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He felt it, first. He always felt it. A sharp, cold prickle curling down his spine, a crack racing through ice, forcing him to turn towards the gray of the mist. The wood of the boat pressed against the back of his calf, lazy and uncaring. The grain, he absentmindedly noted, had been worn smooth from use he couldn't remember.
With eyes still on the mist, waiting for the newest arrival, he rested his chin on the tip of the oar. Like everything else, the oar was neither elegant nor ugly; just present, the way most things were. There wasn't much to look at, although the sea scene was a nice respite from many of the other paths. Reddish brown sand under his black heels, the color of dried rust and old brick, stretching every possible way before dipping under the splash of dark waves. Even the waves moved without urgency, as though they, too, had nothing better to do.
He stretched his head back, slightly, because the sky had darkened. Stars winked above, pinpricks of white heat against the deep black. His hands were both covering the top of the oar, his knuckles pressed uncomfortably against the base of his throat, but the comforting sight of the stars was worth it. Too many people seemed to die on a rainy day. He hated the rain, deeply and vehemently. This, a clear sky with constellations arranged in casual confidence, was much better.
Mist swirled, the slightest breeze forcing his attention to refocus. The mist was never threatening, exactly, but instead acted as a soft, directionless curtain between worlds. Specks of sand flew, and the boat against his leg pressed, harsh and present. A deep sigh from his nose, because he always hated the waiting.
(A voice, light and bright. A soft whisper. I trust you. I'll wait.)
A sharp shake of his head, because he had a job to do. Grit of his teeth, and the vaguest taste of sand tainted his tongue, mineral and fine. Still, he waited.
He perked up at the sound of footsteps, hesitant and slow. The fog finally shifted, parting almost reluctantly, and out walked the arrival. Blonde hair, messy and lively, catching the starlight in a way that seemed unfair against the muted palette of everything else. Large brown eyes that caught his quickly, warm and wary. A red hoodie, interestingly enough, vivid as a warning against the gray, with faded blue jeans.
Young, he noted. It was always worse when they were young.
The other boy blinked at him, slowing his walk until he stood, tense and awkward, a few feet away. If either reached out, they could probably just snag the other's sleeves. He had a moment, ridiculous and irrational, to wonder at the sight of himself, with his black hair and black shirt and his black pants and his black heeled shoes. An empty silhouette, poised and drawn.
A moment, and the other boy smiled uneasily. "Chase Hollow," he said, his voice scraped raw and hoarse. A fist pressed against his bottom lip, clearing his throat. His fist dropped, but his smile inched up.
(A snarl, a snort, a sprinkle of envy. Your talents aren't even plural.)
"Do I…bow?" Chase Hollow asked uncertainly, glancing once at the bare environment. He didn't seem to care much for the sky, which seemed a pity. What a waste of a perfect night. Brown eyes found his again, eyebrows furrowed. "Sorry, I…who are you?"
He straightened, because he knew the process from here. "I'm the guide. I help all souls enter their afterlife." He paused, just for a moment, and added, "You don't bow."
He's had many introductions, from all the people he guided. "I'm a friend," was often misconstrued as him knowing the souls personally. "I'm nobody," was often met with a desperate, frantic laugh. "I have no idea," he said, once, in a moment of weakness and panic. Luckily, the soul witness of that particular day had comforted him, because the guide had, apparently, reminded him of his son.
(My name is, he said, and whispered the secret. Nerves, butterflies, kisses.)
Chase Hollow tilted his head, considering something, then glanced once at the space around him, eyes catching for a moment on the dark water pulling at the shore. "Is that…so." A sneaker, scuffed and dirty with laces fraying at the tips, kicked the reddened sand, and the guide ignored the familiar twist of guilt from deep within his being. "Am I dead?"
Sometimes, he answered. He would have, if Chase Hollow turned to look at him, but Chase Hollow's head had instead tilted up to the sky, and he didn't want to risk besmirching the name of the beautiful night sky above him. So he waited, as much as he loathed it, until the line of Chase's mouth curved downward, and until Chase Hollow's arms crossed tightly over his chest, pulling the red hoodie taut across his shoulders.
"Yes," he said, when Chase Hollow's eyes dipped back to his. And waited, again, for the demand for elaboration, or the need for reassurance, or the desire for comradery.
Another tilt of the head, and a squint of the eyes. "That's not right."
(Always a surprise. Flickers of moments. A cannon, a boat, a vampire.)
A slight pause, eyes watching eyes. A cough, from him, because he had created quite an extensive response guide, and he had yet to meet someone who looked at death and refused it. Strange, perhaps. He would have expected more souls to avoid death. He supposed, perhaps egotistically, that his presence helped the confirmation.
"You are dead," he chose to say. Eyes, even more narrow. He stayed firm, because in this, at least, he was sure. "My job is to take you across the sea."
Chase Hollow took a small step back, watching him cautiously. "No, it isn't," he insisted, and something stubborn colored his tone. "I'm serious. I'm not dead."
Twisting around, Chase seemed to study the vast array of sand, obviously cataloguing the absence of anything useful. The mist had dissipated, now, having only collected to bring Chase to him, and the beach stretched empty in all directions. "How do I get back?"
A slight shift back to normalcy. I don't want to be dead. How do I return, said many a soul. "You can't," he said, and he tried to soften his voice. A softer voice, a softer blow. "You are dead."
"I'm literally not," the soul said, hands firm against his hips. Lips etched in an annoyed frown, as he turned his head back. "There's no way I died. And if I did die, there's no way this is my afterlife."
It was a perfectly fine afterlife, he personally thought. A perfect night sky, with stars bright and a moon glowing above him, throwing long shadows against the curves of sand. He could hear the gentle roars of the sea, perfectly in time with the bobbing of the boat, as rhythmic as unconscious breathing.
There were variations, of course. Some souls wished to wander a forest before finding a clearing. Some who walked through their house to rest in their bedroom. Some who simply crossed a graveyard, before resting by their tombstone. Rather morbid, in his opinion, so he quite appreciated the tranquility of the sea.
He should have probably been better at this than he was. "You chose this," he said, and he couldn't hide the exasperation in his voice. He cleared his throat, leaning slightly closer to the oar still clutched in his hands. Chase Hollow watched him, arms still crossed. "You are dead, and I am here to take you to your afterlife."
"Why would you take me to heaven when I'm literally not dead?" Chase Hollow asked, and it was actually unfair that he sounded so logical. It wasn't that surprising, at least to him, when Chase Hollow promptly turned towards the sand and marched away. It was much less surprising, especially to him, when the mist shimmered back, steadily concealing the outline of Chase Hollow until the gold of his hair had entirely disappeared.
With a frustrated groan, he yanked the oar away from the sand. Letting it clatter loudly against the wood of the boat, he dropped against the cool sand, eyes never leaving the spot where Chase Hollow left.
And he waited.
(A voice, low and relieved. A softer whisper. Thank you.)
There was no clock hidden in this space, so he measured time in the souls he guided. Each soul wished for a different sky, after all, so it became easier to pretend that each sunrise and each sunset lived entirely independent from one another.
(The glow of the orange sky, reflected perfectly in bright brown eyes. Beach waves, soft and comforting, at his feet. Sand, warm, under his nails.)
He shook his head again, in a futile attempt to dispel whatever image lurked behind the folds of his memories. He didn't know what the memories were, or to whom they belonged to. Sometimes, he wondered if they were his own, but they were often too fantastical to be anything more than a concerning imagination.
(Again, a vampire. Declawed fingers, clawing anyway. A coffin door. A vampire.)
There was no measure of time, but time surely passed. The mist, right before his eyes, tensed and relaxed, and Chase Hollow walked decisively through the grayed air. Their eyes met immediately, again, and Chase Hollow stopped, eyebrows furrowed and eyes wide and hands by his side, curled into fists at the seam of his jeans.
