Virgil and his father walk along the mouth of the ocean, barefoot. Virgil had left his shoes where they were sitting, and his father didn't seem to have had any to begin with. The sand is soft underfoot and doesn't get caught between Virgil's toes, somehow. Their strides are slow and sauntering, unrushed. With the ever-glowing sun-coloured sky, time can only be stagnant.

"Do you remember what happened before you got here?" Patton asks, eventually.

"I don't know." Virgil tries to think back, to push through the deafening static. But it hurts, swelling up like a sprained ankle and searing like a burn. He groans, and he puts his hand against his aching head. "I don't think so."

His father nods. "That's probably for the best."

They eventually arrive at a small cluster of palm trees. Bark with bracelets and rings, and leaves with fingers that stretch outward, but cast no shadow. There is no darkness here. From the trees hang fruit that appear to be something akin to coconuts, with a hard shell and a pear-like shape.

"Oh, look at these!" Patton picks up one of the fruits that lays fallen at the bottom of a tree. He holds it up to his nose for a moment. "They smell amazing."

And they do. They smell like a spice cupboard. It specifically reminds Virgil of the one at his old house. His parents used to have an extensive collection of spices that they'd brought back from travelling all over the world. Tunisian harissa, French fines herbes, Indian chaat masala. His fathers used to cook together, and the kitchen was always rich with the smell of the spices by the time that Virgil got home from school. 

"Do you think they're edible?" Virgil motions to the fruit in Patton's hand.

"Only one way to find out, right?" The coy grin on his father's face makes Virgil realize just how different he looks like this. Young and bright-eyed, the way that he does in the pictures that his husband took of him back in university. Virgil used to spend hours pouring over the photographs of the two of them, dancing and in love, from the albums in his father's study. The ones of them from before Patton knew how to worry, and before his husband had hypertrophic burn scars over the left side of his face.

Virgil watches his father crack open the fruit on the trunk of the palm tree, and separate it into two uneven halves. He accepts one of them when Patton offers it to him, and sees that, like the coconut, the fruit is filled with a sort of milk.

"Here goes!" Patton takes a sip from the fruit. After a moment, his eyes light up and he hums appreciatively.

Virgil takes a careful taste. Then, he immediately drinks more. The flavour is something he can only describe like light cream and cinnamon, but that's not quite right. It's refreshing and subtly sweet with a cut of spice, just rich enough.

They continue their walk with fruit in hand, and Virgil yearns to touch his father. To know that he's there, really and truly, after so long of only seeing him in dreams. To make up for the years of his childhood that he'd spent without him, to be held by his dad who had been out of arm's reach for so long. But he can't bring himself to initiate, although he's sure Patton would gladly return the gesture. Because that would be too easy. This moment seems too perfect, and he knows that there's something that Patton isn't telling him. He's begun to piece it together already, because there's a very short list of reasons that he can think of for why he's here.

At first, he'd convinced himself that this was only another one of those dreams. Another paradise that will be lost once morning arrives. Then he'd have to return to his life of greyness. Where the shadows are everywhere, and his second father will have phoned him about a dozen times throughout the night, each time after he'd woken up after different but equally terrible nightmares, and Virgil will return none of them. Virgil himself doesn't get nightmares often, but he thinks that the good dreams are worse. Because they have to end, and it makes him resent waking.

"Life hasn't been the same without you, Dad," Virgil says.

He feels a heavy arm circle his shoulders, and suddenly Virgil wants to cry. "I know, kiddo."

"He doesn't cook anymore."

"Janus?"

Virgil nods. "He doesn't take pictures, either." He can't hide the hurt that slips into his tone. "He doesn't do anything that you guys did together."

Patton is quiet for a moment. "Well, everyone has their own way of grieving."

"But that's just it, though. Sometimes I wonder if he ever grieves at all. He just acts like you never existed."

"...Maybe that's less scary," Patton suggests.

Virgil just shakes his head. After Patton fell sick, it was like the life was drained from Janus alongside him. He became void of happiness and sadness alike, and what was left was just an empty husk of who he used to be. Now, he simply goes about his life like a robot, mechanical and uncaring. But, Virgil knows from the nightmares that Janus must feel something. He just chooses not to. He chooses to ignore the indent that Patton left in the world, in Virgil.

He isn't dreaming this time. Virgil is almost sure of it. This feels too vivid, too different than anything he's dreamed of before. He feels conscious, like he is aware and in control, whereas in dreams he's simply subject to the will of his mind.

"I wish I had a better explanation for you," Patton says. "But I haven't talked to Janus in... a long time."

Virgil notices that his father is looking at him with a solemn look on his face. It's almost mournful.

"What's wrong?"

Patton looks down into the bowl of his fruit. "It's just that I always planned on seeing your dad... before I saw you. I thought we'd get to talk and..." he trails off. "I always imagined we'd come get you together."

Virgil glances at his own fruit, but he doesn't want it anymore. He knows, then. He had thought it might be the case before, but he tried to push the thought from his mind, because it brought with it so many complicated feelings that he wasn't equipped to disentangle. But he knows it then.

"Dad." There are wasps in Virgil's stomach. In his head. They buzz like the static keeping him from the memories of how he got here. "Where are we going?"

His father's step falters. His mouth moves in a reply but Virgil can't make out the words over the buzzing. The wasps swarm down into his mouth and bite at his tongue. "Am I... dead?"

Patton's silence is answer enough.