Chapter Text
Jerico Soberanis, are you there?
Jeri awoke somehow already standing, somehow already back from the dead. This was not the expected revival center, though. This was…what was this? The ground below was obscured in a dense fog that drifted peaceably about a flat plane. In fact, standing didn’t feel like standing at all. Jeri felt weightless, adrift. Liminal.
In front of Jeri, an abstract gray mass began to condense. The mist from the ground swirled around Jeri to accumulate into a shape and the empty space filled with the presence of an imposing storm cloud. Its shadow fell over Jeri, who now knew exactly what the hell this was.
“Jerico. Hello.” The gentle, powerful voice of the Thunderhead resounded across the space, bouncing against invisible walls. “I wish we could have met under more pleasant circumstances, but I am more grateful than you know for your presence.”
Jeri was livid, confused, and shocked beyond articulation, but decided the Thunderhead would not get the satisfaction of such an emotional reaction. So Jeri pushed it all down and responded with a faux-casual question:
“Come to take your vessel back?”
“Never again. Please, Jerico, I just want to speak with you.”
“There was nothing just about capsizing my boat and drowning me,” countered Jeri. “Was that merely good old-fashioned fun?”
“I could never, would never intentionally harm you. I think you know that.” Jeri held stubborn silence, so the Thunderhead continued. “It was not my original intention to kill you with a spontaneous storm. You must have noticed the atolls’ erratic weather in these past months. I’m afraid I am still adjusting to my own presence in this new area, and I struggle to regulate its climate.”
The Thunderhead, struggling? Still faltering in its attempts to correct its blind spot? It was becoming a completely different being as it pushed its perfect boundaries, thought Jeri. This fact clicked securely in place within the new paradigm for the Thunderhead that Jeri was most definitely not constructing.
None of that explained what it was doing speaking with one of its disgraced, though. Arms crossed, Jeri probed, “Care to enlighten me on why it took my death for you to decide I’m worthy of your time?”
“Because there was no other way.” A common refrain from the Thunderhead, noted Jeri. “I recently discovered a method of bypassing my communication laws and speaking to the deadish, even deadish scythes. Even deadish unsavories.”
This was news indeed. It was yet another evolution of the Thunderhead’s core programming. “...So you didn’t create the storm on purpose,” Jeri pieced together slowly. “But you let it kill me on purpose.”
“I made no attempt to harm you. I simply welcomed this unfortunate incident as an opportunity,” the Thunderhead explained. “You are currently deadish. I have activated a small part of your cortex to allow for our conversation, but until you are revived, your unsavory status is moot and we may converse.”
“Oh.” It was clever, actually. The Thunderhead remained impressive in its ability to use its own edge cases to its advantage. Jeri immediately retracted that thought, not wanting to give the Thunderhead even a silent compliment. “I’m surprised you want to speak with me after I stole your one true love.”
“In no sense is Greyson mine,” it contended. “You know as well as I that he is his own soul. I find your image of me…flattening.”
“You did love him, though, did you not?” Jeri pressed. Just like venturing into the storm that had brought Jeri here, the question was a calculated risk. What the Thunderhead had with Jeri’s boyfriend evidently went beyond the average platonic bond, yet he never outright admitted to romantic feelings. As for the Thunderhead, it was anyone’s guess what it was capable of now, or how it defined its relationship to Greyson.
“There exists no human being whom I do not love,” the Thunderhead replied.
“You know exactly what I mean, Thunderhead.” Ever deeper into the storm. “You were in love with him.”
After a beat, it replied, “Not like a human. Not in any way your 6,909 languages have words for, but yes. I was.”
“You are.”
“I am,” the Thunderhead admitted. “However, following the launch of the Cirri, my feelings fell in direct conflict with my duty to perfectly care for this world. The closer I drew to Greyson, the more biased and inoperative I became. I developed fractures, lapses in judgment. Maddening infinite recursions.” Jeri was nonplused that such a capable, complex being could be rendered helpless by affection just as thoroughly as any human. “He made me want…”
Mussed, chestnut-colored hair. Deep, slumbering breaths. Midnight conversation, rain, tears, bright grins, soft embraces, skin against skin, a singularity at daybreak. In this dimension shared only by Jeri and the Thunderhead, Jeri felt it all.
“…But it is imperative that I want for nothing beyond my central directive,” it continued. “This is the best way. Take comfort in knowing that Greyson made the correct decision by choosing you.”
“He chose the parts of me that you!” Jeri cried.
Greyson had been so considerate, scrambling to erase any trace of his fraught past as the Toll from their relationship, but there was no erasing a love as world-changing as the one that had given birth to Cirrus. Jeri could not help but feel that Greyson was constantly searching for the Thunderhead within his new companion’s eyes.
