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Drifting.
Clint feels like he’s always been drifting. It’s the only thing he can remember which doesn’t hurt. He doesn’t mind. There’s faint bells going off in the back of his head, as if there’s danger to be wary of, but it seems inconsequential when compared to the serene beauty before him. A bright blue sky as if pulled straight from a children’s drawing. The clouds are few and far between, small white wisps without a hint of gray storm to them. Around him, the ocean glitters as a breeze pushes the water and the waves gently collide. It’s startlingly blue instead of dark and murky. Tropical, maybe? He drops the thought; it doesn’t matter. What does matter is the smell of salt brought to him by the air, the murmuring of the water, the splash of the sea against metal, the way it rocks him back and forth, and how beautiful it is, so beautiful. It’s beautiful.
The thought brings an ache to his heart. No, that’s him that’s aching, and the realization punches a low groan out of him. Everywhere. Everywhere hurts. How does everywhere hurt? The warning bells seem more important to listen to now as his slow breathing turns into unsteady wheezing because something is wrong with his lungs. The salty air isn’t so nice now. In fact, none of it is. The sun is too bright as it presses into his eyes and worsens his headache - concussion? He isn’t sure. The water which washes up slides into his open wounds and he grits his teeth against his screams on instinct.
He should sit up. Something about that feels like what he would normally do. It’s the best he has to operate on. Clint squeezes his eyes shut and begins to pull himself up but his body rebels and locks down and there is so much pain and he collapses with a heavy thud, starfished, trying to drag in as much oxygen as possible with loud, scary gasps. He’s too weak. He tries to remember if he’s ever been this broken, can’t, and decides it must be from the overdrive his brain has hopped into. He doesn’t bounce back from this.
He feels useless, stuck on this stupid splintered boat - since when has he known he’s on a boat? - with nothing to show for it except his slow death. Even with all this disorientation, he knows he’s dying. He can feel it. It’s almost...it’s almost nice. There’s a strange sense of relief with it. Has some part of him wanted to die? He never realized. Be careful what you wish for, he thinks, and closes his eyes.
Relaxing is impossible with the water that the waves push onto the deck still seeping into his open cuts - deep gashes, maybe, but he can’t bother to check - but it’s easier to try with the light blocked out. The tang of salt is still on his tongue from the sea, combined with the sharp lining of that he now knows is the iron his own blood. The breeze brings the same salty smell, a hint of fish, but he registers burned plastic and oil. It must be from farther back on the boat. He ignores it in favor of savoring the breeze. It’s a gently caress against his skin, soothing, almost healing. Combined with the slow rocking of the boat, he can almost pretend that it’s all fine. The water still feels as if it’s cutting new holes into his flesh. It’s all fine. He’ll die. He has the breeze.
It’s all fine.
As if adding to the lullaby which curls around him, a humming starts up. His eyes slowly force open, fluttering against the brightness of the sun, and the humming grows closer. It reminds him of something he heard during his childhood. Not his own, of course, but his thoughts flash with hiding in the shadows after one of the circus’s shows, listening to the gentle tune a mother hummed to her child after all the excitement. Would it have been nice to have a mother like that? He’d stopped thinking about it long ago out of necessity and fear of vulnerability, but with the expansive sea as his only witness, he wonders.
The humming continues. There’s a pull in his heart, different from the physical aches, but he can’t get his body to move. He’s stuck to the broken wood and lapping waves. Come with me, the voiceless music says as it turns louder, and he wants to, more than anything else. He is still unable to move. His hands twitch and his face turns, check now pressed to the sodden deck, and he blearily sets his eyes on the shimmering water. He would slip into the water in a heartbeat. He’s not sure why he wants to do that now, but it feels as if it would take everything away. Wrap around him and muss his hair and drain his tension. Let him experience one last good thing before he’s gone.
It quiets for a moment and is nearly drowned out by the sound of the waves and the water still splashing steadily against the metal hull of the broken boat, by the wind which is strong enough to whistle past his ears. It turns into a clear and loud vocalization. Come with me, the singing repeats, and this time it asks, as if even it knows that he’s so beaten and exhausted that he can’t comply. He wishes he could. He struggles to move even an inch; his limbs are heavy stones which are cemented into the deck, and even his eyelids are too much movement. A sigh comes out and he closes his eyes again, swallowing against his dry mouth and tasting the stray blood that goes back down his throat. It wouldn’t be so bad to drift off out here. Music, waves, all alone.
