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Fledgling
for Mergatrude
Author's Notes: Thank you so much, nos4a2no9 for sterling beta work. I think I'm at the offering thirdborn stage by now.
i will wade out
till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers
I will take the sun into my mouth
and leap into the ripe air
Alive
with closed eyes
to dash against the darkness
in the sleeping curves of my body
Shall enter fingers of smooth mastery
with chasteness of sea-girls
Will I complete the mystery
of my flesh
I will rise
After a thousand years
lipping
Flowers
And set my teeth in the silver of the moon
(i will wade out, e e cummings)
It's morning in Vegas, and a world that's already pretty damn upside down flips over again. He wakes up on his side with something digging into his back, and that's it, it's all over, he's gonna get shot in the back on Egyptian cotton sheets with a stupid thread count-
But nothing happens: the shot never comes. His pulse is still racing, of course, all sweaty-palmed and terrified, but there's no one in the room, no breathing except for his own ragged little pants. He sits up, or at least, that's the plan. What happens is, he rolls over onto his back, gives a strangled yelp and is out of bed before he's even opened his eyes. The mirror on his dresser shows him something he really doesn't want to believe, the strange weight pulling his shoulders back and making him stand straighter but more hunched up is giving him too damn much confirmation of it. He forgets how to breathe. Wings. He didn't die, just went to sleep, doesn't feel heavenly or enlightened, and Vegas has made him sell his soul in so many ways he doubts he has even a scrap of redemption. He's too ugly, too human-looking to be an angel.
"Fuck," he whispers to himself, reaches under the top right hand desk drawer until he finds the little button that's his ticket outta here, rubs a shaky hand over his head and wishes briefly, stupidly, that Langoustine wasn't a teetotaler. He could sure as hell use some good strong whisky, so he could forget the bones arcing out of his shoulder blades, soft snow-white feathers, pinions and down, the unfamiliar muscles, and the urge he gets to spread them, beat them--
Fly. He wants to fly. God, the cruelty of this whole thing, that he has wings to fly, so he has to stay indoors, seems to collapse in on him, bringing him to his knees. When the hard faced woman in the maid's uniform lets herself into his room with a laundry trolley, he says nothing, just looks up at her as she examines him, one manicured finger tapping the keys attached to her belt. She touches his shoulder, briefly, doesn't touch his wings. He folds himself into the canvas sacking, position so uncomfortable he wants to burst free, risk being seen, caught. Feathers tickle his nose, stifle his breathing. He shuts his eyes, gets the closest to praying that he has since this whole job started.
Remarkable, how easily Vegas slips back to normal around him once he's gone. Frightening how dispensable he was, how easily the hospital records could be changed so the carcrash happened this week, not a year ago, and Langoustine's identified and in the coffin before anyone can get suspicious. All they needed to do was drive one of his cars out into the desert, set it rolling down a ravine. They tell him this, and he feels like Langoustine's dying all over again, and he's the one who killed him.
The agents who debrief him don't look at his wings. They don't treat him any differently, even if he does have to sit on a stool now, because the back of the chair crushes his wings. Just refer to `unanticipated circumstances'. He gets pensioned off, told not to let himself be seen- as if he would- and is shipped- no, flown, but in a plane, not with wings- back to Chicago and is given a fully furnished (unfamiliar) apartment and a discreet cleaning lady who gets groceries for him on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The feds are about as stumped as he is, and he isn't sure if they're waiting for the wings to drop off, or for him to go bugfuck crazy from confinement and blow his brains out.
Everything fall into a pattern. He stays in his apartment, which is pretty much a given. The cleaning lady, Margery, doesn't actually clean; he does that himself. She comes in, puts groceries by the door, and a book on the coffee table. It's like a library service, really- he reads the book through the week, then puts it on the table for her to take back. They're not new books; some of them have inscriptions in them- `dear Marge', `Dear mom, happy birthday', `To my daughter'- and they're eclectic, romance novels, some classics, one cookbook, a handbook on angling, poetry by Wallace Stevens, Lives of the Great Canadians-
Christ. He can't read that one. It makes his stomach clench, his palms prickle with sweat. Shame, guilt and longing mingle until he's so damn confused he crouches in the middle of his bed, curves his wings around his head so they're a shield shutting out the world. He thinks of Benny anyway. Thinks of the temptation to call him, make contact with him, ask him for his forgiveness, blessing. He reads to distract himself, reads avidly, hungrily, builds himself a new world where he can stretch his wings and walk freely under the sun, when in reality he can barely open the blinds and look out at the street. His is a life without conversation, and he keeps thinking that one day someone will see him, and want to talk to him, not because of the wings, but because he has a nice face, or voice, or maybe looks sad--
They never do. He stays quiet, hidden, secret.
***
O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare at the basin
And wonder what you've missed.
(As I walked out one Evening, WH Auden)
It's been two months, and nothing's changed. He knows far more about angling than he ever thought he would; in fact, he's willing to bet that he'd be able to fend for himself fine in the wilderness if there was a stream there and he could dig up grubs, but the wings are pretty much beyond him. They're just...there, make him stand differently, walk differently. He has to stretch them out regularly so they don't cramp up, and it's a relief that it's summer, because vests with the backs cut out of them aren't gonna keep him warm.
