The wind was tearing at his clothes, frenzied and brutal, but he kept going, despite the fact that it was trying to stop him.
He saw the pyramid in front of him, looming in the half darkness. Purple white lightning struck across the sky angrily, crackled and in the same instant there was a deafening roar.
He was a brave man. He was also a very fit one. But faced with the steps of the pyramid in the howling wind that battered the rain against him like stinging pebbles, he wanted to stay down the bottom. It was only going to be worse up the top.
Instead, he pulled his goggles down over his eyes and started up the steps.
The moss was slick in the rain, his boots struggled to find purchase. The wind continued to howl, screaming at him to leave it be and walk back down.
He made it to halfway before he had to dig his hands into the cracks, clawing his way on all fours against the raging weather.
The lightning provided the light he climbed by. It was almost continuous, charged by some unknown power. It felt like it would strike him at any moment.
Still, he climbed onwards. Still he forced his tired and sore body to keep going. Time lost meaning, it felt like he had always been climbing the pyramid.
Finally, the top came into view. Standing there, drenched to the bone, a sleek figure was reaching to the heavens, as though beseeching; or maybe controlling; it.
Maybe that was why this storm was particularly furious.
He was surprised that he hadn't been watched the moment he came into sight, but maybe that was why he was out here. Too focused on the weather and the smell to notice anything else.
He watched for a few moments, rested on the steps, huddled up to try and stop the rain pelting his face. The flight goggles made seeing no easier, but they did save his eyes from being taken out the wind propelled droplets.
The man up the top was small and pale compared to the storm, but he was so far beyond it. His skin lit up with every lightning strike, and he was close enough to see the flinch every time, like his skin was crawling with the fear the rest of him was not feeling.
He pushed himself up the last few steps, and it wasn't until he could feel the unbelievable heat of the body above him that unearthly blue eyes turned to him.
He looked up and pushed back his dark hair. The pale eyes narrowed.
"Wedge?"
He smiled softly. He wasn't going to try to reply, he'd done that once and just ended up deafening his friend.
"What are you doing up here? You could get yourself killed."
And you couldn't, he thought to himself.
"No. I couldn't. And you know that. This is my home." The smaller figure crouched down to his level. "And you want to know what I am doing up here."
He nodded, then started when hands slid under his elbows and pulled him to his feet. He stood up, felt the wind slam into him and nearly send him over the edge when a hand gripped his shoulder and pulled him against a body that had lost so much bulk over the last few years.
And yet, was so much stronger.
Thin hands pushed the goggles off his face and tossed them down the steps, they were caught in the wind and tossed about before being swallowed by the rain.
He was pulled back firmly, one hand on his chest, the other reached up and touched his face, fingers splayed over his temple, cheek and the thumb gently brushing the edge of his ear.
"Close your eyes. You can't see with them, not now."
He did what he was bid; he had always implicitly trusted his friend, for better or worse; and as he became blind, he felt like he was seeing for the first time.
The storm was a vivid swirl of colours, tiny greens and white spinning against one another, the bright yellow white lightning foreshadowing the physical strike.
His vision moved, he twisted his head unconsciously to follow. He looked down to the temple, a blinding myriad of colours that swamped in further and further, held back by the raindrops.
They turned around slowly, their feet moving together, until they faced out into the jungle. He could see the very charge and pattern of life. It was almost too much for him to understand.
Finally, he was turned around and held, firmly, at arm's length. He saw himself, defined not by flesh but something else. He could see himself, but there was something charged in it.
"I want to not see it."
He opened his eyes. The fury fueling the storm had faded. The furious pelting of the wind had trailed off, and now the rain just soaked them.
The blue eyes watching him were desperate, begging for something. He pushed the blonde hair back, smiled softly. He didn't know what else what do.
The hands on his arms loosened and fell away. He caught the other's hands and held them to his chest, not sure what he was trying to tell his friend.
"I don't want to be different. I never asked for that. I just wanted to make a difference."
The fact that the anger had died in the weather at the moment it had died in his friend said that he was definitely making a difference, just not the one he wanted to make.
"I know." He pulled the other man close and held him against his body as he started shivering, the cold finally having gotten to him. "No one asks to be different. But I wouldn't have you any other way, Luke."
Luke gave a short, hoarse laugh and held onto Wedge tightly, burying his face in his shoulder.
Luke never saw the clouds start to fade away and the rising sun peek between the retreating storm and the jungle.
Wedge just smiled as he watched it. He didn't tell his friend that he'd always wanted to make a difference as well, and even if he would never be like Luke, he didn't mind that the difference he was making wasn't by his own power.
He stroked Luke's hair. He'd made a difference.