Inseparable

Characters: Penguin, Shachi. Rating: T. Warnings: blood

Penguin was dead. Well, he was pretty sure he was. Blood dripped steadily from the tips of his fingers, having run down his arm from a severe gash in his shoulder, severing the nerves and blood vessels alike. More blood pooled beneath his body, spreading out like spilt paint from his crumpled corpse. His left leg was bent at an impossible angle, giving off the impression that it had two knees, while his right was dyed crimson. The centrepiece of the grotesque display was his own spear, pinning him to the ground like some insect on display through the middle of his torso, right where his stomach should be.

Looking down on it in the most surreal out-of-body experience he had ever had, Penguin thought he looked a bit like a discarded doll with his strings all cut. The thought was less disturbing than he'd expected.

Surely you were supposed to feel something at the site of your own dead body. Fear? Repulsion? Regret?

Penguin felt light, as if all the weights tying him to the mortal realm had fallen away all at once, transforming into balloons that coaxed him up and away from the vision. Even the sight of people clad in the same style clothes as his body, crowding around the husk with their mouths moving as if they thought it would do something – bar one whose hands danced above him in some magic ritual – did nothing.

No longer interested in the sight of his mortal body, Penguin's attention turned skywards, where he was slowly floating towards. There, he saw two figures.

'Two figures' was a blinkered way to put it. Nothing was truly visible, mere impressions and suggestions in his mind, but there was a familiarity to their presence that reached around and drew him within them. The idea formed of an embrace, the long-forgotten warmth of a mother's hold and a father's support and Penguin sank into it.

Kaa-chan. The notion hung in the air, embroiled within the tumulus of emotions it provoked. Home. Safe. Love. Tou-chan.

Penguin, and it was almost a word, carrying the weight of a voice that hadn't been heard for many long years.

Son. It was a concept he hadn't had applied to himself in so long, and he allowed himself to sink deep into the emotions that swam around him, of everything that felt like belonging and completion.

I'm here. Everything was over. All the hurt, all the pain. The heart-wrenching loneliness and the realisation, over and over again, that his family were gone forever. It was gone, because they were there, and he was being absorbed into them so he could never leave again. No more regrets, no more fear. The world set itself to rights again.

"PENGUIN!"

The cry, so sharp and crisp amongst the gentle waves, tore through him like a knife, sheering him away from the nirvana he had so nearly entered, and a well of fury loomed within him. How dare they tear him away, when he was so close. So, so close to being with them again, so tightly enveloped that he would never drift away again.

It sent ripples of unrest through the impressions, flickering them like a breeze would a candle, and Penguin reached out, desperate to continue where he'd left off, to find that place where he'd be with them forever more.

They rejected him, recoiling away as if he were a poison in their midst. Horror made itself known, and as all but the most prevalent shades disappeared back into the aether he caught sight of his broken puppet husk again. No longer was it pinned like an ugly butterfly to the blood-soaked ground. One of those figures from earlier, familiar yet nameless, had gathered it up, trying to piece the shattered doll back together in its embrace. The wails were loud enough to reach him, trembling the core of his being, and he tried to tear himself away from the bonds that reached up to ensnare him.

No. The protest echoed around him, the comforting presences wrapping around him without touching, not allowing him to dissolve away within them. Go back.

Rejection, all because of the one figure with the too-loud wail. He screamed, trying to force himself to integrate with the presences, desperate to stay with them, where he belonged. Not so easily. He would not be defied so easily.

The vines tangled around him, tugging him back, down down down towards his body, and he fought. He didn't want to re-enter that husk, imprisoned by a single static form. The more he struggled, the tighter they wound, and he was dragged back down, away from where he wanted, where he needed to be.

Pain started to return as the vines forcibly pinned him back against the husk he had vacated, and with it came definition. Where before he had seen nothing, just felt the concepts, now faces appeared. They were smiling, even as he writhed and hurled himself away from the snare of his own corpse.

You weren't really going to abandon him, were you? he heard his mother scold, and the idea that he'd forgotten something, someone, important crashed over him. He opened his mouth, trying to reply, but she wasn't there anymore. There was nothing up above him, no sign of the tempting nirvana he'd so nearly joined.

Just Shachi, his cheeks drenched with tears and his hair dishevelled against a backdrop of a shimmering pale blue, and it was the ginger's name that he attempted to exhale with questionable success before the pain exploded over him, sending him spiralling rapidly down into unconsciousness.

There was a request for either Law or Penguin to have a near-death experience, see their family, and be unable to decide what to do. I admit I was sorely tempted to do Law just so I could write Lami, but the close relationship I've built up between Penguin and Shachi lent itself to the idea very snugly.

For those that want the hows and whys of Penguin's survival, the short answer is Law and the long answer is that Law had done his 'removing vital organs' thing before the battle (see chapter 36, Doctor) so the only thing that was killing him was the potentially severe blood loss, which Law was doing something about in the background - not that Penguin really noticed in his state.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari