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David had been staring at the same button for long enough that Max noticed.
“Having trouble?”
He let go of it. In the dressing room mirror, Max stood behind his shoulder, immaculate and expectant, while David sat with his coat open and his hands resting uselessly against his thighs. The lights around the glass hurt his eyes. He had turned half of them off a few minutes earlier, but someone had come in to check his makeup and switched them back on.
“I can’t go on tonight.”
Max’s expression barely changed. He looked down at his watch before meeting David’s eyes in the mirror.
“You have twelve minutes.”
“I’m not asking how long I have.”
The sharpness cost him. Max’s attention settled fully on him, and David had to resist the old instinct to soften what he’d said, to make it easier to hear.
Instead, he turned in his chair.
“Something’s wrong. I thought it would pass, but it’s getting worse.”
“What is?”
“I’m dizzy. My hands aren’t…” He stopped, flexing his fingers once before giving up on explaining them. “I nearly went down getting changed.”
Max approached and placed the back of his hand against David’s forehead. David closed his eyes at the contact. He was tired enough that the possibility of being looked after, even briefly, made his throat tighten.
“You should have said something earlier.”
“I’m saying it now.”
“You were perfectly well at soundcheck.”
“And now I’m not.”
Max withdrew his hand and looked at the untouched glass on the counter.
“Have you had anything to drink?”
“Max.”
“Dehydration can make anyone feel unpleasant.”
David leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and waited for the movement to stop making the floor tilt. Beyond the door, someone laughed. A radio crackled, followed by a call for five minutes to places.
“I need you to listen to me,” he said. “I can’t do the show.”
There was a pause long enough for him to hope.
Then Max sighed.
“Do you have any idea how many people are here tonight?”
David kept looking at the carpet.
“I know.”
“How many people it takes to put something like this together? How much it costs before we even open the doors?”
“Let them do it without me.”
“Them.”
“The boys. They can change the set. Marko can take-”
“People have paid to see all four of you.”
David looked up. “Then refund them.”
Max’s face hardened, and David wished, suddenly and desperately, that one of the others were in the room. Paul would have made some joke that bought him a moment to breathe. Dwayne would have noticed how tightly he was gripping his own knees. Marko would already be outside finding someone who could help.
Max closed the dressing room door.
“You’re going to get dressed,” he said. “You’re going to go out there, and you’re going to do your job.”
David felt the command take hold before Max finished speaking.
His hands moved to the front of his coat.
For a moment, he could only watch them.
“Please.”
It was quiet enough that Max could have pretended not to hear. David almost wanted him to.
Max reached down and fastened the button David had been struggling with.
“You’ll feel better once you’re out there.”
Paul caught his arm in the corridor.
“Hey. You look like shit.”
“Thanks.”
“Usually takes you a couple of hours to get this sweaty.”
David tried to smile, but the corridor was too bright and Paul’s hand was the only steady thing in it. He let himself lean into that grip for half a second before straightening.
Paul noticed.
His expression changed, the teasing leaving it as he stepped closer.
“What’s wrong?”
“Headache.”
“Since when?”
David couldn’t quite remember. That bothered him more than he wanted it to.
“A while.”
Ahead of them, Dwayne turned at the entrance to the wing. Marko was beside him, talking to a technician, but stopped when he saw Paul’s face.
“We can wait,” Paul said.
“No need.”
Max’s voice came from behind David. Paul looked over his shoulder, keeping his hand on David’s arm.
“He doesn’t look good.”
“He’s tired,” Max said. “We’ve discussed it.”
David stared past Paul at the strip of blue light spilling across the floor from the stage. He could hear the audience on the other side of the curtain, restless and enormous, and beneath that the opening cue beginning to build.
His body wanted to follow it.
Paul felt him pull away and tightened his grip.
“David.”
“I’ve got to go.”
He hated how that sounded. Hated the way Paul watched him after he said it.
But the cue was running, and his feet were already carrying him toward the stage.
For a little while, the familiarity helped.
David knew where the lights would find him. He knew how many steps took him to the edge of the thrust, where to turn toward Marko, when to let the audience sing a line back to him. He had done it often enough that his body could carry him through while his thoughts struggled to keep up.
He held the microphone out more than usual.
The crowd loved it.
Marko didn’t.
By the second song, he was staying close enough that their shoulders brushed whenever David crossed to his side. Once, when David turned too quickly and lost his footing, Marko caught the back of his coat without breaking rhythm.
David glanced at him.
Marko’s smile was for the audience. His eyes were furious with worry.
At the next instrumental break, he leaned close.
“What’s going on?”
David shook his head.
“That’s not an answer.”
“Later.”
