(A/N: This chapter wasn't written so much as it was gouged out of the ether that it came from. I've come to realise that Clive is a hard character to write when he's not the main character. Phew. Chapter title is from an Alphaville song I was listening to when I wrote it. It kind of fit.)
Clive felt uneasy entering the house this way, by himself, especially when Gallows had wandered out of the place with an ashen face and a sort of constrained look in his eyes. Waiting that extra hour had been difficult. They all knew what was happening to Jet was painfully true, but being aware of it from a considerable distance and staring it right in the face were two very different things. It seemed like it was now his turn to accept reality for what it was. Clive was not fond of the idea.
His thick cowboy boots thumped against the wooden floor softly, but amazingly loud in the quiet room. The only other apparent noise was the crackle and splutter of burning wood and fire in the small circular hearth. Clive adjusted his glasses, a habit he was guilty of doing whenever he was anxious. He approached Jet's bed and stood by his bedside, looking down at the boy nervously. He appeared to be asleep, lying down on the bed. Wisps of hair were in the boy's face, so he gently brushed them aside. If Jet really was asleep, Clive felt no urge to wake him.
It actually reminded him a little of when Kaitlyn slept at night, because Jet had adopted a fairly similar sleeping position. He was lying on his back with one arm carelessly thrown upward, his hand half-curled in a weak grasping gesture, the backs of his knuckles brushing against where the headboard should be. It reminded Clive of just how young Jet was, and that was endearing to him, a little. How surrealistically horrible.
Jet opened his eyes just as Clive withdrew his hand. "Hey." The boy said softly, in greeting. An age ago he probably would have shot his hand up and broken the wrist of anybody who would dare to touch him in his sleep. It was the cold-hearted loner inside of him that would have done that, and Clive wondered if Jet had consciously noticed just how much he had changed on the inside, in his mind and soul. Although Jet was only a copy of a human being, he had grown just like the real thing.
"Hey yourself." Clive murmured, standing up straight again. "My apologies, did I wake you?" He watched Jet try and sit up without any aid, but with his balance permanently disturbed it was a fruitless gesture. Cursing softly, the drifter had to accept the hand of his old friend, allowing Clive's strength to help him sit up. The sniper put a hand on Jet's shoulder to steady him and then carefully placed the pillow behind his back to help prop him up. Jet didn't struggle against this probably unnecessary aid, he must have already become used to it from the other doctors that had tended to him.
"You're here, so I'm meant to be awake, so it's fine." Jet clarified sleepily, rubbing a little at his eyes. They were only very pale violet now, washed out and obscure. "There's no clock in here so I can't tell the time. I think they made it that way on purpose. Gallows told you to come?"
"Yes, he seemed quite disturbed." Said the other man, sitting down by the bed. Gallows must have sat here earlier and had listened to the things that had made him upset. It was a process that Clive had to go through as well. They all had to. If the sniper knew as much about Jet as he thought he did, then Jet was probably taking some kind of final satisfaction out of it as well. It felt like something Jet would do. Clive's voice took on a disapproving turn, the voice of a stern father. "Did you bully him?"
"I'd be more surprised if he wasn't disturbed, y'know? I didn't bully him. I asked him to bury me. Wouldn't that disturb you as well?" Jet turned his head and looked at his friend full in the face. He smiled at the shocked look he received.
The green-haired archaeologist was blinking at him like a bespectacled owl. "I daresay it would." He admitted defeatedly, exhaling after an unnaturally long time of not taking in breath. "Such duties like that are the very last ones that a friend would wish to do, but sadly, there are the most qualified people for the job. I am…" He cleared his throat. "I am glad you did not select me."
The dying drifter rubbed a little at the bandage on his arm, his fingers tender on the bruises beneath. Clive knew that the bruise had been deliberately made, through a course of repeated injections. One shot would not cause the flesh beneath to bleed, but several in the same place would easily do the trick. It looked like the surgical wound was bothering Jet to a small degree. If he had taken painkillers earlier, perhaps they were now wearing off. "No Clive." Jet interjected, shaking his head a little, almost looking at him coyly. "You win the second prize. It's not all my gella and it ain't a new pony, you're good with words, so you get to write what goes on my grave. My… uh, what's the word?"
Clive looked like he had taken a sickly turn. "Your epitaph." He sighed. "That is what it is called."
