missing you from the great blue yonder

When the Seeing days come along, Pete usually drags the heavy porcelein bowl across the acres of clouds separating it and the Seeing Circle, arms aching with the exertion of lifting the basin. He leaves it in everyone's path, dipping ladle perched precariously in the middle (because in heaven diseases, even STDs, don't exist, which, Pete supposes, he would have liked to have back on earth every time he was propositioned). By the time the sun has flared to its most brilliant, a good thirty more bowls have appeared, summoned up by the more useful angels; and nearly suddenly there is a somewhat fratboy-esque celebration in the middle of the (utterly fluffy and cloud-constructed) courtyard.

Pete pads over to the Seeing Circle, several feet around the cloud-arcs and beams of sunlight forming the palisade. It's a ring of stones, the only real solid material he's seen in Heaven since he's been here, and inside there is absolute clarity in the form of blank, dark, space. He waits until there's a considerable lapse in the noise, and pitches into it headfirst .

The day Pete dies, he makes Patrick get up early to commend his soul to Christ.

Well, no, because really he wakes Patrick up early by fisting his hands into the singer's auburn hair and attaching his lips to Patrick's neck. Pete wraps his legs around Patrick's hips and sighs into the curve of Patrick's neck when Patrick's hands flutter down to rest on his hips.

"Good morning, sunshine," Pete grins, moving his head back.

"Asshole," Patrick rasps. "What time is it?"

"Early!" Pete crows. "Early early early but it's Pancake Sunday! Come on come on come on."

To see Pete act like he is five again, Patrick unwraps the legs from his hips and stumbles his way through the recipe (buttermilk, chocolate chip, extra syrup with strawberries to the side and orange juice, three ice cubes) before sitting down. Pete eats voraciously, like it is his last Pancake Sunday and every pancake he eats from here on out will melt like sawdust on his tongue; it is a holy communion of flour and grease in his mouth.

He looks up to reach for the juice and catches Patrick staring at him. "What?"

"Nothing," Patrick says, and stops. He leans across the table and cradles Pete's chin in his hands, thumb slowly caressing the side of his lip. "Syrup," he says, by way of explanation.

"Oh," Pete says thoughtfully. "Next time, lick it off?"

God doesn't much like Pete.

Pete doesn't realize this until he finds out no matter how hard he tries (incuding attempting to jump off a cloud bank and causing mass hysteria until he was bounced back by the archangels on lookout below, swearing (even though it only registered as mute sound to all Heavenly residents), plotting against God, refusing to follow along with the daily masses, and even selling his soul to Satan, who politely informed him he was out of bounds until the pearly gates were behind him) -

God would never banish him to earth as a fallen angel. Sure, he would burn in hell immediately thereafter, but it would be worth it. When God asks him why, Pete shields his eyes and scuffs the ground, and he is five again.

"Aren't you all-knowing?" he says.

"All-curious, too," the voice booms.

In the car, they argue over something stupid.

When Patrick gets out he slams the door and shakes the car and yells without turning around. He goes through the glass doors leading into the studio and Pete sits still against the seat, ears still ringing and fingers gripping his sides.

He stays a long time and breathes slowly, counting between every wisp of air that comes through his half-open lips as the car gets colder. This - this, this withoutpatrick, is like a car without gas. Useless. Frigid. Uncomfortable. Pete shifts and blows against the glass with his eyes closed. When he opens them, Patrick is standing outside, shuffling and looking a little lost.

Hi, Pete writes on the glass, and Patrick breathes out smoke.


Around him, there are memories and happenings.

Pete moves for the happenings almost frantically, eyes roving over the obelisks spiring up around him. On every single one is the same face, the same eyes and the same skin and oh -

He strokes the cool liquid surface, impenatrable but malleable to his prodding fingers, and he watches.


The day Pete dies is Valentine's Day and a Sunday.


Patrick, in the hotel room, loses again.

The wake-up call isn't due to arrive for another twenty minutes but they've all been ready for three hours now anyways. Joe places another card down, mindless redundace, curlicues of smoke tendriling up from the one candle lit in the room, on the table in front of them.

Patrick loses.

"Fuck," he says, and slams his hand on the table; he ignores the stinging and stands up, eyes flaring. "Can we just fucking leave already?"

"No," Andy says, and takes off his glasses. He rubs circles into his forehead and then does the same to his glasses with his shirt sleeve. "We're not the only ones going."

"It's a memorial service," Patrick says. "It will last all afternoon. I have no problem whatsoever leaving them behind."

"His parents are here," Joe points out.

"His parents are fucked, then," Patrick says.


Pete thinks, dirty mouth, and leans his forehead against the obelisk enough to make it fast forward. He stops it later in the afternoon, early evening 6:00, and he looks in again but there's nothing to see anymore. Patrick doesn't sleep anymore, even less than he used to, and Pete doesn't want to watch what he does when he thinks even Pete could never see him.

Something clenches hard in his stomach and he feels the anger bubbling inside him, dark and low and sad, because he can only ever come to the Seeing Circle on Seeing days, and he can only ever see one day and it's so fucking stupid that he should have to waste an entire day watching Patrick be sad and whisper Patrick, be happy if no one can hear him.

Against his better judgement, he does not go to the memories.

He goes Up.


To yell at God takes courage.

He does not possess courage, obviously, because he yells at Gabriel instead.