Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was so stereotypical. A huge mahogany desk separating the shrink from the lunatic, chairs that were far too uncomfortable considering how much this was costing, and framed motivational quotes telling the reader that the setback was always bigger than the comeback and impossible is a made up word and is this bullshit actually meant to help people feel better? Maybe it’s meant to make them feel grateful that at least they have a job or a sugar daddy rich enough to pay for them to be here, instead of having to ‘work’ writing motivational quotes to superimpose over images of tigers and Nepalese mountains. Like hey, everything is shit and I want to kill myself, but at least I’m loaded.

“Patrick?”

Shit. He’d completely zoned out again. He did that all the time, according to Evelyn, and to Courtney, and to Jean, and to the hardbodies he’d taken home from the club and screwed for a night and was it really his fault when everything anyone had to say was so mind-numblingly boring (except Jean, sometimes, mostly) and the world in his head, the world that existed to no one but him, was so much more titilating? 

“Yes?” 

“Did you hear what I said?” 

The shrink - the psychiatrist - had an irritatingly soothing voice. So soothing that Patrick fantasised about slicing open his throat - just one clear, smooth slit down the front - and taking a sander to his vocal chords, making them raspy and harsh. Of course, Patrick had been told that his voice was ‘soothing’ as well (whatever that meant), but that was from Evelyn, when he was reassuring her that she wasn’t getting fat (she was, just ever so slightly, but what was lipo invented for if not for nipping the self-confidence and tweaking the bodies of perfectly adequate size eight women with more money than sense?), or from Courtney, whilst she sobbed on his shoulder in a clonazepam haze about how she was going to die old and childless (hardly, he’d reassured her, it was almost inevitable she was going to die from a barbiturate overdose in a bathtub at Chateau Marmont within the next five to ten years).

“I’m terribly sorry, I wasn’t listening. Could you repeat yourself?” 

The shrink looked vaguely unsettled (was everyone that came in here really that fucked up that Patrick’s disarming politeness and and charm was that odd?) and adjusted his glasses (black frames, unbranded) on the bridge of his nose. 

“I asked you how you were doing today.” 

Really? He was spending $250 an hour to be asked how he was doing? He may as well have gone down to the Starbucks across the road from Pierce & Pierce if he wanted someone to ask him how he was doing (with the added bonus of a triple shot espresso). Christ, he could’ve bumped into Luis fucking Carruthers if he desired an inquisition into his state of mind, to whom he could’ve told he’d literally just had explosive diarrhea in his pants and still be greeted with those fucking puppy dog eyes and an “Oh, Patrick, how wonderful !” 

Sometimes, when the zopiclone wasn’t working fast enough, Patrick would lay in bed and fantasise about the ways he would kill Luis Carruthers. He’d come to the conclusion that strangulation was the best. Manual or otherwise, he couldn’t choose - the important thing would be that Luis would be facing him, so he’d be able to view the sudden realisation and gradual terror creep into his eyes as he finished him off. What a wonderful thought. 

With the image of the light slowly fading from Luis Carruthers’ eyes as he garrotted him to death playing in his head, Patrick found the strength to flash a killer-watt smile at the shrink. 

“Never better, doc. How are you doing today?”

The man looked startled, as if Patrick had just broken out into a foreign language or told him how he fantasised about ploughing his Mercedes through Fifth Avenue and watching people bounce off the windscreen like bloody hailstones. 

“I’m doing fine, and it’s very kind of you to ask, Patrick, but we’re today to talk about you, not me. Your wife seemed very concerned -”

“ Fiancée .” Patrick spat the word out like a blood-soaked broken tooth. 

In all honesty, when he started thinking of Evelyn as his - that awful word - his fiancée , bile began to rise in his throat. The fact that one day she would be his wife - so good to see you again, Mr and Mrs Fischer, let me introduce my wife, Evelyn Bateman - made him feel as though he might actually vomit. For a moment he seriously considered it, hurling a Peter Luger raw-rare steak with tartar sauce and new potatoes across that stupid fucking gleaming mahogany desk (why was it so big? So lunatics couldn’t as easily dive across it and throttle this Dr. whatever to death with his unbranded polyester paisley tie?) but then he remembered that this was upper-state Manhattan and people talked and he didn’t want to be known as the guy who went to a shrink, let alone threw up all over a shrink’s desk. So he kept his mouth shut and imagined smothering Evelyn to death with a pillow as she slept instead. 

“Sorry.” The shrink adjusted his glasses again and cleared his throat before continuing. “Your fiancée seemed very concerned when she booked this appointment. Why do you think she was concerned?” 

Because I’m going insane. Because if - when - I finally snap and lose it and end up in the loony bin then I’ll lose my job, and then I’ll lose my apartment, and then she’ll lose her big Hamptons wedding and cushy lifestyle, and then her life will like, literally be over, Patrick. 

Of course, he didn’t say any of that. 

“She just worries. Women, huh? You know what they’re like.” He even let out a little laugh, extending an olive branch of male camaraderie. He wondered if this doctor did know what it was like. He had no framed photos of a dutiful wife and beaming children and a fucking golden retriever or whatever those picture-perfect families had. Maybe he was a faggot. Patrick felt the bile rising up his throat again.  

The doctor peered at him over the top of his glasses. “I can tell you don’t feel the need to be here today, Patrick, and that’s fine. But sometimes when we need help it takes a push from someone who loves us to make us realise that, well, we need a bit of help. If you don’t want to cooperate, or continue having sessions with me after today, that’s absolutely fine. But we’re here right now. Why don’t we start off by asking some basic questions?” 

He already turned and switched on his computer (a nondescript Microsoft desktop) before Patrick had the chance to tell him exactly where to shove his basic questions. He checked his Rolex. This ‘session’ (he hated that they called it that; a session is when you pay whores by the hour, not sit and tell some random dude that mommy never loved you and that you don’t think you’ll make it past thirty) was five minutes in. Fifty-five more and he was free to exit back into normality. (Whatever that was.) 

“You’re the expert here, doc,” Patrick responded sardonically. “Ask away. I’m an open book.” The sitcom laughter track inside his head burst into hysterics and when awards season came round, the screenwriter was awarded an Emmy. Patrick briefly wondered how his life would have panned out if he’d studied film or some other kind of literary bullshit instead of business and economics, and concluded he’d most likely have ended up a fat, depressed alcoholic working as a runner on SNL. He silently shuddered and ran his fingers over his cufflinks (Montblanc, pure silver).

“So, Patrick. Where do you live?” The shrink kept flicking his eyes between the monitor and Patrick, as though he was trying to work out which was more human. It was slightly disconcerting. 

“81st, Upper West Side. American Gardens building. Tom Cruise has a penthouse on the top floor. Great guy.” 

This was usually when people’s jaws dropped; disappointingly, Dr. Whatshisname's jaw remained firmly shut. Patrick noticed he had the beginning of jowls, and considered recommending a collagen treatment. Instinctively, he reached up and felt his own jawline; chiselled and firm and yet, as the hardbodies he’d fucked from the clubs always remarked, surprisingingly smooth and soft. That is what happens when my skincare routine costs more than your entire apartment, yes, he’d always thought. 

“And what about work? What do you do for a living?” 

“Vice President at Pierce & Pierce. Mergers and acquisitions. Would you like to see my business card? I’ve just had a new one printed.” 

The shrink began to spout some bullshit about how that wasn’t necessary but he was sure it was very nice and having such an important job must be very taxing, Patrick, isn’t it, and that must cause you a lot of stress, Patrick, doesn’t it, but Patrick wasn’t listening, opening his suit jacket (Valentino, double breasted slate-grey wool) and taking out his card holder. 

Of course, with the creation of LinkedIn, business cards were becoming less and less common, but Patrick liked to stand out and, after all, they carried an air of class and respect from days gone by. He slid out his card (embossed eggshell with Argent font) and pushed it across the table to the doctor, who was still prattling on about the perils of working too hard, as if that was a bad thing. What a fucking loser.

The shrink picked up the card and squinted at it as though he was illiterate, or blind, or perhaps both. “This is very nice, Patrick. Thank you. Would you like to talk about your job for a bit? Or your family, perhaps? Your wi- your fiancée?” 

Patrick couldn’t think of anything he’d like to talk about less. He didn’t give a shit about any of those things. He leaned back in the chair and, in one elegant swoop, lifted his legs on top of the mahogany desk, crossing his feet at the ankles, asserting his dominance and no doubt impressing the shrink with his shoes (Saint Laurent pointed-toe Oxfords). He couldn’t see his feet from under the desk, but Patrick bet he was wearing hush puppies, or something else similarly vile. Again, what a fucking loser. 

“Doc, do you really think I have any issues in life? I’m one of the highest-paid individuals in my company, my taste in acquaintances is impeccable, and I can get instant reservations in any restaurant in Manhattan with one phone call. My physical health and fitness could not be any more perfect, and I have clients begging my secretary to get me to take them on. What do I have to complain about?” 

The doctor took off his glasses and stared straight inside Patrick’s soul. “If your life is so perfect, Patrick, why are you sitting here right now?”

There was a paperweight sitting on the desk - dark navy marble carved into an indistinguishable shape - and Patrick imagined the satisfaction he’d get from picking it up and smashing it repeatedly into the shrink’s head, watching blood and brains and little bits of skull everywhere. Then he’d leave the room, walk out of the clinic, and call Evelyn. Guess what, bitch! You were right! I’m fucking insane! 

Of course, he didn’t do that. It would completely ruin his reputation, and with that, his chances of ever getting reservations anywhere again. So instead he tilted his head back and closed his eyes and felt a smile spreading over his face as he pictured doing it in his mind instead. “Why do you care? You’re getting paid regardless, whether I’m a fucking lunatic or a completely sane member of society.”

“Because I’m here to help you. That is, if you want my help. Not everyone who sees a psychiatrist is, to use your words, a ‘lunatic’. A lot of people just need someone impartial to talk to about things going on in their life, or things that happened in the past.” 

“Well, sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t have anything in my life worth talking about.” This wasn’t even a lie; all he did was work, exercise, do coke with the guys, bang Courtney, listen to Evelyn’s neurotic whining, and pick up hardbodies at the bar. =

“What about your childhood, then?” 

“I grew up in the Hamptons.” 

“Oh, very nice.” The doctor had his glasses back on now and was leaning back in his chair, hands folded, attempting to trick Patrick into revealing his deepest darkest secrets with this facade of casualness. It was almost cute that he’d think it would work. 

“Yes. My father was big in the stock market and my mother was a full-time bipolar prescription medication addict. My grades were sufficiently average, but my father was acquainted with one of the Harvard trustees, so that didn’t matter. At weekends, if my father wasn’t away on his so-called business trips, I would accompany him and his work associates to the golf club. He divorced my mother when I was in my teens, and although I’ve been brought up to believe that I’m an only child, it wouldn’t surprise me if I had a half-dozen less accomplished and successful half siblings out there. Is that enough information for you?” 

The shrink was still sitting in his pathetic little you can tell me anything pose, hands primly folded and head cocked ever so slightly to the side, like some retarded mongrel. Patrick hated dogs; hated all animals, in fact, but none more so than humans, and no human more so than himself. The thought of mentioning that flitted briefly across his mind, but the retarded mongrel was talking again, and now it was Patrick’s turn to pretend to give a damn. 

“Your parents’ divorce must have really affected you, Patrick. I’m sorry you had to go through that. Divorce can be very hard on a child, and it can make you feel hesitant to form relationships - both romantic and platonic - as an adult. Is that something you see in your life?” 

Come on, seriously? This guy had studied for nine fucking years to tell a child of divorce that divorce can be hard on a child? And he was getting paid $250 of Patrick’s own money to tell him that? That was enough; Patrick pushed back the chair with an aching screech and rose to his feet in a manner so abrupt the mongrel physically flinched. Patrick felt a small shiver of pleasure through his body, knowing that he’d caused that reaction, that he was capable of causing that reaction. 

“Okay, enough of the cliched shrink 101 bullshit.” Patrick leaned forward and placed his palms on the desk, to steady himself, to stop himself from wrapping his hands around the doctor’s neck and squeezing until his eyeballs popped out of their sockets like overripe grapes. “You want to know the truth? I am a psychopath. I am an awful person. I am legitimately fucking insane. I’m wasting your time and you’re wasting mine, because I cannot be fixed. And you know what else? I don’t want to be. I only made this appointment so my heinous bitch of a fiancee would get off my back about it.” He paused, panting for breath. “Oh, and based on the ten minutes I’ve spent in here talking to you, I’d consider another career path.” 

With that, Patrick flopped back into his seat, sliding one finger under the knot of his tie (Gucci, red, white, and navy striped silk) and loosening it slightly. His head was pounding. He needed a glass of water, or a Xanax, or three. He could feel a vein pulsing under his eye and sweat breaking out at the back of his neck. He swore to God that if this quack’s next words were I understand how you feel, Patrick or You seem to be holding in a lot of anger, Patrick he would kill him right there on the spot. 

There was a long, long, long beat. Patrick stared at the shrink. The shrink stared back at Patrick. It was a survival of the fittest, alpha versus beta, a competition to see who would break first. 

“Why are you such an awful person?” 

Patrick was thrown off by the question, and couldn’t remember what he’d just said, or what he’d just done, and God he needed a Xanax. 

“You said you’re an awful person. What makes you say that?” 

He had a migraine coming on; he could tell by the dull throbbing in his left temple, just above his eye. He imagined poking a long, thin, serrated knife into someone’s eyeball, and how much more painful than this it would be - or would it, because surely there is no one way to measure pain, because everyone experiences it differently, and Patrick was an expert on pain, so he should know. He needed to check if someone had made reservations for tonight, and if so, where?

“I…hurt people.” The words came out of his mouth subconsciously, while his brain was preoccupied with thoughts about eyeballs falling out and which restaurants served the best steamed salmon. 

“How do you hurt people?” The shrink had lowered his voice, softening it even more. Man the fuck up, Patrick wanted to shout. Real men don’t sound like that. Real men don’t go to shrinks. He needed to do some coke; he hoped one of the guys had pulled through for tonight. He needed to cancel his plans with Evelyn, if they’d even made plans; he wouldn’t know because he didn’t care. 

“Sorry, what was the question again?”

“I asked you how you hurt people.” The doctor was twirling a pen (unbranded) round his fingers as he spoke, and it was annoying Patrick so much he wanted to rip it out of his fingers and shove it directly into his trachea. “Do you mean that in a physical sense? Or perhaps more emotionally?” 

Patrick was so fucking tired. He suddenly felt a wave of exhaustion slide over him, and if this chair wasn’t so damn uncomfortable he’d have surely drifted off. He thought of his king-size bed with the ten thousand count Egyptian cotton comforter and he wanted to go home and crawl into it and sleep for a million years, or at least until springtime. 

“Sometimes when we’ve been badly hurt or neglected, particularly in our formative years,” the quack was droning on again, back on his Pop Psychology for Dummies shit, “we grow up to become afraid to get close to people, because our automatic presumption is that they’ll hurt us too, or perhaps abandon us. So our reaction is to lash out and hurt people, even if we love them, in order to protect ourselves. But that doesn’t make you a bad person, Patrick. You’re just protecting yourself the only way you know how.” 

He dropped the pen at this, sending it bouncing off the desk and clattering to the floor and suddenly the noise seemed magnified by ten and everything was so damn fucking loud and Patrick wanted to crawl under the desk and cover his ears with his hands like he was five years old again. 

The shrink looked at him, directly in his eyes. Patrick could see his reflection from his glasses. He wanted to rip them off the shrink’s face and break them in half and shove one of the legs up his nose until it perforated his brain. 

“What are your thoughts on that, Patrick? On what I just said?”

Patrick’s mouth was dry and his throat was tight and sore, the way it used to be when he was a child and desperately trying not to cry in front of his dad. Man up, Patrick. Crying is for faggots; you’re not a faggot, are you? 

Patrick cleared his throat and looked at the psychiatrist dead on. 

“I think everything you’ve said is complete fucking bullshit. Oh, and I’m going home. Thanks for your time.” 

Chapter Text

It was a Friday night, so Patrick was doing what he always did on a Friday night; sitting in some up-and-coming restaurant in the West Village that the New York Times had dubbed ‘in’ for this month and that no one would be seen dead in next month. If he continued with his normal Friday routine, of steak and bourbon and hitting on the waitresses at Arcadia and then doing so much coke that he couldn’t feel his own body, let alone the random hardbody from the club he was fucking into oblivion, then it would cancel out his disastorously abnormal Friday afternoon. He couldn’t believe he’d actually gone to see a fucking shrink, like some sort of pathetic beta male that cries in the shower and uses emojis in texts. Worse than that, he’d told the loser that he was a psychopathic mess who couldn’t be fixed. Patrick had done a thousand stomach crunches before getting ready to go out tonight and then jerked off to his current favourite darkweb torture porn, but even that wasn’t enough to shake him out of this uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. It was a feeling of vulnerability, and weakness, and one that Patrick had spent half an hour retching unsuccessfully into the toilet bowl to try and rid himself of. 

Whatever. He was never going to have to see that loser again. He’d been dodging endless texts and calls from Evelyn, firstly asking what their plans were for that night because she was so frightfully bored and about to die from the mundaneness of her life, and then, as an obvious afterthough, asking how the psychiatrist visit had gone and that she really thought it would help if he kept going, not just helping him but helping us, and Patrick had wanted to be sick again. He told her he was having dinner with the guys and he knew she was going to go out and screw some second hand Burberry version of himself as a result, but he honestly couldn’t care less, and it both endeared and irritated him that he knew she thought he would.

“But hypothetically,” Van Hatten’s voice broke Patrick from his moody ruminations. “You have to choose one. Just one. For the rest of your life. What do you choose?”

“You can’t ask a man that!” McDermott exclaimed in horror.

“But you have to choose one. For the fate of the human race.” Bryce was swilling his Glenfiddich round, glinting amber in the soft lighting of the restaraunt.

“For the fate of the human race?” McDermott shot Bryce an incredulous look, eyebrow raised.

“Yes. The fate of the human race rests entirely on your shoulders, and all you need to do is make one. Tiny. Decision.” Van Hatten emphasised his last three words by jabbing his cocktail stick in the direction of McDermott.

“It’s not a tiny decision. Are you insane?”

Patrick flinched at the word insane, and was suddenly struck with the awful thought that perhaps Evelyn had told Bryce that he’d seen a shrink, out of spite that he was ditching her tonight, and that Bryce had told the others, and now McDermott was subtly making it known that he knew. She wouldn’t. He wouldn’t. Would they?

Patrick downed his Scotch (on the rocks) in one and dove into the conversation. Got to keep it together, got to keep it cool. “In what possible scenario would the fate of the human race rest entirely on McDermott’s decision to choose between tits and ass?”

“You never know!” Van Hatten protested. “What if, like, aliens descend on earth. Massive titted aliens, like we’re talking huge, porn star level tits here.” He gesticulated circles in front of his chest, just in case anyone didn’t know what huge porn star tits looked like, and carried on. “And they’re gonna wipe out the entire human race if you piss them off. And they ask you: Craig McDermott, are you an ass man or a tits man?”

“Well, naturally, in that situation I’d have to say tits, wouldn’t I? To save humanity, and all that bullcrap?” 

“Look, the long and short of it is this.” Van Hatten leaned back in his chair with the quiet confidence of a man rich enough to wipe his ass with hundred dollar bills. (He wasn’t quite as rich as Patrick, of course, but then again, who was?) “I have a theory. If you choose ass over tits, you’re a queer. End. Of. Story.”

“But you can’t fuck tits!” McDermott threw his napkin down in frustration. 

“You can if they’re big enough,” Patrick retorted, absentmindedly glancing in the direction of the blonde cocktail waitress serving two tables over, remarking to himself that she could’ve just carried the drinks on her rack instead of the little silver drinks tray, and wondering how much he’d have to tip her for her to do that.

“Yeah, way to tell us your dick is too small for a tit wank!” Bryce snorted, punching McDermott on the arm. A pair of elderly women at the table to their left, clad in Chanel and pearls and immacutely coiffed updoes, turned round to look and tut their disapproval. Patrick winced inwardly. Bryce’s family came from new money; for the most part he’d assimiliated himself into the Rockefeller and Ritz wall street bloodline, but every so often he’d say something so brash and so rude in public that it was easy to remember his grandparents had been born in Queens. 

“Hey, isn’t that Marcus Halberstarm?” Van Hatten’s dulcet tones cut through the vulgarity as he turned to look at the maître d' station. A sandy-blonde man in an impeccably cut Saint Laurent blue suit and a pair of Oliver Peoples spectacles was laughing and patting the maître d' on the back as though they were old friends. 

“Nah, that’s Paul Allen.” McDermott craned his neck to look over at the man.

“Paul Allen? Are you sure?” Bryce squinted. Patrick had told him time and time again that his reluctance to wear glasses or contacts or even, I don’t know, get fucking LASIK (God knows he had the money) would lead to him having crows’ feet by the time he was thirty. But Bryce didn’t pay such attention to himself as Patrick did, which was a shame really, because Patrick believed that the most heterosexual thing a man can do is take physical pleasure in his appearance.

“It’s definitely Allen.” McDermott was correct; Patrick could see that the man now making his way towards them was indeed Paul Allen.

Paul fucking Allen.

Patrick hated Paul Allen. He hated just about everything about him. He hated the fact that he had two first names, for one. What sort of idiot has a first name for their surname? It creates a false sense of chumminess in social situations; Paul could call Patrick Bateman and it would all be very fine and professional, but if Patrick called him Allen it would sound as though they were friends, and the very thought of that was repulsive. 

He hated the fact that Paul had control over the Fischer account, when that should have been him; Patrick was a hundred times smarter and more capable. He hated that Paul always had his office door open, people popping in and hanging out and the fucking radio on all the time, like he hadn’t heard of earphones or considering the concept that the whole floor didn’t necessarily want to hear ABBA 24/7. That was another thing he hated about Paul. What business does a grown, straight man have listening to fucking ABBA? What was next; was Paul going to start skipping round the office to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s entire discography? And he hated the fact that Paul swaggered, not walked, just like he was doing right now on the way over to their table.

“Evening, gentlemen,” he announced as he passed, flashing a killer-watt smile at their table. Patrick was reminded of another thing he hated about Paul Allen. The man looked like he should be living in California, jogging on the beaches of LA or hiking in the Great Basin, not working on Wall Street. He was too…glowy. His tan seemed to come from within, and no matter how much time Patrick spent on the sunbeds, he could never quite emulate that exact golden hue. His teeth were almost cartoonishly white, and his blonde hair still looked soft even when it was slicked back with gel.

Patrick hated a lot of things, but Paul fucking Allen was right there at the top of the list.

“Hey, isn’t that Henry Fischer?” Bryce had turned his head to follow Paul to the back of the restaurant, where he was now heartily greeting a decrepit old man wearing white spats  and a monocle. 

“That lucky bastard,” Van Hatten uttered under his breath. “How the heck did he get his hands on the Fischer account?”

“You know, I heard the Fischers are going to be worth a billion by the end of next year,” McDermott chimed in. Partick felt the muscles in his neck tense and imagined taking the steak knife in front of him and plunging it directly into McDermott’s neck, imagining how the blood would splatter and stain the off-white tablecloth, imagining the gurgling throat sounds McDermott would be involuntarily making. 

“Excuse me,” he said, standing brusquely and making a swift exit to the bathroom where he washed his hands exactly four times, and then stood staring at his reflection, trying to set a record for how long he could maintain eye contact with himself. Patrick enjoyed looking at his eyes because he was never quite sure just what colour they were; sometimes, when Jean pulled open his office blinds and let the sunlight flood in, they were green, sometimes, when he was positioned just so in the mirror so that he could watch himself fucking Courtney or some whore whose name he didn’t care to learn, they were hazel, darkening with lust. But most of the time they were grey, and there was nothing behind them but more grey. Empty was a good way to describe it. If eyes truly were windows into the soul, this was further proof he didn’t have one. 

Patrick was startled from his vain self-contemplation - he was leaning so close to the mirror he was almost kissing his own reflection - by the sound of footsteps approaching. Hurriedly, he positioned himself at the urinal. He didn’t care if people thought him vain, but he’d rather not see anyone witnessing him practicially snogging himself in the mirror.

He had just begun to relieve himself when the door swung open and - of fucking course - in walked Paul fucking Allen. ‘Walked’ didn’t do it justice, really; he swaggered, as though he was playing the part in a fifties spaghetti western. Patrick didn’t swagger, he strode. Swaggering was the second-queerest walk to walk, second only to prancing.

“Hey, Bateman,” said Paul Fucking Allen as he positioned himself a few urinals down. Patrick gave him a cursory head nod and smile (no teeth, lips tightly pressed together).

“Allen,” he said in response, once again cursing Paul Fucking Allen’s stupid fucking parents for giving him such a dumb name.

There was a silence, punctuated only by the sound of peeing and the hum of the air conditioning ahead. Of course it was Paul, the extrovert (have you ever noticed that extroverts are constantly reminding everyone around them that they’re extroverts, and thus that their only personality traits are being loud and annoying? No? Just an observation) that had to break the silence. 

“Hey, can you think of any other situation where two dudes are in a room with their dicks out and its not gay?”

Patrick was suddenly very aware of the fact that he was in a room with Paul Allen and his dick was out, and Paul’s dick was also out, and suddenly the air felt uncomfortably intimate. Patrick shook himself off and zipped up, resisting the urge to gag with repulsion.

“Checkup at the doctors,” he said, mainly to himself, as he went to wash his hands for a fifth time.

“What’s that?” Paul glanced over, still peeing (how the fuck was he still peeing).

“Another situation where two dudes have their dicks out and it’s not gay. Getting a prostate exam.”

“Bateman, I don’t know what kind of doctor you’ve been going to, but when I go for a prostate exam the doctor usually doesn’t have his dick out too, and I’d be making a very swift complaint to Aetna if he did.” 

Patrick didn’t know what he was more repulsed by - the fact that he’d said something with such confidence that turned out to be so very obviously incorrect - come on, Bateman, why would the doctor have his dick out during a prostate exam? - or the fact that he could see Paul fucking Allen shaking off his fucking dick at the urinal out of the corner of his eye. He turned back to the sink, washing his hands for the sixth time. He liked the feel of the hot water scalding his hands, holding them under the hot tap until they became numb. 

Paul appeared at the sink to his left, and Patrick got a whiff of his cologne (Tom Ford Tobacco Oud, if he wasn’t mistaken). It smelt musky and divine and it made Patrick want to punch the mirror until it shattered and then feed the shards of broken glass to Paul fucking Allen. He stepped back until he was standing directly behind him, both their faces framed by the ornate gold mirror. Patrick was taller, by a few inches, and he was about to wash his hands for the seventh time to banish the horrible unwanted thoughts that had just appeared in his head (about him and Paul and having a few inches more) when Paul looked up and their eyes met in the mirror.

“Can I help you, Bateman? Or are you just enjoying checking out my ass?” Paul had a dimple that winked at the side of his mouth when he smiled and Patrick hated it. It looked stupid and juvenile. 

“In your dreams,” Patrick replied drily. They were still making eye contact via the mirror, Patrick a few steps behind his enemy. (He was fully aware of how childish that sounded, but he didn’t care. He hated Paul Allen with every inch - no, not that word again - with every iota of his being.)

“I want the Fischer account.”

Paul snorted with laughter and turned to face Patrick, his eyes dancing with mirth. “You want the Fischer account?”

“I want the Fischer account.”

Paul shook his head, still laughing. Patrick imagined grabbing him by his head and bashing it off the sink until it was caved in and all that was left was a bloody mess of brain tissue, skull fragments, and the Fischer account.

“Patrick, even if I wanted to give you the Fischer account and, I cannot physically stress this enough, I don’t want to - I can’t just hand it over. I was specifically headhunted by Mr Fischer. I’ve known him for years, our fathers go way back. He trusts me and that’s my final word on that.”

With that, he made a move to leave the bathroom, but Patrick was faster. He side-stepped in front of Paul, blocking the shorter man’s path. 

“Bateman, quit fucking around and get out my way.”

“Not until you hear me out.”

“I have heard you out. I’m not handing over the Fischer account, and I’m not letting you have any part in it. Deal with it.”

It was time to pull out the big guns. “Do you know who I’m handling right now?” 

“You mean besides Luis Carruthers’ girlfriend?” 

Patrick was momentarily stunned, though he managed to retain a poker face. How the heck did Paul know about him and Courtney? Who else knows? Not important, not important, focus on the task at hand, damnit!

“The Steinberg account.” He tugged at his lapel, composing himself. “They deal in crypto, exclusively. It’s an untapped goldmine of a market. I hear your guys are going to be worth a billion within a year? Mine are going to make yours look like a washed up reality TV star promoting vitamin gummies on Instagram.”

“Crypto is an incredibly risky market, Patrick. I’m not getting involved, and certainly not when I have so much at stake.”

“At least hear me out. You let me take the reins on the Fischer account, and I’ll invest it in crypto. It’s a win-win situation. The Fischer’s get even richer, and so do we. And then I get promoted to CEO.” 

“So that’s what this is really about. You want to be CEO and you’re on a megalomaniac power trip, happy to take my biggest and most valuable clients from me because you read a WikiHow article about cryptocurrency and now think you’re a big shot trader.” 

What was the point in lying? “Essentially, yes. Except I wouldn’t be stealing your clients. I’d just be advising from afar.” There was a long beat of silence, permeating only by the urinal flushing itself and the hum of the air con. 

“I just don’t trust you, Patrick.”

“Ouch.” Patrick pretended to be offended, placing a hand over where he thought his heart would be if he had one. 

“Look.” Paul heaved a sigh, and reached into the inner pocket of his blazer. “I don’t know shit about crypto and I don’t want to piss the Fischers off. But if this makes me richer…I mean, it’s not as if I struggle for money. But I’d quite like to buy a yacht next summer and a little bonus would certainly help.” He removed a business card, sleek and white, and handed it to Patrick. “Call me and we can arrange a meeting where we can discuss this properly.” 

With that, Paul swaggered back out the door, and Patrick was briefly struck by the horrifying fact that they’d been in here alone together for a while and people might have noticed, might have got the wrong idea. He didn’t even know what he’d been going on about. He didn’t really care for the idea of being CEO, he just wanted to upstage Paul Fucking Allen after he’d seen him having a fucking dinner date with Fischer - who was essentially the Kanye West of Wall Street, or had been, before the dementia began to take hold.

He just wanted to prove that he knew about something Paul didn’t (cryptocurrency) and that if he wanted, he could upstage him and embarrass him and buy an even bigger and better yacht than him.

He looked down at Paul’s business card in his hand. It was Argent font, printed on embossed eggshell. That fucking cretin. How dare he copy Patrick’s card, right down to the placing of the fucking phone number in the top right-hand corner. He hoped no one ever phoned Paul again. He hoped someone phoned him and he got electrocuted upon answering the phone. He tried to rip the card in half, but it was too luxuriously thick, so he shoved it in his mouth and chewed and chewed and chewed until he spat it out into the sink, a mushy pile of dead trees and Paul fucking Allen’s stupid fucking contact details.

Patrick looked at himself in the mirror. He looked like a madman; his eyes wild, foamy grey saliva dripping from his mouth and threatening to ruin his (Valentino, black woollen blend) suit. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and fixed a smile on his face before he headed back to make crude jokes with Bryce and the others.

There was nothing behind his eyes.

Chapter Text

Patrick liked routine. He liked everything to operate on a tight, neat schedule, knowing exactly what was happening now and what was happening next and what was happening after that, like a smoothly oiled machine; he liked knowing that he would start off the day with his skincare routine (which some, like Evelyn and Bryce, said it was ridiculous and unnecessary and such a waste of money, Patrick, and others, like La Mer and Marie Claire, said was the secret to eternal youth, and he knew which he trusted more), and his exercise routine, and then his routine of picking out a suit that cost more than an entire house in Melrose, with a (hundred percent silk) tie to match. 

He liked his routine of calling the concierge and informing him he needed a driver to Wall Street in precisely ten minutes (always inform, never ask) and he liked his routine of being driven through the city, looking at the filthy losers begging for spare change on street corners and thinking about how he could probably outright buy each of them an apartment if he wanted (which he obviously didn’t), and seeing poor-quality hardbodies doing the walk of shame with their shoes in their hands and thinking about how compliant they would be, how many shapes he could twist them into and how many depraved things he could make them do if he wanted (which, again, he obviously didn’t). 

But most of all, he liked his routine of walking through the doors of Pierce & Pierce, nodding curtly at the security guards as he strode smoothly straight past them whilst the office monkeys behind him scrambled to find their ID cards. Fucking losers. Patrick had never scrambled for anything in his life. He was a smooth operator, a lone wolf, striding through the corridors to the soundtrack of the vocals of David Gray piping through his AirPods until he reached his office and there she was.

Jean. His Jean. 

Way, way back, back when he’d first hired her, Patrick had experienced a startling set of feelings towards Jean that he had never felt towards anyone before. He wanted to be near her, to look at her, to protect her; he didn’t like the idea that there were other men out there who thought the same things about her, other men that had touched her, tasted her, held her in their arms. It was a feeling of attraction, but a strange sort of attraction. He tried picturing her whilst he jerked off, imagining her on her knees in front of him, open and wet and receptacle, but every time he went soft immediately and was overcome with a sense of shame so deep it made him want to take a shower, then another shower, then another, until he felt cleansed enough. 

He tried picturing them on dates together, then cuddled up in cosy domestic settings, him standing at the end of an aisle as she walked towards him, and it made that awful bile rise up as his throat constricted painfully again. Jean wasn’t a hardbody; she didn’t have an unproportionately-large ass like Evelyn or a massive rack like Courtney, she didn’t wear pencil skirts with the thigh splits and backstream stockings like some of the other whore secretaries in the office. She cared about Patrick. She reminded him when his doctor’s appointments were due, scheduled his prescriptions to be dropped off at the office for convenience, and had an uncanny knack of appearing unprovoked with a coffee whenever Patrick needed it. (She didn’t know about the hip flask of whisky from his desk that he added to it, of course.) Jean was soft, soothing, comforting.  He would never admit it to another living soul, but Jean made him feel safe. 

Patrick’s mother used to wear Chanel N°22. On one of Jean’s birthdays, Patrick had bought it for her, and she’d squealed and hugged him with genuine glee and gushed about how she’d never had such a fancy perfume before and how she felt like she should save it for special occasions, what with it being so expensive and all, but the next day Patrick came into the office and she was wearing it. 

He’d called her into his office: “Jean, come in here and take a look at this.” He gestured to the bottom of a piece of paper, some meaningless mistake on some meaningless legal contract he’d only pointed out so she’d come right over next to him, and she did. As she bent down to look, she swept her soft, soft, strawberry-blonde hair behind her ear and Patrick was hit with a draught of  Chanel N°22, and suddenly he was five years old and climbing onto his mother’s bed, shaking her shoulder and burrowing into her neck.  Mommy? Are you awake? Mommy, wake up! Mommy, can I get a hug? Please? 

And then Patrick had had to excuse himself to his bathroom to throw up, retching again and again until there was nothing left but acid, and then he came out and told Jean to cancel all his appointments for the rest of the day because he must have suddenly come down with something, and then when he got home he did pushups in sets of hundreds, until his chest started to cramp so badly he wondered if he was having a heart attack and if so, who would notice his absence and call for an ambulance first? Would anyone? And then he stood in the shower and scrubbed his skin raw, removing any molecular traces of Chanel N°22, and he texted Jean and told her never to wear that perfume again. 

He didn’t say why. 

============================================================================================================

This particular morning, Jean was wearing a black pantsuit that did absolutely nothing for her figure. She’d balanced it out with the Louboutins Patrick had got her last Christmas, though, so the ensemble was somewhat salvaged. Her hair was in a low bun, twisted at the nape of her neck; Patrick liked it like that. He liked being able to see her bare neck, creamy and smooth. He wished she’d grow out her bangs. There was only a very certain type of woman who can pull off bangs, and suffice to say Jean wasn’t that type. 

She’d already brought him his morning coffee and run through a list of his engagements for the day when she uttered the sentence that told Patrick he was going to get another migraine today. 

“Evelyn called, by the way. Twice. She’s pretty mad at you, Patrick.”

“Christ.” He’d completely forgotten to call her back all weekend after blowing her off on Friday. In his defence, he was too busy having a threesomes with some whores from the club, and then he visited the massage parlour on Sunday, so it wasn’t like he had the spare time to indulge her neuroticism. 

He leaned back and pinched the skin at the bridge of his nose, screwing his eyes shut. “Alright. Thanks, Jean.”

As she turned to leave, he called out at her retreating back. “I need my Oxy refilled. Asap.”

She spun back round to face him. “But you just got it refilled last week.”

His temple was beginning to throb. “Jean,” he said, speaking slowly and carefully, as if to a retarded child, staring her direct in the eyes. “I. Need. My. Oxy. Refilled. Today.” 

She nodded, finally getting the message. “Sorry. Of course, Patrick, I’ll get it sorted for lunchtime if I can.”

“Good girl.” Patrick dismissed her with a wave of his hand and picked up the receiver on his desk, sliding open his top desk drawer and removing his Xanax bottle, tipping two into his mouth and swallowing them dry. He liked how they scratched his throat, the last remnant of pain before the numbness kicked in. 

Evelyn answered on the second ring. 

“Good morning, Evelyn.” Patrick was bored already, and she hadn’t even said a word yet. He imagined cutting Evelyn’s tongue out, one neat snip with a good pair of shearers, and shoving it down her throat as blood spilled out her mouth, staining her milk-white skin, dripping down to her breasts (which were smaller than he liked, but perky enough to make up for it). The thought made him smile. 

“Where the fuck have you been, Pat?” Had her voice always been so fucking shrill? In his free hand, Patrick picked up a pen and began doodling on his notepad, drawing a Marilyn Monroe-esque silhouette. Now, she could’ve got it; the original hardbody, if you will. 

“Oh, you know. Working. Reading. Pondering the great philosophical discussions of our time. Did you know that the Korowai people of Indonesia are rumoured to still practice cannibalism to this day?” 

“Patrick, what the fuck are you on about?” He could hear chattering and conversation in the background, meaning Evelyn was not in her West Village penthouse (a twenty-first birthday present from her grandparents) and instead out getting her nails done or her roots dyed or face altered in some incredibly minor way that Patrick would be chastised for both pointing out or ignoring. 

“What do you want, Evelyn? I’m incredibly busy.” He drew flames surrounding the cut-off limbs of the woman in his drawing. He needed a red pen; this wasn’t realistic enough. 

“I want know why the fuck you’ve been ignoring me all weekend! Make sure you pay extra attention to my waist, I need to fit into a 24-inch corset for a dress for Pat’s work gala this weekend and if I have to purge beforehand I’ll end up bloated.” 

“Huh?” Patrick was hunting for a red pen. He was sure he had one somewhere. 

“Sorry. I’m getting a lymphatic drainage massage right now. You know, so I can look good for your work gala this weekend?”

“Oh, yeah. Shit. I forgot about that.” 

“We’re having dinner with Luis and Courtney beforehands.”

“Oh.” Patrick never knew quite whether Evelyn knew he was fucking Courtney or not, or whether she did know and just didn’t care. Evelyn didn’t care about much. Patrick drew a vaguely-brain shaped cloud and inked in it a tiny heart with a dollar sign inside it. That was how he pictured Evelyn’s brain. He laughed a little to himself. 

“What’s funny?”

“Oh, just. Nothing. Listen, Evelyn, I really am tremendously busy here, so if you have something to say, get to the point.”

“We should have dinner tonight. Make a reservation at Dorsia. It’s been so long since we had a proper date night, and we need to start talking about venues for the wedding.”

Patrick closed his eyes and imagined being one of the people on floor 80 of the south World Trade Centre, fantasising so vividly he half expected to see a plane hurtling towards his window. Not that he’d see it even if it did, because he kept his blinds shut, at least until Jean came in and opened them (in an attempt to open Patrick up to the world, he reckoned). 

“As much as I would adore that, I already have plans tonight.”

“Oh yeah? With who?” 

Threatcon delta! Patrick wracked his brain. He couldn’t say Bryce, for obvious reasons. Ditto Courtney. And Evelyn knew that McDermott and Van Hatten always spent Monday nights playing squash at the mens’ club on East 69th. 

“Paul Allen.” He winced at the mere mention of his fucking name. Of course he wasn’t meeting Paul Allen; although, he did want to talk about the Fischer account, and his train of thought was derailed towards cryptocurrency and how good it would feel to own a private jet.

“ Ugh, John-Luc, your hands are like magic ,” the bitch theatrically groaned in response. “Sorry, Pat, what did you say? I was distracted by John-Luc. He really is the best lymphatic masseuse I’ve ever tried. You should give him a call, he helps so much with bloating.”

Patrick didn’t have an ounce of bloating anywhere on his body and Evelyn was well aware of that, the stupid fat bitch . He pressed the button on his phone console that linked to Jean’s office. “Jean, bring me through a red pen. A Biro.” 

“Patrick, why are you talking to your dumbass secretary about pens when your fiancée is trying to make plans with you?” 

Patrick waited until Jean had brought him through a red Biro and he had used it to draw blood spurting from the orifices of the body he’d drawn, which he now decided was Evelyn’s body, before responding. 

“One. Do not disrespect the intelligence of my staff until you’re doing something more worthwhile with your time than lying in Madison with a French pervert rubbing the fat out of your waist and into your ass. Which, by the way, is a bullshit method without any scientific proof behind it, and isn’t making you any skinnier. Two. I’ve told you I have a work meeting tonight, so I’m sorry if that ruins your plans to talk chick stuff like I give a shit. Why don’t you call Bryce? I’m sure he’d be delighted to help you plan our wedding.”

There was a long silence at the end of the line. 

“Go to hell, Patrick,” Evelyn snapped, terminating the call. Patrick placed the phone back into its holder and massaged his temple. God, he needed that fucking Oxy. He opened his desk drawer and began rummaging through the various medication bottles when he heard a knock on his door. 

“Yes?”

Jean poked her head round and Patrick felt his pulse slow, immediately. She was like a beta-blocker. A Bateman-blocker. Patrick couldn’t help but break into a grin at his own joke.

“What’s so funny?” He liked the little lilt at the end of her sentence, and the way her eyes (blue/grey depending on the light) sparkled. They reminded him of how the sun breaks through the clouds after a storm. 

“Nothing. What can I do for you?”

“Paul Allen’s secretary called. Something about a meeting? She asked me to ask you when suits.”

“I’ll call her. Thanks, Jean.”

Jean paused, as though she was going to say something else - perhaps when the heck did you and Paul Allen become work buddies? - but remained silent and turned to leave. 

“Oh, also.” She turned back. “Your Oxy will be ready later. I’ll collect it at lunchtime.”

“Thank you, Jean.” Patrick smiled at her, and not the tight-jawed, closed-lipped smiles he reserved for his drivers or maître d's or hardbodies at the club when they were telling him their deep thoughts about their Philosophy 101 class. A rare, genuine smile. 

Jean turned to leave, and Patrick picked up the phone. 

Time to call Paul fucking Allen. 

Chapter Text

Patrick made it a rule to always be late for dinner meetings. There were several beneficial reasons for this. Firstly, it asserted dominance. It showed that the latter attendee held the power within this dynamic; that the party didn’t start until his arrival, and that without his presence, the meeting was pointless. Secondly, it made the prior attendee look like a fool, sitting at the bar waiting alone like a loser who had found himself stood up. Usually, Patrick tried to ensure he was between fifteen and twenty minutes late; any earlier and he could run the risk of looking too keen. Sometimes, when he really wanted to piss his dinner guest off, he could stretch it up to thirty minutes, instructing his driver to continue circling round Harlem whilst Nina Simone crooned in his ears and the lights of the city flickered like candles, whilst junkies overdosed in dirty alleyways and streetwalkers huddled in groups, warning each other who to avoid or who to trust and don’t they realise their greatest threat is the post-modern epidemic of third-wave feminism that reassures them that they are free from risk, that opening your legs and selling your soul is a reclamation of their oppression as significant as Rosa Parks staying seated on that bus or Emily Davidson throwing herself in front of that horse?

Sometimes Patrick wished the city would just burn to the ground and incinerate everyone in it. 

But when he arrived at the restaurant (Aquavit, a little Scandinavian-inspired joint which the New Yorker accoladed for its luxurious multicourse meals and dramatic desserts and its bar with an emphasis on unpretentious traditions ) and told the maître d Bateman for two at half eight, and was then promptly informed that his dinner guest hadn’t arrived yet but would he wish to take a seat at the bar and wait, he scrapped the fire fantasy and imagined pulling out a . 357 Magnum and shooting the fucking fag at point blank range in the forehead instead. 

Of course, that would cause an alarming amount of splashback onto his shirt (Ralph Lauren, off-white pinstriped silk), so he instead gave a tight-lipped smile and followed the maitre-d (who was far too ugly for such an up-state place, he noted; he’d have to tip someone off about that) to the bar. It was pleasantly old-school, with a lot of mahogany wood and nondescript oil paintings illuminated by soft lighting, and for a brief moment Patrick felt at ease. Then he remembered that he’d arrived earlier than Paul, like some fucking eager loser, and ordered a Scotch - neat - and knocked it back before he had time to remember any more. 

Paul fucking Allen arrived fifteen minutes later, by which time Patrick had knocked back three more - or was it four? The kloponin he’d dissolved under his tongue in the car had somewhat clouded his recollection - and was in the process of ordering a vodka martini (dirty on the rocks). 

Paul fucking Allen was shaking the maitre-d’s hand and slapping him on the back as though they were old friends, and now Paul fucking Allen was making his way over to the bar, his grin so big and white that Patrick wanted to knock all his teeth out with one clean punch. The bastard was even wearing the exact same shade of immaculately tailored slate-grey suit (albeit a Versace wool blend to Patrick’s Valentino pure virgin wool), which he’d teamed with a blue silk Dolce & Gabbana button-down and a pair of bright red suspenders, the thickness of which, Patrick briefly pondered, would probably not be enough to garrott him to death with. 

“Bateman.” There was that killer-watt smile again, right up in his face, and Patrick rose to his feet, extending a hand. 

“Allen. How wonderful of you to join me on such short notice.”

Paul shook his hand, and Patrick was surprised at how soft and warm and womanly it felt in comparison to his, and thought he could probably crush it if he squeezed hard enough. 

“Don’t flatter yourself too much, Bateman. I had no other plans.” Paul fucking Allen remarked over his shoulder as the maitre-d led him to their table. Patrick had panicked that, at such short notice, they’d end up seated next to the toilets, but to his relief they had a corner table, underneath a stag’s head and an oil painting of an ample-bosomed Victorian woman spilling out of her corset. Patrick briefly let himself be entertained with the thought that that probably constituted porn in those days, and yet now it was here, proudly displayed on the wall of one of Manhattan’s finest joints. Maybe in a couple of hundred years, stills from Girls in Captivity or Extreme Gangbang Torture would be hanging on the walls of posh restaurants, and the thought made him smirk briefly to himself. God, he was so funny. Why didn’t anyone in his life appreciate how funny he was?

“Believe it or not, Allen, I have absolutely no doubt that you had no other plans this evening.” They sat down, eye to eye, alpha to beta. 

“Yeah, I had so much sex over the weekend I needed a break.” Allen opened up the leatherbound drinks menu with a satisfying crack. “How shit is the bourbon here?”

“Passable.” 

An annoyingly earnest-looking waiter turned up to take their drink orders. Patrick asked - no, demanded (you never ask, you demand; they are here to serve you) - for another martini and a JB on the rocks. Paul went for the same (ultimate beta move). 

“Keep us topped up all night. All night, okay? I don’t want to see a single glass empty at any point.” Patrick fixed his eyes squarely on the waiter, who looked as though he was on the verge of creaming his pants at Patrick’s authoritative tone. God, he loved being rich and powerful. Those were the only two things he’d ever really loved (and Jean too, maybe, probably).  

He closed the drinks menu with a snap. “Oh, and bring us some Moët on ice too.” 

“Celebrating something?” the waiter squeaked. 

“Yes, the fact that my friend here has just found out that he only has three months to live.” Patrick nodded at Paul, who could not look any less like a man who was terminally ill if he tried. “So, y’know, no time to lose.” 

He made a motion of snapping his fingers, and the waiter opened and shut his mouth like a goldfish and then hurried away. 

“Three months to live ? Someone could’ve told me.” Paul leaned back in his chair, eyes twinkling with mirth. 

“It means we’re getting the Moët for free, so don’t start bitching about it.”

“Who said anything about bitching?” Paul removed his jacket and slung it over the back of the chair in one smooth move, learning forward and loosening his cufflinks (Patrick noticed they were engraved with PA and something about that made him want to grab the stag’s head off the wall and bludgeon P fucking A to death with it. “I’m just wondering why you seem so intent on getting me drunk.” 

“Because I’m already half fucked, and I don’t like to drink alone.” 

Paul nodded, appearing to contemplate something. He glanced around the room. “Decent place, this.” 

“The New Yorker was highly complimentary.” 

There was a moment of polite small talk, awkward chit chat, traffic is awful tonight, yeah, apparently some idiot threw himself out his office window on 51st, Jesus Christ, I don’t envy whoever has to clean that up and then their drinks arrived and their dinner orders were taken and as soon as the sweaty-faced waiter had fucked off, both men knocked back their bourbon in one clean swoop. 

“So, Bateman.” Paul stared directly into Patrick’s eyes. “You invited me here to try and convince me to let you have a hand in the Fischer account. I’m just gonna cut to the chase, so we don’t waste each other’s time, and say it’s not happening.

“I thought you’d say that.” Patrick leaned back and let a slow smirk spread across his face. He’d managed to talk the subpar (aka: definitely not a hardbody) female cop who’d pulled him over for speeding down Queens Boulevard a couple of years ago into sucking him off in her own cop car. Convincing Paul fucking Allen to let him into the Fischer account was like luring a child from its parents in comparison. 

“Then why bother inviting me here if you know how it’s going to end?”

“Two things. One.” Patrick held up a finger. “I didn’t invite you. Your secretary called mine to make an appointment; I simply returned the call, therefore, you invited me. Two. You need to hear me out. I don’t want half of the account or to be co-parents of Henry Fischer’s fucking fortune or whatever you think I’m aiming for here. I’m just proposing you invest - say, ten percent - of it in crypto. Within a few years it’ll be beyond billions.” 

Paul leaned back, crossing one leg over the other and holding his martini glass like - well, Patrick couldn’t exactly put his finger on why, but it just gave off those vibes - a fucking queer or something. Patrick was struck suddenly with the horrible thought that maybe he looked like a fag, too, and what if people thought they were out together ? Like, TOGETHER together? He shuddered and slammed his entire martini back in one, wincing slightly. 

“You have the Steinberg account. Isn’t that enough?”

No! Patrick silently yelled. There was no such thing as ‘having enough’; one could never own too many Valentino suits or Dupont cufflinks, never know too many maitre-d’s and club security, never screw too many whores. The concept of minimalism, of guilty pleasures, of ‘having too much’ of something, was bullshit created by losers who didn’t have the money or charisma to get whatever they wanted. Maybe Paul was one of those losers, but Patrick wasn’t, and he couldn’t get enough, ever, of anything. 

“I’m talking about merging. Ten percent from Steinberg, ten percent from Fischer. We put it in crypto, and within a few years, we’ll be so rich we’ll make 1980s Donald Trump look like, well, current day Donald Trump.”

Paul snorted vodka through his nose, and reached for an Aquavit napkin (pleasantly monogrammed, but disappointingly not silk) to mop up the damage. “And what will Henry Fischer think about this? And the Steinberg’s, for that matter?”

“I can deal with the Steimbergs. I can pay Fischer a visit and he’ll think I’m his second-to-last dead ex-wife. The man is off his rocker; it’s almost cruel to keep him alive at this point.” 

“He did spend most of our dinner last week ranting about Bill Clinton’s tax plan and dribbling soup down his front,” Paul admitted. “But isn’t it somewhat cruel to take advantage of a man’s rapidly declining cognitive state to manipulate him into investing into crypto? I mean, Patrick, he doesn’t even know what crypto is. He thinks the Lewinsky scandal broke last week.” 

