Pete wakes up to Patrick's face three inches away from his own.

There's no strangers in his bed, and no ache in his skull, either; he hasn't been out since his house-mate turned out to be an ethereal being. Somehow he always ends up watching a movie with an abundance of feathers in his lap. It's doing his sleeping pattern a world of good, and perhaps that's why he comes so quickly to his senses once Patrick says his name.

"Pete." It's urgent and whispered, two big blue eyes blinking at him in the half-light of the morning and pale hands hovering around him, not quite close enough to touch.

"Patrick?" Pete mumbles, crumpling his face and pushing himself up onto his elbows. "Are you alright?"

"Uh," Patrick falters, his teeth sinking into his bottom lip, "it wasn't me," he says, too quickly.

Sleepiness falls away as Pete frowns at the kid, and he sits up properly, painfully aware of his half-nakedness. "What have you done?" Pete warns, narrowing his eyes.

Patrick huffs, but the anxiety doesn't fade from his face. "It's not my fault, I swear," he insists, but it's unsure and pretty much confirms that whatever it is, it's definitely Patrick's fault. "It's just, fucking...everywhere."

"What's everywhere?" Pete asks, yawning the last word at the boy.

Patrick steps back a little, gesturing to the window. "The...stuff," he says, his wings curling to cover his arms. Pete still hasn't got used to it; can't take his eyes off the way they seem to glow in the morning light, the blue-pale of Patrick's bare chest and the swell of his stomach over the waistband of his pyjama bottoms. Not that Pete's looking, of course.

He swings his legs over the side of the bed, rubbing his eyes and groaning, "What stuff?"

The boy makes a noise of frustration, his feathers puffing up like a ruffled pigeon. "I don't fucking know, it's everywhere and it might be dangerous and I swear I didn't do anything, I just woke up and it was there and, and," he babbles, voice rising a few semitones with each word. Then his face falls, and he drops his gaze to the floor. "And I think Sam's out there."

He looks so devastated that Pete nearly offers him a hug; then he remembers the crisis at hand and stands up, eyes trained on the curtain. "Out there? It's outside?"

Patrick nods, "Yeah, everywhere. It's not my fault!" he says again, following behind Pete as he stalks towards the window. Whatever it is, it better not be anywhere near his car.

When he throws open the curtains, however, ready to face the apocalypse, he looks down at his front garden and begins to laugh. It is, indeed, everywhere, and it is not, in fact, Patrick's fault at all.

"What is it? Why are you laughing?" the boy asks indignantly, jabbing an elbow into Pete's ribs as they both stare out of the window. The confusion on Patrick's face makes Pete's heart swell a little bit.

"Patrick..." he giggles, "it's snow."

The boy's mouth opens, then closes, then wilts into his well-worn frown. "Snow," he repeats slowly, and Pete's grin widens. "Why is it here," he mutters, glaring like it's sitting in his place on the couch. There's only a light dusting of white over Pete's lawn, plus a little either side of the road, and it's November, so it'll all be gone in a few hours, but Patrick's looking at it like it might attack them at any moment.

"It's like rain, but, y'know, colder," Pete shrugs, watching Patrick's eyes as he peers out of the window, close enough to the glass that his nose touches it. "It won't hurt you."

The kid narrows his eyes, then turns them upon Pete, and for a second, Pete feels a little like he's being examined. Then, Patrick announces, "I'm going outside."

Before Pete knows it, the boy's turned on his heel and disappeared from the room, leaving Pete yelling at him to put something warm on.

Pete smiles after Patrick until his senses come back to him.

-

Patrick looks adorable in a bobble hat, Pete decides as he watches the boy prance down the street ahead of him later that morning. They tried a half-assed snowball fight, but surprisingly, Patrick was far more interested in studying the snow than hurling it at Pete's head.

It's November the 5th, and Pete's decided to take Patrick to see a little more of the city, seeing as he only really knows London by its alleyways. Plus, he's never seen fireworks before, and Pete really really wants to see his reaction to the bonfire night festivities.

Explaining the celebration proves difficult; as much as Pete tries to make the gunpowder plot seem light-hearted, he can't really get around the boy's questions about what happened to Guy Fawkes, and ends up having to explain the mechanics of being hung, drawn and quartered to a green-faced Patrick. They end up sitting in silence on the tube after Pete finishes with the line so now we celebrate by burning models of him on a fire every year. Perhaps bonfire night wasn't the best idea after all.

