Can't Let You Go

"Who died?...I don't remember a great aunt Winifred..."

Patrick frowned as he listened to the lawyer who was telling him about the will.

"Are you serious?...how much?...wow..."

He blinked in amazement, how does someone accumulate 12.5 billion dollars?!

"And a house?!...where?...oh..."

He sighed.

"So do I have papers to sign or something?...ok...ok yeah...ok, I'll see you tomorrow...bye..."

Patrick hung up.

"Fuck."

***Time Stamp: A Few Days Later***

The lawyer left Patrick's tiny apartment with a wave and a "Have a nice day", then Patrick shut the door and went to flop on his sofa. He looked at his copies of the papers on his coffee table and frowned. What the hell was he meant to do with 12.5 billion dollars, a mansion in New York and a gazillion dollar business?...he sighed and dug his cell out of his pocket, dialing his best friend's number. It rang twice, then was answered.

"Pete?...help me?"

Patrick said before Pete could even say a word.

"Trick? Whoa slow down, what's wrong?"

Patrick took a breath.

"Can you come round?...I need your...advice."

Now Pete wasn't exactly the ideal person to ask for advice, but who else was Patrick going to ask...Brendon Urie?

"Sure Trick, I'm out in an hour. I'll be right there."

*

*

*

"Hey."

Pete used the key that he had for Patrick's apartment to let himself in. He had coffee and Patrick's favorite pastry from the bakery down the way.

"Trick?"

"I'm in here Pete..."

Patrick called from the bedroom.

"Sit down, I'll be out in a second."

Pete took a seat at Patrick's second hand kitchen table. The chair protested when he moved it out and Pete sighed. They needed to go back to the thrift shop and see if there is another one.

After a minute or so, Patrick walked into the room.

"Thanks for coming Pete, I wasn't sure who else to call...it was you or Urie."

He said the last with a grimace.

"Wow, this must be a real fuck of a problem if you thought of calling him...wait...is there money involved, cause yeah Brendon is a great accountant, but I give the real life advice."

"There's money involved, and the last time I asked him for money advice, he tried to charge me for it...not helpful when the problem was that I HAD NO MONEY."

Patrick said, sitting down carefully on the other kind of stable chair, across from his friend.

"Wow, he is a dick. So what's up, oh hey, I got you some chocolate dipped lobster tails. I asked Marge for them especially when you called me."

"Oh wow, yum. Thanks..."

Patrick reached for the box.

"I came into a bit of money."

He said before taking a bite.

"A bit? Like a few hundred? OH man, we can get you a new table at the thrift store!"

Patrick swallowed, looking down at the table.

"Um...it's a bit more than that Pete."

"A couple thousand? Man...well than, and I can't believe I am saying this, we should talk to Brendon cause you need to invest for your future when you get out of this shitty office job and..."

"It's 12 and a half billion dollars, Pete."

Pete looked at Patrick. He blinked a few times.

"Oh...well then..."

He fell off the chair and passed out.

*

*

*

Patrick was sat on his threadbare and broken couch, watching a rerun of some show he had no interest in, on his ten year old TV with its large collection of ruined pixels in the middle of the screen, when Pete stirred beside him...it wasn't the first time Patrick had needed to move a passed out Pete, though it was usually vodka related.

"Nice nap?"

"Trick, oh man, I had the weirdest dream. We were talking in your kitchen and you said you were suddenly rich with like a crazy amount of money."

"Yeah, funny thing Pete...it wasn't a dream."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, apparently I had a great aunt Winifred who's just died. She left me everything cause she hated every other person in our fucked up family. I now have 12.5 billion dollars, a mansion in New York, and a gazillion dollar business...thoughts?"

"I'm calling Brendon."

*

*

*

Pete hung up the phone.

"Okay, so Brendon is going to go talk to the lawyers about the financial side, so that headache is taken care of. You and I are going to go visit this mansion."

Patrick smiled gratefully.

"What would I do without you, Pete?"

"Probably live a boring existence."

Pete chuckled and hugged Patrick.

"Nah, you would be fine, just maybe lacking something in your life."

Patrick grinned.

"Yep, probably. Ok, so let's go...you have time now, right?"

"Sure, we'll take my car, yours sounds like it's about to drop a muffler."

"Not for long though."

Patrick laughed as he grabbed his apartment keys and they headed out the door.

*

*

*

"Uh...Trick are you sure we aren't lost?"

Pete looked around the area and didn't see anything, but open space. There wasn't a house they passed for miles.

Patrick looked down at the phone in his hand, then back up at the road.

"This is where the damn SatNav is sending us...there should be a turn on the right in about half a mile."

Pete kept driving and took the turn when he got to it. As he was going something dawned on him.

