We're Standing at the Edge of Something

Misfits | Nathan/Kelly | PG-13 | ~1,625

"Immortality," Nathan says. "Which makes my power cooler than all of yours, so blow me."

A/N: For the hc_bingo prompt 'fear of heights'. Written before the second series.

He doesn't know how long it is until he's dug up. Days, weeks, months. His iPod ran out of battery ages ago, and he's lost any sense of time between the whole suffocating and coming back to life again debacle. He remembers light and air, and being pulled awkwardly out of his own grave, and he hadn't even been able to properly enjoy the hug from Kelly because he was too busy breathing.

They take him back to the community centre, half carried between Kelly and Curtis, because it's theirs and it's the safest place any of them really knows anymore. Everything looks exactly the same as when he – well, left isn't really the right term but it sounds less crazy than died, and he's surprised to find his stuff still there, sees the faint beginnings of a blush against Kelly cheeks and wishes he had enough strength to mock her for it until she punched him and everything was normal again.

"You should rest," Alisha says, and Nathan snorts.

"Because that's not what I've been doing for- Wait, how long?"

"Two months," Kelly says, and she's not looking him in the eye, is doing everything possible not to.

"Well fuck," he says, and Curtis laughs but shuts up when Alisha glares at him.

"Here," Simon says, passing him some clean clothes, a towel and the Lynx body wash Nathan's been using for years. Nathan's surprisingly touched. He's been in the ground way too bloody long.

The shower feels too hot and too heavy, the spray practically searing his skin, but it's good to feel something that's not dirt.

He has a wank just because he can.

He's half tempted to tell Kelly he was thinking of her just to see how she reacts.

The others meet him on the rooftop, the battered furniture they nicked a lifetime ago (hah!) still arranged into their own little outdoor living room, though they seem to have gained a few pieces in his absence.

"Nice coffee table," he says, eyebrow raised, and Alisha grins at him.

"Aren't we just a regular middle-class household?"

Nathan snorts and then finds himself knocked onto a sofa as Curtis and Simon arrive, arms laden with Tesco bags and what smells like fish and chips, and Nathan realises just how hungry he is.

"Shit," he says, "I'm starving. Literally."

"Here," Curtis says, chucking him a bag that leaves grease on his fingertips. "Enjoy."

Nathan eats and thinks he'll never take it for granted again. The chips are drenched in vinegar, and he picks the fish apart with his hands, but he's barely a third of the way through when his stomach gives up and he finds himself gagging, his stomach churning painfully.

"I think I'm going to be sick," he says, grabbing a plastic bag and emptying the measly contents of his stomach into it, giving Alisha the finger when she makes a disgusted noise in his direction.

"It's alright," Kelly says, reaching out and holding his shoulder. "You're just not used to it anymore."

The words are less of a consolation than the feel of her skin against his.

"So," he says later when the sky's gone dark, London just dots of light around them. "How'd you know?"

"Kelly," Alisha says. "She heard your thoughts when she visited your grave this morning. We all thought she was bloody insane but, you know, apparently not."

"Cheers," Kelly says.

"Well," Alisha says, "it's a fair assumption. I mean, you have been all weird since Nathan died."

Nathan looks at Kelly, eyebrows raised, and she sends him a glare that's not half as powerful as she means it to be.

"Missed me?" he says, leering, and she punches his arm.

"Shut up."

"Anyway," Curtis says, "I'm just glad no one saw us digging you up. Didn't fancy explaining your whole zombie thing to the police."

"It's not a zombie thing," Nathan says, offended. "I don't know what it is, but it's not a zombie thing."

"Immortality," Simon says, sliding his empty coke can onto the table. He seems less skittish than Nathan remembers, and he can't help but wonder whether Barry's finally got a backbone.

"Immortality," Nathan says. "Which makes my power cooler than all of yours, so blow me."

"Why the fuck did we dig him up again?" Alisha says, but Nathan knows she missed him really.

"What was it like?" Simon asks, his voice cutting across the silence, and Nathan thinks the others might be asleep but then Kelly turns to face him, waiting for the answer too.

"Boring," he says, and it's the truth. "My iPod cut out on fucking George Michael. I had 'Careless Whisper' stuck in my head for ages."

