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Death is not something to be trifled with. In fact, Death is the last thing you’re supposed to tease like this. Death likes to be left alone, because all He knows is being alone. Eddie remembers this. His grandmother had told him more times than he can count, pulling him onto her lap and brushing his hair out of his face even as he tried to squirm away. “You let Death be,” she told him, fingers dancing across his brow. “Let sleeping corpses lie. He isn’t someone you want to invite in.”
He’d just nodded before asking if he could go skate again. That was nice, when he was little, and all he had to worry about was when the lake in his neighborhood would freeze over and if his friends would be allowed to stay out and skate with him after dark. Before the ice had given way one night, right beneath the goal, and the lake had swallowed him, filling his pads and his mask and his lungs.
When he’d woken up, bundled in more blankets than he could count and set by the crackling fire, he sees the concerned face of his parents and his grandmother, huddled around him like a cloud. Beyond their shoulders, he catches the glimpse of a man in the corner. He’s unlike anyone Eddie has ever seen; his hair falls in loose curls to his shoulders, and his all-black suit stands out against the polished wood of their kitchen cabinets. It’s his eyes, though, that Eddie remembers even now. He fixes Eddie with a burning stare, eyes burning like molten gold, and then he vanishes.
Eddie asks about him later, and his grandmother immediately stands, bolting their door shut with iron and spreading a thick line of salt across the threshold. His mother had picked up him, whispering about how he was tired, how it happens, and he’s had a very long day, and wouldn’t he like to get some sleep?
He does, eventually, but the smell of burning sage leaks under his door, and he hears voices all night long, soft whispers throughout the night.
The first time it happens, it’s on accident. He’s working in an animal shelter between jobs, because he loves dogs and he loves seeing families happy leaving with their new friend. It’s something small, just to fill his hours, but he doesn’t mind it.
He’s doing his rounds, shaking food into the bowls that need it, when he slows to a stop in front of a cage. The dog inside is flopped over, looking even smaller than usual. Eddie glances to the tag - it says “Bella” on the side, and he frowns, bending to his knees and undoing the latch with practice.
“Hey,” he coos, reaching out slowly until he can get both hands on her tiny little body. She’s still, and he’s immediately wracked with worry. He brings the dog closer, cradling her to his chest. He hasn’t had to deal with this yet, and as he feels himself starting to tear up he sees a single spark of purple energy spit out from his index finger. He blinks furiously, trying to clear the water from his lids, but it’s fruitless, just sending fat tears rolling down his cheeks. Whatever he thought he’d seen, it was gone now.
He’s about to place her down to go get his boss when she trembles in his hands, barking weakly. He can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of him, holding her closer as she yips now, suddenly full of energy, sitting up and pawing at his face.
“Yeah, yeah,” he says softly, holding her up so he can press a kiss to her forehead. “You’re a precious one, did you know that?”
“How kind,” a voice drawls behind him, and he jumps, bringing Bella closer to his chest as he scrambles backward, pushing his back up against the cage on the opposite wall. A man is standing in front of him, brushing dust that doesn’t exist off the shoulder of his exquisitely tailored suit coat. “You flatter me.”
Eddie’s mouth is moving, but no sound is coming out. The man laughs, running a hand through his hair, pressing the curls flatter to his head. “Oh dear. I see.” A journal materializes out of nowhere, along with a pen, and the man is marking something down slowly, glancing up over the edge of the book every so often. “How do you pronounce your last name? It’s been a few centuries, my Swedish is getting pretty rusty.”
“Who are you?” Eddie says instead, and the man sighs, making another mark and closing the book.
“We’ve met before. You could at least do me the honor of remembering.” The man says, and Eddie notices that his eyes are warm. Too warm. “Of course, I suppose I can’t exactly expect that. Not a lot of people do remember me. It’s unfortunate, not going to lie, but you know, the whole trauma thing, I get it. I feel like I have a face worth remembering, but what can you do about that?”
Bella makes another small noise, worming her way into the crook of Eddie’s elbow, and the man hums, looking down at her. “Right, we have to talk about this. It’s a pretty minor crime, all things considered, and it looks like you did it on accident, so I don’t have to take your soul quite yet.”
“My what?” Eddie manages, and the man glances back up at him. His eyes are burning, and Eddie wants to turn away but he feels pinned in place, like a particularly stupid deer staring down a wolf.
