Canyons (Patreon)

Was a bit tired, so I cleaned up another, older snippet for consumption. If anyone spotted it on AO3 you will notice that I switched it into third person. I plan to leave second person strictly for Sidestep stories. To avoid confusion, I also genderswapped Sidestep to female, otherwise the pronouns became too confusing. I do miss the way we handle pronouns in Swedish, it makes it so much easier writing same-sex interactions. Regardless, enjoy!

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There's a weight to the world beneath Daniel that doesn't bind him anymore but which he is desperate to capture. A sense of importance worthy of coal, harsh lines and deep smudges that leave his fingers coal-black, and the edges of the paper marked with fingerprints.

Leave your mark on the world, his father always used to say, but he knows he didn't mean it this way.

Art is something you buy. A sound investment. A thing to show off.

You can't buy a city, or perhaps you can, but not this one. Too broken, too disjointed, without rules, and real in a way that borders on the fantastic. Ugly. Sprawling. Beautiful. Painful.

There's a slight wind, and he has to readjust his position, drifting back to the edge of the roof to get the angle right. He never quite does, there's a dip between the skyscrapers, the black shadows of the streets like scars into the earth, and he wants to capture their depth, but something is lacking. So he keeps trying.

Maybe that's it, maybe that's the beauty of it; he can't capture it like his father wanted him to. He just wants to watch and hold and kiss, and there's a face in his mind, smile like a crack, like the grand canyon, crooked and filled with mysteries and secrets. Water is soft, but it erodes the hardest stone, leaves scars bumpy and smooth for kissing. There's a new page now, the city abandoned for the darkness of a remembered face, and here the coal slides easily, touch-memory, sharp cheekbones, sunken eyes, too tired, fingers rubbing shadows in too-bright eyes, the eraser bringing highlights to the skin, sharp, white lines tracing scars, thin, hard pencil filling in the details from memory.

"What are you doing?" A voice drifting through the wind, from the rooftop below, an anchor, a string to his balloon, and he drifts down, his smile growing wider. 

"How did you know I was up here?" He doesn't question the happy tumble his gut makes; the time for second-guessing is over. He's in love, and if he wasn't already familiar with how cold and wet the clouds truly are, he would have been on cloud nine. Instead, he lands next to Sidestep, feet touching lightly, then the weight of her body grounds him once more. A small indulgence, still thinking of her as Sidestep though she shed that skin long ago. Scorpion to his butterfly, they've both left things behind.

"Lucky guess," she evades, like always. Sidestep still in action, if not in name. "Hope you don't mind I let myself in."

"I gave you a key for a reason," Daniel notes that he got one of the scars wrong; it's above that little bump on the nose, a telltale sign of it having been broken once and not correctly set. Not below. He chides himself for forgetting, then kisses said nose, then the smile that's started to grow, welcoming the anchor her arms provide. "Thank you for coming up here," he whispers. "I know you don't like heights."

"Eh," she says with a shrug, a noncommittal sound that could mean anything. "What were you drawing?"

"The city," he admits with a sheepish grin, showing her the picture, not bothering to mention the face hiding on the next page. "I just never seem to get it right."

"Huh." Another little word that could mean a dozen things, but she wraps an arm around him like a cat draping itself across his shoulder, looking down at the smudged paper. "Looks good to me."

"That's the problem," he admits, leaning into her touch. "It's too clean."

"Of course, it is." An amused laugh, and she kisses his cheek. "What do you think you can see from up here? Fucking architecture, that's what."

"That's not true." He wipes his cheek, giving it another black smudge, and he sees the way her eyes go soft there for a moment, an unguarded thought, a genuine smile, and he lets his own go wider and "Let me show you!"

"Up there?" The smile fades, and her eyes narrow, but he doesn't let her pull away. She's dragged him down and shown him the streets; it's only fair that he gets to show her how the other half lives.

"I won't drop you," he assures, putting down the sketchpad to have both hands free. "I promise."

"Fine," she acquiesces, wrapping her arms around his neck.

"Really?" He knows his smile is too broad, too bright, but he doesn't care to tone it down around her. What's the use of being happy if he can't show it? 

"Don't rub it in." There's the faintest of gasps as he leans down to sweep her up in his arms, something that always seems to surprise her. Maybe he doesn't come across as strong, but she feels light as a feather in his arms. He drifts upwards slower than usual, making sure that there are no sudden movements.

He notices that she doesn't look down; instead, her eyes are fixed on his face. He can't help the faint blush; he's never really gotten used to the way she looks at him, like the Sistine chapel on a sunny day, like seeing the ocean for the first time. A look of wonder and disbelief in equal measure.

"You're going to have to look down," he chides gently, making sure to position himself with the wind at his back, tugging at his hair. Scant protection, but it's all he can do.

"Fine," another sigh, her grip tightening as she stares down at the city as if challenging it to a fight. Maybe that's what this is, holding her hand in the candle flame because he can feel her heart speed up. "What am I looking at?"

"Life," he says, following her gaze. "It's not architecture; it's people. Nobody made plans here, at least not many." The city is filled with scars, surviving pre-quake neighborhoods intersecting with newly built ones, spiraling out into ruins and slum, massive scars still not healed. Since he moved here almost ten years ago, the scars have shrunk, the city healing before his eyes. 

"It's a fucking trainwreck, that's what it is." She sounds more thoughtful than dismissive. "Disjointed. Wrong."

"Beautiful," he counters with. "Fascinating."

"The sky's beautiful." She looks upwards instead, face unreadable even to him. "And the clouds."

"But the sky is empty." He starts drifting back towards the rooftop. "And the clouds are wet. There are no people up there."

"That's not a bad thing."

"You know something?" He lands on the roof, still holding her in his arms, feeling her weight assert itself, fighting hard not to drop her. "Dress warmly, and I'll take you up there one day when it's cloudy. Up above the clouds. Up above the smog. So there's just us and the sun."

"I... might take you up on that." She wriggles out of his arms, and he pretends he's not grateful for it; she was getting heavy. "I like the sun."

"It's a date then," he smiles widely at her and gets rewarded with a reflected smirk and the faintest of blushes. Does she know how cute she is? How much she makes his body tingle just by being near? Her color deepens, so he gives her a wink. "Wanna go inside?"

"Let's." She takes a decisive grip on his hand, pulling him towards the stairs. There's a strength in her hand that's downright thrilling; he's never really gotten over how this makes him feel.

It's not like the girlfriends he's had before; they were soft, friendly, pliable. There's nothing soft about her, angular and hard, scarred in ways he can't understand, only try to empathize with. What is it inside him that makes him crave this? Crave her hands on his body, the way she looks at him like he was holding the rifle at her execution. It shouldn't be this dangerous to fall in love, but for her, it is. She's dooming herself anyway.

Can he do any less?

Three kisses in the stairwell, almost stumbling over each other before the door slides open, depositing them both inside. 

"Get the blinds," she mumbles, nipping at his lips, sending shivers down his spine.

He frees himself reluctantly, walking over to the panel, dragging his finger over it until the windows are opaque like milk. Only then does he turn around and see her watching him, arms crossed, like...

...there's a thrill of desire running through his body, twined with one of fear.

A predator. That's what she looks like. Instinctively his hands go up in defense, and then she steps closer, and he uses those same hands to pull her into a hug. What does it say about him that he likes the way she makes him feel? The way she knows what he wants? What he thinks about her? No pretensions. No masks. He doesn't have to be Herald. Doesn't have to be a hero. Not even a Sullivan. Just a man.

What a relief that is.