Stay

Note: This goes out to arthurtristankingsmen on Tumblr, who puts in so much work coordinating MSA Holiday Spirits gift exchange each year and making sure everyone who participates gets a good match. I get excited every year when I see the exchange pop up on my dash. This is almost exactly two months late and I apologize. The writing muse often leaves me high and dry on a whim, but I never forgot and kept wrestling with this idea until it was something I could be proud to show you. Cover photo by Zulmaury Saavedra on Unsplash

..........................................................

Cramped. Uncomfortable. Vivi squirmed, feeling very much like a chick in the shell with her legs rammed up against her chest and pressure on every side. She couldn't even draw breath. Where was she? Her bed wasn't like this, and that's certainly where she had fallen asleep.

Familiar voices traded incomprehensible words nearby. She had this horrible, crawly feeling of being watched. Wiggling a finger free, she tapped on the substance confining her.

A horrendous clash like two swords colliding filled the space. This definitely wasn't her bed and everything was terribly cold and she wanted out. She wriggled, jamming her knees against the metallic shell, and pressed hard.

CLASH.

The voices outside exclaimed, growing louder but no clearer.

Out. She needed out. There was no air! She rammed her knees forward again as hard as she could.

CLASH. CLASH. CLASH.

She burst out, shooting past two startled faces and landing on the floor against the wall.

The wall. The wall of her bedroom. The wall of her bedroom in Rest Creek hospice care. That's where she was, of course. That's where she'd been for a while.

She blinked, focusing on the jumbled pile of slacks and sweats in front of her face. Just past it, she could see a wood panel with two little screws in it. It looked like someone had put a rectangular box around her head and lit it with a dim blue... glow? There didn't seem to be a source for the light she saw by.

A harsh, static buzz crackled outside. She recognized that! Arthur... Arthur was... laughing at her?

"Wow, Vee. And I thought my first emergence was awkward. Your legs are sticking out of the dresser. You alright, there?"

She was... in... a dresser? She flailed toward the voice. Large, warm hands grabbed her wrists, hauling her out. She flinched as she passed through the front of the dresser, but a moment later she stared up into Lewis' face.

She'd seen his face every day since he'd reconciled with Arthur and rejoined the group, but this was different. Pausing, she tried to put a finger on why.

For the most part, he looked the same; a broad-shouldered funeral suit topped with a flaming skull. At times he could manage a more human visage, but he'd relied increasingly on the fearful appearance as the years passed. He always dodged questions about that decision, but to look at him now was to know that answer and so much more.

A two-pronged determination threaded through his entire being, like a support structure. She recognized, now, that she had always seen it, but never understood the language of it. It was as if someone had flipped a switch in her head and she could trace the paths of every choice he'd made and read the marks they left on his soul. If mistaken, I will change. I will be eternally alert for my mistakes. This core vow smoldered like bright embers in his form, overlying a dulled oath of vengeance that no longer supported the weight of his existence.

To look at him was to understand. He kept up the fearful appearance to remind himself of the sort of mistake he had to guard against. Reversing his will post-mortem had cost him dearly. Now she knew why he no longer had the strength to summon his mansion. His form had frayed—how had she not been aware of this before? It bled softly into the surrounding air with no defined edges.