He was still sitting, and after a moment, Chase Hollow plopped onto the sand in front of him, landing with a soft thud and a small billow of red. Two halves of a whole, mirroring one another. A soul and his guide.
"Okay," Chase Hollow said slowly, glancing around, and he magnanimously withheld a snort. The space, of course, had yet to change. "So maybe I can't leave."
(Remember when we were cats?)
Chase Hollow shook his head, just as he shook his own. The voice, always taunting him, never stayed long enough for him to hear properly. Which was fine, as he had a job to do.
"But I'm seriously not dead," Chase Hollow added, giving him another pointed look. "You have to believe me, buddy."
"You are dead," he repeated, his hands digging slightly deeper into the cool dirt. He thought, very briefly, of a sunset and orange skies and warmth. "My job is to take you across the sea."
Bottom lip, hidden under the tips of his top teeth. A conflict, written into the storm of his eyes. He watched, but Chase Hollow sat perfectly still, perfectly stubborn, and perfectly centered.
It would help, he would imagine, if he knew anything else. If he knew something about life in the After, or if he knew something about life in the Before. If he could grasp some proof of what he was, just to smooth out the folds between Chase Hollow's eyebrows.
He couldn't, of course, so he waited.
(I trust you. I'll wait. Even if you—)
Abruptly, he shoved his way to his feet, the motion uncharacteristically quick. He used the side of the boat to help him stand, the old wood solid under his palm, evidently catching Chase Hollow off-guard. "Come on."
Hesitantly, lacking the same composure of a few moments before, Chase Hollow pressed his hands against the sand and pushed himself up, brushing his palms against the legs of jeans. He watched Chase's face carefully, because he had enough experience with souls accusing him of lying and deception and devilish twists of fate as they desperately ran, again and again, to whatever world the mist hid from him.
Accusing and demanding and running, over and over, while he waited. And eventually, every single time, they would stare at the world beyond the mist, and they would stare at the world beyond him, and they would take the first step towards their Afterlife.
None, before Chase Hollow, had ever denied being dead. Many, including Chase Hollow, seemed to believe death to be malleable.
As calmly as he could, he gestured to the boat. "Please get in the boat," he said. It might have been a plea. He hated waiting. Hated waiting for souls to give up, hated waiting for souls to look beyond him, and hated waiting for souls to dejectedly take the first step.
Frustration in the knit of his eyebrows, and concern in the bite of his tongue. "You aren't listening," Chase Hollow muttered. Apprehension, then, in the tensing of his shoulders. "I'm not dead."
A moot point regardless, because Chase Hollow finally stepped closer.
(I know you might not trust me again, desperate and sorrowful and grieving, before an interruption. I trust you. I'll wait.)
"I'm only doing this to prove I'm right," Chase Hollow warned, firm and direct. He took a step to the side, giving Chase a clear path forward. He held out a hand, at least, which Chase Hollow looked at for a brief, suspicious moment.
Chase's hand, when it slid over his own, reminded him of that orange sunset. Something about being warm.
"Why would my subconscious choose a boat ride?" Chase grumbled, his knees pulled tight against his chest. One hand wrapped loosely around Chase's ankles, and the other gripped his own tightly. Warmth, from where Chase's palm pressed tightly against his fingers.
He wasn't entirely unused to hand-holding. Many of the younger souls were very touchy, after all, and he had gotten rather acclimated towards a careful hug or soft head pats. What he wasn't used to, in the slightest, was having souls deathly afraid of their own chosen mode of transport.
"If I'm scared of boats, why would my subconscious choose a boat ride?" Chase muttered, again. The sea moved around them, unconcerned as ever, with the surface catching starlight in silver flickers. The oars rowed them forward persistently, no support from himself necessary.
He wasn't truly needed to actually guide the souls; it was in moments like this, when everything shifted slightly from his expectations, that he wished he were one of the younger souls being guided by a being that seemed to know anything at all.
But he wasn't, and souls like Chase Hollow looked at him with expectant eyes. There was no measurement of time, but they couldn't see the sandy beach that Chase had emerged from, the shore behind them gone as cleanly as a turned page.
"Buddy?" Chase Hollow prompted, and a soft sigh slipped, unbidden, from his nose. The hand around his fingers tightened, reminding him of his duty. Regardless of how abysmal he was at this, he was all Chase Hollow had.
(I bet you can't do an entire story, beginning to end, without cutting corners.)
He'd been staring off, he realized. His eyes had been watching the bright stars, hungry from their lack. He straightened, because he was meant to help, somehow, and let his eyes meet Chase Hollow's. His hand, limp and useless, still clutched in Chase Hollow's grip.
"Are you a demon?" Chase asked, painfully sincere. Brown eyes roamed his face, as though demonic markings lay in hiding. Maybe they did. He wasn't exactly an expert in the matter.
To Chase, he shrugged. "You tell me," he replied. He opened his mouth, running a tongue over the undersides of his teeth. Humans had canines, he knew, and he could never be certain if his were as sharp or sharper than the average soul's.
Chase seemed to mirror his thoughts, leaning forward for a better study as the boat shifted to accommodate the redistribution of weight. A soft thud as Chase's feet found the bottom of the boat, and the hand around his fingers shifted. The slide of skin on skin—he'd never admit this, but Chase Hollow was the first to have warm skin after dying—as their fingers intertwined.
Chase's other hand, carefully, reached for his open mouth. Brown eyes met his own, hesitant and cautious, and the pad of Chase's thumb felt the tip of his bottom canine. One of their hands tightened against the other, but he wasn't too sure who did what.
One time, a little girl curled against his lap for the entire boat ride. Another time, an older man rested his weary, wrinkly forehead against his shoulder. This time, a young guy felt along the tips of his teeth, carefully dragging his thumb to feel every bump and ridge. The thumb, when it accidentally grazed his tongue, tasted slightly salty, but he wiped the thought immediately.
When Chase repeated the motion, twisting his thumb to feel along his top row of teeth, he figured he had humored this long enough. Being touched was always an experience; he remembered the twisting of his heart when the little girl rested on him, and he remembered the sickening cold that enveloped his arm when the old man thanked him.
This touch resulted in the thundering of his heart and the tendrils of heat under his skin, spreading slowly from the beating in his chest to the very tips of his curled fingers. Interesting, that he could still feel warmth himself. He felt warm under the bright sun, sometimes, but never by the touch of another. Add it to the growing mysteries of Chase Hollow.
"Not a demon," Chase muttered, slowly pulling his hand back. He puzzled over his thumb for a moment, as if the glistening of saliva would spell out the answers, before he rubbed his hand against the leg of his pants. "Boo."
(Aren't you…scared…of vampires? A blur of brown, red, and pink.)
His jaw shut with a decisive click, and he let his tongue lightly drift over the same path Chase had felt. He couldn't remember the last time he tasted anything, but the salt of his thumb lay firm, a new story to reminisce.
Chase Hollow shifted back, his knees pulled back to his chest. He scowled, once, when his eyes caught the fall of a wave. "I hate boats," Chase said, as if he hadn't been able piece that together. "Why would this be my afterlife? It wouldn't. I'm not dead."
He chose not to reply, instead letting his gaze return to the twinkling of stars. A moment, and Chase's voice called for his attention again.
"Do you even know what you are?" Chase asked, eyes fixed on his own. His shoulders were tense, again, and he hadn't even noticed that Chase let go of their hands.
He tucked his hand against his side, ideally pretending that he wasn't chasing after the remnants of warmth. Salt, along his tongue. "I am a guide. My job is to take you across the sea."
The sea was quite wide, evidently. He may have been too hasty in his judgment; it could have been an ocean, for how long it stretched. He chose not to mention this to Chase Hollow, if only to avoid another round of You were wrong and thus could be wrong about everything and thus have no idea what you're doing and thus are a fraud and thus, not dead.
