Patrick has learnt. He's learnt that the only place he can pee in private is behind the plant with the big leaves in the corner of the enclosure; he's learnt that the big plastic rock in the middle is weaker than it looks, and once ripped open, makes a good little sleeping spot; he's learnt that these humans like to film him as much as White did.

He's learnt that to talk is to be punished. He's learnt that no-one on the other side of the glass can hear him, even if they cared to listen. He's learnt that there is no longer a single person in his life who gives a shit about him.

There'd been no-one to shout for when they'd dragged him from solitary and thrown him into a cage, no-one to reach for when everything went dark and he felt movement underneath him. When they finally tipped him out onto concrete floor, there was no-one to help him to his feet.

The room they keep him in at night is bare and grey; there's a wall of bars and a locked door to keep him from the corridor beyond. When he first looks around, he thinks it's better than solitary. He can see through the bars, see people darting in and out of an office, hear voices talking. At least he's not totally alone.

But when company arrives, Patrick thinks he may have preferred loneliness.

"Hello, Feathers," Johnson says as he yanks open the door to the cell, followed by two others. "I'm the new Head of Security."

Patrick's stomach drops. He growls from where he's sat, wrapping his wings tightly around himself and vowing not to let Johnson get to him. Andy said the punishment for screwing up would be worse than anything. "Congratulations," he spits, glaring. "Where am I?"

Johnson looks around at his colleagues for a few seconds, a blank look on his face. "Can you hear something?"

Anger lights in Patrick's chest. "Tell me where the fuck I am!"

"I swear I can hear like – like a squeaking noise, or something," Johnson hums, looking around the room.

"Listen to me, shithead!" Patrick shrieks, pushing himself up on wobbly legs and curling his hands into fists. They all leap backwards, their hands flying to their guns. Fucking good.

"Huh. Must just be my imagination," Johnson muses, hooking his fingers in his belt loops. Patrick pounces.

He's going to kill him. He's going to rip the stupid smile from Johnson's stupid face, he's going to – to do neither of those things. Instead, he finds himself glazed in burning pain, his limbs no longer obeying him and vision turning grey as he comes face to face with the floor. He hears Johnson laugh.

"Bad kitty," he says, and as Patrick starts to push himself up again, Johnson kicks Patrick's forearms out from under him. Patrick's cheek hits Johnson's boot.

Recoiling before Johnson can mess with him any more, Patrick wraps himself in his wings and tries to shake the trembles out of his fingers. The shocks always leave his nerves in tatters and his mind wheeling.

Johnson leans over him, leering. He waves the remote, pressing the button right in front of Patrick's face and sending another weak wave of pain over him. Patrick twitches like a half-dead spider.

"Now, feathers," Johnson coos, "here's the thing. Every time you act out, I'm going to press this button."

"Fuck you," Patrick snarls, jerking towards Johnson and feeling his chest swell when the man stumbles backwards. It's almost worth the blinding agony.

When Patrick's vision clears, Johnson's baring his crooked teeth. "Like so. And do you know what'll happen if I press this too many times?"

Patrick stares, dreading the answer. But what more can they do? "No," he huffs, biting back the word shithead.

"Well," Johnson says, crouching down and grinning into Patrick's face, "all those shocks, they don't do your brain any good. After a while, you won't be able to do your precious maths anymore. You won't be able to remember people's names. You'll be dumb. You'll be stupid."

It's not true. It's not true. "You're lying," Patrick says, just to prove he's still clever and he can see right through this.

"I could be," Johnson ponders, looking at the remote in his hand. "But are you willing to take that chance?"

Patrick won't believe him. The lies are written all over his face. But the shocks hurt, and pain must mean that some damage is happening somewhere. Even the smallest possibility of it being true strikes fear right through Patrick; his mind is the only thing that they can never control. The thought of it wasting away has him shaking his head. He's not willing.

"Right. So, you're going to do everything I ask, aren't you?" Johnson says, his sharp eyes meeting Patrick's.

He won't nod, so he just looks away, focussing on a crack in the right-hand wall and not on the satisfaction smeared over Johnson's face.

"Good. Oh, and you're never going to talk again," he adds, and Patrick snaps his gaze back to Johnson's face, eyes wide with alarm.

