Hold Your Horses Now (We Sleep Until The Sun Goes Down)

[Wham Yubeesling]

The sun shone, up above the Denton sky. Beams of light rained down onto the earth, their warmth keeping the planet it fed and the people who the planet fed alive, for another day. Today, the sun was rather warm. Not cold, but nothing like a heatwave, either. Maybe, with the clouds in the sky, it might not be as nice somewhere else in the city than it was here; but with the land where some of the light shone, the rooftop furnished with steel, the heat collected as it, was absorbed. The light shone upon P.J. Hobbs Senior High School, where students who had finally achieved their lunch break roamed the halls and the grounds, and who felt the heat comfort them as they made their way to where they wanted to go. Above laid the clouds, one or two, scattered across the blue sky of Denton. White in colour, and shaped like however the bearer thought they were shaped.

And above that - above the school, above the sky - there were satellites. Metal objects, floating around the planet Earth, seeing what laid beyond and seeing what laid within. And within them, laid people. Like you. Like me. They were away from everything they knew - their homes, their cities, their planet - to achieving their dream of one day leaving it behind. They floated through these satellites, doing their job. Seeing what laid beyond, seeing what laid within. Making sure that everything worked as it was supposed to. Looking at the place where everything they knew laid.

Looking at the place that they had once called home.

And even further away - beyond the school, beyond the sky, beyond the satellites - was a vast, black expanse that surrounded the Planet Earth. Stars, small dots in the night sky that provided light, however little they did. And with those stars lied planets, just like our own. And maybe, beyond the school, beyond the sky, beyond the satellites, under the stars, there laid life, just like our own.

But that wasn’t what mattered, right now.

Because under the stars, under the satellites, and under the Denton sky, there laid a school. And within this school, on the rooftop furnished with steel, a young man slept, unaware as to what laid around him.

This is his story.

((“Badass” Johnny Lancer: Sandbox Start))

[delicateMachine]

Ah geeze.

((Hey, Daniel Whitten. It's been a while.))

It was a rather pleasant day to be outside, (though did the roof count really count as being outside? You had to go back inside to actually get anywhere else, after all) which was a good thing since Daniel had soccer practice after school. Not like the goodness of that statement only depended on whether he would be forced to experience the weather or not, though. Hold up. Weather, whether. Whether weather was relevant? Could he stuff any more in there? Weather, whether, whenever, whichever? Whatever. (Ha.)

More importantly: should he wake Johnny up or not? Like, the dude was in the nap zone right now. Secluded, nothing to stop you from feeling like the sun was giving you a warm hug. Or blinding you, Daniel had to squint to see comfortably. Heck, he'd be pretty tempted to lay down for a quick snooze, himself; if it wasn't for the fact that the only thing that would accomplish would be making him extra alert for his Pre-Calc class, making it subjectively take even longer than usual. Well, and also let him pay better attention and stuff, but he found it difficult to care too much. Ah, there it was again; that lackadaisical attitude that was the source of all his mathematical woes; not to mention drawing Michael's ire whenever the poor guy had to help walk him through a problem.

Johnny was still sound asleep, meaning Daniel still had to make a decision. Darn. He slipped his phone out his pocket to check the time, fumbling it and narrowly recovering before it fell to the hard roof below. Nice. It looked like they had about fifteen minutes left before lunch ended, which wasn't so bad. The question then was whether or not Johnny had actually meant to fall asleep or not. Had he set an alarm, or would he sleep through his entire next class without intervention? Daniel considered playing it safe and only waking him up just before lunch ended, but he knew being told "hey guy, good morning, you need to be in class right now immediately" was pretty disorienting!

Yeah, it'd probably be best just to wake him up now. Daniel carefully crept up to his friend and nudged his shoulder. "Heya, Johnny? Sorry if I'm, uh, ruining your afternoon?"

[Wham Yubeesling]

The voice calling out brought him back up.

Chains, dragging. Pushing. The soul of the sleeping one came back, and jolts of energy went through his body. Fingers twitched. Back throbbed. Eyes open-

Sun.

In his eyes.

Ow.

Eyes closed, tight as they could be. Hands moved behind, trying to find the ground that laid beneath him. Body moved. Head bobbed up.