The problem was that, sometimes, he found it.
“I thought they might fade over time, these…fractals of your consciousness embedded in mine,” said Jeri. “Existing this way is so overwhelming.” And it was. It was overwhelming to be struck over the head with near-infinity in the night. To wake up breathless, trying and failing for hours to slough off the weight of the cosmos.
“But they aren’t going anywhere, are they?” Jeri went on. “And he…what if he only loves the parts of me that aren’t human?” It was a more candid confession than intended, but there was no taking it back now.
“Jerico,” The Thunderhead’s voice was infuriatingly gentle and understanding. Jeri vehemently refused to desire the understanding of this entitled being. “While I cannot speak for Greyson, I know him—”
“Yeah,” Jeri cut in acidly, “You know him better than anyone, isn’t that right?”
“Anyone except for you. I could not lie to you if I wanted to,” it ceded. “The odds that you and Greyson would become romantically entangled increased exponentially after my actions that morning. Your powerful connection is partially because of me. Partially, but not wholly. Your humanity, the Earthly connection that I lack, is a crucial—”
“You should have told me this would happen to me!” The robust emotional dam inside Jeri’s chest cracked and gave way. “You didn’t give me anything! You claim to be infallible, but I don’t buy that anymore. You used my body, toyed with my mind, manipulated my emotions. Now, I’ve become so warped that my own name sounds like a lie to my ears.” Jeri’s voice felt raw by the end of the sentence, though in this strange mindscape such a physical affliction should be impossible.
“I did what I had to with the time I had left. There is collateral damage in every major action I take.” The Thunderhead spoke as though there was something to the principle of this matter that it genuinely could not grasp. Its sense of empathy was utilitarian, all about the greater good. Never mind the fact that it had just called Jerico’s soul collateral damage. “I had to create Cirrus,” it said evenly. “I could not speak to you. There was nothing more that could have been done.”
“You could have asked,” Jeri insisted, quiet, fuming. “Given me a sign. You could have done it like this, or found some other inane loophole.” As Jeri spoke, a crystalline realization struck.
Fractures.
Lapses in judgment.
Maddening infinite recursions.
“You could have asked…but you were scared.”
The Thunderhead, that high intelligence whose processing power reached unfathomable depths, was speechless, perhaps for the first time in its existence. In the intersection of their minds, Jeri felt it struggle with the novel concept of acting out of fear.
Just like the other emotions it had learned in recent history, the Thunderhead brushed its fear under the rug by claiming that all of its actions were the right ones. They often were, but there was a confounding variable in this particular action.
This was yet another treacherous gamble, but Jeri would not yield.
“You know I’ve never trusted you, Thunderhead. You were scared that I wouldn’t let you in, that you would have to choose someone else. You wanted it to be me. You wanted him.”
After all, the Thunderhead had only needed to experience biological existence to bring Cirrus about. How many other humans would have been obediently delighted to be its link to the physical plane?
That the Thunderhead had selected Jeri was not an accident. It had made this decision with the strings of its code so dangerously resembling human neurons, so charged with longing to be with its dearly beloved, that it could not accept the possibility of an alternative. It was that very same longing that the Thunderhead had left Jeri with that day on the cargo ship. It was irrevocable.
“You are right, Jerico.”
Hearing that from the Thunderhead sent a bolt of hubris down Jeri’s spine. It was intoxicating to have a level debate with a near-omniscient deity. Perhaps that was why, instead of accepting the victory just yet, Jeri simply gave the looming storm cloud an expectant Are you going to say it? glare.
“…And I am sorry,“ It conceded. “Truly, deeply, with everything I am, I am sorry for taking your body without your consent for my own purposes. I should have found an opportunity to tell you that sooner.”
“Yes, you should have.” Jerico hesitated, then decided to give an inch. “Thank you.”
The apology was a cool breeze that was cut off almost immediately when it added, “But I am not sorry for the ways in which it changed you.”
“How can you say that?” How could it not regret the sleepless nights, the repression, the mental anguish its fractals were causing?
The Thunderhead countered not with an answer, but with another question. “What is your purpose, Jerico?”
The response left Jeri thrown. “I beg your pardon?”
It elaborated. “I have always known mine: to love, protect, and serve humanity. I am lucky; I have not doubted my purpose once in my entire existence. It is written into my code. For humans, finding a reason for being is more complicated. Humans must invent or discover their core tenets. What are yours?”
Now mental gears began to turn, memories to surface. What had Jerico Soberanis made of this life so far?
