Back from the Dead
As soon as shadows kept them safe from discovery, Star ditched the bartender. After all... she didn't want him getting the wrong idea. That was one guy who wasn't coming home for the night.
The distance to where she'd parked her car was four, maybe five blocks. The blonde hurried down the road on her impractical shoes and wrapped her arms tight. It wasn't that cold, but compared to the temperature the air had reached in the bar, outdoors felt practically like frostbite. It was loud, too, with rebel tires squalling and voices shouting and the distant complaint of sirens. She was one girl out of how many rebels? The likelihood of getting followed by an Agent was slim.
What worried her wasn't them. It was the so-called illegals. They had gathered for a private talk, but now they were roaming the streets in who knew what angry states. Plus, there was a betrayer amongst them. Suspicion could get the best of even calm, rational temperaments...
So she had heard.
What was she supposed to do about Leah? Sooner or later, the Feds were going to call the hybrid out on her witchy roommate. The best plan of action was to pack her bags and head for the hills. Or possibly Victoria's hotel suite. Having no idea about the break-up she had more-or-less caused, Star hadn't any reason to doubt she'd be welcomed with open arms. "Yeah," she verbally persuaded herself. "Homeless couch hopper. I can handle that. Maybe I can pay her off in platelet donations." She snorted, and was about to break into a jog when her high heel snapped like a twig.
"Oh, shit!" Star hopped, dangling the errant footwear like it was covered in brown. "Sh- to the motherfucking -it." Teetering against an old truck tailgate, she broke the stem completely off and contemplated what kind of mettle it would take to put her bare feet on the ground.
The ghost in the shadows continued to watch the young wiccan. His breath stuck in his lungs as though the oxygen had been replaced with burning hot tar. After all this time, after coming back from the other side… the one moment he had dreamed of, the moment that he lay tortured in bed over night after night, it had finally come.
Tyler's mind flashed an old memory. He was just a teenager, and he was fighting his first demon one on one. In spite of all his training, coaching, and encouraging, there was a voice in the back of his brain that told him victory was impossible. That same voice whispered in his cranium now, and a chill ran down the back of Tyler's spine. So Tyler did now what he had done in that very first brawl. He took a deep breath, put one foot in front of another, and went forward with as much confidence as he could muster.
He didn't speak. There were no right words that would soften the shock. He kept his eyes fixed on Star, and waited for her to see him and begin the process of realizing what was happening.
Footsteps.
As she leaned against the truck, Star cut an eye over her shoulder, attempting to see if the stranger was coming her way or simply passing by. All her peripheral vision would give her was a dark figure, masculine-shaped, and definitely on the prowl. Saying a silent prayer that she was leaning on his vehicle and nothing more, the blonde slipped the broken shoe back on her foot. She began to march towards her car, without any grace in her lopsided steps, but with a certain determination of posture.
Why weren't his keys jangling?
If you try anything, I'll blow your balls off. I know a spell that'll squeeze them like two Florida oranges.
"I'm so freaking ser-iousss," she sing-songed under her breath. Once, Star had seen an episode of Oprah about a victim of an attempted sexual assault. This queen of improvisation had decided to turn the tables and, instead of repeatedly protesting, began to act like her attacker was the second coming. Apparently moaning 'ooh baby, yeah give it to me' would wig them sufficiently to fend off the attack. Not that Star thought this dude behind her was a rape artist, but she wondered if kidnapping or battery were similar concepts. How would yelling, 'Aw hell yeah, take me! Kidnap the fuck out of me! Punch me on the nose!' go over?
She began to reach for her keys, and realized too late that they were in her pocketbook. On the floor of Davey's Locker. Son of a bitch. Magical hot-wiring, don't fail me now.
Slowly, a welcomed grin spread slightly across Ty's face. His subtle approach hadn't taken into account the personality of the woman he was dealing with. Hell, she was probably thinking up some wickedly evil spell, in case he was some attacker. Hopefully, he wouldn't find a size two thong magically whisked up his ass or anything. He pushed his dark hair out of his face and kept pace behind her, trying to catch up.
“Star, wait,” he called, holding out an arm as if to hold her in place. “Star, please. It's me.” Between words, he could hear his boots scrape against the loose stone and broken up pavement underneath his feet. He fought the urge to run.
“It's Tyler.”
Go faster, he knows who you are.
But upon that spoken name, and hearing a voice to match it, all things came to a screeching halt. Her feet most notably, in a disjointed manner that left her ankle twisting. The wiccan tripped out of her shoe. The answering gasp of surprise-pain was the only reason breath happened at all.
