Rake ‘Em ‘Cross the Coals ~*~ [Fatina]
In which Paul wakes up one morning in late April, very, very confused...
@paul-patts, @pretty-perdita
[tw -- anxiety, minor physical confrontation, lots of yelling and fighting]
Further Reading {in order}: Poor Unfortunate Souls #justbrothings Two Can Keep a Secret Just a Token, Really. A Trifle.
PAUL: The sunlight was what woke Paul.
He stirred, those bits of consciousness sliding back to him slowly, little by little. It wasn’t enough for him to open his eyes, not at first. It was just enough to acknowledge that he was conscious-- that it was morning and he’d need to get up to grab breakfast before he had to get the twins ready-- that the weight of Attina was on his other side, a thought that made his lip twitch and his toes curl a bit-- bare in the air. She’d stolen some of the covers last night, hadn’t she?
It was that slight shiver from the October morning that made him roll toward Attina’s weight. Without opening his eyes, he slid his arms around her, burying his face in all that hair, which would smell like flowers--
It didn’t smell like flowers.
That was when Paul’s eyes snapped open and he saw blonde hair, not red hair. He saw a white clean room that was not his own room, not his apartment at all. This wasn’t where he’d been just the night before. This wasn’t-- his kids weren’t just in the other room, safe in their crib--
That wasn’t Attina slumbering next to him at all. It was Perdita.
His heart leapt into his throat and Paul yelped in Perdita’s ear.
“What the fuck!” shouted Paul and he jumped out of bed, nearly falling over as his foot got tangled in the covers. He put a hand out to catch himself against the wall, his head spinning as though he’d had too much to drink.
PERDITA: Last night had been normal. The new normal. The one where some nights, Paul crashed at Perdy’s (more nights than not, these days.) The babies had slept mostly through the night. Patrick had woken around 3, which meant his sister wasn’t far behind. Two warmed up bottles of water with a bit of lemon and they were back to sleep in under thirty, like clockwork.
And now, Perdita was looking to sleep in until at least 9 o’clock.
She was awake, though, her body trained these days by the rising sun, one ear out for her children, but the bed was warm and comfortable and she wanted to pretend as long as she could. Exist in that familiar stillness, with Paul’s steady breaths at her side, for as long as she could.
When the bed shifted and Paul snuggled up behind her, Perdita let out a breath that morphed into a smile on her lips, feeling content. Her hand slipped over his, which rested on her stomach, and she thought that she could lie there like that for the rest of the morning and be perfectly happy.
Of course, in this fucking town—you could never rely on something like that.
So, instead, Paul yelled loud in her ear, making it ring and then made a fool of himself springing out of bed. Oh, Perdita could throttle him. She was going to skin him alive. He’d be lucky to not be neutered when she was done with him.
Rolling over in bed, she blinked her eyes open, already set in a sharp, icy glare.
“Will you shut the fuck up? You’ll wake up the babies,” she snapped at him, her own voice quiet and sharp. “The fuck is your problem?”
PAUL: The fuck is your problem?
The fuck was his problem? The fuck was his problem? His problem was that he was not where he was supposed to be: in his bed, curled around Attina, his babies in the other room. He felt sick to his stomach and wanted to vomit, staring at Perdita, half-dressed, as she glared at him like…
Paul didn’t know what the end of that sentence was. His head was reeling. He didn’t know what was going on, he couldn’t remember. He tried, reaching back to the night before, trying to find the moment where he’d had his first drink or decided to go out to a bar or… anything. But there was nothing in his brain as he grasped for those imagined explanations. There was only Attina, and trick or treating and the stupid horror movie they watched and then… nothing, until right now.
Paul had never been that blacked out before. He felt like he was falling, no where to land. It frightened him and his fear lashed out.
Because there had to be a villain and it couldn’t be Paul. He wouldn’t have, he couldn’t have-- he had been moving on.
So it was Perdy’s fault. She did this to him. She made him do it.
“The fuc--the fuck is your problem?” he snarled back at her. “What the hell, Perdita? You drug me now or something-- you’re really that jealous?! You-- you’re-- psychotic!” He spat, and stumbled away from the wall, looking around desperately for his shoes. He spotted his jeans tossed over a chair and he lurched forward, grabbing them so he could put them on as quickly as he could.
