Chapter Text
Boyd Crowder died at the age of forty-six. Surprising no one, it was murder; he died from being gunshot. His dubious luck had finally run out—perhaps because he’d been shot in the head this time, instead of the chest. Raylan heard the news and through the haze of resignation and the shock of genuine grief, had the distinct thought that at least it was a fairly quick and painless death, and that maybe that was more than his wayward old friend had deserved, after all. It was a slim comfort, but better than nothing.
Raylan Givens died at the age of fifty. Surprising everyone, it was from tripping and falling down a flight of stairs. He survived the fall, but was in a very poor way afterwards, and did not survive the emergency brain surgery that then followed. The handful of hours that spanned between the time of his fall and the time of his death were miserable ones, best not dwelled upon by all involved. His last moments of consciousness were pained, and he didn’t understand what was happening, that what he sensed lurking around the doorway was death.
And then, for something between eternity and the blink of an eye, there was nothing.
The bird swooped down towards the pond, eyes caught by the sparkling light glinting off its waters. The color of the water and surrounding foliage, the smell of the air, the quiet hum of insects—all these things told the bird this was a suitable place to stop. There was also a tugging in its breast that had drawn it there, one that finally eased once the bird landed on a low-hanging branch of a sycamore, a few feet above the water’s surface. The bird was no more truly cognizant of the tugging than it was of all the other reasons for stopping. It was only a bird, after all.
Raylan Givens blinked, his arms flailed reflexively in his utter disorientation, and he fell from his perch.
Before he could understand that he was falling, he wasn’t, anymore, as inky wings moved around him and picked him back up, bearing him up and away from the speeding ground, and it was only a few seconds before he realized they were his.
He had wings instead of arms.
Raylan wasn’t nearly as stupid as he pretended to be most the time. So it took very little time for him to understand that he was a bird clinging to a tree branch now, instead of a man. For some reason.
Though, embarrassingly, it wasn’t until he heard someone else’s voice that he started to consider the further implications of this.
—in Hades' toilet, figures it would be some murky mucilaginous bullshit, probably a metaphor for greed or something ‘cuz GOD IS A FUCKING HACK, don’t even have goddamn hands, what fucking petty—
Boyd? Raylan thought in utter surprise. Because the voice ranting on and on in his head was not his own. And was extremely, painfully familiar, for all that he hadn’t heard it in years.
The ranting fell silent the moment he, well, not spoke (Thought? Projected?), whatever it was, conveyed himself.
Raylan? came the breathless reply.
Raylan’s surprised if confused pleasure was a wordless thing in several ways, but he could tell it was also conveyed to Boyd, wherever he was. And he could feel an answering relieved joy being sent back his way, like a squeezing hug to his insides.
Where are you? he asked, looking around. His eyes as a bird seemed fairly astute, yet he didn’t see Boyd anywhere.
I’m in water, Boyd replied, which Raylan thought was a rather strange thing to say as a response.
I don’t know where, he added a tad irritably. All I can see is what’s in the goddamn water. Rocks, weeds, little bugs, fish…
He trailed off and Raylan could feel a throb of deep unease emanate from him, of fear-verging-terror. I can’t… I can’t see myself. I don’t know if I have a body.
Oh, Jesus, what the fuck?
Alright just—just hold on a second.
Raylan peered more closely down at the water. Something in him sang with utter confidence that Boyd was nearby, so, irrational as it was, he kept his focus narrow.
He could see insects skittering across and darting close to the surface, and fish moving below. One in particular seemed… oddly still, maybe, for a fish, just sort of slowly waving its fins around, and a thought began brewing in Raylan’s mind.
Hey, so, you can move, right, like forward and back and stuff? he asked.
Yesss, came Boyd’s hesitant reply. Raylan saw the fish sort of twitch as Boyd spoke.
Try moving to the left.
He watched as the fish immediately swam a few inches to its left.
Now the right, he said, just to be sure and also a little bit for the fun of it. And sure enough the fish obligingly moved a few inches to the right.
You’re a fish, Boyd! he thought at his friend, feeling a bit proud of his detective skills (which he felt had been pretty good so far, for a… blackbird? Crow?).
He heard a mental sigh.
I was afraid you’d say something like that, came Boyd’s doleful reply.
Well, Raylan, as glad as I am to, well, not see you but, whatever—Raylan got the mental suggestion of an impatiently waved hand, somehow—I must admit to being surprised and a little dismayed to find you here with me, old friend.
The sorrow not just in Boyd’s voice, but in the emotion he sent Raylan’s way, was like a cold, heavy wave smacking him out of nowhere.
What? Raylan managed under it’s onslaught, and let his utter confusion do the rest of the ’talking’ for him.
Boyd’s answering confusion was rather fear-tinged.
Isn’t… ain’t we in hell? he asked with extreme delicacy, as if saying it wrong might cause something extremely calamitous. Like maybe make it come true.
