Fly

by Merlin7

URL: http://www.area52hkh.net/asm/merlin7/fly.php
Summary: Not supplied

I could feel him staring at it as I flipped over a card. The long, thin line that slashed across my inner, right wrist. We were in my room for our weekly game of Rummy. Rodney liked Rummy. Enough to trick me into playing it with him weekly. In truth I didn't mind. Rodney made a great distraction and we had somehow managed to become friends. With a twist.

"Ask," I told him, when he kept staring. Normally I would be wearing one of my black wristbands. Sometimes I didn't and figured no one would notice anyway. But Rodney noticed everything. So I smiled at him to let him know it was okay.

So he asked. "What happened?"

I flipped over another card. "I slit my wrist when I was sixteen." I watched for his reaction. He was stunned. Enough so to drop his cards.

"Why? What happened?"

"I wanted to fly..." I whispered.

Rodney's face scrunched up into an expression of confusion. "John...why?"

I knew he really wanted to know. So I told him. "I had an older brother. Bobby. Ten years older and he was everything to me." I got up from the small table and moved over to my bed. I sat down and stared at the scar. "Bobby killed himself when I was ten. He stripped naked, got into the bath tub and slashed both wrists wide open."

"God..I'm sorry!" Rodney moved to the bed and sat down.

"Me too." I smiled at him but it faded as I let myself remember. "He talked to me that morning. He was heading back to North Carolina, or was supposed to be. He was in the Marines, like dear old dad. Following in his footsteps and all. LIke I was supposed. But that morning he took me outside and said, "Promise me you'll learn to fly, John. No matter what anyone else wants. You learn to fly." I looked up at Rodney and saw sympathy in his eyes and it pissed me off even as it comforted me. "Anyway...I promised and that night I found out he was dead." I got up and began to pace. "Long story short...my dad knows people in high places. They covered it up. The official story was that Bobby died in a car accident. I didn't learn the truth until I was sixteen."

"How?" Rodney asked.

I shrugged. "I overheard my mom talking on the phone. I heard Bobby's name and she was crying so I went in and hugged her and asked her what was wrong. She told me." I stopped pacing to lean against the wall. "Fucked me up a little. I took off and drove around for a while. Hours actually. Came home and everyone was asleep. So I grabbed a steak knife from the kitchen and went into the bathroom and sat on the edge of the tub and just...sliced my wrist open."

"Why? And why your right wrist?" Rodney interjected. "You're right handed."

"Bobby was left handed." It didn't surprise me that Rodney would notice that. He noticed everything. I scrubbed one hand through my hair and started pacing again. "I wanted to understand why he did it. I wanted to know if he had been afraid to die. If I would be afraid."

"Were you?"

I shrugged again. "I don't remember. I just...as I watched it bleed I could here Bobby asking me to learn to fly. To promise him that I would."

Rodney smiled. "And you did."

"Yeah. I did." I offered a shaky smile in return. "I went and got my mom. She was a nurse and she patched me up and she told me no one could ever know what I did. And no one ever did. Not even my dad. That's when I started wearing the wrist bands. I played tennis alot so I had a bunch of them and they covered up the bandage. And once it healed I kept wearing them as a reminder."

"Hasn't anyone ever asked about it before? Like a doctor?"

I nodded. "Yeah. I told the same story. I cut myself on a broken window."

Rodney frowned. "So..what happened after that? Was your father mad when you became a pilot?"

"He was really mad, but my mom made him back off." I moved back to the bed and sat down. "When I was six we went to the fair and they had some guy there with a police chopper. He took me and Bobby for a ride and I never wanted to come down. I started collecting planes and helicopters and it's all I talked about. After I cut myself...the next day I got a job at a fast food place to earn money for flying lessons. There was a guy at the local airport that gave them so long as you were sixteen and had a driver's liscence. And since I was smart enough to keep my grades up without studying, I got away with it. Dad didn't find out until I enlisted in the Air Force. He actually tried to use his connections to get me out of it, but my mom made him drop it. She understood."

"She must be very proud of you, John." Rodney's voice was soft.

I nodded. "I think she was." I felt the burn of tears and swiped at my eyes with the back of one hand. "She died on my nineteenth birthday."

Rodney made a choking sound. "I'm...I'm sorry."

"It's okay. It was a long time ago." I closed my eyes but opened them when I felt strong arms wrap around me. And it was only then that I realized I was shaking. "Sorry." I didn't like to be weak.

"Shhh.." Rodney whispered.

I felt him take my right hand then warm lips were pressed to the scar. When my knees buckled, Rodney held me up. I let him guide me over to the bed and he shifted us both down upon it and it didn't seem weird or wrong when he pulled me into him. I felt his heartbeat under my cheek and his fingers combing through my hair. "Thanks, Rodney," I said softly. So softly that I wondered if he heard me.

"Go to sleep," Rodney replied. "But I want a make up game tomorrow. My room."

I chuckled and nodded. Rodney didn't always know the right thing to do, but he always tried and sometimes, like now, he got it right. "Your room," I promised, then I closed my eyes.

Rodney sighed then asked, "Will you teach me how to fly?"

"I like that," I whispered. Then I drifted off to sleep.

THE END