***KELLY***

I can't say anyone's disturbed me more than Alex has in the last couple of days. And that's without him having interacted with me once since Sunday night. But that one video chat with him being high on snake venom was so out of character, and I still can't stop thinking and worrying about him because of it.

Should I reach out to him? It's so unusual that I'm the first one to do so. He usually gets my phone ringing first. Last time it was the other way around was the time I enticed him to have Snapchat sex. And since then, I've been so hesitant to take control, because I just feel like I'm going to screw up if I do.

Maybe I should've said something a little earlier. Maybe I should've reached out again once I was sure he wasn't high anymore.

God. Listen to me. Talking about Alex being high. I never thought I'd live to see that day. Well, maybe one day he'd try weed or something. I'd have smoked some dope with him if we were at a party and it were offered to us both. Though, let's be honest, people party pretty clean in Coldfire Creek. It's like, the angels expect the demons to bring the booze and drugs, and we demons, banking on this stereotype, troll the angels by bringing soft drinks as the most hardcore shit. But the angels are so happy to party with us, thinking they'll get to fuck us in the bushes, that they don't mind.

At least, so Alex has told me about the few parties he's been to on the Heaven side of town.

"Hey, Kels." Ty saunters into the kitchen, abnormally cheery. His chirpy good morning snaps me out of my funk, and keeps me from letting myself lower my head hairfirst into my cereal. The only cocoa I need to consume this morning is in puff form, not the butter that goes into my conditioner. Though upon seeing that he's wearing no pants - as usual - I immediately regret looking up. I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one whose first time seeing a naked boy was my brother coming out of the shower and forgetting he was not home alone. But still, it never fails to bug me how bizarrely comfortable Ty is with showing off as much skin as he does. At least he keeps clean, though.

He kisses the top of my head as he comes into the kitchen, then goes to the cabinet and pulls out the Reese's Puffs. Monique side-eyes us for continuing to eat kiddie-type cereals, but as long as the parental units are cool with buying them, we're going to keep eating them. It's hard to break away from these particular bad habits.

"You think your phone's gonna explode if you let it go?"

"Huh?" I realize I've got my phone death-gripped in my left hand. My right, on the other hand, is holding my spoon very loosely.

"You okay?" Ty asks.

I haven't told him what's been bothering me these last couple of days, but now I do. "It's just...you remember when we went with Alex before?" I finally put my phone down after about a full minute of spitting out those worries almost at freestyle speed. "I'm scared he's gonna pull some shit like that again."

"Well, let's see. Does he have an iPhone too?" Ty pulls his phone out of his pocket.

"Um...yeah. But..." I shake my head. "Ty. Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Look up his GPS. What are you, his...?" I'm about to say "his dad," but then he'd sense that disturbance in the Force and probably explode in a shower of snow wherever he stands.

"Already did," Ty says. "At least you didn't do it with yours, and you can put all the blame on me this way. Plausible deniability."

"When did you even get his number?"

"He's not just your boyfriend. He's my friend too." He draws in a sharp breath, no doubt from waiting to see where it says Alex's phone is. It'll take longer to get a result since he's in Heaven. Longer, but it can still be done. As long as he didn't already go to the Second 'Verse. Or worse- "Wait, what?"

"Where is he?" I ask.

"When'd he go to Alaska?"

"Alaska?" I jump off my barstool and grab his phone.

"Yo! Gimme my-"

I hold the phone out of his reach and peer as closely at it as I can. No kidding, the screen has a pin on a map, a pin in Anchorage. Well, actually, the pin is moving on a highway south and out of that city. What's south of Anchorage? I thought that city was on the coast, but geography isn't my strong suit. So I zoom the map out and see that there's a long peninsula due south of the city, though it's mostly undeveloped and untouched. Maybe a small town or two, but almost all of it's, like, national parkland or something.

"Uh, maybe he's going camping?" I wonder out loud.

"What, he got family up there? And weren't y'all saying he had that big damn snake too? Ain't no snake gonna live long in Alaska, sista."