“Your soul,” the man repeats, then sighs. “Hi, Eddie. It’s me, Death.” He pauses. Eddie just keeps staring at him. “This is the part where you start begging for your life,” the man suggests, but Eddie does nothing.
“Mortals have become so boring,” he says, then snaps his fingers. A different book shows up, and this time he takes a pencil, erasing something furiously before fixing whatever it was. “Since it was minor, I’m letting you off. But don’t make a habit of this now, you hear?”
“Make a habit of what?” Eddie asks, but the air freezes for a second before sucking forward, and with a soft pop the man is gone, leaving behind nothing but the smell of burning.
He’s halfway to standing before he remembers the strange man in his house all those years ago with the same eyes. Bella seems more eager now, twisting in his arms and trying to get a good look at his face, but he feels frozen. He’s eventually knocked out of his reverie by the feeling of her tongue on his arm, and he shakes his head before he stands up, bringing her closer.
“Let’s get you cleaned up,” he says softly, glancing around the halls as he does. It looks like it might be times to change jobs again.
He doesn’t see Death again, but he keeps bouncing between odd jobs, never able to hold down anything for more than a month. Those who know about the old tales, the old magics, they don’t trust him, and Eddie can feel it as soon as he walks past them. He hardly makes it a week in those places, cast out with a whispered curse and a glare he feels in his soul.
So he moves. He has cousins in New York, and it seems as good a place as any. Sweden is too superstitious, too tied to the past. The people he meets in America don’t even give him a second glance. He gets a job in a morgue right outside of the city, and it’s nothing but cleaning floors and sweeping behind the corners of the examination tables, but he doesn’t puke at the sight of blood and that’s enough for his new boss.
He’s leaving work one night when he hears a commotion in the alleyway leading from one street to the next. He has pepper spray in the last pocket of his backpack, and he pulls it out slowly, making his way down the wall. He’s nearly there when a gunshot rings out, and he flattens himself to the wall immediately. Two figures come racing out of the alley, too preoccupied to see Eddie, and the minute they’re gone, he’s bolting down the alley.
There’s a man lying there, sprawled out on the cement, coat open and wallet tossed a few feet away. He’s still, blood coating his head liberally, and Eddie clutches at his shoulder, pressing two fingers into his neck, looking for a pulse. For a moment too long, there’s nothing, but then - then it kicks back to life, and Eddie breathes out shakily, pulling away as the man’s eyes flutter open. “Where am I?” He gasps out, and Eddie shifts back even further, trying not to notice the blood on his hands.
The man barely seems to notice him, sitting up slowly, wiping the blood from his face with shaking hands. “I need to go,” he says, scrambling to his feet. Eddie is up in an instant, ready to help him, but the man makes it only three steps down the alleyway before he’s crumpling to the ground.
Eddie’s hands fly up to his mouth, eyes wide as he watches the man collapse. He’s halfway to his side again when he notices him. Death is standing there, scythe only halfway through its downward arc, and he’s pulling something toward him, glowing and pale.
He meets Eddie’s eyes. “You again.” With a snap, the weapon and the fog is gone, and the man is standing before him dressed impeccably in a spotless suit with not a single hair out of place. “Weren’t you in Sweden?”
“I moved.” Eddie says softly, glancing down at the body at Death’s feet. “What - what did you do to him?”
Death sighs, stepping
through
the body, oh god, until he’s almost too close for comfort. “I killed him, because you so very kindly thought it would be great fun to go around waking the dead.”
“I didn’t mean to,” Eddie protests, because he really didn’t, and he doesn’t know how this keeps happening. Death looks him over, probably taking in Eddie’s disheveled appearance, the way his hands still smell like bleach.
“Do you even know?” He asks, taking yet another step forward. “What you can do? Do you understand?”
Eddie lifts his hands slowly, trying to get them to stop shaking. “No.” His voice doesn’t waver, but his body is still trembling. Death’s mere presence has turned the alleyway into an icebox. “I can’t do anything. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Death smiles, but it’s wry. “Of course you don’t. It’s always the baby necromancers that cause the most trouble, you know. Sweet and cute,” his fingers trail down Eddie’s cheek, and he swears he feels bones on his skin, “but so clueless.”
“I’m not a necromancer,” he protests, but it sounds hollow even to his own ears. He’d never shown any magical aptitude, but it wasn’t impossible. And even he couldn’t explain away how this man had stood up instantly. “I mean - I don’t know, if I am. I’m not trying to.”
