fellowshippers

Title: Void
Author: glorfinniel

Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Monaboyd
Summary: "He can hear the dripping of the cold water tap in the sink above him. It drowns out the sound of his clothes rustling as he moves, attempts to get up off the floor."
A/N: This is quite dark and confusing. Pretty vague and left for each reader to interpret in their own way. Whether the things mentioned within are metaphorical or literal is up to you. :)

It is with a great sense of mingled relief and regret that he feels the last threads of the rope break. They’ve been straining for much too long – were bound to break sooner or later – and now, finally, everything has gone SNAP.

And so he plummets.

The landing, surprisingly, is not painful at all. He expects bone shattering agony; he waits for the feel of splinters in his skin.

Instead, he falls onto something soft. Something warm and so obviously safe that a sob escapes him. He cries out in gratitude and sheer confusion.

He can feel sunlight. He can see again. His senses are no longer charred and smeared with smoke.

For too long he had relied upon those evil, little things. Anything he could get his hands on - anything at all - he would try. “Just for the fun of it,” he’d said one night when a mate, with genuine concern, had asked him why he’d put himself through such an ordeal.

It’d been no fun near the end though, had it? He hadn’t been laughing when his whole day and night started to revolve around buying those things with the last bit of money he had stashed away.

That money was for an education. It was supposed to go towards his chance to make it in life but he blew it. He threw that chance away, along with his friends, his health and, right at the end, before he ran out completely, his sanity.

He sits on the floor now, revelling in the feel of the cold tiles beneath him. He’s never noticed before the pattern the bathroom ceiling makes and he’s quite content right now to just stare at it and wait for somebody to find him.

He can hear the dripping of the cold water tap in the sink above him. It drowns out the sound of his clothes rustling as he moves, attempts to get up off the floor. He can’t yet. He’s still too weak. He falls back down, banging his head against the tiled wall in the process.

He tries to ignore the magnified throbbing in his head.

He wakes up to frantic knocking from the other side of the locked door. “Open up!” the person screams, hitting the door even harder.

“’s locked,” he tries to tell them, but his face, still slack and lifeless, refuses to let his mouth move properly. The words come out as no more than a mumbled whisper and so he gives up trying.

The knocking gets louder.

It’s no longer comfortably warm in here. It’s now sweltering, so much so that he can feel the beads of sweat creeping down his forehead. He blinks the drops away as they fall into his eyes and then continues to stare straight ahead.

The person is still knocking, so hard that the door seems to be struggling to stay on its hinges. How rude of them, he thinks half heartedly, but cannot conjure up the energy to be angry, or even mildly annoyed.

The only thing he feels now is tired, and soon the need to sleep once more overwhelms him.

There are hands on his face, fingers tapping lightly on his cheek.

“Stay awake,” a voice says softly, sadly. “Keep your eyes open.”

He can’t. He tries, but he can’t.

“Please, Billy. Stay awake.”

He wants to. He really does.

The hands are now on his forehead, now his hair, now on his neck to check his pulse.

“Come on, Bills,” the voice says desperately, and then he hears them sobbing. “Open you eyes!” they scream, their voice cracking.

And so he does. It’s hard work, with lids so heavy, but he manages it. The face in front of him immediately shows relief, but he’s no time to study their features properly before he’s being held in a tight embrace.

It takes a while for him to realise that he’s crying along with the person holding him. Tears scald his already burning face and he clings to the person’s back so hard that his knuckles turn white.

“It’s alright,” they say. “It’s alright, Billy.”

Sadly, he finds that hard to believe.

END

x-posted to monaboyd