FictionPress.com - let the words flow| FictionPress.com - let the words flow |
| Home Just In Communities Forums Beta Readers Dictionary Search | Login Register Extras |
It’s a wreck inside, and Chris’s not sure how it can even pass union standards, it’s unsafe and about to fall down. And as soon as he thinks that, there’s a rumbling around him that makes him curse fate and himself for jinxing this.
The building’s shaking and so is Mark, clutching at Chris’s arm like it’s a life preserver, and his eyes are huge and he’s begging Chris to hurry up, please, just-
There’s a cracking boom behind them and the sound of gushing liquid bursting out of its container. Mark turns back to look, against his better judgement, and Chris grabs his arm and turns him around halfway before it hits them, and Mark throws his arm over his face to protect himself.
It has to be a nuclear power plant, Chris thinks, because it hits his bare back and Mark’s arm and face, and it burns, and they’re screaming in tandem. Mark’s clawing at his face and arm, where the skin is peeling away and the open wounds are turning silver. Chris’s back and shoulder blades are ripping themselves apart, and black feathery fucking wings sprout out with a tearing sound, and he screams.
He hears something crack above them, then the whole building shakes and he ducks to the floor, taking Mark down with him and pulling him on top of him, wings fanning out over them and he tucks his head down next to Mark’s as the building falls down over them.
First they find Mark’s hat that Chris gave him ‘just cause’, and Alan can still remember Mark’s pleased smile as Chris settled it on his head and stroked his cheek with one half-curled finger, and Alan retreated, feeling like he was intruding. But now his memory of that is faded and torn, like the hat he now holds in his hands.
Jack’s tugging on his arm to show Alan another clue, another piece of a broken puzzle. He holds up a chunk of Chris’s treasured Sidekick, plastic melted and twisted and barely recognizable. There’s ash and dust in his hair, in Alan’s too, and it’s covering the trees and ground like some kind of demented snow.
He hears Jack curse, and he looks over, and Alan feels Jack stiffen beside him before they run over to the rubble where Chris and Mark have been uncovered.
At some point during the explosion, Chris had unfolded previously glossy black wings and thrown them over Mark and himself. The air is thick with the stench of burned feathers and Alan feels sick, partly from the smell, but also from the knowledge that if Chris hadn’t thought fast, they’d be smelling burnt flesh, and there wouldn’t be a Chris and Mark to find.
He glances over at Jack as they carry their friends out. He looks a little sick too.
In the background, Alan hears the man on the TV offering his sincerest apologies for the incident.
Alan snaps it off. All the apologies in the world can’t make up for this, for Chris’s wings, or for the silver on Mark’s arm and face.
Mark’s curled up on his bed, back turned to the rest of the room, as close to the wall as he can get. Chris’s sprawled out on his stomach on t the bed opposite him, flicking through some music magazine with an article of his favorite band. He rolls over and tosses the magazine on the floor when he hears the door open.
Alan and Jack are hovering in the doorway uncertainly, watching as the doctor pulls up a chair beside Chris’s bed and begins examining him. He pulls one of Chris’s wings all the way out, then lets it droop to half-mast and does the same to the other one, carefully, looking at the raw, burnt patches were the feathers were gone. He has Chris flap them a few times, and, satisfied, withdraws and lets the other man settle down in the chair and switch on his tape recorder.
He leans forward intently, and so does Chris, leaning in until their noses bump. The other man leans back in a hurry, and checking that the tape recorder is on, begins to question him. After fifteen minutes of staring and nonsensical rambling about Red Bull, he gives up and turns the tape recorder off with a sigh. He stands up, nods at the doctor, and they both walk over to Mark’s bed.
The doctor tries to get Mark to turn around, and Chris’s biting his lip and mentally willing them to leave Mark alone. Mark hadn’t said a word since he explosion, mostly just hiding in bed and Chris’s just about to try to fly, just to get the two men to leave Mark alone, when Alan pushes past them and sits on the edge of Mark's bed, and finally coaxes him to uncurl, to sit up and face the room. The well-dressed official gasps in shock, then quickly smothers it.
