Chapter Text
It’s not exactly that Warren Godby could not die. He was, in fact, rather good at dying. He enjoyed it even – though that didn’t sound very healthy, and so he preferred not to think about it too often.
But the fact was that dying wasn’t all that bad. When he tried to put it into words (which was, by definition, impossible), he said it was like the end of a long summer day. The first breeze of cool air that brings promises of night, promises of peace, promises of an ending.
So no, dying wasn’t a problem for Warren, but staying dead was.
It just didn’t stick. He’d see the tunnel and the flashbacks, feel the cold and the nothingness, and then nope, back to square one.
It was bloody annoying, really. It left the sour taste of unfinished business in his mouth, and frankly the whole process took a lot more time than he believed necessary. He’d rather just go through with it once and for all, like everyone else gets to do.
But don’t get him wrong, Warren didn’t want to die. He didn’t try to get himself killed in the hope that, this time, he might stay on the other side of the veil. He just would’ve liked to have the option, to know one day things would stop for him; he didn’t want to last forever and trying to picture it made him terrified and a little ill.
This was the reason why Warren was currently lying on an icy road, with most of his blood pooling underneath his rapidly cooling body, failing miserably at pretending he was actually going to die.
He tried to keep up the pretence. Apathy in the face of imminent death felt like a line he’d rather not cross. A vague sense of annoyance was what he was at right now and anything less would just be depressing, he thought. As if dying alone next to his busted up car wasn’t sad enough already.
It was his fault, too. He knew he wasn’t allowed to drive on his medication, but his headache was killing him (ironically enough). He would just quickly drive to the drugstore and be back in a minute. Like anything in his life had ever gone according to plan. At least his headache was gone.
His thoughts were already disjointed and going everywhere. Man, dying sucked. But, hey, he wasn’t alone anymore, that was nice. Since when had there been someone here though? Probably not long, Warren would’ve noticed them. Or he was seeing things, that was another possibility.
“Uh, hi? I’m sorry, I'm not very good at this,” the man slash creation of his dying brain said, awkwardness somehow audible in his voice.
Warren was pretty sure no hallucination of his would’ve said that at this particular moment, so he was leaning towards weird-but-actually-there guy, which wasn’t a big improvement.
“You’re Warren, right? Warren Godby?”
Oh shit, he was supposed to answer him, he’d forgotten that – dying will do that to you. He nodded so he wouldn’t have to assess the damage the crash had done to his throat just yet.
“Ok. Good, that’s good, great. Well no it isn’t, ‘cause you’re dying, that isn’t great.” He let out a laugh, something between a deranged giggle and an asthmatic lizard. “Oh, yeah, you’re about to die. Maybe I should’ve started with that… Can we try this again?”
His blood soaked throat be damned, he wasn’t going to let that guy keep digging his own conversational grave. “No need. Not my first time. I know the whole spiel.”
Because Warren’s day could, in fact, possibly get even less enjoyable, the silence was worse than the talking. “I’m not sure I understand,” he finally said.
“The dying. Not my first time. Done it lots of times, actually. Didn’t keep count, sorry.” His vocal cords were too tender for longer sentences, and he was losing too much blood to even form the thoughts.
“I don’t think that’s supposed to happen? Sorry, uhm, I don’t usually do this whole… reaping, thing.”
“Could tell. You’re not very good at it,” Warren gasped.
“So what happens now? Are you just, not going to die? You can’t just not die, I’m supposed to get you to your afterlife and all that.” He was starting to get visibly agitated.
“I’ll die. I just won’t stay that way.”
“And you’re absolutely sure that’s going to happen?”
“Uhm. Yeah. You can– you can find out.” He was getting out of breath now. “Soon. I think,” he slurred.
“Oh. I’ll– I’ll wait then.” The silence that settled after that was better than the first. It was nice, having someone to wait for Warren.
He let his last breath go. He let the strings snap, his limbs go limp. He let his eyes close.
And then he was gasping for air, eyes blown wide, pain once again alight through his body. He tried to swear, but it came out as more of a gurgling cough.
The man looked like he was trying to help but had no idea how. “Shit– You ok? That was– fuck, that was weird, dude.”
This got a laugh out of Warren’s still bloody lips. Though it might as well have been a groan. And made him cough his lungs to hell. Dying sucked.
“Ok, so you really– you really can’t die. Ok. I’m definitely getting fired. Great, that’s just great.”
“Nahhh,” he said after getting all the gore out of most of the parts he needed to breathe, ”you’ll be fine, none of the others got fired.”
“The others?”
“Well, now that I think about it, I’ve never seen any of them a second time. Huh. That’s weird.”
“I am about to lose my fucking job.” He sounded dangerously close to tears.
“You probably won’t," he tried, though he had no real reason to believe that. “I don’t think you will at least. It’s not even your fault, why would you get fired for something that isn’t your fault? That’s just stupid.”
The guy did not look convinced.
“Hey, maybe you know some of the people I’ve seen, you can tell me if they got fired.”
The guy made a very doubtful face at that. Fair enough,Warren thought, he didn’t look like he had many friends.
“Uh… a tall bloke, very handsome, takes himself way too seriously,…” No recognition on his face. “An American sounding one, ginger maybe, nice but not very friendly?” No response. “Oh! A serious one, a bit scary, with glasses and a hijab I think? – She told me her name… Audrey? or Abby? I don’t know.”
“Aubrey?”
“That’s her! She was cool. I liked Aubrey.”
Relief instantly flooded the man’s features. “Aubrey didn’t get fired. Aubrey’s fine. I’m not getting fired.”
“See? I told you you’d be fine.”
“Yeah,” he laughed, “uhm, I’m Gordon, by the way. I’m Aubrey’s friend, kinda, in a way.” The beginning of an uneasy smile could be heard in the man’s – Gordon’s – voice.
“I’m Warren, but you knew that already. Which was creepy, for your information, don’t randomly tell dying strangers you know their name.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he answered easily. “Uhm, what am I supposed to do now? I wasn’t actually trained for this, you know.”
“Well, I’m waiting for my body to repair itself enough for me to call an ambulance, and you can do whatever you want. You’re not getting my soul so... I don’t know, go do your reaper things.”
“I don’t usually go out, honestly.” This wasn’t surprising to Warren. “And I doubt they’ll let me out in the field again, so, I’d like to wait with you for a bit. I mean, if you’re ok with that. Obviously,” he said, laughing again.
“Sure. I’d like that.” And damn, was that smile infectious.
And so they waited. It was a nice change, to not-die with someone next to him. To have someone who knows he’s here and who’s willing to stay. He could get used to that.