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Luis tried to lie and say that he wasn’t excited, but the fact that he had specifically scheduled Leon’s check-up on a different day for the first time in three years, cleared both his and Leon’s schedule, and had been idling by the window for the last three hours said differently.
A solar eclipse.
Today at 1:55.
The view from their window was perfect. The sun was sitting far above the stretch of skyscrapers and buildings, entirely in their view.
Well… Leon knew it was there, but the deep obscuring of clouds made it hard to check. Nor was the timefall that beat against the window, further darkening the skies.
Leon watched from their kitchen, leaning his hip against the sink as Luis made another circle through their flat, tilting picture frames and tilting them back, opening the fridge and closing it again, then looking at their projection screen on the wall. The weather map had been a near permanent fixture cast on the flat surface, with a thick smear of clouds across Central Knot City.
Disappointment wasn’t the correct word for what crushed Luis’ expression, only to be wiped away as soon as he caught Leon watching. It was deeper than that.
But Luis still smiled back at him, flat and heartbroken. “Maybe next time, we’ll be lucky,” Luis said, looking away and turning to walk back to the window. As if he hadn’t been crowing about this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for weeks.
Sitting on their kitchen chair was Princess’ BB Pod, propped up with pillows to give a perfect view out. She was watching Luis with small hands pressed to the glass, only to smile and let out a giggle as soon as he approached. That smile fell away fast, though, when Luis’ gaze went to outside the window, like he could will the clouds to part.
Their eclipse glasses, freshly bought from a nearly empty box hastily put together by their favorite pizza parlor, sat on the windowsill. They were abandoned, still folded.
Leon pressed his thumb to his cuff link and looked at the time. 1:23. He navigated through a couple screens and clicked a confirmation.
“Grab your jumpsuit,” Leon said, standing up straight.
“¿Que?”
“Jumpsuit,” Leon repeated, walking to the far wall and pressing his palm to the panel next to the glass. It slid open, revealing their gear on mannequins. He reached out and pulled his black suit off, then dragged the red one next to it.
“But the timefall-” Luis tried to discourage, as if he hadn’t darted across the flat and now stood right at his side, eagerly taking the red suit from his hand. Princess was already in his arms.
“We got hoods for a reason.”
The motorcycle roared to life beneath Leon, and the rising platform beneath them had barely turned flush with the floor before they shot forward. The front tire only hit ground once they found the street and pavement, and Leon could feel Princess’ pod dig directly into his back pinned between him and Luis. He couldn’t find it in him to complain, though, as they sped through the timefall. It pattered on their sleek jumpsuits, not quite a downpour, but enough that Leon had to tuck low to avoid the downfall on his face and hide behind the small windshield.
It would take time to get out of Central Knot City.
“Time?” Leon called against the roar of the engine, weaving between Bridges trucks and civilian life.
He felt Luis shift his arm to reach for his cuff link. “1:28!” Luis reported, looping his arm back tight around Leon’s waist and squeezing tight.
Leon’s hands gripped tighter on the clutch. “Hang on,” he said, lowering his body and feeling Luis drape over his back.
Maybe it was the presence of his black security jumpsuit that cleared the way, or it could have been the small streak of luck that let Leon speed through Central Knot and break a minor amount of traffic laws (he counted eight personally) on the way. They sped through the city checkpoint without a second to pause, already speeding across gravel and sodden dirt.
“Time?”
“1:46,” Luis reported again, uncertainty in his voice. “Sancho, I don’t think-”
“Head down,” Leon cut him off, taking the small moment to look up. There was a break in the clouds just south. If they could make it there-
But the traveled path of Porters veered to the left suddenly, and Leon squeezed down on the brakes. The back wheel lifted off the ground for a moment too long, sending Luis crashing into his back, before it dropped down.
“What-” Luis struggled, raising his head and looking outward. “What’s wrong?”
Leon didn’t have to answer. Because they both stared at the creek they had crossed too many times for their testing. The one that directly on the other side led to a field of BTs.
