Chapter Text
Joel's roommate was odd.
The first time Pixl introduced emself, ey looked like ey had just come back from a renfaire. Even when there wasn't any sort of thing for miles around. Joel didn’t question it, waving to what was his side of the room, and oppositely, what would become Pixl’s.
Pixl had a shockingly large number of posters about paganism. Or, the adjacent things. Joel never asked what ey practiced- if it was truly paganism or nothing at all or something more common- and ey never asked Joel the same. The decorations weren’t particularly disturbing, but Joel did have to set some ground rules when Pixl started covering every surface with different colored candles. Joel was sure ey still had a stash of them somewhere, just waiting for the day the nightstands cleared enough to add one more candle.
It wasn’t anything worth complaining about. If anything, it was a constant guessing game: what would Joel find in her room this time? She never got concerned about it, even when he would find funeral bouquets littered on Pixl’s side, delicately preserved and bound in twine.
Likewise, Pixl never complained about anything on Joel’s side. It was blindingly obvious that Joel constantly had too many energy drinks, even when her demeanor was calm and even sleepy, sipping on a half-empty can of redbull. Joel would clean up her piles of cans, and eventually the bouquets left the room.
They had a system, something they never discussed aside from small comments. “The chrysanthemums are new,” Joel would comment, and Pixl would hum agreement, putting the groups of flowers on the thin windowsill.
“You’ve gotten some new flavors,” Ey would comment back, and Joel would tilt up his can- something strawberry kiwi, though he didn’t care for the brand this time- in a mock toast. Pixl had grabbed the closest thing to em, an empty water bottle, and toasted with her.
Pixl was a good roommate. Joel tried his best. They both had their oddities, the things that had most certainly gotten them kicked out by other roommates, but that didn’t really bother them either.
Pixl was rather normal in eir sleeping time, though. Compared to Joel, it wasn’t saying much, but it was normal enough for Pixl to be asleep when Joel did most of her homework, the typing on a laptop and music in his headphones interlaced with soft snores from the other end of the room.
Tonight, the snores weren’t terrible. They were barely there, actually, which would have Joel concerned over Pixl’s breathing if he didn't see em tossing around in eir sleep constantly. Whatever ey were dreaming of, it did not seem calm. Neither was Joel’s essay.
He grumbled, going back a few words to rewrite a sentence. He did not have enough brain power this late at night. Or early in the morning. She was too scared to check what the clock would say.
Pixl shot up in eir bed, breath heavy and loud.
Joel looked up from his laptop, eyes slow with drowsiness. Pixl had no such problem, eir hands shaking and all but frantic as they ran across Pixl’s face, eir hair getting even more messed up by the movement. Pixl looked like ey were contemplating rushing away from the bed, the blankets already rustled and tossed around by the sudden movement, but ey didn’t. Instead ey slumped in eir position, shoulders hunching and gasps turning to sighs.
There was a moment of silence, Joel’s fingers hovering still over her keyboard. The only sound was the quiet squeaking of forgotten music in her headphones and the steadying breathing from Pixl.
“You good over there?” Joel asked cautiously, and Pixl’s head snapped over to look at him, breath catching for a second. As if ey had completely forgotten Joel existed in eir moment of panic.
“Y-yeah,” Ey said, gulping down the words and panic. Ey sighed again, and eyed the posters hanging up on eir side of the room. Things about gods, about immortality, death. Things Joel never cared about. “Yeah, I’m good.” Pixl said, the words stronger.
Joel nodded at the words, trusting that even if ey weren’t good, it was something that could be pushed off until morning. She started going back to typing, the small clicking bringing a sense of normalcy to the nighttime scene. The comfortable ambience didn't get a chance to settle before Pixl spoke again.
“I think I just became a god.”
Joel’s fingers paused again, but he didn't look up this time. Pixl’s words were quiet but reverent, true and filled with awe.
“Congratulations.” Joel said, and went back to his essay.
Pixl stared at him, breath still staggered and attempting to get back to some semblance of normalcy. Ey changed from looking panicked to confused, bringing a muffled sense of relief with the easier emotion. “A god.” Ey repeated. Joel nodded, not looking up from his essay. He typed something down, and oh, that was a good topic, actually. He put it in his outline. When Pixl didn’t say anything else, Joel lifted his eyes, looking at his roommate’s lopsided expression. “I just became a god, Joel.”
“Yeah,” Joel said, looking back down and scrolling through his essay again. Maybe he should start working on the introduction paragraphs now. “Congrats. Sounds like a wild dream,” He said, humming out the end of the words. He stretched, hands arching in the air and landing on his energy drink. The last of the liquid dinged around the can, and Joel finished it off quickly. “You should put it in your, uh dream journal or whatever it is. Before you forget it.”
Pixl didn’t say anything in response to that. Eir mouth was open, parted in disbelief. It was promptly closed with a sleepy snort, realizing ey were disbelieving of Joel’s disbelief. Ey shifted in eir bed, moving so that Pixl could have eir body facing Joel instead of just eir head.
“Joel, do you have any idea of-” Pixl’s words were cut off with a mumble, and ey looked at the time on the shared alarm clock, sighing at the numbers Joel was still refusing to look at. It was late. That was all he needed to know. “Do you even believe in any deities?” Pixl asked, exasperated with the combined drop after eir panic and unreasonable time.
“Nope,” Joel said, popping the p and finally making eye contact with Pixl. “Do you know anything about nuclear semiotics, by the way? The professor won't let me rant about just the glowing cats for three pages.” Joel asked, and Pixl’s expression stayed confused. Maybe it changed to a deeper sense. “I've tried before.” He clarified, and the words brought Pixl to shake eir head.
“I… don’t,” The words were slow, something that sounded like defeat lining them. “I’m going back to sleep.” Pixl said, and ey laid back down in eir bed, sighing and going back to eir normal sleep.
“G’night,” Joel said, and filed away the god-dream talk, his brain focused back on his essay.
––
Pixl’s roommate was good.
Joel, as his name was, didn’t eye Pixl disapprovingly when ey put up eir posters. Or when ey pulled out bouquets of funeral flowers, or when ey would make excursions and come back smelling like gravestones and cold wood.
He was good, but still unusual. For one, Pixl was sure Joel’s stash of energy drinks was larger than Pixl’s candle collection, which was saying a lot. And she somehow kept up an abysmal sleep schedule, something that made Pixl both horrified, confused and impressed that she was still passing classes with flying colors.
But Pixl never commented on Joel’s sleep, so long as she didn’t comment on eir practices. Aside from that time with the candles, but in truth that was deserved. Pixl didn’t even need that many candles, but they also looked nice, so don't blame em for feeling a bit disappointed.
The room ey shared with Joel was small. Small in terms of a near-full living space for two people, but it's not like ey would be able to say if it was small for a dorm room, as it was eir first one.
Ey could say it was far too small to keep secrets. This was a plain as day fact, especially with two people, who were already not-great liars. And that wasn't to say either of them had anything to hide, just that they couldn’t hide it effectively.
Pixl had found the ice cream in their shared freezer not a half hour after Joel claimed to have not seen it. Joel accidentally found the backup candles Pixl had in eir desk. Pixl overheard Joel talking about how he could try to maneuver around deadlines. And Joel was wide awake when Pixl became a god.
Or, more accurately, while Pixl became a god, and ey were only aware of eir roommates' awareness in the after of becoming a god.
In the during part of becoming a god, Pixl wasn’t aware of anything other than the current-god in front of em. And how much ey needed to not freak out over that fact.
The god in front of em was indescribable- calling them a god was too small of a title, and yet the only one in any human language Pixl knew that would fit. Ethereal in a way that had Pixl reverent and would have em in a prayer position, if ey were aware of eir body.
As it was, Pixl wasn't really able to take in the presence of the god. They were speaking, a booming voice going across eir mind, while eir own mouth stayed stuck shut in awe.
“You will embrace an unliving aspect.” The god spoke, the words stiff as if they were rehearsed or like the god never wanted to speak them. They came down upon Pixl’s shoulders like another planet’s gravity- responsibilities and weight and power ey didn’t understand yet. “You will become more than what you are. You will walk among humans and animals and the world as something more than they will ever become. You will take my place.”
Pixl could barely breathe with the feeling. This was something more than they had ever seen, had ever heard of in eir practices. There were gods, and there were aspects, and there were things above the world ey lived in. They were always separate, nearly unreachable, save for prayers and dream-talks and signs without speaking.
This was different- this was a god giving their power to Pixl. Speaking to em. Meeting them in more than a fragmented spirit, more than Pixl would ever be able to handle in the waking world.
“You are a god.” The meaning was sewn in the universe, hidden between the depths of stars and signed by the core of the Earth. They were ripped with a terrible vengeance from the god’s mouth. “You are Immortality.”
And the words were true.
And when Pixl woke up, heavy breaths but chest free of mortality and head spinning with thoughts but clear with eir boundless time, Joel was awake as well.
The sound of his music was clear in Pixl’s ears, ey could practically feel the knowledge in his essay and everything was too much. But it turned down, went calmer, when Joel spoke. Pixl was able to turn eir breathing down, able to respond and say what ey were torn between glee and terror over.
“I think I just became a god.” Ey whispered into the air, and the words felt more real than anything ey had ever known. Ey looked to Joel, expecting some reaction- disbelief, wonder, skepticism, and was met with-
“Congratulations.”
And none of Pixl’s immortality mattered then. Joel was unfazed, wholy and without a hint of that changing, and it made Pixl feel normal. Ey felt the exasperation ey had when dealing with the candles, the same one ey had felt when all of this was a mortal religion without conversations with gods.
It helped. Pixl would have been pacing up the walls if not for the word, ey knew. Joel’s uncaringness let Pixl’s mind calm, and able to sleep again. Eir words were drowsy and small, but Joel nodded to them, acknowledged Pixl as the roommate ey were and not the god ey had become.
And despite everything, ey woke up normally, to the sound of an alarm that Joel never listened to and to the sight of the half-messy room ey had left the night before.
The items floating around the room were new.