Friend In High Places

[Namira]

((continued from Induction))

Roof was fine for now. Not as high up as Javi wanted.

If Javi wanted to, he could have just stayed up in the air to take a break, it was just awkward to sit down and not all that comfortable. Kind of like sitting on a surface that wasn't quite solid and wasn't quite squishy. Always made him feel like he was about to fall, too, even though he was fine so long as he was upright. So he'd come down to here in the end. He was already lower, thanks to waiting around at the guardhouse, but still high enough that he felt a bit secured from the cloud of bugs.

High places were always a comfort to him, had been for a long time. Upwards was a direction people didn't tend to look and didn't tend to go. Roofs were inconvenient, so people didn't bother. Let him be alone in the quiet, away from staring eyes and stupid questions. If it wasn't difficult to get down—and got teachers and the like on his case—then Javi would just have kept on up at the top of rooms and buildings all the time. And like sure, he couldn't control it completely, but it wasn't like he turned into a rocket as soon as he took a step. Some of his schoolmates had to take medication not to kill people with their Gift.

He made a face, and it wasn't because of the taste of the ration bar he was eating. People's medication would be wearing off round about now, if they even bothered taking it in the first place. And that was just the obviously lethal Gifts, the likes of Noah's—Javi had seen him back there but friendly as he was, wasn't enough to outweigh a group that size—where you could straight up cap someone. Plenty others were plenty dangerous, and who said anyone even needed to use their Gift to kill someone? Pretty sure that just about anyone could pick up a brick and brain a person, or strangle them in their sleep. And so on. Point was that even the small amount of extra protection was gone now. Everyone was at max lethal, and animal kingdom over there were sitting behind some computers eating popcorn. Assholes.

Well. Whatever. Nothing said Javi had to take part. Places like this roof weren't easy to reach, and they were only the beginning of things. Roofs usually had stairs. Midair didn't. He hadn't asked about coats just because.

Javi finished off the bar and then took a look around. He seemed relatively secure, for now. It was getting into late afternoon, so he needed to rest up. An hour, maybe two off his feet. Taking a nap. Closing his eyes at least. That would have to be enough. Had shit to do tonight. Walking around earlier on was just the groundwork. The evening was phase two.

...ugh. groundwork.

Javi curled up with his sleeping bag and tried to get some sleep.

((continued in Breaking New Ground))