Chapter Text
hard to see clouds when you're six feet underground.
When the two cute guys came to tell you that you were going to die, you didn’t even find it that weird. In fact, you were more confused than anything else.
“So let me get this straight,” you said slowly. “Your name is Keith—?”
“I’m Lance,” the coffee-skinned one groaned, running his fingers through short cropped hair. It stuck up in spiky cowlicks. He pointed accusatorily towards the other one, who rolled deep vein blue eyes disinterestedly. “That’s the stick in the mud!”
“My name is Keith,” Keith corrected flatly.
“Okay, okay. You’re Lance… and that’s Keith.” You pointed at them both for emphasis and they nodded simultaneously, satisfied. You clasped your hands together with a neat clap. “All right! We all know each other’s names. And you’re both here…?”
“To claim your soul,” Keith finished in the same, easy-going tone, as if he were asking you for a pen. Lance howled irritably, clutching his face in his hands.
“You couldn’t be more sensitive?!” Lance hissed. Keith looked genuinely surprised.
“That was me being sensitive,” he defended, shrugging, stuffing his hands into his dark pants pockets. “Usually I just tell people they’re going to die. What, was I still too blunt?”
“You can’t—what—man, you’re the worst death reaper ever!”
“And you’re the worst guardian angel, so your words have very little merit to me,” Keith retorted snidely. Lance was practically fuming and looked very likely to throw his body at Keith before you cleared your throat awkwardly. They both turned to glare at you for interrupting their Man Fight™ before remembering themselves. Silently, they backed away from each other to stand opposite sides of the room. You looked to each one, a polite smile still fixed on your lips.
“Sorry, but I’m still trying to understand why two guys magically appeared in my apartment. You didn’t even get buzzed up to the floor or anything.”
“Magic isn’t real,” Keith corrected. “We were just drawn to your soul.”
“…but you still just…” For lack of the right word, you made wobbly jazz hands. “…appeared.”
Keith shrugged. “Fine, if you’d like to think of it that way. Death reapers have the gift of shadow travelling. And this cruddy dollar store angel over here—”
“My name is Lance!”
“—flew.”
“Yes,” you agreed faintly, continuing to smile widely. “That’s what I was most confused about. Your methods of transportation. Shadow travel and wings. Sounds Earth friendly! Very carbon-free.”
“Glad I could clear it up then,” Keith said with a satisfied nod.
“You’re terrible at this. I hope this isn’t what you say to all the souls you’re guiding. I feel for ‘em,” Lance scoffed. Keith made a face.
“I don’t see you doing much talk, McClain.”
“Fine!” Lance snapped. He strode over to your spot on the couch and knelt in front of you. Suddenly, up close and personal, you could feel a calming radiance around him. Distantly, you wondered if he used liquid highlighter, because the glow emanating from him was ethereal in nature. His voice softened a bit as he looked up to you. “[Name]. I guess we already touched on it, poorly—” a dirty glance to Keith, “—but what’s happening right now is real. Keith’s a death reaper. He comes to guide souls to the afterlife. But don’t worry. I’m your guardian angel. I’m here to make sure you don’t die before your time’s up.”
“And… my time’s up?” you asked feebly, your mind reeling so wildly that you could barely look at him straight. A grimace came across his warm features.
“Well, that’s the problem. You’re not supposed to see both of us at the same time.”
“Her time’s up McClain,” Keith sighed from his spot in the shadowy corner of your kitchenette. He walked forwards and stood next to Lance, getting you to look up at him. Side by side, you couldn’t help but understand that they weren’t the same. It wasn’t just that Keith looked so different, with his willowy frame and pallid, translucent skin—and it wasn’t that they seemed to be able to fight over who was breathing whose oxygen molecules. The air around Keith seemed to grow hot, burning, agitating and exciting the molecules of your skin. Where Lance had the ability to slow time, Keith made it seem like you were sparking on fire. You shivered, wincing, not quite hearing Keith’s words.
“It’s not,” Lance argued, getting to his own feet. “If it was, I wouldn’t be here, would I?”
