Chapter Text
If God is good, then Thomas must be wicked, for He will deliver great vengeance upon them—the unfaithful, the unholy, the adulterous and sacrilegious. So much of Thomas’ life spent slaving away for redemption, sacrificing his unrighteous parts into the lake of sulfur and fire to be purged, and yet the evil in him must be so strong that they suffer all the same.
That must be the reason, Patton thinks, surrounded by ruin and death, fleeing like a coward from the fight and leaving his friend to suffer enough for them both.
Patton gasped awake in Janus’ arms, spared cessation from the resurrection and the life. Janus yelped and dropped him, and Patton scrambled to wakefulness, hazy and confused, in strips of spider silk instead of linen, sticky and immobilized.
Janus could never be called slow, because he adjusted to a living companion quickly, cutting Patton out of his restraints. “We don’t have much time,” he said.
“Virgil—”
“—is lost,” Janus finished, and tore away the spider silk until he could heave Patton onto his feet. “We have to run. Hurry.”
Patton looked back over his shoulder to see Virgil—what Virgil had become, eight curling spider legs stretching from his back, eight voids seeing from his face, a cruel smile accentuating them—and Roman, fighting through a variety of terrains and settings. The day of calamity was thick in Patton’s throat, tears rushing down his cheeks. Had the Lord chosen Thomas already? Had Thomas outrun judgment to the cruelest fate they could bear?
Janus wrenched open a door Patton vaguely recognized; it used to come and go near the kitchen, never quite allowing Patton to reach it. On the other side was starving blackness. All day long it craved and craved, but sweet whisperings also promised righteous giving without restraint. A seductive contradiction of holiness.
Patton repelled from it. Nausea churned in his stomach. “What is that?”
“The Unconscious.” Janus turned and gripped his shoulders. “You have to go now, Patton.” Patton watched in horror as Janus’ side stretched into an amorphous blob before forming into his perfect copy. Janus shifted to look like Patton. “Virgil will not desist or relent until he has me. If he keeps me, I can keep him busy, buy you time to get to the Subconscious and get help. Logan is there. Remus, Rage—they’re your only chance now.”
“Roman—”
But Patton looked back, and Roman was on his knees, greyed and exhausted, succumbed before an armed Virgil. Virgil’s eyes were soft and scared, but some part of Patton knew this goodness and mercy would not follow every day of their lives, and the winnowing fork would claim its next sinner soon.
“Roman!” he screamed, but they didn’t hear him. He lunged back toward them, praying in his mind he could stop it before the dust returned to the earth, and Roman’s faithful, beautiful spirit returned to the God who gave it.
“No, Patton!” Janus heaved him and threw him through the door. Patton lunged for it again, but Janus closed it partway on him and held it firm. “The Subconscious, Patton,” he ordered. “You’re our last chance. Go.”
He shut the door before Patton could overpower him, and when Patton wrenched it open again, there was only a graveyard on the other side. Roman, Janus and Virgil were gone.
Patton is alone.
Patton traces their new world of horror back to its roots, and cannot find the origin. Was Thomas taught bad, faithless lessons as a child? Had he not prayed enough? Been too indiscriminate in biblical orders he ignored? Had there been no other way to interpret the command not to lie with a man as with a woman than as condemnation for how Thomas loved, and his choice to embrace his natural inclinations damned them before even Satan had true claim to their spirit?
Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe Thomas’ culpability in this tragedy is moot, and Patton pondering how he failed him only wastes precious time they need to save what they can, before Virgil has his way with their whole world.
Thomas is good. Patton’s always felt it in his bones, stronger than the doubt and shame. It’s why he’s fought for him so furiously, why he was so willing to compromise to spare him pain and grief. But all the while, the bible roared between his ears, and he did as he was told with a sickening certainty consequences would follow his indiscretion.
Had his faith been too untested? Had he failed in steadfastness, succumbed to a coward’s gracelessness, and this was the punishment? To stand alone in a horrible world of flesh, bone and twilight, as it whispered sin in your ear and promised you a facsimile of peace while it sold your soul? Was Patton too much of a coward to save Thomas?
Had he always been their weakest link? So devout, yet so quiet, exactly as lesser men commanded.
Thomas had hurt himself, overheating a metal crucifix with a candle and pressing it to his breast while reciting bible verses about purity, sin and love. Roman and Logan were sitting in front of Patton. Roman looked sick. Logan was furious.
“I warned you,” Logan said. “I warned you what would happen if you continued chastising Thomas day in and day out with dozens of contradictory lines in that stupid book. And now look what’s happened.”
“I just don’t want him to be evil,” Patton murmured weakly. “‘Do not be overcome by evil, but’—”
“Enough!” Logan launched to his feet. “Thomas is not evil. Thomas has no inclinations toward evil, and that stupid book has been used to justify enough true evil in this world already. Or do you really think the Crusades were for the goodness of mankind, Patton? Or the forced conversion through violence of indigenous tribes?”