“David-”
He stepped away before Marko could finish, lifting the microphone as his next entrance arrived.
The note came out clean. He clung to that small success, even as the lights began to leave streaks across his vision.
Across the stage, Dwayne was watching him.
Paul hadn’t looked away for more than a few seconds at a time.
David knew they were going to stop him as soon as they got a chance. He found himself planning how to avoid being cornered during the next transition, then felt sick at the realization that he was doing it at all.
He wanted to sit down. He wanted the music to stop long enough to tell them he needed help.
Instead, he went where he was supposed to go.
When he glanced toward the wings, Max nodded.
By the time the flight cue arrived, David couldn’t feel his fingertips properly.
He adjusted the microphone in his hand, testing his grip, while darkness swept across the stage. Below the audience’s rising excitement, he heard the familiar sounds of the others moving into place.
He knew this part.
That was what he told himself as he rose.
He knew the height, the turn, the place where the light would catch the lining of his coat. He knew how long he could hold the pause before the audience began screaming for him.
The stage fell away beneath his boots.
For a moment, the cooler air above it felt good against his face. He closed his eyes, then opened them quickly when the darkness behind his eyelids seemed to keep pulling.
Seventy feet below, Paul sat behind the drums.
David fixed his gaze on him.
He could get through the verse. Then he would come down, and Paul would look at him the way he had in the corridor, and perhaps this time David would manage to say something other than I’ve got to go.
He lifted the microphone.
His hand opened instead.
David watched it slip away with a distant, bewildered sense that he should have been able to prevent it.
Then Paul’s face blurred, and he lost the air beneath him.
Paul was moving before the microphone hit the floor.
He had seen David’s head dip, seen the slackness pass through his shoulders. By the time David began to fall, Paul had already left the kit, his sticks clattering behind him as he launched himself toward the open space beneath him.
David dropped without reaching for anything.
His coat streamed above his shoulders. One arm drifted outward, his hand loose, and Paul could see his face between the moving folds of black fabric.
His eyes were closed.
Paul reached him ten feet above the stage.
He caught David around the waist and back, pulling him upright against his chest, and they stopped exactly there.
Below David’s dangling boots, the stage waited, close enough that Paul could see the scratches in its surface.
He stared at it for one terrible second before tightening both arms around David.
“Fuck,” he breathed into his hair.
David’s head had fallen against his shoulder. His body was heavy and unresponsive in Paul’s arms, his chest pressed to Paul’s, his legs hanging between them. Paul shifted one hand higher across his back, holding him securely while he brought his face close to David’s.
“Hey. David.”
There was no answer.
Around them, the crowd roared. Somewhere below, Marko shouted his name, but Paul couldn’t look away from the face resting against his shoulder.
“Come on,” he murmured. “Fly, pretty boy.”
David’s lashes moved.
Paul drew a breath that hurt.
“That’s it. Can you help me a little?”
He didn’t need the help. He could have held David there all night. He needed David to lift his head, to complain, to do something that meant he was still in there and could hear him.
David’s brow tightened faintly.
“Paul?”
“Yeah. I’ve got you.”
David tried to move his arm. His fingers caught against Paul’s side, then slipped down again.
Paul stayed perfectly still in the air.
“Up here,” he said softly. “Around my neck.”
With an effort Paul could feel through his whole body, David lifted his arm over Paul’s shoulder. His hand came to rest against the back of Paul’s neck, barely holding.
“Good,” Paul whispered. “That’s good.”
David opened his eyes enough to see him. For a moment, his expression was only confused, his gaze moving sluggishly over Paul’s face.
Then he looked past him.
Paul felt his body tense.
“Don’t look down.”
David’s arm tightened around his neck.
“You’re safe,” Paul said, bringing him closer. “We’ve stopped. I’m holding you.”
Dwayne rose beside them, one hand settling immediately against David’s back, above Paul’s arm. His hair had come loose around his face, and there was something in his expression Paul had never seen during a show.
“David?”
David turned slightly toward him, then let his forehead fall against Paul’s shoulder.
Dwayne looked at Paul.
“Did he hit anything?”
“No.”
The answer came out rougher than Paul intended. He looked down again despite himself, at the small distance beneath their feet.
Dwayne followed his gaze.
Neither of them said anything.
The music cut off. Marko’s voice came through the speakers, asking the audience to give them a moment, and then he was rising toward them too, his guitar left on the stage below.
He stopped on David’s other side.
“Hey,” he said, much more softly than he had spoken into the microphone. “Let me see you.”
David’s eyes opened at the touch of Marko’s hand against his cheek.
Marko tried to smile.
