A/N: Found this while looking through some WIPs, forgot to share it before, so here you go! Daily dose of sad.
His lungs burn.
The cold does little to help, rolling in his chest in shards of frigid glass, and so he forces each breath to come measured and shallow. Every second standing takes more from him than he takes in, spots fragmenting his vision even as he leans against the statue behind him for support. A deeper breath, grasping for oxygen, and an eruption of coughing shakes his frame. He tastes salt and bile in the back of his throat, feels something wet on his hand, not quick enough to shield it with a handkerchief. He doesn't bother to look, wiping it in his waistcoat. It doesn't matter, now, if it stains.
Another deeper breath, rattling in his lungs as he pushes himself from the statue. He wavers in place, the roof beneath him rocking like the deck of a ship before it settles back to the even, solid surface it was moments prior. His hand, wracked with tremors, presses to his mask, just at his forehead. A grounding pressure to fight back the throbbing.
Not much time.
No, another week at most, he thinks. A few days more, if he is lucky.
Lucky.
A grating laugh triggers another fit. He feels it at his temples, behind his eyes. More salt, more bile, something ferric coating his tongue. When it passes, he spits it out, scraping his tongue with his teeth. When he looks to the ground, the splattered spot is dark, colour indiscernible in the meagre light.
Lucky.
Lucky indeed. His lot in life. Lucky.
He lowers to the ground in an ungainly bundle of shifting limbs, uncaring when he falls just a little too hard. He is dizzied by the effort, eyes swimming, and so he leans once more against the statue, head falling back to rest against it. The angle draws his gaze upward to the tiny sliver of moon that looks down at him, to the blinking stars. They seem sharp in the chill night air, even with the city glow trying its best to outdo them.
His eyes close against them, the sight twisting cold fingers through the soft tissue of his stomach. The logical part of him, the part that carries a distinct Persian lilt and a damnably reproachful tone tells him that it is his failing health that makes him so nauseous. Too many tiny points to focus on, too dizzy for too little oxygen. Confuses the body.
He knows different. He knows that it is because stars make him think of charts, then maps, travel, distance, how far away is she? His mind makes many such associations these days. Sometimes they are languorous and dragging, like his gaze staying fixed from where he forms into the divan on a particular book of poetry, not knowing why until he slowly remembers that she commented on it in passing. Sometimes they are a violent snap, like when a rogue draft somehow, by some cruel and perfect machination, manages to bring the ghost of her perfume to him.
He lets them come, lets them flit by and pass like birds. They are the one final comfort afforded to him, even with the protests of his overwhelmed body. They refresh the tingling numbness at his forehead, still so strong even after all this time—how long has it been? Three weeks? He thinks so, but the days have a tendency to bleed together when one waits to die. He knows—that part of this is familiar, at the very least. How many times has he suffered such an expectation, just to be disappointed?
Not this time. It is different, this time.
He peels his mask away from his face, hissing quietly at the wind nipping the sweat-laced rawness. He rubs one hand down from forehead to mouth, where he keeps it covered as another errant cough forces his chest to tighten. He rubs a circle over his heart—wait just a little longer, old friend, until I've returned home. She won't find me here.
If she returns.
He shakes the thought from his head, wincing at the ache it brings to his temple, at the ill that he can feel bubbling in the back of his throat. A useless thought, a senseless thought. She will return, he knows she will. She made her promise. Foolish woman, to make vows to dying demons.
But he has taken enough of her soul. He needs no more of it now, he has glutted himself on it, taken his fill, taken more than his share of it. He only hopes that when she finds him, it all returns to her. He only hopes that she will be able to sing again.
Singing. There is a thought. He pulls out his handkerchief, clears his throat of the sludge that clogs it, quick to keep the taste from lingering on his tongue. A breath now. Careful, deliberate so as to not cause another attack.
It is the first proper one in days and the rush of relieved euphoria that his body grants him makes him go lax, the spots in his eyes lessening, if only slightly. He shifts, however, straightening himself, propping against the base of the statue so that he sits tall. His vertebrae pop, another meagre relief. He is too fatigued for a smile but he can feel the corner of his lips trying, even as his heart flutters weak.
