prettiest boy in the morgue

You had been having a bizarre and frustrating year and were now half convinced that you were crazy. But why, out of all the delusions you could have had, did it have to be something so very mundane yet so detailed?

There had been a cartoon that you really liked that didn't seem to exist anymore. Well, not just a cartoon, a whole franchise had blipped out of existence. And you knew way too much detail about it to comfortably tell yourself that it had never existed.

Mattel had made the toy line in the 80s. There had been a tie-in show that had run for two seasons. Then a spin off, a movie, a reboot, another reboot, and a reboot of the spin off.

Occasionally you would think about all the little things you knew about the franchise and convince yourself all over again that it had to be real and that today would be the day reality would snap back into the way you remembered it. You'd ask, "Hey have you ever watched He Man and The Masters of The Universe?" No one ever knew what the hell you were talking about.

Even the memes that everyone knew even if they'd never watched the show were gone. There was a space on your shelf where you had had a figure of Prince Adam in his pink vest that you had to make yourself because he was missing it when you bought him at a yard sale. Now there was nothing there.

It wasn't a big deal. It was just a show. Except for the fact that you know it was real. And it was something that brought you joy. The disappearance hadn't directly effected your day to day but you couldn't help the bad mood and the stress headache from the fact that reality was just slightly off from your memories.

That was why you did a double take when you saw a shop called The Fright Zone. That had been from She Ra. You walked in the store almost automatically and very nearly cried.

You were surrounded by echoes of a reality that didn't exist anymore. The colors decorating the room, the artwork on the walls, and the figures! It wasn't quite right but it all echoed a reality you didn't realize you missed so much. Then you saw it. Not just an echo but something exactly right.

The power sword. That sword wasn't some knock off or precursor to a thing that no longer existed. It was the real deal. A sense of relief washed over you at seeing it and you couldn't just leave it behind.

"Hey how much for the sword?" You smiled at the pretty blue haired woman behind the counter.

"Oh it's not for sale, sorry." She gave you that special welcoming look women sometimes give each other in nerd spaces. I'm glad you're here, it said.

"I will give you 600 bucks right now." You tried to persuade her, still smiling at the idea that maybe this last bit of the right world could come home with you. "I'm so serious." It would be half your paycheck but you needed to be able to see it every day. To know it exists.

The girl behind the counter made a face that told you she was weighing how much her boss liked the display vs how much he liked 600 dollars. It seemed like she thought things might work out in your favor. "I'll have to text my boss to check first." Within three minutes she got a reply in all caps telling her to go ahead and sell the sword.

You admired it where it sat on the foot of your bed, something of reality sinking back into your life. It was a hefty weight and the edge was deceptively sharp. You picked it up testing the balance. This—was a really good sword. You hugged it to yourself, like a child with a doll, while still being careful to avoid the edges of the blade. Whatever else was gone this was here.

An alarm went off in your phone. Oh shit, that's right! You have a date tonight.

-

Adam—oh my god, he's Prince Adam—had just finished his ridiculously long answer to "So where are you from?" You didn't quite know what to sa,y so he started stammering out an apology.

"Don't apologize!" You reached across the table and covered his hand with your own. "I believe you."

His shoulders visibly relaxed. "you do?"

You really did. You had started talking to him on a dating app a couple of weeks ago and things had been easy, it felt like talking to someone you already knew for years. There had been a gentleness to him that made you feel safe and a vulnerability in his eyes that said he was begging for someone to boss him around.

Adam. You'd know him anywhere. He shaped what you would eventually end up looking for in a man. There was no doubt about it that the man sitting across from you was Prince Adam, hero of Eternia. You'd known him all your life.

"Something not quite as dramatic, but somehow directly related happened to me." You said it too simply because you weren't sure where to even begin.

His brow forrowed quickly at directly related. "Really?" His voice was tight like he was trying to play it cool but the possibility of having someone that understood him excited him.

"Okay. So, imagine you're a Star Wars fan-"

"Don't have to imagine. Continue."

He gives you a playful smile and you can't help but huff out a laugh as you feel the butterflies in your stomach. Oh my god, he's Prince Adam.

"You wake up one day and ALL your Star Wars stuff is gone and what's more, nobody seems to know what Star Wars even is." He was clearly listening, dutifully imagining your scenario. "It just doesn't exist and apparently never has but you remember it." He was nodding, with you so far. "One day you find a lightsaber at a nerd shop so you buy it because this might be the only evidence of this thing left in the entire world and then that same day you go on a date with a suspiciously Mark Hamill shaped guy named Luke who starts talking about his life on tatooine."

Adam blinked. "I'm more of an Ahsoka man but why not give him a chance." He joked. " I take it I'm Luke Skywalker?" He looked like he was trying to wrap his head around what you were telling him.

"Glad you're following." You tease a smile but you're relieved he's taking you seriously.

"So where you come from I'm ...fictional?" He didn't say it like he wasn't believing you, more like he was trying to imagine what kind of shape his story would take. Was his life a comedy, a tragedy, a horror? You could see the questions running through his mind.

You knew just how to get his brain back on track. "You are missing the part where I said I had Luke's lightsaber."

His face fell slack with the realization.