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A shaft of light poked Foolish in the eye as he blearily lifted his head, blinking awake. The low rumble of an engine and the click-clack of wheels on track told him he was on a train--for how long, Foolish didn’t know. Strange. The last thing he remembered was discovering a ticket in his room, and then the world had spun into darkness.
Foolish shifted, shaking out pins and needles from his feet. Peering out the window, he could see the scenery shifting rapidly--a spruce forest, a small savannah, ocean, ocean, more ocean. He groaned and thumped his head on the wall behind him. Why did he have to waste a reincarnation on a life like this?
But then again, he thought wryly, when did reincarnation ever work in his favor?
Life and death was a cycle that not even gods could escape. As a totem of undying, Foolish had never been given the luxury of forgetting past lives. Instead, he had learned to swallow down the acrid taste of death, to wear each scar with pride. But the universe was not cruel for forcing him to repeat life, over and over and over again. No, the universe was cruel for tying his soul in red string, forever binding him to…
His gaze dropped to the passenger beside him.
That.
Foolish aimed a kick at the demon in question and he jolted awake with a yelp. Glowing white eyes frantically darted around the space, before settling on Foolish.
Foolish curled his lip. “You again.”
He had heard stories of souls who found each other through different lifetimes. Soulmates, star-promised lovers, fated hearts...They said the spirits remembered each other. They said love always searched for a way to reunite. Well, apparently so did hatred.
Bad was no soulmate, but damn, if he wasn’t a fucking thorn in Foolish’s side.
“Me again,” Bad agreed.
Foolish gritted his teeth. “This is your fault, you know. If you didn’t reincarnate again--”
“I didn’t choose this universe!” Bad yelped. “Do you think I wanted to see your face again? That I would torture myself like that?”
That kind of hurt. “Oh. Well. That was kinda rude.”
Bad tilted his head, considering. “Well, I have missed that chiseled jawline--”
“You’re a freak,” Foolish said, and he really did hate how his lips traitorously turned up in a smile. “You really can’t get enough of me, huh?”
“Are we having a moment?” Bad asked innocently. “I think this may be a moment.”
“Look, pal.” Foolish glanced around. The other passengers were just beginning to stir. “I don’t know how I got here, but if this was your doing--”
“I’m here on vacation.” Bad held up his hands defensively. “Well, I don’t quite remember how I got on the train. Or where my Skeppy is. But I promise I didn’t do anything.”
“Really?” Foolish said suspiciously. “Because I remember that one time--”
The train lurched, shaking the other passengers awake. Chaos bubbled up as everyone greeted each other in equal parts excitement and confusion, talking loud over the train engine. Throughout the disarray, Bad met Foolish’s eyes, amused. Foolish understood: their shared history was like an inside secret, hidden between them and the universe.
The train ended up depositing them at an island full of puzzles, which, in Foolish’s opinion, plummeted this lifetime’s ranking to the bottom three. The other passengers were as frantic as he was, running to step on platforms and reading through books, all while a central announcement system screamed at them through text.
As time ticked down, the walls around them began to shudder. Alarms blared in warning, and his new friends tripped over each other to fruitlessly stand on pressure plates. They had failed, and now…what?
“Foolish!” Bad called over the noise. They made their way to each other like unwilling magnets, as they had done in so many universes before. “There’s something I’ve always wanted to tell you!”
“Yeah, Bad?” Foolish pressed his back against the wall, trying desperately to brace himself against the shaking.
“I can’t stand you!” Bad yelled. “I hate you so much! If we're gonna die, I can finally say this!”
“I hate you too!” Foolish yelled back, gripping onto Bad’s arm for support all the same. “I can’t wait to watch my soul ascend to Heaven as yours is plummeting to Hell!”
“What?” Bad screamed indignantly, right as the world fell around them.
They didn’t end up dying, after all. Foolish (unfortunately) did not get the pleasure of watching yet another one of Bad’s lives be drained from his eyes. But the walls did come down, and they did end up wandering for hours around the island together, which was…pretty okay, all things considered.
(Of course, Foolish could’ve chosen anyone else to explore with. Why Bad? Well…he’d just blame it on the red string.)
It hadn’t started on the train. No, meeting there was just another sick coincidence, handcrafted by fate itself. His and Bad’s history could be traced much farther back--they had encountered each other in this lifetime once before, many centuries ago.
Foolish’s rebirth into this particular Earth was largely uneventful. He slumbered for a great many years, buried deep beneath sun-warmed sand as a small totem, fashioned from pure gold. It took Earth several tumultuous global changes until he was unearthed and swept out into the sea. There, the little totem was battered for quite some time by curious sharks, before finally washing up on the shores of Egypt.