Neither, perhaps, was Pete's decision to take Patrick to the Natural History Museum.

Pete's just finished quizzing Patrick and his flawless knowledge of London Tube stations (the boy knows the map as fluently as he knows his alphabet) when they come to the gates of the museum, and Patrick's eyes widen at the sight, cheeks pink from the cold and gloved hands stuffed into the pockets of the coat Pete bought him. He had to put the belts back on this morning, but this time, Pete made sure to cushion them with bandages so they don't hurt Patrick as much; even so, he hates that Patrick has to so painfully hide such a beautiful part of himself.

As it turns out, however, Patrick's more than just beautiful in part. The look on his face as he gazes up at the diplodocus in the vast entrance hall is one Pete wishes he'd got on camera.

"What is it," he breathes, ignoring the people buzzing around them and grabbing Pete by the wrist.

Pete smiles the bewildered grin he reserves for Patrick's moments of discovery, and begins to lead him towards the little information plaque at the front of the platform. "It's a dinosaur – a diplodocus, actually – they were alive a very long time ago, before humans were around."

"Whoa," Patrick says, "they lived here?"

"Well, yeah," Pete nods, "archaeologists found their skeletons and put them back together, and put some of them in this place so we can see them." He points to the writing, which is infinitely better at explaining things than Pete.

Pete watches Patrick's face as he studies the information, pausing only to answer the boy's questioning of words he doesn't understand. To be perfectly honest, even Pete has no idea what sauropod means.

"One hundred and fifty million years?!" Patrick shrieks all of a sudden, turning to Pete as if he should have an explanation for this utter madness, "that's...that's...I can't, fucking..." he trails off, shaking his head and squeezing his eyes shut.

"Yeah," Pete nods, beginning to appreciate how inconceivable all this must be for Patrick. "And if you go back even further, the countries weren't even in the same place, they all used to be this huge super-continent, and before that, there wasn't any earth at all, just a huge fiery lava ball floating in space. It's pretty crazy," he finishes, gazing up at the dinosaur skeleton.

It takes him a few seconds to realise Patrick's staring at him. "What," the kid says flatly, lips parted in disbelief. He looks mildly terrified.

"But, you know," Pete says breezily, waving a hand, "we'll get to that later."

The look of awe never quite leaves Patrick's face as they wander through the museum corridors; Pete doesn't think he's ever spent so long in one section, as Patrick insists on reading every single piece of information he can find, occasionally tugging on Pete's arm and half-yelling interesting facts at him. The boy wants to know everything, yammering far-flung questions at Pete that the man has no hope of knowing the answers to. Patrick's a veritable information sponge, instantly memorising the order of the different eras and which dinosaurs lived when.

It's hilarious to see Patrick jump out of his skin when the animatronic T-Rex leans towards them both; what's not so funny is the ferocious snarl the boy lets out – terrifyingly real next to the robot's computer-generated roar – and the shocked glances shot at them by strangers. But there's really no denying the warmth in Pete's heart when he realises Patrick's first move was to step between Pete and the monster.

He's beginning to regret not taking sandwiches when Patrick drags him into the Mammal Gallery, showing no signs of letting up. The kid points excitedly at the birds in the glass cases, no longer prehistoric skeletons but fully-feathered and vibrant. Patrick won't talk about his wings in public, but Pete can see him counting flight feathers and comparing wingspans. He marvels at the sloth and the koalas, the lions and the deer, standing proudly behind ropes, just out of reach.

"I've seen these!" Patrick yelps when they stop before the foxes. They stand in a display cabinet, mock scenery around them, and Pete has to pry Patrick's hands away from the glass to stop him leaving smudges over it. "They're shy, but they like you if you give them food," the boy explains, and he looks so pleased with himself that Pete decides not to scold him for encouraging London's pests. They're better than rats, at least.

It's not weird until Patrick begins to talk softly to the fox at the front. "Hello," he says, "it's nice to meet you. I've met lots of your friends. You're doing very well, standing still for so long, it must be tiring."

Pete's about to question it, but Patrick's already turning to him with concern on his face.

"They get breaks, right?" he says, and Pete doesn't understand soon enough.

"What?"