Keith’s scowl made his face darken and your face felt like it was burning. Rays of anger practically emanated from the Eurasian featured boy. “You’re always here. Apparently, this isn’t the first time you’ve talked away a death reaper.”
“Because her time’s not up! I’m just doing my job.”
“So let me do mine. Her soul is overdue. If I don’t get it across, it might never reincarnate. You know what that means, don’t you?” A snarling grin flashed across Keith’s face as he leant into Lance’s. “Surely, passing the bar after four failures means that you know at least that much?”
“Don’t talk to me about the bar,” Lance spat with a vitriol you hadn’t heard from him yet. “You got kicked out. You fell out of the ring, and you’re the one who’s had to become a reaper because you had nothing left. You’re the half-blood—”
“Okay!” you chirped hastily, standing and easing yourself in between the two men. Their conflicting auras made your body feel as if you were being blasted by the sun in a cold Arctic wind and you winced again, feeling sick just by exposing yourself to them. Still, you grit your teeth, not wanting to have fists being thrown in your fragile box apartment. “Clearly, you guys have got some problems. But, I have my intern’s exam in a week, so if you’d kindly let me go back to studying—”
“What?” they asked at the same time, their chorus ironic considering their very obvious differences. You raised your eyebrows.
“My… intern’s exam?” you tried to explain. “If I fail, I’m going to get cut from the program. So I need to pass. You get it, right?”
They stared blankly.
“We just told you that you might be dying,” Keith said slowly, his brow furrowed with concern—but it wasn’t the ‘are you okay?’ concern, rather the ‘am I standing next to a psycho?’ concern. “…and you’re worried about a test?”
“It’s not ‘just a test’!” you fired back explosively, practically tearing your hair out at him. “I’m on a scholarship! If I don’t get myself in the 90th percentile, I lose my funding, and there’s no damn way I can pay back my med school loans when I can barely buy myself lunch every day! Haven’t you seen my fridge?! There’s nothing in it! I don’t even own one egg! One egg!”
Both Keith and Lance looked shocked by the yelling and exchanged confused looks. Lance raised his hands in front of you to calm you down but you ignored him, marching back to the couch.
“Well, he’s uh, right. Unfortunately,” Lance said from behind, with a tinge of nervous tenseness behind his measured tone. “When two of us are here like this, you have to make a decision.”
“What kind of decision?” you mumbled, searching through your papers distractedly. You sighed and glanced back shortly. “Listen, guys, I don’t have time for this mortality thing. Like I said, I’ve gotta study, so hurry it up would you?”
Lance seemed baffled by your sudden lack of interest and stammered, stumbling over his words with a questioning tone that didn’t fit the weight of his words.
“U-um, the decision of whether you live… or die?”
“Oh, found it. Right, okay, here it is.” You blew dust off of your notes and turned to face them both, who still had the ‘she’s crazy’ look on their faces. “If I pass this test, you let me live. If not, just kill me. How about that?” You smiled cheerily and threw them both your binders. Lance fumbled and Keith caught his easily, but frowned under the weight.
“What is this?” Keith asked disgustedly, examining it by dangling it between his spindly fingers.
“My notes on chronic illness. Lance has got the one about autoimmune diseases, right?”
“[N-Name],” he stammered. “We’re serious. You have to choose. And you can’t just take it lightly—”
“I just did, didn’t I?” you interrupted testily. “If I pass my intern’s exam, then Keith gets the boot. If not, he can take my soul to Heaven or Hell or whatever the heck he’s going to take it. So do you have the autoimmune book or not?”
He checked the spine hastily. “Yes, but—”
“Then it’s settled!” you interrupted with another burst of positive energy. You sat on your couch and patted both sides of you. “You’re going to help me study, since you’ve already wasted twenty three minutes of my precious time.”
When they made no move to sit, you slammed your hands on the couch cushions.
“Got it!?” you shrieked.
“I told you,” Keith whispered out the side of his mouth. “Everybody you bonded to is nuts.”
“Shut up and help her study,” Lance whispered back, unsure of why a mortal was making him—an immortal, divine being—uncomfortable with that chilly smile. And although Keith would never admit it, he felt the same way.