Patches returned to his room, the scratching of the sheets and the stares of the eyes set in the ceiling, and flattened himself against the bed for a good four hours, crumpling the note containing the phone number in his hand abesently. The elation he had gotten from the call, that voice, and from the trails of Uriel’s conversation kept him awake, even invigorated.

Uriel's words - you two are a thing, then - were so vague but pulled the free-floating walls of his world in, just a little, giving them shape. All of his encounters with Val, their meals and conversations, long silences and memories and the slightest touches (and a few more prominent ones) - streamed back to him slowly and he filtered each one through the thought, this really happened.

They were seen. He existed. They existed, together.

His blur of elation lasted roughly a day. Val was absent for three.

Patches spent those days wandering about the town. He passed the Phoenix Building and Dragon Tower, but did not enter them. He visited the supermarket again and managed to put together a slightly more reasonable pizza, but ate it all on his own. He returned to the coffee shop by the barren alley but Uriel did not make an appearance. There was no news on the missing man. Blood near the church was all the police had. Their world could come crashing down any day now. The news reporters seemed to be banking on this idea. They spoke with great excitement whenever the topic came up.

The days passed without note, and nothing seemed off at first, but it started to sink in by the dawn on the third day. He had stayed up exceptionally late and the pieces slid into place. He’d been doing so much under Val’s watch, been seeing so many places and taking with different people, that the return of everyday nothingness was affecting him.

As he lay awake, staring up at the ceiling at an hour where the angels weren’t visible, he let this thought smooth and settle over him. It was normal. It was nothing to complain about.

Work was to be starting soon.

He’d long since returned to his senses when Lazlo declared his sister would be having her wedding at the church. The forecast was good and the grass had made a full recovery from the brutalization it has received during the fruitless investigation. It seemed such a long time ago. The church was overdue for a happy occasion.

The group had been stretching out in the midday sun, and of course, hauling equipment out to the lawn. Time was of the essence, but there was little concern to be had. Lazlo spoke proudly and passionately to anyone who would listen about how much of a dick his soon-to-be brother in law was.

“The blazing cunt comes up to me and says, ‘Everything will be done in a week, right?’ and when I go yeah, sure, he goes ‘And for the rehearsal a week before?’ Could have knocked his teeth out right there.”

Ferris and his similarly sized cohorts thought this was hilarious and heaved large armfuls of folding tables as he laughed.

“You’ll be able to keep your tongue under control when the time comes, I hope,” Castor said. The true priests seemed to mill behind her as if she were a shield.

“Best fucking behavior,” Lazlo assured her.

“I see,” Castor replied.

“As good as I can manage around that sleaze-”

“Remember to wear pants,” Ferris chimed in seriously.

“Do your best,” Castor said.

“I always wondered why people hated their in-laws so much,” Cain mused from the cart of folding chairs. He was sporting a large cotton face mask and seemed to be suffering some late-season hay fever. “I suppose it’s because we don’t like to be forced to accept and love without true context. Just being told you have degree of separation isn’t enough.”

“Acceptance and love, that’s a funny way of saying ‘time and money’,” Tiamat said from one of the white plastic seats Cain had just set up.

“And the very inclusion of the word law implies it’s their right,” Cain continued. “People hate being told what to do, especially when it comes to their emotions. You’d think that, at very least, is the domain free of dictate, but then...”

“Look at this sap,” Lazlo declared.

“I wasn’t a fan of my own in-laws, I’m only saying,” Cain protested.

“I keep saying, it’s all about the money,” Tiamat sang.

“What do I have to hand over, though?” Lazlo asked.

Tiamat waved a slender hand at their surroundings, bottle in her fingertips. “You could have them record their vows in a public restroom or something. But you had us jump on all this, a big setup. A week’s notice - do you know what people in the real world charge for that kind of thing?”

“Can I trade this in and have a raise instead?”

“Don’t you dare.”

Cain wasn’t done. “Caring for even one person is a chain of vulnerabilities to the rule of the ‘in-law’ or any other relation your beloved might have. In many cases you might say it’s not worth it, but it’s hard to live in a vacuum. We open ourselves to weakness whether we like it or not.”

“Pick your loved ones carefully,” Castor agreed.

“Or break the laws carefully,” Ferris also agreed.

“I’m not going to cause bodily harm to the new members of my family,” Lazlo said in mock horror. “Well, bodily harm might happen eventually, possibly tomorrow, but I’d never go too far on purpose. Not my greatest talent though. Hah! I guess I’ll need to be especially careful.”

