Work Text:
It's sort of a wonderland, there's sort of a park bench and the sun always sort of shines. Grace says that it's heaven, Freddie tells her to shut-up, and Chris just smokes his spliff because there's always sort of spliff here, too.
"Do they allow spliff in heaven?" Chris asks, because it seems like a reasonable question. "I mean, shouldn't there be a border guard or something, some lad who feels you up at the gate and takes any illegals off you? Or do you think God's actually alright with drugs, and it's just those government pansies who've got the problem?"
Freddie just stares at him, angry. Freddie's always angry. Chris would tell him to chill out and have a spliff if he had an desire to get punched again. But he doesn't, so he just tips his head back against the grass and stares at the sky and the way it sort of floats and flickers, like it's not really real, or maybe he's not really real, but everything feels too hazy and wonderful for him to particularly care either way.
Some days - or some moments, because he's not sure if there are actually days here - he can see Cass dancing on the skyline, just twirling and laughing, or maybe crying, and that somehow makes him feel like everything, everyone, is alright.
"If this was heaven," Freddie says, head clutched in his hands and voice tired, "don't you think we'd be with people we actually know?"
Grace sits down next to him, smiling. Grace is always smiling - except sometimes she's crying, tucked up in some far away corner of the park with wet eyes and some ridiculous handkerchief or another with her initials embroidered into it. And sometimes, she doesn't do either of those things, just gets quiet and recites something that she insists is Shakespeare, but sounds like utter bollocks to Chris, but then again, what does he know? He's spliffed up most of the time, and probably dead as well, so what the fuck kind of judgement does that leave him with, anyway?
But Grace, Grace smiles right now, looks at Freddie with those big eyes of hers and says, "Maybe we do all know each other, like from past lives."
Freddie just barely glances at her. "Bullshit."
Grace's brow creases and she manages to hold back the frown. "I doubt that God, if he is around, appreciates all the negativity, Frederick."
Chris sits up, watches the back and forth, expects Freddie to brush it off and sulk like he usually does, so it's a bit of a shock when he just stands up and shoves away.
"Fuck that. Fuck you. Where's my mother, huh? If this is heaven, then where the fuck is my mother?" He's breathing heavily and he looks a lot less dead than he has in all the time Chris has known him - although he couldn't say how long that's been, because time just sort of twists and fades here, just doesn't really matter at all.
Grace stands, too, pretty and statuesque in all her colors. "I don't know," she says.
Chris gives it a few seconds, then struggles up as well. "I do," he announces, and points upwards.
Freddie doesn't even bother with a glare at this point. "What?"
"Look up," Chris says, and Grace does so immediately, just smiles at the sky like it's the natural thing to do. Freddie takes a little longer, but eventually glances upwards, at the sparkling blue sky, another perfect day, or perfect eternity, or whatever the fuck this is.
"What?" Freddie says again, but he sounds less angry and more tired.
"What do you see?" Chris asks, puffing on his spliff, before handing it over to Grace, who takes it merrily, and says, softly, "Sadness. Everyone's so sad." But she says it in a way that makes it sound sort of okay, sort of par for the course, sort of lovely and glittering like the sky.
Chris nods, just takes her answer as it is, and turns to Freddie. "And you?"
"I don't know," he says, but he doesn't really sound like her believes it. "The sky."
Chris just keeps staring at him, because Freddie is the sort that you have to stare at, and nudge, and coax like some kind of really boring dog that doesn't give a shit about fetch.
Freddie sighs, looks up again. "Cook," he says, after a while. "My sister, Karen. Effy."
And Chris doesn't ask about the last one, because he doesn't really feel like he needs to. He sees Effy up there sometimes, too, with her head resting on Tony's shoulder, looking bored and annoyed and just like her brother. He sees Jal playing her clarinet in front of the whole damn world and it makes him want to cry, want to throw-up, but in kind of a good way. He sees everything, and he thinks Freddie and Grace probably do, too.
"I reckon if you look long enough, you'll see your mum, too," he tells Freddie.
Freddie stares at him for a bit. Freddie stares a lot. Eventually he just sort of nods, takes the spliff from Grace and sighs it up. "So, what now, then?" he asks.
Chris shrugs, but Grace smiles. Grace almost always smiles. "Let's play tag," she says, like it's up there with the theory of relativity on the scale of good ideas or something, but at that exact moment, to Chris, is sort of feels like it is.
Freddie rolls his eyes. "I'm not playing tag. I'm not six."
"No, you're dead," Chris says.
And Grace runs past him, kicks her shoes off, and taps him on the shoulder. "And you're it."
Chris laughs, throws his head back and runs after her, and he's pretty sure after a few more seconds of sulking, Freddie follows. Everything kind of slows down and speeds up, and there's Cass dancing again, right on the horizon, and this time he's pretty sure she's laughing.