"Yeah, that thing. You do it."
His hand went up to grasp the frame of his glasses behind one ear. Clive looked very nervous. "Jet, I feel as disturbed as Gallows was." He breathed, leaning back. The seat he was on had no head to it and he nearly fell off his stool. Jet snorted once with suppressed laughter at the spectacle that Clive had almost made. The older man felt like somebody had just poured a bucket of ice-cold water down his shirt collar, or like an ice maiden had planted a crawling kiss upon the back of his neck.
Jet's hand had stopped fiddling with the bandage around his arm. With an extreme amount of effort on his own part, the boy was able to press his hands down hard into the bed and use the muscles in his shoulders to shift his entire body around to face Clive, so that he didn't have to turn his head anymore. It twisted the sheets and blankets around him, but he could always fix that later. "Good." Jet intoned. "You're supposed to. If you're my friend, you'll do it. I don't want somebody I've never met before doin' it, Virginia would get too weepy over it, and I don't think Gallows knows how to spell properly. That leaves you."
"I am glad that the process of elimination chose me." Clive said, sourly and a little snidely. He didn't really mean the sharpness of his tone, but he was a little hurt that Jet was being so methodical over things. So mechanical over things.
"I trust you, Clive. You understand that?" For a very short moment, a glimpse of sincerity showed up in the silver-haired boy's eyes. It was naked, not hidden by the faded violet hue.
He knew that Jet was telling the truth. There was no question about it. Clive knew that he would do it. It was his responsibility as Jet's friend and comrade to do it. It wouldn't be pleasant, and his worst fear was that he might screw up in some way or another, but if he did, he would at least keep his word. There was no way he could break an oath to a dying friend.
For the first time in what felt like an age, Clive felt a phantomish craving in the back of his mind, in the pulse of his blood, like an itch that needed to be scratched. "I understand it." He replied, clenching a hand into a fold of his dull red coat. "Jet, if you do not mind, may I please… um, may I please indulge myself?"
"Huh?" Jet looked blank.
"Please?"
"Well, go ahead. If you want." He didn't know if he was opening up a can of paper spring snakes or not, but Clive looked excessively nervous, like he was sitting on a nest of ants. Maybe Jet had been too bold to ask Clive to write his epitaph, because even if Gallows had been able to handle a direct question relating to Jet's oncoming death, there was no indication that Clive would be able to handle the same thing. He was smart where Gallows was dumb, but maybe he was also weak where Gallows had been strong.
"Thank you." Clive dug around in his coat pocket for awhile, leaning to the side a little so that his hand would have enough room to search in peace. His hand grasped around something firm and Jet watched him pull out a small silver case, which he laid upon his leg. Opening it, he pulled out a small, perfectly rolled cigarette, which he lit from a zippo lighter he procured from his other pocket. He looked at Jet rather abashedly. "I'm sorry. It helps me remain calm." He said, "If the smoke starts to bother you in any way, just tell me and I shall put it out."
"I didn't know you smoked." Jet admitted, telling the truth. He had never seen Clive with a cigarette before in all the time that he had known the man, nor had he smelt the odor of tobacco smoke around Clive's person. If Clive entertained any sort of habit towards it, then he hid it exceptionally well. Jet's breathing was perfectly stable, and he had hung around plenty of smokers back during his days as a solo drifter, so the smoke didn't bother him at all. In fact, it was almost sort of nostalgic to his small amount of distant memories.
"Well, I like to think that I have mostly beaten it years and years ago, but I still have one now and then, because it is soothing to the nerves." Clive took a small drag on his cigarette and then blew the smoke away from Jet. He leaned over a little closer towards his friend and whispered; "Please do not tell anybody about it. I have been trying to keep this as secretive as I can." He gave Jet a slightly pleading look that almost brought within him the urge to laugh out loud. He easily managed to suppress the impulse, and silently remarked upon how many secrets he was being made to keep today. They could trust in Jet from now on, because where Jet was going their secrets would not mean anything at all.
Jet offered the green-haired sniper a knowing grin, a conspirator's grin. "I remember trying that once, the smoke brings back the memories. I didn't like it very much, and besides, you can't run very fast when you're hooked on those things. I won't say nothing to nobody." Clive nodded once in gratitude. If he bore any discomfort with Jet using the double-negative, he chose not to show it. "How do you mask the smell?"