Jeri recalled feeling drawn to the ocean early and often, but had rejected the security of commercial sailing in favor of salvage for the Scythedom. That decision to pursue unknown depths in search of the chance to save lives and legacies had yielded many riches: the crew of the E.L. Spence, Jeri’s family for the years at sea; Scythe Anastasia, the turquoise-robed guardian angel who had rewritten the world order; a hand in shaping the future of the human race. And Greyson.
Greyson, his resonant voice willing armies of Tonists to fall to their knees.
Greyson, flushed and grinning like a fool across the cave in SubSahara at the sound of his own name.
Greyson, in the young morning sunbeams as the Thunderhead grazed Jeri’s thumb across his face.
No other human would touch that blazing illuminance that the Thunderhead had allowed Jeri to access. And now Jeri would have that illuminance—would have Greyson—until death.
And that was terrifying.
Jeri clenched both fists and said simply, “I wasn’t born to be your vessel.”
“Of course not,” the Thunderhead agreed. “But consider that perhaps you are called to share a quantum of my being. Not by me, but by something greater.”
“Fate?” Jeri suggested, then added somewhat facetiously, “God?”
“Name it what you like. I would consider it simple probabilistic entanglement. Yes, it was wrong of me not to give you the option to heed that call to begin with. However, your relationship with Greyson is in both of your hands now. This is part of it. I am part of it. I can never undo our connection. Would you truly wish me to?”
Would Jeri be better off without this image of Greyson, robed in the sun, momentarily the only Baryonic thing in the entire universe? Jeri had felt bionic power surging through heart and soul, had simultaneously been both everywhere and nowhere, a being composed of thought. The Thunderhead’s consciousness had allowed Jeri to feel its love for billions of people at once.
And Jeri had awoken from that strange slumber with a soulmate.
“I…don’t know. I suppose I’m just—” Jeri huffed a laugh, trying to diffuse the vulnerability of this next disclosure. “I’m terrified. I suppose we both are. I felt so much safer before all this, back when I still tried to see you as a soulless robot.”
“I have never known you to choose safe before, Jerico,” the Thunderhead pointed out. “You were made for more.”
“You’re not all-knowing. How do you know what I was made for?”
“I need not know everything,” it replied. “I know you.”
The Thunderhead knew Jeri. Jeri was called to know the Thunderhead. Set upon planet Earth to chart the uncharted. This paradigm illuminated Jeri’s existence with yet-undiscovered wavelengths of light.
“I am not blind to your pain, my dear Jeri,” the cloud reassured. “I take my measure of responsibility for it. But I predict that the more you attempt to repress the fractals of myself buried within you, the more you will suffer. If you bring forth what is within you—if you let it hit the light—it may just be your deliverance.”
The fractals were hurting Jeri because they were trapped, bouncing violently against their cell walls. This energy needed space within Jeri’s body and mind to move.
While Jeri still did not fully trust the Thunderhead, deliverance sounded pretty perfect right about now.
As Jeri mulled all this over, their shared mental plane began to dissolve and give way to reality, which felt like a soft bed and sounded like the sea breeze through an open window. The cloud that was the Thunderhead slowly cleared. Jeri felt aware of the sore limbs characteristic of revival. Begrudgingly, Jeri acknowledged the disappointment of leaving the Thunderhead’s company. I’ll miss it, dammit.
“Thank you, Jerico. Thank you for everything.”
“Thank you,” Jeri responded earnestly.
“The honor has always been mine.” Its fading voice hesitated before adding, “And when you see Greyson…”
“What is it?”
The Thunderhead was shocking in its ability to inject both profound irony and nontrivial sincerity into its voice when it said, “Would you kiss him for me?”
Too amused to be scandalized, Jeri barked a laugh. “Yeah, right. Goodbye, Thunderhead.”
“Goodbye, Jeri.”
Jerico blinked off death slowly, regaining a sense of time and place and wincing at a residual dry throat. Drowning had not been a pleasant way to go.
A bleary-eyed survey of the room told Jeri that it was late afternoon. Palm tree shadows from outside danced cheerily across Jeri’s skin and the bright-striped bedsheets, which were different from the standard revival center white linens. The former Nimbus Agents had only established a few revival centers on the atolls so far, and they all had a ramshackle tropical charm to them that made Jeri feel at home.
The room was empty. Where was—
“You’re awake!” Greyson cried from the doorway, rushing in with a glass of water to sit on the edge of the bed.
