can't help this awful energy.

What is she trying to fix?

The question weighs heavily on her brain as she tries to come up with a response that she can live with. She and Kellan are clearly not friends– they’ve said as much. They’re so much more and so much less at the dizzyingly same time, it makes Sage’s head spin. Kellan speaking to her like this feels the same way the cancer did– like her own body is trying to attack itself. All of this work, this pain, this physical pain, what did it get her? Kellan doesn’t hate her, Kellan isn’t mad at her, more importantly– why does she care?

She decides to let herself get angry. It’s a dangerous path. Cinna would be so proud of her, and that knowledge is heavy on her conscience.

“I don’t know.” Sage’s voice is the epitome of calm, nonchalant, and indifferent– it’s terrifying in the way she’s trying to come off as calm when she has nothing to hide– Kellan already knows everything. “Don’t you get it? That’s half the problem. I owe you nothing. I owe you absolutely nothing. I have saved your life, I’ve fulfilled your requests– at times, mind you, at great risk to myself– I’ve been practically tripping over myself for you. And for what? So you can throw it all back in my face?”

He’s almost killed her. She’s almost killed him. When the gods took her powers away, it altered her life completely and wholly. She went to that party looking for a fight, and she got one. The power swap was another story. Losing her death sense powers had made her feel lighter. Sage had felt like she could actually hold on a conversation. Maybe she could be witty, charming, actually endearing instead of her usual sullen and moody. She felt like maybe, perhaps, she was worth someone else’s time.

“Oh my god,” Sage exhales, centering herself by taking a deep breath. Despite all of the athletics, the boxing, the yoga, the hiking, she cannot find her calm in this moment. “If that’s what you want? Then fine. That’s what you want. I’ll stop trying to save you, I’ll stop meeting up with you i in the spirit world. I’ll stop giving a flying fuck, because that’s clearly done well for me.”

Her fists are clenched and ready to fly, tightly drawn against her sides. “Don’t even try and tell me any of this. You think I don’t know? You do realize that you are literally fighting destiny right now, right, Kellan? She’s your soulmate. How do I know this? I have soul manipulation and I can sense yours the same way I can sense the six thousand ghosts who are also currently yelling at me. So you either live with your tether, understand that she will always be a part of you in some way, or you kill her and see what it does to your soul. Why do you think you saved her in the first place?”

The main thing Sage does not understand is why this hurts so much, why she feels like she’s gasping for air, why her throat is tight. “I don’t know why I do it either. I have absolutely no clue why I’ve suddenly decided your life is more valuable than mine. In fact, maybe you could tell me, since you now have this unprecedented look inside my brain. Go ahead, make my day.”

Kellan knows, on some level, that he’s in the wrong here. They both are, to some degree, but he especially is. She’s only done what she could to help him out. He should, by all means, be grateful to Sage for what she’s done. He owes her everything, and they both know it. He has no right to be angry with her right now, not when all of this has been for him.

But he is. He’s so fucking angry.

He wants to feel smug. She swears to stop trying for him, and he’s happy because yes, exactly. That’s all he wants. He wants her to stop trying so hard to save him, to help him, to keep him afloat. Eventually, she has to realize that he doesn’t care what happens to him. Whether he lives or dies, suffers or not, smiles or gives up, it’s on him. He wants her to stop trying to prevent him from facing his own consequences. He wants her to stop stepping into the line of fire for his benefit. That’s all he’s been saying, and finally, she sees that.

Her next words make him freeze. Despite his lack of understanding on the subject, Kellan knows that love exists. He knows that it’s possible to meet someone one day and have them change your entire world with almost no effort. Does he believe in soulmates? Not really. At least, he didn’t. But Sage is saying that Alicia is his, and he has no way of knowing if she’s saying this just to hurt him again, or if she means it, but he hopes it’s the former. Soulmate is not a word to be tossed around lightly. And if Alicia is his, then—

“I already killed her once,” he says, the perfect picture of tension. He doesn’t know if he believes what she says about Alicia, doesn’t even know if he cares. But he isn’t taking back what he said. “It’s my fault she died. If I have to kill her, I will.” He’s almost surprised to find that he still means it. Whether Alicia is his soulmate or not, he isn’t going to sacrifice Sage’s life for hers. He owes Alicia nothing, and he owes Sage everything.

Distantly, he realizes that he’s once again choosing Sage over everything else. And he still doesn’t doubt his decision.

“I don’t know anything, Sage.” He’s equal parts frustrated and incredulous. He doesn’t even know why this is an argument that they’re having. He doesn’t know why she keeps trying. “All I know is that you don’t gain anything from helping me. You keep trying to save me, and all I want is to save you. Why don’t you get that?”

