Set after Fang. (I guess I should warn you: spoilers, if you haven't read that book yet.)
Disclaimer: I do not own JP's characters, and I do not own the lyrics to the song, Rise Against does.
This story will be so much better if you listen to the song first, or as you read it. "Ready To Fall" by Rise Against. Please YouTube it and listen (the video is powerful, too, if you want to watch it. Tim's eyes should be an incentive [watch it to understand that!]).
It had been 8 months since he had left her - Max. Max and the flock. Max and the flock and his life. His entire life. He really had no reason to live now. It sounded stupid and cheesy, but the only reason to get up from his solitary sleep in abandoned buildings, alleys, and wildernesses was the prospect of seeing them- seeing her- again. It was so far away... 19 years, 3 months, and 2 days. He stuffed food down his throat so that he could make it till then, but it tasted like sawdust. Even flying did not hold its usual pleasure. All it did was cruelly dredge up memories.
He'd almost told her that he knew where he was going, but then crossed that out. He knew it was a lie and he couldn't bear for the last things he said to her to be even a partial lie. He had planned on doing just this, surviving like the stray mongrel that he was.
As he flew over some decrepit city, he inspected the stars and decided that he should sleep. He had nothing better to do anyway - he was aimless, pathetically unmotivated, and his life was pointless. He tilted his body and circled lower; his camouflaging wings, so much like a raven's, sliced through the thick air silently. His raptor vision zeroed in on an unkempt skyscraper, and he landed on it with a muted thump. He took out the creased scrap of paper that he'd read a hundred times since he'd found it 3 days before, read it thrice more, and then slipped it back into his most secure pocket. He sighed and tucked up into a compact ball to conserve heat - he didn't bother to carry a blanket around. Too much effort.
He took out his beaten-up iPod - the one that Max had given to him what seemed like forever ago - and crammed the ear-buds into his ears. He cranked the volume up to the mp3 player's maximum. He knew it left him vulnerable but he was beyond caring. Irritably he remembered the last bit of a note, and yanked one of the ear-buds out.
He looked down at the song playing - "Tentativa Favorita" by 16th Avenue. It used to be his favorite song and he'd listened to it constantly, especially when Max was around. Now all it did was taunt him, teasing him with tantalizing memories of her. He stared angrily at the screen and noticed that he was on the playlist "Fang's Music." He always kept it on that - with one computer and a couple iPods, they needed a way to distinguish whose music was whose... he didn't like when he'd just finished listening to Incubus when Nudge's "Pumping Up The Party Now" assaulted his ears. He searched around through the ipod, looking for a song that didn't constantly barrage him with visions of Max, and saw a playlist called "Happy 15th, Part 2. Enjoy, Ig." Overjoyed and intrigued, he clicked it quickly and listened to the soothing sounds of "You Are The Blood," covered by someone named Sufjan Stevens, and then "The Past Is a Grotesque Animal" by Of Montreal. He was loving the playlist, and Iggy for making it for him, but he eventually dozed off around "...to Be Loved" by Papa Roach.
His dreams were hazy, disconcerting, and convoluted. People and things morphed into other people, and his friends (all 10 of them) warped into his enemies. Then suddenly everything horrendous fell away and he was in a life boat. The murky grey sea was turbulent and swished the small raft around mercilessly, but Fang was calm and content because sitting across from him in the boat, her smile simultaneously sensual and silly (She was the master of that. As far as he knew, she was the only one who could accomplish it), was Max.
He gazed into her smirking chocolate eyes, trying to convey the depth of his affection for her by pulling an Angel. He wanted to lunge across the boat and tackle her, but he felt restrained, and not by physical straps (he knew that feeling all too well). Max stared at him, and then, all of a sudden, with no apparently provocation, her face suddenly crumpled, and she burst into tears. He'd seen her cry before, more than anyone else had, but the depth of her misery was unfathomable. He wanted to grab her, to comfort her, to help her become the tough Max that he knew she wanted to be, but he couldn't make himself do it. Instead, swarming up from the deepest pits of his subconscious, he started spitting words, fast and sincere.
