Death has been flirting with you for a long time, but they’ve become rather annoying. After another attempt to hang out with you again, you jokingly tell them “If I was the last person on Earth, I’d maybe give you a chance.” Death firmly believes on that, and will double their work.
“No,” I said.
Her onyx eyed opened wide. Her face, placid, porcelain, a skin mask tugged tight across her conceptual space twisted into a confused frown. “No?”
“No!” I said. “Go away!” I gestured at the door. I didn’t know where the corpse was. I didn’t /want/ to know where the corpse was. But I knew there was one nearby. She always had a job nearby.
It was how Death worked.
“Hmmm…” Death hummed, clicking her fingers together. Her nails were cracked and picked down into the flesh, beaded and bloodied.
Working hard, at least. I had that going for her.
Life was easier before I’d tried to ghost Death.
“I was just in the neighborhood,” Death said, stepping inside. “I wanted to see if you wanted to come with me for the next stop.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. Not that I could smell, I’d lost that years ago, but it helped with the building migraine. “I really don’t,” I muttered, then rolled my eyes, turning away from her.
She swept through without making a sound. Her feet were nothing but suggestions, after all, and she slid into the kitchen. The fridge door opened, and she raffled through it. “You should really eat better.”
“You’re Death, shouldn’t you be telling me to eat worse?” I asked, putting my hands over my ears.
“I’m A Death, not Death. There’s a difference, and you know it.” Death replied, smoothly. She cracked off the top of a beer bottle and poured it into the void behind her teeth. “Blegh, this is awful.”
“Then why did you drink it?!” I hissed at her.
“Obviously, I did it because I wanted to,” Death replied, sliding over to the couch. She made herself at home over it, her robes kept over top of her skin. It didn’t exist until someone looked at it.
It’d come up when we were actively dating. Which we weren’t. Even if she still had the key to my house.
“I am,” I said. “90% sure that we called it off.”
“You called it off,” Death said, “Because I wasn’t doing a good enough job. We’re working on that, by the way, really, HQ is impressed I’m taking initiative and flagging targets instead of waiting for them.”
My fingers twitched, and I walked over to the window, peering out into the night. Inky, stars dappled the heavens like buckshot, the moon half eaten by a neighboring skyscraper, the spire impaling whatever god was still up there that was laughing at me.
They had to be laughing, Death had made copies of my fucking apartment key.
“Sure, whatever,” I said. “So how’s the job going?”
“Might be getting a promotion,” Death said, offhand. She turned on the tv and flicked through the news. “Stuff’s going down on the coast line, they need a few more deaths on their feet and working on it.”
I breathed out. It turned into mist as it drifted out the window and into the sky some seven stories high. “So you’re leaving?” I asked.
“Hopefully not,” Death said. “I’d have to drag you with me, and I really don’t want to burn through my favors just like that.”
I growled and hissed at her like a damn cat, turning to glare at her. With the single light from the bulb overhead, she positively glowed like a barn owl, her eyes as dark as pitch. Her fingers played across the remote like a piano.
“Wouldn’t the angels be angry at that?”
“Something something judgement day. You know how it is.”
“Ughhhhhhh…” I rolled my neck back and stared up at the ceiling instead of looking at her again. She was going to be coy again.
Honestly, she’d been the best girlfriend I’d ever had, even if I’d ended up breaking up with her over the cannibalism thing, and the whole angels holding me at gun point thing.
“How’s your work?” Death asked, lilting her tone cutely.
It’d’ve been cute if it wasn’t from Death, but… whatever.
“Decent. Fugging black team offed the project head, so we’ve been set back six months, but hey, that means I’ve got like six months more to work.”
“Rough, he didn’t die that well. Gurgled for like six hours in a small room hoping someone would hear him.”
I stared out the window. Surely the fire escape would hold me.
“It won’t,” Death replied. “You’re stuck with me unless you try to leave.”
“Oh my god.”
“He’s dead too,” Death pointed out.
“Do you have literally anything to do rather than drink my beer and watch Netflix.”
“Not for another two hours,” Death said. “How’s the medium business?”
I closed my eyes and gave up on not having this conversation, throwing myself onto the couch next to her. She gave me a cool look.
“Are we being serious now?” I asked.
“We are! You can see Death. That’s exciting.” Death said. “You should do something like that. Talk to the dead or something.”
This was the 17th time we’d had this conversation. This was the 12th time after I’d figured out she wasn’t just a goth, and was a literal actual Death, which just made it all the more awkward.
It explained why her skin was perpetually cold at least.
But well…
I could see every Death. At car accidents, I could see Death crawl out of the ground like a hoard of spiders. Murders? Death emerging from their wounds and drops of blood, congealing together like the world’s worst licorice bundles.
Maybe I didn’t want to commercialize that. That seemed like a really bad way to go, especially since Angels were patrolling the city.
Again, I didn’t want to meet up with them. Not if I didn’t have to. Not capitalizing on seeing Death was working out for me. For the most part.
My only problem was I’d decided to speak the one I’d seen waiting at the side of a traffic accident for people to clear out, playing on a smart phone.
It was stupid, even if she was cute.
Death smiled at me.
I glared at her.
She flicked over to Netflix. Dead Like Me.
God fucking dammit.
She was still cute.