Every time Kellan finishes speaking, the ringing of the deafening silence is blasting in Sage’s ears– so much so that she wonders if this is what it’s like to explode. The way Kellan describes it– the way she saw him die– probably doesn’t make it for a very romanticized power, but she thinks that there would be something peaceful, calm in it. The fact that it can all be over, if only for a moment.

I don’t know if you’re trying to punish me or yourself.

Absolute hatred flashes in Sage’s eyes as soon as he speaks, and she has half the nerve to take a step forward. “Punish you?” She asks, incredulous, her jaw slightly slack and her eyes the size of dinner plates. “Punish you.” It’s a statement now, one she cannot believe she has to say. Sage is not an angry person, she’s painstakingly calm in even the most dire of situations. She floated off to sleep, holding Cinna’s hand before the anesthesia took hold. Sage knows how to keep her cool.

Except for right now.

“Right,” She continues, walking around his couch, pacing the floor as if that will give her answers, “I’m here to punish you. Sure, of course. Because bringing you back to life is a punishment. Sending you the ghost of the girl you asked me to is punishment. Magically gaining every piece of knowledge about me– that’s punishment. Me, resurrecting the girl who gave you the kiss of death (death sense, I know exactly how you felt so don’t even try) after you blew a gasket because I killed her, just because I thought it would make you happy, that’s punishment.”

There is no sound in the room other than the frenetic beating of her heart, the rapid tha-thump that’s been the most comforting sound to Sage for her entire lifetime, as it signals that she still has one.

“You’re going to kill her.” Sage’s voice is amused, her eyes still fire. “I’d like to see that one happen. She’s the worst kind of death, honestly, a screamer, but the kind that leaves me with a migraine for the rest of the day…” Now, she’s trying to punish him, now she’s being cruel to show him the stark difference of what defines punishing him and giving one too many fucks.

“Haven’t you tempted fate enough, already? You want me to kill her again, fine. This, and I mean it, this is the literal last time I try and do you any favors, or try to win back your favor, or try to apologize. I don’t know whether you’re selfish, ungrateful or both, but frankly, I have enough on my plate without worrying about whether I’ve damaged this–” She makes the same gesture he did, “– beyond repair.”

It’s not fair.

Those three simple words, a bit too cliche and quiet compared to the sound of his blood rushing in his hears, loop continuously through his mind. It could be in reference to any number of things: to this stupid argument, to her, to Alicia’s death, to what he’s said, to everything. It’s all so stupid, and.

It’s not fair.

He stares at her, wide eyed and incredulous. “What are you trying to fix, Sage?” He lets out a huff of laughter, mirthless and disbelieving. “What, you think I’m holding something against you? That I’m still mad that you killed her? When are you going to realize that I’m not? When the hell are you going to realize that you don’t have to do anything for me?”

He blames it on everything. On the power swap, on having the apartment to himself, on putting himself back together, on her showing up out of the blue. He blames this argument on everything but himself. And he knows it’s his fault. She was trying to make him happy. She was trying to make it all up to him. He could’ve said, “Thanks, you didn’t need to do that,” and moved on. He could’ve smiled at her, asked him where Alicia was, and just moved on. But that would be wrong. He isn’t thankful for this, and he doesn’t want to see Alicia.

He wants to know why the hell Sage keeps putting herself in danger over him, when he doesn’t deserve it. When he thinks back to every time they’ve spoken, in person or over the internet or over text, he can’t think of a single time he’s done something worth any of this; worth Sage.

It’s not fair.

Her words strike a nerve. He’s trying, he really is, to forget what she’s done. It rests on what’s left of his conscience, which really isn’t much, and he shoulders the blame for it. But she’s pushing, deliberately trying to hurt him. As if he hasn’t thought about what Alicia’s death was like. His first thought is she screamed, and the next one is, some are worse than others. And he bites back that curiosity and brief concern, because no. He refuses to worry about that right now.

“I have asked you to stop,” he snapped, taking an angry step towards her. “When I told you to stop saving me, I thought it went without saying that it included any and everything including her.” He doesn’t even want to say her name. He thinks that if he says it, he’ll just hate her, and that’s not fair. None of this is Alicia’s fault. She didn’t ask for any of this. “When you brought me back to life, I could’ve run to Alicia, told her I was alive and went on a second date. We could’ve lived happily ever after. Instead, I stayed by your side and did my best to help you when your gods took your powers away. You think I did that out of altruism? Or payment? I am selfish. And I could’ve gone to Alicia, but I didn’t. Why don’t you get that?”

