The Ring of Light was barren. The heating vents only stirred the thinnest top layer of sand, the stands were empty and quiet as a grave. The Ring of Justice was similarly peaceful, but that’s when it tended to be like anyway. Patches shoved a few of the toppled barriers back into place. He then took piles of chairs that had been moved from the dining area to the spectator rows, and dragged them up the stairs to where they belonged.

Val was slung over the rail of the upper deck. “Need a hand?”

“No, I can handle it.”

“You must like what you do.” Val took a step back so Patches could offload a stack of chairs. “You must really like it.”

“I told you. I don’t dislike it.”

“You’re a wonder. I don’t understand how that kind of reason is good enough for you. Here, let me help.”

He was half expecting Val to toss the chairs over the rail again, or dance on the table. He wouldn’t have been upset. But instead, he was treated with largely functional help. The tables in order, the fences up, that left only the remnants to drag out and they could go have breakfast. That did seem like something that would motivate Val.

It soon became clear that was not the case.

The first remnant of the night's events was a man, possibly approaching middle age, in a perfectly ordinary buttoned shirt with a thin streak of red, and a dribbling nose. A typical contestant. Someone had laid him against the wall of the supply shack - probably Castor, since Lazlo was not back to work yet. The man was not moving.

Val hovered closer and closer like a dragonfly, nose almost poking the man's hair before Patches yanked the immobile figure up by the back of his shirt, hooked an arm around him, and dragged the body off to the next stop.

The next item was a similar looking man, but in a gaudier shirt, lying flat on the stands. A sign that Ferris had been the one to drag him off. His hand was crushed, which was another reliable indicator of Ferris’s handiwork. Patches lifted the lifeless body and drooped it over his uninjured shoulder.

Next to the stairwell in the tunnel, there was a third contestant, who was obscured by the darkness of the tunnel. Patches tried to focus his ears, something was off. But he could not seem to focus. Like that night, even though there was no longer threat or mystery, the sound and the fire of a hot breath from some hidden beast had him in a daze. He reached out his free hand and patted about until he found the jumble of embroidery that made up Val’s shirt. He gave it a tug.

"Ow.”

“Sorry.”

“Something matter? Need me to take care of these things for you?”

What was with that tone? The material, size or wall of the tunnel - something - made those words spread all around, dampening his skin like water vapor. Val sounded eager and hungry.

“Val, can take a look at this one on the ground, and tell me if he’s still breathing.”

Val didn’t respond, but Patches felt the fabric shift. He let it go, there was sweat on his palms.

“Yeah. Breathing. And blinking, but not seeing.” The sound of shifting fabric. "Something is..."

“Thanks. That’s all I have to know. Might need an extra ambulance.”

“But he isn’t seeing, you know?”

“I can’t see much at the moment, either.”

Val's shape materialized next to him. “Okay, then. You would know what to do.”

Too many people to hold with one arm, now his injured side was pulling weight too. Down the tunnel, and up the winding staircase to the alcove in the front hall, which was soaked in weak gray sunlight. Patches set the bodies down, side by side, on a bench against the wall. Here he saw that his last pickup was a younger looking man. As Val had said, he was breathing. Blood was bubbling out of his mouth and his eyes were open. But rolled skyward, with a milky red tinge. As Val said: not seeing. To the right of his crown, there was a large, purple indentation, the skull pushed almost flat, bone and scalp floating on some softened morass.

Patches knelt, and wiped the blood away from the man's chin.

Val stood over him, cross armed. “That’s not good.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Does this happen often?”

“Often enough, it’s not unusual. The contestants get better with experience. The newcomers are the ones who don't know when to stop, yet.“

“So these guys were probably newbies, or done in by newbies? That’s rough.”

“I can’t know for sure.” Patches steadied the bleeding contestant’s drooping head. A thread of drool spiled forth. ”Someone will pick them up. All of them. And they will be fine.”

“Okay then. You would know.”

Patches was back at the stairs. Val skipped after him, back into the deep, dark tunnel. He started humming, and once again the noise filled the air to bursting. Patches was beginning to be lulled into the rhythm when the music stopped abruptly.

"You'd be able to stop that kind of thing, right? Getting one's head knocked in."

"I... it's our job to try."