PERDITA: Suddenly, Paul was looking at her like she’d grown a second head.
(There was a part of Perdita who was truly, deeply offended by this and by what he said. Was that what he really thought of her? Drunk (cursed? whatever the fuck was wrong with him) words, sober thoughts. Did he think she was psychotic? That she would ever actually drug him? (And, more deeply, was it true? Was she psychotic? Was that something that she would do? What levels would she have stooped to, to sabotage any relationship Paul had? Did that make her crazy? Crazier than she was with her PPD?)
(Of course, she wouldn’t reveal any of this. Of course, her face remained stony.)
With a groan, Perdita pushed her face into the pillow for a moment and then she pushed herself up and sat up properly. She glared at him, pushing her hair back from her face.
“Jesus, the hell is going on with you?” she said, squinting at him.
(And another part of her was worried—thinking back to what Roger had said. Roger had said Attina was a mermaid. Roger had said that Paul had no memory of this. And now—Paul was acting like he…didn’t remember the fact he was with Perdita at all.)
“Me, the jealous bitch? Think that’s that fishwhore of yours,” Perdita snapped back at him. “She’s obviously done something to you. Not me.”
PAUL: Paul got his trousers on, nearly falling over as he did, but managing to regain his balance. His fingers worked the buttons shut, all the while his brain raced through the same blank spots as before. He would remember going home with Perdita, he would remember if they had done anything, he would remember. But these desperate rationalizations were just that: desperate. They were potentially lies, too, that he was telling to himself. Because what-- he thought he was noble? He thought himself better than Johnny? Better than Simon?
With Attina, maybe he could have been.
Attina. The name struck him between the ribs. Theirs was still such a young relationship, the rosy kind of comfortable love that Paul had finally allowed himself to want. They were so close to so many firsts. They’d already had so many. He couldn’t let it go now.
Whatever he did with Perdy, she wouldn’t ruin it, not like she already ruined him (he was ruined before she found him.)
He’d fix it.
He glared at her, grabbing his jacket from the door hanger too. “Fuck you. Seriously fuck you, Perdita, you stay the fuck away from me-- and Attina. Don’t come near Attina. We’re happy, alright?” His voice trembled more than he wanted it to; he wanted to sound strong, vicious, but he was frightened instead, tears in his eyes. “We’re happy, I’m-- finally happy. You-- leave us the hell alone!”
And Paul stormed out, slamming her door behind her-- rough enough that the babies did wake up in the other room (babies? But how could the babies be here too? What was going on? Had he brought them here… what day was it, was it even November 1st?!)
He stumbled past the crying, nearly tripping on his shoes in front of the front door. He grabbed ‘em, but didn’t bother to put them on. He just opened the front door and escaped, ignoring Perdita calling him.
He ignored her all the way to Tina’s place, where he’d just been, hadn’t he? Just last night, right? He didn’t know, couldn’t check, had no idea where his phone was, what time it was, what-- day. Paul pounded his fist against Tina’s door anyway.
“Tina! Tina!” he hollered, his other hand splayed on the door. He peered into the eyehole. “Tina, it’s Paul! Please, open up, I-- I-- I need you-- please! Tina!”
ATTINA: Attina was getting ready for work.
She was not thinking about Paul Patts at all. This was a blessing, because he had infiltrated her thoughts like a sideways scuttling crab. And, not even because of the fact that he knew her secret. The sea witch was a great many things, but she wasn’t one to go back on her end of a bargain. Attina had seen that with her own two eyes. No, even through all of it—the cheating and the revealing of her secret to someone else—Attina still held a flame for Paul Patts.
Because she was an idiot.
The fucker had cost her the memories of her mother. Possibly the most cherished thing to her, that was not physical.
Which was why now he was banished from her thoughts, a nail in the coffin. If she never saw Paul Patts again, she would be a happy woman. As happy as a woman with no memory of her dead mother could be.
That was, until the pounding started on the door.
It stole Attina’s breath from her lungs and she jumped, hitting her knee on the underside of the vanity she was sitting at. Her make up was half finished—eyeliner without mascara, her foundation still setting. No lipstick.
Who was at the door? Who could be knocking that frantically?
Was it someone for her sister?
Attina’s heart was beating fast and furious in her chest.
Tina! Tina! It’s Paul!