Clive smiled jokingly, tapping the first traces of ash onto an empty dish upon Jet's bedside table. A few hours earlier they had contained Jet's painkillers. "Cough syrup." The older man answered cryptically, attempting a joke. "Lots and lots of cough syrup."
They both started to laugh. It was hearty, genuine laughter. Clive had to pull his glasses forward a little and rub a thumb against the corners of his eyes in order to brush away the tears. Jet laughed until he felt a slight ache in one of his sides. It was a strange, new sensation to feel, because Jet really couldn't remember the last time he had had a good laugh like that, without there being any malice or spite in his meaning. He felt that as he drew ever closer to the end of all things, his inner defenses were coming down, one by one. How much more would he learn of himself before the day was through?
"We drifters are so fucked up." Jet stated observantly, seeing everything from the pink-tinged view of one in good humor. What was even better was that the nap he had taken earlier had cleared up any spot of tiredness that had been within him previously. "Just like this. Just like our world."
"Yes." Clive concurred, his voice lighthearted, but his words containing a far more serious undertone. "But our world is our world, and it is what gave us life and what will ultimately bring us death. The only thing that separates us is time, and, of course, conscious memory." Clive looked down at his cigarette again. "I really do know that I should quit these, but I just haven't the willpower to succeed. The best I can do is save them for small, rare little indulgences and guilt myself upon them in private. There is nothing more that I can do."
The smile Jet had been wearing had faded and Jet looked upwards slightly, in contemplation. A hand went up to gently touch his chin. "Just like how people ruin Filgaia. They used to do it so badly that this world was almost up shit creek without a paddle, but it ain't so bad nowadays. But I know, and I could bet a million gella on this and make some easy money, that things and people are gonna come and go and try to fuck things up all over again. People feel bad about it, that's where all the chocks in the Guardian shrines come from, but in the end, there's nothing more they can do about it either."
Clive had sobered up some as Jet was musingly talking. He crossed his legs and laid a hand on his knee anxiously. "I suppose you, myself and the world are more similar than we originally thought. Life is made from the same substance and then given its own mould. It would do us well to remember that as well as we can. The fact, the similarity and the sense that it can be made and broken so easily, it almost fills me with fear. Indeed, it scares me half to death."
"It scares you?" Jet echoed. "Why?"
"All my life I have been filled with a sense of my own mortality." Clive began to explain, feeling bad for burdening his problems on a dying boy. But because Jet was like this way, it was like having an sympathetic person to talk to. He had never thought that he would be able to talk to Jet in this way. "I am frightened of death. This entire business with you makes me quite nervous inside. Both my parents passed away when I was very young, too young to remember, so I am not sure what experiencing death would be like. I have tried to desensitize myself towards it by becoming a bounty hunter, a monster killer by trade, and I have indeed witnessed the death of hundreds of monsters, but it is not the same."
"Huh, that's strange. A grown man is being afraid of something so stupid. You might as well be running from the bogeyman or vampires in the night." Jet criticized, a disapproving look on his face. "What's there to be scared of? It's just death. It happens for a second, then it's all over. There's nothing to it."
"How do you stand it?" Clive murmured, fidgeting a little with his free hand. Jet was being so calm and cool about things in the face of what was to come, and Clive just couldn't see how he was managing it. He himself had avoided thinking on Jet's death for such a long time, blotting it out of his mind, but the mention of having to write his friend's epitaph was like the straw that broke the camel's back, and he had no choice but to know. To really, purely know.
He was afraid of death. Now, it appeared like he was afraid of Jet's death, empathetically feeling the fear for the boy, and through the boy.
It was terrible.
Jet looked away from the questioning, expectant gaze that Clive was giving him and he rubbed at his temple a little, sighing. For him, everything seemed so easy now, so black and white. But for Clive, who had lived far longer than he had and had experienced more of life and the world, he supposed his bonds to the land of the living were far stronger than his. He had a family to go home to, and Jet did not. No wonder the sniper was afraid.
"Look…" The silver-haired drifter began, clearing his throat a little in order to prepare for a big speech. If it would calm Clive's anxieties, it was worth a try. "When you're dying, lots of stuff happens and the shit does hit the fan. In the beginning you panic, because it is really kind of frightening, and then you get angry at the world for making things the way they are. I know I did. But no matter how you feel about it, it'll change nothing. It gets to the point that you're willing to bargain with the Guardians or any deity that'll listen to you, as long as they'd let you live, but you'll get no reply. The Guardians won't answer your prayers, because this is how it was meant to be."
