Send me a ♫ and I'll write a drabble between our characters to the next song on my playlist.AWOL Nation - Kill Your Heroes (x)
Raleigh has never been a basketball player. Hockey, yes. Football, a few times. Even baseball. But basketball just hasn't ever really been a feature in his life. And for a while after knowing Hu, he still doesn't particularly reach out to touch it. Playing one-bounce catch seems pretty much his speed for a while.
But then, one day he catches it and, on a whim, shoots it for the hoop. And he makes it.
It's a lucky shot. It's another week and a half of intermittent practice before he gets a smooth, nothing-but-net shot again. Most of the time it either hits the backboard or just skids off the rim. But then, bit by bit, he gets better.
It's not something he's devoted to. It's never going to be, and he knows it. But sometimes going down onto the floor and taking a shot at it--and watching the smile on Hu's face every time he gets ahead as he invariably does--it seems like progress. Life moving forward.
He knows the hole that gets left by a missing brother. He doesn't even want to imagine losing two people he's been in the Drift with. He never, ever will. He wouldn't survive it. Wouldn't.
But Hu's stronger than he is in that way, and so he makes it a point to not forget to go down to the net, play even for just a few minutes most days when he starts. And maybe the habit won't last forever, but he figures since he knows the ghosts probably won't ever leave Hu's head, that he'll never quite escape the reminder that no one else is ever going to play ball with him the way his brothers had--the melodic, flowing, synchronized movement--that he can show him at least some healthy, distracting dose of weak competition.
It's not a heroic effort--not by a long shot. But it's a start to something, touching something he's not very good at willingly. A start.
