sleep-warm reassurances to him. Pete doesn’t feel him praying as often, but whenever he looks up Patrick is there in person, letting Pete push his way into his space.

“‘Trick?” he says one night, small enough that the others can’t hear even if they are awake, unsure if he even wants Patrick to hear. “You awake?”

“Kinda.” Patrick is close enough that Pete can feel his breath when he speaks. “Watcha want?”

“Gimme a memory,” Pete says, then holds his breath, astonished at his own daring.

“What do I get?” Patrick asks, his voice starting to go sleep heavy.

“First shower on the next hotel night,” Pete says, because he knows what Patrick wants.

“Next three,” Patrick says, and Pete nods, eager. “Fine.” He holds an arm out, waits until Pete has pressed in with his head on his chest. “When I was small, I used to make up lullabies for my bear. I didn’t think he could get to sleep on his own.”

He pauses, like he thinks Pete is going to laugh, but Pete is warm, heavy with the memory, and has never felt less like laughing.

“Sing it to me?” he asks instead, and Patrick does, the melody wrapping around him, touching his heart and familiar in a way he can’t name.

He falls asleep to it, and when he wakes up, he’s alone and it’s light outside.

He finds the others as they’re heading back to the van, and Patrick smiles and hands over a coffee. Pete doesn’t ask him if he remembers the lullaby any more. Patrick might. It wasn’t in the remit of the bargain after all, but Pete doesn’t want to risk knowing that he’s taken too much by mistake.

It’s important to him that Patrick’s okay, that he’s safe. He’s not a believer, or not just that any more. Sometimes Pete wonders if they should be lovers, but they’re not. Pete’s not sure why – Patrick shaped him after all, surely he should be perfect for him? – but Patrick laughs off every attempt that Pete makes, whether it’s a fumbling approach when they’re alone or an overblown statement in an interview.

So, Pete doesn’t know what he is, only that he would be lost without Patrick.

Even with all the other believers, all the belief, he wouldn’t be himself without Patrick. If he had any doubt about that he could see the proof of it in the others.

Pete’s not the first god to get the idea of incarnating by a long stretch, and he won’t be the last. The twentieth century was a time of opportunity for those divine who were willing to get their hands dirty, and the twenty first seems to have elevated the cult of celebrity to a religion. Which might be a case of cause and effect, Pete guesses. He remembers some of the auras from the golden days of the silver screen and the rock halls of fame from his days in the nebulous before space.

They’re none of them Pete though, and he doesn’t expect to actually get on with any of them. If he’d bothered considering it before he’d have assumed that they’d keep a polite distance – not that they’d form an informal support network.

But that’s before he meets Bilvy, and takes one look at his lost eyes and hopeful smile and can’t stop himself from stepping up and offering help. And after Bilvy comes Travie, and then Gabe, each of them beautiful and powerful and, in their own way, lost. Before he knows where he is, Pete has a record label and a bunch of gods on speed dial.

From what he remembers of the space before, he would have imagined that this would lead to competition, that they would vie for believers. He remembers, clearly, the first time he introduced Travie to Patrick, how scared he’d been that Patrick would take one look and realise what he’d been missing out on.

Instead it had been all about the music. Patrick had been warm and friendly, fascinated by Travie’s stories and the music he made, and when Travie had beamed at the end of the meeting and pulled Patrick to him, he had gone willingly, and all Pete had felt was pride.

“He’s amazing,” Travie says afterwards. “You’re lucky to have him.”

“I know,” Pete says, because he does, and Travie hugs him as well.

The pattern holds true with the others as well. They love Patrick, but there’s no challenge to it, and while the bands engage in friendly competition, there is no hostility to it. There’s enough belief for everyone, and Pete discovers that if they work together, there is very little that can stop them – not even freaky-assed bunny costumes.

It’s only when he meets the boys from Panic! at the Disco, though, that he realises how far this has gone. Until now, the gods he’s met have been loners who have surrounded themselves with humans, drawn to music and performance by both their natures and their hungers.

The Panic! boys are a different story, created, from what Pete can tell, from their own belief and Fall Out Boy’s music. He’s fascinated by them – proud of their ability, and their pig-headed enthusiasm. It’s second nature now to reach out to them, bring them on to the label, and he plays at being a mentor, accessing a nurturing side to himself that he hadn’t even known existed.

Not all of them need his help, though. MCR are a force to be reckoned with, something darker than the other gods Pete comes across. He respects that – he’s comfortable with his own darkness – but he still tries to keep his distance and is mostly successful.

So, he’s not sure how it all goes wrong for him during Warped, although Mikeyway is pretty, and it’s been a long time since he’s been able to be himself with anyone without fear or favor.

It’s nothing serious, just a meeting of minds between two not-entirely humans. Frankly, it’s a relief not to have to hide who he is, even if Mikey is less interested in the whole trickster thing, and more interested in the dark corners of beyond.

The only problem is that he’s not sure that Patrick approves of the relationship at all. Not that Patrick’s approval is necessary by any means, but if Pete has the option then he would prefer to have it. And what concerns him more is that his being with Mikey means that the rest of the guys are spending time with MCR.

Pete is the last one to look down on gods making a go of it in the human world. He’s even got over his fear that Patrick can be won away from him, but something about Gerard makes him wary and the first time he stumbles through the Chem’s bus and finds Patrick so deep in conversation with Gerard that he doesn’t even notice Pete, well. That is not a good moment. Especially not when Gerard makes malicious eye contact with Pete and smirks.

The worst thing is that Gerard holds his own when Pete tries to argue with him about it.

“No,” he says, outright when Pete asks him to back the fuck off and leave Patrick alone. “I won’t.” He reaches for his coffee and curls his hands around the cup. “Patrick has free will, Pete, and if he wants to be friends with me, well…” He shrugs and Pete bites his lip because Gerard is right – there’s nothing he can do.

“But he chose me,” he replies, and Gerard smiles, cold.

“And he can un-choose you,” he says, and his laughter is ringing in Pete’s ears all the way back to his own bus.

Truthfully, Pete’s biggest fear since he first met Patrick has been that he will realize what a mistake he’s made with Pete and will transfer his faith to another god. There are even moments when things get darkest that Pete thinks that it might be better for Patrick if he did that. The problem is that Pete isn’t sure what he would do without Patrick’s faith buoying him up. Even though it waxes and wanes the same as any human’s, it’s always been there. The one constant of being incarnate.

Patrick is praying less these days, though. His prayers had spiked earlier in the year when Pete, overwhelmed by the prayers and distanced from his tenuous humanity by lack of sleep, had made a miscalculated choice in the car park at Best Buy, but since then things have improved for Pete and Patrick’s intercessions have been fewer, calmer. But Pete isn’t worried – hadn’t been worried at least. Tours aren’t the right place for devotion or faith, and Patrick will be back to normal when the summer’s over.

Or will he?

The thought leaves Pete cold, even as the shows each evening build the fires of belief and he is stronger than he has ever been before.

But nothing, no one is like his Patrick, and Pete can’t talk to him about this and he feels a bit like it’s driving him mad.

“Leave it,” Mikey tells him. “Gee’s just messing with you.”

“But why?” Pete tries to keep the whine from his voice. He’s a god; he knows just how unfair the world is, and yet still. It sucks when it’s happening to him.

“Because he can,” Mikey says into his ear, moving under Pete, sinuous and perfect. “Because you’re doing this to me.”

He might be right, Pete thinks. Mikey is beautiful right now, sharp angles and edges marked up by Pete’s teeth and nails. Anyone would be jealous.

Maybe Gerard is just jealous; maybe Patrick is as well. But Pete hates this new distance between him and Patrick. He can’t even tell him to avoid Gee. What reason would he have?

So, he grits his teeth when Patrick joins him stage-side to watch Mikey play; says nothing when he feels Patrick’s belief joining the ritual swell of faith in the band. All of their ilk feed on faith, he knows, but only MCR knowingly use ritual in their shows like Pete does. It’s a thread of unwelcome fellow feeling, and he’s counting the days until tour ends.

Mikey’s good company, but there is no price too high to get Patrick out from Gerard’s influence. He’d drop the relationship now if he thought it would help, but gods of the sort that the Ways are are vindictive by their nature. If Pete hurts Mikey then they will make him pay – and he knows that would affect those closest to him. Pete can cope with a lot, but he doesn’t think he could bear Patrick paying the price for his misdemeanours.

It’s grating on him though. Everything is, and Gee’s over analysis of the whole situation that Pete and the others find themselves in is exhausting, if not sanctimonious.