The boy huffs. "Like, they get to rest sometimes, so they don't get achy, don't they," he says, nodding like the question's already answered.

"No, no," Pete says, laughing slightly, "they're not alive, Patrick, it's, like, taxidermy, they're put in that position and, like..."

Pete cuts himself off at the expression on Patrick's face.

"They're dead?!" Patrick shrieks, loud enough that the hushed conversation around them dies to empty silence. "What the fuck?!"

"Well, yeah," Pete says, keeping his voice down in the hope that Patrick might follow his lead. "I thought you-"

"Oh my – fucking – what the hell?!" the boy yells, eyes flicking to the animals surrounding them, steps reeling backwards. "That's – disgusting! What the fuck?!" he repeats, but this time there's a crack through his voice and a terrified horror on his face.

Pete opens his mouth to say something, to tell Patrick to shut up because everyone is staring at them, but the boy's already backing away, one hand covering his mouth and the other fisted in his hair, knocking his hat to the floor. Then he turns and runs, footsteps echoing off the shined wooden floor, distraught curses fading in his wake.

"Patrick," Pete tries, weakly, watching the kid weave a path through the scattered tourists and disappear round a corner. "Sorry," Pete sighs in the general direction of the staring audience they've collected and begins to jog after Patrick, sweeping his hat off the floor as he goes. He should have known; a Patrick-tantrum had been long overdue.

When he finally catches up to Patrick, after jogging the whole way out of the museum, the kid's sitting on the wall by the railings with his face buried in his jacket sleeves, openly sobbing. He's getting some concerned looks from passers by, but then, so is Pete as he darts around the clumps of people and out into the open air.

"Patrick," he repeats as he collapses onto the wall beside the boy, cold breaths sharp in his throat. "Man, you run fast," he laughs in an attempt to get the kid to look up. He doesn't.

"Why do you kill them?" Patrick asks, muffled through his hands and wracked with tears. "What've they done wrong?"

The devastation in Patrick's voice makes Pete's chest hurt; he begins to rethink his use of the word tantrum. This isn't some stroppy whining toddler, this is Patrick, a damn angel, crying over the effects of human destruction. Placing a gentle hand on Patrick's shoulder, Pete decides to stop making fun of the boy and try out this thing called sympathy. "They didn't do anything wrong. They just-"

"So why do you kill them?!" Patrick snaps, finally looking at Pete with eyes steeped in tears.

"Uh...well, I don't, um..." Pete falters, suddenly feeling like he's representing all of humanity, "it's, it's for learning. I know it's horrible, but, y'know, they didn't die in vain. We can look at them and study them, they're there to be admired and respected, y'know?"

"But they're dead," Patrick cries, "where's the respect in that?"

Pete doesn't know how to respond to that, so he just tucks an arm tighter around Patrick's shoulders and lets the boy lean into him. He can feel the soft give of feathers underneath Patrick's jacket; he sees it now, the slightly unnatural curve of his shoulders and his back that Pete had previously attributed to the fabric of his baggy sweaters or his puppy fat. "I'm sorry," he says softly, "I should have warned you. I thought you'd know, I guess."

Patrick just shakes his head and rubs at his eyes, his breaths coming in stuttering gasps as the tears begin to slow.

"We can go do something else," Pete suggests when the blotches on the boy's cheeks have begun to fade. He's sitting up straighter now, gaze firmly on the ground and hands gripping tight to his knees.

"The skeletons were okay," Patrick sniffs, "just not the others."

"We could just go and look at those ones, if you want," Pete says gently, touching Patrick's forearm. "There's a section on how the earth was formed, that might be alright."

The kid thinks for a few seconds, scraping his hair out of his face with cold-flushed fingers, then nods his head. "Okay. Alright."

Pete breathes out, placing a well-earned Angel Tamer badge firmly on his chest and giving Patrick's arm a squeeze. He's not even really grossed out by the tear-and-snot smudges glistening on the kid's jacket sleeves; it's not tramp snot anymore, it's angel snot. It probably has miraculous magic qualities. He'll give his mum a jar of it for Christmas.

