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“It’s okay. It’s alright! We’re gonna be alright.”
Beef has never died before. The yelling, yelling, yelling in their head gets louder. This isn’t worth it, Beef. You only have three lives. They’re going to die in the End, and it will be pointless, and you will be pointless.
“Shut up,” Beef murmurs through their teeth. He doesn’t know if Dwyn can still hear Redd, or if the closer co-possession dipped Redd far enough into the world of the living to prevent it–if Dwyn can hear him, though, they don’t say anything. They only grip the sword tighter.
Beef isn’t afraid of many things. He’s certainly not afraid of dying. This has been coming for a long, long, long time.
Don’t do it. Stop them! Stop it, stop it! Beef, please, this is going to hurt us! You haven’t–you don’t know what it’s like, Beef, you don’t want to do this, you don’t.
It’s not as quick as either of them would have liked. It’s one, then two, then pause, then three. Redd is screaming, screaming, angry and pained. Beef grits and bears it. The pause is more agony than the hits–waiting, inches from death, hoping to god it’d be over faster than this. Faster, faster, please. And then they were dead.
In the space between life and death, their body floated endlessly through time. Two souls hovered around it, tails twirling in an endless cyclone around the lifeless corpse.
“I told you it would hurt. I told you. God, you never listen to me,” Redd says. He crosses his arms, as if he’s ready and willing to start an entire argument in the maybe 20 seconds they get between respawn.
“You never give me any advice worth listening to. It’s always ‘ditch your friends’, or ‘steal their shit’. Dwyn needed a kill, and I didn’t want to level that stress on top of them when they were already going to the End.” Beef is a little less used to being outside of their body, floating uncomfortably in the emptiness. It’s cold, and he feels like he could watch time stretch out into infinity by craning his head backwards. He…doesn’t.
“Oh, you’re KIDDING me. Dwynwen’s not surviving the End! They’re going red anyways! You–you wasted one of our lives for no reason, is what you just did! I’ve never–”
Beef interrupts, shouting, “What, our lives? Last I damn checked, you had three lives, and you spent them all! They’re my lives, and I’ll spend them as I damn well please!”
It’s silent, for a moment, Redd staring out into the empty nothingness, the middle ground between their body and Beef’s soul.
“I’ve never died to a player before,” Redd says. The air gets heavier, and heavier, and heavier. Beef can feel it–can feel their time in here wane, the body sucking them both back in to respawn for the first time. Beef should just keep his mouth shut. He should apologize, or do anything besides what he’s about to do right now.
“You didn’t die. I died. It’s not your choice, it’s not your life. Stop trying to act like you’ve got equal say in how I spend my time here, and who I choose to trust, and who I choose to die for.”
The last thing Beef sees before they’re both pushed back into the body is Redd’s face, angrier than he’s ever seen it. It’s the kind of rage that’s palpable, that he feels the instant they’re in the same head again. All-encompassing, stifling, painful rage. When Beef wakes up, he tries to open his eyes, and the rage is suddenly secondhand to the fear he feels when he can’t.
Redd opens their eyes, staring through the holes in the mask. They are both surrounded by Beef’s friends, looking at them curiously.
“I like your outfit, Beef! I love the skull, it’s super cool. You look great.”
Redd doesn’t even know who said that, and Beef is too shell-shocked to hear from the backseat he’s been granted inside their head. They can feel the Radiostar symbol burn on their back, so Redd backs them into a corner. They nod, and placate, and he acts the best he can. As soon as everyone leaves, they take Beef’s dogs and they run.
They don’t know where to go, but they run.