It stood in their direct path of the break in the storm.
Luis’ arms sagged around his waist, and he let out a too-long sigh. “We won’t make it if we go around,” he murmured, pressing his forehead into Leon’s back.
Leon’s hands remained on the handlebars.
“Thank you for trying, Sancho,” he mumbled against him, misery as thick a cloud as the timefall that pelted down on them. “There’s… always next time.”
His thumb brushed against the clutch.
“...Leon?”
“Plug Princess in-” Leon said, slowly lowering himself back down against the bike.
“¿¡Que?!”
“-and hang on.”
“Leon-!”
Luis barely had the time to rope an arm back around his waist before the motorcycle shot forward again, wheels spitting soil, grass and stone behind it. Whatever Luis said was blocked out by the sudden pulse of blood through his ears as Leon steered the bike to the single weathered ladder that stretched across the creek.
“Sorry Sam,” he muttered to himself just before his tire hit the first rung and instantly broke through, only to catch the second and shoot forward. The rungs cracked and broke beneath the bike, and only through momentum and some foolish faith did they cross before it entirely fell apart. They’ll find a different path on the way home.
His tire caught solid earth again, and only then did he hear the click of Luis’ odradek unfolding next to his head. It was more for Luis than anything else, because in less than a minute of crossing the ladder, Leon felt his lungs suddenly squeeze in on themselves and his breath gushed out white. He floored the engine.
“Ahead!” Luis called as the odradek snapped forward.
It was almost instant as the black specters scattered through his vision, and just as he predicted, the engine stuttered out. But the wheels still spun, even as the solid earth turned to black soup beneath them. He still guided the speeding bike through the mess, even as that speed sharply declined.
The BTs didn’t appreciate their sudden crashing of their storm as they turned towards them, stretching out wavering hands. At that same moment, the ground beneath them bubbled up black and clung to the tires, stopping them dead.
“Are you serious?!” he spat at the bike that was, in fact, seriously dead.
They didn’t have time for this.
Leon’s breath caught hard in his chest as he stared around them, at the closing in creatures and the hands that started to reach up and grab a hold of the bike. He twisted his hand on the bars. Still dead. Luis’ odradek spun all around them.
“Leon?!”
Twisted again. Still dead.
Something grabbed his leg.
“Leon!”
Twisted.
The bike roared back to life and the tires spun hard against the clinging black hands. It caught just enough earth beneath the pool to jerk forward, then again, until without warning, the bike sped forward. It ripped them out of the grasp of the BTs, and brought them onto solid ground again.
The tires found slicked grass again, residue black leaving a trail behind them. The odradek on Luis’ shoulder angled behind them, whirling, then clicking, then finally stopping seconds later.
Princess was the only one able to cheer off their successful escape, not as Leon focused only on the edge of the storm. The haze of timefall made it hard to see but he could barely make out the sun peeking through dark clouds. Almost there. Almost. Almost-
They burst through the storm suddenly, the wall of timefall behind them.
Their hoods popped back in unison, just as Leon slowed to a stop in the middle of the grass plain. He looked up, staring at the sun that had a completely undisturbed circle of empty sky to soar in. It was perfect.
“Time?” he breathed, trying to swallow down his still-thundering heart.
Luis was still panting against his back, arms squeezing so tight that Leon felt like he was about to be snapped in half. “How about a three, two, one, next time before you-”
“Time,” he repeated, though he was also trying to unclench muscles that were locked and ready for a fight to the death. He sat back on the bike, and the odradek on Luis’ shoulder folded back.
“1:52,” Luis finally responded with a gasp, loosening his arms.
They made it.
“I can’t believe you almost killed us for-”
“Yell at me after the eclipse,” Leon soothed, rocking forward on the bike and resting his arms on the handlebars. He raised his head and stole a quick glance at the sun, only to wince away. Still full. Still the sun and still hurt to look at.
