karma’s a relaxing thought

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“I don’t know. English is too hard right now,” Ilya says, shaking his head. Shane can hear the tremble in his voice that he’s trying so hard to hide.

“It’s okay,” Shane reassures him. He’s not sure what to say that would accurately represent the enormity of how he feels.

“Я никогда больше сюда не вернусь…” Ilya starts to say, continuing on in his native tongue. 

As he speaks, Shane closes his eyes, listening to the rough terrain of his voice, where it breaks off in cliffs and edges. He listens to the cadence of his words. To the words themselves.

“….I have no one now. Well, not no one. I have…Svetlana. She loves me. And I love her. But not like…fuck.” He stops abruptly, and there’s an choked off sort of silence on the other end before he continues. “But not like I love you. That’s the worst fucking part of all this. That all I want is you. It’s always you. I’m so in love with you and I don’t know what to do about it.”

Shane feels something like a panic attack coming on. But no, this is something else.

“Okay, I’m done,” Ilya says, in English again.

“Ilya…” Shane says, not knowing what he’ll say next. But he doesn’t need to flounder for too long, because Ilya cuts him off.

“I need to go,” he says, a tremor still hiding in his voice. Then quieter, “Хотелось бы, чтобы ты был здесь.”

Wish you were here.

The line goes dead.

Shane hangs his head, heart pounding uncontrollably. There’s so much he needs to say, has been trying to say for a long time. 

Like, how he’s been learning Russian.

—

Shane stares at the phone. He should call him back. He should say something. Anything. He runs over the words in his head again, its hard and soft consonants, the phrases he recognized. He’s still learning, but he’s been diligent, like he is with everything. And if nothing else, he knows at least one thing for sure—that Ilya Rozanov just told him that he loves him. 

Which just makes it all hurt more. Ilya loves him, but they can’t be together. Not in a real way, not in the way they both would want. He can feel Ilya’s anguish as if it’s his own, because in a way, it’s his, too. 

He feels guilty now, like he’s eavesdropped on a conversation he wasn’t supposed to hear. The reality is, once Ilya started talking, Shane couldn’t stop him. It was so rare to hear so much from him all at once, no pretense, no armor. He was enraptured from his first word and there was no getting out.

He calls him back.

—

The phone rings and rings.

Just as Shane is about to hang up, the ringing stops. He can just barely make out Ilya’s soft breaths from the other side of the world.

“Ilya,” Shane says into the silence, which runs on for so long he’s no longer sure someone’s there.

“What,” Ilya finally says, sounding flat, the life gone out of him.

Shane takes a breath.

“I just wanted to say that you’re wrong. You’re not alone. You have me,” he pauses. “And Svetlana—she’s not the only one who loves you.”

Silence again. He pushes on before he loses his nerve.

“я тоже тебя люблю.”

I love you, too.

The words seem to echo, through his bones, into the liminal space between them.

He hears cursing on the other end of the line.

“What the fuck, Shane,” Ilya says, a crack in his voice. He takes a long, ragged breath. “When did you learn Russian?”

“I’ve been learning it for the last few years.”

“Why?”

“Well, for Sochi, you know.”

“Oh.” He sounds disappointed.

A grin widens on Shane’s face, even though Ilya can’t see it.

“I’m kidding.”

Ilya groans.

“Boring people shouldn’t joke.”

“I learned it for you, of course. And…” Shane trails off.

“And what?”

“Your dad. Your family. You know, just in case.” He shakes his head. “It was stupid to think-“

“Fuck, I love you,” Ilya interrupts, starting to cry again.

“I love you,” Shane says again. Words will never be enough, he thinks. Even if he learns them in every language. “Je t'aime tellement.”

Ramos gives him a look that very clearly says I’m your boss, and also, I’m not fucking stupid.

“Yes, your objectivity when it comes to your family is noted. That is not the objectivity that is in question, Alex.” He almost sounds disappointed that he has to say it out loud, but there’s a wry smile fighting at the corners of his mouth.

At the beginning of senior year, Michael Guerin gets captured and thrown into Caulfield. At the end of it, Jesse Manes lets his youngest son in on the family secret.

Fifteen years later, Alex Manes is working for Deep Sky when he’s assigned to protect one of its assets as he works on something with unknown consequences.

Summary:

At the beginning of senior year, Michael Guerin gets captured and thrown into Caulfield. At the end of it, Jesse Manes lets his youngest son in on the family secret.

Fifteen years later, Alex Manes is working for Deep Sky when he’s assigned to protect one of its assets as he works on something with unknown consequences.

Summary:

At the beginning of senior year, Michael Guerin gets captured and thrown into Caulfield. At the end of it, Jesse Manes lets his youngest son in on the family secret.

Fifteen years later, Alex Manes is working for Deep Sky when he’s assigned to protect one of its assets as he works on something with unknown consequences.

At the beginning of senior year, Michael Guerin gets captured and thrown into Caulfield. At the end of it, Jesse Manes lets his youngest son in on the family secret.

Fifteen years later, Alex Manes is working for Deep Sky when he’s assigned to protect one of its assets as he works on something with unknown consequences.

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“Hello, Edwin.”

Her voice is warm and inviting, as if the soundwaves themselves are woven through with magic. When Edwin turns his head, it’s her smile, soft and wry, that catches his attention like a rising sun.

The real sun hangs over their heads, refracted light glistening over the lake that stretches out before them. Everything about the scene is beautiful, idyllic even, and Edwin’s facial expression is similarly placid, masking the fact that his insides are crumbling into ash. 

“Hello, Death,” he says tightly, nearly under his breath, his eyes now set worriedly on Charles, who’s sitting cross-legged several meters away from them, just out of earshot, right by the water’s edge. 

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Charles started to shiver not five minutes after escaping Death. 

They slowed to a stop as Charles crouched down in the middle of a dark field, folding into himself as if it would help.

“Charles,” Edwin said tentatively, sinking to his knees next to him. 

“I thought you said ghosts couldn’t feel anything,” Charles said pitifully through chattering teeth.

It started to hit Edwin then, his complicity in allowing this boy, who hadn’t even been dead half an hour, to become an eternal fugitive with him, to live as a ghost, to relive his death over and over again, to never find rest. Maybe spending so many years in hell had truly addled his brains.

“Technically, you’re not really feeling it, physically,” he said, leaning towards him slightly. “It’s more like…a memory. It happens to me, too, sometimes.”

Charles turned his head to look at Edwin, his knees still pressed tightly against his chest.

“Y-you, too?”

To be a ghost was to be an echo—of life, of pain. And no event reverberated more loudly sometimes than the pain of a person’s final moments. He'd originally wondered if it were a feature unique to hell. But no, it turned out roaming the mortal plane, where you didn't belong, was just as good a surface for the ripples of his untimely end to touch him. Edwin tried not to think about it, the torture of being held down, of being consumed by a demon. It was a pain he still had no words for, and Edwin had words for everything.

“In the afterlife,” he said instead, not answering the question, “you’d never have to feel cold.”

Watching Charles shudder against an invisible, intangible force, Edwin thought, I could fix this. He could send him on his way. He could send him home.

Charles offered him a wry smile as his body continued to be wracked by shivers.

“Th-that’s assuming I don’t go to hell, same as you, yeah? I’m sure there’s worse than just a ch-chill there.”

Edwin did not return the smile.

Something that had always unsettled him ever since his death was that he didn’t know, if not for the clerical technicality, if he would have still found his way to hell. But what nagged at him more in this moment was that maybe the designation had been correct all along. Because keeping a good boy like Charles from going to heaven was exactly the kind of thing that could send someone to hell.

Charles’ light was blue. When Edwin closed his eyes, he could see it searing against his eyelids.

Not red. Blue.

“No, Charles, I don’t think you’d go to hell.”

Charles’ smile remained, but something strangely sad passed behind his eyes.

“That’s nice of you to say. But you d-don’t really know me. I mean, we just met.”

It was true that Edwin had only known Charles for a few hours of his tragically short life. But he’d seen the light. He knew what it meant. It saddened him to think that there were things in Charles’ life that would cause him to doubt his own fundamental goodness, the essence of which Edwin had already seen so clearly.

“Would it make a difference?” he asked pensively. “If you knew for sure?”

Charles gave it a moment’s thought, wrapping his arms more tightly around his knees.

“Honestly? No. You’re here, too, aren’t you? And I’m n-not done living just yet.”

Edwin stopped just short of explaining to him the definition of living, and Charles stood up then, his body still shaking. Edwin rose with him, his hands awkwardly fumbling towards Charles as if he were about to fall. There was something defiant in Charles’ stance despite his sorry state. Even the lingering, spectral aftershocks of hypothermia and internal bleeding were not enough to deter Charles from his newfound ghostly pursuits.

“Well, you know you can change your mind at any time,” Edwin hedged, eyeing him uneasily.

“Sure, mate,” Charles said, winking at him, but the playful look on his face was interrupted as he clutched at his side, wincing. “Let’s go, yeah?”

“We don’t have to go until you’re ready. It should pass soon enough,” Edwin said, trying his hardest to sound reassuring, though it sounded unnatural coming out of his mouth. “It usually does, for me.”

Charles took a deep breath he didn’t physically need, then flashed him another crooked smile.

“Nah, I’m good.”

Edwin wasn’t sure he’d ever been on the receiving end of so much unbridled happiness, much less from someone who was already dead, and he found it unnerving, knocking him completely off balance.