Tuesday morning, and he's sitting cross legged on the floor, reading a biography of Mendelssohn, the window open so he can feel the breeze on his feathers. There's a knock on the door, and Margery came in yesterday, and anyway, she has a key. He ignores the knocking. It's measured, polite and persistent. He stays sat on the floor, a trickle of sweat running down between his shoulderblades. It continues for a couple of minutes, and then there's a scuffling, the sound of muffled arguing.
"Chicago PD, if you don't open the goddamn door now, I'm gonna kick it in and then start on your head!"
He goes to his desk, gets out the gun the feds left in there with two clips of ammo.
"Really, Ray, was that entirely necessary? It's possible we might have made a mistake-"
"You do not make mistakes, Fraser. Not like that- Mister logic, remember? Going in, all guns blazing, but only when you're completely sure."
"Well, yes, I see what you mean- but I- to hope--"
"Benny?"
He can't help himself. His voice is hoarse, rusty sounding from misuse. Silence on the other side of the door. He looks through the peephole, sags forward against the door.
"Ray, would you open the door?"
He slides the two bolts back, takes the chain off, turns the key and takes a step back. "It's open," he says, trying to compose himself. He folds his wings as far back as possible, keeps his arms held loosely at his sides. He's still holding the gun, but it's too late to put it down now. As the handle turns, he takes another two steps back. Fraser comes in through the door, followed by the guy he guesses must be his replacement. The more he learns about how the operation was run, the more he thinks of it as a suicide mission, cause the guy doesn't even have a passing resemblance to him. He's got hair, for one thing, and last time he checked, Vecchios weren't generally blond. He slouches against the door, glares down at his feet like some teenager, full of attitude, all sneers and apathy.
"Ray, I- I've been worried."
Fraser's face has got this odd tension to it, the way he's holding his hat and looking at the ground a foot in front of him adding to it. Neither of them have even looked at him. Dief comes in, sniffs at his hand, then the wings, gives a little whine and goes to scope out the rest of the apartment, tail down, ears back slightly. Lackeys are like wolves, the way they give signals. He spent a year learning those damn signals, a year open to what he saw and closed to what he was.
"I couldn't tell you about the job, Benny. I sent you that postcard, and even that wasn't strictly allowed, and I-"
"Two fucking months, Vecchio! You hid for two fucking months after Langoustine's `death' in a carcrash got him a nice little obituary in the tribune. Apparently, he gave a lot of money to the ballet, which was pretty fucking magnanimous of him considering the people he kneecapped ain't gonna be doing pirouettes any more. two months of people thinking you were dead! Did you tell Fraser? Your family? No! You-"
The new guy looks up, sees him for the first time, goes pale. "Those are a costume, right?"
Fraser looks up at him as well, goes paler, blinks once, twice, then bam, his face is back to polite neutral.
"You have a gun," Fraser tells him, and he almost laughs, because he's got fucking wings here, and he's worried about that. Then Ray remembers Frankie, being so shit scared, puking in the bathroom after the basketball court and wondering if it was ever easy to be brave. He walks over to his desk, puts it in the drawer and locks it.
"Happy now?" he asks, but he knows the answer. Fraser just looks at him. Newguy's still pale.
"I guess that, uh, explains it," he says quietly. A hairsbreadth from an apology. "Do they hurt? Are they soft? I mean, they look kinda soft."
Like a kid or something- breathless, fascinated. Harmless curiosity, like the wings were something wonderful, not...such a prison. He puts out one wing, feels how right it is when it unfurls, muscles and sinews working, stretching. Newguy touches it, fingers gentle. Soft shudders run through him- they're sensitive, and he hasn't paid much attention to that before.
"Am I hurting you?"
He shakes his head. Benny comes over, too, looks at him, questioning. He smiles a little, and then Fraser's there, too, hand firm, mapping out the structure, shape, size.
"These appear to be...the physiognomy of them is suited to bearing your weight. You could become airborne."
Benny's hands tremble slightly. Ray laughs, voice feeling choked, a different sort of rusty. "Not here I couldn't. Chicago ain't exactly ready for the amazing flying detective."
Not even at night. Not with the streetlights, the intermittent rumble of cars. A few times, he's been tempted to try flying, rising a little in his apartment, but he knows that once he's tried it once, the lure of going outside will be too much, too strong. If he got caught...
He nods, understanding. "I can see why that would be difficult. The Federal-"
"They did nothing. They don't have to- I got out of Vegas alive, and now it's over. I get an apartment, and a pension, and a cleaning lady, and books-"
And now his shoulders are shaking, and newguy's stepping away, twitchy, awkward, and Benny's got his hands on his shoulders, then around him, tight and warm, comforting. He closes his eyes, breathes in, the warmth of human contact something he's missed for what feels like years. Funny, mob guys don't get hugged that often. And when Fraser tells him everything will be fine, he closes his eyes some more and tries his best to believe it.
***
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, -- the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!
