Loving a Ghost in a Living Body

Chapter 2: Grief That wasn't His

Summary:

Cale has three problems:

1. His new servant won't stop being interesting.
2. His dreams won't stop being haunting.
3. He's running out of excuses for why he keeps staring.

(Also: naming someone is apparently a big deal. Who knew.)

———+++———

Cale dreamed.

This wasn't unusual. He dreamed often, fragments of Kim Rok Soo's life and his current life tangled together into incomprehensible knots. But tonight's dream was different.

He stood on a battlefield.

Not the neat, organized battles of his current life.

This was chaos. Complete and utter chaos.

Bodies everywhere, smoke choking the sky, the screams of the dying rising like a terrible hymn. He walked through it, feet moving without his consent, searching for something he couldn't name.

Then he saw him.

The servant.

He couldn't see the face, but he still somehow knew it was him.

But not as he was now— forgettable face, empty eyes, small presence. This version was burning. 

Red aura flickered around him like flames, wrapping around his body, concentrating in his hands where a metal whip gleamed with blood. He moved through the battlefield like death incarnate, striking down enemies with a precision that was stunningly beautiful.

His face was young. His eyes were alive— filled with grief and rage and desperate, desperate hope.

He was fighting for something.

For someone.

The servant— ‘he needs a name,’ Cale thought distantly— stumbled backward, one arm wrapped protectively around the person slumped against his side. His other hand held the whip, but it hung limp, dragging in the mud. The red aura around him had guttered low, barely a flicker.

"Stay with me," the servant gasped, shaking the person gently. "Please. Please! Stay with me."

The person— Cale couldn't see their face, couldn't tell if they were man or woman, young or old— made a wet, rattling sound. Blood bubbled at their lips.

"No. No no no." The servant's voice cracked. He pressed his hand against their stomach, against a wound that Cale could now see was mortal, impossible to cure. Blood poured through his fingers, hot and endless. "You can't. You promised. You promised you'd make it. You promised you won't leave me!"

The person’s trembling hand lifted and found the servant's wrist. They squeezed it weakly as if to comfort the distressed boy.

"'S alright," the person breathed. Blood bubbled at their lips.

"It's not!" The servant's composure shattered completely. That desperate hope in his eyes— it was crumbling, splintering, dying by inches. "You can't leave me. You can't… I don't know how to… please."

He pressed his hands against the wound, the red aura flaring brighter, hotter. The person gasped, and the servant immediately released pressure, horrified at causing more pain.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I—" His voice broke at the end. He gathered them gently against his chest, heedless of the battle still raging somewhere behind them.