God I’m so fucking chill and normal about that goddamn lantern.
Like imagine you somehow defy the odds and break out of literal hell with that light, and the first thing you do upon returning to earth is use it to give warmth to a dying boy. You can’t save him, but you can comfort him.
Then you run away from Death together, and you take that lantern with you. He teaches you about the modern world, and you teach him about being a ghost. You build an existence around one another.
The lantern falls to the wayside. Perhaps you notice, perhaps you don’t, but after some time you know where you are and where you want to be—you don’t need it to guide you anymore.
And then you’re back in hell, and you do need it again. If you had a moment to spare between the pain and the fear, you’d scold yourself for letting your guard down. For losing it. For being so stupid.
But then, by some miracle, it’s in front of you and he’s in front of you and you’re escaping by the light of that lantern all over again, only now you’re holding his hand as you run.
At first you can’t believe he held onto it for so long when even you forgot about it. But then, of course he did, didn’t he?
So you tell him you love him on the steps of hell by the light of that lantern, and he loves you back, and you don’t quite know how that love will look, but you’re not worried.
Because you start to think that maybe it isn’t so foolish to trust someone else to carry your lantern for a while.