“What would you do in the Ring?”

“I can only try to stop such things from happening.”

“No I mean, if you were competing, a contestant. One of the crowd.”

“That won’t happen.”

“I see. You’re too strong to be allowed in.”

A gentle wave of nostalgia drifted through him. Being strong, that was the goal. Then using that strength. Ideally, that was all you needed. But there was always something to be corrected.

Patches muttered, “The priests are all barred, and there’s no need for them to enter under a different role. We aren't invincible. And besides, even years ago, you showed you were the stronger one.”

“Huh?”

Face hot, Patches strode down the tunnel.

“I’m surprised you remembered that,” Val’s voice came echoing, “But it was just one time. Are you still hung up on it, because if you remember, hundreds of times before, you were always the one doing the beating-”

“What would you do in the Ring?” Patches asked.

There was no point in looking for Val’s face for a reaction. He wouldn’t be able to see it, even if he had an idea of where Val was standing.

“What’s the point of this?” Val returned.

“You asked me, I’m curious.”

“I wouldn’t enter,” Val said. “Bare hands, or special pipes - I can’t do anything with those. I’d get my head smashed in like the guy up there.”

Lies, but there was an edge to what he said. “Not the Ring of Light, then. A personal challenge, you may bring whatever you wish, use however you wish. And,” he had to add, “-whatever stop condition you wish.”

“Isn’t the condition usually death or surrender?”

“If you prefer it that way.”

“Does it really work like that?"

"It works how you want it."

"Like a spa. Alright. In that case, I’d go for cuts, I guess. So that's knives. That’s my best chance, against any able bodied person who's getting handed the same tools. And with so many people watching... it’s not where I’d like to spend my time anyway.” Val thought and counted. “That kind of thing can be sped up with the right mindset. Planning, aiming. Ankles are good, though sometimes hard to reach. Take a spill, roll on the ground a bit, if they’re the right kind of person to fall for such a trap. If the blades are big enough, go for the bigger parts. Hands are good too, though it depends. That’s why it has to start slow. Have to find the right target, the one that will make them useless, or fall back on their lesser weapons. And of course, avoid falling right onto their knives or forks. Or hands. Losing fingers is a major upset against almost anyone, unless they have real flexible toes, or aren’t relying on their fingers in the first place. Against someone like you, for example, I’d have to go for the whole arm. That’s difficult.”

Patches scratched at his right arm.

“There are bigger and better things, but I’d prefer not to go after them. I mean, the audience isn’t going to like it, the throat, the brains and eyes going missing, the just waiting out a surrender. I’d only do it if it were a sure thing. Sure thing that I’d succeed, and sure thing that they wouldn't hop out of hospital and kill me later. After all, the plan is to let them live. So that’s it. In short, prod them until they stop moving. Just make them give up. It’s very simple.”

“You're going for a surrender condition.”

"Well, nobody has to die."

Patches swallowed.

“You okay?”

Val sounded cool as frost. How could he? Patches’s own hands felt as if they were burning, clenching and unclenching. “It’s very different from what I’d expect.”

“What you’d expect from me, or what you’d do?”

“A bit of both.”

“Go ahead, I’m curious - what would you do?”

“When I have my duties in the Ring of Justice - the true duties - it’s just one contestant, so my plans revolve around that. I am generally told it must be smooth. Not always painless. Quick as possible, thought it can’t always be promised. The head, the major organs - those are the targets. Depending on the organizer, you leave the parts that allow them to make a noise, or you silence them early. It’s always meant to please the audience.“

“That sounds reasonable. What am I saying - of course, it’s your job to make sure these run smoothly. I wouldn’t expect anything else. But if you weren’t constrained by the time and the conditions of the Ring...”

“I-I’d do the same.” His skin crawled with prospects, but there were too many to start listing. “Time would work differently. It would end later, or sooner. Probably not sooner. Depending on the person. Another element of the personal challenges, they are, of course, personal.”

“Hmm,” Val hummed contentedly. “And you may or may not let them live?”

“Depends on the person, again.”

“So even in a challenge so extreme, you think you’d be willing to give a quick death.”

He didn’t have to say it in such words, but he did.

“Maybe.”