"What?" Patrick growls, his feathers puffing up in anger, "That's bullshit."

"That's orders," Johnson corrects, waving the remote again. "Now shut up, or I'll knock you out."

Patrick boils, his fingers curling in on themselves and his expression raging. They can't do that; they can't take this from him too. "Fuck you," he snarls, then spits into Johnson's fucking stupid face, braced for the pain this time as Johnson's thumb presses the remote and Patrick's vision blazes white.

There's a hand at his throat when the shocks fade, pushing the collar into his windpipe and his head into the wall.

"Do that one more time, and I'll cut out your tongue myself," Johnson growls, taking his gun out of his belt and pressing the muzzle against Patrick's chin. "You say another word, and I'll press this button until you can't remember your own name. As far as we're all concerned, you can't talk. So shut your fucking mouth."

Patrick shakes with anger as he stares into Johnson's face, his mind struggling to find an escape. Normally, he'd have broken both Johnson's arms by now; normally, he wouldn't have tolerated this at all. But normally, he wouldn't have the stupid fucking collar around his neck; normally, he wouldn't be riddled with anxiety about losing his mind. He wants to speak, to scream, but it's not worth the risk. Between his mouth and his mind, he'd rather keep the latter.

The smirk on Johnson's face as the words on Patrick's lips fade and die is utterly infuriating. "There's a good boy," he says, patting Patrick on the head and getting to his feet. "Welcome to your new home."

Patrick looks around. It's a glorified cage. The floors are grey and so are all the walls. There's a bucket in the corner and a pile of straw in another. So much for a bed.

"Big day tomorrow, get some sleep," Johnson says, backing towards the door. "Sweet dreams," he smirks as he slams the door shut. He waves through the bars, then turns on his heel and marches away, cronies in tow. Patrick curls in on himself. It's going to be a long night.

-

Nothing could be worse than the lab, that's what he keeps telling himself. Nothing could be worse than being split open twice a week and kept from the outside world. He's beginning to rethink this assertion.

In the morning, people shake him awake. He's hardly moved since the night before, curled against the wall. He won't sleep on the straw.

He hardly registers what they're doing when they pin him to the floor and tell him to keep still until he sees the flash of a razor, the blade raking over his chin and his chest. He could throw them off easily, he could smash each one of their heads into the concrete, but he won't. Because that might lead to the shocks. They wrap a piece of white fabric around his waist, and he feels minutely more secure. At least they can't stare anymore, at least they can't look at him and ruin what Patrick wanted to save for Pete. Not that Pete will ever see him like this. Or indeed, ever again.

The guards don't listen when he asks where he's being taken as they drag him out of the cell; he simply gets a shock and a snarled shut up. They march him down the corridor, towards another door, telling him that he better behave and to know his place. Johnson isn't here yet – the other two guards are slightly gentler, they don't call him names and the woman doesn't glare at him.

She opens a door, and they push him through it. "You're here until six o'clock tonight," she says curtly, then shuts the door behind him.

When he looks around, it's not what he expected. It's not a dingy torture chamber or a blinding white surgery. It's a – a garden of some sort, like Pete's except greener. There's soil under his feet and fresh air across his face, there's trees and flowers and big leafy plants. Patrick knows this must be some kind of set up, but it's lovely all the same.

He's in a glass box in the corner of a bigger room. He doesn't understand at first, it's better than he's had in weeks; he spends hours just exploring, stroking his fingers over the ridges of the big leaves and sifting through the soil for tiny insects to watch them skitter across the palm of his hand.

The glass is what does it. He can't work out why it's there, why it feels like he shouldn't touch it. It doesn't seem to be doing any harm until he throws a fist at it - just to see, just to learn - and wakes up some minutes later with his limbs sizzling in pain and his head spinning. He learns not to touch the glass.

It isn't so bad, though. Once he figures the rock is hollow, and makes a Patrick-sized hole in the back, he finds himself liking the place more and more; he gathers up some leaves and some grass to make a bed, he collects his favourite stones from around the enclosure and places them in a little circle among the leaves so he can look at them whenever he likes and make sure they're safe. He almost brings some of the worms he finds in the soil in there with him too; but he's worried they'd die, they don't seem to like being held. So, he just sets them down carefully outside the rock so he knows they're there. They don't talk, but he wants them close all the same.

