Chapter Text
It dappled the skies with burnishing light, evanescing into a cloudy shade.
Sparkling stars mapped up on the ever-shifting canvas that is the sky, and a growing boy tracing them with his index finger, sparkling outline shining gold before fading. A small notebook made of paper, an antique considered by many, laid open at a page filled with fledgling sketches of the night sky and constellations as well as other miscellaneous doodles. Not perfect, far from it, but in that moment with his back to the fresh dewy grass and the sunrise dawning in front of him (giving him a wide view of the horizon), he found his calm at last.
Until the watch on his wrist beeped an alarm for 6:17am.
And then it was him running as fast as he could, notebook tucked in his jacket as he laughed and tripped a few times (not that he would ever admit it) and ran some more, holding back nothing as he felt his legs burn with effort and the wind whipping his scarf around. And even though he was only getting closer to the city he ran away from in the first place, he blocked out the nightmares and tried to remember his friend who was probably awake and worried sick.
Not for the first time, he stopped a few metres away from the signpost. These days, something keeps on nagging him, and thoughts would race the hardest when he was at the edge of the city. He wondered at that feeling nibbling at him every time he remembered something (like he forgot something else), he wondered was it really worth it to go back to the same old monotonous life and he wondered with every bit of his small tiny heart did he have to? Was there really no other place for him to go? Was there really someone who cared for him here?
Huffing into his scarf, he watched the fogged air rise before dissipating. Maybe these questions had answers. Maybe they didn’t. But they had no place in the here and now.
And so, not for the first time, he continued his run again, weighted once more.
“What are you doing here?”
There was a clatter, a few bangs and a bit more sharp words before he managed to crawl out of the heap he made. The girl watched him, clearly unamused as oil leaked onto the pavement which turned into a dark black mess.
“What is your toolbox doing here?” he snapped back as he tossed out a screw that snuck into his sleeve. “In fact, what are you doing here in the first place?”
She just wrapped her too-big overcoat and walked back inside the building once more. He followed her to a blast of heat and warmth and made himself at home by sitting right under the heater. She shook her head knowingly as she returned to her couch and huddled under the blankets she was in before the noise startled her awake.
“You do know that I’m allowed to stay in here, since it is part my house.” Her coat hung by the closed door, barely ruffled next to the closed windows. Rain softly pattered on the ground and mixed with the oil stain as the tools outside glisten in the morning rains. We’ll clean it later , she thought, despite the fact that her tools were more likely to rust and the oil would be even more difficult to wipe away.
He, in contrast, was slightly irritated due to his run-in with the toolbox and the adrenaline coursing through him, but he refrained from saying anything worse than “Well it’s part Watts house more.”
“But you have to admit it’s also my house, AJ.”
AJ reined in a huff. Two years later and she still manages to be on top, no matter how much metaphoric fuel he has to his arguments. Instead he just settled for listening to the sound of the heater, taking off his boots and directing his toes to the warmth, knowing just as well they had to clean up the mess they left outside.
The girl gave a small smile. Then frowned. “Why were you out in the first place?”
“Because Gabby,” he drew out the name, forcefully emphasizing it, “some people need breaks from the finish line, okay? You might win all the arguments, but this one is not. So please leave it alone.”
Gabby opened her mouth, saw his dark look, and then closed it again.
It was silence once more. Blank walls greeted them, the first floor full of unopened boxes because she already had someplace to live and the thing about having two homes is that you will ultimately have to pick between them. So the boxes stayed unopened and the walls stayed in mismatched colours because this was not the place she would make a fight in. Years living in the city has taught her enough about how they played games here.
It was silence one more because he knew he was stalling, hiding away like usual; he doesn’t want to come back to his own home because he knew that his friend would either be already up already looking for him or helping out. Maybe both. He was always a good multitasker, especially when it came to the life of the one small boy and maybe he didn’t want help? Maybe he wanted to be alone with the background noise of the heater quietly warming him up. Maybe he didn’t need anyone’s help at all.
His hands itched behind the gloves. Her fingers twitched with anticipation.
He broke first. Like always.
“Besides,” he rambled, looking at anywhere but her tired face, “where were you in the last race? I didn’t hear any obnoxious booing coming from your end.”
She broke last but with booming laughter so he counted it as a win. “I cannot believe you didn’t notice. You have heard of Watts’ leaving to chill out with Pegwheel, right?”
“Yeah? So?”
“So,” she rolled her eyes at his clueless expression, “she’s going for a long while, and I have every right to say bye to her and miss the race. Besides, the gist of it was very clear.”
“I didn’t explain properly!”
“You always explain properly!”
And as they argued, the rain cleared up revealing oil mixed with water in hazy rainbow shades and tools catching the strengthening light of the 8 o’clock sun. And they (although reluctantly) got up from their cozy places and picked up and polished the toils to gleaming perfection and wiped the pavement to the best of their ability.
It was all well and good, until a flashing light drew closer and closer towards them.
This is where the story starts.