Someone to Watch Over Me Written: June 9, 2003 Self-indulgent superschmoop, but dear to my heart. Think of this as a counterpoint to Consummation. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From this height, the concept of height itself started to become unreal. The dizzying waves of vertigo had given way to a low hum in the back of his mind, blurring in the rush of wind around his ears, the distant sound of traffic, and the hollow thud of his own heartbeat. Now, if he looked down, Billy found that his fear had dissipated and smoothed out into numbness around his chilled skin. The emptiness that stretched beneath him was utterly opaque, utterly black, the ground below obscured by darkness and distance, almost looking solid to Billy’s unfocused eyes. He thought to himself that if he let go now, it would feel more like floating than falling. The twisting ironwork was cold beneath his palms, arms snaking back and fingers curling around his purchase, allowing him to lean out until his hair whipped wildly in the updraft. His feet balanced on the narrow lip between the railing and the edge, sliding forward inch by inch until bare toes curled down and hung over nothing. The wind in his face was blinding, seeming to hold him up, and his grip on the metal under his fingers began to ease. His eyes stared into the void, looking for substance. Looking for tangibility. Looking for anything. But there was nothing. And nothing was exactly what he was longing for. His eyes drifted closed as he drew in a long breath, breathing in the empty blackness. "Billy, what are you doing?" Dom's voice was quiet, deliberately calm behind him. Billy felt no surprise that Dom had found him — he had expected him sooner, actually. But neither of them had quite expected this. Dom’s voice was drawing nearer, but there was no joke or grin or distraction that could close the distance between them this time. "Billy—" "Do you ever want to fly, Dom?" "Billy, come back over the railing." His eyes opened, heavy and blinking over the darkness that hovered all around him. It seemed almost palpable. It looked... soft. His thumbs slid up and away, leaving his index fingers curled around the railing as he tilted forward. One foot began to twist on the threshold. "Billy, you don’t want to do this," Dom said. Billy smiled. Dom had clearly watched one too many bad TV movies. But the smile vanished as quickly as it had come, disappearing with his breath in the rushing air. His shoulders dropped and his voice strained. "You don’t know, Dom." But even as he said it, Billy knew that was not entirely true. Dom did know. He always knew, had always known, instinctively, when the ground began to shift beneath Billy's feet, when the base he spent so much time building up began to waver and tremble. He could always tell, was always ready and waiting to pull him back out of himself and scatter the dark things in his heart. A flashing smile or a simple touch, always enough to connect and remind and still the tremors until he could move forward again. Billy could always depend on Dom. But the onslaught had grown too great, and Billy was weary of depending. The effort was too exhausting, and his energies had all drained out of him into the cold night below. "I want to go home, Dom," he whispered. He heard Dom’s breath catch. "You are home, Bill. You’re with me." Another soft step forward. "That’s what I’m here for, Billy." The wind was cold on the tracks of Billy’s tears. "You can’t always know. You won’t always be here. No one is." His loneliness clutched at him with icy talons, locking off his breath, cutting him off from Dom and from everything and drawing him forward and out into a numb and silent place where no one hurt and no one died and no one stumbled or searched or failed. "No one is," he said again. His foot slipped, skidding over dirt and slick stone, and his body lurched forward until his arms locked and pulled taut and two fingers connected him to everything that was behind him. He heard Dom’s footsteps rushing forward, heard the panicked shout of his name, and then he closed his eyes and all the muscles in his body went slack, and as the wind caught him he thought absently that it really did feel like floating after all. Noise and roaring and motion all around him, no direction or focus, just the sharp rise of his stomach in his throat, the feel of his mouth opening and head tilting back and eyes staring wide and waiting at the lights that spun in his vision. A sudden blurred flash before him, surrounding, encircling, locking around his chest with a wrenching jerk that sent the breath from his lungs and made him twist and thrash and flail against the white hardness that gripped him. Sudden, bone-jarring impact, inertia tearing him from that grasp as he pitched forward and rolled boneless on the ground, bruised and broken and stunned and alive. He lay panting, tasting blood, mind still not wanting to comprehend, and his breath wheezed painfully as he opened his eyes and stared up into the light that shone blindingly into his battered face. He knew what he would see before his gaze ever fell on Dom's face. But the actual vision of it stole the breath from his body, and he turned his head and squeezed his eyes shut tight and hugged his body on the bare and open ground. Dom’s wings folded, only slightly diminishing the glow that streamed around Billy’s shape. He knelt silently, one golden hand on a shivering shoulder. He pulled Billy in, gentle but insistent, and the stirring wings drew in around them. When his fingers wiped the blood from Billy’s lip, the touch made Billy jump and shudder, intuition and knowledge finally united, and he fell forward into that embrace, weeping his pain and his understanding and his hope all together. Always known. You’ve always known. "That’s what I’m here for, Billy," Dom said again, and his voice shimmered as brightly as his skin. He held Billy tight and whispered into the dirty tangle of his hair. "This is why I’m here." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ home