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Spending years dead and gone in an eternal realm with only the faintest signs of god and a carrier’s blood spilt in trails gives you plenty of time to think. Years stuck in the cycle of rubbing raw, scarred wrists, panging with hunger and yet no desire to eat weighing heavy. Years wondering how much could have been changed, what went wrong, what the plan had really been. Years of only the slightest numbing, the barest of whispers heard through monsters in the woods, back-up food for god and doomed to the eternal wandering it was. Before then, as well. Months in the dark waiting to die. Wondering if a loose tongue and a change was worth a life lived.
But Sean had no regrets, now. He steps up onto the stage and begins the ceremony.
Years of wondering gave him one thing only— he knew better, this time. He can feel Lexx’s hands around his throat– that fucking bitch– as he speaks, now. Waking up here in Horrorwood is a blessing. A second chance. The multiverse is vast and he alone is the one who understands it, he alone stands great amongst his peers. Shiny had gone into hiding beneath his skin as he banters, keeps his head down, watches in equal parts horror and fascination as the days pass and everyone here gives their stories and hearts up easily, freely, to everyone and anything. Secrets are passed with blunts and rolls of smoke from every set of lips. Knowledge banks heavy in the chat logs. It’s everywhere, everything, it’s never too hard to find what you want to know about someone. Not if you’re paying attention.
This time, he pays attention. He bares teeth and leans into whoever Sean was supposed to be, all those years ago. Plays up being a friend until it sticks too hard to separate himself from. Until it almost feels real, if he could swallow the violent, awful, constant, beautiful thoughts of bashing skulls into brick and blasting brain matter over street walls. Sean is eager to be friends. It feels like kicking over some younger, stupider version of himself. It feels good to be Sean, the guy who had your back, over the Sean who had been too-into music and too-into bugs, the kid guilty of the crime of wanting to be seen, the kid too distant, too far from his peers to be loved. The kid watching his two dearest friends fade and wane. The kid who bore metal band t-shirts beneath Leader robes. No, this version of himself, the story he had fabricated to avoid all-accusing eyes from his life before death, was nothing like the one before. This version of himself was strong.
Sean leans into it. He starts running errands for everyone, originally, as a way to get out and do something. His hands were still trembling, back then, breath still caught in his throat if he sat in dark rooms too long. His shoulders would start to ache, his chest rumble with dread, the empty memories of sitting too-long with his arms behind his back suddenly too sharp to handle— and so, he goes out. Smokes near nightly with a growing-familiar face. He runs errands for people, pays for outings with stolen money and threatens counter workers, he accidentally becomes loved overnight. It’s haunting. It’s kind of nice. He goes with it.
Soon, this version of himself sits dearly, deeply loved by a community he swears to serve. Old medical knowledge is set to use. A willingness to be surrounded in company turns to one roommate, two, almost three. A job, a car, and an apartment. A barkeep who knew what he liked to drink, a counter worker who knew what smokes he grabs for, a schedule, a life, a family steadily growing beneath his stable feet. Almost overnight, it feels, Sean becomes one of the most beloved people in horrorwood. A single point in a thread of entwining lives.
It wasn’t intentional.
He fights to keep it that way, despite it all. Starts helping on purpose. Starts wanting it. Soaks in the warmth of a bed he shares, in the air of the living room as a group of friends settles down to watch old movies. It’s an accident, gaining so many friends made from neighbors, gaining so much to hide behind. Sam throws popcorn at the screen and Sean kicks her, tells Jonah they’re gonna have to clean it, watches with a steadily growing smile as they just laugh about the inconvenience. He pets over Emma’s hair, texts Liu to tease him over that stupid maybe-relationship, asks Nimona if she’d like to meet up. There’s a warmth here he craves to hold, to keep, to let fester.
It’s nice. He still doesn’t sleep well. There’s always that ache in his spine, telling him to sit up. His body was used to a life he could not let go of. In every flicker of blood, he sees Lee. Sometimes it's beautiful. Sometimes it makes every part of him ache in old memory. In every too-fast movement of a blade in hand, he sees something lost and haunting. He sees Lee.
In the mirror, he sees Lexx.
“Savior” takes place in the mask that Sean makes for Shiny. A new persona for a new life, a new Leader name to instill his place in the world. It’s a little dumb. It’s his fault, he knows, for picking a game to begin this new life. It’s simply the best way to intrigue the rat– (well, rabbit–) for his little cat-and-mouse game. He was a child of God, and her faith had to be played into. She needed something to be drawn in– and she was the only one he knew who suffered the same. The crime of desire. The only name to face he could connect becomes a persona to adopt– and a ghost of Lexx in every one of his movements. He hears her when he speaks, grand, theatrical. He feels her thumbs press to pressure points until he snaps, until Savior wavers beneath Shiny’s all-consuming rage, until the knuckles he bears are bloody and raw. It’s Lexx’s ghost, with her grip tight around his neck like a weighted leash, that guides him as he brings in the first new member to The Family, a young girl named Sam who quickly grows to be far more annoying than he had ever expected. A friend he didn’t expect to make, a teenager with too-knowing eyes and a tense jaw, one with secrets to keep, something too familiar.