Death rolls his eyes. It’s so childish Eddie almost wants to laugh. “Yes, well, if you could try a bit harder? My job is busy, you know, shepherding lost souls to the afterlife doesn’t just take a break because you’ve got it in your head to bring every sad, lost dead thing you see back to life.”
“And if I don’t?” He asks, shoving his hands in his pockets because he’s still shaking like a leaf. Like a coward.
Death smiles, but it doesn’t feel welcoming. It reminds Eddie of watching shark documentaries late at night, how they bare their teeth before going in for the kill. “I take your soul back with me a few dozen years early.”
Eddie can only stare. Death gazes back, slow and measured, before his head lifts, looking to the sky. “Time for me to go,” he says, scythe rematerializing back in his hand. “Hopefully this will be our last meeting.”
“Wait,” Eddie manages, right as Death turns his back. “Your name.”
Death laughs, and it sounds like ice shattering. “Luongo. At least, it was. When I was alive.” And then Eddie is alone in the alleyway, left with nothing but a creeping sense of dread in the back of his mind.
He can’t stop thinking about Luongo, as hard as he tries. And he keeps doing it, is the problem. The morgue is the only place he’s been able to find consistent work, because they don’t care how much he trips over his English as long as he keeps everything clean and in working order. Sometimes, though, he can’t help himself, and passes a firm hand over the bodies. They only spark awake for seconds, just enough for their eyes to fly open and one single breath before Eddie’s magic leaves them, flowing out on the exhale.
It’s always enough, though. Luongo is there every time, with his books and his pens and his wry smile and his never-ending chastisement. Eddie wonders when he’ll actually make good on his threats of reaping.
And yet Eddie can’t chase him from his mind. Luongo is taking up too much space in his thoughts, bouncing between pure instinctual fear and something warmer, something Eddie doesn’t want to touch yet. Even Bella seems to notice his distraction, appropriately offended at the sudden drop in attention.
At this point, he doesn’t even bring the bodies to life to see if he can. He’s learning a bit more about his control, how to avoid awakening everything he touches, but every time he does, Luongo - “Just call me Lu, dearest, I see you nearly every month” - is there. He doesn’t know how to stop. It’s not like he has friends in the States, and if Death is the only other entity he sees beside his coworkers and his landlady, then - well, there’s certainly something wrong, but Eddie doesn’t care to dwell on that for too long.
He’d seen Lu only a few days ago, but he found himself in his kitchen, looking at the beetle on his floor. Bella had brought it to him, dropping the carcass onto the linoleum before wandering away. Slowly, slowly, he picks the bug up, cradling it in his hands. This time, he sees the purple light jump from his skin to the bug. He drops the creature from his hands as it starts moving, and hears the sound of the air tearing itself in half before he even sees anything.
His throat is working hard. The beetle is scuttling around the table, clearly unaware of the extra presence in the space. Eddie, meanwhile, can’t tear his eyes away. Luongo smiles wryly at him, and with a wave of his hand, his scythe disappears and the small, black-bound book Eddie is so accustomed to seeing floats out of nothingness. “Do me a favor, darling,” he says softly, pulling a pen from behind his ear, “make my job a little easier? Just for today?”
Eddie nods, bringing his hand down on the beetle without another thought. Lu nods his head swiftly, making a mark in the book before vanishing that too. It’s suddenly too quiet. Eddie’s breaths sound too loud to his own ears; that must be what happens when you’re the only one breathing.
“There are easier ways to summon me.” Luongo says, taking a few steps forward into Eddie’s modest sitting room. His basic instincts are trying to pull him out of the room, screaming at him to turn and run, but he knows better now. He knows he doesn’t want to. “You can’t keep stealing souls like this.”
“At least it was just a bug.” He says, digging his fingers into the table.
Luongo is standing directly across from him, eyes darker than Eddie’s ever seen, almost a normal brown. “Moving away from people?”
Eddie swallows again. “For now,” he whispers, and he hates how scared he sounds, but Luongo doesn’t even seem like he’s noticed.
“What
do
you want from me?” He asks instead, reaching across with his hand to brush barely-there fingers across Eddie’s cheek. Eddie shivers, taking a sharp breath as Luongo’s cold skin presses into his face. “This is the third time this month.”