Star left her back to him.
Oh, it hurt. It hurt in ways she had blocked out, like the sting of her boyfriend's ashes pelting against her ankles. One instant of remembering, and a black, sucking hole opened in her chest. Tyler.
It hurt like the tape-recorded memory of someone that she had loved and would never be with again. Because many things were possible. But the resurrection of a body she'd identified on a coroner's table, seen chewed to bits and bluish-gray, and later scattered in the sea? That was for dreamers, a thing that Star simply was not.
Don't look. What if it wore his face, too? He was the most beautiful boy she'd ever laid eyes on. People said that about their lovers, and usually they were lying, but with Ty it had been the truth. His body was a piece of art, the most beautiful thing in her aesthetically-overkilled life that she had ever gotten to touch, and now when she dreamed of him, he was on a steel table with gaping holes and shredded pieces missing.
Star curled her fingers into her palms. The bruising skin of her left foot hovered just above the asphalt, asking to be put down. She could grind on it until the ligaments snapped. "You think this is funny?" Emotional discord rolled off her shoulders in waves. "Smart?"
Some words, when spoken, evaporated in the air shortly after passing over the lips. Other words had the power to cut right though a person, right through the very essence of who they were. Words with the power to change everything inside into something completely different. Words that carried the power of transcendence.
Words that change what your future was to what it has now become.
“Star,” he said again. The slight breeze kept his dark locks off of his face, leaving his nervous hands precious little to keep occupied. He searched for the right words to say, in order to prove he was who he said he was. He never had been very smart when it came to handling women, but he knew enough to not be sure whether it would hurt her more for him to be who he truly was, or an imposter out to set her up.
“Come close enough to smell me.” It was the only thing his brain could think of. All of those times that he'd imagined this moment, he never had thought of what to say. He knew that in the moment, no words would be right, but anything that sounded rehearsed would simply be an injustice.
“Breath me in. Then, you'll know for sure.”
"I can't look at you!" she blurted out, flinging her hands in little movements that slapped the air.
Why she had confessed it, she wasn't sure. Like it was really him, or like she needed it to be, to stop the ache that reached out from her soul. "I can't look at you if you're not him, and you're not him." She felt her nose running and rubbed the moisture away. There was salt on the back of her fingers; it coming out of her eyes. In humiliating, record time, she had gotten the cry-voice. She sniffed. "He was a jackass who got himself missing and killed and I didn't even know it for weeks, because the idiot was always missing."
Would he really smell like Tyler, if she stuck her nose in the hollow underneath his chin? Would his biceps feel the same, hard and rounded, flexing because she was the kind of girl who wanted him to?
Maybe she didn't care. Star might be just reckless enough to throw herself at a fake, just to get another fix. How many times had she wished the pillows on her bed could be molded to feel like him when she curled up to sleep? With her eyes shut tight, she turned around and reached, and got a damp handful of his t-shirt. "Come here, I don't give a shit."
When her hand closed around his shirt, a tear welled in the corner of his eye. He pulled her into himself just like he had done a thousand times over, right back into that spot in which she melded perfectly with him. His arms wrapped easily around her thin frame, and he felt those cold, delicate fingers that pressed into his arms, waiting to feel the movements of the tendons and muscles that lay under his skin.
The moment may have lasted a few seconds or a few hours, but Tyler would not have been able to tell which. He pulled just far enough to look down at her. He didn't care that her shining eyes didn't meet his. He leaned down, and lips met where eyes couldn't. He could taste the salt of tears, but they only lasted for a few moments before it was fruity lip gloss and, beyond that, alcohol.
What started off as gentle moved quickly into the realm of passion. Without letting another inch of separations come between them, he backed her up against her car. Every breath he took brought her into his system, which only led to more frequent breathing. Under his fingertips, his fingers felt the warm skin of her back, and the goose bumps that ran along the exposed skin.
He kissed like Tyler.
The biggest betrayal in the world was letting the man do those things to her... Do them when he couldn't be who Star wanted. I'm sorry, she was thinking in her head, feeling a terrible twist in her stomach. But all the while, she was letting him because she was a glutton. She thrilled on the exact shape and feel of Tyler's mouth-- (did you forget it?) --and of his arms. Even his legs pressing into hers. That was the thing. No matter what Star said or how she treated him, he never got intimidated. Never worried whether he was good enough. He just took it all and pushed right back. Like now. Star put her fingertips on his chin and tugged it down, signaling that she wanted inside. It was the taste that rattled something loose in her head.
It wasn't like his taste. It was his taste.
