The wind was strong that day and the dove was taking shelter beneath one of the large stone things. He didn't want to get his feathers wet, and he didn't want to be thrown from the sky. He would have returned to his nest in the large tree, but his mother had sent them off. It was time to fly, she had told them, and everybody needs to fly. Everyone needs to learn to live on their own, to survive on their own.
As the wind howled frightfully and rain slammed against the stone thing, the dove swore he heard something else. A predator, a threat? But he had no-where to run, no-where to escape to! The dove inched forward a bit, and peered around the stone thing- there it was, just on the edge of his vision. It was a human, a human male. The dove questioned the risk of flying off to somewhere else safe, but then he heard the man's voice rise above the storm. He couldn't see what the human man was talking to, but he could hear his voice. The dove concentrated his hearing until he could make out the words- and the man's words where not of the threatening sort.
"It's been hurting a lot lately, you know. I've tried so hard. I've tried to stay strong for you, but all of this. It's been too much. You know me! I don't let these sort of things effect me, ever! But lately… What's wrong with me? Something's… broken. All this time I've been trying to mend it, but I don't fix things. All I do is destroy. Everything I touch dies or hurts, and I leave a trail of misery in my wake. Help me. I- I can't do this, and it's too late, and-"
The man broke down into tears as the dove watched. He was curious as to what the man was talking about, and to whom. But the wind was still too strong, the rain too fierce. As a gust was thrown against the stone thing that was the dove's shelter, he had to retreat for a moment. When the wind again died down a bit, the dove returned to observe the man.
"… can't! You don't understand!" screamed the man, "Why don't you ever understand? It's too much! I'm not as strong as you think I am. I'm not perfect. I'm not immortal."
The dove was now even more confused. He had missed the response of the human's friend. The human man had stopped crying, but his voice had softened a bit as the storm started to die down. The man took a shaky breath and then continued.
"You know, I got used to having no-one depend on me. And then you, I got used to that. And then…"
The man raised his head and looked at the sky. The dove couldn't tell if the dampness on the humans face was the cause of fresh tears, or the cause of the rain that was receding into a light shower.
"Please stop," he said, "you know I hate it when you look at me like that." Suddenly the man's whole demeanor changed and his voice became a fierce growl, making the dove flinch back, even though the snarl was not directed at him. "I don't need your pity! I never did! So don't think that just because you waltzed in and became my Saturn, or whatever the hell the earth revolves around, don't think you've changed me!"
Out of nowhere, the man's body went limp and collapsed helplessy to the dampened earth. His dark curls were heavy, and the rain caused them to cling to his face as he covered it with his hands. By this point the storm had stopped and all that was left was a light, calming, drizzled falling from the grey sky. The dove could have flown away then, and continued his journey to a new life, the journey he knew he would have to finish eventually… but he instead continued to cower behind the stone thing, continued to watch the human.
Since the storm had ceased, each of the mans words, breaths, whispers, and whimpers were crystal clear to the doves acute hearing. "Hell," the man murmured into his hands, there before whomever he was talking to, "hell, who am I kidding. I love you so much. I love you so much John. What am I supposed to do?" The man unfolded himself and sat cross-legged, staring straight ahead and speaking in a reasonable voice.
"Of course, we both know the answer to that, don't we?" The man pulled something out of his coat pocket.
"Oh, please," he said, a hint of annoyance in his tone, "you can't stop me. Don't even try, we both know that it's impossible. I've made my mind up, and you-" The man stopped talking, and looked down into his hand at whatever he was holding. "I tried to stay off the drugs, you know. But they were so inviting, they made me forget… I've been sober for two weeks though." The man's gaze rose to peer directly at the thing he was talking to, whatever it was. "I guess you could call today my 'cheat day.'" The man's hand rose to his mouth and he swallowed whatever it was he had been holding.
For a while he sat in silence. The dove began to lose interest after a few moments and was about to fly off when he heard the man's voice again. "They're all idiots."
The dove stopped and turned, hoping forward and flapping his wings, settling atop a rather shiny stone thing near the man. "They never noticed a thing." The man laughed at the sky before looking back towards the stone thing he was talking to. He sat about a foot from it and seemed to be having a very one-sided conversation. The dove knew for a fact that the stone things couldn't talk. "Well, of course, Mycroft did. Him and his interventions. Fools. All of them."
The world lapsed into complete silence, save for the light fall of raindrops dampening the dove's feathers and the earth around him. The dove surely could not understand the meaning of the human's words, but he had a feeling in his chest that they were of a more sorrowful purpose. On a whim, the dove took to the skies and flew to the man, settling just in front of him. The dove had never been that close to a human, but he was not afraid.
The man looked down at the dove with empty eyes and a hollow, broken face. He held out a hand, and the dove hopped gently into it as the man carried him up until they were face to face. "Hello," said the man, surprising the dove. He, of course, could not reply, for he was a dove and did not speak any of the human tongues. "Silly me, for some reason I thought you would reply. But don't you have places to be? There couldn't be much for you here." The dove turned and lifted from the man's palm and sat atop the stone thing before him, folding in his wings and getting comfortable.
The man stared at the bird a bit longer, and then sighed deeply and smiled. He leaned forward, placing his forehead and the palm of one hand against the stone thing. He sat like that for a long time. "Tell me, John, is this what dying feels like?" The man mumbled eventually, "Because it really isn't too bad. I must say, living was far worse." The dove felt like he was intruding. He felt like the human was waiting for him to leave. A dove is very simple minded, very mission focused; once one task ends, one thought comes to a close, the next one begins. So to the skies the dove went, off to look for his life. Off to his own, to his singular, lonely, sorrowful life. To the skies he went, riding the current of a human man's last words.
"Thank-you."