The city breathes. He feels as though fingers are clutching his lungs, a vice grip choking him from the inside out, but the city... the city is alive, with air flowing through the streets and heartbeats pounding against the sidewalk. The people exhale with every other step, letting the vibrance of the streets fill their lungs and rattle their souls in between. But his stays the same, solid and grounded within its confines, unyielding to the prodding of forces on either side of the fence. That’s the reason they chose him, he thinks, slapped chains around his wrists and dragged him into this mess in the first place.
He rests his forehead against the cool glass window and closes his eyes, drawing what little air he can into his battered chest. Waiting might be the worst part - the inaction of it all, stuck behind a glass case as life bustles on the streets below and time pushes forward while he’s stuck on the sidelines. They’d watch him if they knew, turn that glass case into a display where each angle and perspective could be studied, each tick of his worry lines registered for analysis - a new species of kings frozen in the annals of time and existence, before it has a chance to die out.
Her voice cuts across his thoughts and curls his fingers into his palms, a breath fogging the damp window keeping him upright. “So?”
He can hear the roll of her eyes from behind his head, but makes no move to acknowledge her exasperation - if Rosamund wants something, she’ll have to say it. He isn’t in the mood for playing games today.
“So I don’t want to talk to her.”
This time she does sigh, a low and drawn out groan as she sinks further into her plush chair and tosses her cell phone on the coffee table at her feet. “Brat.” One syllable, but Calvin quirks a brow and tilts his head to the side so he can see her. She’s done exactly as he expected, wound her arms across her chest and pressed her eyes closed - a shield between her and the world she hates.
“You can’t keep doing that.”
“Sure I can,” she mumbles without paying attention as he paces towards the couch and sinks into the cushions, reaching to pick up the phone for himself. Five missed calls. He almost laughs - almost. It was amusing at first, her apathy towards the cause, towards her charges, but now... they’ve been through too much for Calvin to find any humor in the situation. She’s stuck, and he will be soon if he can’t put pressure on the wound.
His fingers press to his forehead as he lifts his phone to his ear, waiting for the dial tone to stop and that soft, humming voice to answer.
“She’s here, just... tired. Are you okay?”
The pause at the other end of the line chokes the air in his throat, his skin tingling and stomach churning as he waits for something - anything - in response.
“Yeah, I’m okay. I just needed to talk to her. About stuff.”
Calvin presses his lips together again, this time tighter, as he sends a quick glance towards Rosamund, who’s still curled together in her chair without a care in the world for the conversation happening to her right. “I’ll have her give you a call when she wakes up. Think you can wait?”
Another pause - he kicks Rose while he waits for Rachel on the other end, and smirks when she grunts in response.
“Okay, just... call back if you need to.”
He waits for her to mutter a soft goodbye, clutching the weight of the phone in his palms and letting it ground him to the world again. Too often he feels as though he’s floating from the Earth, untethered and drifting. Falling even.
“What the fuck was that for?”
Calvin tosses the phone in her direction, watching with a raised brow as it bounces off her arm and falls to the floor underneath her feet. No patience, no time, he doesn’t want to do this dance again. Not when his feet are already weary from the mileage. “Do your job. That’s what it was for.” She stares at him for a moment, mouth stretched into a thin line and arms still pulled over her chest, before huffing - again - at the look reflected in his eyes.
She’s gone a few seconds later, the muffled conversation filtering through the open door as Calvin closes his eyes, reveling in the momentary relief. It won’t last - it never does. There’s always a quiet moment where he can close his eyes, breathe as if he isn’t drowning under fifty feet of water, but then the light flickers and he’s consumed by darkness.
Sometimes he wonders if that’s where he really belongs, suffocating under a thick wool blanket with blinders pulled down over his eyes. Cursed to never see the sun again.
Sometimes he wonders if the devil was right.
That he’s on the losing side.
He doesn’t feel any different. Coffee still tastes the same, still burns his tongue because he’s too impatient to wait until it’s cooled. Typical. He almost laughs at himself – dead, and still falling victim to the same ailments. Instead, he takes another sip, letting the liquid scald his throat on the way down and warm the pit of his stomach. Reminds him of those nights as a kid, spent next to an autumn fire that crackles and hums in the darkness until he can feel his fingers again.
But he isn’t a kid anymore, hasn’t been for far too long.
Instead, Calvin is stuck some place between heaven and hell - in a coffee shop, as life would have it, watching a tow-headed man pick at a blueberry scone between sips of his drink.
The lilted voice floats into his ears like a song, a family tune passed down generation to generation as mothers tuck their little children into bed at night. He’s never heard it before, but the brogue - Irish, almost, guttural and biting despite the smooth texture that twists like honey around Calvin’s fingers - fits into his memories as if it was there all along, lacing the blanket that his mother lifted to his chin and filling the space around his head once the lights flickered off.