An annoyed groan, with Chase pushing his forehead against his knees for a painful moment. When Chase straightened, the guide blinked at the stubborn grit of his jaw. "Sure. You're a guide. You do this," he said, dismissively, one arm sweeping out of the boat to gesture at the shine of water around them. "Who are you? What's your name? I cannot keep calling you Buddy."
(My name is, he whispered, in time to the pounding of his heart. But honestly, I like when you call me—)
"You may call me whatever you please," was what he said. Chase Hollow's eyebrows rose, disbelief and incredulity, before a twisted, bitter laugh coughed out of his chest. Both arms tightened around his legs, and his eyes shut for a brief moment. Waves lapped the sides of the boat, close enough to watch but never still enough to touch.
When they opened, the brown eyes seemed brighter than ever. "I am going to keep calling you Buddy," Chase informed him, nodding his head decisively. A name was a name, he supposed uncertainly, even if Buddy was a tad childish.
Sometimes, souls called him a grim reaper. The devil, if they expected to be led to hell, or an angel, if hell never crossed their mind. The man who watched him break and cry over his ineptitude, the one who said he reminded him of his own son, called him Kid. As did the elderly man, in retrospect.
In light of that, Buddy wasn't exactly the most patronizing of titles. "If you must," he replied, prim and proper, and while Chase didn't exactly smile at his acquisition, he nodded again.
In the end, there was no point. A conclusion he regularly came to, frankly, because he found there was little point in anything here. "There it is," he announced, one hand leaving the sanctity of his lap to point at the blurred gray of the opposing shore. Relief, as always, unfurled in his chest; this was where the troubling questions of souls left his hands.
Chase Hollow's eyes followed the point of his finger, and he hissed. "What the fuck is that?" he asked, and he could feel his eye twitch at the thought of another layer to this mess of a soul.
Instead of saying what he would like, which followed the lines of get the actual dying fuck out of this boat and go to your afterlife and leave me alone oh my fuck, he cleared his throat. "That is your afterlife. It is designed specifically for you."
Chase Hollow stared, for just a moment, at the mystical gray blob. He waited a moment, watching curiously at the judgment in those brown eyes, before he carefully asked, "What do you see?"
"What?" Chase asked, tearing his attention away. The boat thumped gently, rocking them for a moment, as it finally came to a stop on the usual jut of rock bordering the gray. "What do you mean? Can't you see it?"
He didn't answer, and this seemed to be the correct course of action. Chase blinked at him once, those brown eyes widening and narrowing in thought, before he turned to study the offending afterlife.
"It just…it's books," Chase Hollow said, and from the frustration in his voice, there was only one possible way for the sentence to continue. "I told you. I'm not dead."
"You—" he began, because he was a guide and Chase Hollow very clearly needed to be guided, but the soul interrupted him. One tanned hand curled around his wrist, warm and urgent, imploring and impatient.
(Lights, camera, action. A melody. Overwhelmed and underprepared. A private concert, in front of millions.)
Eyes on eyes. "I hate boats," Chase Hollow informed him, fingers tightening against his wrist. "And I don't like reading. None of this makes sense, unless this is my subconscious trying to tell me that I'm not meant to be dead."
Sometimes, the souls kissed him. A light peck on the cheek, as gratitude, or a careful brush against his forehead. As a guide, he took his job seriously. He hugged and stood and sat and took, over and over, if that was what the souls needed. He had, quite genuinely, absolutely nothing else to live for.
The point was the souls often asked a lot from him. His time, his patience, his care. They asked for his stories, and he spoke. They asked for his silence, and he listened. They asked for platitudes, and he recited, over and over and over, soul after soul after soul.
Never, in all his time, did he have to deny a soul something they so clearly clutched dear. He'd admit to a sense of guilty unease as he carefully said, "You are dead. This is your afterlife."
Chase stared at him, his eyebrows slowly twisting his expression from disbelief to fury. In a moment, he lurched himself upright, angrily clamoring his way out of the boat as the vessel rocked in protest. He just watched on, sitting perfectly still, useless hands poised over his lap.
"I'm going to show you," Chase muttered. He turned around, eyes glowing against the drab background. Hair bright against the dark of the sky, catching light with a firm demand, and snarl vivid against the tan of his skin. "Hear that, Buddy? I'm going to walk into that stupid giant book nerd paradise thing, and it's going to immediately spit me out. Because I am not dead."
"Have fun," he said, and he couldn't entirely withhold the undertone of sarcasm. Chase heard it, evidently, if the annoyed middle finger was any indication, but he stormed his way into the mist regardless. He paused only once, and that was to glare pointedly over his shoulder.
Chase Hollow disappeared, of course, as he prepared for the journey back. The next soul would arrive soon, naturally, and the water would likely give way to a new path. He could live without the boat, but he really would miss this wide expanse of clear, dark sky; it was his favorite, if he was honest.
The stars winked at him, shining happily in a secret he could never seem to grasp.
(Don't worry, and a devilish wink. I never give up on stuff. Not if I really want it.)
By the time the boat returned to the sandy beach, the shiver of newcomer returned. The sky turned from the dark of night to the brightest of days, with the sun beaming proudly against his back. The sand of the beach was no more; instead, he found himself on a grassy hill, and he saw an older gentleman, with hair primly cut and a beard winding towards the grassy earth.
He pushed all thoughts of Chase Hollow from his mind. He stood from the boat—except there was no boat, the stone path clean and obvious—and when he glanced back, there was nothing but a path of gray stones behind him, edged with low hedges that hadn't been there a moment ago.
"Who are you?" the older man asked, startled. One hand pressed against his beard, and the other against his head. "Where am I? What happened?"
He cleared his throat, and when scared green eyes met his own, he smiled gently. "I'm the guide," he said, adding a small bow. When he straightened, the man seemed slightly more appeased, the fear in his eyes cooling to a mere weariness. "I help all souls enter their afterlife."
A stoic moment, before the man nodded once. "So I'm dead."
"You are dead," he confirmed. Briefly, selfishly, he cast his mind to the soul of yesterday and thought: It was that fucking easy, you bastard.
The man was dressed nicely, he'd admit. A suit and tie, both in matching black. The man followed when he beckoned forward, and the only question he asked was whether he was allowed to stray from the path to pluck a stray flower. A round pink bloom, listing gently from a crack in the earth.
"It's a peony," the man explained, tucking the flower into his suit pocket as he returned to the path. His smile, when the man looked up, was soft. "My daughter loves them. I…don't know if she knows I'm gone, but. I'll see her eventually."
He stayed tactfully silent, because that was information above what he could tell. All he knew was to take the dead from one corner to the next.
More talking, which he quietly listened to. "My daughter loves to sing," the man said. He detailed nursery rhymes and children's songs, which led to the slow realization that the daughter in question was likely a child.
It didn't matter. He'd learned, a few hundred souls ago, that time meant absolutely nothing here. Souls came with no respect to chronology; this man, arriving just after Chase Hollow, could just as easily been Chase's great grandchild, or Chase's great grandfather. The child in question could still be four, new to the logic of grief, or she could be well in her forties, her father a memory she held dear.
To the man, he only said: "How beautiful."
(A kiss.)
He stopped in his tracks, eyes wide, and the man, still speaking, walked directly into his back. "My, ow, my apologies," the man said, cold hand pressed against his shoulder in an attempt to righten himself, but he didn't even hear it, because the flicker of…the…the flicker of. Something.
He began walking again, slow and jilted steps following the internal tune of a kiss, ignoring the continued monologue. Rude, undoubtedly, and against all he stood for within his job, but he'd never…a kiss.
He had no idea who he kissed, if he was even one of the two parties. The memories, if that was what the thoughts were, rarely made any sense at all. Again, vampires.
