A Piece of History: Home Again…

    There was the dull click of plastic on plastic, followed by a heavy sigh as Brad turned away from the wall. His hand lingered on the receiver for a breath longer as his gaze flickered to the kitchen table. Kyle looked up from the screen of his laptop, a frown furrowing his brow. "He’s still not answering?" The mage clicked a few more keys, his eyes flickering from screen to fellow mage rapidly, his colour dull and listless.
    "No," Brad sighed, shaking his head as he gave the phone one last glance before letting his hand drop away. "I don’t think he’s going to, either."
    "He’s not answering any online messages," Kyle grumbled, irritably snapping his laptop shut.
    "Kyle…I don’t think he’ll answer anything."

    As the last ring echoed off of the blank crème walls, momentarily drowning out the low volume of the radio, there was a faint movement from the couch. However, that movement was merely to draw the half-empty bottle of tequila closer. Jonas Foster, death mage and hit for hire, lay on his rumpled couch for the fifth day running, his bleary eyes gazing dully at the ceiling. A thick growth of beard was crusty with dried saliva and sticky from the trickles of liquor he’d not bothered wiping away. Lines now traced his face with years of anxiety and pain…lines acquired only in the last week. His t-shirt was grimy and stiff with dried alcohol and sweat, and his jeans had dark grass stains on the knees. Brown patches, flaky and crackling, marred the legs of his jeans, and the right shoulder of his t-shirt was entirely stiff with the dried liquid. The odor of unwashed human mingled with the sharp reek of spilt liquor, enhancing the heavy smell of cigarette smoke, making the couch itself a highly unpleasant place to be. His skin was dry and cracking along his knuckles, and in some places, blood had congealed.

    All of this…and still Jonas Foster merely raised the bottle to his lips and took a deep draught. It burned as he swallowed convulsively, but that was nothing to the mingling rage and agony of his thoughts. He was dying, he was certain of it. Nothing, nothing could hurt this much…ache this badly and leave one alive. His blood was draining slowly from his body, leaving him without strength. His heart was gone, torn roughly from the cavity of his chest, only an empty hole remaining whose ragged edges shrieked the mindless scream of living flesh in pain.
    No…it wasn’t possible to hurt this badly and still live. Still breathe.

    …and yet, he did.

    Each breath was an effort that made his ribs ache. Air burned his throat worse than the liquor and rattled through his lungs like razor-edged smoke. The ashtray on the floor by the couch was overflowing with cigarette butts, some of which had fallen out, burning holes in the carpet. His hand, fumbling and stiff, felt about for the crumpled pack of Pall Malls nearby, scrabbling out a cigarette which he lit slowly, as if every joint hurt (which they did.) In the background, the radio droned on, keeping back the echoing silence that threatened to overwhelm his mind every time he stopped drinking or smoking. With that swimming somewhere in his mind, he took a deep drag of the tar-laden cancer stick and found himself murmuring a silent prayer that the Wheel would turn for him soon. Sighing out smoke, he took another swallow of the tequila and frowned, the lines deepening on his face.

    "…this time, this place…misused, mistakes. Too long, too late…who was I to make you wait?"

    The lyrics of the song, now filtering through the apartment’s empty space from that small, unobtrusive piece of plastic on the kitchen counter, caught at one of the wavering filaments of his attention, and pulled hard.

    "Just one chance, one breath…just in case there’s just one left…"

<span style=”font-family: Book Antiqua; color: rgb(192, 192, 192); background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);”>    His hands began shaking so violently that Jonas hastily shoved the bottle away from himself, sitting up with a deep groan of pain as the effort hurt every muscle in his body. Dark brown eyes, glazed with days of insomnia (…seeing it every time he closed his eyes…smelling the blood…hearing the last, rattling…) looked towards the radio with an expression just short of murderous. As the lyrics really sank into his mind, his hand clenched around the still-burning cigarette, burying the ember deep into his palm in a frantic attempt to make the memories, so painfully fresh, bury themselves once more.

    …alas.

        The phone call…that ringing tone which preceded so many tidbits of  heart-breaking news in modern life…the frantic drive through the brightly sunlit streets to the familiar walls of Hearth Home…leaving skid marks across the driveway and into the lawn. Had he even stopped the car before vaulting out? He couldn’t remember…only hitting his knees on the sprinkler-damp grass, leaping to his feet and running…running with a desperation, a terror he’d never known biting at his heels the whole way…

    "…no…" His voice was cracked, harsh from days of constant smoking and silence. The hand clutching the cigarette, now quite extinguished from the blood dripping off of his palm, clenched harder as his body began to shake uncontrollably. The song, however, was both uncaring and relentless as it continued to play.

    "On my knees, I’ll ask…last chance for one last dance…cause with you, I’d withstand…all of hell to hold your hand…"

        There…a spot of brilliant whitish-silver on the verdant green…his eyes hadn’t seen her properly, hadn’t read the scene right. Red? She’d never worn red…never dyed her hair…never…  …oh gods above…Gods he’d never acknowledged until now, when a fervent prayer of utter desperation beat with his thudding heart. "Please, let her be okay."

        …a prayer whose uselessness he’d seen the instant he’d fallen to his knees amongst the sobbing fae, gathering her still form into his arms. So light…had she always been this frail? Never this broken…and when the warmth seeping into his lap caught his attention, he realized what had thrown his perception off once before was no longer there…Her wings were gone.

