A/N: Ok, I'm officially in! I always know I'm *in* a fandom when I start ficcing...
world on fire with a smoking sun
The rain has stopped.
"Safe to cross," Foggy says. He guides you by the arm and you let him, not because you need it, but because he does.
He doesn't see the puddle. Funny, because you do—in a manner of speaking—but you have to walk through it, because you can't let on.
The intimate chill of it splashes through your trouser hems, and you picture it—an uncertain mirror in daylight, a glassy oil slick by night.
This is your city. You know it because you want to, and because you have to.
You feel it, hear it, taste it, smell it. These four that remain, so honed and accelerated and directed—they leave a smaller gap than most people have. Maybe you even have better sight than some, because who sees the peripheral, anyway?
Everyone's focused on the ephemeral, but they're trying to race their own shadows.
Everyone's blind in the city.
"Smell that?" you ask, and a smile quirks your lips as you hear Foggy sniff gamely.
"What?"
He smells a thousand things on a busy day, of course, and doesn't have the practice to know it.
"Pretzels." You sketch them in your mind, shining brown and crisp, little diamond flecks of salt.
Eating's the hardest, you think, even after all this time. It's something of a surprise, but seeing the food really does count.
"Want some?" Foggy's uncertain. Not like you, he's thinking, to break routine on the way to the office. But he's following your lead.
You smile. Wider, so he's reassured. "I'm good."
And you are. It's alright—there'll be other tastes. Other smells. Other days, and moments, and you'll be there.
After all, this is your city. Yours and theirs, the people who don't see because they're not looking, even though they could.
If you close your eyes, you think, you could imagine that you're just like them.