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Saving him isn’t the only rule he breaks. He breaks a lot, actually, when it comes to him, although it is the first one.
He was created to be there for him, so he resolves to be there for him. He’s just an abstract concept, really, nothing solid, nothing real, until the first time that he needs him.
It’s right after his mom leaves, and there’s this hole in his family and a loneliness in him that his dad alone can’t quite fill, not yet, no matter how hard he tries. He spends most of his days crying when his dad's away at work, or when no one else is looking—or so he thinks, at least.
So he appears to him first as a little boy right around his age—his imaginary friend, he calls him. That’s what he needs him to be, so that’s what he is. He names him, too, gives him a watery grin one day when he’s talked him down from a panic attack and says ‘Corpse. That’s what I’m gonna call you. I’ve always wanted a friend named Corpse.’
There’s nothing else he can think to do but just nod and accept it. He doesn’t know why, he’s not supposed to have a name, but somehow it seems to fit. And he’d be lying if he said he didn’t like it.
He’ll confess that the first time he saves him, it’s for selfish reasons. He likes talking to him, he likes being around him, but he only exists because he does. Once he’s gone, he will be too. He’s already been told that he’s not meant to survive, that his life is supposed to be a short one. He’s not supposed to mess with a deadline that’s already been set. But he’s not quite ready to go yet, and if he does, Corpse does, so he doesn’t listen.
Anyway, what’s the point of a guardian angel if they can’t save the one they’re made to protect?
He swoops in and grabs him out of the line of the car that’s barreling his way when he chases his ball into the street, unaware, and deposits him safely back on the side of the road. He doesn’t stay long enough for him to see him with his wings out, but he watches from afar as his startled gaze follows the car that had been so close to hitting him as it speeds past, as he turns his face up to the sky and smiles, whispering ‘thank you, Corpse.’
He holds on to that later, when he’s being reprimanded, when they’re sneering at him in outrage, drilling the rules into his head again, telling him this will come back to get him, in the end. He still can't bring himself to regret it.
The second rule he breaks is that he lets him touch him.
He’s keeping him company one day while his father is at work and he’s all alone, just a scared and sad little boy in a house that must feel so empty, and that’s when he asks him. They’re having a tea party with some of his stuffed animals when he gets a look in his eye, a sparkle that takes him off guard, and he tilts his head curiously.
“What do they look like?” he asks, and it takes him a moment to realize what he’s talking about. “Your wings. I know you have them. It’s how you saved me. Can I see them?”
He knows he shouldn’t, he’s not supposed to, but he seems so excited, and he doesn’t really know that he’s real, anyway—or at least he won’t later—so he decides it can’t hurt too much. So he lets him see.
He gasps and reaches over to him, holding a hand out and then hesitating, throwing him a questioning look. Is this okay? his eyes seem to ask. He should move away. He should shy away from his touch. He should shake his head no. He doesn’t.
He nods and he takes it as a go ahead, and his fingers brush his wings carefully, gently, softly. He smiles to himself and then at him, the light in his eyes making something unfamiliar squirm inside of him.
“They’re beautiful,” he says, beaming at him. “You’re beautiful. My beautiful Corpse.”
He likes the way that sounds. And, likewise, it’s the first time starts to think of him as Sykkuno —his Sykkuno, too—instead of just his charge. The muscles in his face feel strange as he tries to mimic his expression, and yet he finds it’s not too hard to smile back when he’s looking at him like that and he’s echoing his words, thinking ‘my beautiful Sykkuno.’
The third is that he interferes.
When he gets too old for an imaginary friend, he has no choice but to leave him be. But after a while he misses him too much, and he wonders if he misses him too, so he starts to visit him in his dreams. He knows it’s wrong. He knows it’s against the rules. But he needs to see him, anyway. And they talk, and he smiles, and he can touch him even though it’s only in his head and in a way it’s even better than how it used to be, for a little while at least.
And then one day he sees him kissing his first serious boyfriend, and he’s forced to watch with every single, agonizing second as he falls further in love with someone else, and there’s a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach and a bitter taste on his tongue and it makes him feel…well, it makes him feel. And there lies the problem. He smiles that beautiful smile of his, only it’s not for him anymore, and he feels. Jealousy. Disappointment. Frustration. Sadness. Most of all, longing.
So he starts popping up again, whenever he needs someone. The friendly stranger on the train, offering him comfort when he needs a shoulder to lean on. The person at the coffee shop who makes him his favorite drink, and gives it to him for free when he’s having a rough day. The outside source who slips him the information he’s missing when he’s struggling to finish an article he’s been working on.
And, this time for less selfish reasons—although maybe selfish in a different way, if he’s being honest—the person who saves him. When he somehow lands herself in a hostage situation, when he nearly gets into a car accident that would have left him paralyzed, if not dead, when he nearly chokes to death on a cronut one morning.