Another breath and his lungs indulge him, the stinging only slight. He holds it despite all sense, listening to the carriages pass on the streets below with their plodding rhythm before he tilts his head back and opens his mouth.
His voice is quiet, sandpaper and nails and hissing air, with only the barest suggestion of what it might have been once upon a time. Three weeks without a word spoken, the closest thing having been the first few days of manic muttering, whispers of her name in the darkness. Christine. Christine. Chris-tine. Willing himself to remember it as though he might forget it, as though he possibly could, wrapping his tongue around the syllables. But it began to hurt, to scratch at his lungs, and so he instead let it echo in his mind with the songs he could no longer sing, that dignity refused to let him sing.
But he sings now, or tries, fighting through the pain and pride, hacking up the mire against the sense of drowning between measures and phrases. Songs he sang with her, songs he taught her to grasp with both hands, one side of solemn and soaring duets. He counts out the beats when her parts come, listening for her voice on the wind as he catches his breath before he begins again, a new song now that tears memories from the curtained corners of his skull, shrinking under the light.
Fate links thee to me for ever and a day.
Watching through the mirror as she lifted her head, straightened her posture as he instructed her, letting her voice ring out in that crystal purity. Unrefined, passion dulled, but poised for perfection.
Fate links thee to me for ever and a day.
How beautiful she looked even then, with tired eyes darkened from their forget-me-not blue into a slate sea by the grief. The sunlight seemed not to touch her, a shadow following her and keeping the colour from her cheeks, that quartz-clear soul compressed and hidden away into the inky-black alcoves inside of her. He remembers so clearly, as his voice cracks on a note that once was effortless, that spark of starlight that lit her eyes when she asked him. Are you the Angel of Music?
Yes, Christine. Don't be frightened.
Fate links thee to me for ever and a day.
His body protests at the memories, at the gasping breaths that he pulls in just to rasp out the words, but he doesn't stop. He can see her, arms held to the sky in exaltation, rapture in her closed eyes and the part of her lips. For him, to give herself to him, and the thought makes him reel even now. No emperor received so fair a gift. Guilt and absolution, shame and ecstasy spread in equal measure from his brow.
Fate links thee to me for ever and a day!
The note is broken, coming out like the muted croak of a muffled raven, but it is all he can handle, his hand gripping into his chest to steady him. He pants, breaths crackling and popping, and he gives in to another attack, doubling over, face burning and ears ringing. He jolts the handkerchief up, already stained from its use, and he covers his mouth with it to save his hand the disgust.
When he settles, breaths wheezing and whistling, he opens his eyes as much as his spent energy will allow. He has no reserves to be unnerved by the black and red splotches on the once-white handkerchief, but he throws it to the side all the same, letting it carry on the breeze to some unseen nook.
Again he slumps back, shoulders pressing sore into the stone behind him, and again he looks to the sky. Pastels dust the horizon, periwinkle fringed with pink and gold. Eyes and cheeks and hair, peony-soft, dressed in white, lips pressed to his forehead, and his deathly cold fingers lift to touch that spot. A charm against the flames, against his sin, and he knows he will make it into heaven for that alone, that whatever God there may be will see that he has been blessed and open the doors wide for him. Sweet, selfless Christine.
His lungs burn. His heart thumps harder in his chest. His ears ring louder, blocking out the sounds of birds and early-risers. He can't fall asleep out here, can't risk it, she won't find him here. With every crumb of willpower that he still possesses, he grabs his mask and lifts himself, sliding his back up the base of the statue to steady himself. His vision goes dark and bleary but it returns, the world distorted into watercolour blurs before he is able to focus again. His mask goes back on.
With a huff and measured steps, he pushes off of the statue, casting it one final look. The lyre catches the first rays of the rising sunlight, glowing against the velvet sky that still backs it. He gives it a nod—a strange goodbye—before turning back from whence he came. Must make it down before people begin to stalk about. He doesn't have it in him to run.
His heart pangs, a warning as he begins his descent. Just a little longer, old friend, just a little longer. Almost home, then we can rest. Then we can sleep for as long as you like. He clutches at his chest, begging it. Just a little longer. You can make it. Just a little longer.
Tonight, he thinks.