fancy running you over

[Zhou Luli]

/His name is TYSON. I keep telling you that!/ Bohai the ghost told her as she leaned down and checked to make sure her bike was in working condition. He floated above her, sounding scornful, watching her. /What are you doing?/ he demanded to know.

Luli didn't immediately respond as she was busy checking the bike chain. All good. Everything seemed to be in working order, then! With triumph, she leaned down again to life up her small dog, Zel, and placed him gently in the basket she'd installed on her bike just for him a few years back. Once Zel was in place, Luli swung her leg over and planted her butt on the bike seat.

/What are you doing??/ Bohai demanded to know again. Luli blinked, as if just hearing him for the first time.

"What?" she asked and as Bohai began to ask again, she interrupted because she heard him... It just took her a second to absorb it. "Oh, I'm looking for your friend."

/On bicycle?! Are you stupid or something?!/

"Why?" she said, mouth turning down quizzically as she pushed the bike forward with her foot and began pedaling toward the path that led out of town. "Isn't he in Hazleton?"

Before Bohai could answer, however, Luli found herself running somebody over with her bike. Eyes widened as she realized what she'd done.

"Oh... oh my..." She blinked. "Are you okay?"

[Tyson Liu]

"OOMPH!"

Tyson was bowled head over heels by some punk on a bike riding out of nowhere, and landed with a low grunt of pain on his ass in the grass. He sat there, dazed, for several moments.

"Oww..." He lifted a hand from the damp earth to rub at his lower back, which was throbbing with a dull pain that shot from his tailbone right to the base of his neck. He looked up at the girl on the bike who'd literally ridden up to and over him and gave her a once-over. Did he look okay? He didn't feel okay.

But Tyson being Tyson, he wasn't going to make a fuss. Coolly he struggled to his feet. "I'm fine," he said with some effort to remain level-headed. Maybe she didn't see him coming up the path. It was broad daylight and he was hardly a small man, but he'd always heard that the inhabitants of Hazleton were less than 'all there.'

Besides, she looked young, and he wasn't going to blow a gasket at a stranger. "I'm fine," he repeated, more firmly this time, and tried to get around her. "Be careful out there..." That was mostly for other unsuspecting travelers than for her, though. After giving her a wary look, he moved on.

Hazleton was known as a hotbed for the supernatural. Tyson didn't know what he was expecting or hoping to find here, but... well, it was worth a visit anyway and if there was the slightest chance at finding Bohai again--even in the after-life--he thought it was worth a try.

[Zhou Luli]

"...you too!" she said, by way of telling him to be careful, too. After all, he just appeared out of nowhere! She could have sworn she was fine to go! (Of course, she did tend to just... go without regard to her surroundings. Besides, she was arguing with a ghost, which distracted her. It would distract anyone!

Picking her bike back up, she could hear the ghost shouting at her, begging her to look, demanding that she go, go, go!

"I am," she said, starting to feel a little grumpy. Being pushed around by ghosts all the time was not her idea of a good time. She started to fling her leg back over the bike but halfway through the action, she dropped the bike and then slumped over it, dropping down to her knees as the icy cold finger of channel energy took over.

"...h-hey... no..."

But before she could properly fight him off, Bohai had taken over. Not used to commanding a human body after so long, he jerkily got to his feet and turned back to see TYSON walking away from him, as if he hadn't even felt his presence.

"TYSON!" he called out, but his voice game out in a girly tone that didn't belong to him. And when he tried to run after him, he couldn't quite get his footing and he tripped on his own feet... or her feet, rather.

[Tyson Liu]

There was a lot of movement behind him, a lot of commotion, and when Tyson glanced over his shoulder—expecting to see the girl on the bike making her way out of town—he saw her lurching towards him like a newborn foal. It looked like she'd forgotten how to walk, and before he could do anything or say anything, she'd just... faceplanted.

"...hey, are you okay?"