But it doesn’t comfort him.
A shiver creeps up his spine as dread starts to seep into his skin, saturating his heart with a coldness that Calvin has never known. The melody isn’t the blanket wrapped around his shoulders, protecting him from the chilly night air. It’s the monster in the closet, the thing hiding under the bed and curling its boney fingers around his ankles the moment he steps down from his mattress.
The man doesn’t have to speak another word for Calvin to know who he is.
“I don’t have anything to say to you.”
“That’s alright, I planned on doing most of the talking anyways.”
The man smiles at the waitress as she strolls over to take his order, and Calvin feels his stomach drop. It’s real, genuine, if you could call it that, but that’s what makes his skin crawl and his heart leap into his throat. She has no idea what darkness sits just feet from her, lulling her mind into a quiet slumber with its charming accent and half-cocked smile.
“I’ve been wanting to meet you for quite some time, you know,” his focus shifts again, falling to Calvin as he leans back in his chair and drapes his arm across the seat next to him like the quirked smile that’s still stitched across his lips. “You may call me Belial. Or... whatever else you see fit. I’m not picky about names. Some of mine are now considered rather...” his lips curl into a colder smirk, and Calvin swears he sees a dark cloud pass over the blue eyes staring back at him “...crude.”
Calvin fleetingly wonders which of those he considers crude, but he’s shaking too hard to muster up the courage. The man is smaller than he would’ve guessed, with broad shoulders and a fairly thick neck, but it’s the eyes that make him seem soft, gentle even: a pale blue that ebbs and flows with low hums of comfort like the crashing of a placid ocean tide. It’s a lie. He knows it’s a lie, but still sinks into the pit offered by that steel gaze. Inevitable, unyielding.
Before he stands, before he can make himself stand, Belial’s fingers curl around his wrist and freeze him solid to the spot, a cold suddenly spreading from that very touch to the deepest depths of his heart. It’s just a touch, small and simple, but Calvin is paralyzed, too solid to breathe.
“There’s no need to hurry. As I said, I’m only here for a little chat.”
Another smile, his shoulders slump in relief because that’s all there is, that’s all he can see. There aren’t any motives hiding behind that facade, swimming under the surface waiting for the right moment to pounce. Just truth, that he can trust the man sitting across from him. Calvin has fallen again. But with no handle to grasp on the way down, he twists and turns until he’s hit the ground with a resounding thud.
“You’re wasting your time,” he practically spits as his arm jerks from the cold grip, trying to hide the shiver that raises the hairs on the back of his neck. “I’m not going to help you.”
“See, there’s the difference. I don’t need your help. I’m perfectly capably of winning this war without you. But your friends?”
He pauses for a moment, the smile stretching his lips once more as the waitress sets a cup of coffee and a slice of pie on the table in front of him, and Calvin still can’t believe the sincerity that’s etched into the lines of his face. His own coffee is cold now - he tries to take a sip to distract himself from the man across the table, but the dull chill reminds him of the fingers on his arm and the frostbite on his bone.
“Are you familiar with the saying that the history books are written by the victors?” Belial raises a brow and fiddles with his fork, twirling it between his fingers as he waits for Calvin’s response. But there isn’t one. A hand is still clutched around his throat, demanding silence.
He’d claim it was bravery - strength of resolve or something of the sort - if he wasn’t so sure it was fear.
“Of course you have. Everyone has.”
He sets the fork down without having used it and leans back in his chair once again. It’s unnerving how calm he is, how calculated each movement and sentence is, like he has the whole scenario laid out in his mind and no reaction on Calvin’s part could change the script. Perhaps it’s better that he doesn’t speak.
“You’ve heard their side of the story - how I’m the bad guy, how I want to usher in the downfall of the Heavens, how I want to fill that gaping wound with my own violent regime. But these are only half-truths, with rose-colored glasses pulled over your eyes so you can’t see the whole of it all. They are as good as lies.”
He utters the last word with such malice and vitriol that Calvin feels those frozen fingers wrap around his heart once again, squeezing until his blood has turned to ice and his bones become brittle, cracking at the pressure that envelops them so completely. It isn’t a coincidence that the lights flicker when Belial’s fist crashes against the table or that the ground shakes when he locks his jaw.
The air that fills his lungs is too cold for the oxygen to be absorbed into his body, his blood stuck in his veins like a dam that strengthens with each breath. Even Belial has to regain his composure, clenching his fingers into his palms and closing his eyes to block out everything that surrounds their conversation.