He bites his tongue as best he can, right up until he can’t. They’re seated around a fire, beers in hand. Travis has got the good shit from a European contact, where they’ve not lost the art of brewing for the gods, and everyone is more relaxed than normal.

It’s a god-boy evening: the others are off being human and watching a band or something and it means they can let their hair down – literally in Ray’s case. Pete can see the snakes tasting the air and dancing from here.

Gee is droning on about something – belief and power, Pete thinks – but he’s ignoring it in favour of Mikey’s mouth and teeth and fucking alabaster skin, right up until Gee pokes him hard in the ribs.

“What do you think though, Pete?” he asks, and Pete blinks confused.

“About what?” he asks, and shivers as Mikey bites his neck.

“Believers,” Gerard says, and smiles coldly. “You still have your first, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Pete says, daring Gerard to make something of it. “You know damn well I do.”

“But don’t you think that with the power we have, the belief the kids feed us, that it’s unethical keeping him around?” His eyes glint in the dark. “Like you’re battery farming food when there’s all this free-range belief running round for the taking.”

It stops Pete cold. He’s never once thought of Patrick as food – not even back before he met him

“What about Frankie?” he snaps at last. “Going to take a step back and give him his space, are you?”

Gee clams up, his mouth tight and Pete laughs, nasty now.

“See? You’re as guilty as I am. You leave your first believer behind and I will too.”

He walks away then, looking for his band to ground him. But through the rest of the tour and beyond, as his relationship with Mikey ends and he moves on with his life, Gerard’s words nag at him, and try as he might, he can’t let them go completely.

—

It would be fair to say that Warped is not Patrick’s favourite time.

It’s like Pete won’t even acknowledge that the thing in the Best Buy parking lot actually happened any more. Sure, he’d talked to Patrick about it maybe once, but that was almost right afterward, and Patrick’s not even sure what Pete meant when he said that the noise and prayers were too much, and he’d just wanted quiet for a bit. Pete’s changed the subject every time Patrick’s tried to ask more ever since, no matter how obliquely Patrick approaches the subject, and now he’s avoiding Patrick altogether in favour of spending his time with Mikey Way.

Patrick assumes his discomfort is some sort of internalised homophobia and tries his best to deal with it. Sure, Pete’s hung round with guys before – but never like this. Time with them has never replaced time with Patrick before – Pete’s never seemed to have more in common with them than he’s had with Patrick before – and he’s not sure he likes it.

Pete seems happy though, so there’s that, and in the mayhem of the tour it’s easy enough for Patrick to hide away from him enough that he hopes his feelings can stay hidden.

It’s a rare day that they spend the whole day together now, but when the chance arises and Mikey is safe in the Chems’ bus for once, Patrick finds he doesn’t have the willpower to avoid Pete, even though the shit has stolen back Patrick’s favorite hoodie again.

Patrick’s not sure why he even wants it. It’s hot as balls outside even though the sun is setting, and the air con is broken. They’ve pulled over at a gas station, and Joe and Andy are still rooting around out there for some sort of food that appeals after the weeks of junk they’ve put their bodies through. Pete seems to have abandoned the notion of food as a bad idea. He’s tossing the chips he bought around the bus and glaring irritably at the blue icee that Patrick had the foresight to choose.

“Gimme some,” he says, and Patrick grins.

“Nope,” he says, grinning in satisfaction because Pete has the disputed hoodie, but he has this, so by the laws of sibling wars (and band politics is just an escalation of this, one where no one’s mom will step in to save you, and you run the risk of lawyers if it goes too far) he wins. “You should have got one when you had the chance, Wentz.”

He gestures with the icee and only realises his mistake too late when Pete reaches out and grabs the cup off him. Patrick flails after him, cursing and glaring daggers. Pete’s nearly the same height as him, maybe only a few inches taller, and most of the time Patrick doesn’t mind. Now it’s just enough that Pete can play keep away, and Patrick is mad.

“Give it back, asshole!”

Pete slurps obnoxiously on it. “What will you give me if I do?”

“Nothing,” Patrick says, and lunges, but Pete darts out of his reach, grinning like a maniac. “Come on, man.”

“You gotta give me something in exchange,” Pete says, and Patrick can see the drips of condensation on the side of the cup.

“Whatever you want,” he says. “Just fucking give me my shit back.”

“Whatever I want?” Pete looks at him, suddenly serious in the gloom of the bus. “What about your heart? For always and ever.” He punctuates it with a flutter of his lashes, but there’s no levity to the situation.

“My heart?” Patrick’s not sure why the question give him pause, but it does. And then he sees the hoodie, screwed up and next to the pillow in Pete’s bunk, and the answer crystallises. “Fine, Jesus fuck, whatever.” He swipes the icee from Pete’s unresisting hands. “Asshole.”

He stomps back to the couch and his laptop, leaving Pete by the bunks, his grin glinting wide and wicked in the dark.

That’s a good day, one that leaves Patrick easier in his skin and it lasts right up until they park for the next show and Pete bounces out of his arms and straight into Mikey’s.

There’s something not right about Mikey, Patrick thinks. Something that makes his skin prickle. Patrick swears he can tell every time Mikey’s looking at him, even when there’s an entire parking lot between them and it’s dark. It’s like his gaze has weight.

He finds himself drawn to the rest of My Chemical Romance though. He watches them with Pete a few times at the start of the tour, and it doesn’t take him long to start talking to Bob. They talk about drums and drumming, but there’s no pressure to the conversation and the rest of the time the silence is comfortable. Patrick appreciates that a lot amid the noise and bustle of tour life.

It means he starts hanging round their bus a bit – mostly when Pete is with Mikey back at theirs, but still, enough that he starts to get to know the others.

They’re friendly enough, but Patrick feels like they are in on a joke that specifically excludes him. Still, it’s better than sitting round listening to Pete, so he ignores his discomfort as best he can. It limits his diet a bit, but that’s really the worst discomfort he faces outside the imagined problems his mind comes up with, and Patrick dares anyone to keep eating meat when they’re faced with Frank.

“It’s just a sop to your conscience,” Gerard says to Frank one evening, taking a large bite of a burger, and Frank’s eyes narrow, dangerously.

“Besides the fact it makes me sick,” Frank replies, “it’s so unnecessary.”

“It’s food.” Gerard licks the juice from his hand making malicious eye contact with Frank. “You’d eat it if you had to, if you didn’t have a choice.”

“But I do have a choice,” Frank says, biting into his. “It’s the miracle of living in the modern age. I don’t have to hurt anything that’s alive so I can be alive too.” He jabs Gerard in the chest. “Respect for living things, GeeWay. It’s the only way forward.”

Gerard pulls a sour face, but he puts down what’s left of his burger and when Frank hands him part of his own veggie burger he takes it and bites into it. His noises of appreciation are ever-so-slightly sarcastic, but Frank just smiles beatifically, like he knows he’s won the war.

Patrick likes Frank. He’s an argumentative little shit and an even bigger bookworm than Pete – hell, he’s even more irritating than Pete, like a tiny ball of rage wrapped up in an unexpected charm and granddad cardigans. And tattoos.

For someone who’s never been tempted to get a tattoo of his own, Patrick finds them fascinating on other people. He blames Pete for this. But Frank is happy to sit around talking about his, and it’s an easy topic of conversation which in turn makes it easier for Patrick to talk to him at all.

“I like that one,” Patrick says, reaching up from his nest on the floor and poking at the tattoo on Frank’s arm. “S’classy. Virgin Mary, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Frank sounds buzzed; they’re both a bit buzzed on post show endorphins and beer. “S’what a Catholic school upbringing does for you, dude.”

“So you don’t believe any more?” Patrick asks.

“In a big god in the sky who’ll hurt me if I do bad things?” Frank blinks at him and Patrick obediently hands over another beer. “Nah. But in being a good person, yeah, I do.”

“I believe,” Patrick says. “I mean, not in some endless being that judges me… but there’s something out there.” He closes his eyes. The bus feels too hot and he’s drunker than he thought if he’s talking about this out loud. He never talks about this. “I can feel it… him… there sometimes.”

He expects Frank to mock him, but the expected barrage never comes.

“Yeah.” Frank sounds thoughtful, and there’s not a scrap of mockery in his tone. “I know what you mean. It just… It doesn’t feel like what I was taught god was though, you know?”

“Exactly.” Patrick sits up. “Like, this has been part of my life for nearly as long as I can remember, and it’s not…”

“Human,” Frank finishes for him. “But it’s not some big impersonal thing in the sky either, is it?”

