Where the Sidewalk Ends

There is a place where the sidewalk ends and before the street begins, and if you know the rest, then you know the rest.

And if you don’t, then you shouldn’t be here.

“Do you know why I’m crazy about you?”

He found the Dog there, overlooking the chasm below. He had ventured outside of the City. He had walked past the pits of asphalt flowers where the streets wind and bend, away from the black smoke in search of her. He found her. The sidewalk he followed extended over a cliff where the earth ceased to be and that’s where she sat, at its very end.

“You don’t have a sense of humor. You brood so much, you’re dramatic. You drown in a cup of water, and you have the worst luck. You’re made of everything I’ve ever killed. You have an interesting hair color. You mutilated your own face. You’re a monster. Like me.”

He missed the Dog so much and there she was, out of his comfort zone and filling him with panic, the ground fragile beneath her chubby body. He attempted to call her over, and all that gave him was just an amused look from the animal in response. He felt the crumbling at his feet from where he stood in safety.

“You’re doomed. Like me.”

Did he even have a choice then? With the wind whipping him in his face from the darkness below her and the clouds twisting menacingly in the sky when his expression gave way to what he decided, he didn’t have a choice.

“You’re lost. You’re alone. Like me.”

He ran forward, right to the edge, and scooped the Dog into his arms.

“Do you know why I’m crazy about you?”

Then, they plummeted, right down to the very bottom of where the sidewalk ends.

“Because you don’t make me feel so alone.” Miles’ voice echoes throughout the chasm when he speaks, his back to the ground as he stares up at where he and the Dog once were. She sits next to him, unharmed and happy to see him suffering from the fall. His eyes scan the clouds, too distracted by the loss to pay attention to his surroundings.

“I think we’ve probably met a million times before. In every life we’ve ever lived, I think it was just like now. Every time, we were best friends. You told me all of your secrets. All of your worry about the murder of a lover. We traded kisses and food. Took turns buying coffee. We knocked each other out.” And there’s genuine joy behind his smile as he rambles on with possibilities directly mirroring them now. The Dog rolls her eyes and struts away from the young man because, man, did she hate Danny. Danny, with a musk of pure fury and misery inside of his bones, skin that tastes as if it belongs somewhere buried in a forest, skin that’s easy to cut, skin that Miles would love to wear, lips that are barely there - well, Danny just means a lot to Miles. Danny never made him feel normal, he wouldn’t allow it. Instead, he supported his starving nature. Danny was one of his first friends, his best, and Miles doesn’t have many. Then again, he doesn’t even have him anymore either. Miles frowns bitterly.

“I try to hurt the things you love. You try to hurt me. And then I kill you. And then what?”

Miles’ brows furrow as he places his hands over his chest, trying to reason with the sky desperately. “And then what? I’m to blame? Because I’m the one left standing? Because I’m going to beat you right back into the nothingness that we both know you fucking crave? Is that it?! All me, huh?!”

Miles is screaming, pounding at the ground as he lays. Anger, boiling, hot, incredulous. “Miles Lucky does it again! He destroys someone else he loves and it’s all his fault! Everything is his fault! You wanted this Miles, is that what you think?! That’s what you think of me?!”

The dust kicks up behind him and falls as he scrambles to his feet in a fit destined for a toddler. Metal clanks near and catches his eyes to accept his fury. “No! No!”

He grabs a hold of the item. An iron helmet. His grip is white as he holds it, gritting his teeth while he stares. He swallows a mouthful of yells and it’s a sudden change. He chokes out, “it’s so easy, isn’t it?”

Easily, they fall apart from one another, time and time again. It’s taxing and exhausting and every good deed is paid back with terrible words and situations that have caused them to explode at each other. And if you asked Miles, Danny fucking loved it. He loved tearing Miles down emotionally because he found out quickly what everyone knows, but what nobody takes advantage of.

Miles Lucky is just burning, hot glass.

And Miles found out quickly what everyone knows about Danny, but what nobody takes advantage of.

Danny MacNamara loved it when everything around him burned.

They were using each other as much as they were keeping each other company.

“It’s so easy,” Miles says, more firmly, giving the helmet a stern shake here and there while he speaks. “It’s so easy to say it was all me. It’s so easy to say that this is all my fault. I chose to hurt her, I made you move your hand against me.”

Miles glares into the empty helmet in his hand. He thinks about everything. He thinks about the night they met, the train in Japan, the clothes Danny gave him, he wore them for a week straight. He thinks about deer carcasses and knife sets. He thinks about, I love you. I loved you. I still love you. He frowns sadly. “You’re a fucking liar. Tell the truth for once in your fucking life.”

I hope you start bleeding from your mouth and it never stops.

Miles puts on the helmet, Roman, Imperial, and beaten, dented, sooted, and scratched. We see the rest of his surroundings, the aftermath of many battles strewn across the ground. The Dog lies beside a sword and shield. Miles marvels at the weapons, the torn fabric, and flags waving in the whistling wind of the chasm.

He takes a deep breath and he approaches the lazy Dog.

“This is all your fault. You’ve always wanted to move your hand against me. You wanted me to hurt her. You want it to end like this.”

He picks up the iron sword in his hand, the Dog perking up to watch him because the last time he was around sharp objects, it didn’t end well. However, Miles just takes it into his hand, studying the blade and the craftsmanship. “For all that we have in common, for everything that’s shared between us, I think there’s a single vital difference that pulls us apart from each other, every fucking time. I need to survive, and you love it when you don’t. You love it when everything you own and love falls apart around you. You love it when you fail again and again and again.”