“You sure?”

Charles reached out to grab his hand. His hand was cold and slight, a cool, autumn breeze against his palm, and Edwin was so taken aback he didn't have the presence of mind to draw away fast enough.

"So ghosts can feel other ghosts, yeah?" Charles asked, cocking his head to the side. "You said-"

"T-there are many ghost rules that I myself am only recently discovering," Edwin stuttered.

"And I thought you knew everything already," Charles said slyly. "No matter. Now that I'm on the case, we'll uncover them all, together."

Edwin tried not to dwell on how selfish he was being, tried not to think about Death and what she'd do once she found them, tried not to picture the heaven that awaited Charles, and the hell that awaited his own damned self.

ficlet sequel to wait for rain, my lost decade michael/maria fic.

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—

This is how it falls apart.

A phone call at three in the morning, Maria rolling over in bed to answer it—quiet, frantic questions—then tears streaming down her face, rousing Michael from deep sleep.

—

Ten years was a long time to love someone. Longer, still, to love someone and keep from them the kinds of secrets Michael kept—universe-shifting secrets, secrets about love and loss, of death.

But Michael couldn’t help it. He could hold those two, seemingly opposing things in his head and his heart, of loving Maria, and also not telling her something fundamental about himself, about what he’d done, and who he’d once (still?) loved. 

Just barely, but he could. 

There were people other than himself he needed to protect. Max, Isobel, Alex. And he was on that list, too. Rosa’s death and fiery end by his own hand was something that haunted his dreams, the poison of it seeping into his waking days. He couldn’t have Maria hate him the way he hated himself. He wouldn’t be able to bear it.

He should’ve known it wouldn’t last forever.

—

Michael looks more stricken than Maria anticipates when she tells him what’s happened to Alex. She reaches out to touch his shoulder, then releases her hand like she’s been burned, a shocked expression on her face.

“Michael,” she says, tears flowing from her eyes without warning.

“What?” he asks, his eyes a swirl of pain now doused with confusion. He’s concerned for her. He’s scared for himself.

“You’re filled with so much…grief.”

Michael averts his eyes as they start to glisten, like Maria’s words have finally found the weakest point in a wall he’s worked so hard to fortify.

“Maria…” he rasps, but when he reaches for more to say, he comes up short.

“But also so much love. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.” She looks deep into Michael’s eyes, searching for confirmation and seemingly finding it. Her voice warbles, the sound of it on the razor’s edge of either laughing or crying. “You’re in love.”

“Of course I am,” he agrees, grasping her hand in a last ditch attempt, almost forgetting what it means to touch her again. His eyes are sad, pleading to release himself from the agony of being seen, but it’s too late. He’s laid bare in her deft, all-knowing hands, an open wound.

“Grief, love. It's...heartbreak,” Maria confirms, finally understanding.

Michael shakes his head, tears falling into the sheets.

“You can go heavy on me, Michael. I’m not going to break,” she continues, sounding stronger than she feels. 

“I might,” he counters, voice straining with apology. He knows he’s pathetic and selfish, a coward, the villain in every story.

But he tells her everything.

—

“What you did wasn’t fair to me. I deserved better than that,” Maria says softly. She’s beyond tears, a strange numbness settling in.

“I know. I’m sorry,” Michael responds, voice cracking as he says it.

“Did I imagine all of it?” Maria asks, sounding too wrung out for Michael to bear. 

“Of course not,” he insists. If she touched him again, she’d know how deep his love for her ran. She’d feel it. 

But she won’t, not now. Not anymore.

“There’s a part of me that still feels like it was meant to be,” she says, staring out into the middle distance, her gaze set on something he can’t see. Then she turns and smiles at him, sadly. “But it doesn’t have to be forever, you know. For it to have meant something.”

Michael watches the love of his life leave for a second time.

—

Love comes back.

“I’m glad you had someone when I wasn’t here,” Alex whispers as they lay in bed, limbs entangled. “I’m glad it was Maria.”

“I’m sorry,” Michael responds, because that’s all that’s tipped on his tongue these days. “She was your best friend.”

He hadn't known that in the beginning, really. The hot summer where he and Alex ignited and burned out existed in a bubble outside of space and time, and by the time Michael learned of Maria's connection to him, it was far too late.

“I love her,” Alex says, as if that settles it. He runs an assured hand along Michael’s torso, down to his pelvic bone, unable to disentangle his love for the both of them.

“I love her, too,” Michael echoes, because Maria has splayed him open, and he can’t be put back together by secrets anymore. 

Alex smiles, the only secret that Michael gets to keep.

“Maybe we should tell her.”

Michael swung open the door, pushing past Max to get into the house.

“We have to get it out.”

“We–”