Angel Wings and Dragon Fire
Of Dragons and Alchemy, Chapter 2
Pain is relative. And a person gets accustomed to it. When doctors asked John to rate his pain on a scale of one to ten with ten being the worst pain he’d ever felt, his ten used to be the appendicitis he’d had as a kid. Then, his arm got torn off, and appendicitis moved down to about a six. Now, the raging fire in every cell of his body makes a joke of every one of those “tens” that came before. He can’t think, can’t move, can’t breathe.
All he knows is pain, and the need to survive. Somehow.
Everything in him fights to breathe, to move, to live. It is as if he is pushing against a barrier, struggling to break through. And then, it breaks. The pressure lifts, the barrier is gone, and he can breathe again.
The silence is gone, replaced by a roaring in his ears. He pushes himself to his feet, opening his eyes to find that the noise is not inside his head. All he sees is flame. He is surrounded by fire so dense and vast he can’t see anything beyond it.
The acrid smell of burning plastics and various chemicals makes his head spin. Instincts war within him, screaming of the danger of fire while simultaneously welcoming the flames as familiar. He wants to run from the fire, and he wants to embrace the flames. He shrinks away from their seeking fingers even as he wants to draw them close, to wrap them around himself like a blanket.
The heat from so much fire should be unbearable, and yet it is comfortable, even pleasant. Like curling up in front of a roaring fireplace with a mug of hot chocolate. Has he ever done that? It feels like a memory, but he cannot place it.
A figure appears, a man, walking through the inferno. The flames reach out to curl around him and caress him just as they are trying to do with John’s own body. He is the most beautiful person John has ever seen, like an angel in the depths of Hell.
The other man reaches out a hand toward John, the light of a thousand flames painting gold and amber patterns across his skin. It’s clear that he is here to help, but the doctors will get him too, and the flames cannot save the two of them — perhaps they can shield them for a time, but not forever. The doctors wore protective gear, didn’t they? The flames are growing, raging, stronger and higher. But all fires burn themselves out in time. John and the angel have to leave.
John grabs the angel and leaps into the sky.
Air rushes past them, cold and clean, erasing the heat of the fire they leave behind. John clings to his rescuer, this man he rescued, terrified that he will drop the angel, that John himself will fall.
John misses the fire. And yet, the clear pure air is a relief after the nausea-inducing stench of the lab. And John is free. He stretches his wings and tips his face toward the sun. That beautiful ball of fire, so far away and yet still offering warmth.
Wait. Wings? John lurches and spins wildly, losing his equilibrium, and he is falling. His arms tighten on a warm body and the angel squeezes John back, taking over control and now they are spinning slower and slower in gentle circles until the two of them gently touch the ground.
“It’s okay,” the other man murmurs into John’s ear the whole way down. “It’s okay. I’ve got you. I won’t let you fall.”
And he doesn’t.
You know how a person sometimes sees something out of the corner of their eye, but when they turn and look, there’s nothing there? That’s how John’s left arm has felt since he lost it in the war. If he doesn’t look at it, he can still feel it, still flex his muscles, open and close his hand. If he didn’t look, he’d forget. It was easy to believe he could still reach out with that hand, still touch with those fingers. The doctors told him to expect phantom pain, but no one warned him about phantom normalcy.
It took John weeks to learn how to walk without stumbling over his own feet. The lack of what comparatively was such a small amount of weight on one side of his body kept pulling him off balance.
They land on a mountaintop, way out in the middle of the ass-end of nowhere, and John is suddenly and awkwardly aware that he’s holding onto this stranger as if he’s John’s security blanket. He quickly lets the other man go and steps back, and immediately loses his balance all over again. There’s too much weight on odd parts of John’s body. Weight that once was… and weight that never was. It’s all too much, all at once.
Catching himself against a nearby rocky outcropping, John looks down and can’t make sense of what he’s seeing. Blue and silver scales shimmer up and down the arm that shouldn’t be there, catching the sunlight and reflecting a rainbow back into his eyes. His vision blurs and he shakes his head sharply. His head still feels right, so that’s something anyway.
“Hey there,” a soft voice interrupts John’s shocked disbelief and confusion. “Are you all right?”
John had almost forgotten the other man was there. John raises his eyes to stare at him rather than at the impossible arm that must be part of a dream, or a hallucination.
He looks back at John with the kindest eyes John’s ever seen and offers his hand to shake. “I’m Gabe.”
John clasps Gabe’s hand, relieved at the ordinariness of the gesture. “John,” he says in reply. Then, he almost chokes on a sudden laugh. Of course the angel’s name is Gabe.