Patrick cocked an eyebrow of amusement, nursing his bourbon. “Who gives a shit, Paul? Do you really care that much?” 

“I don’t care about Fischer. I care about my job. I care about my reputation.”

“Well, that’s the wonderful thing about reputations.” Patrick leaned in closer, giving the sense of a co-conspiratational air. “You are the ultimate creator of your own.” 

============================================================================================================

Two seafood appetisers, two steaks, an entire bottle of Moët, and too many martini and bourbon refills to count later, Patrick had got Paul sufficiently drunk enough to practically agree to the crypto merger. In fairness, Patrick was also inebriated. But the most incredible thing was that (and he was fully aware this was just, just, only because he was drunk) he was actually enjoying himself. This didn’t feel much different from hanging with Bryce and the other guys, and Patrick scrambled into the abscesses of his drunken mind to try and remember what it was about Paul fucking Allen that made him decide he hated him so much. 

“Man, I just can’t wait to put him in the crappiest, shittest, worst one-star rating nursing home right in the middle of the fucking Bronx,” Paul was saying, snorting with laughter as he leaned with one arm slung over the back of his chair, a champagne flute in the other hand. “Fuck that dude. Fuck him. He’s not even…I can’t even say he’s my dad. He’s just some fucking bastard that knocked up some dumb whore in the late eighties and created me.”

“She’s definitely dumb for creating you,” retorted Patrick, who was feeling so loose and relaxed from the alcohol he’d removed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, a gesture usually reserved for when he was working late at the office and it was just him and Jean alone. 

His comment earned him a cocktail stick flung at him from Paul, as the pair burst into the vein of subtly boorish laughter that only men born and bred from the upper east side could emulate. “He can share a room with my father, if you end up sending him to the Bronx.” Patrick rolled his neck round until he heard a satisfying crack; his neck stiffness had been getting worse lately and he really ought to have Jean book him in with a chiropractor at some point. 

“Wait, your old man’s actually in the Heaven’s waiting room?” Paul posed, mouth half open as he chewed on another cocktail stick. There was something about that action, that mannerism, that made Patrick inexplicably angry, want to rip the cocktail stick out of his hand and poke it into his green, green eyeball, just so that he’d stop it. 

“Unfortunately not. His physical health is disappointingly fine. Mentally, though, I fear he’s somewhat losing his marbles.”

“How come? He doing a Fischer?” 

“No. He just married an absolute munter.” At this, Paul threw his head back and laughed - a genuine, shoulder-shaking, belly laugh - and Patrick felt a strange sensation in his chest, like a smidgeon of satisfaction that he’d managed to elict such a response. He briefly pondered it before putting it down to indigestion. The steak had been a little more well-done that he was accustomed to, anyway, and he made a mental note to get Jean to pass that onto the chef tomorrow. 

“No, seriously. Let me show you.” Patrick whipped out his phone - radio silence from Evelyn, which meant she was fucking Bryce right now - and made his way onto his father’s Facebook page, turning his phone round to let Paul see. “Mutton dressed as lamb springs to mind.”

Paul studied Patrick’s father’s Facebook profile picture, an unflattering photo of a middle aged man who’d ruined his looks through chainsmoking since his teens and a complete lack of skincare routine, and a middle aged woman who’s Halloweenesque-levels of badly applied makeup couldn’t detract from her terribly overfilled sausage lips. He let out a long, low whistle. “Jeeeesus. If that’s mutton, I’m a vegetarian. Effective immediately.”

The pair cascaded into laughter once more, this time more hearty, and Patrick was strugging to remember one thing he hated about Paul Allen as the waiter came to clear their plates. 

“You know something, Bateman,” Paul had a fresh cocktail stick and was pointing it directly at Patrick. One sudden lunge forward and he could perforate the fleshy part of the top of his nose. “And you’re going to kill me for this.”

“Spit it out, then.” His eyes wandered absentmindedly to Paul’s mouth. He had a very pronounced Cupid’s bow, to the point where it was almost womanly, and the alcohol has flushed and plumped his lips. He wondered if Paul used lip masks and lip scrubs, or even just some lip balm, like he did. 

“You’ve basically fucked Luis Carruthers.”

Patrick imagined how easy it would be to reach across the table and wrap his hands round Paul’s neck and squeeze until the blood vessels in his eyes popped and he was clawing frantically at Patrick’s wrists to get free. It was such a pleasant feeling he almost felt aroused. 

“Here me out.” Paul was back to prodding the air with the cocktail stick, as though he was conducting a silent tiny orchestra. “You’ve had your dick inside Courtney. Which, by the way, nice. ” He held up his hand for a high five which Patrick reluctantly returned, not quite sure where this was going. “Luis has, presumably, also had his dick inside Courtney. Therefore…it’s almost like you two have had sex.”

Patrick let himself take a long, slow sip of champagne. He placed his glass down carefully, looked Paul directly in the eyes, and began to laugh; at first a slow chuckle, turning into a full, proper belly laugh.

Paul was howling with laughter alongside him. “You’ve had your dick in the same place as -”

“Luis fucking Carruthers,” Patrick spat out. Tears were forming in his eyes, and he was well aware that this prolonged level of laughter was laying the foundations for crow’s feet as he spoke, but in this moment, he didn’t care. 

“Oh, God.” Paul was using the monogrammed Aquavit napkin to wipe sweat off his forehead and cheeks now. “I need to use the bathroom before I piss myself, I feel like I’ve drank the equivalent of the entire Hudson.” 

“These bathrooms are shit for doing coke in, according to Van Hatten.”

Paul cocked an eyebrow. “I wasn’t going to do coke. Unless…”

“Yacht Club?”

“Yacht Club.”

Chapter Text

Although one could be forgiven due to the likeness of the names, the Yacht Club to which Patrick and Paul were referring was not the prestigious boating society populated by insufferably red chino-sporting Yale alumni and their heavily Botoxed wives, but a nightclub which struck the perfect balance between ‘sleazy and whore-ridden’ and ‘being spotted here wouldn’t lead to social ostracisation’. The doorman waved the duo through upon sight, after they waltzed to the front of the queue outside (to much chagrin of the commoners waiting in line, spitting on the pavement and puffing on cheap cigarettes like the cardboard cutout background characters they were), and the crowds parted like the red sea as they made their way to the bar. 

Patrick fired a customary glance over the grinding, dancing bodies, a few hardbodies immediately catching his eye; the goth girl with Mia Farrow bangs and a harness bralet (definite daddy issues), the blonde teetering in way-too-high heels with a twenty one! sash draped over her satin minidress (who was either spiked or had just done her very first bump of ket), the oddly attractive shaved head and septum ring punk (living off her trust fund and addicted to at least one hard drug). He wondered which one he’d end up going home with, deciding daddy issues was his first bet, followed by the blonde, although she was a little too anorexic-looking for his taste. 

“Hey, Patrick,” Paul shouted over the thudding music and handing him a shot glass of what resembled toilet cleaner, “bottoms up!”

Patrick knocked back the shot in one, wincing at the tart taste, and turned to the bartender. (She was a total hardbody too, black blouse (cheap polyester) unbuttoned to show just enough of her (insanely massive, in her defence) rack.)

“Scotch, neat.” He pulled out his wallet and slid a twenty-dollar bill across the counter. “And a jack and coke, triple. Make it strong.” He emphasised strong with a wink, and was only mildly disappointed when her cheeks didn’t flush in response; plenty more fish in the sea or, in this case, whores in the house. 

They made their way to the dancefloor, expertly swerving idiot drunk bitches that couldn’t handle their alcohol and boorish Wolf of Wall Street wannabes with their sleeves rolled up and ties draped round necks, and ended up next to a circle of not-quite-hot but cute-enough girls. One of them, a frizzy-haired ginger whose lack of makeup was rectified by an impeccable hip-to-waist ratio and one of the biggest asses Patrick had ever seen on a skinny girl, was soon trying to get his attention. Just as he was trying to work if she’d be cool with going back to a hotel or would she be one of those who drenched him in her drink, you have a wife at home don’t you, you cheating bastard, men like you can go to Hell, Paul came up and slung an arm around his shoulders. 

“Please don’t let me spoil your fun, but Charlie wants us to meet him in the bathroom,” he yelled over the sound of Haddaway asking what love was ( nothing, Patrick thought, it doesn’t exist; it is an abstract concept created by Hollywood directors and inhaled by the lonely and desperate when they can’t find any other meanings to their pathetic lives ). 

Patrick turned to Frizzy Hair and shot her a smile that hopefully looked as apologetic as it did when he practised facial expressions in his bathroom mirror.  “Got to run. Urgent business meeting with my friend here.” His forced grin morphed into a real one as he suddenly realised he’d just referred to Paul fucking Allen as his friend. Christ, how much had he had to drink tonight?

Ignoring Frizzy Hair’s desperate bleating at his back about how she’d not even given him her number (which was pointless, because it would’ve gone in the bin instantly), Patrick swerved through the crowds, dodging little girls with fake IDs and men definitely far too old to be grinding up against them, making a beeline for the bathroom, Paul hot on his tail. 

Inside, it was packed, but Patrick knew that the attendant didn’t give a shit about what anyone did in here as long as they kept cubicle numbers to no more than three at a time and no one got their genitals out in the sink area. As if on cue, the nearest cubicle door swung open upon their entry and a dishevelled gender-ambiguous couple staggered out. 

“We better not catch anything from them,” Paul remarked as he followed Patrick into the cubicle. 

“Allen, we’re doing coke in a toilet after them, not fucking them.” The cubicle was uncomfortably small, and the two men were stood so close he could smell the liquor on Paul’s breath. 

“Yeah, and thank God for that.” Paul opened his jacket and slid a small baggie out of the inner pocket, pleasantly overfilled with white powder. “Got a card?”

There was always something so extra satisfying about racking premium-cut pure Colombian blow into lines with a gold Amex card in the toilet of a shitty club, and then snorting it through a crisp hundred-dollar bill. It was a reminder that although men like Patrick and Paul might physically walk amongst this sort of environment, they belonged somewhere much higher, that although Patrick was here, a living, breathing, organism, he wasn’t here, wasn’t present. 

“Bateman. Are you going to snort that, or just fuck it with your eyes?” He hadn’t even realised he’d drifted off into his own thoughts. Paul was standing even more uncomfortably close now; Patrick could feel his body heat radiating and his suit brushing against the back of his legs. 

“Well, you’re going to have to move out of the way, unless you want my ass in your face.” 

“Yeah. I’ll pass on that.” Paul stepped backwards. “Shame we don’t have a little hardbody with us. I always say, coke hits best when it’s snorted off a massive pair of…”

Patrick drowned him out, practically salivating as he chopped and scraped a third of the bag into fat lines, anticipating the buzz to come, anticipating the teeth-numbing, nose-aching rush. It didn’t disappoint. He tossed his head back, squeezing his nostrils closed to inhale the last few dregs and feeling the backdrop slide down his throat. “Fuck me, Allen, that’s some good shit.”

“Got a new guy.” Patrick moved out of the way so Paul could take his turn to manoeuvre his body in front of the toilet. “Everything’s pure Colombian. Wanna know how he gets it through customs?” 

“No clue.” Patrick swiped a finger along his gums. His teeth were already numb. Fuck, this shit was good. 

“He - get this.” Paul straightened up and inhaled sharply, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. “Fuck. This is strong.” 

“I know, I already said that.” Patrick was shifting from one foot to another, eager for Paul to hurry up so he could take another line, eager to get back on the dancefloor, eager eager eager eager eager for life. 

“He. Wait, what was I saying?” Paul was bent down, note in position, ready to take another line. Patrick noticed his trousers were way too tight around the arse, and made a mental note to tell him, because it was quite off-putting, to be perfectly honest. 

“You were telling me how your new guy gets through customs.” 

“Oh, shit, yeah. Get ready, cause this is hysterical.” Paul waved a hand in Patrick’s direction before leaning forward and sharply inhaling another line of coke. 

Patrick reached over his head and swiftly plucked the bill from his fingers in one fluid movement. He thought about how funny it was that he’d literally trapped Paul into a corner, boxed him into the tiny space with his body by towering over him. He liked that Paul was shorter than him. It made him feel powerful, manly.

“Get on with it, then. And get out my way.” 

Paul ducked out from under Patrick’s outstretched arm and staggered, falling against the wall of the cubicle. On impulse, Patrick reached out, grabbing onto his collar and yanking him roughly forward. 

“Jesus, Allen. Are you really that much of a lightweight?” 

Paul rubbed at his neck (Patrick may have slightly yanked him just a bit too hard; he had been told he didn’t know his own strength before) and grinned boyishly. “What was I talking about?”

The thought of grabbing Paul by the shoulders and slamming his head through the pathetically thin walls of the cubicle briefly flitted through Patrick’s mind, but then he felt his heart race as the next line hit. “Your guy. Smuggling shit through customs.” He rubbed at his nose again, silently thanking Allen that this shit was so smooth, until the sweetener mix McDermott had turned up to Nebula with the other week; he’d had a nosebleed in the taxi on the way home, although thankfully most of it had managed to stain the (quite frankly vulgar) gold satin dress of the whore he was with, and had spared his own Ralph Lauren ensemble. 

“Oh yeah! So, get this.” Paul grabbed Patrick by the shoulders, looking into his eyes with such veracity it made his throat hurt. “He smuggles it in through whores, right?” He leaned in closer, until he was inches from Patrick’s earlobes, and whispered conspiratorially, “right up their pussies.” 

It wasn’t even that funny. It wasn’t funny at all, in fact, or original, since hardbodies had been hiding coke in their pussies since airport security first existed. But the coke, the whore-pussy Colombian coke, was so damn good that Patrick found himself laughing hysterically, holding onto his sides, and Paul was holding his side, laughing and laughing, and the whole world was spinning and laughing. 

============================================================================================================

They could’ve been back out on the dancefloor for ten minutes, or for an hour; Patrick didn’t know and didn’t care. They’d moved to the upper floor and found an empty table to discard their jackets on, they’d rolled up their sleeves, they’d found themselves in the middle of a group of Eastern European hardbodies who didn’t really speak English, but it didn’t matter, because they were having so much fun, and who needs words anyway, when you have the thumping bass beat of club music? 

Paul was sweating, and he’d slicked back his hair, but a few strands had fallen out over his forehead in a boyish fringe. It made him look less like a Wall Street banker and more like some nineties boy band member. That wasn’t to say it looked bad; actually, Patrick thought it looked quite good. He thought it made him look almost like Leo DiCaprio (but obviously, a really shitty knock- we off version). His skin was shimmering, glinting with sweat as he wove his body in time to the music. He was a surprisingly good dancer, and Patrick started laughing, thinking firstly Paul fucking Allen is a good dancer, and secondly, I’m dancing with Paul fucking Allen. 

He wasn’t dancing with him, obviously, but they’d sort of found themselves alone on the outskirts of the girls they’d been dancing with, probably because those girls had been doped up to the eyeballs by their pimp, and Patrick and Paul were alive, discreetly gumming more coke every few minutes. Patrick could feel girls’ eyes on him, checking him out, and he knew they liked what they saw. He liked what he saw. He could feel that some of his hair had flopped forward like Paul’s, and he’d loosened his tie (black monogrammed Dolce & Gabbana). His body was muscular, lithe; he was a jaguar, a man on the hunt. He loved this club. He loved this music. He loved the lights, the way they strobed red and green and blue and purple and back to red, lighting up the dancefloor, illuminating sweaty faces. He loved the punks, and the goths, and the emos; he loved the frat boys and the preps and the little hardbodies, in their tiny dresses and huge heels, and he wondered what their names were and where they went home to and suddenly it hit him that they weren’t hardbodies, they were living, breathing girls - women - PEOPLE, people who had hopes and dreams and aspirations, and wasn’t that just so wonderful to think? 

And then, just as his jaw began to grind, he realised. 

“Paul,” he shouted over the music, but it wasn’t loud enough. He grabbed his arm (surprisingly rock hard) and shouted again. “Paul!”

Paul looked up at him and his eyes were round and wide and so green, green, green, the pupils almost taking up the entire iris, so big and black Patrick felt as though they could suck him in like a dark hole. 

“What?” Paul yelled back. 

“This isn’t coke!” 

“What?”

“This. Is. Not. Coke.”

There was a beat (could’ve been a second, could’ve been an hour, time was going so fast and so slow and Paul’s pupils were so big). “What did you say about my cock?” 

What? He hadn’t said anything about Paul’s cock, or his cock, or anyone’s cock; he was straight, why would he talk or even think about… that? Surely he’d misheard Paul, or Paul has misheard him, but that was impossible, because he’d said coke, not cock, because this wasn’t coke. “What?” he shouted back. 

Paul leaned in close, so close Patrick could smell nothing but his cologne, feel nothing but his body heat as their arms brushed together, so close that his lips were just an inch away from Patrick’s ear as he spoke. “I said,” he murmured, his breath warm against Patrick’s earlobe, “what did you say about my cock?”

The hairs on the back of Patrick’s neck stood up, and he felt a shiver go down his spine like a bolt of electricity and he didn’t know whether it was because Paul was standing so close to him or because he had just whispered - that word - in his ear or whether it was because he had taken what was clearly not coke, but Patrick felt himself overcome with something and that something made him turn his head to face Paul directly, so close their noses were almost touching, so close that he could see his reflection in the other man’s enlarged pupils. 

“I didn’t say a word about your cock,” Patrick whispered. 

“That’s a shame, because it’s really rather nice,” Paul retorted, cocking an eyebrow, and Patrick didn’t know whether he wanted to punch him or strangle him or do something much, much worse, something he couldn't even bear thinking about. 

“Oh, shut the hell up, Allen.” He couldn’t stop looking at that stupid fucking Cupid’s bow, because there was no reason a man should have lips like that, unless he was a fucking queer or something. 

Paul leaned in closer, closer, even closer, so that the tips of their noises actually bumped together. His voice was low. “How about you make me, Bateman?”

And then suddenly Patrick was grabbing Paul’s shoulders, bunching up the collar and feeling his stupid fucking suspenders digging into his palms, ready to shove him away into the crowd and go and find some whore who’d suck him off and let him finish on her face in the bathrooms, but instead finding him pulling him closer towards him and crashing his mouth down onto his. Their teeth clashed together and he could feel Paul’s stubble and he thought about how easy it would be to just bite his tongue off, right here, right now, but instead Paul was pushing him away. Him. Patrick fucking Bateman. 

“Not like that.” Paul was panting, his chest rising and falling, his lips flushed. “Like this.” He stepped forwards and slid a hand round the back of his neck and pulled his head down and all of a sudden they were kissing. Patrick fucking Bateman was kissing Paul fucking Allen. Patrick Bateman was kissing another man. 

But it felt…not unpleasant. Paul’s lips were soft, and his hand was pressing into the small of Patrick’s back, and before he could stop himself and pull away and douse himself in bleach and then set himself on fire, because he wasn’t a faggot, he wasn’t like Luis Carruthers, Patrick’s hands had woven themselves into Paul’s hair. It was also surprisingly soft, and when Paul pressed his body up against Patrick’s, he took a risk and slid one hand down so that it was resting in between his shoulder blades, and instead of pulling away, Paul slid his tongue into Patrick’s mouth, and that was when everything became a blur. 

They kissed hurriedly, frenzied, as if trying to suck the oxygen from each other’s lungs; Patrick grasped Paul’s hair in his hands, twisting and pulling at it, Paul’s hands roamed all over Patrick's chest, his fingers deftly slipping under the knot of his tie and loosening it. He didn’t know how long they’d been kissing for, he didn’t know what time it was, he barely even knew where he was because all he could think of was Paul’s lips and Paul’s tongue in his mouth and Paul’s hands splayed against his shoulders as he nipped at his neck. 

Shit. Hazedly, like he'd just woken up from a nap in the middle of the day, he realised what was happening, pushing Paul off, staggering away. The other man stared at him, hair tousled and messed, lips red and swollen, mouth hanging open. 

“You can’t do that.” It was his unspoken rule; he didn’t get marked, not by Evelyn, not by Courtney, not by anybody. 

Paul’s chest rose and fell, rose and fell. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Some giggling idiots crashed into Patrick from behind, the music was too loud, the lights were too bright. The Yacht Club was dead; no one who was anyone went here nowadays. He’d just kissed Paul Allen. Paul fucking Allen. He’d kissed Paul fucking Allen.

And he’d enjoyed it. 

“I have to leave.” 

“Patrick, what the he-” Paul made a grab towards him; Patrick sidestepped out of his grasp, crashing into a crowd of goth girls who looked way too young to be in here - so young, so young, too young - feeling a sweat break out down his back. 

“I need to go. I’m - I’m sorry.” 

“Patrick!” Paul shouted at his retreating back as he shoved past clubbers, shrieking joyously - life is misery, why are you laughing? Just kill yourselves already, morons - feeling someone spill a drink down his back, torn between not giving a shit and wanting to find the perpetrator and throw them over the balcony.

He practically ran past the coatroom - fuck his jacket, he’d just have Jean call his tailor and order a new one tomorrow - and out into the cool air. It was raining, and Patrick couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. He pulled out his phone - his personal phone, which contained a dozen contacts (in contrast to his business one, whose contacts rivalled Epstein’s address book - minus the paedophiles, or so he hoped, but one could never be sure in Manhattan) and speedialed the one person who could make him breathe again, make him think. 

She answered on the third ring. “Patrick? It’s late, are you okay?” 

He breathed in, and out, and in, and out, feeling his pulse begin to settle. “Are you awake?”

She giggled, that coy, coquettish laugh that he loved so much. “I’m speaking to you, silly, so obviously I’m awake. Are you okay? You sound…drunk.” 

He made a fist and bit down on his knuckle until he tasted the satisfying metallic tang of blood. “Can I come over?”

There was a long pause. “Patrick, it’s almost 2am, you’ll see me at work in…”

“Please. Please, Jean.” 

He never begged.

She sighed, but he knew it was just for show. 

“Yes, you can come over.”

“Great. See you in ten.” He hung up, and then bent over the gutter, retching up seafood and steak and alcohol, so much alcohol, and Paul fucking Allen’s fucking saliva. 

Chapter Text

Hey y’all! So as you can tell from the title, this isn’t a proper chapter, just a lil authors note (which I’ll probably do from time to time as the story progresses).

So first of all: thank you so much to everyone who’s read and enjoyed chapters 1-5. I haven’t written for pleasure in…honestly, years, and as dumb as it sounds, it makes me feel so alive to be doing it again, especially to know that people are not just reading, but actually enjoying my work. Seeing that people have left kudos, comments, or bookmarks/subscriptions genuinely makes my day, and motivates me to keep writing. 

Secondly: so, the Big Moment I pretty much scripted the entire story around so far has just happened. In case you somehow missed it: PATRICK AND PAUL MADE OUT (not that that’s a big deal or anything. Absolutely not a big deal). So now — I don’t have writers block per se, but I’m just toying with a few ideas over what’s gonna happen next. We have Pat heading over to Jean’s for… unspecified reasons. I have several ideas for what I want to happen in the coming chapters, but I want to hear what you guys would like to happen!

So, please comment with anything like:

 — any suggestions of what you want to see happening next

— what you think of the characterisations so far (who you’d like to see more of, and alternately less of)

— what you think of the narration/writing of Pat’s inner monologue so far. I’m really trying to strike the right balance between writing in the third person and juggling Pat’s internal thoughts

— if you want know more about Pat’s childhood? I’ve dropped some very vague hints that it wasn’t ~happy~, but I don’t know if you guys want to hear any more, maybe in the form of flashbacks? Idk

Basically, let me know what you’re enjoying so far; what do you want to see more/less of and what you think of the events (Paul and Patrick KISSING, in case anyone happened to forget). 

And as always — thank you so much for reading, commenting, and leaving kudos; I genuinely thought I’d maybe get 5 hits at most and here I am almost at 100!

The AP/PB fandom has a disappointing lack of fics and every one I’ve read so far has been so different but so good. Anyway…this note has been way longer than I anticipated, so excuse me while I go return some videotapes :) 

Chapter Text

When Patrick’s taxi pulled up outside Jean’s apartment building, he realised he’d already made his second fatal mistake. His first had been the moment he crashed ( far less gracefully than he was accustomed to) into the taxi outside the fucking Yacht Club. The driver (a balding southern Asian - so stereotypical) had started up with some minding-numbing pointless chatter about the congestion in Midtown, and whilst Patrick had briefly considering leaning forwards and strangling him until he heard the satisfying crunch of his hyoid snapping, he instead had pushed what he thought was a crumpled fifty-dollar dollar bill in the vague direction of the front seat. 

“Consider that a tip if you keep your fucking mouth shut for the rest of this journey.” 

The driver - Mohammed? No, Ramesh, probably - stared at the note like he’d never seen that much money in his life before. In fairness, he probably hadn't. “But, sir, this is hundred dollar!”  

“I don’t care. Why don’t you go and buy your fucking wife something nice. Put the partition up and shut up.” 

The driver did as he was told; Patrick leaned his forehead against the cool, cool, coldness of the backseat window as the city lights flashed by in a nauseating blur. He could still taste vomit, and there was a faint smell of it too - God, was that sick on his tie? He made a mental note to discard it as soon as he exited the taxi and to tell Jean to order a replica immediately. But he could smell something else, too, something worse - Tom fucking Ford’s Tobacco Oud. Paul fucking Allen’s cologne. He remembered Paul’s tongue, wet and smooth, in his mouth, Paul’s hands, firm and strong, grasping his shoulders. Paul’s lips, soft, too soft, kissing his lips, kissing his neck. 

Patrick swallowed down the vomit rapidly rising in his throat, and ignored the fact that he was currently feeling something else deep in his stomach, something unfurling into his groin. Why couldn’t this fucking idiot hurry up? He needed to see Jean. Sweet Jean. Sweet, womanly, feminine Jean. He slowed his breathing, deeply inhaling in and out, trying to think of nothing but Jean, Jean, Jean. 

After what seemed like an eternity (but in reality was only about fifteen minutes), Ramesh (or whatever the fuck his name was; Patrick didn’t care, because it didn’t matter) pulled up outside Jean’s apartment building. 

“Eleven dollar fifty, mister,” he said. Patrick rummaged through his wallet, knocking an unopened condom onto the ground. He wasn’t going to pick it up, because firstly, what was he, his own personal assistant? Secondly, it would save the inevitable days-long fight with Evelyn when she came across it whilst going through his wallet to find his Amex - you’re such a fucking whore, Patrick, you disgust me; well, at least I’m being safe, Evelyn, would you rather I didn’t use one at all? - and thirdly - and this was the most crucial point - if he bent down right now, he would vomit. 

He threw another bill - could’ve been a twenty, could’ve been a fifty, could’ve even been a hundred but who fucking cared anymore? through the gap in the partition, uttering something that vaguely indicated to keep the change, and practically fell out onto the pavement. He managed to wait until the taxi had reversed out of sight before leaning forward and retching into the gutter once again. God, he needed to lie down, and take off his shirt and tie because he had definitely got vomit on them somewhere, and suddenly he remembered Paul’s firm, steady hands on his back and in his hair and then he was retching again, even though all that was coming up now was bitter-tasting bile. 

A few moments passed, and when he felt steady enough - and certain enough that he was able to keep most of his bodily fluids inside for at least five minutes - he got up and staggered to the front of Jean’s apartment building. Of course, she didn’t have a concierge, and he didn’t know the entry code to her front door. He pulled out his phone and clumsily dialled her. This time, she answered on the first ring. 

“Patrick? Where are you?”

“I’m outside and I need the door code.” 

“Oh. Sorry, yeah, it’s, uh, C1962. My apartment is 3B. Two flights up.”

“Thanks, Jean. You’re a good friend.” Patrick turned to the panel to the right-hand side of the door and began punching in the numbers. “You’re a good friend. The code’s not working.”

“Did you put it in right?”

Patrick couldn’t help but snicker at the obvious innuendo, which Jean obviously didn’t get, because she was so innocent. So pure. He imagined her on her knees, eyes wide and blue as she stared up at him, his cock engulfing her little pink mouth, and he was hit with another wave of nausea so powerful it crippled him in half. “Yes, I… C23 something?”

Jean sighed. It was barely audible, but he heard it, and he wanted to apologise, for everything, for nothing. “Just push the button marked 3B. I’ll buzz you in.”

Patrick hit the end call button and spewed up a few more mouthfuls of bile before pressing the button. Instantly, the door buzzed and made a clicking sound that indicated it was open, and he was in. 

Patrick Bateman was about to see the inside of Jean’s apartment, and as he climbed (staggered, holding onto the bannisters for dear life) he wondered what it would look like. Her desk at work was impeccably neat and she usually dressed in drab, monochrome colours. He supposed it would be a much less expensive version of his own apartment, and pondered whether she’d have a vinyl player. He was really in the mood for some Phil Collins.

He reached the third floor landing, and there she was. Propped against her open apartment door, bundled up in an oversized peach quilted robe that looked like it had been purchased from Bed, Bath & Beyond, makeup-free face peeking over the top, hair scraped back. She wasn’t beautiful and elegant, like Evelyn, or sexy and glamorous, like Courtney. She was just Jean. 

“Jean.” Patrick leaned against the wall at the top of the stairs; the climb had taken quite a toll on him. “Jean, Jean, Jean. ”

“Patrick, you’re trashed.” Her words were stern but her voice motherly, concerned, and he wanted to cling to her legs and weep into her non-existent silk stockings and never let go. 

“Me? I’m fine. I’m just dandy.” He laughed, even though nothing was funny, because everything was funny. 

“You have sick on your tie. And on your trousers. I thought you were just having a business dinner with Paul Allen? What happened?”

“Paul fucking Allen.” Patrick made an attempt to walk towards Jean, swaying, staggering, he was fine, no, really, he was just fine. 

“Did you go clubbing?” Jean’s eyes were so big and so blue and so fucking earnest. Why was she still here, talking to him? Why was she still working for him? Why was she about to allow him into her home, her most sacred space? Didn’t she realise he was poison? Didn’t she realise the danger she was in just being around him?

“ We went clubbing. Yes. Fucking Yacht Club.” Jean stepped aside as Patrick stumbled through the doorway; to his surprise, she didn’t have a hallway, and instead the front door opened directly into a living room attached to an opening plan kitchen-diner. It was small, smaller than he’d expected. But cosy. Patrick didn’t do cosy. 

“Where should I put my shoes?” He turned to face Jean, who was still standing in the doorway, arms folded across her chest as though she was protecting herself. Was she ? Protecting herself - from him?

“You can just kick them off anywhere, I don’t mind.” Jean turned away to lock the door. Patrick noted she didn’t put the deadbolt on. 

Patrick bent down to untie his shoes (Gucci leather lace ups) and was hit with an overwhelming mix of nausea and vertigo, stumbling backwards and nearly crashing into a tall tasselled lamp that looked like the sort of thing Patrick’s grandma would’ve owned in the sixties. 

“Hey.” Jean took a hold of his arm. “Let’s go sit down, okay?”

Patrick let Jean lead him to her sofa (brown, unshapely, covered in an Afghan throw) and laid back with his eyes closed as she delicately unlaced each shoe and slipped it off his foot. A brief satirical thought about Cinderella in reverse shot through his head and he smiled weakly to himself, but ultimately decided he didn’t have the strength to make the joke. He didn’t even have the strength to open his eyes. He was aware that Jean was talking, but her voice sounded far away and muffled, as though she was speaking to him through a dream or from her office to his at Pierce & Pierce without using the telephone call button. 

“...presuming you guys ended up at Lace or something?”

His eyes snapped open (perhaps snapped was an understatement, more lilke fluttered open, weakly, a dying butterfly’s wings) at the mention of Lace, a downtown strip club he and the guys frequented sometimes (but not often, because it was on the trashy side; some of the dancers had belly bars and they didn’t seem to have a minimum breast size requirement like some of the other joints). 

“ No.” Patrick spat pure venom into the air (not only metaphorically, as a sliver of acidic saliva dripped from his mouth and ran down his chin as he spoke; he raised a trembling hand and wiped it clean, noting that either Jean hadn’t noticed, or just didn’t care, or he didn’t even really care either, about Jean seeing him with fucking spit on his face - his OWN spit, no one but his - about Jean at all, about anything ). 

“We didn’t go to Lace.” He pushed himself upright. “What are we, Kennedys?”

Jean smiled, but he could tell she didn’t get the joke, and why should she? She went to public school, after all. 

“We. Went. To. The. Yacht. Club.” It felt as though he had to put extra effort behind every word, like his tonsils had swollen and engulfed themselves round his vocal chords, wrapping them round and round like the rope that hooker had let him- 

“I know that. You told me when you came in. I asked if you’d gone anywhere else after.” Jean was kneeling on the floor by Patrick’s feet, and it reminded him of the Edelweiss scene in The Sound of Music (which he only knew from Evelyn’s love of it, he didn’t like musicals because he wasn’t a fucking faggot like Luis Carruthers ). Except, obviously, this relationship was not father/daughter, but boss/employee, and therefore majorly less taboo. 

“I came here. Dumbass.” Patrick smirked and reached out to poke Jean’s cheek. She recoiled upon his touch. Was he really that disgusting? That repulsive? Could she tell what had happened? Sense it, smell it on him, somehow? 

“Yes, I know. But why did you come here? I mean, not that I, um, don’t want you to be here, of course, but, I mean, why didn’t you go back to your place?”

“It’s lonely there.” The words slipped out before he could stop them.

Now Jean was going to look at him with pity, because she didn’t understand, because no one did. Lonely wasn’t bad; it was better than society’s constant need to be connected and intertwined and together. What was wrong with being on your own? Patrick didn’t enjoy it, but he didn’t loathe it; he was merely ambivalent towards it, as he was towards most things in life. He’d always been lonely. Loneliness wasn’t a negative notion, but he didn’t have a way to explain that to Jean without her pitying him even more. 

“And I wanted to see you.” She was still sitting obediently at his knee, and he wondered what she was wearing under her robe, if she was wearing anything at all, and if she’d be equally as obedient if he asked her to remove it, right now. He decided right then and there that he was going to fuck Jean. (She probably wouldn’t like such vulgar language, he ruminated, perhaps she’d prefer if they made love like Evelyn insisted they did whilst he replayed scenes from torture porn until he, finally and disappointingly, climaxed). 

If he fucked Jean, it would cancel out the - whatever it was - he’d done earlier on. With Paul fucking Allen. It would prove that it was just a stupid, drunken- 

Drugged.

He suddenly remembered the tiny toilet cubicle, inhaling the white powder like faggots inhaled poppers, the sheer ecstasy that had come over him on the dance floor. This isn’t coke, Paul. 

“Paul FUCKING Allen!” He rose to his feet, staggering as a fresh wave of nausea and vertigo swept over him. Paul fucking Allen had done this on purpose. He’d purposefully drugged him, given him MDMA thinking it was coke. He’d purposefully kissed him, purposefully shoved his tongue down his throat - it was practically sexual assault!

And all of this because of the stupid fucking Fischer account.

Jean was on her feet now, eyes concerned, helping steady him. “Did you and Paul fall out?” 

No, we fucking MADE out, and I fucking loved it. 

“He drugged me.” Patrick felt something dripping at the base of his nose - sick, blood, backdrop the shit Paul had basically spiked him with, whatever - and wiped it with the back of his hand, an action that, for someone who usually dealt with matters of the nasal depository in private with a silk monogrammed hankerchief, was quite frankly abhorrent. 

“He drugged you? With what?” 

Patrick steadied himself and turned to face Jean. He liked that she was an average height for a woman; any taller and she’d be too difficult to manhandle, any smaller and he might break her. He wondered if she liked it rough in bed; if she’d let him sink his teeth into the creamy milkiness of her neck, if she’d let him choke her until her eyes began to glaze over. He wondered if she’d ever even had sex. Of course, he knew she’d had boyfriends - both historical ones mentioned in passing, and meek beta males who turned up to greet her from work clutching a cheap bouquet of grocery store flowers every now and then. But that didn't necessarily mean she'd had sex. She could be saving herself for marriage, or whatever good girls did. 

“ Shhhhhhh.” He placed an unsteady finger on Jean’s pink, pink lips. He’d read somewhere that the colour of a woman’s lips were the same shade as her nipples. Jean didn’t have much of a pronounced Cupid’s bow. 

“Make love to me, Evelyn.” Shit. Had he said that out loud, or merely thought it? The look on Jean’s face suggested otherwise. “Shit, I meant Courtney. Shit, no, I meant-” 

“Patrick.” Jean’s voice was firmer than he’d ever heard it. “Lay down on the sofa and I’ll get you a blanket, and you can sleep here tonight, okay? You’re very, very drunk, and out of your mind on God knows what.” 

“Andand, you’ll s-sleep with me too?” Patrick took a step backwards, suddenly conscious of the fact that his breath probably smelt rather strongly of vomit, and tripped backwards over the arm of Jean’s sofa, crashing into her irrelevant little side table and knocking all the irrelevant little books off it. 

“No, I’m sleeping in my bed, Patrick. You’re so drunk you don’t even know who I am.” Jean came round to his side and, ever attentive, helped him back onto the sofa and wedging some (brandless, misshapen) cushion behind his head before straightening the table and restacking the books beside it, as if she didn’t trust Patrick to sleep with a pile of fucking chicklits beside his head, as if she th ought he’d vomit on them or fuck them or try and make out with him in the middle of Yacht Club. 

Patrick attempted to murmur something, anything, but his brain and mouth had stopped cooperating, and his eyes felt so, so heavy. He was vaguely aware of Jean loosening his tie and sliding it from his neck, and for a brief moment he thought she was going to fuck him, and for a brief moment he was filling with searing, oversurging panic, but then she was back and placing a blanket over him and tucking it round his sides and over his feet and then, so briefly and gently he might’ve imagined it, dropped a kiss on his forehead, like a mother would. 

He hoped that she had dimmed the lights and left the room by the time the tear had slipped down his cheek. 

============================================================================================================

When Patrick awoke, before he even opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was the searing pain. Not just his head - which, surprisingly, wasn’t too bad - but his throat. Like he’d spent the entire night deepthroating a spiky cock. And then he remembered vomiting in the street and the Yacht Club and Paul fucking Allen and he shot up, sitting bolt upright and throwing off the (disgustingly-mustard coloured) blanket off him. 

He looked around the room, head pounding. Every blank space of wall was covered in some kind of picture or poster or tapestry and there were several bookshelves, threatening to overspill with how stuffed full of books they were. It felt so… cluttered. He craved the tranquility of his fresh white walls and white bedsheets and white tiles. 

Patrick staggered to his feet. He was shoeless, but his shoes were placed neatly opposite the sofa, and he was tie-less, and he had no idea where his tie was, but he was too hungover to care. There were splashes of vomit caked into his trousers and the front of his shirt and now he was going to have to get Jean to go the dry cleaners, except he couldn’t, because he’d made a fool of himself in front of her and now he could never face her again. 

Patrick laced up his shoes, rebuttoned his shirt, and methodically folded the blanket, piling the (quite frankly awful, he needed to give Jean a subscription to vanity fair interiors) cushions on top. He noticed a glass of water sitting on the little table, next to two small, round pills that could be anything from paracetamol to cyanide. He swallowed them dry and downed the water in one go. He rinsed out the glass and placed it to the side of the sink. Everything he did was methodical and calculated; he was a robot, a machine. 

Until he got to Jean’s bedroom. He could tell it was Jean’s bedroom because the door was slightly ajar, and he could hear soft snoring coming from within. He stepped closer, and closer, until he was literally standing in her bedroom. He couldn’t see anything - the room was still shrouded in darkness - but he could see the form of Jean’s soft body curled under the duvet, rising and falling gently alongside her breathing.

It would be so easy. So ridiculously easy. All he’d need to do is climb onto the bed, straddle her, wrap his hands round her throat and squeeze. Eight to ten seconds and she’d lose consciousness; three minutes and her hyoid would be snapped in two. No one knew he had come here. No one would suspect a thing. 

Patrick softly shut the door and made his way outside into the fresh Manhattan morning. 

Chapter Text

Weakness. 

Patrick hated many things. Getting a bad table even though he’d had Jean make a reservation a week ago. When the ladies that did his pedicure spoke to each other in Vietnamese during it ( this is America, damnit, speak English! ). People who still thought it was acceptable to wear Mulberry. Fat chicks, immigration policy, avocado, having to ‘celebrate’ ‘special’ occasions. Evelyn, sometimes. Paul fucking Allen, always. 

But above all of that - even more than he hated Paul fucking Allen - he hated weakness. It was the very first thing he could ever remembering what some softer souls may call ‘feeling’. He was three years old and he’d tripped and skinned his knee. It hadn’t been that painful, but the nanny (Adele, he vaguely recalled, who left abruptly for Belgium when Patrick’s mother found out that she’d been tending to his father’s wounds too, and was replaced by Marcia, who was fat and ugly and thus had to use the back staircase when Mrs Bateman was ‘hosting’) had sat him down and put some sort of emullient or oil on it, and Patrick had burst into tears at that. 

Unusually, Sean Bateman was home that night, and had lingered in the doorway to watch (with hindsight, more likely to have a chance to ogle at Adele’s deriere than to see if his injured young son was okay); when he heard Patrick’s cries, he stormed into the room and whacked him round the back of the head with a copy of the New York Times. 

“Shut the Hell up, you little sissy,” he’d barked. Sean Bateman didn’t talk or converse, he barked. (Unless he was tried to get a lady into bed, upon which time he would adopt a far more soothing and dulcet tone not unlike the one Patrick used today.)

At that point, Adele left the room to get a plaster, and Sean Bateman knelt down so that he was eye-level with his son. For a normal father and son, this would have been soothing and comforting, for Sean and Patrick, it was a barrage of insults. 

“Stop that bullshit snivelling right now, you pansy. You know who cries? Faggots? Do you want to be a faggot, Patrick?”

Although highly intelligent for his age, Patrick didn’t yet know what a ‘faggot’ was, but he could tell from his father’s tone it wasn’t good. So he shook his head no. 

“What’s that?” Sean Bateman stood up and smoothed out the creases in his trousers before coming round to stand at the back of the chair, a large and menacing hand placed across the top. “I didn’t hear you. Speak up, you little pansy.

“I’m not a faggot.” Patrick swallowed hard, hard to suck the tears back down his throat and wiped at his eyes with his little fist. 

“Good.” Sean Bateman lifted the newspaper, as if considering whether to batter his infant son with it or do the crossword, and, seeming to think better of the former, to leave the room. 

Patrick never showed a sign of weakness around his father again. Further than that, he never showed a sign of weakness around anyone again. 

Until he did. Last night. With Jean, and with - he couldn’t even think of his name without wanting to retch - Paul Allen. Who had purposefully drugged him to get him to - to kiss him - to basically assault him so that he’d drop the Fischer account. 

Well, he wasn’t going to drop it. And he wasn’t going to drop his mask of calm either, ever again. Patrick Bateman didn’t feel emotions - besides rage and boredom and, occasionally, sexual satisfaction - but he certainly didn’t feel weak. Ever. With anyone. 

============================================================================================================

Once he’d made it back to his apartment, Patrick showered until the water ran cold, washing off all traces of vomit and liquor and Paul fucking Allen. The audacity that man had! Should he file a police report? No, if word got out around P&P he’d never let it down. He’d probably be demoted to another position with equal salary (high) and equal workload (nonexistent) but without the glorious title of Vice President. No, he wouldn’t file a report. He would just block it from his mind and pretend it hadn’t happened. 

He tried to jerk off in the shower, firstly thinking about Evelyn - he’d have to see her this week, tonight, maybe, if he managed to get a good reservation somewhere - and then Courtney, but neither got him anything past limp. He thought about the goth girl from the bar last night - shit, was that only last night? - and the buxom bartender and Jean but nothing worked. He tried to recreate his favourite scenes from Girls in Captivity but a sudden wave of dizziness came over him and he was forced to admit defeat. Ecstasy was known to have that effect, anyway. 

He checked his phone after he’d towelled off. Nothing from Evelyn, so she was evidently either giving him the silent treatment or had been brutally murdered and dismembered by Bryce last night. If so, he’d give him an alibi. 

Nothing from Courtney, either, but that wasn’t unusual because she was usually too strung out to see, let alone type. Two texts from Jean, firstly asking if he was okay and then another saying she presumed he wasn’t coming in to work today, but that wasn’t unusual either because it was Jean and Jean cared and I’m worried about you, Patrick. He sent a single solidarity thumbs-up in response. 

What was unusual was that he had a text from Paul Allen, which was doubly unusual because he couldn’t work out how Paul fucking Allen would have his personal phone number. He was highly selective about who he gave it out to; Luis Carruthers had been begging Jean for it for months. 

Patrick stared at the phone screen until his vision blurred into a puddle of black and white and blue and pink and strobe lights all over the crowd, Paul’s face turning purple and then green, Paul’s mouth on this-

Hey Bateman. You get home okay? 

That was all it said. Patrick sat and looked at the text until it morphed and warped before his eyes and he felt like he was about to vomit, but when he went to the toilet nothing would come out, so instead he took two Xanax and two Oxy and started typing out a reply. 

Well, I’m alive. No thanks to you. 

No. Could be construed as jokey and sarcastic, like banter between friends. Delete. 

Considering I’m writing this from my apartment and not a dumpster somewhere, I would assume so. 

No again. Too long. 96 characters compared to Paul’s 31. It would look embarrassingly eager. 

How did you get this number?

Yes. Short, harsh, and to the point. He almost hit send when he realised this was a question, and a question required an answer which Paul fucking Allen would indubitably fucking give because he was just such a polite guy and then they’d be having a fucking conversation and before he knew what he was doing, Patrick was opening Google and typing in how to text a guy. 

The suggested searches were…probably the worst thing Patrick had ever seen, beating the time Van Hatten had decided to start wearing a monocle and lasted all of two days until Luis Carruthers turned up to the Canal Bar sporting one too. 

How to text a guy you like…

How to text a guy back…

How to text a guy but not sound desperate…

Almost robotically, Patrick wiped his search history, deleted Paul’s text, and blacklisted his number from his phone. Then he tossed it to the side and lay back, letting the cocktail of drugs drag him into a soft, slow sleep. 

============================================================================================================

The following day, Patrick Bateman was back. He was wearing his newest suit - a navy-blue virgin wool double breasted Brioni that had set him back the equivalent of most of Jean’s annual rent. He had teamed it with a baby blue pinstripe shirt (silk, Saint Laurent), navy tie, and red suspenders. He would fuck himself if he could and, as he teased his hair to an even higher degree of perfection ( was that even possible?) in the mirror whilst waiting for his driver to arrive to escort him to P&P, wondered what it would be like. He knew he was good in bed. Amazing, some might say. After their latest dalliance, Courtney had had to bin her satin sheets (which she was furious at - I can only buy these in Santa Fe, Patrick; I’m sorry, would you prefer it if I had given you an orgasm the way Luis does? Oh, I forgot - he doesn’t ). 

His body was impeccable, and his stamina too. He knew exactly what he liked in bed, and how to do it. If, in future Elon Musk made a breakup drastic decision to go from colonating Mars to working on clones (a more expensive, but far more beneficial venture), then he could order a clone of himself and fuck the clone. It wouldn’t be gay, because it would be fucking himself, and if that was gay, every man on earth must be gay for jacking off. 

Patrick was broken from his thoughts with the realisation his buzzer had just gone off for the second time. His car was here. Time to face the music, and today, he was feeling Bon Jovi. 

============================================================================================================

On the way to P&P (it was a beautiful day, sunny and cloudless with a humid temperature; not warm enough to ditch your dinner jacket but warm enough that an overcoat would be unnecessary, and so Patrick cursed himself for bringing one) Patrick was suddenly struck with the horrible thought that Paul might’ve told everyone about what had happened on Monday night. 

He reassured himself with the fact that that would mean Paul would have to admit he’d done… that with another man, so surely he’d not say a word about it, and it was all fine. 

Unless…Paul had made it sound like Patrick had come on to him. And…he kind of had, hadn’t he? He’d made the first move. And Paul had pushed him off. 

But then his lips were back on Patrick’s, soft and plump, not harsh or rough like he’d expect a man’s to feel, and his body was-

Patrick reached into his briefcase and swallowed a Xanax, dry, and then after careful consideration, another. He made a mental note to tell Jean to reorder another month’s worth. 

============================================================================================================

The first obstacle to overcome was seeing Jean after the - incident - on Monday night. It hadn’t been that bad, surely? He hadn’t cried in front of her. He’d just staggered about a bit and told her that Paul had drugged him. Had he mentioned they’d kissed? Surely not. His mind was racing as he made his way through the corridors, being greeted by individual faces collectively dressed in Versace and Saint Laurent and accredited by Harvard and Stanford and entry into the Yale Club, all blurring into one. The Xanax had already kicked in, so he didn’t really give a shit about anything until he reached Jean’s office. 

He stopped to look at her through the small window. She always kept the blinds open; always wanted to know what was going on. Sweet, sweet Jean. She had her head down, checking something in her diary with one hand resting on her computer mouse; her hair was drawn into a low ponytail and a few loose wisps had already escaped out the sides. He was glad they hadn’t had sex when he appeared at her apartment the other night, though he couldn’t put his finger on why. 

He pushed open the door and Jean glanced up immediately, instantly attentive, and a smile bloomed over her face. A genuine smile. “Patrick, hi.”

“Good morning, Jean.” He gave her a curt nod before heading towards his office door. He loved seeing the silver plaque that proudly proclaimed Patrick Bateman: Vice President, echoing the one on his secretary’s door. That shit never got old, just like the first line of coke you rail on a Friday night - don’t go there! Don’t go there! Danger! 

“How are you feeling today?” He was in his office now, so he couldn’t see her face, but he could tell from her voice it was dripping with pity, scattered with concern with a slight jus of sympathy on the side. 

“Brilliant. Thank you for asking. Got any calls in?”

She appeared in his doorframe, clad in the sort of shapeless cream suit that Linda Tripp would’ve viewed as fashionable. God, why couldn’t she wear a little pencil skirt and heels like the other guys’ secretaries? She wasn’t even wearing the Louboutins he’d bought. What a total waste of money. 

“Quite a few, and you have some appointments scheduled in for today, but, uh, I was hoping we could talk first.”

“Talk?” He sat down, and then thought better of it and stood; he couldn’t be below Jean’s height. He had to remain dominant. The alpha. No, the sigma. 

“Yes. About Monday night.” Jean’s eyes flickered briefly downwards and she bit her lip. She reminded Patrick of a cottequish schoolgirl, the sort of girl who loses a teacher their job. 

“Ah. Yes.” Get in first, quickly. “I owe you an apology. It was extremely unprofessional for me to turn up at your apartment outside of work, particularly in the state I was in. I can assure you it won’t happen again.” He turned and strode to the window to close the blinds; of course Jean had opened them. Couldn’t she just take the fucking hint that the light gave him migraines? “Of course, if you feel uncomfortable working for me now, I completely understand if you’d like to hand in your resignation, and rest assured I will write you a glowing reference.”

“What?” She sounded genuinely shocked. “Patrick, are you firing me?”

Patrick turned from the (thankfully, closed) blind and gave what he hoped looked like a soothing smile. “No. Of course not. I just thought you might feel as though our working relationship has been compromised by my behaviour, and I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.”

“Your behav- Patrick, why would you have made me uncomfortable? You haven’t done anything wrong.” 

I’ve pictured choking you into unconsciousness and then fucking you during it. ( Sure, he’d promptly thrown up at the thought, but he’d still thought it.)

“You came to me because you were drunk and on goodness knows what drugs, and needed a friend. You didn’t make me feel uncomfortable in any way.” 

There was a silence, punctuated only by the bubbling of the water cooler. 

“I was just…concerned about you. I still am, Patrick.” Jean stepped closer to his desk and lowered her voice to a hush. “You were really out of it. You didn’t even know who I was.”

“Really?” He didn’t recall that bit. Although, not being able to remember not being able to remember who someone was kind of made sense. “Who did I think you were?”

“Evelyn.” Her eyes dropped and he knew then that she wasn’t going to resign, and he was grateful, because he didn’t want her to. “And then, I don’t know, Courtney or someone? Isn’t that the name of Luis Carruthers’ girlfriend?”

“I can’t say I keep up with Luis Carruthers’ exploits and sexual conquests, so I have no clue.” Patrick felt himself grinning. He really was an impeccable liar. According to some stupid online tests he’d done in that stupid shrink’s waiting room last week, that was a sign of both narcissistic and anti-social personality disorders. They didn’t prescribe any fun drugs for those. 

“Well, that’s who you said.” Jean raised a shoulder, meekly, dejectedly. 

There was another long pause. One mississippi, two mississippi, hold your breath at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. 

“Thank you for letting me stay with you.” He genuinely meant it, and it felt good - nice? - to voice it. Jean was a brilliant secretary, but she was a good friend too; ironically, two qualities sorely lacking in the two women he’d allegedly professed his desire for at Jean’s the other night. 

“You’re welcome.” She smiled again, finally meeting his gaze. “If you ever need to - I mean, I don’t know why you’d need to, or want to, but if you ever need somewhere to stay or, just to talk, y’know-”

“I know. I know. Thank you, Jean.” He recalled the way she’d tucked him into his makeshift bed and left him pills and water, how she’d loosened his tie so he wouldn’t strangle himself in his sleep. He wondered if she still had that Chanel N°22. 

“So, uh, your meetings.” She was flipping through the files in her hands now. “VP meeting at 10, and then at 12, you have a lunch reservation at -” 

“VP meeting?” Patrick shot upright in his chair.

“Yes?” Jean looked at him curiously. 

“With who?”

“The other VPs, I presume.”

“No, I mean who’s confirmed as being there today.”

“Oh. Uh, the usual? Halberstam, Luis, Paul Allen -”

“Cancel it.”

Jean laughed a little, evidently taken aback by his harsh change in tone. “C-cancel it?”

“Yes, Jean. Tell them I can’t make it.” He ran a finger along the smooth oak edge of his desk, wondering how deeply he’d have to carve into it for it to make a mark. 

“For, uh, what reasons?” Jean tucked a strand of hair behind her ears. She was wearing pearl earrings, but she couldn’t pull them off for she was neither an elderly woman nor a young old-money socialite. He thought sapphire would be better, and made a mental note to check Cartier later. “I mean, what do I tell them?”

“Just tell them no. Tell them I’m otherwise engaged.” 

“I will do that.” Jean marked something off on her file and began listing Patrick’s various meetings and engagements and missed calls, while his mind was preoccupied, wandering, wondering if skipping the VP meeting was a good idea. They might gossip about him. They probably already had been gossiping, due to his notable absence yesterday. But if he went he’d have to see… him. And the threat of being talked about by his closest friends was far less than what he might think, or feel, or do, if he saw him. 

Jean had finished her list and was making her way back to her desk when Patrick remembered. He called out. 

“Jean, I need my Xan prescription refilled, stat. And tell them to give me some clonazepam if they have any in stock. Just 2mgs will do." 

Chapter Text

He had instantly developed a headache the moment Evelyn slid into the limo. She’d recently switched up her signature perfume - Dior Poison was becoming so pedestrian nowadays, apparently - and whatever this new bullshit scent was (and he knew it was bullshit, because he couldn’t identify it by brand) was extremely offputting. How embarrassing to arrive at Barcadia of all places with Evelyn smelling like a cheap whore! He hoped no one he knew would be there. 

“Hi, Mr Bate -man,” she cooed girlishly, using that term of ‘endearment’ that made him sympathise with Ed Gein’s thoughts upon seeing a pretty girl, leaning across and planting a kiss on his cheek. “Did you miss me, stranger?” 

No, he thought. He honestly didn’t. Evelyn’s absence meant nothing to him. Sometimes, when he heard of a woman being found dead in her apartment or not making it home after a drunken night out he wondered how he’d react if that was her, if that was his door the cops were turning up to somberly to take him to ID the body. And…he didn’t feel. Not a flicker of emotion. Am I a psychopath? Or is Evelyn just such a pain in the ass I wouldn’t care? He reckoned it was probably a mixture of the two. 

But, the show must go on. “Yes, dear,” he smiled, as cordially as one might smile at a casual office aquaintance. “You look beautiful.” 

She had already flipped open her compact mirror and was patting down her hair (a coiffed blowout, a style which suited Courtney far more than her) and studying her cheekbones. “You too,” she replied automatically. “So where are we going tonight?” 

“Barcadia.” Patrick stifled a yawn. God, he was bored already. Perhaps if he hurried tonight’s apparently overdue date fast enough he could see if any of the guys were free and down for hitting up Tunnels. 

“Barcadia?” Evelyn snapped her compact shut and pouted, still stuck as the petulant spoiled only child she always had been. “I wanted to go to Dorsia.”

“Nobody goes there anymore.”

“That’s not true. I saw Cecilia at the nail salon earlier today. She said Paul Allen was taking her there tonight. Somehow he managed to get an 8.30 res. An 8.30, Patrick.” 

Patrick was overcome with a sudden wave of - well, he didn’t know what exactly, just that it wasn’t pleasant. He was nauseous at the mere sound of that man’s name. He was furious that he’d managed to get a reservation at Dorsia, at eight thirty (on a Tuesday, granted, but still an eight thirty ) when Patrick had been on the waiting list for months. Jealous, even. He should have that reservation. 

But he was also terrified. What if Paul had told Cecilia about what had happened at the Yacht Club, and what if Cecilia had told Evelyn? He had to tread very, very carefully. 

“What else was Cecilia saying, then?” He tried to sound as casual as possible, even though Patrick Bateman didn’t do casual. Period. 

“Why do you care?” Evelyn had her compact out again and was dabbing at the corners of her lips. She was wearing a shade of lipstick that was way too pale for her; she was just lucky that she was pretty enough to pull it off. 

“I’m just making conversation.” He hoped she couldn’t tell the nerve under his left eye was beginning to twitch. 

“Well, that’s weird considering you don’t tend to give a shit about anything I tell you. Would you rather it was Cecilia you were with tonight?”

Inwardly, he let out a sigh of relief. Women, huh?

“No. She doesn’t have an ass.” He couldn’t resist making a snarky comment in response. “Would you rather be with Tim Bryce?”

“Oh, Patrick, give it a rest with this Bryce shit,” Evelyn sighed, checking her reflection in the window. “I’m starting to think you want to fuck him.” 

Was that a hint? A cold sweat bloomed over the back of Patrick’s neck. He needed fresh air. He scrambled for the AC button. She couldn’t know, surely?

“I’m not a fucking faggot, Evelyn.” He made sure to add extra venom to the last two words, almost as if they were floating neon green in front of him, dripping vile. I. Am. Not. A. Faggot. 

“Jeez.” Evelyn turned to look at him for only the second time since she’d got into the car, raising a perfectly manicured eyebrow. “Calm down. What’ve the gays ever done to you?” 

Patrick closed his eyes and inwardly cursed himself for not bringing any Xanax or Oxys or, Christ, fucking bath salts with him. He felt like he was going to the dentist to get a tooth pulled. He’d rather be going to get a tooth pulled than this shit. “You’ve been spending too much time with that weirdo cousin of yours.” 

============================================================================================================

He may not have been able to get them reservations at Dorsia, but the maitre-d at Barcadia greeting him by first name and assuring him they’d saved him the best table made up for it, and for seven thirty on a Tuesday night, the place was glittering; on the way to their table they passed Monica Lewinsky, a minor Kennedy, and what appeared to be a very coked-up Tucker Carlson, whom Patrick made a mental note to give his new business card to later. Surely he’d appreciate it. Unlike that dumbass loser shrink. 

Their orders were taken with moments of being seated, and as soon as the waiter (sufficiently handsome for such a place) had left, Evelyn turned to Patrick and gave him what she probably thought was a tantalising smile. “So, notice anything different about me?” 

Of course it was that fucking question. Regardless of the answer, he was going to be wrong. “No, darling. You look as divine as always.” 

“ Pat rick.” He hated the childish way she enunciated his name. She reached a hand across the table, interlinking their fingers. He almost recoiled at the touch and relieved himself with the mental image of manually snapping off each of her fingers and ramming down her throat. “Look at my face. ”

He looked at it. She looked…the same as usual. Blonde, blue eyes, angular cheekbones, those stupid purposefully pouty lips. She didn’t have much of a Cupid’s bow, either. Her face morphed before his eyes, her features glamourising into Courtney’s and then softening into Jean’s and then suddenly hardening, her jawline becoming firm and muscular, her eyes brightening to green- 

“-and the girl that did it did say it might take a few more sessions to take full effect, but I can definitely see it already. Maybe it’s just the lighting in here? What do you think, honey?” 

“Don’t call me that.” He blinked and she was back to being Evelyn, his fiancee, elegant and refined and telling him about some bullshit crystal face massage thing she’d had done earlier, and her eyes were blue. Blue. He removed his hand from hers. 

“Call you want, honey ?” She gave him a teasing smile and threaded her fingers through his again, leaning in even closer. 

“Stop it. You know I hate pet names. I’m neither a six year child or a dog.” 

“Well, you sure do act like a child sometimes.” This time it was her who snatched her hand away, folding her arms across her chest in a pathetic act of defiance. “You know, Patrick, sometimes I wonder if you have Aspergers or something. You’re so…inconsiderate.” 

“You know, Evelyn, sometimes I wonder if you have anything going on in your head besides your looks and spending daddy’s money. Why don’t you try, I don’t know, reading a book for once in your goddamn life?” He knocked back his JB (neat) and signalled the waiter to bring another. 

His tirade had - of course - gone right over Evelyn’s head. She was leaning to the side of him, peering at someone over his shoulder. “Oh, look, Patrick! It’s Courtney and Luis!” 

Shit. His side piece, his wannabe side piece, and his fiancee (ugh) all in one place. It was like some kind of ridiculous film and Patrick briefly pondered the concept that he was living in a scripted reality show where everyone around him was hired to play a part and shit, that whole Yacht Club thing made so much more sense now. 

Evelyn had half-raised herself from the table to air kiss Courtney on both cheeks as Luis hovered awkwardly behind, winning a Golden Globe for the supporting role of shop mannequin, or perhaps a CPR dummy. Patrick briefly ruminating on the pleasure he’d get from thumping on Luis’ chest - not to revive him, of course, quite the opposite - but he was then faced with unpleasant images of giving the fag mouth-to-mouth and then suddenly he was reminded of-

“Patr iiiiick ,” Courtney crooned, bending over and planting a kiss on his cheek; as usual, she was absolutely off her tits (which, as usual, were drawing the attention of every man in the room). “Did Evelyn tell you we’re having dinner before the gala on Saturday? All four of us? Won’t that be so much fun?” 

“Yes, it’ll be a hoot.” Patrick sardonically downed the JB the waiter had just placed in front of him and braced himself for what he knew was coming next. 

“Hi, Patrick,” Luis said, giving a little wave that made Patrick feel a rare streak of genuine pity. How pathetic. “You look very nice tonight. I love your suit. Versace? No, no, wait - Valentino?”

“Brioni.” Patrick couldn’t keep the boredom out of his voice; it was dripping out of his mouth like saliva, pooling all over the off-white tablecloth with it’s crisply ironed linen napkins, monogrammed B for Barcadia (Centeria Script - a little basic). “Please excuse me. I don’t want to keep you ladies from gossiping.” 

He made a beeline for the toilets, where he pulled out his phone and was in the middle of hastily typing out a text to Bryce, asking if he had plans for the evening and if so, could he cancel them, when the door swung open and Luis fucking Carruthers appeared. 

“Hi, Patrick.” God, why was his voice so damn whiny ? It was even worse than Evelyn’s, and that was really saying something. 

“What do you want, Carruthers?” Patrick didn’t look up from his phone, already seeing the three little dots of Bryce typing out a response. 

“I’m sorry if I offended you. About your suit.” Luis made his way over to Patrick tentatively, like a lion tamer approaching a wild beast. “I thought it was very nice.”

“Huh?” Patrick was vaguely aware of Luis hovering by his side like a bowtied mosquito, but was too busy engaged in reading Bryce’s response. 

At Canal Bar with Halberstam and McDermott. Quarter of a gram if you get here within the next 30. 

“Patrick.” Luis was standing so close Patrick could smell his cologne. He couldn’t make out the brand, so, much like Evelyn’s perfume earlier, marked it off in his mind as trash. “I said, I like your suit. A lot.” 

Thirty minutes. He could easily tell Evelyn he’d come down with a crippling migraine, leave her to chit-chat about who was sleeping with who with Courtney (the irony of that almost made Patrick crack a smile) and Luis. They could even go out for cocktails after, like a true ladies’ night. Then he’d just hop into a cab, make it downtown in fifteen to twenty minutes, and spend the rest of the night railing coke off a hardbody’s ass. Maybe even two, if he got lucky. The perfect night. 

“Patrick?” Luis’ had managed to get even closer, his voice breathy in Patrick’s ear. It was as if he was trying to shed his skin like a snake and climb inside Patrick’s body. His cologne smelt womanly. It was making Patrick’s eyeballs itch. 

“What is it, Luis?” Patrick snapped his head round. The other man’s face was so close. Too close. This was giving him bad vibes. 

“I just wanted to say…” Luis breathed, brushing his fingertips against the cuff of Patrick’s blazer. “I really, really like your suit.” 

“You’ve made that very clear. Thank you, Luis.” Patrick stepped to his side to escape, claustrophobia overtaking him, when he felt a hand on his chest. A soft, feminine hand, so pale he could see his veins shining through. It repulsed him. A man’s hands should look like a man’s hands. 

Strong, sturdy, tanned hands; hands in his hair, on the side of his face, roaming his shoulders, his chest- 

Instinct kicked in as Patrick grabbed Luis’ hand around the wrist and wrenched it off, and then barged past him, past a now clearly very intoxicated Tucker Carlson who was stumbling into the bathroom, and out in the fresh air of the restaurant. Except it wasn’t fresh; it was suffocating, smothering, he could smell Tom Ford Tobacco Ouid everywhere. 

Courtney had taken Patrick’s seat at the table and her and Evelyn were leant conspiratorially towards each other, giggling and talking in low tones. Both looked up at Patrick approached. 

“Evelyn, finish your drink. We’re leaving.” 

“What?” Evelyn cried. “We’ve only just arrived! Our appetisers haven’t even-”

Sex with Evelyn was the last thing he felt like doing right now, but it was the only way out. He placed a hand on her shoulder and bent down until his mouth was buried past the mounds of her hair, murmuring in her ear in what he attempted to be his most seductive tone. 

“I have been wanting to fuck you till it hurts ever since we set foot in this place. I’m not waiting any longer. I don’t give a shit about our fucking appetisers. We’re leaving. Now.” 

Evelyn drew back from him and smiled coyly, a blush spreading across her cheeks. “Okay, Mr Bate man,” she said flirtatiously. “Whatever you say.” 

“Whaddhesay?” Courtney slurred from across the table, where she was slumped forward, her right breast spilling out over the top of her corset dress. 

“Me and Patrick have to leave. Something’s come up.” Evelyn slid her hand down Patrick’s thigh, winking at Courtney. 

Luis had, by now, emerged from the bathroom and was making his way back to the table, sweating; the very sight of him made Patrick’s skin crawl. 

“Speaking of things coming up, I’ll get the maitre-d to bring the driver round. Finish your drink and meet me outside.” He could tell by the glint in Evelyn’s eyes that she was getting turned on by his brusque tone, but he was certainly not doing it for her benefit; he just needed to get out of here, as quickly as possible. 

He swerved through the tables, dodging waiters and curious gazes. 

“Patrick?” He heard Luis call out meekly from behind, which was promptly followed by a heavy thud as Courtney slid down and fell out of her chair.

Chapter Text

The following evening, Patrick found himself lying in the bedroom of a different West Village apartment under the same calibre of satin bedsheets, next to a different woman with the same blue eyes and blond hair, after a different night of dinner and drinks with the same marginally pleasing intercourse that followed. He blamed the fact that it had taken him forty-five minutes to come on on the MDMA (even though that was days ago now) coupled with the fact that mid switching positions, Courtney had slid her hands round the back of Patrick’s head just like he had done that night in the Yacht Club and the unwelcome image of Paul Allen had appeared in his mind, his eyes green and pupils enlarged, taunting him, teasing him. 

Now Patrick was flat on his back, gazing at the shimmering reflections Courtney’s chandelier was casting on her ceiling, trying to remember if the guys had arranged to go to the strip club tomorrow or the following night. Then he had his stupid work gala on Saturday. He couldn’t remember what it was in aid of; some meaningless charity that did nothing to help anyone but the pockets of its CEOs. He didn’t care as long as they had an open bar. Not that money was an issue to him at all - never had been, never would be - but because if he was forced to attend one of these dreadful events, there may as well be something in it for him. 

“ Patrick.” He hadn’t even registered that she was speaking to him. Courtney Lawrence lay on her side next to him, her chest flushed post-coital pink and her dirty blonde hair tousled, giving her a Medusa-like appearance. 

“Did you know that many modern feminists are reframing the story of Medusa to make her a symbolism of what female power and resilience looks like in a male-dominated, patriarchal society, as opposed to the villain she was painted as for centuries?” Patrick’s eyes were half shut as he continued to follow the glittering glow of the chandelier reflections.

“What?” Courtney pushed herself up onto one elbow, drawing the sheets over her chest in a false display of modesty, as if Patrick hadn’t spent the last hour literally inside her. “Who’s Medusa?”

He heaved a sigh. “Never mind.” 

Courtney flopped onto her back and they lay in silence for a few moments more before she rolled over once again, this time trailing her red coffin-shaped nails across Patrick’s bare chest. “Patrick, are you ever going to marry Evelyn?” 

Was he ever going to marry Evelyn? They’d been engaged for a year now, together for five. He hadn’t even proposed; they’d just kind of casually off-handedly agreed to eventually marry one night and then all of a sudden she was pestering him to buy her a ring and throwing an engagement party and referring to herself as Patrick Bateman’s fiancee and that was that. He supposed they’d have to get married eventually, unless one of them died (preferably not him) and then they’d have to live together and start a family and before he knew it he’d become his father, harsh and weathered and attending school board meetings and concerts arm-in-arm with a woman he despised, cheating with his twenty-year old secretary. Oh God, that really was his life. His future was flashing before his eyes and he felt his chest tighten and ache, the beginnings of a panic attack settling in. He closed his eyes. 

“Courtney, do you have any xanax?” 

It was a stupid question; Courtney had every controlled pharmaceutical drug under the sun in her possession, including ones that had been blacklisted decades ago by the FDA. 

“Yeah, sure.” She rolled over and opened her top bedside table drawer (heavy old mahogany with gold-frosted handles, no doubt a hand-me-down from her estranged parents in a battle to prove who loved her more, aka Courtney’s main source of income. “How many do you want?” 

“Just two.” Patrick threw the covers off himself and made his way into the en-suite to relieve himself. He stared into the mirror, illuminated by the soft LED lights from behind. His hair was tousled and his skin was covered in a thin sheen of sweat. He needed to go to the salon and top up his tan; he was starting to look pale. He’d get Jean to book him in for a lunchtime session tomorrow.

After washing his hands exactly four times and doing some bicep curls in the mirror, Patrick made his way back out into the bedroom, where Courtney had placed two small white bars on the adjacent pillow. He swallowed them without water, wincing but managing not to gag. “Thanks.” 

“So?” She was sitting upright, covers clutched to her chest. 

“So what?” Patrick leant down to pick up his boxers (tight-fitting Calvin Kleins, white) and began to slowly redress. 

“You didn’t answer my question. Why are you getting dressed?” 

“Because it would look a bit odd to drive back naked, don’t you think?” He didn’t bother to look round at her as he buttoned up his shirt (dark grey satin, Saint Laurent). 

“You’re leaving?” He could hear that edge in her voice; the edge created when daddy walks out as a child and makes you cling like a leech to any other man forever more. Damn you, Mr Lawrence! In fairness, if she wasn’t so stacked and so good in bed he’d have ditched her a long time ago too. 

“No, Courtney, I’m going to stay and sleep on Luis' side of the bed.” To be honest, the mere thought of Patrick having laid his head on Carruthers’ pillow would send the latter man into a state of orgasmic cardiac arrest, if that was even a thing. He reckoned it must be in old men, and hoped it would happen to his father soon if so. 

“You could at least stay a bit longer.” 

“Some of us have work in the morning, pumpkin. We can’t all live off our parents.” 

“Please. Like you’d be VP if it wasn’t for daddy pulling the strings.” 

Technically, she was right. He’d clearly hit a nerve and he couldn’t work out whether it was his hurry to get out of there or the fact he’d pointed out that she’d never worked a day in her life. Or perhaps it was the reminder of her extremely heterosexual fiancee, who was currently ‘on a business trip’ somewhere irrelevant (its location was meaningless anyway because it didn’t matter, there was no business trip, unless you count being holed up in a Brooklyn motel with a male prostitute a business trip. Which, in fairness, the faggot probably did). 

“I went to Harvard Business School, pumpkin.” 

“Yeah?” Courtney defiantly threw off her covers and reached for the silk robe she’d tossed carelessly onto the floor an hour prior. “Well I’m a triple D cup and I’m not a playboy bunny.” 

“Well, that’s because you have no work ethic.” Patrick finally turned to face her as he buckled his belt. “Our social circle is about three degrees of separation from Heffner. Why don’t you give him a call?” 

Courtney huffed and turned to face him, arms crossed against her bosom. “Is that really what you think of me? I’m just some - some slut? Some pinup girl? Do you just see me when you can’t be bothered paying for a whore?” 

Jesus. “Courtney, have you taken your lithium today?” 

The question earned him a satin-clad pillow hurled at his head. He swiftly caught it and tossed it back onto the bed. “I’m being serious, Courtney. You’re behaving very erratically.”

“I’m sorry.” Her voice cracked into the high-pitched whine of promised tears and she sank onto the bed, burying her face in her hands. “I just feel so…so used. ” 

“Well. I’m terribly sorry if I’ve made you feel that way. Rest assured it was not my intention.”

“Believe it or not, the world doesn’t revolve around you, Patrick!” She raised her head, tears pathetically dribbling down her face. “It’s just…you, Luis, everyone. No one cares about me beyond my tits and my face.”

“With all due respect, pumpkin, I don’t think Luis cares much for your tits.” Patrick sat down on the bed to pull his socks on and lace up his shoes (Jimmy Choo wing tips, black leather). 

“Stop calling me pumpkin! Do you even listen to a word I say?” She was on her feet now, yelling. Patrick felt his head beginning to throb. He’d ask her for some dilaudid in a moment, once she’d got her little hissy fit out of her system. 

“I heard tits,” he shrugged, receiving another pillow thrown, this one hitting him square in the face. 

“Hey.” He stood. “Not in the fucking face. I heard what you said and gee, I don’t know what to tell you, Courtney. Why don’t you go back to school? Get an internship? You could go to one of the fashion houses. Do PR or something, I don’t know. Modelling? Acting? You’re twenty four and rich in Manhattan. You can do anything you want.” 

There was a long pause before she sighed, wiping her eyes with the heel of her hand. “I guess so. Thanks, Patrick. You’re the only one who gets me.” 

That’s because you’re also batshit crazy, Patrick considered retorting before deciding against it. 

“I’ll see you on Saturday.” He shrugged on his jacket, knotting his tie in swift, lucid movements. 

“What’s Saturday?” Her eyes were glassy and blank. Jeez, if she kept up the drug use at the rate she was currently going at, she’d be senile by forty. That was, if she miraculously managed to live till forty, which was doubtful. 

“The work gala? The cancer kids thing or whatever bullshit we’re meant to give a shit about this time. I believe we’re meant to be having dinner beforehand with Evelyn and Luis.” 

“Oh yeah. Patrick, please be nice to Luis. I know you two have your differences, but-”

“Besides the glaringly obvious one, yes. But don’t worry, I’ll play nice with your little boyfriend for the night.”

“ Fiance. ” 

“Whatever. Irrelevant.” Standing above her, Courtney was looking up at him with puppy dog eyes; her mascara had pooled at the corners from her earlier tears. “I’ll see you on Saturday.”

“I don’t even get a goodbye kiss?” she pouted. “You really do just see me as an unpaid whore, don’t you?” 

“No.” Patrick bent down and planted a swift, chaste on the cheek. “You’re my delicious little piece on the side.” 

============================================================================================================

It was a Thursday night and Patrick was bored. Evelyn was ‘seeing friends’ (which was code for shagging Bryce, because if she really was seeing friends, Patrick would be treated to a detail description of who was being seen and where and which of them were cheating on their partners), Bryce was obviously silent too, Van Patten was on a double date with McDermott and whoever they were seeing right now (which was irrelevant anyway as they’d replace them with hookers at the end of the night anyway), and he couldn’t handle Courtney two nights in a row. He briefly considered asking Jean out for dinner, but something about that idea made him uncomfortable, and he decided against it. 

But he wasn’t going to spend the evening alone in his apartment like some kind of loser. Maybe he’d go to the gym. Or a movie. But his apartment complex’s gym was closed at this time of night and he had Sky Cinema. Plus, both of those options sounded so boring. 

Without really thinking, he picked up his phone and ordered a cab downtown. Tunnels was always packed on a Thursday night. Maybe he’d see Halberstram or Baxter or someone else he worked with intimately but barely knew. Failing that, he’d find a girl to take home and screw. He’d put his lack of overt arousal during the past two nights’ sessions down to boredom; he needed some fresh, new blood to get his dick hard again. 

============================================================================================================

The queue for Tunnels was stretching round the block and bass music was spilling out from within, but Patrick knew he’d be waved through the front of the line without a hitch. The only issue was in the taxi ride over he’d realised it was…kind of a lame move to go to a club alone. Bars were different; in bars one could sit and ruminate and drink alone like a cliched literary character. Clubs, not so much. Patrick decided to surpass the club and keep walking, find an open bar that was acceptable to his standards. He briefly pondered what Paul Allen was up to and whether he might frequent bars alone at night too, and then shook his head as if to physically dislodge the thought. Why the fuck was he even thinking about that creep?

He’d thankfully managed to avoid him in the office over the past few days; they had no VP meetings and he steered well clear of Paul’s side of the floor. At lunch, he preferred to remain in his office, watching pre-taped episodes of Fox and Friends and sending Jean out to get him a salad from across the road. One lunchtime she’d eaten with him, the pair tentatively discussing literature and music over the awkward tension of blurred lines their working relationship had taken upon since the incident the other night. He’d let her see too much of him, of who he really was, and that made him uncomfortable.

But how could he let her see who he was when he didn’t even know himself who he was?

Patrick had become so lost in thought that he’d walked further than he had intended, and he was now in an unfamiliar part of town. To his right was an underground jazz bar, the downwards-leading steps lined with leafy shrubs. To his left was an Irish bar, raucous laughter exploding out onto the street. 

Obviously, he turned right. 

============================================================================================================

The security on the door hadn’t recognised him and none of the bar staff were familiar, but instead of being insulted, Patrick felt oddly relieved. It felt…nice to be somewhere where no one knew who he was or who his father was or where he worked. That was a rarity these days. 

He glanced around the bar. It had a distinctly old-Hollywood vibe, with dark furnishings, plush red velvet seats, and dim lighting. Billie Holiday crooned from the sound system, and the place had a heavy aroma, something dark and musky like heavy cologne and tobacco. The bar was about half-full, but the tables were small and spaced out so that it felt much emptier, yet somehow cosier. Patrick decided he liked it here. 

The bartender was a man, so he wouldn’t be getting anything on the house, but he left a large tip anyway and took his vodka martini and Scotch on the rocks to a quiet side table nestled in the corner, underneath that infamous Marilyn Monroe white-dress photo. He leaned back and took a sip of his Scotch, savouring its smoky caramel tones instead of downing it at once like usual. Patrick closed his eyes briefly, soaking up the atmosphere. Yes. He definitely liked this place. 

When he opened his eyes, he was aware of the eerie sensation of someone watching him. He looked up and met the gaze of a young woman sitting at an adjacent table, staring at him over the top of a silver MacBook Air. She had a mass of unruly black hair and piercing green eyes heavily circled with dark liner, and it took him a moment to realise who she was. Of course. Evelyn’s weirdo cousin. What was her name again? Something weird and gender-ambiguous, he knew that much. 

“Patrick?” 

He rearranged his features into a polite smile. “Oh, hi. I didn’t see you there.”

“Evidently.” Evelyn’s weirdo cousin shut her laptop lid; she was wearing an oversized black SVA hoodie over a beat-up denim jacket. He was surprised they’d let her in the place dressed that trashy. She was even wearing a leather studded choker, for goodness sakes’ (not that Patrick didn’t find that attractive, it could almost be bondage attire, he ruminated to himself). “So where’s Evelyn tonight?”

“Out with friends.” The boredom was evident in his voice as he took another sip at his Scotch and then, realising he was too sober, downed it in one. The ice cubes rattled jarringly as he set the glass down on the table. 

“So who’re you with?” She was giving him a death stare, and he wracked his brain trying to work out if he’d (inadvertently or otherwise) offended her at one of Evelyn’s many gatherings. 

Patrick gestured to the empty chair in front of him. “Clearly nobody. I thought you college kids were meant to be smart.”

“So both drinks are yours?” He felt like he was under interrogation, and then he realised - she thought he was meeting another woman here . Which, in her defence, was highly probable - but thankfully tonight untrue. 

“Yes. Considering they don’t seem to do table service, I thought I’d spare myself a trip to the bar.” 

She rolled her eyes. “Wow, Patrick Bateman attending a bar that doesn’t do table service? Are we in an alternate universe right now?” 

“Hey, chill it with the snarkiness. We’re almost family now.” He lifted his martini glass to his lips and took two huge gulps to rectify that awful thought. 

“I bet you don’t even remember my name.” She was challenging him now, her eyes defiant and her chin jutted forward. It was difficult to tell under the bagginess of her clothes, but if she had the hardbody he was expecting, he was in for a fun night. 

Patrick took his time to answer, chewing on his cocktail stick. An unwelcome memory flashed back into his head; Paul Allen chewing on his cocktail stick in Aquivita, his lips pink and plump and-

No. Stop. Shut up. He screamed internally. He snapped the cocktail stick in half and threw it onto the table with the memory. “You’ll have to excuse me. I’m terrible with names.” 

She rolled her eyes. “Vanden. We’ve met, like, five times. It’s not exactly a common name.”

“Presumably Vanden isn’t what you were christened, though.” 

“Yeah, but don’t you think I’m more of a Vanden than an Elizabeth Rose ?” She spat the words out like a sour taste. 

Patrick had to laugh at the thought of the fiesty goth girl sat just across from him being called something so elegant and dainty. “Yes, Vanden appears much more fitting.”

“So.” Vanden folded her hands across her closed laptop; she was wearing chipped black nail polish and an assortment of silver rings. “Are you going to have to come and sit here, or am I going to have to shift my ass over to you?”

Chapter Text

Over the next couple of hours, Patrick came to learn that besides their shared maternal grandparentage and wealthy Upper East Side upbringing, Vanden and Evelyn held almost nothing in common. Evelyn liked to spend her days getting her nails done and strolling the aisles of Barneys and Macy’s; Vanden was a film major (minoring in philosophy - which was a bullshit fake subject, Patrick thought, then decided to keep to himself) who spent her evenings at poetry slams or studying in jazz bars. Evelyn talked primly and properly, with a saccharine upstate-meets-Valley Girl accent; Vanden’s voice was rougher and deeper and contained an expletive in every second sentence. And - perhaps most importantly - Evelyn’s presence was a drag whereas Vanden was actually, surprisingly, quite good company. 

“So will I be seeing you on Hollywood screens when you graduate?” He’d had another scotch and martini and then Vanden had ordered a bottle of wine (Riesling, he noted with a sigh of relief; he had expected her to come back from the bar with a lukewarm bottle of Sauvignon Blanc), and now they had a tray of shots in front of them, for a reason Patrick couldn’t quite recall. 

Vanden snorted through her septum-pierced nose. “As if. I’m studying film, not acting. I’m the one behind the camera.” 

“Shouting orders and telling everyone what to do?” 

“Depends on my mood.” She lowered her eyes in a way he could’ve sworn was seductive. Was this a set up by Evelyn? He decided to test it out. 

“So you prefer being the one getting bossed around, then?” He slowly bumped his knee against hers. She didn’t pull away. 

“Again.” She lifted her wine glass, swilled the remnants around a little but didn’t drink any. “It depends on the circumstances.”

Okay, this was definitely a setup. Did Evelyn somehow know he’d been sleeping with Courtney? It was a funny coincidence, after all, to run into someone he knew somewhere so oblivious. Just like how they’d run into Courtney and Luis at Barcadia the other day; that was a more usual haunt for his social crowd, but still odd timing nonetheless. Was it to do with what had happened at the Yacht Club? Had Cecilia told Evelyn? Was she trying to trick him into admitting he kissed Paul Allen? Why was he even thinking about Paul Allen right now?

He tuned back in, not realising she’d been talking. “It’s just so, like, unnatural, you know? It’s not how we’re meant to live. There would be so much less shit going on in the world if everyone practised it.”

“I’m sorry, I was miles away.” He downed the dregs of his wine and reached for a shot of baby Guinness, pushing one towards Vanden and then taking another for himself. “Practised what?” 

She rolled her eyes, but he knew that was more of a formality at this point. “Polygamy. It’s just not natural to have, like, one partner for all your sexual and romantic needs for your whole life. It causes more problems than it solves.” She knocked back her shot without wincing, and Patrick swiftly followed.

“So I presume you and your little boyfriend are…” 

“Open, yes.” 

Of course Patrick knew what open relationships were - in fact, he’d once suggested one to Evelyn, and received nothing but a slap in the face and a glass of Moet thrown over him in return - but he’d never actually met anyone who so openly admitted to having one. His social circle constructed their extramarital business in loosely-shrouded secrecy. 

“So you do stuff with other people? Or is it just threesomes?” This had piqued his interest, even though he was now more than convinced it was a trap. He had come here to pick up some fresh blood, hadn’t he? 

Pruder minds may have blushed at the question, but Vanden merely swigged the rest of her wine and used her thumb and forefinger to rub smudges of dark purple-red lipstick off the rim of the glass. “Both. We’re both bisexual, so it’s the perfect situation for both of us.”

“I see.” Patrick picked up another ambiguous shot - Sambuca, he reckoned - and mulled over what Vanden had just told him. Evelyn had certainly never mentioned this interesting tidbit to him, which was funny, considering she told him every piece of gossip she ever heard. 

“I know you’re judging me.” Her arms were folded across her chest and he almost laughed at the absurdity of it all. He wasn’t exactly Mr Uber-Committed. “And by the way, if you tell Evelyn any of this I’ll kill you. She looks down on me enough as it is.” 

That answered his previous question, then. “My lips are sealed, I assure you.” There was a beat as he knocked back the shot - yes, definitely sambuca, and cheap at that - followed by Vanden. “And for what it’s worth, I’ve never heard Evelyn say a bad word against you.” That was a total lie, of course, but if you’re planning on fucking someone it’s best not to bring up the fact that their own cousin called them a deadbeat weirdo. 

Vanden snorted again. “Please. She’s perfection personified. You two are like the Ken and Barbie of Wall Street.” 

Patrick tugged at his collar, suddenly feeling overheated and uncomfortable. “She’s not that perfect.” 

“Why’d you say that?” 

He’d said too much. This would inevitably get back to Evelyn. But honestly, who cared? He knew she was fucking his best friend right now, and it didn’t bother him in the slightest. Also, he was drunk, or at least sufficiently buzzed. He lifted one shoulder in a noncommittal shrug. “Nobody’s perfect.” 

There was a silence punctuated only by the soft crooning of Sinatra and glasses clinking at the bar. “So when’s the wedding?”

“Huh?” 

“You and Evelyn. Duh.”

“Oh.” He reached for the second to last shot on the tray (pure vodka) and knocked it back to avoid answering, wincing at the cheapness of it. “We haven’t really started planning it yet.” 

“I see.” Vanden rested her chin on her hand and looked at him, her face straight but her eyes twinkling. 

“See what?” 

“Nothing.” She reached over and picked up her vodka shot, knocked it back without a grimace, probably used to the cheapness of it. Vanden had money - more money than a twenty-three year old could ever need - but she preferred to maintain the lowdown, crack den lifestyle; her and her boyfriend were currently occupying some sort of enormous converted warehouse apartment with a bunch of equally wacky friends-slash-fuckbuddies. 

“So do you come here often? To study, I mean.” Patrick indicated Vanden’s laptop, the apple logo obscured by a BLM sticker; a symbolism of the rich girl playing pauper. 

“Yeah. It’s, like, twenty minutes walk from my apartment. And the ambience is nice.” She picked out the lime slice wedged into the last shot on the tray (tequila, obviously) and bit into it, her nose wrinkling. “I presume you’re not a regular here.” 

“No. I was just scoping out the area.” A thought occurred to him suddenly. “If you’re so anti-monogamy, why were you giving me Guantanamo over me being here alone with two drinks?” 

She removed the lime from her mouth, dripping with saliva (Patrick was briefly repulsed before noticing the stud in her tongue), and laughed. Patrick was briefly speechless because actually getting the so-called torture camp reference would have flown over the heads of all the other women in his life - Evelyn, Courtney, models and college girls he’d picked up at Tunnels and the Yacht Club ( don’t go there, don’t go there ), even Jean. 

“Because I didn’t have you down as the open relationship type.” 

“Vanden. Elizabeth Rose. ” The use of her birth name earned him a scowl and a lime rind thrown in his direction, but he could tell she was amused really, already won over by his buttery dulcet tones. “You’re forgetting something.” 

“And what would that be?” She lifted the shot glass to her lips and licked the salt off the edges, staring at him, challenging him. 

He took a moment to reply -  always remain silent and dignified for a bit after making a teasing statement; it builds up the tension, leaves the other person reliant on your answer, waiting for it, establishing that you are in control - neatly sliding the lime wedge out of his glass and downing the tequila in one, trying to avoid the salty rim and retching at the cheap, bitter taste. “We barely know each other.” 

“Well, then, Patrick Bateman. ” Her eyes glinted green, tempting him, as she reached for the discarded lime slice and slowly slid it into her mouth. “Why don’t we rectify that?”

============================================================================================================

They both knew what was happening as soon as they got into the back of the taxi. Their hands brushed, legs bumped together, but they spent most of the journey in silence, Vanden pointing out run-down looking haunts of hers now and then. He knew she wouldn’t be awed at his apartment - she’d grown up as a child of millionaires, after all - but even so, she came to a halt in his living room, staring round with artist’s eyes.

“Nightcap?” He moved swiftly into the kitchen, slinging his overcoat (camel, Givenchy virgin wool blend) over one of the leatherbacked stools at his never-used breakfast bar. 

“Got anything stronger?” She strolled into his kitchen and dumped her black canvas Antifa tote bag (gag) on the breakfast bar as if she owned the place. 

“Maybe…in my bedroom?” Patrick stepped closer to her, smelling patchouli and the faintest hint of weed. 

“Lead the way, then.” She stepped aside and let him past, following like an obedient puppy. He knew she wasn’t going to be the one giving the orders tonight. 

It was only once they’d passed through his living room and into the hallway that he realised. He stopped and turned around. “Shoes. Off.” 

“Sorry.” She shrugged, not seeming sorry in the slightest as she kicked off her battered Doc Martens. “Where should I put them?” 

Patrick pondered the question for far too long, thinking of his shoes in Jean’s apartment, her on the floor undressing his feet with such tender care, probably naked under her robe. “Just leave them where they are.” 

============================================================================================================

It was awkward at first. Vanden perched on one side of the bed, twisting a particularly heavy-looking signet ring around her finger (mens, possibly), while Patrick took his time unlacing his shoes and slipping them off from the other side. 

“Evelyn’s not going to-” 

“Hear a word about this?” Patrick finished the sentence for her, unbuttoning his jacket (dark pinstriped Valentino). 

“I was going to say care but sure, whatever.” 

He smirked. Evelyn didn’t give a rats ass as far as her was concerned. “Well, that too.” He removed his jacket and hung it neatly from <place>. When he turned round, unknotting his tie, she was still sitting there, legs folded, fully dressed. “Take your clothes off.” 

He noticed the shock on her face at his abrupt tone, and then the blush creep into her cheeks as she realised what the situation was. As she made a move to slide off her jacket, Patrick turned away, undressing until he was only in his boxer shorts (again Calvin Klein, but this time black). He rubbed himself discreetly through the fabric; usually he’d be at least semi-aroused by this point. And he was - mentally, at least. But his genitals didn’t seem to be cooperating. He wondered if it was the cheap booze. His tastes were much too refined for that crap. 

When he turned back around, Vanden was dressed only in her bra and thong (both lace, the former black and the latter a deep shade of scarlet red) and had her hands up, poised to unbutton her choker.

“No.” Patrick was using his most authoritative voice, the one that had got Evelyn to attempt repeatedly to get him to finger her in the back of the cab on the way home from Barcadia the other night (he hadn’t obliged, obviously, he wasn’t from the Bronx). “The choker stays on.” 

“Yes, sir.” Good. Yes. He liked that. His cock began to stiffen, to his relief. He took a long look at Vanden’s body. She was taller than Evelyn and Courtney, around Jean’s height; she was thicker than he was used to, but her ass and tits were pleasantly large. Tattoos inked across her arms, snaking down her midriff onto her thighs. He wasn’t a big fan of tattoos; they looked cheap and trashy. But maybe cheap and trashy was what he needed. 

The air was heavy with awkwardness again as they made their way onto the middle of the bed, cautiously eying each other up like this was a trick, a game. Patrick hooked a finger under the front of her choker and pulled her towards him, their lips clashing together in a frenzied embrace. 

This wasn’t going to be a slow, passionate, love-making session; this was going to be fast and rough, just how he liked it and, by the way she was already tugging at his boxers, how she liked it too. He took her hands away and pushed her onto her back, encircling both hands at the wrist with one of his and using the other to position himself over her. “I’m in charge. I decide when.” 

“Yes, sir.” Her lipstick was already smeared over the bottom half of her face, and her hair looked especially stark and black splayed out over his eggshell-white satin pillowcases. She was the complete opposite of blondless and elegance, cleanliness, clean-shaven-ness- 

He paused. Where the fuck had that come from?

But he had no time to contemplate upon his train of thought further, as Vanden was wriggling beneath him, arching her back like a feral cat. Patrick flipped her onto her front in one swift movement, not caring about the mess her lipstick would make of his pillows (he’d just have Jean order him some more tomorrow) and slapped her ass; one, two, three hard and satisfying smacks. She moaned at the impact, and he slid a finger round the narrow string of her thong, pulling it aside. 

“Already so wet. Good girl.” This was going to be good, he could tell. This was what the issue was; Courtney and Evelyn were just getting too repetitive, and there was no spark with hookers or random hardbodies. This was just the fresh blood he needed. 

He expertly unhooked Vanden’s bra with one hand, still pinning her wrists against her back with the other; reaching round, he found her nipple amongst a handful of soft flesh and - just as he expected - it was pierced. He twisted the piercing, hard. 

Vanden gave a little yelp, either of shock or pain, he couldn’t tell. He spanked her a couple more times for good measure. “Get onto your front.”

He loosened his grip on her wrists as she turned to face him, tossing her bra to the side. Shit, she was stacked. Why couldn’t Evelyn have inherited these tit genes? The piercings were a little unusual to him, but not enough to put him off. 

“Should I take these off too?” Her eyes glinted green as she hooked her thumb under the edge of her thong. 

“Did I tell you you could take them off?” 

She ducked her head in mock shame, clouds of black hair surrounding her. “No, sir.” 

“Then the answer is no.” He pushed her so that she was lying flat on her back again, and then pushed his thumbs through the flimsy lace at the front of her underwear, tearing it apart in spite of her gasp. She’d probably bought these at Target, anyway, so who cared? He pulled the flimsy piece of fabric out from underneath her, tossed it over his shoulder, and spread her legs. 

Patrick Bateman excelled at almost everything he did, but one thing he took particular pleasure in was the fact that there was not a single woman he’d never given an orgasm to. Not that he cared about their gratification, of course, it was the pride it gave him to give a woman her first real orgasm, to have her lying there shaking and twitching, in shock because they didn’t think it possible that a man could even do that. 

He began to kiss the inside of Vanden’s thighs, slowly kissing and nipping and then, when she started to squirm more, biting into her milk-white flesh. A groan elicited from her lips, and he could tell it wasn’t from the pain. Shit . This might have to become a regular thing if she was as kinky as he thought. 

He reached her pussy, and took his time now, gently tracing her tongue around her lips. She wove her hands into his hair, but quick as a flash, he had them both in his grasp again, pinning them to either side of her torso as he continued his slow, agonising journey. 

“Patrick, please .” He liked how husky and low her voice was. He ground his growing erection against the bedsheets, enjoying the contrast of skin on cotton on silk. 

“Shut up. I didn’t give you permission to talk.” He sounded like some virgin cosplaying as Christian Gray, but it didn’t seem to turn his subject off. She arched her back again, grinding against the air. 

He dipped his head back down and began tracing his tongue round her clit in long, slow, steady circles. The whine coming from Vanden’s lips seemed to indicate she approved, and he debated taking his time, before remembering: hard, fast, and dirty. 

It only took a minute (two, tops) of licking and sucking at her swollen clit before Vanden came, crying out as her lower body convulsed and wetness trickled down onto the sheets underneath. Before she’d even had a chance to recover, Patrick had her on her front, again. 

“Get on your hands and knees, slut.” 

Still trembling, she obliged. Patrick pulled down his boxers and positioned himself at her entrance, running his hardened cock up and down her pussy, extracting yet more groans. Precum was already pooling at the tip, and when he pushed himself into her, feeling her tight walls enveloping him, he knew it wouldn’t take for him to come. 

And it didn’t. Four or five minutes of deep, hard thrusting, his hands clenching Vanden’s fleshy hips so tightly that there would surely be bruises there for days, glancing sideways at himself in the mirror the whole time, admiring his biceps and chiselled upper body. He felt the familiar stirring deep in his groin and picked up the pacing, slamming harder and harder into her pussy until he exploded inside. 

“Fuck,” he breathed out, the aftershocks of his orgasm shooting through his cock. He held himself in place for a few more thrusts and then slid out. 

It was as he was doing this the image popped into his head. 

Strong, tanned hands, roaming all over his body, grabbing him by the hips, feeling his arousal as his body pressed up against his- 

What the FUCK?

Patrick gave Vanden’s ass once last slap, as if to banish the thought from his head, and flopped onto his back, his mind reeling. Vanden, also panting but presumably less concerned, turned over and lay down next to him. 

It was her who spoke first. “You better be clean.” 

“Huh?” He was miles away. 

“I said, you better be clean.”

“Me?” He propped himself up on one arm, his chest still rising and falling. “Aren’t you fucking about twenty people right now?” 

“Yeah, and that’s why I get tested every six weeks, duh.” 

“Well, I’m clean. So don’t worry about it.” He hoisted himself off the bed and went into the bathroom to pee, getting a sense of deja vu; was it really only last night he’d been over at Courtney’s?

He felt itchy. He could feel the unpleasant sensation of sweat coating his body, various bodily fluids - his and hers - on his cock, and there was lipstick smeared over the lower half of his face. But it wasn’t that, nor the faint scent of patchouli on his skin or the taste of cheap booze in his mouth. Not even the fact he’d just had sex with his fiancee’s cousin. 

He just couldn’t shake the memory from his head. Paul Allen. He’d kissed Paul Allen. On the mouth, with tongues. And he’d enjoyed it. 

He washed his hands four times, but it didn’t feel enough; he repeated the pattern, counting carefully until he’d washed sixteen times and his skin was stinging. He winced at the look of the lipstick on his face; it was most likely a cheap drugstore brand that would play havoc with his skin pH. He hastily washed it off before heading back into the bedroom. 

Vanden was already mostly dressed, just pulling her hoodie over head. Patrick was relieved at her hastiness to go. He wasn’t in the mood for cosy post-coital chitchat. 

“That’ll be a hundred dollars. I can take Amex if you don't have cash.” The girl had piled her raven hair on top of her head and was shrugging on his denim jacket. 

“Oh. I. Uh. What?”

Vanden’s face broke into a teasing smile. “I’m kidding, dumbass. This was fun.” 

“Uh, yeah. Yeah. It was. We should do it again sometime.”

“You think Evelyn would care?” 

“Do you?” 

“Do I think she’d care, or do I care that I just banged her fiancee?” 

“Either. Both.” He bent down to retrieve his underwear, feeling like a naked, exposed child in front of her all of a sudden. 

“I dunno. I don’t care.” Vanden shrugged.

“Good. Well, me neither.” 

“Anyway, gotta head. No pun intended.” She started to make her way out the door before she turned. “And yes, to answer your question. Maybe I’ll even bring a friend next time.” 

Patrick uttered something vaguely satisfactory as his fiancee’s cousin left his apartment, leaving nothing behind but a lipstick-stained pillowcase and his own terrible thoughts. 

Chapter Text

By the time Friday morning dawned, Patrick still felt the same sense of itchy discomfort he’d been wrestling with since the previous night. After Vanden’s departure, he stood under the shower for what seemed like hours, letting the scalding water burn away any remaining traces of patchouli and dark lipstick from his skin. He’d stripped the bedsheets, bundling them into a clear plastic bag ready for the dry cleaners, folded inwards on themselves so that no trace of his dalliance could be spotted to the outside observer. And upon wakening, he did an extra two hundred stomach crunches, as if the more toned his stomach was the more he’d start to feel like himself again. 

It wasn’t working. 

In the car on the way to P&P, he briefly ruminated over whether or not he should get an STI test, but he knew deep down this feeling of quiet discontent that threatened to spill out of him if someone so much glanced in his direction wasn’t due to what had happened with Vanden; nor was it due to the fact that this particular strain of infidelity had occurred so close to home (that hardly bothered him, considering he’d been sleeping with his fiancee’s best friend for almost two years now). 

He dissolved one, two, three klonopins under his tongue as the car crawled through the early morning traffic; the sky was grey and overcast, the clouds hanging so low it felt like you could reach up and step right into one. Patrick longed to fall into a deep, soft grey cloud and be enveloped within it forever. The driver was playing shitty pop music and everything was both too loud and too distant and quiet at the same time. He arrived at the building on autopilot, wasn't even fully aware of his surroundings until he’d got to his own office. He was placing his briefcase on the desk, and Jean was standing in the doorway, her mouth moving pointlessly as she told him what pointless meetings he had today and what pointless calls needed returning. 

“I need these taken to the dry cleaners.” He cut her off mid-flow, removing the offensive plastic bag from his suitcase and handing them over to the young secretary. 

“Oh, sure.” She looked confused and Patrick couldn’t work out precisely why he hadn’t just left them out for the cleaners to take care of as usual. His mind was all over the place recently. Maybe he needed to lay off the benzos for a bit, or at least until after lunch. “Do you have any, um, special instructions for them?” 

“Just take them to the little Korean place off the corner of South Street. There’s lipstick on them, but it’s cheap shit. Emphasise that to them. I want them back whiter than Alabama.” 

“Uh…okay.” Jean stared at the bag in her hand as if it was about to come alive and bite her. 

Patrick pulled his horn-rimmed Oliver Peoples glasses out of their case (black, pure embossed leather) and used the edge of his tie to wipe imaginary specks off the lenses, his hands only shaking a little from the clonazepam. He’d definitely taken too much for so early. “Also, if Evelyn calls, tell her I’m busy all day and I’ll see her tomorrow evening.” 

“Right.” Jean’s lips hardened into a firm line as she turned for the door. “Anything else I can do for you, Patrick?” 

“Yes.” He slid his glasses on and took a good look at her. Her hair was in a low bun again, secured with a large tortoiseshell clasp, and she was clad in a shapeless, baggy brown skirt suit and matching flats. The dowdiness of it almost made him shudder. Her knees were covered, for goodness’ sakes! “Never wear that outfit again.” 

