Missing Sunset

19 BBY

(Weeks after the Battle of Coruscant)

"Hiking?"

The question lingered in the chill of their three bedroom apartment, voices trapped some thirty-six stories above ground level.

"Did I hear you right?" Laen repeated, the teenager's face a mix of disbelief and amusement. "You want us to go hiking."

"Yeah," his brother countered, voice more authoritative than usual. "A hike. Like the ones we used to go on during the summers back home."

"You sure that's what you want to call it, though? I don't remember those hikes involving industrial pipelines, neon lights, and, well... " He let a gesture towards the nearest viewport finish his sentiment. With a skyline as vast as any ocean, Coruscant had a way of doing the talking.

Closing the considerably smaller distance of their suite's living room, Dax, the elder of the two, brushed off the lingering response. "Fine, call it a walk or a stroll then, whatever. Point is, you've been keeping yourself cooped around this place for way, way too long."

Provisional homeschooling tends to do that...

Deciding to keep the thought to himself, Laen offered a simple shrug instead - the sort of impassiveness that his brother was always eager to take as agreement.

"Good. Glad to hear you're so excited. I'd suggest switching into some boots though, going to be a hell of a climb."

Normally Laen would have thought nothing of the recommendation. Arguing the semantics of their excursion was a far more appealing option, but something in his sibling's rigid expression made him very worried.

"Climbing, good one... You are kidding, right?"

Dax responded with two harnesses in hand and the first cheerful look he'd had in weeks.

"Why would I be?"

The journey downward proved far easier than the one awaiting them outside. Seconds removed from their tenement's turbolift, the duo was already engulfed in the hustle of a thousand different species. They had to push and shove simply to make their way down the block. With the sun on the verge of setting, some businesses were beginning to close, with many more about to resume commerce - the embodiment of rush hour on a planet already stuck in a perpetual traffic jam.

"This timing of ours, though," Laen huffed, taken back by stenches both exotic and alarmingly familiar. "You've really outdone yourself this time. Wouldn't have been the same if we had actually been able to walk. Part of the fun, I'm guessing?"

Dax was not at all amused, shouldering through the crowd as he gave his response. "Could've been out an hour ago if you weren't so set on bringing the whole damn kitchen with you."

"Come on, what's a jaunt through the mountains without a picnic?" He responded, adjusting his knapsack as they weaved through the crowd.

"Jaunt? It's a stroll, er, a hike- it doesn't matter anyways. Just hurry up, will you?"

There wasn't much time to stop and chuckle, but Laen did make sure to admire the "mountains" he had pointed out. Man-made as they might be, he hadn't been far from the truth when it came to the skyscrapers that surged all around them. The superstructures rivaled even the tallest peaks on their long-departed homeworld of Spintir. Then again, that wasn't saying much. That planet was far more famous for its frequent wildfires - something his father had made the most of in his line of work.

'Till he up and decided that fighting fires wasn't 'exciting' enough on some crummy backworld...

Laen mused with a roll of his eyes. Though he had to admit, the now-defunct Separatist's attacks on Coruscant had certainly upped the ante in that regard. If burning with a million others on the wrong end of a warcruiser was what he wanted, his father had received his wish.

"Watch it!" Dax hollered, wrenching him from his thoughts and, perhaps more importantly, pulling him out of the way of a scaly Trandoshan. The being in question gave a low snarl, pattering off in the opposite direction.

"Gotta keep a look out, rest of the world isn't going to think twice about stepping on some scrawny little sixteen year old."

"Scrawny?" Laen responded indignantly, though he knew the statement wasn't far from the truth. Fair skinned with dark hair and darker eyes, he and his brother were a dime a dozen as far as the greater population was concerned. Just the two of them, it was worry enough that they'd lose each other, let alone lose themselves to the planet's cityscape.

There wasn't long to harp on the matter, another moment's passing and they had arrived. Another turbolift greeted them, this one with the words "Sah'c District" emblazoned in crimson.

"Kriff, we going up a level?"

"Down and around this one is more like it," Dax murmured, only turning his head after he had punched in the lift's access code. "Wouldn't be any fun if we didn't get to use a shortcut or two, would it?"