Patton didn’t answer.
“Well?”
“I don’t know!” Patton wailed. “I’m sorry, I don’t! I don’t know what to do! I never meant to hurt him, I just—I just—”
“If I hear one more bible verse out of you, Patton, I swear to that God you love so much, I will find a way to silence you. For good. Am I understood?”
“I don’t know how,” Patton confessed. “I don’t know how, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry.”
“Logan, that’s enough,” Roman said.
“Don’t act like you’re not a part of this!” Logan snapped. “Your devotion to this chivalrous ideal may not be the subject of my ire at this present moment, but that could change very quickly. Or do you presume to argue Patton was right all this time to berate us with millions of lessons that always end up contradicting each other?”
“He…he didn’t mean it,” Roman said. “He was just trying to help.”
“His method of helping is hurting,” Logan said. “Literally.” Logan turned to Patton. “I am going into your mind, with my purview, and I am going to obliterate that text from your memory, and then from Thomas’. Am I understood?”
Horror, too convulsive and terrible, gripped Patton and he vomited. “No! Please, I won’t say it anymore, don’t take it away from me, I need it! Please! Please!”
“At least let him keep the memories!” Roman cried. “Stay the words before they stain his tongue if you must, but the bible is everything to Patton. If you strip that away, what do you leave him with?”
“I don’t know, maybe a metaphorical spine?” Logan spat.
Metal scraped against itself, and Roman leveled his broadsword at Logan’s neck. “Steal our holy book from his mind,” Roman warned, “and I’ll see to it you’re put where you belong.”
“I do not fear Ostracization,” Logan said confidently.
“And what do you think it would do to Thomas’ reason, if only his Creativity and Morality remain here?”
Logan stopped, then growled. He tossed Patton back down into his chair. “Fine,” he said. “If you need the free will to torment yourself with that stupid book the same as you’ve done to Thomas for years, then I’ll let you. But you are not saying it, or bringing it anywhere near Thomas, ever. Again. And I intend to guarantee it.”
Patton cannot restrain his flinch, remembering the feeling of fingers roaming his thoughts, seeking out and welding shut every way Patton had to preach gospel. The effects were slower to change Thomas, but quicker than anyone had hoped for, he forgot the good book and God, Satan, Heaven and Hell all became faint anxieties that nonetheless released their choke-hold on his mind.
At least, they thought they had, but now, Thomas lays in the valley of the shadow of death, Patton at his side, and they fear evil, because the evil lives in their minds. It rots their bones, curdles their blood. The roots of evil have punctured through their major organs and they’re hemorrhaging into their chest cavities, slowly dying without feeling a thing. They were promised weeping only lasted a night, and joy cometh in the morning, but joy is so far away it’s unrecognizable, and the tears have not dried for a single second in days.
The nervous peace of the Conscious Mind shattered with a scream.
Patton launched up from his chair, sitting several feet away from the dining table Virgil laid on to keep his distance from his spiders, and rushed to Virgil’s side—only for his spiders to jump off the mirror, enlarge to the size of bulldogs, and advance on Patton.
There was no fear in love, and Virgil’s spiders were his pets and he loved them, and Patton loved Virgil, so he tried to love his spiders but it couldn’t be perfect enough to cast out his fear. Patton stumbled back desperately, heart blocking his throat. On the table, Virgil was upright but hunched over, gripping his hair so tightly he was taking off chunks of it in his hands. He heaved with panicked gasps, body jerking every few seconds as if possessed, and he dragged his nails down his cheeks over and over again until they drew blood.
Patton was horrified—with himself and with the condition Virgil was in. He reminded himself the Lord God was with him wherever he went, but his fright was undeterred. He could not help Virgil. God did not fight for him, though he was silent. He did not make straight his paths. He was not his great upholder, but he was taking Roman from him, and Thomas’ hope and faith might not be enough to save him.
And it certainly wasn’t enough to help Virgil.
Patton tripped over the stoop leading up the stairwell and fell backward, landing with a thud on his butt. His tail-bone bruised, but he just scrambled further up the stairs. Finally, he managed to strangle out, “Hey, kiddo, just—just breathe and calm down and—and please tell your spiders to—to give me some space so I can come over there, okay?”
Virgil snapped around to look at Patton and Patton stilled. His irises were flooded black, darker than the endless night before God blessed them with light. Patton thought he’d seen that once before, when Virgil screamed at him and Janus when he first found out Janus had been accepted, but he’d discounted it as a trick of his eyes. Now, though, there was no denying it, especially as the ink spread out into the whites of his eyes, slowly turning them into cold, dark voids.
“Run,” Virgil told him, voice warped and echoing in that way Patton always hated.