At first, it's fun to nap in there, to have his own little space, to chatter all day to the insects with no-one telling him to be quiet. When he's taken back to his cell for the night, he's actually looking forward to tomorrow.

-

The next day is entirely different.

There's people everywhere. They peer at him from behind the glass, tapping their fingers at him and holding up their cameras. He runs to his rock and stays there, huddled away from prying eyes and reaching hands, counting his pebbles over and over again to soothe the knot in his chest. This is what Andy must have meant by they want to display you.

He stays there until someone bangs at the wall of his hiding place. Covering his ears, he jumps away from it, figuring if he squeezes his eyes shut, it might go away. It doesn't.

Someone pokes him hard in the knee, and when Patrick opens his eyes, he sees that it's a man with cold eyes and a big stick. Patrick shakes his head because he doesn't want to get beaten, not now, not in front of all these people. Maybe that's what this is about; maybe White's making sport out of him.

But the man produces a bucket and rattles it at him, dipping his hand in and throwing Patrick a few chunks of – of food. Patrick's stomach growls at the very sight of it. He hasn't eaten in days, and he gulps down the pellets quickly, searching for more in the soil. There are none.

It all clicks into place when the man starts to back away with the bucket, leaving a trail of food in his wake. They're trying to coax him out. They want him to show himself. Patrick's stomach growls louder.

Dignity is not worth death. He takes a deep breath, and climbs out of the rock, staring firmly at the wall and ignoring the increased amount of noise in the room. He can't let a bunch of stupid humans scare him.

"No, down," the man says, and Patrick turns to look at him, his wings curled around his body. The man's pointing at the ground. "Crawl. That's an order." He taps the remote on his belt, but Patrick can see the fear on the guy's face, the way he holds the stick out in front of him like a shield rather than a sword. Patrick complies, dropping to his knees and beginning to pick the food out of the dirt and eat it. God, days of starvation makes even the bland vitamins taste wondrous.

He avoids every single one of the eyes on him and focusses on the earth beneath his hands, between his fingers. He wonders how many things live in it, he wonders how many other creatures are hiding from the crowds too.

The man finally empties out the bucket in the middle of the enclosure and steps back, watching Patrick carefully. Patrick would snarl, would lurch towards him to watch him flinch, but he's painfully aware of the man's hand on the remote. He can't risk getting shocked again; it already feels like he's lost some brain cells.

So he simply sits and eats, head down, eyes on the ground, ignoring his shaking hands and focussing on the food.

"Look up," the man says, rattling the bucket at him. "Look up and smile at them."

"No," Patrick mumbles, because they can't force happiness out of him. He almost adds a fuck you, but that would definitely get him a shock.

As it turns out, though, even the smallest word gets him a world of pain, an explosion that sends the food in his hands tumbling to the floor and the thought in his head blasted into nothingness. His own breathing becomes a storm in his ears.

"Look up," the man hisses again, as Patrick watches a string of saliva drip from his own lips, his mouth still open and panting. He won't look up. He won't.

But the fear of the shocks becomes too great. As he lifts his head, meets the gaze of the man in front of the glass and all his clones, Patrick's chest seizes with panic. They're staring, they've got their hands and their cameras pressed to the glass, some of them beat their fists and make faces at him. They're just like White, and Wan, and Loudmouth, and every other person who only ever wants to look and never wants to listen, who wants to touch but not to understand.

Patrick's fingers fly to his halo, covering it and stroking it out of nervous habit. It helps the nausea but it doesn't help the panic; his throat still tightens and his stomach turns somersaults as the eyes seem to close in on him, the hands seem to creep nearer. It becomes very difficult to breathe and all of a sudden, the eyes are spinning around him, closer and closer until they see right into his mind and their hands reach to rip pieces out of it. He throws his hand to his skull to try to chase them off but they're already inside, worming into the very darkest corners of him and poking and prodding and taking what isn't theirs. The only thing he can think to do is run.

The food scatters as his foot drives into it for leverage and he sprints back to his hiding place, his hands still clutched to his head and the air still not coming easy. He throws himself into the rock, huddling among the leaves and the soil and curling his wings over himself, shielding himself from the traitorous daylight.

