Kellen raised an eyebrow to its highest peak, looking at Jacques as if he’d said that the sun rose in the west and set in the east. His first reaction, of course, was a statement that Jacques didn’t need premonition in order to know was coming:
“That’s fine. I’m coming with you.”
And Jacques’ silent and steady gaze was all the answer that Kellen needed to remember what had happened the last time the two of them chose to go and speak with The Chairs. Still in the dark about Jacques’ more successful solo run into the twin buildings of Downtown, Kellen’s mind filled with images of flashing lightning, shattering glass, high winds, and his arms being yanked behind his back in a maneuver that he would have never thought would be used on him.
Today? Today, at this very moment, Kellen was in a good mood. He cast a gaze through the window into the room with his father a mother, a warmth spreading through him as he watched his father reach for a cup of water, carefully, working independently to drink from it before retiring into his pillows and sheets.
“….You are right, of course.”
Though, even as he agreed with Jacques most wise recommendation of Kellen staying behind with his family, he absolutely hated the fact that Jacques was right. It was, after all, very much unlike Kellen to sit in the passive seat of a conflict involving him.
The storm, as he’d preached to his friends and family on multiple occasions, was a dispassionate force. The part of Nature that wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, that which humans associated with flowers growing, and the world thriving. The storm was the part of Nature that people chose to shun, to frown upon, due to its destructive forces. Was it not these very forces, though, they allowed Nature to be as everyone enjoyed it? Storms brought water to plants that needed it was sustenance. Storms brought the shifting of soils, allowing for more nutrient-rich soil to fertilize crops. Storms, he argued, were Nature’s hands-on approach to seeing about change. And lightning.
Well, lightning was just hot-headed and brash….and Kellen couldn’t necessarily say both of those things didn’t always apply to him.
He had watched Jacques move down the hallway, hands reaching to prime a cigarette for him to be about as soon as he was outside of the facility’s walls. It wasn’t until that familiar silhouette disappeared around a corner that he’d return to the room, moving quietly as to not disturb his two sleeping parents. ‘He’s really tired….doctors said that he would be. Won’t be able to stay awake very much for a while.’ Which, though he’d have loved nothing more than to be able to speak more with his father at that point in time, this did give him a bit more privacy in the room to keep on the work that he and Jacques still had to do. Adam’s name had not ventured far away in his mind, and Kellen was still even more aware of the job that Jacques had just embarked upon by himself.
Well, not completely by himself.
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It was almost time for his evening shift to start.
Almost.
Samual had exactly thirteen minutes before his shift would start. Two to walk into the building, 5 to change into his uniform, three to clock in, three to walk to his post where he’d begin the grueling shift of covering the twentieth floor landing. Because, you know, people actually used this entrance all the time and so it was top security. EXCEPT NOT.
Feet kicked up onto an unsuspecting bench, Samual’s eyes were turned upwards into the darkening sky with a lazy droop to them, watching as the clouds seemed to move quicker than one might expect. Wasn’t that always the trippy thing about watching clouds, though? They always seemed like they were moving so quickly when you weren’t moving at all.
“Awh, man, really? Fog at this time of evening? Tch, that’s gunna make my shift all the more miserable.” And, even though he was absolutely right in that the twentieth floor had quite a chill to it when you were stationed outside, it made him all the more grateful for Mar, who had done him well to pack a jacket, just in case. She always packed a jacket, just in case, since he worked outside.