"It didn't hurt at all," Jack broached the silence as he sat in the couch with his mother hugging him.
"What do you mean?" she asked after checking him up for the umpteenth time to see if he was really okay.
"The cold. Of the lake. When I fell down? It didn't feel cold at all. It felt.., nice. Like a hug settling deep in my bones," He tries his best to explain to his dear mother what the lake water made him feel. "I actually made me feel better. I could've sworn I sprained my shoulder before I fell into the water... But when the paramedics checked me they said I was perfectly fine..."
His mother met his eyes, frowning seriously as she tried to look for something in his gaze. She must've found what she was looking for because moments later she simply sighed and drew back, eyes softening. "Alright. I guess it is time I told you, isn't it?"
"You aren't human Sean. At least not entirely." While he wasn't expecting that response it simply, clicked. It felt right. It was something he knew all this time at the back of his mind that he never realized or noticed until his mother spoke the words. It explained why he was detached, at best. Why he was distant and cold in many ways possible.
"Then what am I?" He asks instead. There is no denial. No confusion. Nothing but the cold purr in his chest that preens at being different from the pale spirits that walked around him.
"A nephelim." His mother whispered gently, running her fingers through his hair gently, looking at him with pride and adoration. "You are half angel, my Sean. Your father was the pale horseman himself. The Angel of Death." As she said those words cold settled in the pit of his belly. A shadow of apprehension that isn't his.
It felt like a hum of understanding. Of acceptance and finality. Of fear and apprehension settling before ultimately fading into nothing. Like a very dark, hungry abyss at the pit of his stomach that a part of him embraces yet a part of him fears. It was a deep relieved breath that tasted vaguely of musk and old tomes and freedom. It felt true in every sense of the word.
"Sean?"
He is brought back to reality by the tentative words of his mother and he realizes that frost has settled where his fingers were sitting moments ago. The room felt darker all of a sudden, the fireplace spluttering and the cacti sitting on the coffee table had shriveled up and wilted. It made everything all the more real all of a sudden and he felt every bit as overwhelmed as he is accepting of it.
"I.. I can't even.. deny it. I feel it in my bones, who I am. What I am. But.. I.. I can't... I.." He feels the room swirling. He feels darkness closing in at the edges of his vision and he hears his mother's panicked voice calling his name as he fainted.
He is not at all expecting where he comes to. It isn't in his room in their appartment, or on the couch where he had passed out either. Instead he found himself standing on stark white ground, facing a giant botomless pit before him. The sky was stark red above with sharp black clouds against it and Jack wondered if he was dreaming.
"You aren't." He quickly spun around to find a tall man behind him. In his haste to turn however he sliped and nearly fell down to the emptiness behind him.
His breath rushes out of his chest as cold fear he has never felt before settles down the pit of his stomach. He feels hands grabing him, tugging at his arms and chest, pulliny him deeper and deeper into the dark hunger behind him. A scream builds in his throat but all of a sudden he can breathe. The weight in his chest is gone and the arms all retreat back into the abyss they came from. It takes awhile before he realizes that it was the tall stranger who had saved him. The man had grabbed his flailing hands and pulled him back up off the edge of the pit.
The man steadies him,and while he may look impassive there is a softness in his eyes. "Oh Anti, what do I do with you."
The name the man calls him is wrong. But it doesn't feel like it. His instincts purr at the soft tone the man uses,responding to the name he has never used but knows to the very depths of his being is his. He realizes who exactly is standing before him in that moment.
"Pa." He said, smiling instinctively in the face of Death. He feels something within him shift, and his very being stutters in and out of reality, flitting between life in death in what looks almost like glitching. Slowly he shifts into something else. Something new but still himself.
His complexion pales, sharplyy contrasting the way his hair darkened. His ears elongate and his fangs and ears sharpen. His eyes twinged, brightening into a bright blue and all of a sudden he sees clearly. He feels so much more clearly now too. As if the murk of being human is gone.
"Hello Anti. I see your mother has told you everything." Death's voice is light, almost wispy. Fond but distant and Sean.., Anti, regards how he looks. He is tall yet wiry, their builds very much similar, with pale white skin and empty void eyes. He is in a business suit, well taylored and form fitting, and as black as Death's eyes. Green fire burns the top of his hair like glowing highlights and his shoulders would randomly catch fire before fizzling out.
Sean slowly approached before he hugged Death gently, feeling the fire on his fathers shoulders and realizing it was cold as ice instead, sinking into his core and calming him the way nothing else does. The fire sinks into him and all of a sudden he feels none of the lethargy from the long day. He is ready to jump around and work and talk and he pulls back to grin at his father, bouncing at the balls of his feet.
The man simply huffs in amusement, petting his hair. "Sean. Anti. My firstborn. You have grown well."
Anti preens, grinning. "I take after you, Pa! Of course I'll grow well!"
Death chuckles at that, pulling green fire into his hands before laying it on Sean's right temple. It feels cold as it seeped into his eyes. "Don't think I've forgotten, child. You have almost died today." He scolds Anti who pouts childishly but keeps his eyes closed as the fire still seeps into it. "But it has allowed me to visit you and for that I am thankful."
I'm sorry Pa. I wasn't paying enough attention," Sean mumbles. "I'm glad I got to meet you though."
"I shall be around, Anti. Now that you understand who you are and who I am it will be much easier for me to visit. I have always kept an eye on you, you know that." It made him beam at his father who has finally let go of his temple. It takes a couple of moments for Anti's eyes to adjust but when it does he notices that his right eye's vision flickers.
"This is my gift to you, so that we may never meet this way again," Death explains. "You have always had an instinctive grasp on the emotions of the people around you, yes? Well, this allows you to condense that. That ability of yours, as with all your other abilities will grow as you age, Sean. You will learn how to use these abilities in time. This right eye of yours however, is a bit of a cheat. I've essentially matured it first, maturing your abilities within it. Through this you can do more than simply glimpse at the feelings of the people around you. This instead gives you glimpses of their soul. Be mindful of when you use it though, Anti. Your eye will shift form as you harness this ability."
"Pa, thank you." Anti mumbles softly and Death smiles at him again.
"Go on now, Anti. Return to your body. Your mother will start worrying soon. Go now, and remember. You are my son. The Child of Death."
An: Woot! So here it is. Son of death himself. Sean's a half angel here. I wanted to write a fic where, Anti was a part of Jack. Anti is Jack. And Jack is Anti. And they're one and the same but not quite. I'll explain it later on a different chapter.Enjoyed it? Leave a comment?Please???