“In other words, you don’t really care. Anything goes. Nothing wrong with that, but I was-”

“Not anything, I have occasionally considered exceptions-”

“Such as?”

“It’s a personal preference. If I have no free reign, I may as well challenge myself. No noise, or less dust, maybe. No bloodshed. That's one I'd like to try. One day.”

He heard Val twitter.

“I get it. That’s inspiring! I’d prefer to just pile up stabs and tears. Maybe it’s because I’m weak, I don’t need the extra stress, I can’t be trusted to end anything quickly. No blood! I can’t imagine that. But imagine aiming to kill and failing. That would be a disaster, it would turn the tables right back on me, seeing them walking around fine in a day or so. Slice an ankle, split a hamstring, ruin them forever - then you could be sure. I’d happily surrender myself if I knew that, off the books, I was the winner. A goal should be achievable. And if it’s personal, then their living with it - that’s the reward.”

Patches frowned.

“Alright, that was a little silly,” Val added quickly.

“Isn’t intentionally letting them go a risk?”

“Risk? You mean, risk that-”

“Of them getting better, and coming back."

"I just told you, cut out their fingers or ankles and chances are as good as--"

"A life spared is always a risk.”

Patches nearly gagged when Val tapped his neck. “You’re way more hopeful than I remember you being. It’s not a bad thing. A little unnerving.”

“That’s how I’d face you.”

“Oh? Now that’s a different story. I’d like to see that.”

“Me too.”

There! There it is. Tell him now. It’s perfect. He was the one who brought it up.

The yellow spotlights of the Rings fell over them once again. Val’s hands dropped to his sides and he shuffled back almost immediately, as the light stung. Patches blinked the dust from his eyes. “Where are you-”

“Patch, there you are. I see you got most of the work done here already.”

Heading towards the entrance, tiny broom and even tinier dustpan in hand, was Ferris. Patches looked from him, to the tunnel and then back again. Ferris drew a broad grin.

“Good to see you again. Still a little out of it?”

“I’m fine.”

“Been getting some rest, I hope. In spite of the bloody battles you’ve been reportedly doing in your free time. Sounds like a riot. And you look well rested - maybe I should take some time off and do the same.”

Ferris laughed jovially and dropped some wads of tissue from his dustpan in his vigor. He had to sweep them up again. He seemed to enjoy the task.

Patches stared half-wittedly at this and thought. It was true, he had more or less recovered. That meant he would be returning to the Ring soon. Once he was back, Val might disappear again.

There was no helping that. But there was something he had to accomplish before then. While he was rested. Before Val got driven away by some other force. Before anything happened. How strange that 24 hours of familiarity had made him so complacent, when years had passed without a hint of progress.

“I need to get breakfast.”

“You’re actually hungry?” Ferris asked with mock horror. He laughed again. “Go ahead. I’ll finish up here. You took all the remains upstairs for some sunbathing?”

“Yes. There’s one-” Patches paused. Val seemed to have cared about the man with the caved head, but for Ferris, it was hardly anything special. “There are three of them. I know one is breathing.”

"Good for him."

Ferris began singing loudly and tunelessly to himself as soon as Patches was out of sight. Val was waiting in the church’s front hall, sitting on a bench across from the three bodies. He was admiring them as if they were an expensive floral display.

“No blood,” he muttered. Or it may have been, “No good” or “How fun.”

“Are you ready to eat?”

Val looked up. “Always am.”

Patches leaned against the wall and tried to admire the display as well. “You waited for me to finish here. I’m not keeping you from any arrangements, am I?”

“Not at all. To be honest, I don’t know what I get paid for half the time. It’s kind of ridiculous, but the way Magnus runs his workforce-”

“And your schedule tomorrow?”

Val’s gaze slid to the stained glass window overhead. “I can’t guess what kind of things Magnus might think up in the night, but most likely clear too. You have something special planned?”

The mood is no longer right. The time and place are gone. But if you wait any longer, you might never have a chance to do this. And then the mood and time and place will never be right again. And can you live with that? Another ten years, or more? You can say you don’t care or don’t mind, but you haven’t had the best grip on yourself in the past. And do you really think you are capable of a future without regret?