Her heart seized in her chest. She didn’t know where she found the courage, but she got up, and she went to the door. It was rattling on its hinges. The doorknob jangled. She peeked through the peephole without touching the trembling door.
It was Paul.
“W-what do you want?” she called, watching the three padlocks she had on the door rattling. She was safe. She’d locked them this morning after Andrina left. Eighteen times each, until her fingers were sore.
PAUL: She hadn’t unlocked the door.
Paul’s stomach dropped. If everything was alright, she would have unlocked the door. She wouldn’t have hesitated. She’d have opened it and drawn him in, and seen the panic on Paul’s face and known what to do. Even if Attina had just held him in her arms, that would’ve been enough to help recenter him. But everything wasn’t all right-- and he didn’t even know how badly it was all wrong. He didn’t know what to apologize for. He didn’t know, he didn’t know, he didn’t know. And the more he tried to remember, the wider the black hole became, sucking in all the things he thought he was certain about.
Like, hadn’t yesterday been Halloween? Wasn’t he the fireman and the kids dalmatians? Hadn’t they watched that horrible movie together?
Did Paul dream up those details? Was there another fight he was forgetting and why was Perdita insisting they were together?
Question upon question sprouted from the cracks in his brain. He was going to choke on all of them.
Paul pressed his hand against the door, taking in a shaky breath. It did little to stop the tears, to push down the panic.
“Please, Tina,” he said, his voice breaking. “I--I need you. I dunno what’s going on. Please, I didn’t--I didn’t mean-- whatever I did, I didn’t mean, I, I can’t remember, please, you have to-- I love you,” he pleaded, and his hand slipped down to the doorknob, but it was still locked.
ATTINA: Attina could hear the awful shake of Paul’s breath as he inhaled it and her stomach curled. She’d never heard him sound like that. Part of her had been worried that he’d somehow found out about Roger (but how, Paul didn’t know to look for something missing?) and that he was here to—do something to her.
But, at the sound of that pathetic breath through the door, she was just—confused.
Her own brain felt foggy, like she couldn’t quite remember something. The memories were like a shadow in the corner of her eye. It was her mother, she remembered. Her mother that Ursula had taken from her. Instead of feeling upset, there was just this emptiness inside of her. She was as deep and wide as the ocean, all the emotion just falling into it.
Though, her heart gave a pang at Paul’s words.
I love you.
Nothing about what he was saying made sense, but Attina heard those words and a part of her wanted to believe them so—so badly.
Her hand fell to the doorknob. Her other one, though shaky, unlocked the two deadbolts that they had installed on the door.
She opened the door enough to see him, but not let him into the apartment. Her brow furrow.
“Paul, what are—”
“You!” came a shriek from down the hallway and Attina jumped, eyes snapping down the hall, as none other than Perdita Faye—make-up-less and otherwise disheveled—stormed towards her with all the furious accuracy of a lightning strike.
Attina froze in her spot, not even remembering to close the door until it was too late. Perdita was upon them and as Attina tried to close the door, Perdita got her hand around the frame and forced it open easily. Attina’s strength was nothing compared to the furious woman.
Attina stumbled backwards and Perdita took the opportunity to leap, jumping towards her and grabbing her shirt hard enough Attina heard the seam rip, some of her hair caught in the grip too, which pulled enough to hurt. She put her hands up and whimpered, feeling tears coming to her eyes at once.
“What did you do?” Perdita snarled.
“I-I-I—” Attina stuttered, trying feebly to pull away.
PAUL: The door creaked open, just enough for Paul to see Attina’s face. She looked frightened of him. Like he was a villain. Like he had already broken her heart. And Paul didn’t understand because he couldn’t remember doing that-- how could he not remember breaking someone’s heart?
He would remember. Even with girlfriends from the past who he’d barely known, the relationship barely a relationship, he remembered ending it and the look on those girls’ faces, whether angry with him or disappointed. Paul carried all of them with him, each one another link on the chain, a reminder that he had to do better next time. He had to love wisely or risk turning out like one of his brothers.
Attina looked at him like he was one of his brothers. Paul’s face crumpled, and he reached out to try to push the door open and fix this--
Perdita barged past him before he could.