He takes Patrick's hand without thinking, tangling their frozen fingers and hating how much like home it feels. He focusses on the snot; the stringy, gloopy snot that coats Patrick's top lip, that rattles in his nose, because clinging to Patrick's imperfections seems the only way for Pete to stay sane. If he looks too close, he'll see how the boy's fingers, despite constant mauling from his teeth, are flawless, unsullied with chapped skin or frayed cuticles. He'll see how Patrick's face is unblemished, poreless, how his lips remain full and ripe and pink where Pete's own are shrivelled and flaking in the cold.

When Patrick squeezes Pete's hand and shows his glowing smile, Pete wishes he could forget everything he's ever learned about God and Heaven and Sin. He wishes Patrick was normal, not flanked with feathers and connotations, with threats of fire and damnation. There's probably demons cackling at Pete's lust, at Pete's longing, with outstretched claws waiting for him to fall. A few weeks ago, Pete was a steadfast atheist; now there's an angel with cold hands and warm eyes sitting beside him, and it's as if all the skies are watching his every move. Touch the Angel, and you will pay the price.

It's difficult to remain scared, though, watching Patrick's mouth drop open as he learns about the earth, the dumbstruck amazement in his eyes as he tries to conceive of the vastness of space and time. Pete finds comfort in the science, the geology and evolution, the absence of God. He holds Patrick's hand tighter, as if in defiance. Atheist.

They eat lunch in increments, around ramblings of dinosaurs and tectonic plates, and Patrick's thoroughly mind-bending questions about what in this world is natural and what is not; in Pete's head, the divide between the natural and the man-made is deeply rooted, but Patrick doesn't understand barriers. He doesn't understand why people sometimes look pointedly at their joined hands, or why people with breasts are less likely to hold positions of power, or why Pete is more likely to be convicted of a crime than his paler peers. He is a blank slate, and he's wonderful.

Pete doesn't know whether to keep him blank or to scrawl all over him, with highlighters and glitter pens and handfuls of powder paint.

Perhaps it's the other way round, though. Patrick sees shape like Picasso and colour like Matisse; his mind finds something other than the prospect of rain when he gazes at London's darkening sky, feels something other than the cold when the wind gnaws at their faces. Sees something other than illness when his eyes meet Pete's. Patrick's pouring colour into Pete without bothering to stay in the lines, and soon there'll be rainbows smudged all along the South Bank and no room for denial. The heavens laugh at him through clouds of cracked smiles as he tries not to lean too close, stare too long.

Abstinence has never been Pete's strong point.

They're crammed among thousands, all staring up at the sky, and Pete's pretty sure his arm found its way around Patrick's waist somewhere between the mulled wine and the near-combustion incident; they're now as far away from the bonfire as Pete could drag the kid.

Patrick keeps turning his head to talk to Pete like he knows it puts their lips at an obscene distance, babbling about God knows what, while Pete's wondering what exactly God does know, and whether it's already enough to send him to the fiery pits of hell for all eternity.

His mum told him what she thinks. She thinks he's half in love with Patrick, she thinks that's why Patrick's here, to love Pete. It's absolute bullshit, every word, but her wrath could rival that of almighty God any day, so maybe Pete's doing the right thing when he snaps his head forward and presses his lips to Patrick's, his nose touching Patrick's frozen cheek.

There's no lightning from above and the ground doesn't open up underneath Pete, and for a moment he thinks he's got away with it, he's kissed an angel with intent and God doesn't give two rats' asses. Then Patrick's expression turns thunderous.

Pete finds himself being shoved away, very nearly colliding with an elderly man, and feels a pang of shock when Patrick looks at him like he's just shot a cat. "Uh, was that not-"

"Stop fucking doing that!" Patrick spits, pulling his hat down over his ears like he doesn't want an explanation.

Pete tries, anyway. "I'm sorry, I thought you liked-"

"Like it?" the kid snarls, ignoring Pete's fingers on his jacket and staring steadfast at the boots of the woman in front of them, "of course I fucking like it, where the fuck have you been the last few weeks?!"

Pete goes to defend himself, to let go of Patrick and use his hands for surrender, before he processes what the boy just said, and his mouth shuts itself. He blinks as the dust settles and stares until Patrick casts him a sideways glare. "So...so – you do like it?"

Patrick lets out a groan loud enough to draw glances from those around them, and rubs a hand over his eyes. "Yes! Yes, fuck, I like kissing you, I'd like to do it all the fucking time, I'd like to be your special person, what a fucking revelation!" He looks like he's about to say more, but there's a redness in his face that can't just be a result of the cold and his jaw locks tight behind his words.

