Chapter Text
Graham Coxon peered down between his toes, the tips of his Converse shoes just dangling over the precipice. Swallowing, he focused on the small space between them, the blurry black and yellow outline of busy streets below him. He shivered as the frigid city wind blew against his body, miniscule in comparison to the city around him, carrying with it the lifeless sounds of horns and pedestrian walking signals.
He watched as the fuzzy outlines of yellow taxis crossed busy intersections, the small family of tourists with the wife and kids passing over the concrete below him, totally unawares of the suicide jumper standing on the ledge ten stories above them. He wondered if the sight of his broken body strewn across the concrete would ruin their vacation. He hoped not. He'd seen pictures of suicide jumpers before, post mortem.They looked peaceful, he thought, not particularly frightening, at least compared to other things anyway. And not nearly as much blood as one might think.
He shook his head, pushing the happy vacationers out of his mind. Ten stories up, he'd managed to balance himself perfectly on the fine edge of the building, poised to jump, until he heard the voice coming from the window beside him.
"What exactly are you doing?"
Graham froze completely, the hairs standing straight up on the back of his neck. He'd left his glasses inside his room, and of course without them, he couldn't see anything. After all, why would he need his glasses? It wasn't as if he needed to see where he was going. He wasn't here for the view, that was sure. It had seemed absurd to him to wear his glasses, so he'd left them inside, delicately placed on the table right next to the window where, a few seconds ago, his best mate's head had seemed to magically appear.
The way Damon had asked him, what are you doing? had sounded so casual, so incredibly laisse-faire, that for a moment, Graham almost answered him normally, as though they had just ran into one another in the pub by coincidence.
"What the fuck does it look like I'm doing?"
He immediately hated the sound of his own voice. It sounded small and squeaky on the thin air, completely unflattering in his last moments. Straining his vision, Graham tried his best to see Damon's reaction out of the corner of his eye, but failed.
"Well, don't take this the wrong way, but it looks like you might be trying to off yourself."
Forcing himself to take a deep breath, Graham closed his eyes. He didn't want to deal with this. Not now. Not with Damon especially. Most suicidals, he thought, at least had the serenity of being alone whilst trying to off themselves. Which was why, more than anything in the whole wide world, he wished he could make Damon disappear.
Mistaking Graham's lack of response as a non-answer, the singer continued talking.
"You weren't satisfied with the room's view?"
"Fucking hell, man!" Graham spat, his chest still heaving. He could feel the lump of anxiety and fear begin to ball up within his throat, the distance between him and the street below now beginning to feel immensely real to his senses.
"Right. First one then."
"Can't you fucking shut up already?" he snapped.
Graham took another deep breath, then swallowed. He noticed with unease that his fear of heights had finally crept up on him. These kinds of fears seemed unimportant in the heat of the moment. Yet now that Damon was staring at him, peering out at him with curious intent, he suddenly found himself losing grasp of his momentary fearlessness.
"I mean, can't you ever be serious? Christ, Damon, I'm about ready to jump off a window ledge and all you can do is joke."
"Sorry."
Blearily, he pressed his sweaty palms against the brick wall behind him, his gaze still locked between his feet and the blurry landscape teetering below him. He was afraid to tear his eyes away, as though doing so might cause him to leap off at that very moment.
"Just...just stop talking, okay?"
"Okay."
There was a moment of silence between them as Graham stared downward once again. He closed his eyes, trying to catch his breath and focus on the sound of the traffic moving below them. Beside him, he could hear Damon take a long breath, as though he were about to say something, but stopped himself. The guitarist clenched his teeth, his eyes still closed.
"What?"
"Do you wanna talk about it?"
Graham bit his lip, hard, wincing as the steely taste of blood crept onto his tongue.
"Does it look like I want to fucking talk about it?"
"No," Damon responded, his voice quiet. His eyes still closed, Graham imagined Damon looking over at him, messy blonde hair over blue eyes searching him out curiously.
"Ehm, well..is there any chance I could perhaps convince you not to off yourself?"
Graham laughed, the sort of nihilistic giggle that wasn't pleasant to the ears whatsoever. He swallowed, the taste of blood in his mouth finally starting to disappate a bit.
"Not really, then?"
