Sky Ain’t The Limit – Chapter 7 – ScarsLikeVelvet

Chapter 7 – Sky Ain’t The Limit … Death Is

Evan struggled to get into his dress uniform. The cloth was chafing against his skin in ways it never had before. It was made from cotton and shouldn’t have done it. Evan was confused until Blair approached him and gently rested his hands on Evan’s shoulders.

“Evan?” he asked gently, just picking up on the general feeling of uncomfortableness his son was projecting.

“It’s chafing …,” Evan whispered, his voice sounding whiny. “It never chafed before.”

Blair reached up and cupped Evan’s cheek, pulling his face down so he could rest his brow against Evan’s, the way he had done when his son had still lived at home. He wrapped a buffer around Evan, gently shielding his mind in the familiar of a father taking care of his child.

Evan sighed when the familiar feeling of Blair’s shields settled around him. He could feel his Dad’s shielding join Blair’s. Moments later Oliver, Daniel, and Charlie joined them, and when they realised what was going on. They all extended their shields—Daniel more so than the two Sentinels.

Evan managed to look at his family, the people closest to him.

“Thank you,” he murmured softly. Slumping into his Papa’s arms for a moment, before he straightened up. He knew he would need to pull himself together and attend his Guide’s funeral. Just the thought of stepping close to the casket holding Kenneth made him want to run away. He really hoped they had put him into a sentinel-proof casket—meaning a sense-proof casket—else he would probably lose it again.

He had smelled Kenneth’s body starting to break down the moment the Guide had been mowed down by the sniper’s bullet, and feeling that loss, this immediate feeling of being torn apart from the inside out again.

Oliver, who knew him inside out after years of being by his side through some of the worst things he experienced in life aside from his birth, gently rested his hand against his neck, knocked their brows against each other and whispered, “I made sure it is one of the good caskets. They tried to use one of the cheap ones, but I ran it up the chain until someone realised it made sense not to cause a Sentinel who just came down from a feral combat drive over the loss of his Guide a flashback and probably tip him over again.”

Evan couldn’t stop the snort that wanted to escape him.

“Thank you,” he said. He just stood for a moment and breathed as he pulled himself together. He looked into the worried faces of his loved ones and added softly, “I’m ready.”

Jim studied him for a moment.

“You sure?” he asked gently.

“Well, as ready as I’ll ever be for this, I guess,” Evan replied. “Kenny deserves me there even if it breaks me.”

He could feel everyone’s worry skyrocket, but he slammed his own tattered shields shut because his empathy was threatening to overwhelm him in ways it never had before.

—————

Evan walked into the funeral home and stared at the casket that was covered by the flag of the United States of America, holding what was left of his Guide on this mortal coil. His senses instinctively focused on the casket, and he could smell Kenneth. Well, not Kenneth, exactly. His Guide’s familiar scent had already been broken down by decay.

His eyes closed for a moment, and he forced himself to walk toward the casket, even though he could feel the smell of decay make the carefully crafted shielding around him crack. He settled into the seat in the first row with Oliver beside him. His parents settled behind him, and then the rest of the people attending the funeral spread out behind them.

The chaplain started the funeral ceremony, and Evan lost himself in the familiar flow, as he had attended far too many of those at his age. He didn’t even register standing up at the pulpit and reading the obituary after the chaplain had been finished with the eulogy.

Evan was just going through the motions. He knew exactly how a funeral went and followed the casket to the grave. He didn’t flinch when Kenneth received his three-volley salute, barely listened to the playing of “Taps”, the iconic, solemn bugle call, and fought to focus when someone stepped in front of where he was sitting and offered him the folded American flag.

He felt as if his whole world was gone. Evan stood and slowly walked toward the bare casket now. He ran his hand along the wood, resting it where Kenneth’s head would be, and released a slow breath.

“I’m sorry I failed you,” he murmured softly. Leaning forward and resting his head on the casket, just breathing slowly despite knowing he was committing the smell of Kenneth’s decomposing body into his mind, something that would likely haunt him for the rest of his life.

Oliver eventually drew him away so they could continue to lower the casket into the grave. He instinctively held onto Evan, knowing that the Sentinel would probably try to follow his Guide into his last resting place.

“Ghost,” Evan hissed and attempted to get out of his battle buddy’s hold.

“No, Evan. You know you can’t follow him into the grave. You promised both him and me you wouldn’t do this,” Oliver said firmly.

Evan closed his eyes.

“Then take me somewhere that isn’t here … isn’t the wake,” he whispered.

Oliver just inclined his head, and a moment later, Blair, Jim, Daniel, and Charlie closed ranks around him and marched Evan out of the graveyard.

—————

“I’m sorry for your loss,” the Guide counsellor sitting across from Evan said in a gentle tone that grated on Evan’s nerves.

He couldn’t stop himself from growling in response. Evan hated receiving condolences. He knew he was considered fragile because of his reaction to the funeral proceedings and the offering of condolences.