"Hold on, slow down, again from the top now and tell me everything. I know I've been gone for what seems like forever, but I'm here now, waiting to convince you that I'm not a ghost or a stranger but closer than you think."
Max's head jerked up from its slump. Her doe eyes were enormous, tear droplets still glistening on her long lashes. Her expression betrayed her feelings: pain; hurt; relief; desperate, dim hope; love; determination - and then she started writhing and her features twisted and mutated into Dr. H. G.'s vicious snarl.
Fang abruptly startled awake with a silent gasp, springing up violently from the cold concrete. He was breathing heavily - almost as if he'd been in a fight to the death - and his face was clammy. Harmonious music continued to play into his ear, strong guitar rifts, pounding drums, and a second melodic rhythm guitar. He stood up weakly and wiped his face on his black t-shirt, pushing his hair roughly away from his face. The note in his pocket felt like it was burning through the denim and into his flesh, collecting all of his scrambled thoughts and returning them to Max. He thought about what she'd written to him in that note and the hope that he had felt when he discovered it. It was in the Hawk Ledge Cave, in Death Valley. He'd gone back, hoping that it might make him slightly less despondent. He'd stayed for a few hours before realizing that it was just making him worse. He was packing up his meager belongings when he spotted just the teeniest edge of a scrap of paper peeking out. He flipped the rock over quickly, wondering if Nudge had left it when they'd stayed there. But the note was in Max's compact, haphazard scribbles.
She said, "Just go on to what you pretend is your life, but please don't die on me."
She was ticked. It was apparent in the meaning behind the words, but it was also manifested in the words themselves. The handwriting was too neat and deliberate; when he flipped the paper over to the back and felt it, the raised scars displayed the marks where the ballpoint pen had gouged.
Remembering it now, his stomach contorted itself and his normally stoic face twisted into a grimace. He stumbled over to the very edge of the building, staring blearily at the ground far below.
But he'd known she'd be mad, he'd known it all along. It was Max's programmed response; she preferred anger over grief.
The music swam around his skull; The disembodied voice confided in him, bold as Max herself.
Wings won't take me.
Heights don't phase me.
The lyrics astounded him; It was not the relevance, but the beauty, so rare for him these days, that made him tune every shred of his attention to the song. His wings pressed snugly to his back, their pressure comforting but at the same time haunting. He couldn't help thinking of another pair of wings, so much more beautiful than his own.
So take a step, but don't look down.
Take a step.
He almost wanted to take that step, with his wings tucked in.
Now I'm standing on the rooftop ready to fall.
I think I'm at the edge now but I could be wrong.
I'm standing on the rooftop ready to fall.
Was he wrong? He knew if - no, when - Max found out, she'd be even more furious at him. He had promised to meet her in 20 years. This definitely constituted him breaking that promise to her. He wanted to do it, to save himself 19 years and 3 months and 2 days more of anguish and torment and turmoil. Back when he was with the flock, he wasn't really a depressed kid, like everyone thought he was. Sure, he wore black, and sure, he kept to himself and liked to be in dark corners, but he really and truly enjoyed life, exceptionally so for a constantly-hunted mutant on the run. His flock, especially Max, made him happy. He was just really good at keeping it off his face.
Perpetual motion, the image won't focus: a blur is all that's seen.
Before, like Max had once said, life was pointed. Now, it was completely and utterly pointless. He went through the motions, but his brain was all clouded up with pain. He didn't see the gorgeousness of a thunderstorm anymore, and the hawks that he once loved now seemed vicious and self-serving.
But here in this moment, like the eye of the storm, it all came clear to me.
I found a shoulder to lean on, an infallible reason to live, all by itself.
Max. Max was his reason for living. And she was out there, somewhere. In fact, she actually had propped him up when he was too weak to stand. Even when he was emotionally drained, when his heart was shot, she had stabilized him, helped him until he was back to 100% Fang staidness. Heck, she'd brought him back from the dead.
