Thank you @camillathe6th for the tag, your dedication to Not Wednesday is inspiring. Quiet literally in fact, since some of your Romare fics put Daniel on my brain and I wanted to try and write from his pov.
Tagging @wonda-ch, @punkranger @silvery-bluish @kidhellion and anyone who would like to, no pressure either way. 💙
There's not a single cloud in the sky today, it's just an endless expanse of bright blue emptiness, pretty as a painting. More Newman than Rothko, solid and unyielding but destined to change against the sunset. Still, it's beautiful, high above the smog from the city below.
It calls to me sometimes, urging me to take off from this roof and jet off into that vastness as hard and fast as I can. How far could I go before the cold and lack of oxygen got to me? Would it hurt? Would I die? Maybe I'd just drift off into space. I'd hope so, plummeting back down to earth would be…gruesome. Just a stain on the pavement.
No these are intrusive thoughts, I know that and I don't want Tegan to hear so I turn them down. Fill the dark space with something bright, like the sun that's creeping further up in the sky forcing our sparring session to an end. Soon it will be too hot up here, neither of us wanting to leave the rooftop privacy for the air conditioned training room at HQ. I'm grateful for it, no interruptions or onlookers and it's nice to have time for just the two of us, even if I'm sore at the end. I don't think I mind that and that's ok isn't it?
I wipe the sweat from my face with my shirt and I wonder if Tegan looks. It would be ok, I wouldn't mind, I'm not magazine cover, poster child Daniel right now, I'm just me. Or at least I'd like to think so. No, I know so. That Daniel is an act, no matter how good I've gotten at playing it. See dad? Theater lessons did pay off. No, brightness, remember? It's not just for me.
We retreat into the minimal shade offered by the rooftop entrance. Tegan sinks down onto the concrete and I float down next to him grabbing an energy drink I had stashed there. It's not cold anymore, but it's better than nothing.
"Ugh, how can you drink those?" Tegan pulls at his t-shirt to fan himself. I feel bad for him in his extra layers, he looks uncomfortable but I know I shouldn't ask why he needs them, despite how badly I want to.
"Hey, they're not that bad." I mean, they are, but it's not about the taste, sometimes chemically sweet carbonated caffeine is just what you need, even when it's bad for you. I'm allowed to have a small vice or two, these ones even have my name on them.
"Those things'll kill you." He fishes around in his pocket for what I know will be a carton of cigarettes. Sure enough, he shakes one out of the package and lights it, taking a deep drag. Hypocrite. Maybe he thinks he's funny. It's hard to tell, he's a difficult man to read. His hands are steady when he slams me into the concrete when we spar, but shaky when they help me up.
"Yeah, that would be a pretty embarrassing headline." I laugh, playing along. "Ranger felled by caffeine overdose."
Tegan's snort could almost be mistaken for a laugh. Or do I just want it to be one?
"Not more embarrassing than losing to Retribution a second time." Tegan doesn’t like eye contact but he still glances at me out of the corner of his eye. There's an edge in his voice I don’t understand. Maybe we’re still sparring.
“That won’t happen.” I’m not acting when I say it, it's not bravado. I mean it. That's the whole point of these sessions.
germansingergirl
dailybridgerton
2087
vaporwave
discoholicmusic
