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“A clever one, you. In payment for me allowing you to complete that which you never got a chance to do in your time allotted, in payment for borrowed time, you shall serve my needs for a proportional amount of time. I’ll give you enough time to complete all it is you still need to do, don’t worry about that. You’ll just return to me at the end of it.”

“Service like what?” Alex prompts.

“Oh, nevermind that, that’s for later. What you need to consider now is whether this is worth it to you. Do you want to live your dreams? Find love? Find a true, complete family, a home? More than that measly ragtag band of brothers you three formed. Something real and more? Something alive? Is it worth it for you to have all you ever wanted and more, in return for a few short years of afterlife with me? Come on, boys, it’s an offer you can’t refuse.”

Luke, Reggie, and Alex exchange nervous glances. An entire conversation elapses in a moment through their eyes.

Then Luke takes the lead. He reaches his hand out to shake. He grasps it and they shake, solidifying their deal. After Luke, so do Alex and Reggie.

Their wrists sting, and they look down to see a stain across the skin on the inside of each of their wrists: Three equal lines, arranged in a formation where they reach out from the middle to the points of an equilateral triangle. The dark marks are clearly visible even in the lacking light, etched black against their pale and suddenly clammy skin.

“One more thing, boys. When the time comes, if you are touching anyone but each other, they will be brought back as well, to help pay your debt to me. It’s a way I can get my time returned to me at a quicker rate. Because you know, time is valuable.” He laughs. “You probably know that better now than you ever did while you were alive.

“And how will we know when the time comes?” Luke asks.

“You will know.”

“You know, you don’t seem so wise, for the Wise Man. You’re just a broker for the desperate.”

“Do you want to repeat that, Alexander?”

Alex gulps. His jaw stays clenched. All three of them, probably all four of them know that even though he may just be a ‘broker for the desperate’, they were nothing if not desperate.