“You probably feel a bit disoriented right now,” Gabe says, and John snorts. A bit? Gabe smiles at John’s reaction. “Okay, maybe more than a bit. The dragon procedure isn’t easy.” His smile vanishes and his eyes darken. “Something went wrong. There were no explosions when I had my procedure.”
John’s eyes widen. “You’re Gabe Edwards.” John’s an idiot. Of course he’s Edwards. What other Gabe would be there at John’s procedure, walking through fire and saving John’s ass? Since Percival and Zaal brought John in, all they’ve talked about is Richard Armstrong and Aaron Ebner’s success and how they will improve upon it.
Gabe laughs, ducking his head in an endearingly bashful manner. “Yeah. But please: call me Gabe.”
John nods, then pulls in a deep breath and faces his unease head on. “You’ve got excellent eyesight since your procedure, then. Can you tell me what you see on my left side?”
Gabe’s gaze drops toward John’s left side. “It looks like a dragon arm.” He sounds thoughtful. “Percival said they were going to try to recreate something missing.”
“It’s not… real.” It can’t be real. It can’t last. And John can’t lose his arm all over again.
Gabe steps forward and slowly, gently reaches out and lifts the arm to cradle it in his large hands. John feels every touch as if it really is John’s own arm Gabe is caressing. “It looks real,” Gabe says softly. “It feels real.”
“Yeah.” John can’t help agreeing, though right now he doesn’t know what feels real. He looks down again, his eyes drawn to the glimmering colours almost against his will. Gabe’s fingertips glide over the scales, sending shivers up into John’s body. John wants to pull away, and John wants Gabe to do that forever. It’s like the fire all over again. “It’s…”
“Beautiful.” Gabe lets go and steps back, and John’s both relieved and disappointed. “It’s beautiful.”
John lifts the arm and turns it under the sun, watching the light bounce off the smooth, glossy layers. “I guess it is.” It moves just like his arm, only maybe a bit more smoothly, although that could be an illusion caused by the scales. It feels like John’s arm, and it doesn’t feel like John’s arm.
“When I was growing up,” Gabe says softly, “I hated my body. Pretty much… everything about it. It was so weak, so often sick, so easily damaged. I wanted to fight the injustice I saw all around me, but the bullies kept slapping me back down every time I tried to stand up to them.” A smile curves his lips and humour glints in his eyes. “I never stopped trying, though. And I made some friends who fought beside me.” He holds out a hand, palm up. “I’ll fight beside you if you want.”
*
When he stepped into the fire, Gabe’s only thought was saving the others and, especially, helping the man at the centre of that fire, John. Thinking back, he’s not entirely sure how he knew that helping John would put an end to the alarming expansion of the lab fire, but as John was carrying him away, it was clear that it had in fact worked — with John no longer at the center of it, the fire still burned, but it was clearly calmer and moving towards the burning out stage. But now that Gabe has accomplished his goal he isn’t sure what to do. Richard and Aaron will be looking for him, and, of course, Percival and Zaal will be looking for John. While Gabe would like to reassure his friends, he has no desire to see John back in the hands of the men who would have left him to burn while they saved themselves.
Gabe holds out his hand, offering John what he has to offer: friendship and understanding. “I’ll fight beside you if you want.”
John stares at Gabe’s hand for several long moments, then slowly places his hand — the regular human one — into Gabe’s. “Okay.” His voice is barely a whisper.
Gently wrapping his fingers around John’s hand, Gabe says, “Aaron and Richard can help you. Like they’ve helped me.” They’re good men, both of them.
The scales on John’s dragon arm flash in the sunlight as his fist clenches. His eyes meet Gabe’s, wide and luminous. “I don’t have to go back?” There is a slight tremor in his voice.
“No.” Gabe’s fingers tighten reassuringly as the knowledge hits him in the gut that he was right. John was scared. John’s still scared. So much of what Percival told Gabe turned out to be lies. How many lies has he told John? “You don’t have to go back. You don’t have to go anywhere you don’t want to go or do anything you don’t want to do.”
John’s mouth curves into something that is almost a smile and tension bleeds out of the set of his shoulders. “Okay.”
Gabe smiles, but his jaw clenches as he thinks about Percival and Zaal. Obviously they didn’t tell John anywhere close to enough information about the procedure. And, if they got his consent at all, it wasn’t informed consent. It’s such a contrast to how Richard and Aaron handled Gabe’s procedure — they couldn’t be sure of all the risks and possible side effects, so they told him exactly that: they weren’t sure, there were unknown variables and things they couldn’t predict. Gabe might not have known exactly what he was getting into, but he went in with both eyes open, accepting the unknown factors as risks he was willing to take. And that’s the way it should be.