(GM Hopkins, The Windhover)
Turns out, `everything will be fine' counts as a promise, cause there's a knock on the door at three in the morning a week later, and it can't be Benny, cause he has a key to the apartment now, but it's not, it's new guy- Kowalski, not Stanley, cause he gets real pissy with that, which, yeah, is kinda fun, but still, searching for someone for 2 months deserves a little slack- and a suit. The suit holds out his card, real smooth. "We've cleared the corridor. There's a car waiting to take you to O'Hare," and Fraser's talk about Canada, about all those wide open spaces, had just felt like idle conversation till now, chit chat, because he isn't used to Benny meaning stuff yet. He needs to get back into the pattern. The `Come up to Canada, I have a cabin,' conversation could have just been talk. It isn't. He nods.
"Okay."
The suit has a case full of clothes- `all right for the environment, specially modified'- and he has to wonder how much Benny bitched at them until they fucking thought of putting in a few damn clothes for him. He picks up the book he's reading this week- The Waves- which is weird as hell, and he ain't sure if it's in a good way yet, cause it turns his brains inside out, which he thinks he might get for Frannie maybe, cause she's got a brain but isn't expected to think enough, and that's sad, he should really tell her- follows suit out of the door. Kowalski's carrying his case, sneering quietly at the suit, and something's confusing about this-
"Why're you here?" he asks, still a little too sleepy to be polite.
"I'm coming with you. Up to the frozen asscrack of the north, cause Fraser's gonna go find a friend who might know something about this, try and get it sorted, cause I'd love to hire you out for nativity plays and shit come Christmas, but Gabriel wasn't Italian, and your nose is too big to be a fairy, and you need to be looked after in the cabin, cause even Canadians don't have wings, although you'd think with the way they acted-- and I ain't sticking around the 2-7 when I don't need to pretend any more, and the sooner this gets sorted out--"
"Kowalski."
"Yes?"
"Shut. Up."
Surprisingly, he does.
Benny's in the plane already; he's tilted one of the seats right back until it's reclining, then propped up a board that comes halfway up Ray's back, so his back is supported a little bit but his wings aren't crushed. Kowalski chews gum, fidgets, jiggles his leg, so Fraser tells them both a story about a giant whose fingers become fishes. It's kind of a weird one, but most of them are. Fraser smiles at him and Kowalski every so often, this big happy grin, and it's like he's so completely sure everything will be alright that Ray feels calmer, too. Faith starts seeming less like incense and hoarse confessions in wooden boxes, and more like a guy in a plaid shirt with a dorky smile.
Kowalski watches the two of them with this shadowed look in his eyes, but whenever Benny looks at him, he smiles, shakes his head, and it could be because he's there that Fraser doesn't call him on it. The plane ride's smooth- no turbulence at all, and there's an SUV thing waiting at the airstrip that they just hop into. It feels too simple, too easy, feels like they should be paying for the journey, every mile of it in some way, say by Benny going blind again. Yeah, that'd be all he needed.
He wonders what he said to the Feds, how he approached it, what he threatened them with. Dief wasn't even expected to go into quarantine, but that was probably because of the paperwork, of telling things to the Canadians. He could have done his immovable wall act, though. Could have told them they were going to do it because it was the right thing to do, said it so plain and clear they forgot about practicalities and believed him. The `for the greater good' excuse isn't one he wants to believe in any more. He's done with that. He wants small good deeds from now on- old ladies across the road, catching kid's balloons. It's summer- the road's clear of snow, but there's a chill in the air he thinks will be there forever. He's hunched over uncomfortably, spine feeling like it's twisting in five different directions. None of them speak- the driver's silent, and Kowalski's probably asleep, by the way he's breathing.
Eventually, he drifts off, wakes up as the car stops. And then he's outside. A breeze ruffles his feathers, caresses his skin. He looks up and sees forever, the sky velvet and stars, and he's never been an outside sort of guy, but he measured that apartment with paces too many fucking times to not want to know he could walk forever here if he chose. Benny and Kowalski make their way into the cabin with the cases. The car drives off. Dief noses at his hand, and he looks down at him. "Decided you like me now, huh?" he says to him, weaving his fingers through the fur at the scruff of Dief's neck. One whuff. Ray laughs. "It's okay, buddy. People with wings- that ain't really your territory. And I've been kinda short on doughnuts lately."
They stay out there until he starts to shiver, then make their way to the cabin. The cabin's warm already- welcoming. Fraser's dad's chest is in the middle of the room, slightly charred, and Benny gives a rueful smile when he sees him looking.
"Performance arsonist. Well, a tribute to him anyway. My apartment did not survive as well as the chest; I thought it prudent to have it shipped to my father's cabin."
He doesn't mention Victoria and gasoline. He figures Benny knows something he doesn't. Kowalski's sitting down with a mug of something that smells hinky even from here. He takes a sip and shudders. "Bark tea?" he asks, screwing up his face. Benny's face is bland, eyes wide.
"It's good for you, Ray," he tells him. Kowalski looks at Ray, who shakes his head in sympathy.
"He ain't a tree, Benny," he tells him. Dief nudges him and whines a little. "He feed you that, too?"
Benny mutters something about nutrients, does that little `why yes, ma'am, if I was not a Canadian this would be a pout' face, and he and Kowalski grin at each other. It's still...awkward. He's got too many rough edges for it not to be, and Kowalski's looking real watchful, noting down how he and Benny interact, what's said, done, like he's waiting for a sign or something.
