❝ that anger—? it'll eat you alive if you let it. don't. ❞
I CAN’T REMEMBER WHAT MEME THIS IS FROM SO HERE’S ALL OF THEM
“it’s not anger.” even in the middle of the summer james is always impressed with how cold it could get in the desert once the sun had set. he shivers, trying to brush away the goosebumps on his arms with hot, open palms, fighting to keep his gaze on some point in the middle distance, the place where the edge of the world seems to smudge into the sky, everything indigo and black and velvet.
but every time keith shifts, moving his arm, curling his hand into a fist, hair blowing into his face, james is drawn to him, eyes darting over then away, guilty, of what he doesn’t know. not yet.
“it was never anger, not when we were kids.”
rizavi’s stash of booze hadn’t made it all the way through the end of the world, running out perhaps a good year after the galra siege had begun, but james thinks if there’s a moment he could use a beer, it would be now. anything to make this easier, to dull the sharp pangs of inadequacy. he owes everything to keith, even his success, and its more frustrating than anything.
because as hard as he tries, james is never going to beat natural talent.
in the space between them, envy rolls off in waves. james wonders if keith can feel it, wonders if it’s colder than the air around them, or if it burns. when he speaks, his tone is casual. it doesn’t betray the tension in his fist, blunt nails biting half-moons into his palm. “surprised you hadn’t figured that out by now.”