If Calvin hadn’t known fear before, his body cowering as far away from the other man as the booth would allow certainly told the only rational portion of his mind remaining that he was beginning to understand the idea.
“My brothers” - were his jaw not still clenched, the snarl that slipped from his lips would have vibrated the walls around them - “like to act as though they represent all that is good in the world, but they are the ones that manipulate every asset and crush every nonbeliever that threatens their perfect little society.”
He laces his fingers together on the table between them and attempts to lock his eyes with Calvin’s, the corner of his lips slowly, teasingly, lifting into a smirk.
Calvin tenses at this, panic beginning to bubble beneath his skin despite the faith he has in all the other angels that he’s spoken to and placed his trust in. But even he knows that sometimes mentors have ulterior motives and plans hidden up their sleeves.
“Did they tell you why you were chosen?” Their gazes finally meet, which is all the confirmation that Belial needs. “You fit the profile, correct? A good man that lost his way and was in need of a second chance? How gracious of them to offer that to you. How kind.”
He wants to leave. If he escapes before he can hear the words that he knows are coming, he won’t have to acknowledge the doubt that has begun to wedge itself into the back of his mind.
He won’t need to throw up the moment he’s alone.
He could be spared the conflict.
“I suppose they failed to mention your real purpose out of fear that you’d crumble underneath the pressure. Not that I could blame them, of course. You don’t exactly have the best track record when it comes to those kind of burdens.”
The half-smile just makes his stomach rise faster.
“After all, what soldier fears death when he is but a pawn on the chessboard - disposable, replaceable. Not like the Queen, whose loss leaves the gates unguarded and the door unlocked.”
It doesn’t make sense - none of it makes sense. What is he to an angel, to a God?
Calvin breaks eye contact and covers his mouth with his hand. He tries to gather the strength to say it again - and again - that Belial is lying, but there’s none left. It’s evaporated, like smoke slipping through his fingers and a bell chiming in the distant night. Hollow. Empty.
“Ask them for their truth. I’ll be happy to shed light on whatever claims they make.”
He doesn’t trust this man (if he can even be called such a thing), but his fingers twitch and his eyes leap back to Belial’s, an itch crawling up the back of his throat to ask for any crumb he can get. He can’t leave this conversation without something.
There’s a pop though, reverberating through the empty shell of his body and alerting him to the presence of another angel in their midst, crushing that itch before it has a chance to manifest as words and sounds.
“Ah, brother. We were just talking about you.”
“It’s time for you to leave.”
Calvin feels the hand clench firmly on his shoulder before he sees the man it’s attached too, but it doesn’t matter. The warmth that begins to flood his system at the contact thaws his insides so he can breathe again, lungs expanding and heart pumping proudly against his ribcage. The doubt is still there, wedged like a splinter behind his eyes, but the air is clear, with a hint of coffee as it slides down the back of his throat.
Come to think of it, Calvin is sure who the man is speaking to, but by the time he tilts his head to check, Belial has relinquished his seat across the table.
Even he, with his untrained and wayward eyes, can see the tension stretching across Belial’s strong shoulders as he stands toe-to-toe with the taller angel. There’s fear, a veil of it that’s been brought down over his eyes. It’s a sight that nearly pushes the air from Calvin’s lungs again - there were rumors, of course, of Michael’s power over his brother, but few were ever believed. Even fewer were witnessed first hand.
He moves so fast that the booth groans under his shifting weight, but Michael’s hand never releases its hold on his shoulder.
He can’t decide which point comes across first.
In a movement that none of them see until it’s happened, Belial has his fingers curled around Calvin’s elbow and his mouth hovering by his ear. Michael twitches at his side, but there’s no way for him to separate the two of them without causing a scene.
“There’s a war coming,” his voice hisses against Calvin’s skin, but it’s the fingers burning a hole in his jacket that draws the attention of Calvin’s eyes. The smell of singed fabric lingers in the space between their bodies - as little as it is - and though instinct tells him, begs, for him to create space, he’s once again paralyzed by the voice piercing his eardrums. “When all is over, you will not be judged by how many lives you save or the good you did, but by the side you’re standing on when the final trumpets sound.” Belial’s fingers clench a little harder and Calvin grimaces at the heat beginning to scorch his skin - but he still can’t bring himself to rip it away. “You are on the wrong side, my friend. There’s only so much time remaining until your allegiance is etched into stone and your fate is sealed. Do not waste it.”
After one last breath, the smaller man finally eases his grip and takes a few steps backwards, eyeing the hole in Calvin’s jacket with what he can only describe as pride.
“Have a lovely evening, gentlemen.”
A flash of that smile once more, and he turns on his heels towards the door, leaving a shaking man standing in his wake.