What he says is dangerous, and he knows that. It sounds an awful lot like he’s comparing the two, putting them on the same tier, and that’s not his intention. But he doesn’t get why she doesn’t understand. He has continuously chose her.

"I don’t know why you keep doing this to yourself.” He shakes his head. In his mind, he knows that they’re too close, but he’s too stubborn to move away. “Why you keep hurting yourself for my sake. I can live with whatever happens to me. I can live with what happened to Alicia. I was supposed to kill her in the first place, so I will. Then, you need to stop doing shit for my sake.”

Send her back.

Send her back? How on earth is she supposed to do that, now? The damage is done, and it’s out of spite that Alicia made it so much effort for Sage to bring her back. Sage didn’t mind– she deserved it, after all.

Send her back.

Sage’s ears are ringing, because she cannot for the life of her fathom how this ended up the way it did. She was supposed to bring Alicia back and then that would fix this, fix everything. She wouldn’t feel like she’d let him down or betrayed him or did whatever else it is that she did to wrong him.

Send her back.

The couch, the room, everything else seems to melt away as the magnitude of what she’s done finally hits her. She’s successfully destroyed someone’s life, and for the first time in her own nineteen years of half-living existence, she almost feels guilty about it. She can’t understand why Kellan hates her so much, nor can she understand why she constantly fails to fix it.

Send her back.

“Send her back?” Sage asked, quirking an eyebrow. “You do realize what that’s going to do to her soul, right? And that in order to send her back, I have to kill her? Again?”

The shock must be written clear on her face, as she stands up and brushes off non-existent dirt from her pants. Unsurprisingly, Sage is clad from head to toe in black, the culmination in a thick, black choker with an ankh around her neck, as the remnants of a religion nobody else believes in to cover a scar of a disease that no longer plagues her.

Shaking her head, Sage is bitter, for once, and the self-proclaimed queen of bicarbonate sodium finally has the nerve to say something.

“I really need to stop trying to help you,” is her opening statement in the case as to Why Sage Motta Needs To Stop Talking To Kellan Comaro (spoiler alert: it’ll never happen), “because I cannot for the life of me understand why I keep doing this to myself.” It’s honestly quite simple, when she puts it that way.

He doesn’t know how to feel about this. He isn’t sure how he’s supposed to feel. He can vaguely identify something reminiscent of anger, but also kind of sad. And he knows that she did this for him. She doesn’t need to say it for him to know that. No matter what she says, every move she makes that affects him is done for him. Either for his benefit or for his detriment. Sage is too smart to make moves just for the hell of it.

So, yes, he knows that she was probably bringing Alicia back for him. Why, he doesn’t know. But this was supposed to be a good thing.

For the life of him, he can’t tell you why it isn’t. But he thinks, at any point in time, in any world, in any universe, he’d still say the same thing. He’d still be angry right now.

“I don’t, either. I told you to stop helping me, because it only ever hurts you. I don’t know what the hell you’re doing, and it’s—” He cuts himself off, clenching his jaw. “It’s frustrating. Sometimes, I think I get you, Sage. I think I can almost get what this is.” He gestures between the two of them. Realistically, he knows that there is no this. “Then you do something like this, and it throws everything off. And I don’t know if you’re trying to help me again or why. I don’t know if you’re trying to punish me or yourself.”

The words come out before he even realizes he’s thought them. Even if he has wondered about that at times, he never meant to say it. Not because he thinks it’ll hurt Sage’s feelings; she isn’t that fragile. Not because he’ll feel bad for saying it. It just never gets him anywhere. He can spend weeks trying to figure it out, and he’ll never come to a conclusion.

Most days, he just gives up and thinks that maybe she’s punishing both of them. He stops himself from asking why.

His eyes slip closed and he takes a breath, centering himself. Whatever he feels right now keeps him from retreating into his almost dead state, but it’d be so easy to go there right now. But there’s nothing to stop her from following. He can’t avoid this.

He waits another second before looking back at her. “You brought me back to life.” His voice is quieter now, less angry, and more confused. “And it almost killed you. I don’t need to remind you of that. When she died — when you told me she was dead, I said I didn’t want you to bring her back. You said you wouldn’t do it anyway because she didn’t mean anything to you. But now you have, and — Sage, I don’t want this.” There’s a long pause, where he says nothing. A thousand words flow through his mind, but none of them make it past his lips. After a moment, something does. “I’ll kill her. Will the gods accept that? It’s my fault she died in the first place. If I kill her, will they reverse your punishment?”

