call it fate, call it karma / Brad&Mav day 4

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[attr="class","mavText2"]It’s my last night alive.

I don’t know that yet, but I have an inkling something is wrong. I’ve lost feeling in my toes and my pulse is a leaden weight. I’m undone by every heartbeat, a hairline fracture making spiderwebs out of its ivory cage. I could waste my time sifting through fever dreams for the cure to eternity or I watch Brad crash through a silvery clearing. I thought the first thing he would lose would be his laughter, but it rings out. Slips in between the tree line and toward whatever monsters might lurk in the shadows and-

I am grateful I was wrong.

This place could not ruin Brad Bradford, and I will not let it ruin me.

I can choose to die happy.

”Perfect place for a picnic, don’t you think?” I call out. Brad is dancing with the moon. He makes friends with the night blossoms, loses Toad the frog among them only for the slimy amphibian to lead back onto his nose when he tires of the chase. Our clothes have dried out, bloodstains are all that remain of the tsunami. What are memories but stories penned in prettier ink? I lose track of the pain along with the rise and fall of my chest. Just another thing we managed to survive.

Wherever Flo, Eulalie, and Andromache are, I hope they’re okay.

He trips over his feet walking over to me, laughing about being clumsy. I lie and I agree, pretend I don’t see the ways his wounds have warped in on themselves. ”Come sit, I’ve set it up.” There’s no picnic basket or blanket. My stomach growls and the cracks in my lips wet with blood around my smile. I can feel my bones shift around strained muscles when I pretend to clear a place for him across from me. ”You’ll never believe it, I had those tiny cakes but some hamsters came and stole them just before you got here. Seems like something always ruins our dates.”

Just like that I am a little boy again. Rolling down a grassy hill, racing with Chad while Gavin sits at top and chastises us for being stupid. My brother’s face was so often twisted up in contempt in my memories, not that I blame him. He died in an agony he did not deserve.

The firefly that followed me from the forests now rests on my knee. Its light flickers feebly. Beautiful, good things cannot live for very long. They burn up from the inside out.

I think this as I cup Brad's cheek. Feel the muscles in his jaw tense feebly under my touch.

I lose track of how long Brad and I sit like this. Cross-legged, facing each other. Wearing smiles stained with blood and clay. I start to feel it grit between my teeth. My throat aches from speaking as I weave my own stories and call them memories, ”When we get out of here I want to move in with you.” My head falls forward, onto his shoulder. He drapes an arm around my back. Heavy, warm, held - I dream. ”Curl up by the fireplace when the snow comes and you’ll have to warm my fingers because I can’t seem to do it myself.”

Can’t feel them now but I know they hold Brad. With hesitance and reverence, the only way I know how. ”We’ll get old and I’ll get grumpier. I’ll complain that my knees have gone bad and make you carry me upstairs every night.”

”Maybe we’ll have grandkids. Maybe they’ll visit and they’ll be scared of mean old me but they’ll love you, you’ll bake cookies with them until the whole house smells unbearably sweet and I have to sit on the porch and watch the sun set.” I can see it peaking through the treeline now, playing in the petals. The night is almost over, ”And when you send them home you’ll come join me. Make sure I’m not alone because I’ve always had a habit of finding myself there. You’re so annoying when you chase me.”

My hands have stopped listening to me but at least they are wrapped around his. Tangled together, the tips of my nails digging into the valleys between his knuckles. There is no telling where Maverick ends and Brad begins, only that the both are dying. ”Promise me you always will.”

Thoughts have slowed to a crawl, the world looks different now. Farther away, like it is not mine to have anymore. It takes effort to lift my head up off Brad’s shoulder, to rest my forehead against his. I have to think about raising the corners of my lips, smiling at him as the sun breaks the canopy.

Dawn is golden, and death is too.