.:Chapter 03:.

"Hey," Patrick called as he walked through the front door of his house. He twisted to the side, wincing at the pain that shot through his body, and opened the closet door, tossing his drawstring bag inside. He watched as it landed behind the vacuum cleaner before closing the door.

"Hey, how was the bookstore?" Ronan, his father, called from the kitchen. Patrick could hear the sound of water running and pots and pans banging together. He let out a sigh of relief, figuring that he could get up the stairs and to his room without having to answer any questions. Questions would just cause things to fall apart and that was the last thing that he needed.

Not after what happened before.

"Boring," Patrick called back, moving towards the stairs. "I mean, it's a bookstore, how much fun am I going to have there?" He snorted. "The only reason I went was because of that stupid book I needed for science."

"Your grade in science proves that you need that book," Ronan replied.

"Well, you home school us, what does that tell you?" Patrick realized that he made a mistake when the water shut off. "Uh, just kidding, Ronan." He laughed nervously, backing towards the stairs even faster. "But speaking of school, I have some homework that I need to finish, so I'll just go and do it right now."

Patrick turned and sprinted up the stairs as fast as he could, running to his room and closing the door behind him. His twin brother, Noah, looked up from the book that he was reading. He set it down, glancing at his brother, before climbing down the side of his top bunk. "What happened?" He crossed his arms over his chest, looking his older brother up and down. "Did you win?"

"What kind of question is that?" Patrick reached into his pocket and pulled out the pocket knife, handing it over to his brother. He went over to the mirror that was set up on the wall, over their desk, and leaned into it, checking his reflection. He could see that his jaw was already swollen and stung. It was bound to be worse by the next day.

"Don't you think that you're becoming a little too…cocky?" Noah flipped the pocket knife in his hand. "Especially since you're bound to lose at some point." He bobbed his head back and forth. "And if that happens, I'm pretty sure they're not going to go easy on your face."

Patrick gave a hollow laugh before sitting down on his bed, ducking his head so that it wouldn't hit the underside of Noah's. "That'd be the least of my problems."

"You missed another session with Dr. Angelo," Noah continued.

Patrick shrugged.

He liked Dr. Angelo just fine; he was the best therapist that you could have to talk to. He didn't act like you were a kid, he treated you like an equal. And he was one of the only people outside of his family that he could talk to about his abuse by the hands of his foster father. He figured that he would have been over it by that point, it ended two years ago. But things were still hard for him, he still had nightmares, he still flinched whenever someone moved too fast, and there was hardly a day where he didn't think of the worst of it. But he wasn't the person that liked to talk, talking bored him. He would rather do something else to get his mind off of it.

Fighting was something that he never thought that he would ever do. He had seen his sisters, Riley and Ruben, get into fights a lot when they had fallen into the wrong crowd back in their home of Sydney, Australia. He had waited night after night when they came back with cuts and bruises and only had things get worse when Robert would get angry and beat them up even more. Their band was a good distraction, helping Big Time Rush was a good distraction. But it followed him like a dark cloud, hovering over his head as long as it wanted.

He just wanted it to go away.

"Riles is waiting to bandage you up," Noah said, tossing the pocketknife to the side. He crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned against the ladder on their bunk beds. He studied Patrick. "And we have an appearance with Big Time Rush tomorrow, so you're going to have to find a way to hide everything."

"Like I'm not used to it at this point," Patrick said. He stretched out across his bed, resting his arms above him. "It's weird…the guys have helped us with so much stuff, but I still can't ever tell them anything that's going on." He shrugged. "If they found out about this…I don't even know if they'd still want to be my friend."

"They'll probably just try to talk you out of it," Noah said. "Like Katie did."

"Yeah, well, Katie didn't have to find out, but she did." Patrick pursed his lips. "And if I have my way, the guys, Ronan, and Mama Knight aren't going to find out either." He cracked his knuckles. "Besides, Kendall would kill me if he found out, and maybe James too, especially considering how overprotective they can be about her."

Noah smiled.

"D'you think I should stop bringing her along?" Patrick's eyebrows lowered. "I mean, it is kinda dangerous. I mean, she can hold her own, but it's good to have her around in case I need an alibi or something if someone asks where I was."

"Sure, that's the only reason." Noah rolled his eyes.

"One of the main reasons," Patrick corrected him. Of course there aren't many others, but still. He ran a hand through his hair. "Relax, buddy, it'll come good."

He was just going to have to deal with it himself, like he usually did when he didn't want anyone else to worry. It wasn't like that was a bad thing; it just meant that he was going to be able to spend more time with Katie.

And the thought alone made him smile.

A/N: Chapters for this story will be longer starting with the next one. This one was short because I just wanted to show what was going on with Patrick's secret at home. There'll be more Patie moments as the story goes on, of course.

Constructive Criticism is welcome. I'll update again soon.

Cheers,

-Riles