She made a startled noise, way back in her throat, and froze. There is no way, there is NO way, Star. But it was way too late for that, now that the possibility had taken hold and given her heart a serious, excruciating squeeze. Please...
Eyelids slipped open, and he was so close, when had she let him get so close? Brown hair, brown eyes, the sexiest mouth. "Tyler?" The opening was there, a window of time when Star was completely vulnerable. Utterly, confusedly fragile. "Don't lie to me about this, do you promise?"
When you think that your earthly time has utterly expired, every good memory you have flashes through your mind. The experience lasts for only moments in time, but each moment feels like hours. Your greatest triumphs, your most complete moments, those experiences that define your humanity. Your life. It's a terribly sad, soul crushing event. You know that whatever lies on the other side, you know for certain you'll never get those moments back. Whether heaven, hell, nirvana, purgatory…no more rainy Sundays spent between white linens in your lover's arms. No more silly moments where you laugh till you hurt, because anything short thereof would be an injustice. They're gone.
How he had ached for her. His memory could recall her hair color. The sound of her voice. The way her eyes looked into his soul. The way her smile was so damn smart. It just couldn't put all of those features together at once. The sound of her laugh. It was like memory overload. The way that she was beautiful when she wasn't trying to be.
Oh God, the way she made him laugh. The way she understood him so well. Effortlessly.
“I promise. Do you?”
The way her skin felt, fingertips resting gently against him.
Promise him what? She wasn't the one who'd gone, so terribly. In the years Star had known Tyler, she had a few nightmares about him dying and leaving her broken-hearted, not that she ever told him. She just rolled over, slapped the crap out of his arm, and said it was because she 'felt like it'. Those imagined deaths were bad, but they were never close to the brutal way it finally happened. After she left the morgue, Star went home and vomited until she bled. A glassful of vodka in her hand, and the images still kept playing.
Dogs biting and tearing. Jaws that snapped. Each time it raced through her mind, Star jumped.
Now she pulled back his shirt collar and looked for the bite that made him bleed to death. There wasn't any scar. Why should there be? He was a ghost. "But I saw it," she said, rubbing her fingers against the spot. "Why are you here? Are you real?" Are you going away?
Tyler took a deep breath while he tried to think of the best way to explain everything in a way that made sense. When he couldn't think of anything in a few seconds, he let the breath slowly out through his mouth. He couldn't have taken his eyes off of her if he wanted to.
“What you saw,” he said, reaching his hand up and placing it on the side of her face, “I'm so sorry, I…I didn't see it, but, I remember it. I thought that was it. I really though everything was over,” he stopped to breath. He wasn't talking fast, he just wasn't thinking of breathing in between sentences.
“Only it turns out that there was some ritual my dad's been doing since I was little, and it brings me back to life.” He took a moment to let her absorb as much as she could.
“He told me everything that you did for me.” Tyler bit his bottom lip and rubbed his thumb across her cheek. “I knew that I had to come back and find you.”
The reality of that story dropped in Star's belly like a lead weight. All those days in Japan, she had slept in Tyler's narrow bed, ate his father's food, participated in what she thought were rituals to say goodbye and send her lover to the afterlife. Now it turned out that Yoshi had known all along. The man had watched her grieve and never told her that Ty could come back. And why?
"He wanted me out of the way," Star said, her eyebrows pulling together. "I could've had you..." The blonde shuddered once, a long uncomfortable tremble. "He didn't like me, I knew that, but he let me think you were gone." She reached up and tugged his hair on either side, winding the pieces around her index fingers.
Tyler shook his head slightly from side to side, but not enough to pull on the hair in Star's hands. “It's not like that,” he said, putting his other hand on the side of her waist. He gently pulled her lower half into his, and allowed the hand on her face to slide behind her head. His fingers nested in the back of her hair.
“There's more. It turns out that this isn't just a one-time thing. I'm going to live for a very long time. And I also developed some ability to control fire. It's a work in progress, to say the least.”
Tyler allowed his head to rest to the side as he tried to gauge her reaction. “So it wasn't you, he just didn't want anything to distract me. He's always been that way.” Slowly, his hand crept behind her back and traveled in slow circles. He couldn't help grin down at her.
“Fuck 'em. Wild horses couldn't have kept me away from you. I knew, from the moment my feet touched the earth again. You were my only goal. I had to spend some time getting all of this under control. It's the only reason I didn't hunt you down the very first day I was back. I couldn't take the risk that I would kiss you and you would turn to ash.”