Just as Patrick's thinking that maybe, just this once, they'll cut him some slack, the man appears, hissing at him to get back out there, to do as he's told. Patrick shakes his head, pleading with his eyes, hoping the man might take pity on him. Instead, the man pushes his finger into the remote and Patrick hears himself scream.

He scrambles away, pressing himself tight against the plastic interior of the rock and squeezing his eyes shut, pain still bright in his brain. The man pokes and prods him with the stick, shouts and shocks and screams commands but Patrick clamps his hands over his ears and resists, shutting it all out and focussing on the darkness behind his eyes. He can't fight back but that doesn't mean he has to give in.

Eventually, everything goes quiet. When Patrick finally opens his eyes, sneaks a peek over his feathers, the man is gone. And Patrick is stupid enough to think he's gotten away with it.

-

"Get in there," Johnson growls, taking Patrick by the hair and shoving him into the cell at the end of the day. "If you fucking pull a stunt like that again I'll fucking –"

"I will!" Patrick screams back, raking his nails across the hand in his hair until it lets go, "I'll do it every fucking day until you –"

Pain explodes across Patrick's face as Johnson punches him in the mouth, the taste of blood flooding his tongue as Patrick feels his teeth slice into his bottom lip. For a few seconds, he stills, warmth dribbling down his chin, spraying from his mouth as he breathes. Then he drives his elbow into Johnson's nose.

Johnson yells out, his hand retracting from Patrick's forearm and flying to cover his nose. Patrick takes this opportunity to lunge forwards, pummelling Johnson in the chest until he feels the crack of ribs under his knuckles. He's about to strike, to rip Johnson's stupid throat out, when hands grab him from behind.

It's the other two guards. They crush his wings between their bodies and pull his shoulders back until they ache with the strain, and Patrick can feel that one wrong move would pull them out of their sockets. Everything falls silent around his and Johnson's heavy breaths.

Johnson pushes himself off the wall, wiping his nose on his sleeve and clutching at his ribs. Patrick thinks, for a few, stupid seconds, that he might have won. But when Johnson looks up, his eyes burn with fury.

"Hold him still," he spits, and Patrick feels the arms around him tighten their grip.

He doesn't quite realise what Johnson means until Johnson reaches for a metal object at his belt that turns out to be some kind of bat.

The next few minutes should be a blur; Patrick should have fazed himself out like he used to, taken himself away from the moment, but instead, he feels every blow. He can't hide his face in his hands and Johnson knows it, and by the end, Patrick is blinking blood from his eyes and watching his split skin blossom with bruises.

When they finally let go, Patrick's legs give out from under him and he falls onto all fours, blood spotting the concrete beneath him. As he looks up, Johnson crouches in front of him, one arm clutched to his ribs and the other reaching out to Patrick. Patrick knows exactly what Johnson's going to do. He's too broken to stop it.

Johnson's hand closes around his halo, and Patrick's mouth drops open in a silent scream as his whole body bursts into flame. More pain shouldn't matter, it shouldn't make any difference and yet it blazes down to his core and he realises that he'd do anything at all to make it stop.

"I won't let go," Johnson hisses into Patrick's ear. "Not until you promise to do as you're told."

Patrick feels himself nod, feels his lips form the words, "I promise."

The ground rises to meet Patrick's face when Johnson finally lets go.

"You're going to shut up from now on, aren't you?" Johnson says somewhere above him, his shadow falling over Patrick's crumpled body.

"Yes," Patrick cries, "I promise."

Pain explodes in his gut as Johnson's boot sinks into his belly. "Wrong. Try again. Are you going to shut up now?"

This time, the only noise Patrick makes is a fucking pathetic little whine as he shifts and his body burns with bruises.

"Better," Johnson says, not-so-accidentally stepping on Patrick's wing and spitting at his face. Three sets of footsteps leave the room, and the cell door is slammed shut. Patrick is left with nothing but the sound of his own breathing and the bubble of blood in his throat. The concrete grinds dirt into the cuts on Patrick's cheek, the cold creeps into his bones and makes him yearn for warmth, for comfort. The light in his chest that always told him somehow, life would get better, is stubbed out.