Patrick shakes his head. The bus seems very quiet all of a sudden, the noises outside removed, like he and Frank are in another world.

“When did you find it?”

Frank grins and holds his hand out for another beer. “I was sick when I was little,” he says. “Like, really ill. They thought I might die once or twice, and I was small.” He pauses, waiting for Patrick to laugh, but Patrick just nods and Frank squares his jaw. “I remember being there one night. My mom had been praying all day, rosaries and shit like that, and I thought well, what’s the worst that could happen?”

“And you prayed?” Patrick asks, his voice low, and Frank nods. “And it answered?”

“Yeah.” Frank downs half his beer in one swallow, his throat working and Patrick can’t tear his eyes away. “It was like the dark got deeper and there was music I could almost hear, and this thing was there, by my bed.”

“And what did it say?” Patrick’s sitting up now, eyes fixed on Frank.

“Stuff,” Frank says, his face shutting off and his eyes staring at a point years ago. “Personal stuff, you know? But,” he looks back at Patrick, in the present again now, “it found me interesting, I think, and that music. Man.” He drinks again. “I’ve been trying to recreate that music my entire life.”

“I know,” Patrick says. “I have too.”

“Thought so,” Frank says. “You look like a believer.” He raises his beer in a toast and Patrick clinks bottles with him. “You reckon we believe in the same god then?”

“Dunno.” Patrick thinks about this. His gut reaction is no but he has no rationale for that feeling. “I mean… our music is different, you know?”

Frank laughs and leans down, chucks Patrick under his chin. “And you’re so much lighter than me, Stump.”

It makes Patrick choke on his beer. “Yeah,” he manages, when the coughing fit subsides. “I’m a regular fucking ray of sunshine, dude.”

“You know what I mean,” Frank says, and yeah. Patrick kinda does.

“So we’re not fighting for the high priest hat then?” he asks, as innocently as he can manage, and almost regrets it when Frank’s spit-take leaves him covered in beer.

“You know the strangest thing?” Frank asks later when they’re both considerably drunker. “I think maybe Gee knows the same god as me.”

“Yeah?” Patrick wonders absently if Pete believes in the same god that he does. He doesn’t think so, even if he wishes he did. “What makes you think that?”

“Music,” Frank says, and Patrick hums in agreement. He can understand that. “I thought it the first time I met him, when Mikeyway introduced us. It was like,” he gestures wildly with his hands, like trying to show an explosion, “music, man.”

“What do you think they are?” Patrick asks. “Our gods?”

Frank shrugs. “Does it matter? They give us music; we’ll pay the price.”

“You think there’ll be a price?”

“There always is,” Frank says. “I mean, dude, I heard the music that death hides. There’s going to be a price.”

Patrick drinks. His beer’s gone warm, but it’s not an idea that’s occurred to him before. What’s he paying, he wonders, for the music? He’s not sure, but he has the horrible suspicion he would pay, regardless of the cost.

“Why?” he says at last. “Why a price?”

“’s precedent, isn’t it?” Frank says. “All the martyred saints, they paid a price. Orpheus, he paid a price. ’s what you do. You pay the price for the things that matter to you.”

“Is it worth it?” he asks, turning his head to watch Frank. “The price you’re paying?”

“What price?”

Gerard’s voice comes as a shock and Patrick struggles upright, as startled as if he’d been found making out by his mom.

Frank doesn’t seem to be fazed, though. He’s off the chair almost before Patrick has seen him move and is up in Gerard’s space.

“The price we pay to the gods, Gee,” he says. “For our music. Do you think it’s worth it?”

“Do we pay a price?” Gerard asks, and it’s a trick of the dying light in the bus, but Patrick can’t see his eyes, just shadows where his eyes should be. “If we do, we get more than compensated for it.”

He’s very close to Frank; and even if they’re not touching, they’re breathing the same air, and Patrick isn’t sure he’s witnessed anything as intimate as this. He wants to look away, knows he should look away, but he can’t.

“Compensation,” Frank says, not backing away, “is not the same as freedom.”

“And is freedom so very important to you?” Gerard asks, sounding honestly curious. “Isn’t what we have better than that?”

Frank’s eyes widen, and suddenly Patrick needs to be out of here right now.

“I need to sleep,” he says, staggering up. “Thanks for the beer, Frankie.”

They don’t respond and he brushes past them, escaping as fast as he can, getting out of the bus into the night and running, not with any particular aim in mind – it’s all from right now.

And of course his luck means he runs right into Pete, knocking both of them to the floor in a tangle of limbs while Mikeyway looks at them with expressionless eyes.

“Patrick,” Pete pants. “What’s wrong?”

It’s on the tip of his tongue to tell Pete, everything about gods and belief and the fucking prices, but Mikey is still there, and he can’t.

—

By the end of Warped, things are different. Patrick’s spent too much time with the Chems to be unscathed by it, and Pete has started thinking in terms of food, and prices and he has a nagging fear at the back of his mind that he can’t shift. And then Patrick only goes and lives with Bob Bryar and that just makes everything fucking perfect.

He’s even taken his favorite hoodie with him, and Pete is left, cold and Patrickless, and without his favourite piece of armor to shield him from the world. The fact that they see each other every day in the studio doesn’t seem to help, nor does the summer’s worth of relationship woes that Pete is using for lyrics to keep what he’s really thinking safe.

Patrick’s praying again, since the end of Warped at least, but his voice is wary and it’s kinda killing Pete every time he hears it. But it’s there. Patrick still believes. He didn’t listen to Gerard and follow his fate, or whatever else Gerard had told him.

Instead, Patrick is still by his side, putting music to his words; putting voice to his heart, and Pete is happy.

It’s fragile, though.

All Gerard’s talk of prices comes back to haunt him in the small hours of the morning when he should be asleep. He doesn’t think he’s demanding a price for what he gives Patrick – but what if there is a price? What if Patrick’s paying it and Pete doesn’t even know?

He's worried about it and it's making him irritable. Patrick should be himself – not some adjunct of Pete, living his life because he thinks that's what Pete wants, and it's all tangled up.

"What do you want?" he asks Patrick one evening. They’re alone in the studio and they’ve abandoned the song they’d been working on in favor of an impromptu version of Total Eclipse of the Heart that plunges Pete right back to their early days on the road, back when he was driving with only hymns like this in Patrick’s voice keeping him awake. Patrick looks up at him, confused, and Pete smiles. "Out of life, Lunchbox."

"Huh." Patrick strums a minor chord that feels like it's hardwired into Pete's heart and looks thoughtful. "To do this, I guess."

"This?" And Pete’s a god. This can cover a lot. "Like, Fall Out Boy, this? Or music, this?"

"They're the same thing, aren't they?" Patrick asks. "But I guess, music."

The words hit Pete like a punch to the gut.

"You don't see us lasting?" he asks, fighting to keep the panic from his words.

"Nothing's forever, Pete," Patrick says. "But I guess I can see keeping going with music outside the band as well.”

The words stay with Pete through recording the album and the tour that follows.

Patrick's always been into music outside the band, Pete realizes as he obsesses over the conversation. He'd just never realised that it was because he needed to get things from other musicians that he couldn't get from the band – couldn't get from Pete.

He needs to get Patrick to stay – but he needs to be sure that Patrick is living his own life as well. It would be too easy for Pete to impose his will on the situation, make this happen the way he wants them to, but he’s always shied away from doing that to Patrick.

In the end the solution seems simple. He’ll let Patrick make the album he wants. He wants Patrick to be true to himself, and he needs to stop getting in the way of that. Which is how he ends up driving a wedge into the band and screwing everything up in one fell swoop.

He's always known that the group dynamic isn't precisely fair. He and Patrick split the lion's share of the writing and have reached a comfortable balance on stage, and it doesn't always leave a lot of space and time for Andy and Joe. He knows it’s not fair, and he hates that he does it, but right now Patrick is his priority, so he does his best to ignore Andy’s tense shoulders and Joe’s increasing detachment and disappointment.

“Dude.” Joe looks as tired as Pete feels, and right now it could break his heart. “Did you think it would be like this, back when we were kids?”

“We’re still kids.” Pete isn’t going to compromise on that. There’s time to be old later. “But no. I never thought it would be work like this.”

Joe grunts and sips his beer. “I keep dreaming about beaches,” he says, sounding like he’s a million miles away. “And thrashing the hell out of a guitar in a metal band.”

“I dream about it being quiet,” Pete says, surprised into honesty. “About not having anyone to let down.”

Joe gives him a sympathetic look and throws him a beer of his own, and Pete decides he will try harder, that he will make it work for all of them.

