6. When Your Heart Stops Beating - +44

"Best friends forever, right?"

They swore it over stacked hands and marker pen, over thrown cards and ancient artefacts, and over the big and the small events in their lives. There for each other, never give up, always together – every promise encapsulated in those three words.

"Best friends forever."

They were there at each other's greatest triumphs and most crushing defeats. They were there to pick each other up when they'd been knocked down, and especially when they'd screwed up and thought they couldn't get back up again. They were there with shoulders to lean on, fists to dispense sense, arms to hug, ears to listen, and always, always voices to say the words that helped most.

"Best friends forever. We're here for you. You can do it. We believe in you."

They were there when any one of them needed the others most, enfolding whoever was their weakest member at the time. They were also there when they didn't need each other at all. They were inseparable. Eventually everybody realised and said so, though there were a lot of raised eyebrows because nobody had predicted this when they first met.

"They're best friends? Them?"

"But didn't those guys beat up the little one?"

"Shouldn't that girl be with, y'know, female friends?"

"Isn't the little dude too much of a celebrity for the rest of those nobodies?"

"I don't get it."

They were there, again and again and again. They were pulled apart and came back together, over and over – you couldn't separate them, not really. You could kidnap their souls, injure their bodies, mutilate their souls and slice layer after agonising layer off their minds, like peeling an onion with a scalpel. You could do all these things, but the moment you turned around you'd find yourself facing the others, and when it came to protecting their own they were merciless.

They were there for exams, for growing up, for choosing life paths and just lives to live. They were there when one of their number left for the afterlife through a sliding wall of stone. They were there for comfort and happy memories afterwards – for reassurance that t was for the best, honest, really, even though it hurt.

And they were there when the second of their number joined the first, though this time there was no secret tomb or card game, just blood, failed brakes, the black and white and red stripes of a zebra crossing, and the interminable wail of an ambulance. They were there at the scene, holding hands that still burned even though the marker pen faded years earlier, eyes burning even more at the whispered words that were supposed to comfort and did anything but.

"It'll be fine. Best friends forever, right? We're s-stronger when we're together. Nothing can keep us apart for long."

Stronger together. Survive together. Always together.

But only one of them was there in the ambulance, so small the paramedics allowed him to ride along as long as he promised not to get in the way. Only one of them, and maybe that was why – because it wasn't enough. Darkness and magic couldn't separate them when they needed each other, but the cramped space of a very non-magical ambulance could.

Only one of them felt a slackening grip and saw blue eyes slide shut for the last time.

But all of them cried.