Miles gives the sword a spin in his hand to test the balance and it falls right out of his hand. He shakes his head, leaning down to pick it back up and grab the shield as well. He manages the weight, raising it as he walks to feel for the weight. “It’s your biggest pride, isn’t it? To pick yourself up from the clutches of destruction that you can’t blame on anyone other than yourself. You pushed me and pushed me and threatened me with everything you could, threatened to light the venue ablaze. You told me to be careful.”

Miles stops, letting the shield fall to his side for a moment. It’s heavier than he anticipated and he sighs in frustration, sadness creeping in. “You expected the worst of me. You didn’t even give me a chance. You weren’t just supposed to be the guy that kissed on my pecker, you were supposed to be my fucking friend. And you didn’t even give me a chance. You didn’t give me the benefit of the doubt, the respect I deserved as a champion to know that I had nothing on my mind other than representing Union. A company we’re both apart of, in case you fucking forgot while you itched at the thought of me taking away the biggest win of your career, swept right under the fucking rug by the same people that pay your woman. You didn’t even give me a second to think of it myself. Be careful.”

Miles looks up, a full body of empty armor facing him. The Dog huffs up next to Miles. He nods and raises his shield once more. He shrugs. “So, I did what you wanted, and I wasn’t. Because I know you know it, I know you know it.”

Miles circles around the suit of armor, when it begins to mirror his movements. Sword gripped in his hand, he tries to focus, talking to the armor directly. “It’s exactly what you wanted. You took a match, a monument to what your woman is capable of surviving and what I can show for, and pointed it all toward you. You made the match an issue before it was ever on a card. Had you said nothing at all, she would be fine, my hands wouldn’t have been cut. Had you said nothing at all, she would still be screaming your name in the middle of the night instead of mine. You wouldn't even have this fucking match!”

Miles lunges forward to attack, but the armor mimics him in doing the same. Everything he’s giving is being given right back. Sliced on the shoulder, he falls back. The helmet didn’t exactly help him here. He looks annoyed and nearly pouts.

“So, congratulations, big guy, now you’ve got me. You’ve got your reason, your drive. Whatever delusional side of the story that you’re creating. Do I want you to myself? Sure. Do I want to hurt you until all you can think of is me, tear you apart until I cover every scar on your body with one of my own? Yeah, you caught me.”

Miles rolls his eyes and the Dog shakes her head. He becomes serious, though, looking at the suit of armor when he stands back up, stationary. “But I know you love her, more than you love me. You think I would do that to you, if you didn’t want me to? You think that of me? I care, Danny. I care enough to give you exactly what you want.”

Miles stands, taking off the helmet, looking at it. “And I know that you don’t want my titles. You want a void to fall into. You just want me. So, you’ll get me!”

Miles chucks the helmet in the direction of the body of armor, making direct contact with its own helmet and popping it off, revealing nothing. He tosses the shield and the sword as well, before running forward with a roar of effort as he tackles it into the ground. He mounts the body and grabs hold, shaking it and yelling. “You want me to fucking hurt you! You want me to rip you to shreds! Because you’re not happy unless you’re at rock bottom! You want to touch to top, just to be knocked right back the fuck down, beaten like a fucking dog, that’s what you want!”

Tears are rolling down his dirty face, his eyes wide as he stares at where a head should be. Surrounded by the weapons of fallen battles, it’s not somewhere Miles is familiar with. But Danny lives here. Danny visits this place more often than he doesn’t. Miles can’t control the wracks in his body. Faced with an inevitability.

He will have to hurt the man he loves. Because that’s what Danny wants.

“You couldn’t get it from Indi.” He hiccups solemnly. “You couldn’t get it from Blue. This end you want so bad, this tragedy you want to strike. The sort of thing that’ll make you have your head sail further away when it’s already gone. You want me to fucking break you, Danny. You want me to be the one to slap you right back to nothing. To a place where you couldn’t protect or avenge her. To a place where your greatest accomplishment is your biggest joke. Where you have no friends. Right back to here. Where you have nothing but your imagination and, fuck, it runs wild when it does, right?”

Miles laughs sadly, the tears still falling as he shakes his head. The Dog watches him, sympathy in her eyes for her poor human. “It’s not fair. You put this all on me. When it’s both of us. Right? This is both of us. I will always protect what’s mine more than you’re capable of protecting what’s yours. I told you. I meant it. My legacy and what I accomplish will forever mean more than whatever fondness you can give me. I could’ve not hurt her, I could’ve said, no. But how could I say no to you?”

Miles lets go of the body, letting the empty suit fall. He takes a deep breath, accepting the reality of the situation. “You’ll get me, and I’ll cut you down. I’ll reduce you to the pitiful heap that you love to be. I’ll give you exactly what you want, a way back down to the very bottom of everything, just so you can leave the sword meant for my neck and find another purpose. And then do it again. And do it again. And do it again when I meet you in the next life and the one after that. And it’ll be like always. You keep your iron, and I’ll keep my gold.”

Miles gives the suit a soft pat. “And after this, after I beat you, when I go on to face Bryan Williams in a battle of fucking fate that you would never be able to carry, I want you to know, it’s over. This is it. It’s done until we’re dead. End of the road.”

“I never want to see you again.”

And he meant it. When his body lifted from the ground, pulling him up, he meant it. But when he reaches for the gloved hand of the armor, trying to bring him back up with him, missing, too late, he didn’t mean it, for a second. A full second that devastated him as the Dog was chomped on his ankle to follow. Miles Lucky is a liar too. His mouth begins to pour. Drops hit the armor he stares at on his way up. “Happy Pigeon Day.” He says, despite it all.

Now we’re Falling Up. Straight to the Moon.