Falls Down On Me

[ Sky – Master Post ]
Title: Falls Down on Me
Fandom: Sky
Characters: bb!Sin, Bentley, extras
Rating: T
Warnings: Death, teenagers
Notes: Everything that comes out of Sin's mouth isn't a good idea, all the time. In fact, he reads a little like the Gospel of Thomas, except that he can't raise the dead.

Everett Nilsson was really tall. Not, perhaps, that tall, considering that he came from folk who were historically notably tall, but he was a good deal taller than the average fifteen-year-old, and he towered over his younger brother's classmates. He was only three years older than Bentley, but those three years seemed to have made him a hero, to his brother.

Bentley came running down the road, toward the ranch, screaming his head off, with two other kids following him. Everett sighed and stood up, hanging his book over the rail fence. He tripped one kid with his leg and checked the other in the chest, with his hand.

"Go home, Ben. Tell Ma I'll be right there."

It took no further coaxing to get Bentley to leave his problems behind. Everett watched the two kids in front of him, carefully, as one helped the other to his feet. Truth be told, they could probably beat the tar out of him — he wasn't the fighting type — but they weren't going to try. Everett cut an imposing figure.

"What did I tell you about my brother?"

"Sorry," one of them muttered.

"We're going, now," the other one offered, backing down the road.

"Is that what I asked? Say it. What did I tell you about my brother?" Everett's long blond hair fluttered in the breeze. Backlit by the afternoon sun, he looked even angrier than he was.

"You said to stay away from him," one boy said, scuffing the ground with his shoe. "I forgot. Won't happen again."

Everett stepped closer, looking down at the boy — almost straight down. "No, it won't. Because if it does, you'd best be dead before I catch up to you. The next time you get near my brother, you're going to die, whether or not I kill you."

It was extremely likely that he was full of it, but Everett had learned that when he talked people tended to listen, at least for a little while. Generally, long enough for him to stop being in trouble for whatever he wasn't supposed to have been doing, this time. He'd given these two something to think about, last time, but maybe if he turned it up a bit, the sentiment would stick longer than two weeks.

"And if I catch up to you before you die, you'll wish you'd drowned yourself, because I promise you it would hurt less than what I'll do to you." Everett's eyes glinted in the light spilling over his shoulder as he tossed his head, flipping his hair back, arrogantly. "I will destroy you, and they will never find all the pieces of your body."

He glared down at the other boy, who was still inching away. "And the same goes for you. Get out of my sight. Both of you."

The farther boy grabbed the other's hand, and they ran down the road, pulling at each other and glancing back to where Everett stood, with his hands in his pockets, until they were out of sight. With a sigh, he tucked his hair behind his ear, picked up his book, and headed back to the house, for dinner.

"Just gonna wash my hands. Be there in a minute," he called into the house as the door banged shut behind him.

"Everett, don't slam that blasted door! How many times do I have to say it?" his mother shouted, from the kitchen. He was pretty sure he could hear his father stifle a laugh, from the living room.

"Yeah, Ma. I know." As he'd anticipated, Bentley was in his room, staring out the window.

"Hey, Ben? You tell me if either of them even breathes wrong near you. I'll scare them so bad they won't come to school for a week." He reached out and punched his brother in the arm. "Don't worry about it. They'll pee themselves at the sound of your name. Let's just go get some dinner. I won't tell Ma, if you don't."

Bentley smiled up at him with the kind of awe that nature reserves for older brothers, and they went down to dinner, together.

The next three weeks passed in relative peace. Then Bentley came home laughing, one afternoon. "Everett! Everett! What did you say to them?"

"Aw, you know, the usual. Nobody would ever find all the pieces, if they ever came after you again…" Everett looked up from his book. "Why?"

"'Cause Eric accidentally hit me with a door, today, and then he just started saying he was sorry and begging me not to tell you. And it was an accident, too. You can't tell who's on the other side of one of those big doors at the front of the school." Bentley looked completely dazzled.

"See, that's why you've got an older brother. They don't tell you this, but it's kind of what we're for, I think." Everett patted the fence, beside him, and Bentley climbed up to sit. They talked about nothing and shoved each other around until nearly sunset.

That night, Everett dreamed in vivid colour. A slender blond man in a tunic and hose waited for him, on a grassy hill. As Everett approached, he could see that the man was scooping up the sky, in teacups, and pouring it into a line of open heads that scrolled past.

"You've gone too far, my son. Take care with the mouth I've given you, or I might have to take it away." The man turned to gaze upon him, bright blue eyes pinning him like a butterfly to a board, as the progression of heads paused. "I gave you a gift to bring beauty into the world. Don't use it to deface what's already there."

Everett tried to speak, but quickly realised he had no mouth. He gestured frustratedly.

"Every man's son makes some mistakes, in his life. But, this thing, you must learn to control, before it destroys you." The man returned to filling heads with the sky. "Sleep, young one. I cannot fix what you have done, but you must learn to forgive yourself."

A full day passed, before the news came around. Eric Gunvald had died in his sleep — a heart attack, by all accounts. He appeared to have been frightened to death, but there was no sign that anyone or anything else had entered his room. 'An unforeseeable tragedy,' the doctor called it. 'A weak heart,' his parents claimed.

Everett Nilsson knew the truth. He had killed a boy with the force of his will. He had frightened someone to death. He was the point at which all things changed, for better or for worse. He didn't speak for a week.