Every time anyone offered their condolences, he was ready to lose it. He did his very best not to, but it was a fucking strain on him and now the therapist he had been assigned by the Sentinel and Guide Centre, a therapist who had been informed by his parents personally about his issues with his loss and the grief that followed, how close he was teetering to the edge.

“Did you hear what I said?” the woman said, her nails clicking against the desk separating them, annoying Evan even more.

His eyes flashed bright blue with psionic energy when he realised was going on. The woman was one of the Guides who had wanted to bond with him when they were younger. She had tried to pressure him into a bond, something he had never told his parents about.

Else, he was sure, she wouldn’t even be around anymore. Evan could feel that her connection with the Psionic Plane was tenuous at best because of the way she handled her longing for a Sentinel.

“Helloho~,” she said, snapping her fingers in front of Evan’s face while pushing out her psionic presence in an attempt to entice him into a spontaneous bond. Before he could do anything, his Spirit Guide, a vicious-looking honey badger, appeared with a deep, guttural growl and lashed out at her, severing her connection to the Psionic Plane with prejudice.

She shrieked out in fright before falling silent, cowering behind the desk.

Evan’s honey badger hissed before encouraging Evan to leave.

As he opened the door, the Sentinels running security burst into the room, staring at the distressed, now-dormant Guide cowering behind the desk.

“What the hell?” one of them burst out, but stepped back when he got a face full of angry honey badger.

A moment later, Jim and Blair came down the hallway at a dead run to figure out what had caused their connection to one of their tribe to snuff out so suddenly. They stared at their son, who stood in the hallway, nearly shaking in his boots.

He barely managed to focus enough to tell them that she had tried to entice him into a bond the way she had done when they were still teenagers. He pointed out that the security cameras were running in the room because he hadn’t felt safe allowing the meeting without them, and Evan was thankful for being this paranoid.

Before Blair could ask him if he needed something, he followed his Spirit Guide’s urging and left the Centre at a dead run, leaving his parents and the other Sentinels and Guides behind.

—————

Evan ran until he couldn’t anymore, which was far farther than anyone would expect. His training as both a Sentinel and a Navy SEAL gave him far better endurance than anyone else. His Spirit Guide stayed by his side, visible, and keeping everyone—mundanes, Sentinels, and Guides alike—at bay.

He made it from the Sentinel and Guide Centre out of the city centre and into a more rural area of Los Angeles, where he and Oliver were currently living and waiting to be fully discharged from the Navy.

His mind was going all over the place as he started hiking a trail leading up a very high cliff. He stood at the edge and just stared into the distance, allowing himself to just be for the first time since Kenneth died.

He sat down, allowing his legs to dangle over the ledge, uncaring of the fact that he looked as if he was ready to just push off and take the fall. Not that he didn’t contemplate it.

Evan had thought about ending it since the moment he first woke after Kenneth died. The loss of his Guide, even when he and his Guide hadn’t been a love or even voluntary match, was devastating in ways mundanes couldn’t even comprehend, and often when one part of a bonded pair passed, the other followed soon after from a broken heart.

Evan wanted nothing more than to surrender to the darkness that was building up inside him. Just standing up and jumping would probably end his suffering pretty instantly. He had promised not to do it though.

Had promised Kenneth as much when they talked during those long nights in the Afghani desert while on duty, that he wouldn’t end his life if Kenneth got killed or when suicidal thoughts might crop up in the wake of them voluntarily severing the bond between them.

Evan hadn’t thought he would need to face this situation without both of them having the proper support of their community.

Kenneth had just been gone between one heartbeat and the next. Where once a beautiful bond they had nurtured through a lot of hardship, there had suddenly been a painful void and anger, so much anger. Evan had vented that anger on the insurgents until he couldn’t anymore.

Oliver had taken him down when there was no one else to target anymore. He had accepted it without much protest when Oliver came at him with the tranquilliser, because he had known it was necessary. He could have fought it. Was, in fact, trained to fight through the tranquilliser since he was a young child. His parents had made sure he couldn’t be easily taken down. It was a matter of consent for his parents.

Right now, Evan leaned back, resting his weight on his hands, and with a thousand-yard stare looked into the sky. It had been months since Kenneth had been shot. He still felt raw, and the attempted forced bond was the last straw.

He felt broken in ways that he didn’t think he could fix. Therapy was a no-go, given what this therapist had tried to do. There was no way for him to try that again, to attempt to be vulnerable with a stranger again.

He felt stiff after sitting still for God knows how long, so he pushed to his feet again. He swayed in place and stumbled forward, thinking about part of a song he had heard years before on the radio.

“Sky ain’t the limit … death is,” he mumbled as he was about to lose his footing and take a tumble down the cliff.

A shouted “No” caught Evan of guard and then two strong arms wrapped around him from behind, pulling him against a strong chest. He thought it was Oliver for a moment, but the man was taller, and he was a Guide.

Shock took hold of Evan, when his honey badger Spirit Guide stayed completely docile instead of losing its shit, and he collapsed. Everything finally taking its toll on his body.