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Ren knew it would come down to this.
Ren has known since the moment Martyn told them about Saint Mark's Day, since he told them about the book of names, foretelling deaths to come. He doesn't know why or how he knew. Maybe it was something about the way Martyn said it. Maybe there was some small mannerism Ren isn't even fully aware of that made him immediately certain one of them was fated to die.
Ren knew it must be him. Death has been dogging his steps since he was ten years old.
Now seems as good a time as any to face it.
Ren's head feels full of cotton- like he has a cold, like he might pass out. He can't feel his fingers. He's soaked to the bone from the blood rain, his clothes stained with red.
"Don't do this," Martyn whispers. He already sounds defeated.
He already knows what Ren will say.
All around them, Ren's dearest friends are suffering- Skizz, unnervingly still in the driver's seat of his car, black leaking from every orifice as the demon destroys him from the inside out. Every few seconds, some new miracle will appear in the road around them, something new from Skizz's dreams. Skizz can't stay awake, and he can't control his dreaming.
Impulse, slumped in the red-streaked mud by the side of the car. His hands are still tied behind his back. Ren can see tear tracks beneath the blindfold. BigB hovers over him with hands spread wide, ready to jump at the first sign that Impulse wasn't as captive as they thought.
The memory of Impulse's gentle hands locked around Skizz's throat surfaces, and Ren feels his heart twisting painfully in his chest. The demon had made Impulse try to kill his best friend.
Etho is nowhere to be seen. Ren can't recall the last time they saw him.
Etho is already slipping out of their memory, eaten away by the demon's cruel magic.
Ren has to do something about it.
Ren finally turns back to Martyn.
Martyn, blonde hair flattened against his forehead with dampness, blue eyes wide and frightened. Martyn, wearing the massive, ancient sweater Ren knows belongs to his aunt, its natural holes only more pronounced with the horrors they've seen this afternoon.
Skizz's dreamt blood rain has given the illusion that Martyn is crying blood instead of tears, and Ren finds himself reaching out with his sleeve to brush Martyn's face clean. It doesn't work, but Martyn leans into his touch and reaches up to clutch Ren's hand, as if he could hold him still, as if he could somehow keep Ren there, still standing, still alive.
Martyn's hand trembles around Ren's, and Ren has a split-second thought that Martyn is far more afraid for him than he is for himself. Ren feels calm. Ren feels like he has purpose.
All he's ever wanted was a purpose to his life. A goal to work for, to dream of at night.
Ren had spent almost twenty years convinced he knew what that purpose was.
Now, as he cups Martyn's face in his hands, as he remembers all their late-night drives, as he remembers the feeling of Martyn's breath on his lips, just shy of a kiss…
Ren thinks maybe this was his purpose all along.
Maybe Martyn was his purpose all along.
It's a morbid thought.
"I have to," Ren whispers back, "You know I have to."
Martyn shakes his head. "We can find another way, there has to be another way-"
"We don't have time. Skizz will be dead before we can even get the car out of the ditch."
Martyn opens his mouth to argue further, but all that comes out is a choked sob, and Ren thinks he should feel his heart breaking to pieces. He should hate this moment- he should hate that it has come to this, that he has to leave Martyn, that they have to do it like this.
But Ren's heart feels intact. It feels full.
Ren may not be an old man yet, but he's lived a life he's mostly proud of. It's a life worth living, yes, but it's also a life worth giving up, if doing so means saving his friends.
Ren doesn't regret the life he's lived, and he isn't afraid of what comes next.
His only regret now is that he has to ask the impossible of Martyn.
"Martyn, my love," Ren says, cradling Martyn's neck. "Kiss me."
Martyn's hands close gently over Ren's. His tears mix with the blood rain now and cast a haunting look to his face- or perhaps its just his agony that is so haunting. A million red petals appear in the space between one second to the next - a product of Skizz's dreaming - and it seems as if they were always there, catching in Martyn's rain-slick hair and collecting in little piles on his shoulders.
Even now, Martyn is beautiful. Ren takes in the look of him- his pale blonde hair sticking to his forehead, his warm cheeks pink with the blood rain, his eyes as blue as a summer sky.
Even now, Martyn is beautiful, and Ren feels a flash of grief.
He doesn't want to leave Martyn behind. He doesn't want to break Martyn's heart.
But what other choice does he have?
Ren presses his forehead to Martyn's, their noses touching, and whispers again: "Kiss me."
And Martyn does.
Martyn doesn't even think to try and catch Ren as he falls.
Ren's hands slip out of Martyn's and he collapses into a heap at Martyn's feet. His limbs are pinned and bent at uncomfortable angles. His eyes are still open, unseeing.
Martyn hates that his eyes are open. That he was looking at Martyn as they kissed.
Ren was looking at Martyn as he died.
Martyn hadn't even done him the courtesy of looking back.
