Feeling of Falling
Doesn't matter how often he's felt it, or what the circumstances have been. It's a variant of the same set of physical reactions that betray Jack's heart before his mind catches up with its process. It's the same feeling that forces jumpers to their deaths; an irresistible urge to climb up much too close to the edge and dare the earth not to give way beneath his feet. It's the same suicidal imperative that forces him to plunge from cliffs to watch rock and ridge blur past, or to dive beyond the familiar penetration of light and sound and into the silent sea.
It ain't something you get over
You might think you made it through
Vertigo swirls and rises through him, dropping him out of his body and out of his mind. Balls and bowels and chest walls clench and ache and there's no choice but to lean and let the balance shift and tip him over the ledge. Spring forward into pure nothing; into that sweet blood rush of calm so deceptive and warm and free and he flies out over the chasm, no needles, no damage done, with the bottom too far beneath him to matter.
You can turn your head and walk away
But it never takes its eyes off you
Space is for dreamers. The ocean is for realists. Jack dreams of churning into the depths, past silt and crust and shale to the core and the source of his beginnings. Cold and pressure and confinement enthralls him; he knows he's crawled from the primordial ooze, and if he can just get deep enough, close enough, there will be one less scab to pick, one less wound to lance, one less question that defies an answer.
It'll push your foot right through the floorboard
Make you cut them streamers down his back
Onyx and azure collide and connect and he thinks he's found salvation in the lift of an eyebrow, the quirk of a cheek, in the relief of veins along ridges of muscled forearms. So he says too much too often, dares and teases and throws himself over the edge, all intent bared for the world to see. But Booth is not in his world, not now, and won't ever be, and Jack's descent into this abyss is too far, too fast, and too hard to be controlled. So he contents himself with being little buddy to the skipper and tells himself it's better than nothing and that it's the way he wanted it all along.
Keeps you boilin' in that poison
Only the truly twisted know so well...
"You don't like brussels sprouts."
"A man can change."
The lie is easily fed, and Jack's crawl back up to the illusion of dignity begins. At the precipice, peering over the edge at him, is another set of dark eyes that light another luminous smile. She is like him in her need to sail out over nothing just to see how it all plays out, and familiar too in her unrequited desire for the lift of a certain eyebrow, for the quirk of a smoothly shaven cheek, for the relief of veins along ridges of muscled forearms and a kanji that speaks of fate. This time, when onyx and azure connect and collide it's easy to pretend they chose each other from the beginning, when all they really want to do is tumble down.
You don't need drugs to show you heaven, baby
'cause there's plenty clean in hell
who miss that feeling of falling
end
Lyric: Feeling of Falling, Bonnie Raitt