Thank you to chaotic-panda for beta'ing
~
mythopoeia
noun
a narrative genre in modern literature and film where a fictional or artificial mythology is created by the writer of prose or other fiction; the making of a myth or myths.
Patrick used to say that Pete was luck. He'd compare him to the charms he wore, to the myths the sirens would share. Bathed in bathroom lights and bandages, he'd wax poetic about Pete's character. The stars know all, he would claim, so they must have known Pete would be here to save Patrick from the existence he'd come to call a life.
It's not a lie Pete ever allowed himself to believe. If the stars knew all, they would know Pete is no gallant hero, no prince, and no true love.
Even now with dusk painting the horizon, the reminder that they've been resting on the beach all night, Pete can't help but hate the stars. He'd slept little throughout the night, waking occasionally to Patrick's jerking figure beside him, but his dreams were stained with nightmares. He imagines a life where Patrick forgets how his own voice sounds, where he loses the siren songs he was taught as a child. He dreams of gold fading from sea-blue eyes, of pale skin turning grey, of the shine in his hair going out.
He dreams of stars falling from the sky.
Patrick shifts beside him, restless as the stars spin indifferently above. Pete knows he couldn't have slept well, either. Though the night was warm and the waters were calm, Patrick's never been one to sleep at night. Is this another siren trait that's been stolen? Or is something else of himself that he's changed?
Patrick's hand digs into the sand beside him, dull nails pressing against the grains in a way that looks all wrong. His face scrunches up and his lips part, a sharp breath taking place of the whimper Pete knows he's trying to give.
Slowly, with shaking hands, Pete pulls the charm— the necklace, the weapon— away from Patrick's skin. He doesn't dare remove it from his neck entirely— it's not his place and it's not his choice— but even the slight relief crossing Patrick's face is enough to have Pete considering it. Streaks of red and violet curl around each other on Patrick's skin, violent signs of his body fighting the changes happening from the inside out. Shallow breaths fill the air, his chest trembling with each inhale as if his ribs aren't quite in place. Worse, though, are the vibrant burns and blisters alongside the broken blade, lightning strikes embedded into the pale expanse of his skin.
Before, when Patrick was bleeding out in his bathtub and sinking into his own despair, he had been a car crash Pete couldn't tear his eyes from— the beauty of a storm tossing a ship against the waves, the ethereal sight of electricity running from the sky to the sea. In those moments, Patrick could be anyone and anything. He was magic and promise and a heroic story waiting to happen— a fairytale, a myth, a legend to be told in every year to come.
But now Patrick's become a man thrown off the crashing ship, the bystander struck by a crashing car. It's real and it's tangible and, for once, Pete finds himself looking away. If he stares for too long, he can see every minuscule hint of pain— every sign that Patrick wanted anything but this. He made this decision, yes, but Pete has to wonder what forced his hand first.
Like this? Human and speechless, burned and dying? Patrick's not the happy ending at the end of a fairytale; he's become a character in one of Pete's own books. Tragically damaged and wounded all because Pete put his pen to paper and bled.
Pete stands, every joint aching with regret as he pulls himself forward and up. With Patrick asleep, it's easier for Pete to look towards the stars as they gaze down at this scene. Eyes of gold and ominous knowledge, a power that Pete didn't know he believed until Patrick's lips were on his own. The horizon bleeds a dangerous shade of sunrise, orange and red against the black and white of night. Pete ignores the daybreak— the colors are too like the wounds marring Patrick's skin.
Though the stars gleam with the white light of shark teeth and mermonster bone, at least they have never pretended to be a sign of luck. Cold and callous and distant— the way all magical things are supposed to be.
"You were supposed to protect him," Pete finds himself whispering, the word as hushed as Patrick's gentle breaths. They tremble in the air, too fragile to exist as he finds himself on the edge of the beach, water pressing against his feet as he stares up into the sky. "You fuckers, you... What's the point in creating sirens if you can't keep the last one safe? And what was the point of letting us meet? Why... Why would you protect him for this? Why would you protect me?"
The stars are not meant to protect you
The words are not his own but they flee from the darkened corners of his mind with the same sense of writing down a sentence. In Patrick's voice— in Brendon's, in a mermonster's, in everyone's voice but his own— the phrase repeats.
The stars are not meant to protect you
But didn't they? Weren't they the first to greet him in that hospital room? Didn't they decorate the sky he kissed Patrick under? Didn't they give their blessing when dreams kept him connected to the one person he was supposed to forget entirely?
Shouldn't the stars want them happy, for Patrick's sake if nothing else?
As the Sun begins to rise, the stars threaten to give up their position for the evening. They fall but not in any spectacular way, more like selfish dips into the ocean rather than any sort of promise to grant the one wish Pete has left.
Rage, hot and heavy, swells in Pete's chest, coating each beating of his heart with its horrible sting. Despair and hopelessness and emotions he's never had any reason to write tear through him with the power of a summer storm.
The stars aren't bright enough
Pete has never hated the stars more than he does now.
Here, then.
Have a Sun.
The Sun— the opposite of a shooting star as it travels up its steady path, the one celestial being that's always been a constant.
The stars weren't meant to protect Pete but the Sun has never played by their rules.
"Please," he begs, oranges and reds spilling across the ocean towards him. Reaching, pulling, pointing. Pete steps into the waves, water embracing his knees as he walks forward. "Patrick said I was lucky. He treated me like a good luck charm but I know I can't be what he needs. Not... Not like this. Not without the only luck I've ever had in my life. The stars can't protect me— that's why I've always relied on you."