“I-I’m sorry?” She raised a tentative hand to her chest, to the area where her breasts would be if they weren’t buried beneath a pile of polyester and viscose. 

“I said, never wear that outfit again. Better yet, burn it. Burn the whole ensemble.” 

“What’s wrong with it?” Jean looked forlornly down at her shoes. 

“Nothing, if you’re a sixty-year-old Jehovah's Witness working at a bank in Queens. You’re too pretty for…” He waved a hand dismissively round the general shape of her. “This.” 

Jean’s cheeks had pinkened, making her look even younger, more Lolita-esque. And here was he, the predator, the Humbert Humbert of P&P, wanting to dress her up pretty like his little doll. Jean wasn’t like the other secretaries, the ones that tended to his friends’ every - and he meant every - need, coming into work looking more like they were headed for the casting couch than taking calls for a finance broker. 

“It’s comfortable.” Jean was meekly looking up at him through her eyelashes, as though she was in trouble and had resigned herself to her fate. Patrick sighed. 

“Next week, we’ll go to Barney’s and I’ll buy you a new wardrobe. One that doesn’t scream ‘granny chic’.” He let his hands form air quotes as Jean opened and shut her rosebud mouth in protest, like a little fish. 

“Patrick, I don’t-” 

“On the company card.” He propped his glasses on the top of his head. “You wouldn’t buy a mansion in Connecticut and decorate it like you were in South Carolina, would you?” 

Tossing a wink in her direction, and really wishing he hadn’t popped that third klonopin, he breezed past her and down the corridor to the open conference room, leaving her standing in silence with the dry cleaning bag in hand. 

============================================================================================================

In the conference room, McDermott and Van Patten were engrossed in what looked like a pretty serious legal document but was, upon closer inspection, a game of noughts and crosses. Bryce was flirting with his secretary, who was perched on the table above him, giving not so much fuck me eyes as we’re already fucking and will be into next week, until you inevitably get bored of me or I get too clingy and you have to fire me eyes. And Luis fucking Carruthers was sat across from them, wearing a purple velvet bow tie and browsing Grindr or male gangbang porn or whatever faggots did in their spare time on his Macbook. 

“Aha, you’re alive!” Bryce jostled as Patrick made his way into the room and sat a few seats down from Luis. “We were starting to think you’d got AIDS or something.”

“Yeah, this is the first time we’ve seen you in the conference room in like, a week.” McDermott glanced up from his game. He was losing, badly (and most likely purposefully, as Van Patten was a notoriously sore loser). 

“We were beginning to worry.” This last contribution came from Luis, and it made Patrick want to scream so loud all the windows in the room shattered and send splinters of broken glass flying into his eyes. 

“Well, as touching as your concern is, I’ve been just fine.” Patrick wracked his brain, trying to remember what he’d been doing the past week. He remembered last night, of course. And he’d seen Courtney at one point, and Evelyn too - was that only this week? And of course, there was the Yacht Club- 

“So, Bateman.” Van Patten drew a victorious line through his row of O s and sat back, smug satisfaction emulating off him in waves. “We’re discussing where to go tonight. McDermott flunked out getting reservations at Dorsia, so we’re eating at Pastels.” He rolled his eyes as though McDermott had got them reservations at Pizza Express. 

“I did not flunk out!” The shorter man began to argue, but Bryce cut him off. “We’re thinking of going to the strip club after. Not Lace, before anyone starts their bitching.” 

“The bitching is justified,” an indignant-looking McDermott argued. “Last time we went there, I got a lap dance from a fucking whale. I nearly ended up in the ER!”

“You’re always so fucking melodramatic, dude. She wasn’t even that fat,” Bryce retorted, visibly trailing his fingers up and down his secretary’s stockinged calf. 

“Look, Bryce, Lace might be your kind of joint, but you wouldn’t find a hardbody in there if you were on your hands and knees doing a fingertip search.” Patrick finally decided to weigh in, and felt satisfaction bloom in his chest as his commentary earned him snickers from McDermott and Van Patten. And Luis, obviously. But then again, Patrick could read the White Pages and Luis would find it fucking funny. 

“So where do you suggest?” Bryce’s eyes were on him now, green and challenging. 

“We could go to Tunnels,” offered Van Patten. 

Patrick hoped his wince wasn’t visible. Thinking about Tunnels made him think about last night, which made him think about Vanden, and then the itchy and uncomfortable feeling was back and he still couldn’t work out why. 

“Nah, Tunnels is shit on a Friday. All the art school weirdos are always out then,” objected McDermott. “What about the Yacht Club?” 

Time stopped. It was like the watches found amongst the debris of Ground Zero at what had once been the World Trade Centre, their hands forever etched into their owners’ last moments. It was like the turn of the millennium, but presuming the computers had all gone insane and crashed and caused the world to collapse. It was like Challenger, exploding in midair, captured in stills on TV screens across the globe. Patrick felt as though the air was being drawn from his lungs, and scrabbled at his tie with desperate claw-like hands in an attempt to loosen it. 

Everyone round the table was nodding, agreeing that the Yacht Club should be decent and you know it’ll be full of hot NYU girls tonight and Patrick didn’t even notice that Bryce’s secretary had left the room or Luis’ eyes were fixed upon him. “No!” he almost yelled; he thought it had been in his head, but three pairs of eyes turned to his face and he realised he’d spoken out loud. “No,” he said, calmer, more assertively. “I think we should go to a strip club. But not Lace. Sorry to get your hopes up, Bryce.” 

The conversation turned back into which strip club and what time and Patrick was so relieved the spotlight was off him he hadn’t realised that Luis had crept down the seats in between them, so he was right beside him. 

“Patrick, are you okay? You’re sweating.” 

Patrick swatted the limp, pale hand off away before it made contact with his shoulder and was about to snap out a retort or a joke or snap Luis’ fucking wrist in half when Jean appeared at the door, timidly knocking on the doorframe like a schoolgirl being called to the principal’s office. 

“Uh, Patrick?” 

“Yes, Jean?” He didn’t like how the other guys’ eyes swivelled to face her, drinking her in. She was for his eyes and for him only. 

“There’s a phone call for you. It’s pretty urgent.” 

“Tell whoever it is I’ll get back to them later.” Patrick Bateman didn’t do urgent calls. It was incredibly rude to call up and demand to speak to someone as a matter of urgency, without taking into consideration any plans they might have. 

“I, uh. It’s your dad.” 

Bryce, Van Patten, and McDermott all slid back round to face Patrick, letting out a low and juvenile oooooooh, and suddenly Patrick was the one getting called to the principal’s office. 

“Excuse me.” He stood up briskly and pushed his way out of the room. 

“Tell Daddy we send kisses!” Bryce heckled behind him. 

Patrick could hear Jean’s soft footsteps as he strode back down to his office, mind whirring. His father never called at work. His father never called, full stop. Their correspondence was strictly limited to Christmas cards and occasional emails when Sean Bateman had been mentioned in a Forbes article and decided it was important enough to be emailed to Patrick with the subject line “SEAN BATEMAN - PAGE 69”, emails which were moved to the trash without even being opened. 

But this…this was not normal. 

“Thanks, Jean,” he said curtly upon reaching his office, closing the door that separated the two of them. He could sense in her eyes that the uniqueness of this unnerved her just as much as it did him. Shutting the door felt like cutting off his oxygen supply, turning off his life support. He sat down behind his desk and picked up the phone. 

“Father?” 

“Patrick.” There it was; the unmistakable gruff bark of his father’s voice, threatening to send him to military school unless his grades improved or chastising him for not having a date to prom. So much and yet so little had changed with age. 

“Your grandfather’s dead.” 

Patrick sat completely still, afraid that if he opened his mouth twenty-seven years’ worth of bile and venom and hate might spill out, terrified that if he moved he’d awaken and find this was all just a dream.

He’d pictured this day for so long. How it might happen, how he might find out. How he might - if he was capable of feeling anything, that was, which he sincerely doubted - feel. Would he be relieved? Angry? In mourning, even?

But he simply felt nothing. It was as if his father just told him it was going to rain later. 

“Oh,” was all he said. 

“Yes. One of his nurses came in and found his body last night. Apparently there was some mix-up over scheduling and some foreign retards not understanding the difference between AM and PM, so no one had tended to him for almost three days. Post mortem estimated the old bugger had been dead for the best part of two.”

Patrick felt like a little kid again, turning on the TV for background noise in an otherwise vast and silent house, just letting the words wash over him without taking it in. 

“Anyway, they had to do a post mortem because no one witnessed the death. But nothing unusual, just a massive cardiac arrest he’d never have survived anyway.” 

“Did he…” Patrick let the words trail off into the sky, hoping his father would telephonically reach them from the Hamptons and finish the sentence for him. “I mean, would he have…”

“Speak up, Patrick, I can’t hear you,” Sean barked. From the quiet hustle and chatter in the background, he guessed his father was in the golf club. 

“Would he have suffered long? Or would it have killed him instantly?” Patrick realised he was biting his knuckle and drew his hand back. 

“Oh, no. Apparently the loss of oxygen is what would have killed him. So he’d have been in agony for a couple of minutes.” Sean sounded as emotionless as Patrick felt. He could’ve been listing off the specials at Barcadia for all he sounded. “Still, he was getting on a bit. Funeral’s a week today, I’ll have Jeanette email you the address and time and whatnot. I’m meeting with his solicitor shortly and I’ll let you know how much you’ve inherited, but it’ll be around the twenty million mark. Speaking of which, I ought to go and get ready to meet him.”

Words and numbers and names were swirling round Patrick’s head and he couldn’t take any of it in. He needed air, fresh air. He stood up and paced to the window, shoving his hand under the blind and fidgeting with the latch. 

“So, yes. Quite sad I suppose, but he was getting on a bit.”Sean’s voice was reverberating through Patrick’s head, vibrating into his temples. “I’ll speak to you soon once I’ve sorted shit out with the solicitor.” 

“Okay,” Patrick merely mumbled in response, giving up on the fresh air since he couldn’t work out how to open the damn latch - who needs oxygen anyway? Not his grandfather, that’s for sure! Ha! Ha!. “Speak soon.” 

He placed the phone back into its holder and rubbed his temples, picturing his elderly grandfather lying on the floor, gasping for breath, for help, anyone, please, someone, a ten year old boy, struggling and fighting, gasping for air, life fading from his eyes-

There was a knock at the door and when he didn’t answer, it swung open to reveal Jean. “Everything okay?” she asked. 

Patrick felt a grin break out over his face. “Everything’s just great, Jean! Just fine and dandy!” 

“O-okay,” she said slowly. “What did your dad want?” 

“My grandfather died.” Why was he still grinning? He felt nothing, inside; outside, he could feel a ridiculously large smile growing over his face. “He had a massive heart attack and was left to die alone, and they didn’t find his body for THREE DAYS!”

“Oh, Patrick, how awful, ” Jean’s face crumpled. “I’m so sorry.” 

“Don’t be!” Patrick barked out a short, nervous laugh. “He was fucking ancient anyway!” With that, he burst into laughter. Genuine, shoulder-shaking, belly-aching laughter. Jean just stared, her eyes huge and round and ocean-blue. Reasonably, he thought, she had never seen him laugh like this before after all. 

“Patrick, are you okay? Do you want me to go and get - I don’t know - Bryce or someone?” 

Patrick straightened up and took a few deep breaths to compose himself, reminding himself of the crows feet that would be forming on his face if he continued to laugh. “No. I think I’ll take the rest of the day off. We are going to the strip club tonight, so I need to make sure my hair looks perfect. I might get a facial, actually.” 

“Patrick, I think you’re in shock.” Jean’s voice followed him into her office, where he was already shrugging on his coat. “Are you sure you don’t want to sit down for a moment? I’ll make you a coffee?” 

“Jean. Jean, Jean, Jean.” He was getting the urge to laugh again. “Take the day off. Go wild. Go get your nails done or something.” 

He was halfway out the open door when he thought to lean back in and soothe her nerves once more. “Don’t worry about me, Jean! I’m just a happy camper!” 

============================================================================================================

Walking through the corridors of P&P still chuckling to himself, Patrick found acquaintances giving him strange looks out of the corner of their eyes. Is that Pat Bateman, laughing? What’s got into him? Isn’t it a bit early to be doing coke? Well, I suppose it is Friday after all. Yes, that's true. 

He was still chuckling when he got to the elevator, and when he pressed the button for it to rise, and when the doors opened. And then he stopped. 

Looking back at him were a pair of green, green eyes. Paul fucking Allen was standing in front of him. 

He opened his mouth to speak, but Patrick was already laughing again, already turning away. 

"You know what? I think I'll take the stairs!" he joyously shouted, as Paul Allen just stood and stared. 

Chapter Text

Seeing Luis Carruthers inside a (female) strip club was a sight to behold. The poor man was sitting rigidly in his chair, both hands wrapped around his martini glass so hard that his knuckles had turned white, looking around himself with eyes as wide as a baby owl’s. Every time a scantily-clad woman walked past him he retreated into himself, with a panicked look overcoming his sweaty white face. It would have been hilarious if it wasn’t so damn sad. 

Bryce was outside, negotiating prices with his dealer; Van Patten had already found a busty (fake) Asian chick to go for a private dance with. Patrick was left sitting inbetween Luis and McDermott, who just would not shut the fuck up. 

“And then I said to him, you might hate the man - God knows why, he’s the only so-called ‘politician’ that speaks a grain of truth nowadays - but his clothing choices are impeccable. Not in the sense that the fabric is a good quality or anything like that - in fact it’s quite the opposite - but strategically. If we’re talking strategically. I mean, no one does it better.” 

Patrick was only vaguely listening. He cast a half-hearted eye around the room, illuminated with a soft purple glow, their table positioned perfectly an adequate distance from both the stage and the bar. Half-naked hardbodies were serving drinks and chatting up patrons, and although he’d experienced a flurry of them flocking to take his drink order as soon as he’d sat down, he wasn’t in the mood for a dance tonight. 

After leaving the office, he’d gone straight downtown for a facial and massage, and then back home, where he’d done an impromptu workout and then screamed into a pillow until his vocal chords were hoarse. He needed to punch something. He felt pent up with anger and restless rage. At what, he couldn’t quite work out. There was an ache inside him, a yearning chasm, one that had deepened and widened upon hearing his father’s news earlier, and one that he couldn’t quite manage to fix, despite the boorish company of his friends and the copious amounts of smoked lobster and champagne he’d consumed in Pastels. 

Maybe a lap dance was what he needed, after all. 

“What do you think, Patrick? I know you worship the man, but you gotta have an opinion on this,” McDermott chattered on, as the void inside Patrick was momentarily soothed by picturing slamming his fist into his friend’s mouth and watching his teeth scatter on the floor like snow. 

“What do I think about what, McDermott?” Patrick snapped, downing his vodka martini and wondering if they’d used the house vodka by accident or something because this did not taste as good as it should have done and was it worth complaining? The bartender didn’t even look old enough to drink, let alone distinguish between Stolli and Smirnoff. 

“Donald Trump’s fashion sense! Or lack of. What do you think?” McDermott slugged back his drink, seemingly not noticing the potentially shitty vodka. 

Patrick opened his mouth to reply, but a flurry at the door startled him. Mindlessly, he turned to see if he knew who it was, and was greeted with the view of four guys he vaguely recognised from work, one of which was currently swaggering -

No. 

“Like, yeah, his tailor needs executed. But the way his jackets are so obnoxiously big hides how fat he’s really got. I mean, Bateman, did you see that photo of him in-” 

“Shut up,” Patrick interrupted, his eyes following the group of guys to the bar. That wasn’t…surely, it couldn’t be… “Who’s that at the bar?”

“Uh…” McDermott craned his head back, unbothered at the abrupt halt of his Trump fashion review. “That’s Baxter, Halberstram, is that Fitzpatrick?”

“He’s still in Aruba,” Luis weedily piped up. 

“Oh yeah, fuck, I think it’s Carter then. Or is it-” 

“The guy at the end. The one talking to the bartender.” Patrick interrupted again. The music slowed and reverborated and warped itself round inside his brain while the pair peered over at the bar. 

“Oh, it’s Paul Allan!” The second the words left Luis’ lips, Patrick’s heart jolted. What if he was going to tell everyone about the Yacht Club? What if he’d already told Halberstram and the others? 

“Oh yeah, it is Allan!” McDermott proclaimed joyously. Before Patrick could acknowledge the horrible sequence of events that were about to unfold in front of him, his friend had raised his arm and was hollering towards the bar. “Hey, Allan! ALLAN! Over here!” 

Paul fucking Allen finished paying and turned towards the voice, a drink in each hand, his movements fluid and smooth. Patrick focused intently on the floor, on the carpet that was meant to look expensive but really just looked tacky, like God, why did no one know how to style anything nowadays? Except himself, obviously, except him. Was Paul fucking Allan really about to barge in with his posse and just sit there like they’d been invited?

“McDermott!” He heard the voice, deep and confident, above him. McDermott stumbled to his feet to shake hands with Paul fucking Allan. Patrick stayed glued to his chair, his feet turning to concrete on the floor. 

“Allan! Good to see you,” Patrick could hear the idiot saying, somewhere far away, as if he was underwater, and how at that moment Patrick wished he was - just one of the hundreds of forgotten, bloated corpses clogging up the Hudson, never to be seen or heard again. 

“Want to join us? Bryce is outside trying to score a gram, and Van Patten’s getting sucked off by a whore, so they’ll be back soon.” 

WHAT? No! Who the fuck did McDermott think he was? It wasn’t up to him to decide to invite that smug bastard and his posse of asslickers to sit with them. The jocks of P&P. Except Luis, but he was a small price to pay for the social superiority given by the glorious title of VP. 

“Sure.”

Patrick considered excusing himself on the premise of going to get another drink and then disappearing, à la Ghislaine Maxwell. He had connections all across the world, he could probably get a fake passport within an hour. Jean could come with him. Maybe- 

He was jolted from his thoughts as he felt the presence of someone sitting down to his left. The musky scent of Tom Ford Tobacco Ouid filled his nostrils, making all the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. The itchy, uncomfortable feeling from earlier - which had been replaced all afternoon by the yearning chasm - was back. Paul fucking Allan was sitting right beside him. 

As the rest of the men broke off into nondescript chatter, Paul fucking Allan turned right to Patrick - as if everything was normal, as if the earth hadn’t just fallen off its axis and bounced away through the universe - and gave him a smile. “How’s things, Bateman?” 

“Fine. Fine.” He smiled tightly in return, nodding his head and trying to look everywhere except stupid Paul and his stupid fucking smug face. “And you?”

“Oh, tremendous.” Allan looked Patrick right in the eyes and smiled, his stupid fucking dimple winking in his cheek. He leaned in closer and dropped his voice a note. “Is that how you treat the bitches you fuck?” 

“Is wh- what ?” Surely he’d misheard. He tugged at his collar; the music was far too loud, he could barely hear a thing. Who owned this shithole nowadays, anyway? 

“Do you get them drunk and then leave after making out with them, too? Or did I get the special package?” 

Patrick tried to speak, but he felt like a fish, floundering around on the boardwalk with blood pouring from its head, frantically trying to breathe, as his father and grandfather looked on and urged him to stop being such a fucking pussy! and just bash its brains out, faggot! 

“Not. Here.” He managed to spit out through clenched lips. He rose to his feet - somewhat unsteadily, but he blamed it on the shitty cheap vodka - and made his way to the bathroom. The other guys were still engrossed in loud conversation, but Luis was sitting alone and could he have heard? Fuck it, who cares - it’s Luis fucking Carruthers, who gives a shit what he says?

Patrick could hear footsteps behind him but didn’t slow his pace until he’d got to the toilets and stood, one hand planted either side of the sink, staring at himself in the mirror. He was full of so much burning anger he felt like ripping the sink out of the wall and breaking it over Paul fucking Allen’s head. 

After what seemed like an eternity, the door swung open, revealing a suited Paul Allen holding a tumbler of something dark, glasses (the exact same tortoiseshell horn rimmed Oliver Peoples pair Patrick had, the fucking bastard ) propped ontop of his head. 

“Hey, Bateman,” he said, and the bastard was actually laughing. “I was joking. And if you’re concerned I’ve told anyone, rest assured. It’s our little secret.” He leaned, arms and ankles folded, against the ornamental pillar that had been planted haphazardly in the middle of the room with a condom machine fixed upon it. Somewhere, in the deep abscess of Patrick’s mind, there was something ironic about that. 

He turned to face the other man, exhilaration coursing through his veins. “Is that what you do with chicks, Allen? Purposefully drug them and then shove your tongue down their throats?” 

The teasing grin slid from Paul’s face. “What?” 

“You know exactly what,” Patrick spat. 

“Just what are you instituting, Bateman?” Allen set his glass aside, next to the sink, his eyes narrowed to slits. 

“That shit we took. You knew it wasn’t coke.” 

“Actually, I didn’t. And I can show you the texts to my dealer to prove it.” Allen’s voice was hard as he flicked through his phone and held it out to Patrick. “As you can read, my order got mixed up with someone else’s. The first indication I had that it wasn’t coke was when my jaw started grinding on the upper deck of the Yacht Club.” 

“You’re lying.” He had to be lying, because otherwise the truth was that he’d had no idea he wasn’t giving Patrick coke, and therefore hadn’t drugged him, and that meant he’d wanted to kiss him too and- wait, ‘too’? He’d clearly had too much to drink and none of this made sense and- 

“What exactly are you accusing me of, Bateman?” 

“You know exactly what.” He took a breath in. “You basically assaulted me.”

He had to have. Because otherwise…

Otherwise…

What had happened was too horrible, too grotesque, too confusing, to comprehend. 

Paul dipped his head, laughing a little as he slid his phone back into his pocket. Then he looked up, and he wasn’t laughing anymore. 

“Don’t say that to me.” He took a step towards Patrick; the air between them evaporating. “Don’t you fucking dare, Bateman.” 

“Or what?” Patrick wasn’t sure if he whispered or spoke the words. He was too focused on breathing, on looking everywhere but those stupid green eyes. 

In a heartbeat, Paul had sprung across the room, closing the gap between them; he reached out and grabbed onto the lapels of Patrick’s jacket before he had the chance to react, bunching it up towards his neck as he slammed his back against the wall. 

Patrick didn’t know if he was going to attack him, or do something much worse, or-

“Never say that to me again.” Paul’s breathing was ragged but his words were calm, collected, icy cool. His breath smelt like Smints, and his cologne was so strong it was giving Patrick a headache. His face was so close to Patrick’s he could see his reflection in the pupil of Paul’s eye. If he looked him in the eye, that was, which he wouldn’t, because what kind of faggot - 

“I don’t expect a City brat like you will understand this, but I have a younger sister. She’s my whole world. And she was drugged and raped my freshman year of college.” Paul tightened his grip around Patrick’s neck and then let him go, abruptly turning away and running his hands through his hair, breathing heavily. Patrick felt a wave of nausea hit him as he discreetly rubbed at his neck, blindly noting that his suit hadn’t been too badly crumpled by the other man’s little tantrum. How was he supposed to know shit like that?

“So don’t you ever accuse me of something that heinous again, Bateman.” Paul spun back round and stabbed an accusatory finger into Patrick’s chest. “You don’t know how traumatic something like that is. You don’t know shit, okay? So go fuck yourself.” 

With that, he picked up his glass and turned to leave the small bathroom. Patrick was standing, still shellshocked - not so much from Allan’s outburst, but from what he’d said - still speechless. He could hear footsteps and voices in the background, and suddenly the door opened, Bryce, McDermott, and Van Patten spilling in, laughing and joking. 

“We were just talking!” the latter was protesting. 

“Yeah, for twenty minutes!” jostled Bryce. “New record! Oh, hey Allan - didn’t see you there!” 

Paul turned in the doorway, casting a gaze dripping with contempt over the four men assembled. 

Patrick tried to say something - anything - but the words wouldn’t come out. 

“By the way., Bateman!” Allen shouted. He wasn't really shouting; just speaking in his normal authoritative tone, but a lull had fallen in the other men's conversations and the room was so small, so claustrophobic, that he may as well have been screaming. “Need I remind you that it was you that made the first move, not me!” 

And with that, he had swept out the room, leaving behind a whirlwind of musky cologne, three very confused men, and one very visibly shaken up Patrick Bateman. 

Chapter Text

Paul turned in the doorway, casting a gaze dripping with contempt over the four men assembled. 

Patrick tried to say something - anything - but the words wouldn’t come out. 

“By the way., Bateman!” Allen shouted. He wasn't really shouting; just speaking in his normal authoritative tone, but a lull had fallen in the other men's conversations and the room was so small, so claustrophobic, that he may as well have been screaming. “Need I remind you that it was you that made the first move, not me!” 

And with that, he had swept out the room, leaving behind a whirlwind of musky cologne, three very confused men, and one very visibly shaken up Patrick Bateman. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bar the whirring of the air-con, the room was silent, the four men standing like chess pieces on the toilet floor. It was a face-off, a showdown. Who would crack first?

“What the fuck is he on about?” Bryce demanded, breaking the ice after what seemed like forty years.

“What’s who on about?” Patrick cringed so hard internally that he was certain it must be showing on his face. He could feel every cell and nerve ending of his body cringing and convulsing with embarrassment, twisting and knotting together until his body threatened to spontaneously combust. He imagined screaming, so loud it would shatter the mirrors and leave his friends deaf forever, so hard it sucked up all the oxygen in the room and suffocated the life out of everyone. 

“Uh, Paul Allen?” Bryce was looking at Patrick as though he’d just grown a third eye on his forehead, or suddenly sprouted a tail. He was too sober for this. Everyone was too sober for this, for fucks sake! Were they watering down the drinks here?

“Oh. Yeah. We were just talking about the Fischer account.” Patrick turned to the mirror and began smoothing out the creases in his collar, before realising the three other men were standing in a row like cardboard cutouts behind him. He could see them all watching him, analysing him, interrogating him with their eyes, through the mirror. What were you REALLY talking about? What happened between you two? You’ve been acting weird since the Yacht Club, Patrick. People are starting to talk. 

He swiftly moved his hands to his tie, superficially adjusting the knot and straightening it up, feeling the urge both to shut the hell up and to keep talking, drowning out the uncomfortable silence with lies and fantasies. “I’m proposing a merger, investing ten percent of the Fischer account in crypto. I’m trying to convince him to do it. Despite the financial risks, I think it could be a very worthwhile investment.” 

“Yeah, but what did he mean ‘you made the first move’?” McDermott was waving his hands around in air quotes, his drunken action making Patrick fantasise about snapping both of his hands off at the wrists and skewering his eyeballs with his stupid fat fingers. 

“Yeah, that didn’t sound like work talk.” Van Patten’s eyes danced over him, his tone both friendly and menacing at the same time. 

“Whatever, Van Patten. How was that bitch you were just with? I heard you set a new record. Twenty minutes this time, was it?” 

The most prudish of the group blushed slightly, the tips of his ears colouring pink as he ducked his head. “If you’re talking about that stripper, we were just talking .” 

“Why’s your shirt all messed up?” Bryce’s eyes were accusatory as he cut off Van Patten’s bullshit, taking in the sight of Patrick. 

“It’s not. I was just sorting my tie out.” He could feel a vein tensing under his eye and hoped - prayed - it wasn’t showing. 

“It looks like someone’s been…touching it.” Give it a rest, Bryce! Patrick wanted to scream, imagining the satisfying crunch of bone that would come as his knee met his friend’s ribs. 

“Has Paul Allan been touching it?” asked McDermott coyly, before breaking into laughter and staggering backwards against the toilet door. 

They knew. He knew they knew. 

He could feel three pairs of eyes on him - Van Patten’s curious and intrigued, McDermott’s humorous and drunken, Bryce’s suspicious and accusatory. He felt as though he was naked, exposed to the harsh light of the overhead light being clicked on, covers pulled off in the middle of the night as you rouse from half-awakened sleep and ask what’s-

“I fucked Meredith.” 

Patrick’s heartbeat, which he already knew would be sending alerts to his Apple watch asking him when he’d started exercising, accelerated rapidly as a cold sweat broke out over his body. Okay, it was a lie. A big lie. But it was better than telling them the truth, or the perhaps worse alternative, letting them find out through the inevitable grapevine. 

“Paul found out, and he got mad. He, uh, grabbed me round the throat. That’s why my shirt’s creased. I pushed him off, and he started shouting about suing me or fighting me or something, and then accusing me of trying to hit him first.” 

He was aware that every word, every lie, was another shovelful of dirt in the hole he was digging himself into. But it was too late; he couldn’t back out now. 

“I’d prefer if you didn’t mention this around the office. I don’t want Evelyn to find out.” He took a deep breath, attempted to smooth his collar out, abandoned that once he realised his hands were still shaking. “It was a silly drunken mistake. You know how these things go.” 

There was a silence as he and Bryce held each other's gaze, weighing up the ridiculousness of the lie, considering the implications such a dalliance, had it happened, would have on their social standing. It would all be okay as long as none of the other guys were ever around Paul again. That was feasible, right? Right?

“ Nice one, Bateman!” His closest friend’s face suddenly split into a boorish grin as he held his hand up for a high five. Patrick begrudgingly accepted, far too conscious of how many microscopic germs might be crawling on him from Bryce’s sweaty palms, fighting the urge to strip out of all of his clothes there and then and try and scold his entire body under the hot tap. 

“Meredith Powell ? Jeez, you lucky bastard.” Van Patten looked impressed, and for a second - forgetting how utterly calamitous this entire situation was - Patrick felt a smug pin-prick of superiority. Okay, he hadn’t actually fucked her, but his friends thinking he had was basically as good as. 

His happiness did not last, as he suddenly felt the uncomfortable sensation of human contact as McDermott slung an arm around his shoulders. “Let’s have a toast to Patrick!” he drunkenly bellowed in his ear. 

“I have something better than that.” Bryce smirked, pulling a bag of white powder out his breast pocket. 

He could stay. Do some lines with the guys. Go back out and slam back some shots, find a hardbody to pay for a private dance, wait until everyone was too drunk to remember and then make up some fake vague story about what it had been like to (not) sleep with Paul fucking Allen’s girlfriend. 

But as he looked at his friend holding the coke aloft, he was transported back to a cramped toilet cubicle, leaning over the shorter man to snort the ‘coke’ he’d just produced from his pocket, back out on the floor, dancing against him, his mouth on his mouth and his hands running through his hair-

Patrick shoved McDermott off, barely acknowledging the man falling through the door of the nearest cubicle. “I’ll, uh, join in a bit.” With that, he strode out the doors, welcoming the coolness of the corridor and cursing under his breath as Luis Carruthers appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, a ginger ghost wearing a red velvet bow tie. 

“Oh, Patrick!” he exclaimed. “I was hoping to catch you. Hey, where are you going?”

Patrick turned back to him, running his hands through his hair in frustration. He had to get out of here before he started ripping clumps of it out and throwing it around, like a domesticated chimp throwing its faeces around its cage. He had to get out of here, had to get to somewhere no one knew him, somewhere quiet. 

“ What , Luis?” He couldn’t keep the edge out of his voice. If he had to look at that fucking bow tie for another second, he was going to lose his mind. That was, assuming he still had it. 

“Are you okay? You look…stressed. I heard about your grandad. I-”

“I’m fine , Luis!” Patrick could feel himself grinning, alarm bells sounding in his head, ten seconds from strangling the cunt to death. “Thanks for your concern!”

Luis took a step towards him, reaching out a sweaty hand; “Patrick-” he half whispered, letting out a grotesque little giggle. “You look really, really nice tonight. Did I tell you that earlier? You look really nice.” 

Patrick stared blankly at the scene before him. He could tell the vein below his eye was beating outwardly now, and it took all his effort to not just keel over and die right there and then. 

“Luis,” he eventually managed to say, “tell Bryce I’ve gone home.” 

============================================================================================================

Patrick enjoyed taking walks at night. There was something about the dark that had always enticed him. Perhaps it was the anonymity that it promised him, in a world which revolved around who was who and who knew you. In the city at night, anyone could slip under the radar, coated in the cloak of darkness. In the city at night, multi-millionaires and homeless crack addicts existed in the same hemisphere, walking the same beat-down pavements with the same heavy hearts. 

Patrick leaned over the railings on the side of the river and tilted his face upwards, feeling the cool breeze lift the traces of sweat and panic from his skin. Here, he was truly alone. 

Just the way he liked it. 

Didn’t he?

He did. 

So why was he still so unhappy?

He stared at the new World Trade Center buildings, the lights blurring and fading into each other as he wracked his brain, trying to think of a time he hadn’t felt like this. 

If he made sure he was sufficiently drugged up before he went to sleep, he would almost certainly not have any night terrors. In fact, he hadn’t had one for years. So that night two weeks ago - the night that had lead Evelyn to book a fucking psychiatrist’s appointment - had taken him by surprise. 

Perhaps he needed to up his zopiclone dose. 

Or go back to the shrink, a small voice niggled at the back of his mind. Crossly, he shook his head, attempting to dislodge it. He wasn’t stepping a foot back in there, and he most definitely wasn’t seeing that lunatic again. 

As he cast his eyes into the inky-black depths of the Hudson, a different sort of lunatic stared back at him. This one was dressed immaculately in a Givenchy wool coat, his hair perfect, his eyes dark pools of emptiness. The reflection warped and disformed in front of him, ageing down until he was ten years old, crying alone in the bathroom, ageing up until he resembled his father, and in turn his grandfather, the leather-gloved hands grasping the railing wrinkling and developing liver spots and arthritis. 

“Am I turning into him?” Patrick whispered into nothingness. He closed his eyes and felt another breeze ripple through him.

He just needed to lean over and lift his hands. Strobe lights flashing, an endless stream of hookers and strippers and Evelyn and Courtney and dear, sweet Jean.

It would be so easy. Hands roaming his body, strong and sinewy. Exhilaration, lust, desire, greed. His pulse, quickening. Tobacco cologne. 

It wouldn’t be comfortable, or pretty. And they might not even find his body. Tobacco from a pipe. Begging for a taste - “maybe when you’re older, Patrick”. ‘Older’ arriving and suddenly it’s not so fun. 

Would anyone even report him missing? The harsh fluorescent light snapping on. Club lights strobing. Liver-spotted hands roaming. Longing, longing, for anything, for anyone, for everything to end. 

He straightened back up and adjusted his tie, casting one last glance over at where the Twin Towers had once proudly stood before heading for home. 

That night, he cried himself to sleep. 

============================================================================================================

“Ugh, I knew I shouldn’t have purged earlier. My face feels soooo frightfully puffy,” Evelyn whined. 

“Shhhhh. You look sexy,” slurred Courtney, her eyes half shut. 

“Yeah, whatever she said,” Patrick muttered, swiftly taking two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter and downing the first in one go. 

He’d just endured the most horrific two-hour dinner with Evelyn, Courntey, and Luis at Fluties. Evelyn was on her period, which meant that not only was he not getting laid tonight, he was additionally getting treated to the cold shoulder, because she felt fat and bloated and apparently that was his fault. Maybe if you complimented me a bit more and stopped staring at Courtney’s tits I’d speak to you again, Patrick; maybe you should get a boob job like I suggested and then I’d stare at yours instead, Evelyn.

Courtney had taken enough benzos to knock out a horse and as a result, by the time the bill arrived, had been practically comatose at the table, slumped halfway into Luis’ lap. And Luis had been - well, Luis. He hadn’t stopped making eyes at Patrick since he got into the limo, dragging Courtney behind him like a sack of potatoes; he’d complimented him on how well he ‘pulled off’ a tux three times, with a hideously suggestive wink thrown in on the most recent occasion. 

There was only one for it - Patrick had decided he needed to get very, very drunk. 

The Xanax he’d taken in the toilets had already mellowed him out, and the F sharp whine of Evelyn’s voice and panic over the Paul/Meredith situation had faded to a background static hum. Now, they’d arrived at the gala (he still didn’t know what it was in aid of, but who gave a shit anyway; at least it was being held in the Four Seasons) and he was pleasantly inebriated. He hoped Bryce had managed to score a gram. Of course he has, it’s Bryce! He spotted Van Patten, Halberstram, and McDermott talking to a group of blonde models at the other side of the magnificent ballroom, and signalled that he’d be right over. 

“Oh no you don’t!” Evelyn’s voice was saccharine sweet, but came through her grinning teeth as she dug her nails into his arm. “You are not leaving me with these two so you can go and schmooze with your little friends and those whores.” 

“Darling, you’re not my nanny.” Patrick returned the smile and tossed back the second flute of champagne, placing both empty glasses on a nearby tray and taking two more. 

“And why are you drinking so much?!” Evelyn leaned in closer, spitting venom and hissing fury. “This is a sophisticated event, not Friday night at the strip club!” 

Ah. So Luis had told her, then. He made a mental note to write his number in the men’s toilets later, alongside some promises of sexual services and his full name. 

Patrick held out a glass to Evelyn as a peace offering, but she turned and flounced off, huffing to herself. “Women, eh?” he said to Luis, who had a hand round Courtney’s waist, holding her upright, seemingly oblivious to the envious glares being fired in his direction from all directions. 

“What was that, Patrick?” he piped weedily at Patrick’s retreating back, to no reply. 

============================================================================================================

After five minutes, Patrick managed to hunt down Bryce, who’d slipped him a third-full bag of coke and told him to keep it because he was getting more later. 

“You’re a good friend, Bryce,” he’d replied, purely to see the look of guilt that came over Bryce’s face before he quickly scrambled to remain composed. Bitch, I don’t care that you’re fucking my ‘fiancee’, he’d wanted to say, but had excused himself to the toilet instead where he’d snorted three lines and laughed maniacally to himself in the stall about the duplicitousness of his friend group. They really ought to write up a graph showing who was fucking who behind who’s back. 

Patrick was happily buzzed, feeling the kind of joy one can only obtain from narcotics or reading autopsy reports of murder victims, listening to Van Patten and McDermott argue good-naturedly about wearing pinstriped shirts and suits together, when the latter nudged his arm. 

“Evelyn’s on her way over. She doesn’t look happy.” 

“Oh, that’s just the Botox,” Patrick replied, turning to see the gut-sinking sight of his fiancee striding towards him as fast as her six-inch Louboutins would allow. “She can’t move a thing from the eyes upwards.” 

“ Patrick! ” she hissed, grabbing his arm. 

“Sorry, dear. I went to the toilet and got ambushed by these guys on the way back.” He offered what he hoped was a placating smile. 

“We need to talk. Now, ” Evelyn replied through clenched teeth. 

“Oooooh! Bateman’s in the bad books tonight,” jeered Van Patten, who really needed to learn to handle his coke better. 

“Shut up. I’ll be right back.” Patrick knew from the look on Evelyn’s face that she was about to go nuclear, and past experience told him that he had about ten seconds to get to a secluded place before she blew up in front of everyone in spectacular fashion. 

Once they were standing in the shadows of the room, he turned to her. She didn’t look… bad. Her Wonderbra had done a miracle job and her hair and makeup looked like she’d stepped off the cover of Vogue; of course, she was wearing her ‘occasion’ engagement ring, a fifteen carat diamond that was so big it weighed down her whole hand and therefore couldn’t be worn for everyday use, unlike her more pedestrian five carat everyday ring. Women!

“What’s up?” he asked, ruminating on how pleasant and light he felt as a contrast to last night’s melodrama. If he could just be drunk forever, he would be. "Did you know a Norwegian psychologist named Finn Skårderud once conducted a study that suggested that mankind's natural blood alcohol level is 0.05 percent too low, and that psychiatric conditions such as depression can be directly attributed to this?" 

The factoid flew over Evelyn’s head as she snapped her manicured fingers as a nearby waiter, thrusting her glass out for a refill. As soon as he’d left, she turned back to Patrick, her icy blue eyes ablaze. “What the fuck happened between you and Meredith?” 

Great. He should’ve guessed she was annoyed about more than him going off to do coke in the toilets. “Nothing. Why do you ask?” 

Evelyn took a deep breath and closed her eyes, flattening a palm against her chest. “Well, I know that’s a lie,” she said, forcing a crack in her voice. “Because Tim just told me you were bragging about it last night. In the strip club .” 

The absurdity of it all made Patrick laugh. How was Evelyn getting mad at the guy she was cheating on him with telling her that Patrick had fake cheated on her with someone else? Of course, he was actually cheating for real, a fact that Bryce knew - and that Patrick suddenly wondered why he hadn’t mentioned in the couple of years it had been going on, yet did feel the need to tell their about this latest dalliance? 

“He’s taking the piss. He’s trying to wind you up.” Patrick took a swig of his champagne, his eyes flitting through the crowds, spotting an all-too-familiar sandy blonde head across the room. Shit. No. It couldn’t be. 

“Tim wouldn’t do that,” Evelyn pouted. 

“Oh, and you know all about what Tim would and wouldn’t do, I suppose?”

It was Evelyn’s turn to have that same guilty look cross her features. Patrick almost felt bad, but then remembered he really didn’t give a shit and knocked back the rest of his drink. If you’re going to cheat, make sure you don’t have a conscience, bitch!

“Who are you looking at?” Evelyn turned to meet his line of vision, instantly spotting Paul and Meredith speaking to Scott Montgomery and George Reeves. “It is true!” she cried. “You’re staring at her right now!”

He honestly wasn’t. He was replaying Paul’s words from the bathroom last night in his head. 

I have a younger sister…my whole world…she was drugged and raped…

You don’t know how traumatic something like that is…

Patrick was the first to admit he didn’t really have a conscience (hence why he was able to cheat so easily; that and his utter disdain for his fiancee). But this was a rare situation where he felt the need to apologise. 

“I’m looking at Paul.” Evelyn gave him an unreadable   look. “I need to talk to him about the Fischer account.” 

“Do you actually care about anything other than the fucking Fischer account?” 

Patrick was aware that she was speaking, could see her mouth opening and closing like a retarded goldfish, but his mind was elsewhere. He didn’t want to apologise. He shouldn’t even need to apologise, because why the fuck did he - he, Patrick fucking Bateman - have anything to feel bad for? Paul had basically assaulted him. 

Hadn’t he? 

Deep down, he knew he was making excuses. 

But the truth was far scarier. 

Across the room, he saw Meredith daintily kiss Paul on the lips and waltz off. Patrick pushing his glass towards Evelyn, who was somehow still talking. 

“I’ll be back,” he said, ignoring the protests she was squawking, and made his way across the room. 

It seemed like an eternity; the Xanax and alcohol and cocaine all mixing together and slowing down his perception of time, his steps across the crowded ballroom. Paul’s back was to him as he conversed with a nameless yuppie who Patrick probably knew but couldn’t place. His palms were sweating, and he thought to make a complaint to whoever was in charge of the AC here. 

Eventually, he reached the shorter man; reaching out, he placed a firm hand on Paul’s shoulder. He could feel the hardness of his muscle underneath, and it reminded him of that night and suddenly he was blushing and then Paul fucking Allan was turning round and meeting his eyes. 

“Bateman.” His mouth was set in a hard, firm line, but his lips still looked far too full for a man’s lips to look. Like, did he get fillers or something? 

“Allen.” Patrick found himself slightly out of breath. It was definitely too stuffy in here. “Let’s talk.” 

There was a long pause, and for a moment Patrick saw anger flash in Paul’s eyes, and heard him tell him to fuck off again, but then he nodded. “After you.” 

Patrick led him to one of the corridors leading out to the toilets. The walls were adorned with enormous oil paintings and stag's heads; the carpet thick and plush. A chandelier twinkled above their heads. Away from the hustle and bustle, he turned to face Paul, properly looking at him for the first time. 

His hair had had a trim, and was slicked back to perfection; his tux looked like it had been custom made to fit him. Damn you, Paul fucking Allan. Why do you always have to upstage everyone else by looking so stupid and perfect? Wait, did I just describe him as- I meant it in a purely aesthetic sense. Shit, he’s talking. 

“-and I obviously was upset by what you were suggesting. But that was no excuse for me acting so violently, and for that I hope you’ll forgive me.” 

Wait, why was HE apologising? The memory took Patrick back to the carefully-researched speech he’d given to Jean the morning after he’d crashed at hers. He wondered if Paul had prepared this opening speech, and if so, had he been planning to come and talk to Patrick tonight? 

He snapped himself out of his thoughts. 

“No, Allen, I’m sorry,” he replied. “What I said to you…I mean, what I accused you of…that was low of me.” 

“It’s fine,” Paul interjected, holding up a hand. He was wearing a silver signet ring on his right hand ring finger. Patrick wondered if it was a Yale class ring. “If that’s how you feel about what happened, then-” 

“It’s not. I didn’t. I- I don’t.” The words surprised him, even though he knew they were the truth. “And it wasn’t okay for me to say that. I’m sorry about what happened to your sister.” He paused, took a deep breath in, savouring the last few moments before the world imploded. “Someone close to me was, uh, was raped when they were younger. I know how hard it can be - to see someone you care about go through that.”

He held his breath. The world carried on spinning; laughter and clinking of glasses continued to filter out from the ballroom. Paul Allen still stood in front of him, alive and breathing. 

“I’m sorry to hear that, Bateman. The world is full of awful people.” 

“It is. Thank you.” 

They stood in silence for a few moments before Patrick felt the need to say something, anything, to keep the conversation going. “I didn’t think of it at that…I just-”

“Thought I was going to tell everyone at P&P?” Paul was smirking now, his stupid dimple winking from his freshly shaven face. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t.” 

“Good.”

“I wouldn’t want to embarrass myself.” 

Patrick bristled, but Paul was laughing now. He socked Patrick in the arm lightly. “Hey, this place is deader than Ghislaine Maxwell in a few months' time. Wanna ditch it and go to Nell’s?” 

Patrick considered. Go back in, find Evelyn, placate her whining, mingle with the same old people - or go out with Paul again?

Knowing how that ended last time?

He turned to Paul. “Lets go.” 

Chapter Text

Nell’s was devoid of the usual crowd, considering they were still binging on canapes and pretending to give a shit about African orphans or something similarly detached from the Wall Street world of Chanel-clad women and Cuban cigars smoked in the Four Seasons ballroom, of cupidity and craving, for something more, something constantly bigger and better and flashier. Patrick considered the possibility that Evelyn hadn’t even seen him leave and was probably trying to storm about in a fury as elegantly as possible right now, which was a hilarious thought. He wondered if she’d confront Meredith but then realised he really didn’t give a shit either way. However, that could be because he and Paul had spent the short taxi ride over swigging from a bottle of Dom Pérignon the latter had stolen from a carelessly distracted waiter and snorting the remainder of Bryce’s coke off Patrick’s platinum Amex. He could barely recollect swaggering to the front of the queue and being waved inside by the bouncer, nor Paul ordering the second bottle of champagne to their table, but he knew one thing for sure.

He was having fun. 

Of course, that was only because the work function had been so frightfully boring that even a night at one of his regular haunts with Paul fucking Allen in tow was glittering in comparison. Still, he couldn’t deny the booze and narcotics had cast a rose tinted gauze over his mood, and even though the sappy eighties pop music was too loud to make sense of what he was saying, Paul was telling some long-winded story about Yale that suddenly sounded inexplicably hilarious. 

Once more, Patrick remembered the sense of comradery he’d felt with Paul at Barcadia and then - until IT happened - at the Yacht Club, not unlike the feeling of hanging out with the guys. Unlike the guys, though, Paul had a way of intensely looking into Patrick’s eyes whilst he was talking that made him feel as though he actually cared about whatever Patrick was talking about. It was slightly unnerving, but he was too gone to care. Besides, it almost felt nice to have someone listen to him because they were interested, and not for any ulterior motives. 

At least, he hoped Paul didn’t. 

It was kind of hard to hear each other over the music, and after the third time Paul had tried to explain his supposedly ‘genius’ trick for cheating on his midterms over the sound of Bonnie Tyler screaming that she needed a hero, Patrick had had enough. 

“Do you want to come back to mine for a drink?” he shouted, hoping that it had come off as cool and nonchalant and not in a faggoty way because he did NOT mean it like that, even though on second thoughts it had sounded like he did, and if Paul hadn’t heard he was just going to pretend he hadn’t said it because-

“Sure,” Paul said casually, downing the rest of his drink and reaching behind him for his suit jacket, which he’d draped over the back of his chair so carelessly it had slipped off at one side, the cuffs trailing the floor. He didn’t seem to care. Patrick had kept his jacket on. 

Patrick said nothing in reply, but his heart cramped so painfully he put down his half-full glass without finishing it. 

“Are you not drinking that?” Paul pointed at it as he stood. 

Patrick shook his head, noticing how the crowds swam and morphed before his eyes and how heavy and dry his tongue felt in his mouth. He watched Paul seize his glass and throw the contents down his throat, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. 

Patrick was torn away from his intrusive thoughts,  wondering what would happen if he bit into the soft tan fleshiness of Paul’s neck, by a buzzing in his pocket. He pulled his phone out to see five missed calls from Evelyn, alongside a text from his father reminding him the funeral was on Monday; he didn’t know which was more repulsive and, after a moment of deliberation, turned his phone completely off and followed Paul to the exit. 

Outside, the cold breeze was a welcome incongruity from the crowded sweatiness of the bar, and Patrick let it lift his hair from the base of his neck and flutter around his ears. He looked around for Paul, having lost sight of him momentarily in the scram at the door, and spotted him a few feet away slumped against a lamppost lighting a cigarette. 

Slumped was almost an offensive way to describe it. He was leaning, one hand dipping back into his pocket, his jacket thrown over his shoulders and his shirt sleeves rolled up. Patrick watched the muscles in his calves ripple and contort as he removed the cigarette from his lips, blowing out a long plume of smoke. He looked like the bad boy in one of the shitty ‘classic’ eighties films his mom used to watch on her good-bad days, and Patrick was instantly transported to lying in the master bed at four years old, his little fists entangled in her hair, asking her why don’t you ever get out of bed anymore, Mommy? with the tactlessness that only a small child could emulate. 

Because Mommy’s sick, his mother would always reply. And the doctors don’t know what to do. 

Don’t worry; when I grow up, I’m going to be a doctor and I’ll make you all better, Patrick would say with confidence, patting his mother on the head, and then she would hold him tighter than anyone ever had since and cry so hard the whole bed would shake. 

He wondered what she’d think if she’d lived long enough to find out he’d followed his father into investment banking instead. 

“Bateman!” Paul staggered into view at his side, clutching a bottle of Moët. “Are you fucking deaf?”

“Sorry, I just…” Patrick shook himself out of his thoughts and fully took in the site of the bottle for the first time. “Where did you get that?”

“I just took it from inside.” Paul flashed him a wide smile. “I paid for it, I wasn’t going to just fucking leave it there.” 

“Fair enough.” 

“Anyway.” Paul paused to take a swig straight out of the bottle, Patrick declining it when he offered. “I think I saw Jordan Belfort just going into Nell’s.” 

“I hate that loser.”

“Hey, he’s alright. Did you hear about his yacht?” 

“I’ve heard way too much about Jordan Belfort’s fucking yacht. Can we just get in the taxi?”

Paul crashed ungracefully into the taxi (which Patrick was pretty sure he’d just snagged from right in front of a group of dykes, but who gave a shit), the taxi driver casting him a glance far too distasteful look for someone wearing a beanie hat. 

“55 West 81st Street,” Patrick told him, only slightly peeved when he didn’t react with anything other than a tight nod. 

“Damn, I can’t believe I’m actually about to see the inside of Patrick fucking Bateman’s apartment. Sure you don’t have any dead corpses strung up in there?” Paul was snorting with laughter at his own joke. 

“I only keep the pretty ones,” Patrick responded absentmindedly, turning to the window and watching the city lights flash past in a dizzying blur. 

“Sorry, dude. You just always go on about serial killers and shit. And no one from P&P has ever seen your place.” 

That was true. Patrick didn’t even like having Evelyn over, and the only people he ever let willingly into his house were escorts and other hardbodies, like Vanden, who would be there for two hours at most. And his cleaner, obviously, but she didn’t speak English so they never had to interact. 

And now he was inviting none other than Paul fucking Allen in. Into his home, his most sacred and untouched space. 

