“Need a hand?”
It’s the utmost basic thing, being addressed by the only other person in your company. Would be weird if they didn’t. But Caspian still can’t help the flutter in his chest when Taroko looks at him, speaks to him, holds out his hand to him as he’s doing now.
Accepting the lift, Caspian boosts himself on top of the crumbling brick wall, joining Taroko at the top. For a moment he teeters unsteadily, and wonders wildly if he’s going to send them both crashing to the ground – but Taroko holds him firm, plants the both of them, and when he catches his breath they’re closing the short distance to the neighboring roof.
They’re still a few blocks away from the place Taaldros and Bethana had told them they should wait. Against the backdrop of the steadily setting sun, the two of them patter across one roof to the next, Caspian hoping very much this isn’t the day where he slips and ruins this for everyone.
“I think it’s that one,” Taroko says, pointing towards a modest townhouse, the marker being a rusted old water tank on spindly legs, that looks like a tired metal spider ready to keel over.
With Taroko’s reassuringly firm grip, he scales up a short brick chimney stack.
Lemsworth’s house is a bit less obvious, but it’s painted white and, conspicuously, mostly intact. With their sights set on all their targets, the two of them are left with nothing to do but wait.
Beneath the vermillion rays of what remains of the summer sun, Taroko’s dark skin seems even deeper, all the warmer, muscled limbs glowing freely as if he’s taking that celestial energy and spinning it into something new. Not for the first time, Caspian finds their entire situation bewildering. What in the world does Taroko see in him? Were this a gusty day he’s liable to be blown clean off the rooftop. And he knows very well that if it came down to a knife fight, Taroko would beat him ten to one. Not to mention that he isn’t very plotty, nor does he find himself particularly clever; where he feels like he’s barely treading water, Taroko’s swimming laps.
But this must be real, right? This has to be something. Because they don’t need to sit this closely just to get the job done, certainly don’t need to be pressed hip to hip. If he thinks back - and it isn't hard for him at this point, his romantic encounters numbering so few, but still - no one's ever made him feel this way. He had done his fair share of fooling around in Avanthal, the stammering, blushing sort of nonsense one gets up to when one is less than 12. His first kiss was another girl from Snowsong Hold, named Laitha, and he had asked if he could do it, and she had said yes, and in the mess of their bulky fur hoods and all the frost collecting on their noses, he had missed. After a lot of fumbling - and he has to thank Laitha, in retrospect, for her saintly amount of patience - he had finally landed true, and the two had sat on the knoll in the tundra with their heavily mittened hands piled atop each other. From that moment he could never bring himself to make eye contact with her again, and the feeling was mutual. Then later, having spent all of his teenage years in Sunberth -
He avoids people. They avoid him. He's fumbled around plenty, but like everyone here, he knows things are fleeting, that people come and go. So his being here with Taroko, their seeing each other for so many hours on so many consecutive days -
The feeling is grand and enormous and wants to swell up from him, burst from his throat. He wants to tell Taroko. He's not sure what, exactly, but this feels like such a shift and a change in who he is at his core, and he doesn't want to go back to whoever he was before they met. He doesn't think he can.
Somewhere in the distance, a bell tolls. As it’s summer, it’s actually quite late in the day, spilling right into evening, despite how lovingly the sun lingers. With hands shielding their eyes against the last of its rays, they watch towards the west – and just as the day begins to slip to darkness, and Caspian wonders if it would be terribly risky to take Taroko’s free hand in his own, they spot the telltale signs of a mass of torchlights heading on deathly march down the street.
“That’s it, then.” Taroko’s voice has a tremor in it – unusual, for him, but not from any nervousness.
Just sheer excitement at the idea of what might come next.
And that –
Caspian can certainly relate to.
Taroko hands Caspian the conspicuously lime-green flag Tamande had given them for this purpose. “Want to do the honors?”
The barest breeze alleviating the heat rising across his skin, Caspian stands atop the chimney stack and waves the flag.
Several blocks down, near-adjacent to Lemsworth’s house, a bright yellow flag waves in response.
“Petch yeah,” Taroko hisses gleefully, hopping down from the chimney.
Caspian follows suit, and the two of them begin their swift journey across the rest of the roofs to meet them.
