The Wayfarer

Closer

The week long journey to New York and then on to Chicago over land was going far too slowly for Jack's liking. Having the slaver collar on was clearly taking a toll on Evan. Jack could taste a sour note to the energy around him, it reminded him of the taste of sick from when he'd had a sore throat as a boy, but also had a hint of lightning lurking in clouds. It both angered him and frightened him. He worried that, without access to his natural energy flows, Evan might be dying a death he wouldn't be able to come back from and he couldn't do anything to stop it yet. At least Cross had decided that there was no harm to letting Jack stay in the cage at night. They were locked in, there were guards and they had no weapons.

With his telepathy scrambled by the collar, being able to have physical contact  with Jack was the only thing he had to keep him from crumbling entirely. He'd not been so mentally and energetically cut off from everyone in his whole life. It was a horrid combination of the actual auditory sounds being akin to rats tearing at his brain because they seemed overly loud and the gaping silence inside which was normally filled with the faint whisper of people's surface thoughts and the soft song of the energy of all that was. Those two things clashed and clanged and wore him down emotionally and physically. While he still had Rigel, they could only work together so long before the pain became too intense and blood would run from his nose. Jack kept chastising him for that. It was drowning in pain and nothing and that painful, nasty thing on his neck was the millstone dragging him down.

It was becoming so stressful that Evan was beginning to withdraw into himself  more and more when Jack couldn't be with him. That especially scared Jack. Sometimes, when he first went into the cage, Evan didn't realize he was there for what seemed like hours though it was perhaps only half an hour. Getting him to eat was troublesome. It was slowly wearing at Jack, too. Alex and Keri had been clearly worried about both of their comrades throughout all of their long planning sessions.

In an attempt to fill the quiet inside himself, Evan had begun to run through songs in his head. One in particular, which he'd learned at the very first Pagan festival he'd worked while being a nomad, seemed to stay at the front of his mind. They'd sung it during opening ritual of a midsummer festival. They'd held hands and chanted and slowly began to move around the circle, building energy. He'd felt it thrumming through his body and hadn't thought anything of it at the time, figuring it was just part of being in a Pagan circle. Now, he knew what he'd felt was them harnessing the localized energy of the planet by sheer force of numbers and will. He just happened to be especially sensitive to it even at its most minute level. At the  height of that energy building it had been like flying for him, almost orgasmic.  He hadn't understood why it had affected him so.

Sing through my voice. Play through my hands. Let the way be open. He could almost hear the rhythm of the drums and feet, or maybe it was just his heart. He couldn't really tell anymore.

Rigel seemed to encourage him in holding that song to the forefront, to modulate his distant chiming with it. When the song took over strongest, he stared into space and rocked slowly, the words passing his lips in a sort of sub-vocal hum with his breath. It seemed only Jack was aware of it when he was nearby. He could probably feel it on his skin or something considering how he sometimes tasted sounds and felt colors. It would flow  up, filling him, blocking the pain for brief passages. Then he would feel warmth against his too-cold skin and smell the sweet spice that was Jack, hear the soft voice whispering in his ear as gentle hands tried to warm him or make him drink.

"Sing through my voice. Play through my hands. Let the way be open." The words were a dry croak that made his already sore throat ache.

"Shhhh." Jack soothed him gently, pressing a cup of cool liquid to his lips. "Drink this, sweetheart. You're dehydrated."