(An ice queen. A fiery angel. A heart made of snow, and a heart made of smoke.)
Unless he had, in a previous life, been an angel that specialized in boisterous flirtation and occasionally argued with an undead being of vampirical appearance, he would continue to question the nature of the sporadic bursts of thought. Still, though…a kiss.
When the path forward stopped, as did he. The man continued walking, seemingly oblivious, as his afterlife took a shape that must have been different from the apparent gray blob. "I remember this house," he was loudly saying, one hand reaching forward. The other, it appeared, pressed lightly on the peony resting above his heart. "My father took me here when I was little. I wonder if Myra would like—"
And, as he walked on, his words fell into the grasp of the mist. The man disappeared, of course, while he watched on. He was alone, again.
"I feel replaced," a voice said, and he spun around sharply, because that voice sounded smug and clear and vindictive, and Chase Hollow stood in front of him, hands shoved into the pocket of his jeans and smile inappropriately relieved.
Chase stood, spiteful to all that he had ever known, in his red hoodie and his blonde hair and his brown eyes. "Told ya," Chase said, and for a brief moment, he considered throttling the soul.
There was no boat for him to sit in, so he made do with the grassy path he had just walked. He sat against the warm rocks, the beat of the sun bypassing comfort and settling firmly into cruelty. Chase Hollow continued to stand there, smugness slipping in favor of slight concern.
"Buddy?" he hesitantly asked, taking a small step forward. Silence from them both, because he had never known a soul to so heavily reject the very basic premise of I will take you to this place and you will enter it.
It took him a long moment, several breaths, and a desperate prayer for patience and guidance before he was willing to squint his eyes open. To his horror, Chase Hollow continued to stand there, on the rocky ground of the edge of an afterlife.
"The weather changed," Chase unhelpfully said. He gestured at the bright sun, as if the daylight had slipped his attention.
He closed his eyes again, the exhaustion demanding some reprieve. A snort, somewhere above him, alongside the mutterings of Drama queen.
"Why are you here?" he finally asked, peeling his eyes back with conviction. He leaned both palms against the jutting of rock, bracing his weight as best he could. Chase Hollow peered at him curiously, then glanced once at the sight behind him.
"I went in," Chase said, which was both a relief and a concern. He kept his face carefully blank, choosing to focus on the brightness of Chase's expressions rather than the tension within his chest. "I walked in, even though I knew I wasn't dead, and I literally kept walking, and then bam. I was here."
He pursed his lips, averting his eyes to stare off at a particularly gray pebble. He could feel the heat of Chase's gaze on him anyway, pointed and questioning and so confident.
To wander inside, and have nowhere to go. He bit at his lip, idly digging his fingers deeper in the soil. It didn't make sense, because there was only the afterlife. There was absolutely no other place for a soul to enter.
"Which means," Chase began, and his loud groan wasn't able to dissuade his hubristic announcement. "Which means I was right, and I cannot be dead."
He tried, absolutely desperately, to think of any possible explanation. A difficult feat, it should be noted, when running off of very limited understanding of everything.
He wasn't oblivious to his irrelevancy. Whether he was present or not, the path forms. The path, clear and obvious, devoid of all tricks and traps, was bound to gently lead a wandering soul to their afterlife. He couldn't properly assuage souls of their concerns, because he knew almost nothing about this place. He couldn't properly answer their questions, because he could only answer his own through a pathetic attempt at repression.
He couldn't, obviously, even convince one soul that he was really and truly dead. And he most definitely could not think of a solution for when the magic of death decided to gate-keep peace and tranquility and eternal comfort from one annoying motherfucker.
The only thing he knew, and he knew it the way a madman knew logic, was that the souls that enter were dead, and the only possible thing he could be good for was leading them to their afterlife. And that, unfortunately, made Chase Hollow very much his problem.
He pulled his eyes back to Chase, despite wanting nothing less than to shrug him away. He met the worried lines of concern with the most confident nod he could manage, and ignored how little that did to alleviate anything. "Try to enter again," he said, and Chase's expression fell into clouds of annoyance. Rolling his eyes, he stood, the prickling of ice reminding him of the presence of another soul. "This time, see if the giant books tell you anything."
He turned back to the path, walking hastily away. He couldn't catch whatever words Chase muttered, because soon enough, the gray blob of an incomplete afterlife faded away.
(There is something deeply wrong with the author of this book. Flamingos and hearts and plot holes.)
An elderly woman, hair pure white and eyes a twinkling brown. They shared a car ride, surprisingly enough, as they drove through her childhood town. She pointed out her old library, her old school, and her sister's hair salon.
"I love your eyes," she told him, when the car had finally parked. Her hands, sickly cool, cupped both of his cheeks as she peered closer. "They're so wonderfully blue."
"Thank you," he said politely, and he stayed perfectly still until her hands released him. He slid towards the door on his left-hand side, and told her not to worry. "Allow me to get the door, please."
She smiled, and he ducked his head to cover the tell-tale warmth in his cheeks. He shoved his door open and slipped out, and carefully wandered around the back of the car, taking care to note the bright silver of the metal and the sheen of the light. Souls rarely asked for car rides; not special enough, he supposed, as he carefully tugged the other door open.
He offered his hand, and she gratefully accepted. "Such a gentleman," she praised, smiling happily at him. His cheeks, somehow, grew warmer.
She hadn't needed much to realize she was dead. By the time he had made it, the grass had already given way to concrete, and she was gazing at the sunset with wide eyes. "Oh," she had said, after he gave up and ran the rest of the distance. She had allowed him to catch his breath, and patted him twice on the head. "I think I may be dead. Could you, possibly, help me?"
Now, they made their way down the remainder of the road. The afterlife still looked to be nothing more than a gray blob in his eyes, but when he glanced at her, he saw a soft smile unfurl.
She leaned closer to his ear, and he indulged. "That's the venue where I married him," she whispered. He glanced, questionably, at the gray blob, but she seemed elated. She pulled her hand away from his and quickly combed her short white hair, the wrinkles on her hand more pronounced than ever.
"He died when we were young. Oh!" She startled, looking down at her simple red shirt and black pants in concern. "I used to wear the most darling dresses. I do hope he recognizes me anyway."
(By all means, keep the compliments coming. Wet, cold, guilty, and a warm press of lips against his forehead.)
She pressed a hand against the single ruffle on the neckline of her shirt, as though hoping to pull away a new outfit. He watched, quiet and contemplating, before her eyes finally met his in worried apprehension. "You look beautiful," he said, the truth falling easily.
Her hand fell away, and she offered another smile in thanks. She pressed her lips against his cheek, cold against hot, and stepped forward without another word. As the gray mist compacted, he lightly touched his cheek.
He didn't need to turn to know Chase Hollow was standing there, but he did anyway. Call him a masochist.
Arms crossed lightly, and eyes flickering toward his cheek, Chase said, "Why did she get a car ride? I would have killed for a car, dude."
"Your subconscious chose the boat, and hers chose the car," he replied absentmindedly. He kept watching the space she left, idly wishing he had the foresight to tell her goodbye. She had been sweet, after all.
"My subconscious said I'm not dead," Chase corrected, and the guide didn't bother refraining from rolling his eyes. "Plus," Chase added, carefully walking closer, "I went through the book things three times. All the words are gibberish. All of them."
A snort, birthed from an intense frustration at not being helpful. "Maybe you're illiterate," he suggested, and he couldn't even really tell if he was joking. Chase scoffed, so he supposed that was somewhat of an answer.
"I've been trying to remember things, but…I remember, like, bits and pieces," Chase admitted. A hand ran through his blonde hair, and brown eyes glared at his scuffed shoes. "Like, sometimes I remember something someone said, but not the context or—or why they said that, or—Why would we be cats?"
(Remember the time we were cats? Disbelief, nerves, hand in hand.)
