Chapter Text
With the damage ripping into the next universe, both from time and space itself, reality created a tessellation above their heads of the same Earth with different details onto them. Khalil fell last, but Seresa helped him up as they faced Nevica and Jacus. Nevica was hunched over, holding his torso.
“I can’t kill you.” Nevica begged. To his surprise, Jacus took his arm and hooked it over his shoulders to help him up. He could see Seresa better. “We have to stop before you break more than what you did.”
Seresa stayed quiet. Khalil stepped forward, but his palms and veins remained unlit.
In between the little ridges that branched to time and space, Nevica’s ear twitched to hear something familiar.
Seresa’s head also turned to the direction of the voice.
Nevica looked. So did Jacus, then Khalil.
It was a young Jose, holding himself up with his arms as he stared at the ocean. He crawled because he couldn’t walk, his green, kelp-like hair was so long it got in the way of his sight. Most of his skin was populated with teal, blue and an even darker blue, and a crown of corals rested on his head. He moved to touch the water, then moved into it, his legs dissolving into the ocean as he began to swim.
It was the past. They saw as Seresa from that past emerged from the resort, holding up a tray of plates, back when he used to still be a waiter for the resort’s restaurant. Nevica followed up next to him, holding his waist as they watched Jose play in the waters.
They were happy. They were smiling.
Then Nevica’s hold slipped from him, running to the boy and rushing to the waters to grab Jose and hold him up, causing Jose to squeal as Nevica tossed him lightly and continued to play with him. Seresa was watching them all the way through, right before he needed to get back to work.
The Seresa in the present walked towards the opening. He traced his fingers over the cracks. Jacus held Nevica back.
“What are you…?” Nevica whispered.
“Wait.” Jacus simply said.
Then the scene changed. Seresa kept looking through the timelines, kept moving forward, so the rest followed. Here, Jacus saw their memories, and Nevica had to remember them.
Jacus saw them together. They held each other, kissed with their palms over their mouths. They danced to music in Seresa’s room, away from his own husband as they were building a paradise of their own. Nevica held on to Seresa’s stomach, feeling the Jose’s heartbeat under his fingers. They were lying together on the bed his husband was supposed to be on.
Nevica took his place easily.
When Jose had been born, Nevica took care of him the most. Taught Seresa how to raise him, to help him when he couldn’t walk.
Then a voice echoed in the void.
I love you.
Nevica’s past self whispered.
And I love you.
Seresa’s past self whispered back.
Nevica held his head down.
Jacus helped them follow Seresa.
Then Jacus saw the scene once more.
Nevica stood on the sand, farther from Seresa.
“I have to leave.” Nevica said, refusing to meet his eyes.
“Come back before late, then.” Seresa blinked.
“No— I mean, I’ll be gone. I have to go.” Nevica said, folding his arms.
“What…?” Seresa asked. He didn’t answer him any further. Seresa moved closer to him, trying to hold onto him with a hand on his shoulder, another on Nevica’s hand. “You’re leaving me? Why—“
Nevica looked back at him, moving away.
“We built a LIFE here together! I don’t understand, why are you doing this to me?!”
“I’m not meant to stay here.” Nevica said.
“No—“ Seresa almost stumbled in the sand. His breath shortened.
“I’m sorry—“ Nevica tried. Seresa slapped him, but Nevica didn’t react.
“YOU’RE SORRY?!” Seresa tried getting close to him again, tried to touch him, tried to hold onto him, “but what about our son— what about us— WHAT ABOUT ME?!” Seresa’s voice broke, tears starting to stream down his face.
Nevica didn’t answer him. Instead he held him up, kept him at a distance.
Seresa’s fist connected to his jaw and Nevica’s stance nearly broke.
“Never apologize. You don’t get to apologize.” Seresa said.
He collapsed into the sand. Nevica turned his back and never returned.
Nevica now, had looked at it, biting his lip.
“I had to—“
“I don’t care about your excuses.” Seresa said. “Nothing’s going to change what you did to me.”
There was a beat of silence. Then Seresa continued: “… It won’t change what I did to him either.”
