Symphony ^beta

i.

He holds Keeg in his arms as they soar upwards, cradles his son---Saturn devours---Larry the Terrible and his son Keeg, forever painted across canvas, debris of art on a planet with a society long-collapsed. At least, he tells himself, he's going out with someone who he loves, someone who loves him back, someone who adores him truly and wholly. At least, he tells himself, he will die almost instantly, and very soon, too; there is no guilt beyond death. 

Will they be in the afterlife together?

What will their afterlife look like? Will he see the Spirit again; can the Spirit visit him there; can he ascend into something greater, the kind of creature he has always yearned for and yearned to be and yearned to consume?

"I'm so sorry, buddy," he whispers into Keeg's neck, stroking his back. Crying in the raw void of space is, apparently, deeply uncomfortable.

(He had cried, in the Negative Nebula, all those beyonds ago. The Spirit sank into his touch, tied a cinderblock to their ankles and jumped right in, leaving him behind on the rim, frozen, terrified. The Spirit gave him one small glimpse into its little pocket universe---a universe in which they could have ascended, where they could have had an entirely new life together, away from the planetary shedding, together in unity for eternity. It was dangled in front of him, a bitten lure that strung him right up, reeled him back in to the tragedy.

Their corpses---)

It does not take him long to incinerate.

ii.

He had hoped, in his final moments, that he would wake up in the the waiting room of Heaven-or-whatever with Keeg in his arms, ready to be guided into their new unlife. 

Instead, he wakes up with Keeg in his arms right back home. At first he thinks this is his afterlife---that he'll be here, maybe Rita and Cliff will visit sometimes---

And then he sees Cliff. Translucent, shimmering, intangible. Sitting, frozen, with uncharacteristic peace, in a nearby room.

And then he looks down, sees his arms. Translucent, shimmering, intangible, infuriating.

He moves closer to his door---

Cliff had noticed him at some point, apparently; he slides into view as Larry exits the room. He attempts to give Larry a hug, and then he remembers, the unwinding reality of their situations drilling an inexorable ache into their particles.

iii.

Larry excuses himself to his room, reclines on his bed---apparently ghosts can lie down, but are still intangible, still unable to touch or feel or cross the barrier. It's odd, but the comfort is a blessing in this dystopia. He wishes he could curl up underneath his sheets and writhe in the fetal position, shiver and shut down and melt into a puddle of liquified burden.

He killed his own kid. No---Keeg is still alive. His own kid killed him.

-iii.

The butts take a surprisingly long time to return to Doom Manor. They wreak their havoc on the rest of Cloverton first, and then they move on to the leftovers. He only had to mourn Rita, had to discover her corpse in the kitchen, the fading pinkness of her brain spilled out and glimmering over the tile. He broke down over her body, stroking her hair and her cheeks, sobbing into her chest as his tears wet his bandages from behind. Apparently they don't leave an area until they've devoured everything alive, like a swarm of flesh-hungry wasps. Even the wildlife. Even most of the plants, which is odd to do when your diet is 99% brain.

It started with a shrill scream, and then a cracking noise so loud it shattered Larry's chest, a bird's wishbone forming in his ribs and falling out already broken. Rita's goddamn skull.

He reaches over to pick her up, to carry her to Jane and the Underground to see if any of them can help---to beg God to bring her back. He gets as far as the greenhouse, even, where the newest apocalypse-formed alter in the Underground has taken residence, trembling in her own terror, keeping watch over the manor---

This time it's louder, because it is really his own bones that have cracked into a split, sad thing. He doesn't even notice it come into frame near the side of him, too engrossed in his own grief; the butt bites down on his arm and begins to drag.

He realizes that Jane is definitely dead, too.

"Keeg---help---release---"

Keeg exits his chest, flies through the butt. It falls to the ground, lifeless, with Larry's shredded-up arm bandages in its mouth.

"Shit, shit," he says. "Oh, no. No, no."

And then, before Larry's radiation can scuff the universe down, destroying everything he has poured all three of his souls into protecting, Larry is being piloted into the atmosphere.

xxxv.

He hasn't left his room in weeks.