"Oh," Pete says, beginning to feel a little stupid. It's not that he hadn't noticed Patrick's little crush, he thought it was just that: a little crush. It's not that all the cuddling and the purring (oh God, the purring. It's the strangest and most wonderful thing about Patrick. Well, one of the most wonderful things. Pete's started to realise there are quite a few) haven't taken their toll on their relationship, and yeah, they've got closer, close enough to kiss, sometimes, for Pete to kiss Patrick, and for Patrick to kiss back, so, so...ah. Maybe this is more than Pete imagined. "So why did you, like, push me?"

"Because," Patrick huffs, like it's obvious, "you always fucking forget, and you go and kiss other people, and I fucking hate it and I don't understand and if you won't kiss me all the time then I'd rather you just didn't fucking do it at all." Pete's surprised Patrick hasn't started a bonfire of his own from the heat of his glare. The boy crosses his arms as if that's the end. But, for once, Pete decides to listen to his mother, and actually go for something he wants.

"So...what if I did kiss you all the time? And, like, didn't kiss other people?" He wonders – if he'd ever pictured himself asking an angel out – if he'd imagined himself doing it quite this awkwardly. He stares at Patrick's face in profile, moving his hand to the crook of Patrick's elbow.

Finally, the boy looks at him. His eyes are narrowed as he asks, "Are you making fucking fun of me?"

"No, no," Pete says quickly, raising his voice to be heard over the excitable shouts from the loudspeaker. He's painfully aware that the fireworks will start in a matter of minutes and interrupt what feels like an important conversation. The voice starts to announce the countdown at the same moment Pete grabs Patrick's arm, forcing their gazes together.

"I won't forget," Pete breathes earnestly, leaning close to avoid shouting, desperately trying to hold Patrick's unforgiving stare. "I won't kiss anyone else, I don't want to." It's truer than Pete realises; how could anyone else match up to an angel, for goodness' sake? But then again, the lips, eyes, the live-wire temperament would be just as enticing without the wings, the halo.

The countdown begins from ten, and Pete's running out of words as quick as the crowd runs out of numbers, he can't say anything else, if Patrick won't take his word, he has nothing else to give.

"Don't forget," Patrick says, and not much can be heard over the yells of the crowd, but somehow his voice carries, and Pete nods, and then it's a decision, an agreement, a promise to lean in and touch their mouths together. It's gentle until Patrick's gloved hand clasps at Pete's neck, chaste until Pete's tongue braves the cold of the evening air for the warmth of Patrick's mouth. It's only the soft-scratch of Patrick's sideburns under his hands that keep Pete from raising his middle finger to the heavens; if he burns for this, so be it. This kiss, this cold and snotty kiss is worth the hell-fire.

Then the first firework goes off, and Patrick screams.

It's muffled by the crowd, but Pete hears it loud and clear as Patrick rips himself away from Pete's lips and jerks wildly, slamming his hands over his ears and searching for the source of the noise. Another sounds, this one hissing and crackling, and Patrick's knees buckle like the sky is falling in on him.

Pete grabs for him, planting both hands on his shoulders and stilling his thrashing, trying to meet his darting eyes, and ends up just hugging Patrick to his chest as tightly as he can, feeling him flinch as the next firework explodes above them with a boom. "It's okay," Pete says into the glove covering Patrick's ear, "it won't hurt you, it's okay."

As Patrick begins to calm down, he turns his head and peeks out, one eye peering up at the sky, a haze of red-purple flecked with gold. His hands stay clamped over his ears, but by the time the last firework lights up the faces of the crowd, he's standing beside Pete with wide, wet eyes, his lips parted in awe and his body pressed close. Pete keeps his arm wrapped around Patrick's shoulders, finally unquestioning, finally accepting. Finally committed to something more than passing kisses.

It seems as if something in Patrick has melted as they travel home that night; there's warmth in his eyes when he tangles his hand with Pete's, happiness in the rush of air he lets out when he rests his head on Pete's shoulder. Pete wonders for the thousandth time what they did to him in heaven, why he seems so desperate for contact, why he latches onto kind words like a lifeline.