Eddie lets his eyes slide closed as Luongo keeps his hand there, fingers curling down onto his neck. “You know what I want,” he says, softly as he can, but he knows Lu can hear him anyway. “You know.”
Luongo hums, and then he phases through the table until he’s pressed up against Eddie, a solid wall of ice. “I do know,” he says, and then he ducks his head, sliding his hand around to tangle in Eddie’s hair. “You know what they say,” he murmurs, “about the kiss of Death?”
Eddie shakes his head, eyes still closed. He can hear Lu laugh, soft, and the exhale of air against his cheek is only slightly warmer than the touch of his hand. “He’s the last kiss you ever get.”
His lips are surprisingly solid for being half-corporeal, and Eddie gasps into his mouth, surging up into Lu’s arms. It’s like being surrounded by snow, wrapped up in winter’s own grasp, but Eddie wouldn’t trade it for the world, the way Lu’s fingers tighten in his hair, just a bit too long now, and the way Eddie can almost feel the rasp of his suit coat against his bare arms.
When they pull apart, Lu’s eyes are glowing, a radiant gold that reminds Eddie of a dying star. “Please,” Eddie says, but he doesn’t know what he’s asking for, doesn’t know what Death can give a living man. “Lu, please.”
Luongo just kisses him again, digging skeletal fingers into the back of Eddie’s hips and starting to walk toward the couch. Eddie slams into it hard, but he can’t bring himself to care, not when Lu is still kissing him like that, stealing Eddie’s breath with ease.
He has to pull away eventually, panting as he stares up at Lu’s face. “I need more,” he manages to say, and Eddie swears he sees Lu’s eyes actually flare up. He shifts both his hands around to Lu’s chest, clutching at the lapels of his suit. “Give me everything.”
Lu kisses him one last time, but it’s soft, tender. “Sit on the couch,” he whispers against Eddie’s lips, and Eddie trips to comply, almost face-planting onto the carpet but he’s seated on the edge of the couch fast enough, Lu standing in between his legs.
“Do you trust me?” He asks, taking Eddie’s hand in his own. He’s nodding before he can even think about how foolish it is, trusting Death like this. Lu just squeezes his hand before letting it fall, taking a step back. “Relax,” he says, and Eddie is melting back into the cushions instantly.
And then Lu is gone, replaced by a floating ball of pure energy, the air around him shimmering like a heat wave. “Remember, trust me.” Eddie hears his voice, but it sounds like it’s coming from everywhere, filling the space and reverberating through Eddie’s chest. “And relax.”
He takes a deep breath, and in between that second and the next, Lu is gone. He exhales roughly, but suddenly there’s something tingling in his chest, spreading down his arms, all the way to his fingers. “Lu?” He asks softly, and he feels something warm in his very mind, twisting around his thoughts and coloring them thick and heavy like honey. “You’re in me,” he says softly, and he can’t hear anything but he feels Lu laughing.
Let me take control,
he hears suddenly, as if Lu was whispering directly into his ear, and his breath catches in his throat but he nods, trying to relax even just a bit more, letting his arms fall to his sides, lose and easy.
And suddenly he’s not looking out his own eyes anymore. Or - he is, but as if he’s behind a wall, and it’s all distant, fuzzy. He feels a thrum of anticipation shake through his body, and then his hand is lifting, but he isn’t moving it.
“Beautiful,” he hears, and his voice sounds a little deeper, the vowels a little rounder. Lu twists Eddie’s hand around a few times, before smoothing through Eddie’s hair. Eddie feels every sensation in a muted sense, as if he’s submerged in water. Lu, however, seems absolutely fascinated, and Eddie can feel him smiling.
“Let me,” he repeats, and Eddie pulls back further, until all that he can understand is feelings and the pounding of his own heart. Lu moves his hand down his stomach, firm even over the thin t-shirt Eddie had thrown on this morning. HIs hands are warm - he’d never noticed that before.
“All of you is warm,” Lu says, tinged with humor, before running both palms over his thighs. Eddie feels his body shiver, and Lu does laugh this time, settling his hands on his stomach. “Is this okay?”
Eddie can’t nod, so he just pushes out as much eagerness and pleasure as he can, flooding his own mind. Lu gasps softly, one hand drifting up to ghost over his lips. He brings his fingers back down over his chest, pulling the neckline of Eddie’s shirt as low as it will go, trying to touch as much skin as he can.
