Work Text:
Sometimes, Rowan thinks the sky is blue.
Or maybe it’s purple with a droplet of pink settling just above the crisp mountain tops. On days where the clouds scattered elsewhere to shadow over something else, it shades into a soft, glowing orange--the sun peeking a quick goodbye just before its partner rises high to welcome with patterns of loose greys.
Light is bare, but it’s still enough to cast a garnish look over rows of furrowed animals and untamed bushes. It’s still evident enough to shine a dim light along with the people who rush inside a store filled with goods that can only fulfill their late-night hunger.
Sometimes, Rowan notices that the sky has birds.
They aren’t always there and they hardly stay up for long; too preoccupied with searching for their second home down below--but they catch onto the drift of light wind and glide their fluffed wings through the shape of cerulean.
Their feathers catch onto unrelenting speeds and swirl through the air, swoosh in random bursts of circles while landing on some bug passing by a cracked sidewalk. They brush shells of corners and soles of feet, leaving behind a story about its recent takeoff.
Sometimes, Rowan sees that the sky is nothing but clouds.
When the odd forms of their white textures filter out any trace of color and complete the scene with a heavenly setting. Or rather filled with buckets of pouring rage, creating a roughened state of puffs ready to rain on command.
They maneuver their hearts along the large expanse of sky and await instructions that will determine their mood--affecting the moving dots below by watching them run from a cold shower or running onto chipped, yellow benches with a pair of binoculars ready at hand.
Sometimes, Rowan believes that the sky is where she belongs.
But she cannot bear to leave her soul up there. It’s too much of a risk to strip the linings of her heart revealed to an open breeze, to the beings who can cast a glance of her individuality in which she is too afraid of them digging into; like a rusted shovel tossing useless dirt that’s attached to the dull earth in hopes to discover answers for her wants.
Rowan is undeserving of the sky. It doesn’t want her, it can’t want her.
Her thrills are not fulfilling. Her drive is not fast enough.
Or maybe it’s because she won’t let herself have the one thing she truly desires; amongst the many, she's dreamed of when knocking her tiny, crafted wooden planes at the stretch of her doorsteps. Watching the lines of clouds following the tail of a plane would have her bandaid fingers itching to take the wheel despite her current placement on the ground.
She can’t let herself have it. Not when there are other things demanding her attention, things that should be more important than the flimsy goal she’s detailed late at night when her mind can’t focus on the equations her teacher had gone over earlier that day.
Rowan needs to achieve other greatnesses. No matter what. Because she should not dream big, she should not run towards that circle of wings--Rowan simply cannot.
She wants too much.
The possibility that that’s why she doesn’t push herself towards where the land meets the sky, where the colors combine into pretty palettes of crying blues and crushing oranges, where the birds sing a solemn tune to the open air for comfort, where the clouds brush their pillowed fingertips on any being that grants them a visit--it’s simply just too much.
Rowan has decided that sticking to the mud is all she’ll ever need.
.
.
The metal clang reverberates along the shed's wooden planks. Every pull and thud rattles again into Rowan's arms, covered with soot, small, wounded pricks—courtesy of her rusty tools. Music is played faintly in the background, accompanying the harsh tinkering by allowing a soft sound to align with it.
Rowan hums an octave lower compared to the high-pitched voice coming from the booms of her small radio. She’s heard it all before, she’s aware that there's a record player of that same album somewhere in the back of her closet in the ratty old apartment she has yet to pay rent on, but something about hearing the first notes of a familiar song on a random station brings her mood to another level as she hammers down onto a plate of sheet metal.
She continues to work on her latest project, a fresh blueprint for a plane on which she has been collecting parts for some time. There’s a letter at the edge of the table, basking in the warm sunlight that shines through her dirtied windows. Rowan decides that it needs to be thrown out later on.
The swing of a door is heard. Rowan whips her head in the direction where the intruder walked in. Boots pounce onto the cheap wooden floorboards, the heavy steps being tied to the only person who would dare to walk in without permission.
"You know, you could well have knocked," Rowan chuckled, a knowing tell hidden behind her words. Among the many pieces of equipment which have been scratched out of their use throughout several weeks, she brings her hammer down with the rest of the clutter to wipe excess grease from the lines of her calloused palms.
She doesn't raise her head yet, instead of smoothing down the creases on her worn-out amateur pilot suit. There's a little smile on her face as those familiar footsteps get closer to her workbench, already eager to be as close to her as possible.