Michael says nothing, merely watches the coffee shop door with narrowed eyes and his hand still holding Calvin in place, before dropping some cash on the table and disappearing as quickly as he came.
But Calvin still can’t move.
Sometimes the rain echoes louder in his ears than it does on the window. It sounds like nickels against the glass, but bombs inside his head. He has no idea how he hasn't slipped into deafness already, blended into the gray haze that now wraps around him like a suffocating wool blanket. There used to be something about the rain that ignited his heart, the wet world seemed alive with color and sounds that the sun made too bright. But now, after everything, after death, everything is drowned, the colors faded and the sounds damp with the weight of the water pressing down on the air. Everything is different now. He feels the same, but muted.
He’s been staring at the city streets even more these days, wishing that he could somehow trade places with the man trying to hail a cab on the corner or the one selling newspapers in the mornings.
But those days are over. Calvin is a commodity now.
Or so the devil tells him.
He presses his fingers to his forehead one at a time, in a tune that he doesn’t know, and waits for that familiar pop to echo in his chest.
His phone rings first, and Calvin jumps at the chance to take his mind off of the impending meeting - he’d be worried at how quickly the relief came, if it wasn’t so completely calming. Even if it was just Rose.
He has to laugh - she’s so predictably angry.
Calvin presses his fingers to his forehead again and sighs despite his better judgement. His patience has already worn thin, she has that immediate effect on him.
“Okay, fine. I need you to watch Rachel for a couple hours.”
He sits up a little straighter at her request, a brow lifting as his fingers clutch the phone closer to his ear. “You want me to what?”
“I’ll owe you, okay? Please.”
He doesn't remember dying. One moment he’s there and the next, his world has shifted. Darkened. There’s no sound, no sight, just the empty vacuum that he exists in.
It’s cold. Calvin can’t feel his fingers, but they threaten to crack in the frozen air that hugs him too tightly and clings to his skin like syrup. He’d choke if it mattered, if his heart was still beating against his ribs, but even it remains silent in the darkness.
Purgatory is the only explanation that he can come up with.
There was a gun, a bang when the trigger was pulled, and then...
It certainly wasn’t heaven, and Calvin didn’t think he really deserved hell.
He doesn’t know how long he waits, how many seconds or years he sits in the non-existent space, but he can’t think to count the time. There are no sunsets or sunrises to pass the days. It’s a cold, alert sleep that can’t be broken.
Warmth is the first thing he feels, starting where he thinks his toes should be and spreading quickly to his fingertips with the light that begins to filter through the darkness. It's too much at first - a beacon when his eyes can only adjust to a match - but his body is enveloped by the rush of flames whipping around him and the sound dulls the pain.
The sound becomes the pain.
He feels a hand on his shoulder, gentle and safe - like a father guiding his son down a crowded street, and instantly the world slips back into focus. There’s a beach spread out in front of him, waves crashing against smooth sand and a bright blue sky smiling down at each grain.
Calvin has been there before. He recognizes the view from the bench he’s sitting on, the rolling hills of perfectly trimmed grass, and the cliffs flanking the beach that slice into the ocean like the belly of some great beast. But there’s something missing, something vital that keeps him from attaching the place to a memory.
Instead, it feels naked. Blank, almost. Incomplete at the very least.
The solitude swirls his stomach and dries his throat until his tongue feels like sandpaper against his lips.
But the hand on his shoulder keeps him grounded, and suddenly Calvin realizes that he isn’t alone - there’s a man sitting on the bench to his right, his eyes at peace as he glances out at the horizon in front of them. Unlike the place, he doesn’t recognize this person at all, whose dark hair and warm brown eyes settle the bubbling in his gut.
It doesn’t make sense to him. A place he knows unravels his insides and a man he doesn’t stitches them back together.
He doesn’t know what to say, because he still doesn’t understand what’s going on.
"Do you know where we are?”
The answer comes without thought, without hesitation, before Calvin even registers the man’s voice in his head. The accent that slips from his lips is strange, an amalgam of every language that he’s ever heard - that’s what he’d call it if he could recognize it at all, at least.
But it sounds old, timeless even, and Calvin never had a knack for linguistics.
“The... the memorial’s gone though. The gravestones.”
It starts to make sense. He was there once before, a vacation after college, but the missing tombs left the scenery hollow in the back of his mind. He doesn’t understand why he’s there again, after so many years and a death he hasn’t quite figured out. The man quirks his lips into a half-smile, and suddenly all of the questions begin to fade away. Another time, perhaps.
“Yes. Perhaps not as poignant, but still just as beautiful.” He finally turns his gaze from the shore to Calvin, head cocked slightly to the side and the smile still on his lips. “I can see why you chose it.”
