Patrick's heard people talk about heaven, and he's pretty sure this must be it. 

He's managed to avoid being kicked out by Pete for three whole weeks. That's three whole weeks of clean, comfy beds, three whole weeks of hot meals, three whole weeks of being among friends.

Pete's been a bit different since that evening, the one where they kissed on the pavement. They've made good their agreement; the man hasn't asked about Patrick's past, and Patrick hasn't punched anyone. So far, so good. But Pete just seems more...comfortable, less uptight and a bit more smiley than he was before. It's nice. It makes Patrick feel a little less like a freak.

That's another thing, he looks less like a freak, too. He's got his own pyjamas, and his own toothbrush, and a razor and a comb for his hair, and a few more sets of clothes. Patrick may have outwardly loathed shopping with Pete, but on the inside, he found it pretty fucking amazing.

These people can buy anything. They can get machines which tell them everything that they could possibly want to know, they can buy little things to put in their ears to make noise which only they can hear, they can even buy better eyesight, better hearing, better smells. Pete barely managed to drag Patrick away from all the little glass bottles; he'd been systematically spraying each one of them around and deciding which one he liked best, but in the end, they all mixed together and it became one huge smelly cloud of toxic gas and Patrick began to feel a little sick.

The shoe shop was weird as hell; there were all these shelves around with only one shoe on them. What's the use in that? And the people were strange. They sat Patrick down and pulled his feet out of his shoes (he'd been flopping around the department store in Pete's old trainers), and started squishing them about, then put them on this measuring thing, nodded and disappeared, coming back with several boxes containing, thankfully, two shoes in each. He left the shop wearing a pair of white striped trainers, all soft on the inside and bouncy on the soles. Pete wouldn't let him get the light-up ones.

Trying on clothes was tricky, to say the least. He had to persuade Pete that no, he doesn't need any t-shirts, and please please only get him baggy jumpers. After a minor freak-out in the dressing rooms and a small number of death threats, Patrick manages to make Pete cave, and he doesn't ask any more questions. Fuck, Pete's questions are going to be the death of him. And Patrick, too. But he doesn't like to think about that.

He thinks about the kiss a lot. It makes him feel warm on the inside, forces smiles out of him in his stormiest moods; the touch of Pete's hand on his jaw, the bump of their noses. He may regret (sort of) what he did to Gabe, but he's beyond glad that Pete didn't have a boyfriend. And a little bit sad that he's only Pete's friend. He reckons he'd make quite a good boyfriend, given the chance.

Although, over the last few weeks, it's become harder and harder to tell whether Pete has found his special person or not; sometimes Patrick sees him kissing someone, and they'll go upstairs, but then he won't ever see the person again. The men Pete brings home always disappear out the door as quickly as they came, without so much as a goodbye. And Pete always seems a little bit sad when they're gone. Sometimes Patrick wonders if Pete even gets to say goodbye to them.

Patrick doesn't like them. Sure, Patrick doesn't like many people, but he really doesn't like them. Some of them are okay, at best, but most are just fucking rude. They don't ask before they kiss Pete on the lips, they say things that make Pete look unhappy. Special people aren't supposed to do that. Patrick doesn't quite end up hurting any of them, but he gets damn close, especially after that one dude kicked Sam.

"Why do you let them kiss you?" Patrick asks one day, after Pete's stumbled down the stairs only to find his latest friend has vanished.

"What?" the man slurs, slumping into one of the kitchen chairs opposite Patrick. He's wincing at nothing in particular. "I don't know," he says with a shrug.

There are lots of mornings like this. When Pete's been working, he seems tired, and when he hasn't, he still seems tired. Patrick thinks the guy could do with a good night's sleep, but when he tells Pete as much, all he gets is a pfft noise and an eye-roll.

Patrick tries not to think anything of it. After all, it's none of his fucking business what Pete does with all these people, and why he doesn't seem very happy. Patrick doesn't give a shit about this dude, and Pete doesn't give a shit about him, so they're even. That's how this works, they stay out of each other's way. That's the only way this works.