“I’m not advocating this,” Cain said quickly.

“Having to learn extra special self control. This really is emotional blackmail. Lia’s gonna owe me,” Lazlo sighed leisurely and slumped low into one of the chairs. “Got any tips?” he asked Patches.

“What?”

“Insightful as always.” Lazlo laughed. “I don’t know how you keep that straight face on all day.”

“It’s not too hard. I don’t do anything.”

“Exactly. Maybe that’s the way to go. Don’t meet anyone, don’t involve anyone. I mean, you look totally at peace, all the time. Nothing to look at, nobody to-”

“Patches has friends,” Cain broke in. There was a murmur of appraisal.

“Just one,” Patches said. “Maybe two.”

“So not even you can manage to cut yourself off entirely. There’s always someone lurking around the corner.” Lazlo grumbled and the priests returned to work. “I’m just gonna have to learn to live with this, huh.”

The compound went silent for a moment as the roar of motors sounded at the park entrance. Twenty pairs of eyes turned to a huddle of motorcycles gathered at the sidewalk at the edge of the grass. The cyclists sported helmets, and were rather hardy looking, but did not approach. The faceoff lasted a full seven minutes before Tiamat got up and crossed the lawn to greet them.

The setup froze, not a mouth moved. Ferris did not so much as jostle the massive dining table he was holding over his shoulders, Lazlo clammed his mouth shut. Far away, a bird chirped nervously and they all heard it.

Tiamat returned, coat fluttering over the grass. She held a single piece of paper for them all to see.

“A whole gang came to deliver a couple of lines,” she said. She strode under the canopy and handed the paper to Patches. “You’ve become popular during your time off.”

Patches unfolded the paper, then folded it again. He turned back to screwing together the awning while the group slowly drifted back to their respective tasks. Tiamat watched him with her arms crossed. Either subtly impressed or extremely unimpressed.

“If there’s an emergency, you may leave,” she said.

---

Patches lingered one or two hours more until all the white canopies were standing. It was not that he was ignoring the note. He was cultivating anticipation within him, easing himself out of the blind everyday routine he had been settling in again. Getting ready for relief, an indulgent bite into an anticipated meal. Val would like that.

After hours of forced standstill, he very nearly sprinted to his meeting place.

It was a supposed residential building at the fringe of the southern district.

There was some large-scale construction going on. Scaffolding covered the face of the structure, and behind the network of steel bars there were floors and floors of freshly painted walls, and empty windows without glass. It was clear why glass was a bad idea - the air was rattled with a chorus of drills, hammers and wall-destroying implements. All the stories Patches could see were unlit - lights hadn't been installed yet, but he did see sparks.

The only part of the building that seemed to be properly lit was the lobby, which was connected to a convenience store. Inside the store, a clerk had his or her head down on the counter, hands clenched madly in their hair. The wild strands shivered with each fresh bout of jackhammering. The entire front wall shook.

There was a security guard hunched of a plastic desk in his booth. On the desk there was an empty notebook and a single fuzzy camera of the elevator. The guard's eyes were bloodshot and when Patches arrived he turned mechanically, a few degrees left, then right again.

“Tenth floor,” Patches said flatly.

The guard waved his away with equal enthusiasm. His arm joints seemed in need of oil.

As the elevator rose, the cacophony got louder and completely enveloped the air. The elevator walls were covered with mirrors, but one of them had shattered. The corners seemed to be rattling against the shaft. For a moment, Patches wondered if the whole thing had broken down. But the doors struggled open, he had actually reached his stop without realizing.

The floor he arrived on was surely under construction, but there did not seem to be anyone working on it specifically. He passed a few empty, doorless rooms that reeked of paint thinner. In several rooms, the floor and ceiling were not finished. Below one of them, he saw (and heard) a man in a construction hat drilling panels into a wall.

Very faintly, over the howl of the drill bit, he heard a voice. "Don't bother them."

Val was in the opposite room, sitting in front of one of the incomplete windows. He was slung casually on the windowsill, hanging out halfway. Patches was as close to delight as he was ever going to get. Or he would have been, but the indulgence was spoiled just slightly by the massive amount of construction going on overhead, to their left, to their right, and under the ground on which they sat. The concrete rumbled, a hundred monotonous explosions a minute. Metal scaffolding rattled from top to bottom, scraping dents deeper and deeper into the pavement with a constant hurtling screech. Patches couldn’t hear a thing.

