#dodisi

Its metal, so Sonny knows it should feel cool to the touch, but instead, it sears a ring into his skin, pressed against his forehead, white hot. He parts his lips, body trembling, trying to figure out what exactly is the right thing to say in this situation. He doesn’t know, because a part of him wants to beg for his life, beg for absolution, and it’s fitting that he’s already on his knees, and the white hot sear marks the Father in the sign of the cross.

But he doesn’t beg for his life, doesn’t say anything, maybe because there’s a part of him that isn’t sure he wants to live anymore, part of him that feels like he’s already on borrowed time, that he was supposed to die years ago, in a situation so similar to this. But Mike had taken his place instead, volunteered, consciously or not.

The pressure against his forehead doesn’t feel like metal anymore, it feels like skin, like a single fingertip pressed against his forehead, tracing down his cheek, catching under his chin. Sonny lifts his head, ever so slightly, and there’s no gun in his line of sight, no perpetrator ready to end him. There’s just Mike, a look of soft affection on his face, a soothing sort of sympathy.

“Sonny,” he whispers softly, and Sonny can’t believe his ears, but the familiarity blossoms in his stomach, a blooming warmth that drifts through his veins. “Why were you so careless?” Mike whispers gently, his tone laced with the sort of concern that has Sonny doubting every action he’s taken up until this moment, but he doesn’t have the answer, not the right one.

“I miss you,” Sonny chokes out, the sob still trapped in his throat, eyes welling. “It was supposed to be me then, I shouldn’t have let you go.”

Mike’s thumb traces Sonny’s chin, over his bottom lip, and he cocks his head, a soft sigh through parted lips. “It wasn’t your fault,” he offers with tender reassurance. “Remember that you were loved by me and you made my life a happy one.”

Sonny can’t remember the last time he slept. He vaguely remembers laying down in his bed about a week ago, but he has no recollection of falling asleep then, and he’s sure there must have been something else between, he just can’t pin point when it was. He hates sleeping, always has, but its only gotten worse over the years, only gotten worse since Mike’s funeral, since he had a gun held against his forehead, since he let a perp slip out of his grasp, since a mother and her child died in a car accident he couldn’t prevent. 

He hates sleeping because his nightmares haunt him, the people he’s lost, the people he’s killed, the people he’s loved and never told. In his dreams he’s always running, so fast that his legs start to feel like jelly and his lungs burn a hot sear in his chest and he stumbles forward, always forward, always in terror of what’s behind him, just at his heels, and he can’t catch his breath, can’t get air into his lungs, and when he sleeps, he always wakes up slick with sweat, gasping for breaths that just won’t come. 

But he hasn’t felt that in days, so he’s not sure when the last time was, and he’s not sure really how he got here, standing at the edge of this building, twenty stories high. The wind whips at his cheeks, stinging, but he can’t feel it, not really. He peers down, twenty stories below, and wonders how he got here, because he doesn’t remember taking an elevator, and doesn’t remember the stairs. And all he can see is little Sophia, held in his arms, her pretty little blue eyes now glassy and lifeless. If he’d made it there twenty minutes earlier, if they’d figured it out just a little sooner, maybe she would have made it. 

“Sonny.” He hears his name, and spins his head around, unsteady on his feet, knees buckling. But he knows that voice, even all these years later he knows it. “Sonny don’t do this.” 

Sonny wants to laugh, really, and it bubbles up in his chest, cold and sardonic, because Mike is standing there, concern etched on his face, the same suit he wore that day, when he left Sonny’s apartment early in the morning, because he didn’t want to show up at the precinct at the same time, didn’t want people to know about them yet, even though he had plucked a tie from Sonny’s closet to wear. 

“You’re not here,” Sonny says defiantly, swaying closer to the edge with another gust of strong wind. “I’m hallucinating, you can’t be here.” 

But Mike reaches out, and grabs Sonny’s wrist, holding him there, tight, anchored to the building by the weight of him. His skin is warm against Sonny’s wind burned wrist, so warm it feels like fire, and Sonny’s eyes widen with surprise, and then a sob, heavy anguish bubbles up, escaping his lips. 

“I’m here,” Mike says with a firm sort of gentleness. “Why are you doing this, Sonny? Why are you here?” 

Sonny just shakes his head, voice caught in his throat, and he can feel the hot sting of tears on his cheeks before he even realizes he’s crying. “I needed you. I needed you and you weren’t there.” He pulls his hand, trying to pry himself from Mike’s grasp, but Mike was always stronger than him, always able to pin his arms, always able to hold him in a way he couldn’t escape from. 

He’d never really wanted to escape.