But the boy likes to learn. He likes to watch Pete cooking dinner, remembering what each metal thing does, which ingredients go in when. Pete even let him put the pizzas in the oven one time. He's learnt the names of pretty much all the fruit in the bowl, and most of the stuff in the fridge. Pete's certainly been buying more Shreddies recently.

But the more he learns, the more he sees how people interact with each other. Patrick might not be good at speaking like them, but their body language is something that's becoming clearer and clearer; sometimes Pete will hold a flat palm up and the other person will hit it with their hand and they'll laugh and it's a sign that they've achieved something together. Then there's the smaller things, like the way Pete fiddles with his hair when some of the potential special people are talking to him, the way he looks at the floor and smiles his not-quite smiles.

Now, Patrick wouldn't fucking dare say that he notices any of this – he certainly doesn't want to get shouted at again – but as time goes on, he starts to get to know Pete, albeit from a distance, and understand him a bit more. And the more he understands, the more concerned he becomes.

"So fucking hot," Pete's newest friend says for the billionth time as he grabs Pete's hips and kisses him roughly. Patrick's sitting at the breakfast bar, making up and solving random maths problems on a spare piece of paper, watching the two of them pressed together on the couch.

This new one turned up a couple of nights ago, dragging Pete upstairs as soon as they got through the door. Even then, Pete looked uncertain. The dude's got a mop of light brown hair and a nearly-beard that circles his mouth. It's a bit like the one Patrick remembers Andy sporting sometimes; except, in Patrick's opinion, it looked a lot better on Andy than it does on this guy. He misses Andy a little bit sometimes.

The guy – Patrick thinks his name might be John or Joseph or something – keeps scratching at the hair on his face, then running his fingers through the hair on his head. He's got this mouth that seems to be held in a permanent smirk. But maybe Patrick's just biased.

He tries to keep an open mind, he really does. For the guy's first few visits, he doesn't even swear at him, just keeps his distance, as per usual. There's something wrong, though.

Maybe it's the way Pete tries to pull back too soon from their kisses; maybe it's the way the guy doesn't let him. Maybe it's the way they talk, Pete being ignored while the guy attempts to run his hand as far up Pete's thigh as he can get away with. That's what he's doing now, except this time, Pete's letting him.

"So fucking hot," the guy says again, his hands falling out of Patrick's view and towards a place that makes Pete's smile falter.

"Listen, I -" Pete's cut off by the guy kissing him again, grabbing his jaw and making a groany sort of noise.

"We should go upstairs," the guy says breathlessly, hands clasping Pete's upper arms.

Pete frowns a little, gaze flicking around the room. "It's getting late, I don't know-"

"Come on, baby, let me fuck you," the man interrupts, his fingers creasing the material of Pete's shirt. Now, Patrick's not entirely sure what fuck means when it's not being a swear word (the homeless man who taught him to swear didn't go into detail), but he can guess it's some sort of euphemism. Maybe something to do with the kissing?

It must be, because it's pretty much all they're doing at the moment. It's not gentle, either, like it was when it was Pete and Patrick kissing; the guy's all grabby and pushy and seems intent on shoving Pete as far into the sofa as the cushions will allow.

"Come on, baby," the guy says again (for some reason he refers to Pete as if he's an infant), pulling back and standing up, grabbing Pete by the forearm and hauling him up too.

Pete doesn't nod or give any real confirmation that he wants to go wherever the dude's taking him, but the dude doesn't seem to care. He just tows Pete past the kitchen and towards the stairs. And Patrick could've sworn he saw a little bit of panic on Pete's face.

He ignores it. It's none of his business, anyway.