Paint chips spilled on Val’s hair like snow. Patches inched towards him, but it felt as if he had chosen the point of greatest resonance. Val watched him wince, shift uncomfortably, lean close. Val made no effort to get closer himself. He was sipping some greenish-yellow tea.

“You were busy,” Patches said, or thought he did. His throat strained but he heard nothing.

Val mouthed something as Patches settled on his knees.

Patches leaned close and said, “I’m sorry?”

The drilling cleared temporarily. It was replaced with the sound of hammering and sawing. Through the gaps in the noise, Patches heard Val say calmly, “Doesn’t this remind you of old times?”

A power sander went off somewhere nearby but unseen; a cloud of powder burst into the air. Patches didn’t respond to the question, he wouldn’t be heard. But they both knew that it was most surely like old times.

“It really is awful,” Val said. As if some cosmic levels had adjusted, he was now audible.

Patches tried to respond but his voice didn’t register the same sort of effect.

“I didn’t realize it back then, but this is seriously terrible. I should go up and have a word with them. Or down. All over. It feels like it’s coming from all over, doesn’t it? The noise.”

Patches looked up. Thick white powder landed on his face. He was glad he hadn't brought his black coat. Beside him, Val tilted his head, and gnawed at the top of the bottle, grated at them with sheetmetal teeth, eyes still watching.

“Does it make you feel anything?”

Patches tried to find what might be expected of him. The droning yet unbelievably deafening racket was familiar, he could admit that. But to say it was bad wasn’t enough. There was a shadow of a revelation waiting, a perfectly formed memory nearly within reach. But quickly receding with every second of screaming motors and drills. His head itself seemed to be shaking. Patches took a quick look at Val for help; he saw teeth on green plastic, easing deep scratches into the glassy surface. The slick gleam of saliva fell in the groves of the bottle. And the rhythmic mist cloud that built and scattered before Val's breath as his chest - very slightly - rose and fell. Val's absurd calm eased Patches’s mind a little. But by then, he'd forgot what he had been looking for.

Val’s face, wide eyed and otherwise unbothered, did twitch slightly at the next blast of steel drill bits on metal.

“Do you want to get up there, stop them yourself? Cut the power off, then cut the air from their throats before they even realize. What could possibly require so much noise? What could they possibly do to even cause so much noise, so consistently? Crush their hands so they can no longer-”

Patches did not feel any such thing was necessary.

“Nothing?” At this, Val’s hand fell over Patches’s. He took the scarred fingers in grip and lifted it into their shared view, but it hung loose. Not what he was looking for. Patches looked from him to his hand, puzzled.

Val let it go and gnashed his incisors through the neck of the bottle, plastic cracked and shredded. Teeth grating at the shards, Patches thought his mouth was forming the words ‘As expected.’ Or maybe, ‘That’s disappointing.’

In a concise flash, Val bit clear through the plastic strip in his mouth and spat it out, disgusted. Then he set the bottle down and drummed fingers on his lap. Mapping a new course of attack. Three drills took the chance to simultaneously swing to full volume.

Patches sat patiently until Val gave up and stood. “You really are amazing,” Val said. He did so without a smile, he was bizarrely downcast. “I can see this won’t work. Let’s move somewhere else.”

---

Same setup, different location. The ringing had left his ears and Patches was seated comfortably beside Val on a bench in a tiny, nondescript island of green in the middle of a sea of gray concrete. The green wasn’t so much rich in plant life as it was with mold. Overhead were some familiar looking apartment blocks. They must have been near Val’s house.

“You’ve been here before,” Val said.

“Only briefly.”

“With Uriel.”

“Yes. Two - three days ago.” Patches hesitated, but thinking of that time brought back his energy. “On that morning, you-”

“I know.”

Patches rested his hands at his sides. Silence was alright too. But Val was preoccupied with something. It was noticeable, because he was generally carefree, slouching, letting the fringes of his person touch anything and everything.

“What did you two talk about?” Val asked. His light tone was tauter than usual.

“Things he’d seen, this place. About you, a little.”

“A little.” Val’s one amber eye descended on Patches. "You called my house."

"I just got the answering machine. I wasn't going to call again."

“And you know where I live now.”

“Around here. I didn’t see the place. Didn’t want to go in yet.”

The eye narrowed and turned. “Good. That part of you, I like.”