Just as Nevica was about to ask, he looked up to see Seresa smoking a cigarette by the window as Jose crawled around. He was a little bigger— couldn’t be seven or less. Two years after Nevica left.
“Where did papa go?” He asked.
Seresa stayed silent. Jose tilted his head, but it wasn’t the first time he didn’t get an answer.
“Daddy, do you want to play with me?” He asked instead.
“Stop fucking bothering me.” Seresa said, glaring back at him. Jose’s eyes went wide, but he held his head down and moved with his toys. He was starting to struggle going around even if he was used to the crawling.
Then as Jose grew older, the angrier Seresa had become.
There was a moment of silence as they passed by this scene: Seresa, curled up against the wall, head lolled back as he made eye contact with a hyperventilating Jose, who couldn’t have been more than 12. His hands were shaking as he was curled up against the wheelchair he was sitting in. Glass shards were strewn about the floor, hindering Jose from movement from either crawling or using his wheelchair. Jose cried quietly.
Seresa stared at the scene. Nevica’s lips flattened as he realized what happened.
“I was horrible to him.” Seresa said. “Even if it hurt to be with him, I made sure he was hurting more. Then Khalil came along, his first ever friend.”
Khalil was silent all the way through.
They saw scenes of Jose sitting by the edge of his bed, right next to the window where Khalil had thrown rocks and climbed up their house just to see him.
They played games together. Khalil would help Jose quietly move out the house so they could go to the beach together— swimming in the dark where Jose’s body lit up against the waters. Khalil used him as a safety float as they dove down together under the surface.
Seresa never noticed when they’d come home early in the morning, too busy enjoying each other’s presence, covered in sand and drenched in water.
Then they both got bigger. Khalil got stronger, Jose more happier.
It was until another god came down to El Nido that everything broke apart. She stood in front of the beach they were in.
“Who is that…?” Nevica asked.
“Mariella.” Khalil muttered. “God of the forgotten. We spent a week trying to fight her off.”
“Everytime she touched something, it would disappear and end up forgotten by existence.” Seresa continued, “We almost gave into her until Jose did it.”
“He was the god of the ocean for a reason.” Khalil said.
“I have an idea,” Jose’s voice echoed through time, right to the scene where Khalil and Seresa looked at him just as they were in the middle of fighting off Mariella.
“What are you thinking about?” Khalil asked, worried.
“… Trust me.” He said. “And if I don’t make it… it’ll be okay.”
“Jose,” Khalil reached out, holding his shoulder.
Jose smiled back at him.
Then he looked up to where it cut off— then to where Jose was thrown into the waters while Mariella walked in to it. Just as Jose got up, the water caught onto Mariella’s arms, restraining her as Jose pushed himself up with the waves. He was tall— but having been confined to a wheelchair for so long made him seem so short.
Then Jose spoke, tired, still caught between breaths as he pointed his finger at Mariella.
“One touch,” he said with a scratchy, light voice, “even if they’ll forget me, I’m taking you down with me.”
And then, Jose fell back, pulling Mariella down with him into the ocean. Even as she kicked, screamed and flailed her limbs, the infinite ocean took them down and they were never seen again.
Seresa’s past self dropped to his knees, and Khalil stood next to him as they stared at the waters.
They waited for hours, barely able to move in shock.
Then Seresa’s present self spoke: “We waited for so long. I spent hours trying to dive down and find him. I did everything. I looked everywhere. Didn’t eat or sleep for days.”
Seresa tilted his head back, “I was waiting for you to come back. To pick his soul up, because I thought he was dead. But you didn’t even do that— he wasn’t dead, but he wasn’t alive.”
His voice was caught in his words. “He spent… his whole life, just wanting someone to love him. And he—“ his breath hitched, “needed me when you left. All I did was give him hell. All I did was let him go without peace. I can’t do that. I don’t want to do that. We need him back.”
Jacus swallowed, staring at them as Khalil looked away, Nevica slipping off of Jacus’s hold as he went to close the distance between him and Seresa. Seresa touched the cracks of the last scene with his fingers, and then he dropped down to his knees, letting out a scream. It melted into a wail, straining his throat, and he curled forward as Nevica put his arm on his shoulder.
