Hello again, peoples! I'm not American, Thedummie2, but thanks anyway! Updates should come pretty quickly (for me, anyway, considering I tend to take ages) until I run out of material – which will come at about 'the Lost Boys', since the second half of the season hasn't started airing where I am yet, and I do get my inspiration from the episodes themselves.
Anyway! Thanks for reviewing, the both of ya, and enjoy.
He paced.
Round and round and round, tracing invisible lines on the floor, skirting the walls, the desk, the bed… unending, swift, his every step filled with nervous energy. When he'd tried to sleep his thoughts assaulted him, until finally he'd retreated from his accusing room to seek sanctuary in a place far quieter, far more peaceful. Far more secure.
In a way it simply made his mind race faster, piling on the guilt of, once again, failing one of his own, forsaking the opportunity to avoid a repeat of the disaster in favour of his arrogance.
As though it were an echo of his often rapid thinking, his stride lengthened until the room was too small to contain him and he longed to burst out of the small, contained tower he'd built around himself. But to leave the room would be to subject others to his state of mind, let them see how his overconfidence tormented him. They didn't need that. They didn't want that. They wanted him to be calm, collected. Instead he lashed out with his feet, kicking at the bed as he passed, at the desk, the walls, until the furniture had lurched from their positions into a melee of lopsided victims.
It was always the way; he moved quickly, too quickly, leaving everyone behind, everything behind, everything except the goal he could see in the distance. And somewhere along the line his sense of caution, his compassion, his restraint, was inevitably lost to the speeding track of ideas. It put a whole new meaning to the term 'roadkill'.
And still he found himself unable to stop. Always moving, looking ahead, refusing to turn around and look behind; even though he knew that behind him was a series of bumps in the road, ridges that signified the people he'd let down and were ultimately swallowed by a constant.
With a final blow at the slanting bed that made the pillow flop to the darkened floor he stopped short, body tense, breathing hard, his hands nervously twitching fists by his side. Slow down… he just needed to slow down…
Before he realized, a sharp bark of a laugh burst out of him. If he slowed down perhaps he wouldn't leave so many people behind; but those same people expected him to be so many steps ahead, to catch disaster before it reached them. Sometimes he failed. Sometimes he went too far… they wanted, needed, him to be quick, decisive. They needed him to be right.
Was right and speed the same thing? He wondered. No, it wasn't. Speed got you there first, that's all. And he needed to get there first. The city depended on him getting there first. Except this time, he'd been going so fast he overshot the station. He couldn't afford to do that; he realized that now. They depended on him to go at steady pace as much as they depended on him to be a few steps ahead. If he lacked in either way, he couldn't curtail whatever was coming.
But it was so hard… so hard. He didn't even know if they knew what they asked of him; they just asked. And expected. And he found himself wondering whether it would've been so bad if it'd been, say, Kavanaugh.
Instantly the thought was no. There would have been anger, yes, but not disappointment. They expected him, McKay, to be right all the time; they did not expect the same of Kavanaugh. And when he failed that standard, the disappointment was all the more bitter.
It was like being back in school. He needed to be right, to be on top, all the time; and if ever he wasn't, there was nothing turned his way but disappointment.
He just had to slow down a little. Just a little; just enough to regain control.
Then, maybe, he could get back on track.