The room is silent, still. It’s unnerving for many reasons, but mostly because Sage can always hear the whispers of ghosts, yet they’re only a dull hum around in the room. She wonders, panics for a moment as she entertains the idea that she’s possibly lost her powers again, but she can read Kellan’s soul and senses the darkness within it.

She’s still not certain whether or not she has a soul, despite what Cinna’s told her. She can’t feel it, she can’t sense it, perhaps she’s now gone for good.

He says nothing in remark to them not being friends, and it shouldn’t sting as much as it does. It’s a simple fact. There’s a part of Sage that hates him tremendously, and the worst part is, he knows it. He knows every single thought that he’s passed in her brain, he knows every complex feeling that starts to build in her chest whenever she looks at him, and the worst part is, Sage doesn’t exactly care.

They’ve been through too much to be “friends,” they’re not two people who will sit at a coffee shop and “catch up,” nor will they be the types who sit around and complain to each other about the latest episode of Ghost Adventures. Sage is no talent at precognition, but it’s simply not in the cards.

“Well, you should.” Sage snips back, clearly annoyed at him for not sharing this crucial piece of information with her. That’s their thing– they both show up in the Spirit World, sit there and say nothing to each other. Despite how she’s just told him that they’re not friends, it feels like a betrayal on his part. “The more you willingly go there, the longer you’ll stay each time. I don’t think I have to tell you what will eventually happen.”

But what does it matter? If he dies again, she’ll bring him back. That’s just what she does– it’s what they do. There is no finality, no ending. Sage will always bring him back.

The room is especially still, before she speaks again.

“I resurrected Alicia.”

The remark about not being friends rests in the air for a while. He doesn’t agree nor disagree, and maybe that’s the problem. Honestly, he doesn’t know what they are. He just knows that “friends” doesn’t cover it; the word implies comforting phone calls, and sweet conversation, and hugs when they go long periods of time without seeing each other. It does not, in any way, imply raising each other from the dead, almost getting each other killed, trying to kill one another, and killing others for one another.

He knows Sage doesn’t hate him — not completely, anyway; no more than he hates her — but even saying that she likes him is a stretch.

There’s a voice in the back of his mind telling him he knows damn well how she feels. Omnipotence doesn’t leave much wiggle room, even when it comes to the feelings of Underworld royalty. Still, he’s done a great job of pretending that week never happened, and everything he learned about Sage has been carefully forgotten.

“I won’t be able to come back. I know.” He feels himself starting to smile, though it’s more smug and teasing than actually happy. “Careful. It almost sounds like you don’t want me to die.” What they want or don’t want isn’t something to be discussed. ( It’s a dangerous thing, desire. )

Her next words take away any satisfaction he could get from her worrying about him. The near smile disappears, and he feels sick. The last time Sage resurrected someone, she ended up in the hospital. She almost died bringing him back to life, and he’d thought — he’d thought it went without saying that she would never do that again. And she was the one who said she wouldn’t do it for someone who didn’t mean shit to her.

“Send her back.” There’s no kindness, no appreciation in his voice. If it were anyone other than Sage, he would think she were doing it to make him happy. But because it’s Sage, he doesn’t know if it’s a gift or a punishment or something in between. Whatever it is, he doesn’t want it. It was one thing watching Sage go through the loss of her powers because of him. He’d lived with the guilt, swallowed it down, and did his best to save her. There was no one to blame there but the two of them. She made her decision, and they both had to live with it. And even if he didn’t really understand, he knew that it was different.

Alicia was — she wasn’t worth this. Kellan wasn’t kind enough to think otherwise.

She spared him no more of a glance before she brushed beside him, into his home, his abode. The energy from this place was radiating so much it made her bones practically shake from the magnitude of it. Kellan knew everything, that much was certain. He knew the things that Sage knew about herself, including the things that Sage didn’t want to know about herself, or hadn’t yet processed.

“I’m perfectly capable of a friendly visit, thank you.” Sage snipped back, as she sank onto a couch. Resurrecting someone always took a decent chunk of energy out of her, even if the gods didn’t decide to swipe her powers at the drop of a hat.

In reality, that’s what is scaring her the most. Before, she could get by with Kellan tolerating her. Now, she knows better, that his own hatred is only rivaled by her own, on a good day. What she feels and doesn’t feel for Kellan is an emotion of a frequency she cannot read, despite using her best efforts to unlock some kind of empathic skill that would give her the answers she’s in desperate need of. 

