#poly ties

Thirty minutes. Thirty minutes, give or take. Impulse likes the round number. Makes it feel like Skizz has more time than he actually does.

Thirty minutes. One more and he’s done. Skizz, but Impulse, too, because he knows a part of himself will die with Skizz, he knows it’s just a game but sometimes it feels so real, especially knowing that, unlike with Tango and Etho, he can’t just go to Skizz’s base back on Hermitcraft if he misses the man. Because, of course, Skizz doesn’t have a base back on Hermitcraft.

The stupid tie hangs like a noose around Skizz’s neck, and Impulse might just cry. Skizz, of course, notices, giving his friend a soft grin, eyes warm even with the still-burning flame of bloodlust and the calm waters of acceptance warring in them. “You’ll be fine, Dippledop,” he murmurs, mouth twitching up at the corners with the familiar nickname. “Hey. I said TIES makes it to the final three, and I meant it.” He leans down, the moon showing like a halo behind his head and illuminating the hairs standing up on the back of his neck, tingling with electric static. 

And then their lips are brushing together, soft and wet with the nervous licking of them throughout the tense seconds and minutes and hours passed in the game against chapped and bloody from smiles cracking them open against all odds. Skizz whispers into his demon’s mouth, “If I could only choose one person in this team that I trusted the most to make it as far as final three, it’d be you.” He pulls away, leaving Impulse with sweet golden blood on his lips, and turns to a certain fiery-haired sprite. Tango looks on in trepidation.

“Top,” Skizz chuckles, trying to elicit at least a smile from the man. He fails. There’s burning orange in the corners of Tango’s eyes. Skizz’s expression turns serious, and he nods. Some things are best left alone. “Stay safe.”

Tango just… stares, for a moment, before huff-ing with a thin veil of irritability thrown haphazardly over the grief. “Void,” he mutters, and then steps forwards, standing on tiptoes and pulling Skizz’s head down to press a kiss deep into his lips. It’s brief, and yet when he pulls away, there are fresh punctures on Skizz’s lower lip, and Tango’s teeth shine gold. “That’s what you get for bein’ a jerk and leaving us,” he mumbles, turning away and sniffling. The other three pretend not to notice.

Skizz turns to Etho, and nods firmly. “My good man.”

Etho tilts his head. “Skizz.”

Skizz kneels down, bending his head to the floor, and Impulse can’t help it- he grabs Skizz’s tie and tugs him forwards, just a bit, and the angel’s gaze flickers up.

Impulse takes in his best friend for what feels like the last time; scars on his chest, his arms, his neck, scars that seem to glow silver in the moonlight. He can’t make the words he wants to say come out of his mouth, isn’t even sure that the words he needs exist. What replaces them is a simple, pathetic little “I love you.” Useless. When has loving someone ever stopped them from leaving you behind? 

He can’t bring himself to let go of Skizz’s tie, but the other man doesn’t seem to mind. He just hums his acknowledgement, saying more than any little words ever could, and then Impulse’s hearing goes oddly… muffled. Etho says something, as does Skizz, but it’s like trying to listen to a lecture while underwater. The axe comes down hard, and the resultant bolt of lightning travels up its blade, to its handle, to Etho’s hands. The man doesn’t flinch away from the electricity coursing through his veins. He doesn’t move at all.

And then Skizz’s body is gone. Impulse is left clutching a tattered red noose. Etho takes the spirit of a dead man from his tainted lover’s hands, pulls down his mask, and swallows it whole.

“There,” he says.

“Can’t leave us now,” he says.