Eternity in a Pickle Jar

My friends, we have reached THE END, as hard as it is to believe. I love you all (Muda, Jynx, this one's for y'all), and your reviews have helped make (and hopefully will continue to make) this project my favorite of all the fanfiction I've ever written. There's a chapter after this one explaining all the little details of the story, for anyone with time to kill.

Here's hoping that I haven't completely pissed off The Man Upstairs with this one!

Much Love, Dezzy

I know you're gonna leave me in the morning
when you wake up
leave me with some kind of proof it's not a dream-

'Cause you are the only exception.

-Paramore

Familiar scene:

Light pouring in through the window, fabric pressed up against the curve of one cheek, ribs and skinny wrists against his back and across his waist. Awkward, in a larger social sense, but easy and—dare he think it—familiar. Comfortable. He could have stayed like that forever, suspended in time, and finally stumbled his way into that bliss that he had never managed to find in Heaven. He could have, except that something was missing.

He had been mistaken. There was no light pouring in.

And that was, well, odd. So Edgar cracked one eye open and nearly stunned himself back into the dream world. There was no light because there was no window, and the fabric under him was too soft, and that was because he was lying on sheets instead of couch upholstery, which meant…

He was in a bed.

Jimmy's bed.

And then his regrettably accurate memory kicked in with all the less than savory details.

Before he knew what he was doing, Edgar had actually thrown himself out of bed and onto the floor, nails scrabbling at the carpet in a desperate half-awake attempt at escape. Breath slammed in and out of him, and he'd moved way too fast because now his head was spinning and his vision was screwed up. Oh god, what the hell, had he really…

There was a rustle above him, and Jimmy peered over the edge of the mattress, eyes smudged with black kohl. The kid sighed and propped his chin up on one hand, a dull sort of peeved look slinking across his features.

"Don't s'pose you could wait another five minutes before you start freakin' out?"

Edgar looked at him. His mouth opened but no sound came out.

Jimmy frowned in sort of a wistful way. "Didn't think so."

It was then that Edgar realized he was really quite naked and snatched the rumpled sheet down off Jimmy's bed, cinching it around his chest like a man dying of hypothermia. Jesus Christ, he was naked in Jimmy's presence and Jimmy had seen him naked and he wasn't wearing any clothes and neither was Jimmy and oh god he was naked.

He glanced back up, and the teen was still looking at him with this stiff expression. Nothing held still in his head, thoughts were spinning around and around, flashes of memory and this pit of guilt and humiliation threatened to swallow him up.

"Oh my god," he groaned, pulling his bare knees up to his forehead. "I fucked a teenager. I—" made embarrassing noises and I came in every available orifice and I let him see me naked and what the hell was I thinking, I would have been excommunicated for this…

"I'm fucking nineteen!" Jimmy shouted, indignant. "I'm not some helpless altar boy, you asshole."

"I fucked a teenager," Edgar repeated, mouth going dry. I let him… God, what was I thinking? He's Jimmy and I'm Edgar and it was never supposed to go this far! I can't… I can't get hurt anymore…

"Fuck you're bad at this morning-after thing," Jimmy sighed, and added something about coffee that Edgar hardly heard.

"I—You—" the older man had another awful thought. "Oh my god, do you have any diseases? Do I have any diseases? Can dead people even get diseases? Christ, I bet I've got Underworld VD now, that's just my goddamn luck. Was I even allowed to have sex? Oh god, oh, fuck—"

Edgar looked up at him, feeling the panic splash through his buzzing head. Beneath it laid a dark landscape of real fear—inexpressible terror at the prospect of pain, the look in a rabbit's eye right before the fox swoops in. All the old angles burst into sharp contrast. Everything looked different in the morning light.

You're Jimmy and I'm Edgar and this wasn't supposed to happen, this wasn't supposed to—

"What was I thinking?" he groaned, hardly hearing his own voice. His thoughts went around and around and around, creating a wall against reality, trapping him in his own accusations. Memories became reproaches became lists of all the different things he'd done wrong, building steadily on top of each other, every mistake and every possible consequence and—

"Fuck you," his opposite growled, so venomous that it sliced through even the buzz of horror in Edgar's head. "Fuck you. I can't watch this!"