The older man started to speak. "Then what is the-"
"Shut up, I'm not done talking yet." Jet snapped, looking annoyed. A little bit of tiredness crept back into the boy's expression. "There's just no point in worrying or despairing over it. When things really start to get bad, there's just a part of you that shuts down and doesn't care anymore. In the end you're just too tired or ruined to give a damn. It really isn't so bad, that's what I think. I don't want to live like this forever. I'll take whatever I can get."
Clive regarded him dolefully, but with a tinge of quiet admiration. "You are very brave, Jet." He had a question he wanted to ask his friend, but it was on a delicate subject, one that he wasn't sure that he should bring up. He was genuinely curious and wanted to know, but not at the expense of upsetting Jet. He decided to give it a shot, and if Jet backed away from the subject, he wouldn't pursue it any further. "You know… when you had that attack in the tunnels of the Zenom mountains, for a minute or more you were indeed dead. What was that like?"
This question actually surprised Jet. He knew that he had fainted while in the tunnels from intense pain, but nobody had actually told him that he had died there before. One of his hands came up and rested over his chest. "You're kidding, did I actually die?" He asked in astonishment.
"It did seem that way. Your heart had stopped beating and you were not breathing at all. Luckily Gallows and Virginia managed to resuscitate you successfully." Clive explained gently, smiling at his friend. He had expected that the doctors in Baskar would have mentioned that to him by now, but now that he really thought about it, how would they know? Only the Maxwell Gang and Jenny had been there at the time.
Jet looked down at his hand clasped against his own chest, over his heart that had been revived by Gallows' pounding hands and Virginia's sweet life-giving breath. It felt more touching than anything they had ever done for him before. Friends really did save lives. "I didn't know." Jet admitted quietly, lowering his hand. "But it does make sense, because Gallows and I were talkin' about it earlier before you came in. I… I did see some pretty far out stuff." Jet looked up at Clive, a tiny devious smirk playing on his lips. "Do you want to know about it?"
Nodding slowly, Clive stubbed out his cigarette upon the saucer on the bedside table, pinching out the end as it was only half used up. He'd probably smoke the rest sometime later. Jet knew that Clive was afraid of death. He had said so himself only minutes earlier, and when Jet thought carefully about it, it kind of made sense. He was a man with the middle years of his life ahead of him, where obligations were at their most important. He had left the carefree days of his youth behind him now, and he was willing to dedicate his days towards his friends, his family and his gang. He had worked hard for such a happy, loving life. He just didn't want to lose it now.
Jet found he envied him for that. Those were days he would never get to experience for himself. The only thing he could do now was to live vicariously, through Clive. For as long as he could, anyway. There was no reason for Clive to have to fear death so badly, outside of his own mind. He decided upon the spur of the moment exactly what to do, and later on as he thought about it, he knew that he would have easily done it again if he needed to.
"Don't be scared of death, there's nothing bad about it." Jet decided to lie, making up his memories as he went along. "When I died, I remember a bright shining light and I knew that nothing bad was going to happen to me. It was pure, like lace and running water. In fact, it almost felt like somebody was protecting me. Like somebody I knew was there with me." The very last part was a small slice of truth. He really had felt somebody there, beside him. Well, he vaguely thought that he did.
Clive looked hopeful. "Is that true?" He questioned tentatively, softly. Jet knew that most of it was something he had just pulled out of his own ass, but as long as it made Clive feel better about himself and calm his fears on death, then what real harm could it do for him? The power of faith was powerful stuff, it both brought peace of mind to people, while it could just as easily take it away. If there really was a God of this world, Jet felt that He would forgive him for the lies and false hope.
"Bet my life on it." Jet whispered under his breath, in a tone so softly that Clive could not hear him. If Gallows had been right about the afterlife being subjective to every different person, then perhaps he was even telling the truth. Until he was sure, the white lie was harmless. "Just don't be scared of dying. Clive, I… I envy you." The boy's violet eyes appeared to be match his face, now that his complexion had paled somewhat from his deterioration. It made Clive feel like Jet was looking straight into him, rather than straight at him. Suddenly it hit him. Jet was beginning to look like a ghost.
