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Current music:	Enigma // "Gravity of Love"

Living is Just a Waste of Death, part IV
Title: Living is Just a Waste of Death, part IV
Fandom: P!atd + FOB slash
Pairing/s: Brendon/Jon, a touch of Pete/Jon/Brendon if you squint.
Rating: R, for gore, swearing, disturbing imagery, character death, and slashy-ness.
Summary: This is the end, guys. The last chapter. Everything is explained, it all falls together, a surprise character shows up, and the decisions made and outcomes of them are bittersweet at best. But necessary, and the boys have accepted that happy endings aren't always so black-and-white. Or at least they're trying to. And yes, I know that technically Latin for 'sheath' is 'vagino'. But I just couldn't bring myself to give Brendon that title.
Notes: Earlier chapters: ONE | TWO | THREE. For my patd_100 Jon Walker claim, if they ever start accepting anyone's posts again...prompt #091 - epiphany. And don't forget, if you still want to download the soundtrack for this fic, it's in a .zip file over at my journal HERE. Thanks to musicsexual with all her help on this whole series!



Pete watched Jon while he drove. It was dark by the time they'd all showered and eaten and left the hotel, and his silhouette was outlined by the weak moonlight flashing across his face. Next to him in the passenger's seat, Brendon was dozing against his shoulder.

Give us Jonathan Walker, and you all live, the zombie had hissed into the phone at him. Clearly, they knew enough about all of them to know that it hadn't been Jon who had picked up the phone - these things could recognize their voices now, Pete thought. Jesus.

Fame had been fun in his previous life, but now it was only dangerous. They needed to fly under the radar, but it seemed like the zombies were trying to flush them out. Snipers along all the rooftops, little decaying children dragging their broken fingernails down the barricaded windows of the hotel last night, whispering "Peter. Brendon. Patrick. JON," over and over. And now, Jon was glancing back at him, over his shoulder.

"What's up, Pete? You've been quiet ever since we left the hotel."

Pete froze. He hadn't told anyone about what the zombie had said over the phone, and he still wasn't sure why. Some hopeless desire to protect them, he supposed. "Just tired, man," he finally answered Jon quietly, and Jon gave him that look that clearly said that he didn't believe him.

"I don't believe you," was what he said of course, in his classically Jon way - bluntly honest. Pete was about to respond, but they both caught sight of someone who was waving their arms frantically on the side of the road as they passed. Jon hit the gas, but Pete put a hand on his arm.

"If it were you," he said, leaning over to kiss the soft, warm lobe of Jon's ear for no reason that he could figure out.

"But it's not," Jon pointed out, stopping nevertheless. The person standing there was a young girl, only a little older than Lucy had been. Maybe around seventeen, with short jet-black hair and narrow gray-blue eyes. She had a sharp kind of prettiness to her, pale and angular with high cheekbones and an intelligent face like a savvy New York artist or something along those lines. Her hair was cut in a very stylish shag, which led them all to believe that in a previous life she'd been someone very cool. Now though, she just looked wide-eyed and a little desperate.

Jon aimed his gun at her, through the window. "Give me a reason not to kill you."

"I'm Natalie," she said a little breathlessly. "Check my heartbeat if you don't believe me." She stepped closer to the window, leaning down so that Jon could press his ear to her chest. Then she grinned and produced a stethoscope from under her shirt and handed it to him for a double-check. "Got these from the hospital a few blocks down. They work better." She was looking at Jon with something like awe, like he made her want to cry. As soon as he'd nodded to the others, including Patrick and Brendon who were now awake, she smiled again. "Get out of the car, gentlemen. Everything is about to change."

They all blinked at her.

Jon was the first to get out, and she reached up and touched his face with trembling hands. "It's true. What they said," she said quietly. "It really is you. I knew you'd be handsome, too - they said that had nothing to do with it, but I knew you would be." She giggled, and suddenly they all missed Lucy badly.

"What the hell are you talking about?" everyone was surprised when it was Patrick who snapped at her, and she smiled patiently at him.

"I can't explain it as well as the others can, but I know there's no way you guys will come with me if I don't try. Let me start with this: everything you all knew, your former lives - being rock stars and everything, that was all preordained. The four of you were brought together for a purpose. Well, the five of you, actually. Spencer was The Martyr. Have you guys ever heard of the archangel Michael?"