"You mention that snake again and ima cut yours off."

"Shit, Kel, no need for-"

I hand him back his phone to shut him up for a moment. "I should call him." I reach for my own phone, but Ty's taken that from me as well.

"Hold up a sec," he says when I try to grab it back. Curse his longer arms. "Just calm down, okay? Maybe he just on vacation. Really. Who even said he had to bring that snake with him? He just-"

"You say you his friend?" I shoot back. "Trust me, he got a lot of baggage he be bringin' with him. And I ain't just talkin' 'bout changes of clothes."

Ty shakes his head at me. "Kel. Don't go off half-cocked. What you say about him, he do that all the time."

"What you want me to do?"

He gives me my phone back. "Call him. But don't be screamin' at him when he say he gonna go to fuckin' Purgatory for you."

"He be goin' the opposite way," I point out. "Bet it's still cold up there." I press the button on the screen to call him and wait for the connection to happen. Of course, he being in Heaven, that connection's going to be just as slow and janky as when I'm trying to have a video call with him.

It takes five or six rings - I zone out just long enough to lose count - before he answers, mercifully sounding sober today. "Hey, Kelly."

I breathe a huge sigh of relief from hearing his voice. "You okay, Alex?"

"I am, yeah. Sorry I, uh, drunk-dialed you before-"

"You drank?" an all-too-familiar voice cries out somewhere in his background. "Oh shiiiiiiiiit! My bro done growed up!"

"Is that Gabe?" I jump around in place a couple of times. I haven't heard his voice in so long, not since...well, I saw him after the one time I went on one of Alex's adventures, but aside from that, I haven't seen or heard from him in almost a year. Not since he died. I remember falling to my knees and crying hard enough to get the entire fam in my room when Alex called me to tell me what had happened. Days after the fact, no less, because of him having gone on another interdimensional adventure almost immediately after Gabe got killed.

"Yeah," Alex says. "I got my brother with me."

"So do I," I say, pointing to Ty even though Alex can't see me do so.

"Yo," Ty says, trying to play it as cool as he can. He probably still can't help but think of Alex as too cute to talk to coherently, though.

"But where are you?" I ask Alex.

"You ain't Miles Morales. Don't play dumb," Ty says into his hand, unable to stop himself laughing.

"You wouldn't believe me even if I told you," Alex says.

"Go on, tell me."

He pauses before giving his answer. "Alaska."

"Oh?" I have to pretend to be surprised by this, but I think, for all my limited acting skill, I'm doing a damn good job. "What are you doing up there?"

"Freezing my ass off even with the heater going in this car," Alex says. "And I thought I was getting better at handling the cold."

"Where are you going, though?" I ask.

"I, uh..." It's so strange to hear him not wanting to talk. I mean, he always wants to talk, even if he finds himself stuttering and swallowing his words half the time because he's so awkward. This, though? I can tell he's holding back.

"Be honest," I say. "Are you about to do something stupid?"

"Maybe?" he says. "But for sure, I'll be honest. I'm always doing stupid shit. I'm a boy, it's what I do."

"A boy who's just turned eighteen a couple months back," says another male voice. Not Gabe's. I don't recognize him, but he sounds like another guy close to our same age. One of Alex's other buddies? Not Gideon, but...who else? Who's his school roommate? Lucas? I don't remember. I've never met him.

"Alex. Answer my question." I wish, so much, that we were on video right now. But let's be honest, that'd be more trouble than it's worth.

"Yeah, Alex. What she said."

I gasp loudly and almost drop my phone, because there's no mistaking that voice. One I also haven't heard since going to the Second 'Verse. "Fionna? Holy shit, is that you?"

"Hi, roomie," says Fionna. I even hear the cute little wave she always used to reserve for me. She'd had a crush on me when we first met, I'm still pretty sure. Of course it never went anywhere since I've never been into girls, and besides, screwing your roommate is a surefire way to make shit too awkward to stay tenable. Just ask Gabe. He could have told you stories. Could still tell you stories.

