Chapter Text
Four wheels–
Launching, flying, airborne–
The car spinning around, lifting up, rolling over the banister, falling–
Time slows down, suspended, and for just a moment flying–
Phaethon looks up, and he murmurs
“Hey Dad guess I am flying, for my 18th ya know, just like you promised,”
And in the moment it truly felt like he was, flying with the morning sunrise streaming into the car, suspended in his last blissful sun kissed moment.
Impact, he’d hit the water, no longer suspended in time, the water rushing through his open windows, air rapidly being pushed out of his lungs as he took his last gasping breath…
Darkness.
~~~♤~~~
He doesn’t remember much after that. He’s not going to sit here and tell you he saw white, no pearly gates for him, maybe if he reached deep enough into his memory he could coax out flashing images of endless fields filled with listless souls but he doesn’t quite know enough about his namesake to recognise the significance.
In another universe that would have been the end of it. There would be a mother, a father, a family torn apart again by the loss of their second son all too soon after the loss of their first. There would be a grave with an inscription reading-
Here Phaethon lies
who in the sun god's chariot fared
and tho greatly he failed
more greatly he dared
In another universe Michael Kingston didn’t come back to that bridge just in case Phaethon was still there. Instead his texts would go unanswered for a couple days, until the grape vine reached him with news of the funeral.
~~~♤~~~
In this universe however, he had the balls to go back, and the balls to not pretend the entire event was a drunken mistake. Instead he would head back to the bridge just in time to see the unmistakable glint of Phaethon's bright gold ford mercury as it launched itself over the banister.
In this universe Michael Kingston was there in time to dial 999 and he was there to help pull Phaethon out the passenger door, just like he did all those years ago on the edge of Farmer Brown’s farm. He was there in time to sit in the ambulance counting the long minutes as the paramedics desperately worked on restarting Phaethon’s heart, eyes transfixed to the flat line that represented the split between life and death.
8 minutes and 20 seconds.
He counted, 8 minutes and 20 seconds, 8 minutes and 21 seconds and there it was, a spike, faint and then rapid and there was a breath, gasping, a hand shooting out, searching, for something, for nothing. Then silence, Phaethon stilled, heart still beating but consciousness gone.
It was tranquil in an odd sort of way. Yes, the paramedics were still rushing around stabilising vitals, checking for bruising, yes there was still the faint wail of the siren. But it had faded into the background, and all that mattered now was Phaethon.
Michael allowed himself a moment of rest, the buzz of the alcohol having long since faded. He leaned his head back, feeling the cool metal on his skin.
Suddenly he was jolted. Light was streaming into the ambulance. The doors had been flung open and the world was a flurry of movement, orders being shouted left and right. As if on autopilot Michael started walking, following the blur of activity that surrounded Phaethon’s stretcher. They wound through the seemingly endless corridors of the hospital, and at last they reached a room. Nurses and doctors immediately started working on getting Phaethon situated, and slowly but surely Michael was pushed out of the room.
He felt the press of a gentle hand on his back, guiding him away from the chaos of doctors at work. A nurse with kind hazel eyes and a gentle expression that felt like the sun after a downpour was slowly pressing him in the right direction.
“Come right this way sir, we’ll just have you fill out some intake paperwork,” she said soothingly.
He found himself within a waiting room, a clipboard shoved into his hand accompanied with a reassurance that she’ll check back in with him in just a sec. He looks down at the form, a million questions shouting at him, all with answers that he was so far away from knowing. He scanned the page for something, any little bit of information that might be able to prove his usefulness.
“Relationship to patient?” It strikes him, what to say, not quite friends not quite enemies not quite lovers, a secret fourth thing defined solely through years of teasing and a singular drunken kiss that felt as though it intertwined their souls forevermore.
And then the thought hits, they don’t know, Phaethon’s parents don’t know. Helios is probably already a million miles away pulling the sun through the sky as Phaethon would have said, but Rhode- he could reach Rhode. Reaching into his pocket he pulls out his mobile, his mind automatically supplying the home phone number he had memorised all those years ago, flipping through the phone book in search of the address that he’d never been to but knew nonetheless, as it is in places like that. He punches in the number, and hesitates before letting it ring.
Click. “You’ve reached the Hughes family, Rhode speaking,” drifted through the line.
“Hey Rhode, I don’t know whether you remember me, I’m Michael I was in your son Tony- uh Phaeton’s year,”
“Oh yes, Michael, I remember. Phaethon isn’t here right now if that’s why you're calling,”
“Um, actually Phaethon’s with me, that’s why I’m calling. He’s- I - he’s been in a car crash, he’s- he’s alive I think, I don’t know they haven’t let me see much of him,”
A beat. He doesn’t quite know what to say. Silence rung out from the other end of the line.
“Um. We are in um Guys and St Thomas Hospital, if you uh want to come see, I’ll stay here I don’t have anything else to do,” A lie, but she doesn’t have to know.
A few seconds passed, but it felt like a lifetime. The silence was deafening. A strangled sob crackled through the phone, it sat somewhere between and cry and wail, it was a sound of pure emotion only a mother could produce. He sat there awkwardly as she sobbed through the line.
As she composes herself she manages to sniffle “I- thank you, thank you for staying with him, I’ll be there as soon as I can thank you,”
A click, and she hung up. Looking back down he returned to staring listlessly at the form in front of him, still not any closer to being able to fill it out.
“He’s stable.”
A gentle voice cut through his musings. It was the nurse from before. She looks down at the form in front of him.
“You made progress,” she remarks, sarcasm lacing her voice.
“I don’t know him that well,” his arms going up in defence, “we just went to school together, I uh called his mom but it’s gonna take her a sec, doesn’t live around here ya know.”
“Ok well, he is stable now so I guess this can wait, you can follow me and see him.”
She starts winding her way through the hospital, each step punctuated by the sound of her boot against the floor, Michael trails behind not quite sure what he’s going to do once they reach Phaethon’s room. The nurse slows down as they reach a doorway she turns around
“I’ll leave you here, you can press the red button on the wall if anything happens and someone will be by to check on you in a bit” with that she turns around leaving Michael alone.
He looks around the room, it's all so boringly clinical, the white walls and tiny window feel oh so oppressing. His eyes land on Phaeton’s bed in the centre of the room, it strikes him how peaceful Phaethon looks, Michael hasn’t seen his face so serene since he was 8, and his brother Actis was still alive.
He slumps down into the chair at Phaethon’s bedside, the cushion is way too stiff but it’s still the most comfortable he’s been throughout this whole ordeal. Before he knows it he is resting his eyes for just one second and has entirely dosed off.