Raylan blinked with surprise, and looked around once more at his surroundings, this time more carefully, taking in all available details. The trees, the sky, the pond and the ground around it. The sounds and faint smells. It was early afternoon, he guessed. And in a growing, warm season that he figured was summer or close enough to it.
I—I don’t think so, he said slowly. Maybe, like, the mountains? Or, uh, something like Canada, I guess. All I see for miles around are trees.
Boyd’s burst of overwhelming dubiousness was what led Raylan to learn that a bird laughed (or at least he as a bird laughed) by fluttering its wings in place, tight and quick, and making little ‘huck’ sounds. But he at least accepted the idea that it sure didn’t seem like they were in hell, the heady relief trickling through to Raylan informed him.
Wait, why can you see all this? came the suspicion-laced question.
What do you mean?
I can’t see shit, Boyd elaborated irately. Nothing but what’s in the water around me. Meanwhile you’re seeing for miles around.
Oh, uh, I’m a bird, Raylan said with moderate embarrassment.
There was a moment of absolute blankness from Boyd.
What?
I’m a bird, Raylan repeated, and readjusted his folded wings a touch defensively. His odd little feet shifted their hold on the branch underneath him and he looked down at them doubtfully, not actually entirely sure how they worked.
He could actually sense Boyd’s thoughts whirling at a hundred miles per hour. For all it was something he had literally never felt, it was quite comforting in its familiarity.
So… it was the Hindus’ point after all, Boyd finally offered as a conclusion. At Raylan’s wordless confusion, he explained further. Reincarnation, Raylan. Our souls have been brought back after death to live again in different forms. Maybe—
Apparently you could interrupt someone even telepathically, and even when you were a bird and they were a fish.
Hold on—I’m dead?? Oh. Shit.
And apparently ‘awkward sympathy’ telepathically felt sort of like an itchy, warm blanket. Raylan shivered, fluffing his feathers in annoyance.
There were more practical considerations to occupy the mind with, for a while after that.
Raylan soon realized he was hungry. Also the longer he sat still on this sycamore branch the antsier he felt about it.
Before he could think too much about it (which was probably for the best) he flapped his wings and was airborne.
He was relieved to find that the knowledge of how to fly was simply in him, no different than the knowledge of how to walk or chew food had sat in him as a man. And he was rather elated to find that flying was, in a word, wonderful. It had all the satisfactory thrill of performance that came with driving a fast car, combined with the ludicrous freedom of movement he could have only come close to experiencing on a rollercoaster.
He loved it.
And for the next chunk of time he was distracted quite thoroughly with pleasure, so much so that Boyd finally asked, What’s got you so wound up?
Raylan did another banking dive, one where he let himself come within scant inches of Boyd’s pond (as he had started referring to it in his head). It’s… flying, he returned once he could spare the thought, feeling practically giddy, really. I can fly, Boyd.
He didn’t expect the response from Boyd to be so complex. There was a river of many emotions to wade through: pleasure on Raylan’s behalf, anxiety, cool sorrow, a vague but crushing dread Raylan didn’t dare focus on for fear he’d get caught under it, and, most potent at the finish—a bolt of purest, bitterest envy.
Raylan winced internally. He—he hadn’t meant to cause Boyd pain, hadn’t meant to rub their differences in this unbearably strange situation in his face. At the same time, he thought a bit mulishly, it wasn’t his fault he was a bird and Boyd was a fish.
In the next instant he could feel the intensity of these impressions lessen. It was a deliberate feeling, like Boyd had just discovered he had left a faucet running, and had rushed over to close it.
What kind of bird are you? came Boyd’s actual—well, not actual but close enough in this circumstance—words, and Raylan was glad to answer and move past the moment.
I think a crow? he said a tad uncertainly. Then he opened his beak and let himself make a sound, one he had felt the urge to make a few times as he had been flying, and had embarrassedly swallowed the urge down. The rasping caw, caw, caw was as distinctive as anything, if distinctly unmelodic. And finally letting himself make the noise felt good to his new, bird self, good enough that if Raylan had still been capable of it, he’d have been blushing.
Crow, he said definitively.
How perfectly mordant for you. And, ah… what kind of fish am I?
Raylan landed back on the sycamore branch to get a better look. Boyd swam up towards him, and it was a little curious how they could sense each other's proximity, Raylan supposed, though no more curious than everything else, really.
As he watched, Boyd broke the surface of the water a time or two, as if to aid his examination, or maybe just to show off. His body was sleek and its own sort of beautiful, really—all fast gleaming scales, with a flush of orange down by his chin. So small, though, Raylan thought with an odd twinge. Boyd couldn’t be more than a foot long like this. They were both so tiny now, he realized, and had no idea what to call the feeling the thought inspired. He just sort of tucked it aside. He caught a glimpse of the row of spines partway down Boyd’s back and amusement splashed through him, bright as water after a rock was thrown in.
You’re a bluegill, he said, and added with unshy humor. The dorsal spines suit you particularly well.