At first he didn't want to go back over to her, because he was here on a mission and he wanted to reach one of the establishments downtown before it closed to visitors for the day. But even Tyson, aloof as he was, wasn't totally heartless. It didn't take much time out of his day to walk back and try to help her up.

"Are you okay? Did you call me?" He heard the TYSON being yelled and this girl was the only person in the vicinity. "How'd you know my name?" Maybe she was a fan; his art wasn't known world-wide but he had quite a following. Perhaps she had seen one of his pieces or read a magazine article about him.

[Zhou Luli]

Tyson... Tyson was right in front of him... He looked as tall and aloof and handsome as ever but there was something missing in him. The way he looked at him. It broke Bohai's heart. How could he look at him like that? It was him! Couldn't he tell it was him?

Oh, right. He was... He looked down at the knees of a girl as he picked himself up. A short girl, at that. It was hard to believe that this was him in any capacity. But... but... but he had to!

Back on his feet, he made the unfamiliar body move toward him, toward Tyson. He looked so confused. And when he made it to him, Bohai reached out... and up, annoyingly--to cradle Tyson's face in his hands.

"It's me. Bohai. Don't you see me?"

[Tyson Liu]

There was something... off about the girl. Once she was on her feet, Tyson let go of her, fully intending to move on with his life, but she lurched towards him again and reached up to touch his face. At first, he was too stunned to do anything but stare at her. How rude—did she touch people like they were her lovers without permission all the time?

But then he stared at her for a whole different reason as an all-too-familiar name slipped out. Even the mention of Bohai ripped new wounds into his heart. Sucking in a swift, sharp breath, he pulled back.

"How do you know—"

Her words didn't make sense. She wasn't Bohai. Obviously. And if this was a joke, it wasn't funny at all. Tyson's expression darkened. He took another step back, away from her and her cruel prank. "I don't know what you're talking about. Leave me alone." It was too much to expect him to put up with someone whose sense of humor was derived from the pain of loss in others.

[Zhou Luli]

It was him, there was no mistaking that. But... whatever made him visible, whatever made him here, in the physical... it wasn't connecting. It wasn't right. It wasn't... him. But it was. It was definitely him. Just... why couldn't he find somebody that looked just like himself? Why couldn't he find somebody even remotely like himself, instead of this ditzy girl who ignored his pleas and... this BODY! DAMN IT!

Balling up his fists and tightening his jaw, Bohai could feel his face flushing with heat, his heart beating faster. That look. That look on Ty's face broke his heart, shattered it into pieces but it still kept right on beating.

"No!" Bohai tried to reach for him, grasping at air and then going for him again to grab onto his arm in an attempt to keep him from leaving.

"Don't leave me... please..."

[Tyson Liu]

"Stop it!"

His voice was sharp, jagged, and his laser-gaze bore holes into the annoying girl. Tyson jerked his arm away as though her touch burned him. He sought to free himself physically from her presence, not knowing why... why she thought this was in any way amusing. What was she getting out of this?

Wasn't it enough, having to watch Bohai wither before his eyes? To see that magnificent beauty wasting away to nothingness, for the world to be awash in colors and then suddenly drained until all of it was bleak, gray, dark and meaningless? Wasn't it hard enough to have to live when Bohai was gone, and knowing that...

Knowing that the world was empty, that there was truly nothing left...

Tyson's hands curled by his sides. He would never strike a girl, no matter how much she deserved it. "Leave me. Alone." The words were harsh even to his ears—emotional in a way that Tyson, always entombed in ice, never allowed the world to witness.

[Zhou Luli]

"Ty... please..."

Why wasn't he hearing him? Desperation filled his voice and his eyes. Or her eyes. That was the problem, wasn't it? Oh... oh, that was the problem! Bohai was nothing but a girl in the eyes of his lover and... and all he saw was her! How could he possibly see anything else? Frustrated, Bohai pulled at her hair and in the back of his mind, he could hear her protesting, pushing to get control back.

But he was here and he couldn't let him just go! What if he never saw him again?! Bohai tried again to grasp onto him, eyes on him, willing him to see him, to hear him as he was and not this girl. Hoping he could see through her and into his soul, that nebulous, fragile wisp of a soul that belonged nowhere now.