And that was how Foolish woke up as the Totem of Undying, coming into his true, godlike form (and nabbing a shark along with him).
He wandered for some time after that. History never recorded him as a major god, but small, forgotten towns worshipped him as a local deity, and that was enough. They offered food and water and, in return, Foolish assisted them in any way he could.
His current path had brought him here: a small temple fashioned in his honor, on the outskirts of a dwindling farming village. Foolish rarely showed his face unless he was feeling particularly bored; humans had a tendency to scream and faint at the sight of him. But he could call these walls a sanctuary, tended to only by an old priestess who would light incense and smile at him as he devoured his offerings.
Our livestock has been disappearing like the morning sun, she had told him today on weary knees, head bowed in supplication. Today, a herdsman has gone missing. We can’t stop this creature on our own.
Foolish had, very anachronistically, flashed her a thumbs-up and promised his help.
He did not find the missing cattle, but he did find the herdsman. Or, what was left of him anyways.
His body was splayed out on the ground, neck neatly snapped. His stomach had been torn open delicately, and something--something dark and monstrous--was currently feasting on the gore. At the sound of Foolish’s footsteps, it tensed like a wildcat.
Slowly, the Creature lifted his head. Glowing white eyes bore warily into Foolish.
Foolish grimaced. “Hey, pal, you don’t want to eat humans raw. They taste gross.”
The Creature stared down at his bloodstained hands, and blinked owlishly. “Was this not right?” He sounded so distraught, and Foolish felt a pang of sympathy.
“It’s okay,” he said quickly. “It’s an easy mistake.”
“No, you’re right,” the Creature sighed. He was rather put-together, for something so demonic. “I just got so hungry, and the next thing I knew, my claws were through a larynx!”
“Happens to the best of us,” Foolish agreed. A beat of silence. The Creature was still staring down at his dinner, mournful and very, very hungry. “Follow me. I think I have some leftovers.”
Foolish’s leftover offerings ended up being a few stale loaves of bread and withered apples. They sat on the temple floor together, Foolish watching as the Creature devoured the measly bits of food with the same gusto he had feasted on the corpse with. “I’ve never met someone like you,” Foolish commented, as the Creature was finishing his meal. “Have you been around these lands long?”
“Oh, no, I’m just visiting,” the Creature explained. “I came from up north, and got a bit turned around.” A pause. “I arrived here on Earth a while back, though. Were you alive during the floods? When all that ice melted?”
“Uh…no. Seems before my time.”
“Ah.” The Creature nodded sagely. “I was summoned back then, in this charming, young city.” His mouth twisted up into a regretful smile. “It doesn’t exist anymore.”
Foolish didn’t often feel fear, but a strange, prickling feeling began to slither down the back of his spine. “And…what do I call you?”
“You? Well, you call me Bad,” the Creature replied.
Bad. The name sounded familiar. Foolish turned the syllable over in his head. Bad. Bad. Badboyhalo.
Oh, motherfucker.
The memories he had dismissed as hazy dreams flooded back to him. Tall towers of cacti. A cold blade at his neck. Talk of chiseled jawlines. Foreboding coiled in his stomach.
Bad wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “So you do remember.”
Foolish narrowed his eyes. “Bits. Pieces. None too charitable.”
“It took a while for my memory to jog too,” Bad admitted. “But I’ve had many more years to piece everything together. You’re younger than me now.”
Foolish stood up slowly, backing away. He had not yet learned the art of swordplay, and was, for the first time in this life, feeling very defenseless. “I still don’t know who you are,” he said carefully. “I think I want you to leave now.”
Bad nonchalantly brushed his hands off, before pushing himself up off the floor. “Ah, I’ll come talk to you later,” he replied. “We always end up finding our way back to each other, and I have more pressing matters to attend to.”
“And what would that be?”
Bad lifted one shoulder up. “Searching for diamonds.” He let the words hang, almost ominously, in the air, before lifting his hand in a lazy wave. “I’ll see you around, then. In this lifetime, or the next.”
And that was when Foolish saw it: a glint of red, unraveling around his thumb. Fear forgotten, he held his hand up to the light, curious. Then, roughly, he pulled at it.
Bad jerked forward, stumbling ungracefully. There, a stark contrast against the demon’s dark skin, was a circlet of red thread tied around his little finger.
“What the fuck?” Foolish rubbed at his thumb furiously. The thread didn’t budge. “Get this off me! Did you put it here?”
“I was wondering when it’d show up,” Bad said mournfully. “...Also, language.”
A long life of unraveling, Foolish thought grimly, this would be indeed.
There was an old saying that said: when life traps you on a deserted horror-island, you just have to make lemonade.
Foolish was so good at making lemonade.
The eggs were a surprise, admittedly, as was his new partnership with Vegetta. But for the first time, Foolish had found himself what mortals called a family, and it was quite wonderful. He could see why it was such a popular trend in evolution.
Building had always been his anchor. After all, when one lived for so long, new experiences were hard to come by. A lifetime of a hundred years. Reincarnate. A lifetime of a thousand years. Reincarnate. A lifetime of ten thousand years. Reincarnate. Again, again, again.
Before, he had thought building was all there was to life.
When his soul left each world, it was only his builds that would remain, steadfast through it all. But Leo changed all that. She was a product of his and Vegetta’s love, breathing proof that there was life to be cherished. And, in return for his love, she shaped him anew, too.
Now, Leo toddled alongside his doozers, passing him materials from her backpack. She had an eye for design, Foolish thought proudly, and enough patience needed to help. The crystal was close to being done now, fashioned out of Leo’s favorite color. Today was a good day.
Or, it was, until the dreaded: “Oh, Foolishhh!”
Foolish would hyperbolize that he heard that voice in his nightmares, but dreaming about Bad would be giving him more credit than he deserved.
Foolish exchanged a look with Leo. “Do you want to go play with them?” he asked begrudgingly, and Leo nodded shyly. At his hesitation, she tugged at his shirt.
Es mi hermano, she wrote, a bit petulantly.
“All right, all right.” He scooped her up to place her on his shoulders, and she slung her hands around his neck happily. When they reached the ground, Bad and Dapper were inside their home’s first floor. Bad was eyeing the lobby with an eye that was a bit too greedy for Foolish’s taste.
“Why are you here?” Foolish asked plainly, setting down Leo, who waved at her triplet. Dapper seemed to grapple with the demons inside of him--the ones that demanded he shoot Foolish with flaming arrows--but eventually wandered away to chat with his sibling in Spanish.
“I was just checking in on the nature reserve,” Bad started, voice a bit too casual. Foolish suppressed a groan. The demon was bored. A bored Badboyhalo was dangerous news, indeed. “And this whole…thing,” he gestured distastefully at Foolish’s fucking home, “is not very nature-like.”
“That's crazy! You're the one who's always trying to landlord it up!” Foolish argued back. “Don’t you have better things to do? Like finding some place to live that's not a dirt hole?”
“We have a lovely farm,” Bad said primly. “One of each crop, actually.”
“A farm isn’t a house!”
“Farms worked just fine for us post-Holocene folk,” Bad replied petulantly.
“You’re so old,” Foolish said, because he was a proud Bronze Age representative. There weren’t many of them still around! “Go be paleolithic elsewhere.”
“I am 11,000 years young, thank you very much--”
“Sure, old man.” Bad opened his mouth to snap back, but Foolish talked over him.“While you’re here, do you have any diorite? I’ll need it for an upcoming build.”
Bad eyed him. “There are many things I require for my assistance.” He steepled the tips of his fingers. “I can’t just let this extremely valuable diorite go for free.”
“You really could.” Foolish was beginning to regret even asking. “Your assistance isn’t that needed.”
“First, I’d like ownership of your dragon.” Bad counted off his fingers. “Second, that banana that you’re still holding. Third, something shiny for Skeppy. Fourth--”
“Your assistance still isn’t that needed.”
“Oh, fine.” Bad dug into his backpack and began dramatically throwing out diorite. “Dapper Co. will put it on your tab.”
“Are you teaching Dapper how to run scams?” Foolish grumbled, dropping to his knees to dump stone into his bag. Hey, his pride was worth free building blocks. “And you say I’m the bad parent?”
“I’m very good at taking care of eggs,” Bad argued. “You remember all that, don’t you?”
Foolish closed his eyes, trying to recall. “Was that the universe where we were reincarnated as rocks?”
“No!’ Bad looked distraught. “That was my least favorite lifetime!”
“Oh, really? I liked it.”
can we go now? Dapper interrupted their conversation. i want to work on my ant farm.
“You are so needy,” Bad chastised Dapper. “Even needier than my other egg, and that was always whining for human flesh!”
YOU HAVE ANOTHER EGG ????? Dapper wrote, then immediately fell on the ground in a silent tantrum.
“Dapper, I didn’t mean it!” Bad cried. “Dapper, I didn’t like that egg! It murdered everyone I loved!”
Dapper began crawling up the walls, pathetically.
“Dapper, come down! Oh, stop pouting like that, Dapper--”
“Let’s leave them to it,” Foolish muttered to Leo.
Leo wasn’t paying attention to him, however. Her eyes were fixated on Dapper’s new toy--some sticky grappling hook--and immediately fumbled for her signs.
PA LO QUIERO
Foolish sighed, but his walls were already crumbling. “Let’s ask Pa Vegetta, okay?”
It was not uncommon for immortals to lose themselves; only those with strong minds could survive being trapped with one’s own thoughts for centuries. And immortals like Foolish and Bad, who lived throughout multiple lifetimes, were no better off. While Foolish had found his sanity in building (although sanity, perhaps, was a generous word), Bad unfortunately found his anchor in another, equally deranged immortal. And when said equally deranged immortal was no longer at his side, Bad latched onto Foolish.
(Foolish wondered if he should be worried that Bad’s version of therapy was to psychologically torture him.)
Foolish wouldn’t say he was concerned for Bad. No, not concerned. He just didn’t want his personal XP tank to pass out from sleep deprivation. So when Bad swung over to graffiti his dragon with Skeppy faces, Foolish took it as an opportunity to both procrastinate and force the demon to get some sunlight.
They lounged atop the dragon head, Bad showing Foolish blueprints while the hot sun beat down on them. Their shared red string did not often manifest tangibly, but he could see it now, glowing in the sunlight. He flexed his fingers, wondering if Bad could feel its tug.
“Decoration isn’t my strong suit.” Foolish flipped through the sketches Bad handed to him--a new bunker for Dapper, one which remarkably resembled a prison cell. “I’m not sure how much I can help.”
“I need to craft more sentries,” Bad muttered. There was a slightly manic look in his eyes. “It’s not safe enough.”
“Is it really that deep?” Should he call over the psychologist? Or would Roier’s Skeppy-like face only worsen his condition? “Leo sleeps in her tower, and she’s perfectly happy.”
“Because even the Code doesn’t want to incite Vegetta’s wrath.” Bad rolled his eyes as best he could with no pupils. He held up another scribble. “Do you think this bedroom could fit Dapper’s blood lab?”
Could the Halo household really be more fucked than the Gaymers-Gamers family? “You need to relax,” Foolish stressed. “Should we swing by Las Casualonas? Look, I’ll be nice and pole dance for you, if it’ll make you feel better.”
“I don’t need you to--to strip for me,” Bad snapped back. “Hey, is that streetlamp signaling to us in Morse code?”
Foolish followed his gaze. “I think it’s just broken.” Then: “Who said anything about stripping?”
“Language!”
“Wh-Language you!” Foolish raised his hands. “All I’m saying is that you always take things too seriously. Remember when you overreacted to our divorce?” He couldn’t remember which reincarnation that one was, but. It certainly was one.
“You handed me the papers on the airplane flight to our honeymoon!”
“Oh, you’re just mad that you didn’t sign them first.”
“That may be true,” Bad grumbled. “But we still had to sit together for eight hours afterwards.”
It hadn’t been one of Foolish’s best decisions, in retrospect. Neither was marrying Bad for exactly one day after they had both gotten wasted, for that matter. “What I’m trying to say,” he continued, “is that you really need to get over Skeppy.”
Bad choked. “How did he get into this conversation?’
“It’s time to move on, Bad.” Foolish clapped Bad’s shoulder. “We’re stuck on this island, we might as well enjoy it!”
“He didn’t die--”
“Bad, you’re on an island full of hot bachelors!” Foolish insisted. “Go find a new man! Forget the blue guy!”
Bad hesitated. Foolish watched as he chewed his lip, carefully considering. Finally he said, contemplative, “Did anyone tell you your jawline could cut rock?”
Never let it be said that Foolish didn’t try.
When Leo died, Bad was there to meet them at the ocean.
It had been a nice day, Foolish would think back, later. The sun hadn’t been too hot, the waves gentle and blue. His attention had strayed from Leo for just a minute, and--they lost everything.
All to a whale.
They waited there, stranded at a makeshift island, as Leo came down from the shock of her first death. She found in Dapper a welcome distraction, and together they decorated her place of death with a little house and trees.
With the kids in their own world, Foolish paced around the island’s edge, uselessly wringing his hands. They kept shaking. He didn’t know how to make them stop. He shook them out, took a deep breath. It wasn’t fair.
Bad came to join him, footsteps quiet.
“How did she look?” Foolish’s eyes fixed onto the horizon, where sea met sky. “Her spirit.”
Bad was silent for a moment. “Bright,” he said finally. “Strong. Even in death, her soul will not go quietly.”
Foolish didn’t respond.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Bad said gently.
Saltwater pricked Foolish’s eyes. “Empathy’s a weird look on you,” he muttered. “Go back to criticizing my parenting.”
Bad tugged at Foolish’s arm. “Let’s go see what the kids are doing,” he murmured, and turned away so Foolish wouldn’t see the pity on his face.
“Well,” Bad said, with all the air of a tired parent. “At least they’re asleep now.”
Foolish nodded in agreement, watching fondly over the two sleeping eggs. They had pushed their beds together in Dapper’s bedroom and were finally fast asleep, giving their parents some much needed respite. “They’ve had a long enough day.”
The sleepover that had resulted from Foolish and Leo’s impromptu break-in had not been on Foolish’s bingo card, but, then again, neither were the egg kidnappings. Or the boat crash. Or the Brazilians aboard said boat crash. It had been…an eventful day, to say the least.
(She had returned to him with a crack down her face, legs trembling like bare branches in autumn wind. Foolish still couldn’t get the image out of his head. She just looked so small. And Vegetta still wasn’t here.)
Carefully, Foolish knelt beside Leo’s bed. He brushed a few strands of hair away from her face, before pressing a quick kiss to her forehead. Then, he turned to Bad. “So what now?”
“I don’t know.” The demon looked thoughtful. “Maybe we should have a sleepover too?”
“Oh, you would like that, wouldn’t you?”
Bad delicately ignored him. “It reminds me of that one lifetime,” he suggested. “The one that felt like purgatory.”
“Oh.” Foolish snapped his fingers. “I remember. Now that was a weird universe.” It had felt like purgatory, in the way they were forced to endlessly loop around a darkened town every evening, collecting ghosts from their cages and suffering through bad sex jokes from their friends. “I still think the cosmos malfunctioned on that one.”
Bad huffed out a laugh. “That wasn’t nearly as bad as--” Dapper shifted in his sleep and Bad froze. “Let’s go to the farm,” he whispered, beckoning Foolish out of the room.
They ended up sitting on benches besides Bad’s farm (one bench for each of them, because why would they want to sit next to each other?), as they waited for the sun to rise. Foolish much preferred the carefully-crafted landscape of his own home, but Bad’s farm had its own quiet beauty. “It really is just you and Dapper out here, huh?”
“Me, Dapper, and the ghosts,” Bad agreed.
“When did that happen, by the way?” Foolish waved a hand. “The whole…grim reaper thing.”
“It’s just a part-time job.” Bad shrugged. “I can’t do much anyways, the Federation limits my powers.” He tilted his head. “You’ve noticed that, right?”
Foolish wriggled his fingers. “No lightning,” he agreed wistfully.
Bad nodded. “You see, then. It's impossible to get any work done. I have no savings for Dapper’s college fund--do you know how expensive it is to feed animals?” Bad paused, so Foolish nodded just because it seemed like the right thing to do. “And not only am I bled dry, it’s so embarrassing knowing the Angel of Death is here too.”
“Is Philza above you?” Foolish knitted his eyebrows. “Aren’t you older than him?”
“He married my boss,” Bad sighed. “The goddess of death can do what she wants, but personally, I’m against workplace relationships…”
That brought more questions than answers, but death’s realm was out of the scope for a totem of undying. He turned his attention back to the sky. The sun had started to rise now, rosy golds spilling over the sea and bathing the crops in new light.
Bad, however, was not enjoying such a view. He seemed to be grappling with an internal debate, face growing increasingly more distressed. Finally:
“Can you just stop holding that banana?”
Foolish hesitated. Two paths, diverged in a yellow wood. To make a dick joke, or to not make a dick joke.
Temptation won out. “Why, Bad? Do you want my banana?”
“If it makes you stop holding it, then yes! Give me your banana! Foolish, why are you squeaking--”
Not even the code monster could keep Las Casualonas out of business. The club was bustling tonight, music loud and people louder. And yet, despite the good cheer around, Foolish’s recent Federation employment niggled at the back of his mind.
The issue with the other islanders, he thought as he took a draught of some alcoholic drink Max had shoved into his hands, was that they just didn’t understand.
He really didn’t mean to betray anyone.
Foolish was not one that often sat around and contemplated. Nevertheless, the arrest of Pac and Mike and the subsequent silence from the Federation had him doubting whether he really was better off with daily summoning circles than Cucurucho intel. A Cucurucho who refused to give him attention or a cloud, for that matter.
And then there was that sinking little suspicion that maybe he didn’t quite function like anyone else.
Foolish took another gulp of his drink, the burn following down his throat to his stomach. Roier had pulled Cellbit onto the dance floor. Baghera was at the bar with Charlie, each downing shot after shot. Etoiles seemed utterly dissatisfied at the lack of monsters to fight. No one would mind if he slipped out for a bit.
Foolish set down his glass, nodding a quick goodbye to Max as he made his way to the entrance. He stumbled out of the club, the crisp night air clearing his head. Movement at the edge of his gaze caught his attention, and he cocked his head, curious. Squinting up at the satellite dish, Foolish took a few steps forward and--yes, that was indeed a familiar-looking demon, hidden away from the festivities. Odd. While Bad disliked both the noise and the…language of Las Casualonas, he rarely skipped out on at least swinging by to say hi.
Although…maybe, for once, Bad was the one person who could advise him. He, after all, knew what it was like to be mistaken as mortal.
(“Sofia just called me a human,” Foolish had despaired to Bad in secret, after one visit to the supercomputer. “A human.”
“I know! You should’ve seen when I was asked to take off my hood,” Bad’s voice lowered, “and show my face.”)
So, against his better judgment, Foolish headed his way. When he reached the top of the satellite dish, he found Bad tidying the place: sweeping up debris, patching holes. The satellite was looking distinctly prettier than he last remembered, with crystals, flowers, and candles adorning the cold diorite.
“Hey, Bad!” Foolish waved at the demon. “Whatcha doing out here?” He nodded at the bottle in his hands. “Not sober enough to deal with everyone back there?”
“It’s apple juice,” Bad said, unconvincingly.
Foolish walked around the border of the satellite, staring curiously up at the antennae. “Are you trying to call Skeppy again?”
“Nah.” Bad took another swig of his drink. “The connection’s no good.”
The atmosphere was getting a bit too melancholic for Foolish’s taste, so he rocked back and forth on his heels, searching for subject change. “I don’t remember this place looking so nice.”
Bad smiled. “It’s all Pomme’s work. I’m just keeping it neat.” He knelt down next to one of the unlit candles and struck a match. Then, noticing Foolish still watching, he handed the matchbox to Foolish. “Care to help?”
After the candles were lit, Bad sat down on the satellite’s edge. He offered his bottle to Foolish, who sat down next to him.
Foolish took a swig. Sickly sweet and lemony. He handed it back. “Do mortals ever confuse you?”
“Not really,” Bad replied. “I don’t think I’m much different than them.”
Foolish gave Bad the strongest side-eye he could muster. “Really. You’re the least humane out of us all.”
“I’m just like them!” Bad protested. “When Roier asked me what my body count was, and I said it was in the hundreds, everyone whistled!” At Foolish’s unimpressed stare, he defended himself, “I’m inherently a good person. They used to call me,” his voice pitched low, “the Saint of Games.”
“No one fucking called you that,” Foolish said.
When Bad did nothing more than grumble and take another drink, he pressed on, “But don’t you see the world a bit differently? I thought I was just having some fun, but it’s like no one else is in on the joke.” He hesitated, thinking back. “When I told you I kidnapped Pac and Mike, you yourself didn’t understand why everyone was mad at me! You were just upset I kept it a secret. And then you tortured me, but that was…”
“I’ve been dying to do that,” Bad said seriously.
“I know you were, you scumbag.” No matter what path Foolish chose, wrong or right, Bad was sure to just get in his way, like the pest he was. “But you get what I’m saying, right?”
“I think I’m picking up what you’re putting down,” Bad mused. “It’s like how I just want to kill people, but everytime I do, somehow Iiiiii’m the bad guy.” Oh, Foolish hadn’t exactly been talking about murder, but Bad seemed to be on a roll now. “I don’t see what all the fuss is about! It’s just some friendly killing! Did you know that Baghera called my torture of you ‘unethical’ and ‘cruel’ and also ‘Bébou, I’m worried for your mental health’?” Bad scoffed. “Mental health.” He downed the last dregs of his drink. “I’m so mentally stable.”
Hm. Foolish mulled over Bad’s words. The torture chamber certainly didn’t strike such an emotional reaction out of himself, personally. He snapped his fingers. “It’s because it was a very boring torture chamber,” Foolish decided. “I warped out after ten minutes because it was so dull. You should’ve given me more stimulation.”
“You think?” Bad chewed on his lip. “Maybe I should’ve put a Subway Surfers video up for you to watch.”
“See, the Federation wouldn’t have done that!” Foolish insisted. “They would’ve given me a fun imprisoned experience! I believe in Cucurucho!”
“Foolish!” Bad chastised. “The Federation is evil.”
“Well, the Federation never really tortured anyone,” Foolish pointed out. “Unlike you.”
“...Should I re-evaluate my moral code?”
“Eh. Too much work..”
“Yeah, no, it’s probably fine.”
“Careful, Foolish--”
Foolish ducked as a stray arrow flew over his head, before rushing to cleave the pillager in two. A group of vexes hovered over his head and--one, two, three hits. Dead. The evoker was the last to go, and, after finishing him off, Foolish was already bracing himself for the next wave of enemies.
Dread coiled in his stomach as the hoard of mobs drew near. Maybe rushing headfirst into a pillager dungeon hadn’t been their best decision.
One vindicator landed a nasty hit, right between the chinks of his armor. Foolish sucked in a breath, clutching at his side to stem its bleeding. He glanced behind him for an escape, only to find nothing but walls.
“Uh.” Foolish backed further into the corner. “Bad?” He raised his voice, panicked now. “Bad!”
Another axe hit, one that cut straight through his shoulder, and he was down. Foolish swore, trying to push himself up. His hand slipped, arms shaking. There were too many.
“Foolish!”
Bad dropped in front of him, scythe discarded on the floor behind them. He hovered over Foolish protectively, jaw clenching as the surrounding vindicators tore into him. “Hold on.” He breathed heavily, blood dripping from his mouth. “I’m gonna revive you.”
An arrow pierced the side of Bad’s neck, close to the soft part of his throat, and a totem popped. Bad’s fingers twitched, but he made no move to flee.
“Bad--” Foolish started.
“I’ve got fifty of them,” Bad said grimly. “I can take a few deaths.”
Every totem Bad used, Foolish could feel in his bones. It was the reason why he had never liked using them himself, because of that horrible prickling creeping up his spine. His stomach was still swimming with nausea when Bad hauled him up. “Can you walk?”
“Yeah.” Foolish gritted his teeth. “Go, I’ll follow.”
They ran for an empty room, Bad slamming the door shut just as pillagers descended on them. Foolish stumbled over to lean heavily against a bookshelf, before sliding down to sit on the floor. He ran a hand over his face, woozy from blood loss. Bad finished barricading the door and collapsed by Foolish’s side. His skin was still stitching back together.
Foolish broke the silence. “You could’ve let me die. I’d respawn anyway. The elections are long over.”
“I know.” Bad rubbed his eyes. He dug through his pack, handing off a slightly dented golden apple. “Only I’m allowed to kill you, though.”
“Really?” Foolish said, unthinking, as he took the fruit. “‘Cause before, you didn’t seem to care.”
Bad went rigid beside him.
Puzzled, Foolish glanced over. The hollows of his eyes had dimmed, face gaunt and shadowed. Bad let out a shuddering breath, hands curling on the ground in fists. Finally, he said in a small voice, “You remember.”
“It came back slowly,” Foolish admitted, “but I’m not new to piecing past lives together.”
Bad swallowed, averting his eyes. It felt as though the air had been sucked out of the room. Time moved impossibly slow as Foolish waited for Bad to speak again.
Perhaps, Foolish thought. We haven’t both moved on.
“How did it feel,” Bad asked, quiet, “to die?”
Foolish closed his eyes, and remembered:
The re-evolution of marrow and blood. The cyclic birthing of life in saltwater. A burning desperation to breathe with new lungs. Lightning, crackling through his fingers and out his heel.
“Not too good,” he said instead.
Bad snuck a tentative look. “But you’re not mad.”
Bad could kill him ten thousand times over, and they would still find their way back to each other. Foolish could backstab him in every lifetime, and Bad would still entrust him with his bare heart. Foolish hated him. He was his closest friend. Foolish wanted to strangle him. He couldn’t imagine a world without him. It was simple, really.
“I’m not the type to hold grudges.” Foolish took a bite out of the golden apple. Warmth flooded through his body, soothing the brutality of his respawn. “Especially not across lifetimes. We’re not those people anymore.”
“You were the only one who understood.” The words were said in a hushed whisper. “That we were suffering too. You never forgave us but…I never thanked you for that.”
“Well, don’t start now,” Foolish said quickly. The door was beginning to buckle under the weight of angry pillagers, but neither of them paid it any attention. “You know I don’t have the patience for all that.”
That got Bad to laugh. “True. I mean, what’s a murder between friends? And we even served you a nice meal beforehand.”