A hand clamps around his wrist. It’s unexpected and finally sends a shock to his heart that makes it beat at an almost normal rate, the possibility danger sending his eyes flying open and making him wheeze as he shuffles around to get away. Even instinct isn’t buried in death, apparently, and his first true thought in minutes is that he needs to get away and prepare for a fight. It’s not enough against his wounds, though, but strangely, the hand is careful in its firm grip, thumb sliding back and forth on the pulse point in his wrist. The confusion in his senses makes him gape and he falls still against the deck, eyes sliding over. There’s a man there. There’s not supposed to be a man. He doesn’t know how he knows, but he’s alone on this boat. Everyone else...he can’t recall, but they’re gone. It’s the man that has been singing, the man with dripping dark hair and eyes like the sea around them but paler and brows barely furrowed in concern and concentration. His vocalizing is softer, now, a soothing balm against the pounding in Clint’s head, its existence brought back to full force now that he’s been brought back from his two seconds next to death. The initial shock of adrenaline leaves his mind a little empty, and he can only come up with one thing to explain it all. Is this what an angel looks like?
Come with me. It’s obvious that it’s been coming from the man beside him, now. The man’s other hand reaches out to cup his face (blood must be smeared on his hand now, but does it really matter when he’s being held?), those storm blue eyes watching him with care and determination, and he still sings. He wants to go. Oh, he wants to, but he can’t. The man tilts his head slightly and gives a small smile, and it’s fine that he can’t do anything because his hands are wrapped around him and pulling him to the edge of the deck. Part of the railing is gone, destroyed by whatever tore apart the boat, whatever tore apart him, and it’s through the gap that the man brings them both. He shouldn’t want to be pulled into the water. He should fight.
He doesn’t.
The water burns against his eyes, but the singing grows stronger and more powerful, and then it’s easy to keep them open. He watches the surface ripple as he sinks down. He never knew it was just as beautiful from underneath.
The man comes back, hands roaming over his shoulders and wrists, swimming graceful. He watches him and spots a tail, gorgeous and covered in softly gleaming scales, black and silver and red. An angel, he thinks, sure in his assumption, although a flyaway thought believes angels are meant to have wings. It’s not important. His angel has a tail. His eyes shift up and he finds the face of the man right in front of him, amusement in his smile but that unbridled concern still pulling at his eyes. Clint can’t remember why he’s concerned. Can’t the angel see how beautiful it is down here?
The angel is still singing to him, swimming around his body in loose spirals as he sinks further and further into the water. The shimmering surface gets farther away. The water grows cold, but the singing surges for a moment, and he’s never felt warmer in his life. He lets out a last breath of air and it turns to bubbles before him as his eyes shut once more. He feels empty. He likes it. Nothing hurts, nothing is anything, and there’s just water like silk against him and that beautiful song by his ear.
A hand cradles his jaw again, fingers digging in hard enough to persuade his tired eyes to open. The angel is so close in front of him. He looks conflicted, and some part of Clint doesn’t like that, so he offers a weak smile. The man blinks, the melody ceasing. His lungs start to burn and he chokes on the water around him.
The confliction fades when he begins to choke, and he almost misses how it changes to resolution as he flails in the water with wide, panicked eyes. This wasn’t supposed to be how it went. It had been so beautiful. He feels like he really is dying, now, instead of the gentle slip from mere seconds ago. Water had long since replaced air but he couldn’t stop trying. The man takes his face in both hands, and during his last attempt at breathing, the angel kisses him. Something tugs in his heart and blackness takes over.
Clint gasps, the water moving into his mouth and passing weirdly through his throat as he breathes, and he flails again. The man - the angel, he remembers - takes his hands to still him and smiles at him again, twining his tail with his. He brings Clint close enough to press his forehead against his, hair floating ethereally around him in the water. The angel doesn’t sing. It’s a series of muted clicks with which he speaks.
You’re safe now, the angel says, and he shifts to kiss Clint once more.