"Remember when I planned that big celebration for your birthday, the big surprise party? And right before I was about to open the door, you said you hated those things, you hated surprises? And I panicked and you went to unlock the door and I lied and I told you we couldn't go inside and you gave me that LOOK and asked me why and I lied and blurted out something stupid about bugs? Oh please, Ty, I know you remember!"

[Tyson Liu]

"NO TY! BUGS ARE—IN OUR BED! THEY'VE INFESTED OUR HOUSE!"

Tyson stopped with his hand outstretched, the key extended and ready to unlock the front door of his home. He stared in disbelief at Bohai. "Bugs. Are in our bed?" He repeated incredulously as his brows lifted. All this week Bohai had been acting squirrely. He was secretive, jumpy, nervous and anxious and Tyson didn't know why he was so worked up.

"I'm pretty sure there are no bugs in the house, Bo," he continued slowly, as the key inched towards the door.

Tyson stared at the girl as a torrent of words came from her. Did she even breathe once during that whole speech? He laughed, but it was a confused and almost hysterical noise—not an amused sound.

"How—were you there?" Was she at the party? When he finally got Bohai out of the way—actually had to manhandle him to physically stop him from obstructing Tyson—and the door opened, and everyone shouted in his face... Was she one of them? He didn't remember her. There were lots of people there, sure, but he would have remembered this girl being there...

He finally stopped trying to get away from her. "How did you know... about the bugs?"

[Zhou Luli]

"Because, Ty! I was the one who said it!" he said, words still spilling out of the girl's mouth in a rush, in a torrent. He didn't have time. The girl could kick him out at any moment--he could feel her starting to--and he didn't have much time. Tightening his hold on Ty, he leaned closer.

"I didn't know what else to say, I didn't want to let you in after you said you hated surprise parties, when I knew there was a surprise party on the other side of the door... But you... you were always stubborn and too smart. You saw right through me..."

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair--only to find it much longer than he was used to. Annoyed, he untangled his hand from the long, wavy hair and tossed it over his shoulder just to get it out of the way.

"Don't you recognize me at all, Ty? It's me... Bo."

[Tyson Liu]

"What? No..."

Tyson stared at her. He stared and stared and stared at her, trying to make sense of what she was saying, trying not to give in to the impossible idea that this girl who spoke like Bohai could be him. He was dead. Bohai was dead. Tyson laid him to rest himself, he shed so many bitter tears over his grave...

But she said things that only Bohai could have known. Yet she wasn't him. She wasn't Bohai, she didn't look like him and Tyson couldn't believe that somehow his beloved muse, his life partner, could have been reborn in so short a time.

"You're. Bo?" He spoke jerkily as he reached out to touch her arm, as though he didn't believe that she was real. "No. Bohai is..." Tyson choked on the word. "Dead."

"One more bite. Come on, just one more bite, for me?"

Tyson brought the spoon up to Bohai's pale lips, smiling through the pain in his heart. Mango pudding was Bohai's favorite and Tyson had made this himself. His hand sported a painful burn mark but that was nothing on what his cracked heart was going through at the moment.

"One more bite and then I'll stop pestering you." He leaned in to kiss Bohai's cheek. It was cold, like ice. Tyson nudged the spoon closer to his lover's lips and held his breath as they opened. Once the spoon was taken away, Tyson's lips replaced it, nuzzling up against Bohai's in a soft, lingering kiss.

"I love you, ai xin," he whispered Bohai's pet name, holding back the swell of emotion inside. Tyson's hand cupped Bohai's cheek. Their foreheads touched. Bohai was his heart. His love. He could never lose him. Never, never. Without Bohai there was no Tyson.

[Zhou Luli]

Dead.

The word made Bohai swallow hard. Or the body he inhabited at the moment. It was so strange. Everything about this was so... strange. He remembered the life draining out of him. He remembered... dying. He tried so hard to hang on for as long as possible, not just for himself but for Ty. It turned out being stubborn didn't matter, not when death came for you.