“You’ve already made your deal with me. Now it’s time for me to fill my part of it, before you fill yours.”

~~~

The time is coming. Luke can feel it. His mark, his stamp, tattoo, brand, whatever, has been pulsing for months, throbbing for weeks, aching for days, searing for hours. At regular intervals, the pain comes over him for an instant. He’s dealt with it the entire time he’s been here, like a second slower heartbeat in his wrist. A constant reminder that every minute they spent here was borrowed. He grimaces and grips his wrist tightly with his opposite hand. Elsewhere, Reggie and Alex surely hiss through their teeth in tandem with Luke.

Julie is there. Julie is always there. As soon as Luke’s muscles aren’t tensed anymore, he digs his nose even deeper into the skin of her neck and they hold each other tight. Neither wants to ever let go, even though they both know a goodbye is inevitable – and fast approaching.

They’re in the studio, because where else would they ever be? It’s a far cry from how it looked six years ago when they first arrived. The walls are plastered with posters advertising Julie and the Phantoms playing at various venues all across America. The plants have been changed out multiple times in the years Luke has “lived” here. Yet some things also always stayed the same: the pink dahlia curtains on the windows and the knitted throw blanket on the couch. This is home.

The others are spending their final moments with those they found during their second chance. They’ll have forever with each other, but only now with these. Willie. Ray. Carlos. Luke doesn’t blame them for spending every last second with those they’ve come to love most. Isn’t that exactly what he’s doing too?

Except-

The others don’t know yet, what Luke did.

“Please, let me take it from them. You said debts can transfer onto others, so they can transfer onto me. I’ll serve triple the time. I’ll do it.”

Luke winces again but he tries to hide it. Julie notices. Julie always notices. She squeezes her arms around his torso once and starts rubbing her hands up and down his back. She would whisper sweet nothings in his ear if only they could trick themselves into believing nothing was something.

He hears her sniffle. Luke leans back, loosening his arms around her waist. Her hair is a mess but his is even worse. Her eyes are shining but she’s doing her best to keep herself together for Luke. As if, if only she were strong enough, she could bear the weight of both their pain. He swipes away a stray tear on her cheek with the pad of his thumb.

They’re grieving prematurely, because they know there’ll be no opportunity after.

Luke’s mark pulses twice, quickly.

A warning.

Time’s almost up.

Luke pulls away from Julie, and she tries to cling to him.

“Please, Luke-”

“It’s time, Julie. I can’t- You know what’ll happen, if- if we stay like this. I can’t.”

She clings harder. “It’s worth it. To me. It’s worth it.” She’s pleading with him, and his heart shatters. She should never have to plead with anyone. She’s Julie Molina. This shouldn’t be happening to her.

“Not to me, it isn’t. I couldn’t live with myself if you came too.”

Three pulses.

“I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t.” Her voice breaks and her lips are curling outwards.

He takes a deep breath in and can feel his own eyes threatening to overflow. At once they pull back together in the center of the room. She digs her face into his chest and he envelopes her in his arms. They hold each other tighter than ever before, and Luke can’t bear the thought of trying to let go again.

Four pulses.

Luke buries his face in the hair on the top of her head and presses his lips to her scalp. She turns her head so her cheek is pressed against him and he squeezes his eyes shut.

“Julie, I need you to listen to me,” Luke murmurs against her head. His voice is muffled, but amid only the sounds of their two hearts beating, it’s impossible to miss. “It’s going to be okay after I leave. You’re going to be okay.”

She shakes her head – whether that’s a denial that he’ll leave or a denial that she’ll be okay, he can’t tell.

Three pulses. It’s a countdown now.

“Yes, you will,” he insists. “I’ll still be here, in you. Just like your mom, Julie. She’s alive in you.”

“That’s different, Luke.”

“It’s no different at all.”

He reaches around behind his back for her hands and finds them, clutching to the fabric of his shirt. Gently he eases her fingers free and grips her hands in his. He brings them back around to be held between them, forcing space to open up between the two.

Two pulses.

“Luke, please,” she pleads again. “Please, no.”

Luke rubs his thumbs over the back of Julie’s knuckles. They’re white with how hard she’s trying to hold to him. She’s always been his anchor, but today she can’t be anymore. He won’t let it happen.

She brings him in one final time and this time they meet at their lips, in a kiss that doesn’t say nearly everything that is left to be said. Luke knows she’s trying to keep him there long enough that the deadline will pass with them together as one. He keeps one hand intertwined with hers down at their waists, but he draws her other hand up so she can caress his face one more time, the way she always liked to do. His own hand rests on top of hers there.

One pulse.

Now or never.

Luke breaks off the kiss and once again Julie has tears escaping her eyes. “Luke, no,” she makes one last bid to stop him or change his mind. “Let me come, too.”

Luke uses their joined hands to push her away as he feels heat begin to build in his wrist. She stumbles and falls backwards onto the sofa, and he takes three large steps backwards.

He meets her eyes just after she swipes at them with her sleeve. “Keep me alive, yeah?”

“Luke!” Julie calls his name in an anguished cry that haunts him from the moment he hears it. It’s worth it to keep her safe.

The heat rises and rises in his wrist, from a searing red to a white-hot all-consuming pain coursing through his every vein. A scream rips from his throat. He keeps moving away even as his vision begins tunneling, anything to keep her from reaching him before he goes.

The fire burns him up from the inside out, feeling like a constant electrocution of the highest current going through every single pore. His vision tunnels more and more, until everything is black.

And then the pain is gone, and it takes a moment for his cry to melt away, too. He opens his eyes – he didn’t know they’d been squeezed shut tight – and sees that dim dark room he hasn’t seen for six years.

“Welcome back.”

~~

The doors to the studio slam open and Julie startles from her stupor trance. Her eyes widen when they land on Reggie and Alex.

“How are you still here?”

“Where is he?” Alex demands.

Julie shakes her head. She wants the anguish back. She wants the grief back. This numbness is too much. “He- he’s gone. He left. I- I thought you two did too.”

Alex storms through the small space, checking behind large furniture and pounding the bathroom door open as if to make sure Julie wasn’t lying.

“We thought we’d be gone, too,” Reggie explains. “We don’t know what happened.”

Alex returns. “He’s not here,” he growls. “We were supposed to go back, it was supposed to be all three of us. Damn bastard took our place!” Alex slams his fist against the wall.

Julie gapes. “He could do that?”

Alex throws his hands up and paces back along the floor. With Alex’s back to them, Reggie answers.

“Maybe? We think so? I don’t know, it wasn’t really clear.”

“So is he just...gone?” Julie doesn’t like how small her voice sounds. Reggie’s face and Alex’s body say everything. Yes.

“So what are we supposed to do now?” Alex poses to the room.

Julie takes a shaky breath. “We keep him alive.”