Except that it turns out that miracles aren’t his forte, and the harder he tries to make everything perfect, the more tense and irritable everyone gets. Still, it comes as a shock when Andy corners him as he’s leaving the studio one evening, his mind empty of everything except a pounding headache which could be his or Patrick’s – he’s really not sure any more.

“Pete.” Andy’s voice is rough and his face suggests he’s run out of fucks to give right now. “What the fuck is going on between you and Patrick?”

It’s such a direct question that Pete just gapes, and for a dangerous second he’s close to blurting out the absolute truth. Andy just rolls his eyes, though, and pinches the bridge of his nose, like he’s fighting to keep his temper.

“Don’t fuck around,” he says. “You might think you’re being subtle here, Wentz, but you’re not. We know.”

“Know what?” Pete says, widening his eyes in what he hopes looks like innocence.

“We know there’s something between you and Patrick that shuts us out,” Andy says, and oh.

“We’re not together,” Pete says, and his voice is much smaller than he intended it to be.

“No. And I didn’t say you were.” Andy’s eyes are narrowed, but some of the fury that Pete had sensed simmering under the surface has gone. “But don’t treat me like I’m stupid, Pete. I’ve known you for too long, and no matter what you think, I’m not fucking dumb.”

“I never thought you were,” Pete says, and the words come out as shitty as he’s feeling. It’s late, but the evening sun is still hot and he feels sick and dizzy right now because Patrick might be his priority, but he loves these guys too, and this album is hurting all of them and Pete can’t work out how to make it stop.

“Do you know what you’re doing, at least?” Andy asks, and Pete can only shake his head, heartsick and unsure and Andy gathers him up in a rough hug. “Fuck,” he says, his voice low and comforting next to Pete’s ear. “We’re really screwed, aren’t we?”

It motivates Pete to try and again, but it feels too little, too late. He’s stopped sleeping, and while it’s true that he doesn’t need to sleep, it’s one of the behaviours that anchors him to his humanity. The longer he goes without sleep, the more detached he becomes, and he knows – even as he allows the behavior happen – that he needs clarity now more than ever. He can’t force himself to make any other choice, though. The nights pass, sleepless, while he spends his time trying to understand what Patrick wants, to see the shape of his vision while he’s asleep and craft it into some sort of form in the daylight of the real world.

But it takes its toll. The lines are all blurred now, and Pete is exhausted and he’s not sure where Patrick ends and he begins any more. The only thing that’s stopping him from melting away completely and becoming Patrick’s shadow is the fact that Patrick is fighting him every step of the way.

He might rely on that a little too much, it turns out.

They’re working late, just the two of them, when it all breaks down.

Patrick’s mouth is pinched and there are dark shadows like bruises under his eyes, but Pete thinks that this mix might be it, and they will be one step closer to putting this whole nightmare behind them.

So, he’s kinda not ready for Patrick to turn to him and say “I can’t do this any more,” in a horribly conversational tone.

“Wait.” It takes a second for Pete to manage to parse the words, but when he does he turns to Patrick, takes in the tight set of his shoulders and the way he’s avoiding looking at Pete. “Patrick. Dude. What do you mean?”

“I mean that I can’t do this any more, Pete.” Patrick’s voice is still light, like it’s nothing. Like he’s talking about the weather, and not ripping the heart out of Pete’s world.

“This?” Pete repeats, blank, because none of this makes any sense right now.

“Any of this. The band. You. Your words. Your…” Patrick waves a hand at Pete, but he looks tired rather than angry and for the first time Pete feels properly concerned. “Any of this.”

“But…” Pete grasps around for reasons why this is a bad idea. It says a lot for the last few months that he’s struggling to find any. “What about the kids? What about the public?”

Patrick just looks at him, flat and unimpressed. “That was always your dream,” he says at last. “Not mine. I never wanted this. I only ever wanted the music.”

“So you want the band to end?” Pete says, but the words feel like they’re coming from a million miles away right now. “You want to go off and do your own thing and we’ll all just get on with our lives like none of this mattered?”

“No.” The word is out before Pete has finished speaking, and Patrick looks surprised at himself. “Or. Maybe. Yes. I don’t know, Pete. I just need a break.”

“Okay,” Pete says, fighting to keep his voice calm. “Okay.”

He gets up and leaves, not bothering with his jacket or his stuff. Just taking his car keys and getting the hell out of Dodge. He can feel the panic about to bloom in his chest, and he fights it, concentrates on the shitty roads and the shittier traffic until he’s nearly home and he hits a red light and it fucking overwhelms him – the terror and the loss and the pain and he’s panting like a dog behind the wheel of his car and he has to get home, because he’s not safe. He’s not safe here – he’s not safe anywhere – he’s lost his believer and his life, his empire, everything he’s built is up for grabs by whichever god wants to take him on and he doesn’t care because he’s finally done it. He’s finally lost Patrick.

He’s not sure how he gets home. He’s losing time. He’s substantially less real than he was this morning. Maybe he’s only here on his sofa because that’s where Patrick believes he will be. Maybe he really is becoming nothing apart from a figment of Patrick’s imagination now.

He should call someone, he thinks. Andy, maybe. Or Travie. Or Mikeyway. But he can’t. He’s hurting and all he can do is to do what he’s always done – he reaches out blindly to Patrick.

The force of Patrick’s prayer is overwhelming.

It drives him to his knees and he’s sobbing in the middle of his home and nothing has ever hurt like this before.

There’s no words, but this is Patrick and there don't need to be. Pete can hear his pain, throbbing through the bass line of the prayer, hear his fear in the staccato beat, hear his lovelovelovelove through the soaring melody, and the whole is as confused and lost as Pete feels, and he wraps it around him and holds on to it, as if he will lose everything, himself included, if he loses this.

It goes on for hours, and by the time it ends Pete feels like he’s part of the music, like he's part of the prayer, and he thinks he knows what he needs to do.

He lets the last fading notes resonate in the chambers of his heart and pulls himself together.

Patrick’s right. It can’t go on like this. He can’t be a god and a human. He can’t be a bandmate and a muse. It was always pushing things too far to try, but they’ve had a good run – he’s had a good run – and now it’s time to let go.

Andy and Joe will be okay. There’ll be other bands for them, together, Pete thinks. He’s fairly sure he can sort that out for them. And Patrick will be okay – his prayer proved that. He’ll be better, Pete thinks, when everything is at a remove. He needs Pete, that was a recurring motif in the song, but he’ll be healthier, he’ll be happier when Pete takes his rightful form again.

It hurts to admit that, but Pete knows he’s a piss-poor excuse for a human, and there is no way on Earth that Patrick needs him in his life more than he needs the connection to the source of inspiration that Pete can give him.

He draws in a shuddering breath. He can get through the rest of this record. He can do this. And then he will go. Not far, he thinks, but forever. That is the logical choice. An accident, maybe, something that will leave people with a scar that can heal, that will stop hurting. Something that won’t leave them (won’t leave Patrick) blaming themselves.

He’s got it all sorted out in his head, how it will be, how the shape of the world will taste when it’s changed. It’s all lined up and ready for Pete to press, to use his will to change the future, when his cellphone rings.

It’s such a mundane thing, and he’s so conditioned, that he answers without thinking.

“Pete.” Patrick’s voice is small, like he’s as raw as Pete is right now. “Pete. I’m sorry.”

“There’s no need to be sorry,” Pete says. “You’re right.”

“I was being a dick,” Patrick says. “It’s not you. It never has been.”

“It kinda is,” Pete says, and Patrick laughs at him.

“Yeah, no. I’m used to you,” he says, and the fondness in his voice makes Pete’s heart break all over again. “I just… I don’t know, Pete. It shouldn’t be a fight like this all the time, you know?”

“Yeah.” He runs his finger over the rough plastic of the phone. “You weren’t wrong, though. We need a break.”

The silence from the other end is deafening, and Pete has to fight himself to keep from filling it, but at last Patrick sighs.

“Maybe,” he says. “But if we do, it’s a break, and not the end, right?”

He sounds fierce and it makes Pete smile. “Sure,” he says. “We’ll call it a hiatus. And we’ll be here for you when you’re ready to come back.” I’ll be here, he means, but he knows Patrick hears the subtext just fine.

“I need you to promise,” Patrick says, and Pete smiles, broken.

“What’s it worth?” he asks. “You gotta give me something in exchange.”

It startles a laugh out of Patrick. “You can have the hoodie,” he says. “For the hiatus. I won’t even try to get it back off you.”