Trouble and anguish had found them out, but His commandments were Patton’s delight, Patton thinks. And God commands give charity, and aid, and patience and love, and be steadfast in the shelter of the Lord, who shielded them from oppression. So Patton tried to be brave. He tried to be steadfast, as commanded, to have faith, to fight for Virgil the way Virgil had always fought for them, no wonder how misguided or confused.
“Virgil, I—something is wrong. We did something with Roman’s Dragon Witch and I think…I think she cursed you or something. Roman can fix it, we just have to wait until—”
Virgil scratched at his arms frantically, and Patton watched in horror as those nails grew until they were like pointed saw blades and pierced the fabric of his hoodie. Rivers of blood ran into the cloth.
“Virgil, stop, please, you’re—”
“Dammit, Patton!” Virgil howled, doubling over as his scream overlapped itself and twisted into something demonic. Patton lurched forward, but his spiders were still at the base of the stairs, barring his path.
Tears poured down Patton’s cheeks. The bible had much to say on pain, that it makes them strong, makes them firm in the arms of their Lord, that all suffering would mean nothing at the end of everything when they were delivered to perfect peace. None of it was helpful then. None of it would stop Virgil from hurting himself, none of it would give the bravery to Patton he needed to ignore his spiders to stop him himself, none of it would make the pain of the present any more bearable for either of them. And Patton’s company wouldn’t reassure him in itself, because Virgil wanted him to leave.
Patton wandered if he should. If he just needed to listen to him and give Virgil space. But he was terrified for him, and couldn’t leave him to wrestle with whatever affliction of the devil had come down over them all alone.
But excuses were only for cowards and the unholy in the good book, so Patton told himself, if the only help he could be now was to physically restrain Virgil while he calmed down, then he would find his courage and go past his spiders to help him. All he had to do was think how to get past them when they formed a line at the base of the stairs, and Patton knew too well he couldn’t make himself go over them.
Patton looked down at the railing. Whatever he asked in prayer, if he believed it, would be his, and while he could not produce the spoken words, he called to God with all his might and leapt over the railing, twisting his ankle. He cried out, but limped quickly over to Virgil as his spiders pursued him. Patton flattened himself against the table. The biggest one spit at him, little bits of venom flying through the air. Patton tried to back up further with a whimper.
“Virgil, please,” he begged. “I can’t help you until you make them leave me alone. Please, I want to—”
A white hand veined in black with long, jagged nails gripped Patton’s throat and yanked him flush against a cold chest. Patton froze, eyes widening as Virgil leaned down to his ear and whispered, “‘The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.’” Patton had never heard him quote the bible before. What he said next was much worse than any scripture, though. "But silly little Patton shakes anyway. Do you know why that is, little fly?”
“Virgil—”
“Shh.” A clawed fingernail traced the side of his face. Patton whimpered. “Silly, silly Patton. You should have run while you had the chance.”
Patton was pinned against Virgil’s chest, mind whited out with fear and disbelief. How angry was Virgil, exactly? It wasn’t like he could be angry enough to hurt someone, right?
Virgil had been waylaid from the righteous for a long time (or maybe he’d been the only one who wasn’t, an unfriendly part of Patton whispered), committing murder and stealing and hurting people. But he’d been hurt; hurt people hurt people, but God forgave all who found refuge in him. Patton couldn’t preach gospel with his God-fearing mouth dammed by sacrilegious Logic, and what he’d learned was half of the bible’s lessons weren’t helpful in mental health crises, but he had to try. So he apologized, and soon the others would do like they promised, and in their day of trouble, they would take refuge in love, and therefore in the Lord, and be delivered as a family.
“I shouldn’t have kept Janus’ secret,” Patton said. “I know that, kiddo, I just—he said the memories could hurt you, and I’ve been so twisted up about the right thing lately, I just don’t seem to know what it is. Janus was so sure he was making the right call and I get now that morality is so much more complicated than—”
“Morality isn’t complicated,” Virgil hissed. “It’s simple. Just like you’re simple.”
Patton winced. He deserved that, but he’d learned better than to argue. Besides, he hadn’t been acting very smart lately.
“It’s all black and white, in the end,” Virgil continued, and Patton frowned. “Good and evil are just good and evil. A baby could understand them. And the fact Thomas is a grown-ass fucking adult and he still can’t figure out that lying to your friends is a shit thing to do?”
Patton frowned deeper. “That…he never did that, though. We all agreed that would be bad. It was just the wedding—”
“Oh, yes, the wedding.” Virgil’s grip tightened around his throat and Patton choked, struggling to breathe. “That ole thing. Honestly, I’m glad Thomas was pathetic enough to fall the fuck apart from being a good friend. Really.” Virgil dug his nails into Patton’s neck, puncturing it, and blood quickly filled the wounds and spilled over, down into Patton’s shirt. Patton grew lightheaded. “If he hadn’t, Virgil would still be alive, and then where would we be?”
