Chapter Text
There is a slight breeze tossing Drifter’s cloak around them when they step out into the town’s center. They exhale slowly, carefully, keeping it shallow enough to avoid triggering another coughing fit.
The early morning chill brushes against the small part of their face that he allows to be exposed to the elements. The sun still hasn’t fully risen and even the earliest risers among the townspeople are just starting to get set up for the day.
It is peaceful.
Yet the calm is incredibly somber, though he knows the thick emotion he perceives is only in his own eyes.
There is a soft but unavoidable melancholy that drapes itself over them like a third cloak as he takes the first step away from the doorway to a home that isn’t truly his-
Something sticky yet sharp incessantly itches at his lungs and throat. He shakes their head and banishes the thought.
The house was given to him along with their cloak that day. They do not deserve it, he still kind of feels like a mere beast simply claiming any unprotected den as his own, but they cannot deny its importance to him.
For it is not just his home but Beheaded’s, too. When the homunculus admitted that he didn’t care much for returning to his original world after everything, the forces in charge of repaying them all for helping to rebalance the universe had graciously, thankfully, decided to send him with Drifter and he needed somewhere to stay.
Beheaded’s continued presence has been a greater kindness than Drifter thought could be given to him. The soothing chill of his unnatural but beautiful flame, the welcome voice and booming laughter, the long minutes spent braced by sturdy but kind hands, the worried words, the safety in being able to show his face to another living being again…
Drifter’s heart pangs, ribs tightening in his chest and ears pulling back from under their helmet.
He is truly grateful for all that he’s been given, the comforts they never dared to imagine he’d ever be allowed. To leave them behind is such an unbearable sorrow. The note they wrote feels like far too little. Leaving while his partner still sleeps without a proper goodbye feels like a horrible thing to do to someone they have come to love so deeply.
Yet they let their boots crunch the grass under their feet as he takes a second step away from the doorway. Then another, fighting the instinct to cough to try and rid his chest of the tight ache that grows.
With heavy limbs they continue to walk away from the closest thing to home he’s ever had.
As the air remains sticky with their own sorrows, they approach the dark elevator he’s been avoiding for too long.
Death coils around his insides, growing tighter by the day, soon it will grow so restrictive that he will be unable to fight as he needs to be able to. He has probably already doomed people who would have survived had they been brave enough to fulfill their destiny any sooner. They have already stolen so many more days than he was ever meant to have. If he waits until his strength fails him, their death may not even be able to carry the little meaning it will. He’s running out of time and, if he keeps stalling like a frightened kit, the whole world may remain sick.
Drifter’s eyes narrow with resolve as they step onto the smooth and ominous surface of the machinery that will carry him to his tomb.
He closes his eyes and listens to it whirring to life with a heavy heart.
They had seen his fate. He has cried and screamed and begged about it.
They have come to terms with it.
They have had to.
He looks up as the elevator begins its descent. They can still see the sky for another few moments at least. They can afford to give himself that much.
The gentle breeze whispers a heartfelt goodbye before their face is fully swallowed by the earth.
He is not going to leave this place again. They are meant to trade his life for those of everyone else. He can’t help but return to wondering how many have died in the time since he would have first been able to defeat Judgment and when he’s finally getting the courage to.
He really has been incredibly selfish, though they can’t blame themselves. Not really. Not when avoiding their death meant holding onto their partner for longer.
Besides, if Drifter is really going to trade his life and the happiness of the one he loves most for the world, doesn’t it owe him at least a few happy fucking moments?
He shakes his head and the opening above them closes with finality, replacing hints of sunlight with an unnatural glow from below. They sigh and look forward again. He watches as the narrow metal tunnel gives way to a strange but awe inspiring view.
He will never see the sky again, not really. It was present in that vision but only as his body fought to linger in a new version of a place he’s only seen in his dreams. This view isn’t exactly what they will be seeing as they die but that particular sight isn’t far off anymore. Soon they will see that room, their soon-to-be grave, in person for the first time. They steady their breathing even as his ailment begins to build up in his throat- threatening to spill into a coughing fit.
Judgment was always going to kill him one way or another. He honestly probably could have guessed that long before being shown their fate- and now they’ve known for certain for a long time now.
It’s time to stop running away from that.
He tries to find comfort in knowing that the trade they’re about to make will make his life far more meaningful than most- how his sacrifice will change their entire world for the better.
He mostly just finds comfort in how Beheaded promised to remember him during a late-night conversation a while ago. A promise they genuinely think he can trust him to keep.
Drifter shakes their head again but his expression softens into something bittersweet. The greater world will never know them yet it will be touched by their death for as long as it remains but they can’t even bring themselves to care in the face of his fate. It feels pathetic, to be inching closer to such a grand and global sacrifice yet clinging to knowing one person in particular might remember them so tightly.
But they suppose nobody can fault them for it as long as he still fulfills his destiny. His world surely won’t deny him the right to be simple, to be so small, as long as he still saves it.
He closes his eyes, fighting the tears that start to well up in their eyes and biting back another cough.
They allow themselves to tremble, listening to the machinery carrying him ever deeper into their final resting place. He lets himself think of Beheaded, lets himself cling to those memories without so much shame.
This is a burial, one of very few to happen since the world first realized there were too many dead to ever bury them all.
The elevator takes a long time to reach the bottom but he just wishes it took far longer.
When it clicks into place they have to open their eyes, he has to try to take a steadying breath, they have to put themselves back into the moment.
He takes a step forward, it feels even more final than leaving the doorway had.
He forces himself to keep moving until the beast tearing at their lungs forces them to stumble and curl in on himself.
The pain and the wetness of blood are sharp reminders of the finality of this all when he is acutely aware that they need to brace for far more, for far worse, than this. This isn’t nearly enough to kill them, nothing they’ve felt so far has been, yet something will be soon.
Drifter gives a final glance back over their shoulder, letting their eyes sink into the elevator with a powerful longing for a few moments. Unless they turn back right now, the small comforts of the memories they cling to are the last they will see of Beheaded.
“I’m sorry…. goodbye.”
Their voice is torn and far too scratchy. They are certain that it is the last time it will ever be used.
He turns back to the task ahead and the click of his boots carry them towards the end they were always meant to have.