"I will need to go into Inuvik, see when Eric last went through, and if they have any idea of his movements."
Ray starts, shocked. "You think Eric did this? He-"
It makes sense. Of a really uncomfortable sort. Ray had thought of it as a...weird thing that just happened- one morning, bada-bing, here are some feathers- not caused by anyone, no malice aforethought or anything. Anger comes, swift, hot, turns to ice as soon as he registers it. "What are you doing when you find him?" he asks, quietly. Fraser blinks, and it's almost as if he wants to turn from Ray, and isn't that the darndest thing- the guy don't flinch at the wings, but as soon as he feels Langoustine settling onto him like an old coat, Benny doesn't wanna know.
"It might not be him. If it isn't, he could help. I am not familiar enough with transformations, or shamanic rituals, or any of the forces we are dealing with here. I am going to him, as a friend, to ask for his assistance."
Deep voice, hands held out. Like he's talking Ray down. Like he's a snarling wild animal. "I hate this," he says. Benny just nods, shakes himself and uses his real hearty pretending voice. Kowalski watches, fingers toying with the fringes of one of the rugs on the couch.
"Supper? I have the necessary supplies- they are all tinned, of course, but we can buy fresh vegetables in Inuvik before I leave."
The argument about vegetables takes them through the meal. This time, it's Ray's turn to listen, as Kowalski baits Benny, and Benny baits him in return, all smooth sarcasm and earnest eyes. There are rough edges there, too, little fulcrum-points in their relationship that with a bit of pressure...
A way of thinking that has had to become instinct repulses him now. A headache builds behind his eyes, his shoulders ache, his skin feels like it doesn't fit him properly. He chews mechanically, tunes out every sound except for his breathing and his heartbeat. He inhales in two heartbeats, exhales in one. He always hated waltzes, with their relentless one-two-three, their constant jauntiness, always with that edge of insanity.
"Ray?"
A hand on his arm. He looks up, stops himself from jerking away. "Yeah?"
"Are you...you seem distracted."
"Just tired is all, Benny. Been a long year."
They sit in silence, then. Dief's snoring by the fire, twitching his tail sometimes.
"He hunting doughnut vendors, Benny?" Ray asks, grinning across at him.
"It thins out the herd, I guess."
Kowalski's got his chin resting on his arms, which are folded on the table. Benny looks at them both with the same sort of affection, this watchful, worried look mixed in with it all. Every time he and Kowalski agree, or smile at each other, or anything, he looks a little less tense. Like Ma when she used to invite `nice boys' over for Frannie after her divorce. The third time it happened, he found Frannie in tears in the bathroom, ended up sitting with her for two hours as she told him more than he had ever thought he'd know about being a girl, about dating, about having kids, about...well, about her. He had told ma to lay it off with the hints, which had led to yet another grandkids speech.
"You've told them I'm alive? My family?"
"Your mother was certain you were."
"Course she was. She's got some sort of sixth sense about things like this. I'll...I could write a letter. Frannie'll be worried. I...her face went in the third month. About the same time I spent the night in the desert, digging a hole for a drug pusher who had tried to take too big a cut. The spade blistered my hands. Langoustine had always done it this way, gone out on his own so no one else would know where the bodies were. I tried to think of her, and it was as if she was just out of reach, out of focus."
He doesn't know why he's talking about this, only that the words pushed themselves out of him. He stretches his wings out, slowly, taking care not to knock anything over. Arches them up as far as they can go, spreads them until they're at their limit.
"And to think I got wings from...from being the person I was for a year," he murmurs, more to himself than to them.
"I can't forgive you, or offer you any reasons," Benny says, clear and simple. That's his Benny, laying things out starkly, giving him as much truth as he can take, and then some more.
"I wouldn't want you to try. Just...it's like confession, only without the Hail Mary at the end."
Kowalski shifts, sits up and looks at him, eyes piercing, clear, but with this wary sort of sympathy in them. "I've gotta say, despite the wildly dangerous ways Captain Canada endangered my life in, it sure as hell beats being a junkie in a hovel. Franklin, first guy I worked for, used to call undercover a moral no-man's land."
Ray remembers the cars, Billy Bob in his shiny suit, and grins over at Fraser. "Captain Canada's been undercover too, you know. Best used car salesman this side of Lake Michigan."
"Which side? We're in Canada's side of the lake they call Michigan now," Benny asks, little pucker between his eyebrows.
"Are you telling this story, or shall I?"
"I don't think-"
"C'mon, Frase, I wanna hear this," Kowalski says, animated. Benny sighs, resigned.
"If you insist."
***
What dreams may come, both dark and deep
Of flying wings and soaring leap
As I surrender unto sleep,
As I surrender unto sleep.
(Sleep, Alan Silvestri)
He sleeps on his front, sheet bunched up around his middle, a muffler covering his shoulders and upper back. Kowalski managed to make Benny take the bed, and he's on a cot near to the fire, Kowalski breathing gently on the couch. Dief gets up sometimes, pads around the cabin like he's doing a perimeter check. At some point in the night, Ray puts his arm out and so he wakes up with his hand on Dief's back, Dief's warmth coming through the sheet, comforting. Benny's already up, sitting at the dining table with maps laid out on it, red string marking a few routes, some counters laid down on some of the towns.
