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WHO: Apollo Avila & Sloane Lynfield
WHEN: Saturday January 24th
WHERE: Battlest Hangar
WHAT: That moment when you find the wallet you lost five minutes after cancelling your credit cards.
WARNINGS: None Really!
There’s truly nothing to do on this ship. It’s midday when Apollo heads to the Battlest hangar with the intention of checking the instruments on his plane, more a nervous tick than a real chore. But it’s not like there’s anything better to do, and he’ll go insane if he does nothing, so here he is. The hangar is a little more crowded than usual, with a group of pilots surrounding a new recruit in a flight suit, a slender female figure that immediately fires a spark of recognition in his mind.
That is Sloane.
It’s a stupid thing to think, he knows. He’s not prone to thinking he sees her out of the corner of his eye, generally. But then she pulls her flight helmet off, and shakes her hair out, and it is Sloane. She’s all backlit by a worklight which he logically knows can’t have the color temperature of the sun, but in his mind that’s how it looks anyway.
I’ve really lost it now, he thinks. He’s fairly certain he isn’t dreaming, but he doesn’t know if that’s worse. A full hallucination during waking hours has got to precipitate something catastrophic happening in his brain. Just then, she looks up at him, and after holding her gaze for a second he lifts one hand in a small gesture of greeting.
Her hand raises slowly to wave back. The helmet drops to the ground with a low thunk. One of the other pilots leans down to pick it up, but Sloane is already going, and shoves her new colleague’s shoulder away as they offer it back so she can pass. Apollo’s is a phantom face. She hasn’t seen it in years, outside those dreams where she follows him down long paths to nowhere at all. They always end when she catches up, touches his shoulder, and he dissipates like so much fog. There’s the urge to catch him so he can’t, this time.
Her brain catches up with her feet about halfway across the hangar. This could be a test. An illusion. Another dream, or a malfunction of her implant. It would be extremely predictable, actually, for this particular silent apparition to be used against her now. Sloane stills for a moment, tilting her head, assessing. Then suddenly, she calls out, demanding from this safe distance, “Say something.”
“Hey,” is all Apollo can manage, although he also takes a few long strides towards her, concerned about making a scene if this is some kind of hallucination and he’s the only one who sees her.
Good enough. That’s his voice. The sound of it makes her face go pale and drawn and simultaneously split into a broad grin. Sometimes it’s still difficult for her to let emotions out one at a time. Sloane crosses to him, staring for several long seconds because she can’t think what else to do or say. She’s never let herself imagine this conversation. She blinks slowly twice in the end, and finally decides on,
“I thought…I mean. I should have known it wasn’t bears.”
Her smile catches him off guard and he shuffles back a step as she approaches him. He’s not sure why he’s surprised that she’s happy to see him. It’s a perfectly rational thing to be. She thought he was dead. The entire time he’d been in the stronghold, he’d grappled with his guilt over that very thing. Still, somehow it’s not a relief. It’d be easier if she were angry at him. At least then she’d look less familiar.
“You should’ve. A bear couldn’t get me,” he says, boastful. From her perspective, that itself is unlike him; he was self-assured, but always humble. Also, he never would’ve been irreverent about the threat of bears.
Strange tone. Well. Of course, strange tone. The last time they saw each other, they were both different people entirely. A cloud washes over her face, shrouding it in dark petulance and slight dismay.
“You’re not immune to bears, Apollo.”
“Hasn’t been a problem for me yet,” he says, and hover-hand leads her away from the main thoroughfare to tuck them between De Vries and Whitmore’s planes. It’s not a lot of privacy, but it’s better than having literally everyone in the hangar staring at them. “What are you doing here, Sloane?”
Now that she’s out of her initial state of shock, Sloane spares a glance back at their colleagues who are probably all wondering what’s going on. She follows him without protest, slipping into the shadows of the planes. But her frown deepens, too. This question has an obvious answer, and she’s not sure how many other ones there could possibly be.
“What do you think? I woke up. I was told there was something to fight for, so now I’m fighting. Isn’t that how you’re here, too?”
His eyes pinch shut, an expression that looks like it might be irritation or physical pain. Then he shakes his head. There are plenty of things he’d rather not have to explain to her — a laundry list of them, really. But he figures if she’s really here there’s no getting out of it anyway.
“No, it’s different for me. Kind of.” He sighs, and looks at her again, feeling a little more certain that this is all real and happening. “Before I moved to Jackson, I wasn’t under the Veil. I never had been. I’d been living out in the desert in Utah with a bunch of other people who’ve never been chipped. Some of them followed me to Yellowstone. They brought me here.”