Seresa broke down, arms and rings lighting up so powerfully it shook their space. Khalil’s hands lit up too, then, and soon the scenes surrounding them were flooding with water, so much so its pressure broke the air and spilled into the dimension.
The glass exploded.
They were all swept away from each other with the ocean water.
It was bright. It was so bright, and yet somehow Nevica couldn’t see where he was. The light rays came from above, and suddenly a legless figure swam to him— the energy closing into him, a tender sting.
He came face to face with Jose.
“Hi, papa.” Jose said.
Nevica opened his mouth. He didn’t need to struggle to breathe, he didn’t have lungs after all.
“Jose.” He said. “I’m so—“
Jose raised his palm to stop him. “I know.”
Nevica pursed his lips. He wanted to look away. He wanted to bury these emotions— the guilt, the pain he was starting to feel. Jose put his hands on his shoulders, then hugged him.
“We’ll be alright someday. Just not today.”
Nevica’s arms snaked around his body. He pulled him in, burying his face in his shoulder.
“Goodbye, papa.” He said.
Then, all too soon, he disappeared back into the water. Everything faded to black.
From there, he woke up on the shore, just like everybody else did.
Seresa sat up, staring at the ocean. Khalil stayed in the waters. Jacus waited with the sand, following Nevica closely.
“You have seen him.” Jacus said.
Nevica looked around.
The cracks were gone. The spill of the stars were too. He turned his head to Jacus and said: “I did. You could see that?”
Jacus nodded. “Time has recovered. So has space. We are back to the original universe.”
The pain let up, Nevica realized. But Seresa and Khalil’s haven’t. He walked to Seresa.
“We don’t need to say anything.” Seresa said.
“I want to.” Nevica said.
Seresa stayed quiet.
“I… I had to leave. I was afraid of having a life with somebody, like I used to. It wasn’t going to work,” he thought of Adam as he said that. Adam who had been growing up, Adam who had missed his mother, Adam who was waiting for him to come home.
He was always building a new life with somebody.
“But I know that it hurt you. I know it hurt Jose. You don’t need to forgive me, I just…”
He tried. His voice didn’t…
“I just want you to know that I still care for you.” He finally said. “I mean that.”
Seresa looked back up at him.
“Leave.” He said, softly. “It’s over.”
Nevica stared at him. Took him in, saw that he almost hadn’t aged a day since the last time he saw him. But there were white streaks in his hair, and there were crinkles in his skin when he would look closer.
The grief took him as much as it would have.
Jacus stood in the sand. The sun was setting. The sky spilled into purples and pinks, a light of gold streaking over it. The only thing Nevica could hear was the peaceful sound of the ocean waves, falling into the sand.
Nevica remembers meeting Seresa at this side of the beach. He could feel the sensation of Jacus staring at him from behind— the tingling, he realized, was Jacus taking his vision to see into his past.
He let Jacus see the memory just as he was remembering the same.
Then, they left.
Twenty years ago, Nevica listened to the sound of the waves. He followed the scent of nicotine with the growing pain in his torso. It was tolerable at most, he was just lucky that day. When he found him, Seresa was smoking, back pressed up against the wall, staring at the beach.
Black was starting to fill into the whites of his eyes. His eyes were going from brown to red, its slow transformation working its magic as the rest of his skin was also doing the same. His hair must have been the only distinct thing that made him a god— it was a natural blood red.
“Smoking on the beach?” Nevica asked. Seresa jumped to attention, then took the cigarette out of his mouth. “Don’t worry, not here to call you out.”
“Hah,” Seresa sighed in relief.
“You on break?” Nevica asked.
Seresa nodded.
“Good timing.” Nevica said. Seresa tilted his head.
“Is there something I can help you with, sir?”
“I just want to talk to you about something.”
Seresa paused. “… Go ahead, sir.”
Nevica leaned against the wall. “I know what you are. Don’t— don’t be afraid, okay? Just listen to me.”
Seresa’s eyes were wide. He was uneasy, but he stood to attention.
“I’m a god. And you— you’re also one. Albeit, a late blooming one, but a god nonetheless.” Nevica said. Seresa blinked owlishly. He looked even more uncomfortable, leaning back a bit.