Tonight, he heaves himself over to the pile of straw and curls up in it, scrubbing tears from his eyes before they can fall and cursing every whimper that crawls from his mouth. Tonight, he doesn't lie to himself with imaginings of Pete next to him, of warm arms wrapped around him and loving whispers in his ear; tonight, he feels the cold, the loneliness. Tonight, he gives in.

-

The next morning, he does as he's told. He lets them drag him from the straw and wipe the blood from his skin, he lets them cover the bruises with makeup and pile powder into the cuts. They snip the dried blood out of his hair and change the red-spotted cloth around his waist, they paint his split lips blush pink. 

The bruises may be fading, but the deep ache in his bones isn't. He feels weaker than ever as he's led back out to the glass enclosure to face the crowds. He doesn't fight it this time.

There's nothing he can do but sit there and breathe through it when they position him in front of the glass; he watches them grin and laugh and mock and wants to burrow into the earth and out of sight. Some are different, though. Some gasp, some stare in awe, some place their hands gently on the glass and let their jaws drop when Patrick looks up at them. One woman even cries, falling to her knees and whispering prayers into her clasped hands. If only they could see the scars beneath the makeup.

He eats when the man tells him to, he fetches the fucking stupid ball, he crawls in the dirt like the dumb creature he's become. After a few days, he's not even sure he remembers how to speak. His throat only seems capable of noises now, grunts and moans and snarls when the guards grab him too hard. The shocks have gone to his head. He wonders what Pete would think if he saw what's become of his special person. Animals aren't meant to be kissed.

Time begins to skitter away from him. He can't remember what day it is, he can't feel the hours passing anymore. He knows when he eats and he knows when he sleeps, and that's all he knows. He lives for the bliss of dreams; they're the only moments in which he feels Pete's lips on his skin, Pete's fingers in his hair. Waking up is worse than a shock.

Patrick's lounging against the back wall one morning, wings splayed behind him – the crowds like that – when something sharp catches his nails where he's digging into the soil. It's a rock, a beautiful slash of stone that fits neatly in his palm and tapers into a blunt point. He could use it to split open Johnson's skull. He could drive it right into that motherfucker's eye. But what would that solve? They'd just bring along someone meaner, someone packed tighter full of shit who'd shout louder and hit harder.

He could use it to break the glass. He's already got it sussed; there's two thick sheets of it on each wall, separated by a cushion of air. He'd have to break through both layers before they noticed and knocked him out. Unlikely.

Burrowing down wouldn't help him, and the ceiling looks like solid stone, so he simply lets out a sigh and leans his head back against the wall, curling himself up and tracing patterns on the paint with the point of the stone. When he presses a little too hard, a grey line appears, the paint flaking away. Patrick believes he experiences what the humans might call a lightbulb moment.

He digs the stone firmly into the wall, dragging it downwards and creating a dark groove in the wall. He looks upwards, and the wall is no longer a slab of brickwork – it's a blank canvas.

Faster than he has in days, he scrambles to his feet, stumbling backwards and gazing at the sheet of white in front of him. He's not allowed to talk, but Johnson never said anything about writing. His mind reels; what could he possibly say that would prove to these people that he's not just something to look at? Help?

But as he feels the weight of the collar around his neck and the stone in his hand, he knows exactly what he has to write. These humans like useful things. He needs to prove that he is useful.

He climbs the tree in the corner of the enclosure, the hum of the crowd spurring him higher, and perches on the very top branches, his spread wings keeping him somewhat balanced and the bark biting into the back of his thighs. Then, he begins to write.

The numbers spill from his head like water, the stone barely leaving the wall as he strikes out harsh lines and blinks the dust from his eyes. He knows this, it comes as naturally as breathing, he can solve this problem in front of all these people and show them he's more than this. He can only reach a certain way along the wall, but if he writes small enough, he's pretty sure he can fit it all in. He's barely a quarter of the way through when the first shock comes.

He jolts forwards, just managing to keep his grip on the stone, and keeps carving, his mind spinning over all the complex numbers. He's determined to finish this before they fry all his intelligence away. The next shock is much larger.

This time, his grip on the branch slips and the ground rushes towards him. He falls face-first into the soil, his wings flapping uselessly as they try to catch the air. The stone is still clasped in his hand, though.

When he looks up at the crowds, he expects jeering, laughter at his failure. Instead, he's met with awe. They're staring, shocked, their eyes either on him or on his scrawled equations. One woman points purposefully, and for once, Patrick understands exactly what she's saying: get back up there.

The spark in his chest fizzles back into life as he jumps to his feet, brushing the earth from his body, scrambling up the tree and resuming his calculations. He's counting on the fact that they never shock him more than twice in front of the crowds, but there's a smile on his face for the first time in weeks.

Half an hour later, and he's two-thirds of the way there, moving down the wall until he's on the bottom-most branch of the tree. No-one stops him. There's no Johnson, no men with guns. It's amazing what the public eye can do. He's untouchable in front of the crowd.

He ends up crouched on the ground, his writing crushed into the concrete, his mind buzzing with the solution. Whenever he chances a look around, the smiles of the people spur him on, each flash of the cameras urging his work closer to immortality. As he scrapes the last few numbers into the concrete, his wings puff with pride. He's proved the hypothesis. They haven't beaten him at all. He's won.

With a few choice words to finish off, Patrick drops the now very blunt stone and slumps to the ground, brushing dust from his hands and his face and shaking it from between his feathers. There's cameras everywhere now, big ones, flashes going off left right and centre and weird fluffy things on sticks hovering over people with microphones. Patrick doesn't know what's going on, but he can hazard a guess, so he sits back against the wall and smiles his brightest grin. They don't know what you can do, Franklin's words echo, make them know.

But this won't go unpunished. Come the evening, come the draining of the crowds, he'll be dragged back to his cell and pinned down again. Johnson will lose his shit and Patrick might lose an eye. It wasn't in the rules, though, Patrick pleads with himself, trying to think himself out of the pit, I didn't break any promises. Because despite what he's been told all his life, he's convinced he doesn't deserve another beating. He's not sure he can survive another beating.

As the hours drag by, regret pokes at the corners of his conviction, pulling the seams apart and teasing out the threads one by one. He's proud of what he did, he keeps telling himself that, but as lunchtime comes and goes, evening creeps nearer. He dreads the pain, the shocks, the thought of Johnson touching his halo again. Giving one more grin to the cameras, he crawls back inside the rock, gathering up all his stones and studying each of them to take his mind off the impending punishment.

But there comes a point when the hum of the crowd swells louder again. He hardly notices it at first, it simply bleeds away among his thoughts, and yet it soon grows into something different, something vicious and growling. And whenever anything growls, Patrick has to growl back.

With a deep breath and a ruffle of his feathers, he peers around the edge of the rock. What he sees is chaos.

No-one's looking at him anymore. Everyone is far more occupied with the prospect of being punched in the face by one of the army of cardboard-carrying people that are currently pouring into the room.

Patrick stares. The signs scream sentences like Free the Angel, Museum of Unnatural Cruelty and Divinity Should Not Be Domesticated. They're for him. They're for him.

The guards are buried somewhere in the crowds, swamped by screams and surging protestors, and Patrick creeps forwards to get a better view, to see his captors consumed. Instead, another face catches his eye.

He has to look twice because it can't be him, Patrick's pictured it so many times that his mind just wants to taunt him with illusion. Then honey-gold eyes look right at him, and Patrick's never felt anything more real in his life.

Pete pushes through the crowds, thunder on his face, but when their eyes meet, he smiles, and Patrick's knees turn to jelly. Being smiled at feels like sunshine on his skin, and being smiled at by Pete, well. Patrick might just float up off the ground if the bubble of warm air in his chest grows any larger.

He didn't forget, Patrick thinks as he rushes to the glass, he didn't forget about me. Pete's here and smiling and – and wielding an axe. Somewhere in the back of his head, a voice tells him he should be worried, but he can't quite shake the grin from his face as Pete reaches the glass and looks up at Patrick, his eyes bathed in the love Patrick's craved for so long. They share half a second of apologies and I missed yous in a single glance before Pete's waving at Patrick to move the fuck out of the way and gripping the axe with both hands.

When Pete swings, Patrick expects an applause of glass shattering and a confetti of shards falling around them. He gets neither. The blade simply bounces back towards Pete, making him stumble and flinch away from Patrick. A smudge of white is the only damage he's done.

