Chapter Text
“tag.”
The pressure on your shoulder stays for a second, gone the next. His voice is already skidding away when you come to, looking at his shrinking figure.
But even over the ever growing distance, you hear his words.
“you’re it.”
A wicked smile lights up your face.
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You’ve only had one best friend your entire life.
One best friend. One best study buddy. One best graduate partner.
One best fellow researcher turned professor.
Your best friend.
Your look at the giant telescope in the room, thinking.
Because it seemed like a star’s life cycle ago, when you were both stuck in that sun-beaten office slacking off.
Your hands find the wheel, turning it. Watching as the domed roof of the observatory peeled open. A slice of midnight greeted you, and you stare at it, too tired to smile back.
Smiling took 13 muscles. Frowning took 47. Staring used none in comparison.
And besides. You were past the frowning. Past the crying, the self pitying.
It didn’t stop a heavy feeling from dragging you to the floor anyway, back set against hardwood.
The observatory was empty. Again. Wow. What were the chances? You could calculate the probability, but it’d just make your situation sink in even more than it already has.
You look up at the open roof, at the dark sky.
Silently, you think back to the posters you’d stuck to all those library boards.
It was observatory night, and you were hosting.
Arms spread to either side of you, in the perfect spot for stargazing, even without a refracting telescope. With lights off, and nothing but you, yourself, and oh! what do you know— you .
The moon hung above your head.
Obscured by clusters of clouds, with a shade that seemed too blurry. It used to be much brighter, you know, and the stars used to be clearer.
Shooting stars didn’t surprise you anymore.
The idea of them used to be novel, when you were young. When you didn’t regularly look into the sky instead of yourself. Before you decided to pursue astronomy and physics, you’d wish on them, because what kind of black-hole having, disgruntled bitter soul would look at one with spite?
Not you. (At least, not yet.)
Despite knowing what they were—meteors (rocks, if you really wanted to break it down), that came into earth's atmosphere at a rate of approximately one every ten minutes, you still found them fascinating.
Maybe not in the definitional sense, but rather, in the hopeful sense. In the hope that somehow, everything could go back the way it was.
A white line shot through the sky.
You breathed in, eyes fluttering closed. Body splayed against the floor, you made a wish.
Send me an angel. (A friend, a presence.) The nicest one you have. …Please, you added, in case the stars were actually listening.
It was silly. It was childish, pointless, and obstinate.
But it made your night just slightly more bearable.
And in the moment of silence that followed, you listened. To your heartbeat, the wind blowing through solid wood, and every cricket that sang outside the observatory.
Of course it didn’t work. The logical part of you said you were too impatient, too bitter with the emotions bottled within you. Yet that familiar disdain crawled onto your face, forcing a scowl before it returned to your typical stare.
As if wishing on shooting stars actually worked. As if living here (were you even living?) would amount to anything. As if hosting these nights no one ever came to, as if…
As if your best friend…as if he would reach out to you, like how you reached out to the stars.
But you still hoped regardless, because maybe—
CRASH.
You shot up at the sound.
…Was that a person? A possible observatory visitor? You scrambled to your feet, out of breath by the time you’d reached the door.
And then your brain actually worked.
Almost robotically, you checked your phone. It was 12AM. On a Monday night. …There’s no way someone showed up this late for your event, which was posted to start three hours ago.
You looked at the door.
…It was dumb. This was dumb. You were dumb. But you were curious.
Curious, even when your front door looked half broken in, like something was leaning onto it for dear life.
Well. You’d just shut the door in their face if they tried anything.
Click. The lock turned.
Something fell in the moment you opened the door.
It hit the ground with a sad sounding thump, and you took a few steps back. Did…Did someone chuck a garbage bag at your door??
The garbage bag moved.
It groaned, too.
Sentient garbage bag?
Oh wait, garbage bags didn’t wear jackets. Or shorts, or looked vaguely humanoid.
They also didn’t leak a suspicious red liquid that was now staining your floors. And wood absorbed liquids, unlike some other floorings. Aughh…you really hoped it wouldn’t leave a smell, and that its structural integrity would remain intact.
Wait no, focus. There’s someone on your floor right now.