“Okay,” Pete says, like getting to hold on to this part of Patrick will make up for not being able to hold onto Patrick himself anymore, like he’s not letting the new world he had lined up crumble into dust just because Patrick has asked him to, like the tears aren’t still wet on his face. “Sounds like a fair trade.”

It’s not as easy as that, but it’s not that much harder either. Pete’s really fucked up with this whole album thing, and he doesn’t notice Andy or Joe fighting particularly hard to change their minds.

He waits until the dust has settled a bit before he runs, but at the end of the day it’s what he does best, and he’s a god after all – there are all sorts of hills he can run to. It’s not the formless space of before, but it’s somewhere he feels safe.

He pops back often enough that he can keep the glamour going – belief like this is addictive after all – but he can’t stomach it properly now. It’s like methadone when all you want is a real hit but he’s almost religious in giving Patrick his space, and he has to take what he can get.

He can do this, he repeats to himself whenever it gets hard. For Patrick. He can manage.

—

There was a point on Warped when Patrick heard something he knows he shouldn’t have.

He doesn’t have an excuse for it – not for why he listened and not for why he’s kept it secret since – but the fact remains, he heard something he wasn’t meant to, and it changed the way he saw the world.

Patrick’s not stupid. He knows that Pete doesn't like Gerard – or that he doesn't like Patrick talking to Gerard at least.

Not that Patrick ever lets that stop him. Give Pete an inch and he takes a mile, and besides. It’s like Pete’s being possessive, and he’s never possessive. Not like this, at least. Sure, if he thought Patrick was going to switch bands then maybe. But just because Patrick is spending time with someone else? No. There’s something else going on, and Patrick’s itching to work out what it is.

Which is how he hears it. He’s been talking to Gee and the time has slipped away, and somehow he is asleep, his head pillowed on Gee’s thigh and Gee’s fingers rubbing a soft pattern against his scalp when Pete and Mikeyway get back to the bus.

Patrick hears the grunt that passes for a greeting between the Ways, but it’s comfortably removed from his reality and he doesn’t bother opening his eyes or waking all the way up, not even when he hears Pete’s footsteps passing and then pause next to him.

“He’s not yours,” Pete says, and Patrick was expecting a kiss, or laughter, or for Pete to draw on him, so the venom in Pete’s voice takes him aback and he has to fight to keep himself still, keep his eyes closed.

“He could be,” Gerard replies, his tone smug. “You haven’t got a monopoly on him, Wentz.”

“I’m not saying I do,” Pete says, his voice low and dangerous. “But even if he’s not mine, even if he never was or never would be, he would never be yours, Way.”

“You say that now,” Gerard says, and his voice is sinful, “but he can believe what he wants, Pete, and he’ll get fed up of sunlit fields and secondhand emotions soon enough.” He tightens his hand on Patrick’s head, and Patrick allows himself to snuffle sleepily and shift positions a little. There’s a pause as Gerard and Pete wait to see if he will wake, but Patrick can’t miss this – not now. “In the end,” Gerard continues, his voice pitched low like a story from a forgotten book, “he’ll want to see what lives in the shadows, and when he does, I’ll be waiting for him.”

The conversation ends then, but it itches at the back of Patrick’s mind for longer than it should. There’s something different about MCR, and it doesn’t matter what it is, it’s a fact. There’s a pattern he’s not seeing, and it’s irritating. Like all the pieces are there but he doesn’t have the skill to put them together. He’s nearly sure, for example, that Bob’s not human, or not properly human anyway, and the only thing that bothers him about this is that Bob still insists that Patrick pick up dirty towels off the floor.

It makes him think about belief, though, about how he prays and why. He’s never formalized it – hell, apart from the one conversation he managed with Frankie about it, he’s never even talked about it.

He’s discovered that prayer works best for him when he drops the words. When he tries to find the beat of the prayer, the melody of supplication and negotiation. Sometimes these prayers stay safe inside his head; sometimes the music makes it into songs. When it does, when they play those songs at a show, he’ll occasionally catch the eye of a kid in the audience and see the belief reflected back at him, augmented and beautiful beyond anything he had in mind when he’d been on his knees alone at home.

It’s personal and beautiful and intimate and he tries not to let it happen often because it almost hurts. Almost.

The pain is worth it, though. These songs, these hymns, are the ones Pete responds to best, and when he’s playing them – when they’re playing them – Patrick feels invincible, immortal.

Leaving Fall Out Boy behind – leaving that behind is the hardest choice he’s ever had to make and he doesn’t think he’d could manage it if Pete wasn't backing him up on it – wasn’t, in the end, more committed to the hiatus than Patrick was himself.

“We’re doing the right thing,” he says to Patrick once they’ve finished packing everything away and Andy and Joe have headed off. “You’ll see, Trick.”

“Maybe.” Patrick looks down at his shoes. Scuffs them on the drive of Pete’s swanky home. “We don’t have to do this, though.”

“We do.” Pete’s voice is steady; sure. “We need this time off. You’ll have adventures, you’ll learn things, and then you’ll come back and we’ll write albums about them.”

He’s a careful distance away from Patrick and suddenly Patrick can’t stand it. He surges forward and catches Pete in a crushing hug.

“But what about you?” he asks, the words muffled by the skin of Pete’s neck. “You keep talking about me and my adventures, but what about you?”

Pete barks out a noise that Patrick can’t identify, and clings back. “I’ll be fine,” he says, and Patrick can barely hear the words over the rushing in his ears. “You just need to concentrate on yourself right now.”

Patrick can’t let go. He knows when Pete is lying to him; he knows he’s lying to him now. But at the end of the day, this was Patrick’s choice, he’s doing this to Pete, and he owes Pete the dignity of pretending to believe him.

So he holds on as long as he can, holds Pete as tight as he can, and when he drives away he doesn’t look back, drives for 15 minutes at random until there’s enough distance between them that when he pulls over and cries, he knows Pete can’t see him.

He and Pete have agreed they’d limit contact for the first few months, and Patrick misses him more than he expected he would. He’s okay, or okay for a given value of okay that encompasses feeling like he’s an open wound, tender and vulnerable but healing. It’ll get better, he thinks, and there are stretches of time – days, hours, minutes even – where he believes that.

He can’t let go completely, though, and he writes emails that he sends to a disposable email address. Maybe he’ll give Pete the log in to it at some point. Until then it’s enough to get the words out of his head, the feelings out of his heart. And yeah, maybe he stalks Pete a bit, but surely that’s what the internet is there for, so it doesn’t hurt anyone.

He’s expecting that Pete’s going to need time away from the spotlight, the only surprise is that it takes him a couple of months to seek it. So Patrick doesn’t worry too much when Pete drops off the grid. He’d prefer it if Pete would text him, but to be fair Patrick isn’t texting either, so he can’t complain too much.

No. The real panic comes when he kneels down and for the first time in his memory, there is only silence when he reaches out to his god.

There’s nothing, not when he searches through the random notes and phrases of music that usually form his prayers, not when he sings the hymns that have sustained and connected him in the past, not even when he gives into desperation and pleads with words to a god that has gone as silent as the grave.

He leaves it for a week, for two weeks, before he lets himself act on the panic, and when he does it’s to phone Frank.

“No,” Frank says almost as soon as Patrick’s explained what the problem is. “No. I’m not discussing this with you.”

“Why not?” Patrick’s kinda hurt here. Okay, he and Frank aren’t the best of friends, but he thought they were close enough, that they’d shared something of themselves on Warped at least.

Frank sighs. “Things have changed,” he says, his voice low, and Patrick suddenly wonders who might be listening his end. “I don’t talk about this any more, Patrick.”

“I’m scared,” Patrick says in a rush. “Frank. The band’s gone, Pete’s gone, my god has gone, and I’m…” he takes a deep breath, “scared.”

“Fuck.” Frank pauses, and there’s a dull thumping noise that Patrick would bet is him hitting his forehead on the wall. “Look. You can’t tell anyone I spoke to you.”

“I won’t,” Patrick says, his heart in his mouth.

“In that case,” Frank says, “talk to Bryar. And whatever the fuck he tells you, you don’t call me back, understand?”

“Yeah.” Patrick slumps back against his seat. “Consider your number deleted.”

Talking to Bob takes more courage than Patrick expects it should. He’s lived with the man, they’re friends. Of course, Patrick’s never talked about religion or prayer with him, but they’ve talked about other things, and so he has no idea why it’s so hard to make the call and ask if he’s free the next time Patrick’s in town.