"What?" Chase asked, blinking at his horrified stare. But that couldn't make sense, because he'd been hearing the voice and remembering the pieces from well before Chase Hollow's arrival. It had to be a coincidence. Maybe there was a cat craze, and people were turning into cats regularly.
Brown eyes, widening. "You know something," Chase said, alarmed and alert, and his hands clamored against the silk of his sleeves. "Buddy, what? You have to tell me. What?"
It was ridiculous, and it was unfair, and if he were honest, it hurt, a little. Because he kind of liked the idea that the memories were his, rather than him stealing memories from another. He liked pretending that there had once been more to him than this, but there hadn't been.
"Buddy, you're scaring me," Chase Hollow informed him. Fingers curled into his sleeves, and eyes imploringly on his. "Please."
He opened his mouth, then shut it. Opened again, because sometimes, souls kissed him, and he allowed them, because he genuinely wanted to give the souls whatever would grant them peace, and a little because he craved the reminder that he wasn't entirely abysmal at his job. Shut, because he was abysmal at his job.
His mind cast about, cataloguing as many of the memories as he could. "I know you might not trust me," he recited, and Chase watched him, eyes wide and confused. "But I—"
"I trust you," Chase said, an echo of the memory.
(I trust you. I'll wait. Even if you disappear.)
Even the voices sounded alike, he thought in devastation. He watched, his sleeves caught in Chase Hollow's arms, his eyes imprisoned by Chase Hollow's eyes, and repeated, "I trust you. I'll wait. Even if you disappear."
"So we share the same memories," Chase Hollow said, frustratingly calm. That, he was not overly concerned with. "Do you think I called you Buddy before, too?" he asked again, because that, apparently, took precedent.
"I must have gotten parts of your memory," he muttered, ignoring the irrational of Chase Hollow's prioritization. He paced in the space between the parked car and the afterlife, his hands freed from Chase's hold and currently nestled deep into the locks of his own hair. "That's why I know about the vampire and the mermen and the stupid cats."
All of which he desperately wanted context for, but Chase, evidently, never got more information than he did. Why would he be a cat, indeed.
The prickles of ice, and he had to take a regrettable step backwards. "There's another soul," he said, and there was an apology between the words. Chase nodded, then sat carelessly on the rocks under him. They'd meet again soon, the silence implied.
With each trip, Chase managed to piece together bits of details. "I think I was right," was the first thing Chase said, after the guiding of a middle-aged man. "I remembered someone complaining about singing, and it couldn't have been me. I love to sing."
"That doesn't mean that was me," he argued, and Chase just hummed in response. He was learning, though, that it was pointless to argue with Chase Hollow. The truth appeared to be whatever he willed, and the universe seemed largely inclined to agree.
The next trip, a stroll through a butterfly garden with a nine year old, had Chase nearly tackling him in excitement. "I did call you Buddy!" he yelled. Warm hands, tight against his shoulders. "I called you Buddy! That's proof! I remember you!"
It was not proof, he thought. Not at all.
The third trip, an older man asked for his name. "I'm the guide. I help all souls enter their afterlife," he replied, carefully trying to avoid glaring at the innocent soul. Of all forms of weather to appreciate, this one seemed to enjoy the pouring rain.
"I know that," the man said, rolling his eyes. He gestured pointedly at the guide, then at the area around them. "I'm not dumb. I'm dead, right? And you're an angel or whatever? I want to know your name."
My name is whatever you please, he was supposed to say. "Buddy," accidentally slipped out. He blamed Chase Hollow.
By the time he successfully brought them to the man's afterlife, he had been entirely drenched. The only thing worse than seeing the rain end directly before the edge of the afterlife, thereby ensuring Chase stayed dry and gleeful, was hearing the man clap his shoulder with an unnecessary, "Thank you, Buddy."
He fled, for lack of a better word, before Chase's gleeful grin could become any smugger.
Memories, more frequent than ever.
(Pages of a book, doused with water. Horror, grief, and terror.)
(The press of noses, sweet and tempting.)
(Apologies, stumbling after one another. I was going to tell you. I promise. I was going to tell you, just not right—)
It was strange, sometimes, to get a snippet of a memory and be entirely unsure if it had anything to do with you.
"What do you mean?" Chase asked him, when he mentioned it. Chase was lying against the rocks, one hand tugging aimlessly at the red sleeve of his hoodie. "I told you. They're our memories. Obviously, you apologized to me."
"Why would I apologize to you?" he asked, arms crossed. The sky was nearing a sunset, reminding him of the barest hint of something. A coconut, perhaps.
When his gaze slid back down, he found Chase batting his eyelashes. "Maybe you finally wanted to admit that I'm not dead," he suggested, which routinely became the cut-off of their hang-outs.
"Just admit I'm not dead, Buddy," Chase would say, or "Because, Buddy, I'm not dead," or "Good thing that I'm not the dead person here, Buds," and the guide would storm away. Childish and ridiculous.
"Who is that boy?" a young woman asked, once. They rode in a carriage, which had been an interesting first for him. She turned, eyes wide, and he told her.
She hummed, the red of her lipstick bright against the rose in her cheeks. "Chase. That's almost as silly a name as Buddy," she said, and she laughed at whatever expression he made. He wasn't entirely certain where the offensive stemmed from, but he undoubtedly expressed it.
(My name is, he said, and whispered the secret. That's so cool, echoed a brighter voice. Warmth, butterflies, joy.)
It was not a slow growth, nor a subtle acceptance. He'd delivered the twenty-third soul since Chase Hollow's appearance, and Chase had said, "I'm glad I got to see you again. Here, I mean. After not dying."
"How kind," he drawled. He waved goodbye at the latest soul, watching until the mist took them. "Any reason why?"
Chase, sitting along the rocks, hummed. "We were super in love. If you didn't know," he added, his grin smug and bright. The guide, warmth along his neck and his cheeks and his ears, stared back.
The grin widened, impossibly. "I bet that's how you looked when we made out," he happily said, and the guide chose to forego all pretenses and threw himself back into the carriage, succumbing to the art of shoving his head against the palms of his hands.
(A kiss, desperate and bright and comforting and perfect.)
It was not a slow growth, but as he returned to where he always began, he made a choice. His first, arguably, in a very long time.
He had no idea if the memories were truly his own, or if he had plucked them from another. He had no idea if he had any right to them at all. He had no idea if Chase was correct in anything, since the very dead soul still argued for his improbable life.
Still. When the twenty-fourth soul since Chase Hollow arrived, wide-eyed and afraid, he pulled himself into a deep bow. The sky was pulled back into a dark night, the first since Chase's arrival. A sign, he desperately hoped.
"I'm the guide," he said. Heart pounding, but smile fixed. "I help all souls enter their afterlife. You," he added, speaking over the tremble in his voice. "You may call me Buddy."
(I've never been a hero in any story. Not even my own.)
A brief intermission: the story of Orpheus.
Orpheus was the son of the muse Calliope, and whether through genetic predisposition or natural talent, he became infamous for his beautiful playing of the lyre. His music, according to many a source, was beautiful enough to coax even the most stubborn of trees to sway. It was no surprise that many fell for Orpheus, but he fell for only one.
Eurydice, a beautiful wood nymph, loved Orpheus. Truly, there could be no question: the two loved one another, and their love spurred song after song, joyous and magical and bright and lovely. An objective fact of the world: Eurydice loved Orpheus, and Orpheus loved Eurydice.
Eurydice died. This, too, was an objective fact of the world. Eurydice loved Orpheus, and Orpheus loved Eurydice, and Eurydice died too young and too soon and too loved.
Eurydice loved Orpheus, and Orpheus loved Eurydice, and Orpheus journeyed to the Underworld and begged Hades and Persephone for the return of his wife. His music, beautiful as it was, moved the immortals to consider his request.