“OI!” he snarled. Perdy toppled into the room first, grabbing at Attina and making her cry out. Paul was fast on her heel and he grabbed Perdita at the waist, yanking her off of Tina. “Get the fuck away from her, you-- crazy--bitch--” Perdita struggled in his arms, elbowing him in the gut hard enough for Paul to grunt.
He released her, but only so he could get between Tina and Perdita. “I told you to stay away from us. It’s over, Perdita, I--I don’t care, whatever I-- did, I -- I don’t want you. I’m with Attina.”
ATTINA: You know, Attina only had a very slight understanding of this situation. She only knew vaguely more than Paul and Perdita did. There were things her brain was still trying to fill in. Why was Paul still acting like he was in love with her? Why was Paul acting like nothing had ever happened? What had she done wrong? She’d done it all right.
The sea witch had tricked her.
And now, she was going to pay for it. Possibly with her life.
Perdita’s nails dug into her skin and when Paul pulled her away they raked down her collarbone, making her cry out.
She watched in wide-eyed horror as Paul pulled Perdita off of her. The woman’s hair flew around her face, which was turning red as she struggled and growled like some feral thing.
Attina had never been more terrified.
“WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM?” Perdita screeched, pressing right up against Paul, her hand over his shoulder like she could grab Attina’s heart in her fingers and pull.
“I-I-I—”
“Paul! Get—off of me! She did something to you, not me! She’s the psychotic bitch. THIS BETTER BE REVERSIBLE!” she screeched. “He has CHILDREN, you fucking fish.”
Attina’s heart dropped into her stomach at that and she burst into wretched sobs.
PAUL: The air was full of screeching, screaming, crying. Paul could barely think through the noise. But that was good. Because his brain was useless to him and Paul had accepted that, for better or for worse. There was no remembering, whether he had to blame Perdy for that or himself. There was no remembering. There was nothing he could do to change the past few days. He didn’t even know how many.
Didn’t matter either.What mattered as he was awake now. He needed to try, desperately, to salvage his relationship with Attina before Perdy took that away from him too. She had already taken so much.
So he stayed planted firm in front of Attina, determined to protect her. He’d force Perdita out with his bare hands.
“DON’T speak to her like that! DON’T SPEAK TO US AT ALL!” he shouted back at her. He took a menacing step forward. “You leave now, or I’m calling the police, I told you not to come near us, I warned you-- so LEAVE.”
ATTINA: No one had ever looked at her with the same amount of fury which Perdita looked at her with.
It was as if suddenly all that ire had sucked back inside of her and Attina could see it burning behind her blue eyes. Somehow the silence after Paul’s shouting was even more terrifying than when Perdita was reaching out at her like she was going to scratch her eyes out or choke the life out of her. She looked like she was going to explode and kill her and Paul both.
Attina was shaking like a leaf, and not even Paul’s protection was soothing because it was—it wasn’t at all natural or true. He didn’t really want to protect her. For some reason…he still thought—he loved her. He thought he loved her. He thought they were together. He was acting exactly like Paul and not at all like Paul and that sinking feeling was back, like Attina was being taken into a riptide.
Her breath came out shaky. “Paul,” she said, her voice wobbling.
Perdita made a hissing sound behind her teeth. She didn’t move, though her lip curled in a smirk as Attina flinched at the sound.
“W-what—what day is it?”
PAUL: All the noise got sucked into the air and evaporated: the yelling, the crying, Paul’s own hoarse voice. Paul watched as that change moved across Perdita’s face. He had seen that careful control a thousand times before. Perdita could be raging, spitting mad, and next second, like she’d flipped some switch, she held her anger serenely-- like it was the source of her power.
It often was.
He saw her do this now and Paul’s lip curled up to snarl at her again. He had plenty more hot-fire rage to pull from to melt her down. He’d not let her say another word--
But it was Attina who said his name, the word shaky breath, barely louder than the silence. He turned his head to look at her, his face contorted with his panic and worry and anger all in equal parts. He didn’t want to scare Attina. He knew Attina was fragile. She was so much like his mother, he saw these flashes of it in her eyes and it was always like she’d turned something on in Paul. He didn’t want to be another loud, angry thing, not to her. He’d always wanted to be safe for her, the way that she felt safe to him.
And so he already felt destabilized when the question came on the heel of his name. The black hole in his brain yawned wider. What day was it? What-- day?
He still couldn’t remember anything. Nothing but Halloween.
