Disclaimer: Waiting for the rights to SPD to free up…or permission to start writing series books for sale. Hey, Star Wars and Star Trek have 'em.
Pseudo-summary: Just another morning in the SPD Academy…
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RoutineHe had a new pair of running shoes to break in, and a five-mile jog would do just the trick. Not that he needed an excuse to go on a five-mile jog, which had been his morning routine every day since high school track. Just in case though, he left his old shoes on the bottommost of the bleachers. There was no sense in wasting time running up to his room to get them if his feet started hurting and he needed to finish his jog. If he had to do that, he would just stay and finish his exercise, blisters and all. But that didn't make much sense either, not when he could just bring his old shoes down with him to the track.
Of course, he could always just count the jog up to his room and back down as part of his five miles, with the added bonus of a couple of flights of stairs in his workout.
The more Sky thought about it, the more he couldn't distinguish if this was a case of too many situations, or too many solutions. Situations: new shoes to break in, jog to finish, blisters to avoid. Solutions: bring old shoes down, run up to the room to change shoes, keep running in new shoes despite discomfort.
If he didn't have the new shoes, he wouldn't have to consider all of the above. He would pull his already broken-in shoes on, come down to the track, and complete his jog. No worrying about his new shoes getting uncomfortable, about remembering to bring his old shoes with him, or figuring out what fraction of a mile lay between the training field and his dorm room.
This was why he didn't like change. It broke up a perfectly functional MO. Though the MO wasn't perfectly functional anymore because his old running shoes were wearing thin on the soles…
Sky sped up his pace, so that his harsher breathing and quicker heartbeat would distract him from his almost Bridge-like thoughts (ugh), and force him to focus on his rhythm. He had about a mile left to go and his shoes were still feeling pretty good—a little tight, but very shock absorbent. Perfect.
Despite his best efforts and a steady routine, his mind wandered. It started with an innocent thought: what did he want for breakfast later? Sometimes breakfast got interesting when Jack, his antithesis even in dietary habits, was present and asked the identity of every item on his tray, just so he could make a face and proclaim it some relative of sawdust.
This morning, he was thinking of wheatgrass, because Syd had read an entire article about the benefits of wheatgrass to him from one of her female-orientated magazines. He didn't care for anything that came out of one of those magazines—none of it applied to him anyway—but something about Syd made the article easier to bear. Her lower lip stuck out in a bow-mouthed pout whenever he expressed obvious boredom, but she'd read on determinedly.
Syd meant well, and he had learned—was still learning sometimes—that that was all that mattered. She worked hard, she cared about their work, and she was bafflingly cheerful. Plucky...that was a good word for her. Plucky didn't explain though why he tolerated her easier than his other teammates, or why he liked sitting next to her, or why he had sat through an article that fed women's obsessions about whether or not they looked fat.
He finished his run, then took a shower. He usually ended up taking at least two showers a day because of his morning workout. It wasn't because he was afraid of being a little mussed, nothing like that. It worked in his favor—Syd had commented once that he smelled kind of nice, for a guy. That made Sky wonder why guys were automatically exempted from good hygiene in her mind. Girls.
Jack wasn't present at breakfast, but Syd was. Z was present, but Bridge wasn't. He could pretty much count then on a harassment-free morning...save for whatever the girls felt like dishing out.
"Good morning!" chirped Syd as he entered the common room, with a cute smile that showed off the rosy apples of her cheeks. Z echoed her right after, unusually chipper for the early hour.
"Hey." He went to the food regenerator to conjure up his breakfast. He considered trying this wheatgrass he'd learned about, but what if he didn't like it? Best to stick with what worked, since it was a work day. He needed his strength today. He had wheat toast (since Bridge wasn't around to excite with it) for fiber, eggs for protein, plenty of fruit, and a standard, nameless drink that was consumed for nutrition and not for flavor.
Syd moved over one chair at the tiny table built into the wall, and he took that to mean he was supposed to sit there. He took his seat, and before he could pick up his fork, Syd slid a tall ceramic mug towards him.
"Try this," she said.
He glanced inside the mug. Whatever was in it was the same color as his nameless drink. "What is it?"
"A wheatgrass shake," she replied. And then she went into a summarized version of wheatgrass's benefits, all of which he found he'd retained from Syd's article.
He picked up the mug and took a tentative sip. It tasted awful. Both Syd and Z were looking at him expectantly.
"Not bad," he said, sliding the mug back towards Syd.
"See? I told you he'd like it," Syd said to Z. "He likes this sort of stuff."
And then to him, she said, "Here, you can have it. Both Z and I think it tastes terrible."