“There’s my cue to retire, huh? You really didn’t have to get this dramatic about stealing the show.”
David’s mouth moved faintly, almost a response. Then the effort deserted him, and his head sank back against Paul.
Marko’s smile disappeared.
“We’re getting him off.”
Paul nodded. He was still holding David upright, one arm firm around his waist, the other supporting his upper back. David’s feet hadn’t moved since the catch.
Dwayne came closer.
“I’ll stay on this side.”
“Just hang on to him,” he told David. “We’re coming with you.” Marko laid his hand over David’s wrist where it rested against Paul’s shoulder.
They moved toward the wing together, keeping David above the stage.
He stirred once on the way, his fingers tightening against Paul’s neck.
“Paul?”
“Still me.”
David swallowed. Paul could feel it against his shoulder.
“Don’t put me down.”
Paul turned his face into David’s hair.
“Okay.”
Max was waiting at the edge of the wing.
He took a step toward them as they approached, then had to stop beneath them, looking up.
“What happened?”
“He collapsed,” Dwayne said.
“I can see that. Bring him down.”
Paul continued past him.
They cleared the edge of the stage in the air, Dwayne guiding them around a lighting fixture while Marko kept David’s coat from catching. A crew member hurried ahead to move a wheeled case out of the passage.
Max followed on foot.
“Paul, I’m speaking to you.”
“And I’m holding him.”
David shifted at the sound of their voices. Paul immediately softened his own, bringing his mouth close to David’s ear.
“We’re offstage now. Almost somewhere quiet.”
Only once the curtain was behind them did Paul lower his feet to the concrete. He kept David lifted, both arms secure around him, and walked toward the dressing rooms.
Dwayne went ahead to open the door.
Marko stayed beside Paul, watching David’s face.
The room was blessedly dim. Someone had left a lamp on beside the couch, and Dwayne switched off the overhead lights before Paul reached it.
“I’m going to sit,” Paul told David. “You can stay right here.”
David’s hand tightened at his neck.
“I know. I’m not letting go.”
He lowered himself carefully onto the couch. Dwayne helped bring David’s legs across the cushions while Paul kept his upper body against his chest, letting him settle without breaking the hold he had asked to keep.
For a moment, David seemed to ease.
Then Max entered.
“Give him some room.”
Paul felt David tense again.
Marko noticed it too. He stayed crouched beside the couch, his hand resting lightly on David’s forearm.
“We’ve sent for the medic,” Dwayne said. “They’re on their way.”
“He may simply need a moment to collect himself.”
Dwayne looked at Max.
“He lost consciousness seventy feet above the stage.”
“But he didn’t hit the stage, did he?”
Paul lifted his head.
Max met his eyes, then glanced down at David.
“Let’s establish what’s actually wrong before we all become hysterical.”
David stirred against Paul’s chest.
“I told you.”
The room went quiet enough that Paul could hear the air-conditioning humming above the door.
Max’s expression changed.
David’s eyes were barely open. He was looking somewhere near Max’s shoulder, struggling to keep his head lifted.
“Before,” he whispered. “I told you.”
Paul slid his hand to the back of David’s neck.
“What did you tell him?”
David swallowed, and the answer took long enough that Paul thought he might have slipped under again.
“Couldn’t go on.”
Marko looked up at Max.
David kept trying to speak, his voice thin and painfully earnest.
“I tried. I did.”
Paul felt something inside him turn cold.
“You don’t have to explain that,” he said.
Max stepped closer. “David, you were tired. There was no reason to think-”
“He told you he couldn’t do it,” Dwayne said.
“And I made a judgment based on-”
“Look at him.”
Max stopped.
David had closed his eyes again. His arm was still hooked around Paul’s neck, but the strength had gone out of it, his hand resting loosely against Paul’s shoulder. Paul could feel every shallow breath he took.
He thought of those ten feet beneath them.
Of having been even a second later.
A knock sounded at the open door, and the medic came in carrying a bag. Dwayne immediately moved aside to let her reach the couch.
Paul bent his head toward David.
“Someone’s here to help. She needs to have a look at you.”
David made a small sound and pressed closer.
“You can keep hold of me,” Paul told him.
The medic knelt beside them, introducing herself quietly as she reached for David’s wrist. Marko stayed near his legs, and Dwayne stood at Paul’s shoulder.
Max began to speak again.
“Outside,” Dwayne said.
His voice was low enough that David didn’t flinch this time.
Max stared at him, but Dwayne had already turned toward the door, leaving him to follow.
Paul didn’t watch them go. David’s fingers were moving weakly against his shoulder, searching for a better grip.
He covered them with his hand.
“You’ve got me,” he murmured. “I’m right here.”