“Now you know I don’t do that.” The sudden voice teased, a bit of a southern drawl mixed in with it.
Rowan flipped the front section of her chopped curls backward, ignoring those familiar smiling eyes staring back at her and waiting for another casual remark.
She leaned towards the side of the table, lids closed, face taut up high, and a hand on her hip. “If it’s that much of a bother to warn me you’re coming in, what brings you here this time around?”
The sound of a giggle escapes the intruder's mouth, light and airy just like the rest of them. It leaves a pleasant, warm feeling in Rowan's chest despite the fact that she has yet to see the beauty who is now inching closer to her body—emanating that favorable heat that Rowan has only been able to be treated with every so often.
“Stop hiding,”
Rowan sighed, a smirk tugged on the corner of her lips. She didn’t want to see the light just yet, instead of drawing out this small little contest she’s been playing.
One Rowan continues to keep playing, never stopping.
She’s afraid of what would happen if she were.
The ghost of fingertips hovered over her forearms, loose, stray hairs nearly caressing the underside of the mechanic's chin, a hint of roses with an earthly pinch filling her senses to the brim and almost gently putting her defiant stance to a halt. Oh, how Rowan missed this.
“You and your games,” the other continued with a smack of her lips. " You never make it easy for me.” Rowan can almost hear her playful frown as their breath fanned her cheek.
Sometimes she just made it so hard to resist.
“That’s my job, isn’t it,” Rowan bantered, finally opening her eyes to stare back at the figure standing just a bit too close and perfectly fitting right beneath her neck. “Celeste.”
Rowan was rewarded with the hazel shine of eyes staring back at her. They were fearless of her sudden glance and yet tense at the contact; no matter how many times Rowan compelled Celeste's eyes on her, forcing the other to grow nerved by her unrelenting observations, Celeste still trembled slightly.
Celeste’s eyelids fluttered downwards, already submitting to Rowan’s studying. Rowan always wins the game.
She wants to put her dirtied hands on her, but she knows there are boundaries they have yet to cross. It's a secret they both share, one they know will one day happen, but for the time being, they remain in a hidden, secure bubble. Rowan is also aware that her friend would be annoyed if oil seeped into her new uniform—Celeste isn't a fan of messes.
From here, Rowan can count to the feather-light freckles that dot all over Celeste’s cheek. How the sun captures each one in an amateur beauty, tickling splashes of orange and gracing her pale face with constellations in the shapes of beating hearts. Her hands' itch, a resistance too hard to ignore. Rowan wants to cross that line; please let her cross it, break it, tear it all down--just please--
Celeste backs away. The summer heat is now a dull warmth and as her body slowly escapes her grasp, Rowan feels a sharp breeze nip the insides of her blood. Celeste looks around the room, ignoring the stabbed, bleeding heart pouring out of her friend, and glances over at the unorganized bench of tools, papers, and one suspicious letter.
She muffles a laugh, another bruising punch. “Isn’t your job my employee?”A strand of red hair dangles from the side of her face, which she casually tucks behind her ear, where the rest of it is wrapped into a packed bun. Rowan, for a brief moment, misses the chance that she could have done it herself.
Rowan rolls her eyes at the statement, shaking her head at her slight interrupting and interspersing with, “I am not your employee and you know that.” Pointing a finger at her friend.
Celeste puckered her lips, sometimes she also liked playing the game too.
“Same thing. You build planes for all of us here at camp, which basically means you work for us.” She says matter of factly.
Which is not true. Not one bit. Rowan doesn’t like to work for anybody, regardless of whether that's how the world works, but hearing it out loud renders her more than usual. Celeste sometimes didn’t understand that she went by logic and not common factors.
Rowan glared at the tool Celeste was touching, her fingertips grazing the structure of it as she continued to roam around the room waiting for her friend to retort back. Rowan simply just wanted to correct her in her joking manner, not because her earlier thoughts were rudely encountered with a block of a shield and piercing of a shiny dagger.
She sat down on her stool. “No, I do not work for you. You’re lucky I’m even here in the first place or you guys would be flailing like willy-nilly up high in the sky.” Her hands' gesture as she speaks, pointing them upwards and twisting her wrists in circles to enhance her imaginative scenario.
“More importantly, I don’t work for you. I only repair your shit when it gets damaged and occasionally help the other generals if they need me.”