He takes another swing, and this time, a tiny crack appears in the first layer of glass. Patrick nods his head, gestures for Pete to keep going, looks around to check that the protesters have got the guards under control. A shadow passes across the door to Patrick's cage. They've got minutes.

Patrick yells at Pete to hurry, and whether he hears Patrick or not, he starts to attack the glass with greater resolve. The cracks spread to the second layer, multiplying with each of Pete's swings, until the blade finally digs through. The locks on the door to Patrick's cage begin to click open.

The rest of the glass isn't budging. It's been smashed into opacity, but the shards don't fall and Patrick can hardly see Pete anymore. There's no time – he has to do something.

He acts on the first thought that barrels into his head. With a cry and a leap forward, he draws his arm back and ploughs his fist through the glass, hoping against hope that Pete hasn't decided to swing the axe at the same time.

He makes it through. His fist is in tatters but so is the glass, so he rips his arm free and begins to pull at the shards, barely aware of the blood spilling down his arms and spraying from his hands as he grips at their razor edges and tears the hole wider. That's when the shocks start.

They're as painful as ever, but honestly, Patrick's amazed he got this far – he grits his teeth and growls, his hands working through the shakes as his vision clears. The next one is so much worse.

He's not sure if he blacks out or if he simply shuts his eyes, but his throat feels hoarse in the wake of a scream, and Pete's got pure horror written across his face when Patrick finally looks up. Patrick knows the next one will knock him out for longer, get him locked up somewhere else, somewhere away from Pete. And they can go fuck themselves if they think he'll let go of Pete again.

"Get it off," he shouts at Pete, his voice roaring back to life. He crouches down and bows his head through the hole. "Cut it!"

Pete's voice still makes him feel a little giddy even when it's screamed through broken glass. "No, I – I can't, what if I –"

Hurt me? Patrick thinks bitterly, do your worst. "Fucking cut it!" he yells, pleading as the door behind him finally begins to open. Minutes turn to seconds.

Patrick braces his forearms against the broken glass and squeezes his eyes shut. A rush of air ruffles his hair as Pete swings the axe. A breath later, pain rushes through the back of his neck as his head is shoved downwards and his throat drops dangerously close to the jagged edge of the glass.

He feels warm trails of blood leaking down his neck and a jarring sensation in his spine – but when Pete yanks the axe free, the collar slips a little. With bloody fingers, Patrick pulls at it, and it comes away from his neck for the first time in months, the shining metal beneath the rubber throwing his own triumphant reflection back at him. He lets out a small noise of joy and hurls it at the group of guards marching through his enclosure. They're not an issue, though; he's fucking free, now.

With a burning hiss and a flex of his muscles, he pounces at them. They topple like bowling pins underneath him. He drives fists into their faces and heels into their kneecaps, barely feeling a sting in his wrecked forearms. Three go down, the last runs away. Patrick crouches in the dirt among the bodies and watches, a vicious smile on his face. When he stands, he kicks mud into their panting mouths.

The axe dangles in Pete's arms as Patrick stalks back towards him, blood smudged across his chest and spitting from his hands. Patrick begins to rip at the glass without giving Pete a second glance, snarling with every breath, saliva flicking from between his clenched teeth. When the opening is finally big enough, he shoves himself through, catching most of his limbs on the jaws of the glass and toppling out onto a bed of needle-like shards.

The desire to tear and maim and kill is all he can think of as he pushes himself onto all fours, he wants to see blood pouring from someone else's veins, see fear and pain and pleading from the outside. Then, arms curl underneath him and lift him to his feet, and love is an entirely different kind of shock.

Pete's hands are so gentle as they stroke across Patrick's shoulders, his eyes soft with worry as they gaze into Patrick's. It's so much better than all of Patrick's imaginings.

Patrick allows himself to be drawn into Pete's arms, his limbs relaxing and his wings reaching to drape around both of them. He drops his head to Pete's neck and breathes in Pete's scent, letting his eyes fall shut as his vision blurs with tears. All the world narrows to the feeling of Pete's chest against Patrick's, Pete's warmth, Pete's hand coming to cradle the back of Patrick's head.