Chewing absently on the pencil in his hand, he stares down at the equations on the page, letting his mind wander back to proving that if 4ab – 1 divides (4a² – 1)², then a=b, and trying to convince himself he hasn't worked out the solution yet just so he can do it all again. Pete can fight his own battles. The last time Patrick intervened, he got kicked out, anyway. Plus, maybe people like being kissed like that, maybe when the guy says he wants to fuck Pete, it's innuendo for buying him a bunch of flowers.

Patrick knows what flowers are now. He even knows some of the different types, and he likes it when Pete buys some to go in the vase on the kitchen table. He likes to watch them open up and show their colours and all the orange fuzzy stuff inside, then shrivel up and wilt. Luckily, humans don't seem to wilt that fast.

Pete's wilting, though. He wilts on a daily basis. Sometimes he's smiley, but other times he just sighs a lot and frowns. He shouldn't be frowning when there's cats and flowers in the world. He shouldn't be frowning when there's lots of people who want to kiss him, Patrick included.

But there's this nagging feeling he has that maybe kissing isn't always nice. Maybe it's not always as good as Patrick's experienced. Sometimes people kiss without asking the other person and it's okay because the permission was in the body language, but perhaps sometimes the other person really fucking doesn't want to be kissed, no matter how good it might feel. But Pete would tell the other guy if that was the case, wouldn't he?

Would the other guy listen, though? Or would he just carry on kissing? Is he that much of a fucking asshole? From what Patrick's seen of him, the answer is a resounding yes.

So now Patrick's abandoned his pencil-chewing, and is once again thinking about Pete. This is getting fucking ridiculous.

He shouldn't care. But he is Pete's friend, no matter how much they avoid each other. Sam brushes against his ankles, and Patrick wishes the cat would talk to him, tell him a bit more about how this world works, how Pete's world works. Then he'd know exactly what to do.

Hopping off the stool, he glances up at the ceiling, pulling his jumper over his hips and exhaling shortly. Surely just checking up on Pete wouldn't hurt. Just making certain that everything's okay.

He doesn't go upstairs very often. Pete gave him a quick tour once it was clear he'd be staying longer than a couple of nights, but seeing as his bedroom and the bathroom are on the ground floor, there's really no need. All that's up here is Pete's office (a small and dingy room that could do with a window and a few more colours), a sorry-looking potted plant, and Pete's bedroom and bathroom. So unless they've decided to do paperwork, they must be in the bedroom.

And Patrick knows something's wrong as soon as he steps onto the landing; he can hear groaning, like the noise someone makes when they lift something heavy, and underneath the groans is the creak of a mattress. Padding closer towards Pete's bedroom door, he hears talking, too, breathless in between the groans.

"So fucking...oh god...so fucking hot...fuck..." It's the same as on the sofa. Maybe they're just kissing on the bed. Patrick's quite proud of the fact that he knows the word hot doesn't just denote temperature. He wonders if hot and pretty are the same thing. Pete's pretty.

He very nearly walks away. If Pete and his friend are kissing, he sure as fucking hell isn't going to listen. But just as he takes a step back, the voice changes its tone.

"Mine," it growls, "you're mine. You...fuck...you belong to me, you hear me? Say it."

The response is an incoherent mumble.

"Say it, slut!"

"I...uh, belong to you," another voice, Pete's voice, replies weakly.

"Yeah, you're my fucking whore...my fucking...dirty little whore..." the other man breathes, and Patrick doesn't know what that word means, but it sure as hell doesn't sound like a nice thing. And even if it is, the guy doesn't say it like it's a nice thing. Patrick feels a little jab of offence; does this guy think he can insult Pete and get away with it? Because if he does, he's fucking deluded.

"Such a slut," the guy's low voice continues, "you're fucking begging for it...I bet you'd let anyone fuck you...but you're mine, you hear me...my own dirty fucking whore...you belong to me..."

What the fuck this guy's on about, Patrick has no damn idea. But he doesn't like the sound of it one fucking bit.

"Say it again, say you're my whore," the voice hisses, just quiet enough that Patrick has to lean towards the door to hear. "Say it now."