"Damon, just stop talking. Please."
He heard Damon quietly sigh beside him, only a few meters away, but still physically out of reach. It was funny. He could tell even now, without seeing him, the way the singer's face looked when he said things. For instance, just by picking out the certain strains in Damon's voice he could tell the difference between the singer when he was being genuinely honest, and when he was just being a prick. The latter of which was more often that not, of course. His quiet sigh for instance, on this particular occasion, did seem rather conflicted, as much as Graham could tell. Weary, tired, perhaps a bit sad too, he thought.
Sometimes, knowing Damon as well as and for as long as he had seemed extremely detrimental to his mental health. After a while, tiring of the same pattern of reactions from his friends and family (the ones who still talked to him anyway), he had opted to shut Damon, and everyone else for that matter, out of his head for good.
After all, it's not like he had wanted anyone to come running to his rescue. He was almost certain he'd locked the deadbolt to his room's door before propping open his window and stepping out onto the ledge. He'd spoken to no one about this. No one. He'd even acted perfectly normal at the party, just the right amount of sociable, as if his plans of suicide were not imminent whatsoever. As far as Alex, Dave, and Damon had been concerned, Graham was not acting any different than his normal, anti-social, grumpy self--sans booze, drugs, and whatever else they'd forbidden him to indulge in at the record label's party.
The party. The party was shit. The whole celebration was shit, in fact, and they all knew it. Even when they heard the announcement on the radio they couldn't help but feel cheated, like everything they'd accomplished as Blur up until this point was just a scam, a publicity stunt in a half-arsed excuse for a social class war. You could see the sort of dead defeat in Damon's eyes the moment they announced that 'Country House' had hit number one, that same sort of lifeless stare he got in his eyes every night before they went on stage, like he didn't really want any of this. Like none of them really wanted this.
The only difference between Graham and the rest of them was that at least Graham didn't pretend like everything was still okay. Sure the record label was happy, they'd never been more ecstactic. After Parklife, the record executives had taken a different approach to Damon's ideas, clinging on to every bit and piece of "Britpop" rubbish the band could muster, even if it was something as shallow and lifeless as 'Country House', it didn't matter. They were too busy salvaging whatever remaining bits of this music trend they could squeeze out of them. Manufacture, package, sell, sell, sell.
And as for the real opinions of members of the band? Blur were raking in millions from this publicity stunt. Why not be happy? That was the real question that had been turning around in their minds. After all, isn't this what they'd wanted? To be lifeless pop stars, loved by 50 foot long strands of 13-year-old girls with big placards in the front row, all screaming their tiny, adolescent lungs out at you, as if you were bigger than Elvis. Bigger than Jesus.
"How did you know I was here?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, I locked the door behind me. I know I did." Graham shook his head, his eyes still focused on the landscape in front of him. "There's no way in hell you would have known what I was doing unless you were following me."
Graham watched from the corner of his eye as Damon's body shifted uneasily against the window ledge.
"So what if I did follow you? What then?"
"I don't know." The guitarist bit his lip, still feeling quite unable to process what he should say next. "I really wish you hadn't."
There was a moment of silence between them before Graham cleared his throat, breaking the silence. "Do you really think that there's anything you can say to keep me from doing this?"
"I could tell you that I love you." Damon paused, looking down at his hands. "That Alex and Dave and a whole lot of other people love you, Graham. But I'm not sure that would make a difference."
Graham shook his head, saying nothing. He didn't want to respond. He'd heard people tell him this a million times before. The same pattern of response, over and over until it didn't mean anything anymore. Just a whole shit-load of melancholy rubbish, he thought, utilized at the precise moment.
"You know you left your glasses here, right?" Damon said, picking up the black frames he'd left on the table.
"Didn't think I'd need them."
He opened his eyes to see Damon looking down at the frames in his hands, turning them over absentmindedly.
"I'm not leaving you here," he said quietly, still looking down at his hands. "I made a promise."
"I know."
Graham took a deep breath, feeling defeated as the fall breeze swept his fringe into his eyes. Ever so slowly, he lowered himself down onto the ledge so that his legs dangled. Still not completely convinced, his body language made it obvious to Damon that he was staying put on the ledge. At least for now.
He had the feeling this was going to take a while.