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“What’s the point in it?” Kennedy asked, sitting at the too-big table which dominated his dining room. He’d set the table for two, although reheated leftovers only graced one of the plates.
“What do you mean?” Shannon asked. The ghost was in him, and beside him. Kennedy always had to make an effort to divest her from himself, make her more than a passenger, more than another temporary helmsman.
“I sent someone I don’t even know to… I don’t know. Oblivion? A worse place than the hall?” he asked, waving his hand as he thought out loud.
“You can’t know that.” she replied.
“That’s the problem. None of us know what’s in there. We know who’s in there, like-” Kennedy said, before Shannon interrupted.
Shannon did her best to lay a hand on his arm, recognizing the signs of another self-sacrificial rant before it began.
“Forrest is fine, Kennedy. Dimi Blather will be too.” she said, doing her best to put forward the parts of her that comforted Kennedy. Her presence, her voice. The respite from being alone that she offered.
“But you can’t know that.” He said, in the same way he’d said it a thousand times before.
“And you don’t know either. So choose to think something positive, because-” Shannon began to say, before he interrupted.
“Because what, Shannon?” Kennedy pulled away, looking towards the room’s right wall. It was adorned with photographs, pennants, even art. In the dimly lit dining room, it took on a memorial quality that could not be denied.
“Because it doesn’t do you any good to agonize over it. That’s what I always tell you, and you never listen to me about it. But I have to keep telling you.” she replied.
“Because one day I’ll cave in?” Kennedy asked.
“Because you know it’s true, already. You just need to accept it.” Shannon said, not entirely convinced she was right. She didn’t want Kennedy to worry about things like this, while the world came to its end.
The two, ghost and flesh, sat in silence for a moment. Then Shannon spoke again.
“You need to eat, Ken.”
“I’m not that hungry anymore.” he said, with some humor in his voice.
“Come on. It’s getting cold.” she replied, continuing the bit.
“Jeez, alright. I’ll clean the damn plate.” Kennedy said, the joke falling away.
Shannon relaxed, as much as a ghost could. “What do you want to watch tonight?”
Kennedy shrugged, attention focused on the food in front of him. After a few sips from the drink in front of him, he replied. “You can pick.”
“Are you trying to be difficult, Ken?” Shannon asked, almost immediately regretting it.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so? It’s just… Well, I don’t feel great about where we’re going. About the end being sooner than we’d like. Everyone always wants just a little more time when time’s running short, and I think time’s running short on everything.” He said, pushing back the chair to stand up.
“I think I want to go for a walk, maybe. I’d ask if you want to come with, but-”
“Kennedy, that joke stopped being funny the second time.” Shannon replied, barely suppressing a smile. “But sure, we can go outside if that’s what you want.”
Wordlessly, the two left Kennedy’s house. Kennedy’s neighborhood had seen better days, and current events had left it half vacant, the remaining residents either too stubborn to leave or in the process of packing. In this presumed end of days, no one was quite sure where to go- people had been leaving for the countryside, the coasts, the mountains. Anywhere but where they currently were, particularly in those towns and cities graced stadiums and teams. Kennedy had heard that some believed that the end would be ushered in with the burning of the stadiums, scorching entire pieces of land off the Earth. He didn’t think that would be the start, but it wouldn’t surprise him if it was.
Kennedy led the two as they journeyed, Shannon behind him instead of beside. It wasn’t that she was making room for other pedestrians- she had no body, no real mass. They could walk right through her. It didn’t feel good for her or Kennedy, though. She personally held that her existence, the ghost’s possessions, held a certain belief-based quality. The more real that she seemed, that the ghosts seemed, the more real she was. Conversely, when people walked through her, when she chose to float instead of walk, some element of reality was stripped from her that made her body run cold. There had been many jokes about someone walking on her grave, but behind them was a mutual concern for the tenuous nature of her existence.
After some time, the two found themselves beside the bay, at a waterfront that had been all but vacated. It had once been an area occupied by the most ardent worshippers of the Olde One, strange stone temples and shrines intermixed with a smattering of small apartments and businesses. That had changed once the Olde One was slain, and changed again after the first ascension of the Crabs. The area had a decidedly irradiated quality, an ambiently haunted one. It was a place that inspired people to jump at shadows and strain their ears to hear strange whispers. Some of the former Carcinist churches had been vandalized, windows broken, spray painted from the floor to the roof. Looking at them made Kennedy feel old. He had been here when they were full of life, red-robed priests in strange masks leading rituals and readings, so sure that their faith was correctly placed in the colossal crustacean that sat in the Bay. He had been there when they were suddenly awash with injured people, fresh from the fight to kill the Olde One. To kill Deborah, kill something that stood for more even in death than anyone stood for in life.
“I’m surprised they haven’t torn them down.” Shannon said, eying the vandalized churches.
“I’m not.” Kennedy replied, “I don’t think she’d let anyone do that. Deb probably likes them this way, dead churches for a dead God.”