They sat, but without the easy comfort of the past week. Unable to rest, Patches muttered, “Val, are you alright?”

“You asked Uriel that, too.”

“He didn’t know. And I just want to be sure...”

“Don’t you already know? I’m always fine. I always will be. You don’t have to ask anyone. And you don’t have to tell anyone, either. In fact, I’d prefer it if you didn’t. I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, but I like a little privacy. Without saying too much, my entire life and what I am requires me to be like that. I’m starting to feel it was an accident to give away any more.”

Patches dropped his gaze to his hands.

“You said a bit more than that to Uriel though, didn’t you? In the end, I gather that you like to think of us as being together.”

“Hm.”

"A fucking couple."

Silence. It didn't so sound so warm anymore.

"I know." Val got up and kicked at the mouldy dirt. “Maybe I didn't give warning enough. Guess I didn't know things would go so far. Damn Uriel. And if you've been happy with things so far, I won’t say that I can just yank it all back. Memories or whatever you’re feeling, pick up and leave. It’s too late for me to do that, and besides, you hold more power than you realize.” With this he slid his purple and yellow striped sleeve up slightly, and Patches saw a collection of dark, sullen bruises. The marks of a whole-handed grip. “But if this keeps happening, I don’t know what will happen. You dig up where I live, who I know, try to find where I am even though all signs point you away. I really don’t appreciate being dragged out into the street, into the day like this. I was hoping more that we could return to the time when I was a secret. I was your secret, too. Wasn’t that enough?”

“I’m sorry.”

Val tilted his head, held Patches in his mismatched stare and then closed in. Patches remained locked on his hands until Val had reached him, dropped to a crouch, and lay a hand over Patches’s knee. There was no staying focused after that.

“Don't just say 'sorry.' I don’t need that. I’m not dead, nothing's broken yet. That's why I'm telling you this now. It's been a good time, but it's a new thing for both of us, so let's not go too far. From here, this can all end peacefully, or you could change your ways, whatever. It’s your power to do so, if you want me to stick around. But I’ve just been wondering, why is it that you really want me here? If you were really just looking for me to know I existed, then you have your proof now. Uriel knows. Your neighbor at the church knows. People on the street.”

When Patches didn't answer, Val's voice grew sharper.

“You seem like you want togetherness or something, but I’ll let you know, what I give you is something you can get from pretty much anyone else. I'm here because of what we had as kids, and I don’t know how much you remember of that, but we’re way off the mark now. That part’s adding nothing. With what we do now, we might as well be strangers.”

“I know. I thought things would be the same too, but...”

“It was interesting to me too, for a while. But I can see that being interesting isn’t enough. For whatever reason, the way you’ve changed means you need to have everyone knowing and everyone seeing this… thing you have. What you think we have.”

Patches stared through him, hoping to spot an answer in the boring concrete lot.

“If there’s something you need to say, just let me know. Do you need someone who you can show off in the daylight? Do you not remember who I am at all? Or have I misunderstood you? We can still work something out. Tell me what you’re looking for.”

There was a lot to say, but it was all tied and sandbagged, and tangled and crushed. Find something to say, anything. The words Uriel had given them, and the words Patches had then repeated to himself, would Val go for those? Maybe some words of gratitude, but that would make it seem too much like he was accepting this as an end. Were there someone else’s words he could regurgitate? Pick your loved ones carefully. Break the laws carefully - no, not after all that. Then there were his original plans, but they seemed so far gone now that they would never happen. His fists were clenched now. Old scars rising red to the surface, the heat spreading throughout his arms. He ground the old paint from the bench surface. Why this? Why now?

What was the point?

“I’m sorry.”

Val was rigid, he glared into the walls behind Patches. His hands remained close, but gradually the intensity seeped away. “You keep saying that. But you don’t mean it.” He patted Patches’s knee placidly and stood. “For the same reason, I can’t give you any suggestions because you’ll just take them and run with them without understanding.”

Patches breathed deeply. Thought of life’s pleasantries. A lot of them ended up involving Val. It was a bad combination; he tried to wipe them out. Without that, what could he say? Throw it all out. What words do you have? It was all a big fat nothing.

As usual.

“You’re right," Patches murmured. "You know that. I say it because I know I should, but I feel nothing about them. It’s convenient, and that’s the best I can offer. I really have nothing to say.”

“I know, I know.”