Jimmy stood up—black baggy pants hung off his hips, he must have thrown them on after Edgar passed out last night—stalked to the bedroom door and flung it open, the tarnished knob cracking plaster as it slammed into the wall.

"There! Just leave then!" he shouted, pointing with a shaking hand. "Door's open, nobody's keepin' you here!"

Edgar stared at the boy, uncomprehending. Please don't let this be what he thinks this is. "…You… want me to leave?"

"Why's it matter what I want?" Jimmy demanded, fists clenched and arms stiff against his sides. "You obviously can't take this shit anymore. Who am I to hold you down? Get out of here, before I tie you to the bed after all."

"But I…"

"What?" the younger man shouted. "Look, I'm tryin' to do the right thing here! If you got something to say, fuckin' say it now or get out."

Now, that was offensive. Indignation shook some sense back into the older man, and he frowned. "Well first of all, there may still be a mob of crazed citizen out there who think I'm an accessory to murder."

Jimmy started to retort and caught himself on the first syllable, mouth open. "…oh."

"Yeah. And second of all," the older man went on, "I don't want to leave. What, can't a guy have a nervous breakdown in the safety of his friend's apartment without getting tossed out on his ear?"

"You... Friend? But I…" the teen trailed off, squinting and painfully baffled. "…you… You want to stay?"

"Well it's not like leaving would help anything. I tried that once before, you might remember," Edgar pointed out, twisting the sheets with tense hands. "Just give me a minute, okay? I'm dealing with a metric ton of guilt here, not to mention how embarrassing this all is. I'm naked for god's sake!"

And I'm scared, he thought, but you don't need to know that right now.

Jimmy looked at him, as if he was just noticing their situation for the first time. Edgar glanced down at the sheet around his middle and sighed. He didn't blame the kid, really. He hardly understood his own head—how can you be so sure that you want to stay even while you're wishing you could crawl into a hole and die again? The war in his skull was giving him the beginnings of a headache where the cannons of angst battered against his gray matter.

"Why'd you do it?" Jimmy asked him, now, quietly. "If you were just gonna freak out like this, why'd you do it?"

And even though he'd been asking himself basically the same question since he woke up, only then did Edgar stop and try to answer it rationally. Obviously, this had seemed like a good idea at the time. It must have. But why?

(No more running.)

Edgar turned his head and sighed. That's what he was doing—he was still running, even now. Trying to escape himself and Jimmy and all the things in both their pasts. Trying to pretend like he was happy with the way things had always been. He was running.

And just like he had been last night, he found that he was tired of it.

"Because…" he murmured, looking back up at his friend, "because I love you, I guess. And I was sick of pretending like it didn't matter."

"You love me," the teen echoed, a note of disbelief in his tired voice. "What about that massive meltdown you had five seconds ago? You sure you still love me?"

Oh yes, that's flattering. From his place on the ground, the older man shot him a disapproving look. "Of course I still love you. What, you didn't think some crisis of conscience was going to change that, did you?"

"Uh… well, yeah. I mean, you been putting me off for so long an' I figured, y'know, one day it was going to snap—it had to happen, sooner or later. Figured I might not see you again, after that."

What, like I'd just walk out on you after everything we've been through?

Edgar looked hard at him and realized that yes, he really had thought so. Jimmy had gone to sleep last night truly believing that it would be their last night together—that he would be alone come the morning. Maybe he would wake up in an empty bed, maybe they'd scream and shout and the door would slam behind him, maybe there would be tears and blame and Jimmy would accept it all without flinching. That's what he'd thought. That's what he'd expected.

The boy's pessimism never ceased to astound. Did Edgar really seem so fickle? Did he seem so guilt-prone? Or was it just that any fool could see how tightly he was wrapped around his own core of hurt, even when he hardly realized it himself?