His chest began to tighten and he fumbled with the window buttons, craving fresh air and a Xanax or two. To his chagrin, the fucking childlock was on. He leaned forward. 

“Open the window, please.”

“Aircons on,” grunted the taxi driver. 

“Great, but that’s not what I asked.” 

The driver muttered something in his native tongue and stabbed the childlock button with an excessive amount of force. 

Patrick let the cool air filter into the cab, loosening his tie and slowly feeling his pulse return to something resembling normal. He had clearly done too much coke tonight. 

“Hey, Bateman.” Paul was laughing, and holding the now-empty bottle upside down by its neck. “Watch this.” 

He leaned across Patrick and, with a neat flick of his wrist, sent the bottle spiralling outside. From afar, there was a smash and a scream. It was juvenile and careless, and not even remotely funny, but Patrick felt himself creasing with helpless laughter. Paul was already leaning back, his head tipped up over the back of the seats as he joined in. 

“Will you two fucking faggots just quit it? I’ll make you walk the rest of the way if I have to,” the taxi driver barked.

Patrick contemplated leaning forward and pressing a knife into the squishy folds of the man’s neck, feeling blood spurt as he attacked his veins, but before he could say a word Paul had slung an arm round his shoulders. 

“Dude, it’s not the eighties anymore. It’s okay to be gay.” He leaned closer and planted a chaste kiss on Patrick’s cheek, his stubble grazing the side of his face and sending a shiver down Patrick’s spine. He didn’t have time to pull away before Paul had returned to his side of the cab, laughing and laughing whilst Patrick’s head was spinning and spinning, and the lights of the city continued to flash by. 

Chapter Text

Paul had slightly sobered up by the time they reached Patrick’s apartment; a fact for which he was partially relieved - because it minimised the risk of Paul breaking stuff or vomiting everywhere - and partially terrified because it meant he might attempt to engage in coherent conversation. Patrick still couldn’t really piece together his thoughts over why he’d even invited Paul back. He supposed that, since it was barely midnight yet, it seemed too early to call it a night. And Paul had proven himself to be good company in Nell’s. 

“Jeez, Bateman. Do you actually live here or what?” Paul was standing in the middle of his living room, staring at the bare walls. Besides the carefully colour coordinated and extortionately priced canvas prints that adorned a few feet of the space, they were blank and white, contributing nothing. Patrick liked it that way. 

“No, Allen. I just broke into a stranger’s place to pass it off as my own.” He was aware that he was just standing watching Paul take in his surroundings and turned to the kitchen cabinets, taking two glasses out in an attempt to busy his hands and mind. 

“Sorry. It’s just very bare.”

Patrick felt slightly insulted, although he couldn’t put his finger on why. Why did he care what Paul fucking Allen thought about his own apartment? And furthermore, why did Paul feel the need to criticise it as though he was a master of interior design? 

“I’m neither a chick nor a faggot, so I don’t really care about having useless shit cluttering up the place. What do you want?” 

Paul didn’t respond, merely turning round to face Patrick and raising an inquisitive eyebrow, his hands buried deep into his pockets. 

“To drink,” Patrick added, feeling suddenly flustered and far too warm and maybe he needed to stop doing so much coke. 

“Just a Scotch and water, if you have any.” 

Paul wandered off out of his line of sight again and Patrick opened his liquor cabinet, staring intently at the row of neatly organised and practically untouched bottles of spirits within, as if they held the answer to everything he was seeking. They were just for show, to be honest; he seldom drank at home unless guests were over - and by guests he meant prostitutes, who didn’t care what they put down their throats unless it would get them inebriated or pay them for their next fix. 

Eventually, he settled upon a Dalwhinnie single malt and took a bottle of Perrier out of the refrigerator for Paul, noting that all it contained was Perrier and some fruit languishing in the crusher drawer. When had he last eaten at home? Had he ever? The past week or so had been such a blur. 

“Your drink’s on the counter,” he said upon entering the living room. To his chagrin, Paul was standing at the sideboard next to his record player, flicking through his CD collection and probably putting everything back in the wrong order. 

“I didn’t know you were so into music.” Paul turned to face him, Violator by Depeche Mode clutched in his right hand. 

“Everyone’s into music.” Patrick sat on the sofa and watched the shorter man with a kind of morbid curiosity. Here was this person he hated, reviled, wanted nothing more than to stab or garrotte and take the Fischer account from him - in his own apartment. Looking through his CDs like he owned the place. It felt like a fever dream, and Patrick briefly pondered the notion that he’d been hypnotised into a coma that day at the shrink’s office and the resulting past week of weirdness was all a crazy dream. 

“Yeah, but like…” Paul placed Violator back in the pile and continued searching through. “I just never really pictured you listening to music. Or doing anything that wasn’t, you know, drinking with your buddies or working.” 

Patrick took a long sip of his drink, contemplating Paul’s words. Strangely, he felt deflated, as if Paul had told him that his tan looked too orange or that his hair was going grey. “I do other things,” he replied, defensively. 

“Yeah?” He could tell Paul wasn’t listening. He stopped his irritating forage through the CDs (Patrick already knew he was going to have to wipe his sweaty marks off them all after he’d left) and turned back around, holding one aloft. “Steve Lacy? Romantic.” 

“I prefer to call it an introspective blend of R&B, hip-hop, and lo-fi pop. His debut album, Apollo XXI, mixes guitar and synth, and features some very experimental parts which fit well with the overarching theme of one’s identity and introspection. At its heart, it differs from mainstream pop music which tries to appeal to the masses on the basis of superficial feelings - infatuation, lust, heartbreak - and presents an introverted journey where the individual’s complex feelings of selfhood are explored in tandem with the artists’.” 

A silence fell in the room, and Patrick downed the rest of his drink, suddenly feeling as though he’d spoken too much and too - too Patrick Batemanlike about what was, admittedly, a supreme album. Paul shrugged and turned the case over in his hand, reading the tracklist. “Okay, let’s listen to it then.” 

“Use the vinyl. It sounds ten times cleaner.” Patrick removed himself to the kitchen to pour another drink and, in a rare act of charity, brought Paul’s over and set it upon a coaster on the coffee table. Paul was holding the record copy of Apollo XXI and peering at the vinyl player as though he’d never seen one in his life. 

“Of course you don’t know how to use a record player.” Patrick reached over the blonde man’s shoulder and plucked the vinyl from his hand. The scent of Paul’s cologne filled his nostrils and he could feel the heat radiating off his body before he stepped away. Again, Patrick’s chest cramped, and he briefly thought of his grandfather and worried over the possibility that he too was having heart troubles. Maybe he should follow Courtney’s lead and stick to sedatives instead of uppers from now on. 

“No, Bateman, because I use Spotify like a regular person in the twenty-first century.” 

Patrick rolled his eyes and decided not to dignify that nonsense with a response, taking his time to carefully place the record onto the turntable and line up the needle. Bass guitar and synth swelled out into the air, and he adjusted the volume before taking a seat on the opposite sofa to Paul. 

There was an uncomfortable silence as both men sipped their drinks and listened to Steve Lacy crooning against the silent room. Paul broke the silence first. 

“I wonder how that charity gala’s going.”

It was strange to think that just a few hours ago, Patrick had been suffering through the arduous threesome of Courtney, Evelyn, and Luis in the Four Seasons. He presumed Bryce had taken his upset fiance home with him, where she would bitch about how inconsiderate and awful Patrick is all night without even fucking him after, and Courtney had probably passed out by ten pm. In hindsight, he was very glad not to be there. 

“Terribly, I’d guess. Hey, did you know what charity we were even meant to be supporting?” 

The safe ground and familiarity of work talk helped to soothe Patrick’s inexplicably rattled nerves and before long, they had both finished their drinks, and had another, and then Patrick had brought the bottle over to sit on the coffee table between them and the world had softened and blurred a little. 

“You know, Carruthers has the hots for you big time,” Paul was saying, laughing, his legs propped up on the coffee table and crossed at the ankles because at some point the Scotch and the combination of narcotics coursing through his veins had made Patrick’s cares over such minor things as scuffs on the furniture or handprints on his CDs or another man being inside his apartment seem too hazy and distant to be bothered about. “He’s always following you around the office, making those puppy-dog eyes at you. It’s kinda cute, really.”

“It is not cute. Not in the slightest. He just can’t take a hint.”

“You think he knows you’re boning his fiance?” 

The thought of Courtney made Patrick feel uncomfortable and, if he wasn’t so intoxicated, he was certain he’d be experiencing the same itchy feeling that had been burdening him the past few days. He tugged at his collar and loosened his tie, uncomfortable, seeking a life raft out of the direction the conversation was heading. 

“Speaking of fiances, isn’t yours pissed you just upped and left her at the gala?” 

Paul pulled his phone out of his pocket and squinted lazily at the blank screen. “Dunno. Phone’s dead. She probably is, but I don’t care.” 

Patrick suddenly remembered the fake rumour that would be undoubtedly making its way around their social circle as he spoke, blooming and metamorphosing until even the cleaners at P&P knew about it. “That reminds me. I told Bryce and the others I fucked her. I didn’t, obviously. But they think I did, so you’ll probably hear about it in the office on Monday.” 

“You what?” Paul swivelled to face him, his mouth hanging slightly open.

“It was after our…discussion in the bathroom yesterday. At, uh, at the strip club. They didn’t know what we were talking about and obviously I wasn’t going to tell them, so I just said the first thing that came into my head.” 

“Which was that you fucked my fiance?!”

“It was the only explanation I could think of for why you’d be so angry at me!” 

There was a long, long pause. Then, without warning, Paul tipped his head back and burst into hysterical laughter, his chest shaking as he struggled to conceal his amusement. 

It wasn’t even that funny, but Paul’s mirth was infectious, and before long Patrick was laughing along too, the thought of potential crow’s feet barely even crossing his mind. Paul gasped, rubbing his hand across his eyes. 

“Damn, Bateman, you know you’re actually a pretty funny guy?” 

Patrick felt something akin to pride, similar to the rare times he’d get a good enough grade for his father to slap his shoulder and tell him good job, son, maybe you didn’t get your mother’s brains after all. He raised a shoulder nonchalantly and took a swig of his drink, concealing his smile. 

“Hey, so can I go round telling people I fucked Evelyn? It’s only fair.” Paul held up his hands, unsteady from the liquor, his glass precariously wobbling in one and threatening to spill its contents. Although if any of the whores he brought back had done that he’d have shouted at them to put the fucking glass down, damnit, do you know how much this sofa costs? , he again didn’t really seem to care. Inebriation was a wonderful drug. 

“You know what, go for it.” Patrick hesitated and before he could stop himself, he’d lifted his feet onto the coffee table too, facing Paul’s, crossing his legs at the ankles. The table was probably marked, but who gave a shit? He was beyond rich; he’d just buy a new one. “She’s all yours.” 

“Thanks, man.” Another silence fell, again punctuated only by the vinyl playing, but this time it felt amicable, comfortable. Patrick thought back to all the nights spent with Bryce and the guys and how they were never silent for a second of it, how they always had to fill the air with bravado and bragging and constant mind numbing chatter. It was exhausting. How was he only just realising how exhausting it was?

But this…wasn’t. 

“Hey, so, I know this is none of my business.” Paul was turning his glass round and round in his hands, watching the bronze liquid splash and ripple against the sides. “But, uh, you know that thing you told me earlier?” 

“What thing?” He picked up the bottle to pour himself another measure, noting it was over a third empty now. Had they really drunk that much? 

“About someone close to you being raped.” 

Patrick set the bottle down a little harder than he’d intended, wincing at the sound of glass on glass reverberating. “What about it?” 

“Was it…Evelyn?” 

Patrick stared at him, willing Paul’s words to shape themselves into a sentence that gave him even the vaguest understanding of what he meant. 

 “Was what Evelyn?” he asked, dumbly. 

“Was it Evelyn that was raped?” 

“No.” Patrick stared into the depths of his glass, feeling as though all his senses were heightened and dulled at the same time. His scotch looked remarkably like apple juice, and he thought to himself about how he hadn’t had apple juice for ages and maybe next week he should send Jean to get some from somewhere. 

He realised Paul was looking at him as if he was expecting him to elaborate. He cleared his throat. “No. It wasn’t…it’s not somebody you know.” 

“Ah.” He drained his drink and then sat it down next to the Perrier bottle, which was leaking droplets of condensation onto the coffee table. Patrick watched them form and drop like tiny ice-cold tears. “A family member?” 

“My cousin.” 

“Shit, man. I’m sorry.” Paul looked genuinely apologetic. “How old was she?” 

“The first time? Ten.” 

“The first time?” 

The now-finished record clicked off, casting the apartment into true silence. Patrick got up and crossed the room, flicking through the vinyls - just as he’d suspected, they were now out of order - until he found what he was looking for. He removed Apollo XXI with great care, replacing it with Naked All The Time by Sports. It had a similar relaxed, introverted vibe, and he thought Paul would enjoy it. 

“Sorry. It’s none of my business.” Paul shifted on the sofa, looking uncomfortable. He opened his mouth as if to say something else, but Patrick leaned over and refilled his glass, cutting him off mid-flow with something he hadn’t prepared to say yet felt the need to tell someone (besides Jean, sweet Jean). 

“My grandad died yesterday.”

Paul’s face dropped. “Shit. Man. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. He was getting on, my dad said.” 

“That’s horrible.” Paul topped up his glass with water, shaking his head thoughtfully. “My grandad passed when I was twenty. I was devastated, man. You must be torn up.” 

“I don’t really feel anything, to be honest.” It was partially true. The past two days had been a constant cycle of feeling nothing and then feeling everything, crushingly, achingly. 

“Well, that’s a natural part of grief. It doesn’t mean you’re not upset or anything, it just-” 

“But I’m not.” Patrick interjected. “I’m not upset.” 

“Not right now. But it’ll hit you at some point.” 

“It won’t.” Patrick smirked to himself, tracing a finger round the rim of his glass. “He was a jerk.” 

“But that’s still your grandad, man. That’s family!” Paul gesticulated with his glass, liquid splashing perilously close to the edge. 

“So? Family can be jerks.” 

This sent the other man into a moment of silent reflection, upon the completion of which he nodded. “True. I mean, I told you the shit about my parents at dinner the other night. When we- when we were in Barcadia. Remember?” 

“Vaguely, yeah.” A wave of exhaustion was creeping over Patrick, snaking its soft tendrils around his shoulders, leathering his eyelids with cement as they threatened to droop closed. He stifled a yawn. “He was a mean old drunk. And I’m glad he’s gone.” 

There was a moment of silence, and Patrick had to force his eyes fully open and look across at the other man to make sure he hadn’t fallen asleep. He hadn’t, and in an unexpected move, he lunged across the coffee table and placed an awkward hand on top of Patrick’s, squeezing his wrist. His hand was warm, and surprisingly not sweaty. 

And even more surprisingly, Patrick didn’t even think about wanting to break his wrist or snap off his fingers or any of the fantasies that crossed his mind when Luis Carruthers made attempts to similarly caress his hand, or even when one of his friends brushed against him accidentally. 

It was an oddly soothing gesture, and just for a moment, the world stopped spinning.

But then Paul removed his hand and stood up and the planet returned to its normal dizzying axis. 

“I should probably head off, man. I’m knackered.” 

“Oh.” Patrick couldn’t help but feel slightly disappointed, chalking it up to the fact that he was in no way sober enough to just go to bed like some sort of loser. “Sure, yeah, that’s cool.” 

“We should get dinner next week. I’ll get us a table at Dorsia.” Paul shrugged on his tuxedo jacket, which had got slightly crumpled in the evening’s escapades, yet still made him look like he’d strolled off the cover of GQ. “And then we can hit up some bars, find us some hot chicks.” 

“Yeah, sure. That sounds good.” Patrick began to gather up the glasses from the table, longing to prolong the conversation yet knowing attempting to do so would be worthless. “Just, uh, leave a message with Jean if I’m not in my office.” 

He headed to the kitchen, Paul hot on his heels. “Or I could just…text you? Like normal friends do?”

Friends. He was officially friends with Paul fucking Allen. And…he wasn’t mad about it. 

Funny how life works.

“You don’t have my number.” Patrick kept his back to Paul as he went through the ritual of replacing the Scotch, pouring the remaining Perrier down the sink and binning the bottle, rinsing out the glasses and placing them in the dishwasher for the cleaner to sort because, in all honesty, Patrick didn’t actually know how to work it, because what was he, a middle aged Filipino woman? 

“You gave it to me at the Yacht Club. After we did the- what we thought was blow. I texted you to ask if you were okay the next day, but you never answered.” 

The memory clicked in Patrick’s head, and he made a mental note to remove Paul’s number from his phone’s blocklist. 

“I don’t remember that,” he responded, by way of an explanation. 

“Anything else you don’t remember from that night?” Paul sidled up to him, smirking, his dimple winking. Under the bright lighting of Patrick’s kitchen, his tan skin looked flawless, not a pore in sight. Patrick felt a wave of panic grip him over the thought that what if his pores were visible and then a wave of something else he couldn’t quite place as his eyes met Paul’s and he realised what he’d said. 

“No, uh, I mean…” 

Paul grinned and lightly punched his shoulder. “I’m messing with you. MDMA makes you do crazy things. It’s history, man.”

“Yeah.” Patrick swallowed, wanting to say something, anything, but Paul had turned and was making his way to the door. He followed him blindly, his mind whirring. 

“So, text me when you want to get dinner or whatever.” Paul was preoccupied with something on his phone, and Patrick couldn’t help but feel disappointed that this was going to be their last interaction of the night. Paul was halfway out the door and wasn’t even looking at Patrick, for goodness’ sakes. 

“I will. Uh, Paul?” 

“Yeah?” Paul looked up, and Patrick realised he hadn’t even thought of anything he wanted to say to him. 

“Uh…did you have a good night?” 

Paul’s face broke into a boyish grin. “Yeah. Yeah, I did. You’re an interesting guy, Bateman. And not in a creepy serial killer way.” 

While Patrick was wondering whether that was a compliment or a thinly veiled insult or why the fuck he even cared, Paul reached across and placed his hand on Patrick’s shoulder, squeezing. 

It was a friendly gesture. A man’s way of hugging his associates. But Paul’s hand seemed to linger for seconds. On impulse, Patrick placed his hand on top, as if to wrench it off, but instead found himself squeezing it in retaliation, feeling the soft, smooth flesh, the cold hardness of Paul’s signet ring pressing into his palm. 

They could have stood like that for a few seconds, or for a minute or two. Time seemed to have stopped. Paul’s pupils were dilated, even though the coke had worn off ages ago, and his eyes were so fucking big and green and fucking unreadable. Patrick’s own eyes were drawn down, subconsciously coming to rest upon Paul’s lips, pink and flushed from the alcohol. 

He didn’t know whether he’d actually tilted his head down or whether he’d just imagined it, but suddenly Paul was stepping backwards, pulling his hand away and giving Patrick a tight lipped smile. 

“I better…my Uber’s probably here, so…”

“Oh, yeah, of course.” 

“I’ll, uh, text you. Or something.” 

“Sure. Night, Allen.” 

“Night, Bateman.” 

And with that Paul Allen was walking away and Patrick was closing the door and leaning his forehead against it to try and steady himself because the world was spinning spinning spinning even faster than before.

He only just managed to make it to the kitchen sink before he began projectile vomiting. 

Chapter Text

He hadn’t meant to bring Evelyn to the funeral, or really even mention it to her, but after he’d sat and watched her tenth call go to voicemail the day after the gala Patrick realised that this was an instant get-out-of-jail-free card. He’d finally called her back and put his near-sociopathic ability to pretend like he was feeling emotions to good use, telling her that he was so sorry for ditching her but that he was just really struggling because he couldn’t get over the fact his grandfather was just gone, you know? Like, I’ll never get a chance to see him again…to talk to him…it’s just hard, Evelyn, especially after the shit with my mother. I’m sorry, darling, I hope you understand.

Of course, Evelyn had only ever got the extremely abridged and heavily sanitised version of said shit with his mother, but that was irrelevant. His guilt trip worked so well that Evelyn actually ended up apologising to him, not even mentioning the entire Meredith shebacle. The downside was that she’d insisted she was coming to the funeral with him, and had hung up to reschedule or cancel an appointment or something that Patrick could not give less of a shit about before he had a chance to protest. 

However, loathe as he was to admit it, he was pleased that she was coming - purely because he wouldn’t have to face his family alone. His father he could just about handle, but dozens of relatives coming up to make small talk and waffle endlessly about how good a man Sean Bateman Sr. was and how his loss was going to leave such a big hole in everyone’s lives was far less bearable. 

So unbearable, in fact, that he’d snorted a few lines of Oxycontin whilst waiting for the car to arrive, and discreetly chased that with some Valium and a clonazepam on the way there. 

If you couldn’t rely on pharmaceuticals to knock you out before the funeral of one of your closest relatives, then when could you? 

============================================================================================================

Patrick had ensured that they would strategically arrive late, so that everyone else was already seated by the time they arrived at the church and any awkward chit-chat would be minimised. He could tell his father wasn’t happy about his lax timekeeping, but as he took his seat next to him in the front pew he muttered a vague apology about traffic and it seemed to do the trick. 

The church, which was situated just outside the city, was packed to the rafters. Patrick recognised a few faces as he looked around; family friends and distant relatives as well as the philanthropists and entrepreneurs Sean Sr. had mingled with well into his seventies. He wondered how much of the old man’s estate they were getting, and which bullshit charity would receive a hefty cheque organised by the Bateman family solicitors in order to keep up appearances. Like anyone here actually gave a shit about medical research or starving children. 

By the time the priest began speaking, Patrick felt too spaced out to take in much of what he said. The words washed over him, sounding as if they were coming from the other end of a tunnel, catching vague snippets of not just a top dog on Wall Street but a generous and charitable businessman this and doting and devoted family man that. The sedating blend of Oxycontin and benzos made him feel as though he wasn’t really there, as if he was watching the events unfold on television or from inside someone else’s body; he watched the enormous dark mahogany coffin hover in the air and float towards him, warping and distending in size. The priest launched into a spiel about how much of a faithful husband his grandfather was, how attentive and loving a father figure he was not just to his only son but to his only grandchild, Patrick, in addition and Patrick sensed what felt like a hundred pairs of eyes swivel in his direction and was hit with such an intense wave of vertigo that he was actually grateful when Evelyn slipped her hand into his. 

He felt as though he was going through everything in slow motion, singing the hymns at half the speed of everyone else, wading through mud to the graveyard to watch the coffin being lowered into the dark recesses of the ground, watching someone else controlling his body as he arrived at the reception and made small talk with strangers he hadn’t seen since his teens. Patrick couldn’t understand how everyone else was acting so normal, giving him their condolences and asking endless questions about what he was up to nowadays and when he was planning to get married and so much bullshit that he had to go to the toilet and crush up another Oxy to snort right there and then, and then drink three double J&Bs in quick succession before wandering back to find Evelyn. 

Sartre was right; hell was very much other people. 

The only thing that brought him any small amount of comfort was the memory of the time he’d spent with Paul the other night. He was still unsure about Paul Allen for reasons he couldn’t quite place his finger on. However, he was good company, and the events of Saturday night had been pleasant in a way that his foggy brain was currently unable to decipher; it was just nice to spend time with someone who was capable of having a half-decent conversation that wasn’t about fashion or work or what hardbodies everyone had fucked that week. 

Standing on the edge of a conversation between Evelyn and some old bitch who’d apparently known Patrick since he was knee high, he slid out his phone and, impulses dulled by his drug-fuelled haze, unblocked Paul’s number and typed out a short text. 

Dinner tonight? 

And then, to be on the safe side:

This is Patrick btw. 

“Patrick!” 

A brusque voice cut through the upper-class chatter and gentle jazz music that was being piped through the hotel bar. Sean Bateman Jr. was making his way towards Patrick and Evelyn, a bulky and intimidating figure in a dark Prada suit. He clamped his hand down onto Patrick’s shoulder and engaged in a hearty handshake, the closest physical contact father and son had had in years, before turning and kissing Evelyn on both cheeks, his hands lingering on her waist for far longer than necessary. 

“Evelyn, darling, you look wonderful. Thank you so much for coming,” he gushed, and Patrick couldn’t help but notice the blush that crept onto his ever-faithful fiance’s cheeks. “Patrick, we need to talk. I did email you, but you were apparently too busy to reply.”

Like you were too busy to attend my kindergarten nativity plays because you were preoccupied banging your twenty year old secretary? Patrick felt like retorting. Instead, numbed by the drugs, he merely shrugged. “Sorry. I’ve had a lot on at work. You know how it is.” 

“Well, we need to meet with the secretary and finalise the inheritance this week, and the estate agent is viewing the house next week. You’re going to have to meet with her and show her around.”

“Wait, what?” 

Sean sighed, the deep impatient huff he seemed to reserve solely for his son and his perceived shortcomings. “I’m in Florida on business so you’ll have to show her around.” 

“Around Grandad’s house?” 

“No, Patrick, around fucking Mar-a-Largo. Obviously around Grandad’s house.” 

“Can’t Shirley do it? I can’t take another day off work.” He easily could, but it was the principle. Why should he have to give his precious time up to show some bimbo around his grandad’s house?

Sean glanced over to the buffet table at the mention of his third wife, where she was standing and looking mournfully at the canapes whilst nursing a diet gin and tonic, stuffed into a skirt suit (Chanel, black tweed) that was at least two sizes too small. “She doesn’t know the place as well as you do. Anyway, I’ve arranged it for a Saturday.” 

“Don’t you have staff for this sort of thing?” 

Sean pinched the top of his nose and exhaled heavily. “For Christ’s sake, Patrick. Why do you always have to be so damn difficult? Can you not just do this one thing for me?” 

“Okay, fine, whatever,” Patrick snapped. He needed another clonazepam, but panic flooded over him as he realised he couldn’t remember if he’d left them in the car or not. “Look, I really should get going. I have stuff to do.”

“Already?” Evelyn was pouting at his side, evidently devastated that that her opportunities to talk about non-existent wedding plans with a myriad of relatives that Patrick was so apathetic towards he wouldn’t care if someone detonated a bomb in the room had come to an abrupt end. 

“Well, you don’t need to come.” Please stay here and leave me the fuck alone, he silently prayed. 

“Yes, stay as long as you’d like,” Sean said, a little too eagerly. 

Evelyn flashed him a pristine smile. “I’d love to, Mr Bateman. But I should really accompany Patrick. We have dinner plans.” 

“We do?” Patrick racked his brain, trying to remember if he’d made a reservation anywhere and internally cursing himself in case he had. 

“Yes, honey, at Pastels. I told you on the way over.” Evelyn sounded as if she was speaking to a disobedient child, but kept the smile plastered onto her face. 

“Oh.” Clearly it had slipped past him in his pharmaceutical haze. He wasn’t in the slightest bit hungry and the thought of spending hours more in Evelyn’s presence made him want to scream at the top of his lungs, but at that moment he wanted to be out of the wake even more, so he said his goodbyes as quickly as possible and then strode to the exit, Evelyn hurrying behind still yapping away and did she ever shut the fuck up? Surprisingly, they managed to make it fifteen minutes into the car ride back into the city before she said something else that made Patrick realise just how much pleasure he would get from opening the door and pushing her out into the traffic to become a pile of Chanel-clad roadkill. 

“So I was thinking of having a little soiree this weekend,” she proclaimed, as though she’d just announced she was hosting an Oscars afterparty. “We haven’t had a dinner party in so long. What do you think?” 

Patrick stared out of the window and wished the car would crash. I think you’re the dumbest person I’ve ever met, he thought. However, Evelyn clearly hadn’t been looking for an actual answer, as she carried on regardless. 

“I’ll invite Courtney and Luis and Tim, of course. And then I should invite Vanden, and she’ll want to bring-”

Shit. “Don’t invite Vanden,” Patrick interjected.  

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see her again. But three women he was fucking, or had fucked, in a room together with Luis Carruthers there too? He would rather shoot himself. It would be awkwardness personified, and truth be told, he didn’t know Vanden well enough to state definitively whether she would hint to Evelyn what they’d done. Always keep your conquests separate as much as possible. 

Evelyn sighed. “Patrick, you really need to stop judging people just because they’re different to you.” Rich, coming from her. “Vanden is a lovely girl. And she’s family. She’s like a sister to me.” 

“You talk shit about her all the time.” 

“Yes, because sisters fight .” Once again, Evelyn took on the tone of voice of a mother scolding her child.

Patrick shrugged. 

“You know, we were really close growing up.” Evelyn softened, sounding nostalgic. “We drifted apart when she went off the rails in high school, but we’ve really reconnected now that she’s older. I know I can trust her.” 

Was that a hint? Did she know? Patrick’s mind was whirring; he began to feel as though he was on the verge of panic. “So who else are you inviting?” he asked, desperately hoping to get the conversation back onto safer grounds. 

“Well, I was thinking Paul and Meredith.” She took a deep breath. “I, uh…Tim told me that he was just winding me up about you and Meredith, and he didn’t think I’d really believe it. I’m sorry for accusing you.” Evelyn reached over and threaded her fingers through Patrick’s as he resisted the urge to recoil, pecking him on the cheek. “I know you’d never do that. You’re my Mr Bateman.”

Patrick was getting a headache. So now Bryce had gone behind his back again and this time told Evelyn that he hadn’t slept with Meredith? Even though, as far as Patrick was aware, Bryce was still under the impression that he had? This was too confusing. 

“So Saturday night, yes?” Mercifully, Evelyn’s phone began ringing at that exact moment, and Patrick took the opportunity to check his own to see that Paul had replied. His chest cramped. Jeez, I’ve not even done any uppers today. 

Sure. Dorsia 7pm?

For a moment, Patrick felt white hot rage course through his veins. Dorsia. That fucking bastard wasn’t lying; he really had managed to snag a table there. And at such short notice too! Whilst he - Patrick fucking Bateman - was still on the waiting list. What a joke. 

“Oh my goodness, really?” Evelyn’s voice pierced his train of thought. “That’s incredible! What time?”

Patrick had no idea what she was on about, and furthermore couldn’t care less. He just knew that she was pissing him off and that he would have to find a way to ditch her tonight. 

Sounds good , he typed back to Paul. At least he would get to finally go to Dorsia, even if it was humiliatingly due to a reservation made by a colleague who seemed to be on first-name terms with management or something. 

“Patrick, you’ll never guess what!” Evelyn hung up the phone and turned to him, her blue eyes sparkling. 

“I don’t know, Evelyn. Jeff Bezos has announced he’s running for president?” 

She frowned. “Who? What do you mean? Who’s Jeff Bezos?” 

“Doesn’t matter,” Patrick sighed. 

“Isn’t he the maitre-d at Harry’s?” 

“No, Evelyn.” 

“Oh.” She paused. “Well, anyway, listen. I’ve managed to get us an appointment to view my dream wedding venue next Saturday. Well, I say I have, but really it was Esmerelda-” 

“Wait, what?” Patrick suddenly felt jolted back to consciousness, as if someone had thrown a bucket of cold water over his head. 

“So it’s in the Hamptons. It’s so beautiful and elegant, and their spa is world renowned, but it’s borderline impossible to get a viewing, let alone make a reservation. I was talking to Esmerelda about it at the salon last week and it turns out her hairdresser’s cousin works there, and he managed to find an available slot for us to view it! Isn’t that wonderful?” 

Patrick suddenly felt as though his tongue had shrivelled up and fallen off; his throat was scratchy and dry and he needed a fucking drink, like, now. “We didn’t agree on this,” he said, dumbly. 

She rolled her eyes. “Wait until you see it, though. You’ll fall in love. And this is perfect timing - we can go to the Hamptons on Friday night and stay all weekend! Seeing the wedding venue on Saturday and then I can be there with you to show the estate agent around your grandfather’s house on Sunday!” 

This was all too much. Patrick leaned forwards. “Can you take a detour to the Canal Bar on 3rd Avenue please?” 

“Patrick, what are you doing? We have dinner plans!” Evelyn cried. 

“I forgot that I…need to meet McDermott.” Patrick knew his friends would be finishing up at work and heading over the street to the Canal Bar, and hopefully someone would have coke. He needed coke, or, failing that, crystal meth. 

“What?” Evelyn looked as if she was about to explode with fury. 

“We need to talk about…uh, about the Ransom account.” Patrick took off his seatbelt and craned forwards, silently urging the traffic to hurry the fuck up and let him through. 

“Are you fucking serious?” 

The car pulled to a stop at a red light, and Patrick spotted his chance. “Forget the Canal Bar. I’ll get out here,” he instructed the driver. “I’m sorry, Evelyn. Uh, I’ll call you, okay?” 

And with that, he flung the door open and stepped out, weaving through the traffic to the sidewalk and ignoring the shouts of Evelyn behind him. 

============================================================================================================

Just as he predicted, the bar was full of P&P employees drinking their sorrows away after a long day of being paid six figures to read <newspaper> in their office and harass the hardbody secretaries. He spotted Luis Carruthers at the bar, awkwardly waiting for the bartender to notice him as usual instead of shouting for his attention like normal people did, and managed to slip past without being spotted by him. He couldn’t deal with any faggoty behaviour right now; he felt like he might actually commit a felony if he tried to speak to him. 

Bryce and McDermott were seated at their usual tables, deep in heated conversation. They both looked up in synchronisation as Patrick approached. 

“Wahey, the wanderer returns!” crowed McDermott, whose flushed face suggested that he wasn’t on his first J&B. 

“Where the fuck have you been?” Bryce demanded. “We were about to put out a fucking amber alert for you.” 

“I was just…” Patrick struggled to think of a believable answer as he flopped down opposite the two men. He loosened his tie, wondering if anyone would realise the fact that he was dressed for a funeral and then realising that his dark Valentino suit and black silk tie weren’t out of the ordinary for P&P workwear. “Does anyone have a gram?” 

Bryce checked his Rolex. “I’ll pick up later. Van Patten should be here soon.” 

Surrounded in the company of his own kind, suited businessmen making jokes that would legally qualify as hate speech and ogling the big-titted bartenders, Patrick felt slightly more at ease. But he was particularly aware of his growing sobriety, and without thinking, he reached out for Bryce’s nearly-full glass of Scotch and downed it straight. 

“Dude, what the fuck? That’s my drink!” the dark-haired man snapped. 

“Chill, I’ll buy you another one.” He felt the liquid burn through his chest. “Anyone want a shot?” 

“Wait a second. I need to piss.” McDermott stood and made his way to the bathroom. He’d left his drink behind; without a second thought, Patrick picked it up and downed it too. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Bryce was giving him an unreadable look. 

“What do you mean?” 

Bryce glanced around before leaning forward, conspiratorially lowering his voice a tone. “You’ve been acting weird as fuck lately.”

Did he know something? What even was there to know? “How am I being weird?” Patrick asked defensively.

Bryce began counting off Patrick’s supposed misdemeanours on his fingers. “You ditched us at the strip club. You ditched us at the gala. You didn’t show up to work today, and suddenly you turn up here fucked out of your mind.” 

“I was…” Fuck, he needed more valium. “I’m sober. I’ve literally just had those two drinks. You saw me.” 

“Man, I’m not one to judge.” Bryce held up his hands. “But your pupils are blown up to fuck and you’re shaking. You’re being sketchy. Seriously. Are you using crack or something?”

Patrick was absolutely certain he wasn’t shaking, but he also couldn’t feel his hands or feet, so perhaps Bryce was right. But what was with the fucking interrogation?

“Not that it’s any of your business,” he snapped, irritated now, “but it’s family stuff. And no, I’m not using crack, but even if I was it’s hardly any of your business. You’re talking like you’re not a fucking coke addict on as much steroids as a bodybuilder.” 

Bryce stared at him for a few long seconds, his mouth set into a hard line and his eyes indecipherable. “Why did you lie about fucking Meredith?” 

“I-I didn’t.” Patrick felt a sweat break out over his face, wiping a hand over his cheeks. 

“Stop bullshitting. I spoke to Meredith at the gala. She told me it never happened.” 

Code red. Code red! This was not part of the plan. Patrick tried to collect his thoughts. He didn’t care as much about Bryce’s accusation as he did about the inevitable damage this was going to do to his reputation. He could see it now: hey, did you know Patrick Bateman lied about fucking Paul Allen’s fiance? What a fucking virgin, man. 

He slammed his fist down on the table, setting the empty glasses rattling. “Why are you so fucking obsessed with who I’m fucking, Bryce?” 

“Who’s Bateman fucking?” McDermott reappeared from behind. 

“Your fucking mom,” Patrick snapped, standing up and pushing past his friend, making a beeline for the bar. Fuck Bryce. Why is he trying to get involved in my sex life? Is he a fucking faggot or something?

“Excuse me? Sir?” 

Patrick blinked. He was standing at the bar, and he hadn’t even realised the bartender’s attention was on him. 

“Uh…” 

“I said, what can I get you?” the bartender snapped impatiently. She was a five or six at best under her caked-on makeup, and her tits were saggy even though she only looked like she was in her early twenties. And she had the nerve to be rude to him! 

“Uh, J&B. And a Corona. Actually, make that two J&Bs. No ice.” 

She turned away with a scowl, but even so Patrick handed her a twenty and told her to keep the change; out of convenience rather than generosity. 

“Patrick? Hi, Patrick!” 

Shit. Luis fucking Carruthers had spotted him. Could this day become any more of a farce?

“Luis.” He didn’t bother turning to look at him while he addressed him. 

“Sir?” The semi-ugly bartender had reappeared. “This is a ten.” 

“What?” Patrick felt as though he had been transported onto the set of a television show and told to act without a script. 

“You only gave me ten dollars. That’s not enough.” She waved the bill in her hand. 

“I’ll pay for it,” said Luis, eagerly reaching for his wallet.

For fucks sakes. Like he was too poor to pay for his own drinks or something? What if the bartender thought he was and had deliberately underpaid her because of that? What if she thought he and Luis were…y’know? What if she thought he was poor AND a faggot?

Patrick slammed a fifty-dollar bill down onto the bar. “Keep the change,” he practically snarled, picking up his first Scotch and knocking it back in one go. 

As soon as the bartender’s back was turned, Luis sidled up right against Patrick, ‘accidentally’ seeming to brush his arm against his. “You look very suave today, Patrick,” he said earnestly. 

“I was at a funeral.” Patrick picked up his second J&B and took a huge swig, feeling it course warmly through his veins. He wasn’t sure why he’d just told Luis that; shock factor, perhaps. 

But the idiot didn’t seem shocked in the slightest. “Oh, that’s too bad. Was it someone you knew?” 

“No. I just gatecrashed a stranger’s funeral, Luis,” Patrick deadpanned. He swallowed the remainder of his Scotch and replaced the glass, feeling slightly dizzy, which made sense considering he’d been drinking since the wake began four hours ago. Plus, he’d been taking benzos and Oxy constantly since then. He wondered if Paul would want to get some coke tonight. Of course he would; it’s Paul. Paul, who he was meeting in under two hours. Why was he sweating so much?

Luis was talking, but Patrick couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying and, more importantly, couldn’t give less of a shit. He picked up his Corona and left without a goodbye, returning to the table where McDermott sat. Marcus Halberstram had appeared and taken Bryce’s spot. Bryce was nowhere to be seen, thankfully. 

“Bateman!” McDermott was definitely drunk now, which was a relief, because he was incapable of shutting up when he was inebriated, and that minimised the risk of any awkward conversations if Bryce returned. “Van Patten has a date tonight so he can’t make squash. Want to replace him?” 

“No can do, I’m having dinner with Evelyn,” Patrick lied. He wasn’t sure why exactly he’d lied, why he hadn’t just said he was seeing Paul Allen. Perhaps because McDermott and the others were still under the impression that the two men hated each other, and it would take too long to explain why they didn’t anymore.  

Plus, Patrick wasn’t even sure himself why he no longer hated Paul Allen. 

“Hey, is that Baxter over there?” Marcus interjected. It was, and their colleague came to join them, and the three descended into a debate about the circumstances under which paisley print was acceptable, and Patrick sat there, his head spinning, counting down the minutes until his escape to Dorsia and to the company of Paul fucking Allen. 

Chapter Text

Patrick could barely remember arriving at Dorsia, much less browsing the menu and having his order taken. The taxi ride over had been a blur, and he had considered asking the driver to just take him home so he could sleep off this endless dizzying cycle of booze and pills and funerals and fucking wedding venues , and hope that when he awoke tomorrow the world would either have ended or regained some sense of normality and order. But then Paul had texted to say he was on his way, and Patrick had been hit with a wave of nausea and taken another clonazepam in preparation. He needed to make sure the other man still saw him as his superior; he had to remain cool and composed

But now they were inside Dorsia and there was a plate of something slightly indistinguishable set down in front of him and everything around him was both far too loud and overly quiet at the same time. 

“What is this?” he asked. 

Paul glanced up from filling his wine glass with merlot. He’d rolled his shirtsleeves up to his elbows, which was disgraceful behaviour for such a place, but then again Patrick could hardly sit straight in his chair so who was he to talk and how had Paul not noticed how fucked he was, anyway?

“What’s what?” 

Patrick pointed his knife towards his plate, which contained a lime slice on the side and looked unmistakably like some kind of fish. 

“This,” he replied, his hand shaking only slightly. 

“It’s the sea urchin ceviche. Don’t you remember? You ordered it.” Paul frowned. 

“Oh.” He wracked his brains, vaguely recalling telling the waiter to ‘make that two’ after Paul had ordered. 

“It’s really good,” Paul added, picking up his own lime slice and squeezing it gently over his plate. 

Patrick picked up his, intending to do the same, but the combination of - well, everything - had made his hands uncomfortably sweaty. The lime bounced off his plate and, embarrassingly, fell into his crotch. In fucking Dorsia, of all places! He could never show his face in public again. 

“You alright?” Paul glanced up, looking confused. 

“I dropped my lime.” The hilarity of it suddenly struck him. Here he was in Manhattan’s most coveted restaurant, and he had dropped his lime! Into his Valentino-clad crotch, nonetheless. He burst into laughter, startling his dinner guest and undoubtedly everyone else in the room. 

“Uh, okay.” Paul chuckled a little, looking awkwardly around himself. “Well, you can have some of mine.” 

Before he could protest, Paul had leaned over and, twisting his wrist, drizzled his remaining lime juice over the ceviche. It felt so uncomfortably intimate that Patrick’s laughter died down immediately. That was what friends did, right? Everyone in the room surely knew that. They knew this wasn’t some kind of gay situation. Why was that even crossing his mind?

Patrick realised Paul had been talking and jolted himself out of his mind, forcing himself back to consciousness. 

“So, then, she got mad at me because it was apparently the three row pearl necklace she wanted, and not the one. Even though I’d got her the matching bracelet and earrings.” He shook his head. “Women are a nightmare.” 

“What? I mean, sorry, I didn’t catch the start of that.” Patrick pushed his fork into the ceviche and watched it blur and morphe before his eyes. 

“Oh, it’s nothing.” Paul dismissively waved a hand in the air, setting down his fork to reach for his wine glass. “Just Meredith being a bitch because I didn’t give her the wrong Vivienne Westwood necklace.” 

Patrick’s stomach uncomfortably clenched and he wondered if he was going to vomit all over the table, or perhaps have a heart attack. Paul’s eyes fixated on his still-full plate. 

“Why aren’t you eating, man?” 

“I was just about to.” Patrick knew he probably looked like Evelyn during one of her anorexia stages, and felt unnerved and slightly annoyed at Paul’s focus on whether or not he was eating. What did it matter to him? When he was out with the guys, it was rare that any of them ate more than half their plate, and no one ever commented on it. Paul could fuck right off. 

But, strangely, he also felt somewhat touched. 

“So where were you today? I didn’t see you around the office.” Paul was back to eating, and Patrick forced himself to mirror the other man’s actions, raising a forkful of ceviche to his mouth. It tasted good, admittedly, but nothing spectacular, and he briefly wondered whether Paul had drizzled the lime juice on wrong or whether everyone was just overhyping how delicious it really was. 

“Um…” Patrick’s thoughts felt as though they were travelling through his brain at half their normal speed, like when he watched Texas Chainsaw Massacre on 0.5x so he could masturbate over it for longer. He chewed and swallowed. “I had a meeting. About the - about the Ransom account.” 

“Oh, nice. How’s it going?”

“Uh, yeah, it’s good.” Patrick lifted his wine glass to his lips and took a few huge gulps. He could feel Paul’s eyes on him, and his skin prickled; it was far too warm in here. You’d think somewhere as renowned as Dorsia would have better control over their AC. 

“We should set up a meeting with Henry Fischer soon, to discuss the merger.” Why was everything Paul did so damn fast? He had already eaten most of his food, and he was talking at what felt like the speed of light. Ironically, though, he had barely touched his wine, whereas Patrick was on his second - or maybe third? - glass. 

“That sounds good.” Patrick forced down another mouthful of the ceviche. He needed something to perk him up and snap his brain out of its fogginess. “Paul, do you, uh, do you have any coke on you?” 

The blonde man frowned. “No. Why?” 

“Because I want to do coke, obviously.” Patrick couldn’t help but laugh at himself again. Why wasn’t Paul finding him funny tonight? Everything coming out of his mouth was fucking hilarious. He didn’t even have to try. 

Paul glanced around the room and quickly leaned in towards Patrick. “Bateman, keep your voice down. Do you have any idea how loudly you’re speaking?” 

Patrick looked around; a few patrons were peering in his direction, but the majority were too engrossed in conversation to notice or care. “ I’m sorry, ” he replied in an exaggerated stage whisper, before creasing into laughter at his own hilarity. 

Paul rolled his eyes, but Patrick could see the dimple on the side of his mouth flicker like a light switch as he struggled to keep his composure. “We can get coke later, if you want,” he said in a low tone. “But just behave yourself.” 

Patrick’s chest cramped agonisingly, the smokey scent of Tobacco Ouid tickling his nostrils and Paul’s baritone murmurs of obliviously suggestive phrases like behave yourself and the promise of later - that the night would not end with their dinner - ringing in his ears. He straightened up and reached for his water glass; feeling concerned over this sudden chest pain business even amidst his narcotics haze. 

“Paul.” He drained his water and sat the glass down, trying to hide how much his hand was shaking. “Can I ask you a personal question?” 

“Sure.” Paul smoothly signalled to one of the waiters for another bottle of wine and turned to Patrick, his eyes so big and so green and so fixated on Patrick’s. “What’s up?” 

“Do you ever get chest pains?” 

“What?”

“Chest pains. Like here.” Patrick flattened his palm over the space where his heart was meant to be. “You know. When it hurts.”

Paul’s eyes were twinkling in the dim light of the restaurant, his mouth creased into an amused smile. “I know what chest pains are, Bateman. I’m just surprised because you said you had a personal question.” 

“That is a personal question. It’s about health.” 

Paul snorted, his shoulders shaking with mirth. “What the fuck, man. I was expecting you to ask me something deep. That’s so cute.” 

CUTE?! Before he had time to properly process the meaning of that statement, Patrick was hit with yet another chest cramp. 

“Shit, I just had another one!” he exclaimed. 

Paul’s face was still crinkled in gaiety. “Another what? Personal question?”

“No, a chest pain. That’s what I was asking you. Do you get them too?” 

“Uh, no.” Paul was frowning now. “How often do you get them?” 

“Like, every couple of days, I dunno.” Patrick toyed with his fork. “It’s nothing bad, I’m sure. I just wondered if it was normal.”

“Well, I’m no doctor, but I’d get that checked out. It doesn’t sound good.” 

Patrick shrugged, regretting bringing the subject up. But Paul hadn’t finished. 

“Seriously, man. When you said ‘personal question’ I thought you meant you were going to ask me when I lost my virginity or something.” He was leaning back, refilling his wine glass with a wry smile on his face. 

“Why would I ask that?” Patrick extended his hand for the wine bottle. Their fingers brushed as Paul handed it over, and Patrick felt the hairs on his neck stand up, realising his senses must be heightened due to his state of intoxication - which, by now, was arguably pretty bad, and he briefly debated whether another glass was really what he needed. 

“I dunno. I’m just messing, man.” 

“You’ve probably not even lost it yet.” 

Paul snorted. “Yeah, sure. You got me.” 

Patrick felt a horrible intrusive thought about Paul Allen and sex attempt to enter his brain, but managed to push it down through a large swig of wine. Paul had launched into a story about something dumb Halberstram had done with a hooker the week before; he was laughing and the soft lighting was shrouding him in a velvety glow and, for the first time all day, Patrick felt content. 

============================================================================================================

Now they were in an Uber, and Patrick wasn’t sure who’d paid for it or when they’d left Dorsia or where they were even going, but he was laughing and he could tell Paul was pissed off. 

“Patrick, could you not even fucking act sober for ten seconds to walk out the fucking restaraunt?” 

“I am sober.” Patrick turned to Paul and pulled his eyelids open wide, adopting a deadpan expression. 

“Cut it out,” said Paul, slapping his wrist, but he was laughing now too. 

“You hit like a girl.” Patrick slapped him back on the wrist, mimicking the pathetic gesture. 

“Oh yeah?” Paul turned and thumped him on the shoulder, not hard enough for Patrick to actually feel anything but with enough force to make him drunkenly recoil. 

“You’re a little bitch.” Patrick swung for his friend, but Paul - quick as a flash - grabbed both his wrists, encircling his hands around them with a surprising amount of force. 

“Yeah? Who’s the little bitch now?” he smirked. 

“Fucking bastard.” Patrick struggled against his grip, but Paul leaned forward, pinning Patrick back so that he was awkwardly half-lying down across the backseat, Paul above him, his hands still around Patrick’s wrists. 

“I thought you worked out, Bateman,” Paul jeered. “Doesn’t look like it.” 

Patrick wrestled to sit up, but Paul shifted his weight so he was on top of him, pinning Patrick’s hands in between them against his chest. He held his breath. Paul’s face loomed inches from his own, so close that he could smell wine on his breath, his lips flushed and darkened from the merlot. Patrick’s mouth suddenly felt so dry it was as though he hadn’t drunk in a year, and he swallowed, his throat making an awkwardly audible noise in the otherwise silent back of the taxi. 

“You gonna behave now?” Paul whispered. Even though he hadn’t taken any drugs all night, his pupils were so enormously big behind his glasses that they nearly absorbed his irises. 

Patrick couldn’t speak. It was as though his tongue had been severed off and his vocal chords fried. He could hardly breathe, either, but that was because almost all of Paul’s entire body weight was pushing down on top of him; a fact which should be making him want to skin himself and then Paul and then the faggot taxi driver as well because why the fuck not but was, instead…

… not wholly unpleasant. 

“Huh?” Paul murmured, and Patrick realised he was still looking for an answer, even though he couldn’t remember what the question was. He nodded regardless. 

“Good boy.” Paul loosened his grip and pulled himself back up. It took Patrick a few seconds more to straighten up his tie and struggle back into an upright position. His heart was beating at what felt like a thousand beats per minute and the taxi didn’t have its fucking aircon on, obviously, so it was far too warm and the stupid fucking Dorsia wine was making him horny. He pressed the button to wind down the window; miraculously, it worked. 

“So where do you want to go?” Paul was on his phone, texting away, not even glancing in Patrick’s direction. 

“I don’t mind.” Patrick closed his eyes and pressed his cheek against the cool glass of the window, the breeze ruffling his hair and probably ruining it but fuck it , he was too wasted to care. 

“I can’t be fucked with Tunnels or the Yacht Club.”

“Me neither.” Patrick leaned away from the window and attempted to scrutinise his reflection, even though it was doubling and glitching in front of his own eyes. “I went to this jazz bar last week that was nice.”

“I really doubt you’d get served at the bar with the state you’re in.” Paul finally turned off his phone and placed it inside his suit jacket pocket, turning to face Patrick. “I didn’t think Bryce and the sort were the type to hang around jazz bars.” 

“I wasn’t with them. I was with Vanden,” Patrick said without thinking. Shit! No, wait, it was okay - Paul didn’t know Vanden. And even if he did, it wasn’t like he would tell Evelyn. He knew he was fucking Courtney and had kept his mouth shut. 