Now he really doesn’t understand, a fact he’s sure is spread clear across his face with downturned lips and a furrowed brow.
This time the man laughs, slowly lifting his fingers from Calvin’s shoulder and draping his arm over the back of the bench before shifting his eyes to the beach once again. “This,” he gestures towards the scene playing out in front of them with a wave of his free hand, all of the comfort and ease housed in that body wafting over to Calvin and doing some good to ease the nervous tension in his shoulders. “This is yours. The serenity of your choice, a manifestation of your mind.”
The words make sense when he replays them in his head, but again, ring empty. Baseless.
He certainly didn’t choose to come here. He didn’t choose a bench at the edge of a beach he went to once on a vacation he never wants to remember.
“This isn’t serenity - this is hell.”
Calvin has figured it out now. This man, this stranger with the deep brown eyes and unmistakeable calm, has to be the devil, preparing to send him to the depths below with nothing but a cackle and a grin. He probably deserves it.
The force of the man’s rebuttal surprises Calvin, causing him to sit up straighter and subconsciously lean towards the other side of the bench. He had been so calm just a moment before, looking at ease with every part of the world they were breathing in, but now his jaw is clenched and his eyes are on fire. There’s nothing he can do but retreat.
“You would know if this were hell.” His voice is soft again and the storm is gone from his eyes, but Calvin still feels the need to stay at arm’s length. Just in case. “As I said, this is yours. I just brought you here.”
Calvin still doesn’t know where “here” is. Or even who he’s speaking too. And hell, he isn’t a hundred percent sure that he’s actually dead. Maybe it’s just a dream.
“Gonna bother telling me what the hell is going on?”
“You need to choose your words very carefully, Mr. Carver. Think before you speak.”
The man’s eyes lock on Calvin’s once more and he feels his heart stop inside his chest - there’s an emptiness where the downbeat should fall, and his skin crawls at the absence.
“I am your creator. Your God. Respect me or this will become whatever hell I desire after your next breath.”
His voice is not stern, but the meaning behind his words echoes loud and clear.
Calvin can’t find the breath to speak anyways, otherwise he might add an ill-advised “yes sir” to the conversation.
How does he address ‘God’ anyways?
Why does he have the sudden urge to apologize?
“This is not heaven nor hell. You can call it purgatory if you wish, but it isn’t that either.” God pulls his hands into his lap and laces his fingers together, letting out a small sigh in the process. Calvin thinks he’s going slow, spelling it out for him like the child and nuisance he’s made it clear he is. It’s well deserved. “This is a waiting room.”
That does sound like purgatory to Calvin, but he isn’t going to say a word - especially not when he still feels that chilling gaze lifting the hairs on the back of his neck. He doesn’t think he’ll ever forget the sinking of his stomach or the stopping of his heart.
“It could be a white room, with white walls, a white ceiling, and a white floor. Two chairs facing each other. One for me... one for you.”
A soft smile lingers at the corner of his lips for a moment, but it’s fleeting. Calvin almost wishes it would stay tattooed at his mouth.
“But I find that letting the subconscious choose the ideal location leads to a healthier discussion. And we have much to discuss.”
There’s a part of him that wants the first topic to be the place, Normandy Beach, but as soon as he considers why his subconscious could have defaulted there of all places, Calvin feels regret bubble in the pit of his stomach. The memories flood him too suddenly, and he thinks he might drown.
The sand is wet, filling the spaces between his toes and sticking to the bottom of his shoes, but he likes it like that. It gives her an excuse to laugh at the strange sensation, deep in the back of her throat like her whole body is vibrating from pure joy, and there’s nothing else he wants. He could stand there forever, watching with happiness lacing every breath that escapes as she splashes through the low tide and dampens the jeans that are rolled up her calves, her dark hair spinning around her head with every twirl. He’s already pledged to do just that - the rings glistening on both of their fingers shouting chants of ‘forever, forever’ to anyone close enough to see. She waves her hands and begs him to join her, flashing that irresistible smile until his arms are wrapped around her waist and their laughs mix together in the small space between their li--
His fingers shake as he threads them together and tries to steady the beat of his heart - those memories have been pushed so far back into the darkest compartments of his mind that he assumed they were lost. Erased. He’d done too much since then, since that perfect week, that he didn’t deserve to have them tucked away until he needed a happy thought to call on.
He doesn’t think he can recover. Not ever.
“You’re a good man, Mr. Carver. There are those that will inevitably think otherwise, yourself included, but I know who you are. I know your virtues.”
He’s still dazed by the memory cast over his eyes, but Calvin vaguely registers a nod of his head - it’s all he can manage with his throat clamped shut.
“You are lost. I wish nothing more than to help you find your way back to the person I know you are meant to be.”