His voice wavers and his throat closes up. His hands shake, his skin chills, his heart refuses to beat at its regular rhythm.
He holds his breath, a man drowning on his own desperation.
He holds his breath and nothing happens.
Nothing but the Sunrise, the steady growth of light among the ocean's shadowed surface.
Nothing but the Sunrise, the warmth of the day and the assurance of something more.
Nothing but the Sunrise, the luck and charm and prophecy it holds.
Nothing but the Sun— the Sun and chain brushing against Pete's ankle when the water pulls up around his hips.
Pete drops without thinking of why, without wondering what his hopes hold this time. Head beneath the water and breath trapped within his lungs, he scrambles for the feeling of metal beneath his touch. He fights to find what's been lost, to grab onto whatever he can get.
His chest is just beginning to ache when, finally, he emerges with the charm he thought he'd lost— the Sun, the luck, the protector he carried around his neck like a boy scout badge: This one's for surviving my own mind.
Grains of sand cling to the well-known shape, the Sun necklace dripping but still just as vivid as the day it was lost. Not rusted, not tarnished, not broken. Good as new and, possibly, even better than before. Though the water is cold, the Sun in his hand seems to burn.
Vibrating. Beaming. Glowing in the subtlest of ways. Blink and it's gone but, if Pete closes his eyes entirely, he can see what's been embedded within.
Have a Sun
Buried for months in the place where the Sun and stars still shine, beneath the sand and moon-kissed waves. Not even the Sunset Blade was blessed with such power; not even Patrick was created with all the beings of the sky.
The Sun and stars are Patrick's protectors and the moon is what grants the mermonsters their ability to curse blades and knives. The sand granted Pete his memory so what power rests now that this and so much more have been combined?
The stars belong to Patrick; the moon is to the monsters. Even the sand is its own master, taking and giving as it pleases.
But the Sun is what Pete loves most. Gold against a blue-streaked sky, red and orange and brilliant.
He knows what powers it can grant.
No hopes. No dreams.
Knowledge beyond his years— beyond what he is— fills his blood and he turns to run to Patrick.
Patrick— still sleeping and curled on his side— doesn't wake until Pete's pressed his lips to his, a smile dazzling the world when his eyes open. Patrick sits, reaching for Pete and mouthing his name. Pete nuzzles into his hand when it finds his hair, stroking and scratching and tugging him close. He presses a hand flat against Patrick's chest, kissing his neck with no explanation.
Then, he closes his fist around the necklace and pulls. Fishing wire snaps with an angry red line across Patrick's neck, tight and then loose in a matter of seconds. Patrick's eyes widen; he gasps violently.
And then Pete runs.
He doesn't need to look back to know Patrick's following on unsteady feet, seconds from collapsing from legs he still can't quite use. Still, Pete runs and doesn't turn, eyes set on the rocks where this entire adventure began.
He doesn't face Patrick until there's stone beneath his feet and water beside him, waves crashing against the path he'd taken so many times before. Patrick heaves for breath before him, coming to a stop as well, face red in confusion and outrage.
The shade, the fantastic rose-red shade, deepens when Pete tosses the Sunset necklace out into the sea. It sinks within a moment, lost in the sunshine spreading across the waves.
Patrick shouts without sound, his lips twisted to "NO" as he lunges for Pete. Pete keeps calm, steps back, and then lifts the charm in his other hand.
The Sun necklace Patrick's only seen a few times before.
"I have a reason for that, okay, trust me," he says. Patrick does as he says, going still and watching Pete with narrowed eyes. "You remember this, right? The good luck charm I used to have? I... I lost it the day those monsters attacked and I didn't think I would ever get it back. I was ready for it to be gone forever, to be lost in the ocean. But, you know what? I found it, Patrick. The ocean brought it back and... and... and it did it in an amazing way. Because I found it in the place where water meets sand. Where ocean meets land... Where myth meets man."
He speaks as if they're words he's written, rhyme and metaphor meant to be torn apart. But there are no readers here and this necklace means more than any pen ever could. He wraps it around his wrist as Patrick watches, not understanding and slowly stepping closer with each breath he takes.
"The sand and earth never did anything for me," Pete says, holding his hand close to his chest. "And the stars are full of shit. You said I captured you— you called me a Sun and claimed to be the planets I have under some spell. But that was wrong... so wrong."
Heat presses against his back, a sign of day coming. Patrick's closer now, close enough that Pete can see every detail of the worry in his eyes.
This one's for surviving my own mind; this one's for finding a new way to live
This one's for us
"Let's both be Suns, Patrick. Let's both burn and blaze and light the sky. Because you captured me in the exact same way and it'd be a crime to pretend you didn't. Let's collide and form something greater, a star the scientists haven't named yet. Everything we are and everything we have can collapse and form a new galaxy, a new universe. We can redefine the world as we know it. And you know why?" Pete's eyes scorch with the fire of a lucky charm when he meets Patrick's, blue enough to dare him to burn brighter than before. "We can do everything because I love you."
When Pete steps back, rock disappears into water and air. When he steps back, his eyes shut and he prepares for the ocean's touch surrounding him.
When he steps back, he falls and he doesn't stop.
And, as ice catches his flames and the sea douses his words, he hears Patrick crying out his name.