They start to kiss on the walk back from the tube station, after Patrick asks him, without swearing, if it would be okay. When Pete nods, Patrick smiles louder than the firework display, and they weave a stumbling path towards Pete's house, blissfully sober. It feels so vital to Pete that for once he's glad there's no alcohol in his system; but there's a nagging in the back of his mind that he can't shake until they're on the couch, still in their coats and kissing and kissing and kissing.

"What about God," Pete blurts as they pant into each other's mouths, and he feels his hips rock forward of their own accord. The dim light of the lounge seems only to highlight Patrick's scowl.

"Andy isn't God!" Patrick bristles, giving Pete's shoulder an absent-minded shove as he wrestles with the zip of his jacket.

"Then who is Andy?" Pete asks, pulling his gloves off and aiming them at the coffee table. He misses.

Patrick places his hands on Pete's cheeks and kisses him hard before responding, "Andy's...Andy. He's like, my, my...I don't know."

"How can you not know?" Pete questions, letting his and Patrick's jackets fall to the floor and telling himself he will pick them up later or he won't sleep properly.

Patrick can't respond for at least a minute due to the one hundred percent increase of tongue in his mouth, by which time he's looking slightly flustered, his familiar air of certainty faltering. "I...uh...I don't fucking know, okay," he breathes, his fingers clutching at Pete's jumper, his lips hovering near Pete's jaw.

It doesn't matter what Patrick doesn't know, though, because Pete's forgotten the question with Patrick's exposed neck so near, and he can't focus on anything but getting his mouth on it, dragging his teeth over Patrick's skin.

The effect this has upon Patrick is more than Pete's come to expect from past experience; the boy's fingers suddenly tighten their grip, and a rumbling growl sounds from deep in Patrick's chest. Pete takes his hands off the kid, hoping to God he didn't accidentally touch the halo, but Patrick pulls him closer and bites, hard, into Pete's shoulder.

Pete cries out, but Patrick doesn't stop, his hands clamped around Pete's biceps and the growls still ripping through him as he sinks his teeth into Pete's skin over and over, his hips snapping forward repeatedly, pushing Pete back until he can't move, can't hear anything but Patrick's crazed snarls and harsh breathing. "Stop," Pete pants, pushing at Patrick's rigid forearms as pain sears through his shoulder, "Patrick, stop. Patrick!"

Finally, finally, Patrick hears him, registers whatever the hell he's doing, and pulls back, chest heaving. Pete pushes him away, stares at him from the other end of the couch, clutching at the sore skin of his collarbone, coated in Patrick's spit. He better not have drawn blood. "I'm sorry," the boy says quietly, wiping at his mouth, "I – I didn't-"

"Shit, Patrick, that hurt," Pete says, wincing at the stinging sensation, "no...biting, alright? Jesus." He can't quite get over the ravenous look on Patrick's face, the same raw wildness that the fireworks brought out. Maybe it's God's way of telling Pete not to mess around with angels.

"But you-"

"I know," Pete snaps, "I know I did it, but it was gentle, yeah? Nothing like...that. Don't do that again, Patrick. Don't growl, either, it's...weird."

The boy blinks at Pete, big doe eyes that hide whatever's underneath, then curls in on himself, bringing his legs up in front of him and hiding behind his knees. "I can't fucking help it, it just happened, I didn't know, nobody's ever...before."

It occurs to Pete, at this point, that they've been going far too fast. He's been so preoccupied with the hellish consequences that he's forgotten all the other reasons why they shouldn't do this, the sheer amount Patrick has to learn; Pete was his first kiss, his first...well, everything, it looks like. And instead of helping him, teaching him what to do and what not to do, Pete's treated him like all his other fleeting lovers. Make the most of it, it'll be gone in the morning. Take it home, take it all the way, take it nowhere.

"It's alright," Pete says with an exhale, revelling in the realisation that they have all the time in the world for this. Or, all the time that Pete has left. "We don't have to do this now, we can wait."

Patrick gestures between them. "Is this...sex?"

"No, no," Pete says, sitting up and smiling fondly, "not yet. Not until..." Pete thinks about making an obscene gesture to demonstrate his point, then abruptly strangles the thought. "We can just, like, get off a different way, if you want?"

"Get off what? The couch?" Patrick asks, his eyebrows knitting together and his knees finally lowering from in front of his face.

