I listened to Lotte Kestner's I Want You during the writing of this chapter.


2018 - November 2, just past midnight

Patrick had finally gone to bed. He didn't particularly want to sleep but it was the best way he could blow time without going stir crazy from the wait. After tossing and turning for hours he finally found sleep. He was dormant for about two hours when a cold hand on his shoulder startled him awake.

"It's me," Chad whispered. "I need your help."

Pat pushed himself up on his elbows and squinted through the darkness at the other man's silhouette against the moonlit window. "Help? What?"

"Shh," said Chad. "I've found him. But he's being restrained."

"What? Who's restraining him?"

"Shhh!" Chad hissed. "We have to move quickly and quietly. I can't get Tate to respond to me but I think you can. You're going to have to come with me. I can't bring him here."

Patrick distrusted the situation but his concern for their ward pushed to the front of his feelings. "Where is he?" he whispered as he got out of bed. "What's restraining him? Is it Ben?"

"I'm not sure what it is," Chad said quietly. "If it's Ben, he's changed."

"Where are they?"

"I'll show you."

Patrick was ready to follow Chad but the shorter man didn't lead him anywhere. He just held out a hand. Pat hesitated then took it. The world shifted, blurred and swirled in a sickening way that made Patrick appreciate how it must feel to be inside a blender. Suddenly he was freezing cold. It was a cold that cut clean through him, a cold that wasn't affected by remembered clothing.

"Don't let go," Chad's whisper reached him but the world was swirling too much to see anything.

The blurring slowed and stopped and the world resolved itself into mist. Everywhere Patrick looked was gray mist. He couldn't see anything but mist.

"Chad?"

"Shh," Chad's whisper was right beside him. "Call to him. With your mind."

Patrick frowned but did as Chad said. He concentrated hard on trying to call Tate. After a minute or so, Chad sighed irritably.

"You have to make him answer you!" Chad nagged in a whisper. "Tell him… Tell him he's going to be punished if he doesn't."

"What?" Patrick was, of course, used to disciplining Tate but the idea of threatening in a strange situation like this didn't strike him as a great idea.

"Just do it!" said Chad, losing patience. "If you ever want to see him again, make him answer you!"

Pat scowled and refocused his mental energy. He pushed aside concern and dug for anger instead. It was a bit of a struggle, to his surprise, but he found a kernel of irritation and focused on it. He fed it unpleasant thoughts of Tate deliberately avoiding them; of him choosing to stay with whatever it was he was currently with. He wadded that up with a distinct threat of great bodily harm if Tate continued to ignore him and lobbed the emotional mess into the gray void.

At first it seemed like it was a miss. Then, faint and distant: "Pat!"

Patrick's immediate urge was to call back but Chad had been so insistent on their being quiet that he resisted. Instead he sent the urging again, strong and insistent and angry. Hearing Tate's response fueled his desire to find what he knew was being held back from him and that anger-fueled demand exploded out of him like a volcano.

There was another lag where the fog-muffled silence stretched then abruptly something hit Patrick, cold and wet and hard enough to make him stumble back, though he maintained contact with Chad. The slimy thing grabbed hold of him and he struggled for just a moment before realizing it was Tate.

"It's him! Come on!" Chad said, abandoning whispers. "We have to go! Now! Hold tight to him and me!"

The world swirled and melted and whirled and Pat held tighter than he ever had before. When things stopped spinning and his bedroom had resolved around them again Pat felt like he was going to be sick. He moved to deposit Tate's limp form on the bed and sat down hard, almost missing the mattress.

"Jesus," he swore, putting a hand to his head. He still felt like everything was in a blender though it looked all right. "What the fuck was that?"

Tate groaned and sat up a little. They were all wet and cold from the outside to in. Patrick looked over at Tate, who was incredibly pale and groggy-looking. Chad crowded in then and pushed the teen's wet hair away from his face. He looked at the younger man with open concern.

"Go start the shower," he said with a glance to Pat. "Make it warm but not hot."

Patrick nodded and went to do just that. Chad pulled the soaked clothes off the teen, grateful that the boy let him without a fight. Tate had, in his foggy and drained state, dropped into the same passive behavior he'd always shown his caregivers when he couldn't care for himself. Once Tate was undressed Chad wrapped him in the robe he'd given him last Christmas. It hadn't seen much use since but it came in handy just then.

"Can you walk?" asked Chad.

Tate nodded though it was an automatic response. When he tried to stand his legs were wobbly. Chad sighed and grabbed Tate's nearest arm to put it over his shoulders.

"Come on," he said. "I can't carry you when you're this big."

"Sorry," Tate mumbled. He didn't age down though.