"Will you find him?" he asks quietly.
"Hopefully. Quinn can help us if necessary. And if not, at least you have fresh air here, a place to, well, spread your wings."
To fly. His muscles twitch at the thought, wings flexing until the urge to spread them is almost too much to resist. It fascinates and frightens him. "I could learn to fly. If I had that...choosing between flying and walking..."
"Whatever you decide, Ray."
He means it; it's not the `you're making a bad choice and I'm going to wait until you see it' tone.
"So Kowalski's gonna be my minder, then?"
"Companion, Ray. He was...most insistent, actually. Things had been strained between us, as a result of the Henry Allen, and the pressures that, well, that we put on our partnership. That I put on our partnership. Then there was the news of your- Langoustine's- car crash, and finding you. He helped immensely with that, and he is, after all, my partner, as are you."
"We're like the Musketeers, or something, then?"
He can't work Kowalski out. Every time he thinks he's getting close, something else happens that slips him out of his grasp, like a name on the tip of his tongue. Fraser nods.
"The three of us, Ray. However this turns out."
Pop, when he was at the maudlin stage of drunk, would slur about a time when a man's word was his bond, and men were men, and honor wasn't something from fairy tales. Alcohol and disappointment had removed all of the honor from his father's life, but the way Benny's so sure, so determined, reminds him of the first time he started believing that Benny meant what he said, that he was actually like that. He had gone to his pop's grave, dropped one of the beer bottle tops his pop had given him on to it, and told him that he had found the man his pa had looked for in his reflection at the bottom of every damn bottle.
"You can't guarantee that, Benny. Personally, I wouldn't blame him if he left tomorrow.
"I know him."
And that's that. Kowalski stirs a little, and he goes into the kitchen to heat up water for coffee. Dief follows him, this weird mix of fascinated and protective.
"You want wings, too, Dief?"
"He'd be going after Socrates before you could say `turtles are meant to have shells', Vecchio."
"You have a turtle?" he asks, getting another mug for Kowalski, who's leaning against the doorframe, arms folded. Kowalski nods.
"Frannie's looking after him. You got sugar, Frase?" he calls back.
"In the left hand drawer you'll find some Smarties. I stocked up," Benny replies, sounding bizarrely proud.
"You five or something?"
Kowalski ignores him, counting candy into his coffee with a look of intense concentration. He sighs, picks up his mug and goes back over to Benny. "I'm compromising on the Smarties on the condition that he gets some vegetables, Ray," he says in a low conspiratorial voice. "I trust that you will aid me in this."
"You mean make him eat broccoli? Cause I'm not sure if I can participate in such an infringement on his right to eat junk food."
"Ray."
A warning tone, tinged with a little pleading. Ray relents. "Okay, okay, fine. I'll make sure he gets vitamins."
"Thank you kindly."
***
I don't like a big general or one with long straddling legs,
Or one vain about his curls or who is partly shaven.
I'd like to see him small, with crooked knees,
Standing firmly on his feet, full of heart.
(Archilochus 60)
There's a clearing outside. He's wrapped up warm, but the tips of his wings are cold. He feels nervous, fidgety. Benny and Kowalski stand ten feet away, neither saying anything, just watching. He opens out his wings to their full span, closes them again to get used to the feeling of them being spread. He knows he needs to build up strength with them, some deeper instinct telling him what weight he needs to bear to fly, how much exertion is required. If he thinks about it too deeply, if he tries to explain it to himself, his mind will lose what it knows in examining it. Now, though, now that he ignores everything but the fact that he knows, he can move the way he's meant to. He's at the bottom of a short slope; feeling a complete idiot he takes a run at it, leaning forward and at the last possible second opening his wings. Three seconds later, he's kissing the ground, but he knows exactly how to move, now, knows the feeling of the air currents, his wingbeats.
Before Benny can get to him, he's coming down the slope again, aching slightly, knees muddy.
He tries again, falls. Next time, it's closer. Another run, this time pushing himself off with his feet, wings angled so they catch the air, let it support him. He rises a little before he falls, is able to land on his feet, not his ass. Kowalski gives this little war whoop. He turns back to them with a grin, feeling like a kid. "I almost had it that time," he says, breathless.
His hands are grimy with mud, knees starting to sting now. "I know how it's supposed to feel- tomorrow, I'll have it."
"Are you tired?"
He nods, knees shaky.
"We need supplies. I'm going to take Ray in to the nearest town, show him where things are. I have a tin bath you could use to, ah, de-grime yourself. Will you be alright on your own?"
He nods, lost in the feeling in his wings, that intoxicating rise. As he lies back in the little tin bath, he thinks of rushing air, of the power he feels spreading from his shoulder blades. A small part of him wants that forever.
***
A gull had wings under his
and remarked that the air
was "like marble." He said: "Up here
I tower through the sky
for the marble wings on my tower-top fly."