“It’s-- I--” he stuttered. He looked at Perdita again, then back at Attina. The anger was wiped off his face. Now he was just confused, scared-- lost. “It’s--yesterday was Halloween. Right? We--we were here, Attina, I-- I don’t remember leaving, I, I dunno what I did,” he admitted, rubbing at his wet eyes. “I--I-- I’m sorry, I, whatever I did, I’m sorry.”
ATTINA: Perdita’s eyes narrowed at her over Paul’s shoulder, but she remained silent. Stoic.
Somehow, that didn’t make Attina feel any better, but she couldn’t pay attention to Perdita. She had to pay attention to Paul. See if her theory was correct. She really, really hoped it wasn’t. Ursula had warned her that the price would be steeper this time around. That memories, minds, were a tricky thing. Unpredictable, she had said.
Halloween, Paul said and Attina’s heart plummeted.
“Halloween?” shrieked Perdita, all that fury spilling out of her at once, cutting over Paul’s confused, wet voice. “Paul, it’s almost fucking May. What the fuck did you do?” Perdita growled, taking another step towards Attina.
She shoved Paul out of the way this time. “She fucked with your head. Did something, because she doesn’t want people to know she’s a mermaid.”
Perdita spat the word.
Attina felt faint. She didn’t know how she was still standing. She was a shell. Put her up to your ear and you could hear the ocean.
“I-I’m sorry,” Attina eyes welled with tears.
Perdita scoffed in disgust. “That’d be too easy, you dumb bitch. Don’t you know how much better blackmail is? Your daddy is on the board, isn’t he?” She tilted her head, that smile of hers sharp. “I’m sure we can think of a few petitions we need passed. Money allocated towards keeping people like you out of the public.”
She looked at Paul, glancing up and down once, her face crumpling slightly, brow folding over in concern. “Paul,” she told him softly, her voice surprisingly gentle. “We’ll figure this out, don’t worry. Come—come home with me, yeah? The babies are there. We’ll call Roger. Figure this out.”
PAUL: May.
Mermaid.
These two words washed over Paul, one after the other. He couldn’t even absorb how much time he’d lost before the second one smashed him into the rocks. He felt floored, ripped open, scrubbed raw. He felt the way he had in the days after Perdita leaving him, those black hole days where the only thing Paul depended on was his hangovers. He knew exactly how to control those: how much alcohol to drink to pick him outta the headache and send him meandering down the street, smiling like a dope, tears still in his eyes.
This was the hangover at the beginning though before any medicine. It was the crash down, his stomach turning so fast, head spinning. He wanted to crouch and vomit all over her floor.
May. That was six months. His babies were-- his babies were almost two. Six months meant he missed Christmas, missed Easter, missed Tibby’s and Anita’s birthday. Was he still at the firehouse? Why was he with Perdita? How did that happen? Why couldn’t he remember? Where’d it all go?
Memories were the thread that held a person together. They had to go somewhere. If they didn’t exist, then how was Paul supposed to be Paul?
Paul looked back at Attina now with all that horror plain on his face. Before, she’d looked at him like a stranger-- now, he looked at her like she’d just put a knife to his gut. This was all because of some secret, Perdita said, about her being a-- a-- mermaid. Is that why they broke up? He found out and now, she trusted him so little she tried to erase him?
“Attina?” he said dumbly, pleading like a kid. Perdita pushed past him and he was left with her name on his lips: Attina.
The rest of Perdita’s threads were too far away for Paul to grasp. Cold sweat gathered at the base of his neck, everything eerily calm and quiet around him. Only when Perdita turned back to him and said his name again did Paul blink for the first time in a while.
She looked at him… the way she used to look at him.
It was something he remembered. And so it was all he had.
Her-- and his kids.
“My kids,” he uttered. “I--I want to see my kids. Perdita,” the name slipped even more desperately from his lips than Attina’s had. Six months gone of his kids, six more months lost. The tears sprang to his eyes and he ducked his head fast, his feet moving before his head could catch up with him. He had to get out of that flat as fast as possible, he had to run away from this morning, from the six month hole inside himself.
He just wanted to see his kids. Hold them. Kiss their foreheads. And maybe, when Patch smiled at him, or Penny grabbed his finger, it’d trigger something-- and he’d find everything that he’d lost.
