Six Seconds - 5. Five

The light pillars of New Seatrouver elongated as Callen and Sage ventured to the top of the tallest hill beside Penny Lake. From the corner of his eye, Callen saw a tiny piece of black sticking out of the frozen landscape. Curious, he approached and dug at it with his hands. Sage joined in after a moment. A few minutes later, they unearthed a small, but relatively undamaged, toboggan.

Callen could barely contain his excitement.

"What a find!" Callen said, brushing bits of ice off from it. "It's a fairly good size too. What do you think?"

"That depends who's riding it," Sage said. He eyed the Callen nervously. "What are you doing?"

"What do you think?" Callen set the toboggan flat on the ground and extended a hand. Sage stared at him. Callen tried to appear serious, but he couldn't stop himself from grinning ear to ear.

"Wait... no." Sage shook his head and backed up abruptly. "No, you're crazy. Not going to happen."

"Why are they excavating this area for development again? It's so mountainous, must be a hassle," Callen asked abruptly, gesturing towards the lake and the hills.

Sage looked at him, confused, stopping in his tracks. "What? Uh, there's a hidden reserve of oil –?"

Callen acted fast. He threw his arms around his friend in mid-answer and attempted to manipulate him onto the sled. Back when they were eight and nine years old, it would have worked. But now, with Sage's increased mass, it became much more of a struggle. When Callen finally overcame his friend, they missed the toboggan entirely and log-rolled down the hill at the speed of a rolling block of cheese in Gloucester. They landed in a pile of snow at the very bottom, two minutes later.

Sage was the first to get up, and watched as Callen, laughing himself senseless, picked himself up. Sage shoved him back down and stormed off.

"Is that a smile?" Callen called after his friend. "Hey, I think that looks good on you! You should wear it more often."

"Shut up! I smile."

"I know," Callen called out. He paused to watch Sage's departing silhouette. You used to smile a lot.

After Callen agreed to disarm himself and tossed the sled aside, they walked back up the hills to watch the city lights of New Seatrouver. They rested on their backs, and Callen attempted to make snow angels, while Sage was still.

"So, what do you do in this city now?" Callen asked.

"Construction," Sage said. "Everyone here is doing construction. We're already getting an influx of people coming in from Portland, so New Seatrouver needs to be big."

"That's pretty sweet. Do you like it here?"

Sage looked thoughtful for a moment. "There isn’t much to do in the city at the moment, and it smells like shit, but right outside of it, it's... it's nice." Sage gestured to the light pillars, and turned to look at Callen. "What do you do now? Do you all still live in Ephrata?"

Callen nodded. "Yeah, I do. I'm studying Business and working full time, still trying to figure out what I really wanna do. I'll probably be moving to another state, or maybe overseas." He inhaled. "I still play lacrosse, though, but I didn't try out for varsity this year."

"Cool." Sage offered Callen his box of Marlboros, who took the whole thing and shoved it into his pocket, a silent protestation to his smoking habit. Sage looked at him oddly but didn't say anything.

"I thought you would go into Astronomy or some sort of Science," Sage said.

Callen turned his head back to the sky. "Nah, I sort of lost interest." After you were gone, I sort of lost interest in pretty much everything.

"Oh. Okay."

They stayed like that until half past three in the morning, and Callen's forehead began to pulse with unexpected pain. Sage looked over at him with concern, suggesting they head back to the apartment.

"No," Callen said firmly. "I don't want any sleep."

"You don't look so good," Sage said, frowning.

"Let's get something else to eat if you're not tired," Callen said, and Sage nodded. They went back to the apartment to get Sage's car, and Sage drove them both out into the city.

There really wasn't much to see besides paved roads, but Callen could tell that they were constructing big things. The roads were wide and spacious; the streetlights pristine and high. Cranes and concrete pipes were in every corner, piled up inside construction pits. However, the streets were empty, and there wasn't a soul in sight. Even when they drove out into the inner streets of downtown area, where neon signs flashed brightly, an eerie quiet hung in the air. Cars were parked at the edges of sidewalks, but they too were unoccupied.

"Where is everyone?" Sage asked, after they drove through the 24 hour McDonald's drive through and no one took their order.

"I don't know."

Callen bit his lip and closed his eyes. The pain between his eyes had escalated to a terrible throb. His hands felt clammy. Wet. Numb.

"Let's just stop in the parking lot for a bit," he said.

Sage nodded. "Okay."

And then, with urgency in his voice: "Callen, you're bleeding."

Callen's eyes snapped open. "What?"

Sage's voice was soothing, but his hands shook as he fumbled with his pockets, extracting a piece of plaid cloth. "It's just a little scratch. I have some clean water in my water bottle. You must have bumped your head when we fell down the hill but it didn't start bleeding until now." Sage's eyes darted to his forehead as he fumbled inside the compartments around his seat.

Callen looked at the tiny piece of cloth. "A handkerchief? Really?"