Eyes opened. Looked around. Blurry. Unfocused. The image of the school roof laid in front of him, but it wasn’t right. The sun was there. Not the actual sun but the image of it was there, in front of him. He shook his head. The image lingered; red, bright, fading. He closed his eyes. Rubbed them. The sleep dust or whatever it was called was still in his eyes, he tried to rub them because that was what he always did but it didn’t work. Never really did. He opened his eyes again. The image of the sun was still there. The feeling of tiredness was still in his eyes. Renewed. Feeling worse for him than it was before. Ugh. He looked around, feeling for the ground again. Probably needed some water. He was pretty sure that also worked.

Wait.

That person was staring at him, weren’t they?

Crap, they were, he was sure. They were looking at him. They were waiting for him to say something. Words to say to start the conversation between the two people on the roof. Yeah. No. He knew how to do this. Did it every day with Danny and Kitty and the gang. Yeah. Yeah. This was a job for Badass Johnny, and this was a job that Badass Johnny could do well. Conversation. Hennessy. Area of expertise. Yeah, this’d be easy. The image of the sun was still there and everything around him was still blurry but that didn’t matter. This was a mouth thing. Not an eye thing. Nothing had changed. Yeah. He could do this.

...Just fucking say something already, dude.

“Uh…”

Wait, shit, no.

That was Danny standing there.

Kinda imperative that the greeting be different from normal.

Uh…

“Oh, uh. Hey. Sorry Dan, uh, didn’t know who you were at first. Sorta just got up so-”

…

“Wait, how long was I out for?”

[delicateMachine]

Ah man, it looked like Johnny had been pretty deeply asleep, considering how long it took him to figure out what Daniel the exceedingly rude dude had done to him. Maybe he should have given the guy some more time to snooze. Oh well, at least he hadn't like panicked and curled up into a ball and rolled away at turbo speed and busted through the protective fencing or anything. Inventing impossible-case scenarios made everything seem better!

"It's, like. Still lunch, so you're good there. Unless you've been up here all day or something?" Daniel said, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck. Even after all the years they'd known each other, it still felt kinda weird to be called 'Dan.' Like, not a bad weird, it was actually nice when you thought about it. Like, essentially, the dude was going 'hey, we are friends, so I am going to shorten your name, as a mark of our eternal bond, peace.' It still took his brain a second to figure out that he was actually being referred to, though. Like, Daniel liked his name! He thought of himself as 'Daniel', so being called 'Dan' or 'Danny' was like, who the heck is that nerd?

Urgh, that thought was annoyingly familiar. Like, it came up every so often in those exact words, just sorta uselessly circling around. Only so many ways you can word the specific way you feel about a thing, especially when you're never gonna bother to say it out loud. It's not like Daniel wanted Johnny to stop it or anything. He was like a record just scratching through the same grooves over and over again. Records did have grooves, right? His dad had some Iron Maiden vinyls, but it's not like their house had a record player or anything, so they were kinda just there for appearances.

Daniel was still technically having a conversation now, wasn't he? "I just, like, didn't want you to sleep through anything important, I guess?"

[Wham Yubeesling]

“Alright, guess that’s, uh, good.”

Was it, though? Badass Johnny was asking a sorta important question here. It was lunch now. Was it lunch then? Would be an issue if it wasn’t. Today was Tuesday. Tuesday? Yeah, Tuesday. He had… a class before lunch. No frees during that time. That didn’t really matter if he’d decided to take his nap at lunch but if he’d taken his nap at recess then that meant that he’d slept through the class. That wasn’t good. Well, it was Social Studies, but still. Probably the most uninspiring class of all time but that didn’t mean it deserved to be forgotten about accidently. That was like, a shitty thing and stuff. Not something that Johnny would do.

Well.

Least not on purpose.

But wait, no. He was there. He remembered now. Teacher dude talked to him about something. Couldn’t remember what. But he was there. He knew that now.

...Man, this sleep dust really had an effect on his memory, didn’t it?

“But yeah, uh, I think I went asleep starta’ lunch so I don’t think I missed anything, uh…”

He looked at Danny for a second. The crisis got averted, but there wasn’t really anything next.

Oh well, he had just the perfect question for when these came up. Specialty of Badass Johnny. That stuff about talking earlier hadn’t been for show.

“So, how’s the day been treating you?”

Case example. Right here.