Working Title III: You Meddling Mortals

Chapter 26 - Into the Noise

Pierrot stood in the dim light of the garage back at the shared home in Drywind. Nadine slept peacefully as he stood on a step stool atop a table. He placed his hands on his hips and sighed as he scanned her wounds in the dim light. She wasn't fit to move before, and she certainly wasn't fit to move now.

"What am I going to do with you...?" He hopped down from the step stool atop a table. Nadine stirred and snuggled her head further into Patches' mattress. Pierrot had commandeered it from her bed unknowingly.

His very being screamed out to run. Flee this place. He felt himself being pulled into the wind to go somewhere, anywhere that wasn't here.

He stared as Nadine slept in the dim light of the garage. He looked at his own hands, shaking and covered in blood, both his and not. The pile of spent bandages in a pile in the corner. Guilt washed over him like warm soup broth being sipped from a bowl. Warm when you sip it as expected, cold and jarring when it hits your chest and spill it.

Again he sighed and plonk-plonked his way upstairs. He wore his fatigue like a heavy vest, taking slow and deliberate steps. He kicked off his over-sized shoes, cracked his toes and wandered to the fridge. He passed by his prize money – the bag he'd heaped on the table leaned to one side as if it too was nodding off. Another year he didn't have to worry about work. He settled on a bowl of cold cereal and cow's milk. As he sat at the wet bar, he admired the lifeline. Such strange things. He looked at the two remaining clear faces. The quite terrifying bipedal tiger in robes and a wide-brimmed hat and the tan-skinned man with friendly blue eyes and heavy armor.

A knock at the door.

Instinctively, Pierrot hid. He didn't answer doors, especially when they made knocking noises.

Another knock, not accusing – but desperate and frantic. Pierrot lurched forward and stopped himself. Who could be at the door that could help him, that couldn't just let themselves in?

A final knocking. Slow, and evenly spaced. Pleading and apologetic. Pierrot intensely monitored his own breathing and closed his eyes, listening for footsteps walking away over his own jack-hammering heart.

His heartbeat and his breathing slowed, the pounding in his ears was replaced with...Pierrot ran upstairs and opened a window. His heart began pounding all over again. He knew that sound. Methodical, unionized, ominous, conniving.

The sound of boots marching toward him.

***

The four of them – Sinn, Aster, Capt. Snow and Adeline (who insisted on getting her ears looked at as well.) sat on Adalia's checkout counter. She moves between the four of them wordlessly and gave a small smile.

"Oh, this wasn't magical deafness, interesting." She noted.

"Magical deafness?" Patches asked.

"Yes, Aster is probably able to-"

"I CAN DO WHAT NOW?!" Aster shouted. Adalia calmly held up her index finger.

"Aster probably has a deafness or blindness spell in his spellbook, if I had to guess." Adalia continued.

"So can you fix their ear-holes?" Bon Qui-Qui asked. "Because I don' wanna hang out with Aster-Aster and Sinn if they're gonna be yelling at me all the time."

"Oh, of course. I've got some scrolls kicking around here that should fix them right up...so what's it like outside?"

"Uh..." Patches paused. Adalia stared at her blankly.

"Why are your friends here in my shop, deaf as posts, with a man who looks suspiciously like Captain Snow as if he's not eaten in months?"

Patches gulped audibly.