You knelt down, slowly bringing your face to the floor. A smooth coldness touched your cheek. The lack of lights made it hard to see exactly where the garbage-shaped thing’s face was supposed to be, but you saw their eyes.
Well. Pupils, more like, that zeroed in on you.
The red and blue reminded you of neon glow sticks bent into a circle, and their eyes did glow. Kinda like a supernova, if they exploded more neatly and into geometric shapes.
“Huh—”
Krrrk.
Your hair ripped off with a solid pull, a few strands too much (it looked like a pocket-sized lock, really), when you jumped back. …Ouch. The pain didn’t bother you as much as the realization that followed.
The way his hand shot out. (it was skeletal…the gears turned in your head. Maybe you were tired.) Still, their trajectory didn’t seem to be aiming for your hair but instead something much closer to your chin. Something that might’ve been the very thing that attached your head to your shoulders.
They tried again, the fucking audacity.
This time, you watched their hand shoot out. You waited until it was fully extended, before kicking it back full force and hearing a sickening crunch.
“hrn—!”
You’d feel bad, but like. Uh, 89% sure this girlypop just tried to off you.
Well, maybe you felt a little bad. You approached them from the legs this time, hand reaching for their jacket. Where was the suspicious red jello mixture coming from anyway? Locating the injury would be a smart move. You didn’t actually want them to bleed to death.
“don’t.”
Your hand froze halfway.
It sounded oddly like a threat, with that tone. Which was weird, because you weren’t the one lying prone on the ground actively dying right now.
You stared at them, thinking.
We’re all technically a bunch of atoms and ‘touch’ is actually just intense vibrations that get processed and— hm. While going on this tangent sounds really good, they might just actually be dead when you finish.
“Okay.” They didn’t like being touched. Perfectly understandably, you would know. Didn’t mean you were gonna leave them here though. “Be right back.”
Your room was messy. Opening your closet, you silently remind yourself that a trip to the laundromat was due. Even keeping a ‘to fold’ basket and a ‘dirty’ basket wasn’t doing it anymore, and you didn’t want your clothes to somehow develop mold.
You dug through the drawers anyway, wondering if your half dead guest had a favorite color. Or constellation. Oh well, you could pick in his stead.
He must’ve heard your footsteps on the tiles (wood was never a good material to sneak around on), because his head turned. Despite appearing near incapacitated on the floor, the speed at which he located you felt…slightly suspicious. Even more suspicious than appearing randomly at your door while half dying.
You draped the blanket over his body.
He went ridged, and you answered the protest he would’ve no doubt tried voicing.
“I’m not touching you.” Making sure the blanket wrapped around him, you pulled the corners back together. “The blanket is touching you, and I happen to be touching the blanket.”
You felt a heavy glare boring into your face as you tugged, dragging the blanket towards you, and with it, him. The red liquid sloshed on the floor, leaving behind a shiny sheen.
“Alrighty, watch your head.” You tried your best to lug him up without literally slamming him into each and every step of the stairs. And you also made sure to be outside the range of ankle grabbing distance, because his gaze kept flickering towards them.
You only managed to hit his shoulder three times, his arms twice, and the top of his head a grand total of once.
If looks could kill, you were sure you’d be dead by now.
Good thing they couldn’t!
You grabbed a first aid kit before returning, watching him watch you. …Watchception?
Despite the near-black night, you could see his features clearer now.
He was a skeleton. (Just like—) Whoa. Whoa whoa whoa. Was this happening? Did the countless theories and random conjectures you studied before actually pay off? Which base theory did this originate from? There must be more probable options. Wait, but maybe your pool of what is probable was inherently different, which would mean your calculations were actually defying the laws in what you perceive to be real, which means these laws didn’t exist in this plane, in this universe, which meant they had their own privileged frame and is the speed of light still—actually, you were gonna think about this later, because he was probably still dying. You think.
The first ait kit opened, its contents smelling oddly sterile, and most definitely dusty from being neglected.
“Where does it hurt?” You looked at the band aids, then at him. There’s no way a paper cut made all that blood, right? You could probably assemble a mega band aid if it was really necessary. Triangles were sturdy shapes. Or was it circles? Wait, that logic applied mainly toward building bridges.
“leave me alone.”
He wasn’t gonna cooperate. You could feel it. And while some part of you did want to help him, you weren’t gonna risk another attempt at your life (or hair). That didn’t exactly mean you couldn’t help at all, though.
You run back to your room before returning with your own blanket.
The floor is beneath you once again, when you lay down. There’s a healthy 6ft of distance between you and him (you thought about a good 10ft at first, though that might’ve not worked).
Above you, the sky is still dark.
You stare at the stars. You feel him staring at you. Extremely uncomfortable, but you push forward, forcing the words out.
“That one should be the big dipper. It looks like a giant spoon.” You point at something you know can barely be seen from his position, but keep talking anyway. Gotta send swell vibes. Usually you tried doing that to befriend someone, but this situation was slightly more dire.
“The constellation’s name is Ursa Major, because of its size, believe it or not. Actually, there should be another star named Merak below there, but I—”
“can you shut up.”
Oh cool, he’s still alive. It was working. Probably. Maybe he didn’t know what you were trying to do?
“I’m just trying to send you good vibes, dude.”
He deadpanned you, not even bothering to blink.
“Monsters can heal in two primary ways: either monster food, or by healing magic. Both of which I don’t have.” He stared at you. …Maybe it was because you didn’t cite your sources. Which article was it again?
“...According to current research though, just by being surrounded by the right ‘feelings’, a potential for magic is possible, and have actually been proven to expedite injury repair rates. At least, that’s what the papers say. I can’t remember the authors.”
Instead of looking even a tiny bit grateful, his face seemed to reel in disgust, and you were almost content with cutting off the channel of good vibes you’d provided him thus far.
“I don’t know you at all, which means I have no idea how to make you produce the right feelings, so I’m making those feelings instead.” You turn back to the sky. “Stargazing makes me happy, so hopefully that channels into usable magic for you or something.”
His silence should make you stop talking, but you continue anyway. It was better to talk to another creature versus an actual sky, right?
“Tonight was my open observatory event night. This place’s supposed to be closed though, so I only advertise at the library. They usually take down my posters within the hour. Something about public safety.”
You sneak a glance at him. His eyes never left your own.
“I don’t know if you saw the posters, but you’re the only one that’s ever come, so…thanks.”
The stars (one of them’s a satellite, you’re pretty sure), shines, and you think back to your wish. You were about to ask a stupid question. You really shouldn’t because it made no logical sense, but there was like a 1% chance. Gotta shoot your shot.
“You don’t happen to be an angel, right?”
The silence was deafening.
“are you blind?” Well that answered your question.
“Yeah, real angels probably wouldn’t have such a bad attitude.”
“why even bother, then.”
Why even bother what? Asking him? Or bringing him up here? You decided ignoring your awkward question was the right way to go.
“You remind me of someone.”
His silence almost feels prompting, though you were pretty sure that was just your imagination. He probably couldn’t have cared less if you were a literal log instead.
“Except he wasn’t as grumpy. Well…a different kind of grumpy, I guess.”
Yeah… You imagined your best friend here, laying down instead, like he'd done so many times before. …Instead of a stuffy silence with not as bad smelling blood, he’d probably list the stars out with you.
“Are you still bleeding, by the way?” You try to gaze into his jacket, which seems unusually dark for some reason. Your eyesight wasn’t the best by a longshot, but the splotched patches that stained his shirt probably weren’t just shadows.
His expression is the most resentful personification of ‘what does it look like’, and you peer closer into where his injury(s) might’ve been.
A shard of something off white caught your eye, and almost instantly you think back to your anatomy class. Rib cages had space between the lowest false rib to the top of the pelvis, but his rib looked a little too close for comfort. It hung a bit too low, and that only logical explanation you could conjure was that it was detached from the main rib cage.
“One of your floating ribs is broken. Or dislocated.”
You scooched closer, watching the way his shirt fell onto the bones. Pockets of shadows filled random concavities, and from the looks of it…
The most plausible way this happened was probably a heavy blow to the sternum that fractured as the rest of the rib cage tried dispersing the force. Maybe a few consecutive strikes for the pieces that were dislocated.