He knows it’s bound to get him in trouble, that there’s a reason he’s so accident prone, that he’s helped him survive far past his time, but he can’t stop. He’s whoever he needs him to be again, and even though he wears a new face each time he sees him sometimes he’ll get that light in her eye again, sometimes he’ll smile at him like he recognizes him, like he knows him, and he thinks that maybe, just maybe, he does. And that makes it all worth it.
The fourth is that he loves him. He’s not supposed to feel love. He’s not supposed to feel anything.
He begs and he pleads for them to make him human, to let him be with him. If he really does exist because of him, for him, then this is what he feels like he’s meant for. Not just to protect him, not just to guide him, but to be with him. Maybe he was made to love him, he says. Maybe he’s different. Maybe it was meant to be this way. They don’t listen.
And then one day they hold him down, they make him watch as he snoops around a crime scene he’s not meant to be at, trying to get a few juicy details and collect evidence for his article. It’s after hours, so the place is empty, and he looks left and right before ducking under the yellow crime scene tape and taking in what’s before him. He supposes he’s not the only one who’s got a tendency for breaking the rules.
He resists the urge to call out to him, to tell him to run away, because he knows he won’t hear him and he knows it will only anger the one’s keeping him here even further, but it’s hard when he can tell that he doesn’t see the man who’s lying in wait for him and all he can feel is dread. He doesn’t even have time to look surprised before he shoots him, looks around to make sure no one is around to see, and then leaves. Just leaves him there. Broken and bleeding and dying, crumpled on the floor. They don’t let Corpse go to him until they’re sure it’s too late.
To anyone else it will probably look like he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like some unfortunate tragedy. That it was always just a danger of the job, of investigating and reporting on dangerous topics, on looking into things people wanted covered up. He knows better. He knows that this was staged. Planned out from the second he messed with his first death date, and because of his actions ever since.
He’s bleeding out by the time he reaches him, the pool of red around him soaking through his jeans as he kneels down next to him. “No,” he croaks, gathering him into his arms. It feels strange—it’s the first time he’s used this voice in a while. Since he’s even spoken out loud. “No, no, no, no, please…please…”
“Corpse…” he whispers, and he notices the flicker of recognition in his eyes. He’s looking at him, and he’s seeing him, really seeing him. He holds his head up, his hand tangled in his hair, and strokes his cheek with his thumb, his touch light as a feather. He smiles weakly and coughs up blood when he tries to speak again. It stains his lips. “Beautiful Corpse…”
He can pinpoint the moment he stops seeing anything at all.
He sobs and holds him close, tight against his chest, refusing to believe it. Desperate to feel the warmth from his skin and the reassuring beat of his heart, desperate to believe he’s not dead. He gets neither. Already, he feels cold, and not because the blood has cooled in his veins or because the heat has left his body yet, but because he knows his life has already slipped away, and there’s no getting it back. And his heart isn’t beating.
Just like that, he feels the light die inside of him. He feels the wings molt from his back as his breathing becomes labored—since when has he ever even had to breathe?— and a strange and foreign wetness fills his eyes. The loss of his wings should make him feel lighter, like shedding a weight he’s been keen to be free of for so long now, but instead all he feels is the crushing heaviness that sits on his chest, that weighs him down and tethers him here with his blood staining his hands that are shaking now like he never knew they could and his body limp in his arms and how could he have ever wanted to have this physical, beating heart when it hurts so god damned much, when it’s aching and throbbing and he wants to throw up and oh God—
He knows that they’re mocking him. Finally granting him his wish, finally allowing him to be mortal, all he’s ever wanted so that he could be with him. So that he could stay with him, be human, someone that he could love. Someone that he could spend the rest of his life with. So that he could grow old by his side.
And then taking away his reason for all of that, violently ripping it away from him, and making him stay. Breaking the rules for him just like he’s broken all the rest, except they know that this time he doesn’t want them broken, that he doesn’t want to be able to keep on existing after him.
It’s the ultimate punishment. For saving him. For loving him. Forcing him to live on this Earth, to exist in a world where his reason for existence no longer does. What’s the fucking point of a guardian angel if they can’t save the one they’re made to protect? He guesses he has his answer. There is none.
First he sees black. Nothing but darkness clouds his vision—a darkness signifying a black future, a black horizon, the gaping hole in his chest and the darkness that’s filling his heart, that’s eating away at his soul, that’s threatening to take him over. He sucks in a deep, trembling breath, and stops fighting. He lets it.
And then he sees red. Red like rage and anger he’s never experienced before, because all he’s really ever known before this is love, and now that’s gone. And someone needs to pay for this. He clenches his fists so tightly, so forcefully, that the nails digging into his palms draw blood, sticky and wet and foreign on his hands and red, red, red like everything else. Yes, someone needs to pay for this. He feels something snap inside him as he steels his resolve.
Someone is going to pay.