Larry had always hoped, somehow, that he would be with the rest of them in death. He just didn't expect it to be like this. Life feels insurmountable when you don't have the option to end it, when you have to mourn yourself and your friends at the same time—your friends who still surround you, your friends who don't get to move on or go to their heaven states, your friends who became your breath when you were still alive.

He was a walking corpse from day one. He never should have pretended otherwise.

It's 2033, and the world is dead; it finally caught up to him.

Keeg tries to help him through his depression. He keeps telling Keeg to go home, to be with his other father in a universe where he can truly thrive and isn't anchored to Larry's suffering just like his Negative Spirit was, but he just won't fucking listen. He tries to be cold—to push Keeg away, to push him up into the stars—but he still won't leave.

Will Larry ever reach the afterlife?

What happens to Keeg when he finally ascends? They won't be together; Keeg is immortal, inhuman. He couldn't take his mind off of the agony for so long that he forgot to consider Keeg's future. The worst part of the apocalypse isn't the fact that everyone is either dead or a carnviorous butt—it's the fact that he ruined his son's life. He will grow to resent Larry, just as his other father did. Larry is doomed to be a terrible father, has the status of unfit-for-parenthood etched right into his dead little neurons.

xxxvi.

Sometimes he floats into Cloverton just to torture himself. If he had a physical body, he would be giving the skeletons sprinkled over every street and building a proper true burial. He imagines picking them all up, singing them to sleep as he shovels holes into the dirt. Their bodies decayed decades ago. Wildlife used to come and feast on their flesh until there stopped being wildlife. He watches them all as the wind hits---suddenly: a discordant, unbearable rattling noise from every bone against every bone; suddenly: a noise akin to a halloween movie sound effect; suddenly: a liveliness in the graveyard.

"Buddy," he says, sensing Keeg floating in behind him, their connection rekindling. "What are you doing here?"

It's been a while since he spent any time alone with Keeg; the guilt has severed him right away from his son. Pitiful.

Keeg shrugs, gestures to a nearby bench. He sits down--uncharacteristic for his kind, who seem to typically prefer the air---and as Larry follows he grows a horrid fluttering within him, his love and his ache like dual tumors preparing to take him down twice.

"I wish I could bury them," Larry says. "Do at least some good if I'm fucking cursed to spend my death here."

Keeg's head tilts diagonally---really, Larry?

"I know how they treated us," he says, a heavy gutting sigh. "But I was scared of the unknown once, too."

Keeg puts his arm around Larry, buries his transparent head in Larry's neck. He feels so human---his other father had felt human too, sometimes, or at least had been as emotional as one, but its aura of humanity was always eventually trampled by the truth of its alien nature that returned every night no matter what, shocking both body and mind. At the end of the day, the alienness would always shine through its actions even when it tried to supress the differences between them. Like sparks of electricity in the heart or electricity forcibly embedded into the flesh, it hit him. Larry would never have been able to grasp on for good---their fingertips were destined to always brush against one another, but never to entwine.

Larry's eyes close, and he drifts into a soft doze, his consciousness fading into a flock of monarch butterflies at the closeness to Keeg and flying far, far away. 

When he jolts awake, the world has sprung back to life, back into vibrant color. He's now sitting on Danny's bench, and the dannizens around him are twirling and frolicking and laughing and alive. Was he dreaming? Did something out there save the world? Did they get a break from that duty this time? Will they finally --

He looks down, notices that his hands are uncharred, unscarred, utterly devoid of tarnish, and realizes: no, he's dreaming now, and the world is still inverted, and he's still dead.

Keeg lifts himself off of Larry's chest. When he looks at Larry, Larry sees his own face. Oh. Keeg had matured over the years, his frame growing with time just like a human body, and now his eighteen year old self stares right back at him, tears invading the ducts, pretty little lips frowning down. He's wearing Larry. 

"I didn't know you could do this, or that I could even... as a ghost," he says, incredulous. "You guys really love looking like me, huh?"

Keeg nods. It feels like: we love y o u.

Even him, above, in the other dimension.

Larry's fresh face smiles. He reaches out, hands trembling. He touches the fur of his coat sleeve, feels the texture tangible, hands trembling. He smiles wider, hands trembling. He reaches out, hands trembling, to touch Keeg's cheek, the skin of it unfathomably soft, his youth so beautiful and enviable in Larry's hands, entire body trembling. Larry at this age had no innocence, but Keeg radiates innocence in Larry's form. He is innocence embodied.

