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Everything hurts.
There is nothing but pain. Nothing but the awful taste of dirt and the crushing aching burning that spasms wildly through his nerves like his bones have been traded for fire. It all just hurts, aches with that insistent pressure. He thinks his body might begin and end somewhere but he can’t be sure. He knows nothing beyond being pinned on all sides, and he can’t move and he can’t speak and he can’t breathe he can’t breathe-
Existence is excruciating. The only thought that passes through his mind is a plea for mercy, for an end to the suffering.
Then, the feelings begin to lessen. Agony still pulses through him but the pressure bears down less and less weight. He reaches out on instinct and in response a stab of heat courses through his arm that makes him cry out and feel more of the dirt pour into his mouth, but his arm has moved, he can feel the chill of the air biting at it. Something brushes dirt off of his face and the air reaches his aching skin, it feels like heaven itself.
He opens his eyes. He can’t see well, and he immediately feels a sting from the dirt and fresh tears falling into his eyes. Then he feels an icy cold hand hold his cheek, it wipes off some of the grime and he can see a bit more clearly. There’s someone looking at him, still only a silhouette, someone who holds his cheek with a larger hand, and long slender fingers. Holds him like he’s something that deserves to be held by more than the cruel earth embracing him.
“Mike? Michael? Can you hear me?”
The person speaks and his voice sounds familiar, worried. He knows at once who is speaking to him, as the barest hints of memory find him.
“Oliver?”
His own voice is barely a whisper, strained from lack of use beyond gasping and tearing, aching for air.
“Yes, yes it’s me!” Oliver sounds relieved, like he’s on the verge of tears, or he’s already been crying. “It’s okay Mike, it’s gonna be ok, I’m going to get you home.”
And that’s the last thing Mike remembers before the world slips away.
…
A sudden splash of cold on his skin is the next thing he feels. He yelps, and realizes a second later that it was water. He can see a bit more clearly now, the pain has let up quite a bit, though his bones still ache, and there’s a flaring in his skull that doesn’t seem healthy. He can see he’s in a bathroom. Oliver’s bathroom, in fact. The familiar bathroom of Oliver, who’s his boyfriend. He remembers that now. He’s leaning on the outer wall of the shower-bath, he can feel the curtain behind him. He can hear the rumble of the tap. He can hear Oliver when he speaks to him.
“‘You still with me?”
“Um, yeah,” he replies. His voice is still weak, and hoarse, and his mouth still tastes like dirt, ugh. “‘Might’ve… lost s’me time just now.”
“Hm.” Oliver is nearly beside him. From his current vantage, Mike can only see his dark, slender legs and the pale soles of his feet as he sits on the bath rim, but when he looks up, he can see Oliver’s oversized grey t-shirt, the one with the faded pattern, now seemingly streaked with dirt, hanging slightly over his boxers. He sees Oliver’s arm, extended down so he can dip his hand into the stream of tap water. Mike figures that hand was the one to splash him. He can see Oliver’s face as well. Furrowed with worry as he faces the water, though that’s nothing new. The locs he tends to keep half-up in a bun are loose, and flow down his back and shoulders and chest. Mike thinks they look very lovely like that.
It startles him when Oliver speaks again, “What do you last remember?”
“I… um,” he struggles to pick through his fuzzy thoughts. It feels like his brain’s been taken out, now all his signals are running through cotton. “I remember hurting a lot and I couldn’t move… and then you were ‘here, an’ you put a hand on m’ face, then nothing.”
“It’s probably good you don’t remember setting your bones then… you, um, had a lot of broken ones.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah. After that we wrapped you up a bit, gave you some of your pain medicine, and I drove you over here. Thankfully, you stopped screaming before we reached the city.”
He presses a hand to his head, where he can definitely feel bandage and gauze. “Good to know ‘m not a nuisance t’ the public too.”
And judging by the stricken way Oliver says “Michael.”, he’s obviously failed at lightening the mood.
“Sorry.”
“Just… not the time.”
