AN// Oh America. Get a grip please.
One of these days I'm going to write something with dialogue in it.
Disclaimer: Anything remotely recognizable is not mine, so on a so forth, on with the show.
--
The Platform
--
The itsy bitsy spider,
Climbs up the waterspout,
Down comes the rain,
And washes the spider out.
--
He still remembers the first time he was lifted to the platform of superpowers. It was just Ivan and himself, and, though they were fighting in a way without violence, it was okay. Because, he thinks, two is company.
Yet Ivan falls, and he is left to fare his own on the platform, his platform. When he is the only one up there, he likes to look down upon the others. In some of them he sees hope, in others despair. Some hold jealousy, while others clutch to their own ideals. And while he is up there on his own, he entertains his wish to be recognized as a hero by all. But now he knows that is just wistful thinking.
He is by himself for a while, and more often then not he begins to become utterly lonely. But still, his people can fear no harm, and he can never fear getting too close. So everything is still okay.
Then Yao joins him up on their platform, and it less lonely, and reminiscent of when he and Ivan were up together. It is far less hostile though, and again he gains a sense of comfort, and all is okay.
And after Yao, others come. Ludwig comes, and Ivan returns, and Arthur joins them as well. Francis entwines himself in their dynamic, and Matthew managed to climb up. And, there is still comfort, a cozy sort of content ness, and everything remains okay.
But soon, more ascend to the platform, and he begins to become uncomfortable. He has always like open spaces better than crowded ones, as his land surely shows, and his platform is quickly turning into theirs mine and ours. And while younger, inexperienced countries have every right to try their hand, he becomes uneasy, missing the days where he only had to rely upon himself.
As more and more scale the platform, more and more is he jostled backwards. He is slowly but steadily being pushed towards the edge, towards the stairs that first lifted him up here.
And those stairs, they call to him, they beg him to lift the weight from his frame, they become so very tempting, their very idea. They tell him he is no longer needed to run the world, that he can step back and take a break and take it all in. The whisper to him that the others can handle it, that the others can hold up their platform, that the others can conduct the world on their own.
He looks around, hoping against hope that someone will need him, that someone will want him. But the platform is full to bursting now, and no one even notices when he steps towards those stairs. No one even notices when he's one down, or two, not even three. And his decent gathers speed, until he is all but running down the steps, in some final act of desperation. And still, no one notices, no one cares beyond their arguing, and their treaties, and their wars. No one stares when he stops at the last step, almost as if he is hindered by an invisible wall of indecision. No one stops him as he nods his head, almost solemnly, as if accepting a miserable truth. And no one but those not upon the platform see him as he slips into one of so many empty seats, and no one on that platform so much as looks at him when he rests in that chair next to Toris, looking as if the whole world was removed from his shoulders.
And yet, it is only those upon the platform that used to be his, and his alone, that gape, shocked, when they finally see where he is, smiling at Toris and the rest, content to be out of the harsh spotlight he held on his own for so long. And finally, once again, everything is okay. And if they care, none say.
No one even speaks.