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Though death is unknown, the living have spent millenniums bracing themselves for its endless possibilities– for all its abundance and deficiencies, the goodness and badness of an afterlife weighed solely on the fraction of life spent proving our worth on Earth;
how unfair.
Bane Perez was a man of God– was .
He worshipped all life the same way he was grateful for his own, tending to the animals on the estate he was employed on; treating them well and treating his patrons better. He took in Blacknose, a gentle soul too kind for the estate hunters, and who was but a fawn when she died; held down by her neck when her limbs scrambled to escape.
If God were real and true to His words, Blacknose would not have died that summer’s evening and Bane would not have to rip his headless body out of Death’s grip that same hour. He was the good of the God that hated him, and no good was intended to be given from the start.
“Do you believe in an afterlife?” Bane broke the silence.
The ruins of the factory were covered in thick snow, and the prisoner had spent the last minute shoveling fistfuls of white onto Bane’s stomach and ribs, icing them lest they kept draining.
The snow began to bleed red, and Bane is reminded of Christmas. He thinks he will see Blacknose soon.
“Stop talking.” Luca was frantic, removing the ice before they completely melted into the heat of Bane’s wounds, and replacing them with fresh snow. ‘They will be here soon.’ Luca recited like a sinner at the pearly gates. It was both a reassurance and a remedy.
“It’s the only thing I can do.”
“Shut up- Shut up!” The prisoner’s voice broke, trying to remain calm but it was impossible. His fingers were numb from the cold and covered in fresh blood but he could only keep going. What more could he be asked to do?
Bane groaned when Luca pressed down too hard, and Luca jolted back.
“Luca. Let me talk.”
“They’ll be here soon.” Luca squeezed the last breath of air he’d been holding in as he spoke. He said the only thing he was strong enough to say. It gave him a semblance of hope. Fingers blue and red and certain to need stitches when he got back to the Manor.
Bane ignored him– it was pointless. He saw in Luca a man that reminded him of himself a long time before enlisting into the Manor. They were both the same, chained to their past and the good of the God that hated them.
“Do you believe we go somewhere when we die?”
When Luca spoke, his mouth was thick with spit and despair. “It’s been a while since I had to think about it.”
“The Manor has spoiled you, my love,” Bane took Luca by his hands and encased them inside the palm of his own “you’ve forgotten what it’s like to live.”
Bane is not as warm as he used to be, not like when their hands intertwined on the bed they shared and Luca’s heart breaks a little.
“We were promised-” Luca choked on his words, forgetting briefly the melting crimson snow that needed replacing “We were promised eternity here.”
“Yes, we were.”
The snow was not working– it melted too fast and Luca saw fragments of dead leaves melt into the pool of fluid surrounding Bane’s abdomen. An expanding wound with strings of flesh barely holding on, it looked like he’d been ripped to shreds by the teeth of rabid hounds, only that he’d never been bitten at all.
“Then this is a mistake.” Luca forced out a scuff, the air dried his throat and it hurt seeing him like this “Close your eyes, Bane.”
“Luca.”
“Close your fucking eyes!” When Bane closes his eyes, they will both be back in Oletus again, back home again– It was the way the manor games worked, Luca was sure of it. In Oletus, there will always be a ‘Start Over’, to be tormented by a celestial button to do it all again.
Bane did not speak. He stared into Luca’s eyes and wondered if the boy was looking into the face of a man who had accepted his fate, or if they were both still fighting. He wished Luca was not here, it would be easier.
“Let’s go home, Bane.” The words escaped him as whispers, and a soft smile pushed beads of tears down his reddened cheeks.
Home.
It was a sound that laid awkwardly on his tongue every time he thought to say it, but Bane says it differently. When Bane says ‘home’, he says it with ember plucked from the Sun to keep the lights on, those words become lockets engraved with their names in it, it becomes a promise that Bane will be there in the home they built, to love and protect.
“You know what I think?” Bane’s arms fell to his side, too weak to hold on as Luca’s frigid fingers slipped away. His forehead tightened in a knot, the wound was infected from the inside.
“What is it?”
“I think we go some place nice when we die, a place with no terms and conditions.”
Dark eyebags sunk darker beneath Luca’s eyes, the mess from the game had left him cleaner than the dishevelment that Bane’s words left him in.
“You…” Luca gripped the sides of his own shirt and tightened his knuckles. The cold stiffened both cloth and bones, making it impossible to tear apart.
“Me?” The deer’s eyes drifted down to Luca’s hands, traces of curiosity lingered.
“You’re leaving me.”
How he wished time would stop then, it sure felt as though it did.
Bane could see snow stain the air around them, the band of loose hair took its time falling above his lover’s right eye, Bane could hear the flatline that hadn’t yet come, taking its time the same way.
If there was a time he could feel God’s hatred, it was now.
I would never leave you. You are my abundance and goodness. I will live as long as you live, and my final breath will be the air you breathe for the last time.
He cannot lie.
“You’re leaving me and I’ll be alone, do you understand?!” The tendons on his neck stretched painfully as Luca raised his voice, pushing air out of his chest in hopes they made his heart hurt less. The hems of his shirt tore first when Luca yanked, stretching the fabric out despite it hurting his blistered palm.
The cloth barely wrapped around Bane’s abdomen, and when it did, it was too tight– Luca swore the wound was smaller a minute ago.
-
‘You’re careless, Balsa.’ Luca remembers Bane saying to him the first time he patched the hunter up after a match, he remembers the reason he gave then, ‘I feel bad for ruining your winning streak.’ He said, and Bane allows him to get close– to heal him.
Luca remembers when their eyes lock for the first time in that infirmary ‘You better not play another game without me.’ Bane agrees before Luca tightens the bandage, and Luca remembers his groan before they both chuckle. Their smiles matched.
They matched
-
“Say something!” Luca stumbled when he pushed himself up on his feet, he saw the smile as clearly as it were back then, but in its place was a broken man, a man that he loved and whose smile he’d one day forget.
Anger and sadness became indiscernible, the brown of Bane’s skin looked red and his eyes fogged up in murky grey. Luca’s mind kept pulling him back to places of memories, maybe it was something about the place; how wonderful was the human mind.
“Come down.” Bane pulled his fingers out from under the snow where the pain had been directed to his frostbitten knuckles. His purple fingers reached out for Luca.
“You’re not even trying to stay!”
“I am tr-trying.”
Luca’s heart sank at the crack in Bane’s voice.
-
‘You’re too strong for your own good.’ Luca remembers that night. The time he found Bane sitting alone outside the manor, and for the first time, Bane leaned against his body when they talked.
They talked about life. ‘I was into my thirties a long time ago.’
‘I was…’ Luca still doesn’t remember. ‘I was into my twenties.’ Probably.
‘You were young.’
‘It’s been a long time since I was young.’ Luca compares the folds on their hands, and like rings at the core of a tree, Bane had been alive longer.
‘Here, we can pretend to be young.’ Forever.
When Bane left first, Luca could hear in the crack of his voice that he wanted to cry. The same crack he heard now.
-
“I am trying, Luca.” Bane’s fingers were trembling, hovering over the makeshift bandage without pulling it apart lest it irritated the wound.
You poor thing, Bane must have thought when his hollow eyes stared blankly up at him. This was not what he wanted.
“I’ll fix it.” Luca dug his knees back into the snow and pushed his thumbs through the knot he’d created to loosen them.
“Don’t” Bane’s voice was soft, it was particles in the air and a guise of hope that he was going to be alright.
“Let me fix it.”
“You don’t have to.” He placed a gentle hand on Luca’s.
“Then tell me what to do, you always know what to do.”
He was right, and Bane could only huff a defeatist scoff. In times when Luca was frantic, Bane was patient; they were melodic.
-
‘I didn’t think you listened to songs like this.’
‘Like what?’
Bane could hardly remember the words to the song he hummed, it was a distant tune that Luca reminded him of. He played it once when he fell for the first time as a young man, it was an easy tune, a repetitive symphony that resided in his heart; a headless man would remember its beat.
‘Soft.’
‘Do you like soft songs, Luca?’
Bane felt his heart rise and fall, following the breathing of Luca on his chest. Their eyes barely adjusted to the darkness that they were sleeping in.
‘Only sometimes,’
‘Then this will be our song.’
-
The lyrics came to him in a dream, and Luca etched the words to their tune in the crevices of his heart. Bane was his anchor and his mind knew it.
You always know what to do, Bane.
“Not this time, I’m afraid.”
If he’d known how to stop the spread, he would have done it before Luca had found him. Bane had tried everything, it was the work of the manor, a higher being that Bane had tried pleading to, bargaining for a heavier sentence if it meant he could stay.
“I can’t do anything without you.”
You make my weakness less weak, you make the bottom less deep.
“Then I am no different from the manor, spoiling you till you’ve forgotten how to live.” If only Luca never knew, if only he was allowed to die alone, “But how grateful I am, to be your abundance” Bane’s eyes filled with only love for the man he saw, so full it grew sore and fell heavy down his cheeks. His hands were warm when he held Luca’s face.
You make the winters feel warmer, you make it easy to try.
How cold he must have been for a dying man’s skin to feel hot against his own; it didn’t matter, Bane smiled as Luca breathed into his palms in a weakened kiss and he was allowed, just for a split second, to feel alive.
“Why…why you?”
“There is no reason.” He felt the love radiate from his breathing lover and for one last time, he kept the lights on. “He will keep taking and taking, and in my place will be you someday, and in your place will be another one asking you to stay.”
The hole in his abdomen began to crumble and turned black, reminiscent of dried leaves buried in the snow. Luca shuffled to sit beside Bane, their hands intertwined.
You make the waiting feel shorter.
“You said you believed in an afterlife?” Luca clarified.
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll see you again, won’t I?”
“And every life after that.” Bane wiped the tears off Luca’s cheeks, kissing them in their place.
And at that moment, there were no endless possibilities after death. Luca was neither a man of God nor a non-believer, his peace was with Bane Perez – for all his abundance and deficiencies, and it is with Bane that he will learn to live and die.
This is fair.
“I cannot wait,” Their hands were slipping.
Bane was going to see Blacknose again.
“Leave the door unlocked, my love,” In the home we made, “I’ll see you when I get home.”
Bane remembers seeing Luca in the infirmary, he remembers letting him get close – to save him. He remembers how their smiles matched.
Bane dropped his weight on his lover’s limp frame.
He imagines he is back on the manor’s porch, remembering the time he leaned on Luca and thinking how lucky they’d been to exist at the same time. Bane remembers their song.
Luca lets Bane’s voice linger on the map, it was the last time he would hear it in this life and he was selfish.
Feeling Bane sink and loosen his grip, Luca spoke.
“Goodbye, Bane Perez.”
Until he finds Bane again, their room will remain untouched. When Bane comes home, the lights will come on and the door will lock. It is there that they will love and protect each other again.
Together.