“So, a slave.”
Rowan bends her neck backward at the comment and lets out a racket boast. “Go back to them gators if you’re gonna insult my work.”
Celeste feigns a dramatic gasp. Her neatly manicured hands lay atop her chest, where the majority of her awarded patches are clipped. Rowan looks at them, admiring the glint of silvers and blues, dignified golds, and plastic buttons.
She wonders how Celeste does it.
“How many times do I have to tell you, Rowan?” Arms crossed over her chest, “Just because I’m from the south--”
“The origins of incest.” Rowan points out.
Celeste twists her head from the tool she was ogling to glare at her partner, jaw set. “--doesn’t mean I pranced around with the farm animals and fished for dangerous crocodiles.”
Rowan tilts her head to the side, another smug look painting the thin brown of her lips. “I said gators, babe. There’s a difference.”
The redhead immediately pulls back whatever remark she was about to make, deflated by the nickname and her frown softening at the other's joking tone. Even if it was just one silly word, Rowan always knew exactly what to say to leave her friend puddled into a cluttered mess. A word that will have true meaning one day, but not today.
Celeste took a deep breath, eyes closed shut and face blemished in a rosy hue.
She flutters them open once more, and this time Rowan aches that she could’ve been close enough to watch those long lashes whisker her rounded cheeks, catching the golden dust floating around her aura.
Celeste laughs lightly. “My father had me working on the fruits and vegetables. He’s the one who did all that manual labor with those mammals.” Her disgust is shown clearly in the way the wrinkles at the top of her forehead crinkle, mouth scrunched in distaste. Rowan can’t help thinking how adorable the scene is. Her accent comes out just a tad more, almost forced, but still her entirely. It adds to her charm, Rowan supposes.
“If you’re gonna come at me with those comments, make sure you get it right.” The pilot places her hands on her hips, her left shoe tipped on its heel, and a jaunty smile is placed on those rosied lips.
Rowan mentally kicks herself in the shin. Of course, Celeste would use her own logic against her. Though sometimes it was fun to let go of those kinds of things if it meant watching her partner squirm from her humor.
“Ah, so a farmer. You jumped over walls too?” Rowan raises her eyebrows at the other.
Celeste wants to laugh, she can see the hand covering her mouth that threatens a series of giggles. The mechanic loved playing dirty sometimes.
The redhead purses her lips. “That’s not,” She pauses, trying to find the right words. “That’s not funny, Rowan. You know I’ve got some Hispanic descendent in me too so it won’t work on me.”
Rowan throws a full-blown laugh over that. “Sounds better when I do it, sweetheart.”
Celeste looks about ready to implode over the skittish jokes and overbearing nicknames that her friend loved to use against her too often. You would think it would become a normal occurrence for her by now, but Rowan knows every time that her heart beats just a little too quickly any time those loving pet names are said out in the open. Especially when Celeste is aware that they aren't just all petty jokes. She was too easy and Rowan always knew how to unravel her.
Soon enough, their laughter died down and what remained left were the particles of the sun drifting through the warm air. Summer has come, offering the chance for their department to work outside on new training ridicule.
Rowan wonders if this time her officers will allow a flight. If maybe, they’ll give her the chance to practice one of the planes as a form of protocol and not because her eyes drift upwards in hopes that she can stay with the clouds, the birds, the delicate colors. Though they always see through her ruse.
As their silence took over, neither of them was concerned about an unpleasant mood. It's never been that way between the two, and Rowan is proud to have someone with which she doesn't have to be too social. It's sometimes nice just to be there.
The music from the radio continues on. Another song is being played, one Rowan can’t decipher whether she knows or if her memory has yet to kick in. It’s softer than the one from earlier, a simpler tune of acoustics and yet a hoarse voice singing with it.
“I’m here because Diaz wants to know when you’ll fix those engines for some of the new scouts coming in about two days.” Celeste cuts the silence.
“Back to business.” Rowan sighs.
Rowan turns her body towards the workbench, eyeing her papers marked with lines and numbers for her own personal project. She thought that maybe her work would not have needed her as much considering she’s just their repair woman, but she guesses that might not be the case. Someone has to make sure no one dies on these missions, even if it’s with a little tweak and twist on some backed-up planes.