Perfect. He rolled his eyes. "I'm not your garbage disposable, Syd," and slid the mug back towards her.
"It's not garbage," she protested. "It's good for you."
"So why don't you drink it?"
"Because I don't like it."
"Then why did you order it?"
She was starting to get exasperated. "I just wanted to try it, Sky."
"And now it's going to waste."
Now Syd rolled her eyes. "Please. Like you've never wasted anything finding these tasteless, unpalatable confections you always have."
He didn't answer. He just picked up his fork and took a bite of the breakfast that had been neglected for two whole minutes.
"Uh huh. That's what I thought."
He didn't mind letting Syd have her supposed victory. Z peered into his glass curiously.
"What is yours? I swear the two are identical."
"In flavor, at least," Syd put in dryly.
Sky ignored her. "It's a nutrient drink," he answered. "It has a balance of all the vitamins and minerals you'll need in a day."
"Sounds delish." Z sounded more amused than sarcastic this time.
"Is sawdust something you need everyday?"
Jack had arrived. And right beside him was Bridge, jacket unzipped and hair untamed. Sky shook his head at Jack's comment and proceeded to ignore the two newcomers.
"Sky, you don't have any butter for your toast," said Bridge.
"Bridge, I don't eat butter with my toast. Normally," he hastily added, to hopefully alleviate the earnest tirade that would surely follow such an outrageous answer. He never ate butter, not unless it was already cooked into something and hence beyond his control.
"Here you go, man." Jack set a steaming mug in front of him of something he could identify by smell alone. Hot chocolate. Beside him, Syd let out a noise of delight.
"No thanks," he ground out as civilly as he could. Right before a dish of butter was placed beside the mug. The only option he had was to ignore it all and concentrate on his breakfast.
"It'll do you good," Jack insisted. "See, I figured maybe you're as sour as you are because you don't get enough things to eat with actual flavor. I would know about that, wouldn't I, Z?"
"Flavor is a luxury," said Z, and Sky couldn't decide if she was agreeing with Jack, or if what she said worked in his favor. If good-tasting things were available, people ate it. If not, people subsisted on what they had. He didn't purposely avoid sweets and other foods people considered treats. His health-conscious diet worked, he liked it, and that was all there was to it.
Apparently his friends weren't as satisfied by this, as one by one, his breakfast items were taken away by four sets of hands. By now, though, he knew that they were bothering him simply to annoy him.
"I'll give you five bucks to drink that, Sky," said Z.
She would lose five hard-earned dollars, and he would be majorly irritated. It was a lose-lose situation.
"Why?" he asked.
"I'll give you ten," said Syd.
"You think that's going to convince me?"
She gave him an exasperated look. "I know you have that 'my body is a temple' philosophy going on—"
"So do you," he said pointedly.
"Yes, but your temple must be Mormon or something."
That got a few chitters out of the others.
"Did you guys conspire to gang up on me this morning?" he asked in annoyance.
"Nah," said Jack. "It's just so easy to do. You set yourself up for it."
"How?" he demanded. "I'm here, minding my own business—"
"Sky." Syd placed a soft hand on his knee. Actually, it was a little higher up than his knee.
"I'm sure your temple will be just as good, if not better, with chocolate."
That set his other teammates off again, and even he wasn't dense enough to miss a decidedly lascivious come-on. His face reddened a little, embarrassed that Syd would flirt with him so openly, in front of other people. At least the others couldn't see her hand lightly stroking not-quite-his-knee beneath the table.
Time to save a little face. He plucked the straws from his nameless drink and the wheatgrass shake and stuck them in the mug of hot chocolate. Then he lifted it up and held it between them.
"If that's the case," he said, as neutrally as he could manage.
"Gladly." She didn't even have to wait for him to finish. They leaned down and sipped the drink from opposite straws, ignoring the hoots and other appreciative noises from their teammates. The hot chocolate burned his tongue, and he guessed it did Syd's too, since they both pulled away rather quickly.
"Hot," he muttered.
"Very," she agreed.
(That come-on he did miss.)
Bridge and Jack went and pursued their own breakfasts, and he and Syd were able to cease being the breakfast spectacle. Syd spooned off some of the whipped cream on the hot chocolate, and Bridge retrieved the dish of butter from his tray before it went unconsumed and unappreciated. Things were finally getting back to a quiet, morning norm.
And then he realized he'd forgotten his old running shoes on the bleachers by the track. Which meant another ten minutes lost when he went down to retrieve them, and of course he had to retrieve them just in case his new shoes started hurting, and he also didn't want to litter around the Academy. But ten whole minutes. If he had just remembered the shoes instead of the damn wheatgrass...