There’s a pause - Calvin can’t decide whether the tears threatening the corners of his eyes are going to fall first or if he’ll manage to offend God, of all people, before they get the chance.
He decides against them both.
“I’m dead. Isn’t that a little past help?”
God lifts the corner of his mouth again, and Calvin swears he hears a small laugh. Honestly though, he isn’t sure which of them it comes from.
“I’m God. I can do whatever I please.”
This time he knows he laughs, a real, disbelieving chuckle as he leans forward and drops his head into his hands. “What do you want from me?” The question is low and soft, barely above a whisper as it passes his lips, but he doesn’t have enough courage to increase the volume. He isn’t sure he wants to know what will be asked of him. Perhaps he’d be better off in hell or purgatory or stuck on that bench in limbo.
“I want to give you the chance to earn your way into Heaven.”
He inches closer while Calvin’s eyes are turned towards the ground and tucks in, shoulders hunched and gaze soft - decidedly un-God like. He’s back to the fatherly grace that spreads an undeniable warmth through his fingers, a far cry from the sharp and stern reprimand that came moments before. It’s... biting.
He can remember times in his childhood when he wished that aura was the one sitting at the edge of his bed, instead of the one that was always planted there. The stick straight shoulders, disappointment etched into every frown line.
Maybe a different father would have changed him.
Maybe a little bit of warmth would have broken the ice shell around his frozen heart.
But he doesn’t know which man sits next to him - the one with gentle fingertips and calm eyes, or the one with the voice that drums warningly against his ribs.
It’s been a long time since he trusted the good in someone else.
It seems fitting that God might change that.
“There are others that were like you. They need guidance before their time runs out.”
He rests his hand on Calvin’s shoulder again and waits until their gazes have locked, head quirking to the side once more.
“I need you to help them.”
It’s such a simple question, one word, but sometimes the smallest of sounds can echo the loudest.
God’s hand slips to the back of Calvin’s neck and another shock of heat is sent through his blood.
And then... everything goes dark again.
He wakes in a room that smells vaguely of peppermint, in a bed that isn’t his own.
It’s like a dream at first. Everything moves in slow motion - a breeze filters through the curtains with each of the world’s exhales, the clock at the side of the bed flashes a red twelve, even his heart seems to pump at a snail’s pace. Like it’s just been woken from a lifetime of slumber.
Calvin doesn’t know if the fabric under his finger tips is real or another ‘manifestation of his mind’.
He thinks real. It feels grounded and tangible, with no cloud hanging over his eyes like before. Everything is crystal clear.
There’s even a woman leaning against the doorframe and twirling a lollipop between her fingers.
He’s never seen her before in his life.
“It’s about time you woke up,” her smile is warm as she takes a few steps closer to the bed and studies him with a dark, upturned brow. Happily almost. Like she’s about to burst at the sight of his blue eyes staring back at her, even if they are groggy and dazed from the lack of use. “There are clothes in the closet - all your size, of course - and toiletries in the bathroom. A nice shave would do you wonders, right now, but only if you can deal with all this” - she gestures across her own face with a grimace and wide eyes - “and shower in a half hour. We have a lot to do today and no time to waste, I’ll be in the living room waiting for you.”
She stretches the smile a little wider and leaves with nothing but a flourish of her hand before Calvin has a chance to respond. Before he even has a chance to let her sink in.
At least he isn’t naked, though.
He thinks he’s still wearing the same clothes from the day he died (if it actually happened) - gray slacks and a dark blue button-down with no sign of his shoes or socks. But they’re dirty, with patches of grime sunk deep into the fabric around his wrists and ankles like he’d been crawling through a mud pit. Or breaking free from the Earth as it caved in above him.
God, he hoped he hadn’t been buried somewhere.
Sitting up isn’t easy (Calvin’s heart isn’t the only muscle weak with atrophy), but he lifts the anchor from his chest and pushes it off the edge of the bed along with his legs. Seeing straight might be all he has at the moment. He drops his head into his hands and slides his fingers through his hair, trying to gather the thoughts pooling up in the back of his mind.
He doesn’t know where he is, how he got there, or who he’s with.
All he’s sure of is that he’s dead.
Maybe he should shower. The sane part of him wants to run from this place, ease back into his old life like he’d never been gone at all, but no part of his body can take the step towards the door. Cement has filled his toes.
Calvin ends up doing as she asks, though with no effort or attempt to hurry along, especially when the warm water cascades down his back and kneads the muscles in his shoulders. It feels like it’s been forever since the tension passed from his system, flushed like a bad drug, and he revels in the escape with his forehead pressed against the cool shower tiles.
The woman he doesn’t know in a living room that isn’t his.
