Chapter Text
Death is no god. He doesn’t have the same say over life and death as those—he can’t save or take lives according to arbitrary rules. Wouldn’t, even if he could, otherwise he would not be the entity of Death, but something other.
There are more forces at play than simply him, and it’s a delicate balance that must be maintained.
Death comes for all in the end though. Even those with more time (more lives) than he thinks they deserve, and so sometimes he does try to tip the scale in his favour. He knows his own morals are different from others—cut from a cloth perhaps a few shades darker than most other beings.
Death is many things, some more than others. Death is cruel; is kind; is unfair; is mercy. But above all, Death simply is.
He doesn’t have the same say over life and death, but he is Death. He has a hand in all things death, and thus, all things Life.
And so, standing on the cold, damp stone bed of a riverbank on a night with a grey overcast blocking out the stars, Death is indeed many things but today, he will be kind.
Somewhere amongst the sweeping currents is a waterlogged sock, weighed down by a rock with jagged edges and the squirming mass of a pup fighting for his last breath. If there are bubbles floating to the top of the water, they are whisked away by the ever-constant stream before anyone can see them—it’s all very anticlimactic, the loss of a life.
There is no fear here though; Death can’t taste it in the air. Instead, it tastes of mischief, of playfulness, of naive joy—of a prank gone right, of a joke well told. The pup does not fear death, not even in that primal way that all animals do. He does not face him, nor does he run from him, simply does not acknowledge him. Does not accept (perhaps doesn’t even realise) that he’s been placed upon Death’s doorstep, someone else knocking in his stead before fleeing, and fights (you gonna take the coward’s way out? or you gonna fight?).
And it’s not a fair fight, not at all. It isn’t fair that this little one has been slated to die so early simply for being the runt, but Death has never been fair.
Then again, neither has Life. And so Death sees, with his all-seeing eyes (no one’s escaped him yet), the life about to be snuffed out before him, and wades into the river. Unhooking a sickle from its belt loop, he slashes into the water, hooking onto the sock with the pointed edge, and pulls upwards.
Yes, he thinks, feeling the weight of the heart in his grasp tipping back and forth like a scale, this one is worthy.
He drops the sock into his free paw, the weight stopped squirming for now, but Death isn’t worried, can still feel the faint pulse of life upon the pads of his paw. Slicing a hole through the top, water comes bursting out, and the dog squirms his head free, spluttering and gasping.
The small thing shivers, eyes slipping closed in exhaustion and slumping bonelessly in Death’s paw with a quiet whine. Death tuts, reattaching his blade to his belt.
“Come now, pequeño.” Death plucks him from the sock with careful claws, then cradles the sodden pup against his chest, the front of his cloak steadily dampening. “It’s not your time yet.”
Traipsing back to the riverbank, Death finds an outcropping of rock overgrown with moss curving overhead and down forming a small cove, and slips in. Sitting back on his haunches on a dry, albeit cold, flat stone, Death detaches his blade again just long enough to rake it across the ground, summoning a small fire.
He dumps the sock off to the side, then moves to pull the dog from his chest, only to find claws caught in his cloak. Death sighs, using his free hand to pry them free, and it’s then that the dog blinks his eyes open again.
He blinks a few times, crystalline blue eyes hooded and hazy, before—amazingly, magnificently—he grins, baby teeth still gummy and just starting to come in. His tail wags, picking up speed and flicking water against Death’s paw pads, and his voice is high-pitched and remarkably undamaged from his bout in the river.
“A-Are you p-playing too?” He squeaks out, still shivering. “F-Found you!”
“You did,” Death rumbles indulgently, a low bass, and finishes untangling the pup’s claws from his cloak. “Are you cold, perrito?”
He sets the little dog down gently in front of the fire, waiting until he’s able to get his feet under himself before removing his paw. The pup yips, shaking the water from his fur, before perching near Death’s knee, soaking in the ambient warmth of the fire.
Death opens his mouth to speak again, then pauses, scenting the air. He frowns, peering down at his palm to see a faint streak of blood—he hadn’t smelt it earlier, diluted by water as it was, but now he eyes his companion.
“You’re hurt.”