Death came but it wasn't swift. Bohai felt it, every part of him dying, every part of him as it stopped functioning. But he tried. He really tried. Even now, he stared at Ty, not believing his luck. But his eyes--or rather, her eyes--filled with tears as he remembered how desperately he hung on and how hard Ty worked to keep him alive. Nothing could save him, not even the power of healing potions, not even the abilities of psychic. Not even love. Not even love could save him. Them.

"I..."

It was strange, being in this foreign body. Everything felt so wrong. He was so short. So small. Fragile. Before, when he was in his prime, he was a tall man, strong. They could look each other straight in the eyes. Now he was looking up and his hands felt so small when they reached up to cup Ty's face in them. So strange--it was no wonder that Ty didn't believe it was happening.

"I love you, ai xin," he said, repeating the last words he heard Ty say to him before he found himself in the body of a ghost.

[Tyson Liu]

"B-Bo?" He could hardly get the word out—the sound caught in the back of his throat, choking him. It felt as if the world stopped for a moment and in that single terrifying moment, Tyson dared to hope.

Hope was why he was here. Weary and battered, with no more reason to maintain his own existence, Tyson had hoped that he could find Bohai here. Through the power of mediums, he thought that there could be a chance—a last chance. This was supposed to be his final attempt, before he...

He wanted to be with Bohai so badly that the desire overrode all else. Even if it meant being laid to rest beside him, at least they would be together then, for all of eternity. It meant an end to the suffering, an end to feeling as though he was hollow, a shell of the man he used to be.

The world blurred and the back of his sinuses were on fire. Tyson blinked to clear his eyes and felt the tickle of his tears sliding down his face, but he was too focused on the girl before him. She couldn't know those exact words. There was no way for anyone to know that those were the last words Tyson ever whispered to his lover before he succumbed to the illness that ravaged his once-strong body.

"Boh—" He couldn't even finish saying his name. Tyson fell onto him—somehow trapped or reborn in the body of a girl—and let out a noise like a wounded animal. He didn't even feel shame as his sobs shook his body, with the joy and relief and terrible, consuming sadness of having lost Bohai, and unexpectedly finding him again.

[Zhou Luli]

Oh, he felt so weak, so feeble. He wrapped his arms around his once lover and he held him close and tight, hardly daring to breathe. It was a miracle in itself that he could breathe at all, that he found this girl, that she was close to Ty. He knew that she was, sensed it, as spirits could. He knew that he was close but he had no idea he would be this close. Yet here here was, in his arms again.

Once, Bohai was strong, robust, healthy. Athletic. He could leap over fences and sprint, he could tumble down grassy knolls and he could race up behind Ty and leap onto his back, despite being about as tall as he was. And then... something inside started to change. The world became blurrier. Things he once found easy to do were difficult. At first, he joked about it, laughing off the fact that he couldn't hit the same speeds he once hit. When he dropped the pickle jar instead of opening the lid, he blamed working out too hard, that he had sore muscles.

But it only got worse. And worse still, until he shriveled away, rapidly losing weight, losing his senses. He was so sick that he couldn't keep anything down. Doctors gave numbers. Grim numbers. Months to live. Weeks to live. Days to live. Minutes.

Despite the body not being his, he felt warmth tracking down his cheeks, his emotion so strong that it enfolded the channeler, too.

"I love you so much, Ty," he whispered, and he said it over and over and over again, afraid he might never get to say it again. Even now, his heart rattled painfully in his chest, so tight that he could scarcely breathe. The hands that weren't his found their way to Ty's hair, to smooth it, to take his wet cheeks in his hands. He just... he just wanted to look at him, to drink him in, so absorbed in his task that he forgot that Ty wasn't looking at him.

"I tried so hard... I tried so hard to stay for you but I... I..."

He was nothing now. A ghost in another body. Was this closure? What happened once he had it? Would he disappear for good?