“I don’t understand.” He said.
“I just wanted to make sure you aren’t doing anything that would hurt the Earth— but it looks like you haven’t even used your powers yet.”
“… Are you high?”
Nevica shook his head. “I know you won’t believe me. But I see it in your body. Your hair. What’s happening is that your body is slowly taking its form back.”
Seresa stayed quiet. He put out the cigarette against the wall. “… Say I believe you. What happens when… that happens?”
“I don’t know. Everyone will see you for what you really are, but by then, your powers will…” Nevica trailed off. Then he rubbed his temples, “Sorry, I sound really fucking crazy right now. You think I’m on drugs?”
The corner of Seresa’s twitched upwards, and he nodded gingerly.
“Okay.” Nevica said, then he knelt down, coaxing a little plant in the sand to bloom into a flower. It joined the webbings of his palms and he pulled it up, the roots joining into his palms and slipping under his skin. It grew other flowers until it became a bouquet, then he met eyes with Seresa’s— eyes wide, stunned. “Believe me now?”
“I…” Seresa trailed off. The flowers faded, and Nevica let them slip from his fingers, petal by petal. “You’re really a god.”
Nevica nodded.
“And… I’m a god?” Seresa looked at himself, rolling up his sleeves to reveal the black— the starry black, all over his skin. “This is what that was? What am I going to do? What’s gonna happen to me?”
“Calm down.” Nevica said, gesturing for them to stay quieter. “We could have a conversation about it once we settle down somewhere. I don’t think a wall can keep us like this.”
“Okay. Okay.” Seresa said with a sigh. “I know a place. Come on.”
It took awhile for Seresa to settle in the idea that he was a god— but he eventually let it settle for as long as Nevica had to stay to help him.
He visited for a long time, drawing them closer. They had conversations late at night. Got to know each other— that Seresa was not a woman and never wished to be one, that Nevica was as charming to the many people who stuck with him. That if Seresa knew he was a god ever since being a child he would have done whatever he wanted— he’d enslave society if it weren’t for society doing it first.
Shared cigarettes. Laughter as they ran across the shore. Fingers interlaced and hands wrapped around a waist.
Seresa’s smile, Seresa’s hands, Seresa, Seresa, Seresa.
But those moments— those minutes, those days, that era was gone. It no longer existed beyond anything but a memory.
Nevica tried not to stay at that moment for too long.
They were almost home.
Adam ran out the house as soon as they came back down to the garden.
“You didn’t get anything for me?” Adam asked, pushing the door open to let them in.
“No, we were pretty much on a—“ Nevica sighed.
“’Mission.’” Jacus said.
“You’re talking!” Adam said, pleasantly surprised. “Your voice is a lot deeper than I thought…”
“Mm.” Jacus said.
Then Jacus looked at Adam for the first time in his life. Adam was his name.
He was not A’dhabake.
Jacus placed his hand on Adam’s hair. “Adam.”
Adam blinked. “… Jacus?”
Then he let go. “It is a pleasure to see you.”
Adam’s eyes went wide. Jacus walked off, but Adam’s jaw hung open.
“Did you see that?” He asked Nevica.
“I did. First time he’s ever spoken to you in a long time.” Nevica said. Adam threw his arms up.
“He’s alive!”
The corner of Nevica’s lips twitched. Adam moved to go back to his room.
I’zhar walked to the bathroom. The weight of his hair was heavier than before, the sand and saltwater caught onto it as it was thickening by the second. His consciousness was changing, shifting, just as he was on the outside. With the way his hair held the history of his body, there would be no room for the future if he kept himself in the past like this.
Live, because I never will. Live because I never have.
I’zhar swallowed. He drew Etreeni from his wrist, then pushed the blade into the thick locks until it sliced off.
He was going to live.
When the hair landed on the floor, it disappeared in small, bright purple sparks.
He was going to be remade.
It kept happening until he saw that his hair pointed upwards, until the sides were shortened. Then he stared at himself. Found that he was smiling, stifling back his own tears as everything that the past was finally shut out.
The past was gone, now.
But now, he had to whip his head to the side, the sight of Adam by the door.
And Adam found out everything.