"Where are y'all coming from?" I ask. "And...seriously, why is nobody answering my question? Why the fuck are all y'all in Alaska?" God, this would be exactly the time I need to become a Vulcan and make a mind-meld over the phone. I could do it, you know. I could connect to Alex's brain even across the dimensional divide.

"Do you wanna tell her?" Alex asks all his friends gathered around him. "Or should I?"

"You're her boyfriend," Gabe points out.

"Yeah," adds a fifth voice, one I don't recognize at all. A woman, from the sound of it. Or maybe another girl around our age. She doesn't sound really old, if you know what I mean. "It's better coming from you."

Alex sighs, the sound crackly through my phone's speakers. "My friends and I, we're gonna go save Jesus."

"Say what?"

"Well, we call him Josh, but he's basically Jesus. You never met him, but he's hella chill-"

"Wait!" I look over to Ty, who gives me a quizzical raised eyebrow. "Sorry, but...you said Jesus? Like, the Jesus?"

"Told you she wouldn't believe me," Alex says.

"No, I do, but..." Or do I? It's just...compared to all the other shit that I know Alex has done, this has just come off a little far-fetched. How does he go from facing military experiments to presidents of the afterlife arranging his very existence as an experiment to a time-traveling TV to Evil Steve Jobs, and then cometh Jesus for the second time? What's next, God Himself?

"Look, Kel, don't worry about me," says Alex. "You made your decision, right? You don't have to follow me. I'll be back for you, though. I promise."

"No, wait!" I wave at him, even though he can't see me. Ty keeps on looking at me funny. I almost wish I had the phone on speaker just so he could hear all this shenanigans as well. "Alex, don't go. Please."

"I have to."

"Is it you talking, or that snake venom?"

He gives no response for the longest time. "It's always been me, Kel. I love you!"

I gasp as he hangs up, and Ty looks up at me from across the room. "It all sounds no bueno to me."

"No shit."

Monique announces her presence at the bottom of the stairs with a loud yawn, as well as the sounds of this one Dear Hunter song playing on her phone. One I think she got from me after Alex introduced me to that band.

"What'd I miss, kids?" She looks between me and Ty and adds, "You gonna leave me hanging? Your own sista?"

I tilt my head before asking a question that comes to mind in only a second - an infinity faster than I would have ever expected until now. "Mo, how fast can you get us tickets to Alaska?"

She pauses that Dear Hunter song and takes her earbuds out. "Did I hear that right? Alaska?"

"The Last Frontier until Archer led the first Enterprise," Ty says. Good thing Mom's not here. She's that kind of Trekkie who'd rather pretend Enterprise the series didn't exist.

I swear Monique taps her finger against her phone as she says, "But there's wolves?"

"I love that song too," I say, "but we gotta deal with the wolves. My guy's in trouble and I think I'm the only one with any sense to save him."

"'Course you is, honey bunny." Monique kisses the top of my head the way Ty did earlier. Sometimes I'd like to be the kisser and not the kissee, but being the youngest makes them want to be more affectionate to me than the other way around. Plus, I bet Monique is trying to get in some practice before she becomes an auntie. Not that that'll happen for a while, since I'm not even out of high school, and Ty, being gray-ace, generally shies away from relationships.

"I was trying to tell her not to go off half-cocked like Alex does," Ty says, "but..."

"But sometimes," Monique says, "We gotta play by some damn fool's rules to save that damn fool's ass."

"You're already pretty invested," I tell her, "considering you've never met him."

"I follow him on Insta," Monique responds. "I gotta say, he fiiiiiiiiiiiine-"

"Hands off my boy!"

She laughs into her hands. "You right, you right. 'Cept he be a man now. Eighteen in February, huh? So stay out his pants for a bit" - What'd I tell you? Future Auntie Mo - "and I don't gotta get on his ass like Miles on Kingpin."

She claps her hands, navigates away from the music on her phone, then asks, "Delta or Southwest?"