FicWad

Joe and Andy watched silently as Patrick headed towards Pete’s room to release him from the cabinet. In his hand he held a couple of packets of blood.

“Patrick!” Andy called as his friend had almost left the room.
Turning, Patrick raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”
“Those blood packets?”

Patrick frowned, hoping that he was wrong about what was to follow.

“They are both for Pete, aren’t they?” Andy continued.
Patrick lowered his eyes, glowering. “You had to say it, didn’t you?”
Andy nodded. “I was just... I’m sorry, I was just thinking that you... I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m really sorry, Patrick.”

Patrick’s expression softened to a slightly saddened and tired expression.

“It’s okay,” he sighed before turning away.
“Damn it, Patrick!” Andy yelled in return making both Patrick’s and Joe’s heads snap up. “I’m really sorry and it’s not okay! How can you just accept it? I just told you that I trust you and now I say that! How can...” Andy screamed his frustration as he turned away. “What the hell has happened to us?”

A silence fell over the room as each of them pondered the question, Andy still unable to turn back to face Patrick.

“You say I act too much from my heart,” Joe began slowly and quietly, “well, perhaps that’s true, but I think that, maybe, we’re all doing it at the moment. We’re frustrated that we’ve had so much to deal with, so much change, and pain and all for nothing. Beckett’s still alive. In fact, worse than that, he’s more powerful than ever and... He’s destroying us without even being near us. What he did to Pete... Draining him, starving him... It was the start of it all, a snowball effect. It’s tearing us apart because we’re handling it so badly... because, we don’t want to handle it.”

Still facing away, Andy’s shoulders sagged and he nodded sadly.

“So what do we do?” he finally managed, unaware that Patrick had approached and was now just inches behind him.
“We be honest with each other, like we always were,” Patrick sighed placing a hand on Andy’s shoulder. “We look after each other like we always did.”
Andy nodded slowly. “You’re right, you’re both right. What’s really changed?” he turned with almost an excited gleam in his eyes. “Well, obviously you have,” he smiled at Patrick. “But not the real you. You’re still you. Do you see what I mean? I’m the one that really changed! I hugged you the moment I saw you, because I knew you were still you. I didn’t think about it, I didn’t need to. It’s all that business with Simon. Finding out that a close friend was working for Beckett, you know? It’s really thrown me off balance; I’m lashing out at you and Pete and it’s really Simon I’m angry at. I can’t explain it, and I’m not making sense, I know.”
“You are, Andy, really,” Patrick nodded. “It never occurred to me, but you’re right, that’s totally normal and hard to recognise, so it’s amazing you have!”

Andy offered Patrick a brief smile, cut off as he turned slightly as his vampire hearing picked up a deep sigh coming from within Pete’s cabinet.

“I’ll let you out soon, Pete,” Patrick promised looking back with a nod towards Andy as if asking permission.
“Let me out now,” Pete called back, loud enough only for Patrick’s hearing.

Somehow the tone of his voice conveyed to them that he was neither angry nor impatient, but deeply troubled.

“I think Pete wants to say something too,” he told Andy and Joe warily, uncertain what their response would be.
“I think you should let him out anyway,” Andy confirmed. “It isn’t fair on him.”

Nodding gratefully, Patrick left his room and headed for Pete’s. Almost as soon as the lock was removed, Pete was pushing the cabinet door open, almost shoving Patrick backwards and making him lose his balance.

“Hey!” Patrick cried in surprise as Pete was out of the cabinet in the blink of an eye and snatched the blood packets from his friend’s hands.
“What?” he mumbled between frantic swallows. “You want me to go in there hungry?”
“No,” Patrick sighed, feeling increasingly as if acceptance would not be forthcoming from Pete nor by Andy or Joe. “I guess not.”
“Stop that,” Pete turned a stern glare towards his friend.
“Stop what?” Patrick was almost going through the motions of civility now.
“I need you, Trick.” Pete replied unexpectedly. “You’re the reason I’ve survived so long. You’ve kept me alive. But more than that, because of you I’m good and I’m still sane. Don’t ever think I don’t appreciate it.”
“Pete…” Patrick began, not knowing quite what to say to the surprisingly open and honest reply.
“Now,” Pete continued squeezing the last few drops out of the blood packet. “Let’s set Andy straight.”
“Pete?” Patrick ventured as his friend walked past him.
“Yeah?” Pete turned and raised an eyebrow.
“What’s it like?” Patrick’s expression was almost one of guilt for asking.
“I don’t ever want you to find out, Trick,” Pete shook his head. “It’s like a really powerful drug; one sip and you’re hooked. But just like a drug, eventually it’ll kill me.”