“Your sixth rib is missing a piece, the side of your fourth rib is dislodged, and judging by the weird lumps in your shirt, your sternum probably has a crack that fans out—”
“stop.”
“...Am I wrong?” It’s been a while since you’d reviewed the skeletal system, but damn. There were 12 pairs of ribs, right? And the first 7 were attached to the sternum?
Well, if your injury assessment was wrong, maybe your guess at what happened could be better.
“So like…did you get hate crimed or something?”
A choked laugh left his jaw, and you swore some more blood oozed out on the floor.
“...I'm going to assume no.” Let's see, what else? A fellow monster, then? You really doubt he managed to have such a fall that did this much injury.
“Did you get into a fight?”
“why do you even care.”
You'd already answered this question.
“Because you remind me of someone, like I said.”
He looked at you, like he just knew something you didn't. Like he would be able to piece exactly who lingered in the memory you’d begun projecting onto him, if he stared long enough.
But he would find nothing, because not even your memory of that someone was clear anymore. All that crossed your memory (all that you knew to be undeniably true) was the fact that you were still ‘it’, and the scent of petrichor at your heels that day.
The scent of something earthy, something wet. His eyes bored into you. (Was it just like his? Was it a trick of the light?)
What had you been doing again? This memory was sharp, you knew. It played in the back of your head like a static that lingered. It took root, but where?
Was the doppelganger in front of you impairing your thoughts?
It was a wet day, you think.
It was wet, and…
Your cheeks were wet.
You silently looked at your fingers, a thin sheen of liquid reflecting the night sky. You shot up from the ground.
“I—I’ll be right back.”
You almost fell down the stairs on the way down, slamming the door behind you as cold air filled your lungs.
The front door felt grounding beneath your back, as you looked into the sky.
A navy that looked far too bright, with the city lights polluting a perfect ebony.
You didn’t want to think about him right now.
Despite everything you did revolving around him (there was just nothing that escaped a correlation no matter how small) you still loved the subject.
Still loved the observatory he built, the field of research he introduced you to, the everything in the mundane that still reminded you of a friendship beyond salvation.
If you’d accepted his feelings then (accepted it better, donned a smoother mask) would none of this have happened?
…A part of you knew the true answer. Despite all the potential, precious memories, milestones, everything, your logic (that cold, putrid stain on your mind) had already calculated the outcome.
Your fingers felt numb, and you sighed.
Going back inside, the observatory was silent, like every other night. The stairs didn’t creak when you climbed up this time.
“I’m back—”
But the floor was empty.
Everything remained in their original position, yet the monster that had been here was, put simply, gone.
But the only window was on the roof for the telescope. And you’d been leaning on the only exit in the building.
You didn't…you didn’t actually dream of someone coming to your observatory night…right?
No, you weren’t…you weren’t that far gone yet, right?
The tension in your shoulders eased when you saw the blanket on the ground, now a vomit-like brown instead of its original yellow. The fuzzy texture turned into something wet and slick, and you lifted it, revealing a shallow pool of dark red. Was it real? Was it even here? Was the red from you ?
You don’t know what possessed you to bend down. To stare at the liquid. To watch your reflection and observe every move that you and it made in return.
And you certainly don’t know why you tasted it.
It was just a dollop, you reasoned. It almost felt like you were watching yourself perform the action, dipping a finger into that red. An invisible surprise at the oddly thick viscosity.
It was sweet.
Was this…tomato? …Ketchup?
Too many bizarre things were happening. The likelihood of this, the plausible explanations if you did indeed hallucinate, but that whole interaction sure felt real, and you don’t remember staying up long enough for auditory and visual hallucinations to manifest but what if your obsession with the remnants of him were actually making you insane and oh wow there was also the possibility of you actually being in a psych ward right now wait but there's no way—god, your thoughts were spiraling.
Abruptly you stood, making a beeline downstairs and nearly diving into bed.
You needed to sleep, now. Before you could hypothesize, think, or god forbid try to calculate. Your face was promptly pressed into a pillow as you tried every breathing exercise you could. It would work. It had to, because the conclusions—goddamnit! Don’t. Think.
You vaguely remember hitting something hard before a superficial fatigue overtook your body.
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