His glassy gaze was pulled back to reality as Val crossed his path, having stood up to get a better look at him. He scrutinized Patches with a look of puzzlement, but not overt judgment. Or even concern. It was, in short, a void. It was hypnotic, Patches could have looked into him all day. Too bad, there wouldn’t be time to stare forever.

Patches opened his mouth and Val stepped back to give him some breathing room.

“You were saying...” Val asked.

“I was saying, I have something to show you.”

---

The crack of dawn, the next day. The sky hung with warning of rain, the sunrise was late, but Val and Patches would not be able to tell. They were traversing the dense northeastern forest, a large sprawl of land that Magnus Long had not yet set his eyes on, with a cover so dense that the undergrowth was always in a timeless, dreamlike haze.

“So, this place we’re headed, is it nice? High up? I can’t tell-”

Val tripped over a root and yelped.

“If we’re headed somewhere to watch the sunrise, I think it’s too late.”

Patches walked on, steady and slow. When Val tripped he always managed to catch up again. But once he caught up he grew bored and began his guessing games. He seemed happy to keep rambling without receiving an answer. And Patches was happy to receive those ramblings, and not give an answer.

Val swung his head left and right and siphoned bread from a bag. “Didn’t really understand why people like sunrises, anyway. Just reminds you that you’ll have to get out of bed soon. Get on the bus, and blah, blah…”

His voice was a welcome addition to the story Patches had assembled in his mind. It was a story he had been holding onto for years, what he had used his last vestiges of pure imagination on before the well dried up, giving at most a trickle for special occasions. The chatter also ensured Val was at his side. This element was more than welcome, it was a necessity.

The perfection of it all warmed him, so much to the point that he slowed down to enjoy it. He would enjoy every part of it as best he could.

He should have known better than to think Val would follow along with this plan.

“What’s up? We’re not lost, are we?”

“No. We’re on the right path.”

Val’s arm came up on his shoulder, and it dawned on him that he had stopped walking altogether. “Just enjoying the view, then?”

Up close, that one yellow eye resembled the sun. The other, less yellow, resembled a jaundiced bruise.

"Something like that.”

Patches picked up the pace again, just enough to feel they were progressing.

Val slid off his shoulder and let him lead while he ate. He eventually finished, and remained at a slow shuffle. He was silent for too long. He was thinking.

“I didn’t know you were into hiking,” he said at last. “You seemed like you just wanted to stay put all the time. Remember, you didn't even leave the house in the end.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“The days with your grandpa, yeah, but are things really so different now? I looked for you, for so long, and all along you were in the one place I didn’t really want to look. If you had really come to enjoy strolling around, I don’t think you’d have remained hidden so long.”

“I didn’t know you were looking.”

“Right, you thought I may not have existed. But you would have come looking, if you knew I was real, and hunting around for you too?”

“Yes. And that’s what happened.”

“That’s what happened,” Val repeated. He was walking carefully now. Where he had once been tripping nonstop and stubbing his toes on anything to cross his path, he was now gliding, near soundlessly. Inexplicably, he was hiding his presence, as if he knew what a lifeline it was. Patches was struck with nerves, he had to bring Val back.

"I’m sorry.”

“You say that a lot.”

“I should have tried harder to reach you. On that last day, I disappeared without warning, and I never took the time to explain. I’m sorry.”

Mismatched eyes bored holes in his back. Go on.

“I did think of you, especially during the time in the hospital. I couldn’t think of anything else, you were the only thing I remembered about that summer, and when I think about it now, I have never had another time like that. I met so many people afterward, at the church and the Rings, but I could never return to that time, that excitement - it could only be re-lived if I were to meet you again. But with no relief in the years between I forgot about that dream. It was only when I finally saw you that I knew what had to be done.”

“Well that’s interesting. Our time together was a dream.”

Patches didn’t answer. The real deterrent for him had not been something so fanciful as that, but it was a risk to say he had thought - even been told - that Val had died.

“You’d call it a dream," Val continued happily. "That’s more impressive than anything.”

Padding among leaves, Val chuckled, and Patches breathed again.

“And it was a good dream, I hope?”

“It was the only dream I’ve had ever since the accident.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“I’ll know if it's good, when we get there.”

Bad move. Val stepped naturally, but he had stopped speaking again.