"They can be useful in emergency situations," Sage protested. He produced a water bottle from underneath his seat, dabbed the cloth in it, and pressed it to Callen's forehead. With his other hand, he touched Callen's cheek.

His hands were warm. Callen leaned into them.

"Holy shit."

Callen opened his eyes, questioning. "What?"

"Callen you're freezing cold. What the hell, why didn't you tell me?" He cranked up the heat of the car up to max and removed his own scarf.

Callen smiled.

"I like all this attention."

Sage's eyes flashed. "Callen!"

"Hey alright! I feel fine. Don't worry about it. And it doesn't hurt. Stop fussing."

And then suddenly, realization dawned on him. The saline smell of his hands, his forehead. A rustling, like cards thrown into the air, rushed into his ears, and at once, things clicked into place.

"I was driving, and I was exhausted," Callen said abruptly.

Sage looked at him like he was insane.

"What?"

"I was on Guardman's highway," Callen continued. "It was snowing real bad, but I needed to make it back to my dad's Thanksgiving. You know how he's usually lenient about everything except holidays."

Sage shook his head, eyes wide. "What are you talking about? Callen, it's March. I... I need to call an ambulance, you're delirious –"

A white hot stab of pain rammed in between Callen's eyes, then disappeared as soon as it came. Irritation dragged in its wake.

"Listen!" he snapped.

Sage froze.

"I was driving," Callen continued through gritted teeth. "I hit a patch of black ice. My car slipped and it fell right over the edge. I blacked out – my seatbelt wasn't working properly, but I don't think that would've helped. The next thing I remembered was that I smashed into the surface of the ocean."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Sage said, and through Callen's narrowed eyes, he saw that his eyes had begun to fill with tears. "Callen you're... you're scaring me."

He softened. "Don't be scared, Sage."

Another flash of pain, and then Sage was yelling, pressing his cloth against Callen's head. Hot liquid dripped into Callen's eyes, and he realized it was his own blood.

"Holy shit, holy shit." He heard Sage pull out his phone and dial frantically, but Callen couldn't muster the effort to stop him through the pain.

Sage had one hand pressed tightly against Callen's forehead and the other cradling the phone against his ear. "Hello? I have an emergen – my friend's head just started bleeding and I'm trying to stop it – We're on... fuck, where are we?... hello?" He pulled the phone away from him and stared. "That was an automated message. No one picked up. What the fuck?"

Callen grabbed the phone and threw it under the seat.

"What –"

"Tell me," Callen said, and suddenly, it was even an effort to speak. "Tell me why you left."

Frustrated tears streamed down Sage's cheeks, and he was shaking his head. "What the hell Callen... You want to know now?"

"Sage, please. I'm out of time."

My body is in the ocean and I'm dying.

The words reverberated in his chest, and the weight of which seemed to have struck home. He was twenty-two, he was young, and he lived the last five years in absolute regret. He had no clue how he teleported a hundred kilometres south from where he initially crashed his car, and he had no idea whether his current embodiment was real or projected.

But he was with Sage, and Sage's skin was warm and he was here. The scars on his neck were knotted and soft and alive. And he was crying, and it hurt him, and Callen wanted to make it all better, but he first had to know.

He had to know if he was the one that had driven Sage away, if he had ultimately hurt the one that he had always been trying to protect.

"Tell me, why did you leave?"

*  *  *

Callen, your time is up.

Darkness.

"No, I'm not ready to go!"

No one is, Callen. Did you think Sage was?

The words rang in Callen's head, ricocheting forever.

*  *  *

Callen’s room was dark and silent, save for the monotonous ticking of the bedside alarm clock. Sage never slept that night. His eyes were shut, but his mind was clear and awake, replaying the events of the day over and over again, like a film stuck on repeat. The nurses’ room. The principal. Visitations by the police, and the trip to the hospital, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Worthwright. Callen with his jaw squared, crossing his arms. Callen grabbing at his side, and the pain. Callen leaning forwards, a hand brushing off tears atop his cheekbone.

Callen kissing him.

The sides of Sage’s body pulsed with renewed pain, but they had been bandaged comfortably earlier so his injuries didn't bother him too much now.

Sage waited until Callen was asleep, listening to his deep and rhythmic breathing. It took much of his willpower to wriggle out of Callen's warm grasp – he had his arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders. Sage retreated off the side and changed quickly, glancing at his friend.

Callen looked surprisingly young when he was sleeping. The moonlight snuck through the blinds and set his skin aglow with a ghostly light, his hair sapped of colour. His mouth was open in a small "O." Shadows cast by his brows hid his eyes.

Sage turned back to touch the skin of the back of Callen’s hand and allowed himself six seconds. Then, holding his breath, he turned and fled the room.

It took the rest of his resolve to leave the house.

His feelings for Callen were convoluted, complicated further by the sudden turn of events. He had no idea what that kiss meant, and no idea how Callen felt about him. Did he love him differently? Did Sage love Callen back all the same?

