Hatchetfield.

Let Me Take the Bullet

Pete looked down at the grass of the field, up at the bleachers. The floodlights weren't on, since obviously no game was being played, and Pete could hardly see anything but vague shadows. It didn't matter what he saw, though. He knew without seeing it that Steph was crying. That the hand that held the gun was shaking. That she knew he wouldn't let this play out any other way, and that she desperately wanted it to play out any other way.

"If things were different..." Pete knew he shouldn't ask, it would only make things harder for Steph, but he had to for his own sake, "Would you go to homecoming with me?"

He heard her voice break, much like his own had, "I'd like that, Pete. I'd really like that."

He smiled to himself, tears dripping into his lap silently, "Cool."

Silence, for a moment.

He breathed in the night, "I'm ready."

And that was it.

Pete heard the earth-shattering BANG , and felt the sharp pain of the bullet going through his skull. He expected nothing else, for it to go black.

But there he was. He stood above his body, that had fallen into the grass, his blood looking black in the dark. Steph sobbed, she cradled him. Somewhere in the distance light flashed as Jägerman was dragged down to hell, but neither Steph nor Pete noticed or even cared.

"Why'd it have to be you?" Steph sobbed, his blood seeping into her clothes, "Why did you have to be so goddamn good, why'd you have to make me go and fall in love with you? This is all your fault, Spankoffski..."

Pete wanted more than anything to try to console her.

"No, I don't mean that," Steph said, her voice breaking, and she sobbed, "I don't mean it, just... Don't leave me alone here, don't go... I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

But he was dead.

"You don't have to be," Came a voice.

Pete spun. He almost screamed. The thing that stood in front of him... He knew it was the same thing that he'd summoned- a Lord in Black- but it wasn't the teen boy dressed in yellow. It was horrible. Filthy and staring, staring into his soul. It was like someone had thrown together different parts of a goat and left the amalgamation to rot for years.

Pete backed away- holy fuck- and looked over his shoulder, but Steph didn't acknowledge either Pete nor the monster.

"Hi," Said the thing from out of what could not be mistaken for a mouth, "T'noy Karaxis. The Bastard of Time."

"You're one of the Lords in Black." Pete's voice shook.

"Yes. I want to help you, Pete, believe it or not. It took some convincing, and I had to trade away some of my sniggles, but my brothers have agreed."

Pete didn't know what that meant, or what a 'sniggle' was, and he didn't think he wanted to. But the longer he looked the more the thing started to consolidate itself, to turn into something not quite so horrible.

"You're dead, Spankoffski," The thing said in its lilting, insane voice, and repeated, "But you don't have to be."

"There's a bullet in my brain," He countered before he could think better of it.

"And I could just as easily make it not so. Why are you here? Why are you not where you actually go when you die? Why am I holding you here?"

"I think you ought to tell me that one." He didn't know what gave him the courage- considering what probably happened to Max, there were still so many bad things that could happen after death. But Peter Spankoffski had died at sixteen having been pushed around his whole goddamn life, and that was not fair.