oh, a man ain't a man unless he has desire )
He’s been here all of a week.
Or has it been a month?
Time had passed differently in the afterlife and, if he’s being honest with himself, he no longer has any idea how time works on earth. He’d been dead much longer than he’d ever been alive and he’s spent most of his time back in Beqanna – this new, different-but-still-somehow-the-same Beqanna – asleep in the sun, not bothering to keep track of how any times that sun has risen or set.
The point is that he hasn’t been here long and he’s already pretty tired of it. But Antidote is not a coward and he feels no overwhelming urge to fling himself off the nearest cliff just to get back to the afterlife. Especially not with the way he’d left things with Cuerva Lista, when he’d insisted on being the one who came back. (Wasn’t there supposed to be a reason he was here? So far he’s done little more than sleep and complain about having to be here). He couldn’t give her the satisfaction of him lasting all of a month back on earth before he threw in the towel.
He’s in the meadow, has spent most of his time in the meadow (primarily because it’s one of the only places he still recognizes), and a brilliant white thing catches his eye. He lifts his head, grunts, and then hauls himself to his feet. She doesn’t remind him of anyone he knew once but with the uncertain way she’s blinking into the light, he thinks she might be like him. Dead. And then not dead.
He moves slow, cursing the way gravity affects the body, and offers her a slanted smirk as he stations himself near enough to not have to shout when he addresses her. “Ain’t this just a son of a bitch?” he asks, gestures vaguely to the great swath of land unfurling around them. Earth. Being alive.