“Yeah, no, it could’ve been worse.” Foolish rubbed his chin. “What would the island think if they found out their favorite babysitter was once a cult leader?”
Bad scoffed. “And what would the island think if their favorite builder was once a totem of death?”
“I could see the resemblance.” Foolish grinned.
Bad shook his head. “They don’t know you like I do, Foolish,” he said, lips quirking up in a secretive smile. Bad had always been a bit possessive of his friends. It was nice to see that extended to Foolish as well. “Only I know what you’re hiding under that silly exterior.”
“Aw, shucks.” Foolish pressed his hands to his cheeks. “You’re making me blush.”
“I’m just saying!” Bad shrugged. “You’re smarter than you look! Not as smart as me, though.” He eyed him. “So you’re sure you’re not working for the Federation?”
“I would never tell you either way,” Foolish replied smoothly.
“Oh, I wouldn’t expect you to,” Bad conceded. “You’re like a slippery snake. A slippery snake with beautiful emerald greens. I want to pluck out your eyes and trade them for mending books.”
“Whatever you say, pal.” Foolish gripped a bookshelf to pull himself up, then offered a hand to Bad. “That door’s about to bust any second now. Ready to fight?”
“Of course.” Bad magnanimously pushed Foolish forward. “Meatshields first.”
“Oh, fuck you,” Foolish said, and broke down the door.
Vindicators poured out from the wall’s opening. Despite his earlier words, Bad front-loaded most of the damage, with Foolish cleaning up any strays that escaped the demon’s grasp.
“Last one.” Foolish wiped away a speck of blood from his cheek. It wasn’t his own. “All yours.”
“Hrrrmm,” the pillager said angrily.
“Oh my goodness, language,” Bad admonished, and shot the pillager through the thigh.
The pillager didn’t respond. Probably too busy trying not to bleed out.
Foolish gingerly stepped over the body. “Now…onto looting?”
Bad sighed. “You really never change.”
Quesadilla Island did not welcome warm dreams. It was not unfamiliar for Foolish to find Leo sitting outside her pond in the early hours of dawn, bare feet dipped into the water, as she stared down at the ripples dully. Today was one of those mornings
“Another nightmare?” he asked softly, taking a seat next to her. Axolotls milled by their feet, curious.
Leo nodded, head low. Foolish’s heart ached. Oh, his little one.
He wrapped a gentle arm around her, pulling her close. She shifted, burying her face into him and letting out a choked sob.
“I’m right here,” Foolish murmured. He wished Vegetta would return. “You’re safe.”
Leo pulled away, wiping her eyes. She took out her signs, handwriting clumsy in the darkness. Te quiero, pa
Foolish had never seen beauty in mortality. Never, until Leo. “Te quiero,” he whispered, a soft admission that only she understood the importance of. “Always juntos, remember?”
Leo lifted her pinky and Foolish hooked it with his own in promise. Perhaps he was beginning to understand Bad now, and why he so wholly relinquished his heart to another. Reincarnation was no curse if the culmination of his lives led him here. For Leo, he would die a thousand times more.
They sat like that, together, until dawn broke. A few hours was a blip in the lifespan of an immortal. But here, with Leo curled up at his side, it felt like a sacred century.
Foolish had a lovely daughter. A beautiful boyfriend. A parasocial relationship with Cucurucho, even. And yet here he was, watching Bad methodically construct reinforced obsidian apartments on the head of his dragon.
Foolish had just woken up, and could already feel a headache oncoming.
Bad, sensing he was there, swiveled his head around and stared at him with those beady little white eyes. He waved, fluttery and five-fingered. “Didn’t you take an oath of pacifism?”
Foolish drew his sword. “I gave it up three lifetimes ago.”
Bad laughed delightedly. “I think I missed a few spots,” he sang, eyeing Foolish’s lovely path below.
“You little bitch--” Foolish started forward, but Bad had already jumped off, paragliding down.
When he reached the ground, he didn’t keep running. Instead, Bad turned back to peer up at Foolish, clearly expecting the latter to jump down with him.
The Federation’s gun sat heavy in its hidden holster. Foolish’s fingers danced over it--once, twice--before letting his hand fall at his side. Not today. Maybe later, Foolish would kill Bad, or Bad would kill Foolish, or they’d both end up locked in the same cell by Cucurucho’s hands.
Immortals were lonely creatures. Cyclically, they found both boredom and comfort in habit. And this? This was just another such routine: Bad, and that damned red string.
Bad’s small figure waved from below, beckoning Foolish closer. Fate's red thread tugged at him, insistent.
And, just like he had done in every life before, Foolish jumped after it.