She rolls up the plans. “I’ll get ‘em done some time tomorrow morning. I’ve still gotta add those customary seats to your team.” Her tools clutter around as she tries to clean up the station, already mentally checking off the rest of the things that need to be done by the evening. The sun’s still up and she can’t waste it by building something that she can’t even fly.
Celeste inches closer once more from around the table. That once playful smile fell off and studied the side of Rowan’s face.
The mechanic can feel her stare. As much as Rowan loves to create many staring competitions to rowdy her partner up, she knows that if Celeste really puts her mind to it--with something as serious as this--she won’t let up.
Her face burns up, flaming. It tingles and reminds her that there is someone who can play her own tricks against her.
She doesn’t turn though and continues to pack up the rest of her mess.
Celeste opens her mouth ready to start that same damn argument they’ve had for the past years they’ve known one another, but Rowan cuts her off before any of that can happen. Not again.
“Anyways, you should get back to your training. I’m sure your comrades will dearly miss their captain.” She responds low, with a small chuckle to measure it. They both know it's fake.
And with that, Rowan stands up from her stool and attempts to leave their once comforting presence, but Celeste doesn’t let her. She stops her by gripping her friend in the shoulder, hard to the point where Rown can feel the tiny pinpricks where her nails dig into.
“You have time.” It’s a small statement, one that sounds believable. But Rowan knows it to not be true, when is it ever?
The letter still lays flat and proud on the edge of the workbench. Seems as if Rowan forgot to throw it away. Celeste sees it too and before the mechanic has time to run it by the trash, she grabs it and holds it tight to her chest--which is now pressed upright against Rowan’s.
Rowan tries to steady her breathing, it’s becoming ragged and short. Whether that be from the distance that is now closed between the two or the fact that the letter should be burned and torn to shreds because she cannot bear to know that she might have that second chance.
Celeste keeps staring and Rowan keeps refusing.
Please. Just stop.
“Can we not do this right now, Celeste?” Her voice comes out hoarse, dry, parched, desperate. Rowan doesn’t have this effect too often, but as the deadline nears, she finds it hard to control her functions.
Celeste finally looks away. Her eyes are now set on the ground. Defeated, for now.
“I heard,” she licks her lips, wiping away that strawberry gloss Rowan knows to be just as sweet as she should be. “There’s going to be a rock fest about an hour out in a nearby town.”
Rowan closes her eyes in relief. “I know.”
The pilot chuckles. “Of course you do. I’m not surprised.” She drops her hand from Rowan’s shoulder. Though it might’ve been put there to keep her standing, hoping to hear out another false promise, it still leaves a soothing burn behind. Rowan misses it.
Eventually, the two back off one another. Neither voicing out the proximity they shared and how they both ached to stay, to be closer.
The letter is back on the table, marking its territory.
Rowan clears her throat as she struggles to find a nearby rag to wipe out some of the stained greases still leftover on her hands. “So, what you’re saying is…” She drawls. The need to escape the sudden tenseness is prominent and any out is what she’ll take.
Her friend rolls her eyes, already knowing what Rowan is suggesting and what she herself is going to be pushed into. Her hands are put up in surrender, a side smile already forming on her lips.
“We can go--”
“Fuck yeah!”
“--if you let me pick the music on the way there.”
Rowan audibly groans. “If we’re going, I need to be pumped with some good music beforehand. I’ll fall asleep with those folk tunes.”
Celeste shushes her. “You’re gonna be driving anyways, so you fall asleep, I’m going to kill you.”
The brunette raises an eyebrow, a sly look on her face. “Pretty sure I would kill you first, you know--considering I’ll be the one driving while asleep.”
“I swear you never let me have anything.” Celeste retorts. Her glare is back, playful once more and Rowan thinks the butterflies in her stomach could not be more excited than she is right now.
“All right, all right. You pick the music, but just this once.” She points her finger upwards. Noting the way Celeste deflates at their jaunty humor. Glad to be back to normal until the next time they have this talk again, or at least try to. Rowan has been successful the last couple of times, but she knows the redhead won’t stop until there's a chance they could finally be together. In more ways than one.
“Thank you, Rowan,” Celeste says softly. So sweet, so tender, so honest-to-god beautifully with those simple words that Rowan can’t believe they are meant for her. She can't fathom what there is to thank because as far as she knows, she’s only been a drag since she was kicked out of her mission long ago.
Rowan only knows one way to show her gratitude.
She tips two fingers off the top of her head, mocking a salute.
“Aye, aye, captain.”