Present Day ( UTC-15:46 )
There was a small municipal airport about five miles from where Lance grew up.
And inevitably Lance was drawn to the place.
At first, he thought it was the thrill of experiencing something new. Later, he'd reflect on the probability that he enjoyed the airport so much simply because of his fondness for Top Gun or the general romanticism that encompasses flying as Sinatra himself had serenaded his childhood with riffs and dreams of flying far and free. That, perhaps, after enough visits, the same sentimentality might work it's way into the rest of his life; opening doors and breaking windows until Lance was no longer bored of his own story.
But as time learned to keep pace with the sun and days drifted by, Lance grew older and found himself still seated below at the airport watching planes go by. And most tangibly, he knew, he stayed because of the opposing nature of a supposedly liminal space. The dichotomy which states that things always change but remain the same.
Or how it wasn't home but could feel that way regardless.
And while such dreams never fully came into fruition, what lance wanted most was to fly. He never had the money for classes and even if he did, he wouldn't have the means to maintain it.
It is amidst one of these rather common sessions of idle dreaming that Lance sits atop the roof of the airport. One tanned and another casted hand behind his head, sunglasses loosely protecting his enraptured gaze into the sunny sky. And it is with the same soft breeze that sets planes afloat and which tips scales just slightly enough that Lance muttered, mostly to himself, "How did things turn out so wrong?"
And though the statement was rhetorical there was, of course, an answer in an airy voice which boomed with the strength of a stiff wind.
"Simple enough," a pair of combat boots walked past Lance's head adding their two-cent commentary, "you got caught."
The boots were meaningfully old with worn soles and cracked patches, the scars of times where the garment was used for necessity rather than fashion and was treated with a rather equivalent care. The boots themselves were creaking with the slowly shifting weight of a wearer who, though in near-constant travel, never covered any distance.
The contrast was abrasive at best.
And so, Lance's voice carried the same rotund lilt his eyes followed behind his sunglasses as he snarked, "I'm ninety-eight percent sure I came willingly."
"You were blown up."
"Something I did willingly, did I not?"
The boots stilled. A small huff littered the air followed by the weary grunt as dark hair and blindingly white fringe sat beside the not-pilot.
There was silence as the wind howled in quiet agony, the breeze itself carrying a chill through both men.
"I don't pretend to know why or how any of this happened- but it seemed like you made a decision out there, Lance."
It was far from accusatory. Laced with good intentions which blur the disastrous past of a kindred spirit that prompted Lance to sit up, removing his sunglasses for proper conversation.
"And you want my answer?"
Muddled brown met eyes made of sky; each one fluctuating between winter and spring, a wayward quality which was atmospheric at-best.
"The answer can wait. What I want to know is why."
The look he got in return was full of misery and hope. And, mind you, it is there that this story begins. Not as backstory and not as a tale spinning off into the unknown- but as a question set firmly in the fleeting firmness of the present. And as there are no absolutes in this life, no reply could provide every necessary answer. But, mind you, there is reason to try.
A/N: I know I never finish things. But I have an actual plot and I intend to tell this story... Please review!