Patrick frowned. There it was again: the feeling that Pete had already given up. And here he was telling him how much he appreciated him and was about to say something to put aside Andy’s concerns. It was almost as if he was putting things in order, setting things straight as he had put it. The more Patrick thought about it, the more it scared him. To all intent and purpose, Pete was preparing to die.

“Something like that,” Pete offered Patrick a weak smile, unable to stop Patrick’s concerns filtering into his own mind.
“But, Pete, this is the first step,” Patrick argued. “With this I can at least stop you having to eat humans.”
“Patrick, don’t think I don’t appreciate what you’re doing, but you must know that this is, at best, delaying the inevitable,” Pete’s voice was calm, expectant. Patrick was worried; he sounded as if he had made his peace and was simply accepting his fate.
“No, Pete! I won’t accept it. I’m going to fix this!”

Pete smiled, his eyes filled with sadness and regret, but his words told another story.

“Trick, yeah, this satisfies my basic hunger and will probably stop me wanting to eat a human, and that’s great, but it’s not that simple.”
“Then we’ll work on it. I’ll find the answer, Pete.”

There was that expression again. What did he know that he wasn’t saying? Did he know anything or was he just scared? He didn’t seem scared, in fact quite the opposite. An air of calm hung around him and whatever it was, he wasn’t fighting it.

“Come on,” Pete shrugged as he walked to Patrick’s room, sighing as he pushed the door open. “Okay,” he began on seeing Joe and Andy. “You never doubted Patrick until I put that doubt there and that was just me and my stupid jealousy. It hurt me that you didn’t trust me when I escaped from Beckett’s and you kept me locked up for fourteen weeks and yet you accepted Patrick instantly. I know what I’ve been like since I got back, angry, bitter and wallowing deep in my own self-pity, but I never got the impression that I had any pity other than my own. All I ever got was mistrust and by the time you did trust me, I guess I’d given you no reason to sympathise with me either.”

Andy and Joe merely stared for a few seconds before Andy glanced at Patrick who offered a confused shrug in reply. Pete had never been that frank with them and it was coming as something of a surprise to them all. Andy gathered his wits and tried to explain.

“It was different though, Pete,” Andy began. “You turned Patrick, it happened here and we were on hand for the change and everything after. And we’re more experienced now. When you came back, you had simply disappeared; you were turned by Beckett and at his mansion for eleven weeks. You said that you’d escaped, but seriously, Pete, would you have believed that if it had been, say, me coming here, one of Beckett’s vampires wanting you to believe that it wasn’t a trap?”

Pete lowered his eyes and nodded. The difference between their circumstances was immeasurable and somehow, he had simply not seen it.

“I told you, selfish jealousy,” he replied without looking up.
“But if you’d known why we thought it was different?”
Pete looked up and offered a plaintive smile. “You know me well enough by now, Andy, I suppose it might have made a difference, but probably not.”
“Pete, you’re no fool,” Joe added comfortingly.
“No, I’m not, but I am a lot of other things.” Pete sighed. “Either way, I’m sorry I caused all this confusion and Joe?”

Joe looked up, certain that he knew what was coming but still finding it hard to believe.

“I’m sorry about Andrea, I really am. I wish I could have prevented that.”
“You tried, we all did,” Joe replied sadly.
“I told you a while back that I owed you much more than an apology, hopefully, that’s a good start.”

Silence hung over the small group until finally Patrick spoke up.

“Well, I guess I should feed Spencer and then I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
“I’m looking into Beckett’s decree, find out how far it’s spread, see if other covens have taken it out of town,” Andy announced.
“Don’t go outside,” Patrick warned. “It’s too dangerous right now.”

Andy nodded, seemingly in agreement and accepting the sound advice, but it was obvious from his expression that he resented the restriction of his liberty.

“I didn’t sleep,” Joe sighed. “I’m going to have an hour or so, if I can.”
“And I’m...”

Pete was interrupted by a short sharp rap on the door. “I’m going to see who that is, because it shouldn’t be anyone.”
“Be careful,” Patrick warned.
Pete looked in the direction of the door as another knock came, louder than before. “I’m not the one who’ll need to be careful.”