You may lead Eurydice to the land of the living, Hades announced. The condition, infamous as it became: you are forbidden from looking at your wife until you are both completely emerged in the sunlight.
The tragedy, of course, is that Orpheus loved Eurydice. They wandered through the Underworld for hours, never permitted a passing glance, and the moment the warmth of light landed on Orpheus' skin, he turned his loving gaze to ensure his love was alright.
He turned out of love, just as Hades had known. Any man who marched into death itself to retrieve someone they loved would never march away from death without a single glance. To love is to look, and Orpheus loved.
When Chase asked, Buddy told him. "It's my favorite story," he added, slightly embarrassed. It was difficult not to shift in discomfort at the wide-eyed focus gifted by Chase, but the guide only just managed.
When he finished, his eyes skimming over the wide array of sand he had just wandered through, he glanced at Chase. And Chase, meeting his eyes, simply hummed.
They never kissed, although Chase often did lay claim over Buddy's hands. Perhaps it was because they still had only a handful of memories, or perhaps it was because they didn't know each other too well from the stolen moments of conversation together. Perhaps Chase just liked Buddy's hands.
Chase would sometimes stare a little too pointedly at the places where a soul left a gentle kiss, and Buddy would be lying if he claimed anything other than a slight thrill at the prospect of jealousy. If they truly had been in love, and Buddy's thoughts ended there.
He had no idea if he believed Chase, in frankness. As wonderful as the prospect would be, to be wholly and completely in love with the most infuriating, annoying, upsetting, irrational, irritating, irresistible mystery of whichever lifetime, he was far too logical to ignore the statistics.
Time did not follow chronology, here. Even if Buddy had once been human, something that still lacked any evidence or rationale, then there was an infinite amount of lives he could have lived. The chances that Chase Hollow had met him in life, fallen in love, somehow shared a life of cats and vampires and mermaids and assassins and witches, died, and still reunited were infinitesimal.
(There's still a chance, while the world ended around them. There's always a chance.)
He was standing, this time, when Buddy arrived. A young boy parted with a quick hug, while Buddy watched on.
"I think," Chase said, quiet and hesitant, and Buddy was reminded of a Chase that had newly arrived. A Chase that marched into the mist on the sandy beach, and a Chase that felt his way through Buddy's teeth. The taste of salt, on the tip of his tongue. "I think that there isn't really anything to do here."
Buddy nodded. He resisted the urge to point at the forest he had just clamored out of; if there had been anything to do, he would have happily found it.
Chase was watching him carefully, before he let out a soft sigh. "No, Buds. I mean, I don't think there's anything for me to do here. I think I'm…I'm here for a reason, right? Even if I were dead, which I am not, there has to be something."
"Guiding is a one person job," he quickly said, in case Chase was getting any ideas. Frankly, he thought, while Chase's lips pursed in frustration, guiding was a no person job, but that was a thought for another day.
"No, I…okay." A deep breath, hands open and braced. Then, after an obvious moment of consideration, Chase's left hand slid into Buddy's right, fingers intertwined in a desperate bid of heat, or comfort, or stability. "You stole something from me. I remember that."
He went to pull out of Chase's hold, but Chase's hand tightened stubbornly. His eyes were bright where they held Buddy's. "You apologized, remember? You remembered an apology."
"I—yeah," he said, because he did remember the crushing horror and guilt and desperation for reconciliation. He stared as Chase gave him a small, bitter smile, their hands still tightly pressed together.
"You stole something from me, and I remember it was really important. And I completely forgave you." A brief pause, in consideration, with eyes that flickered to the cloudy sky above. "I think I really loved you. Most of my memories are me with you, and I always feel better when you're around."
He opened his mouth, then decisively shut it, because he had absolutely no idea what to say.
Another pause, with eyes flickering back down to Buddy's. "What do you see in the afterlife?"
"A gray blob," he immediately answered. It was hard to say anything else, when the giant gray blob was directly behind Chase.
Chase hummed, then took a careful step back. His hand, still holding Buddy's, tugged him carefully. "Why don't you look closer?" he suggested.
There were reasons why he didn't. The place was intimidating. He never left the clear path he followed. The afterlife were for dead souls. He was a guide. There were many reasons, all perfectly valid, but Chase was tugging his hand, and he was, apparently, unable to deny Chase most things. Evidenced, he thought, carefully climbing his way up the very edge of the jagged rocks, by the fact that he had long given up trying to coax Chase into accepting death.
They walked together, hand in hand, over the rocky surface of the afterlife. A prickle of cold, running down the curve of his spine, but Chase's hand was warm as it gently pushed him forward. "What do you see?"
The gray glob had straightened, at least. "I see a wall," he said truthfully. A gray brick wall, with tendrils of ivy slipping down, and when he edged slightly closer, he saw a decorative black lock, directly in the middle. "Why?"
When he turned, Chase was watching him contemplatively. "Because I think," he said, and if his eyes sparkled that vividly when he was alive, then Buddy had no doubt that he'd fallen in love. "I think I came for a reason. I think I only came for you."
There was no point in parsing out a logic, so they didn't bother.
(A cannon, for some reason. Concern and worry and panic and so much fondness.)
The afterlife Chase saw was a land of giant books, all too heavy to open. The language wasn't one he recognized, nor one he wished to puzzle out.
The afterlife Buddy saw was a wall, long and tall, with a single hole meant for a decorative, dramatic key. One he didn't have, naturally, and he lacked any memories of ever being a master locksmith.
"There's definitely something important about keys," Chase muttered, quietly and to himself. Maybe that was the important thing Buddy stole from Chase. Buddy elected to keep that thought to himself.
They kissed, once, when the world was ending. He wondered if it was too obvious to ask for the chances of a kiss being the solution to this, too.
If he were honest, he knew that, no matter what life they had lived, he had to have been in love with Chase. He had to have been embarrassingly in love with Chase, because when Chase suggested they both had to leave the boundary between life and death, he couldn't think of a single reason to argue. He had to be embarrassingly in love with Chase, because the only thing louder than the cold shivers of a newcomer was the warm arm around his shoulders.
Orpheus and Eurydice, he supposed. He felt as Eurydice must have. Regardless of whether it was futile, he would follow Chase; regardless of how devastating it was, he would grasp the love whenever Chase glanced back.
An old man coughed, and they spun around. He eyed them questionably, and Buddy hastily stepped away from the afterlife. The path, he realized, had turned into a soft green meadow, with daisies painting the way forward. The sky was cloudless, the sun in the midst of rising.
"I believe this is my stop," the old man said, a dark hand, trembling, gesturing at the afterlife before them. "If you'll excuse me, I have a grave to find."
He took a few steps forward, and Buddy bowed his head in discomfort. He'd always known, of course, that any soul could figure out the concept of death and the afterlife and the transport between them, but that didn't prevent the sting of seeing it firsthand. Chase patted his shoulder twice in sympathy, so at least he had that.
When the man walks through his afterlife, the mist covering him completely, it clicked.
None, before Chase Hollow, had ever denied being dead. Many, including Chase Hollow, seemed to believe death to be malleable.
Chase Hollow, who could never seem to enter the afterlife without sparing a last glance, thought, and memory to Buddy, who wasn't supposed to matter.
Orpheus, who loved Eurydice. To the point of wandering death for her.
Eurydice, who loved Orpheus. To the point of wandering death for him.
"So I have to stop thinking about you if I want to go to heaven?" Chase asked, incredulous. Buddy supposed he should be honored that the thought of not thinking about him seemed this ridiculous.
And it wasn't quite that, anyway. "You said that the boat on the ocean wasn't something you would choose," Buddy explained. They were sitting, Buddy's back firmly against the brick of the wall. Chase sat in front of him, legs crossed, both hands fiddling with Buddy's fingers. "I think you were thinking about me, so the transport became something I would like."