“Spill,” Bob says when they’re on their second beer and the pleasantries have been more than dealt with, and he laughs at the look on Patrick’s face. “Oh, come on. There’s something on your mind and you’re trying to work out how to bring it up.” He leans forward. “We know each other, Stump. So just talk.”

“My god’s vanished,” Patrick says and starts peeling the label off his beer in favour of looking at Bob. “He’s gone, and when I pray I can’t hear him anymore.”

He braces himself for the mockery, but instead Bob hums thoughtfully.

“You’re on hiatus,” he says at last, cautiously, like it might be some sort of answer, and Patrick frowns.

“So, my god is only there when I’m with the band?”

“No,” Bob says. “Not quite.”

He’s the one looking away now, and Patrick leans over, puts his hand on Bob’s arm. The skin under his hand shifts but Bob looks up at him, so Patrick counts it as a win.

“Tell me,” he says. “You know something about this, Bob. Just tell me what it is.”

“I’m not good at words.” He looks at Patrick, his eyes wholly black and inhuman. “Talk to Gee.”

“Yeah,” Patrick says. “Okay.” His beer is empty, he realizes. He gets up, goes to the kitchen and gets two more bottles from the fridge.

Bob’s eyes are back to normal when he brings them back through, but the look on his face is comically shocked.

“You’re still here,” he says, taking the bottle that Patrick holds out to him, and Patrick nods.

“You’re my friend,” he says, sitting down next to Bob, letting his arm rest against him comfortably. “You think I give a shit what the hell else you are?”

If it was hard approaching Bob, it is easier asking Gerard.

“You’ve talked to Frankie,” Gerard says as he answers his front door, giant mug of coffee firmly in hand, and Patrick sputters his denials. “I know. You don’t need to bother lying to me.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Patrick says, gathering the tattered remains of his dignity as best he can. “Bob told me to talk to you.”

“Whatever,” Gerard says, walking into the house, leaving Patrick to follow him.

By the time Patrick catches up with him, Gerard is in the kitchen and is brewing a mug of tea for Patrick.

“Your voice,” he says, when Patrick looks confused. “You’re recording soon, aren’t you?”

Patrick nods, and reaches out for the mug. It’s something herbal, sweet and woody and he can’t identify it. Gerard watches him drink with a small smile on his face.

“It’s a blend I make for Frankie,” he says, in answer to the question Patrick hasn’t asked. “It’s good for him.”

“You love him,” Patrick says, and it isn’t what he meant to say at all and he snaps his mouth shut.

“I do,” Gerard. “At least, he’s mine and that counts, doesn’t it?” He raises an eyebrow at Patrick. “For humans, at least.”

“You’re not human,” Patrick says. It’s the idea that’s been in the back of his mind, probably since Warped, but it’s still a shock to see Gerard’s smile and nod.

“Not even slightly,” Gerard says, as if he needs to clarify. “Is that a problem?”

Patrick shakes his head. It wasn’t with Bob; it shouldn’t be a problem with Gerard either. Gerard’s smile turns feral, wide and toothy.

“You miss your god,” he says. “Are you auditioning for replacements?” His teeth are tiny, Patrick notices, and more pointed than he remembers them being. “You’ve been to see Bob, after all, and now you’re here.” He moves around so he’s in Patrick’s space now, close enough that Patrick can smell the scent of skin and incense. “What are you looking for, Patrick?”

“My god,” Patrick says, his voice shaking. “I need to know where to find him.”

“But why?” Gerard asks, looking at Patrick with eyes gone suddenly dark and fathomless. “Anything he can do, I can do better. Besides,” he puts a hand either side of Patrick, boxing him in, “he left, didn’t he? I wouldn’t leave you, Patrick. Ask Frankie. I never leave.”

“But you’re not Pete.” As he says it, Patrick knows it’s true. Of course it’s Pete – it’s always Pete. “You’re not Pete, Gee, and I’m sure you’re the perfect god for Frankie, but Pete is mine, and that counts, doesn’t it?”

It’s not as smooth as he’d hoped but Gerard laughs and takes a step back so Patrick can breathe again.

“You’ve worked it out at last?” His smile is mocking, but there’s no real edge to it now. “I thought you would, even though I told Frankie not to tip you off.”

He says it like it’s nothing, but it isn’t. It’s everything and Patrick is reeling. He sips his tea, though, and gradually the world slips back into focus.

“What do I do now?” he asks, and Gerard looks up at him.

“Nothing.” He shrugs at the look on Patrick’s face. “This doesn’t change anything, you know. You agreed to the hiatus, and the rules haven’t changed.”

“But I didn’t know,” Patrick says. “I didn’t know I’d lose everything.”

For a moment the expression on Gerard’s face softens and he looks almost human. “You haven’t,” he says. “Pete will be back.”

Patrick raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. “And he’ll have talked himself into some stupid course of action, and persuaded himself it’s for the best. No.” He shakes his head. “This ends now, and it ends with me talking to Pete.” He glares at Gerard and is vaguely gratified when he takes a small step backwards. “Are you going to help me, Gee? Or do I need to find a god who will?”

“And you know so many gods,” Gerard say, but his voice rings hollow so Patrick just smiles and pulls his phone out of his pocket.

“I bet I’ve got the number of half a dozen in here,” he says, and Gerard actually laughs.

“Probably closer to twenty,” he says. “Pete collects these freaks.”

Patrick shrugs. “Like that surprises anyone. So,” he looks at Gerard, tries to keep his expression impassive. “are you going to help me? Or am I going to humiliate myself for the rest of the afternoon?”

“Well,” Gerard says, his eyes glittering, “you make it sound so tempting, but yeah, I’ll help you.”

“Is he worth it?” he asks, before Patrick leaves. His head is quirked to one side and in the fading evening light he looks young. Patrick thinks about Frank, thinks about Pete, and wonders how lonely it is to be a god.

“He is,” he says at last, “for me.”

“And you don’t resent the price you’ve paid?”

“What price?” Patrick fixes Gerard with a glare, but Gee looks more vulnerable than Patrick can ever remember seeing him. “All he ever asked was for me to be in his band. I’d have done that for a friend – he never needed to ask me as a god.”

“But still,” the shadows are falling now, heavy between them, “you’re living his destiny, not yours.”

Patrick shrugs. “That’s how friends work, Gee. Their lives get tangled up, and I have never, not for one second, regretted having Pete in mine.” Gerard opens his mouth, and Patrick holds up his hand. “No. I know what you’re trying to ask, but you need to ask him directly.” He takes a step back, smiles at Gerard because he can’t do anything else. “He loves you, you know. Or you’re his, at least.” He steps forward, hugs Gerard. “That counts for humans.”

—

The mountain isn’t what Pete remembered.

He’d never lived here properly in the olden days. It’s a big name kinda place, and Pete’s never been a big name kinda god. But he’s been back, on and off, through the years and when he decided to take a break from the mortal world, he’d thought that he’d be hanging out there with the likes of Gabe and Travie, eating grapes and drinking nectar.

It’s not working out like that, though. The mountain is too real and too unreal, all at the same time. The halls echo with the prayers of the faithful and with his own footsteps, and Pete can feel his sanity being stripped away inch by inch.

Maybe he’s become more human. Maybe his time with Patrick and his band have shaped him more than he realised. He’s not sure. All he knows is that this is no longer home, and that he doesn’t regret that. The guys he wants to hang out with – be they gods or humans – are anchored in the human world now. And even when Gabe or Ryan or one of the others show up, they just remind Pete about what he’s left behind and he feels uncomfortable and edgy until they go back to the human world, until they go home.

It gets better when he leaves the mountain proper and heads on, further up and further in, away from the human world. There are caves, close to the end of the world, that are dark and hidden. The gods that hide there are mostly forgotten, and Pete feels at home when he arrives. He misses Patrick, misses the band, and he’s not sure he’s properly a god any more. It’s confusing, but being here keeps him from doing anything stupid.

He’s already stolen Patrick’s heart, and memories, and his hoodie. He’s not willing to risk anything more.

—

It occurs to Patrick probably a bit too late that he should have asked Gerard more questions while he’d still had the chance.

“There are paths everywhere,” Gerard had said, “but it’s easier to use the paths that are closest to your heart.”

It comes as no surprise at all that the paths closest to Gerard’s heart are in Hollywood. There’s something very dramatically satisfying about it, even while it makes Patrick desperately afraid.

It’s one thing believing that Gerard is a god – that Pete is a god – and quite another to prepare himself to embark on some sort of mystical journey on land that glows orange in LA’s light pollution.