The more they talked, the less certain Laen became that he and his brother even had a similar concept of what "fun" was. His definition was definitely geared more towards staying indoors, far and away from the exotic locale and frequent pickpockets. Dax on the other hand, all but embraced them. If he hadn't been forced into his improptu role as guardian and caregiver, he'd probably be out doing the same for some social service somewhere. The rest of his family had a soft spot for assisting others that Laen seemingly... lacked.

Something he did have, however, was a good eye for noticing suspicious holes in his brother's hiking proposals. In this case, it was the "restricted" signs plastered all over the walls as they stepped onto the lift. This was followed by the conveyor's doors creaking shut, a dim light flickering on overhead.

"Looks more like a cage than a turbolift..." He murmured over the hum of the elevator's motors grinding forward.

"It's a construction terminal, I found it on my way to work one day."

Laen raised an eyebrow. "Last I checked, we weren't construction workers".

His elder brother responded with a chuckle. "Construction hasn't been down this way since the attack - they've kinda got their hands full with that anyways. But no big deal, I've been down here plenty myself. It's this neat underground district that they've been working on, the whole place is pretty beautiful. We'll just pass through and be on our -"

A thud. Then a crack. The lift came screeching to a halt in turn, firm grips on its side railing the only thing keeping them both from flailing into the adjacent wall.

"The hell was that?"

For the briefest of moments, Dax seemed to echo his panic. "... Our stop. I did say we were going climbing, didn't I?"

In the next moment his brother was pushing open an overlying hatch, hefting himself up onto the conveyor's roof.

"I thought you said this was a shortcut."

The statement was met with silence. With a slew of curses, Laen forced himself to follow, pulling himself out of the dimly lit chamber and into the shadowy mess above. A squint through the darkness yielded no further results.

Laen all but scoffed. "Y'know, if I could see anything, I might actually-"

"Give it a sec," Dax breathed, eyes trained on the mix of clouds and air traffic. "The auxillary lights need to kick on."

As if on command, the surrounding structures illuminated all at once, scaling up above to greet the fast-approaching sunset. Their incandescent gleam interplayed with dusk's golden hue. While the glare was a lightshow in itself, the buildings themselves seemed to lack the same sort of spectacle. The surrounding apartment complexes were near identical to the one they had just departed an half hour prior - minus an unusually thick covering of rust and soot.

Laen's mind was too focused on another problem to acknowledge this, however. Peering over the side of the lift, he was surprised to find a pavement of duracrete just meters below.

"What were you expecting?" Dax questioned, noting the sigh of relief. Laen offered a shrug in turn, deciding not to mention the gaping chasm that should have been below the horiozontally-aligned turbolift. Of all the words he could use to describe their current trek, he was more than a little grateful that "dangerous" wasn't yet among them.

"So... what exactly do we do from here?"

"We get a better look," Dax said, pointing to a ledge on the nearest structure, a few hundred meters above. "We're going to climb to the top, right there."

Now he really did scoff. "Well, I'm not coming with you."

"Laen..."

"You seriously thought it'd be a good idea to scale the side of a building? The peaks back home are one thing, but a skyscraper? Out of the dozen or so laws we've violated just getting down here, this one's gotta be the most severe... Not to mention stupid."

"Abandoned building," Dax countered as if the reasoning was foolproof, already launching climbing hooks to the ledge he had pointed out earlier. "You think I'd have brought us all the way down here if I thought we'd get caught? Let alone be in any real trouble?"

"Knowing you?" He responded over the echo of grapnel meeting its mark. "I wouldn't be surprised."

Now it was his brother's turn to sigh. "Why do you always do this?"

He shrugged off his knapsack at the question, knowing an argument was fast-approaching. "Do what?"

"Everytime I do something - anything, just to try and get you out of the apartment. To do something that doesn't involve shutting ourselves up in our rooms all day... Do the kind of stuff dad used to do with us."

Laen swallowed hard. "Well there's your problem. I'm not dad, and neither are you."

"I wasn't trying to be-"

"No," he interrupted again, deciding that he was tired of being dragged around. "You're right. You just thought doing all this stupid kriffing stuff would be a good substitute."

Dax went from somber to seething in the span of a second. "The hell's that supposed to mean?"

Laen could feel himself squirming underneath his sudden gaze, but he was far too stubborn to look away. They stared each other down for the better part of a minute, stuck somewhere between an apologetic embrace and punching the other square in the jaw. Just the notion made Laen painfully aware that he was outclassed by three years of age and month's worth of manual labor.

