Chapter Text
When he woke up the first time, no one was there.
No one was there for what felt like years.
Yet still, no one joined him in this white void of death for a long, long time.
And the second time he was joined by another after only a few minutes.
But he had still gone first. And the man who was supposed to be watching over them all was his killer.
The second game took much longer to end by the time he was dead.
And when his past came flooding back to him as the last person arrived- everything went dark. No longer a white abyss, but instead an endless black void to himself. After a while he lost track of how long it had been since the last game, since his last life. His memory has gone fuzzy, he can’t remember names, he can’t remember faces, he can’t remember what it felt like to live.
Until he did.
//
After the explosion he had separated from the group of people growing in the abyss, walking until they were out of sight, walking until he was alone. And it stayed that way for so, so long.
“Death by idiocy” he said after he blew himself to smithereens in the confines of his own home. He had flown too close to the sun and that pain, those scars, were never going to heal. He wasn’t Icarus. He was the sun. Even when the abyss turned to void, there was still light.
//
A bright flash is all it took. A bright flash and he was living. He was Alive! A circle of people ready to start the next game, right? He wouldn’t be first this time around-
.
.
.
..right?
/
The days had gone one and he and his soulmate had shared so many moments. Much more love than his previous lives could have ever given him. They may have been soul bound, but he believed they would have made their way to each other without it.
They were made for one another.
Soulmates.
/
Smitten moments after death filled days. Care and affection after tear-filled rejections. They stayed with each other no matter how much the universe told them to fall apart.
The sun stopped burning because of him.
His sun died because of his inability to fend for himself.
//
Tango had just been walking along the path to Joel and Etho’s base when it happened.
Sharp pain in his ribs, his stomach. And then he was gone. He didn’t even see it coming, but that’s the price to pay when bound to someone.
He woke up in the mass abyss again, not alone, but still afraid. And when we woke up to blonde hair in his face and a wetness on his shoulder, he knew he didn’t have it in him to be upset at the man he was bound to.
He couldn’t be mad at Jimmy…
First one out every time. And maybe- just maybe, if he hadn’t died to that creeper.. The two of them would only be red.
/
The two of them sit there for a long time just holding each other. They’re not alone for once in death.
“I’m so sorry…” The voice was muffled and scratchy. Tango sighed, running fingers through the canary's hair, “it’s okay Jimmy… It wasn’t your fault.” The boy in his arms sat up.
His eyes were this beautiful hazelnut color that Tango had never seen before. He had small yellow feathers around his ears and the side of his face, a few of them even being mashed up with his dirty blonde hair. “But it was.. I- I killed us, Tango!” Jimmy retaliated, his wings puffing out and this defensive look coming onto his face.
//
Tango looked tired. Jimmy stopped complaining, his wings returning back to normal as he looked around at the abyss.
“So we’re alone finally, yeah?” His sun spoke a truth he couldn’t see. And before Jimmy could even process what Tango had just said, arms wrapped him into a tight hug, a blaze of hair ending up in his face.
“I’m gonna miss you man…”
As the two hugged each other, tears rolled down each of their faces. They weren’t alone, but this may be the last time they see each other for a very long while. Cause when this world goes dark, you are left alone. They didn’t even notice when the other two souls arrived, too involved with each other and trying to get one more moment before release from this blinding white.
And then it was over…
Jimmy’s world snapped to black and Tango was gone.
His sun died out.