(The Unbeliever, Elizabeth Bishop)
The next morning, Benny leaves, taking a dog team he's borrowed from one of the trappers called something like `Big Belly Joe.' Dief goes along, too. Benny gives them both manly shoulder claps, looks like there's a lot more he wants to say to them, but doesn't. Kowalski's fidgeting by mid morning. Ray looks over at him, a little exasperated. "You want me to read to you?"
"Read?"
Incredulous look, turning to a scowl.
"You trying to treat me like a kid or something?" he asks, shoulders back, jaw tight. Ray shakes his head.
"You're fidgeting. Either you go out and chop logs or I read to you. Otherwise you'll drive both of us crazy."
He's managed to find a way of sitting that doesn't hurt; sideways in the wingback chair, wings over one of the arms, legs draped over the other. Kowalski sits down on the rug in front of the fire, looks up at him.
"Well? What've you got?" he asks, challenging. Tell me a story.
Ray turns to the front page again, starts to read.
The sun had not yet risen. The sea was indistinguishable from the sky, except that the sky was slightly creased as if a cloth had wrinkles in it. Gradually as the sky whitened a dark line lay on the horizon dividing the sea from the sky and the grey cloth became barred with thick strokes moving, one after another, beneath the surface, following each other, pursuing each other, perpetually. (The Waves, Virginia Woolf)
***
"You want to try again?" Kowalski asks after they've done the washing up. His face is eager, expectant. Ray flexes his shoulders, the vestigial aches in them almost gone.
"You wanna watch me fall on my ass for half an hour?"
"I have to get my kicks somehow, Vecchio," Kowalski tells him with a little smirk, a mix of friendly and edgy that makes him immediately suspicious and...aware.
"That's real nice of you, Kowalski," he says, smiling, smooth and dangerous, a smile that used to make people in Vegas flinch away. Kowalski just rolls his eyes, flicks some of the bubbles from the muddy dish water at his nose.
He didn't wash the clothes he wore yesterday; they're muddy, a record of his previous attempts. His right knee hurts, but it's something he can work through. Kowalski goes to stand where he stood yesterday, still and patient, like he's doing sentry duty. A deep breath, another run, countless falls, but this time he counts off five seconds of being airborne before he crashes down, some distance away from the slope. He stays there, breathing in through the ache of disappointment.
"You're still scared. Why?"
He can see Kowalski's feet, a yard away from him. His answer's directed towards the ground.
"What if I love it too much to give it up?"
"You have it and you lose it, or you lose something you never had. Your choice."
The sun's behind Kowalski's head, making his face shadowed.
"It's not that simple."
"Never said it was. C'mon, bath time for little fledglings," he says, tone mocking, but in a gentle way, not the sharp-edged bitterness he's seen in Kowalski before.
"Why are you here?" he asks. Kowalski doesn't answer, just offers a hand, pulls him up and stands too close for too many moments, before walking them back to the cabin.
"Logs need chopping," he says once the bath's full, then walks out, leaving Ray with a tub full of water, feeling lost. He drifts off to the sound of the rhythmic swish and hit of the axe, slicing cleanly through the air, then brutally through the wood. This time, he washes his flying clothes, too, cleaning them of dirt and failure.
Neither of them take Benny's bed. Kowalski stays on the couch, the sound of his breathing calming Ray, keeping him in the cabin, away from deserts and memories. Even though Ray's prepared for Kowalski being bad in the mornings with a cup of sweetened and candied coffee, Kowalski still turns over and snarls when he tells him what time it is. Ray starts on a stew for the evening; he's not sure what meat Benny's provided, but it's tough enough to want glacially slow cooking. He decides to tell Kowalski it's beef, preserve the myth that they aren't partnered to a freaky musk-ox eating Mountie.
They tiptoe around each other until they're both awake. "I need a bath," Kowalski tells him abruptly. Ray gestures to the big pot and the kettle heating up by the fire. Benny has running water here, but didn't think they needed a boiler when they rebuilt the cabin. Truth was, he'd have agreed with anything Benny had said at that point, because he still moved awkwardly, still had that shadowed look around his eyes that cut Ray to the quick with guilt and anger.
"I've got some cooking to do. I'll close the door."
"Thanks," Kowalski says, unbuttoning his shirt absent-mindedly. Ray almost runs from the room, curves his wings around to hide his face and swears ferociously at the vegetables he's chopping. He doesn't know what Kowalski and Benny have together; all he knows is that the sight of Kowalski's bare skin made him hot, flushed with all he couldn't have but wanted. Needed? Something close to need; selfish, primal, obsessive. Which of Dante's circles was this? He grins to himself at the memory of the nuns skipping over the ruder descriptions of the hells and punishments. Now that had been something obsessive, too; sin, death and incense mingling together with new awareness of bodies, of possibilities, of pleasure sharpened with guilt. No one sins quite as well as a Catholic.
"Smells good. What is it?"
"Beef," he says without turning around.
"Really?"
"Would I lie to you?"
"Oh Christ, it's caribou."
"Hard to tell. I'm slow cooking it. With herbs, it should taste alright."
"He's a nut job."
He turns around, grins at him. "I know."
Kowalski's standing too close, again. He can't back up at all; his wings trap him like he's being held in place.
"I-" he begins, gives up.