Perhaps it was that same age gap and experience that made Dax's next action so easy. With a deep exhale of breath, his elder brother began backing away.

"Y'know what? Fine. You're right. I was dumb to bring you out here." His hands met rope's end, allowing it to sway across the building's wallscape before pulling the cord so it was taut. "Could use a spotter anyways... I'll cut your line down once I get to the top."

Laen found himself trailing behind his brother's retreating form in response, half-expecting some sort of last second ploy to get him to come. "Why not just yank it down now?"

Hazel eyes bounced between Laen and the building's roof top as he hooked himself into his harness. "Nah, I've gotta have something to do when I get up there, don't I?"

The reasoning wasn't altogether solid, but Laen was past the point of arguing logic. He'd made his thoughts known and his brother didn't seem interested in countering them.

So he was stuck down below, watching as his brother began navigating the building's exterior - using a series of sills and scaffoldings as footholds. He watched as they grew further and further apart, his surroundings as abandoned and quiet as he'd ever known Coruscant to be. Soon enough, he was alone, just like he'd been begging for all these past weeks. Left in solitude, uninterrupted time to waste and suck away. To grumble, grieve, and bemoan. Only then to realize...

"Oh, for frack's sake..." Laen murmured with a shake of his head. "Dax!"

"Yeah?" his brother echoed, already clambering past a ninth story window.

"Just... Slow it down, is all," He huffed, latching on his harness. "Acting like I'm a professional climber or something."

His brother gave some quick-tempered retort, but he couldn't hear it. Not now. Not in the midst of a climb a hundred stories long. Not when his body was coming to terms with the week's he'd spent moping about, locked in his room, wondering why his father insisted on fighting fires when he himself would've been just as willing to flee from them, content to let others burn if it meant his family went unscathed.

Doubling his already frantic pace, he could see Dax's form growing - whether he was really catching up or if his brother had heeded his request to slow down, he wasn't altogether sure. Vaguely, he became aware that beads were running down his face, mind too occupied to tell whether they were tears or sweat. As inconsequential as he was feeling, it wouldn't surprise him if they were a mix of both.

Perhaps this was just apart a teenager. Recognizing one's inner selfishness and deciding whether it was best to embrace or ignore it. Though when phrased like that he couldn't help but feel like he was just glorifying his problems.

There was only one problem facing him now, though. One durasteel-bundled hill to climb. Dormancy was replaced with a sense of action he hadn't felt since before their arrival on this interconnected strip of loneliness. His body might have been protesting his every movement, arms and legs threatening to give out at the very notion, but his intention was set. He would climb this building. No matter how ludicrous that statement sounded, no matter how many painstaking steps it would take. Hands cracking and peeling, the very rope he clung to seemed to mock him as he went, taunting his self-worth, questioning if he'd ever reach the building's summit.

And then he had.

Laen plopped down next to Dax wordlessly, leaning against a pillar that fed into a larger communications antenna overhead. One leg remained swaying over the 100 story ledge, the other tilted against it, a resting place for his weary head. In the distance he spotted what he presumed his brother's reasoning for bringing them here was. Underground as the district may have been, a series of skylights were visible from the building's vantage point - unobstructed viewpoints of an always obstructed sun. The sight now didn't quite live up to the promise, the surge of city lights negated what would have otherwise been a star-checkered sky.

For a split moment he wondered if it was his fault that they had missed the sunset, maybe if he hadn't started arguing, or hadn't taken so long to get here... But he shook his head all the same. He'd dealt with more than enough hypotheticals for the day.

There'll be other sunsets...

A soft chuckle by his brother broke him from the thought. "And they said this was supposed to be one of the smaller buildings..."

"Was?"

Dax waved the question off. "They just up and shut this whole block down after the attack... Hasn't been touched in close to a month..."

Laen turned now, genuinely curious. "Well, what are they going to do with it?"

"Cutting their losses. Untouched as this place may be, the rest of the area's still pretty war-torn, apparently that drags down a property's value... Who would have thought, right?"

"But... They must of invested a lot into all this, they're just going to give up on it like that?"

"Move on is more like it... " Dax responded, hand scratching his chin. Another moment, and he had turned to face him with a smile. "Sideline the project to focus on the relief effort, help with all these charities and fundraisers that have sprouted up... I suppose they have the right idea."

Slowly, begrudgingly almost, Laen found himself nodding.

"I suppose they do."

End