Finally seeming content with the water’s temperature, Oliver takes his hand back and stands up to let it fill. He walks over to Mike, and in a feat of strength, picks him up off the ground to sit him on the toilet seat.
“Who‘re you, an’ what did you do with my noodle-arm boyfriend?”
“I carried you to the car, and up to my flat. You’re not very heavy.” Oliver’s smiling at him. That’s good, he likes it when Oliver’s smiling.
Then Oliver starts to undress him, and he definitely makes an innuendo or two, but honestly it just felt great not to have those itchy clothes on anymore. He had no idea how much they were weighing him down until they were gone. Getting some of that dirt smell away already makes him feel cleaner.
Now fully nude, he weakly slumps into Oliver’s arms as he carries him into the bath. The water is comfortably warm, it makes his mind fuzzy in a more pleasant way. He lazily watches as the dirt on his skin soaks into the water, and briefly contemplates how he’s going to get himself clean while he barely has the energy to move, before he hears the light splashing of footsteps into water and Oliver’s kneeling down behind him.
That’s smart, he thought. Oliver always knows exactly what to do. Like cuddle next to him in the water, unwrap those bandages on his head, lean him into his lap, and brush the dirt from his hair, and gently rinse the crusted mix of earth and blood from that wound on his head, and use a rag to scrub his skin clean.
At some point in the process, Mike drifts back off into oblivion.
…
Someone’s shaking him awake. Someone with very cold hands. Is it Oliver? Of course it’s Oliver. Oliver has very cold hands. Who else would it be? He’s in bed, he’s warm, and Oliver’s offering him a cup of tea with some food. He says eating and drinking will help him feel better. But he’s so tired, can’t Oliver see how tired he is? And his head hurts. A constant dull throb of pain, like a bell. Oliver gets him to drink some tea anyway. It’s way too sweet, but it tastes better than whatever was in his mouth before so he thanks him. He eats some food too, but it doesn’t make him feel any less tired, or any less hungry.
He says as much and Oliver just says “I thought so” with a weird look on his face. Why would Oliver get him food that wouldn’t make him less hungry? Oliver tells him he probably got the wrong kind of food. He’ll get the right food when he can though. Oliver’s so thoughtful like that. And beautiful. And Oliver also makes a very pretty noise when you call him thoughtful and beautiful. Oliver says he’ll take care of him. He knows he trusts Oliver. He finally falls back asleep.
…
He wakes up to Oliver trying to stand him up. He thinks he does an alright job of standing for having not done it in a while, but he still needs to lean a lot of his weight on him. Oliver says they’re going somewhere. What can he do but follow?
They’re both lucky Oliver’s flat is small, it’s a very short trip from his room to their destination. “Somewhere” turns out to be Oliver’s balcony. Mike leans on the wall as Oliver opens the sliding glass door, and they bring him outside.
The balcony is cute, a small space mostly filled with potted plants. Mike walks up to the concrete railing and leans over the edge as far as his short legs will let him. The view itself is decent, mostly just more urban sprawl, but Mike’s gaze immediately trains downward.
Third storey, height of approximately 11 meters. A fall from this height may seriously injure or kill. A fall from this height would have a very short fall time.
A familiar feeling rises from within. Strange, and familiar. There’s a tingling anticipation in the air itself. He’s been this way half his life, nearly longer than he’s spent without it. He doesn’t know how much, at this point, the “feeling out the fall” is his patron or himself. Did it give him the facts and numbers, or has he memorized it all, learned to do the mental math? Either way, he knows the answer.
“Hm. I ‘ppreciate the thought. But here y’ don’… feel it… ‘s not high enough.”
Oliver thanked him for trying and they stumbled back to the bed.
…
The first thing he’s aware of when he’s aware once more is that he’s on the roof of a tall building. He doesn’t see it so much as he feels it, primal almost, grasping at his very soul. Only after that does he feel the railing behind him, his arse on the hard concrete, and the shoulder of another on his own. Oliver’s always so cold, Mike can only ever tell that he’s there by the touch of him, and that strange unease that comes from being a servant of eternity beside one touched by the embodiment of the finite. He’s gotten used to the feeling though, and he doesn’t mind the cold.