“Hm?” The dog tilts his head almost backwards to look at him, tail still wagging, the shivers abating. “I am?”
Death wipes his paw against his trousers, smearing away the blood. “Did you get cut, little one?”
“Oh!” Tilting his head down, the dog peers down at the downy fur on his torso before turning to show off the long line of blood beading across it, little red drops coming down in rivulets, completely unperturbed. “I guess I did!”
Huffing quietly, Death stands, scooping up the pup in one smooth motion. “Let’s go.”
The dog lets him carry him without fuss, going pliant in the wolf’s grasp, reaching out paws to cling to Death’s cloak again, soaking in the warmth.
Death makes his way back into the main hub of the town, quiet and deserted this late at night, and peers around until he finds a small veterinarian clinic. It’s a pathetic thing, the town small enough it doesn’t have the funding to have it well-kept, but it’ll do.
The lights are off, the lock rusted through but still sturdy enough Death has to use his blade to cut through the bolt. The door is an ancient thing, starting to be eaten through with wood rot, and the hinges creak as he makes his way towards an empty bed, a clean white sheet spread over it.
He sets the dog onto the bed, turning away to rummage through a drawer, producing a medical kit. Digging through the box, he pulls out suture thread and a needle, dowsing them with a small bottle of disinfectant first before threading the needle.
The pup watches him avidly, Death can feel his eyes on him keenly, but doesn’t speak. There’s still some exhaustion clinging to the small thing, the blood loss getting to him maybe. The pup is young, but also smaller, more sickly, than most his age, and it’s too easy for even the smallest blood loss to toe the line of too much.
Death turns to him, smearing a local anaesthetic near the edges of the wound and waits for it to settle before picking up the needle again.
“And what is your name, perrito?”
Paws gentle, one holding the threaded needle steady and the other carefully pressing the two edges of the wound together, Death slowly stitches up the cut. It’s not an overly deep wound, the sides fitting back together nicely and the blood clotting and sticky already, but it will scar regardless.
“Oh, I don’t have a name,” the little one replies, looking down curiously at Death’s motions. There’s a wonder in his eyes, a quiet kind of appreciation for life that Death approves of. “My family never gave me one and I guess it never really came up! But you can just call me Perrito if you want! What about you, señor?”
Humming, Death flicks out a claw to snap the thread once the wound is closed, then eases a dressing over the stitches, taping down the sides with strips of medical tape. “That should be it then, Perrito.”
A flick of an ear, and Death straightens from his hunched position over Perrito, packing away the supplies. He flips his hood over his head, settling his paws briefly over his sickles.
It’s like a sense to him, the flickering of a life just before it goes out. Like a candlelight swept at by a breeze in a dark room, Death sees it—the slow drip of wax down the side, the curl of the wick as it burns, the slight waver in the air just around the edges of the flame like a disruption to the universe—and he must go.
“W-wait!” Perrito hops down from the bed, scrambling after him. “Where are you going? Do you need to find everyone else? I can help, I’m really good at hide and seek! I wanna come too!”
“No.” Death steps out, cloak flaring out as wind catches the edges. “We part here.”
“Oh okay, tough guy.” Perrito winks at him, nudging his leg with his head teasingly. “You don’t need any help, huh? Well I don’t know when they got you to play with us but they’re really good at hiding now—I almost didn’t find them last time! But I did! I did and so I promise I’m really good at this! I’m the best!”
Death whirls on his heel, snarling, impatient when he can feel that sense rear up to prod at him more insistently. He doesn’t have the time for this. “I said no, Perrito. I am not playing. Go find someone else if you want to play hide and seek so much.”
“But—”
“No.”
Huffing, Death turns back around, marching down the cobblestone pavement. He traces the scent of fear and death with his nose, the sting it adds to the air akin to how alcohol burns as it goes down, and so almost trips over the pup when he weaves in between his legs to stop in front of him. Death growls, snatching the sickles from his belt with a warning, brandishing them like gleaming fangs to prey. “What part of no—”
“But señor lobo, I didn’t even get to say thank you!” Perrito sits back on his haunches, pawing at the white bandage across his chest.
“And now you have,” Death drawls, but doesn’t put away his blades. He side steps Perrito, picking up his pace. There’s a dull throb at the back of his mind now. “Now leave.”
“Why do you have those?” Perrito persists, bouncing after him. “What’re they for? What do you do with them? They’re really cool!”
“I end lives with them,” Death says bluntly, lifting them both to frame his face as he glares down at the dog. It was never a secret to begin with, just an omission. “I am Death.”
And finally, blessedly, Perrito stops following him. He looks at him with new eyes, still wide and glassy in that way all young had about them, but it isn’t fear, nor is it sadness, nor relief. Those, Death knows intimately. But this expression, its tucked-back ears, nose twitch, tilted head, mouth in a downward lilt that isn’t a frown but suggests some kind of thoughtfulness, Death does not know.
"¿Muerte?” Perrito murmurs, and Death puffs out an affirmative noise.
“Do not follow me, perro. I have a job to do.” Death drags a sickle across the ground for the second time that night, a tall wall of ruby-red flames separating them. “And it is not pretty.”
“W-wait!” Perrito calls when Death starts putting distance between them, but Death snorts, ignoring him. There’s the sound of scrambling behind him, claws scratching against stone, a scuff, and then, somehow, a furry head bumping up against his ankle again.
Death stops dead in his tracks.
“What?”
“Phew, that was warm!” The pup smiles up at him, tail wagging, and seemingly oblivious to Death’s shock.
He isn’t singed in the least, and any fool without self-preservation who brushes up against his fire doesn’t often come away unscathed, let alone appear completely unharmed walking right through it.
His fire doesn’t always burn. It depends on how they perceive death. Is it heat—burning brimstone and hellfire, lungs of tar and asphyxiation, that zing of lightning frying away their nerve endings? Is it cold—numbness, hypothermia eating at fingertips, skin necrosed and unrecognisable, feeling so out of touch with their bodies until eventually they truly were?
Whatever perception they have of death, the flames reflect it.
So warmth—not heat, no. But warmth, the kind that never harms, never quite bridges that gap of too much too painful too consuming? Kindness, then. Comfort, and the knowledge—the complete and utter certainty, because Death was all-seeing, and any insidious fear, even the tiniest inkling, would reflect in the fire—that this would never hurt him.
Death does not use the flames for anything other than the battlefield. For the ones in hospitals, for the chronically ill, the suicidal, the ones who breathe their last in their sleep? For ones to whom he is Rest instead of Reaper? He has no need for them.
And so this is a first for him; this tiny runt of his litter—small enough to fit on the palm of his hand, only his baby teeth grown in so far, fur wispy-fine and scraggly—more fearless than all the lives he has chased down, who sees him as warm, who walks through fire to follow him?
Death sighs, a touch reluctantly fond, and plucks Perrito up by his scruff, pushing back his hood to drop him into it.
“Alright, amiguito. Let’s go.”
And so they go.
The way Death sees it, there are two ways the living see mortality.
I’m going to die anyway, so why should I even bother?
I’m going to die anyway, so I better make the most of it.
Both have their place for there must always be balance; fear must temper recklessness, just as bravery must overcome paranoia. Where there is courage, there must too be cowardice, though Death knows which he respects more.
Perrito, for a while, is a riddle.
He isn’t naive, not after months by Death’s side now, the wound on his stomach long since healed over. He doesn’t fear Death, nor does he fear death. He doesn’t shy away from it, even knowing that Death and death are one and the same, and that Death is not always kind, not always fair.
He’s not arrogant though, doesn’t think himself immortal even though he may as well be under Death’s protection for now.
Death had almost expected Perrito to leave once it got to be too much (and it’s easy to be too much, when Death must go to the ones in car crashes with unrecognisable faces and bodies, the ones hate-crimed and lynched with words carved into their skin, the ones abused glassy eyed and dead before he ever starts to claim them, the ones too young too innocent too weak), but he doesn’t.
Instead, Perrito becomes kinder, more lovely, more awe-filled, more appreciative. He sees death, sees its many ugly ways—the ways it can twist the soul and rot at bodies—and learns to see beauty.
Where there is courage, there must too be cowardice, and Perrito is no coward.
And that, Death respects. So he indulges him; takes long-winding routes through forests to his next prey so Perrito can stop to smell the flowers; sleeps out in open fields as often as he can so Perrito can see the stars and the moon in its every phase; brings him out after the rain so Perrito can appreciate the smell of petrichor, geosmin wafting from the greenery.
(He indulges him too, when Perrito insists they go back for the sock. Death helps him, piercing holes in the body of the sock for him to wiggle his front paws through.
Perhaps it’s morbid, but Perrito doesn’t see it that way; delighted at the fit, the way he’s growing into it. It’s still a ragged thing, Death’s sickles pulling at the threads, making it come undone in some places—but that’s fine.
Perrito has never shied away from ugly things, embraces them readily.)
And it shows today, as Death traipses through the unnaturally white halls of a hospital, slipping quietly into a room. Perrito lays atop Death’s head, the warmth of the dog’s underbelly resting between his ears.
Lying in the bed is a child, their hands scrambling at their chest, clawing at it weakly as they hyperventilate, trying to draw in enough air. Their skin dewy with a cold sweat, they wheeze, eyes squeezed shut as breath comes in heaving puffs that weaken the longer it goes on. The thin skin around their eyes, sunken in and purple, hung with dark circles from bone-deep exhaustion and sleep that tires them more than heals them. They shiver and bite their bottom lip, chapped and bloody along the cracks.
The child whimpers, hands falling still for a moment before shifting to wrap around themself, the trembles worsening. Off to the side, on a darkened screen, their vitals are rapidly falling.
A stampede of footsteps approaches, Death can hear it, but they won’t make it in time. This, he knows.
Death watches, the pallor of the child’s skin, a purple-blue tinge to their lips and nails seeping in. Perrito whines from his perch, and slips down from Death’s head to his shoulder, then jumps onto the bed.
The child jolts weakly when Perrito nudges at their arm, just enough strength left in them to flutter their eyes open. They gasp, almost soundless, and their cracked lips twitch upwards.
“Perro,” they murmur, and Perrito squirms his way between their arms until he’s pressed up against their chest.
They draw their arms in closer, hugging him tight. Death watches, and sees the way the shivering eases slightly. He almost smiles, but it is time. He removes a sickle from his belt.
He whistles, notes legato where the child's breathing is staccato, and the child’s eyes flit to him.
“¿Muerte?” Then, a shaky exhale, and relief in their eyes before they slip closed, tired. “Gracias.”
Death nods even as the child cannot see it, and Perrito nudges upward to press their foreheads together. “Todo irá bien.”
The child hums, squeezing Perrito with the last of their strength, lips forming around another gracias before Death finally brings them to rest.
The monitors blare annoyingly, and there are rushed footfalls just a few feet away.
Perrito nudges the child’s chin with his head, then slips out from their hold. Death kneels, and Perrito hops back onto his shoulder before they leave the room, unseen by the doctors and nurses barging in, a quiet storm of muttering in their wake.
Perrito is quiet, as he is after every death, reflective but aware enough to not get lost in his head, and Death smooths a paw over the fur on his head as they start making their way out of the hospital. Perrito leans into it, his wet nose brushing against a paw pad.
“There’s another dog here,” Perrito says suddenly.
“Hm?”
“Over there.” Perrito gestures to a golden retriever sitting quietly by a person in the hospital waiting room.
Death eyes the vest on it, and tells him, “it’s a therapy dog.”
“A therapy dog?”
“Sí,” Death rumbles, stepping out of the hospital. “A dog that has been trained to bring comfort to people when they are upset or sick.”
He turns his head in time to catch the widening of Perrito’s eyes, the wondrous gleam in them that Death tries to keep alive after every hunt.
Perrito bounces slightly on his shoulder, mindful of the precariousness of it, a grin spreading across his face. “I wanna be one! I wanna be a therapy dog too!”
Death huffs out an amused breath, remembering the child’s face after Perrito had made his way back onto his shoulder, the smile they had in their last moments, that moment of peace they were afforded after months of agony and exhaustion.
“And you will be a very good one, Perrito.”