Yet, at this point, it didn't matter. Sage had all his things packed prior to coming over. There wasn't much to take, just clothes, his debit, and some cash. He had already saved enough not to be homeless for a while, but, where to? He had no idea, but he also knew he couldn't stay another day in this city. He couldn't stand another day being a liability, being a puppet in everyone else's life.

I need to be free.

Sage took the last bus back home, listening to the pre-summer crickets sing to each other into the night. Not caring if Cruz or his mother was asleep, he walked straight into the house, retrieved the car keys off from the kitchen counter, and drove off with the rusty family Volvo without an incident.

He would stop once to get gas, shutting off his phone for good so he could sell it later, and then he was off onto Highway 97, heading to nowhere.

Warm air rushed in as Sage rolled down his window. He inhaled, filling his lungs with oxygen, and it hurt. It hurt so terribly, but for a reason Sage couldn't quite explain himself, he felt like he could breathe forever like this, alone and encompassed by the night.

He could only hope that Callen would understand.

*  *  *

"It was an asshole thing to do," Callen said. The tears rolled down his chin, intermingling with the blood snaking from his forehead, dripping into the cup holders. "I know I told people when you told me not to, but it was for your safety. And then you just walk out after everything... After I finally thought everything was going to be alright."

"It's not because of what you told them," Sage protested. "You don't understand."

Callen sighed, and Sage leaned close, so close his eyes were all but a blur. Their breaths steamed against each other. He felt Sage’s chest; his heart beat against his.

"I don't.” Callen’s voice felt hoarse and feeble. “You didn't have to explain everything to me. You could have texted me, left me a note. Hell, you could have given me anything, a sign, a picture..."

"I'm sorry."

"Instead you just vanished. Gone. I didn't even know whether you were alive or dead."

Sage shut his eyes. "I'm sorry."

Callen took in a deep, rattling breath. "You didn't care."

"I care," Sage said, and a sob broke his voice. "I care, I care. I always have."

"You... you don't care." Callen gripped the back of Sage's head, and pushed their noses together. "And I hate you."

His lips brushed the same skin, and they met. They kissed for a moment. A fleeting second. A lifetime.

A warmth spread in the centre of his chest, and Callen placed a hand over the spot, clenching it with his fist, wanting it to stay with him, wanting it to thaw the iciness that slowly began to envelop and numb his limbs. He could feel the tether holding him stretch taut. He pulled back, opening his eyes a fraction.

And the question slipped out of him before he could stop himself.

"Tell me..." Callen whispered. "Did you really die that night like they said? Or are you really here with me, alive?"

It didn't take long for Sage to respond, but to Callen, the breath he inhaled in between heartbeats felt like an eternity. Sage answered without opening his eyes, and when he spoke, there was something different in his voice, something amidst all the pain and confusion and awfulness that engulfed everything around them. It was something that flickered with light, something that Callen could suddenly attribute as a source to that warmth in his chest.

"I'm not either or, Callen," Sage said. "I'm both."

It's hope.

Something deep inside Callen snapped, and the boundaries of time were lifted.

Everything stopped moving. The atoms of his skeleton, his muscles, his skin: they shivered, shimmered, dissected and splayed, his skin sloughing off, blood vessels unraveling from muscle tendons, basal laminas of individual cells coming undone, everything dissolving into an infinite number of silver particles, bending quantum and space. His body disappeared, leaving behind not so much as a trace of himself.

Sage's eyes, filled with tears, never open. He too, was frozen in time, hand outstretched, Callen's atoms slipping through his fingers like quicksand. And a few slivers of milliseconds later, he too, dissolved into magic and dust, revealing a blue, luminescent framework built by action potentials of a dying mind. The car around him trembled, dust shaking from the ceiling like puffs of quicksand.

With a thump, as if the world was struck by a giant hand, a shudder split across the street. Lights flickered like dying embers.

Then all at once, everything shattered.

The foam and insulation within the walls of the car burst forth, the windows exploding into a billion fragments, suspended in the air like a snowstorm. The pavement of the road cracked like porcelain, and the fragments vibrated and fell deep into the earth, pulling underground telephone wires down with them. Streets lights sank, bobbing only momentarily. Townhouses, cranes, concrete cylinders – they all fell, and the sky with it, dragged down like an endless canopy of black fabric, a trillion stars blinking out of existence.

There were no neon signs, no seats, no silent street surrounding, no McDonald's drive through, no Callen, no Sage, no single human or arthropod or bacterium in sight or presence, but an endless space filled with absolute darkness and...

nothing.

*  *  *

Callen's six seconds are up. His brain is silent and dead. It is cold, but to Callen it doesn't feel that way. There is no feeling other than peace. But even so, it was the sort of inexperienced, inexplicable, paradoxical sort of peace and nothingness you're in when you're in a sleep wiped clean of bothersome dreams.

There is no omnipresent voice. There are no tethers, no visions. There is just Callen's waterlogged body and his ruined Ford Flex, sinking deeper and deeper toward the vast ocean tectonics.