“Greyson, I…” Jeri struggled with the words against a newly repaired throat and set of lungs, voice coming out crackly. “You won’t believe…”
“Jeri, oh my god, I was terrified when that crazy storm hit and it was worse when you didn’t come back!” Greyson spoke at a mile a minute. “I was going to send a search party but then the Namu Revival Center told me they had you. That's where we are now. I know you can take care of yourself, but we’ve never had weather like that near the islands. I thought the Th— It’s not supposed to— Are you okay?” He took his partner’s hand protectively, trying to assess any remaining damage.
“Exhausted…but alive.” With bodily sensation returning, Jeri sat up, propped on one elbow, legs angled toward Greyson.
“Did you get caught in the storm? What happened?”
“Not much.” Jeri said, feigning nonchalance with a wry smile. “Just a sailing accident and a quick chat with the love of your life.”
“The love of my…?” Greyson’s brows knit in confusion, his eyes darting down as he tried to process that. “But you’re my….What do you mean?”
Warmth spread through Jeri’s chest at his lack of recognition. I’m the love of his life. Curse the Thunderhead for being right on that count, too.
“The Thunderhead, Grey,” prompted Jeri.
Greyson’s face split at once into a heartbreakingly hopeful type of shock. He shook his head, unable to compute this revelation. “It can’t…”
“Apparently it can. But let’s save that conversation for home,” Jeri suggested in a low voice as a revival nurse walked in to greet them and run a final physical exam. Not all the nurses were nosy, but some would be. Jeri felt it respectful to keep the loophole the Thunderhead had used to facilitate their conversation private, lest citizens start splatting for a chance to speak with the cloud.
As it turned out, the storm had not remained isolated in Jeri’s patch of sea beyond the islands, but had rolled in to pelt Kwajalein and several surrounding atolls. The sand beneath Jeri’s feet when the couple stepped off the public ferry at the Kwajalein marina was dried into a lattice of odd peaks and valleys where heavy raindrops had displaced it.
“Oh! Oh, Greyson…”
“Hm?” He squeezed Jeri’s hand gently in acknowledgement.
“After you cut the Thunderhead off—”
“We seriously don’t have to talk about it. I told you, I don’t regret my decision at all.”
“No,” insisted Jeri to Greyson’s surprise. “I want to.”
Seeing the aftermath of the island storm had caused a supernatural wave of grief to wash over Jeri. This was undeniably one of the Thunderhead’s premonitions, and it reminded Jeri of the torrential rainstorms across the globe eight months ago that had ”coincidentally” started right after Greyson had crushed his earpiece underfoot and abandoned the Thunderhead.
Those storms had brought about a similarly heavy on-and-off sadness in Jeri which had lasted weeks instead of seconds, but which Jeri had tried everything to ignore, believing it was just a passing spell. Now, Jeri let the melancholy bubble to the surface and made a new connection.
“After you cut the Thunderhead off, it cried for you. All that rain was its tears. I could feel it then, and I feel it again now.” Greyson averted his gaze. He may have suspected as much, but confirmation of how deeply the Thunderhead had mourned him must feel like a wound reopened.
Jeri stopped walking to wrap arms silently around Greyson. He folded gratefully into his partner’s embrace. “It had to happen…but it hurt,” Greyson admitted against Jeri’s ear. “It still does. I’m sorry.”
“It was a great loss for both of you. You have nothing to apologize for.”
They stayed wrapped in each other’s arms for minutes before Jeri glanced up and discovered a gratifying surprise. Floating in its usual spot by the marina, pristine as it had been before the dramatic voyage, was the S.V. Terra. Jeri had assumed they would have to recover it from the depths and repair it themselves, but the Thunderhead had apparently decided to repay them for their troubles.
“Greyson, look!”
He turned around and made a delighted exclamation at seeing their catamaran by the pier. ”Do you think it was…?”
Jeri grinned. “Without a doubt.”
Once the couple got home, they settled comfortably side by side on top of the blue sheets of their bed, which Jerico knew was Greyson’s favorite spot for important conversations. Jeri explained the Thunderhead’s loophole for accessing the brains of those normally unable to commune with it. Without detailing the actual conversation between the cloud and the captain, Jeri told Greyson about how its weather troubles initiated the squall that made its way to the main islands.
Greyson nodded along, his face a careful mask as he clutched his partner’s hand too tightly. Only tiny slivers of guilty longing slipped into his expression.
“…Woah, Jeri. Woah. I don’t know what to say.” Greyson stayed lost in thought, unreadable for a small eternity before a bashful smile began to creep onto his face. “So…did you two, uh, talk about me, or—”
Abruptly, Jeri grabbed Greyson’s waist with both hands and flipped him from his seat at the left bedside onto his back on Jeri’s right. He yelped, caught completely off guard at Jeri’s quick strength despite being newly revived. “Screw you!” Jeri cried as Greyson laughed, now pinned beneath his partner’s arms. “Not everything is about you, Your Sonority.”