Lexx’s hands settle on a sixteen year old Sean’s shoulders and press him forward with a jealous bitterness he’d one day grow to replicate. Lexx laughs in his ear like the worst spirit he had ever grown to know; she haunts him just as Lee does. Every connection he's ever held tight to finds their way beneath his skin, eventually. But it has been years in the Nexus, months in the basement, months in Horrorwood, and he follows the footsteps of those elected Leader. Even those elected in unfair means. Savior bares Lexx, betters himself, betters Sean.
Friendly, good, neighborhood friend Sean. It leaks into the mask. Glorious, beautiful, powerful Savior. Behind the two of them sits Shiny’s blistering, red-hot rage, stubborn and festering like an infected wound, the blood on his hands soaking into their robes, against their blades. A fox, a wolf, and a coyote.
It didn’t matter. Every version of himself had fangs.
Black and purple robes don his body, metal leg on display, mask fitting into place. It’s handmade, this one. Metal worked specifically to widen his line of sight, to breathe through, to speak through. He was a child of God; he was a vessel for a voice, he was to be their Speaker. He creates a new method of doing so. When he takes the stage, it’s with a raised head and too much pride. Every version of himself delights, preens, purrs at the eyes on him as he takes the stage.
An abandoned rehab center; refurbished, cleaned, staged for his Family. It’s here that Sean faces an entire crowd of faces, staring up, watching, waiting, silent, ready for his voice.
Another thing about wandering— about helping , about being beloved, was that it worked.
Sean had found dozens of people– real people, not those faceless or eyeless or otherwise fake bastards, though a few of them were also here as fodder as he assumes the purpose of their creation in this multiversal pocket realm– who needed to hear the words The Speaker could grant. People who were too scared, too untrusting, too distant to speak in the groupchat, some who simply were not a part of it at all, some who didn’t know how to use it. He takes them by hand, gives them the help they need, the help they want. He becomes a friend. He becomes a Leader. He brings them into the warmth of the room he’s carefully crafted. He tells them what they need. Shiny was a cruel thing, Savior plays into a different idea.
And they listen. They’re scared, they’re lost, they did not want to face the monsters in the woods, the monsters in the people they had seen. They crave freedom, to escape, they crave safety, they want something Savior can provide, and so he does. Shiny is muzzled and shoved down, Sean and Savior work in tandem, and the room is filled with active listeners, candles, and he is their sole performer.
Sean is a fox, lies spread to everyone he meets. He is a performer on a stage, eyes alight as he talks to the world outside of these hidden walls. Beneath the mask, he does not waver, letting truth be held from another creature’s mouth, The Speaker’s words coming through his vessel in a symphony of truth. A million lies for one moment; a million lies for one sermon of truth. Savior is everything Sean had always wanted to be; powerful and all consuming, a raging fire they all witness like the most beautiful tragedy. He is power and grace and truth. He is their Leader.
They want what he provides. He reaches for something higher. Desire burns in licks of flames and is all-consuming as he stands once more amongst the world. A leader reborn, Savior steps into the limelight of exactly where he is supposed to be. He spots Sean’s special few amongst the crowd, front and center, even. Amongst many inhuman, freakish things, amongst many average people, the ones he cared for most were dressed appropriately in robes he had hand-crafted. His bloody beating heart soars. Everything is exactly as it was supposed to be.
He is exactly as he was supposed to be.
So, Savior preaches. On this day, on this night, beneath the guise and beneath the lie to roommates and friends of taking his other friends out for a lovely dinner– (that, granted, he would provide later—) he preaches. It’s the purest lick of fire, this setting, this moment. He tells them everything they have waited for— tells the truth of what's out there in the woods. Monsters that their faith would protect them from, shield them from, should they listen, should they open their minds, should they have faith. He tells them of faceless men and prophecies, standing in living proof of it all. Metal leg attached, the Lord’s scars marring every part of his body, back from the dead, he tells of overcoming the greatest of adversity, he tells them what he can do for them.
Safety, he promises. And, one day, freedom.
Savior preaches faith in what he knows. He echoes what the Speaker has told to echo, and then some, tells them the world, tells them the truth behind the men hiding within the city walls, the monsters in human and inhuman flesh, how to protect their minds from it all, how to stay safe beneath the shadow of The Family. He promises them this, eyes alight beneath the mask.
Another day, they would talk of Carriers, an Afterlife, the multiversal travel they were destined to, not bound by. But first, he congratulates them. He welcomes them Home.
It’s a celebration.
Yes, Sean had no regrets. Not a single one. Savior basks in the glory of something wonderful.