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It takes a second for Sylnan to parse out the world around him. There’s a thing that could be singing, lilting and lyrical and cold in the thin morning altitude. There’s a screeching noise of metal on metal.
And there is a horrible, horrific screaming, cutting through the air bloody and sharp.
It takes him another second to realize that sound is coming from him.
His heart ceases, and right there is a searing feeling of complete terror. It's a blistering sort of feeling; an absence that eats away at the space behind his eyes.
Helplessness.
Ancient helplessness. As old as the blood in his veins, as the smell of his father’s leather-and-mahogany office, as the sound of his mother screaming.
“... Br’aad?” Sylnan’s voice hurts. Every red noise tears itself from his chest. Like he’s been screaming. Has he been screaming?
In between every other beat of his heart is something primal and vicious. He’s staring at the clouds. He’s staring at the clouds. Where is his brother? Where is his baby brother with blond hair and a huge smile and so much light– where–
Did he fall? Was that real? How can that be real?
There are people yelling, screams and shouts and screeching white metal.
The little hands that held his are gone. Gods. Oh, Gods. This can’t be real. Of course they’re screaming.
His boots slide and scrabble against the deck as he sprints. He gets a knee up on the rail, sky and world and universe laid out below him, nothing left yet but the fall before there are hands pulling him back. Pulling him backwards. Away.
“Sylnan!” Softness on his shoulder and wind under his skin. Taxi. Why is he stopping him? Why would anyone?
Don’t they understand? There’s nothing left anymore. Sylnan digs his fingernails into the wood of the deck. His own blood on his hands is warm and wet. Each breath is flighty, heaving. So quick. The world is moving so quick. So slow. This is what it feels like to drown on dry land. This is what it feels like to die.
Not that he would know. Br’aad would. The kindest person he ever knew. The dumbest person he ever knew. Who listens. To a fucking harpy? Who walks off a ship. Who walks off a ship and falls, and falls, and falls.
Sylnan has lived his entire life for his bright-eyed brother, and now he’s–
Gone. Broken, crumpled on the ground with a sick thud. Br’aad got a chance to fly and fucked it up, like he always does.
Did he feel free? For just a second, as the wind blew and the sky spun, did he feel that freedom that he never did with Sylnan?
Anger is cold and dead, and oh, Sylnan thinks as he huddles against the cabin wall. He wants to die. The blood on his hands is red. There’s ringing in the air, in the air.
There’s iron in his mouth and death in the sky. The memories in his head are bleeding blackness. Gods, gods, what was the last thing Sylnan ever said…?
Oh. That’s right. He yelled at him, he fucking yelled at him. Made his little brother flinch and pale, and now he’s gone.
Sylnan hates himself. So much, so so much. His hands are shaking. He wants his bones to splinter, he wants his lungs to break and fill with blood, he wants– he wants to suffocate on the air. He wants to hurt until it doesn’t hurt anymore.
The image of Br’aad’s face falling when he walked in with a scowl, the way he flinched when Sylnan raised his voice– he– he needs to drown in this feeling. Like his father before him, clawing pathetically at the waves. Scratching at the surface for just the chance to hurt somebody one last time.
There’s a reason people leave him.
Sylnan can feel his body shuddering, and he’s fracturing, hollowed out and strung up with live wires– some shadowy caricature of a real person. He can imagine Br’aad kneeling at his level. So kind. Always, so kind. Gentler than he could ever be.
Gone, and gone, and gone. “Sorry,” he says to nothing. “Oh, little man. I’m so sorry. I– your older brother fucked it up again.”
“Don’t worry, though.” Sylnan whispers, unwrapping the bandages on his arm. “I’m– gonna make it right. Gonna make it okay again.”