Please
, Eddie forces out, and Lu laughs again, but it’s breathier now. He’s fumbling with the button on Eddie’s jeans, but they come undone easily enough, and Lu doesn’t waste any time pushing the fabric down to his ankles. He drags his fingers through the hair on Eddie’s thighs, pulling hard in a way that isn’t entirely uncomfortable. Eddie hopes it comes across, but his body seems to be reacting on its own, and his hips jump off the couch ever so slightly.
“You like this,” Lu breathes out, as if he hadn’t noticed quite yet, and then he palms over Eddie’s dick and they both whimper at the same time, a feedback loop in the otherwise quiet apartment. “Tell me how to touch you,” Lu says, and Eddie would whine if he could, but instead he scrambles out of the fog in his brain he’s sunken into, trying to figure out how to be coherent when he’s literally sharing his body with Death.
Tease me,
he says, and Lu’s hand moves back to his thigh immediately.
Touch my chest, too. And-
he doesn’t know how to get it all across, but Lu seems to already be tired of waiting, pushing his free hand up Eddie’s shirt, taking a nipple in between his fingers and rolling it hard. Eddie feels himself melt with pleasure, and it radiates off of his every thought. Lu is gasping now, softly but eagerly, and Eddie wonders if this is what he sounds like every time.
More
, he says, and Lu complies, gripping his dick through his briefs. Eddie feels it, almost more intensely than usual, and lets the sensation rush over his mind, pleasure tingling all over every thought. Lu hums softly, brushing his thumb over the head of Eddie’s dick, and they both feel his body shudder as if electrocuted.
It doesn’t take long for Lu to get impatient, pushing Eddie’s briefs down onto the floor and taking his dick in hand. “Gorgeous,” Lu says softly, and Eddie wonders if his body blushes at that. He knows he would be, if Lu had told him in person, but he’s suddenly not thinking about that as Lu twists his wrist, sending sparks up Eddie’s spine.
“You feel this?” He asks softly, but doesn’t stop his motions, twisting his palm over the head of his dick, and it takes Eddie a second to collect his thoughts.
All of it,
he says, trying to magnify the hum of pleasure simmering through his brain. Lu seems to understand, moving his hand faster, and all Eddie can hear is the slick sound of skin on skin, every sensation magnified beyond words.
He can feel the heat building low in his stomach, and he whines, louder than expected, and it takes him a second to realize Lu made the noise himself. He’s desperate, getting closer and closer, but -
play with my ass,
he says, ashamed for no reason. Lu is in his mind. They were already well beyond this point.
Lu just nods, bringing his free hand to his mouth, sucking two fingers between his lips and curling his tongue around the digits. Eddie feels his toes curl, and his brain feels full to bursting, his entire self overcome. All it takes is the softest pressure of a finger at his entrance and he’s coming, hard and fast and desperate.
He comes back to himself slowly, and it’s not until he’s opening his own eyes that he realizes Lu is entirely gone.
Eddie finds himself at the graveyard a few times in the next weeks, but he can’t bring himself to actually do anything beside walk amongst the crumbling headstones and breathe into the freezing winter air, hunching over against the wind. He hadn’t spoken to Lu since their...experience, unable to find the spark to awaken even a frozen bird on his doorstep, let alone a whole person.
Instead, he goes to the library. There are immigration records there, some piled high across the back wall in peeling cardboard boxes, others still scanned into computers and on disk drives and flash drives. He has nearly nothing to work with, just a last name and vague understanding of a time period, but if there’s one thing he does have it’s time.
Finally, nearly two months later, he finds it.
Luongo,
buried in a ship manifest from the early nineteenth century, old enough that even on the scan the ink is nearly impossible to decipher. He can’t make out any other names, but there’s enough of the document left to discover where the ship had left from.
He’s booked a flight to Naples within the hour.
It’s a nearly thirteen-hour ordeal, but he stops in Stockholm for a reason, leaving the airport for just long enough to visit a small store he remembers from visits to the city with his mother. The same old man sits behind the desk, looking as if he’d never moved since Eddie had moved away.
He finds what he needs easily enough, and he’s halfway through digging around in his wallet for whatever
kronor
he has left over from his last visit home when the man’s hand comes up. He stops slowly, looking up into his eyes. They’re a pale, icy blue, and they unsettle Eddie even now. “You are lucky your breath is your own,” he murmurs, pressing his fingers to Eddie’s forehead. They’re scalding, but he forces himself not to pull away. “You deal with dark forces. They follow you, they cling to you. Go now, and bring them near me no more.”