"I've seen you looking, because I've been looking, too. Does that make sense?"
He hunches his shoulders a little, gives Ray this helplessly optimistic smile.
"Yes," Ray breathes, steps forward, grasps the back of Kowalski's neck, still damp from his bath, and kisses him, greedy, careless. He barely remembers to turn the stew to simmer before he's backed Kowalski up against the door, trapping him there with arms and a cage of wings. He tastes bitter, of coffee, with the sweetness of the candy and the sugar he piles into his porridge offsetting it. He kisses clumsily, eagerly, hands roaming to Ray's ass, his upper back, his wings.
"Christ, I've wanted you for days, even weeks. You realise how hard it is to play all nice when we have a whole cabin to ourselves?" Kowalski gasps, voice shaky. Ray says nothing, concentrates on the water-soap-sweat taste on the side of his neck. He twines his fingers with those on Kowalski's right hand, presses him back every time he tries to move, selfish with the need to explore, to learn. He undoes Kowalski's flies one handed, only fumbling a little, then he's there, dick hot, hard and silken. He needs too much, is too urgent for anything fancy, and Kowalski obviously feels the same, because his hands are insistent on Ray's flies, then on his ass, pulling them together and kissing him some more. Their dicks are pressed together, their fingers laced around them in a loose fist. They move together well; Kowalski makes these filthy needy little whimpers into his mouth, slides their hands together and almost writhes against the door, catlike.
The force of it frightens him, but exhilarates him too, like standing too close to the edge of a tall building. Compulsion and repulsion at the same time, so that he bites down on Kowalski's lip as he kisses him, puts this real dirty twist of his wrist in that makes Kowalski swear into his mouth. He pushes, and he keeps on pushing, and Kowalski pushes back, plays mean with a sweet smile and the devil in his eyes until it's Ray who loses it first, knees shaking as he comes with a bitten-off cry. He leans against Kowalski, forehead pressed to his shoulder, lets his hand be used as he closes his eyes and tries to remember what it feels like to be in control of his life.
Afterwards, Kowalski leads him to the couch, manoeuvres them so that they're curled up together, and talks in a soft staccato voice about everything and nothing. He strokes and pets Ray as if it's second nature, as if he's making up for the first time, for the anger that feels like it's never going to go, for the way he pushes and pushes until someone steps back. He talks back, eventually, and keeps talking until it goes dark and his voice is hoarse with speaking and tears.
***
There was a star riding through clouds one night, and I said to the star, "Consume me". That was at midsummer, after the garden party and my humiliation at the garden party. Wind and storm coloured July. (The Waves, Virginia Woolf)
"It'd be okay staying here, I guess."
He doesn't reply, cards his fingers through Kowalski's hair. Even if at the start, Kowalski wanted to stay for Ray's sake, it wouldn't be enough to stop him going crazy, getting twitchy, pissy, bitter, bored.
Kowalski sighs, nestles closer to him. "I ever tell you about Stella? I mean, you had Angie, I read the file- had a coffee with her once, classy lady- and I figure I know a lot about you. But you had- well, you didn't even have a name for me, right? You'd have been laughing your ass off all the way to Vegas if you'd known you had skinny Stanley Kowalski being you, and not some nice Italian boy."
There's an edge of anger to Kowalski's voice when he talks about the feds, and Ray doesn't know if it's on his behalf, or because of something that's happened to Kowalski.
"Well, Stella. My ex wife. You'd like her, I think. Classy gold coast girl-"
"You married a girl called Stella?" he asks, unable to keep the laughter out of his voice.
"Shut up."
"Make me," he challenges. The atmosphere tenses, tautens. Kowalski touches their foreheads together, then reaches out and brushes a finger along the very edge of his wing. He shudders, closing his eyes in bliss.
"Kneel in the center of the bed, hands by your sides," Kowalski commands softly, voice deep and husky. He obeys, the feathers from his wings brushing his feet. He sits up straight, forcing himself into an attitude of pride, not nakedness. His hands stay unclenched as Kowalski moves around him so he's behind, the dip in the bed alerting him to where he is.
He breathes. He waits.
"Allouette, gentile allouette," Kowalski murmurs. "Weird song."
A single finger, up between his shoulder-blades, gentle on the bare skin of his back. Not touching his wings, not yet at least. His palm's pressed onto his back, warm, a little sweaty. Just resting there, as if reminding him of where he is. He shifts on the bed a little, leans into his touch. Kowalski's hand fans out, touching where his skin and the feathery down meet. It's sensitive, but in a different, almost tickly way, both muffled and heightened. Then Kowalski takes away both hands. His breath starts hitching; he's hard, the arousal sweeping all the way through him. It feels like he could launch himself from the bed, fly headlong into orgasm, but he waits, choosing passivity.
"Please," he whispers. His voice sounds unrecognisably husky, raw almost.
"Open your wings."
He obeys, unfolding them, the air cool on heated flesh and feathers. Ray's hand is tentative at first, touching the top of his right wing, along the bone, smoothing down the feathers. Like having his scalp stroked, in a way; that deep, comforting sense of communing. He sweeps out with both his hands, then strokes down the underside, leans in and kisses the skin on his back. Ray can feel the raggedness of his breath on his skin. He kisses along the juncture of wing and skin, the thrill of touch tensing him again. Ray's hard, so hard, so needy.
"Can I?" Kowalski asks, hand going down to his hip, and it takes a few moments to realise what he means. When he does, he has to breathe in deeply, close his eyes and stop all thought, because he wants this to last, doesn't want to tip over that edge yet.
"Yes," he husks, almost wanting to say something snarky, something smooth, to make it seem like he wants this less than he does. Strange, that distancing, that self protective urge that kicks in even in nakedness, in desire. "Please."
Kowalski swears under his breath, sounding awed. "The light catches your feathers, makes your back glow gold," he tells him, not even trying to hide his desire, need, regard. He throws himself at every current of air, flings himself up so he's flying on the ground. If Kowalski had been given the wings, he'd be halfway to the sun by now, and Ray wants to hold him down, keep him with him, close and safe. "So beautiful."
The lube's in Ray's overnight bag, by his cot. Ray stays still and patient, listens to him flip the cap up, dribble some onto his fingers. He leans in close again, presses his cheek to Ray's wing as he open him, gentle with a single finger, a sweet invasion that Ray can only close his eyes and welcome. He lets his head tip back, looks at the play of shadow on the walls of the cabin, the knots in the wood, the hangings, the verticals and horizontals that define their world here. Two fingers, the discomfort secondary to the words he's murmuring into Ray's wing, soft breath on feathers, oaths and promises, plans and exultations.
It feels like they're there forever, caught in gasps and sighs, until at last--at last-- he's pressing, blunt and hot, pushing in, slow but steady. Ray falls apart in increments, pieces of him pinned in place by every movement, every press and retreat, the shock of brushes to his prostate chipping more off him until he feels bright and shining, distilled, and throws his head back and gasps to the rafters, hands reaching behind him, finding and gripping--his hip, his hand--wings tensed and held against the sensations.
When he does finally fall apart completely, orgasm stripping more from him until lights burst behind his eyes and he's nothing, nobody, floating then crashing to the ground, he realizes that he hadn't even touched himself, gasps out an almost laugh as he tries to remember how to breathe. He falls forward, supports himself on his hands as Kowalski moves raggedly, gripping his hip tight enough to bruise, other hand on Ray's wing, as if reminding himself it's there. He can sense his orgasm building, as he thrusts forward and gasps, slumps over him, presses his lips to Ray's back and stays there. Ray folds his wings back, curving them over him so he doesn't get too cold, lets him rest there, safe, if only for a little while.
***
And the birds, well, they are collected under wondrous names, child. A wake of buzzards, an ostentation of peacocks, a flight of doves, a skein of geese, a kettle of hawks, a charm of hummingbirds, a watch of nightingales, a huddle of penguins, a clamour of rooks, a murmuration of starlings, a descent of woodpeckers, a storytelling of crows, a convocation of eagles, and an exaltation of larks, for they sing so loud and joyous in the sky ...(Lore of the Birds, Unknown)
He's ready. Something different this time about the way he starts, the way he stands. Not such a big run; he bends his legs and launches himself into the air, wings spread and held by the wind currents, wings beating, strong and steady. All of those failures, all those crashes into the mud, those wrong ways of doing things, have added up to create flight. Graceless flight, perhaps; man wasn't made for wings, but still, the exhilaration he feels at even this hovering intoxicates him. He goes a little higher, a little further from the cabin, then manages to turn himself around in a curve, mainly by not thinking about it.
Coming down, well, that isn't so easy. He just stops moving, drops like a stone, lands with his knees a little bent and straightens up with a little flourish, but he knows and Kowalski knows that his knees are gonna bitch about this later. The next thing he knows, Kowalski's hugging him, laughing like a loon, and he gives a little war cry and Ray feels like his heart's gonna burst right out of his chest.
"You flew! You fucking flew! Christ, you're amazing, you know that?"
And they kiss. Outside, dancing each other round in a little circle, their world is vast and solitary, so that they can kiss outside of dingy rooms and closed curtains.
"If we could stay here," he begins. Kowalski looks at him, smiles tenderly, sweet enough to damn near kill him.
"We'll see. I want- I don't know."
"I know. I know," he whispers, touches their foreheads together, leans in so their bodies are curved around each other, wings shielding them from the wind. To stay here forever. But Benny will solve this, will come back on a white horse and everything will reshuffle, fall in a different pattern on the table.
He kisses him again, wants them to melt and twist into each other, to make new shapes with each other, with Benny. I love you. he thinks with all the force he can.
"Everything I say is a lie," Kowalski whispers, snickers when he pulls back, frowns at him. "Fraser likes impossible things, you know. I figure this is one more thing. Come inside, there's some more otter stew to eat."
"Now there's something he doesn't like," Ray tells him as they trudge back in to the cabin.
***
They wrap around each other in sleep, and wait for the morning, and for Fraser, for changes to be added to changes. In Ray's mind, shapes twist, change, reform, join. He flies.
And in me too the wave rises. It swells; it arches its back. I am aware once more of a new desire, something rising beneath me like the proud horse whose rider first spurs and pulls him back...(The Waves, Virginia Woolf)
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