When Gabe was a child, he once came upon a younger, smaller boy who was beset by several large bullies. With no hesitation or thought to his own safety, Gabe told the bigger kids off, getting right into their faces despite the fact that he wasn’t much bigger than the boy they were tormenting, and much smaller than even the smallest of the bullies.
He was lucky, as usual, that Maggie was nearby and came to his rescue, fists flying. In the face of two small fearless lunatics, the bullies showed their true colours and took to their heels.
The look in that little boy’s eyes when Gabe and Maggie helped him up and dusted him off was very like the look John has in his eyes when Gabe tells him he doesn’t have to go back to Percival and Zaal. It is a look that makes Gabe smile even as it breaks his heart and makes him want to punch someone.
Then John’s eyes darken, and he slams his dragon fist into the outcropping beside him. The solid stone shatters, and Gabe’s wings burst forth to shield his face from flying rock and sand.
John’s shocked gaze moves back and forth between his own arm and Gabe’s wings. “You have… wings?”
“I do.” Gabe lowers his wings and extends one in front of himself. “You can touch it if you want.”
Hesitantly, John reaches out with his human hand until his fingers just graze the edge of the membrane, sending a shivering ripple through the whole wing. John’s eyes widen and his lips part in amazement. “It’s beautiful,” he whispers.
Feeling heat rising in his cheeks, Gabe shrugs, sending another ripple through his wings. “Thanks.” He hasn’t gotten any better at accepting compliments, despite how many he’s received since his procedure. Of course, the vast majority of people have been complimenting him on the more human and ‘normal’ aspects of his new appearance. It’s even stranger to have someone appreciate the strange beauty of his wings. He’s still getting used to his new body, and no matter which part of it a person praises it feels odd to be commended for something he did little to nothing to achieve. All Gabe himself really did was show up. Richard and Aaron with their alchemy, their machines and needles and combined knowledge, did the rest.
“Did it… hurt?” John’s fingers trail along the smooth bone ridge at the leading edge of Gabe’s wing, the memory of pain shadowing his face.
Gabe swallows. John could be asking about anything from extending the wings to using them, but Gabe somehow knows the question refers to the dragon procedure itself. “A little.”
John nods sharply, acknowledging the understatement. His voice sounds a little rough when he says, “Yeah.”
Gabe covers John’s hand with his own. He has no words for John, but perhaps he doesn’t need any at the moment. Gabe and John have been through the same thing, or at least through exceptionally similar things. They understand each other better than anyone else ever could, and that bonds them.
John takes a step back from Gabe. His dark hair swings to cover part of his face as he ducks his head a bit, not quite hiding an embarrassed smile. “I… just realized we’re both naked.”
Suddenly self-conscious as well, Gabe rubs at the back of his neck. “Uh… yeah.” He presses his lips together and shifts his weight a bit from one bare foot to the other, the rocky ground pressing back against him, hard and uneven, biting into the soles of his feet. John carried Gabe and Gabe carried John, pressed body to body as they flew, but just now some sort of sense of propriety or modesty is creeping back. Perhaps just a sense that he should feel embarrassed. Standing out here in broad daylight. In front of an especially good looking naked man. While naked himself. “We are.”
“I guess the fire burned our clothes away,” John says, looking down over his own body. “It would make sense.” He raises his eyes to Gabe, his gaze slightly perplexed. “But our hair didn’t burn.”
Rubbing one hand back through his hair, Gabe laughs and shrugs. It feels the same as it had that morning, just maybe a little dirtier — some sweat for sure, and a bit of ash and smoke. “Guess ’cause it’s part of us?”
“And you have wings,” John breathes, staring anew at Gabe.
“Not to, uh, freak you out or anything…” Gabe clears his throat. “But — ” He gestures to John. “You have wings as well.”
“Oh.” John flexes his wings a bit, bringing them forward to curl about his body, staring at them with the same intensity he’d just been using on Gabe. “I… flew too. Didn’t I?”
Gabe nods. “You did.”
John runs his human hand over a curve of smooth dragon skin over bone at the edge of his own wing. “I have wings.” He sounds awed and a little frightened.
“Yeah.” Gabe stretches one wing out to just touch John’s wing. “It’s part of the dragon thing. You know: dragons have wings, and we’re part dragon now.”
“Right.” John lifts his left arm and flexes the fingers, watching the skin glimmer in the sun. “I’m strong now.” He meets Gabe’s eyes, his gaze fierce. “No one can tell me what to do.”
Gabe smiles. “No they can’t.” And he’ll be damned if he lets anyone get away with trying.
Esther learned to read when she was four years old, and began writing shortly thereafter. She is a queer Christian poet, crafting with words to create art and music.
