That Part Chapter 40: A Taste of Heaven

This is a Skyrim/Alan Wake 2 fic. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

This chapter has been edited due to content. If you want to see the unedited version GO HERE.

JASH

“**** you!” Alex Casey yelled.

It sounded like my love was yelling across a vast ocean and I stood on a distant shore. No, not standing. Laying on the shore with waves slowly pulling me into the depths until I starved. Soon enough I would look up from the seabed and hope that a tasty morsel would graze me maw.

I wasn’t on some shore as I didn’t feel any sand. Instead I felt wood pressing against my side. Since the wood was only along one side of my body and the world looked tilted, I realized I was laying on the floor of some cabin. Or at least a room with wooden flooring.

Scratch had used my body for something and left Cauldron Lake behind to go to…the Writer’s Room. The place Alan had been trapped in for an eternity.

I recognized the way my lungs struggled to get air into my lungs. I recognized the way my body seemed like less of me and more of an object. Sithis had come for me many times before and countless memories reinforced the certainty that there was no escaping this moment. The closest to death I had ever been was when my blood continued to freeze while Scouts-Many-Marshes’ corpse lay in my arms.

I wanted this to be my final moment as I didn’t want to live a moment without Alex. But death would only come for my body and leave my soul to return to Skyrim.

“Alex,” Saga’s soothing voice said. “We did what we could. You lived. I lived. Alan lived. Logan lived.”

“And Jash is dying.” Alex’s voice countered.

“I’m sorry.” Alan’s voice said. “I should have picked up on whatever went wrong.”

“Don’t ******* tell me this is what is supposed to happen.”

“That’s the only thing that makes sense!”

“Well, you two need to figure something out. Now. Jash doesn’t have much time.”

I didn’t have much time and it was not ours to leave without seeing Alex one more time. My muscles burned as I turned so that I was now propped up on my elbows and looking at the trio. Saga had a hand on Alex’s shoulder while Alan sat at his desk.

On his forehead seemed to be a circle of light the same size of a bullet wound. Even as I looked at it I could see it fading. My eyes then went to Alex whose face was twisted in such pain it was easy to imagine Scratch still alive and trying to possess him.

“Alex.” I said weakly.

It must have sounded like a dragon’s cry with how quickly my love moved to my side. With hardly any effort he was sitting on the floor with me cradled in his arms. Even with the sensation of heat becoming part of the distant past, I felt warmth in his embrace.

Was this what Scouts had experienced at the end? Had he also found comfort in my presence? He had looked peaceful but that could have hid torment. He was the kind of person that would not want me to feel like a monster at the end.

I took one thumb and wiped Alex’s torrent of tears streaming down his face. It shocked me when he brushed away my own tears. And here I had thought I was going out with dignity and grace.

“Can you…” I struggled to say.

“Anything.” Alex said as he voice cracked.

“I just want to look at you one more time.”

Alex looked as if he were struggling to say something but ended up abandoning the effort. Instead he just nodded. I barely lifted up my head and he met my lips with his. His kiss was deep and passionate. Meanwhile my kiss, if one could call it that, was barely noticeable. I tried to have my kiss go deeper and longer, but there wasn’t the energy left in my body for such an act.

After the short kiss we looked at each other. I tried to stay in this reality through his face and willpower alone. But even as I tried, Alex’s face faded from my view. The last I saw of it was as if I were trying to look out of a window into a storm.