There’s a slim trail of silver streaked down the right side of his face, cutting through the smooth expanse of one pale cheek. There’s a splattering of it on his right temple, too. He raises his hand to pull his hoodie tighter and hide his face, and they see it’s on his arm too-it’s like his skin split open and revealed metal hiding under it. The veins twisting up his wrist are coated silver, and so are the knuckles and veins on the back of his right hand, like a painting project gone wrong.
The doctor doesn’t seem to want to touch it, so he finishes his examination quickly, stripping off his gloves and flinging them into the garbage can before he flees the room. The government official seems to realize that he won’t get anything out of Mark, so he stays long enough only to hand a business card over to Alan. Then he, too, flees.
When Alan and Jack walk back into the room, Chris is rolling all over his bed laughing, outstretched wings knocking over a lamp. ‘Mr. Polaski,’ he crows, voice shaking uncontrollably with laughter. ‘It makes me sound like some sort of respectable business man, complete with suit, tie, and briefcase!’ He starts laughing at his own wit. ‘I can see the business cards now-Mr. Polaski, -Freaks Inc.! Get your feather grooming accessories here! We carry only the finest-‘
‘Chris.’ When Chris turns to look at Alan, he looks weary. ‘Shut. Up.’
As Chris, offended, opens his mouth to protest, Mark lets out a whimpering noise in his sleep and presses himself as close to the wall as he can, left hand picking at his face.
For once, Chris shuts his mouth and does as he’s told.
‘So, what do you think? Should we take a little look-see-?’
Mark hits him before he can say anything else, smooth, hot metal connecting with the curve of his jaw. And okay, he thinks, stripping the gloves off and throwing them back in the garbage, he probably deserved that.
He grins and slaps his mostly bald wings, looking a little like an overplucked chicken, Mark thinks maliciously, glaring intently at the dark screen of his laptop. And when he flaps his wings again, a rush of air almost knocking the hat off Mark’s head, Mark has to bite his lip with the effort of not telling him to stop. He’s not quite sure he has the heart to tell him, because Chris’s grinning like a little kid who just learned to tie his shoes.
‘Come outside and I’ll show you, I can fly!’ and damnit, he doesn’t have the right to be happy, not when he’s a freak like that. Like Mark is.
Mark leaves the unstarted computer on the table, brushing past Chris and into the hallways and upstairs, curling his fingers to keep the feel of Chris’s fingers brushing against them in him forever. Chris doesn’t even bother to turn around as his wings droop and his face crumples.
Alan pretends to read his book, dropping his eyes to the same sentence he’s been staring at for the last five minutes, as Chris grabs a scarf and heads outside, banging the door at the same time Mark quietly shuts his, resting his back against it, tilting his head back and shuddering.
One day, Chris makes a joke about stainless steel after Mark spills his orange juice, and from the look on Mark’s face, Chris wonders it it’s a shield from him.
He doesn’t make any more jokes after that.
Mark hates touching his face or his arm. The metal’s spreading upwards, tracing his veins, and he does everything he can to avoid anybody else touching it. So when Chris comes to him one day, looking greasier than usual, and tells him no, really Mark, taking a shower with wings is harder than it sounds, so could you please help me and maybe we’ll save some water while we’re at it?, Mark just stares at him levelly, until Chris sighs and his wings droop and he walks away, looking dejected.
His wings and hair stay greasy.
Mark turns and leaves.
Chris doesn’t turn the movie back on.
‘Mark, what the fuck is your problem? We’re all getting sick of you acting like a teenage girl-‘
‘Oh, that’s rich. That’s like the pot calling the kettle black-‘
‘Yeah, fuck you, man.’
And Mark throws him up against the wall and his wings flare out, and Mark pins him there, grabs one of his hands and holds it against his face, metal on both sides of his hand.
‘Feel that? I’m a freak. A fucking robot freak.’
‘Dude. Shut. Up.”
Mark’s breathing hard now, and he lets go of Chris’s hand, which hovers in the air uncertainly, before snatching Mark’s right hand and intertwining it with own. His other hand comes up to cup Mark’s cheek on its on accord, as Mark slowly raises a pale hand and threads shaking fingers through feathers that are just as soft as they look.
