[𝓔𝓝𝓓] ɢɪᴠᴇ ᴍᴇ ʏᴏᴜʀ ꜰᴏʀᴇᴠᴇʀ [𝒯𝒶𝑒𝒯𝑒𝑒'𝓈 𝒱𝑒𝓇𝓈. 𝐸𝓃𝑔𝓁𝒾𝓈𝒽]

Part 1

Beam knew something wasn't right in his new apartment from the first night he had moved in. It was an eerie and unsettling feeling that had left him tossing and turning all night instead of getting some shut eye. It wasn't because of him just moving in and getting a new feel of the place or anything, it was just a cold, hard, unsettling feeling. It made Beam stay up in his bed until five thirty in the morning, when work was within the next hour. Being an intern for an optometrist meant waking up at six thirty, whether he liked it or not.

The optometrist he interned for asked him if he had gotten enough sleep, to which Beam shook his head. Sucked because the eye doctor wouldn't let him leave early or during his lunch break to get some shut eye. Beam worked until five pm, and didn't get home until six. Days were already exhausting enough, but with the lack of sleep and still getting used to his new apartment, his life really wasn't peaking.

For the first few weeks, he was getting one to three hours of sleep, and after that he had felt a change in the environment and then started falling asleep at 9:30 pm. Which was strange because even if he didn't move, he usually fell asleep around midnight. In summary, his sleep schedule was fucked for about two months. He drank large amounts of coffee to keep awake and felt like he had gone to hell and back when he got off his internship. He worked part-time at the college library too, because food and bus fare money had to appear somehow.

"I don't know, Kit. It's still weird. I feel like something is making my sleep schedule fall out of order."

"Maybe it's just the environment. It takes months for people to get used to their new places."

"But when I moved into our dorm I slept like a rock, you know that. It just feels weird in here." Beam sighed into the phone as he spun around on his bar seat. He had just gotten home, and was feeling dreadful and lonesome.

"Get a priest then." Kit laughed into Beam's ear. "Listen, just relax. You probably watched too many horror movies. You get me? Get some sleep, Beam."

"Okay, g'night." Beam ended the call and got to his feet and headed to the fridge, opening it and letting the light inside blind him. "My food disappears so quickly." He yawned as he pulled out a Tupperware container filled to the brim with leftovers that were probably for a week next. As he sat back down at the bar counter, the prickly feeling ran down his arms, back, and neck. A sound emitted from the door, the sound of it opening.

Beam froze. He didn't want to see who was inside his apartment. He was scared shitless, and might actually piss himself.

"Oh God, didn't realize you were home. Usually you get home earlier and fall asleep." A voice came from the doorway, but his face was hidden due to how dark it was. Beam slowly turned back to his food, his stomach doing countless flips and flops. "Well, fuck, I fucked up. You're not supposed to know I exist."

"W-who are you? Why you in my house?" Beam asked as he looked over his shoulder at the tall man that he wished he could identify. He would reach for his phone which was only a couple feet away, but what if this dude had a gun?

"Technically, I was here before you. I've lived here my whole life with the place being empty, but the landlord finally got his shit together and realized he could rent this place out to someone. That someone being you." He took another step forward, and was now fully visible. He was tall, very tall, with black hair and clothes, wearing a dark leather jacket. His face was covered in red paint, Beam prayed to god it was paint not blood, and he leaned on a scythe. "Nice to meet you, Beam Baramee. I'm Death."

Beam's vision got blurry and spotty and the next thing he knew, his body was hitting the wooden floor.

•

Beam woke up with a massive headache. His head was pulsing and as he got to sit up, he was smashed into by a wave of weakness and flopped back down onto the bed. Beam squinted his eyes shut. Last night had to have been a hallucination. He wasn't getting enough sleep or eating enough, that hallucination was just due to his unhealthy lifestyle.

"Good morning, Angel."

"Oh no." Beam covered his mouth, feeling warm bile make its way up his throat and he swallowed it down, gagging. "Oh no,"

"You accidentally cut off your ear when it fell on my scythe." Death pointed at Beam's right ear, which he put a hand over and finally felt the wrappings of bandages around his head. "It was pretty bad and blood was everywhere, but y'know, for a reaper, I'm pretty good at healing people. Humans. Weird things."

"I-I have internship, I can't be late," Beam began crawling out of bed, reaching for the clothes he sets out but the tall man had pushed him back down into the bed with one hand.

"You're weak. I already called the place in, saying you got into an accident, you have plenty of time off."

Beam stared at the ceiling, eyes wide and head still pulsing. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears. "You're Death." He croaked out, tears welling in his eyes. "Just kill me, seriously, don't cater to my injury only to kill me. Get it over with."

Death started laughing, hard. Like he'd never heard something so hilarious in his life. "I'm not gonna kill you unless my boss tells me to. I just live here. Though I'm usually out. You sleep and work like a maniac so when you're away or asleep, I pass out in the guest bedroom. And sorry if I eat some of your food, I can afford my own but you cook really well."

"Death has eaten my cooking before."

"You don't always gotta call me Death, that's just a code name, really. I go by Forth." He sat down on a chair from the dining area, smiling. "Sorry for scaring you. I never really introduced myself to a human. It's always, 'hi, I'm Death, I'm gonna kill you now'. Never had the time for a human friend."

"We're not friends."

"Sure we are, we're roomies."

"A lot of roommates aren't friends."

"You're a buzzkill." Forth frowned, grimaced, and got back up. He sat on Beam's bed, who moved away from the reaper uncomfortably. "Don't be scared of me. I don't have permission to kill unless my boss says it's okay."

"Who's your boss?" Beam asked as he put a hand on his forehead. Hot. He probably had a fever.

"Satan. Lucifer. The Devil. We all just call him Sooman. I call him dad sometimes and he gets so pissed, it's actually funny."

"Why aren't you so busy?"

"I'm like a hitman. He tells me who to kill, and I do so. If he doesn't, I don't have the power to do anything."

A silence settled between them, Beam beginning to doze off. His ear hurt still, as well as his head. And knowing that Death existed as a person, that didn't help. Beam glanced to his right, seeing that Forth was staring intently at him.

"Why are you looking at me like that." Beam asked, though it leaned towards more of a statement.

"Just looking at your future. Damn, you're not really gonna get anywhere."

"W-what? Not get anywhere? I'm an intern, I'll be an optometrist soon–"

"Sure you will, but you're lonely and depressed, stressed, not to mention exhausted most of the time." Forth said with a shrug, as if it was nothing.

"Can you shut up? That's an invasion of my privacy." Beam sighed, looking out his window. He thought about how he really didn't have an exciting life, how he was just about work and nothing else. How he strived to be the best but at what cost? Being depressed and tired all of the time?

"Ah, now it's changing." Forth laughed. "I'm glad I said something. Maybe some interesting things will happen soon." He leaned back in his seat. "But, I've got to get going, actually. I'll see you soon, Beam Baramee."

Forth got to his feet and scooped up his scythe that stood taller than him and stood at the doorway, back facing Beam and disappeared out of thin air.