“That’s lucky.”
But that’s not fair. Though the words had just tumbled out, she shakes her head in immediate retraction. This makes sense. He’d never told her much of anything about his family, his friends, where he’d come from before he just showed up in Jackson one day. Of course, back then, she hadn’t really thought to press and ask why. This anger isn’t for him. It’s just one more piece of rage at having spent so much time not knowing her own life. She looks up, apologetic.
“So you shouldn’t have been in Jackson in the first place.”
“Guess not,” he says, although he’s troubled by the concept that any of them should be anywhere in particular. The entire world has been upended, and none of it feels right or called for. Maybe Sloane wasn’t meant to be in Jackson, either. “Doesn’t matter. I’m here now.”
“Guess we’re both here now.”
Sloane’s suddenly exhausted, and leans against the wheel of the plane. Which reminds her why that’s strange. She chances a smile at him, smaller than before.
“Flying. Since when do you do that, anyway?”
“They said they needed pilots,” Apollo says.
She acquiesces this point with a little nod to the side.
“I can help, if you ever want to practice.” Sloane says this as though she was talking to someone else in her training class, perhaps. For a second she forgets who he was. She remembers again and waves her hand in frustration at having to quantify,
“If that’s not weird.”
The thing is, Apollo has no idea if it’s weird. It’s not like there’s a handbook about this kind of thing. He had spent his long months in the stronghold intermittently daydreaming ways he might be able to rescue Sloane from her mundane life in Jackson, but having her turn up on his doorstep is far outside anything he ever imagined. It does feel awkward, and foreign, and he’s uncharacteristically unsure of himself.
Despite it all, he does still have an underlying desire to impress her that he isn’t able to ignore.
“If you want to give me pointers,” he agrees, tucking his hands into his pockets. “I was an easy favorite for best recruit before you showed up.
Her smile this time is different, probably, than the ones Apollo has seen in the past. It’s unpracticed, too wide, uneven, and accompanied by a small, familiar stab of fondness she’d forgotten about. She shoves it away, back down with everything else that she’d left behind.
“Lucky that I believe in fair competition, then. I don’t want a head start.”
WHEN: Saturday January 24th
WHERE: Battlest Hangar
WHAT: That moment when you find the wallet you lost five minutes after cancelling your credit cards.
WARNINGS: None Really!
There’s truly nothing to do on this ship. It’s midday when Apollo heads to the Battlest hangar with the intention of checking the instruments on his plane, more a nervous tick than a real chore. But it’s not like there’s anything better to do, and he’ll go insane if he does nothing, so here he is. The hangar is a little more crowded than usual, with a group of pilots surrounding a new recruit in a flight suit, a slender female figure that immediately fires a spark of recognition in his mind.
That is Sloane.
It’s a stupid thing to think, he knows. He’s not prone to thinking he sees her out of the corner of his eye, generally. But then she pulls her flight helmet off, and shakes her hair out, and it is Sloane. She’s all backlit by a worklight which he logically knows can’t have the color temperature of the sun, but in his mind that’s how it looks anyway.
I’ve really lost it now, he thinks. He’s fairly certain he isn’t dreaming, but he doesn’t know if that’s worse. A full hallucination during waking hours has got to precipitate something catastrophic happening in his brain. Just then, she looks up at him, and after holding her gaze for a second he lifts one hand in a small gesture of greeting.
Her hand raises slowly to wave back. The helmet drops to the ground with a low thunk. One of the other pilots leans down to pick it up, but Sloane is already going, and shoves her new colleague’s shoulder away as they offer it back so she can pass. Apollo’s is a phantom face. She hasn’t seen it in years, outside those dreams where she follows him down long paths to nowhere at all. They always end when she catches up, touches his shoulder, and he dissipates like so much fog. There’s the urge to catch him so he can’t, this time.
Her brain catches up with her feet about halfway across the hangar. This could be a test. An illusion. Another dream, or a malfunction of her implant. It would be extremely predictable, actually, for this particular silent apparition to be used against her now. Sloane stills for a moment, tilting her head, assessing. Then suddenly, she calls out, demanding from this safe distance, “Say something.”
“Hey,” is all Apollo can manage, although he also takes a few long strides towards her, concerned about making a scene if this is some kind of hallucination and he’s the only one who sees her.