"From the bible," Brendon said with a shrug, having been the only one of them with any sort of religious background. "The Christian and Catholic ones."

"That's right," Natalie said simply. "And the archangel Michael, he had a sword. That was kind of his thing. But see, what the bible didn't tell you was that there were parts of Michael's story left out. The people who wrote that book didn't think mankind was ready to hear what was going to happen to them long, long into the future, and so they kind of just...omitted the zombies bit."

Patrick held up a hand. "Hold up a second. Are you trying to tell us that this plague of zombies was fortold in the bible?"

"Oh, yes. Now listen. The prophets who wrote the bible not only knew that someday the dead would rise again to destroy God's work - his humans - to appease the devil, but also that God would appoint a special human to act as the physical manifestation of Michael's holy sword on earth to strike them down. We've taken to calling him or her the Sancto Gladius - the Holy Sword. God's no fool though, and he knew that this person was going to need help. So it was arranged for the Sancto Gladius to live a life in which they ended up surrounded by a support group of friends and lovers who would help and watch out for them, each with very specific roles. There's the Ocrea - The Sheath." She paused and glanced at Brendon. "Most likely The Sword's lover. The Sheath is there to hold The Sword, to comfort and take care of them, to keep them from going too bloodthirsty or mad with suicidal bravery. They have perhaps the most important job. Then there's The Capulus." She looked up at Pete. "That has you written all over it."

"Jesus. What does The Capulus have to do?"

"They are The Hilt. It's their job to be a leader of sorts. The Sword is a soldier, a warrior. The Hilt has to be their General. He or she has to rein them in, provide a sense of structure and reality. Unlike The Sheath, you are not so much there to comfort, though you're certainly free to do that as well. But your job is stability and strength - keep his head straight, give him his orders, and make sure they're good ones. We need him, he's going to save us all."

"So, no pressure or anything then?"

Natalie smiled. "And you," she gestured to Patrick. "I imagine that you are The Pugio. The Dagger. You're the backup for The Capulus, his support system in case he needs you. If he fails or dies or performs poorly, you will be there to lift him up or take his place. Every General needs a right hand, after all. Your position may seem insignificant now, but consider how crucial you may become should something happen to him."

Patrick relaxed a little. "I don't want an important position anyway. I don't even want the one I have," he confessed.

Jon had remained quiet throughout Natalie's whole spiel. Now though, he spoke. "You're trying to tell me that I am the human manifestation the the archangel Michael's holy sword on earth, brought here by God to destroy the zombies that Satan wrought upon us? And that my entire life before all of this has been preordained to bring me to a point where I'm close with these four guys so that we can form some kind of holy army and take back the night?"

"Pretty much."

"...Oh. Of course, duh."

For a moment, they all just stood in a circle there, the darkness thick and oppressive all around them. Natalie touched Jon's arm. "We have to go. This area is mostly clear, but I'm supposed to take you back to the church for your briefing."

"And then what?" Pete asked, and Natalie shrugged.

"And then...and then it's up to you what happens. You're The Capulus, after all. The leader. We're just your army."

Pete swallowed, and together the four of them and Natalie got back into the car they'd hot-wired from the hotel the night before. It only took about fifteen minutes to get to the church Natalie had promised was a few blocks away, this enormous, looming Catholic church built of brick. The open-armed Jesus statue by the huge, heavy oak front doors looked ominous somehow, as if he would grab them on their way past as they entered, and Brendon shivered and moved closer to Jon. Waiting for them inside by the now-empty altar was an old, heavyset man, completely bald with gray eyes that looked as though he used to laugh a lot. When he looked Jon up and down however, they brimmed with tears.

"We've been waiting for you, son," he whispered thickly, lowering his head in a quick submissive gesture. Jon narrowed his own eyes at him.

"Awesome. Is there anything to eat around here? We've been driving for a while and Brendon - the pretty one - is hungry. I could hear his stomach growling on the way here." He gestured to Brendon, and the old man raised an eyebrow and looked at Natalie.

"The Sheath?"

"Is a boy, yeah," Natalie said with a grin. "Very millennium of them, isn't it? I guess there goes all those theories about God hating gays and whatnot."

"Is that a problem?" Pete asked a little sharply, stepping in front of Jon and Brendon a little, and the old man laughed out loud.

"Ah. The Hilt. Nice to meet you as well, future leader."

Patrick had been staying in the background for the most part, his eyes on the ground. "You already know what I am and shit, can we skip the pleasantries?" he asked wearily. "I'm so tired, I just want to sleep." Pete put an arm around his shoulders.

"Natalie, show them to their rooms. Bring them some food as well. Boys, my name is Robert. And I think it only fair to tell you before you go to bed that I think we have someone here that is going to be very glad to see all of you. You two in particular." He gestured to Pete and Patrick, both of whom raised their eyebrows and didn't feel so tired anymore.

"Who?" Pete asked, but just as the word left his mouth a young boy ushered a new person into the sermon area of the church. Joe Trohman stared at the four of them for a long moment, his shoulders slumped and his blue eyes huge.

"When they told me you guys were coming, I didn't believe them," he said hoarsely. "I thought they must have made a mistake. Oh, god."

Pete and Patrick were both frozen in place. Finally, Pete spoke. "We thought you were dead. We were so sure you were. Or worse."

"That was why I was in Jersey!" Patrick said to Pete, all of the emptiness in him suddenly replaced with a burst of energy. "I had the last police station left in Maryland track his cell phone for me before it was swarmed a day later, and they told me Joe was in Jersey! But I couldn't find him, and by the time you all found me I knew it had to be too late. I couldn't have asked you all to stay there to look for him, not with the zombies overrunning the whole state, and..." shame crept into his voice. "I was afraid to do it alone."

"Or smart," Jon said simply. "You wouldn't have lasted a day. Glad to see you alive, Joe. How the hell did you end up here?"

"Robert and Natalie and the others picked me up after the people I was traveling with were killed in a firefight with some zombies last week," Joe said. "I've been here at the church for about five days now." As soon as that was explained, there was nothing left to do but collapse into each other's arms - Pete, Patrick and Joe at least, Brendon and Jon respected the former bandmate bond and kept their distance until those three were done reuniting. Then it was time for food, and bed. Brendon was swaying on his feet he was so tired, and when they were shown the simple, curtained-off rooms in the basement of the church it didn't take any longer than five minutes for all of them to sink onto the rough cots and pass out for the next half-day.

When they all woke up the next afternoon, they were told that the church had a little over fifty survivors living in it, and that most of them had been there ever since the zombies had first risen. The prophecy about the Sancto Gladius and his or her fate as the world's savior from the 'last plague before the new world' as they called it had been known of for a while, by various underground cults and religious scholars who specialized in encryptions and the occult. They were all prepared to fight for Jon and Pete and Brendon and Patrick, their new leaders in the revolution for God's plan. It took a good couple of days for the enormity of what they were all facing to sink in.

"Guys," Pete said to Brendon and Jon one day while Patrick was sleeping, joining the two of them on their cot as he'd taken to doing. They settled into their regular position, Jon in between Brendon and Pete, both of whom wrapped their arms around him. "We're going to save the fucking world."

"Shh," Brendon said, shaking his head and closing his eyes. "Let's not talk about it. I can't think about the fact that we're like, the collective new Jesus or something. Jesuses? Can Jesus be a plural?"

Jon stayed silent, but a rare smile touched the corners of his lips, and he kissed Brendon's forehead. Pete stayed with them for a little while, and then left because earlier that day he'd noticed a big, leather-bound book that looked very old lying open on the pulpit in the church's sermon room and was curious about it. It was probably just another arcane religious text - they had a lot of those lying around here - but there was little else to do here. One of the men there had once been a martial arts instructor, and so he'd been teaching them all a little Tae Kwon Do, but he was sleeping at the moment. In the meantime, they were supposed to be formulating a plan for their first strike against the zombies. At least, he was. He was the General, after all. A chill ran through him as he approached the book.

A moment later, it got even worse.

And the Sancto Gladius will rise from the ashes of mankind in a blaze of blood and love, and they will begin our revolution, the translated prophecy scrawled in sort-of old ink across the dry pages read. They will be an inspiration to those left, and they will tear away the first layer of infection and filth that will corrupt the world. When they fall shortly after...

Pete froze. Shortly after. Fall?

When they fall shortly after, their example will invoke the final manifestation of our Holy Sword, the second coming of the Sancto Gladius. When The Capulus begins his or her first strike against the abominations and brings about the end of the first Sword, the second will rise a hero among the agony and loss of the Lord's mighty martyr...