His body buzzed with an excitement he hadn’t expected, so much that he expected Luis to feel it. An eclipse. He had only heard about them in books. How the entire sky would turn black, just a small ring of light left of the sun as it threw the world in darkness for a few brief moments. What would happen? Would the world change? Would a cosmic event that happened once in a lifetime leave their world entirely different once the sun returned? Would werewolves come into being?
He didn’t know and for once, not knowing was exciting.
Leon looked up again, raising a hand to shield his eyes from the sun. Any moment now. Any-
“Leon?” Luis murmured, pressing his cheek against his back.
“Yeah?” he answered, turning back to look back at Luis. He was staring at him, a gentle smile on his face.
“We forgot the glasses at home.”
Leon’s brow furrowed, before the realization sank in. He slumped forward on the bike, planting his head on the handlebars and thumping down. Fuck. God dammit. Of course. Princess’ giggles only dug the humiliation deeper.
“Wait-” he jerked back upright, a rare smile on his face. “We won’t need them with the eclipse. If the sun’s getting covered by the moon, we can look at it. Because it’s blocked. Right?”
Luis stared back at him, and it took seconds for Leon to recognize the very specific expression of ‘I’m in love with an idiot.’
He swallowed. “Right?” he tried again, glancing up to the sky and raising his hand to shield his eyes from the sun. “That’s the whole point of an eclipse. Right?”
“We’re not under a totality.”
“What does-”
“The full sun isn’t covered.”
“But it’s still-” Leon looked back at Luis, furrowing his brow. “If you cover half a lightbulb, you’re still gonna cover half the room.”
Luis met his gaze, and his ‘I’m in love with an idiot’ expression had not budge an inch. “Amor,” he started, leaning forward and resting his chin on Leon’s shoulder, their faces barely a breath apart. “Mi amor, mi corazón, mi guapo caballero, luz de mi vida.”
“What?!”
“The sun is so powerful, comparing it to a light bulb is comparing my love to you like a simple raindrop in a storm.”
Leon blinked. “...Thank you?”
“And in the time it took for us to have this discussion, the eclipse has probably passed.”
Leon jerked his head back up and stared directly into the very-much-still-there sun, only to hiss and lower his head, rubbing at his eyes. “But nothing happened!” he groaned, shoving the heels of his palms to his face.
“If we had those glasses, we could have seen the moon pass the lower half of the sun,” Luis said with a smile that barely took the edge off ‘I’m in love with an idiot.’
There was a soft gurgle between them coming from Princess’ pod. Leon looked down, only to see her pressed against the pod and staring up at the sky. She had a clear look of wonder, bouncing lightly in the amniotic fluid before she clapped her hands together. Her giggling filled the air.
“Wait, did she see it?” Leon asked, squinting.
Luis leaned back, enough to let him pick up the pod and lift it. He peered at the glass surface, brows knitting together with thought. “There is a chance that the tint of her pod could have been enough to-”
“Look through her pod,” Leon pressed quickly, straightening on the bike. He reached and pushed Princess’ pod to him. “See if you can see a part of it still.”
Uncertainty crossed Luis’ face for a split second before he lifted the pod gently. “No mires al sol, princesa,” he murmured to her as he angled the pod. Princess took no heed to his warning, instead facing the sun directly and shifting just lightly to the right. She clapped her hands again, giggling. Luis squinted, obviously hesitant to look in the direction of the sun, but then he blinked.
And he smiled.
“I can-” he started, then his breath was stolen. He raised Princess up higher, staring through the glass to the sun. Luis cast himself in an amber glow as he stared through the glass, enraptured.
“Asombroso,” Luis breathed.
Leon watched them, heart finally resting gentle in his chest and soothed. It could have been a total eclipse at that very moment, yet he wouldn’t have wanted to look anywhere else.
This was enough for him.
He sat in silence as Luis and Princess watched the eclipse, and not even the idea of werewolves being summoned by the event could disturb his mind. Just watched and bathed in the warmth of the still-present sun in front of him.