"Wait...this isn't a main road...Trick...this is a private road."

Suddenly a large gate loomed before them.

"Uh..."

Patrick looked up.

"Yeah, the lawyer said there was a code for the gate..."

He pulled a piece of paper out of the messenger bag sat between his feet.

"Uhh...the code is...2406."

Pete got to the keypad and punched in the numbers. The great gates opened up.

"Wow, like the movies!"

Pete drove forward up the long driveway till he finally crested the small hill and saw...

"Holy fuck!"

Patrick's eyes widened at the site of the enormous mansion.

"Woah...so that'swhere a multi-billionaire would live."

"This is yours?"

"I...guess so..."

Patrick was sort of stunned, the house looked like the X-Men's mansion...it was enormous.

"I'm gonna get soooo lost in there."

"Do you have a key or something?"

Just as Pete parked in front of the doors, they opened.

"Wow, it's like the supermarket!"

Patrick looked at Pete.

"Idiot..."

He opened his car door.

"Come on, let's check it out."

As Patrick and Pete got out a man appeared in the doorway.

"Master Stump, I am Mr. Vale. I was your late aunt's caretaker. I am here to show you around."

"Oh, err hi...I'm Patrick, and this is my friend Pete."

The man bowed.

"if you will follow me please."

*

*

*

Pete's head is spinning by the time they get to the gardens. The mansion is three floors, eleven bedrooms, sitting room, library, music room, fuck he lost track after that.

"Trick, I...I can't even..."

"I know right?...I'm gonna be spending like 90% of my life cleaning."

"Wait...that's what's missing. Yo, my man Vale, where are all the people that do all that?"

"Ah, well when the Madame fell ill, she was moved to a solarium and the staff was dismissed."

"So...no one is left?"

"No, I am afraid not."

"Trick you gotta hire people!"

"Hire people?!...Pete, I don't want servants, this isn't the 1800s."

"Well of course not, cause those people didn't get paid. And you call me stupid."

Patrick snorted.

"You are stupid, but I still don't want servants...I don't want people waiting on me."

"You will need others to maintain this place. There used to be over 20 servants here."

Patrick blinked at Mr. Vale.

"20?...seriously?"

"That was just for the mansion, there is also a garden, garage, stable..."

"Whoa, it's like another village lived here!"

Patrick nodded numbly.

"I...think I need a drink."

"Oh there was a bartender too."

"There's a bar?...show me please."

Vallo brings them back into the house and into a room off the dining room.

"It is also considered an office, but it has a fully stocked bar. Your Aunt was not much of a drinker, but she believed in entertaining."

"So I see..."

Patrick walked over to the rather extensive array of liquor bottles. He picked up a three quarter full bottle of Scotch.

"You guys want one?"

"Oh I don't..."

"Fuck yeah Trick!"

Patrick chuckled.

"Should've guessed..."

He picked up two cut crystal glasses and poured a generous amount into each before handing one to Pete.

"Here."

Pete grabbed the glass and after clinking it with Patrick's, slammed the warm liquid down.

"Fuck...that was smooth."

Of course Pete sounded like he just drank battery acid.

"Well then, I will leave you two to your merriment."

"You're leaving?"

"Yes, I have a fight to catch

"Ok, well thank you for the tour."

Vale bowed and then was gone. Pete looked at him go and then at the bottle.

"Come on Trick, let's get shit faced!"

*

*

*

*ding dong*

*Ding dong*

*Ding dong ding dong ding dong.*

"Urgh...what the..."

Patrick woke up with a pounding head that was only made worse by the sound of his doorbell. He rolled over and promptly fell off his couch.

"Ow! Fuck it..."

He climbed to his feet, wobbling slightly and holding his head.

*Ding dong ding dong ding dong*

"Alright alright, I'm coming..."

He grumbled, tripping over his shoes on the way to the door as he tried to remember how he'd even gotten home last night. He grabbed the door handle...

*ding dong ding dong*

...and opened the door quickly.

"Stop doing that."

He said, reaching out to grab the persistent bell ringer by the wrist.

"Hey...um, so you have a loose board on your porch and I kind of cut myself...pretty bad, so you got something for it?"

A...boy?...was leaning hard on the doorbell as he limped from a gash on his leg that was bleeding pretty good. Patrick blinked groggily for a moment, then looked down at the boy's leg, then back up to his face.

"Uh, yeah sure..."

He offered his arm to the boy for support.

"Come on in and I'll see what I've got."

He grabbed onto Patrick's arm and limped into the apartment. He looked around.

"Nice place."

"Yeah, my other place is a mansion..."

Patrick said in his "my other car's a Porsche" tone, then laughed at himself cause for once, that wasn't a lie.