"I'm a whore," Pete replies obediently, and Patrick wonders why the hell Pete's going along with this. Can't he just tell the guy to fuck off?

"Louder," the guy snarls, his breaths getting heavier, until a sharp slap pierces the air.

Finally, he's got his own back, Patrick thinks, hoping Pete got him right in his stupid face. But there's no outraged cry. Just a slight moan, and a whimper of "I'm a whore."

That's when he realises. The guy just hit Pete. The guy just hit Pete. Holy fucking shit.

Without a moment's hesitation, Patrick decides he has to do something about this, and seizes the door handle, bursting into the bedroom with curled fists and a glare that could curdle milk.

"What the fuck!?" he spits, seeing the guy and Pete on the bed. They've obviously been fighting, and the guy's won, 'cause he's sitting over Pete's sprawled form, his hands pinning down Pete's arms. And they both don't have any clothes on. Interesting. It must have been a fucking weird fight.

The guy looks up, and on seeing Patrick, claws at the duvet, grabbing a pillow and attempting to cover himself before losing his balance and falling off the bed. It'd be fucking funny, too, if Patrick wasn't so damn angry.

"What the fuck were you doing to him?!" he yells, gesturing to Pete, who's hastily pulling the duvet up and over himself, staring at Patrick with a look of horror. He seems to be alright, there's no blood or bruises on his face.

"What the..." the guy trails off, shoving jeans over his legs, "who the fuck are you?!"

"You just fucking hit him, didn't you!" he snarls, a growl rising in the back of his throat. He knows he's not supposed to do that, but sometimes he can't help it.

The guy stands up, and oh fuck, he's another tall one. His chest is one of those ones where the muscles show through, and he has those lines on his hips, and bulging biceps. Patrick could probably still take him, though. But Pete wouldn't like that.

"Were you listening?!" the guy spits, pointing a finger at Patrick, jaw set.

"Yes," Patrick says defiantly, sticking his chin out, "and I don't like you. You're not nice to him."

The other man scoffs. "Like it's any of your business."

"Damn right it's my fucking business, I'm Pete's friend, and you're an asshole!"

"Listen, you little-"

"Shut up!" Patrick yells, stepping as close to the guy as he dares, "you shouldn't talk to him like that, he doesn't belong to you, people don't belong to other people!"

"For fuck's sake, I-"

"No! You kiss him without asking, you touch him when he doesn't want you to, you call him names and now you hit him!" he scathes, counting them off on his fingers.

"I-"

"Get the fuck off his property!" he shouts, pointing towards the door.

The guy shoots an exasperated look towards Pete. "Aren't you going to do anything about this?!"

Pete simply shrugs.

With an angry sound, the guy sweeps a shirt up off the floor and makes for the door, shoving Patrick roughly in the process. Dickhead, Patrick thinks, snapping his foot out behind him and catching the guy's leg, making him stumble out of the door.

Patrick follows him all the way downstairs, arms crossed and glare burning into the guy as he shoves his shoes on and scrabbles about for his phone. He makes sure the guy's completely disappeared down the end of the street before closing the front door.

By the time he's made it back upstairs, Pete's dressed and tidying up the bed sheets, sitting down on the bed when Patrick appears in the doorway.

"Are you hurt?" the boy asks softly, knitting his fingers together and hoping to god he's done the right thing.

Pete doesn't look at him. He simply breathes a laugh, shifting his feet about and fiddling with the hem of his t-shirt. "No."

"Oh," Patrick responds, frowning. But I heard the slap? "Well, that's good."

Pete doesn't say anything. He looks at Patrick for a long few seconds, during which Patrick loses all confidence in his actions, and considers just running away.

Finally, Pete pats the duvet beside him, and for once, Patrick knows what that gesture means. It's time for a little chat. Shit.

If he had boots on, he'd be quaking in them as he shuffles towards Pete. Instead, he focuses on summoning all the swear words he knows, preparing himself for the fight. It's weird how much harder it is to shout at friends.

