୧ ~ ᴥ ~ ୨
Daylight was a sliver of light crowning the valley's rim by the time Kyle dragged his sorry ass back to the camp. Which meant your average dishevelled apocalypse survivor was already up and about, and Kyle had himself checked out by about every set of eyes available. Along with a pair of guns shifting vaguely in his general direction.
Thankfully, carrying a small human on your shoulders liked to (sometimes—and how sometimes was even a thing enraged him) give people pause. If you were lucky, they wouldn't even shoot, a chance which went up considerably when the child in question was one they recognized.
Like this one. "You still haven't told me anything," Aiden whined once they'd reached the barn. "You said were gonna."
Kyle grabbed the ladder. He leaned against it, heavily, and fought the urge to close his eyes. What the fucking hell were his legs suddenly made of? Rock?
Aiden clambered off his back and scaled the ladder.
"Yeah, well," Kyle muttered and convinced his chin up so he could throw a disapproving scowl after the kid, "you still haven't thanked me for saving your ass back there."
Aiden reached the top, where he vanished for maybe a second before turning back around and peeking over the edge. "Thank you," he offered, quickly followed by a grave, "By the way, you look totally like shit."
"Ah. Children. Such honest creatures you are."
"Are you going to die?"
"I am not going to die." (Are you sure about that, pal? Your heart 's having a fit.) Groaning, Kyle climbed to the top, where he dragged himself through the hay and flopped down in a pile next to his gear. Color him surprised to see it all still here and not looted; maybe this place had some sorta working honor code after all. Or some really good anti-thievery policy, making Kyle briefly wonder what'd happened to Aiden if he'd gotten away with pilfering supplies or had gotten caught by someone else. "I just need rest."
"What if the man comes back?"
The back of Kyle's head hit the wooden boards with a thunk. Wow. That wasn't supposed to happen. But his muscles had started to refuse answering his calls, and there was a weight to his everything that just wasn't acceptable. His arms. His legs. His thoughts. His eyelids.
Kyle hadn't been that exhausted in… forever. If. Ever.
Somehow, though, Kyle managed to raise one hand and poise a finger. "I thought about that. Go find Florence."
"She's not the bad guy then?"
"Nope. Go find her, tell her what happened last night. She'll know what to do."
"And you?"
"I'm— I'm—"
Darkness wrestled the words from him.
Taking a nap.
"You're considerably worse for wear, my hound," Death said. Their voice played off strings stretched through Kyle; an impossible thing made from haunting notes to a yet to be composed melody. "Have you never learned the art of disenchanting?"
Kyle opened his eyes. His jaw tightened at their last comment, but there was something giddy and light pushing outwards from his chest.
He was laid out exactly where he'd fallen asleep, with cobwebs swaying in the rafters above and hay prickling at his neck. A breeze he couldn't feel drifted by. It tugged on the silky white webs (of which there were way too many, come to think of it) and jiggled the things caught in them.
Kyle squinted.
Those things were tiny, tiny paper cranes in all kinds of colors.
"Yeah, I didn't think—" He turned his head, and his voice box—a thing he could usually rely on to be, ah, plenty vocal—promptly failed.
There was Death.
They sat by his side, their hands on their knees, and fixed him in a gaze sprung from gray eyes dotted with the ash of bygone galaxies. Therein waited an abyss he yearned for. Therein, he'd find peace.
Kyle took a steadying breath and forced himself to look at the rest of them. Their wild, perfectly ordinary looking mouse brown hair (struck by a few strands of silver); their sharp shoulders; their choice of steampunk dress in blacks and bronze; and the thin lips as they lightly curved upwards with a knowing smile.
"You were saying?"
"I was saying," he croaked, "how I thought busting these coin links was maybe gonna pinch a bit. Not hit me like a delayed-release horse tranquilizer."
"One coin, maybe. Two, three." They shrugged those pointy shoulders. "You broke dozens. That, silly mutt, is lethal."
"Hey, don't—" His voice box malfunctioned again. "Wait. Rewind." Kyle pushed himself up in a hurry. "Lethal?! I'm— I— I'm dead?" He swallowed. Thickly. And then came the anger. "You dodge me for years, don't write, don't call, and then you have the audacity to send me on a mystery errand— and then— then— then when you finally show up, it's 'cause you're fixing to fucking reap me?!"
Death heaved in a dramatic breath, which tail-ended in a sigh cozying up with a low hum. All while, aaaAAaaAAah. Swinging their leg over him. To straddle him. Sit on his lap. Face-to-Face. On. His. Lap.