A squint of brown eyes. "Then we should break up, you sadistic freak," Chase told him, oh so seriously. Buddy rolled his eyes, because the threat would likely have been taken more seriously if he had any control over his ten digits. As it was, Chase's warm hands still curled and uncurled Buddy's fingers, so he suspected their relationship was safe.
On a more serious note: "But that doesn't explain why our afterlives are different," Chase argued. He wrinkled his nose, assumingly in his distaste over the life his own brain had created for him, and the expression was unapologetically adorable.
He couldn't quite piece together the question of afterlives, especially since he'd spent so long staunchly believing he didn't have one. A lock on a wall, with no door in sight. Tendrils of ivy, too fragile to allow for his weight.
Giant books with no legibility for a person who disliked reading, and a giant wall with no escape for a person who needed a key. A boy who would never stop glancing, and a boy who would never stop following.
(A key, sticking out of a book.)
They leapt over one another, eyes wide and fingers clawing. Excited yelling overlapped, proud and brash and happy. The bright grin on Chase's face and the bright grin on Buddy's had a moment to parallel, before the happiness overturned to irrational.
It turned out, he didn't need an exact memory of the first time he kissed Chase Hollow. In this moment, with his hands gripping Chase's arms and their smiles meeting in a warm press of lips, he had a pretty good idea.
Their afterlives were connected. "Of course they're connected," Chase muttered, his shoulder bumping contently against Buddy's elbow. "I'm crazy about you."
Buddy, with much difficulty, ignored him. If they used a key to jump into storybooks—and wow, did that explain so much about the vampires and the mermaids and the flamingos—then it must be the same key that barred him from entry. Find the key, and they could both escape.
Their afterlives were connected. Chase could never disappear properly, because his afterlife wasn't complete without Buddy. Buddy could never enter the afterlife, because he was waiting for Chase. Chase always looked for Buddy, and Buddy always looked for Chase.
Orpheus and Eurydice. "But this time," Chase murmured, his hand slipping to meet Buddy's. "It'll be a much better ending, because I'll always come to get you."
(I can drive, you know. If you're in any trouble, I can drive over and pick you up.)
Another prickle of ice slithered down his back, but he was getting better at ignoring the familiar cold. He lay against a particularly large jut of rock, his hands resting over his stomach. The swirls of orange and pink comforted his eyes, familiarity coaxing a sense of tranquility. To his right, Chase paced, sneakers soft against the stone, and the soft sounds of footsteps spurred a small smile.
"So we just need a key." Back and forth, close and far, the red of his hoodie moving about Buddy's peripheral vision. Never going beyond Buddy's line of sight. "If I was a key, where would I hide?"
There was nowhere to hide a key in the afterlife, and there was nowhere to hide a key at the start. The space between arrivals and endings was bare of most things. "Everything's always been exactly the same," Buddy muttered, his eyes following the familiar rhythm of the back and forth of Chase's path.
He must have said something correctly, because Chase stilled. Twisting around, bright brown eyes met his with excitement. "Except for the path," Chase said, and it only took two steps for him to crouch beside Buddy's head, dropping down in one easy movement.
Buddy squinted at him, unsure what that meant, but a tanned finger poked the space between his eyebrows. Careful strokes, directly pressing the folds of skin, smoothing out his confusion with deliberate motion. "Everything's the same except the path. That changes for every soul, right?"
"Right," Buddy said uncertainly. Still lying down, with Chase all he could look at, the sky above turning a vivid pink at the edges. "But you already had your path, remember?"
Chase shook his head quickly, and the finger trailed down the curve of Buddy's cheek until the entire hand cupped the side of his chin. Warmth, and stability, and comfort. He tilted his head closer, and smiled as the thumb lightly brushed the curve of his neck.
(A cloud, soft and safe. Two angelic wings, brushing against the other.)
"You said that I was thinking about you, so my path became whatever sick and twisted thing you liked, right?" A hum of contentment, misconstrued as a hum of agreement. "So if you make a path, it'll be something I like, right? Since you love me." The thumb brushed again, light and gentle. The taste of salt, on the tip of his tongue.
His eyes slid shut, hiding the determined smile behind the dark of his eyes. There was a logic to it, insipid and vexing and strange as it was. A path forward, between the start and the end, just for him.
(I can drive. If you're in any trouble, he offered. The glow of the orange sky. Beach waves, at his feet. Sand, warm, under his nails.)
He only opened his eyes when the warm hand fell away, and blinked in surprise at the expanse of happiness etched into the grin on Chase's face. "I love you so much," Chase told him. Twisting his neck around, Nox saw the smoothed ground of a road, and what looked to be the back of a rather giant house, the porch light on in the dimming day.
A truck in a driveway, red and well-used. "My gramps always lent me his pick-up truck," Chase said, and Buddy turned back to watch as he gracefully pulled himself to his feet. Careful steps, a foot brushing the underside of Buddy's calf.
Buddy watched as Chase slipped down to the path, the red of his hoodie matching perfectly with the red of the truck. He watched, stomach twisting, as Chase took a few more steps away from Buddy's reach. A tanned hand skimmed the edge of the truck, before Chase finally yanked the driver's seat open.
A moment, and a triumphant smile unfurled across Chase's face. Even from here, from the furthest distance in nearly thirty souls, Buddy could see the blinding light of the grin.
A key, raised above Chase's head. Brown eyes, firmly on blue. A promise, long fulfilled.
The key was sleek and black, with an end that branched into an intricate heart. It slid into the lock on the wall perfectly, and Buddy took a shaky breath as he twisted the key to the right.
"Did it work?" Chase asked, his voice hushed and uncertain. His right hand was intertwined with Buddy's left, a fault of Buddy's—the minute Chase stepped close enough, Buddy had reached for his touch.
He tugged the key free, and before his eyes, the lock shuddered and disintegrated, ashes disappearing as they trickled to the rocky ground. The wall, when he tried bracing a hand against the brick, was nothing more than an illusion; his hand fell through, almost immediately.
A moment, the metal of the key cold between his fingers. Then, slow and gentle, he turned to Chase, and pressed the key into the palm of Chase's free hand.
"I think you have to enter the right story first," he said. Chase's eyebrows knitted together, their hands still clutching the other, but he used their mutual point of contact to gently tug Chase closer. He pressed a soft kiss against the crown of Chase's head, simply because he loved Chase.
Chase stood there, key in one hand and Buddy in his other, before yanking his head up in alarm. "I don't want to leave you," he said, eyes wide, but this, if nothing else, was something Buddy was sure of. He was a guide for so long, after all.
(I would like to be yours.)
Gently, he pulled his hand out of Chase's grip. Chase let him go, but watched him with wide eyes. Orpheus, who always looked back.
"Trust me," he said, pleaded, to the concern in Chase's eyes. He pressed the key more firmly in Chase's palm, then stepped back.
Chase watched him, studying something in his expression, before he turned back to the afterlife before him. A beat of silence, then two, then three.
"Told you I wasn't dead," he finally said. He sent Buddy a tense smile, his fingers curled over the teeth of the key. "Don't take too long, okay? Or I'm just going to come back to find you again."
And with that, with no more than a passing glance, Chase Hollow finally strolled into his afterlife. Key in hand, smile fixed, and eyes forward. Orpheus, stepping into the light.
He followed, of course. Buddy waited until Chase had disappeared, until the mist compacted and evaporated, and he spared a single last look at the dazzling sunrise. Chase had appeared in the dead of night, and had left in the light of day.
He wished there were stars to wink their secrets at him. Although, he supposed, taking the first step toward his afterlife, stars seemed to follow him wherever he'd go.
Five minutes before:
Deacon had been stationed outside of Chase's room, a final guard in case the transformation went awry. Chase sat curled on his bed, a simple white pillow clutched in his grasp, knuckles light over the fabric. He offered Nox a smile, but the tension had long settled around his eyes.