Pete laughs aloud at that, shaking his head and touching a hand to Patrick's foot. "No, no, get off as in, like orgasms," he grins.

"Oh," Patrick nods, not looking like he's at all enlightened, "like, the tingly thing with the..." he makes a gesture with his hand, not unlike a firework, with lewd connotations.

"Yeah," Pete giggles, then stops fast with wondering. "Wait, you have, like, done the tingly thing before, right?"

The look on Patrick's face in answer to that question is so hilariously human that Pete begins to feel a lot better about the debauching of angels; he nods with a blush in his cheeks and a quirk in his mouth that Pete remembers well from awkward teenage conversations. "Only, like...by myself."

"So, so, the other angels are okay with that?" Pete says cautiously, crawling up the sofa towards Patrick and wondering why in heaven's name Patrick's wings are still trapped underneath his jumper. "Do they do it too?"

"Um," Patrick stumbles, shoving his jumper over his head to reveal his bandaged and belted chest. Pete can see feathers peeking out here and there, and it blows his mind a little bit. "I don't know. They don't like to talk about it. I do it in the dark, so they don't know about it."

"So, this isn't, like, sinning?" Pete asks, his hands already skimming over Patrick's skin to loosen the belts.

Patrick kisses him softly, carefully, before responding, "I don't fucking know. Everything's fucking sinning to them, even late nights. They don't let me do fucking anything, I hate it, I-" He huffs sharply and rests his forehead against Pete's neck. Pete pretends not to be panicked about Patrick's past, and unwraps the bandages, smiling when he sees there are no angry sores on Patrick's skin.

The boy sighs beautifully as he spreads his wings out, one crumpling against the back of the sofa but the other stretching into a perfect white arc. A tremble ripples through them for a split second, ruffled feathers puffing up and settling down again into impossibly more perfect rows. Patrick does this a couple more times before he's satisfied, then folds them loosely behind him and pulls a dumbstruck Pete into a sloppy kiss.

"I like kissing," Patrick breathes, "maybe more than nuzzling," he ponders, and Pete decides to just let him ponder as he himself focuses on getting Patrick into a suitable sex position. After a mixture of kissing and shoving, Patrick ends up crumpled into the corner of the sofa with Pete on top of him, his wings splayed behind him. "What are we gonna do?" Patrick asks, all wide-eyes and pale skin.

"Just...uh," Pete's dick makes the decision for him, and before he knows it, he's shoving Patrick's jeans down and latching his mouth to Patrick's chest, kissing and licking and (very carefully) nipping at his skin, digging his fingers into Patrick's soft stomach.

When Pete looks up at him, the boy's got a hand clamped over his mouth, stifling whatever glorious sounds he might be making, and that's a sin if ever Pete saw one. "You can make noise," he pants between kisses, "be loud."

The experimental moan Patrick lets out makes them both giggle, but then Pete's worming a hand into Patrick's briefs and he moans for real, dropping his head back against the cushions as Pete confirms that a) angels have dicks, and b) angels react much the same as humans when sexually stimulated. Patrick pushes his hips up into Pete's hand, and Pete feels a little rush of pride when he realises in the moment that he's Patrick's first, the first to make him squirm like that, to make him look like porn on a plate with his mouth hanging open and his eyebrows pinched together.

Pete's barely established a rhythm before Patrick's arching his back and coming over Pete's hand, his wings stretching briefly before slumping into the sofa. Then there's hands in his hair and he's being pulled into a lazy kiss, giving Pete a chance to surreptitiously wipe his hand on Patrick's underwear and shove it down his own pants. Pete's a little disappointed that Patrick's climax didn't result in him glowing, or singing or something heavenly. Maybe that only happens during real sex; Pete makes a note to test that theory at some point.

"That was fucking awesome," Patrick grins, pushing himself up on his elbows and finally managing to look less dazed. "Can I see your dick?"

Pete tries his utmost not to let insecurity get the better of him as Patrick treats his dick like some kind of exotic insect; he takes it carefully in his hand and peers at it, only starting to jerk him when Pete whines wantonly in his ear. It's not the greatest hand-job he's ever received, but the noise of surprise and delight Patrick makes when Pete finally blows his load is sort of worth it.

They kiss softly for a little while, until Pete practically yells at Patrick not to even think about wiping his hand on the couch, and decides they need to clean up.