"Then my question," he said, "is why you did it, if you thought I was just going to run away afterwards. That doesn't make any sense. I know you like having me around, it's not like you're dying to have the house to yourself."

A visible struggle flashed behind the younger man's eyes. Edgar wondered how much he would say, whether he'd say anything at all. Jimmy closed the door, quietly.

"I wanted proof that you… proof that you really wanted me, I guess," he answered at last, without really turning back. His nails dug into pale flesh. "I wanted to show you, wanted to… Just, needed to. I kept dreamin' about it, all the time, an' I'd wake up an' there wasn't a goddamn person in the room."

Edgar closed his eyes. "Why don't we ever talk these things through before we go and do something stupid?"

"Kills the romance," his companion replied, as if it was obvious.

Jimmy came back to him and lay down, exhausted. And they remained like that for a long time, where something seemed to linger in the silence—a word waiting to be said, perhaps, but Edgar was content to wait for it. He was tired of running, and it was pretty nice to finally lie there without making up excuses. All the rest could wait. Because honestly, he couldn't bring himself to regret any of it—Death, meeting Jimmy, the series of unfortunate events that had once made up his life—when they had all put him here, on the floor of a dingy apartment with Jimmy beside him, and that was all he really wanted out of the universe anyway.

"The really amazin' part," the teen muttered into his collar bone, "is how you know so much about me, an' you still wanna hang around. I don't get it. I'll never get it. You don't make any sense. I keep thinkin' I got you pinned, this time I got it figured out, an' then you go an' trounce all over the nearest thing to logic I got."

"You'll figure it out eventually. I have faith in your deductive abilities."

Which was code for "I'm still not leaving you, nitwit."

And he was pretty sure the kid understood him.

"Y'know," Jimmy drawled, after a long moment, "you totally passed out after the big finish. I must be fuckin' fantastic."

And there went the mood. Edgar cringed. "Er. I don't want to talk about this."

As if that line of reasoning had ever stopped the kid before.

"Oh no, you're not gettin' out of this so easily. Tell you what ain't fair—I pour out my guts an' you won't even tell me why I was the only one awake when the lights went out. How's that for hypocrisy?"

Or how's this for hypocrisy? You wouldn't need to pour your guts out in the first place if you'd just learned to trust me properly a month ago.

But Jesus, he just slept with the kid. It wasn't like he had anything left to hide.

"It's sort of… embarrassing," he started, focusing carefully on the fascinating cracks of the ceiling. "The first time I… ah… I made love, I passed out right after I… yeah… and I ended up sprawled all over the poor girl. You know, at that college party. She had to push me off the bed. I thought I was just drunk and that was the problem, but it happened the next time too, and the next time after that. And, um, last night. Well, last night was probably faster than usual. So… sorry."

Jimmy stared at him like he was a three-headed alien in a side-show exhibit. "You're kiddin' me."

"It's actually not quite as unusual as you think! In fact—"

"Yeah yeah yeah, you're weird an' I'm not surprised. Shut up an' make me breakfast."

Edgar looked up at him, incredulous. "So that's how it's going to be, is it? I make love to you and you show your gratitude by sending me to the kitchen?"

"Tell you what: make me waffles an' we can play teacher next time."

"And you think that's a convincing argument?"

-0-

Edgar was cleaning up the waffle mix and associated pots and pans when Jimmy announced that he was going outside to take a look at the situation on the streets.

"An' before you ask, yeah, I'm good to walk. Pretty used to this scenario by now—well, y'know, minus the angry mobs an' the breakfast."

"Which I shouldn't have made for you," Edgar grumbled, more or less good naturedly. "But in all seriousness, I think this is a terrible idea. Let me go instead."

"Not a chance. You try an' go out there, I'll ductape you to the couch. Those streets're no place for a reasonable guy, head-explodin' powers or not."

"But if something awful happens to you, how am I supposed to know? What am I supposed to do?"