Chad did what he could but the going was awkward. Fortunately Patrick had the presence of mind to come check on them after he got the shower to the right temperature. Seeing the struggle, he stepped in, scooped Tate up and carried him the rest of the way. Relieved of the burden, Chad gathered towels and a few washcloths.

Patrick took the robe off and helped Tate into the shower. The spray of warm water felt incredibly good to Tate. He felt frozen from the inside and the warm water felt like it was thawing him out. He sighed and shut his eyes and leaned against the wall of the shower. He hadn't been so drained since he'd died.

"I'm tired."

"You can sleep after you're clean," Chad said as he soaped up a washcloth. "Here."

He shoved the cloth into Tate's hand. The teen took it but he didn't do anything with it. He just held it and leaned. Chad frowned.

"Tate," he said. "You need to get that slime off of you."

Patrick didn't wait for a response. He took Tate's hand and made him wash his other arm with the soapy cloth. That worked as long as Pat was puppeting him but the moment he stopped, Tate stopped.

"Dammit!" Chad swore. He soaped up another wash cloth. "You take the bottom half," he told Pat. "I'll do the top. Then get him into some pajamas. He's useless like this."

"It's not his fault," said Pat but his tone was mild. He knew what was really driving Chad's irritation. Patrick was concerned too and it made Chad's moodiness bearable. He took over washing the teenager's lower half. The cold seemed to be coming from the slime. Where it touched them, it made Chad and Patrick cold too.

"I know it's not his fault," said Chad, sounding just as pissy as before. "But it's still very inconvenient. Why does supernatural bullshit always have to be so Goddamned messy?" He scrubbed Tate's shoulders briskly, sloughing ectoplasm off before moving to his face.

Tate flinched and made faces at Chad's rough touch. Patrick tried to be gentle but the clingy stuff didn't give easily. It was like rubber cement. But between the two of them, they eventually got all of it off of Tate and him out of the shower and bundled in a beach towel.

"I'm showering next," said Chad peremptorily to Patrick. "You should go after me. Stay with him till I get out."

"You don't have to be such a bitch," Pat said.

"When I'm no longer covered in ghost shit," snapped Chad. "I won't be!"

He shed his clothes then, stepped into the shower and yanked the curtain closed. Patrick shook his head then looked at Tate, who was regaining some of his color.

"Can you walk?"

The teen nodded and he tried. He had to lean on the wall a couple of times for balance but he was quickly regaining his strength. He was able to put on the pajamas Pat handed him, without help. Then he curled up on his bed. Patrick tugged off his wet and slimy t-shirt and tossed it onto the heap of used beach towels. Then he sat down on the bed and looked at Tate.

"You okay?"

Tate gave a little nod. "I'm tired."

The corners of Pat's mouth tugged downward. Just the idea of sleep brought mental images of Rubber Man storming back. What if it wasn't Ben? What if it was just an empty suit? But where, then, was Ben? Had it already gotten rid of him? Or was it restraining him, like it had Tate? Patrick knew too little to know what to do next. None of his gut impulses seemed right and there were far too many questions.

"Go ahead and rest," he said. "I'll sit with you. When Chad gets here I'm going to go get cleaned up and he'll sit with you then."

Tate didn't understand the need for being sat with but he was too spent to argue or even question the plan. He just nodded again and then he shut his eyes. Then he must have slept because he was awakened when he felt the bed move. He panicked for an instant because it was dark and he had no idea where he was or what was happening or how much time had passed.

"Shh," said Chad. He smelled like soap and shampoo and that designer deodorant he insisted on buying. "It's just me."

It was assurance enough. The teen relaxed again and shut his eyes once more. He felt the bed shift again as Chad lay back down beside him. Tate dozed a while longer, waking again when Patrick joined them on his other side. The boy was exhausted from three straight days of hell so he let sleep claim him again without a fight. Wedged between the two men, it felt safe. It felt like home.

...

Patrick didn't sleep that night once he joined the other two in Tate's bed. He stayed there beside them for the rest of the night, keeping silent watch over his unorthodox family. Without knowing what it was they were defending against, he couldn't afford to let his guard down while the other two were unconscious. It wasn't until Rubber Man's latest invasion that Pat understood just how important his family life had become to him, regardless of how unusual the arrangement was. It wasn't until then that he realized just how awful being alone was.

Nothing came to disturb them in the night. Shortly after dawn Chad stirred and woke. He hadn't slept his best, being used to sleeping alone. Waking up with Tate's arm over his neck wasn't pleasant but Chad was gentle when he pushed the arm off. Once free, he sighed, sat up and shoved his pillow behind him as a wedge against the headboard. He looked at the sleeping teen and then at Patrick, who offered him a faint half-smile.

