(no subject)
Title: Grounded
Author: acejillian
Rating: PG
Pairings: none
Word Count: 409
A/N: Written for heroes_flashfic under their wingfic challenge... at 2am.
He's never seen them, but he knows they are there.
He feels them when he's in the shower: the way he feels so heavy and waterlogged, weight pulling at his shoulders, at the back of his neck; the suffocating press of billowed heat caught in them, making him drip with more steam than a sauna could ever provide as the thick, wet damp threatens to swallow his body; how water drips down the back of his legs long after his hair has been tousled dry. But he dries his back and there is nothing but the feel of warm terry cloth to skin.
He feels them when someone sits too close to him in a car, too close in a bunker, too close on the couch and he feels the overwhelming urge to stretch something, take back that space. He moves his arms, usually, stretching the elbows out in the midst of a fake yawn. But the stretch isn't ever completely satisfying.
He feels them when he wraps his arms around Peter, the touch making his shoulders set differently, open up to stretch intangibility around Peter and enclose them, shelter them. He knows this because something glides along the back of Peter's shins and he can feel it as real as his hands on the back of Peter's coat, as real as the floppy dark hair that brushes his neck as they clutch each other.
But he never feels them when he flies.
Soaring through the air was... effortless. His shoulders don't open like they do for Peter, there are no efforts to flap or to skim the air. His body propels through space like a bullet, like a rocket, like Superman on a mission and he is moving so fast that there is no sound, it's all behind him, tangled in his pressurized wake. All he's left with is his thoughts echoing in the corridor of silence.
The air glides down the smooth, aerodynamic plane of his back unrestricted.
He touches down and he feels them again, adjusting his balance as his feet find the pavement, keeping him upright as the Earth's gravity fills him suddenly, touches the back of his legs as he moves them again. The wings act as a touchstone, a security blanket, a comfort. They are there and yet nothing ruins the line of his suit.
Nathan thinks he's the only one to have ever needed wings to keep him grounded.
Author: acejillian
Rating: PG
Pairings: none
Word Count: 409
A/N: Written for heroes_flashfic under their wingfic challenge... at 2am.
He's never seen them, but he knows they are there.
He feels them when he's in the shower: the way he feels so heavy and waterlogged, weight pulling at his shoulders, at the back of his neck; the suffocating press of billowed heat caught in them, making him drip with more steam than a sauna could ever provide as the thick, wet damp threatens to swallow his body; how water drips down the back of his legs long after his hair has been tousled dry. But he dries his back and there is nothing but the feel of warm terry cloth to skin.
He feels them when someone sits too close to him in a car, too close in a bunker, too close on the couch and he feels the overwhelming urge to stretch something, take back that space. He moves his arms, usually, stretching the elbows out in the midst of a fake yawn. But the stretch isn't ever completely satisfying.
He feels them when he wraps his arms around Peter, the touch making his shoulders set differently, open up to stretch intangibility around Peter and enclose them, shelter them. He knows this because something glides along the back of Peter's shins and he can feel it as real as his hands on the back of Peter's coat, as real as the floppy dark hair that brushes his neck as they clutch each other.
But he never feels them when he flies.
Soaring through the air was... effortless. His shoulders don't open like they do for Peter, there are no efforts to flap or to skim the air. His body propels through space like a bullet, like a rocket, like Superman on a mission and he is moving so fast that there is no sound, it's all behind him, tangled in his pressurized wake. All he's left with is his thoughts echoing in the corridor of silence.
The air glides down the smooth, aerodynamic plane of his back unrestricted.
He touches down and he feels them again, adjusting his balance as his feet find the pavement, keeping him upright as the Earth's gravity fills him suddenly, touches the back of his legs as he moves them again. The wings act as a touchstone, a security blanket, a comfort. They are there and yet nothing ruins the line of his suit.
Nathan thinks he's the only one to have ever needed wings to keep him grounded.