Still, whether it’s coincidence or the nature of the journey he’s on, Patrick sees nobody after he parks his car in an unusually deserted car park and takes the first steps on the road that will lead him back to Pete.

For some reason the whole scenario is plunging him back into a vivid sense memory of those first days they spent on the road. He’s on foot, sure, but he’s got a battered guitar from way back when, and a headful of dreams that feel as real as they did all those years ago. It’s a quest now, just like it was a quest back then, only instead of a clapped out van full of friends and the dream of rock stardom, all he has are his own well-worn converse and the hope of Pete to drive him forward.

He’s not sure how this whole thing works, whether he’s in the real world or some Jungian land of myth and legend, but he forces himself to trust Gerard and to keep walking, one step after another, his mind firmly fixed on Pete. He’s doing this for Pete, after all, and for himself, and even if there is a part of him that doesn’t believe what he’s doing, there is a larger part of him that knows this is the best way to fix things, the best way to get his life and the future he wants back.

It’s almost meditative, and as he walks his doubts start to fade away. He’s on a path now, and if he follows it, it will lead him to Pete.

He walks for as long as he can, until the shadows get long and he decides that it would be safer to rest. It’s warm enough that he probably doesn’t need it, but he lights a fire, for comfort and company more than anything else.

It’s quiet out here, wherever he is. He’s sure it’s nowhere that would show on Google Maps any more, and the land around him looks vaguely Mediterranean, the sort of place he imagined when he was a child and read stories of myth and legend. Under the shelter of some twisting trees, there’s nothing to hear, apart from the crackling of the fire and the distant noises of small animals. But the silence is expectant, and the darkness beyond the fire is hungry, and it doesn’t take long for Patrick to reach for his guitar.

He knows what he intends to play even before he had the strap slung over his shoulder, but when his fingers touch the strings the song comes out in a minor key, slow and heavy, and more serious than any version of Total Eclipse has any right to be.

The song is more than a prayer now, it’s closer to an invocation, and as he plays he sees Pete in the fire, flashes of the past in the flames. Turn around, he sings, and before him he sees a younger version of himself pinning Pete to the side of the van during a midnight argument in a gas station, Pete kissing his cheek on stage while the crowd screams.

The shadows behind him are full of things shifting and listening. He doesn’t turn around, just sings into the waiting dark and hopes that it’s enough.

It seems to be, although Patrick’s fingers are sore from playing by the time the pressure eases and he feels like he’s finally alone. He puts the guitar down, curls up by the dying embers of the fire, and tries to sleep.

The next day is harder. He feels like he’s got the attention of the place now; that the birds he sees are watching him; that the bushes and trees are hiding watchful eyes.

He trudges on, though. He’s doing this for Pete. He can’t let himself forget that.

The slope seems endless, though, and as he climbs it he thinks about Pete. How do Andy and Joe see him, he wonders. Do they feel the same way as he does? He doesn’t think so. They’re not here, after all. More than that, their lives have never felt as caught up in Pete’s as his has.

Maybe there’s a focus to belief, he thinks, and maybe he is that for Pete, just like Frank is that for Gerard. And if that’s the case, maybe that makes him closer to the fans than Andy or Joe, makes him a worshipper waiting to be validated by Pete’s attention.

It’s an idea that isn’t wholly comfortable, but as Patrick continues to climb he realizes it can’t be right either. He’s not a worshipper – how could he be? He knows the reality of Pete: how he smells when he’s been stuck in a van for two weeks, the way he hides in plain sight, how he only makes a jokes of the feelings that scare him. It’s not the sort of knowledge that leads to worship; it’s the sort of knowledge that leads to friendship and comes from love, and try as he might, Patrick cannot reconcile those emotions with the awe he equates with worship.

And he can’t understand why Pete hasn’t talked to him about this. He has to know that Patrick would have picked up on something, especially with Gerard and Bob and the tangled ties that link the bands together.

Patrick’s dwelling on this so intensely he almost doesn’t notice the person waiting on the path until he nearly treads on him.

“Patrick.”

He looks up, then up again, and is completely unsurprised to see Gabe leaning against a tree, wearing his best devil-may-care expression on his face.

“Saporta.” Patrick is not in the mood to mess around here, and Gabe is one of about a dozen people who have been systematically lying to him for years. “What are you doing here?”

“Keeping an eye on you,” Gabe says, and raises an eyebrow eloquently. “You made quite the stir last night, though you could have chosen a better song.”

Patrick just shrugs. The song is important to him and Pete; he’s not going to justify himself to Gabe.

Gabe sighs and starts to walk next to Patrick. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Finding Pete,” Patrick says, and barely bites back the obviously.

“And if he doesn’t want to be found?”

Patrick scowls. “Then I’ll find him anyway. Since when has Pete ever known what is best for him?”

Gabe makes a noncommittal noise. “He might not be pleased to see you here,” he says at last, voice cautious. “There are rules about mortals coming here.”

Patrick just grunts. He’d guessed as much, but everyone else seems to be making up the rules while they go along, so he’s not that worried.

Gabe sighs again. “Do you even know where you’re going?” he asks.

“Not really,” Patrick says. “Gerard told me to follow the path and I’d reach Pete.”

“Gerard would,” Gabe says, darkly, but when Patrick looks at him he tightens his lips and doesn’t say anything more.

They walk in silence for a while, until the sun is high overhead and Patrick decides he needs to stop. He roots in his bag until he finds a bottle of water, and though he drinks from it first, he leaves most of the bottle and passes it to Gabe.

“You want to share my lunch?” he asks when Gabe finishes drinking and hands back the bottle. “It’s nothing special. I got it from a deli before I left yesterday so it’s probably not great.”

“What do you want for it?” Gave asks, and Patrick feels himself flush with anger.

“Nothing,” he says, his voice tight. “You’re my friend and you’re here with me, and I’m sharing my lunch. There’s no cost, it’s just lunch.”

“Freely given?” Gabe says, and Patrick nods.

“Freely given,” he agrees, and Gabe reaches out and snags one of the stuffed vine leaf things that Patrick really isn’t sure about.

They eat in silence and share another bottle of water before Patrick decides it’s time to get moving again.

“I’ll leave you here,” Gabe says when they’re both standing, and he looks down at Patrick, very serious. “You gave me food and water, and for that you have my gratitude and some advice, for what it’s worth.”

Patrick nods, his throat tight. He’s mostly been ignoring what it means that Gabe is here, but now with the afternoon sun catching his hair and Patrick’s full attention on him it is very clear that Gabe is not human either, and even though Patrick had guessed it, had known that before, intellectually, it feels very different to have the knowledge settle into his heart and bones.

“He’s in the caves at world’s end,” Gabe says and there’s no need to specify who he is. “And a gift, freely given, is a powerful magic.” He starts to turn away, then hesitates and looks back at Patrick. “And prices run both ways.” He smiles, rueful and human again – the man who Patrick has helped in the studio more time than he can count. “Whatever we do has a cost, and it’s not always the believers who pay it. In the end, we are in your hands.”

He waits until Patrick nods, and then he turns away, vanishing between one footfall and the next.

Patrick walks on, weighing Gabe’s words in his mind, thinking about prices and belief, about what gods would want with belief – and what it might do to them once they have it.

The road gets wilder the longer he walks, and Patrick starts to be unsure about how time is passing any more. The sun is acting in strange ways, moving through the sky when Patrick isn’t looking like the rules of time and space don’t apply any more, and it would make him panic but he has a goal and he’s not going to let some weird phenomenon get in his way, not now he’s sure he’s making progress.

He doesn’t like to think of Pete being out here though, not on his own, but it’s such a Pete thing to do that he’s exasperated as well. The further he walks along this path, the closer he gets to the caves, the more he is sure that Pete is sulking. In some ways it’s comforting that Pete’s behavior as a god is so similar to his behavior as a human, but in most ways Patrick is a bit tired and a lot worried and he still wishes that Pete had trusted him enough to tell him.

There are a lot of caves out here – more than he expected and more than can be accounted for by the space – and the air is thin. Not in a lack of oxygen way, Patrick thinks, but in a lack of reality way. He doesn’t dare examine the caves too closely, afraid of what he might see inside them, and for a time he’s scared that he might have got this far and still not find Pete.

It’s an unfounded fear, though. He knows immediately when he finds the right cave – it’s like a chord resonating in his chest – and his relief is profound and all encompassing.

Pete’s sitting just back from the mouth of the cave, his skin gold in the light of the sun, but he doesn’t notice Patrick. He’s curled in on himself, like a study in self pity and Patrick is overwhelmed by fondness and anger and pain and a hundred more emotions he can’t even begin to identify, much less pick apart.