“Who’s Vanden?” 

“Um, no-one. It doesn’t matter.” Why couldn’t he tell him? It was like his mouth was moving autonomously, words coming out with no connection to his brain. 

There was a beat before Paul’s eyes lit up. “I know somewhere we should go.” 

“Where?” 

Paul leaned forwards to talk to the driver, mentioning the name of a club Patrick had never heard of, before sitting back and flashing him a smile. “You’ll see. You’ll like it, I promise.” 

============================================================================================================

The club was just a few blocks from Tunnels, but Patrick had neither seen nor heard of it before. It was crammed into a small alley between an Indian takeaway and a boarded-up video tape shop, and the bouncer was a woman. Not a remotely attractive one, but a woman nonetheless. Patrick wasn’t impressed so far. 

But once they got inside it looked more promising. The dancefloor was spacious and surrounded by a balcony, and pink fluorescent lighting cast a rosy glow on everyone. The DJ was playing some unidentifiable techno mix, and the majority of the people here looked like Camden students, but hey - if Paul liked it, it must be half decent. Plus, Patrick was drunk enough that anywhere but home seemed bearable. 

“You want a drink?” Paul yelled over the pounding music. 

“Corona,” Patrick shouted back, and Paul nodded and disappeared through the crowds to the bar. 

Patrick pulled out his phone before realising it was dead; a fact he was silently thankful for, meaning he couldn’t be reached by Evelyn and her whining or tracked by Bryce and his faggoty nosiness. Sliding it back into his pocket, he felt someone crash into him from behind, and turned round to insult them before realising the culprit was a girl around Vanden’s age, dressed scantily in black mesh and lace; like a typical Camden student, she was wearing black lipstick, a jewelled septum ring, and had long bleached lilac hair with long wispy bangs. Not his usual type, but again, maybe that was what he needed. 

“Sorry!” the girl exclaimed, holding up her hands. 

“It’s okay.” Patrick tried to reign in his sweating and gave what he hoped was his most seductive smile. “You’re pretty enough to get away with not looking where you’re going.” 

She grinned. “Shut up.” He could tell she was bowled over; that even in his wrecked state he was still able to produce the effortless charm that no woman would ever turn down flattered him. Damn, he was good at what he did. 

“Pat Bateman.” He extended a hand to hers, praying it wasn’t clammy, but she took it eagerly and smiled widely. 

“I’m Amy. Are you from round here?” 

“I work on Wall Street.” 

Amy looked taken aback. “What, like Wolf of Wall Street ?”

“Something like that.” Someone tapped his shoulder, and Patrick turned round to find Paul standing there, a Corona in each hand. 

“Who’s this?” he asked, looking over at Amy. 

Patrick opened his mouth to reply, but the girl was looking from him to Paul. “Oh! I’m sorry. We were just talking.”

“This is Amy,” Patrick slipped his drink from Paul’s hand and took a swig. 

“Hi, Amy.” Paul looked expressionless. There was a silence punctuated only by cheers on the dancefloor as the DJ merged two nameless top 40 hits together. 

“Anyway, I’m going to get a drink.” Amy broke the tension, smiling at the pair. “You guys have fun!” She sidled past as Paul turned and pushed off towards the dancefloor. Patrick waited a moment and then followed him, realising it would be rude to ditch his friend after he’d got them into Dorsia at such short notice. Plus, this Amy girl had no tits. 

On the dancefloor, Paul turned round, noticing Patrick behind him. He looked stony-faced, and Patrick wondered what had happened to make his mood change so rapidly. Maybe the Coronas were too expensive or something. 

“Where’s your friend?” Paul shouted. 

“What friend?” 

“The emo chick back there.” 

“Oh, I don’t know. She was just apologising for bumping into me.” 

“What?” Paul tilted his head towards Patrick, and Patrick moved closer, keeping his mouth a cautionary distance away from Paul’s ear, mindful of what happened the last time he’d had to whisper something to him. 

“She. Was. Just. Apologising. For. Bumping. Into. Me,” he yelled, announciating his words as clearly as he could. 

“Oh.” Paul took a long swig out of his beer, contemplating something, and then looked up, grinning suddenly. “Hey, let’s get a photo together.” 

“What?” Patrick was taken aback to find the flash on Paul’s phone camera go off inches from his face. “Dude, I wasn’t ready! Delete that, I look terrible.” 

Paul was laughing, his head thrown back. “Impossible. You look great. But okay, we’ll get another one.” 

“You’re too short.” Patrick plucked the phone from Paul’s fingers and readjusted it to an angle he was happy with. 

“Dick,” said Paul, just as the camera went off. “Aw man, delete that! I’m literally in the middle of talking.” 

“Okay, one more,” Patrick sighed, aware that this was one of the most girly activities a heterosexual man could do with his friends. As he held his arm out, Paul took him aback by flinging an arm around his neck and pulling him down so they were roughly the same height. Their cheeks briefly brushed together, giving Patrick such a surprise he nearly dropped the phone, but managed to retain his composure enough to take the photo. 

“Oh, this one’s great,” Paul exclaimed, inspecting it. “This is going straight on my Instagram story!” 

Patrick rolled his eyes, but couldn’t help the smile growing over his face. 

============================================================================================================

Patrick wasn’t sure how much time had passed, or how many Coronas he’d drunk, but he did know one thing - he was having fun. The most fun he’d possibly ever had in a club, in fact. He wasn’t sure what it was, because they’d only done a tiny bit of shitty coke from some faggot in the toilets, and he hadn’t hit it off with any hardbodies. He was just dancing next to Paul, and every so often Paul would look over, under the pink neon lights, his hair flopping boyishly over his forehead, and the two would meet eyes and grin and Patrick would feel like he was flying, soaring up and away from the club and gliding over Manhattan. 

Wherever this club was, he loved it. 

Until the guy brushed up against him. 

He’d seen him skulking around the edge of the dancefloor, eyeing him up, but he’d ignored him; he looked just like a typical Camden faggot - he was wearing cow print jeans with a neon green blazer, for goodness’ sakes, and he had an orange buzzcut  - who was nowhere near worthy of Patrick even glancing in his direction. 

But now he was behind him on the dancefloor, and before Patrick had a chance to react, the guy had grabbed his hips and was grinding against him. 

Patrick froze, his entire body tensing and becoming rigid, his veins turning to ice. He wanted to turn round and punch the fucking faggot right in his face, break his fucking arm off and beat him to death with it, but his feet were rooted to the ground. It was as if they were encased in concrete. He couldn’t even push him off. He just stood there, panic rising in his chest. 

The whole ordeal felt like it had lasted several minutes, but it was merely seconds before Paul sprung forward and shoved the guy off Patrick. 

“ FUCKING PERVERT ,” he was screaming, and Patrick was standing motionless, still unable to move or speak, watching Paul square up to the guy and shout in his face and punch him and - wait, what?

Paul fucking Allen, the effortlessly cool and composed playboy of Wall Street, was in the middle of the dancefloor punching the living daylights out of the random guy that had just tried to grind against Patrick. 

The crowds had parted and people were screaming; Patrick could see the bouncers storming towards them. It was like a switch had flipped and he had suddenly been forced awake from his stupor. He leapt forward and grabbed Paul by his shoulders, pulling him off the faggot, who was now crumpled on the floor and bleeding from his nose. 

“Paul! Fucking stop it!” he shouted, but the guy looked up at Paul and said something Patrick didn’t catch and then Paul had broken out of Patrick’s grip and swung at him again. 

“Paul!” Patrick yelled. A horde of bouncers circled around the three of them, two pulling Paul off his victim and two more helping him to his feet, one grabbing Patrick by the arm. 

“I didn’t do anything,” he snapped, but it was drowned out by the hubbub of the other clubbers. 

“You two have to leave immediately, or we’re calling the cops,” yelled one of the bouncers who had a hold of Paul over his shoulder. They were marching him to the exit, the bouncer holding Patrick’s arm following behind, and the crowds were parting around them as people stared on in shock. 

“Can you be a bit gentler?” Patrick shouted as close to the bouncer’s ear as he could. “This is fucking Valentino! It cost more than your yearly salary!” 

It was to no avail; they reached the entrance of the club and were pushed into the cold night air with far much force than was necessary. 

“If you guys haven’t left the premises in five minutes, I’m calling the cops,” one of them, a fat, bald man who looked like he was completely dead behind the eyes, told them boredly. 

“And what are you going to do about the guy that just sexually assaulted my friend?” shouted Paul, his face flushed, fists clenched by his sides. 

“Paul. Just leave it.” Patrick reached out and placed a hand on the smaller man’s shoulder. 

“Listen to your friend,” the bouncer grunted, before turning to head back inside. 

“Paul, come on. Let’s go.” Patrick looked into Paul’s eyes, pleading silently. “Let’s go to Tunnels and get some blow.” 

There was a long silence, punctuated only by the quiet chattering of people in the entrance queue and a car alarm going off somewhere in the distance. 

Finally, Paul sighed. 

“Sure. Whatever. Let’s go.” 

They stole a taxi that was idling at the sidewalk, clearly pre booked by someone else, and Patrick was just fastening his seatbelt when something caught his eye. He hadn’t noticed the name of the club when they went inside, but now he saw that over the door was the phrase Silence = Death in fluorescent letters, with a pink neon triangle over the top. 

“Silence equals death? What kind of fucking name for a club is that?” he wondered aloud. 

“No, it’s not - never mind.” Paul sighed, rubbing at the knuckles of his left hand. Patrick looked over, noticing for the first time that they were swollen and red, with bruises threatening to break through. 

“How’s your hand?” he asked awkwardly. 

Paul turned and smiled. “Compared to that bastard’s nose, it’s in pretty good shape.”

They laughed. As Paul moved his hand down to his side, it brushed against Patrick’s. Instead of withdrawing it, he kept it where it was, the backs of their hands touching so lightly Patrick wondered if he was just imagining it. 

But he certainly wasn’t imagining it when Paul’s fingers slid into his palm, nor when he cautiously, slowly, ever-so-carefully enclosed his hand around Paul’s. Neither of them moved, or spoke, or acknowledged it in any way.  They sat hand in hand for the rest of the journey. 

Chapter Text

When Patrick opened his eyes, the room was dark. Surprisingly, his head wasn’t sore in the slightest, and he couldn’t tell whether he’d managed to completely avoid a hangover altogether or whether it just hadn’t yet kicked in. He rolled over to look at his digital alarm; it took him a few seconds to realise that it wasn’t there, and that its place had been taken by an analogue clock. Squinting around the room as his eyes began to adjust to what little light there was, he could tell that the blurry outlines of furniture were all in the wrong places, and suddenly it dawned on him. 

He shouldn’t be here. 

Patrick heard a creaking in the distance, not unlike the sound of floorboards, and held his breath, ears straining. For a moment, he thought he was in the clear, but then he heard another step. He lay back down and pulled the duvet over his head. Held his breath. Pretended to be asleep. Did all those things that he did every time, hoping, praying , that this time would be different, that this time they would turn back and leave him alone. 

As usual, it didn’t work. 

The steps got closer, more cautious, until they came to a stop just outside the door. The handle turned, slowly; the door creaked, opening just wide enough for it to put its head round and whisper into the silence. 

“Patrick, are you awake?” 

It was more of a statement than a question. Patrick squeezed his eyes shut and continued to hold his breath, feeling every muscle in his under-developed body tense and strain.

The door clicked shut, and for a second he thought that he was safe. But then it spoke. 

“I know you’re just pretending to be asleep.” 

Patrick kept up the charade, even though it was failing. The floor was so thickly carpeted that he couldn’t hear it moving towards him until the duvet was suddenly wrenched off him. He opened his eyes in surprise, and saw the shadowy outline of a figure in front of him, grinning triumphantly, its eyes and teeth glinting bright in the darkness. 

“It hurts my feelings when you don’t want to spend time with me,” the figure whispered. 

“I-I’m sorry,” Patrick squeaked. “I’m just really tired.”

“What do YOU do that’s worth being tired over?” The figure sat down on the edge of the bed, and Patrick slid over, allowing it more room beside him; his nostrils filled with the smell of liquor and pipe tobacco.

He didn’t say a word. 

“Hmm?” The figure leaned over and took hold of Patrick’s wrist, gently, almost tenderly. This was all just part of the act. It lifted Patrick’s arm into the air; the stark paleness of his skin contrasting with the gloom of their surroundings. “Maybe you should spend your time lifting weights. You’re a fucking twig. So scrawny it’s embarrassing. You think you’ll ever get a girlfriend with these little twig arms?” 

Patrick looked down at his arms, skinny and frail, and tried to pull his hand away. It laughed, and suddenly Patrick’s eyes adjusted and saw its face and he couldn’t breathe . 

Every time it was someone new, some amalgamation of Patrick’s friends and colleagues and randomers he’d passed on the street. But this time…

…it was Paul Allen. 

Paul fucking Allen was sitting above him, and moving his hands down to his waist, and Patrick was lying there paralysed with fear, unable to do a thing. He’d trusted Paul. He’d allowed him in his apartment, he’d danced with him in the club, he’d held hands with him in the cab, and now he was doing this. He was just like everyone else.

He’d even told Paul about his grandfather, and now-

“No!” Patrick screamed, wrenching away from Paul’s hands. 

“Shhhh.” The other man grabbed him by the arms and forced him down flat on his back. 

“Get off me!” Patrick yelled as he could, certain that everyone in the house must have heard. Pleading that they had. 

“Shut the fuck up.” The man - Paul? - reached across him and Patrick flinched, bracing himself for a slap that never came. Instead, he felt a pillow being pressed over his face. 

“ Get off me! ” he screamed as loud as he could, an adrenaline rush coursing through his veins and giving him the strength to push the pillow off and reach for the man. 

“Patrick!” The voice hadn’t come from the man, nor from anyone Patrick recognised; it felt omnipresent. He wondered if he was about to die and it was God speaking to him. If so, he prayed that was the case. 

“Go away,” he sobbed in the direction of - Paul? The man? - he wasn't sure. 

“Patrick!” The voice shouted again, louder this time. 

“Get off!” He didn’t even realise he was hitting at first, his fists seeming to fly out in front of him of their own accord, not striking anything. He had to end this. He had to end it right now. He had to end it right now. He had to end it right now. He had to-

“PATRICK!” 

A sudden, harsh slap struck Patrick across the face, leaving his cheek stinging. Someone had their hand around his bicep, holding him tight. He opened his eyes. He was in his own room and the light was on. Inexplicably, Paul Allen was sitting on the edge of his bed, clutching his arm. 

He was awake. He was okay. 

He’d just had a fucking night terror in front of Paul Allen, and now he was going to have to kill himself, or Paul, or both of them. 

“Breathe.” He hadn’t even realised he was hyperventilating until Paul’s eyes met his, earnest and anxious. “Breathe with me, Patrick. In and out.” 

Patrick followed the rise and fall of Paul’s chest, attempting to steady his breathing, feeling as though his pulse was about to burst out of his ears. He could recognise the feeling of sweat dripping down his back, sticking his shirt to his skin, gathering on his top lip. 

“In and out. There we go.” Paul soothed. He had let go of Patrick’s arm and now reached for his hand, hesitating for a moment before running this thumb across Patrick’s knuckles. 

It was the most faggoty thing that anyone had ever done to him, but it was also insanely comforting; Patrick could feel his heart returning to its normal rate within a few minutes, Paul coaching him on his breathing. They sat on the bed, hand in hand. 

“You good?” Paul asked eventually. 

“Yeah.” 

Paul removed his hand, and Patrick yearned for nothing more than to grab it back for the sole reason that it was the one thing grounding him in the here and now. 

“Do you want-” 

“Why are you-” 

They both began to speak at the same time, disrupting the tentative calm with the need to restore normalcy through pointless questions and meaningless comments. 

Paul laughed slightly. His hair was ruffled, flopping over his forehead; it was the first time Patrick had ever seen it not slicked back into the standard Ivy League hairdo that was a necessity for working on Wall Street. He suddenly felt the now-familiar pain in his chest that, even in his hazed state, he remembered he needed to get Jean to make a doctor’s appointment for tomorrow. 

“You first,” Paul said. 

“Why-” His voice came out as a croak and he cleared his throat, swallowing as quietly as he could. “Why are you still here?” 

“Do you not remember?” Paul frowned. 

“Evidently not, or I wouldn’t have asked.” 

“There’s no need to be bitchy.” He paused. “You were so drunk when we left Tunnels I took you home, and then I guess I thought I should stay in case you choked on your own vomit in your sleep.” 

“Was I really that drunk?” Patrick wracked his brains, trying to remember anything at all after they’d got into Tunnels and done an entire tray of tequila shots to forget about what happened at the other club, with Paul and that guy and the fight and then he realised what Paul had said at the end. “Wait, did I throw up?” 

“All over the Uber on the way home. You owe me $200 for that.” Paul looked at Patrick, his face straight, before creasing into laughter at the horrified expression on Patrick’s face. “I’m joking, dumbass. You didn’t puke until we got back here, and then you spent a half hour with your head in the toilet and then crashed out. You’re fine.” 

“Oh.” The fact that Patrick couldn’t remember anything from a large portion of the night terrified him. Usually, he didn’t care when he blacked out; it didn’t particularly affect him, considering he was pretty much perfect in all aspects of his life and everyone seemed to idolise him regardless of how shitty he was to them. But with Paul - he felt differently. He didn’t want to have said, or Heaven forbid, done anything around him that would make Paul dislike him because he knew Paul was perfectly capable of seeing deeper than everyone else. Not just regarding Patrick, but regarding everything. 

“Did I do anything stupid?” Patrick asked tentatively. Paul laughed. 

“You were absolutely tearing up the dance floor, but besides that, no. You did keep telling me you had something to tell me, but it was too loud to hear you, and we left after like an hour.” 

“Something to tell you?” Patrick was struck with panic over what the fuck he could possibly be on about. 

“Yeah.” 

“I was probably just trying to say…that…” Patrick felt fear crawling over his skin again, racking his brain for something, anything, he could say to excuse his weird behaviour whilst not even knowing what he was intending to say in the first place. “That…your hair looked shit or something.” 

Paul lightly punched him on his arm and fell back, laughing. “Shut up. I know it looks shit now, but that’s because your sofa is like a fucking rock to sleep on.” 

“You couldn’t even imagine how much that cost,” Patrick replied, feeling annoyance once again at Paul’s criticism of his property. 

“Well, what’s the point of spending that much when you can’t even sit on it without getting bruised?”

“Some people like getting bruised.”

Paul turned his head to fully face Patrick. He had light golden stubble over his chin and, with his hair loose, looked younger; less like an Upper East Side stockbroker and more like something that Patrick couldn’t quite place and yet, equally, couldn’t stop looking at. They met eyes for an indistinguishable period of time.

Paul opened his mouth slightly, and then closed it; he stood up and smoothed creases out of his trousers. His tie was loosened and he had rolled up his sleeves and discarded his jacket. Mercifully, he had taken his shoes off. 

“What were you going to ask me?” Patrick said at last, piercing the air. 

“Oh, I was just going to ask if you wanted to have a shower or something, and then come through and we can, uh, we can talk.”

“Sure.” Patrick flung the covers off, untangling them from around his legs, and got out of bed as Paul left the room. His shoes were neatly placed beside his desk and his jacket and tie were folded over the back of the chair; he presumed Paul had done that if he had been that drunk when they’d arrived back and made a note to thank him for respecting his couture. 

In the shower, Patrick turned the water up to scalding and let it burn his skin; he stared at the dark tiles of the walls and tried to regain some sense of control over his thoughts. They all rushed around his head, dizzyingly, the events of the past day playing out like a movie highlight reel; the funeral, Evelyn planning the wedding, Bryce and Luis in the Canal Bar, Dorsia, Paul beating up the guy in the club, and then the quickly-fading memories of his night terror. 

Patrick analysed his body as he washed it, taking in his sculpted abs, his toned thighs and broad shoulders, his muscular arms; he curled his biceps and admired how the tendons rippled under his skin. He looked at his reflection in the glass of the shower door, and thought back over the club, wincing at the image flooding his brain of that fucking faggot grinding against him and then remembering how Paul had knocked him to the ground, raining blows on his head, how incandescent with rage he’d been. Patrick felt his chest clench, an almost dizzying sensation that slowly spread down to his groin as he felt his cock harden. 

Slowly, as the water continued to rain around him, Patrick wrapped his hand around his shaft and began to stroke, closing his eyes and attempting to picture some nameless blonde bimbo with huge tits, and instead once again seeing Paul beating the crap out of the guy in the club. He opened his eyes and frowned, flicking through the roster of the most recent hookers he’d seen and Evelyn and Courtney and Jean and Vanden, but as soon as he started stroking, all he could think of was the fight once more. 

Patrick reckoned it was a clear sign he needed to watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre asap if violence was the only thing that could arouse him. He let himself grow soft and then stepped out the shower, towelling off and doing sixteen sets of bicep curls in the mirror until he was satisfied his arms were the complete opposite of scrawny. 

Heading back into his room, Patrick was struck with panic over the fact that this was a situation he’d never been in before and therefore didn’t have an outfit planned out. What does one wear to sit and have an indubitably awkward conversation with a tentative new friend after humiliating oneself in front of them? He couldn’t put the clothes he’d been wearing on again for fear of clean body/dirty clothes contamination, and putting a new suit on would be fucking weird considering it was - he glanced at the clock - barely 5am. 

However, he literally owned no casual clothes. Patrick stood in front of his closet, ruminating, until he heard Paul shout through. 

“Patrick? You okay?”

“Just coming,” Patrick yelled back, hastily deciding to just slip on a plain white T-shirt (Gucci, pure cotton) and matching white boxer shorts and throwing his robe on top. He put his slippers on (because socialising barefoot was the sort of social faux pas no-one would dare to make unless they were Luis Carruthers or a resident of a trailer park) and headed through. 

Paul was sitting on the sofa holding a mug of coffee. Another one sat on a coaster on the coffee table in front of him, and he motioned to it as Patrick entered the room.

“You don’t have any milk and I couldn’t find any sugar, so I just made it black,” Paul said. 

“Thanks.” Patrick sat down and picked up the coffee dubiously, knowing that Paul had probably fucked it up and made it taste mass-produced and cheap.

There was a long silence, broken only by Paul slurping his coffee in such a vile manner that Patrick wanted to bring an axe down over his head. 

“What was your nightmare about?” he asked eventually. 

Patrick lifted a shoulder. “I don’t remember.” 

“Do you get them often?”

Patrick opened his mouth to reply in the negative, but then realised there wasn’t really a point in lying to Paul because why the fuck did it even matter and he was suddenly just so, so tired. 

“Only if I don’t take a zopiclone before bed.”

“Which you didn’t because you passed out drunk.”

“Correct.” Patrick sipped tentatively at the coffee, finding it not unpleasant, although a bit lukewarm. 

“Why do you think you have nightmares?” 

“What are you, a fucking psychiatrist?” Patrick snapped. 

There was another silence; Paul merely shrugged and took a swig of coffee. Patrick was aware of a strange feeling, something close to remorse, encompassing him. He cleared his throat and sat down his mug, starting to cross his legs and then deciding it probably looked too effeminate and retracting. 

“So did you…have a good night tonight?” he asked as a peace offering. 

Paul smiled. “Honestly? One of the best I’ve had in a while.” 

“Me too.” It wasn’t a lie. 

“What did you think of Dorsia?” 

“It was…” Patrick scrambled through his brain for an adjective before realising he could barely recall even being in Dorsia. “I don’t remember much. Paul, I was so fucked by the time I even got there.” He snorted out a laugh; just a few weeks ago, he’d have sold Evelyn for the chance to visit Dorsia. But now…

But now he was realising that maybe some things mattered more. 

“I mean, you seemed a bit more manic than usual, but I wouldn’t say fucked .” Paul was sitting with one arm slung across the back of the sofa like he fucking owned the place, one leg folded over the other. 

“No, I mean, I was. I was trashed by about 2pm.”

“At the Ransom account meeting?”

“The what?” Was Paul okay?

He met Patrick’s eyes. “You said you had a meeting about the Ransom account and that’s why you weren’t in the office today.” 

“Oh.” Patrick took a drink of coffee to give him a chance to think. It really wasn’t unappetising, to be honest. He sighed. Fuck it. “I was in the Hamptons. At my grandad’s funeral.” 

“Oh shit, that was today? I’m sorry, man.” Paul leaned forwards and moved his hand like he was about to touch Patrick, and then seemed to think better of it and sat back. 

“It’s fine.” Patrick lifted a shoulder. 

“Seriously, dude, it must have been rough.”

“I said it’s fine,” he snapped. 

Paul held both his hands up - in defeat or in a placating motion, Patrick couldn’t tell - and said nothing. Patrick felt the strange sense of remorse again. He hadn’t meant to say it so angrily, but Paul needed to stop with the fucking quiz. 

No one else ever asked him so much about himself. 

“You’re a weird guy, Bateman.” 

It felt strange to hear his surname coming out of Paul’s mouth, even if that was all he’d known him as until the past week. 

“How so?”

“You’re so…” Paul waved a hand in the air. “Sometimes you’re so cold it’s like you want to kill me. But other times…” 

A deluge of unspoken words hung in the air between the two men. 

“Other times?” Patrick prompted, his voice barely above a whisper. 

“Other times…” Paul, staring at his lap, slowly looked up at Patrick from under his lashes, which were ridiculously long and full and did he wear mascara or some faggot shit like that because what man had eyelashes like that? “Other times you’re alright.”

“Alright?” Patrick laughed, trying not to look disappointed at the subpar compliment. “Jeez, Allan. You really have a way with words.” 

“You know what I mean!”

There was another long lull in the conversation. Patrick ran through possible conversation starters in his head; things that could hurt Paul, or things that could make him say Patrick was more than alright. I mean, even fucking Bryce compliments me more than that!

But then Paul stood so suddenly that Patrick flinched; he hoped it hadn’t been too obvious. “You done with your coffee? I’ll rinse the cups out.” 

“Oh. Sure. Yeah.” Patrick quickly gulped down the remaining dregs of his drink and passed the mug to Paul, who headed for the kitchen so confidently it was like he owned the place. Patrick sat and watched him, taking in the upwards curve of his nose when he turned his head to the side, the signet ring on his little finger, the small mole at the back of his neck that was visible only when Paul ran his hands through his hair after loading the dishwasher. 

“What?” he said, turning and catching Patrick’s eyes fixed on him. 

“Just…looking.” The words felt heavy and seductive in the tone with which they rolled off Patrick’s tongue, but saying anything else would just draw attention to that, so he kept his mouth shut. 

Paul walked back over. “And you like what you see?” 

Patrick's mouth felt dry, but he was terrified to swallow or lick his lips in case it permeated the growing tension in the room. He lifted a shoulder. 

Paul sat down and began sliding his feet into his shoes, and suddenly Patrick felt like Courtney, cloyishly asking him why was he going so soon and was he coming back and-

“I should head off. Work in a few hours, you know.” 

“Oh. Yeah.” Patrick couldn’t be bothered going in, but he’d already had one day off this week and would probably have to take time off to go to the doctors soon too, so he couldn’t really miss another day. 

Paul laced up his shoes and shrugged on his jacket in silence, running another hand through his hair as he checked his phone. “Fuck,” he muttered under his breath. 

“What?”

“Oh, nothing. It’s just…” Paul fiddled about with his phone for a few moments before putting it back. “Meredith has been blowing up my phone all night because she thinks I’m cheating. She saw we were at the club and she’s pissed.” 

“Cheating with me ?” 

Paul threw his head back and laughed so widely that Patrick could see his wisdom teeth. “No. No, you moron. She thinks I picked up a girl at P- at the club.” 

“Oh, yeah. I was joking.” He wasn’t; he genuinely thought Paul had meant that, and had briefly been horrified in case Paul had told his dumbass fucking fiance about what had happened at the Yacht Club. 

Paul made his way to the door. Just like Saturday night, Patrick tried to think of anything he could to prolong the conversation, for reasons he could no longer fathom. But this time, it was Paul who had something more to say. 

“My sister used to have nightmares.” He turned to face Patrick, his hand on the doorknob. 

So? Who gave a shit. Lots of people do. Then he remembered what Paul had told him about his sister - or more specifically, what had happened to her - and realised he should appear somewhat sympathetic. 

“That’s…shit,” he said. 

“Going to therapy helped her a lot.” Paul was looking at Patrick in the eyes, so intently it felt as though he was staring right into his soul, or what was left of it.

“That’s good.”

Paul held up his hand as if he was about to place it on Patrick’s shoulder, but again seemed to think better of it and let it fall back to his side. 

“How old was she when…” Patrick couldn’t bring himself to say that horrible word. “You know.”

“Uh…fifteen, I think. She’s four years younger than me, and I was in freshman year of college, so…yeah.” Paul paused. “Not as young as your cousin, though. Ten, didn’t you say? That’s awful.”

“Well…it’s bad regardless of the age.” 

Paul nodded. 

“What would you do if you ever came across the guy who did it?” 

Paul’s face hardened in a way that seemed to completely alter his features. When he spoke, his voice was harsh and emotionless. “I would torture the son of a bitch until he died a slow, painful death. And I would enjoy every minute of it.” 

Patrick didn’t know what to say. The force with which Paul was looking into his eyes made him want to strip out of his skin and disappear. But all too soon he was smiling again and turning back to the door and telling Patrick he’d see him at work in a bit. Then, he turned back around. 

“Fascinating,” Paul said, as though it was the answer to a question.

“What?”

“You asked what I think about you the times you don’t seem like you want to kill me. And I think you’re fascinating.” 

“In-in a good way?” Patrick hated the hopeful lilt in his voice at the end of the sentence. It reminded him of a child, of a teenage girl, of a lonely Courtney and her puppy-dog eyes. 

Paul grinned, his dimple flickering. “Yes. In a good way, Patrick.” 

They stood in silence for a period of time which Patrick couldn’t construe. It felt like the building was empty, like everyone had cleared out or evacuated or fucking died or something, buried six feet underground in an enormous mahogany coffin, and all that was left was Paul fucking Allen staring up at him with an expression that Patrick couldn’t read. 

“Although…” Paul’s voice was soft. He paused before continuing, letting his tongue trace his bottom lip; even just watching him do that felt too faggoty for Patrick and yet, at the same time, he couldn’t tear his eyes away. “Even when you do act like you want to kill me…you still fascinate me.” 

If Paul had been a chick, this would be the part of the romantic movie Patrick would lean in and kiss him. But he wasn’t, and they weren’t, so they just remained standing, six feet apart on either side of the threshold. 

“I better go. I’ll see you at work.” Paul made no attempt to actually leave in spite of the words. 

“Yeah, I…might go in early today.” Patrick’s voice was gravelly and low, and exhaustion was hitting him like a brick, but he couldn’t step away either. 

He didn’t want Paul to leave because he didn’t want to be alone with his thoughts. Not because of the bad thoughts - because he was used to that - but because of the good ones. The ones that were swirling round his head right now, and which made him nearly take a step forward and close the gap between them and beat the ever-loving shit out of Paul for giving him the best compliment, the only meaningful compliment, anyone had ever given him. 

But then Paul turned away, and Patrick closed the door until all he could hear were soft footsteps moving further and further into the distance until everything was silent again. 

Chapter Text

Patrick hadn’t spoken to Paul in four days and roughly seven and a half hours (not that he was counting). It wasn’t for lack of trying on the other man’s part; Paul had texted him twice and tried to come by his office to speak to him, but Patrick had ignored both of his messages and got Jean to send him away on the pretence that he was having an immensely important phone call about the Ransom account. 

Fuck the fucking Ransom account. And the Fischer account too, for that matter. The Fischer account was what caused this entire mess, and as a result Patrick didn’t even particularly give a shit about it anymore. It had formed the subject of one of Paul’s texts to him, a lousy excuse for the man to get in touch with him like he was fucking obsessed or something. 

Hey, we need to speak to Mr Fischer soon, just let me know when suits you. Didn’t see you at work today - hope your head isn’t too bad :)

And then a day later:

You good, man? Saw you today but I don’t think you noticed

Patrick unlocked his phone for the millionth time and stared down at the messages until they twisted and blurred in front of his eyes, causing a dull ache in his temples. The dude really was obsessed with him, and it was embarrassing. Why couldn’t he just take a hint?

But deep down, Patrick knew that he was actively avoiding Paul, and it was all because he had messed everything up. 

Some people might see it as no big deal to have a nightmare around a friend. But they weren’t just friends. Not in the faggoty way, of course, but in the sense that the once-rivalry between them (which he didn’t even know if Paul was actually aware of, but whatever) had been replaced by a precarious and unspoken equilibrium, a sense that the two men were on the same level in every respect, and that was what formed the very basis of their relationship. Yet now that balance was skewered, tipped up like a teeter-totter in Paul’s direction. He had seen a side of Patrick, a disgustingly vulnerable side, that no one else bar Evelyn and Jean had ever really caught a glimpse of - and they didn’t count, because they were just lovestruck women and not Yale-educated stockbrokers who thought Patrick was fascinating and were willing to break a guy’s nose for him. Their friendship, camaraderie, whatever the fuck you wanted to call it - it was irreparably ruined and it was all Patrick’s fault. 

There was only one thing for it. He could never talk to Paul Allen again. 

============================================================================================================

Tuesday. He couldn’t go back to sleep after Paul left because there were too many thoughts and feelings and general complications buzzing around his head. He was sure if someone opened up the top of his skull and removed his brain it would be fizzling with electricity, threatening to spontaneously combust without warning; even Xanax couldn’t seem to relieve the pressure. So instead he did chest crunches and push ups for the best part of two hours and then took another shower, scrubbing and scrubbing at his skin and making another failed attempt to jerk off. Then he dressed himself in a Dolce & Gabbana suit (charcoal pinstripe, teamed with an immaculately tailored Brioni button-down) and a red silk tie and took another two Xanax before heading to the office. 

Jean appeared at his door as soon as he arrived, a sibilating fruit fly in a high-waisted pencil skirt (she was even wearing heels for once) blabbering on about meetings and phone calls and faceless colleagues that meant nothing to him. He cut her short. 

“Jean, I need you to schedule an appointment with my physician. As soon as possible, please.” 

“Oh- okay,” she faltered. “Is everything okay?” 

“No, I’m dying of a terminal illness,” Patrick deadpanned. 

Jean said nothing and continued staring at him, her eyes huge and green - blue. Blue. Jean’s eyes were blue and she really cared about him and Paul fucking Allen could go and die in a hole somewhere. 

“Look, I’m fine. Can you just make the appointment without nagging? You sound like Evelyn.”

“Yes, of course,” Jean replied, and turned to leave with a sigh. “Oh, by the way, you have a VP meeting at 2.” 

Shit. A VP meeting meant Paul. “Uh - send my apologies. I have a…another meeting at that time.” 

“There’s nothing else on your schedule,” Jean frowned, flipping through her file. 

“It’s with my grandfather’s solicitor.” 

“Oh!” Jean’s hand flew up to cover her mouth. “I’m sorry.” 

“It’s fine. Thank you, Jean.” 

Clearly not taking the hint, she took a step back into his office, her tone soft and her eyes pitying. “How are you holding up with his death? It must be so hard.” 

“I’m fine, Jean.” 

“Are you sure? When my grandad died-” 

“Jean.” He held up a hand, imagining how satisfying it would be to rip her larynx out with his bare hands and strangely not feeling a shred of remorse. “With all due respect, I really don’t care. Can you just get back to work, please?” 

Jean fell silent and nodded, crawling out meekly and shutting the door slowly enough that Patrick could see the tears in her eyes before she disappeared. 

He felt rage course through his veins and he wasn’t sure whether it was directed at her, Paul fucking Allen, or himself. He picked up his stapler and threw it at the wall, hard enough to send the piece of shit splintering in half and leave a dent in the plaster. Whatever. Not his problem. Someone else could sort it out. 

Patrick leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, fantasising about jumping out of his office window and becoming a splattered pile of skewered organs and blood on the ground below. Later that day, Jean frostily informed him he had a doctor’s appointment at 2.30pm on Friday, and that night he went to Tunnels with McDermott and ended up screwing some nameless hardbody up the ass, pushing her head face-down onto the mattress and kicking her out once he’d come. 

That night, he dreamt of nothing. 

============================================================================================================

Wednesday. Patrick was walking to his office, Billy Joel blasting through his AirPods, when he turned the corner and saw none other than Paul fucking Allen standing at the watercooler. He was leaning against the wall, arms folded, deep in conversation with Halberstram and Elizabeth Turner (who was a total hardbody, but almost definitely a lesbian considering she’d turned down the advances of Patrick, Bryce, and Van Patten). Thankfully, he didn’t seem to have seen Patrick, but he couldn’t risk walking past him, so he ducked into the nearest office, which - as luck would have it - happened to belong to Luis Carruthers. 

“Patrick, hi!” the faggot piped from behind his desk, his face lighting up as it broke into a beam. He was wearing a purple velvet blazer, but Patrick didn’t have time to comment on the hideousness of it because he could hear Paul and Elizabeth now moving down the corridor in his direction. 

“Shut up,” he replied abruptly, shutting the door and pressing his back against it. 

“What are you-” 

“I said, shut up!” Patrick glanced sideways out of Luis’ office window; he could see the pair passing and , to his horror, Paul had his hand on the small of her back. Not that he cared. Why would he even care? She was a dyke anyway. No way she would go for someone like Paul. 

Luis closed the lid of his laptop and rose from his desk, crossing the room with a smirk on his pasty face that seemed to be attempting to look seductive, but just came over as constipated. “Why don’t you make me?” he said, teasingly. 

“What?” Patrick needed to punch something, but as tempting as Luis looked, he didn’t want the hassle of a visit to HR. 

“You told me to shut up. Well, make me.” Luis stared Patrick directly in the eyes with an almost admirably bold confidence and then, horrifically, licked his fucking lips. 

It was all too much. “Go and die, Luis,” Patrick snapped, wrenching the door open and storming down the corridor with such force he nearly crashed into Bryce’s bimbo hardbody secretary. She was crying, which meant he’d inevitably fired her, and Patrick took some small comfort in the fact that she was probably having a shitteir day than he was. 

============================================================================================================

“So, Yacht Club tonight?” asked Van Patten. 

Patrick pushed down the nausea that came from hearing the name of that damned place and scowled at his bespectacled friend over his Caeser salad with garlic croutons (dressing on the side). 

“I’m still hungover from last night,” McDermott replied, looking so pale and sweaty it was putting Patrick off what little appetite he had. He’d left the club with an absolute munter, as usual. 

“I could go to Yachties,” Bryce chimed in. 

“Dude. Stop calling it that. It’s not going to catch on.” McDermott picked up a French fry and dubiously examined it. 

“Whatever. Bateman, you coming? Or are you fucking Meredith again?” Bryce turned and looked Patrick right in the eye, his own hazel orbs steely and unreadable. 

Patrick tossed down his fork with such force it clattered off his plate and fell to the floor and he was overcome suddenly with the urge to pick it up and use it to skewer it directly into his jugular, spewing blood all over his idiot friends and watching their horrified reactions as he gurgled and flatlined in front of their eyes. 

“If you must know, I’m fucking Courtney tonight,” he said through gritted teeth. 

“Chill out, little buddy.” Bryce patted his shoulder in a way that felt more menacing than affable. 

“Whatever.” Patrick yanked away from him and stood. “I’m going to the bathroom.” 

No one seemed to care, or even notice, as he left the table and walked directly out of the restaurant. Patrick went back to his office and beat off furiously under the desk, thinking of how much pleasure he’d get from gutting Bryce like roadkill. 

After dinner that night, Courtney passed out mid-meltdown over something Patrick couldn’t even pretend to care about. He let himself out of her apartment as quietly as possible, secretly glad he wouldn’t have to have sex with her, even though he couldn’t put his finger on why. 

============================================================================================================

Thursday. Patrick was browsing an article claiming to showcase The World’s Ten Goriest Crime Scene Photos That Made Even Senior Detectives Vomit when Jean appeared at the door. 

“Paul Allen is here to see you,” she said, and Patrick’s chest cramped. Thank goodness he was seeing a doctor tomorrow. 

“I’m busy.” It was blatantly obvious he wasn’t, but who cared.

“I can have him wait out here, if you want.”

“I’m busy all morning.” Patrick leaned across and picked up his phone. “I have a call about the Ransom account in five minutes.”

“Do you want me to tell him to come back in the afternoon?” 

“No, Jean.” He spoke slowly and carefully, as though he was talking to a retarded child. “Just. Tell. Him. I’m. Busy.”

Jean made a sour face and shut the door harder than necessary. Patrick strained his ears and heard the sounds of conversation outside the door, just too far away to make out exactly what Jean was saying to him, and then silence.

Patrick let out a breath. He couldn’t tell whether it was of relief or disappointment. 

============================================================================================================

Finally Friday dawned, and Patrick was sitting in his doctor's waiting room, staring at Paul’s texts and ruminating over the inevitable disaster that Evelyn’s fucking dinner party tomorrow would bring. 

She’d already called him three times today, panicking about a flower delivery that hadn’t arrived and the fact she was second-guessing what kind of sauce to serve with the lobster and why couldn’t she just shut the fuck up and leave him alone for half a day? He already had enough on his mind. Tomorrow night he was going to have to face Paul fucking Allen for a night of excrutiating awkwardness, not to mention the fact that Courtney, Luis, and Vanden would also be there. And Bryce, who’d been giving him weird looks and pointed comments all week. He seriously needed to lay off the steroids. It’s not like they were even doing anything for him. 

“Patrick Bateman?” a voice called and Patrick looked up to see a young nurse (blonde and slim; Patrick wondered if it was worth trying to get her number) beckoning him. “Dr Hartwell is ready for you, if you’d like to follow me.” 

Patrick flashed her a suave smile, and followed her down the corridor, which was carpeted and lined with artsy black and white photographs, resembling a hotel more than a physician’s clinic. Had he mentioned lately how much he loved being rich? Disappointingly, the hardbody nurse left him at the door; Patrick imagined how she’d look with her eyeballs and tongue ripped out. Not so pretty now, bitch!

Dr Hartwell was in his sixties, a grey haired, bespectacled gentleman with a soft Arkansas drawl and a reassuring air about him. Patrick didn’t mind him, which was unusual, considering he hated practically everyone. Except P - no. Don’t even go there. 

“Hi, Patrick. Please, take a seat,” the older man smiled warmly. Patrick sat down, feeling slightly stupid due to the fact that he hadn’t had a chest pain since yesterday and was therefore probably going to come over as a faggoty hypochondriac. Oh well - hopefully he’d at least get some fun medication out of it. Dr Hartwell was good at that. 

“So what seems to be the problem?” The doctor peered at him over the top of his wire-rimmed glasses. 

“Well…” It sounded incredibly trivial now he said it out loud. Then again, he didn’t take such good care of his appearance to just die of heart disease in his twenties. “I’ve been having these chest pains. It’s probably nothing, but I thought I should get it checked.” 

“Of course,” the doctor replied, immediately pulling his keyboard towards him and beginning to type. “Can you describe the pains? Is it a stabbing pain, or more of a dull ache?”

“It’s…” Patrick struggled to put the feeling into words. “It’s kind of like cramps. In my heart. And, I don’t know how else to describe it, but it feels like butterflies.”

“Palpitations?” 

“No…no palpitations. It’s like my heart itself feels like that. It’s kind of hard to explain.”

“And how often do you have them?”

“I don’t know…every day or two, maybe.”

Dr Hartwell turned to face him. “You’re young and healthy, so it’s unlikely to be serious. But I’ll have a listen to your heart anyway, and we’ll take some bloods. If you’d just remove your shirt and take a seat on the bed.”

Patrick did as he was told, remembering faintly the conversation he’d had with Paul in Arcadia way back before they were friends, when he’d joked about the intimacy of the patient/doctor relationship, something about rectal exams. He sucked in a breath as he felt his chest tighten. 

“I just had one there. A chest pain,” he said, taking a seat on the edge of the examination bed as the doctor advanced closer, rubbing his stethoscope against his white coat to warm it up. 

“How would you rate the severity of the pain?” 

“That one was like, a five. They’re usually worse.”

There was silence in the room as the doctor listened to his heart pound; Patrick admired the toned muscles of his chest and wondered idly if Dr Hartwell was impressed with how chiselled his abs were. 

“Well, your heart sounds perfectly healthy to me,” the doctor said eventually, straightening up and looping the stethoscope back around his neck. “If you want to stay sitting there I’ll take some blood. I think it would be a good idea to keep a diary and record every time you get a pain, and what you were doing during it - were you exercising, what had you eaten, had you consumed alcohol - that sort of thing.”

“Sure.”

“Oh, and.” Dr Hartwell removed his glasses and propped them on the top of his head, eyeballing Patrick. “I’d lay off the stimulants if I was you. I know what you young yuppies are like.”

Patrick faked a laugh and sat waiting patiently for the doctor to bring over the needle and syringe. He braced himself for the pinch of the needle entering and then watched as the syringe filled with bright red blood.

He was just surprised it wasn’t black. 

Chapter Text

There were many things Patrick would rather be doing on a Saturday night than spending the evening at a dinner party hosted by Evelyn; things such as getting his wisdom teeth removed without anaesthetic, or listening to McDermott trying to pronounce the names of the dishes on the French Specials menu at Barcadia, or even watching Hulu’s new four-part Hillary Clinton documentary (dubbed “enraging and essential” by Vanity Fair ). However, against his best wishes, he was instead seated in a cab headed to the West Village for a night of what promised to be excruciating awkwardness. 

He looked the part, of course. He’d spent the day at the tanning salon, followed by a steam facial and a deep tissue massage, and had then returned home to stare deep into his reflection as he shaved, enjoying the feeling of cool metal gliding over his jaw. His hair was immaculately teased and he’d taken an atypical risk with his outfit - a grey suit (Dior, 100% pure merino wool) with a black silk button-down. This wasn’t a combination he frequently wore, but something had pushed him towards it tonight; in the sanctuary of his bedroom it had made him look like a GQ model yet in the outside world it suddenly looked so awfully incongruous that he felt a panic attack coming on and had to dry-swallow two Xanax and replay his favourite scenes from Cannibal Holocaust in his head in order to calm down. 

Patrick pulled out his phone and scrolled through his contacts, his thumb settling on Van Patten’s number as he typed out a text.

Grey suit and black shirt - faux pas or not?

To his irritation, his bespectacled friend saw the message immediately and left him on read. Fucking bastard. Didn’t he know that Patrick was the leader of their pack, and therefore not to be ignored at any cost?

As he went to turn his phone off, he caught a glimpse of him and Paul’s text conversation, the last unread message Paul had sent on Wednesday winking provocatively at the top of the screen. Patrick’s stomach jolted uncomfortably. He was dreading having to see the other man tonight. He was terrified he’d be so annoyed at Patrick cold-shouldering him that he’d let slip about his humiliating nightmare incident, or about what that faggot at the club had done. 

But a small part of him - deep, deep down - felt something else at the prospect of encountering Paul later. He couldn’t quite place his finger on what; it was a strange sense of nausea mixed with anticipation. One which was becoming equally intensified and dulled as the taxi crawled further through the congested streets, the latter as a result of the Xanax kicking in and the former…not unpleasant. ]

Patrick was fascinating. That’s what Paul had told him, standing in his doorway and looking into his eyes with such a piercing intensity that he felt as though he was naked. You fascinate me, Patrick. The words had swirled around his head all week, playing on a constant loop while he lay in bed or worked out or, most alarmingly, even once in the shower. Not that it made him feel anything, of course. It was just a strange phrase to randomly pop into your head whilst masturbating, that was all. 

As if Paul being there wasn’t stressful enough, he was also going to have to deal with Bryce - who had definitely been weird towards him ever since the Canal Bar on Monday - one person who wanted to fuck him (Luis), one person he’d lied about fucking (Meredith), and three people he’d actually fucked (Evelyn, Courtney, and Vanden - the latter two of which were his fiancee’s best friend and cousin, respectively). 

Maybe abstinence advocates had a point. 

By the time Patrick had emerged from the sanctuary of the cab and made his way past the doorman and into the building, his stomach was twisting in knots of anxious anticipation; upon reaching Evelyn’s door, his palms were so slick with sweat that he nearly dropped the bottle of Moet he was holding. 

“Hi, honey,” she said, answering the door with her Upper East Side-esque hostess smile plastered on her face as she daintily air-kissed Patrick on both cheeks, rescuing the champagne from his clammy grasp. 

He’d brought flowers for her, of course. Giving Evelyn gifts was the one act of consideration and care he was more than happy to do; his fiancee saw love as something measured by designer bags and diamond rings, expensive tangible possessions proving that even if he didn’t show it, even if he despised pet names and holding hands and all the things that Hollywood romcoms told him he was supposed to do, he still loved her in his own way. 

And he did. 

Didn’t he?

“Blue like your eyes,” he said awkwardly, handing over the bouquet he’d had Jean pre-order yesterday, iris, eryngium, and spray veronica contrasting with crisp white lilies and sprays of baby’s breath. Patrick admired Jean’s attention to detail, her consideration and thoughtfulness even when he’d been less than charming to her all week. He made a mental note to take her out for lunch or something as an amende honorable. 

“ Pat rick!” Evelyn gushed, wrenching him out of his ruminations. “You’re so sweet. What did I do to deserve you?”

I don’t know, maybe you were the star of the show in the Nuremberg trials, he thought wryly. 

Evelyn stretched up to place a chaste kiss on Patrick’s mouth, her immaculately glossed lips barely grazing his own. “Come and say hi to Courtney,” she instructed, turning to the kitchen.

Great idea, Patrick thought, following her down the corridor. Courtney was seated at the breakfast bar, pouring the remaining dregs of a bottle of wine into a gin glass. 

“Court, look at these beautiful flowers Pat gave me,” Evelyn cooed. “He said they’re as beautiful as my eyes. Isn’t he cute? He’s secretly such a softie.”

Patrick imagined selecting the biggest knife from the butcher’s block and slitting his fiancee’s neck with it. Not wanting to tarnish his Dior suit with her blood, he decided against it, fixing a grimace on his face instead that could be loosely misconstrued as a smile. 

“That’s ssso sweet,” Courtney slurred, avoiding Patrick’s eyes. He braced himself for the inevitable meltdown that would come later. Why don’t you ever get ME flowers, Patrick? Sure, I’ll get you some and you can explain to Luis where two dozen fucking roses have come from, Courtney. Being a magnet to women had its downfalls. 

“Get a vase out of the cupboard next to the sink,” Evelyn instructed bossily, holding her phone over the bouquet to presumably capture the perfect photo of it for Instagram. 

Patrick obliged, leaning down to plant a discreet kiss on the nape of Courtney’s neck whilst Evelyn’s back was turned. 

“What are we having for dinner, anyway?” he asked, placing a frosted crystal glass down beside Evelyn. 

“Oh…” his fiancee looked flustered. “Korean barbeque takeout. The lobsters I ordered weren’t the right size and I just couldn’t be bothered making anything else.” Evelyn’s simultaneous love of dinner parties and yet deep aversion to cooking was a running joke within their social circle. 

“That sounds nice,” Patrick replied absently. 

“The others are in the living room. Why don’t you go through and make yourself a drink?” Evelyn didn’t look up from arranging the flowers in the vase, as Patrick slipped out of the room and made his way to the lounge. 

Bracing himself for the sight of Paul fucking Allen sitting there like he owned the place, Patrick felt a stab of disappointment to see that only Bryce, Luis, and Vanden were there, their eyes glued to Fox News broadcasting at a low volume from the seventy-inch TV. Bryce was the first to notice him, his eyes lighting up as he leapt from the sofa and strode across the room, clapping a hand on Patrick’s shoulder and shaking Patrick’s with the other.

“Thank fuck you’re here,” he murmured in Patrick’s ear. “These two are a laugh riot.”

Patrick glanced over his shoulder. Luis was sitting on the other end of the overstuffed sofa Bryce had just risen from, staring at his fingernails like they were the most exciting thing he’d ever seen; Vanden was seated opposite, watching Patrick through smokey, hooded eyelids. 