Patton was too far gone to process what he’d said, but then the pressure against his throat vanished and Virgil shoved him forward. Patton stumbled while Virgil’s spiders skittered out of his way. Patton crashed to his knees, bruising them and the palms of his hands. The Lord tested the righteous, but his soul hated the wicked and the one who loves violence. A man who is kind benefits himself, as Patton had tried to be, and a cruel man hurts himself, but the only one hurting then seemed to be Patton, because as Patton tried and failed to stem the blood pouring down his front (when had they started being able to bleed?), the only one hurting then seemed to be Patton. Because Virgil was back at the table, unbothered with Patton’s staggers and rolling, lightheaded eyes, just simpering, relishing his pain.
Patton whirled to look at Virgil and saw him on his feet, skin now leeched harsh white with rivers of ink running through it. He was leaning over the mirror with a cruel smile on his face. The silver surface melted under his hand and Patton strangled a cry to warn him, lunging forward, but Virgil didn’t pull away, letting the silver liquid run up his arm. Where it passed, black and purple fleece turned to shiny leather, little silver studs left behind by drops of the liquefied mirror. Patton watched as it slowly ate away all of Virgil’s beautiful hoodie and torn skinny jeans with all leather—and then the liquid on his lower half floated off him toward his hand, the rest racing there to meet with it. The mirror began solidifying again then, except now, into a wand, then into a staff, then into a long, hooked blade at the end: a scythe.
Virgil had mentioned dressing up as the Reaper for the next Halloween, but Patton never saw it happening like this.
Virgil smirked down at Patton. His spiders scurried over to him and onto his shoe, and Virgil looked down with such irritation for a moment Patton worried he might hurt them, but then he softened and reached down, letting them crawl up his arm one at a time. Patton shuddered.
There were too many bible verses about the weakness of fear, except of the fear in the Lord, and what Patton could not conquer then felt very similar to the soul-crushing, unconquerable terror of God’s wrath and his judgment. Divine and inexorable. Sacred in its repulsiveness, because holding to it would prove Patton holy.
But this couldn’t be the fear of God, so it must have been fear of the other, false divinity, the thing Thomas had worried he was overcome with before he accepted his love of men.
But the Lord keeps in perfect peace he whose mind is stayed on him, and Patton fixes his mind on the Lord to keep calm and resolve this.
“Kiddo, I…I know I messed up, but it’s really not simple and just…we can work this out, okay? And you can take all the time you need. Whatever—”
Virgil’s head snapped up and his eyes locked hatefully with Patton, and Patton screamed as he saw the skin on his forehead and underneath his eyes split open. Six cuts blinked open—wait, blinked?
Sure enough, filling the slits were round little black voids, and Patton knew, even though there was no pupil, no indication of sight, that they were locked on him, seeing him from a dozen new angles, examining his terror.
Black blood dripped from the cuts as Virgil swung his scythe to grip it in both hands. “‘His winnowing knife is in his hand,’” he quoted with a simmering and twisted joviality, “’and he will clear his thrashing floor, gathering the wheat into the barn and burning the chaff with unquenchable fire.’” Virgil smirked at Patton, whose blood had kissed liquid nitrogen and was both cold, unmoving in his veins and terribly, frightfully frail. “Except there’s no wheat left in Thomas, if there ever was. It’s all chaff. So it all. Has. To. BURN!”
Like the Lord before, Virgil struck with great vengeance and furious anger, summoning midnight fire that scorched Patton as it cauterized his wounds. Patton screamed, and beheld a divine terror unlike any he’d known except reading the bible for the first time and recognizing the dangerousness of a God he’d been promised was kind. But Virgil did not strike for the crime of poison, but with a poisoned mind, victimizing those who had once preyed on him.
Patton searched for an escape but failed to find it, surrounded. The smoke filled his lungs and he coughed violently, gripping his throat, while the world swam. He staggered to and fro, trying to find a way out of the heat. The air to scream had been incinerated, but he still managed to rasp through clogged lungs. Finally, overcome, he sank to a knee and collapsed to the ground.
The fire extinguished and Patton gasped desperately. The burns kept him superheated even after their causer was defeated. He looked up at Virgil—except he wasn’t sure it was Virgil anymore, because Virgil would never look at anyone with that much hate. Not even Janus.
Virgil, or whatever Virgil was now, advanced on Patton and Patton dragged himself back, choking on cries at the way the floor pressed into his burns. Virgil stopped and loomed over him, wielding the scythe. He grinned wickedly.
“Virgil…please…” Patton shook his head. “You’re just sick, kiddo. I can help you. Please…please stop.”
“I’ll stop when Thomas’ Heart does,” he said, the double meaning not missed on Patton. Then Virgil swung the scythe at his throat, opening the seventh seal and plunging the sky into silence.