    He uttered a choked sound, something that might have been a cry of protest, and covered his eyes roughly, digging his grimy knuckles into them in a futile attempt to push the scene out of his mind. When he moved, his unyielding jeans crackled, and flakes of the dark brown substance fell away from the material. A faint, metallic scent added to the stench of the air, giving it a poignant familiarity that dragged another unwilling noise from the trembling death mage.

    "I’d give it all…I’d give for us…give anything, but I won’t give up…"

        Her hand, so cold…slick with the red that seeped from the shredded flesh of her back, her delicate nostrils…her diamond eyes, so familiar, now weeping crimson tears as her gaze shifted away from the blue morning sky to him. It was a serene peace on her face when she focused her eyes, so colourless now, on his face. He couldn’t help clutching her hand, holding it as tightly as he could, despite feeling her frail bones creak under the pressure. Maybe, just maybe…if he held on hard enough…he could stop the Wheel.

    Jonas threw the blood-soaked cigarette away, the smell of tobacco and blood making his eyes water. Yes…that was it. It was the smell that stung his eyes, closed his throat and made him feel as though he was drowning in the very air he breathed. It wasn’t conscious to slip off the couch, his arms stiffly held as if he cradled something unspeakably precious in his arms. It wasn’t deliberate that his lips moved as his dark eyes closed, his throat working wildly. If for one moment the images would just stop…if the memories could just…go…away…

    "So far away…been far away for far too long…so far away…been far away for far too long…"

        Months? Had it been months, even? Months without her voice, her scent…months of loneliness concealed behind a façade of cold detachment. Months of her absence, so far away to the north in the supposed ‘safe’ haven of the High King, that fell away within seconds when her lips tried to move. Petal-soft lips, once such a luscious pink, now faintly bluish-white and dry, trying to form words. A body, mangled and broken, struggling to draw breath…just enough to speak. He clung harder, trying to warm her icy form with his body…and forgetting that he’d never had enough warmth to give.

    A whimper echoed now, as his hands tightened into fists and he buried his head in his arms. Huddled against the foot of the couch, the ashtray knocked askew, sending ash and filters across the floor, Jonas Foster fought the rising tears, the near screaming sobs as hard as he could. His heart beat, thudded as hard as it had that horrible, horrible morning, despite feeling as though it had died then, as well. No…it hadn’t died…nothing could be dead and hurt this badly. Death was the end of pain, and he realized now, as air bladed along his throat and stung his nostrils, that he was very much alive.

    "I wanted…I wanted you to stay…"

        Her rattling intake of breath, sounding so agonizing that he choked and clutched her hard to him, trying to silence her, stop her from hurting herself even as tears pooled in her eyes from his pain. Her cold hand found his face, nerveless fingers stroking his cheek, leaving streaks of cooling red in their wake, trying to soothe even as she fought to speak.

    "…’cause I needed…I need to hear you say…"

        The sobs and cries of those standing around them faded into sheer background noise as he focused every iota of his being on listening. If she was so determined to speak, he was just as determined to hear. A flash of orange so bright it appeared to be flame burned briefly in her eyes, and then faded into that soft, rose pink he had seen so very, very often when she looked at him. For a brief second, she pulled her gaze from his face, and her crystalline eyes reflected the serene blue of the sky. Then, with a force of the will that had always kept her smile in place, she looked back at him, her fingers closing over the hand clutching her arm so hard he bruised her milk-white flesh.

        "…love…you…"

    "That I love you…I’ve loved you all along. And I forgive you…for being away for far too long…"

        His breath stopped in his throat as he looked into her eyes, saw the colours there and finally read them clearly. And as her bluish-white lips closed on the last vowel, and her slender body relaxed fully in his arms, he felt something that had been alive and blooming within himself for quite some time now…begin to wither.

    "So keep breathing, ’cause I’m not leaving you anymore. Believe it…hold onto me, and never let me go…keep breathing…"<br style="font-family:Book Antiqua; color: rgb(192, 192, 192); background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);” />
        The air escaped her mouth with the softest of sighs, and he thought perhaps she had fallen unconscious. Held to that delusion even as his instinctive knowledge of death told him she was leaving…life was ebbing swiftly, and he tightened his grip, his faint whimpers pleading with her to stay, to hold on a little longer…it would all be okay, now that she was home…

    "…’cause I’m not leaving you anymore…believe it…hold onto me and never let me go…keep breathing….hold onto me and never let me go…"

        The Gift of the Dreaming shifted her gaze with the last of her strength and gave a loving look to those clustered around. He tightened his grip and made a sound, shaking her a bit, as if to jar her from the edge of the abyss she was teetering on. She looked back into his eyes, that warm rose mingling with pale blue, and simply…smiled.
        
…and he felt her body lose all tension in his arms, and knew she was out of pain for the first and last time.

    
    In the apartment, as the last few notes of the song died into silence, a crackle of radio static filling the gap before a sprightly commercial began, Jonas Foster, death mage and hit for hire, succumbed to tears. He did not wail, nor sob. He did not rant at the heavens, nor scream his agony. No…for now, Jonas simply…whimpered. In the ruin of what had been the greatest love he could ever have known, faced with the reality of the turning of the Wheel, and only now understanding what he had dismissed for so many years…Jonas Foster whimpered.