Deep into the trees, near particular rock formations (aka: Site of Tej's project) with @zaidshair It called, and Tej answered. Any time of the day or night. He'd hear a faint beat. A pulse. A steadiness that turned into the smack of a snare drum. He'd stop whatever he was doing and set out with steps in time to its rhythm.
As he walked, a song began to take shape. A jangly guitar, a driving bass tight with the drums. A lead guitar kicked in, on fire. Scratchy and anthemic enough to send Tej into a sprint.
After all this time, he liked to run towards something. Almost made him giddy.
Once in front of his incomplete work, he began to sweat. The heat, the fever. Tunnel vision-- or had the dark simply shrouded around him? With a blank stare, unblinking eyes froze on a tower built out of everything he'd collected over the last year. (Longer? Whatever.)
Maybe all the pieces stitched themselves together. And all Tej did was stand there, absorbing light. Gaze locked with the empty eyes of a face he could've sworn peered out amongst the junk.
The realization someone else had walked up peeled the attention off his project. An annoying jolt, like daydreaming out a train window and being rudely interrupted by the sudden glare of sunlight.
"Heard you're in the tower now. Long way out from that, hey." Tej kept it to a bare glance at Zaid. "Couldn't even get you to cross the street for a coffee, way back when." Let alone go for an actual walk. Of course, Zaid had a monstrosity of an espresso machine. Industrial, restaurant quality. Straight from Milan or some shit like that. They never needed to go out for coffee, did they?
"You wanna wreck this too?" A bored murmur as he gestured specifically to one of the hornet cctv 'faces' near the top of the pile. A flashback to a hornet's nest in a bungalow. Bzzz. Now, Tej became entranced with their images in the reflection of the screen. "Or, uh..." So much so, Tej didn't realize he'd trailed off completely.