“I guess that’s one way to look at it.” Shannon replied, unsure. “I wish I understood her better. I feel so lost whenever you talk about her, or when you talk to Pedro about her. I’m pretty sure she existed in my time, but I don’t know if she was ever killed, or ever important enough to be killed.”
“Honestly, I’m still surprised you didn’t worship a giant lobster.” Kennedy replied, “I’m still waiting for you to admit that you did.”
“Not every team has its own religion, Kennedy. Some of us were just regular Blaseball teams.” Shannon said, adding, “If Blaseball can be called regular at all, I guess.”
Shannon walked towards the railing, looking down at the bay water. It was an odd wine-dark color that night, occasionally churning without apparent cause.
“Bay’s not that deep, you know.” Kennedy said, stepping up next to her. “I saw Nagomi walk across it once, didn’t even get her hat wet.”
Shannon leaned forward on the railing, jumping towards the water. It was something of an act, given she lacked gravity or real mass, but it was real enough for neither her or Kennedy to feel weird as a result.
“You’re not going to ask me to jump in, are you?” Kennedy asked, leaning against the railing. “I’m not exactly dressed for a swim and the Bay is… Well, it’s not good for swimming. There’s too much weird stuff in it, in the water. Deb bleeds into it sometimes, even.”
“You’re a Crab, Kennedy. Besides, I can’t feel the water if you’re not in it. It’s been too long since I’ve gotten to swim.”
“Fine, fine.” Kennedy replied. He shed the less necessary clothes and dove into the water. It felt unusually warm, unusually alive, unusually vast. For a moment he wondered if the evening had simply been an eerily coherent dream that was finally beginning to tear and peel away from the bones of reality. It wasn’t out of the question entirely; he’d had a lot of real, awful, and real awful dreams since the Reader changed him, changed some of the other Crabs.
Shannon pushed his hand and splashed him while he paddled deep in thought, shocking him from his train of thought.
“This feels nice, Ken.” Shannon said, somewhat imitating his movements. They both knew she couldn’t sink, she wasn’t real enough to. Her reality didn’t matter much though, not as much as the unreality and the ritual.
“It is nice. Better than it should be, really.” he replied, “You’re doing a good job at keeping Blather off my mind, by the way.”
“Not good enough though.” she replied, swimming a circle around him. “But I guess you’re not the type to forget.”
“Gotta keep something around after I lose them.” he replied, “I heard a joke about myself once, at a bar.”
“Oh?” Shannon replied, stopping to float.
“It was pretty dumb, but it stuck with me. Barely a joke, honestly. Guy said “No wonder the Crabs keep losing players, their captain is named Kennedy Loser.” Kennedy said, wondering if this was the wrong thing to share with her. Not when she was being nice, pushing him to take care of himself when he wouldn’t.
“How’d the fight go?” she asked. There was a familiar edge to Shannon’s voice. He heard it when she cheered and jeered at games, right beside him on the plate or on the field. Kennedy tried to always think the best of his opponents, considering how often one of them was a former Crab. Shannon had no such connection, and decided that if he wouldn’t say anything, she would.
“I didn’t fight the guy. One of his friends told him off, and that was that.” Kennedy said.
“You should’ve fought him.” Shannon replied, now swimming away, towards the Crabitat’s spot in the bay. Towards Deb’s dead body.
Kennedy followed. She could only get so far from him because of how their particular possession worked, but it never felt good when she tested the limit. Sometimes he wondered if he’d split apart if she really pushed it, the parts that were more her than him sailing free to join their rightful master. He wasn’t sure if she realized, but ever since her getting stuck into him, splinters in skin, she’d taken up more and more of what was him. He was fairly sure she’d never become all of him, but he felt they would eventually cross a point where too much of him was Shannon to ever let her go. Sometimes he felt that they were already beyond that point.
“You’re being quiet again.” Shannon said, as they came closer and closer to the corpse.
“This feels weird. Seeing her from this angle.” Kennedy replied. “I know Finn apparently does this sometimes, swimming around her.”
“I wish I got your relationship to her better- Deborah, the Olde One, not Finn.” she replied.
“I’m glad you don’t. That’s maybe one of the few things I liked about getting new players. Less people living in her damn shadow.” he said.
The water closer to Deb felt off, and for a moment Kennedy considered getting out, scrambling back onto land and walking home. He wasn’t here by accident. Shannon wasn’t here by accident. Kennedy had come to accept whatever happened to him when it came to Gods, but he didn’t want to see one of the better parts of his life get mixed into the worst.
“Shannon,” Kennedy said, finding it hard to speak, “If we go any closer, I don’t think we’ll be going back home the same.”
“Why?” Shannon asked, understanding the severity of his statement. She knew him well, and understanding how he felt, how he worried, was very easy for her. Her existence, predicated on him, made a certain amount of bleedthrough inevitable.
“Deb’s going to suggest something, a deal of some kind. She knows that you being part of me is a little dicey, unstable, I guess. So she’ll-”
An old voice interrupted Kennedy. It seemed to come from all around him, from the water, from the colossal body that lay dead a few dozen yards away.
