"Got a light?"
@pvnchie
He had been sitting alone, feet dangling over the edge of a building in the same way they had done for the past 4 nights that week. A certain tiredness weighed them down, joining forces with gravity in an attempt to drag him to the concrete below, should he lean forward any further.
Below him, cars crawled along the city roads like tamed predators built with metal sheets and rubber, making their existence in the world known with deep grumbles of tired engines and harsh lights that acted as their eyes. His own blue eyes, now stained with green, stared down at the metal beasts, the mind behind them wondering - for a short moment - if he would get lucky and splatter across two of them instead of just one, or none at all, if his tiredness ever did pull him down.
Dying does that to you. Or at least, dying did that to him. The shock of it wears off, replaced by the true realisation that the world really does just go on without you. It continues it's orbital path, and the people continue their own lives. Sometimes the grief period lasts a while, sometimes it doesn't even end - but ultimately, you mean nothing. Your atoms are repurposed, rebuilt into something - or someone - new, and the cycle continues on.
Except he wasn't repurposed, not really. He was reanimated. The atoms that made him were caught in a net, pulled in from the ocean of stars just to be settled into shape once more. But that didn't mean he came back right. Not at all.
And so, when the voice behind him rippled through his atmosphere, he didn't flinch. Didn't startle or yelp. He simply reached into his pocket, and pulled the battered lighter from the depths of his jacket.
Sparking it once, the flame flitting in the air like a ghost between them --
-- the Red Hood offered a light.