"Why the hell do you have George Michael on your iPod?" Kelly says, and she sounds a little lighter now, a little less scared.

"Shut up," he says. "Anyway, it was boring and I'm pretty sure I just kept dying? I mean, there was no air so I must have been suffocating and waking up and suffocating and waking up."

Kelly's breath catches and he thinks 'oh, shit', because there went her good mood.

"Is it scary to die?" Simon says, and Nathan wants to bite out something sarcastic and mocking, only he's just too happy to be alive and free to bother right now.

"No," he says. "Maybe. It's mostly darkness."

The three of them sit in silence for a bit, Curtis' snores setting a steady rhythm, and Nathan's nowhere close to sleep, probably won't be for a long time, but he relaxes anyway.

The sky's beginning to fade from black to blue, a hint of dawn creeping over the horizon, and the others have been asleep for hours now while Nathan keeps watch over them, the world around him overwhelmingly large compared to his previous haunt.

He gets up to stretch when he hears the first signs of life, feels his bones crack into place and relishes the ability to move. He'd never been a fan of exercise but right now he thought it might just be the most underrated, fantastic thing in the universe. He should start going to the gym or running or something. Maybe.

It's only as he's wandering across the rooftop that the feeling hits him, dizziness and a tightness that spreads across his chest, and then he's too near the edge, too close, and it's like being hit by a bulldozer.

"Nathan?" Kelly says, sitting up and blinking the sleep from her eyes, and Nathan wants to answer her but he can't, can only see the ground below him flooding in to focus too quickly like he's already falling.

It's ridiculous that he'd be afraid of heights; yeah, okay, so the first time he'd died he'd fallen pretty far onto an iron railing, but it wasn't like he didn't come back to life. And besides, surely he'd be more likely to have a phobia of being buried alive (again) or something?

Maybe he does and he just doesn't know it yet. Maybe this immortality thing comes with enough fucked up side effects that it'll just drive him crazy anyway, and isn't that a cheery thought?

Kelly wraps an arm around his waist, pulls him away from the edge and back towards the middle of the room.

"Are you okay?" she says, and he squeezes his eyes closed, wishes he wasn't giving away so many emotions but there's still a crushing weight against his chest so he can't do anything about it.

Kelly runs her hand across his shoulders, the back of his neck, through his hair, and it's something, an anchor, and he clings to the feeling, leans into it. Kelly seems to get the idea, keeps running her hands across his skin and stands close enough that he can feel the rise and fall of her chest against his.

Any other time he'd be cracking comments about her tits, but he figures she knows that anyway. She'll hit him for it later.

"Fuck," he says when his throat opens up enough to talk. "Just what I need."

"It makes sense," Kelly says, but she doesn't move away. "You fell off the roof and died. I'm pretty sure that would give anyone a phobia."

"Fantastic," he says. "That's bloody fantastic."

"Nathan-" Kelly says.

"No," he interrupts, "but really. I mean, what? I'm just going to keep dying and keep getting buried and keep living when everyone else isn't, and now to top it off I have a fucking fear of heights?"

"Nathan-" Kelly says again.

"I mean, what sort of poncy phobia is that? It's like being afraid of spiders or what's under your bed, or-"

He breaks off when Kelly lets out a frustrated sigh and kisses him, and even he's not stupid enough to keep talking instead of taking full advantage of that.

"Right," she says when they pull apart, ignoring the leer he shoots her, and then punches him in the shoulder, hard.

"Ow!" he says. "What was that for?"

"I'm afraid of spiders, wanker."

"Ah," he says, "um. Well, I can always kill them for you?"

Kelly rolls her eyes but she's still standing there which he takes as a good sign.

"Yeah," she says, "and I'll make sure you don't end up on the edge of any tall buildings."

"Right," he says.

"Right," she says.

"You won't tell the others, will you?" he says, glancing nervously at where Alisha, Curtis and Simon are still asleep, oblivious to the world around them.

"Nah," Kelly says, and then she smirks, and it looks evil and ridiculously sexy. "Only if you piss me off."

Nathan thinks that as long as there's shagging in his near future then that's probably a good deal.