Patches stopped and waited. He could no longer hear Val behind him, but did hear his say,

“We’re going somewhere to relive your final summer?”

“Not exactly. But it’s something I have to do.”

“This place we’re going, does it have a name?”

“It’s…” Patches bit his tongue. Somehow, saying its name to Val was not doable. Why? He had been saving it for this very person. Some juvenile impulse holding him back, as infallible as the impulse to do harm to his schoolmates as a child.

It was idiotic. As an adult he could at least try, halfway. “It’s one of the Rings.”

“A what? Like the Ring of Light? If you were just trying to show me one of those, why didn’t we just hang around the church? There’s two good arenas right there.”

Because I’ve been saving this one for you. Is that something I would say? He’ll ask why. And then what?

“And hold on a second,” Val said. “Call me crazy for suggesting this if you had something else in mind - are we headed there for a challenge?”

Patches continued on. “It’s a continuation.”

“Of what? We never fought.”

“We fought all the time.”

Val hissed, “That was a long time ago, and they were just plain old tantrums. Even if you call them fights, they were all complete. They had winners. It was almost always you.”

“Almost.”

“I did what I needed to.”

“I know. I learned that too late. So when we get there, don’t hold back. Do whatever you want. I don’t mind.”

Patches was on a ramble of his own now. He stampeded through the forest blindly now.

“You can make your thousand cuts. I might go down to it. I won’t mind.

You can just roll over and give up, like you used to do. I don’t mind that either. If you can show me what you did in the tunnel, that’s good too.

If we need to meet more than once, I can arrange it. But I needed to know, like I needed to know you existed, that we can do this. I believe we can.

Just let me have this. I don’t mind if I win or lose. I just need this to-.”

A brown wall floated into view beyond the furthest trees. Pale wood streaked with sunlight, wind churning against a large expanse of canvas. The end of the proverbial tunnel. Patches took a breath and strode towards it, but now that this element of the story had arrived, he became acutely aware that another had gone missing.

He turned around, and listened. Nowhere in the murky air of the forest did he hear, smell, so much as detect Val’s presence. His contestant was gone.

---

Patches walked in a straight line and emerged on an empty asphalt highway running along the edge of the forest. The horizon was dominated by mountains that speared right into the menacing clouds overhead. When he stood looking down the road, there was a small twinkling of city lights just barely visible over a scattering of hills.

Adorned with far off lights and the clouds, the stillness soothed him. He took its comfort gratefully.

He was not particularly upset, and admittedly, he wasn’t as innocently confused as he'd like. He had evidently ruined his own plans.

It would be a long walk back to the city. He must have taken the wrong direction when leaving, and wound up at some further corner of the forest than where he and Val had entered. No matter. As Val had said, he spent so much time locked away in the church that some compensation was in order.

He walked and walked and stared at the clouds. It wasn’t too bright a day. It wasn’t too humid. The clouds threatened with their coloration, but it wasn’t going to rain.

This was alright. Quiet was good. But a voice would have been welcome too.

It might have been an hour or more before he spotted a motorist. There were three of them, black jackets perched on shining black motorcycles. They rumbled closer and three helmets rotated on three sets of shoulders as if controlled by magnets in their visors. One of them stopped a few meters from him, and the other two reluctantly braked a safer distance away.

The closest biker removed his helmet, coughed and put on a customary scowl. “What the hell are you doing out here?”

Patches recognized the biker.

“You’re Uriel.”

“I know who I am. You’re Patches, like I could forget. Not the smartest place to be out for a walk.”

Patches shook his head. “I was heading back.”

“Well, it’s good to know you aren’t actually following me.”

“Why would I do that?”

“It’s not the first time, if you recall. You wandering out in the middle of nowhere - scared the shit out of me.”

“Sorry.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Uriel was waiting intently for further explanation or orders, his bullish expression demanding them now. Patches felt tired, but he did have questions. ”Did you pass Val on the way here?”

“Val is here?” Uriel frowned. “What’s he done this time?”

“He’s not doing anything. He didn’t know the plan. I brought him here. But I think he might be lost.”

“You mean, he fucked off on his own.”

“We were in the forest, and I sometime, when I was talking-”

“He fucked off and hid from you."

