Chapter Text
You can have it
For as long as you can hold it
For it will run through your fingers
Like sand
—I—
Manus Dei:
Tempus
On November 13th, 2025, four people crawl into four coffins, the lids closing with a sound like something falling into place. The final thunderclap of heaven on the final day of creation. The last grains of sand slipping through the neck of an hourglass.
Settling.
—Before—
He hurts his ankle stepping off the train platform. A little twist, a sharp pain, a sudden urge to limp even though it isn’t really helping. Scanning the crowd for a singular face while he clutches onto his bag and tries not to think about bones snapping in two.
It’s not that bad, really.
He can feel his pulse high up in his teeth.
Very far away, on a different day, a different man hurts his ankle landing a back tuck slightly wrong.
It’s not that bad, either.
Still, sometimes, when the weather coincides across continents, old wounds flair up again.
Sometimes, it rains in London at the same time as LA.
—Now—
They’re all filming. Mark and Ethan for the five year anniversary of Unus Annus—remember, you will die—and Dan and Phil for a belated halloween video—the custom coffins weren’t finished in time.
It was worth the wait, though. PJ and Sophie’s dedication to detail means they’re staring at two beautifully made things: a black coffin and a white one, with plush lining in the pattern of the ancient, shitty Ikea bedsheets; black-grey and blue-green, respectively. Eternal rest on checkerboard patterns, bought when they still had to choose between a higher thread count or food for the week. Another little joke, that they only ever used one set of sheets at a time. Idly, while checking the cameras, Dan wonders if he’ll still have night terrors once he’s dead.
If so, Phil will have one hell of an afterlife.
Speaking of Phil, he’s skittering around, all nerves from the moment they’d been dropped off at the church. He looks like he’s looking for phantoms in between flagstones. He looks like his mouth is pursed into a dejected little line that makes him more intimidating than he has any right to be. He looks beautiful.
He’s driving Dan insane.
“Stop pacing,” Dan says. “You’re fine.”
“Sure, yeah,” Phil says, and then he stops talking, and Phil being silent has never meant anything good for as long as Dan has known him.
“Look, it’s not like we’re ghost hunting or anything, right?”
“Do the ghosts know that?”
“Let’s ask.” Dan cups his hands to his mouth, shouting into the hallowed eaves, “Hello? Anyone home?”
They wait for a reply, Phil cocking his head side to side, lending his ears to all directions before he’s finally satisfied.
“See? Nothing there.”
“Still, we should be quick,” Phil says, and, very far away, a different voice says:
“Are you ready?”
And another voice answers, “Let’s do this. I don’t want to be here all day.”
And the balance of the universe shifts, tilting, struggling to put things right when two of the same ritual unknowingly begin in the same atomic moment.
On and on this delicate natural world tugs at the thin threads that keep it together, the carefully crafted scales tipping one way and then the next, until, finally, a decision is reached and enacted instantly.
Four people climb into four coffins.
None of them come out.
Outside, it begins to rain.