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Connie wakes up in a warm house, and he feels as though he’s just awoken from a deep sleep. Everything runs through his mind. Tyler. Talon. Tyler. Talon. Tyler. Talon. Connie remembers that he is dead, only, how can he be dead if he can feel his hands, his arms, his legs, his feet, his face. How is he in a warm house as a dead man? And what is this? Is he in heaven? Is this a hell, waiting to reveal itself to him? Or a kind of purgatory, perhaps, a medium world for decades. Or has Connie been reborn, reincarnated as another person entirely. He looks around him. There are fairy lights around the bed that he’s on, a soft baby blue coating the walls, with white plush sheets covering him. He’s in soft pyjamas of an un notable colour, a long sleeved top and some bottoms that go right down to his ankles. His hair is longer, stopping just past his shoulders. And there is a boy in his bed. He doesn’t have to look at him to know who. Tyler. He feels it in his pulmonary artery, beating throughout his veins. Tyler. Tyler. Tyler.
“I missed you too.” He says softly, with a grin that’s so inelegantly Tyler that Connie knows this is real. His curls are tousled, not un maintained as they were, and his chocolate brown eyes twinkle at him. Dimples are present in his cheeks, and as he shuffles into the light on his elbows, his eyes turn a flashing amber. Connie desperately wants to kiss him.
“You can read my thoughts?” Zircon asks, arching a refined eyebrow. He wants to reach out and touch Tyler, trace his fingers along his temple, feel where the bullet soared through like an angel coming to save him from himself. He wants to place his hands on Tyler’s flesh and knead the pain away from him. He doesn’t know if it’s pain this Tyler has ever felt. He’ll do it anyway.
“Does this answer your question?” Tyler asks, and leans in, pressing his lips softly to Connie’s. Connie expels a soft sigh, his tongue spilling into Tyler’s warm, alive mouth. It’s wet and scorching and Tyler is alive. A dead thing doesn’t kiss back. Connie knows that better than anyone. He doesn’t shut his eyes, drinking in the sight of Tyler, and terrified of what will happen when he has to.
After a very long time, be it hours or years, Connie can’t be sure anymore, Tyler pulls away. Connie whines softly, and wipes at his mouth with his sleeve. “Yes.” He says, quietly.
He realises that his hand hasn’t left Tyler’s since he got here, just as Tyler squeezes. “What did you want to know?” He asks.
“I’m dead, aren’t I?” Connie asks first. Tyler nods. Connie swallows. “I assumed so. And you are, too.” He says, finally reaching out with the hand that isn’t holding Tyler’s and rubbing his thumb across Tyler’s temple. Tyler nods softly. “Good. Okay. And you’re not really here, are you?”
Tyler’s brows knit together. “I am. I’m fully conscious here, at least. But dead Tyler isn’t. I’ve only ever existed here. Dead Tyler went on.”
“Went on?” Connie asks.
Tyler nods. “He went downstairs. His guide was more of an omnipresent figure, someone that knew everyone and everything. He wasn’t close with many of the dead, not enough to have them escort him. But he asked the figure if you would be there, first. If he would love you as I have. And the figure said yes. So he went.”
“Does everyone have the same house?” He asks.
Tyler shakes his head. “No.” He says, quiet and solemn. Connie doesn’t push.
He traces his index finger around Tyler’s palm. “When you died, I felt you grab my sleeve. Did I imagine it?”
“Yes, and no.” Tyler says, and Connie waits for him to go on. “I was clawing to get back to you, I think I must have broken the barrier, just a little. I regretted it, in the end, when it was all actually, like, sinking in.”
“Do you regret it now?” He asks.
“No.” Tyler says earnestly. “In the end, I got what I wanted. The next life was kinder to me.”
“We aren’t in Panem, downstairs, are we?” He says, quietly, because there is never a universe where Tyler doesn’t sacrifice himself for another.
Tyler shakes his head. “No.”
“What is it called, then?” He asks, cocking his head.
“I just call it downstairs.” Tyler shrugs.
“Is Aurelian here?” Connie asks, teeth grit.
“She never left you. She never will again.” Tyler says, voice raw and honest.
“When I’m downstairs, will I forget?” Connie asks, pressing a kiss to his jaw.
“Yes and no.” Tyler says, voice strained. “You won’t remember this, no, and you won’t remember your life in Panem.”
“Will I remember that I love you?” Connie asks, a hoarse murmur that pulsates throughout the room.
Tyler’s eyes shut. “ Yes.” He says, as if it’s been torn out of him.
“Is that a bad thing?” He asks.
Tyler smiles, amber eyes flickering open again. “ Always.”
That’s all Connie needs to stand up, bare feet on the cold floor. He doesn’t let go of Tyler’s hand, guiding him along. He opens the door, twisting open the handle carefully and watching it swing out. He steps out onto the landing, and it’s soft, not like carpet, more like clouds, or how Connie would imagine them to feel, at least. He looks behind him, and Tyler is no longer there, and yet Connie still feels his hand in his, his presence still warm and fresh and alive against his back. Connie looks back, and it is worth it, because Tyler knows he is loved. He steps down one step. Another. Another. He is free of worries. He has nothing left to lose. He doesn’t need coaxing. He just needs to be home again. Another. Another. Another. He is nearly at the bottom now. He thinks of the people he’s killed. He doesn’t feel remorse pounding in his eardrums, only a residual sadness for himself. For a boy that lost everything for nothing. He hopes that he will not be that boy again.
He steps down the few steps to the last one, and in the abyss that Zircon thinks would have been the kitchen, in his real house, Zircon sees Aurelian. She looks different. She is no longer a man, but a woman, and her hair trickles down her back like a waterfall. But her eyes are crystal clear, her pale skin recognisable, her rose petal cheeks instantly reminiscent to Zircon. That is his big brother. He doesn’t have to be told it to know it. She has her arms out, as if she is embracing a figure that is not there. And all of a sudden, Zircon feels as though he is six years old, and he has never learnt hurt nor hatred before. And he missed his big sister. He missed her like nothing he’s ever missed before. And so, effortlessly, like gliding on ice, Zircon skips the last step, leaping over it like an ice dancer, and throwing himself into Aurelian’s arms like a cannonball.
There are whispers, murmurs that take up the room as the light consumes them, but all Connie remembers is the warmth of his sisters embrace, and tears spilt on her loving shoulder, and an echo of I forgive you from both mouths.
——
Connie wakes up, sweating in a hospital bed, his sister’s arms still around him, and the only thought that ebbs around his body is Tyler.
What has he done?