"That was you back there?" she asked. "With the fireballs?" Star pointed a thumb over her shoulder. The look on her face made it obvious that the wiccan still wasn't up to full processing speed. "I threw the alcohol," she said. The pieces began to fit together. She had Tyler's remains cremated at Yoshi's request and took the ashes to Japan. Now he was alive through some kind of ritual, and immortal, with pyrotechnics thrown in as a bonus.
"You mean you're a phoenix? The bird, not Joaquin." She blinked dumbly at his chest. "Those are supposed to be extinct. You don't have any feathers under here, do you?" She picked at his shirt, and had a clear picture of running her hands beneath. She wished she knew if he had a pulse.
Ty smiled the kind of smile that would have been accompanied by a laugh, had it been appropriate. The funny thing was, usually he would assume she was making up some wild excuse to get his shirt off. But now, he was fairly convinced that she was actually looking for something. Hopefully not feathers.
“Yeah, something like that,” he conceded with a shrug. Then the full realization of what she said hit him, and he was the one astonished. “Wait, you mean you actually threw alcohol at someone? Was it well liquor or something?” Ty allowed his hand to slide slightly south.
"I was saving your ass! Not that I knew it," she protested. "I'm surprised you didn't get on the floor and try to sop it up."
Five minutes of knowing he was alive, and already Star had the uncontrollable urge to rag on him. Later, when she was alone, the girl would weep for hours and shake like a leaf. She would ask herself if she'd been hallucinating, if there was something in that tear gas to make her dream him back to life. But right now, that characteristic hot-headedness of Star's was coming out for play. She wanted to lighten the situation like crazy, because otherwise she'd drop to her knees like he was her personal Jesus. Thank whatever gods would listen that Tyler was home.
On tiptoes, she put her arms around his neck and buried her face in it. She breathed his scent, even dared to kiss the skin that covered his jugular vein. My immortal Tyler, she thought, and a feeling of unease tried to creep up from her subconscious. Not because he would outlive her, but because (if she went through with her promise to Victoria), he wouldn't. No, not now, let me have this.
Scrambling that track, she rubbed her cheek against his heart. "You're not off the hook for the dog thing," she mumbled. "And just so you to know, I totally punched you post-mortem." It was just like her to demand the last word. Star mashed her lips together and squeezed her eyelids tight. Tears were on the way, the kind that slayed mascara. Tighter and tighter she clamped them together, but the lump in her chest kept growing. "I- I missed you..."
Tyler felt all of the petite muscles and flesh of the young woman that lay wrapped between his two hands starting to tighten up more and more. He knew what was coming, it was only natural. He chuckled softly, both for himself and for her sake, at her post-mortem punch claim. It seemed fair enough to him. He would work extra hard in the coming days making everything up to her that he possibly could.
It was her last admission that caused his stomach to tie into knots. Tyler wasn't stupid. He knew that Star had been through hell because of him, his mistakes. He hated that the one that he loved most had to pay for his missteps as much as he did, and sometimes worse. Tyler completely wrapped Star up in his arms, waiting to see how big the rush of the emotional wall would be. He knew that he was only moments away from wet eyes himself. “I missed you too, love,” he replied, his tone lowered since his mouth was so close in proximity to her ear. “But I'm here now. And I'm not going anywhere without you. Promise."
Star made a fist. She pushed the heel of her hand against her eye. Could she stand it if he stayed? She wanted him to be alive, yes, a million times over. But to be with him? It would be stupid to presume she had any control over the loving part. Love didn't go away the first time she tried ignoring it, no matter how badly she wanted it to. Star would be in love with Tyler forever, no matter how inconvenient that could be. But to literally be with him meant months of his disappearing acts, and even knowing now that he wouldn't die, it would still be an excruciating blow every time he did it.
He always did it. Stupid duty. And now those guys were really serious.
"Tyler," she said, pushing her face into his armpit. "I know I'm a complete nightmare sometimes, but I can't... I still..." She wanted to say that her feelings could be hurt, like anybody's. That it wasn't fair to poke his head up when it suited. But it was the most ludicrous thing in the world to argue about, at least tonight. "Nothing, nevermind." She rocked her head back and forth. That, along with her revelation about fooling around with a certain fanged brunette, and becoming an independent film star, and getting a brand new set of pearlies, was a story for another time. "Can we go somewhere?"
She thought of Leah, and her eyes bulged. "Somewhere not my apartment." A little bit of old-fashioned possessiveness came out. No way, no freaking way, was Leah squirting out any pheromones around her man. "My roommate's coming home." Now repeat after me. 'I hate great big, pendulous, face-smothering boobs. That's the stuff of circus side-show freaks.'