When they pull apart, Pete brushes the hair out of Patrick's face and kisses him, their mouths fitting lightly together and leaving Patrick's hanging open, awestruck and dizzy with affection. Then, someone slams into both of them, and Patrick becomes aware that they have no time for this at all.

Guards are pouring into the room now, pinning members of the mob to the walls and breaking up the riots. Most of them, however, head straight for Patrick. Patrick commits the press of Pete's lips to memory, grabs him by the hand, and runs.

His feet tread bloody footprints into the floor of the museum, but Patrick doesn't look back as he sprints as fast as the crowd will allow, towing Pete along with him. They duck and dive away from the guards, shoving the public out of the way and clearing a path towards the door.

There's no time for Patrick to realise that this is the very museum he and Pete had shyly held hands in as they burst into the corridor. Patrick's stomach turns when he rounds a corner and catches a glimpse of their pursuers, not just museum guards but police officers too. Gunshots ring out somewhere behind them, and Pete yelps and ducks. Patrick has no idea where in the museum they are, but he thinks he recognises the mammal section, in which case the doors are just around the corner.

He's right. They spill into the entrance hall, the double doors swarming with press and police but there's a way around them, surely, they can plough through, Patrick's strong enough to clear the way with a single fist. He slams his feet harder into the ground, flying across the stone and glimpsing sky just outside the doors.

His heart yearns for it, to feel the breeze in his hair, the daylight on his face. It's been so long, he needs to see the infinite expanse of space stretched out in front of him just to prove he wasn't dreaming, to go back to a world with no ceilings. He's so close. Fifteen seconds and he'll slam through those doors, twenty and he'll breathe in fresh air.

Then, he feels Pete's hand slip from his own.

The guards have caught up. Patrick keeps running, away from their reaching fingers, but when he throws a glance back over his shoulder, he sees Pete's face being shoved into the floor, his hands being cuffed behind his back. Patrick slows to a jog.

He could still make the doors. The police are coming at him, but he could dodge them easily enough. If he ran, now, as fast as he could, he'd be out there in seven seconds' time. He could have his sky, his freedom. But not his Pete.

His feet have stopped running. He watches them drag Pete to his feet and shake him, shout at him, make him flinch and cower.

Patrick takes one, last look at the world outside, and makes for Pete.

Guards swamp him but he shoves them into each other and out of his way, stumbling over their rolling bodies and keeping his eyes on Pete. His breaths scream in his ears, his muscles burn, but he throws everything he has into every step he takes, every punch he throws.

He smashes through the visors of the police surrounding Pete, he plunges his feet into their ribs and cracks their heads against the floor, he fights harder than he ever has in his life to get to Pete, to save Pete like Pete saved him. He wrestles with the last officer, the final hurdle, he's just thrown him towards the ground when two gunshots echo around the hall.

Patrick flinches instinctually, his gaze flashing around the room to seek out the threat, the target. When he finds neither, he breathes a stinging sigh, turning back to Pete and – and seeing a look of pure horror on his face.

Patrick's first thought is the guards, closing in on them both, or the police, rushing at them from the doorway, or – or maybe Pete's hurt, what if they've hurt him – "You okay?" Patrick pants, scrambling towards him.

"Patrick..." Pete gapes, and it's only when Patrick follows Pete's gaze that he sees the two fresh trails of red oozing down Patrick's chest. The pain hits him far harder than the bullets did.

Everything sharpens to a perfect, excruciating moment captured under bright lights and blinking eyes. Patrick's lips part in a gasp that catches in his throat. He got so close. 

His vision doubles as he rakes his fingers over the blood as if that might help, the holes in his chest screaming with every movement. He barely notices the guards barrelling into him, into Pete, the world slowing to something softer, more graceful. He might be falling or floating, he wouldn't know the difference.

A pixel of pain illuminates his throat and the noise dulls to a hum. Breathing is wet and difficult, the warmth is getting in the way. His chest aches with – with something, hurt or love or in-between, and he thinks he remembers Pete being near but he doesn't know. He tries to say Pete's name, tries to remember his own, but there's too much warmth, smothering him like a blanket or a flood.

Someone screams in the distance, and all Patrick can feel is the kiss pressed to his lips not so long ago.