“But that would imply we’re friends.” She continued, trying to give herself some bite, some edge. She’s saved him from the Spirit World. They sit there together and remark on the ghosts that float by; sometimes, they sit in complete silence. She knows, and he knows, they’re certainly not friends, as such a word cannot encompass exactly what they are.

Nothing can; not even Sage herself.

“And we’re not.” 

It’s a stark realization. They’re not friends, because they simultaneously seem like so much more and so much less than friends in that moment, where Sage can sense Kellan’s soul energy slowly rebuilding itself as he materializes back into the physical world. “You should have told me you were in need of a visit, though.” She remarks softly, as her eyes recede down to the floor. She has nothing to be embarrassed about, but it’s her fault that his soul is in limbo.

Perhaps Alicia will keep him company in the spirit world now; a statement that flares up an emotion that Sage mistakes for jealousy, despite how that cannot be.

“I’ve done something. You asked me to be honest with you, and here I am.”

It was questionable if, at any point in his life, Kellan’d had enough emotion to feel offended by her declaration. As much as he and his siblings liked to think the Comaros were their only family, there was a bit of their heritage in all of them. Kellan was everything his parents had once been. After a week with Ollie’s powers, he knew that. He was well on his way to be the same psychopathic monster his parents turned out to be. Even if he wanted to believe otherwise, some part of him had always known. Being with them taught him not to let things hurt. He wouldn’t have survived them, wouldn’t have survived them leaving him, if he did. 

Now, after everything, hearing Sage blatantly renounce any semblance of friendship between them should have hurt. Except it didn’t. He only hummed his acknowledgement, not particularly moved by her words, and leaned against the wall. There was space between them — more than what any normal pair of people needed, but nothing about them had ever been normal — but he made no move to close it. He dragged his eyes over her form, trying to figure out what exactly about her felt off.

Physically, she looked fine, if not a little weaker than normal. Outside of that, he wasn’t really sure. He wasn’t nearly as in tune with the other world to know how someone’s spiritual or cosmic energy could change. He had no authority to say if hers was any different from its usual state, but he thought that maybe it could’ve been. By now, he knew enough to know that that was never good.

Leave it to Sage, he thought, to come here with what was undoubtedly bad news.

His eyes flickered back up to hers. “I didn’t try to go,” he admitted. “I just didn’t stop myself, either.” That was the tricky thing about whatever was wrong with him. He didn’t really have a lot of control over his visits. The best he could do was remind himself that he was alive, remaining hyperaware of everything, every person, every breath. If he didn’t do that, he was almost certainly going to slip into the Spirit World. He made a point to avoid it when he was around his roommate, or family, or friends. But when he was alone, he didn’t often try to stop himself.

The world didn’t care one way or another whether he lived here or on the other side. And, frankly, neither did he.

Sage’s gaze dropped from his, and he waited patiently for her to say what was on her mind. (He willed himself not to admit that the gesture was oddly cute for someone as intimidating as Sage was.) He knew better than to push. Whatever this was, he didn’t want it to turn into a screaming match, like a good half of their conversations did. She’d come here for a reason. If she wanted to yell, she could’ve done it over the phone.

Her next words put him on edge. She somehow managed to be blunt and cryptic, and he had a feeling he wasn’t going to like what came next. “Okay,” he said, never removing his gaze from her. “And?”

@fabrayrose: i don't need that negativity in my life

NADIA: Everything I do is fun.

NADIA: My past few days have been spent defacing public property, getting arrested for the hell of it, then proceeding to knock out the cops who grabbed me before we even made it to the station.

NADIA: Lmao, fuck if I get put into the system. Anyway.

SAGE: Well, don't spare my feelings. If you have something to say to me, say it.

SAGE: Welcome to my world.

KELLAN: I'm not nice enough to spare anyone's feelings. And I already did.

SAGE: Let me rephrase: why are we bringing this up again.

KELLAN: Felt like something I needed to say before I went back to pretending shit never happened.

You’re not wrong. I think this one makes up for it though.

Yeah, a little. I’ve never been around it, but that’s not an accident. Mine either, but that makes us less responsible when the day needs to be saved. Nothing at all, but I don’t find it that fun. Plus, I have terrible luck.

Agreed.

SAGE: What do you want.

SAGE: I resurrected you because I felt like it. I didn't save you, you saved yourself. You could have passed over into the afterlife, but you didn't. You stayed in limbo, and I was in the right place at the right time.

SAGE: As for my recent moral discrepancy, you make of it what you want.

KELLAN: ...This, coming from the person who refuses to let me forget what she's done for me.

KELLAN: And who literally said "You made your choice to save her, and I made my choice to save you."