"Okay," Pete says with a sigh, turning to face Patrick, "I just – uh, look. Two things. First, please, never, ever, ever burst in here when I'm with someone?" he pleads, clasping his hands in front of him.

"But...I was worried, you were fighting," Patrick replies, trying desperately to read Pete's expression, in case he's angry.

But Pete just stares at Patrick for a few moments, his mouth slightly open and his eyebrows drawn together. "Um...fighting?"

"Yeah," Patrick shrugs, "he was, like, calling you names, and he hit you."

"Well, yes, but...we, um. We weren't fighting." Now he's looking at Patrick like there's a huge something he's missed.

"So...what were you doing?"

Pete breathes a laugh, doing his I-can't-believe-you-don't-know-about-this face. Patrick pushes back his desire to punch it.

"You – you don't know about sex, do you," Pete winces, shaking his head slightly.

Sex. He's heard that word before. Sexual intercourse. It's how living things breed and make baby living things. It's something to do with the area between his legs, too. The TV mentions it a lot, jokes often revolve around it. But he'll never have it, that's been made pretty clear to him.

He must look rather lost, because Pete interrupts his brain-rifling with a small cough and a muttered "oh god."

"I know some stuff!" Patrick protests, "It involves dicks!"

At that, Pete barks out a laugh, his eyes crinkling up and his cheeks going all round. "Yes," he finally manages to say, "yes it does. Well, unless it's two women. But...yeah."

"Is that what you were doing?" Patrick asks, confused. "Are you going to have a baby?"

The other man shakes his head with a smile, "no. I'm a guy, so, no."

Patrick doesn't completely grasp Pete's meaning, but he has more important questions for now. "Then why were you doing it?"

"Uh," Pete fumbles, looking away, "well, it, uh, feels good, I guess."

That's pretty hard to believe. "Really? But he was saying nasty things, and he slapped you?"

"Yeah. Some people like that. I don't know, it makes them enjoy it more," Pete shrugs.

"Do you like it?" the boy asks softly.

With an undecided noise, Pete shrugs again. "I don't know. Sometimes. It makes them happy, so..." he tails off. "But don't walk in again, okay? It's quite a private thing, you know? People usually like to be alone, and not be interrupted, yeah?"

"Yeah. I just...thought you were fighting. And that guy was a fucking asshole," Patrick spits, his hands instinctively curling into fists.

"Ah, now that's the second thing," Pete says, clicking his fingers.

Shit. Panic rises in Patrick's chest. "I didn't hit him! You can't fucking shout at me for that, I didn't touch him, you were there, you saw I didn't hit him, I fucking wanted to but I didn't, I did what you said, don't fucking kick me out for this!" he shrieks, loud enough to make Pete wince and touch a finger to his ear.

"Okay, okay, whoa," he soothes, extending a hand towards Patrick's knee and almost touching it, then changing his mind and taking it back. "I'm not angry, and I know you didn't hit him. I just wanted to say, well. Thanks," he finishes with a shrug.

With a frown, Patrick recoils from Pete, trying to work out what he means. Is he being sarcastic? Is he testing Patrick's response? "What do you mean?" he warns, beginning to rebuild his defences.

Pete laughs a bit. "I mean, thank you. You're right, he was an asshole, and, like – I'm not saying you were right to barge in – but I'm glad you did," he says sheepishly, running his hands over his knees.

Happiness peeks over the wall Patrick's built, seeping out through his eyes and over his lips in the form of a shrill "Really?"

The nod of Pete's head makes Patrick want to hug him. "Yeah," the older man says, "thanks for, like, looking out for me, I guess. And for kicking him out, whoa, you really told him," he grins, extending a fist and nudging Patrick in the shoulder with it.

"Told him what?"

