Title: Fresh Eyes
Author: jordannamorgan
Fandom: Blood Blockade Battlefront
Characters: Zapp and Leo.
Setting: Not long after Leo’s recruitment into Libra.
Rating: G.
Length: 350 words.
Summary: Zapp gets a little reminder about perspectives.



As Zapp stepped out the door of Libra headquarters, a cacophony of noise washed over him like ice water on a sensitive tooth. Traffic and machines and distant rumbles pounded the air like one vast headache, rivaled only by the dull roar of human voices mingled with the screeches, grunts, and howls of other species. Drivers cursed at pedestrians in the street, while an interspecies couple arguing on a fire escape were about to come to blows. Reeking trash cans overflowed with unidentifiable refuse that may well have been a biohazard, the sidewalk was sticky with the slime trail left in a slugoid’s wake, and all of it steamed nauseously in the midsummer heat island of an overcrowded concrete desert. All the while, the TV in a shop window droned on about how both rent costs and homicide numbers were rising with the mercury.

Another fan-freaking-tastic day in Hellsalem’s Lot.

For all Libra’s efforts, it seemed like the city was only getting worse every day… and most of the time, Zapp was long past being able to remember what exactly in all this was supposed to be worth saving.

“…Whoa, hey! Did that guy really just sprout wings?”

Rolling a jaded glance to the side, Zapp took in the spectacle of the agency’s recently-acquired young rookie. Leo’s supernatural blue eyes were wide open, their gaze fixed raptly upon the demi-angel courier who had just taken flight with a messenger bag.

Stupid brat. Standing there with eyes that should show him this hellhole’s ugliness better than anyone, but he can still look around at all the insanity here with…

With wonder.

A glowing white feather drifted down from the hazy, polluted sky in which the courier had vanished. Leo took a few running steps and caught it before it could touch the ground, to turn it between his fingers and study it with childlike fascination.

Zapp huffed quietly and shifted his gaze away, hunching his shoulders deeper into his jacket.

Maybe those eyes aren’t the only way he sees things different from the rest of us…

…It’s kinda refreshing, I guess.

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2021 Jordanna Morgan