“Hi, Patrick,” she said in a tone so obviously seductive that Patrick was sure not just everyone in the room but in the entirety of Manhattan could tell that Patrick Bateman fucked his fiancee’s little cousin or, even more alarmingly, Patrick Bateman fucked a Camden film student. 

“Hi, Patrick,” Luis echoed, giving a faggoty little wave. 

Patrick nodded at both of them and turned back to Bryce. “I’m getting a drink.”

Bryce followed him to the heavy mahogany sideboard in the corner, watching in silence as Patrick examined the labels of the various spirits displayed proudly behind spotlit glass before pouring a Scotch. The silence was punctuated only by the inane rantings of Sean Hannity from the TV behind them, and Patrick wracked his brain for something, anything to say, wondering if things had always been so awkward with his supposed best friend. His mind wandered back to the evenings with Paul in his apartment, and how comfortable it had felt to sit there without the need to search through his scrambled mind for a meaningful topic of conversation. Before he had to be an idiot and ruin it. 

“Fucking disgraceful,” Bryce suddenly said, and Patrick thought he’d somehow managed to read his mind. Thankfully, though, he was turned towards the TV. 

“What is?” Patrick asked. 

Bryce jerked his head towards Fox News. RACE RIOTS AT CAPITOL HILL read the news ticker. “Fucking commies throwing a fit because the cops shot some kid.”

“Wasn’t that, like, a month ago?”

“Different kid. Same shit.” Bryce refilled his glass with Scotch and followed Patrick to the sofas, taking his seat next to Luis and leaving Patrick to sit with Vanden. He could feel her eyes boring into him, making his skin prickle. The four of them sat in silence as Hannity ranted about the first amendment over clips of protesters being violently restrained by cops.

Bryce was shaking his head. “What the fuck has our country come to?”

“Madness,” Patrick agreed. 

“I mean,” Bryce continued, a vein pulsing at the side of his head, “if you’re going to play stupid games with the cops, you can expect to be shot. Why do liberals have to make everything about race? It’s got nothing to do with race.”

“Are you insane? It has everything to do with race.” Vanden suddenly spoke up, a disgusted look curling over her features. 

Bryce snorted. “Don’t tell me you think the rioters are in the right.”

“They’re not rioters. They’re protesters.”

Bryce waved a hand at the TV. “Sweetheart, are we watching the same thing? How can you excuse that behaviour?”

“Because,” Vanden said slowly, “a seventeen year old kid was shot dead by police just because he was black. People have a right to be mad.”

Bryce’s face was turning redder and redder and Luis’ eyes were nervously flickering between the pair. Patrick took a sip of his drink, hiding his smile at the carnage unfolding. What, like he was a bad person for enjoying watching Bryce get wound up?

“A drug dealer ,” Bryce spat. 

“An alleged drug dealer. And even if he was…” Vanden tossed her hair over her shoulder and looked at Bryce as though he was something she’d just scraped off the bottom of her Doc Martens. “That’s still not an excuse to kill someone.”

“So we should just let murderers run round our streets because they’re only ‘alleged’ murderers?” Bryce’s free hand formed air quotes around the word. 

“The only murderers here are the cops. The racist cops.”

“I don’t believe this.” Bryce shook his head. “How can you even call yourself an American?”

“With great displeasure, to be honest,” Vanden replied. “This country is an imperialist, systematically racist-”

“Oh, get a grip,” Bryce interjected. 

“Did you guys know the US constitution is the shortest written constitution in the world?” Patrick cut in, deciding to play peacemaker not out of the goodness of his heart but because Bryce’s head looked as though it was about to explode. “It’s only 4,400 words long. Additionally, ‘Pennsylvania’ is spelt wrong above where the signers’ names are. They spelt it with only two N’s, when there should be three.”

Three pairs of eyes swivelled to look at Patrick, and a beat passed before Bryce continued. “You know how many people leave their shithole countries to come here illegally? Do you know why that is? Because this is the best country in the world. Period.”

“Yeah, just as long as you’re a white cisheterosexual middle class male.” Vanden shot back. 

“Cishetero what ? What the fuck does that mean?” Bryce demanded. 

Mercifully, the doorbell suddenly rang out, cutting off the bickering. “Patrick, can you get that?” Evelyn shouted from the kitchen. 

Usually he wouldn’t have put up with Evelyn’s bossiness. What was he, her fucking maid? But the tension in the room was starting to feel like a pressure cooker and he was only too happy to escape into the hallway. 

Until he opened the door, that was. 

Paul fucking Allen stood in front of him, holding a bottle of Moet that was identical to the one Patrick had brought earlier, and that fact alone made him want to wrench it out of the other man’s hands and smash it over his head. The second (and even more blood-boiling) fact was that he too was wearing a grey Dior suit, except he’d teamed it with a baby blue button-down that made his eyes look even bigger and lighter than usual, and as much as it pained Patrick to admit, he looked…

… stupidly fucking good.

Fuck you, Paul Allen. 

And - irritatingly - fucking Meredith was standing next to him, wearing a black minidress that was ridiculously over the top for such an informal gathering, her hand curled around Paul’s bicep and proudly displaying her Cartier engagement ring. She looked like a hooker and Patrick felt anger surge through him for a reason he couldn’t place. 

“Hi, Patrick,” said Paul, his smile easy and wide. 

“Hi,” Meredith simpered from his side. 

“Hello,” Patrick said stiffly. He stepped back, holding the door open for the lady and the tramp to walk through. The lady being Paul, obviously. “Evelyn’s in the kitchen.”

He took the bottle of champagne from Paul’s outstretched hand and strode to the kitchen, not caring if he was coming across rude. Evelyn and Courtney were deep in conversation and looked startled as Patrick appeared. 

“Paul and Meredith are here,” he said, placing the bottle on the breakfast bar with slightly more force than was necessary. 

As the women greeted each other and Paul took hold of Evelyn’s hand and fucking kissed it like he was a nineteenth century prince or something, Patrick returned to the living room, deciding he’d much rather listen to Bryce and Vanden verbally attack each other than watch the grotesquely friendly scenes unfolding in the kitchen. 

The topic of conversation had evidently moved on. “I just don’t get this obsession with labels nowadays,” Bryce argued as Patrick took his seat. 

“It’s not an obsession with labels, it’s people being true to themselves,” Vanden retorted. 

“What’s going on?” Patrick asked, reaching for the remote control in the hopes that Hannity’s barking would tune out the sound of Meredith’s grating screech from the kitchen. 

“Your friend ,” Vanden began, her voice dripping with acidic contempt as she shot daggers in Bryce’s direction, “is telling me that being queer is just a phase.”

“Oh, come on. You know I didn’t say that exactly. I said for a lot of people it is, especially people your age.” 

“People my age?” Vanden visibly bristled with anger. “I’m twenty three. I think I know my sexuality by now.”

“What do you think, Patrick?” Bryce fixed his eyes on Patrick with such an intense gaze that he felt unnerved. Why was he asking him? Did he suspect something? There wasn’t even anything to suspect. Yes, he’d kissed Paul in the Yacht Club, and yes, it hadn’t been entirely unpleasant, and yes, he’d thought for a moment they were going to kiss again when Paul was leaving his apartment the other day, but the first two were because they were on ecstasy and the latter was because Paul had given him a compliment ( you fascinate me, Patrick ) and he didn’t really know how else to respond to compliments because it wasn’t like his parents had ever given him any growing up. 

Right?

He realised he’d paused for a noticeably long period of time, and searched through the recesses of his brain for an answer. “Uh, well, I think…uh…”

“Evening, gentlemen.” Paul Allen strolled into the lounge like he owned the place, holding a flute of champagne and thankfully free of his fucking fiancee. 

“Allen, good to see you,” Bryce switched immediately back into his unflappable Wall Street persona, rising to shake Paul’s hand with a toothpaste-white smile. 

“Carruthers.” Paul nodded at Luis before his gaze fell on Vanden. He looked uncertain, and Patrick could see why; she resembled a crow amongst a flock of immaculately groomed pigeons. 

“This is Evelyn’s cousin Vanden,” Patrick said. “Vanden, this is Paul Allen. He - uh - we - we work with him at P&P.”

“Hi,” Vanden said flatly, looking visibly unimpressed. 

Paul extended his hand towards her nonetheless, smiling suavely. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Vanden.” Suddenly, a flash of recognition crossed his face. “Wait, Vanden from the jazz bar?” 

Patrick felt his blood run cold. How the fuck had Paul even remembered him saying that? He could feel Vanden looking at him, obviously wondering whether he’d told anyone about their dalliance, and across the room Bryce was giving him a confused look. Luis, as ever, just looked awkward. 

“You must be thinking of someone else,” Patrick said quickly. “Vanden is a film major at Camden.”

“Minoring in philosophy,” the girl added. 

Paul’s face lit up. “No way! I minored in philosophy at Yale.”

Patrick didn’t know that, and felt strangely peeved that it hadn’t come up in any of their conversations. Not that they had ever really talked about their college days, but Paul had never thought to mention it before - and yet here he was, just casually throwing it out there within seconds of meeting this bitch. 

“That’s dope,” said Vanden, looking genuinely impressed. Why? It wasn’t even a real subject. It was just something rich kids invented, like gender studies or literature. Whoever became a millionaire from philosophy? “What was your favourite theory?”

“I also minored in philosophy,” Luis chipped in, and Patrick wished that a bomb would go off and turn the room and everyone in it to dust. Since when was everyone a fucking philosopher?

“Dinner’s here soon.” Evelyn appeared in the doorway, her perfectly manicured hands clasped together demurely. For possibly the first time, Patrick was relieved by her presence; he couldn’t get out of the lounge fast enough.

As the self-appointed queen bee, Evelyn sat at the head of the table, with Patrick and Courtney at either side. Bryce slipped in next to him, and Luis was next to Courtney making googly eyes at Patrick; Paul sat beside him with Meredith opposite next to Bryce, presumably so they could stare lovingly into each other’s eyes across the table or something equally disgusting, and Vanden, the obvious outsider, sat at the other end opposite Evelyn. Patrick felt far too sober for this torture, and yet, as the food arrived and was dished out and glasses refilled, he knew it was somehow going to get much worse.

And he was right. 

“It’s so nice of you to invite us, Evelyn,” Meredith gushed. “We were just saying on the way over here that we should invite all of you over soon.”

“Oh, are you two living together?” Evelyn asked, and Patrick suddenly felt too nauseated to eat.

“Not yet. Paul likes his space.” Meredith reached across the table and sickeningly wove her fingers through Paul’s. Her hand was tiny and pale in comparison to the strong, tanned, broad hand of Paul’s. The sight jolted Patrick back to the memory of sitting in the cab back from the club, holding hands with Paul in the backseat. He had tried not to dwell on the thought, primarily because he still didn’t know why it had happened. Paul had let go as soon as they’d arrived at Tunnels and they hadn’t spoken about it for the rest of the night. But that was normal, right? People always held hands with their friends. Evelyn and Courtney were constantly intertwined, for example; Courtney resting her head on Evelyn’s shoulder when she was too barred out during dinner or Evelyn linking her arm through Courtney’s while they walked. And sure, they were chicks, but guys - straight guys - could do that too. 

“Patrick is the same,” Evelyn said, jolting Patrick out of his thoughts. She reached over and squeezed his hand. “Men, huh?”

“Have you guys started planning your wedding yet?” Meredith asked, immediately putting Patrick off his food. 

“We actually have.” Evelyn laid down her chopsticks (which Patrick noted had been used solely to push food around her plate without eating so much as a bite) and daintily wiped her hands on a napkin, her eyes shining. “We’re going to look at a venue in the Hamptons next weekend.” 

“You didn’t tell me that,” said Bryce, with words directed at Patrick but his eyes fixed on Evelyn. 

“I’ll show you.” Evelyn picked up her phone and began tapping at the screen. Patrick felt the familiar skin-prickling sensation of being watched and looked up just in time to meet Paul’s gaze before the blonde man tore his eyes away. His expression was indecipherable. 

“So do you have a boyfriend - sorry, I forgot your name?” Did Meredith ever shut the fuck up? This time, Vanden was her target.

“Vanden,” the dark haired girl replied, her kohl-rimmed eyes briefly flickering up from the parboiled cabbage she was prodding at and taking in Meredith’s sleek blonde blow-dry and salon tan with a look of disdain. 

“That’s so cute. Is it Dutch?”

“Sure.” Vanden looked up again, her eyes this time meeting Patrick’s. There was some kind of unspoken esprit de corps in the look that passed between them; the feeling that they didn’t quite fit in amongst these shallow and moronic creatures, that their minds were fixed on something more, something higher. 

Maybe I need to stop drinking this Moet like it’s water, Patrick ruminated.

“And yeah, I have a boyfriend,” Vanden continued, sounding bored to tears. “He’s in the library tonight though because he had an essay due, like, last week.”

“That’s adorable,” Meredith gushed. “Do you plan on getting married?”

Vanden snorted. “I don’t believe in the concept of marriage.”

“Here!” Evelyn interrupted, too loudly and too brightly and too eager to dispel any awkwardness and ensure that everything was perfect all the time. “Have a look.” 

She passed her phone to Bryce, who shrugged at the wedding venue photos and handed it to Meredith. Patrick stared at his plate, hoping that this was all a horrible dream that he’d wake up from at any moment. 

And Paul would be sitting on the edge of his bed again… 

He winced at the memory. 

Paul gave the photos barely a glance before stretching over to give Evelyn her phone back. As he did, she gasped. 

“What happened to your hand, Paul?”

Patrick looked up, his eyes resting on the back of Paul’s hand. He remembered how busted it had been after the fight at the club, the faggot’s blood mixing with his own and bruises pooling on the muscles. Said bruises had mostly faded, but were still unmistakably there, having faded to a sickly yellow that looked like jaundice. 

“Oh, he hurt it in a fight at a club.” Meredith reached for Paul’s other hand and smiled brightly, proudly. “He was defending some girl from a creep.”

Patrick’s chopsticks clattered off his plate onto the floor. He felt as though he was about to be violently sick all over the table. Defending a girl?! He couldn’t believe his ears. He stared at Meredith, willing her to say she’d got it wrong; he stared at Paul, but his eyes were fixed down on his lap.

Obviously he didn’t want Paul to have told anyone what had happened at the club. He would have to kill himself with mortification if so. But to rewrite the story so that Patrick was some random girl that Paul had chivalrously saved? He wanted to pick up a chopstick and skewer it right into Paul’s stupid fucking ridiculously green eyes. 

“A girl?” he said, before he could stop himself. 

Meredith leaned forward past Bryce to look at him. “Weren’t you there? Paul said you were in the club with him when it happened.”

“When did you two go to the club together?” Bryce swivelled to face Patrick with an accusatory stare.

“Yeah, I didn’t know you guys were such good friends,” Evelyn chirped unhelpfully. 

“We weren’t together ,” Patrick said, disgust dripping from the word; he hoped Paul could see the look of revulsion he was plastering on his face in retaliation to the suggestion that they had willingly spent time together (even though they had, but no one needed to know that). He hoped it hurt him. He wasn’t quite sure why.

“Yeah, we just ran into each other.” Paul chipped in. “There were a few of us there.”

“Like who?” Why the FUCK do you care, Bryce? Patrick wanted to scream. Do I have to tell you everywhere I go?

“Uh, Halberstram, Reed Robinson, Harry Ainsworth…” Patrick cycled through a mental list of his colleagues. 

“Isn’t Harry Ainsworth in London right now?” Luis piped up.

Patrick was filled with the overwhelming urge to lean across the table and garrott Luis with his bowtie. Instead, knowing there were far too many witnesses for that sort of thing, he replied through gritted teeth. 

“No, Luis. He came back early.”

“That’s peculiar,” said Luis thoughtfully. “I could’ve sworn he was-” 

“So what happened?” Courtney interjected, peering through over the rim of her glass through glazed eyes. Patrick had never felt such affection towards her as he did right now, her interruption coming at the perfect time. “With the fight, I mean.”

“Yes, tell us all the details!” Evelyn crowed. “Where was this, anyway? What club?”

“Tunnels,” Paul answered quickly. 

Patrick looked across at him, confused. Lying about the fight, and about being there alone with Patrick - understandable. (For some strange reason, it did sting a bit, but it was understandable.) But what was the need to lie about the club they were in? If anything, it made more sense to not have pretended to be at the popular club that was heavily frequented by their social circle; if Paul Allen really had got into a fight in Tunnels it would be all around the office by now. 

“It wasn’t Tunnels. We went to Tunnels after the, uh, the fight.” 

Paul looked sharply up and, for only the second time since they’d sat down at the table, met Patrick’s eyes. He shook his head ever so slightly. Patrick felt pinpricks of irritation. What the fuck was this dude’s problem?

“So where were you?” Evelyn asked.

What was this, the Spanish Inquisition? “I don’t know. Somewhere downtown. It was called Silence Equals Death or something weird like that.”

“Silence Equals Death? What sort of name is that?” Meredith was laughing, and Patrick had no idea how she wasn’t aware of the tension in the room. For the first time, he understood what writers meant when they said bullshit like you could cut the air with a knife. 

“I know the place you’re meaning. That’s not what it’s called.” Vanden looked around the curious faces at the table, Paul’s oddly drained of colour, making him look sickly against the paleness of his shirt. “It’s called Purgatory.”

“Purgatory? The gay club?” Luis chimed in. 

What the fuck?

“I read about it in…um…the New Yorker,” he quickly added, presumably surmising that the silence that had just fallen was due to his announcement and not because Patrick and Paul had somehow been in a fucking gay club and, crucially, Paul had taken Patrick there. 

Not that they knew that bit. But Patrick did, and he felt as though his veins had turned to ice. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Paul. Had he known? Did he realise it was a gay club? Did he think Patrick was one of…THEM?

“Why were you in a gay club?” Evelyn punctuated the silence, looking from Paul to Patrick in confusion. 

“We weren’t.” Paul sounded as though he was being strangled. 

“But Luis said it was a gay club.” Patrick didn’t know if he was imagining it or not, but Bryce seemed to be leaning away from him slightly. Did he think Patrick was one of them? Did he think he’d somehow catch it off him?

“Luis wasn’t there,” Patrick snapped. He could feel the unpleasant sensation of sweat breaking out on his forehead, pooling under his arms; he was suddenly thankful for his decision to wear a black shirt, which would hide the sweat stains. Why was he thinking about shirts and fucking sweat stains right now? “I’m not a fucking faggot .”

“Hey!” Vanden yelled. 

Patrick could feel the silent room spinning nauseatingly around him. He had to get fresh air. He had to collect his thoughts. He had to go out onto the balcony and fucking throw himself, or Paul, or both of them over the edge. 

It was Courtney who voiced exactly what he was thinking. 

“I’m going to vomit,” she blurted out, staggering to her feet and rushing out of the room with a wine glass still in her hand. 

Evelyn threw her napkin down and hurried after her friend. 

They could’ve heard a pin drop before Vanden spoke.

“Dude. This dinner party is fucking trippy.”

Chapter Text

“Is Paul Allen a faggot?”

Patrick snapped his head round to face Bryce. They were standing on Evelyn’s balcony, taking advantage of the disappearance of the hostess and Courtney and the awkward silence that had befallen upon the table to slip out to smoke. Paul had excused himself to the other toilet, looking as though he too was about to vomit; Patrick felt that if he focused too long on what disaster had just unfolded he would do the same. So instead he was on the balcony, a cigar dangling from his lips as the world raced dizzyingly around him. 

“What?”

“I said, is Allen a faggot?” Bryce was lighting the end of his cigar, not looking at Patrick. He had too much gel in his hair; it was making Patrick feel queasy. What was this, 2004?

“How the fuck would I know?”

Bryce slowly raised his head to meet the taller man’s eyes. “Well, you’re best buddies now, aren’t you?”

The thought was so genuinely titillating that Patrick snorted out an authentic laugh. “I barely fucking know the guy.”

“But you went to a gay club with him?” 

Bryce’s features were twisted into a look of utter revulsion just saying the words, and it was at this moment that Patrick realised he couldn’t possibly suspect anything about what had happened that night at the Yacht Club, because if he did there was no way he would be willingly standing next to Patrick, sharing lighters and derogatory remarks; he would probably have pushed him over the balcony instead.

“It wasn’t like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like…” Patrick felt as though he was once again in the strip club bathroom, frantically scrabbling for a plausible story that would inevitably backfire because the thing about the Upper East Side was that everyone fucking talked and nothing stayed hidden forever. “I was in Nell’s with Halberstram and, uh, we ran into him and, uh, some of the guys. And we just…ended up at this club. Because Tunnels was dead. None of us knew it was a fucking gay club.”

“But didn’t you realise when you walked and in and saw faggots gyrating on each other or whatever they do there?”

Patrick froze as the memory filled his veins; the man grabbing him from behind and pushing up against him and the fact he was completely frozen to the spot and unable to move, just like he had been when-

He realised Bryce was looking at him expectantly. “It was just like a normal club. Everyone just looked like fucking Camden students or whatever.”

Wracking his brain, he genuinely couldn’t recall a single point from the club where it had seemed like anything other than a normal nightlife venue, if a little heavy on the art student side. Sure, the entry bouncer was definitely a dyke, and the faggot that Paul had ended up beating the crap out of was definitely not straight, but it wasn’t like this was 1989; people were gay now, as disturbing as that was to Patrick. It made sense that there would be a few of them in an otherwise straight - a normal - club. He suddenly recalled the girl he’d spoken to at one point. What was her name again? Anna? Ashley? Irrelevant. 

“And I was with this hardbody most of the night anyway,” he added. What? It was only marginally untrue. 

“A hardbody? In a gay club?” Bryce was frowning like he was attempting to solve a quadratic equation. 

“She obviously wasn’t a lesbian, Bryce.”

“Then why was she there?”

“Because,” Patrick said patiently, blowing out smoke and wishing he too could float away and disappear into thin air, “people swing both ways, Bryce.” 

Not that he could understand it, but whatever.

There was a pause; Bryce studied his face inscrutably as if Patrick was speaking a foreign language. Then he grinned and held up his hand. “Nice one, dude! Those girls are always freaky as shit.”

Patrick dutifully returned the high five, feeling colour rising into cheeks for a reason he couldn’t quite place. 

Bryce opened his mouth as if to continue the interrogation, before looking back at the French doors and groaning. “Fuck. Morticia Adams is coming this way.”

Patrick turned just as Vanden appeared on the balcony, holding an unlit cigarette suggestively between her lips. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Bryce’s gaze trailing up and down her body, taking in the swell of her hips and the way the zip of her leather jacket strained against her bosom. Nice subtlety, dude, he thought.

“Hope I’m not disturbing anything,” she said, removing the cigarette from her mouth as her eyes flickered disdainfully between the two men. 

“Shouldn’t you be at a civil rights protest?” Bryce snorted, a trail of white smoke billowing from his mouth. 

“Shouldn’t you be sucking Donald Trump’s dick?” Vanden shot back. 

“Shouldn’t you be-”

“Ladies, please!” Patrick raised a hand. This was amusing, sure, but their bickering retorts were too much to handle right now, what with all the chaos crashing around his brain. 

Bryce shrugged, carelessly tapping his cigar against the parapet fence and turning to the door. “Watch she doesn’t bite,” he remarked over his shoulder, sniggering as he re-entered the dining room.

Vanden gave Patrick a curious look. “Bite?”

“I think he’s calling you a vampire. Because, you know…” he waved a hand in the general direction of her leather and fishnet-clad frame.

“How original.” She rolled her eyes. 

There was a pause, punctuated only by the sound of a wailing siren in the distance. Patrick let his mind wander to a place he rarely ventured to, a place where he could feel the cold bathroom tiles pressing against his skin, a metallic tang clinging to the inside of his nose as he tried not to sob. A different lifetime. He realised Vanden’s eyes were still on him. 

“Uh, do you need a lighter?” he asked awkwardly. 

“I have one.” A slow smile slid over Vanden’s face. She took hold of the zipper of her jacket and casually pulled it halfway down her chest, reaching for a lighter from the vastness of her chest, her gaze never leaving Patrick’s face the entire time. She didn’t bother to zip herself back up. 

Patrick could feel his palms sweating, his stomach twisting in knots; he didn’t know whether he felt aroused or nervous or why the fuck Paul fucking Allen had taken him to a fucking gay club. He needed some coke. He needed a Xanax and a cold shower. He wished he’d actually fucked that chick from the club the other night instead of chasing after Paul onto the dancefloor. 

“Did you tell your friends?” Vanden’s voice broke him out of his thoughts. She was standing with one hip jutting out, a fingerless fishnet glove-clad hand resting casually on the parapet as she exhaled smoke. A velvety dragon juxtapositioning everything Patrick had ever stood for. 

“Tell them what?” 

“You know what.” She stared into his eyes, her expression unreadable. 

Patrick frowned. “About…us?” 

“Yes, dumbass.” She flicked her lighter on, holding the flame closer to Patrick. He looked at her curiously; she nodded her head towards his cigar. He realised it had extinguished without him knowing. 

“Thanks,” he said, relighting. He let the smoke seep into his mouth, savouring the richness before blowing out a soft white plume. “No, I haven’t. Have you?”

Vanden shook her head, and another silence fell upon them; it wasn’t unpleasant and Patrick felt a small nudge of relief because this meant it wasn’t just Paul he felt at ease being quiet around, that he could wordlessly coexist in the company of someone else and have it be perfectly okay, that it wasn’t a trait solely reserved for Paul and whatever feelings arose from being in the presence of the other man. 

Maybe Bryce was just really shitty company, and that was why silences with him always felt awkward. 

“So how did he know who I was?”

“Who?” 

Vanden looked over her shoulder in the direction of the French doors. “I can’t remember his name. Your friend. The blonde guy?”

“Paul?” Patrick replied, and his stomach lurched at the word. 

“Yeah. He was all like, ‘Vanden from the jazz club’?” She imitated Paul’s voice, and Patrick couldn’t help but smile. 

“I said I was there with you, but I didn’t say what happened.”

She nodded, seeming to think over what he’d just hold her. “What’s the deal with you two, anyway?”

“The deal?” Patrick nearly dropped his cigar in shock. What the fuck did she mean by that? Did she have some kind of inbuilt faggot raider? Not that either of them were… that, obviously. 

“Yeah. He was literally staring at you, like, all through dinner. And you went to Purgatory together?”

Patrick didn’t know whether to feel furious that she was accusing him - him! - of being gay with Paul fucking Allan, or terrified that the others would have also picked up on this, or dizzy that for some reason, Paul had apparently been staring at him all night. 

“I’m not fucking gay, Vanden,” he said stiffly. “You of all people should know that.”

She smiled, flicking her dying cigarette over the edge of the balcony. “I wouldn’t judge.”

He was about to storm back in before he started throwing Evelyn’s stupid plants over the railings with anger - why was he getting cross-examined over being in a club he didn’t know the name of and didn’t choose to enter, and wouldn’t have set foot inside if he’d known - when he noticed that her voice was teasing and seductive, not accusatory and harsh as Bryce’s had been. Glancing through the French doors to check that no-one was looking their way, he stepped closer to the younger girl, placing a hand under her chin and tipping her head up so that they were eye level. 

“Would I be doing this if I was gay?” he whispered. 

He watched her pupils dilate, the inky blackness dwarfing the piercing green of her irises as suddenly he was seized with the memory of another pair of green eyes, hovering above him in the backseat of a taxi, flashing in pink strobe lights, threatening to swallow him whole as he stood across the threshold telling Patrick he was fascinating in a good way , but then he felt Vanden’s hand press through his trousers against his hardening dick and he was jolted back to reality. 

“Don’t do that here.” He took a step back as a peal of laughter rang out from inside the apartment. 

“Worried Paul will see?” Her eyes glinted against his. 

“Fuck off. I’m worried your cousin will see.” 

“You mean your fiancee ?” 

He broke away from the gaze first, leaning forward and winding an arm around her waist, pinching her ass so hard she let out an audible gasp. 

“That’s going to bruise,” she remarked to his retreating back. 

“Good,” he replied as he opened the doors back into the dining room. 

What was the point of doing anything if it didn’t leave a mark?

================================================================

The remainder of the dinner passed without anything notable occurring. Courtney and Evelyn reappeared at the table as though nothing had happened, and Patrick was strangely grateful for the fact that Meredith just never fucking stopped talking because it meant no one asked him anything about gay clubs or fights or the myriad of other things he’d just rather not talk about.

After dinner, everyone had retired to the lounge; Evelyn had switched the TV to MTV and then back to Fox News because everyone agreed that the ‘music’ nowadays was just so fucking bad. Patrick didn’t feel drunk enough, even though he’d had the majority of a bottle of Merlot and too many glasses of Merlot to count, and Evelyn was on the sofa next to him, her hand wrapped around his arm and her head on his shoulder and every nerve ending in his body screaming in discomfort at the sensation of being touched. 

Paul was seated directly opposite, Meredith curling into him like a mirror-image of Evelyn, and every so often Patrick would look up and they’d awkwardly meet eyes once again. It felt inconceivable that just a few days ago Paul was sitting on Patrick’s bed, soothing him out of a night terror with their hands enclosed around each others, and now they were avoiding eye contact with strangers. Patrick knew it was his fault for ignoring the other man, but what else was he meant to do? He’d seen a part of Patrick that he hadn’t been able to control; a part that wasn’t impeccably polished and carefully controlled. And that was disgusting. And terrifying. And he could never look at him again. 

“This is ridiculous,” said Bryce. He was seated at Meredith’s other side, a bottle of Scotch on the table in front of him, and was getting progressively more and more animated over Fox News the more he drank. “The man hasn’t told everyone how much he paid in tax and suddenly it’s the worst thing anyone’s ever done. I mean, remember when Clinton went on TV and lied to the entire fucking nation?”

“If he’s actually paid his taxes, why wouldn’t he just say? Seems like he has something to hide,” Vanden retorted. 

“Can’t you two just stop bickering for two fucking minutes?” Patrick longed for a nuclear bomb to drop and obliterate the entire room. 

“Does anyone else think Donald Trump is kinda sexy?” Courtney slurred.

It was that, and not Patrick’s plea for Bryce and Vanden to stop arguing over Trump not declaring his taxes (which he couldn’t see the issue with anyway, but whatever) that managed to make silence fall over the room. Courtney’s words cast a spell over the room, wiping out all sound that wasn’t the TV or the quiet clinking of glasses. Then, she spoke again, disturbing the peace. 

“I’m bored. We should go out.” 

“Yachties?” Bryce perked up. 

“Stop calling it that, man.” Patrick pinched the skin at the top of nose. “McDermott was right.”

“I don’t want to go out,” Evelyn pouted. “I feel so fat from dinner.” What, from the three bites of cabbage she’d had? 

“I’m too underdressed for clubbing,” Meredith added, which was absurd because she was dressed like a strip club waitress. Patrick’s eyes came to rest on her delicate neck, which was circled with a choker comprised of three different strands of pearls and fastened with a sparkling planet charm. He knew it was Vivienne Westwood because Evelyn had the same one and he suddenly remembered what Paul had told him in Dorsia. 

Meredith is being a bitch because I didn’t give her the right Vivienne Westwood necklace…s he got mad at me because it was apparently the three row pearl necklace she wanted. So he must’ve gone out and bought her it after all. What a whiny, ungrateful bitch. Why were women like that?

Patrick didn’t realise he was glaring at her neck until she caught him looking and flashed him a bright, plasticky smile. She was so dumb. What did she and Paul even talk about?

“I wouldn’t mind going to the Yacht Club,” the blonde man said, his eyes nervously darting around the room. His usual bravado seemed to have been sucked out of him as he added, “if you guys go, I mean”.

“Let’s do it,” said Courtney, staggering to her feet. 

“Court, are you sure?” Evelyn lifted her head from Patrick’s shoulder to stare up at her best friend, her eyes huge and round, imploring something Patrick couldn’t place. 

“Yeah, I wanna dance.” Courtney pouted down at Evelyn, looking like a petulant child.

“I’ll come,” Vanden said unexpectedly. 

“Really?” Evelyn raised an immaculately groomed eyebrow at her cousin. 

“Yeah, why not?” the dark-haired girl shrugged. 

“Are you coming, Bateman?” Bryce was swallowing the remainder of his glass hurriedly, as if he couldn’t wait to be out of the apartment.

Should he? He ruminated over venturing back to the Yacht Club, the place where it had happened. With Paul fucking Allen again, nonetheless. But it wouldn’t just be them, this time; Bryce and the girls would be there and, by the look of how he was shrugging on his coat, Luis too. He wouldn’t even have to speak to Paul. And what was the alternative? Stay here with fucking Evelyn?

That settled it. “Of course,” he said. 

Evelyn looked at him, her bottom lip stuck out in a sulky expression. “ Pat. I said I didn’t want to go.”

“I’ll stay here with you, Evelyn,” Meredith chirped, and for the first time tonight Patrick was grateful for her presence. “We can look at wedding dresses online.”

Evelyn’s face lit up as she clapped her hands. “Yes! Brilliant idea. Courtney, are you sure you don’t want to stay with us?”

“No,” said Courtney flatly, leaving the room. 

“What the fuck’s wrong with her?” Bryce asked.

“Oh, she’s just on her period,” Evelyn replied, her face pained. 

“Again? She just finished it last week,” said Luis, looking confused.

“That’s fucking gross, dude,” Bryce retorted. “No one wants to know that.”

“What’s gross is your attitude,” Vanden huffed. “Periods are natural.” 

“So is urine, but if I just suddenly started pissing on you-”

“Can we just, y’know, leave ?” Patrick interrupted, exasperated. They were worse than children. 

But leave they eventually did, and after some arguing over the Uber arrangements (Bryce and Vanden refused to go with each other, Patrick didn’t want to be around Paul or Luis, and Courtney was in a mood and wouldn’t say why) they set off towards Tunnels. The sky had darkened around them, and the streets were bustling with tourists and hookers, stockbrokers and hobos sharing the same pavements and doped up the eyeballs on the same substances despite their different walks of life. Patrick was sitting in the front seat, the girls in the back; it was the only arrangement that worked out without any risk of a murder occurring on the fifteen-minute ride over. He would say he felt bad for leaving Bryce to ride with Luis and Paul, but he would be lying, and he reckoned he’d already done enough of that tonight.

Whilst Vanden and Courtney chattered quietly about mutual acquaintances they shared, Patrick’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out to see a text from Bryce. 

Thanks for leaving me w/ these faggots. U owe me a drink

Patrick laughed a little to himself. He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to see Courtney holding a bottle of Merlot that she’d presumably taken from Evelyn’s. “You want any?” she asked, still slurring a little. 

Patrick was about to take the bottle, but the Uber driver shot him a dirty look - you can forget your five stars, cunt, don’t look at me like that - so he waved his hand dismissively. “I’m good,” he said, noticing she had a tiny stain of red wine just under the corner of her bottom lip. He leaned over instinctively to wipe it off with his thumb, and through the darkness caught a glimpse of Vanden’s eyes, flickering knowingly between the two. 

He turned back around, flustered for a reason he couldn’t place. Bryce better get a gram, pronto. 

The line was stretching out of the Yacht Club entrance and all the way down the street, but as soon as the bouncer saw Patrick and Courtney he waved them through. He looked at Vanden a little suspiciously, clearly sensing she wasn’t a regular guest amongst the city frat boys and their companions, but after a lingering pat-down she was free to go. 

“That bouncer was fucking sleazy,” she complained as they entered the club, but her voice was quickly drowned out by the thudding of bass music spilling over the dancefloor. Patrick felt his shoulders visibly relax, taking in the views of faces he vaguely knew amongst barely-clothed hardbodies; he felt as though he could finally breathe. He was at ease here. Which was funny, considering the last time he’d been here-

Stop. He pushed the thought of his mind and turned to the girls. His girls. “I’m going to find Bryce,” he shouted, and he neither knew nor cared whether they heard. 

His friend wasn’t in the toilets, nor at any of the bars, and he was about to text him when he heard a familiar voice. 

“Patrick!” Luis was waving him over. He was seated at one of the tables on the top floor, the women and Paul surrounding him. Bryce was nowhere to be seen. 

“Where’s Bryce?” Patrick yelled over the music, making his way over. Three small angular leather sofas were circled around a low glass table; Vanden and Courtney were squeezed next to each other on one, with the other two on one each, which meant Patrick had to choose whether to sit next to faggot A or faggot B or awkwardly remain standing. He chose the latter.

“I think he was looking for you,” Luis shouted back. Then he raised a hand and beckoned Patrick over, as if he was a master calling over his dog, and Patrick felt equal parts repulsed and offended. However, the wine and lack of coke were making his body heavy and his legs weary, and so he made his way over and sat down cautiously next to Luis, avoiding Paul’s eyes but hoping he was pissed off at his snub. 

Luis had clearly ushered him over for more than the opportunity to be in close proximity to him, because as soon as Patrick was seated he leaned over and attempted to whisper in his ear. Patrick jerked away, swatting him off. 

“What the fuck, Luis? Why are you sticking your tongue down my ear?”

“I said, ” Luis repeated patiently, “what’s wrong with Courtney?”

“Why the fuck would I know?” Patrick twisted his features into something he hoped resembled confusion. “She’s your fiancee.”

“Yes, but,” Luis continued, lowering his tone and leaning conspiratorially closer to Patrick, much to his chagrin. “She might’ve told Evelyn if something was up.”

“Well, Evelyn’s not said anything to me.” Patrick flinched away and instinctively brushed the lapels of his blazer, as if to wipe away any shreds of Luis’ DNA that might’ve transferred to him. “She seems fine to me.” 

And she did - ‘fine’ in her own way. She was laughing and joking with Vanden and Paul, already finished the drink in her hand and swaying only slightly.

“She looked like she had been crying earlier. When she came out of the bathroom with Evelyn. And she’s in a huff with me.”

Patrick sat and listened to Luis droning on and on like a lovestruck teenage girl who’s crush hadn’t texted her back, feeling depressingly sober. 

“Anyway, it must just be PMS,” Luis was chattering on, and Patrick felt something snap inside him.

“You realise I’m fucking her, right?” he shouted.

“What’s that?” Luis shouted in response, cupping a hand around his ear.

“I’m fucking Courtney.”

“You’re thirsty? Do you want me to buy you a drink?”

Patrick resisted the urge to bury his head in his hands and scream so loud it drowned out the music and the mindless chatter and caused Luis and Paul and every fucking moron in the room to drop dead instantly, but he didn’t really like the idea of causing such a scene, so he just stood and left without as much as a backwards glance. 

He finally located Bryce in the queue at the bar. “Thanks for leaving me with those two,” his friend shouted in his ear, and Patrick cringed deep underneath his skin at the feeling of his warm spittle that had landed on the side of his face. He was overcome with the desire to ask for a shot of vodka to pour over his skin, scrubbing and scrubbing away seventeen years’ worth of impurity.

He shrugged, but Bryce wasn’t done. “They didn’t say a fucking word on the way over. And the taxi driver was a - get this - a woman. The world’s gone mad, Bateman.” 

Has it, or is it just me?  

Bryce suddenly raised his hand, squinting at his Apple watch. “Shit. I’m gonna go and score. Hold my place.” He turned and made a beeline for the toilets. 

Patrick waited in line for a minute or so, but was then overcome with boredom and left, wandering through the dancefloor, avoiding drunk patrons and feeling his heartbeat hammer. He was aching with a longing he couldn’t place; craving something he couldn’t name. Couldn’t, or didn’t want to? He pivoted and made his way back to the bar, pushing into an empty space and ordering four sambuca shots and two Stoli on the rocks because why the fuck not? He slammed back the shots one after the other, following with one of his drinks which he used to wash down a stray pill he’d found in his wallet. He had no idea what it was, presumably Xanax, neither did he care, just wanting to be as out of it as possible.

Patrick felt the warmth of the alcohol coursing through him as he made his way back up the stairs to the top floor. Luis and Courtney were huddled together, the latter waving her hands around in the over-dramatic manner she tended to adopt at the most minor inconvenience. Luis’ hand was on her thigh as he nodded at whatever she had to say, but in the manner of a father soothing his daughter as opposed to the intimacy of lovers. He wondered if she called him daddy too when they had sex - if they ever actually had sex, that was - and was hit with a wave of disgust that only deepened amongst turning to Paul and Vanden. 

Paul had occupied Courtney’s vacant seat, and the two were seated turning towards each other, deep in lively conversation. They were sitting in such close proximity that their knees were touching, the dichotomy of her drugstore fishnet tights and his Dior pants a startling picture. But what was even more startling was that they were laughing. With each other. Their eyes alight, or whatever bullshit romance writers spewed. Vanden was twisting a lock of raven hair around her finger, and Paul’s eyes kept travelling down to her exposed chest, and the whole scene made Patrick just so unfathomably angry that he downed his drink in one, wincing at the tart taste, and then slammed his empty glass down into the table. 

The pair jumped, turning to face him. “Hey, Patrick,” Paul smiled. “You okay?”

He didn’t even realise anything was wrong. Not that anything really was. If Paul and Vanden wanted to sit and giggle like school kids, making moon eyes at each other and talking about philosophical theories or some equally faggoty bullshit, then that was fine. Why wouldn’t that be fine? Why did he even care?

Two pairs of green eyes, one huge and curious and one sultry and feline, were fixed on him, waiting for a response. 

“Fuck you,” Patrick snapped. 

Paul’s eyes widened slightly, and Vanden looked between the two, her expression in equal parts bewildered and amused. 

“ What? ” the blonde man asked. 

Patrick stared at his face for a long beat, taking in the way the strobe lights flickered across his features, the way his lips were parted just enough for him to be able to see his front teeth, the fact his eyelashes were so fucking stupidly long, and then turned on his heel and left. 

In the toilet, Bryce was coked up and talking animatedly to George Reeves and someone that Patrick initially thought was Scott Fitzpatrick but, upon closer inspection, turned out to be Malcolm Baxter. Bryce passed a baggie into his hand, shouting something about getting more blow later but kind of being in the mood for molly , what do you think, Patrick? and Patrick made a noncommittal reply before slipping into an empty cubicle to snort the remainder of the bag. 

It was weak as shit, but it was better than nothing. Bryce’s voice floated over the top of the cubicle, telling him to hurry up so they could get back on the floor and find some sluts. 

“I’ll join in a minute,” Patrick shouted back, relief flooding over him upon hearing them leave. He slumped against the wall of the cubicle, tilting his head upwards and trying to take long, slow breaths out of his nose. He hated Paul and he hated Vanden, and Evelyn, and Luis, and the fact that this coke was shit; he scraped the dregs into another line and snorted it off the cistern, wincing at the harshness scraping inside his nose. He tried not to think about the last time he’d done coke in here (or what he’d thought was coke, at least). How euphoria had swept over him as he’d laughed with Paul, how close he was standing to the other man, how huge Paul’s pupils were, looking at Patrick, before he’d even snorted anything.

Patrick shook himself out of his memories and flushed the empty baggie down the toilet, using a square of toilet roll to avoid getting his hands dirty on the handle, and unlocked the door. 

And then the world stopped. 

Standing in front of him, his shirtsleeves rolled up and his face flushed and his eyes so piercingly green, was none other than Paul fucking Allen. 

The two men held each other’s gaze for what felt like an eternity before Patrick shoved past Paul, heading for the exit. Or, at least, attempting to. 

A firm hand thrust against his chest, stopping him from moving. As Patrick looked up in surprise, Paul pushed him back into the cubicle. His eyes were steely, his mouth set in a firm, hard line. 

“We’re fucking talking, Bateman.” 

================================================================

“This is false imprisonment,” Patrick argued as Paul stepped after him into the cubicle, his back to Patrick as he locked the door. 

“Yeah? Then crawl out under the door like a fucking spider.”

Patrick glanced at the foot-high gap between the floor and the sides of the cubicle, his eyes travelling disdainfully over the dirty floor and then to the perfect asepsis of his suit. 

“I can’t. This is Dior.” 

Paul leaned his back against the door, crossing his arms over his chest. “I know. I’m wearing the exact same suit.”

Patrick stared at the shorter man, who met his eyes with a stony determination. Patrick took a step forward. 

“Let me out, Paul.”

Paul snorted, but there was no mirth in his voice. “No. We need to talk.”

“Paul,” Patrick repeated through gritted teeth, “Let. Me. Out.”

Paul said nothing, continuing to search Patrick’s face with his eyes, probing at his skin and threatening to peel back the layers and see what was inside. What was really inside. 

“What the fuck is your problem?” Patrick spat. 

“No, Patrick, what the fuck is your problem?” Paul snapped back. “You’ve been avoiding me all week.”

Patrick snorted. “What, so we hung out at the club a couple of times and suddenly we’re best friends? We’re not fucking joined at the hip, Paul.”

He hoped his words stung. Even though they were true, and he didn’t think Paul even gave a shit anyway, he still hoped it hurt.

Paul squeezed a hand against his temples, sighing. “I know that. But we are colleagues. You busted my ass to try and get on the Fischer account, and now I’m trying to set up a meeting and you’re just ignoring me?”

“I’ve been…busy.” 

“Cut the bullshit, Bateman.” Paul raised his head, his eyes flaming. “Is this because of what happened on Monday night?”

So much had happened on Monday night it was difficult to decipher exactly what Paul was meaning. The ‘getting thrown out of the club’ w hich, by the way, happened to be a fucking gay club, thanks Paul, incident? The ‘being too drunk to remember Tunnels’ incident? The ‘Patrick, you fascinate me’ incident?

“The nightmare,” Paul added, sensing Patrick’s confusion. 

Patrick had never really understood what was meant by the phrase of someone’s ‘hackles rising’, but right now he was experiencing it firsthand. He felt angry tension spurt through his veins, jolting him back to the humiliation of that night. 

“You don’t have to be embarrassed-”

“Shut the fuck up!” Patrick slammed his hand into the wall to his right, making the whole cubicle shake. He wished he’d hit Paul’s face instead. He wished Paul would hit him, or say something, instead of just standing there, looking at him with wide, startled eyes. 

“Patrick, it’s not-”

“Why don’t you fuck off back to Vanden?” Patrick interjected, his voice firing into the blonde man like nails. 

There was a pause as Paul took in what he’d said, and then his mouth fell agape. “So that’s why you’re so mad at me tonight,” he said, the corner of his mouth quirking up into a grin. “You’re jealous.”

What? No! Why would he be jealous? He wasn’t a fucking faggot. 

“You’re jealous,” Paul continued, his grin wide and taunting now, “because you want to bang Evelyn’s cousin.”

Wait.

What?

Suddenly it dawned on Patrick. Paul didn’t think Patrick was jealous because he wanted him . 

He thought he was jealous because he wanted Vanden . 

He had to laugh at the absurdity of it all. “Paul, that’s not…”

“Does Evelyn know you’re perving on her little cousin?” Paul gloated triumphantly, his eyes shining. “Was fucking her best friend not enough for you? Who’s next, her mom?”

Patrick took a step closer to the other man, his fists clenched at his side, longing to wrap his hands around his neck instead and strangle him until the whites of his eyes had turned scarlet with burst blood vessels. “Paul, fucking stop. ”

“Why?” Paul laughed. “It’s the truth, isn’t it?” 

Patrick stared down at him. Their height difference wasn’t that extreme; perhaps three inches at most, but Patrick liked the advantage it gave him. He liked being able to tower over the shorter man, forcing him to look up in order to meet his eyes, just as he was doing right now. His pupils were dilated and Patrick wondered if he’d come in here to do drugs, too. His pulse was racing, and he needed to clear his throat, and the smell of Paul’s cologne felt like it was seeping into his pores.

“Shut up,” he said again, his voice barely above a whisper. 

Paul’s eyes flickered down Patrick’s face, and he shifted his weight slightly against the door, uncovering the lock.

All he had to do was wrestle him out the way, and he’d be free. Free to return to the dancefloor or to their table, to find Bryce and knock back some shots, heck, even to find Vanden and get her to blow him in the disabled toilets. 

And that was what he meant to do. 

But just as he took another step forward, closing the gap between himself and the liberation that unlocking the cubicle door would bring, Paul spoke.

“Make me, Bateman,” he murmured, his voice low and sending electrical volts right through Patrick’s skin. 

Last time, it had been a slow build up, the sensations heightened by the ecstasy; they’d spent what felt like minutes looking at each other, drinking each other in through inky pupils and hitched breaths before their lips met. This time, it happened so quickly Patrick didn’t know who had made the first move. All he knew was that Paul’s lips were on his, taking him aback with their softness, and that he felt as though someone was shooting volts of electricity through his body. He was on fire. They were on fire, conjoined as one, and somewhere at the back of his mind he was screaming at himself that this was a bad, bad idea, but then why did it feel so fucking good?

Paul’s tongue traced along Patrick’s bottom lip, an almost dizzying sensation that made Patrick’s heart clench and shit, wasn’t he meant to be keeping some sort of diary about that and he would have to leave this part out because he couldn’t tell Dr Hartwell he had a chest pain kissing a fucking dude and then, why the fuck am I thinking about chest pain diaries and Dr Hartwell right now?

His head was giddy, spiralling from one thought to another, all thoughts that meant nothing at all, because all that mattered was the fact that Paul Allen’s tongue was in his mouth and Paul Allen’s body was pressing against his. He felt as though he was taking his first drink of water after a lifetime of dehydration, water that he was now drinking and drinking like it was the last thing he’d ever taste. The kiss turned sloppy, frantic; Paul was straining against him and Patrick found himself gripping the smaller man’s hips, pushing his crotch against his as Paul’s hands wove into Patrick’s hair. Patrick involuntarily let out a soft moan; his humiliation over this ceased when he heard Paul’s sigh of “ fuck, Patrick” against his lips. 

Hearing the other man, the figurehead of the Fischer account, the powerful playboy everyone wanted to be, moaning his - Patrick Bateman’s - name like an imploration was almost too much to bear. Patrick sucked Paul’s bottom lip in between his teeth, gnawing on it with just enough pressure to make him gasp. He could feel him growing harder underneath him, a fact that should have repulsed him to his core because he was not a faggot but was, instead, deucedly turning him on. 

They parted, only briefly, but long enough for Patrick to already develop a yearning deep down for their lips to meet again. They stood, nose to nose, breathing vodka and need against each other’s lips. Patrick could probably have been able to make out his reflection in the pupils of Paul’s eyes if his vision wasn’t quite so blurred with ecstasy. 

“Is this okay?” Paul whispered, his bottom lip swollen with the promise of blood. 

No, the rational part of Patrick’s brain screamed from the depths. Nothing about this was okay. 

But then why did it feel so fucking good?

He answered Paul’s question by pressing his mouth back against his, hungrily drawing him in for another kiss, tasting a sharp ichoric tang and realising he’d probably bitten too hard. But Paul didn’t seem to care, at least from the way he was gripping the back of Patrick’s head and eagerly returning the kiss. Patrick felt drunk on the torturous caress of Paul’s lips and the scent of his cologne; he felt as though he could kiss Paul all night and never get tired and he was too fucking euphoric to care why. 

One of Paul’s hands was pressing into the small of Patrick’s back, underneath his blazer but over his shirt, and his other one was curling into the base of Patrick’s neck, and Patrick was suddenly hit with the realisation that his own hands were just lying at his sides when they could doing so many things to Paul. He raised one, tentatively resting it on the side of Paul’s face before sliding it into his hair; the other found its way to Paul’s waist, his fingers threading through his belt loops. 

Patrick traced Paul’s cut bottom lip with his tongue as they kissed, enjoying the metallic taste of blood that seeped into his mouth upon contact; Paul groaned into his mouth at the sensation. The sound made Patrick feel so overwhelmed with primal lust he found himself tightening the hand in Paul’s hair into a fist, wrenching his head off his mouth and against the cubicle door. He leaned into the blonde’s exposed neck, breathing in the earthy, rich scent of his cologne. Paul’s breath hitched, and Patrick took it as permission to start planting sloppy kisses down his neck, over the side of his jaw, over any exposed skin he could find. He let his tongue trace spirals over his throat, occasionally nipping at the skin with his teeth, feeling the friction of his and Paul’s dicks pulsing together under their clothes. 

