Patrick didn’t know what to say to that, not with the sting in his eyes from tears. His stomach twisted, and his face was hot from anger, but beneath it all was the memory of quiet days spent in this house between semesters at the Academy boarding school. Of how Setsuna was so focused on her career back then but made sure to be present when he was around for holidays or the summer break, even if they didn’t know how to live around each other.
She’d still tried, in her own way, to care, and he could see that now.
Nothing was ever going to be fair after Persephone dragged him off that spellwork in the Salem basement all those years ago. In that respect, Setsuna was right.
And he’d survived long enough, grown old enough, to understand that.
Patrick set his whiskey glass on the coffee table so he could wipe at his eyes, smearing wetness over the skin near his temples. “Ethan wanted to be a god, and I never wanted to be a hero. Now look at the mess we’re in.”
Setsuna’s fingers tightened over his wrist. “I know. If it was ever in my power to change things for you, I would have tried.”
Patrick closed his eyes, sifting through the anger and pain, the heartache tied to the family he’d lost back then and kept losing because of the decisions Setsuna had made on his behalf. But he remembered how he’d felt knowing his mother’s family worshipped Persephone, the full-body rejection he’d suffered through.
Persephone owned his soul debt while Ashanti had honed him into a weapon that Setsuna had tried to keep safe and sheathed as best she could.
He’d survived to wield himself in this war, though the cost he kept unearthing seemed impossible to pay some days. But he wasn’t alone in this fight and hadn’t been in all the years prior since coming to DC as a child. He knew with a certainty that made his teeth ache that if Setsuna had sent him back to Eloise, he’d be worshipping Persephone now, and there wasn’t any freedom to be found in the confines of family tradition.
Setsuna had made the best of an impossible choice all those years ago, the same way Patrick was doing now.
Patrick opened his eyes and shifted on the couch, pulling his arm free. Setsuna let him go—she always had—but he caught her hand in his, giving it a careful, tentative squeeze. When he turned his head to look at her, he was struck by howtiredSetsuna appeared. For the first time in a long while, she looked her years.
“I hate that you lied to me about this for so long. I don’t know when I’ll be able to forgive you for that. But I’m still here because of you, and I don’t think I’ve ever said thank you for that,” Patrick said.
There was a time, he knew, where he would’ve been furious over this kind of revelation and refuse to listen to reason. But they’d both been dealt shitty hands when it came to his life, and she’d done the best she could with the cards given to her. In the end, her best had kept him breathing.
Setsuna blinked, the corners of her eyes crinkling ever so slightly from the careful smile that curved her lips. “I was never after your thanks.”
“I know.” Patrick’s gaze drifted over to where Jono stood, leaning against the wall, watching them dig through his past with cut-glass words. “But for this, you have it.”
It was the same situation he’d found himself in with Gerard last December in a way. Lied to for his own protection without his knowledge, and he could choose to hold on to that pain and anger and sense of betrayal until it choked him.
Or he could let it go and move on, for however long he remained standing.
He was better at forgiveness now, Patrick realized, staring at Jono. Better because of the compassion Jono always showed him right alongside the support that came with no strings, no quid pro quo of promises. Just the knowledge that Jono would always be there for him, no matter what. That support allowed Patrick to walk through the minefield of emotions that was his past, of everything that made him who and what he was, to come out the other side as whole as possible.
It hit him right then, stealing the breath from his lungs, what he would’ve lost if Setsuna had given him back to Eloise. He wouldn’t be waking up beside Jono every morning, wouldn’t be sharing drinks at home or at Tempest. The pack they’d built wouldn’t even be a dream because Jono would still be in London, Wade would still be the prisoner of a god, and Sage would always lose the freedom she wanted for herself and other werecreatures beneath corrupt god pack alphas.
Maybe the Fates might have thrown them together eventually, but there was no guarantee they’d be who they were now if he’d grown up differently.
And Patrick, well, he liked the man he’d become when standing by Jono’s side.
That tangle of emotion washed through him, forcing out the sting of anger and distress, leaving behind the cool knowledge that he would always choose Jono.
That he would always come back to this, to them.
Oh,Patrick thought, holding Jono’s gaze.
What a hell of a time to realize he was in love when they were still so utterly fucked.
And he couldn’t give voice to that sudden clarity, not when they still had a war to win. So Patrick did what he had always done when there was a fight to be had—he shoved down what made him happy in favor of getting through one more day, one more week. If they could get through Samhain alive, then he’d unravel that knot. He’d stop hiding behind other syllables in favor of a truth he felt down to his ruined soul.
Breathing in deep, Patrick looked at Setsuna, still holding her hand in his, remembering a different time when he’d stumbled into her life and she’d pulled him to some form of safety that he could—all these years later—finally accept.
“Thank you,” Patrick said, voice thick in his throat. “For what you did for me.”
Setsuna wrapped her arms around him for an awkward hug that left Patrick biting his lip. They hadn’t hugged much while he grew up, and he knew now it wasn’t because she hadn’t wanted to. Patrick’s boundaries had been nonexistent back then, and she’d worked in her own way to help him rebuild them. Those barriers had sustained him, maybe even hurt him, but eventually, Jono had taught him how to bring them down of his own volition.
The people in this room had taught him a lot about himself without Patrick even realizing it.
