I know I'm somewhat late in writing this, but certain events gave rise to inspiration for it, so I ran with it.
I planned to have my 50th fic as the multi-chap I'm trying to finish up, but I'm impatient and can't wait till I finish that to post this, an let's be honest with my track record it's prob best the milestone is a oneshot ;)
Hope you enjoy…
Title: What Will Be
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
A/N: Spoilers for S1 finale.
Summary: How could he explain the feeling? Like the flames of Hell had scorched through the earth to burn him alive like they did her. Post finale.
Grief teaches the steadiest minds to waver.
Sophocles
.
He doesn't remember how he got here, but he knows where he is.
Wrapped tightly in the covers in his bed, he takes a deep breath in, tries to calm himself against a wave of the unknown. He's not sure what he's fighting against, what he's preparing himself for, but he knows it's coming. That scares him more, instills a fear in him like he's never experienced before.
He breathes in again, long and slow; rides out the hiccup that threatens to interrupt, and repeats the process. With his nose against the pillow he can only smell himself; the body-wash he uses when he showers, the mix of aftershaves he's donned in the past week, that distinct smell that is just all male; all him.
He rolls over, grapples blindly for the hand he knows is there. Instinctively.
At least some things remain.
It's the voice in the darkness that reaches him first. Slow and soothing; a reassuring constant, when the world is slipping away from him.
He feels like he's on a treadmill, only he can't keep up; ten times worse in fact, it's like he's on the edge of a cliff, atop a globe that just keeps spinning and spinning, rubble giving way beneath him. He builds himself up for the inevitable fall, but then he manages to quicken the pace and he's faster than the spinning top, the world can't hold him anymore. He topples forward instead and enters a whole new realm.
Strong arms surround him and he presses his face against the material beneath him.
The smell is entirely different though; it's acrid, the smoke, and he chokes on it instantly.
It attacks all his senses at once and he clutches frantically at the thin cotton, his fingers digging into the flesh beneath, but it's solid to the touch, unwavering, it doesn't flinch.
Not like him.
He's shaking now, his body wracked by uncontrollable tremors, irrepressible sobs.
They hack at his throat and he gasps in a wheeze; all he takes in is that smell. And it burns. Burns the back of his throat, like the sight of orange and yellow and red burns his retinas, like the heat of the flames burns his skin.
The fire licks at his feet and he curls up into himself; the flickering of amber and crimson mingling to dance across his skin like the lights at a club event where the music's too loud and the space too crowded. The air is too stuffy and he tries to fight against the push and pull, but he's left adrift with no fresh open air to save him, to salvage him from the wreckage.
The hold on him increases, reassures him of another presence: like the jaws-of-life springing into action, ready to save, ready to rescue, ready to liberate.
"It hurts, Peter," he says; and it's all he can get out.
It hurts to speak. It hurts to breathe.
He gasps, like he's given too much already; tries to steal some oxygen, expel double so he can give more. Maybe he's not given enough.
He can't move, because there's a cavern in his chest and he's stuck where he is. Like his feet are encased in a concrete block and he's tumbling over, can see the ground, his arms outstretched to break his fall; but then his legs snap because he's stuck. He can't move. And now he's broken in half. More than broken, massacred.
People survive without legs; they survive without hearts.
He brings a hand to his chest, clenches it tight into a fist and shoves it hard against his breastbone. He kneads away at the skin and the hard muscle and tries to fill the hole that's burrowing there, picking away at the raw flesh, tearing into everything that surrounds it, destroying everything that's left.
His other hand claws up the side of his face, nails carving into the delicate skin that covers the vulnerable side of his skull. He holds a fistful of hair in his hand and he screams, the sound ripping through his throat, and he pulls to get away from it, to tear it from his body. He loses his grip, liquid trickles down the side of his face, and it's like the beginning of rain, a light shower before the inevitable downfall. He thrusts his palm upwards, jabs the tips of his fingers into the grooves they've created and holds tight as his lips part and his lungs roar in protest.
People can't survive without their heads.
