**29 >:3
29. “I don’t... I don’t think I can.” - From this ask meme
“You can.” John insists, ever so soft but with an urgency to the way his hands are stretched out toward her, reaching across the dangerous maw as if he could actually reach her across the ridiculous distance that’s opened up between them. “I’ll catch you Star, you know I will.” There’s a firm set to his jaw and a strength to his shoulders, blocky and static like he really believes she can.
The jump must be over six feet, nearly seven. Possible for a human if they were, say, average at long jump, but with the unstable edge and the broken, sheared off bits of concrete scattered around them, the twisted, weakening rebar strands, the only things that are sewing together the dark, terrifying chasm that’s split open between them, are being pulled thinner and thinner, this jump feels anything but average.
“It’s only going to get wider as the building subsides.” The urgency is growing in his voice, “You need to be on this side.” He presents it like it’s all very logical and rational, but that doesn’t mean it’s not also absolutely ridiculous. “You can do this.” John promises, his expression open and certain in the face of her panic, “Don’t look down.” He prompts her wandering eyes back up to his face, waving a little to keep her attention. “Just focus on me, ok? Take a deep breath then jump. You know I won’t let you fall.”
If Star screams a lot as she sucks in a breath, takes a run up and leaps into the void on faith in him alone, nothing but air beneath her feet and terror in her lungs, then John isn’t going to judge her for it.
Fingers meet fingers and there’s a pull across the last few metres and a slam as they’re sent crashing, colliding into each other. John’s got a arm around her back and her chest is heaving and it would have been fine, would have been perfect, if only the slushy rubbley concrete beneath John’s left foot, the one closest to the edge, hadn’t pick that exact moment to give way.
And, with a look of pure shock, he starts to fall.