"I forgot how much he kicks," Chad muttered quietly.

"Almost as much as you," said Patrick, smile growing just a little.

Chad was not amused. "At least I don't have ice-cold feet. Even before you died it was like sleeping with the Titanic."

"It wasn't that bad."

"Says you," huffed Chad, though he kept it quiet. "You weren't the one having to put up with it."

"No," agreed Pat. "I had to deal with your tooth-grinding."

"I do not grind my teeth!"

"Uh-huh," said Patrick in that tone that said otherwise.

Chad rolled his eyes. "I'm going to go make breakfast. I want him short and combed in an hour."

"Chad," Pat said. "We should let him sleep."

The dark-haired man got up but paused to look back at the other guy. "If he's so tired, he can go back to bed afterward. We're not throwing off our whole day on account of some rubber-clad idiot who can't keep his hands to himself."

"You're the pinnacle of modern parenting," said Patrick sardonically.

"Don't I know it," replied Chad, refusing to be baited.

He left then and the room got quiet. Patrick shifted to his side and propped his head with one hand. From that position he watched Tate sleep. The teen was still a bit pale but seemed at ease. His hair was a mess - sleeping on it while it was wet had turned it into a rat's nest. Normally Patrick didn't support Chad's weird hang-up about Tate's hair but it was a terrific mess that morning.

Pat brushed the blond mop back from Tate's forehead. The young man stirred, brows pinching together briefly as he fought consciousness. Then his dark eyes opened, confusion registering as he tried to sort out where he was and when. He focused on Patrick and the confused look eased. Then he smiled.

"Hey," said Pat.

Tate shut his eyes and stretched hugely. He drew a deep breath and released it in a long sigh. Then he went limp again and lay there for a few more seconds. He tried to remember what happened the night before but it was all a blank. So he tried to recall his last waking memories and with some effort found Westfield. His initial impressions of that event were of fire and tears. So he didn't dig deeper into that memory but skirted past it, trying to remember what happened between the school grounds and home. But there was nothing after the explosion at Westfield till he woke up just now. He couldn't remember how he got home or when or with whom. He knew that probably wasn't a good sign.

When he opened his eyes again he saw Pat still looking at him. "Hi," said Tate.

Patrick's mouth tugged in a hint of a smile. "You okay?"

Tate's expression flickered. He wasn't in pain but he still had a bad feeling about what he wasn't remembering. "Yeah. I think so."

"We thought we'd lost you."

Tate gave him a funny look. "What do you mean?"

Patrick didn't want to explain. Not right then; not without Chad's help. So he didn't. He just leaned in and kissed the young man.

The move came as a surprise to Tate, tearing his thoughts off of what had happened on Halloween night and the fact that Patrick hadn't answered his question. Then Pat's hand began to roam. The simple contact brought Tate a confused rush of carnal urge and strange anxiety that he immediately traced to last night and a room full of angry jocks. He gasped involuntarily and tried to box the memory before it got out completely.

"You okay?" Pat asked again, hand pausing where it was.

Tate wrestled with his inner demons a bit longer then forced a nod. He wasn't going to let the dead jocks haunt him when they weren't even around. "Yeah. I'm cool," he lied.

He initiated another kiss just to bury it all. But it was awkward and made doubly uncomfortable by the nagging thought Tate couldn't shake: He needed to see Violet. Thinking about her at such a time felt weird. He had a strong suspicion she wouldn't approve of what was going on. It might even cause a fight. Which would suck. But Pat was already touching him again, overshadowing the horror of the night before.

Patrick took his time reestablishing his sense of control over the soul that had nearly been taken from him the night before. Afterward Tate lay sprawled on his back, staring at the ceiling without seeing it. Cold reality crept back in to freeze out the warm feeling of security he'd achieved for just a few minutes during the height of semi-consensual pleasure. He hated the feeling of being out of control; he felt stained. Small and dirty.

He rolled over and pressed his face against the bigger man's side. It wasn't a hug or even a cuddle. The action had no conscious thought behind it. He was just trying to put his back to what was out there; deny what was real. Patrick put a strong arm around him, which offered a sliver of comfort in his unhappy state. They stayed like that, not talking but simply existing and resisting the past and future, until Chad urged them to join him downstairs.

...


Author's Note:

I rewrote the last part of this chapter three times in an attempt to get it to end differently. I kept failing and gave up on after this last version. Talk about spirits that can't keep their hands to themselves. Patrick's a very strong-willed character. I guess that's why Chad needed him, but still. He's the biggest culprit of plot derails that I've had in this series.

So next chapter: The two households try to figure out how to defend themselves against the unknown. Also: Tate and Violet finally catch up post-Westfield.