Chapter Text
It wasn't a fair deal.
Cale wasn't naive. He could recognize that. He could also recognize when a deal was given on a take it or leave it basis, endure the unfair deal or get nothing at all.
It was a foregone conclusion that he would accept the deal. It wasn't a real choice, was it? Accept unilateral and unfair conditions or he and everyone he loved would die.
But Cale hadn't grown up as the son of nobility, once eyed to be the heir to a territory that no longer existed, without picking up on a few coy details that others might not.
The deal couldn't be changed in any meaningful way. Nothing that would make the deal remotely fair.
But he could negotiate for some insignificant details to be adjusted.
It was hard to breathe, hard to speak, the overbearing presence of the literal god who held dominion over death and controlled not just Cale’s fate but the fate of everyone he had ever loved wasn’t a presence easily spoken up against, even with Cale’s normal disregard for status he hesitated under the weight of it.
It wasn’t easy to speak up but this was important to him.
The key to any negotiation was to understand what was important to the other person. What did they want from you? Where were their breaking points? Where were the parts where they didn’t care about the details?
Cale was good at finding that shit. Good at finding the angle.
“One day.”
All the god of death really cared about was sending Cale back in time and replacing his soul with some random asshole who was apparently well suited to save them all.
He wanted Cale to give up ownership of his body willingly, or as willingly as anyone could get up their body in such a twisted negotiation, and live a new life in a new place and in exchange, Cale would be able to meet with the reborn version of his mother.
The god of death seemed to think it was a rather generous plan. But Cale could tell at a glance that death didn’t care if Cale met his mother again or if he lived a happy life. He wanted to do something specific with this world. Cale’s body was the tool he intended to use for those ends. Everything else was just surface dressing because, for whatever reason, Death needed Cale’s approval to go forward with his plans.
He was only trying to assuage Cale’s reservations with a surface level understanding of Cale’s values.
That worked well enough.
Cale knew there was no other option. Refusal meant death.
In so many ways, acceptance also meant death.
It was a bit ironic, in a not very funny way, growing up Cale had always felt that his family would be happier if he was replaced with anyone else. And here was a literal god confirming that childish insecurity.
Oh well, it didn’t actually matter if Cale’s family wanted him or loved him. Dying choking on his own blood in the remains of a battlefield, soldiers trampling over his dying corpse and remembering the death of everyone he’d ever loved hidden vividly behind his eyes really brought things into perspective for a person.
It was enough if they were alive.
If Cale dying and leaving really would help them live, what the hell did it matter whether they wanted him or not aside from childish ego?
But he still wanted just one more selfish day before he let it all go and surrendered the last thing he had left in this world, his body and identity, for a stranger to overtake and do a better job with.
One day?
It would be an understatement and a gross mischaracterization to say that the god of death’s voice was like crypt. He actually had quite a pleasant and normal sounding voice. But the weight of deaths across countless worlds and realities hung heavily over each syllable and pressed upon Cale an inability to be denied.
But he did sound curious, so Cale took spirit in that.
“Before you send me to that other world.” Who even knew what would await him. And who the hell knew what condition his reborn mother would be in. “I want one day in my regressed body.”
Why?
The god sounded so legitimately taken aback that Cale had to laugh. If he didn’t laugh, he might cry. If he cried he might just die.
He’d suspected as much when the god had first presented him with the arrangement but this bastard really didn’t know shit about Cale. It was funny, a god with so much power that he could literally wind back the clock and swap souls between dimensions at the snap of a finger but he couldn’t see through the shitty act of a teenage boy who hadn’t known how to cope with grief back then.
Cale knew how to cope now.
The compounded loss, one after another as everyone died before him. It was almost a relief when he felt the pain of death clawing at his skin and pulling him beneath the ground. That was far more peaceful than continuing to exist is this miserable world where every person he’d loved was dead or dying.
He’d gotten so good at coping that he didn’t feel any need for dishonesty anymore.
“To say goodbye.”
The heavy silence held a negative answer and Cale barked out a laugh.
“Don’t worry. I won’t tell them shit.” Would they even believe him if he did? “I just want to see them again.”
There was a pregnant silence where the god of death realized for the first time that Cale had loved his family.
How stupid.
Of course he’d loved them. He missed them. The warmth of the people who he’d loved and held so dearly. The idea that he would be happy so long as he was given the scraps of his reborn mother as though she was the only person he’d ever loved was just as insulting as it was painful. Of course he missed and loved his birth mother but she died when he was eight , the idea that he hadn’t loved a single other person in the past thirty-two years was fucking ludicrous.
It made him need the day all the more.
If even a god thought he’d hated them, what must they have thought?
How wretched.
That can be arranged, but–
“Don’t worry.” Cale laughed and it was an empty sound without meaning. “I’m good enough at acting that I fooled you, right?”