Writetober 2019

October 13-Ash

It's funny how most people only see what they want to. He was the leader, the prankster, the guy who was always ready with a joke, the Casanova, a superhero the public loved.

Idols didn't have problems. Heroes didn't have days they struggled to get out of bed or remember to eat. They certainly didn't feel worthless.

John wondered how people could look without seeing. If it were just the general public, he might believe it, but even his teammates seemed to miss him becoming withdrawn and not laughing at jokes.

Ironically, his boss was the first to notice when his productivity fell off and the number of errors in his section of code skyrocketed. He told John to take a few PTO days. He hadn't had a vacation in half a year. Surely that was all he needed.

But without that reason to get up at a set time each morning, he floundered further. He spent the nights restlessly, sometimes passing out at sunrise to awake in the afternoon. Tonight was one of those sleepless nights. It wasn't so much that he felt awake. He was plenty tired; he just...couldn't nod off. He had patrol in a few hours anyway. No point in trying again.

He wandered towards his kitchen to get something to eat before he had to leave. His apartment's kitchen was starting to look a little bare, but he couldn't muster the will to go shopping. Just thinking about it made him more exhausted and guilty. Too many people he was letting down.

He was supposed to be a hero. He was supposed to have it together. He was a fraud. That photogenic persona known as Slingshot was a lie. How no one had seen through him yet he couldn't fathom.

The refrigerator beeped at him. How long had he stood here with the door open? He closed it and glanced around his apartment. Everything tasted like ash anyway.

His headache and weariness warred for attention as his gaze drifted. A picture on the bookshelf drew his bloodshot eyes. It was him and his sister goofing off and trying to put each other in headlocks. His sister had maple leaves stuck in her hair. That had been the Thanksgiving before...

A phone call, disbelief, a hospital room, black suits, and grey skies. A fresh grave. No one had even known she was struggling.

Guess being good at hiding things runs in the family, He thought. His tired mask fractured under the pressure building in his chest. He suddenly couldn't stand being inside any longer. He grabbed his mask—he was still wearing his costume from last night's patrol—and headed outside. He glanced around the complex, jittery with restless energy. He didn't have time for a run. Tempest would be back to report on her patrol and tag out soon, but he had to do something.

He settled on levitating up to the apartment's roof and practicing with his hacky sacks, swinging them through complicated patterns to keep his mind off what a failure he was as a brother, a friend, a hero—

An inquisitive meow snapped him out of his reverie. A smoke grey cat—he couldn't understand why Caitlyn insisted she was blue—trotted across the roof to him. She rubbed against his side and forced her way onto his lap.

"Hey, Paisley," He said, halfheartedly petting her. What was she doing outside? Caitlyn never let her out at night due to the owls and coyotes in the area.

She meowed more insistently and put a paw on his chest to stand and rub her face against the stubble on John's chin. He pondered when the last time he shaved was for a minute before his thoughts wandered again. Paisley, meanwhile, settled onto his lap and chirped her dubstep version of a purr.

Sometime later, the wind picked up, and a person alighted beside him. "Hey," Tempest said softly.

"Hey," he said back, staring out across the city's lights.

"Louie's covering your patrol," She finally said, sitting down beside him.

"He doesn't need to," He objected, moving Paisley off his lap to stand.

"John," Tempest said sternly, resting a hand on his shoulder to keep him sitting.

Paisley climbed right back onto his lap, shooting him a nasty look for daring to move her.

"What's going on?"

Huh. Someone did notice. To be fair, Tabitha did know him better than anyone else. "It's nothing," He said reflexively.

"Don't give me that!" She glared at him. "Don't push me away." After a few minutes of silence, she dropped her hand and asked, "Are you taking your meds?"

John frowned and tried to recall when he last took them.

Tabitha swore at him. "Anti-depressants don't do any good if you don'ttake them. Come on," She said, tugging on his arm as she stood. "We're findingyour Zoloft; then you're taking a shower. I'll cook something."