He takes his time flipping through the clothes hanging in the closet, but notices rather quickly that they all seem to have come straight from his own. It makes him pause, take a look back at the bed and the dresser to make sure that he hasn’t woken suddenly from some sort of daydream. He hasn’t. The walls are peach and the bed spread a deep purple. It almost makes him wince.
The clothes are a bit more subtle in color than his. Simple - the kind of clothes that make it easy to blend into a crowd when you need to disappear.
“Took all that time and didn’t bother shaving,” she notices immediately, but there’s no anger or disappointment lacing the syllables as they leave her lips - which isn’t the reaction he was looking for. Calvin had hoped that the rough stubble might represent his displeasure with the situation (displeasure that he couldn’t gather the courage to express otherwise), but this woman just... seems amused. It almost makes him angry.
She watches him shove his hands into his pockets for the space of ten heartbeats, before standing from the couch and sticking out her hand. “My name is Tamsin.” His eyes glance down at her hand, but he doesn’t reach for it. Instead, he sets his jaw and clenches his fists. She doesn’t skip a beat.
“Your name is Calvin Carver. Gunshot to the head, I’ve been told.” Her eyes instinctively flicker to his forehead, but they don’t linger there long. “If you’d like to talk about what happened, I’m more than willing to listen. But not now. We’re late enough as it is.”
Tamsin reaches up to pat a hand against his cheek and then slips it into the crook of his arm, guiding both of them towards the door. He lets her for a few steps, but stops suddenly before she can twist the knob, his body subconsciously leaning away from her.
“No. I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what the hell is going on.”
“Don’t fucking tell me what I already know.”
Calvin clenches his jaw, eyes boring into hers as he tries to remember to breathe, because anger is boiling his skin and rotting his heart.
Lets the deconstruction begin in front of her eyes with nothing more than a curious glance at her watch.
Nope, sorry. He isn’t interested.
“I’m leaving.” He attempts to brush past her and exit through the door, but Tamsin’s small fingers curl around his forearm with a surprising strength that stops him in his tracks.
“Relax, I just had to adjust my expectations.”
Somehow, her words don’t help him relax at all.
“Sit,” Tamsin gestures towards the couch and releases the firm grip on his arm (how does someone so small manage to be so commanding?), so she can make the trek towards what Calvin thinks is the kitchen. “I’ll make some tea. Or coffee. What would you prefer?”
She tosses a smile over her shoulder as she continues to the other room, and he feels his stomach start to churn. He’s a caged beast - no knowledge as to why, as to how, but trapped behind steel bars nonetheless. Calvin vaguely wonders if his life would have turned out differently if he’d gone away for that drunk driving charge a couple of years back.
Maybe he wouldn’t be in the same spot, watching some strange woman set a tea kettle on the stove and pull two cups from a cabinet over her head. He’d laugh at how hard she has to stretch if a single movement wouldn’t crumble his fortitude on the hardwood under his shoes.
He thinks he might like the sound.
“You’ll get them,” her voice is soft as she glances up from a drawer and waves a free hand towards him. “I’m not going to tell you everything though - not yet. You’re supposed to learn some of these things for yourself.”
She leans against the counter, and Calvin finally feels that it’s safe enough to pace towards her. He crosses his arms over his chest just in case.
Tamsin takes another moment to study him, her brows furrowed and head tilted just slightly. “You spoke to Michael, correct?”
He sees another tick of her brow, but this time it’s more from surprise than any confusion she might have. The thought crosses his mind that maybe he really is in the wrong place, that all of this is some huge mistake or sick joke.
“Yeah. God. Guy with short hair and big brown eyes. Weird accent, too.”
One of her hands lifts from the counter, but she quickly stops whatever motion it wanted, shrugging her shoulders and replacing the hand instead.
“I’m sure he told you the basics, all the same. You get a charge to watch over and protect through thick and thin. Their lives are in your hands. Help each of them, and you’re one step closer to the pearly gates.”
“That’s all he said, but I’m...” he lets out a laugh, disbelief filling every pore in his skin as he rubs a hand down his face. There’s only so many times he can be told he’s supposed to help someone. Help someone how? Dead or alive?
Calvin feels like he’s been thrust into a movie without a script. Everyone around him has the pages and knows the lines, but he’s left staring at the camera oblivious to it all.
He could be on the wrong set, for all he knows.
“Look,” there’s that smile again, warm and safe, as she takes a step towards him and rests both of her hands on his forearms. “I’ve been there. You feel lost. Don’t have any idea what’s going on. These are the things that come with time. I’m going to help you.” The kettle whistles from behind her head, and she pauses for a moment to glance at it.
“For now... just think of yourself as a newly minted guardian angel.”
