if I should sleep with a lady called death
get another man with firmer lips
to take your new mouth in his teeth
(hips pumping pleasure into hips).
    -- e. e. cummings

He says to Jack: it's all right; you don't have to worry about me.

Moonlight, night light spilling over the covers -- pale, frostbitten, cold like Colorado creeping down into his bones. Jack is warm, hard body beneath his hand and head. Jack's chest rises. Falls. Sucks in breath, in, in, heartbeat banging against his ribs, solid, real. In the dark, Daniel can rest his head against that rhythm and let it lull him.

He says to Jack: I'm not going to die anytime soon.

Jack huffs, once. The room is blurry; Daniel isn't wearing his glasses. Jack rests his hand on Daniel's head. Again, you mean.

Daniel draws lines on Jack's stomach: addresses or constellations, he can't remember which. The clock ticks on the bedside table. Tink, tink, each precious and precise second blending into the silence.

He says to Jack: those weren't -- it wasn't real. It didn't count. It isn't going to yet. You're not going to believe me, but I don't want you to worry.

Jack's fingers, carding through Daniel's hair, still. This some kind of freaky thing you're not going to explain?

Daniel takes a deep breath. He's never told anyone. Never had anyone to tell. It sounds ludicrous heard through the cold clear light of American skepticism, and he doesn't know anyone more of a skeptic than Jack is.

He says to Jack: the first time I died, I was six years old. That was when I met her.

Daniel can only imagine the look on Jack's face. Her?

So many names, so many languages, but he stays with the one Jack knows best.

He says to Jack: death.

There are languages and languages locked inside his brain: voices like thunder, rolling through the hills of recollection, so many things he knows and knows beyond knowing. This memory is pidgin-English, dig-Arabic, snatches of French and German. The voices of every adult in camp: feet scrabbling through sand, the alarm of people who think a child is dying, fallen from heights he should not have been climbing to.

He remembers the pressure, the weight of his lungs struggling to push through broken bone, his heart beating like a bird's. He remembers turning his head, seeking his mother, and not finding her. He remembers the flash of sunlight against burnished metal, a symbol so familiar he knew it before he knew the letters of his own name, the symbol that means life.

She was a stranger, but she crouched at his side and her eyes were dark and kind. It's good to see you again, Daniel, she said.

It had been somehow easy to speak to her, though no one else seemed to hear. I don't remember ever meeting you before.

It's all right. I remember you.

Somewhere his mother was crying and his father was shouting and he couldn't breathe, couldn't cry, and everything was dark and soft around the edges despite the early-morning sun. Mama, he tried to say, mama, it's all right, I'm right here, but his mother was weeping and he couldn't tell why.

She can't hear you, the woman said, and held out a hand. Take my hand, Daniel. I'll take you where you need to go.

I can't go yet, he said, and he didn't know why, but he knew it was true. I can't -- this is wrong, I need to do something first. I can't go.

You have to, she said. It's all right. It won't hurt. I promise.

Jack is silent and still beneath Daniel's head, save for the rise, the fall, of his chest; Daniel can hear his mind ticking away, categorizing, explaining to itself. He translates as he goes into words Jack will be able to comprehend.

Not yet, he'd said, and he hadn't even realized then, but his voice had sounded echoes in his ears of the man he would become. This is wrong. I can't let you take me until I'm ready.

She had let her hands fall to her thighs: the palest of flashes against rich dark denim. Dark hair, dark eyes, dark clothes; they made her skin shine, bright and silvered, like the moon, even in the brown and tan of the desert. You know, she said, head cocked to the side as though listening to something Daniel could not hear, I think you're right. There is something wrong here. She leaned over and kissed his forehead, and her lips burned, and he could suddenly feel the pain nibbling at his edges but her touch kept it at bay. I'll see you again.

He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he was lying in a hospital bed, and his mother sat upright when he moved and cried out with the pain. Mama, he said to her: mama, I saw Amentet, and she said I could come back.

He says to Jack: the second time I saw her was when my parents died. She told me my ren was written large in the Book, but the individual brush-strokes were wrong, and she couldn't know when to take me. That I would know, when the time was right.

Jack seems to have decided this is a bedtime story, a myth like any one of the thousands Daniel has told him, year and year. And she was Death.

He says to Jack: she goes by a thousand names, and every time I see her, she is more beautiful.

Something in his voice must alarm Jack, because the hand in his hair tightens, tugs. Jack pulls Daniel's head back, meets his eyes, holds them. Fuzzy in the dark, in the haze and squint of myopia, but Jack's expression is clear. You don't get to do that. You don't get to talk about Death like some kind of lover.

But it's not like that, and he knows Jack can understand, if he can only find the words.

He says to Jack: it's peaceful. She's peaceful. She's not there to hurt me; when I know it's time, she'll bring me where I need to go. She's beautiful. Like the sunrise, or the birth of a child, or -- like the way it feels to go to sleep, safe and warm. Held close. You know.

It's November in Colorado and Jack's voice is like ice beneath him. I know.

Daniel has spent forever building a grammar of Jack, and he can hear what Jack really means. He puts a hand on Jack's chest, warm and broad and solid, and he is certain of so many things but none so certain as this.

He says to Jack: you've seen her.

Jack shifts beneath him, and does not meet his eyes. I've been doing this a long time.

Jack speaks in layers; his words are only the scantest hint of the semantic weight beneath. Daniel listens to the shape of Jack's breath and wonders how many times Jack has seen a petite and barefoot shadow through the scope of a rifle, standing behind the shoulder of a man who will never see her coming.

He is quiet, because he knows that Jack is not yet finished, and Jack says, the barest hint of emphasis on the pronoun, You can't love death. You have to fight it every step of the way.

He says to Jack: it's all right. I'm not ready yet. It's not time. But I know it won't hurt when it is.

Jack rolls over, sudden and strong, pinning Daniel underneath the long lean weight of him. Jack says to him: I don't care if it won't hurt. She can't have you.

He says to Jack: it's not time yet.

Jack says: I don't give a flying fuck if it is or not, and I never will.

His mouth is hot against Daniel's, his body whispering lines of secrets Jack will never be able to verbalize. Daniel can feel all the anger Jack holds close and never lets show. It warms the sheets like the Egyptian afternoon. He rests his hands on Jack's shoulders, wraps his legs around and digs his heels into the backs of Jack's calves, buries his face against Jack's neck.

His body speaks for him in return, the way he knows Jack can read, layers and levels of promises and reassurances. He knows Jack fears her. Has seen her too many times, never able to open his eyes when she comes for him himself: at arm's length, turning the sun of that terrible compassion and mercy always away, away, letting him touch the bare edges of her peace-which-passeth-understanding and never bringing it close enough to let Jack cup it in his hands.

It's all right, though. Daniel knows. Enough for them both, in the end, and he's willing to be the one who holds it in trust, sleeping.

He says to Jack: I told you; I'm not going to die anytime soon.

He does not say: but she'll be waiting for me when I do.

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