Uriel had his mind set. Patches chose not to disagree and looked at his shoes instead.

“So it looks like you’ll need some help getting back home. Don’t trip over yourself in agreement, I’m not about to leave you out here.”

It was a very kind gesture. Patches nodded his head but before he could form any words Uriel roared over at his fellow bikers, “YOU TWO! OVER HERE. This man needs a ride back into town. The Church - don’t give me that look, you know where it is. No funny business. And you,” he said to Patches, “Make sure nothing happens to them.”

Uriel’s subordinates scuttled over nervously and seemed to be arguing in whispers over who had to carry the extra load. Neither wanted that sack of bombs on their back.

“You’re not coming?” Patches asked.

“Nope.” Uriel sounded off his motor with a mechanical growl. He barked at his grunts, “What are you two whispering about? What is this, second grade? You gonna take this guy home or do you want get stuck looking for the ugly bossman with me? We're gonna circle here all night 'til he comes out, I'll -- oh! Oh, suddenly you understand simple tasks? Yeah, you get going - that’s what I thought.”

---

Lunch. Shower. Bed. Dinner. Light rain. Patches returned to his room for the fourth time that day. He was on the bed and staring at the carvings on his ceiling. They did not bother him too badly. The misty gloom from the forest still clouded his thoughts. Efforts to remove it just filled him with a mild dread.

He had lapsed into his usual state of nothingness when there was a knock on the door.

Val was standing in the doorway, coated in a thin film of rainwater and smeared below the knees with dirt. Patches left the door open for him and slumped on the foot of the bed. Val entered slowly, but instead of sitting on the bench as he had before, he sat beside Patches, legs hanging off heavily.

“I hope you’re not upset-”

“I’m not.”

“-but I couldn’t go through with your plan.”

Patches gazed at the table.

Val continued, “I may have gotten carried away yesterday. I have plans, I say things, but I don’t really want to fight you. No way. So when you spoke of a Ring, I just stalled. I might have been wrong, but like something from the good old days, it sounded a lot like-”

“You were right.”

“So you were picking a fight.”

Picking a fight. Like the good old days. But back then, he had wrung through so many fights that it seemed impossible one could fail at the mere ‘picking’ stage. Things certainly had changed.

“Why?”

The question he had been trying to avoid in the forest. The time was long over for worrying about that. It didn’t matter.

“I’m not saying I’m against a spar or whatever it is, but there were a few problems. For one, you didn’t give me any time to prepare. I told you, I’m a wimp. I need time and tools. And we didn’t even have a good breakfast! It was as if everything had to be done in a hurry. A rush to a place I’d get completely and certainly get smashed? Sorry, couldn’t just follow along and take that.“

It was true. He couldn’t.

“But the weird thing was, if you were trying to off me easy, why did you say what you did? When we were almost there, you said you didn’t care if you won or lost. If you lived or died. Is that true?”

“It is.”

Val laughed bleakly, and Patches felt himself sinking, as if the room had turned to quicksand.

“Because really, that was what scared me. A trap is one thing, but to be stuck in a life or death situation? Unprepared? That wouldn’t have helped either of us. I don’t understand it.” He turned to Patches who wavered under that weight. “You sounded like you had been preparing thing for a long time. Whatever it really is. But why the rush? Were you trying to spook me? Help me out.”

“It wasn’t any of that. They were just mistakes. I suppose I’m not a good organizer.”

Val huffed at that. "When you put it like that I can see why you have one appointed to you. Why don’t you ask your pals to help out, if you really want some all-out brawl? I need someone to scrape me off the floor when you’re done.”

“You might not be the one to fall.”

“There you go again. Jinxing yourself. Scares me a little, like you're being sarcastic or something. Is that what it is? Your kind of trash talk is too complex.”

“What scares me,” Patches continued slowly, “Is that you will be gone whenever I lose sight of you.”

“Hm,” Val hummed, “I’m not going anywhere. Though, work comes up, of course, so you can’t know that for sure but-”

"I can't. And it isn't just my imagination."

"Hm," Val said again.

Patches put his hands on the sheets. "The last time you - we - parted, after the accident, I asked for you."

"The accident, huh?"