“How did we get here…?” His own voice seems too quiet.
“I walked you up here, just to the roof of my own building,” Oliver shifts to tuck him under his arm, “Do you think you’ve lost some time again?”
He hums an agreement. “Losing more than usual.”
“That’s why we’re here. I thought some Vast exposure might help. How’s your head?”
He brought a hand up to feel the wound. “Achey. Stings if I press on it.”
“Better than open and bleeding then.”
“Mhm.”
A pause.
“How… how did you get it?” Oliver eventually asks. “What happened?.”
“Got shot by a hunter.” Oliver gasps, but he continues on, “An Archivist decided to visit, spilled my whole life story, and didn’t even check if he was being followed. I don’t know if he made it. I hope he didn’t.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine. You’re here. You make it better.” He leans deep into Oliver’s side, catching the scent of cologne on his coat. He’d given him that cologne, he remembered, when he’d complained that everything strong was too expensive. Now his boyfriend smelled like lavender and rosemary all the time.
“Thank you. For all of it.”
“It’s no problem Mike. I love you,” Oliver says.
I love you. God, it took so little to get his heart to race. He’d gotten used to the touches, used to the kissing, used to him or Oliver staying the night, not going home until the next evening. Somehow, he even got used to being in the presence of a man so all-encompassingly gorgeous, without melting on the spot. He didn’t know if he’d ever get used to being loved though. Or being able to honestly say it back.
“I love you too, y’ big sap.” He presses his head to Oliver’s chest to hide his reddening face. He might just stay there though, it’s very soft and he can feel it rise and fall with Oliver’s laughter.
On second thought… he picks up a hint of sensation, the way an animal might twitch its nose or ear when it feels something there. It’s not a smell though, or anything to touch, and the call of the void isn’t a call you hear. He knows it though, feels it and hears it and smells it there.
With a lazy kiss on Oliver’s jaw, Mike shakily stands, helping himself up with the railing behind him, and faces the city, seeing the rising sun. And faces down.
Now that feels right.
“You alright?” Oliver’s looking over at him.
“Yeah. Yeah, I think I’m gonna take a fall.”
Maybe he would be worried if he didn’t know what it meant, but as it stands, Oliver says, “Have a good one then, come back soon.”
“I will, don’t you worry.” He climbs over the railing and onto the edge.
Balancing on such a small stretch of ground is tricky, sometimes just walking across it and waiting to see when he’ll lose his footing is fun on its own. He’s tired though, and he wants to feel the rush of the air on his skin more than anything.
He gives Oliver a wave, faces away from the colour-streaked horizon, and lets himself topple over the side of the building.
It’s hard to really process anything when you’re dropping like that. Not much beyond a single, terrified, racing train of thought rushes through a person’s mind before they hit the ground. Even for someone so common with it as himself, it’s always a little terrifying to fall, but as the colours of the sunrise and the buildings all around fold to make room for that deep sky blue, as it catches up to him and brings him into its own wholeness, it feels like the embrace of an old friend.
Within a place so infinitely wide he may as well not exist there at all, he begins to feel free.
Mike arrives back at Oliver’s flat just as he’s making supper. It smells like stew, cooking in a large pot on the stove that Oliver stirs attentively. He waves at Mike as he shuts the balcony door behind him.
Making a beeline for the kitchen, Mike cozies up behind Oliver and wraps his arms around his waist. Oliver’s smile grows.
“Welcome back darling, did you have fun?”
“Yeah. Enjoyed sky blue and all that.”
“… is that a reference to something?”
“Yeah, uh, it’s something that Simon says.”
Oliver hums in acknowledgement. For a beat, they rest in comfortable silence. Mike speaks again, soft to not break the feeling around them.
“Thanks again for the help by the way. Y’know, I think I’m feeling a lot better.”
“Was that me or the sky?” He teases.
“Now, don’t sell yourself short.”