. . .
Something very crucial misfired in Kyle's brain.
"There's little else I'd like to do more," said Death. "But, no. I have not come to claim you. Not like this, at any rate."
Kyle's eyes cut down. Then up. All along the length of Death with their knees left and right of his hip. The "Phrasing," he piped up. It came out squeaky. Way too squeaky.
Death perked a brow. "Weren't it for your creative imagination, my phrasing would be perfectly acceptable. Dog."
Kyle did his fucking best to hang on to the clarity that'd clapped him over the back of the head when they'd told him what he's done was lethal. Because, yeah. Kyle did not want to die. Don't get him wrong. He did not fear death. Not the concept of it, nor the individual personification of it (sitting in his lap). No. What Kyle feared was the missing out which waiting beyond the inevitable. And that fear had been what had allowed him a moment of righteous anger; of fury for some betrayal or the other and indignation over being, well, ghosted.
Yeah. Ghosted.
Left on read.
So, yes. Kyle did his fucking best hanging on to that clarity. And then Death's hands landed on his shoulders. One light touch on the left. One light touch on the right.
. . .
Right. That was how you disarmed Kyle Crane. Or at least how you turned him into a mewling, sad oaf of a man. A lummox, if you will.
"Stumblebum," Death said.
"… what?"
"Another word for oaf and lummox."
Kyle stared flatly at them. "Oh, now we're reading minds, huh? Hanging out in my—" He tapped his temple. "—head?"
They shrugged again. "I've come to understand that I am in your head quite frequently. Why, this—" They lifted one hand from his shoulder just long enough to tap at their chest and then poke that same finger at his. "—has come up often."
Oops. You know when you've gone a long time without blushing because there's very little that gets you? And no, not the kinda blushing where exertion makes you all flush, but the honest to god I think my neck and cheeks and ears are on fucking fire kinda blushing you get hit with out of nowhere 'cause you're embarrassed and, slash, or, your crush asked you a question for the first time and you were not ready?
Kyle was, at present, blushing.
"But, yes," Death continued, "we do so happen to be in your head. More appropriately, we're in the space between your dreams and the edge of your dying."
"So... I am dying," he said with a whimper.
"Your life's energy is gradually breaking apart as we speak, yes. But I have got an offer for you. An alternative, if you're so inclined. Be bound into my ser—"
"Yes."
Death rocked lightly back, their head tilted in surprise.
. . .
Kyle could have done without the motion. It elicited a perfectly natural and understandable response from his body. He put on a wobbly smile.
"You didn't let me finish," Death said.
"Be bound to your service, run your errands, heel like a good pup, and I get to live? But when my time's up, my soul is yours flat out, no getting tossed back in the pool? That kinda deal?"
Their brow crinkled.
"I'm already doing all that shit. Might as well make it official, right?"
More crinkling. It was criminally cute— and now there was a word you didn't often or freely associate with capital D Death.
"I'm not cute," they said quietly.
Oh. Right. They were camped out in his skull.
Kyle flashed them an innocent smile. "Look, does it come with any fine print?"
"Not particularly." Was that a mope he heard in their voice? "But I'd planned to give a grave speech. Which you've robbed me of, and I may be a smidgen cross about that."
"A speech, huh? Did it, by any chance—" He gathered up courage he had plenty of and placed one hand on their thigh. It was a very firm thigh. Huh. Who'd have thought? Turned out Death was not one to skip leg day. "—include you baiting me by promising I'd get to bounce right back up and help the kid? Which you know I can't say no to?"
"It might have." Yep. They were moping.
"Does it— ah—" Okay. One important question he should probably get out of the way. "Do I stay… me? Like, I don't grow any extra appendages, do I? Or lose any? Or—I dunno—stop having an opinion?"
Death scoffed. "None of that. You are who I need. What I need. I have no use for a thrall. Just look at what happens when you thrall a wolf. Their brain exits in a hurry."
The hand Kyle had set on their thigh tightened in surprise. "Wait— hold up— Westin is thralled?"
"The—" Death's eyes did a barely noticeable roll. "—douchewolfie you encountered? Yes. He is thralled."
And now Kyle's hand resorted to gripping. Tight. The anger from before was back and drove him forward. He sat up straight, forcing Death to lean back as they kept staring at him, their gray eyes sharp and unreadable. "You knew. You knew Aiden was being stalked by a werewolf? And you let me walk into all of this blind?"
Death's eyes sharpened. "I thought you might know me better than this," they said. "Had I known, I would have told you, but his handler has gone to great lengths hiding them both. All I knew until tonight was there'd be a life of great importance here. A life which has not yet bloomed for very long and which should by no means hold so much weight on this world's forward trajectory. And because the threat surrounding it has kept itself hidden so well, coming to you plainly would have tipped my hand and forced our antagonist to drastic measures."
"But then I broke the coins."
"But then you broke the coins. It affords me clarity I haven't had prior and allows me to, ah, visit." Death's stare grew flat. "Now, cease the squeezing, will you? I am not your squeaky toy."
. . .
"Sorry." Kyle relaxed his fingers. He did not, however, take the hand away. The tiny, tiny speck of self-preservation chilling in his head screamed, because what the fuck was he doing holding Death on his lap; Death who could quite literally stuff his undying soul into a jar if they so felt inclined. A jar with one of those checkered lids and a ribbon wrapped around it.
And his quick Yes back there?
He'd examine that later. He worried that if he did now, he might have second thoughts.
"You could do with second thoughts once in a while," they taunted.
Kyle sighed.
"I mean it, hound. Have you got no bargaining in mind at all? Nothing you'd want of me, besides another lease on your life?"
He stared at them. A second ticked by. Then another. And another. And do you have any idea at all what it's like staring Death in the literal eye? See the dark specks in their dusky grey eyes and know there was something funky going on with those pupils you couldn't quite explain because your simple human brain was not made to comprehend what lay beyond them and just what they could see?
It was weighty. A physical burden pressing down on his soul. A burden he did not mind. A burden he wished to carry.
"Ask," Death said, unblinking.
And so Kyle did. Ask. He dug up that one question which'd been burning at the back of his mind since the second he'd seen them.
"Is Rahim still alive?"
Death's lips twitched with a faint smile. "The Aldemirs are well and very much alive. Rahim looks after his sister, and, together, they've achieved much. They've protected your Tower-folk, have found them all a home, and have not once relented on their work with this Camden fellow. I have my fingers crossed for what they'll yet achieve."
A pound or so of relief rolled off his shoulders.
"Okay. Then, ah—" He dropped back an inch, giving Death a bit of space. "What now?"
"Now? Now, we have ourselves a ritual." Death shifted around on his lap. Like they were getting comfy.
Kyle—hard at work to mind his manners—gave his cheek a quiet, distracting chew.
"One to affirm your promise to me," they continued, even as they leaned forward and completely ruined Kyle's attempt at keeping himself at a respectful distance. "Seal the deal, so to speak." Their hand settled on his chest. A perfectly ordinary hand with perfectly ordinary fingers pushing a perfectly outlandish sensation into his skin. It was a heat born from two extremes: a fire lending life a new chance and the chill of a winter bowing to spring.
Kyle held his breath.
"It's an awfully intimate ritual, I'll admit," they purred.
"… yeah?" Kyle said on the exhale of that breath he'd been holding. His head was not on right anymore. No— no way he was going to be held responsible for his actions from where on out.
"Mhmm—" Fingers danced from his shoulder, delicate and thin, teased his collar with a single tug—Ohboyohboy—and when Death leaned so close he thought he felt their breath ghost by his lips, one of those fingers poised and—
—tapped him on the nose.
Their lips quirked into a coy smile. "And done."
Kyle's ears buzzed. He blinked. Then blinked again as their words sunk in and caught on that last brain cell still turning by its lonesome in his skull.
"Wh—what?" he stuttered. "Tha— wha?"
Death leaned back, giggling.
Oh, god or gods or godlings of all shapes and sizes… he'd never heard a sweeter sound.
And, yet. Taking a breath to clear his head, Kyle fell back onto his elbows. "You're a fucking menace," he growled. "You know that, right?"
"Mh. For that, you have no one but yourself to blame, my hound. It's said the soul we're tasked to shepherd gives us shape." They climbed from his lap and slid the leg he'd clung on to out from under his grip.
He toyed with the idea of snatching at them, but a quick click of their tongue got his fingers to behave.
"Before I go, hound—"
Kyle's heart gave an involuntary squeeze. "Go? You're leaving?"
"I have got work to do. Just as you do. But before I go back to it, I have one more question for you."
Fair. "And then I wake up? Alive and well?"
"Mhm." They regarded him gravely. "What color?"
Kyle's overtaxed brain cells flopped onto their collective backs. "… huh?"
"What color ribbon would you like on your soul jar?"
"Oh, for—"
Death winked.
And Kyle woke up.
୧ ~ ᴥ ~ ୨