Pete slumped in the theatre chair, prepared to be bored brainless. Why had he agreed to this? ...Oh, yeah...if he sat through a ballet, then Patrick was his love slave for a week.
He knew it looked good for the page sixers, the hard-ass King going to the ballet with his secret lover and husband. No one knew yet that Pete and Patrick had gotten married. No one knew for sure that they were even together beyond the freaky friendship they'd had even before their first kiss in the rain.
"Watch, Pete. Listen. It's so beautiful." Patrick breathed, choked up as he stared, mesmerized by the stage before him. He squeezed Pete's hand, and Pete
Chapter 2: Haven't Had Enough
"Once upon a time, this place was beautiful...and mine." - Marianas Trench
Patrick was breathless as he looked up at the pub that his father had opened after his mother had died.
Charming came to stand beside him, looking up at the decrepit building. "This place...Patrick? What is it?" Charming looked from the building to his companion, his throat clicking as he swallowed in realization. "This is where that bastard lives, isn't it? The one that threw you out?!" Charming was getting increasingly incensed. Patrick managed a grip on one of his arms, getting dragged along behind him for the ride in any case.
The downtime was doing him good, but Pete was driving him crazy.
It had been months since he and Pete had torn each of their hearts in two and swapped a half each. The matching scars on their chests were closed, white now, more of a bond than any silver ring resting on their left hands. Not that they didn't have those rings.
Pete had actually made them himself, fashioning them from a thunderbolt. He'd written his vows, as well: Patrick's had taken the blond mere seconds to write when he peeked at Pete's, he was utterly inspired. They loved each other beyond anything anyone had seen before. Their honeymoon was spent solely in bed in
Chapter 1: Ever After
"Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat." - John Lehman
"Your sons will never be happy, King Morgan. So long as they live, your sons will perish and spoil in the sadness of their own creation."
"There is a cure, Sleeda. There is always a cure."
"This is no mere curse, your majesty: as you well know, I am no mere sorceress. I killed your little witch, didn't I?"
"Not dead, bitch." With a groan, Tinkerbell levered the great, wooden door Sleeda stood beneath off the last remaining hinge, crushing her beneath. Morgan pulled a face of disgust at the sound--and Tinkerbell took off running for him. Creep
Within the confines of the Purgatory they were in, electricity began to build and crackle, burning canary yellow and shrieking through the air with power. The lab's fluorescent lights hung off only one of their ceiling mounts, the chemicals inside flickering and changing--no power reaching through their base, but mountains of it crackling through the glass.
Two bodies laid together under the flash of the white lights like the seachlight of a rescue team that wasn't meant to find anything but dead bodies. The blood slowly dripping from the body of the blond looked venomous and viscous, the ever-growing pool leading away from the other as
He was surrounded by darkness and death, a crypt behind him and his own gravestone in front.
Pete collapsed to his knees, but he wasn't afraid.
The birthdate on the headstone was filled in, but it was half-engraved: only the shadow of the deathdate appeared on the rough, concrete tablet. Unpolished and uncared for, as if no one cared enough to mourn him. And, if Patrick died, no one would.
Pete slowly turned to the crypt behind him, yellow lightning crashing as he looked up at the name engraved over the arch: BENZEDRINE.
Pete's breath came out harsh and angry, his hands forming fists at the thought that he'd failed. He was
Patrick could barely find the gumption to stay on his feet the next day, and, as if he already knew this would happen, Pete pushed to stay in bed all day.
Patrick got up in the late afternoon, while Pete was dozing, and made his way to the shower.
He slumped against the cold tile as the warm water splashed soothingly down, but his limbs were sleepier than he'd thought. Fighting to stay on his feet, Patrick angled his face up in the stream of water, trying to figure out what the hell was making him so weak.
He began to shake a little, and, as though on cue, Pete's arms wrapped around him from behind, holding him up under the sof
"Pete, please, just listen to me!"
"No, I won't listen to you. You lost that privilege a long time ago, Cringle!" Pete jerked his arm from his father's grip, unafraid of him now. He could sense Patrick's movement inside, could tell that Patrick knew there was something amiss.
A storm broke in Cringle's features, his dark side let out fully and making Pete's skin shiver with threat that he'd taken out when he'd taken away the last thing that Cringle had to hurt him with. "You should be careful, you ungrateful fuck. I'd hate to see your new home broken." Cringle turned and strode away, a cold breeze in his wake.
The words were sa
"Sally...how...how do I save him?"
"I don't know what to tell you, Pete. Patrick's always had...problems with his heart. I wasn't...I wasn't meant to have children...and Finklestein says my heart's got the same affliction, I just found the antidote."
Pete's eyebrow shot up, his eyes shining with hope.
"Someone to love, dear. When Jack and I fell in love...when I left Finklestein...the worst of it stopped. When I had Patrick, it stopped altogether. Patrick says it's my love for my boys that saved me the pain."
"B-But...you never knew what caused it?!" Pete's voice was incredulous, his head whipping from Sally to Jack.
"