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i.
For ten days straight, Craig Faucet burns.
It’s not that he was a stranger to the idea of incinerations, no, he’d seen the news bulletins just the same as everyone else. And Dimi had told him all about Thiago too, though in different words–”You know, sometimes I think it was a last twist in the gut from Deb,”–point being; he knew as well as anyone else it was just a part of this splort.
And here’s the thing, he’s up to bat and he can feel the heat and it’s burning hot and it doesn’t stop. It never stops.
ii.
His parents have had the booth as long as he can remember, and so every weekend since he turned 16 he’s put up the hand painted banner reading “Faucet’s Florals” in scrawling letters. It’s a decent gig and he’s happy to do it–got him through college and means he gets to help his parents out.
It’s a normal Sunday morning when static crashes in his ears, almost bringing him to the floor. 3 minutes later, Bri is there, out of breath and frantic.
“She’s back, C.” Panic in Bri’s eyes like alarm bells. “We’re so unbelievably Fucked.”
iii.
Bri calls him the day after it happens, distorted and broken.
“I thought I lost you, C.” A shaky breath. “I was so scared.”
He doesn't know how to explain that he can still taste the ash coating his throat, the same way Bri couldn't explain playing two games at once. All he knows is that he's still burning, even though he's not on fire.
The article Bri sent him stares him down: “Temporal Instability: or Why We’re Incredibly Screwed by Sammuel Finnegan”. He doesn't want to say it, but they've never been ones to lie to each other.
“You still might.”
iv.
Craig met Bri the first day of college, junior year. It was an art history class, he was a Compsci major and Bri was Comms, and they both nearly failed. Still Bri was the first friend he had in years, and Bri was the first person he told when he chose his name.
“Craig’s such an old person's name,” With a biting grin. “Can I still call you C?”
He had gotten Bri the job at the street fair, and watched as they flourished. Now Bri's in Baltimore, he’s dead (kinda), and the world is quite literally falling apart.
v.
In his dreams, Craig burns too.
He can see ghosts everywhere he goes, superimposed against the brick of the Firehouse. The statue outside the stadium that he could have sworn winked at him, even behind a blindfold. The wolf that keeps watch by the abandoned workshop in the basement, the one none of them have touched, refuses to tell him their name. The stained glass windows, all these frames with names lost to time, shimmer with knowing. There’s one with his face on it, too, bright, burning, alive.
He never realized a city could be so haunted, until he died.
vi.
“So, how’s Baltimore?”
“Lonely.”
“That’s all?”
“What more do you want from me? It’s like some kind of sick high school reunion, you know? Not only do they all know each other, they killed a god together. And then there’s me.”
“Bri…”
“And I miss you. And I miss Aza, and I miss everyone else too. It’s hard.”
Silence. A beat too long.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’ll be fine. It’s weird though, I can feel this itching in the back of my skull, like suddenly I’m too big for my body.”
Another beat. “I think I can feel it too.”
vii.
In his dreams, he can see a desert sometimes, large and expansive and static in his eyes.
In his dreams, he can feel it creeping in and carving out his memories, laying them out like shattered glass in front of him.
In his dreams, a statue winks, a wolf howls, and his face reflects back at him.
He’s at second base five days in when he sputters with his water-logged lungs, black ichor splattering the plate. Aza stares back at him slack–jawed, striking out. When the inning ends, he can’t see anything but obsidian walls.
And he is so, so scared.
viii.
The static passes and they find themselves on the field of the abandoned Firehouse. Everyone is familiar faces he’s seen over the years–Aza from the butcher’s, Avery and Steals from the busker’s corner–and everyone’s just as confused as he is to be there. Bri pulls him aside.
“I think I fucked up, C. Like real bad.”
His nails dig into Bri’s arm. “B, what did you do?”
“Listen, I was running the welcome booth like usual and she came up to me, rebar and all. I didn’t know how to say no.”
“Who did?”
“Her, C. The Lady of Red Stars.”
ix.
Two days after he burns alive, Craig watches as Owen gets caught in the feedback and flicker-flights between grey and red as fast as he can blink. At the end they’re spit out off the mound, dizzy and pale. They’re still flickering as he helps them up, right eye phasing in and out as they struggle to straighten up.
Their voice is haunted as they stand. “It wasn’t time yet.” They look at Craig, voice a whisper. “It will be.”
Craig goes to the shop the second they’re back home, makes an arrangement, sets it aside.
Texts Owen: You’ll know when.
x.
He’s at the plate, arms swinging and he burns. In the hall, immateria fills his lungs, lining them and mixing with ash.
He’s back at the plate, burning again as he cracks a single across the sky. At the Firehouse, the him in the window winks back.
He’s back on base, running and running till he makes it home. In the hall, he’s running too. The wolf from the workshop howls, keening at the sky.
A woman looks at him, ribs made of rebar and lungs out of smoke.
“I am trying to help you,” She says, “But there’s not much time.”
xi.
“You can feel it too.”
It’s not a question. He doesn’t know how Ryan got his number, but dying on the same day is probably reason enough to get to know someone.
“Tomorrow, I think. The streams collapsing, you can feel them too, right?”
“It’s like being squeezed through a tube.”
It does. When he closes his eyes, it’s rushing water and heavy smoke. He thinks about what Bri said, about being splintered in two, body in two different places. There's a version of him that’s here, and one that’s drowning.
“So we die tomorrow?”
“Technically, we’re already dead.”
xii.
Dimi pulled him aside, the day after it happened. “I don’t know why you’re here, kid, and I don’t know how long you’ll stay. But I’m gonna do what I can to make sure it doesn’t hurt.”
Here’s the thing: Craig Faucet has been many things. Shy, fast, a good son. Lucky is not one of them.
So it hurts when he stumbles to the plate that last time. Hurts as he feels timespace bearing down on him. Hurts as he swings and misses. Hurts as he’s alight, one last time.
Time crashes in, and Craig Faucet burns.