The phrase drops in his stomach like a rock. He isn’t meant to help anyone.
Someone once told him he didn’t have a soul. That person may have been on some rich cocktail of narcotics, but they were right. He wasn’t a good person.
And now he was tasked with becoming a beacon for some poor sap’s life?
“They all say that at first.”
Tamsin pauses again, pursing her lips into a tight smile, before sliding her fingers from his arms and moving towards the tea once more.
“More vehemently than most.”
He watches her pour the tea into the mugs, watches the steam spill into the air, and feels the anxiety begin to evaporate from his body for the first time in a long time. Since before the bank, before the gunshot.
“It isn’t easy, but you’ll get there.”
A mug passes from her hands to his (he isn’t sure why he’s accepted it in the first place - he hates tea), and that warmth spreads from his finger tips to his heart.
He can almost breathe again.
“So you’re - we’re - angels?”
“Sort of. We’re... angels without all the bells and whistles.”
She recognizes the confusion on his face and laughs.
“You’ll understand when you meet them. They’re very difficult individuals.”
Calvin isn’t sure he wants to know why
“You just missed a stop sign.”
Tamsin’s foot taps on the brake, but the car doesn’t fully stop - not like his heart.
“Sorry. I still haven’t gotten a hang on this whole driving thing.”
Calvin checks his seatbelt just in case, anchoring down and shielding himself from any flying glass. He can’t imagine why a thirty-something wouldn’t know how to handle a car, angel or not. No good reason comes to mind, at least.
“Will you slow down?” he groans and clutches the door handle as she swings around a curve, stomach dropping out of his gut. “What the hell is the rush?”
“We were already late, and that was before you started asking questions. Consider it your punishment.”
Once again, Calvin has no idea what’s going on. He figures he should get used to that, the helpless feeling that curls his toes at night, but no part of him wants to. Control is slipping through his fingertips faster than he can try to get it back. Another situation, more smoke pouring through his grasp.
Even though he has an ally of sorts attempting to fill the void that his entire body has become, he already feels as though it’s too much.
He knows that isn’t a good sign.
But the start is always the most overwhelming.
He thought they were tailing someone a few blocks back, but the car disappeared before he had a chance to ask. Now they’re spinning in circles and running through traffic signs - so quickly that he’s going to be sick in a matter of minutes.
The car pulls off to the side, so Tamsin can slam it into park with a frustrated sigh. At least Calvin has some confirmation that he was on the right track.
“Yeah, I saw him turn a while back,” he purses his lips when she suddenly turns her head towards him, a question hovering on the tip of her tongue, “but I wasn’t sure we were actually following someone.”
“Yes, we were. I was hoping to avoid the easy way for a few days, but now it doesn’t look like we have a choice.”
“The easy way? Why the fuck haven--”
Before Calvin can finish, her hand drops across his arm and his entire body feels as though it starts to stretch from the inside out, skin pulling apart and bones cracking in half with every breath that he tries to suck in.
Then it snaps, compresses, until he’s a pinpoint in the air and nothing more than an afterthought to the universe.
And then it all pieces back together, the world stitching the wounds back together and reconstructing his body segment by segment until he’s whole again. But he falls to his knees and clutches his chest the moment his body is unfrozen, as it heaves his insides back up his throat and crumbles into a tangled mess of useless limbs.
He can’t even finish the thoughts threatening to pour from his lips, because the world is spinning before his eyes. His fingers curl against the cement to find some sort of grip, to just hold on, but there’s nothing to keep Calvin attached to the Earth.
It’s Tamsin’s voice that cuts first, the light Scottish accent clawing at him through the fog as she grips his shoulder with her hand and provides the attachment that he so desperately needs.
“That goes away. It’s just the first few times that get to you.”
He’s still shaking, even with her strength seeping into his skin and fortifying his bones.
No, he doesn’t want to try it again.
He’s taken hits before, bone-crushing attacks that left his body in a heap on the turf, but that... that was different. This was too much.
“You say that now, but trust me.”
She laces her free hand around his elbow and helps him to his feet (that deceptive strength again) with a few soft reassurances whistling through her lips. He’d slap her if there were bones left in his body.
“You didn’t think angels drove everywhere, did you?”
Calvin can only scoff, brushing her hands away even though his feet stagger at their loss. It’s only then, once he has a few new breaths in his lungs, that he can see their destination - it’s an alley, with dumpsters overflowing onto the pavement and broken pieces of furniture pressed against the buildings.
His lips curl into a heavy grimace as he straightens his shoulders and glances down at Tamsin. She looks amused again, with her arms crossed lazily over her chest as her feet begin to dance towards the street.
“You could warn me next time.”