"Turn of phrase," Pete says kindly, "means you kicked his ass." That makes Patrick smile. Pete's getting better at explaining things to him, and he hardly ever gets annoyed anymore, apart from the time he had to explain to Patrick why eggs shouldn't go in the toaster. Most of the time, he's just got this bemused smile on his face, and now that Patrick's realised it doesn't mean that Pete's laughing at him, it's quite a funny expression. As if Pete can't quite believe what he's hearing, as if Patrick's something special.

"Pete," Patrick asks suddenly, as it's been bothering him ever since he saw the other man with no clothes on, "what are those marks on your skin?"

Looking down at his arms as if he's only just noticed them, Pete chuckles to himself. "They're called tattoos." His hands extend towards Patrick, his wrists twisting over to show the boy all of the intricate designs. There's lots of patterns, things he can't make out, but he sees pictures in them, a red face, some waves, a keyhole, a spiky skeleton man. A winged padlock with the word unlovable spiralling around it.

"Did you draw these?" Patrick asks, nearly reaching out a hand to touch, but thinking better of it, in case he smudges the ink.

"No," Pete smiles, "other people did them. Tattoo artists. But I designed some of them, I guess," he shrugs, "they all meant something, at some point."

"How long have you had them?"

"Uh, this one's one of my oldest," he points to the padlock, "and the coloured ones are newer."

"But what happens when you have a bath?" Patrick questions, wondering how Pete can smell so nice if he never washes.

The other man laughs again, grinning at Patrick with confused amusement. "No, no, they don't wash off. They stay there forever."

"Oh. How?"

Pete traces a finger over the skeleton man. "It's special ink. They put it, sort of, in your skin. You can touch it, if you want."

Extending a hand, Patrick touches the colours, immediately looking at the tip of his finger. There's no ink on it, just a pale patch on Pete's skin, which quickly dissolves into its usual light brown colour.

When the other man doesn't retract his arms, Patrick takes Pete's wrist lightly in his hands, skimming his palms over the tattoos, feeling the fine hairs on Pete's skin, putting his thumbs over the eyes of the skeleton man, watching him dance as Pete's muscles flex.

They're beautiful, Patrick decides. Pete's a walking piece of art. He's illustrated himself with his own thoughts, turned them into colours and pictures. Pete's beautiful.

It's silent for a while as Patrick examines every tattoo, the ones he can see, at least, trying to work out what they are, what they mean. He doesn't get very far. One day, perhaps, he'll know the meaning behind every single one of them.

But Pete eventually takes back his hands and slides them under his knees, hunching his shoulders up and scuffing his feet against the carpet. It's at this moment that Patrick's desire to kiss Pete rises through the roof; he misses him, somehow, misses the warmth of his hands and the feel of his mouth. Patrick wonders how he can miss something he's never really had.

"Okay, uh..." Pete starts, making Patrick snap his gaze away from the other man and glue it to his knees. Whatever Pete was going to say, though, obviously fizzles away from him, giving way to a rush of air. He starts to get up, and Patrick's heart sinks a little, like some important moment has passed him by. Maybe he should have said something. Maybe he should have told Pete he's beautiful; he must know it, but it couldn't hurt. Or maybe shutting the fuck up is something Patrick should try more often. Enough people have told him so.

"Pete?" he says quickly, jolting up from the bed and making Pete turn around, mid t-shirt fold.

It should be easy to say. Fuck, it should fall out his mouth like cardboard from a wheelie bin, he should be tripping over the words in his haste to express them. But he's not. There's a lump in his throat, a fist squeezed around his neck, and the words get washed away, leaving him standing in front of Pete with his mouth flapping and his brain searching for some kind of excuse.

After a few dreadful seconds of expectant silence from Pete, he looks away. If he thought he'd missed the moment before, he sure as fuck has now; he can see it, waving its middle finger at him in the distance. Shit. Say something. Anything.

So he resorts to asking questions. "Pete?"

"Yeah?" the man laughs.

"What's a whore?"

And Pete does his normal awkward laugh and his normal awkward smile and leaves Patrick feeling completely abnormal, as per fucking usual.

Next time. Next time he'll tell him.