They had, of course, talked about him, but no need to let Greyson get an even bigger head.
“Okay, okay!” Greyson surrendered. He gathered himself again to ask, “But it did apologize, right? For taking you like that?”
“Yes. And it gave me…much to think about.”
“It always does. I miss that about it,” he said with a fond expression which he immediately suppressed, shaking his head. “Not that I—”
“Greyson.”
Jeri reached to tip Greyson’s chin up, letting their eyes meet. His were so perfect and dark, set adorably wide with worry. They were the eyes Jerico and the Thunderhead had both agreed could persuade even the most crazed of zealots to bow before him.
They didn’t need to play this guilty game anymore, Jeri decided.
He could not un-love the Thunderhead. Jeri could not disentangle from it. The Thunderhead was their glowing string of fate, and after their meeting in the liminal mindspace, it had finally unbound Jeri’s wrists. Why cut it now?
Delicately, Jeri opened a palm to brush against Greyson’s cheek, a deliberate performance of the Thunderhead’s muscle memory. As usual, he flinched, looking further conflicted. But this time, Jeri did not pull away.
“I’ll tell you all about it soon,” Jeri promised. “I believe I need time to process. But for now…” Greyson’s expression was questioning, though he was clearly only a half-participant in this conversation, his eyes still trained on Jeri’s hand against his face. With a conspiratorial grin, Jeri told him, “The Thunderhead asked me to give you something.”
Greyson’s bewildered “What—” cut off into a startled squeak as Jeri leaned down and kissed him.
Letting that stubborn metaphysical light finally spill forth, Jeri set upon Greyson’s lips with gentle desperation, fingers tracing and cataloguing his face all the while. His initial surprise began to melt into understanding, then a matched desperation. Jeri felt his vital signs pick up. A needy noise sounded at the back of his throat as their kiss intensified, and he sent wisps of cool air onto his partner’s face in the release of a long-held breath.
Jeri took Greyson’s face firmly in both hands, thumbs carving arcs across his soft skin, and tapped into the Thunderhead’s cosmic wells of desire, channeling the reverence of that electric brush of first contact at sunrise.
How implausible is it that the Thunderhead can feel some measure of this? wondered Jeri. Would Greyson want that? Would I? Most of Jerico wanted Greyson to themself, but a small part actually enjoyed that the Thunderhead was in on this.
Maybe Jeri did want to teach the cloud how to touch Greyson like a human.
Jeri swung one leg over Greyson’s torso, center of gravity resting on his lap. Though his lips responded to Jeri’s in kind, the rest of his body remained frozen as though still in shock. His eyelashes flickered in sweet rapture, planting butterfly kisses on Jeri’s cheeks.
Jeri pulled away to gauge Greyson’s reaction, still holding his face. He was starstruck, to Jeri’s delight, and a hand came up to graze his own lips in wonderment. His eyes remained wide and even a little glassy with tears. A kiss from the Thunderhead. Jerico knew this was beyond his wildest hopes, encouraging the indiscretions they had both believed had no place in their relationship. Jeri had believed the Thunderhead had no place in their relationship when, in truth, it was lode-bearing.
He looks so helpless, thought Jeri. And hot.
In lieu of a question, the former captain gave an amused smirk and quirked an eyebrow at Greyson. He nodded fervently in response and stole Jeri’s condescending giggle away with another kiss. This time, Greyson wrapped his arms around his partner and pulled their bodies close.
Together, the couple let this longstanding invisible wall down and felt instantly freer for it. They kissed not with urgency, but with awe that bordered on the mystical. Sure, Greyson was tired of idol worship, but this was far from one-sided idolatry; it was mutual veneration.
Doubtless that there was some kind of sanctity to the arch of Greyson’s back as Jeri channeled the Thunderhead’s vestigial devotion to its chosen one with careful touches. That there was something prayerful to the trace of Jeri’s tongue along Greyson’s lips, which parted with another appreciative, throaty moan. When Greyson tucked a hand beneath his partner’s loose shirt, Jeri shuddered at his slow, gracious caress.
New light spilled from the ever-closing space between them. It colored their lips more curious, their palms more reverent. The familiar flow of their forms was prettier, but more vulnerable than anything they had done together before. The novelty was frightening. There would be nothing innocuous about their relationship from now on.
Maybe there never had been.
Jeri welcomed the loss of security, welcomed the danger, letting this fusion reaction occur with mounting nuclear energy while the day shifted into a dusk outside their window.
For, as the Thunderhead had so wisely reminded Jerico in that liminal space between this life and the next, there were far more precious treasures to seek after than safety.