When Billie sees one for the first time, the mobile suit descending onto the demonstration grounds in a flurry of noise and light, she feels like she’s finally been pushed face forward into the waiting world. Graham doesn’t shut up about the Gundam for days. Those stretch into weeks, then she recognizes the beginning of a lifelong obsession. When they race around the world for the first few weeks, looking for clues and battles and scraps they can salvage from these fallen angels, she feels like they’re a team for the first time. Graham doesn’t treat her as a woman (she pretends it hurts her feminine pride), and never as a subordinate. The others whisper behind their back, and it takes effort to ignore damaging gossip, the tool of the weak and envious; but when they’re together, they’re equal. When he demands too much of her time and sanity, she complies patiently, but reminds him how she has to take care of him, being the smarts of the team. He wants to possess that light from above, the whirlwind of fire that has lit everything around him. Billie wants to create what surpasses it.
Together, they’re fire and wind.
~*~ “The sky will be mine one day,” Graham is sprawled on his back out on the balcony, now that the others have left the party. He’s young and he’s loud, and Billie suspects he’s a little bit drunk. She doesn’t have the heart to kick him out of the apartment, and he doesn’t seem to understand the implications of staying over at her place.
It’s comfortable.
“If you keep piloting like a maniac, you’ll end up stuck up there permanently,” Billie retorts, walking into the chilly air outside with a freshly brewed cup of coffee in hand. She can barely remember whose birthday they’ve just celebrated, and the others love to drop in with the excuse of her place being much bigger than their cramped dorm. Somehow, they’ve become her circle, even if she doesn’t know a single engineer among the rowdy soldiers. They come with the package of knowing Graham.
“I can help you get there,” she tells herself moreso than Graham, leaning against the slide door as she looks up at whatever the blond is reaching for. The dreams of a boy who grew up with nothing, she knows, and wonders if that makes you reach even harder for everything.
“What do you want, Katagiri?” she can never tell when he’s drunk. Billie crouches on the floor beside him, cradling the cooling cup in her hands. She tells him everything. Why not? She’s had everything and nothing, and he’s telling the stars to watch out. Billie tells him about the boy with the laughing eyes, who’s raced to the peak before he crashed and burned. She tells him everything. This is one man (pleasantly drunk) who doesn’t begrudge her the ample name she’s born with, and doesn’t court her favor for the connections she can pull. He also doesn’t quite understand the longing for someone so unreliable, and from the story she’s telling, so very foolish.
She still has those photographs from their university days, stashed away in a shoebox somewhere. More often than not, she asks the empty place in her heart where Kujo can be.
Together, they’re fire and wind.
~*~
“The sky will be mine one day,” Graham is sprawled on his back out on the balcony, now that the others have left the party. He’s young and he’s loud, and Billie suspects he’s a little bit drunk. She doesn’t have the heart to kick him out of the apartment, and he doesn’t seem to understand the implications of staying over at her place.
It’s comfortable.
“If you keep piloting like a maniac, you’ll end up stuck up there permanently,” Billie retorts, walking into the chilly air outside with a freshly brewed cup of coffee in hand. She can barely remember whose birthday they’ve just celebrated, and the others love to drop in with the excuse of her place being much bigger than their cramped dorm. Somehow, they’ve become her circle, even if she doesn’t know a single engineer among the rowdy soldiers. They come with the package of knowing Graham.
“I can help you get there,” she tells herself moreso than Graham, leaning against the slide door as she looks up at whatever the blond is reaching for. The dreams of a boy who grew up with nothing, she knows, and wonders if that makes you reach even harder for everything.
“What do you want, Katagiri?” she can never tell when he’s drunk. Billie crouches on the floor beside him, cradling the cooling cup in her hands. She tells him everything. Why not? She’s had everything and nothing, and he’s telling the stars to watch out. Billie tells him about the boy with the laughing eyes, who’s raced to the peak before he crashed and burned. She tells him everything. This is one man (pleasantly drunk) who doesn’t begrudge her the ample name she’s born with, and doesn’t court her favor for the connections she can pull. He also doesn’t quite understand the longing for someone so unreliable, and from the story she’s telling, so very foolish.
She still has those photographs from their university days, stashed away in a shoebox somewhere. More often than not, she asks the empty place in her heart where Kujo can be.
~*~
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