"It's going to work," Chase said. Nox believed him, because Chase had a way of dictating truth. Reality appeared to be whatever he willed, and it was one of the many things Nox loved about him.
His siblings all took their turn hugging him. "Can't believe you want to be a disgusting oaf of a human," Violet had complained, despite her hug being the tightest of them all. "If you ever turn evil, I will disown you."
The spell itself was a blur of memory, light and sensation crowding out sequence. All he really remembered was looking up at Chase, the distance of carpeted grounds to raised bed almost too ridiculous to bear, as his siblings popped into their fragile key forms.
The danger with wishing to be human again was the fickleness of magic. He could wish to be human and find himself transported back to where it began, or he could wish to be human and find himself devoid of all memory. He could wish himself human and be riddled with disease from a lifetime of no vaccinations, or he could wish himself human and be him, but human.
He'd gone over this with Chase quite extensively. It was that conversation, frankly, that Nox thought of when he said, hesitatingly: "I know you might not trust me, but—"
He had no idea how to finish the sentence, but Chase interrupted him first. An odd smile, tense but confident, and eyes that he could fall in love with in every reiteration of his life. "I trust you," Chase told him, quiet and clear. "I'll wait. Even if you disappear."
A broader smile, all confidence and sincerity. "I'll just find you."
Five minutes after:
He opened his eyes, and his first thought was: It worked.
He felt the kiss before he fully understood it.
The sunrise was behind Chase, probably. The sunrise was probably behind him, streaming in from his bedroom window, because Nox doubted the golden rays of light around Chase's face the moment before Chase's lips pressed against Nox's in a kiss that Nox couldn't understand came directly from Chase.
It had been so cold, just moments before Chase had pulled him to his feet, and he couldn't remember what it was he had been saying, but it had surely been something witty and intelligent and probably embarrassing, because it was hard to interact with Chase without making his stupid feelings so obvious, but now his feelings had to be obvious, because Chase—for some reason that Nox did not understand but could very much feel—was kissing him.
Chase's hand on his jaw, and Nox's fingers were somehow deeply intertwined in Chase's hair. The warmth of Chase's thumb, back and forth and back and forth, lightly pressing the ridge of Nox's cheek. They were kissing, for some reason, in Chase's bedroom, as Nox's first official act as a complete human.
He could feel it everywhere, all at once. The warmth of Chase's lips, pressed firmly against his own. The tremble in his own breath, when Chase broke away with a quiet gasp of air. Nox had barely stared at Chase's wide grin, with the pink blush prominent against the olive of Chase's skin, and he heard the kiss in Chase's laugh as Nox immediately ducked down for a second one.
The warmth of Chase's lips, and the tightening of his chest. His fingers deep in the softness of Chase's hair, pressing against the curve of his scalp. His lips were so soft, and Nox remembered an old argument about tinted lip balm, and he pressed against those soft lips all the harder. Because they were kissing, somehow.
Their lips were still pressed together when Chase's lips shifted, slightly. And Nox broke away, quickly, in case that shift meant this dream was over, and in case Chase had changed his mind, and in case Nox needed to dig a hole in the back of the driveway and bury himself alive and die.
The shift, he realized, was in the corners of Chase's lips. "Good?" Chase asked, and Nox's eyes were stuck on the corners of Chase's lips, because Chase must have smiled during the kiss, and Nox didn't even know you could feel a smile during a kiss, because he didn't really know he could kiss Chase. A flicker of a memory, but that didn't count, because there was no world to escape this time. There was nothing, really, but the search for Chase and the taste of finding him.
He was so overwhelmingly grateful that his siblings had remained as keys, because he couldn't even attempt to spare a thought to anything that wasn't Chase.
He made the mistake of looking at Chase's eyes, because he could never entirely remember how beautiful Chase was. The brightness in his eyes, unwaveringly set on Nox. Confidence and arrogance and kindness and generosity. Blunt honesty, shining directly in front of him. The sun as his own personal halo, because Chase was far more golden than any stupid stars in the sky.
His eyes were too bright, and too blunt, and too beautiful, and Nox was out of breath already, so he dragged his eyes back down to the moving lips. "Do you remember?" Chase might have said, but Nox barely heard anything, because he was ducking back down for a third.
Chase, the ever-beautiful, golden, infuriating Chase, made a soft sound against his mouth, and Nox could feel the shift of his lips turning upward. The euphoric rush of knowing Chase was smiling, of feeling Chase's smile, was creating twists in his lungs and a frantic, desperate beating in his heart.
Nox's hands were still nestled in Chase's hair, where they never left. Warmth, in his fingertips and on his lips and with every new strand of golden hair that poked Nox's skin. Because they were kissing, for some reason, on a regular Tuesday, five minutes into Nox having a human body. He had no idea why they were kissing, outside of Nox being embarrassingly head over heels for Chase. He wasn't entirely sure he cared.
Chase's fingers were laced around the back of Nox's neck, now. He'd spent lives being hyper-aware of those fingers, watching them prod angrily at his chest or spread happily in a hug. He'd spent months trying to work up the courage to reach out and grab that hand, whether to shove it away or drag it closer. He never did, but he wasn't exactly the courageous type.
When they finally broke apart again, the hands at the back of Nox's neck pulled his head lower, and he let Chase have full control over whatever he wanted to do. Their foreheads rested against each others, breaths mingling in the shared space, and Nox tried to figure out if this dizziness was a general side effect of kissing Chase or a general side effect of staring at a Chase-filled sunrise.
"Hi," Chase whispered. At this angle, head against head, with his hands in Chase's hair and Chase's hands around Nox's neck, he couldn't see anything but the ground under them. He could see his tattered shoes, wholly inappropriate for a kiss scene, and he could see Chase's perfect socks. Chase was so obviously standing on the tips of his toes, and Nox desperately wanted to kiss him again.
Chase's forehead pressed more firmly against Nox's. "Did I kill you?" Chase asked, sounding just smug enough for the words to penetrate Nox's haze.
He opened his mouth, truly intending on saying something, but feeling his lips separate in the necessary movement needed to mouth the words You kissed me reminded him of using his lips to kiss Chase, which made everything in him much too warm to even consider speaking.
He pulled away, just for a moment. Chase looked up, and the sun was fully behind him. Bright and golden and shining, of course, with the sun that peered over his window outlining his every feature. The sun was fully up, surely, but Nox really didn't need it. Chase was already glowing.
And Nox, helpless and overwhelmed and addicted, leaned in for a fourth kiss.
There is no proof that any of the events in the story happened.
Some elements—Chase kissing Nox, for example, or Nox wishing away his metal—were undeniable. Nox had been unconscious for a terrifying breath of time, and when he opened his eyes, aware and awake, he'd gone from metal to man. Dressed in the ruins of his old clothes, admittedly, but as alive as ever.
They never discussed it. Frankly, soon enough, they both assumed it to be a wild dream. Time passed strangely there, with no rhyme nor reason, but time passed consistently here. It was easier, perhaps, to allow a mythical story to remain nothing but, even for people who regularly explored the inner workings of storybook logic.
Sometimes, in the very dead of night, Nox would dream of a boat rocking against the ocean. Once, he startled at a picture of Chase's father, because he could so vividly hear the soft voice saying, Sorry, kid. You just remind me so much of my son. He offered Chase's mother peonies when he first met her, and was unsurprised to hear they were her favorite.
None of that is proof, of course. Even if Chase sometimes glanced, or if Nox sometimes thought. The memories were hazy at best; often, they had nothing but a snippet of a voice, whispering I'm glad I got to see you again.
There is no proof, but that doesn't matter. Hand in hand, day by day, with a kiss on the cheek or joke in the air, Nox and Chase would walk on, paving their clear path forward.