"In the hospital. It was the first time I ever spoke to someone without intending to harm someone, or drive them into lashing out so I had an excuse to hit back. You know how I was. By then, things had already changed so much. I felt like I had to tell you. But do you know what the doctors, and the counselors said? But with your name and appearance, do you know what they found?"

"Something ugly, I'll bet. Something unbelievable? You don't have to believe what anyone says, you know what you saw, you know what affects you or not, and being told otherwise used to piss you off big time. That's one reason we were friends." Val's boots tapped the bedframe. "And by the way, you shouldn't have used my name and expected anything good to come from it."

Patches looked off into a corner, and touched his empty eye wound.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes.” He knew his expression wouldn’t have changed.

Val scrutinized him carefully, head tilted like a curious dog. "Here’s something I’m sure of: I’m not taking a challenge from a guy who wants to die.”

“I don’t want to die. I wouldn’t be trying to.”

“You don’t sound much like you want to live, either.”

Patches now closed his eyes. “I’m not expecting to die. I want something out it, this thing, meeting you again. You're right, I used to hate everything, but now I feel nothing one way or the other. I just need the word and I'll do what's needed, within reason. It's not bad, in many ways it's better than things were before. Things are clean. It's quiet. Everyone I meet is so... too kind. But the problem is, I still remember what came before, and in spite of all the hate, there was... some good that was gone too soon."

"You'd go back to that time, just to dig up what little good there was?"

"They weren't little. And... it was just one time. One that mattered. You know-"

A cool weight fell over his shoulders, and there was the light press of another body to his. A reserved motion. Close enough to hear it so clearly mixed together, he was distracted by their breathing. They were on completely different rhythms.

Val’s breathing hitched, Patches felt the vibrations of his throat, "I always want to get something for my efforts to. But I loaded a lot of time into my search. Too much to have it all end because of some shitty scheduling. And why rush? That would be a waste for me.”

"I'm sorry. Don't go."

"Hah. I've made shitty decisions too, I suppose. But don't worry."

Patches slid back on the folded blanket, making space so he could see Val in his entirety again. The back of his dirt-smudged pants were dragging muddy stains against the mattress rim, rainwater spread and soaked into Patches's coat and the blanket they sat on. His hand still curled around Patches's shoulder, a cold spot sinking into the line of stitches underneath. Val and all signs of him were spreading, expanding like a stain.

But that was fine. Marks were good, the more, and more permanent, the better.

Finally, decisively, Patches raised his own arm around those clammy shoulders and wrapped Val in, stains and all.

Their contact was uneven, Val's bones jutted at his elbows, he curved in a way that didn't fit against Patches's body, which was stiff as a plank even in release. But in spite of the copious gaps, the pressure Patches had against his chest was so concentrated his heart tightened - and while Val was cold, Patches was burning up, inside out. His muddled mind could not fathom a response but his body flared. The rainwater that touched him seemed to evaporate; he leaned in, breathed.

Jagged hair like the spikes of an alien landscape jabbed and shifted, enveloping his face in a miasma of raw caffeine, wet mud and even less civilised odors. And Patches drank this in along with every part of their embrace, and dreaded the mistakes he might make in the future. In spite of all these diversions, the forest was still on his mind.

“So what do I do?” he mumbled into the uncontrolled mass of hair.

Val’s arm went slack and gradually, Patches took the cue to release.

“You - I mean, we - find an actual reason for a challenge.”

“Oh.”

"In short, we find a way to make these lives," Val pointed from himself to Patches, "Actually worth anyone's time in the Ring."

It sounded difficult.

Val tilted a head toward the window.

“If you really don't care, or it sounds like a pain, then let me do the leading. I'm not going anywhere, just yet, so there's time. I'm sure you'll think of something eventually, or something will come back to you. Immediate plans, though…” Val leapt up and looked out the window. “I need the bathroom. And a shower. And I’m starving, Uriel didn’t leave me for a so much as a second before he dragged me back. Guess he wanted me to say that. Anyway, clean up, take a crap, get some food - why don’t we start there and see how things go? Wait - did that order sound correct to you? Shower first...”

Words were still lost on Patches, so Val smiled, gave him a hard clap on the back to bring him out of his sweetened stupor, and dashed off to the communal bathrooms.