“What I don’t understand, Val, is why you act as though you don’t know the reason.”

His throat burned. The cement dust and wood shavings from the construction zone making a foul return.

“I don’t dislike our time together, and I didn’t want to scare... mean to bruise your arm. If that's the end for you, then so be it. It has been interesting, as you said. I liked your visits. I was proud. I wanted people to know. If Uriel and Ritz were not to know, you should not have put them before me. Should have treated them better."

Val's face grew dark.

"But give me the word and it will go away. After all, it's been nothing much more than time spent. You are wrong in thinking that I need you, or your propsitions that things can be fixed when you have made up your mind. I don't need any of it. You can remove yourself, all trace of our time together. You can take what you want, or even more, but there is nothing for you to take that I cannot live without. Because you've done it before, and I lived. Life got better.”

A cool autumn breeze rustled by. The scant grass bristled, Val crossed his arms. He was impossibly dignified, more than he’d ever been, but never had such an image been so misplaced. It stung just to look at him.

“Finally, there are some words I think I can believe,” Val said.

Patches kept his mouth shut at glowered into the distance.

Val continued, “You can live without happiness. You reject sadness. Nothing is your weapon of choice. I'll admit - you're a tougher mark now. But that was why it was interesting. Until you got these bland little ideas..."

The dirt pawed at their feet.

Val had an odd glint to his mismatched eyes. There was something off about his entire face, his laconic posture. He was stretching in preparation to strike, and not as a joke. Patches automatically freed his hands, brought them to his lap. Loose, but ready. Val watched this with a slight sneer, but did nothing.

A gust of wind blew black hair into a disarray. Val stumbled, spluttered hair out of his mouth. Patches half stood in surprise, thought to reach out to him, but failed. And the moment was gone.

“Okay. I may have gotten this started the wrong way,” Val sighed, brushing his hair back. “Bad habit, always trying to make a scene, should have remembered it doesn't work that way for you. I forget this is a new thing for both of us. Will you give me a chance to try something else?”

Still nothing to say.

Val inched close, jerkily, and when the going seemed clear, touched Patches’s shoulder lightly. “This does remind me, there’s something we haven’t tried, and I still owe you a surprise or two. So we’ll meet at my place. You’ve seen it, the block with the plants. Tomorrow, noon. Sounds good?”

It wasn’t good.

But it wasn’t bad enough to object. Val intuited the answer on his own. “Alright. Tomorrow, then. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going. This time, really keep your mouth shut, until we figure this out.” He then melted into the bland gray environment.

Patches dropped back down and rested his head on the back of a bench until it was dark. Then he returned to the church. Dozens of festive white chairs and tables stood at the ready for the next day. That’s right, the duties would continue regardless of what he felt. It was lucky that the progression of life didn’t depend on his shoddy judgment.

He prepared a clean set of clothes for the next day. In case he returned mid-wedding reheasal he’d have to look presentable. Another of his shirts was dug out, the whitest there was. Near midnight, while he was staring at the unworn clothing on their hangers, Ferris came knocking, and wound up reminding him of a piece he’d forgotten.

Ferris’s face was nearly hidden above the doorframe. “Nobody took my hint when we were setting up. So, Patch, can you lend me a pair of pants?”

“They still haven’t been washed,” Patches warned him.

“No worries, I’ll scrub them myself, just can’t have Lazlo screeching at me on the day.”

Patches went to dig through his old wardrobe, under his many layers of similar-sized clothing before hitting the artifacts. Ferris ducked through the door. “I keep destroying mine, huge tear down the crack of the last one. Either I’m incredibly fat or they just don’t make quality stuff this size. Ah, there’s the thing.”

The pants, sheltered from the light and elements for years, were still their stoic black. They may have been sporting an old stain, it was hard to tell with nothing but the old yellow lamplight. He wasn’t about to turn on the lights to inspect it. He warned Ferris again of possible stains, but there was not a worry to be had.

When he was alone again, Patches hung a pair of pants under his waiting ensemble and considered what else might be missing. He was not sure. In fact, he felt that he should have tried to unload more on Ferris. His grandfather would have objected to his clothes being lent out, but Patches had no need for them, and in truth, he did not have nor want any attachment towards them.

For years, the old man had just been a tiny nagging thought, with no tangible solution other than to shove it away. With nothing but the Ring to occupy his mind, that had been easy. But now, remembering his grandfather made him wish, even if it were for nothing but argument, for Val’s company.