I took one last look from the heights that I once loved.
And then I ran like hell
Until this point, Fang had just listened to the lyrics and been freaked out by how much they fit his present situation. However, that last line was so compelling that he had to obey. He needed a release, an escape channel to let all the pent up emotion flow out before it could corrode his insides. He spun recklessly, before he himself even realized what he was doing, and launched himself into an explosive sprint across the mostly flat rooftop. It was an enormous building in both height and width, and Fang pelted across it, leaping over some obstacles and springboarding over others. He screamed wildly, his voice rough and raw and primal. It was the only indicator that he was even there in the shadows; He was just another dark streak in the night.
Wings won't take me.
Heights don't phase me.
The singer's voice, as emotion packed as Fang himself, rasped fiercely along with him, the sound ironically comforting and soothing. As he was running, he grasped the swinging ear-bud that was bumping against his chest and forcibly shoved it into his open ear. Screw safety.
So take a step, but don't look down.
Take a step.
Fang finally reached the other side of the building. There was a low wall, about waist high, on this side. He saw it coming but didn't bother to slow himself, so when he reached it his body smacked into it full-force. His breath was pounded out of him and his knee collided brutally with the thick concrete. His top half didn't quite get the hint, and his momentum lurched him from the waste up over the barrier so he was bent forward in a bow, looking down at the ground. His head snapped forward, whiplashing his tensed neck, and his hair flicked into his eyes. The aggravated laws of motion would've had him tumble head over heals over the wall, but he scrabbled to grab hold of the cracked cement with clawed fingers and shot out his wings, flapping them to steady himself.
Now I'm standing on the rooftop ready to fall.
I think I'm at the edge now but I could be wrong.
I'm standing on the rooftop ready to fall.
Fang pinioned his wings securely, rubbed his neck, and surveyed the city streets below him, now marginally calmer but still agonized.
I count the times that I've been sorry.
(I know, I know.)
Oh, God - did he know the truth to that line or what? The only question was, which he was more sorry about - leaving Max when she went to Europe and he stayed in the states with Gazzy and Iggy or when he left her the last and final time, 8 months ago. Those were his two most serious regrets, but the number of times that he'd screwed up were truly too numerous to list.
Now my compassion slowly drowns.
(I know, I know.)
He missed her so much that he was almost considering taking the selfish option of ending all of his pain. He'd refrained from doing it for her sake, so that in 19 years she wouldn't be left heartbroken yet again, but he was letting the misery swamp him and was almost losing sight of that reason that he was holding it together: Max's feelings and well-being.
If there's a time these walls could guard you (I know, I know), then let that time be right now.
He fervently wished that Max and the flock could feel safe, hidden somewhere protected and impenetrable, but they never really could. Walls would always be confining and stifling, thanks to the Whitecoats. They could never feel sheltered, because with that came imprisonment.
Now I'm standing on the rooftop.
Now I'm standing on the rooftop, ready to fall.
I'm standing on the rooftop, ready to fall.
I think I'm at the edge now, but I could be wrong.
I'm standing on the rooftop, ready to fall.
As he listened to the riotous, harmonious, passionate music blaring into his ears, he made up his mind.
Now I'm standing on the rooftop (ready to fall).
He hopped nimbly up in one fluid movement, so that he was balanced on the low wall, hundreds of feet in the air.
Now I'm standing on the rooftop (ready to fall).
He rose to his tiptoes and slowly spread his wings, feeling the chilly night air whip around his face.
Now I'm standing on the rooftop (ready to fall).
He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, his features smoothing out into an expression of intense serenity.
Now I'm standing on the rooftop, ready to fall.
He smiled slightly, and leaped off into the air.
His wings were tucked tightly to his back.
And he fell.
(*Next chapter is an alternate ending, for those of you who would prefer that.)
Reviews are welcome! I'd consider it an honor if you would take a minute to write one.