"This is Hell," Jimmy replied, grabbing his knife off the kitchen counter. "What's the worst that can happen?"

And so Edgar spent the next indeterminable amount of time alone in the apartment, drinking that last bottle of vodka left over from a few nights before. The worst that could happen, he decided, involved a lot of fire and a handful of nails, and a crowd of very angry citizens.

Which was not even going into all the other not-quite-as-bad-but-still-pretty-fucking-bad scenarios.

If you want something bad enough, you have to put yourself out on the line. You have to be willing to risk something. That was the point, the point of last night and the point of everything, really. Things can go wrong a hundred different ways—maybe it's your fault, maybe it's just bad luck. But when you reach over the fire, that's where you get hurt. That's where you get burned. And now Edgar had his hand back above the flames, catching smoke in the creases of his palms, because his stupid teenage partner suddenly decided to take responsibility for his problems. Because he'd suddenly decided that something was worth more than his own goddamn well-being.

"You're supposed to be a coward…" Edgar mumbled to the empty room, downing another mouthful of foul liquid. It tasted bad, but the alcohol calmed his nerves—proving once more that he had some issues of his own.

When did his worse half turn into such a god-forsaken martyr? What happened to the kid who escaped through the window while Edgar was outside trying to bargain with his pursuers? What happened to the kid who hid in the dressing room while his friends fought their way out of a strip bar? What happened to Mr. Don't Give a Shit about Nobody?

Edgar drank some more.

"I'm not a hero," he continued, confiding in the air. "I let a student die, and I let people walk all over me for years, and I wasn't brave enough to fall in love until somebody shoved me into it, but…"

He glanced back at the bedroom, considering what it had always represented and the battle with himself that it had hosted only hours ago, and he remembered Bondye's talk of symbols and layers. His hands were burning, slowly but surely, and he couldn't bring himself to draw them out now.

"—But I'd do anything to keep him safe. I'd do anything to save him."

The room had nothing to reply, and the silence flowed on.

-0-

Jimmy stumbled back in some time later, closing the door and sliding down onto the dingy carpet, a mass of weary resignation. He'd never bothered to spike his hair that morning, so the black chunks hung limply over his eyes like a curtain.

"'S not good outside."

Edgar—essentially drunk, by now, but attentive—motioned for him to explain and silently thanked God for his return (because typically useless or not, Somebody Up There had just done him a massive favor).

Apparently, with a coat he'd stolen from a retail store and his disconcertingly chaotic hair, Jimmy had been able to slink into town with hardly a second look—the streets had been more or less empty anyways. He'd thought it strange but kept going, keeping to the side streets and listening out for sounds of civilization—or what passed for it around here. Deep into the heart of the city, Jimmy caught the first vibrations of the coming earthquake: the sound of countless far away voices talking over each other, layer on layer of them melded into one discordant rumble.

Bad sign.

He had slunk closer, slipping into alley ways as particular voices began to detach themselves from the mass. Just around the edge of the Wall-to-Wallmart, a sea of faces had gathered in a frenzied knot around a makeshift stage. Jimmy kept to the edge if the building, creeping towards the core of the mob for a better look at it. A figure stood in the far corner, speaking to someone one on the ground—Jimmy craned for a better look. He heard snatches of conversation around him, clips of demagoguery with the distinct sound of quotation. The man on the stage?

Someone nearby had hissed about a faggot, and someone farther away spat about a fascist.

The man on the stage stood up, adjusted his tie, and walked to the center of the platform. The crowd cheered. He grinned like a shark, looking out into the adoring mass, and in an instant, Jimmy recognized him.

"Cory," the teen announced, now, spitting the name like a curse.

"Cory who?" Edgar asked, nonplussed. "Do I know him?"

"Use your head Edgar. The guy from the Second Circle? The one who threatened to date rape you?"

Edgar snapped his fingers. "You mean the one you punched."

"Uh… sure. If that's what you remember."

What Edgar remembered was not as much the skeezy jerk as the fit of rage that had overtaken his friend for a few frightening seconds- wild eyes and flying fists- and Jimmy, for some reason, wanting to protect him. Not understanding why, but shaken somewhere deep down in his core by it. Had things begun to change even that long ago?

"So he's been shaking the city up into a riot while we were sleeping. Does he hate you or what?"

Jimmy thumped his head back into the door, as if that would fix things somehow. "I musta really pissed him off. An' here I thought I got away with it too. Man, I am so fucked—he's a born politician, the guy could convince communists to re-elect Regan. He knows I'm not Johnny, he knows. An' he doesn't give a shit. "

"So." Edgar corked the vodka, feeling suddenly and entirely sober. "What now?"

Jimmy said nothing for a long moment, staring up at the ceiling through his disheveled hair. Outside the window, the white sky turned gray—something was burning downtown. God, the people in this city couldn't be trusted with a simple bonfire.

"Now," Jimmy said, at last, "I ditch this place once an' for all. Pick up my shit an' leave while I still can."

"And go… where?"

"Dunno. Somewhere. Figure I'll start walking west an' see where it takes me… Company can't get any worse, right? Maybe they'll have some goddamn Italian food, wherever I end up. No big deal. I've done it before."

Edgar squinted at him. "You're just going to walk off to God-knows-where without a map or so much as a clue where you're headed? Really? That's your plan?"

Jimmy gave a half-hearted laugh. "Yeah, pretty-fucking-much."

"Alright then," Edgar replied, grim. "I'm coming with you."

"What?" The teen sat up, startled. "But, Edgar man, you love this city! Look, once I'm gone it'll all blow over in a week an' they won't remember you even existed. All you have to do is lay low, alright? Wait it out. They got the collective attention span of a retarded rodent anyways."

"I'm coming with you, Jimmy."

The teen pressed his palm against his forehead, dragging at the lines of stress. "Look, I'm tired of fuckin' up your unlife, alright? You've already done way too much for me. I'll be fine. You're always talkin' about how much you love the city an' shit, an' I can't take that away from you, too. It's the last thing you got."

Edgar grabbed his hand and pulled it down between them. In a snapshot second, everything was clear.

"Look at me."

Jimmy looked up.

"I don't give a damn about the city, okay? I haven't given up anything I wasn't willing to give up, and I don't regret any of this. You're not asking? That's alright. I'm going whether you like it or not. Besides," he added, "it wouldn't be any fun around here without you."

Jimmy looked at him, trying to scowl but not having much success. A grin broke though, and he sighed. "…Just when I think I got you pinned…"

Edgar grinned. "—You realize what a good-for-nothing pessimist you are."

-0-

They had a bag each, with spare clothes and Jimmy's host of weapons wrapped up inside. As they packed, he had told Edgar about how he used to make his own and how he always thought that's what he'd be doing for the rest of his life, until Johnny came along. Now they crept through the hidden streets of Hades, listening out for the tell-tale signs of rioting. They had been moving west for a while now, measuring their progress in blocks rather than uncountable minutes. The edge of the inhabited city was only a few streets ahead, and after that the pavement ran on into a place where all the roads were named Lethe and all the windows were empty but for dust.

Between here and there lay the hulking mass of the Lows.

Edgar reached forward and grabbed his friend's shoulder, nodding towards the great gray monolith. "I need to say goodbye. You coming?"

Jimmy looked a little apprehensive. "I dunno. I don't really get him like you do. Feel kinda left out."

"Nonsense, you just need to put some effort in."

They made their way up to the doors, ducked inside and entered the maze; everything remained as it had been, from the fizzling fluorescent lights to the endless turns. This time, though, the labyrinth seemed to open up in front of them, twists and turns as obvious as a well marked street, drawing them deep into the center. Edgar eyed the well-lit fork in the road as they passed, seeing for the first time that its deceptively safe path led to nowhere, dead-ending somewhere almost out of sight.

They walked on.