Good enough. That’s his voice. The sound of it makes her face go pale and drawn and simultaneously split into a broad grin. Sometimes it’s still difficult for her to let emotions out one at a time. Sloane crosses to him, staring for several long seconds because she can’t think what else to do or say. She’s never let herself imagine this conversation. She blinks slowly twice in the end, and finally decides on,
“I thought…I mean. I should have known it wasn’t bears.”
Her smile catches him off guard and he shuffles back a step as she approaches him. He’s not sure why he’s surprised that she’s happy to see him. It’s a perfectly rational thing to be. She thought he was dead. The entire time he’d been in the stronghold, he’d grappled with his guilt over that very thing. Still, somehow it’s not a relief. It’d be easier if she were angry at him. At least then she’d look less familiar.
“You should’ve. A bear couldn’t get me,” he says, boastful. From her perspective, that itself is unlike him; he was self-assured, but always humble. Also, he never would’ve been irreverent about the threat of bears.
Strange tone. Well. Of course, strange tone. The last time they saw each other, they were both different people entirely. A cloud washes over her face, shrouding it in dark petulance and slight dismay.
“You’re not immune to bears, Apollo.”
“Hasn’t been a problem for me yet,” he says, and hover-hand leads her away from the main thoroughfare to tuck them between De Vries and Whitmore’s planes. It’s not a lot of privacy, but it’s better than having literally everyone in the hangar staring at them. “What are you doing here, Sloane?”
Now that she’s out of her initial state of shock, Sloane spares a glance back at their colleagues who are probably all wondering what’s going on. She follows him without protest, slipping into the shadows of the planes. But her frown deepens, too. This question has an obvious answer, and she’s not sure how many other ones there could possibly be.
“What do you think? I woke up. I was told there was something to fight for, so now I’m fighting. Isn’t that how you’re here, too?”
His eyes pinch shut, an expression that looks like it might be irritation or physical pain. Then he shakes his head. There are plenty of things he’d rather not have to explain to her — a laundry list of them, really. But he figures if she’s really here there’s no getting out of it anyway.
“No, it’s different for me. Kind of.” He sighs, and looks at her again, feeling a little more certain that this is all real and happening. “Before I moved to Jackson, I wasn’t under the Veil. I never had been. I’d been living out in the desert in Utah with a bunch of other people who’ve never been chipped. Some of them followed me to Yellowstone. They brought me here.”
“That’s lucky.”
But that’s not fair. Though the words had just tumbled out, she shakes her head in immediate retraction. This makes sense. He’d never told her much of anything about his family, his friends, where he’d come from before he just showed up in Jackson one day. Of course, back then, she hadn’t really thought to press and ask why. This anger isn’t for him. It’s just one more piece of rage at having spent so much time not knowing her own life. She looks up, apologetic.
“So you shouldn’t have been in Jackson in the first place.”
“Guess not,” he says, although he’s troubled by the concept that any of them should be anywhere in particular. The entire world has been upended, and none of it feels right or called for. Maybe Sloane wasn’t meant to be in Jackson, either. “Doesn’t matter. I’m here now.”
“Guess we’re both here now.”
Sloane’s suddenly exhausted, and leans against the wheel of the plane. Which reminds her why that’s strange. She chances a smile at him, smaller than before.
“Flying. Since when do you do that, anyway?”
“They said they needed pilots,” Apollo says.
She acquiesces this point with a little nod to the side.
“I can help, if you ever want to practice.” Sloane says this as though she was talking to someone else in her training class, perhaps. For a second she forgets who he was. She remembers again and waves her hand in frustration at having to quantify,
“If that’s not weird.”
The thing is, Apollo has no idea if it’s weird. It’s not like there’s a handbook about this kind of thing. He had spent his long months in the stronghold intermittently daydreaming ways he might be able to rescue Sloane from her mundane life in Jackson, but having her turn up on his doorstep is far outside anything he ever imagined. It does feel awkward, and foreign, and he’s uncharacteristically unsure of himself.
Despite it all, he does still have an underlying desire to impress her that he isn’t able to ignore.
“If you want to give me pointers,” he agrees, tucking his hands into his pockets. “I was an easy favorite for best recruit before you showed up.
Her smile this time is different, probably, than the ones Apollo has seen in the past. It’s unpracticed, too wide, uneven, and accompanied by a small, familiar stab of fondness she’d forgotten about. She shoves it away, back down with everything else that she’d left behind.
“Lucky that I believe in fair competition, then. I don’t want a head start.”
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but also I am obsessed with Also, he never would’ve been irreverent about the threat of bears.