"What do we do now?" Bigb asks.
Martyn looks up, looks around. The blood rain has stopped- more than stopped. The river of red has vanished from the ditch and the pink droplets have vanished from Martyn's skin. As if it had never been. The red petals remain, yet they look perfectly dry, no longer clumping together in the damp.
The door of Skizz's ugly green Volkswagen opens with a screech and he climbs out, clinging to the door for balance. The black still paints his face and he vomits mire onto the side of the road.
But he's awake. He's mobile.
He's not dead.
"The demon is gone," Impulse whispers. Martyn looks at him, still tightly bound.
"It worked."
Martyn's voice has a broken, gravelly quality. It sounds alien to him. It must sound alien to the others, too, because Skizz and Bigb both stare at him, wide-eyed.
Skizz stumbles around his car and falls to his knees in the grass beside Ren. His silent tears smudge the black leaking from his eyes as if it were a gruesome mascara. Martyn stands very still.
Skizz reaches out, hand violently trembling, and closes Ren's eyes.
"What do we do now?" Bigb asks again, firmer, louder.
"What do you mean what do we do now?!" Martyn snaps. "He's dead. We don't do anything."
Martyn's entire body is wound tight like a coiled spring, but Bigb remains frustratingly calm. He wasn't around for most of their journey. He only involved himself a few short weeks ago, and if Martyn were being honest, he kind of wants to rip Bigb's head off right now.
What do they do now?
Nothing. It's all over.
It's over.
Bigb almost scoffs. "You're telling me there's nothing to could possibly do to reverse this?"
God fucking dammit-
"I've watched Skizz pull living creatures from his dreams. I've watched Impulse talk to trees and move them with his thoughts. Your aunt sees the future and is always right. For fuck's sake, the four of you literally brought an entire cave of bones back to life!"
The four of us, Martyn doesn't say.
"And what about the forest? Impulse still has his deal, right? It loves you guys, couldn't you at least ask if it would help bring Ren back?" Bigb continues.
"It can't. The demon almost destroyed it. Even if the forest could bring someone back to life, it doesn't have enough magic left right now to do it. It wouldn't work." Impulse says.
Something in Impulse's tone has the hair on Martyn's neck standing up. As if there's more he wants to say.
Impulse fidgets uncomfortably, and Bigb finally moves to untie him. Impulse's eyes are red and swollen when the blindfold comes off. He flexes his unbound hands and avoids eyes contact.
"Impulse," Skizz says, "What're you thinking about?"
Impulse looks at them, as frustratingly calm as Bigb despite the obvious signs of his grief.
"I think… I think the forest would die for him. If we asked it to."
Silence stretches between the four of them.
Martyn isn't sure what to think. Ren gave his life to save the forest, asking the forest to give its life to save Ren feels like a strange role-reversal. Sure, Ren wasn't just saving the forest- he was saving Impulse and Skizz, too. But Ren loved the forest. He loved its magic.
Ren would be devastated to reawaken and find it gone forever.
But…
Ren is dead.
And Martyn isn't sure he wants to keep living in a world without him.
"We can ask it first. Let the forest make the final choice." Impulse says.
Let the forest choose.
It's as good a compromise as they're going to get.
"Let's do it."
Martyn kneels beside Ren. Skizz has arranged Ren so that he lies flat, hands at his sides, hair gently mussed instead of clumping in the dirt. Impulse shuffles through the grass as if he's lost the strength to even stand. The three of them form a circle around Ren's body.
"We do this just like in the cave of bones," Impulse instructs, taking charge. "I'll create a link to the forest, and Skizz can talk to it, ask it about Ren. Martyn, will you amplify?"
Martyn reaches out to Impulse and Skizz instead of answering. Their hands are warm in each of his.
Physically, its no different from that day in the cave of bones- the three of them, Ren's magicians and Martyn, psychic battery. Martyn remembers how they had channeled their power into the bones, how it had brought them to life, if only for a while.
Physically, its no different.
But the bones hadn't whispered to Martyn that day, or Impulse, or Skizz. Only Ren had been able to hear their voices calling out into the dark.
Ren isn't here, this time, and Martyn sends a silent plea to the forest:
Please. Please bring him back to us.
Bring him back to me.
It's peaceful, this place. Ren quite likes it.
Here, Ren can feel everything with perfect clarity- each individual blade of grass twitching in the breeze, each rock at the bottom of the riverbed shifting among its kin. Even the breeze itself, coaxing everything else into movement as though it were breathing life into the forest.
Ren feels the forest, and he feels everywhere at once. He is the blades of grass. He is the rocks in the riverbed. He is the breeze, moving, moving, constantly moving.
He feels as if there's somewhere he needs to be, but he can never pinpoint where.
Ren is the forest. He loves being the forest.
But there's somewhere else he needs to be.
He hears a voice.