“You’re right. You are going to lose her.” Deborah said, the Olde One said, the dead god said.
“She is a part of you, but she isn’t any specific part of you. She’ll stay here if she becomes a more permanent addition.”
“What do you want?” Kennedy asked, fearing the answer. Beside him, Shannon floated, speechless.
“This world is not going to survive much longer. You would be taking me, as much as you’d be keeping her. Not my whole, barely even a tenth of me. Just enough to make sure I survive your League’s petty games.” Deb said, “I do not know how you’ll escape, but I imagine you will. The cycle can only repeat so long until it breaks.”
“You led us here, didn’t you?” Kennedy asked, too many emotions flowing through him. He never liked talking to her, but he hated when she did this. Cornering a Crab to force them into giving her her way. It wasn’t that the Crabs couldn’t refuse her deals, but when she made them, she made them knowing the answer in advance. When Kennedy had wanted to recover from the worst of his shakes inflicted by the Peanut, it’d been her voice whispering him towards the long-lost paladin’s helmet.
Alive, she had sometimes been a petty tyrant. Dead, she had become a nagging voice, a constant push towards whatever her goals were. Her death had been entirely necessary, but Kennedy wondered sometimes if they should’ve believed in her death, instead of believing in her after her death. Believing that she was just a body, that what had been her was well and truly gone. Maybe it didn’t work like that, but Kennedy was willing to hope that it could’ve. It meant that there was some better world, and that made him feel better about his own.
“Naturally.” Deb replied. “You knew that too, and yet you came.”
“Shouldn’t she get a say?” Kennedy asked, gesturing towards Shannon.
“You won’t last without her,” Deb said, “She isn’t my concern, Kennedy. You are. The Crabs are. Do you care about how your bat feels?”
“I used to care about how my shoes felt.” Kennedy replied. “And if my bat was actually a person, and not a fucking inanimate object, I’d sure as shit care about how it felt.”
“Fine. What do you think, Shannon?” Deb asked, feigning interest with her voice. It was obvious, and intentionally so.
“I… I’m sorry, Kennedy. I think I want to hear her out. The Hall isn’t very nice when you’re as long dead as I am. You either barely exist, or you’re alone. If I went back now I might find some people, but I don’t think I’d see you again.” Shannon said, crying despite the obvious reality that she couldn’t. Sometimes, the act was so good that reality bought it, indulging the theatrics. A standing ovation of sorts.
“It’s fine, Shannon. I won’t let you go back there. I won’t lose you.” Kennedy said, staring daggers at Deb’s dead body.
“So you accept the deal?” Deb asked, voice now gloating. She’d gotten her way, and put Ken down in the process. Reminded him why he hadn’t quite been there to push in the knife.
He couldn’t stand up to her. Not when it mattered.
“Yes.” he said.
It hurt when she acted, a sharp pain in his chest as flesh changed states, changed forms. Changed from one kind of life to another. Shannon’s image went fuzzy for a moment, and he couldn’t make out what she was saying. It scared him more than anything else had in recent memory.
The pain soon faded, and she was there again. Disturbed, worried, but all there.
“It’s a good thing you have a big heart, Kennedy.” Deb said, “I was able to fit her in there. And a small part of myself.”
“Go fuck yourself.” Kennedy replied. She was already gone.
The walk home was quiet. Neither of the two said much, and when they finally made it home Kennedy simply collapsed on the couch, still damp. Shannon sat next to him, doing what she could to help.
“This doesn’t help your case.” Kennedy said, to the heart in his bandaged hand. He’d found it a day or so after winding up in this strange place, plucked from the Desert he’d almost died in. “You’re admitting you’re a part of her.”
“But,” Kennedy admitted, looking towards the tarot spread in front of him, “You mean well. Maybe a little bit of that monster’s just what I need to get ready for round two against that dried up asshole.”
“And,” he mused, pulling at the bandages that concealed his wounded chest, the too-big wounds caused by the failed emergence of a God, “maybe I need someone who gets me. Or got him, at least.”
The heart flexed in his hand, its small legs stretching. She wanted an answer.
Kennedy, not her Kennedy, not the one who had given up his heart, plunged the new one into his chest. It hurt while it took root, pushing flesh to make itself fit.
He looked up to see a familiar looking woman. He wondered if he’d invoked this Shannon Chamberlain once, the one from his reality.
“Thank you.” she said.
Kennedy nodded, an unseen grin behind his facial bandages.
“Shut up, Deb. Let her talk.” he replied, his body forcing the dead God back down.
Shannon’s image shifted, becoming more familiar. He definitely hadn’t seen her before, he knew now. He could see why the alternate him had been comfortable with her around. She didn’t carry the quality most ghosts did, the lifeless one that made them seem more like shells than people.
“You made a mistake taking me in.” Shannon admonished him.
“Maybe. Rather make it than leave you trapped with her.” Kennedy replied. He extended a hand. “Kennedy Loser, nice to meet you.”
She did her best to shake it. “Shannon Chamberlain, likewise.”
Her hand stayed in his.
They embraced.
Deb festered.