"Envy me?" Clive asked, taken aback. "Why?"
It looked so true. With his silver hair, his pale skin and his white shirt, Jet already looked like he had passed away a long time ago and was an earthly incarnation of part of the heavenly host. "Well, I guess there's lots of reasons now that I think about it." Jet smiled. "You're almost an old man, so you've lived through a lot of your life already. You've got so many memories of Filgaia that I'll never get a chance to see for myself. Not only that, you've got a family. I can't even begin to imagine what that must feel like. To belong to a group of people alike to you not only in mind, but also in body and blood. I wish that I…"
So that was what was troubling him. Clive was being pulled into familiar ground now, a place that he was firmer and stronger in, more in touch with the reality. Speaking of death so much before had made him feel like he had been walking on an invisible bridge, over a vast chasm. Jet had taken Clive's shaking hand and had lead him over that rickety bridge, while Clive had fearfully kept his eyes closed. Now they were at a bridge that Jet was afraid to cross.
Clive had to be the guide now.
"Jet." Clive began, taking the boy's weak hand and giving it a comforting squeeze. "You do have a family. In mind you have a family in Gallows and Virginia and I, in Shane and Maya and Alfred and Florina and everyone. We are your brothers and sisters in arms, Jet, and we have stuck with you whenever you have needed our help. That is what families are for, after all. In body and blood you have the planet of Filgaia herself. You are the Sample, part of her biological make-up in a human form. You are the son of Filgaia, Jet, and she is your mother. You have never been alone."
"You always sound so preachy." Jet said after a few moments of thought. "An' to me, that kind of sounds like bullshit. But it's probably as full of bullshit as the stuff that I said to you, so I won't complain. I really have a mother? And brothers and sisters?"
"And a father." Clive pressed, slightly embarrassed. "I mean, I do not know if you ever saw me that way, but there were times when you did feel like a son to me, Jet. It is not too strange to you, is it?"
Jet seemed to have withdrawn into himself, mentally. Perhaps he was a little embarrassed himself. He bowed his head. "'Feels a little strange," He mumbled into where his scarves used to be, "But it's okay. I won't call you dad, though. 'Never will."
"I know." That was perfectly alright with Clive. He didn't expect anything like that. Jet was tentative to ask his friend the next question, what really felt like to him to be the most important question, but now that Clive had agreed to be Jet's father, that was what fathers were for. Answering questions. Weren't they?
Just thinking of things in that way sent a small tingle up part of Jet's spine. "What time is it?"
"It will be dark soon."
That sounded about right. The shadow that came from the sun hole in the roof was beginning to fade away. He had watched it appear in the morning, creep along the floor for hours on end, secure in its futile little life, and now night was coming to bond it into a part of itself. Little shadow becomes great night. What would little Jet become, eventually? "I thought so. I think I'm ready now. Can you send in Virginia when you leave?"
Clive looked at him kindly. This was where Jet's other fear was coming from. "Of course I will. You wish for me to leave now?"
Jet nodded, and, from out of nowhere, he leant forward off the bed and gave Clive a hug. It was only a small, awkward hug, but it was one that was special all the same. "I'm glad I met you, Clive. I never would have made any sense out of what I am if it weren't for you, an' I never would have had the chance to see a different kind of life other than the one I was living. Maybe, if I had ever gotten any older, I would have tried it for myself…"
He gently pulled Jet away and forced him to lie back down onto the bed. Clive got to the quick business of tidying up the blankets over Jet's body and making sure Jet was comfortable. He fussed until the boy got annoyed and tried to push him away. He noticed that Clive had tears in his eyes. The sniper raised a sleeve to wipe his face, forgot he was wearing glasses and almost knocked them off his face. He corrected himself and brushed the tears away. "The worst thing that an adult will ever witness in their life is when a child dies young. All they can do is wish that it were themselves instead."
"But when a child dies young, they remain young forever. It's immortality. It's what everybody wishes for." The drifter smiled weakly. "Guess what, Clive? I'm going to live forever." Jet closed his eyes. "Just you watch."
At that point Clive left wordlessly. He couldn't stand to be there a moment longer. His time with Jet was up.
Jet had raised a hand sleepily in farewell. "…Goodbye." He said, then was silent.