“ Fuck, Patrick,” Paul breathed suddenly, and it was as if he’d abruptly been woken from sleep. The sound of his name, echoing loudly within the tiny cubicle, brought him back to reality with an unpleasant bump. He felt as though he’d had a bucket of cold water thrown over him. What the fuck were they doing?

He stepped away from Paul, taking in the man’s dishevelled hair (which, annoyingly, still managed to look perfect in spite of its state), the blood dotting his swollen lips, the urgent rise and fall of his chest. His eyes were hooded, smouldering; Patrick could see a small bruise forming on the side of his neck from where he’d bitten too hard. 

“We shouldn’t do this,” Patrick blurted out. He stumbled over the words, which felt heavy in his mouth, like the way speech did when he drank too much. 

“Why not?” Paul was letting his tongue trace his bottom lip and it was taking every ounce of self-control Patrick possessed (which, admittedly, wasn’t a lot) not to pounce back on him. 

“I’m not - you’re not - I mean, neither of us are-” 

“Are what?” Paul raised an eyebrow, smirking deviously. 

“Are - you know - we’re not-” Patrick stammered, humiliatingly flustered.

“Not what?” Paul raised an eyebrow. “Gay?”

Patrick felt his mouth keep stuttering out words, as if it was moving outwith his control. Paul reached over, hooking a finger in between two of the buttons on Patrick’s shirt and tugging him back towards him.

“I’m not gay, Bateman,” Paul whispered, his face mere centimetres from Patrick’s. 

“Neither am I, I just don’t think-”

“Have you ever even been with a guy?” 

Paul’s murmured question sent shockwaves through Patrick’s core. This was a sentence so loaded - with so much potential to destroy reputations and relationships - and Paul was saying it as though it was nothing.

“No, I mean - obviously not, but-”

The blonde man snorted out a laugh. “I can tell.” He flicked his hand, pushing Patrick away from him, and cast a mischievous glance over his body from head to toe. 

“Wait, what?”

“I can tell you’re a dick virgin,” Paul was smirking and Patrick didn’t know whether he wanted to punch him or kiss him. “Who could believe it? Mr Perfect, Patrick Bateman. Something he’s not the best at.” He stepped closer to Patrick, leaning in until his lips were grazing Patrick’s earlobe. “Imagine how humiliating it would be to hear that around the office. ‘Sure, Pat Bateman gets all the chicks, but he has no idea what to do with someone on his wavelength’.” Paul let his words linger and sink in before stretching up, peppering light kisses over Patrick’s jaw. He twisted his hands into Patrick’s hair, tilting his head down until they were eye level. 

“Pathetic,” Paul whispered, and that was the final straw. Fire and electricity coursed through Patrick’s veins; he wrenched Paul’s hands away from his head and shoved him into the cubicle door, pinning his hands above his head and biting down hard on the milky flesh of his neck. 

Paul writhed underneath him, gasping, and Patrick smirked against his skin. He loved how responsive Paul was to his every touch, every flicker of his tongue and scratch of his teeth. He pressed his body flush against Paul’s, letting their lips graze together.

“Get on your knees,” Patrick breathed, before he had time to think over what he’d just said, what he’d not even meant to say. It had just slipped out. Paul stared at him, his eyes wide and questioning, and Patrick felt as though he was questioning himself too - screaming at himself from some dark recess of his mind to take a look at what he was doing and fucking stop it. 

But he couldn’t, not now, not now that he’d started. 

He stepped backwards, releasing Paul’s arms and undoing his belt buckle with a clang. 

What are you doing? the sober, sensible, absolutely one-hundred-percent straight part of his brain was screeching. This is what faggots do! You’re not a faggot, you’re just drunk and horny! 

Paul looked as though his own brain was shouting similar thoughts at him, and for a moment, Patrick thought he was about to refuse. This was fun, Bateman, but don’t you think that’s a bit far? Like…it’s kinda gay, Patrick. I’m not gay. 

But then he dropped to his knees and Patrick’s hands were shaking so much he could barely open his zipper and he could already feel the wetness of precome pooling inside his pants. 

The world warped and spun at a dizzying speed as Paul pulled Patrick’s dick out of his underwear and, without a moment of hesitation, twisted his head to lick from the underside right down to the tip, his tongue swirling around before he enveloped Patrick’s length in his mouth. 

Patrick hissed involuntarily, his knees weak underneath him as Paul looked up, his eyes huge and questioning, as if he was asking permission to continue. “Fucking suck it,” Partrick breathed, grabbing a handful of Paul’s hair and pushing his head down. 

It felt… extraordinary. That was the only word Patrick could think of to describe it. He wasn’t even having to replay scenes from torture porn or Texas Chainsaw Massacre to get off; there wasn’t even room in his head for such thoughts because all that he could focus on was his cock, in Paul’s mouth, and that was it. Nothing else. It was like nothing else had ever existed, or would ever exist, because nothing could compare to the sensation he was experiencing right now. Paul was taking all of him in, right down his throat without gagging once, and he was flicking his tongue around the head every time he drew back, and Patrick tipped his head back against the cold wall of the cubicle and hissed again through gritted teeth.

“ Fuck,” he muttered, as quietly as possible, and Paul’s eyes flickered up to meet his; the sight of the other man with Patrick’s cock buried deep in his mouth caused him to instinctively groan out. 

This was ridiculous. This was absurd. 

This was… everything. 

Until it wasn’t. 

Patrick had just reached his other hand into Paul’s hair when the door swung open and a clatter of voices spilled into the bathroom. 

“Hey, who’s here from work tonight?” a man’s voice echoed. 

Patrick stilled, placing a hand against Paul’s shoulder to hold him in place.

“The usual, I think. Bryce, Bateman, I think I saw Paul Allen somewhere,” another voice answered. 

Patrick’s blood ran cold. He recognised the voices as belonging to nameless colleagues around the office, probably the sort of beta males that enviously looked at Patrick and his friends wishing they could be part of their clique, solid in the knowledge that he was perpetually better than them.

Or…he was, at least. Past tense. Now they were in the present and he was in a toilet cubicle at Tunnels with Paul fucking Allen on his knees in front of him. Patrick pulled out of the man’s mouth, fear creeping over him. What the fuck was he doing? How could he have been so stupid, so careless, to think that this was a good idea?

He wasn’t gay. 

Sure, maybe Paul Allen was, but that wasn’t Patrick’s problem. He turned away to tuck his rapidly softening dick back into his underwear, suddenly overcome with shame and paranoia and the sort of disgust that it would take an entire bottle of industrial-strength bleach to wash off. 

“What are you-” Paul whispered, before Patrick pressed a finger to his lips, his eyes darting from the pair of them to the door. 

He was repulsed. He was repulsive. How could he have allowed this to happen? How could he have encouraged it?

And, perhaps most concerningly: how far would he have gone if the arrival of their colleagues hadn’t brought him back down to reality?

He waited until they’d finished their business and left, joking and jostling and doing all of the normal effortless things that normal people could effortlessly do, before turning to look at Paul.

The other man was still on his knees, saliva wetting his plumped lips, and sure, it was kind of hot but that was irrelevant. 

“Patrick-” he began, but Patrick held a hand to silence him.

“This…” he said, his voice shaky as he pointed a finger between him and Paul. “This never happened. Got it?”

Paul staggered to his feet, reaching out for Patrick. “What are you-”

“No.” Patrick swatted his hands away and stepped backwards, his back hitting the cubicle door and rattling it jarringly. “This. Never. Happened. Do you understand?”

The colour had drained from Paul’s face, and a vein was tensing at the side of his forehead, and he had a huge and definite bitemark blooming on the side of his neck and it was all just too much. 

Patrick wrenched open the door and ran out, past the myriad of background characters in the bathroom, the losers queuing up outside, the bright lights and deafening sounds of the dancefloor. He had to get out of here before he did something awful, like slice someone’s jugular open with a broken beer bottle or return to the bathroom and tell Paul he didn’t mean it and that was the best thing he ever-

SHUT UP! Patrick screamed at himself. A group of hardbodies turned and gave him a funny look, and he realised there was a high chance he’d accidentally said it out loud instead, but who the fuck cared. 

He didn’t even realise he’d left the club until he was hit with a wave of cigarette smoke in the face at the entrance. Angrily, he swatted his hand out, feeling it collide with someone’s arm and a woman’s voice screech with anger as her cigarette fell to the ground. Boo fucking hoo, bitch. 

Patrick set off down the sidewalk, unsure whether he was going, unsure whether he should walk into traffic here or wait until he got downtown, when a familiar voice called out his name. 

“Patrick!”

He squinted. Vanden and Courtney stood a few feet in front of him, Vanden resting her hand on the open door of the cab next to them.

“Oh…um…” This was beginning to feel like some kind of trippy nightmare.

“Where are you going?” Courtney asked, swaying slightly on her feet. 

“We’re going back to Courtney’s,” Vanden added. “The club is so dead and we want to drop acid.”

“Come with us,” Courtney said, doe eyed. 

Patrick looked at the pair of them, Courtney’s blond hair and cream fur coat and softness juxtapositioning with Vanden’s black hair and leather and ferociousness. He thought about Paul, and the cramped toilet cubicle, and the disaster that had nearly happened. That had happened. 

“Of course,” he replied simply, and opened the front passenger door as the girls crashed drunkenly into the back. 

Chapter Text

Hi everyone!

I just wanted to update quickly and say that I am taking a quick break from writing because I’ve broken my hand LMAOOO, so it will be about a week until I update next!

Your comments, as ever, have made my day and I’m going to reply to them soon if voice to text allows it (it can be awkward with my accent sometimes lol).

In the meantime, please check out this amazing artwork by LeoBlooms on Twitter — it’s phenomenal! https:// /thealstars/status/1520044925177499650?s=20&t=-tHuJeeQxhr1qryUu2s9Lw

I also just wanted to thank everybody who takes the time out of their day to read this silly little tale :’) I hope I can bring you even a fraction of the joy reading this as I get writing it.

On that note, I have an update! I’ve kind of been planning out the rest of this and I think I have a rough outline of how it’s going to conclude. I did have another ending planned but I think I’m going to turn it into a sequel instead if anybody wants that? (It’ll be equally as long as this lol sorry) There’s still another 40 to 50 chapters to go though, that won’t be for quite a while anyway but just seeing if anybody is interested!

I also have vague plans for a few one shot fics I want to do running alongside this one, and I’m toying with the idea of a 4/5 parter focusing on Courtney and Evelyn’s relationship, what do y’all think?

Finally, if anybody has any requests for one shots PLEASE let me know which characters and situations you want to see! Nothing is too weird (the weirder the better tbh) and it’s a fun way to practice my writing because goodness knows I need it.

Thank you so much for everything <33 next chapter coming soon!

Chapter Text

The pupils of Courtney’s eyes were so big they looked as though they might suck Patrick inside, and it was making him anxious, but he didn’t want to kill the trip by asking for a benzo. He was sitting on Courtney’s bed and Vanden was on his other side, stroking her hand up his thigh, and there was something on the TV he couldn’t pay attention to because all the colours were seeping out of the screen and glowing fluorescent and also, for some inexplicable reason, Courtney was removing her blouse. Vanden leaned in and kissed at his earlobe, as tenderly as a mother with her child, and then took it between her teeth and pulled as Courtney straddled him. 

“You’re so hot,” Vanden whispered.

“Thanks.” Patrick didn’t know if the voice came from him; it sounded like him, but it seemed to come from an external force, a parasite wrapping itself around his vocal cords and making him speak foriegn words of its own will. Or maybe he was the parasite, and the thought terrified him so much he felt a cold sweat break out over his entire body and he needed some fucking air like, now. 

“I wasn’t talking to you.” Vanden’s voice sounded like it was coming from another room, her smile feline and her words slow as she traced a finger down his cheek. “But, I mean, you are too.”

Patrick was still trying to decipher anything that vaguely resembled any sort of sense from what she’d said when Courtney leaned over and kissed her. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。..・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。..・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.      

It could’ve been five minutes later or it could’ve been an hour; time was stretching out over centuries as civilisations were wiped out and built up again from the ground up. Courtney was writhing on her back in front of him, alternating between giggling uncontrollably and gasping in ecstasy as Vanden went down on her, and Patrick was sitting beside them fully clothed trying to decipher if this was an acid-induced lesbian porn hallucination or if it was really unfolding right in front of him. 

Courtney reached out to him, still laughing, one hand tangled in the mess of Vanden’s hair. There were tears running down her face, leaving behind luminescent traces that seemed to glow with sadness. Something about it stirred something deep and nostalgic buried in the depths of Patrick’s mind. 

“Give me a kiss, Patrick,” Courtney said, gripping Vanden’s hair harder as tears pooled around the edges of her eyes, and suddenly her features were older and wearier, a deep desperation in her gaze as her hair darkened to auburn and her eyes hardened, and Patrick was fourteen years old again, ignoring his mother’s advances, sitting on the edge of her bed as she wept and pleaded for him to kiss her, to hug her, to hold her, just once more-

He didn’t even realise he’d wrapped a hand around her neck until he felt Vanden smack the back of his head, her fingers causing dents in his skull as Courtney rolled onto her side and pressed a hand against her neck, gasping; instantaneously she was her again, blonde hair and blue eyes and pale skin marked with rapidly reddening fingerprints. Yet the voice still echoed in his ears - give me a kiss, Patrick, give me a kiss, Patrick - and then he was hitting himself without even feeling it, slapping himself in the face over and over as distant voices cried and begged him to stop. 

Give me a kiss, Patrick. 

Man up, Patrick. 

It was all your fault, Patrick.

“Fucking stop it !” Vanden wrenched his hand away from his face with a surprising amount of strength. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Patrick stared at her. Really stared at her. Her features were liquidating together, a blur of green and white and black and something about her just looked suddenly so young. 

He felt as though he was about to vomit. 

Courtney was sitting upright now, still crying, and even in the dim lighting Patrick could see the marks on her neck, a reminder that he was poisonous and parasitic and it was all your fault, Patrick, it was all your fault, it was all your fault-

“Why the fuck did you just start choking the life out of her out of nowhere?” Vanden was standing in front of him now, pushing her breasts back into the bra that was pulled down around her waist; her eyes were flashing venom and Patrick thought perhaps he was trapped in another night terror, about to awake sweating and convulsing with Paul fucking Allen holding his hand. “Are you fucking psychotic? She was begging you to stop, dude!”

Patrick ran his hands through his hair, tugging on it as if he was able to lift his scalp off and lobotomise himself. Maybe it’s genetic. Maybe it’s what I deserve. Nothing about this scene, this segment of the horror film that was The Life of Patrick Bateman that would undoubtedly come with a special parental warning and raise mass protest from feminist groups across the country, felt real. It was as though he was looking at the scene through a telescope, seeing characters moving around and shouting at him and reassuring him that it’s okay, I know you didn’t mean it, Patrick, I just don’t know how I’m going to explain these bruises to Luis. 

Everything was catastrophic and he could feel his last shred of composure and control over his life slipping out of his hands. 

Vanden and Courtney were both staring at him. He didn’t realise he was crying until he heard himself speak. 

“I just want my mom,” Patrick sobbed into the silence.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。..・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。..・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.       

Now it was the middle of the night, the sort of endless purgatory that threatens never to end and is devoid of all life. Patrick was walking. He wasn’t sure where he was, or how long he’d been walking for, or where the fuck he was heading towards; all he knew was that he had to keep walking, had to keep focusing on the steady pounding of his feet - left, right, left, right, left, right. The buildings that surrounded him, the rows of dormant stores and reposing bars, were literally melting in front of his eyes; the neon blue and green and red of their signs bleeding down the walls in slow streams onto the sidewalk and threatening to stain his shoes. He tried to step out of the way but his feet were sinking into the tarmac like sand, and his body felt so heavy, and he'd left his coat somewhere he had no recollection of. 

Patrick kept walking. 

He was adrift in the midst of his confusion, his mind lost in the fragmented memories playing on a loop around his head; memories he couldn’t distinguish the authenticity of, lost somewhere between imagination and reality. 

The Yacht Club. He’d definitely been at the Yacht Club. He could hear the pounding of the music, smell the spilt liquor and cheap cologne in the air, feel Paul Allen’s tongue in his mouth, his lips around his dick; he clenched his fists expecting to feel the other man’s hair in his hands again. He wanted to kill Paul, brutally and agonisingly and without mercy; he wanted to watch the glinting steel of his blade stroke across his throat and hear him gurgle grotesquely as the life drained from his eyes. He wanted to fuck him until he was crying out Patrick’s name, begging and pleading to please stop, please don’t, it hurts so much- 

Patrick bent double at the side of the road, nausea crippling him as he retched pure acid onto the sidewalk, gasping with an agony the source of which he couldn’t decipher. The entirety of Manhattan was spinning and twisting around him and everywhere he looked there was light seeping out of the sky, shooting towards him like fireworks, threatening to burn him to the core. 

He kept walking. 

New recollections were rolling through his head like a film reel with every step he took. These were facts, he was certain: placing the little square of acid under his tongue in Courtney’s bedroom, feeling her and Vanden curling into either side of him as they sat on her bed, the look in Courtney’s eyes as she’d cowered away from him after he’d strangled her. What if Vanden hadn’t been there? How far would he have taken it?

How far could he go before everyone realised what he truly was?

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。..・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。..・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.       

He was back in his grandparents’ house in the Hamptons, the supposed haven he’d been sent to every summer between the ages of ten and fourteen so that his mother could take her yearly holiday to Bellevue Hospital and his dad could ‘travel’ for ‘business’ flanked by his ‘colleagues’ who always happened to be women half his age. He could smell wood polish and pipe tobacco as soon as he pushed the door open. The house was silent and appeared empty, and yet a feeling of trepidation and anxiety stirred in the pit of his stomach. 

There was another scent in the air, one that was sickeningly familiar; a sharp metallic tang that wound its way into his nostrils and clung to the inside of his brain. He knew exactly what it was, and as he made his way deeper into the house he knew exactly where it was coming from. 

His bedroom was on the second floor. The smell got stronger as he climbed the stairs, and he knew before even having to look that it was emitting from the bathroom adjacent to it. He didn’t want to look, but he couldn’t help himself. 

The water was spilling out from under the door, and it was red. 

He willed his feet to turn around, carry him back down the stairs and out the front door to safety, but they were moving of their own free will, taking one step and then another until he reached the door. He could hear water running from inside, and he attempted to trick himself into thinking that this was okay, that this was normal, that she was just running a bath. 

But when he opened the door he could see nothing but red; nothing but a single pale hand, tinged blue as it hung over the side of the bathtub, taps still running as blood-red water overflowed onto the tiles.

He squeezed his eyes shut as soon as he noticed the hand. He couldn’t - he wouldn’t - see anything more this time.

He was relieved, therefore, to open them and find himself the sole occupant of a dark room. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he realised that he was once again back in his bedroom. Perhaps more worryingly, he wasn’t actually alone this time. There was a soft mound in the middle of his bed and he could make out a head of blonde hair over the top of his duvet.

He frowned. This wasn’t right. 

He had never been blonde. 

The closer he got, the more he realised he recognised whoever this was; he recognised the dimples, the upturned nose, the long lashes fanned out on the cheeks.

It was Paul Allen. 

At that very moment, he heard footsteps in the corridor, and with that every muscle and nerve in his body froze like ice. Not here. Not now. Not when Paul Allen was here. 

Then it dawned on him. He wasn’t really here, so they weren’t coming for him. They were coming for Paul Allen.

A mix of range and terror flooded Patrick’s veins as he saw the door handle begin to turn. In that moment, he knew he had to protect Paul at all costs. 

“Stay away!” he screamed as the door began to open. 

He could see a figure stepping into the room, first the slipperless feet and then the shadowy outline of a body. 

“Go away!” he shouted as loud as he could. He would scream and shout until it woke the entire house up. He would kill the figure if he had to. He couldn’t let this happen to Paul Allen. He couldn’t-

“Sir? Sir, are you okay?”

Patrick opened his eyes. He was hyperventilating, and he was sitting on the sidewalk, his back against a wall and his legs stretched in front of him, and a man was crouched down in front of him giving him a look crossed between concern and fear. 

“Um…” His head was still whirring. He tried to comb through the abscesses of his mind to try and work out where he was, or what had happened, or anything that would give him a grip on reality.

“I think you fainted,” the man told him. “Are you okay?”

Patrick tried to steady his breathing as he looked around him. It was still dark, and he was sitting at the opening to an alley, which meant that hopefully no one would have seen him collapse or faint or whatever the fuck had just happened. The man was wearing a suit with an overcoat - Valentino couture, it looked like - and Patrick couldn’t see his face properly for the lack of lighting. 

“I’m fine,” he managed to spit out. 

“Do you need me to call anyone? A taxi?”

The man shifted and a beam of light from a nearby streetlamp cast across his face, taking Patrick’s breath away. The man looked absolutely identical to the figure in his room. 

“Where’s Paul?” he asked, his voice laced with urgency and trembling with trepidation. 

“Paul?” The man - the figure - him - frowned, feigning insensibility.

“Paul Allen.” Patrick’s hands curled into fists. How dare he decide to pretend to play dumb now?

The man laughed lightly. “I’m sorry. I don’t know who that is. Do you have your phone on you? I could call-”

“WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM?” Patrick screamed, lunging forward and swinging for the man before he had a chance to realise what was going on. He heard the crunch of his fist colliding with cartilage, the man falling backwards and smacking his head off the ground before Patrick had a chance to react. 

He sprang to his feet, feeling the blood rush to his head as he delivered a kick to the man’s rib cage. “WHERE THE FUCK IS HE?”

The man was panting, gasping for breath as he tried to struggle upright, saying something Patrick couldn’t even begin to comprehend as he kicked him a second time. He dropped down beside him and retrieved the blade he always carried in his left breast pocket, thrusting it into the man’s neck with as much force as he could. 

The man gasped as he drew the knife out and plunged it in again, and again, frenzied and uncontrollable and screaming the entire time. “WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO PAUL?” he roared, each word punctuated with another stab in the neck. Blood was spraying out, coating both of them as Patrick’s vision began to cloud. So much blood. Too much blood. He couldn’t stop even if he wanted to, his hand moving of its own accord, moving down to the firmer target of the man’s chest and severing the veins of his neck as he gasped out, bubbles of saliva pooling at the corners of his lips. 

Patrick didn’t realise he was crying again until he stood up, his chest heaving as he watched the man frantically scrabble for his last breath on the ground. The liquid spilling out of his neck was much darker than Patrick had imagined; a cool burgundy shade instead of the fiery red depicted in cartoons. It was coated on him too, staining his suit and already beginning to dry on the front of his shoes. When he reached up to run a hand through his hair, he felt the metallic stickiness dripping down onto his face.

He stepped closer to the man, examining him from above. His eyes fluttered closed as he let out a last shuddering breath, and it was then Patrick really looked at his face. 

It was completely unfamiliar. Not a single recognizable feature. Whoever this man was, this kind stranger who’d just tried to help him get home, he wasn’t anyone Patrick knew. He hadn’t done anything to Paul Allen. He didn’t even know Paul Allen. 

Why was he even thinking about Paul Allen right now?

Patrick fell to his knees, vomiting just centimetres away from where the man’s corpse lay, tears spurting down his face, mingling with the blood as he wept. He wasn’t entirely sure why he was crying, why he was suddenly struck with the most intensely overwhelming sense of grief he’d ever felt in his entire life. Why twenty-seven years worth of pain was wracking through his body in sobs. Why after twenty-seven years of suffering the constant, dull ache of nothingness , he suddenly felt it all, unleashed like floodgates. 

I just want to hold

To be held

Not to

think 

Chapter Text

Patrick was wrenched from vague and nebulous nightmares by the sensation of water being splashed violently in his face. He jolted upright, his head whirring as he took in the sight of Evelyn standing at the side of his bed with an empty glass in her hand and a furious glare on her face. 

He had only the faintest memories of getting back home last night, staggering against the walls as he entered his apartment and smearing burgundy bloodstains everywhere, collapsing in his bed and having an acid-induced panic attack over hearing sirens in the distance and being unable to discern whether they were real or all in his mind. 

Was he even real anymore? Was anything?

“You’re a fucking jerk, Patrick!” Evelyn huffed. 

Patrick looked around himself hazily, noting that he was still clad in his suit and button-down from the night before and that his bedsheets were twisted and tangled around his legs. His mouth felt impossibly dry and his head was pounding, and there were blurry zig zags surrounding his vision as he attempted to focus his eyes and make sense of the scene in front of him. 

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked dumbly, feeling as though every word out of his mouth required an elephantine effort to be pushed out and formed into something discernable to normal human ears. 

“Are you joking?” Evelyn screeched, the shrillness of her voice drilling right into Patrick’s skull.

“We were worried,” a male voice interjected from the doorway. Bryce stepped into view, dressed in smart trousers and a button down, aviator sunglasses propped on his head and an irritatingly bright look in his eyes like someone’s douchebag suburban dad. “No one had heard from you since you got out of the taxi at Courtney’s last night and you weren’t answering your phone.”

Shit. The realisation of what had happened last night - what he had done - shattered into Patrick like a tank. 

The man in the alley…the way blood had sprayed over him like a broken faucet tap…the gasps he’d made as he lay dying alone…

Patrick ripped his covers off frantically, expecting to see his suit caked in the blood of the stranger he’d butchered last night for reasons he couldn’t even comprehend, wondering why Evelyn and Bryce weren’t freaking out over the stains coating the walls of his living room and hallway and the bloody footprints leading to his room. He was aware of Evelyn ranting in the background, her voice fading in with the thudding of panic in his brain as he looked down and saw…

Nothing. 

Not a single drop of blood. 

The unmistakable yellowish-white stains of dried vomit were splattered all over his chest, but there was not a smidgeon of blood to be seen. 

Where had it gone?

“If you’re looking for your phone, it’s on your nightstand charging. We found it dropped in the living room.” Bryce brushed an imaginary speck of dust off the doorway he was leaning against, pretending as though he wasn’t gleeful at the spectacle in front of him. 

I wasn’t, but thanks for your input, Bryce. Patrick dug his nails into the palms of his hands, feeling a faint sting of pain that told him that he was indeed alive, that he wasn’t still tripping from last night and was hallucinating this entire bizarre encounter. He desperately searched through the recesses of his mind for something, anything, that could explain what the fuck had happened last night. Had he got changed out of his bloody clothes when he’d returned home and then thrown up on his clean suit? No; there was no vomit anywhere, and why would he have got re-dressed into a suit to sleep in? 

“Was there anything on the walls when you came in?” Patrick cut Evelyn off mid-flow, abruptly bringing an end to her faux-tearful speech about the importance of communication in a healthy relationship. Like either of them knew what that was. 

“ What? ” She stared at him as though he’d sprouted a third eye on his forehead. 

“When you came in here…” Patrick could feel sweat crawling out of his pores like ants and raised a hand to wipe over the side of his face, wincing as he touched an unexpected sore spot under his eye. “Was there anything… unusual on the walls?”

Evelyn continued to stare, her expression blank and empty. After a few beats, she turned to Bryce. “Tim, can you give us some privacy for a moment?”

Bryce’s eyes flickered between the two of them, and if Patrick had been in a sounder state of mind he’d have felt irritation at the fact that his fiancee was asking Bryce’s fucking permission to be alone with him in his own apartment . However, there were more pressing matters at hand, and so he ignored Bryce’s smug smile as he left the room, closing the door behind him. He braced himself for the inevitable shouting match that Evelyn was going to try and establish.

Instead, his fiancee flung herself down onto the bed and took hold of his hand, her eyes huge and lips quivering as she spoke. “Patrick, what’s wrong with you?”

Everything. I’m going insane and I probably killed someone last night. And, to top it off, I’ve ruined a fucking Dior suit. 

“You’re being…odd,” Evelyn continued, her voice soft as her eyes searched his face for a sign of life. “Courtney said you took her home from the club cause she didn’t feel well, and then just walked away from her building. You weren’t replying to anyone, your phone was off, and now you’re going on about things being in the walls? What the fuck is wrong?”

Patrick pulled his hand out of her grasp and rubbed his face, pinching and pulling at the skin on his cheekbones to make sure that they were still warm, that blood was still coursing around his body. He winced again at the tender spot underneath his eye, trying to wrap his head around what had happened. Or, apparently, not happened. Evelyn was a neurotic clean freak. She would have lost the plot if the entire apartment was full of blood splatters and footprints, and Patrick could fuzzily remember leaning his entire body weight against the wall in the hallway when he’d come in, trying to catch his breath. Had someone come in and cleaned it up? Had the cleaner been in? It couldn’t be that; she only came during the week when Patrick was at work in order to minimise social interaction.

The only viable scenario, therefore, was that Patrick had somehow cleaned it all up in his drunken stupor. Or, perhaps more alarmingly…

Had he imagined the whole thing?

“I’m fine,” he choked out after what felt like hours. I’m not fine. “I just…got too drunk and needed air, so I walked home.”

“All the way from Courtney’s? That’s like, twelve blocks.” Evelyn raised an eyebrow and Patrick’s stomach turned at the mention of the other woman’s name. Fuzzy fragments of recollection flashed through his mind: her and Vanden making out as he sat and panicked and cried about his mother, choking the life out of Courtney, punching himself in the face in a desperate attempt to stop - well, everything. 

Patrick felt vomit rising up his throat and hastily threw his covers to the side, rising out of bed and staggering to the bathroom. He reached the toilet just in time and hunched over it, his stomach twisting painfully as he retched into the water. When he flushed it he watched with envy as the watery acid disappeared into the drains, longing to be so small and irrelevant his presence could just as easily be wiped away from the earth. 

But what if he already was?

Patrick stared weakly into the mirror as he scrubbed his hands four, sixteen, twenty-two times. His hair was tousled and matted, his skin deathly pale; there was a small smudge below his right eye that on closer inspection turned out to be a bruise - the result of his self-induced beating last night and the source of his facial pain. 

But there wasn’t even the tiniest hint of blood anywhere.

He made his way stiffly back to his bed. Evelyn looked up from her phone as he entered, a look of concern etched on her features that he highly doubted was authentic. She wasn’t worried about him. She was worried because him losing the plot would harm her social standing. 

Her insincerity didn’t usually bother him. But today, for some indiscernible reason, it made him want to scream. 

“Why do you have a bruise under your eye?” she asked, an edge in her voice.

Patrick shrugged and turned his back to her, opening his drawers and reaching for clean underwear and a T-shirt. “How did you even get in here?” he asked in order to avoid having to explain it. It’s no big deal, I just choked out your best friend while she was trying to get me to join her and your cousin in having sex because I thought she was my mom, and then beat myself up. Oh, and we were all on acid at the time. You should’ve joined, it was a hoot!

“Uh…” There was hesitation in Evelyn’s voice. “We told the concierge we were worried you’d fallen into a diabetic coma and had to check on you. He unlocked the door.”

“A what? ” Patrick spun round too quickly and had to grip the edge of his dresser to ground himself, swallowing down bile. “What the fuck, Evelyn? I don’t even have diabetes.” 

“It was Tim’s idea!” she argued, rising from the bed.

“Yeah, I forgot to add, why the fuck is Tim even here?” Patrick shot back, feeling sudden pinpricks of fury at the intrusion of his solitude as his head gradually cleared.

“He’s your best friend!” Evelyn hissed. “He was worried! We were all worried, Patrick! No one had heard from you in almost twenty hours!”

Twenty hours? 

“What time is it?” Patrick asked, panic rising at the sudden uncertainty of everything. He didn’t trust himself to look at his alarm clock, his own eyes seeming to be broadcasting a fake reality. Am I sure I’m not just still tripping?

Evelyn gave him an unreadable look. “It’s almost eight pm, Patrick.”

Patrick just stared in response, unable to decipher what she was saying. Eight pm? He’d slept that long? 

“I’m taking a shower,” he said eventually, not trusting himself to say anything else.

“Wait, Patrick.” Evelyn hurried after him towards the bathroom, catching his wrist and forcing him to turn to face him. “I think you need to go back to that psychiatrist.”

Patrick bit back a laugh. So he had a bad acid trip - ambiguous murder thing notwithstanding - and suddenly he needs to see a shrink? “For what reason, Evelyn? I’m fucking crazy just because I got so drunk I slept all day?”

“You asked me if there were people in the walls when I woke you up!” she shot back.

He rolled his eyes. Classic Evelyn, completely warping his words to suit her own agenda. “I asked if there was anything on the walls because I was…worried I’d thrown up on the floor.”

“This is what I mean!” Evelyn threw up her hands in frustration. “You’re just not behaving like yourself lately.”

Like you even know who I am, Patrick thought. I don’t even know myself anymore. 

“Evelyn,” he said at last through gritted teeth. “I. Am. Fine. Just fucking drop it.”

“If you don’t make an appointment, I’ll tell your dad. See if he can talk you into it.” Despite her petite frame, Evelyn suddenly seemed much taller as she jutted her chin out confidently, meeting his eyes with a steely gaze devoid of even a shred of fear. 

Patrick felt his shoulders sag with exhaustion. This was the same trick she’d used to get him to see the shrink before. But he didn’t actually need to go this time. He could just make an appointment and then cancel. She’d never know. 

“Fine,” he said finally. “Now I’m going to shower, so you can leave.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

As he scrubbed shampoo into his scalp, Patrick tried to collect his thoughts as best as he could. Everything before arriving back at Courtney’s was a blur, as though he was looking back at it wearing glasses with smudged lenses, and he had only the faintest recollection of walking home. The memories of stabbing the man, of watching the knife plunge in and out of his neck as if he was possessed, of kicking him in the ribs as he lay dying, were rapidly fading; the more he thought about them, the more they seemed like the world’s most bizarre lucid dream. Surely he would fully remember it? He knew the mind was capable of blocking out traumatic events, but he doubted his was; after all, his entire childhood still played on a 4K-quality reel inside his head on a daily basis. He tried to look at the facts: the blood was gone. It couldn’t have happened. It must have happened. He felt as though he was getting vertigo from his thoughts. 

He had just got dressed (black T shirt - Prada, 100% cotton, and matching shorts) when it hit him. His knife. If what he thought had happened last night had happened, it would still be coated in blood, and possibly lumps of flesh or something. With trembling fingers, Patrick reached into the breast pocket of his discarded suit jacket, reaching the slim metal blade he carried everywhere and realising - it was clean. Spotless and gleaming. Just like it always was. 

Was he genuinely going insane?

The walls of the hallway seemed to be moving and warping as Patrick walked slowly towards the kitchen, looking for any signs of the splatters that surely would have transferred onto the walls when he’d collapsed against them. But there was none. He also noted the absence of a tell-tale bleach scent, the industrial-strength cleaning fluids one would surely need to scrub everything off non-existent. The carpet was as fluffy and white as ever, and he found his shoes kicked off just outside the door into the lounge. Besides some repulsive sick splatters - Patrick made a mental note to throw them out and get Jean to order more - his shoes were as clean as a whistle. He turned them over, inspecting the soles with fervour. There was nothing there. 

Patrick walked into the kitchen in a fugue of confusion, his mind whirring as he tried to accept the fact that the brutal murder he had vividly and enthusiastically participated in hadn’t actually happened. Had it? Evelyn and Bryce stood together, talking in low voices. They sprung apart as if they’d been caught when they noticed Patrick had entered the room, and it almost made him laugh. Did they seriously think he cared about their affair right now? Did they seriously think he cared at all? They were welcome to each other. 

“I made you some coffee, buddy,” Bryce said, the friendliness and concern in his voice clearly hiding insincerity as he handed Patrick a mug. “Woah, what happened to your face? You have a…” 

He pointed a finger underneath his own eye, indicating Patrick’s bruise. Patrick shrugged and took a sip of his coffee. It was the perfect temperature, but far too strong, and he barely managed to conceal his wince. “Must’ve hit it off something. I was wasted last night.”

“Yeah, you left me in the club with Luis. You owe me, like, ten rounds.”

“Do you want to come to dinner with us?” Evelyn interjected, drumming her fingers on the countertop the way she always did whenever she was bored.

“With us? ” Patrick swallowed a mouthful of Bryce’s vile coffee and looked between the pair.

They had the decency to pretend to look guilty before Bryce added, “Not just us, dumbass. McDermott’s bringing Pamela, Van Patten’s coming. Luis too. Courtney’s got a stomach bug or something. We have reservations at Pastels for nine thirty.”

Patrick felt hit with a wave of nausea as he remembered the dark handprint circling Courtney’s neck. It wasn’t so much the violence or even the choking itself that worried him - he was into torture porn, for crying out loud! - but the fact that he had genuinely in that moment seen his mother lying there. But it wasn’t a hallucination, right? At least, not one caused by anything but acid. 

He put his coffee mug down and turned to Bryce. “Is she okay?”

“Who?” Bryce frowned.

“Courtney.”

“Why are you asking?” Evelyn demanded, an accusatory glare in her eyes. “Why wouldn’t she be?”

“Because Tim said she was sick,” Patrick snapped.

The three stared at each other, a taut silence coating the kitchen. Eventually, Patrick cleared his throat. “Thank you for the invitation, but I’m going to pass. Have a nice night.”

Bryce shrugged and grabbed his jacket from the chair it was slung over. “Suit yourself. Canal Bar after work tomorrow, though?”

“Sure, yeah,” Patrick said flatly, watching as Bryce helped Evelyn into her fur coat with all the subtlety of a neon sign. Evelyn hung back as Bryce made his way to the door, dropping her voice to a whisper as she leaned into Patrick. 

“Please make an appointment. I don’t want to have to tell your dad, but I will do it if you don’t.”

“I said I’ll do it,” Patrick replied through clenched teeth. Evelyn smiled in return and stretched up, kissing him on the lips just as he heard Bryce’s voice from the open door. 

“Allen! What are you doing here?”

Patrick stiffened and pulled away from Evelyn, the blood in his veins solidifying and turning cold as ice. Allen? As in Paul Allen? It couldn’t be. Why would Paul Allen be here?

And then, suddenly, it all flashed through his mind clear as day. 

Making out with Paul Allen in the bathrooms. The way he’d dropped to his knees in front of Patrick. The horrible, amazing thing he’d done after. How Patrick had pushed him off and ran out. 

He had to hold onto the countertop to steady himself as the world spun dangerously fast. 

Paul fucking Allen was silhoutted in the doorway, laughing and talking with Bryce, and now he had stepped half over the threshold and all Patrick could see was his green, green eyes searching his soul, the boyish strands of hair that flopped over his forehead, his lips which had been wrapped around Patrick’s cock less than twenty-four hours ago; lips that were now smiling and moving as he spoke in Patrick’s direction. 

“Sorry to just barge in here. I’ve been trying to call you, but you didn’t reply,” he was saying, like him calling Patrick and coming over to his house was the most normal thing in the world. “Mr Fischer wants to meet us for dinner in an hour to discuss the account.”

Evelyn looked curiously between the two men. “Patrick isn’t feeling too good,” she said after a pause. 

“It’s fine,” Patrick croaked. He had to make Evelyn and Bryce leave, now. Bryce already suspected Paul was…well, different. A gay club attendee. Even just a slipped word could be fatal. He gave Evelyn a tight smile. “You should go. You don’t want to miss your reservation.”

“I’ll call you later,” she replied suspiciously, continuing to eye them both as she picked up her purse and eventually, thankfully, was ushered out the door by Bryce, who gave the two an unreadable look and shut the door without saying goodbye. 

And now it was just him and Paul, alone, standing eight feet apart and staring at each other, and Patrick could simultaneously feel his pulse slowing and his heart rate speeding up. He didn’t even think that was possible, just like he didn’t think it was possible for another man’s skin to feel so soft or his lips to be so-

Stop. Patrick turned away from Paul, grabbing his coffee mug and tossing the contents into the sink. “I’m not having dinner with Fischer. I can’t tonight.”

“There is no dinner.” Patrick could feel Paul’s eyes boring into his back. “I just made it up on the spot. I didn’t expect those two to be here.”

Neither did I! Patrick wanted to yell. Why couldn’t everyone just fucking leave him alone?

“Then what do you want?” he snapped, rinsing out his mug with such force that water sprayed all over his T-shirt. It reminded him of the blood spraying all over his face as he drove the knife into flesh and skin, the look in the man’s eyes as he’d screamed out-

No. 

It had been Patrick screaming. 

If it had happened, that was. 

He was screaming something, over and over and over as he stabbed the man to death.

But what had he been screaming?

Patrick was wrenched from his thoughts by the sound of Paul slamming his hand down to the countertop; he flinched embarrassingly and dropped his mug into the sink as he turned to face the other man. Paul looked… furious. His eyes were flashing as he stood, jaw clenched, reminding Patrick of how mad he’d been that time in the strip club bathroom. 

“I want to fucking talk, Bateman,” he said, his voice as cold as ice. “You don’t get to do what we did last night and then just run away again.”

Chapter Text

Patrick was wrenched from his thoughts by the sound of Paul slamming his hand down to the countertop; he flinched embarrassingly and dropped his mug into the sink as he turned to face the other man. Paul looked… furious. His eyes were flashing as he stood, jaw clenched, reminding Patrick of how mad he’d been that time in the strip club bathroom. 

“I want to fucking talk, Bateman,” he said, his voice as cold as ice. “You don’t get to do what we did last night and then just run away again.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Patrick swallowed down the nausea threatening to spill from his throat and reached for the countertop, curling his hands around the cool marble. He felt like a caged animal, still trapped in some kind of suffocating nightmarish acid trip that felt like it would never end. Maybe none of this was real. Maybe he was the one that had died last night and this was hell.  

“There’s nothing to talk about,” he said hoarsely. 

Paul snorted. “Right. Sure, Patrick.”

The sound of his name spoken from the lips of the other man was once something that had once seemed so amicable and friendly, and now seemed to be dripping with vague threats and vengeance as they stood apart seething, glaring. Patrick couldn’t work out exactly why Paul was so enraged. What the fuck had he been expecting? What had happened last night was just a stupid, drunken mistake. And sure, it was the second time it had happened, but it didn’t mean anything. Certainly not anything worth Paul storming in looking for a fight.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Patrick said after a beat.

Paul barked out a short, bitter laugh. “Yeah. Why bother saying anything when you could just run away instead, right?”

If he could run away this moment, Patrick would. But he didn’t want to leave Paul in the apartment alone with all his valuables, and besides, his body still felt too weak to walk much further than a few steps. He turned to the coffee machine and busied himself with the pressing of buttons, feeling Paul’s eyes firing into his back like a laser from behind. “Why are you making this such a big deal?” 

“So you don’t think it’s a big deal?” 

What the fuck was Paul on about? Obviously fucking not. It was just something meaningless he’d— they’d —done in the heat of the moment. Patrick could barely remember it. Besides how hot the other man had looked when he’d obeyed his command and dropped to his knees in front of him, and how good his mouth had felt when he—

“No,” Patrick said loudly, dispelling the unpleasant memory from his head and trying to ignore the random twitch in his groin. “It’s not a big deal. Just forget it.”

There was a moment of silence before Paul spoke again. “So if it’s not a big deal, I can go round and tell everyone at the office tomorrow?”

Patrick spun round so fast his vision, grabbing onto the edge of the counter and squinting through the blurriness in Paul’s direction. Paul was leaning against the unused breakfast bar, his arms folded and his lips in a tight line. His eyes were devoid of their usual joy and mirth, harbouring instead an intense emptiness that was both terrifying and oddly thrilling. 

“Don’t fucking do that,” Patrick spat, a cold sweat breaking out right down his spine. 

“I thought it wasn’t a big deal?” Paul twitched an eyebrow up, his face remaining solemn. 

“It’s—it’s not. But I just don’t want…” Patrick pushed his hands into his face, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. Fuck this shit. How had he ended up in this mess? “Why do you even give a shit, Paul?”

Paul laughed darkly. “Why do you give a shit, Patrick? It’s you who initiates this crap. It’s you who runs off after you’ve got your fix.”

Patrick tore his hands away from his face and, against his better judgement, took a step towards Paul, fists balled at his side. “I’m not initiating anything,” he forced out through clenched teeth. 

Paul held up his hands in a placatining motion. “I’m not saying I wasn’t an…active participant. I just want to know why.”

“Why what ?” Patrick felt weak at the knees—through stress, through fatigue, through how strong Paul’s cologne smelt and the fact they were only five feet away from each other. 

“Why are you doing this shit with me? Do you do that with all your friends?”

“We’re hardly friends.” Patrick hadn’t meant to say the words, but now they were out he couldn’t stop. “We’re colleagues who just so happen to socialise together sometimes. I do the same with Baxter, with Montgomery, with Reed Robinson—“

“You put your dick down their throats too?” Paul interrupted. 

Patrick felt the slow, fiery spread of anger begin to course through his veins. “No,” he said, his teeth gritted so strongly they felt as though they were about to crumble like granite. “Because I’m not. Fucking. Gay. ”

“So I’m getting special treatment?” Amusement danced over Paul’s face as he swept his eyes over Patrick’s body, his fury of just a second ago concealed. 

“I have a fucking fiancé, Allen.” 

“Who you cheat on all the time.”

Patrick looked automatically over to the front door, half expecting Evelyn to still be lurking outside. “Yeah. With women .” 

“Then why do you keep doing this?” Paul’s eyes were big and round as he looked up at Patrick. His hair wasn’t completely gelled back today; he’d let a few strands loose over his forehead, and he was wearing a button down patterned with thin baby blue pinstripes that accenated the brightness of his eyes and the deep tan of his skin. Patrick felt the all-too-familiar cramp in his chest (it had to be the coke he did last night) as goosebumps broke out over his skin. He looked too pale in comparison to Paul. He needed to go to the salon as soon as possible. He needed Paul Allen to leave his apartment with his stupid eyes and his stupid dimple and never fucking come back.

“What’s your deal, man?” Paul’s voice was softer, breaking Patrick from the confusing tirade inside his mind. “Are you just experimenting or something? Because I won’t…” He stopped himself abruptly and seemed to think for a moment, losing himself in the silence before carrying on. “I won’t judge you if you are. Lots of guys are secretly—“

Patrick had heard enough. “Shut the fuck up,” he snarled, his hands shooting out of their own accord and shoving Paul in the chest as hard as he could. The other man stumbled backwards, a look of shock and alarm crossing his face as immediate remorse filled Patrick’s mind. Before he had a chance to react, Paul had reached out and shoved him back. 

“Don’t you dare fucking hit me about, Bateman,” he breathed, squaring his shoulders as he stepped back towards Patrick.

“Then don’t call me a fucking faggot!” Patrick yelled. 

“Stop saying faggot!” Paul shouted back. Without thinking, Patrick swung at Paul’s face; the ramifications and consequences and the fact that he was punching Paul Allen in the fucking face not even crossing his mind, overshadowed by the pure, shimmeringly white hot rage streamrolling through his brain and the confusion when his fist didn’t collide with flesh and cartilage but instead the warmth of Paul’s own hand. 

Impossibly quickly, Paul had dodged the hit and grabbed Patrick’s hand in his own; not with comfort and affection like before but with a new sense of controlled fury, twisting his arm round as he wrapped Patrick in a headlock before he even had a chance to react. 

Patrick gasped in shock, pain shooting through his right arm, his breathing constricted as a result of Paul’s arm around his neck. He struggled against the shorter man, thrashing and wriggling to no avail. “Fucking let go!” he hissed. 

“What was that?” From above him, Paul sounded almost bored. Like he was done with this entire charade. 

Like he was done with Patrick. 

“I said, let me go. ” Patrick could feel the warmth of Paul’s body pressed up against him. It was making him feel overheated, and dizzy, and a cacophony of feelings that he couldn’t even begin to delve into because—

“Tell me what you want.” Paul’s voice was low. His breath tickled the back of Patrick’s ear, sending electrical currents directly into his brain.

“W-what?” Patrick stuttered in response. 

“Tell me what you want me to do.” 

“I want…” 

Patrick swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. He couldn’t think. What did he want? All the usuals, obviously: money, power, hot women, absolutely no golden-blonde stockbrokers telling him he’s fascinating and intruding into his life; a life that until a couple of weeks ago had been a carefully-balanced house of cards, until Paul fucking Allen had swept in like a hurricane and distended everything. 

I want you to fuck off out of my life. I want to strangle you. I want to kiss you, again.

“I want you to let me go.”

“Ask nicer.” Paul tightened his grip around Patrick’s neck for just a second before loosening it again. Patrick could feel the pain in his chest spreading down, down; he could vaguely make out the thought deep in the cloudy abscesses of his brain that he could not, would not, beg Paul Allen to let go of him. His mind fixated on an idea. 

“I want you to finish what you started last night.”

“ What? ” 

Patrick kicked himself internally. Of course it wouldn’t work. Of course Paul wasn’t going to do… that to him again, especially not whilst they were both sober. Not that he was going to have to actually do it, obviously. Patrick just needed to let him think he was so he’d let go. 

“I want you to finish what you started last night in the Yacht Club.” Paul didn’t seem to notice the slight tremble in Patrick’s voice. He released his grip almost immediately, stepping round to Patrick’s front as the taller man gasped at the sudden hit of oxygen, rubbing his twisted arm as he straightened up. 

“You okay?” Paul’s voice was soft, his eyes concerned. As if he hadn’t been the one putting him in a fucking headlock. 

“Yes. No thanks to you,” Patrick spat. He was about to hit Paul—properly this time—or put him in a chokehold or do something else, something worse , when he felt the blonde man put a hand on his waist, his fingers stroking the sliver of his exposed skin between his T-shirt and shorts. 

Patrick wrenched away in shock. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Confusion was etched over Paul’s features as he stood, one hand hovering in the air and his lips slightly parted. “What do you mean?”

“Why are you…” Patrick gesticulated between the two, hoping Paul realised what he meant. Why are you touching me? Why are you still standing here?

Why did you let me just leave last night, if this was such a big deal to you?

“Because you said you wanted me to…” Paul trailed off, looking awkward for what was possibly the first time ever. “You wanted me to finish—“

“I said that so you’d get off me.” 

“What?” Paul looked like he’d been slapped.

“Why the fuck would I want you to do that?” Patrick snorted with derision. He felt sweat break out over his palms and wiped them on the back of his shorts; everything was suddenly too hot and too cold all of a sudden and why couldn’t he just tell Paul to fuck off?

Paul continued to stare at him, speechlessly.

“I’m not a fucking… queer, ” Patrick added, with as much venom as possible. “I’m not a faggot.”

With that, Paul turned on his heel and strode off in the direction of the door without so much as a word. Patrick caught a glimpse of his face, solid and furious, as he turned away. Panic gripped his insides. 

“Where are you going?” he blurted out, following Paul towards the door.  

“Anywhere you’re not.” Paul’s voice was like ice as he reached the door and began to fumble with the safety bolt. “Go to hell, Patrick. You’re a fucking dick.”

Did he really want to suck Patrick’s dick *that* badly? Why was he so mad? Patrick couldn’t lie; it was oddly flattering. For someone like Paul Allen, someone so respected and renowned and coveted , to be so affected by… him. The man that was desired by the entirety of the Upper East Side was storming out of his apartment because of something he’d said as a result of their drunken…whatever it was. Something about it was just…

Incredibly titillating. 

And it was that excitement over the power dynamic, over the control he’d regained over the other man, and definitely not for any other reason, that Patrick grabbed hold of Paul’s arm just before he opened the door and pulled him around to face him. 

Paul’s eyes widened. “What are you doing?” he blurted in surprise. 

Two long beats passed. Patrick searched Paul’s face with his eyes, taking in his immaculately groomed eyebrows, his poreless skin, his long, long eyelashes; he wasn’t sure if he was hyperventilating, or not breathing at all, or all of the oxygen had just been sucked out of the world and they were the only two survivors left standing in the devastation of a nuclear apocalypse. Why was he thinking about nuclear apocalypse right now?

Paul was still looking into his eyes. Patrick swallowed. 

He should just let Paul go home. Go back to bed. Go into the office tomorrow, avoid the potential dangers any VP meetings held, and keep his head down. Hang out with Bryce and the guys at the Canal Bar, sharing racist anecdotes and the phone numbers of hardbodies. All those things that made up his everyday, completely regular life.