They reminded Raylan quite forcibly of Boyd’s old, spiky hair. The massive forehead (for a fish) was certainly inspiring memory as well, though he wasn’t as inclined to say that.
Something else occurred to him, distracting him from Boyd’s grumbling.
It takes a bluegill a good three years or so to get your size, he said, then trailed off, trying to work through what that meant before asking hurtful questions. Have you… been in this pond that long?
He could feel Boyd’s unease swell with his question, and knew his own surely matched it.
I don’t remember being in this pond for years, Boyd said quietly, cautiously. What about you, Raylan? Crows take months after hatching to be grown enough to leave the nest for good. Do… do you remember a nest? There was an awestruck horror in his voice as he asked this last bit that made Raylan flap his wings, as if to shake it off.
No, he replied hastily and with relief. No, I don't remember nothing like that. Actually, I— he paused, then continued a bit more shakily—I don’t remember anything before finding you.
Boyd stayed silent for a bit. Then he offered in troubled tones, Me either.
Raylan’s hunger came back, far more urgent for having ignored it. And perhaps his tiny body had fewer reserves than before. Anyway, he had no choice but to leave and seek food.
He was fairly sure that crows ate just about anything, which should at least have made things somewhat easier. But as he flapped around the vicinity of the pond, he saw a distinct lack of anything he would understand as edible. There weren’t any berry bushes, or anything like that. That he could see, at least. He didn’t really know what he was doing.
Jesus Christ, he was going to starve to death, too stupid to be a crow.
Boyd, he called, and immediately heard an acknowledgment in the back of his head. Have you eaten yet?
He could feel Boyd’s wary confusion in the reply and it sent a tinge of amusement into him. Yes?
How?
What do you mean?
I—I mean, Raylan faltered with embarrassment. Did you just, well, smell something, or…?
Oh. There was a pause. Um, yes, essentially. I smell all kinds of stuff. And I can see pretty good, too, though not very far, I think. And if I get close enough and I think it can fit in my mouth, I eat it. He sounded extremely, bizarrely at ease, almost proud of this fact. Been doing pretty damn good at it, too, if I say so, myself.
Definitely proud. Boyd was so odd.
Raylan let out a chuffing sound of aggravation as he made another turn around the forest clearing. Well, that all didn’t exactly help him. He landed on a bare patch of ground at the edge of where the trees thinned to meet the small grassy field next to Boyd’s pond, at a loss for what to do.
I really think you’re overthinking things, Raylan. You know how to fly. I’m sure you know how to eat, too.
Raylan flipped over a pebble with his beak as a way to vent his irritation. He found the action rather more satisfying than he had expected, so he did it again to another one. This one had a roly-poly crawling around under it and before he could even think about anything, his head darted forward and his beak snapped around it and in the next instant it was in his mouth and he swallowed it.
Well, then.
Raylan had just eaten a bug.
He blinked, and shook his little bird head. He ignored the distant psychic sound of Boyd’s laughter.
His stomach was even louder in its clamoring than before, making its thoughts on the matter clear. With as a firm an internal shrug as he could manage, he continued what he was doing.
Flipping over rocks didn’t immediately net him further gains, but he eventually found a sizable ant, which was in fact rather unpleasant, a sort of spicy, and a grasshopper, which was goddamn delicious and actually rather fun to pursue; his little hunting hops chasing its own, fleeing hops was certainly ridiculous, but ultimately effective. His nose even eventually lead him to something very tantalizing, indeed, a faint sweetness coaxing him onwards until he found its source—a scrubby little bush partially laden with what looked like the last of a harvest of purplish, oblong fruits. He ate several.
Then the anxiety that had been slowly building in him the longer he was on the ground overwhelmed him, and he flew back to his perch on the sycamore. Boyd congratulated him on his triumphs in an airy, pompously official tone, and Raylan was delighted to find he could still do something that felt just like rolling his eyes in response.
As evening approached, he felt his nerves pick up again, as well as an upwell of tiredness. He wondered a little uncertainly where and how he was meant to sleep.
Are there any other crows around, Raylan?
No, Raylan replied shortly, not knowing why Boyd was asking, and a little miffed at the phrase ‘other crows’, irrational as it may be.
Crows generally sleep together in groups. Roosts, Boyd explained, sounding like a patient professor.
Well I haven’t seen any crows, Boyd, Raylan retorted. And he wouldn’t want to sleep in a roost with them, anyway, he thought with distaste.
That would likely mean no nest, either, Boyd said musingly. Raylan largely ignored him.
He ended up shuffling his way to a denser part of the sycamore’s canopy, where his black body was almost totally surrounded by leaves. It felt more secure than being out on the branch that overlooked the water, and at the same time it kept him close to Boyd, which felt extremely important, to his only-slight embarrassment.
Goodnight, Raylan
It comforted him so well that he didn’t even have to consider it, before saying it back in just the same way.
Then he tucked his head down towards his wings, and slept.