"I love you, son, you know that, right? I'm so proud of you," he says, his hand lingering before he pulls it back. "How come you never did this before?"

Keeg looks down. 

"Because I never let you," Larry sighs. "I'm sorry I didn't let you get close. Your father abandoned you, and then I... did the same thing. I'm so sorry."

Keeg puts his hand on Larry's shoulder, like: it's okay. Larry looks down at the contact, his skin flushing pinkred. Unconditional love.

"Can you... talk?" Larry asks, hesitant.

Keeg's head tilts a bit to the left, as if considering it, but then it shakes side-to-side; no.

"That's okay," Larry says, pulling Keeg's arm around his shoulder. In the scenery of Danny's utopia, it feels like something ripped straight from one of those Hallmark Christmas movies Vic shows them DVDs of in wintertime. "Let's just stay here for a while."

xl.

New Years, 2040. Or: he thinks it's 2040; it's hard to keep track of time in the aftermath of the apocalypse.

"You know, I never got to have a New Years celebration I actually had fun at," Larry reminisces, stretched out on the greenhouse concrete. Keeg sits next to him, cross-legged, listening with intent. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to... you should go be with the others. I think Vic put Doctor Who: The Movie on for them. I think you'd like it."

Keeg shakes his head.

"Why do you stick around for me?" he asks, his voice quiet. But Keeg only leans in, and for a moment---

He touches his forehead to the outline of Larry's, and Larry's eyes flutter closed on instict---

He lurches forward when he opens his eyes and Keeg isn't in front of him---

He isn't in the greenhouse anymore, either. He's in the Doom Manor dining room, at the dining table, surrounded by Cliff, Rita, Vic, and Jane---and a long, stretched out tablecloth of various foods, a feast for all of them.

"Is it," he begins, "are you guys actually here, or---"

"I wanted to finish that, Keeg," Rita snaps, then softens. "What are we doing here?"

"Aw, come on," Jane complains, yawning. "I fell asleep and I was having a dream that actually didn't fucking suck for once."

Larry spots Keeg floating high above the opposite end of the table. "Did you bring everyone here?" he asks, and Keeg flies over to him, lightning-strike-fast, nods when he settles. "How..."

He hears Cliff snort from beside him, and then the sound of a tilted plate circling around on the glass. He turns---Cliff, in his human form, stuffing several chocolate croissants down his throat.

"Dude," he says, words muffled by mashed bits of food, "we can eat this shit! And taste it!"

"I haven't eaten anything in almost a hundred years," Larry whispers. "Thanks, buddy. I love you."

xli.

"I think I'm stuffed," Cliff says, pushing his sixth plate forward. "I could fall asleep right here."

"Hey, Keeg, you think we can spend the night here?" Vic asks, leaning forward, still shoveling down macaroni and cheese.

"You know, because our real life lives suck," Jane adds.

Keeg shrugs again, nods, his body sparking bright and beautiful and azure above them all. Like a guiding star. Like a meteor striking a wish granted.

"I think I'm going to sleep too," Larry says. "Goodnight, everyone." He laughs at the proceeding irony, as if he's about to win a world record for the funniest joke ever uttered - "Happy New Year?"

Jane snorts. Vic laughs, too, but when he says it, it sounds nearly genuine - "Yeah, Happy New Years, Larry."

xlii.

He sits on his bed, runs his fingers down the comforter he has eternally missed, yearned for, coveted. Since his death, his only desire has been to rest; ghosts, apparently, do need sleep, but it's hard to get good sleep floating cold above a mattress, never truly touching down.

He pulls his sweater off---boots, socks, pants, until he's near-bare in his underclothing, exposed. He feels the air shiver against his flesh; he's missed this.

Larry buries himself underneath the covers, his physical form sinking down into his plush sheets. Alive, his skin was always too warped for him to feel most sensations---here, he can feel everything. Warmth. The texture of his pillow and blanket. The food settling inside of his stomach as he turns on his side. The spark of Keeg's body. The---

He hears a crackling, the noise of something sharp shifting through his walls. He turns to his other side. He really should thank Keeg for this, should beg at Keeg's knees for forgiveness.