There's a hand over his. It's bigger and wider and covers his so it's flat against his temple now, no longer curling inwards, cutting chunks of his own humanity. His brilliance would be nothing if he was any better at excavating, he could dig his own grave if he tried hard enough. Maybe if he made it deeper, he wouldn't be found. There's always that one person who knows where he's hiding, but if he's better, tries harder, keeps going, maybe he won't need to cover his tracks. If he moves inward, retreats inside himself, gets rid of the pieces that always catch him out, the weak parts, the parts he's already lost; maybe no one will get to him this time.
Except they already have.
Finger fill the spaces between his own, the skin-to-skin contact almost a foreign concept. His hair feels wet beneath his palm, like he's holding it against the grass and the morning-dew is prickling at his skin. Only this feels more like if he'd fallen in the mud, his hands stained by the puddles, and he'd looked down to see them mottled with crimson.
He remembers the line from his childhood: it's raining because God is sad, he's crying.
If there's blood on his hands, does that mean God's so angry he's willing to spill the liquid of his creation to tell the world? Or that he's so upset that he's crying with you, the impact of which is literally ripping the blood vessels apart and showering everyone with red rain, washing the streets with a river of red, coating the buildings with red paint.
There's a hand on his chest too; making his fingers splay out like a starfish suctioned above the entrance to the abyss, trying to plug the hole from an explosion under the surface.
After a while, it's easier to breathe. There's less pressure on his chest; not as much to pull him under when there's less pressing down and more pushing up. His head feels light, but when he jolts up his hair tugs, sticky from his moment of hard graft, and it feels prickly instead. Like nerve endings firing at rapid pace, like there's an overload of information, everyone has to know everything at once.
He'd be content with silence.
The sound of his own breathing is too much, but he can bear it when in conjunction with another; in-out-in-out, he doesn't forget how to do it with an instructor nearby. He's like an addict that can't quit, constantly on edge, the sponsor needs to be forever by his side, watching, waiting.
Eyes like a hawk; can't let him out of sight for a minute. Out of sight, out of mind. Out of mind, he'll lose his and then where would he be?
Without his mind he is nothing.
Without his heart he is nothing.
And she was both.
Except he has his heart. Though buried under the wreckage and rubble of its sudden plummet to the depths of whatever lies below, it is now covered by calloused hands, protected by scarred palms; thick skin that tells a story of survival and revival and injects hope into the fissure of darkness like the one ray of light that guides the lost home.
And he has his mind. Knocked and peripherally ragged, the same weathered flesh shields and preserves the mark that gifted him with a stroke of genius, reassures against any doubt that instinct will reign supreme, and his is all he knows, so it will not abandon him.
He closes his eyes, sees her face like the last moment he saw her. It all comes flooding back to him; but all he can see now is his partner's face, all he can now hear is his partner's voice, all he can now feel are his partner's arms encircling him.
She may have been his heart and mind, his soul and body, but she is gone and he is not.
Brought back from the edge once again, offered an alternative that opens up the skies rather than closing the gates on the pit to oblivion.
What happens next is not predetermined.
.
He doesn't remember how he got here, but he knows where he is.
His face is buried in the plush pillows, white covers swathed around him like a cocoon. If it's a cocoon he will emerge better, different. If it's a cocoon, he'll await the metamorphosis.
He's an ugly caterpillar, but soon he'll bloom into a beautiful butterfly. He'll be able to fly away, soar high above the world and look down on the people like they're ants and the buildings nothing more than Lego bricks. They're all below him and he can escape at any time. He'll flap his wings and pilot his own journey; steer the path for his own destiny.
It has not been decided.
It will not end here.
.
I acknowledge the cold truth of her death for perhaps the first time. She is truly gone, forever out of reach, and I have become my own judge.
Sheila Ballantyne
Apologies if it was a bit confusing, though I do think it's consistent in style – albeit it's fairly jumbled in parts and essentially streams of conscious/unconscious thought. This is intentional, however, given the POV that it's told from and what I imagine to be the current state of mind.
Thanks for reading, please let me know what you thought
Steph
xxx