The Help Desk sign came into view with one last turn, its little taped up print-out reading "All questions welcome, few answers". Edgar smiled at that.

"Hello? Bondye?"

A cowboy hat appeared over a stack of paper behind the circular desk, followed by a blinking brown face.

"I wasn' sleeping, if that's what you think."

"Um, sure." Edgar decided not to point out the ink smudge on Bondye's cheek, which looked to be "REQUEST" imprinted backwards.

"What can I do for you two today?" the Haitian asked, stretching discreetly. "Tout kesyon yo byen akeyi—All questions welcome."

Edgar shook his head. "No questions today, I'm afraid. As a matter of fact, I came to say goodbye—we're skipping town, you might say."

"People 'round here decided they didn't like my face much," Jimmy added, walking past the older men to examine the wall of weapons behind them.

Bondye smiled secretly at the younger man's back, as if he knew something that Jimmy had yet to find out—or perhaps he was just pleased to hear the boy speaking. Either way, a wall of sharp objects was beckoning for Jimmy's attention, leaving Edgar and the strange man alone for all intents and purposes.

"You're leaving, then," Bondye said, turning back to him, "with no intent to return. Isn't this your city, Msye Vargas? Isn't this the first place you felt at home in a long time?"

Since my mother died, the lighter man filled in silently. Aloud: "You know, I had a dream about you."

The Haitian's eyes glittered. "Oh ho?"

"You asked me if a home was a house. I didn't really get it at the time, but I think now I understand where that was pointing me. See—you don't mind listening do you? It helps to talk about things, I'm finding out lately."

"Of course not," Bondye replied, graciously, pulling out a spare seat and brushing off its layer of forms. "I did ask after all."

"Well, then," Edgar said, taking a seat. "The point sort of hit me just today, actually. See, I always talk about Hell like it's this wonderful exciting place—but, honestly, it freaked me out when I first got here. I don't remember being nearly this happy the first couple —er, let's call them months. People annoyed me and the only reason I stuck around was that Heaven was duller than dirt. And a few months ago, I went through a spell where every little thing about this town pissed me off. I didn't get it; is the city great or isn't it? I couldn't figure out what the difference was."

"And your answer?"

Edgar looked down at his hands. "Every time I was depressed, I was alone. Hell sucked when I was here by myself—even the bit recently when everything pissed me off, that was when I decided not to talk to Jimmy anymore. He's what makes the afterlife fun, you know? Otherwise it's just… existing."

"Lakay se yon moun," the Haitian smiled, "home is a person."

"Yes! That's it exactly."

Bondye laughed, the sound deep and reverberating. "So simple, wi? And that, that's why you're going with him?"

"Well… yes." Edgar looked back to where him companion was examining the edge on a machete, which he now knew was the interest of a craftsman rather than sheer morbidity. "I, ah, really care about him too. I couldn't let him go running off into terra incognita without someone to watch his back. He says he can take care of himself—" Edgar looked back again, fondly, "—but he'd end up in a death match with Cerberus if I wasn't there to drag him away."

Not to mention all the other things that one man just can't face alone, idiotic teenager or not.

"So then. What have you learned, here in the underworld?"

Edgar looked up, surprised. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Your lesson," Bondye repeated, whipping out an apple with all the seamless grace of a magician. "I told you that everyone in Hell comes here for a reason. Everything is lessons, Msye Vargas. You came to Hell for a reason, to learn something you never figured out in life. What was it?"

Edgar sat back and considered that. He'd taught a lesson or two, had a few epiphanies—but what had he taken away from all this, really? Underneath everything else, the misadventures and the drama and the comedy, what had been waiting for him to uncover it? He wasn't arrogant enough to believe that he had nothing left to learn, not any more. Human reason can only take you so far, and then...

He looked up. He smiled.

"'Though I have prophetic powers'," he recited, "'and understand all mysteries and have all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love- I am nothing'."

"Disipl Paul!" the darker man laughed, slapping his hands together delightedly. "A very good choice, Msye Vargas. A very good choice indeed."

Edgar smiled, turning the quotation back over in his head. He might have just as easily said that no man is an island, after all. But somehow, Corinthians seemed more fitting.

"Now," Bondye said, "you and your friend go on your way, into the great Unknown for a second time. I've heard it's easier when you can go in company—but then, that's the one thing I've never been able to test for myself. I would wish you all luck in Peyi a Konnen, the lands which exist beyond the edge of the world. If it's not too much to say… you are one of the things that gives me hope for mankind."

Edgar looked away, unexpectedly humbled. "Thanks, Bondye. Do you… know what's out there? Where we're headed?"

The Haitian winked, leaning back in his chair—somewhere in the middle of all that, he'd whittled his apple away to a core. "Now, 'headed' implies a destination. And a destination implies and end. And when you think about it, nothing really ends, does it?"

"Always riddles," Edgar sighed. "Where are those answers now?"

"Pa genyen!" the mysterious man laughed, and the apple disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived. "There aren't any!"

Edgar smiled despite himself and stood, tucked the chair back in. He called Jimmy from where the younger man was testing one blade's edge, maded sure he didn't try to pocket it on the way out. The chapter was closing behind them, just as surely as a certain man named Cory was going to be very disappointed in the coming days. Edgar grinned again, and turned back to his mystifying friend.

"Thanks for all the help," he said, offering an empty hand. "I hope you get out of Hell soon."

Bondye shook the proffered hand, the secret smile returning. "You are always welcome, but this is just my local office. I stick around here for people like you, Msye Vargas."

"Hey," Jimmy called from the exit, "are we going or what? I'm about ready to blow this popsicle stand."

The older man turned around to frown at him him. "Just hold on, okay? I'm trying to—"

He looked back.

He was alone.

No Bondye.

Not even a hat.

"Jimmy, please tell me you saw that," he hissed, dashing towards the exit. "He was just here! I saw him! Where'd he go?"

The teen shrugged. "Hell if I know. C'mon, let's hit the road already."

Edgar looked helplessly back at the Help Desk, searching the white stacks of paperwork for brown skin. The enclave sat empty, as if it had never been manned, and spare papers fluttered across the gray tile like little ghosts.

"I can't believe that," he muttered, as they made their way back into the labyrinth. "Just when I had this place figured out…"

Jimmy slapped his back, grinning. "—you figure out you don't know shit. Yeah. Welcome to the club."

They walked in silence for a while, tracing the maze's contours back as easily as the lines of their palms. They passed the place where the rat people lay hibernating, passed the fork in the road, winding back towards the opening where they had secured that first piece of string.

"Hey Jimmy," the older man spoke up, at last. "Do you think you learned a lesson from all of this?"

"A lesson?" The exile gave him a funny look. "Well. Figure I did learn a thing or two, all in all."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. For one thing," he shrugged, "maybe life isn't fair, but it's got a funny way of working itself out in the end."

Edgar looked down at the bag in his hand, stuffed with his four outfits and three of Jimmy's knives. Maybe everybody paid for the things they did in different ways, and maybe the Catholics of his childhood had been right when they taught little Edgar that anyone can be saved—anyone can be absolved. He didn't know. But he did know—he was pretty sure at least—that there were three things everyone got, one way or another. And he was no exception.

Outside the sky was white, and the road stretched on into the distance. He looked ahead at the crossroad where a sign post stood, whose northern arrow read "Lethe", and whose Western arrow read "Lethe" also.

Jimmy took his hand and grinned, a promise and a confession all in one. There was no point in thanks, now—no point in apologies. Peyi a Konnen awaited.

It was time for them to go.

-0-

Somewhere in the universe, you could hear a pocket full of change jingling.

Following it back through the nebulae, through bright planets and dark curves of empty space, through constellations of philosophy and the strange angles of Imaginary Realities, you might find yourself in a corner of creation, a little bistro at the end of the universe. The sign at the door says "Now seating all", and the hostess smiles at you as if she knows you well and she's glad to see you back again. There is a table in the back, a private little spot where the light is dimmer and the tabletop is worn to smoothness.