The prayer is pure instinct. Let him listen to me, he thinks, and for the first time in weeks there is the answering echo that he’s learnt to listen for.

He only really realises what he’s done when Pete tenses and looks around, blinking against the light outside the cave. It’s too late to take it back though, so he walks forward until he’s in the mouth of the cave, until Pete can see him.

“Patrick?” Pete sounds more confused that Patrick’s ever heard him before and it quells his urge to slap. “What in the gods’ names are you doing here?”

“I came to find you,” Patrick says, because at the heart of it it really is that simple. “You promised you’d be there, Pete, and you vanished, so…”

Pete is looking at him with an expression of horror.

“But you’re here,” he says again, and Patrick understands what he means.

“Yeah,” he says. “Here.” He gestures at the caves, and the light at the end of the world, and grins. “I really wish you’d told me, you know.”

“I couldn’t,” Pete says, and he looks wretched.

“I’m fairly sure you could,” Patrick says. “I’m positive that Gerard’s told Frankie.”

“Death gods.” Pete’s face twists. “They have their own rules.”

“And you don’t?” Patrick asks, and Pete looks away from him.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he says. “You’re human.”

“And you’re not,” Patrick says. “But you needed me, and I came for you.”

Pete lets out a wordless growl of frustration and turns to face him properly for the first time. “You don’t understand,” he says. “You’re human and there are rules.” He scowls at Patrick. “Don’t you get that? There are gods here who would fight to the death for a regular human, do you have any idea at all what they would do for you?”

“For me?” Patrick blinks, confused. “But…”

“You’re special,” Pete says. “You’ve always been special. Why do you think they all want you? Why do you think they all hang around? Desperate for your attention? For your belief?”

“Who?” Patrick says, because he can’t remember anyone hanging around like he’s special.

“Gerard.” Pete’s eyes flash. “Bob. Gabe. Panic. Any of them, ‘Trick.”

“My friends, you mean?” Patrick’s aware that his voice is cold, but he really can’t bring himself to give a fuck right now. “The people I give my time and attention to because I like them?”

Pete shrugs, and turns away again. “They have other believers,” he says. “They take what you give freely. There are gods here who won’t stop at that.” He looks around at the other caves with wide eyes. “The gods who end up here are desperate. They’re the starving gods who used to be great and now no one even remembers their names. They have no believers,” he reaches out as if he wants to touch Patrick, dropping his hand at the last moment, “and no belief to feed them.”

“And they think I would believe in them?”

“They would make you believe. We’re not in the human world now. They can’t go there without invitation, and you…”

“Could invite them?”

Pete nods. “Your belief would give them a door. Your belief is powerful, and while you are here, they have the rules on their side.”

“So do I.” Patrick hopes he’s right about this, he really does, but the walk has been a long one and he’s had time to think. “Rules of a quest.” Pete freezes, but Patrick can tell he’s listening. “Mortals can do all sorts of things when their hearts are at stake.”

“Your heart?” The acoustics of the cave are tricky, and Patrick can’t catch the emotion behind Pete’s words, but he nods anyway.

“For always and ever, you said.”

He knows straight away that he’s said the wrong thing. Pete crumples, and when he turns towards Patrick, his face is devastated.

“I tricked you out of it,” he says, but Patrick shakes his head.

“You fucking earned it,” he says. “You think this is about some icee?” Pete looks up at him, and Patrick is suddenly so angry he could punch him. “Asshole. You’re my best friend. You persuaded me that I could be a singer. You gave me a band to be in. You wrote me lyrics. You never had to trick me out of it – you already had it.”

“You had no choice.” The words are small, but Patrick knows Pete, knows he’s willing to be persuaded.

“Of course I had a choice,” he says. “I chose you as my friend. I chose you as my bandmate. I chose you as my god.” He sighs, and smiles at Pete, softer now. “I chose to give my heart to you. How many more choices do you want me to make?”

“But,” Pete looks lost, and Patrick can see the hope warring with despair on his face. “What will I be if you don’t believe in me any more?”

It makes Patrick laugh. “You’re a fucking idiot,” he says. “What the hell do you think friends do for each other? I’ve believed in your for as long as I’ve known you, and none of this,” he gestures at the cave and the world outside, “has ever affected that.”

For a moment Patrick thinks he’s got through to him, but then Pete blinks and starts to turn away and Patrick starts to panic because if he doesn't get through to Pete here and now, he never will.

“And you believe in me,” he says, and it stops Pete in his tracks. “Does that make you my believer, Pete?”

“It doesn’t work that way,” Pete says, but his voice is small and Patrick can see enough of his face to see how wide his eyes are. “It’s not the same, ‘Trick. There’s no price.”

“Really?” Patrick raises an eyebrow. “You’ve disrupted my life since the first second I met you, and I don’t regret a thing, and you're trying to tell me you’ve not changed at all? Because I thought the price cut both ways.”

Pete turns around and he looks lost. It’s nearly enough to break Patrick’s heart; it’s more than enough to make him keep going.

“Tell me,” he says, walking towards Pete, slow, like he might spook him with a sudden movement. “Tell me, dude. What’s this price you’re making me pay?”

“I stole your heart,” Pete says and the tone of disgust in his voice is almost enough to make Patrick’s heart break fully. “How can I love you and do something like that?”

“I gave it to you freely,” Patrick says again, remembering Gabe’s words. “And a gift freely given…”

“Is a powerful magic,” Pete finishes for him.

The words are small enough that Patrick has to strain to hear them, but when he does, he knows what his answer has to be. “You think that you’re not the most important thing in my life, no matter what you are?” He reaches out and tips Pete’s chin so he has to look at Patrick, can’t look away. “You give me the courage to go on stage when you’re my god, and you give me the reason to stay there when you’re my bassist. It’s always you. You give me my words. You make me see why I’m doing this.”

“You should be free to make your own decisions,” Pete says, and Patrick recognises his tone. It his noble self-sacrifice tone, and Patrick does not have the patience for this right now.

“I am,” he says, and he glares at Pete like he’s daring him to say anything. “And at this time; in this place, I choose you, in whatever way want to be with me.”

The words are heavy. They echo in Patrick’s mind, and his mouth. They ring round the cave. Beyond that world is silent, waiting.

“How, though?” Pete is starting to look angry, and it makes him so much more himself that something loosens in Patrick’s chest. “How can you make your own decisions when I’m your god?”

“Because that’s not how belief works,” Patrick says. “Because my belief wouldn’t shape me – it could only ever shape you.”

“What?” Pete’s lip curls. “So, you chose to make me like this?”

Patrick shrugs. “I’m not your only believer,” he says, as gently as he can, “but apparently this is what I find perfect.” He looks at Pete; can see almost every thought chasing across his face, and is shocked to find out the words aren’t a joke. Not even slightly.

There’s only one thing he can do with this knowledge. He reaches out as gently as he can and tries to put it into the music of prayer. It’s louder here, he realises, and he can almost hear the tones with his ears as well as his heart and they land on Pete like a sucker punch.

“Patrick.” Pete folds in on himself, and Patrick follows him to the floor of the cave, holding him while he hears the music washing over them both. And it might be lasting forever, or it might be over in seconds, but Patrick knows, bone deep – heart deep, that it’s changing their world.

“You meant what you said?” Pete asks as the last notes fade away, tangling themselves into memories that Patrick will dream about forever. “You want me in whatever way I am?” Patrick nods, and Pete looks at him, his eyes wide. “Even if I come back as a human, not as a god?”

“In whatever way,” Patrick says again. “Just come back. You promised you’d be there, Pete, when I was ready. Well,” he reaches out his hand, “I’m ready now.”

“You only get to make this choice once,” Pete says, but Patrick can see his hand, knows what he will decide.

“So do you,” he answers, and isn’t surprised when Pete nods.

“Where do we go from here?” Pete sounds unsure and that more than anything makes Patrick pause, searching for the right words.

“We work out how to do this,” he says at last. “We work it out together.”

“And if I am human?” Pete asks, and Patrick shrugs.

“You’re my bassist,” he says, not even willing to entertain Pete’s shit right now. “You’re the words to my music.” He turns to Pete, and it’s the end of all things, or the start of all things, and he’s not sure there’s a difference between those two things any more. “Why do I need to believe in some god when I’ve got you?”

He thinks maybe Pete will argue with him, but instead he grabs Patrick by the hand and tugs, and there’s no fanfare, but suddenly they’re back in what passes for reality and the future is rushing up to meet them.