He nods jerkily, gathering his purchases in his arms and fleeing before anything more cryptic words can be spilled. He’s back in another plane only thirty minutes later, carry on now full of sapphires and canvas bags.
It’s another three hour drive from Naples to Santa Paolina, but he can feel the old power beneath his feet now, the old gods crying out from the ether. He can draw on this, he knows, and forces the sparks of magic he still has outward, searching for something stronger to anchor on.
By the time he’s standing in the only graveyard in the tiny town, alone except for the howling winds and the still-bright stars, he feels stronger than he has in decades. It’s enough to lead him to the right gravestone on only the third try, and he stands in front of it for a second, running his fingers over cold stone.
Roberto
. It’s a nice name, he thinks. It suits the man who has become Death himself, and Eddie runs his fingers over the engraving slowly. The dates beneath are faded, old enough that even seeing the years would make time nearly incomprehensible. Instead, Eddie just falls to his knees, placing his bare hands on the frozen earth. He can feel the body beneath him, and his hands are glowing a soft purple now as he reaches down, trying to find whatever bones lie buried.
There’s barely anything left behind. But there’s something; Eddie can feel his magic kick back, rebounding off enough of the remains. He can do this.
He digs into his bag, pulling out the sapphires and arranging them in a circle, hands guiding themselves. He finds where the heart would be, and places the final gemstone right above it. The bone dust follows, and even in the wind, it falls sure and true, collecting in little piles at the head and sternum, and Eddie uses the last bits to place the hands and feet.
The moon water is last, and he closes his eyes, sitting back on his heels. “Find him,” he whispers, and smashes the bottle against the grass. When he opens his eyes, a crude outline of a body is scattered across the ground, dewdrops marking out shoulders and legs and a torso. He breathes in shakily, wiping his palms on his jeans before placing them next to the central sapphire. “Bring his soul,” he intones, and one of the gems in the circle lights up, purple sparks dancing across the surface. “His mind,” the second does the same. “His breath, his blood, his body.” WIth each word, the sapphires spark to life, until the five in the circle are lit. Leaving only the middle.
He takes another breath, reaching into his bag with his left hand before raising his right. “Bring him to me,” he whispers, before digging the point of the bone dagger into his palm, sending blood spraying out onto the center crystal.
It sparks to full brightness only seconds later, and suddenly the glow is building and building until Eddie can’t see anything save for the immense flood of light, and then it’s boring through his eyes and he feels himself get thrown backward, slamming into one of the tougher headstones.
When he blinks his eyes open, there’s only echoing, painful silence. The stones are scattered across the ground, the only evidence of the spell still remaining. The earth in front of him remains unturned. He rubs his eyes hard now, before crawling forward, picking up each of the stones in shaking hands. It had to work. He didn’t know what else to do, this
had
to work.
“Eddie.” His head flies up, sapphires thudding from his palm. Lu is standing there, behind his own gravestone, eyes glowing and achingly sad, scythe in his other hand. “Oh, Eddie.”
He feels the tears budding, and his heart siezes up, fire sweeping through his bones. “Don’t,” he says, turning his head to the side. “Just - don’t.”
Lu’s hand is soft under his chin, but he doesn’t try to move Eddie’s face. He’s infinitely grateful. “There are easier ways to summon me,” he says again, soft this time, moving his hand down to Eddie’s shoulder. “But you can’t. Not like this.”
He scrubs his palms over his eyes, but the tears are falling anyway, hot and awful. “I want you,” he whispers, and his voice breaks and he sounds pathetic and stupid. “I need you. Lu,” he can’t finish, and finally he turns to look at him, tears still streaming down his cheeks.
Lu looks almost human. His skin is darker here, not undercut with the sickly pale hue that Eddie had grown accustomed to. His eyes, too, don’t burn as hot, and his hand feels almost warm in the biting night air. “I know.” He murmurs, stroking a finger across Eddie’s cheekbone. “I know.”
Eddie falls forward and Lu lets him, gathering him close to his chest. “I love you,” Eddie sobs, clutching at Lu’s jacket, twisting the ephemeral fabric around his fingers. “I love you.”
Lu rocks him slowly, and they stay there, on top of his grave, Eddie cradled in Death’s arms.