A dark skinned man waits on the left side of the booth, looking over the menu with the eye of someone who knows each line by heart but never tires of the reading. He smiles to himself, because he is patient.

The jingling comes from the pocket of a young, lawyerly gentleman. He strides across the room, sidestepping tables and patrons who seem to fade in and out. He scowls, because he is not patient and now he's late too.

"Bondye," the lawyerly gentleman acknowledges.

"Dyab," the Haitian greets him in kind.

The light man slides into the waiting booth. The dark man nods indulgently.

"I know I'm late," the newcomer sighs. "There was this tour bus full of politicians that went over the edge of the Grand Canyon, and we had some trouble making room for all of them on such little notice. I'm not omnipotent, unlike some people."

"And if you were," the first replies, "you'd understand that it's a bit more complicated than that."

"See, now you're just rubbing my face in it."

Bondye smiles and catches the waitress's eye, watching as she rushes off to fix their usuals. They know him here. Of course, they know him everywhere, but it's nice to be known on a personal level from time to time.

"So, about our bet…" Bondye starts, turning back to his companion. "I believe I win once more."

"Yes, fine fine. I admit, I underestimated your man." Dyab pauses. "He's still a fool, though."

"Fools make fine heroes," the darker one remarks. "Smart men have a tendency to think with their synapses, rather than their minds."

Dyab grunts. There is a wavering around him, a fading at the outlines, not so much a transforming as a revealing. Perhaps to you, there would be a hint of curling horns, or aged feathers just behind the shoulders. Perhaps there would only be a tired creature who has spent far too long locked in endless arguments. Either way, you would not be wrong.

"I don't see why you still insist on these bets," Bondye muses, "when you know I never lose."

"I was this close with Job, I tell you," Dyab insists for the thousandth time. "This close. One of these millennia, I'm going to prove you wrong."

"No you're not," Bondye says, with the sort of gentle amusement that comes from absolute confidence.

Dyab looks irked. "You made a mistake with humanity, just mark my words. One of these days you'll see I had the right of it."

A companionable silence settles over the table, and Dyab grudgingly admits to himself that he does look forward to these meetings, and he'd certainly rather be here than back at headquarters—perhaps ruling in Hell is better than serving in Heaven, but it's a lot more headaches and even more paperwork still. And if anyone in the universe would understand that, it's Bondye.

There was really only one thing Bondye never understood.

The darker one is smiling, still, ineffable and silent. There is a fading at his edges as well, but then, that's always been there. Perhaps on examining him closely, you might find that your mind turns back to visions of marionettes you saw in childhood, or holographic cards whose images change with the angle, or to a puzzle box with infinite dimensions tucked carefully inside. Or perhaps you would see only a mysterious Haitian. None of these are wrong.

Many things are true. Bondye is just another name, another face, for something nameless and faceless. Just like those holographic cards, it changes shape depending on how you look at it; unlike them, it changes shape depending on how it looks at you. Even Dyab himself doesn't fully understand, though he's been here from the beginning, seen all the mysteries first hand.

"Where do you think they'll end up?" Dyab, the age old Adversary, asks at last.

"Oh," Bondye answers, "back at the beginning, I expect. That's usually how things end, wouldn't you say?"

"If you want to get technical," Dyab scowls. The expression softens after a moment. "I suppose they'll be happy, wherever they wind up."

A bottle of wine sits between them, surprised to find itself suddenly on a table in a corner of a restaurant at the edge of the universe. Bondye pours them both a glass, the ineffable smile drawing all things into its gravitation.

"A toast," the mysterious one suggests, "to old beginnings and new endings. May you never know what's coming next."

"Quite," the cynical one replies.

In the dim corner of a restaurant at the edge of the universe, God and Satan clink glasses—and somewhere in the wide expanse of the creation, a sun bursts into life.

END