He's so much like his other father.

Larry sits up, takes in the sight of his twenty year old self in his underclothes standing near Larry's desk, gaze full of wonder and fear and wonder. 

Larry grins. "Come here," he says, patting his bed. "You're a little bit too big to sleep in my arms now, but..."

Keeg looks at him. With similar hesitation, he reaches out and places his hand over Larry's chest, fakeflesh warm and inviting, just as the Spirit had done to Larry all those decades ago. It carves a pit into his heart, Larry as a rotten fruit being reversed back into life. Larry takes the hand - with hesitation, always hesitation - and moves in to press his forehead over Keeg's, now that he can actually feel the contact.

"I just wanted to say thank you," he says. "Thank you for giving me what I never had."

His eyes close once more; so much joy floods out of them that he needs to close the dam. He gives a soft exhale, feels Keeg's breathless mouth somehow still radiate warmth near Larry's face. This is weird. He shouldn't be doing this.

Why is it weird? He's weird for thinking it's weird.

It's a normal fatherly touch.

He sniffles. As he reaches up to wipe his eyes, his forehead accidentally slams into Keeg's, their lips brushing close in a way that sparks an inhuman shiver down Larry's nervous system. He inhales----I'm so sorry----wonders if Keeg can feel pain here---feels Keeg inhale, take his very first human breath, turning into something unrecognizably beautiful---and feels Keeg lurch forward, furthering the contact.

Kissing him.

Larry, starved, jumps. For a moment - a single, starving moment - he (starved) feels nauseous, the burden of a touchless eighty years crushing him into a fine powder. He tries to process it, mulls it over in his mind, places it in the mouth of his mind to melt down like a lollipop.

He breathes into Keeg's open lips, and kisses back, a betrayal of a moan slipping out as he guides his son deeper in. It's wrong, it's so fucking wrong---if there is a hell Larry will burn in it, every small little fragment of his body set alight and salted and flayed as punishment for loving his child a little bit too much, for relying on him in the end of times. But Keeg seems to want it---Keeg initiated it, and Keeg is the one pulling Larry's arm around his waist, their chests meeting, only more hunger.

He whimpers into Keeg, hardening against his own volition. His face burns with guilt and humiliation, more desperate tears crawling out like horror film creatures, as his hand brushes over Keeg's boxers and finds him half-hard. He gives a slight pressure down over the fabric with his palm, and Keeg bites down on his lip.

"I didn't know you could feel this," Larry says, pulling away for a brief, torturous moment. "Do you want me to help you feel good?" He kisses Keeg again, his thumb brushing over Keeg's cheek in patterns. "Your dad knows what he's doing. And... you deserve it."

Keeg looks down at his waist, his eyes giving a brief rolling doze. Looks back up at Larry, gives him a doe-like look that only Keeg is capable of making. It drills into him, need hammered into his palms and feet like a crucifixion.

Keeg nods.

"Lie back," Larry breathes, smiles. His hands travel slow to the bottom of Keeg's off-white night shirt, pulling it over his head, the texture of his hair a pleasant sensation as he moves. Keeg obeys.

Larry kisses down his stomach, his tongue and mouth rolling over Keeg's inhuman human flesh, making him shiver and burn with even more warmth at the same time. He removes Keeg's boxers with gentle movement, like he's trying not to startle an animal. 

Larry didn't look this beautiful at twenty years old. Keeg may be wearing his old form, but the beauty is all Keeg. He would do anything to wrap this moment in tinfoil and stick it in the freezer for eternity, never to dry out.

Larry gives a brief kiss into each of Keeg's thighs, and then kisses the tip of Keeg's cock before taking it into his mouth, slow and cautious and desire-drenched. His tongue swirls, his head moves. He had wanted to do this to his first Spirit, but that Spirit stole that chance from him. Now: he has Keeg, holy Keeg, the one he loved before he knew he could love.

Keeg's fingers curl into Larry's hair. His throat begins to make a loud, rasping noise, croaking out gasps until it finally forms a singular word, the first ever touch of speech---

"Dad…"