"Take a seat, I'll get the first aid box."

Mikey sat down at the well-worn dining room table on a chair that had seen better days. After a quick look around, that took all of five seconds, Patrick realised that Pete wasn't there, and had probably gone home...he'd call him later. He ducked into the bathroom and grabbed his small, dented first aid box, and carried it through to the kitchen.

"Here we are...not sure what I've got in here though."

He said, setting the box on the table in front of the boy. At the same time Patrick set the box down, the table went as well and it knocked the boy off his chair.

"Oh fuckshit!..."

Patrick said, jumping forward toward the boy who was now sprawled on his kitchen floor.

"Damnit...you ok?"

He offered his hand.

"I think the table hit my arm."

He lifted it up and saw that it was red and starting to swell. Patrick shook his head a little in awe.

"You're not having a good day, are you. Do you think you need to see a doctor?...I could call you a cab."

"Nah, I have my bike."

When he fell the satchel he was holding went too and all these magazines spilled out. Patrick looked at a dozen or so different magazines scattered on the linoleum, he started collecting them up for the boy.

"Well either you have a really eclectic taste in reading materials, or you're trying to sell something...which is it?"

"Selling them. Trying to make money to fix up shit in the house. The land lord kind of sucks."

Mikey pushed to his knees which was a big mistake. He forgot about his leg.

"Fuck."

He slipped and knocked into the guy making him drop the magazines. He also landed on his water bottle which spurt open and drenched them and the magazines.

"Well shit. There goes that idea and now I have to pay for those too."

Mikey fished his cigarettes out of his pocket and used the fallen chair to get up. He limped to the door. He needed one badly.

"Hey wait..."

Patrick got up and followed him, grabbing his own smokes from the counter.

"Tell me about this sucky landlord."

The boy managed to hold the screen door open for Patrick and gingerly sat on the porch. He looked at his leg and licked his finger. He rubbed some of the blood off and then sucked his finger into his mouth. He saw the guy staring at him.

"What? It's my blood, it's not like it's yours or something...unless you're into that shit, I'm not going to judge, Gee would kill me..."

He pulled out a cigarette and lit it.

"Oh right, just one of the houses off campus. The land lord doesn't live here, like he's a city guy who owns houses to make money or something. Anyway..."

Mikey took a drag and blew it out after holding it a bit.

"...shit breaks and we call him and leave messages, but he never calls us back. Ray got sick of it, so he started to repair shit himself, but supplies cost money and we all have too much school work you know?..."

Mikey took another drag.

"So since I'm the only freshie I offered to get a job, but its hard cause of my classes, so I figured I’d try this shit, cause I can do it on my own time, but...I guess that didn't work out."

Mikey spoke quickly holding in the drag and then blew it out. He turned to the guy and with the cigarette in his mouth held out his hand.

" 'm Mikey by the way."

Patrick blinked and took the boy's hand to shake it.

"Um, I'm Patrick. Nice to meet you..."

He shook his head slightly, this boy was fascinating.

"So how many of you are there in this shitty share house?"

"Five. Me, my brother Gee, his boyfriend Frank, Bob, and Ray."

"Wow. So what do you think they would all say to a job...with accommodation included?"

Patrick kind of believed in fate, and this seemed like fate to him. Mikey looked at him.

"It isn't porn is it? Cause Gee would be all for it, but Bob man..."

Patrick choked on his cigarette a little.

“Um no, no it's not porn...I need some like...household staff?"

"Like maids and shit?"

"Yeah, I guess. And like a gardener, cook, driver...all that...I guess."

"Wait...so...you really have a mansion?"

Patrick shrugged.

"As of Tuesday...yeah, I have."

"Um...I can talk to them, but they're gonna want to meet you before...you know."

"Well sure...I'd want to meet them too."

"Okay, well we all have a break between classes tomorrow at three. Can you come to the Muddy Cup Cafe? Gee works there part time."

Patrick thought for a second.

"Is that the one on Hamilton Street?...by the subway?"

"Yup. I'll get the gang together there for you."

"That'd be great, thank you. How's your leg feel now?...and your arm?"

"Um...my arm feels fine, just gonna bruise by the evening, but I still think I need to patch my leg a bit. Spit only goes so far to clean."

"Uh, yeah..."

Patrick took a last drag on his cigarette, then flicked it away into the street.

"Yeah so when you've finished your smoke, come back in and I'll clean that up for you...ok?"

"Sounds good to me.

Notes

Hi there chipmunks, how's you?

So we've started a new one...what do you think?
There's not going to be huge drama in this one, but hopefully lots of laughs, hope you enjoy.

Until next time...PLEASE COMMENT, and peace out babies!
<3