Pete slammed the book shut, right as Robert entered the sermon room. It only took him a moment to figure out what had happened, and the look he gave Pete then was very sad.

"You were never supposed to read that," he said wearily, approaching him.

"How the hell could you not have told me that Jon is destined to die? After all he's fucking been through, all of us? He's just going to...die? Like a regular person?"

"Not at all, son. Please, sit down." Robert gestured to the front pew, and Pete sat because his stunned state had left him obedient.

"Jon is going to die a mighty hero, as the prophecy reads. He's going to save the world, Pete. He and all of us. But him especially, because his sacrifice will be one of the greatest. He will choose to give his life, to save us all. Because in a part of him that has long since been dormant, ever since his birth, he knows that the world needs us. That this is his fate."

"But it said that I'm going to be the one to make it happen," Pete whispered thickly, staring at the carpeted floor.

"Yes. Your first strike is going to be the first domino that will lead to Jon's death."

Spencer's words - "The first domino is falling! The tower is next!" right before he died. Pete had no more doubts about the fact that this had all been preordained.

"I don't think I can."

"Yes, you can. And you will. You must. What you cannot do, however, is tell Jon about any of this."

"Even if I did, he'd still choose to die if he had to. You don't know Jon, man."

Robert smiled. "No, but I know that he's not like the rest of us. We're all fighters you see, but Jon - Jon is a hero. And so, I believe you. But you still can't tell him."

"Do you know who the second Sword will be?" Pete asked suddenly, and the question seemed to surprise Robert. Then he smiled again.

"You know the answer to that."

"It's Joe, isn't it? That's why you guys went all the way to Jersey to find him. It wasn't a coincidence. You people have like, a fortune-teller or something working for you here, and they told you to find Joe Trohman because someday he was going to take Jon Walker's place as your savior."

"You're going to make a good leader when the time comes, Pete. I have faith in you." Robert rose to his feet, leaving Pete sitting there reeling with all his new knowledge.

"The zombies, they don't know about Joe. Only Jon. That's why you've been keeping Joe inside the church all the time. I bet you don't ever let him out for anything, do you?" Pete was rapidly putting the pieces together in his head. "You don't want them to find out about him, because then they'd target him the way they are Jon. I bet you haven't even told Joe about any of this prophecy shit. The more he knows, the less safe he is."

"He's also waking up right about now." Pete had no idea how Robert knew this, but he had a feeling he was going to find out soon. "Go be with him, he's missed you and Patrick terribly over the past week. He tries not to think too much about what's happened to...Andy, yes? But, um. Don't stop in on Brendon and Jon on your way, they're having sex."

Pete thought that maybe Brendon and Jon would want to know that Robert could tell when they were fucking. But he stood up anyway, and headed to Joe's 'room'.

"Hey!" Joe greeted him cheerfully as he emerged from the tiny bathroom they all shared, in the church's basement. There was no shower, but someone had dragged in a giant old-fashioned claw-foot bathtub at some point and they'd had a plumber who was staying there install it for them. They'd moved a little TV into the basement - for Joe probably, it made sense that they would have wanted to keep him entertained. People who weren't bored or restless didn't ask questions.

"Hey," Pete said cautiously. "Um, how are you?"

"As good as can be expected, I guess," Joe said with a grin. "Kind of hungry though, want to go eat?"

It was then that Natalie came rushing into the basement, breathless and flushed. "You guys!" She cried. "The zombies are attacking! They brought fucking guns and everything, they already shot through all the barriers over the windows!" She looked at Pete. "I know you're not ready, but we need you now. What do we do?"

If I do this, if I stage some kind of counterattack, it will be the first event to set off a chain reaction that will lead to Jon's death.

Jon and Brendon were right behind Natalie, their clothes and hair disheveled, looking post-sex sheepish. Pete looked into Jon's dark eyes, and it was there.

Jon knew.

Pete didn't know how, but in that moment he was painfully aware that Jon knew exactly what his fate was, and what was going to trigger it. Their eyes locked for a long moment, in which Brendon leaned against him a little. Pete looked over at Patrick, who was entering the basement as well, and then Joe, who looked terrified.

Jon nodded at him.

"We're all fighters you see, but Jon - Jon is a hero."

He'd made his decision, even though it hadn't really been a decision at all.

Pete took a deep breath.

"Okay. Here's what we're going to do," he said.