It’s the utmost basic thing, being addressed by the only other person in your company. Would be weird if they didn’t. But Caspian still can’t help the flutter in his chest when Taroko looks at him, speaks to him, holds out his hand to him as he’s doing now.
Accepting the lift, Caspian boosts himself on top of the crumbling brick wall, joining Taroko at the top. For a moment he teeters unsteadily, and wonders wildly if he’s going to send them both crashing to the ground – but Taroko holds him firm, plants the both of them, and when he catches his breath they’re closing the short distance to the neighboring roof.
They’re still a few blocks away from the place Taaldros and Bethana had told them they should wait. Against the backdrop of the steadily setting sun, the two of them patter across one roof to the next, Caspian hoping very much this isn’t the day where he slips and ruins this for everyone.
“I think it’s that one,” Taroko says, pointing towards a modest townhouse, the marker being a rusted old water tank on spindly legs, that looks like a tired metal spider ready to keel over.
With Taroko’s reassuringly firm grip, he scales up a short brick chimney stack.
Lemsworth’s house is a bit less obvious, but it’s painted white and, conspicuously, mostly intact. With their sights set on all their targets, the two of them are left with nothing to do but wait.
Beneath the vermillion rays of what remains of the summer sun, Taroko’s dark skin seems even deeper, all the warmer, muscled limbs glowing freely as if he’s taking that celestial energy and spinning it into something new. Not for the first time, Caspian finds their entire situation bewildering. What in the world does Taroko see in him? Were this a gusty day he’s liable to be blown clean off the rooftop. And he knows very well that if it came down to a knife fight, Taroko would beat him ten to one. Not to mention that he isn’t very plotty, nor does he find himself particularly clever; where he feels like he’s barely treading water, Taroko’s swimming laps.
But this must be real, right? This has to be something. Because they don’t need to sit this closely just to get the job done, certainly don’t need to be pressed hip to hip. If he thinks back - and it isn't hard for him at this point, his romantic encounters numbering so few, but still - no one's ever made him feel this way. He had done his fair share of fooling around in Avanthal, the stammering, blushing sort of nonsense one gets up to when one is less than 12. His first kiss was another girl from Snowsong Hold, named Laitha, and he had asked if he could do it, and she had said yes, and in the mess of their bulky fur hoods and all the frost collecting on their noses, he had missed. After a lot of fumbling - and he has to thank Laitha, in retrospect, for her saintly amount of patience - he had finally landed true, and the two had sat on the knoll in the tundra with their heavily mittened hands piled atop each other. From that moment he could never bring himself to make eye contact with her again, and the feeling was mutual. Then later, having spent all of his teenage years in Sunberth -
He avoids people. They avoid him. He's fumbled around plenty, but like everyone here, he knows things are fleeting, that people come and go. So his being here with Taroko, their seeing each other for so many hours on so many consecutive days -
The feeling is grand and enormous and wants to swell up from him, burst from his throat. He wants to tell Taroko. He's not sure what, exactly, but this feels like such a shift and a change in who he is at his core, and he doesn't want to go back to whoever he was before they met. He doesn't think he can.
Somewhere in the distance, a bell tolls. As it’s summer, it’s actually quite late in the day, spilling right into evening, despite how lovingly the sun lingers. With hands shielding their eyes against the last of its rays, they watch towards the west – and just as the day begins to slip to darkness, and Caspian wonders if it would be terribly risky to take Taroko’s free hand in his own, they spot the telltale signs of a mass of torchlights heading on deathly march down the street.
“That’s it, then.” Taroko’s voice has a tremor in it – unusual, for him, but not from any nervousness.
Just sheer excitement at the idea of what might come next.
And that –
Caspian can certainly relate to.
Taroko hands Caspian the conspicuously lime-green flag Tamande had given them for this purpose. “Want to do the honors?”
The barest breeze alleviating the heat rising across his skin, Caspian stands atop the chimney stack and waves the flag.
Several blocks down, near-adjacent to Lemsworth’s house, a bright yellow flag waves in response.
“Petch yeah,” Taroko hisses gleefully, hopping down from the chimney.
Caspian follows suit, and the two of them begin their swift journey across the rest of the roofs to meet them.
x