Prying Patrick away proves difficult; not only because he clings like a koala in the wind, but because he's so wonderfully cuddly that Pete's mouth refuses to form the I need a shower, and Pete's hands keep accidentally curling tighter around him. Plus, he's engulfed in wings, which are heavy when their owner is practically passed out on top of him. So he skips the shower.

The boy isn't aware of the human tradition of sleeping next to your chosen special person. When Pete asks if he'd like to share Pete's bed, he frowns and shakes his head and says it's Pete's bed, he's not allowed. He says once when he was little and he had a scary dream he slept in Andy's bed, and in the morning they shouted at him. Pete's becoming more than a little worried about who they are, but he doesn't ask, not tonight. It would truly be a sin to wipe the dazzling smile from Patrick's face.

Patrick doesn't care that Pete's sheets aren't the cleanest, or that Pete finds it almost impossible to brush his teeth without toothpaste dripping down his chin, or that the boxers Pete wears to bed are holey to the point of indecency. It's awkward at first, staring at each other in their underwear, climbing into bed and sitting in silence like an estranged married couple, but then Patrick stretches out his wing to touch Pete's shoulder, and Pete decides he'd like to hold Patrick's hand, and before he knows it he's wrapped in an enormous feathery hug.

"Patrick," he mumbles, huffing fluff out of his face, "how do you even sleep with, like, these?" He pokes at the ridge of Patrick's wing-bone where it's pressed into his shoulder.

The boy shrugs. "On my side, I guess. When I fold them up they're not as huge and awkward," he grins, snuggling impossibly closer and rubbing his nose into Pete's collarbone. Pete pretends not to feel the shot of regret that runs through him, the fear that he's led Patrick on too much, too far, that he's not going to be able to give Patrick what he expects of Pete. Instead, he lets Patrick smother him, kisses the top of Patrick's head like this is more than a mistake.

When they've turned the lights out, Patrick tells Pete that this was the best day of his life. Pete tells Patrick to go to sleep.

-

It's better in the morning. Pete doesn't wake up alone; Patrick's still right there beside him, a wing draped over the two of them and an arm curled over Pete's hip. Patrick sleeps like the dead, and doesn't stir as Pete huddles into the solid warmth of his soft chest. He tries to sleep, but ends up staring at Patrick's feathers, nestling his fingers into the short fluff near the bones and tracing the spines of the sweeping flight feathers. Patrick's halo glints on his arm, and Pete doesn't dare touch it as he plays with Patrick's fingers. He wonders what it is, what it's made of, how something so material can be a living part of Patrick. There's so much he doesn't know, so much he wants to know.

With his mind whirring and greyish light filtering through the curtains, there's no chance of Pete going back to sleep, so he peels himself away from Patrick and into the cold of the bathroom. It's strange having someone else to think of, having a reason not to be too loud, a reason to make two cups of tea rather than just one.

Patrick likes a lot of milk in his tea, and Pete suspects it's because he likes the idea of tea more than he likes the taste, which is fair enough, Pete supposes. He hates coffee with a passion, but he always steals the foam from Pete's cappucinos, which would be annoying if it wasn't so cute to watch. Pete finds himself smiling as the kettle boils, wandering around the living room and throwing open the curtains.

The grey light that spills into the room is a little disappointing, but it hardly puts a dent in Pete's mood. He hums to himself as he pours the tea, hoping it might brew a little faster than usual so Pete can resume what can only be described as the best snuggle-fest he's ever experienced. Then there's a knock at the door.

Pete huffs a little; it's probably Mrs. Ridley with some electrical issue, or the owner of the black Labrador that keeps escaping. Pete's still not entirely sure whether Patrick is behind that; he befriends animals at a rather alarming rate.

When he opens the door, three men stand on the doorstep. They're dressed in dark clothes, and there's a black van sitting outside his house.

"Hey-" Pete starts, but they're already pushing inside. Their hands clamp on his shoulders, and they twist him to face away from them.

Pete goes to speak again, but the slamming of his front door silences him, and suddenly all he can hear is his own breathing. Then, he feels metal, cold against the back of his neck.

Raising his hands, Pete tries to calm himself down. "Who are you?" he stammers, "Why are you here?"

The man behind him breathes a smile into his ear. "We're here for the angel."