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Date & Time: December 30th, 3313
Location: ~5 miles out from the Transport Pad, Pub Stables
Characters: Richard Lawson & Stanley Lucerne
Summary: Richard hits the limit for what distance he can roam; Stanley is the unfortunate who witnesses his fade to black.
Warnings: Character death/disappearance.

The yak in the stall next to him chewed cud with a rhythm almost lulling to Richard's senses. His canteen of alcohol, hard earned in menial labor that he was only good at for being able to haul things from point A to point B, rested under the outer furs of his ragged, second-hand coat. There wasn't much left in it anymore. He fumbled it out, hands shaking, pausing halfway through the motion.

Richard couldn't remember what he was doing, or why. Concentration was getting progressively more difficult. The edges of his vision turned dark, as if he were about to faint, but it never follows through. Only his heart sped along, skipping beats here and there.

"I'm Richard Lawson," he said out loud, hand tightening around his canteen. "I'm from the United Earth. I was born... I was... I was born to..."

He couldn't remember. Worse than it had been back when he'd been going through detox, where time lost definition, and memory and illusion merged into some unholy amalgamation of true and not true. Worse than then.

He didn't know when he'd started crying, but as he tried to pull himself to his feet in the straw filled stall, he knew that he was. Snot was leaving a cold trail down his lip. He rubs the back of his gloved hand under his nose.

"Transports, transport...ation, transported through time, time, time... Out of time. Running out of time?" He asked the question looking at the yak, which didn't even have the courtesy to look back his way. No, Richard thought, even the damn Yak had better things to do than pretend to care about his life, or the lives of anyone other than the Yak.

"You're an ass," he stated, knees threatening to give out again. With a huff of air, he started falling again, catching himself on the stall divider. "A furry... fat... ass!"

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"I think it's a buffalo." Responded a human voice. A young man, tallish and slender and shivering, in a ridiculous sweater with lights sewn into it.

His tone is soft, uncertain. Clearly the man rambling to himself in the barn stall isn't too well. He's seen his father do this before when he's too drunk, so Stan approaches with caution. The tears on the man aren't a surprise, but they do make him frown a little.

He doesn't know this man. He's not usually in this barn, but the darkness came more quickly than he'd expected when he was sent out with a message that morning. The problem had been the tip, maybe. That had brought him to the pub, and the questionable stew. But it was hot, and thick, and lumpy. Lumpy was good for feeling full and warm in this shitty weather. So he'd bought the stew, and then he'd help get a fish hook out of someone's hand, and then there had been spirits.

He was warm and pleasantly tipsy, but not out of it by the time the barmaid had snuck him back to the stables to sleep it off, and thus he'd come to be where he was now. Observing an unfamiliar man falling apart a little. But not a stranger. Stan might not know who this guy was, (Richard Lawson?) but the guy knew about him. About all of them. Which reminded him of something else. It felt like a blow to the stomach to think about that, though, so he shoved it aside. Now, just to figure out what to do with this guy.

"Take it easy, Dick. You want some water?"

He turned too quickly, in a failed effort from the start, thumping his body hard against the center divider trying to look at whoever talked to him. Richard doesn't recognize Stanley in particular. His eyes widen from pain, nothing else, and the brief flash of blinding light that accompanied slamming his knee into wood.

"Gah!" Not close to a yes, but not a no, either, Richard's arms gave out and he slipped off the divider. "Argh!"

A muffled thump heralded his fall to the hay-strewn floor. Richard lay there stunned, staring up at the rafters.

What? What? What?

"Shit..."

He hadn't meant to freak the dude out. Stanley crouched, tilting his head a bit to one side. He wasn't an expert at this. With friends it was easy to talk them down. With his father, he usually tried to just...be somewhere else. But no one was around to keep this guy from hurting himself if Stan just curled up and ignored him, so that wasn't an option either. Not a good option, anyway.

"You're from the UE? That's what you said, right?"

The slang didn't register at first. Richard concentrated on the face he saw, much closer than the rafters. He reached out, holding the canteen out to Stanley.

The Uey?

"UE?"

United Earth.

"Me? Yes. Yes, I'm from the UE, the whole bloody mess of it." He waited to see if Stan would accept his canteen before trying to push himself back up, aching and slow. His arms shook, and he groaned with every movement. "Was on council. 'sall fucked anyhow. You're all -- out of time."

Only he said the last looking confused. Richard didn't understand why everything seemed to slip right by him, but he knew that out of time was a good description for what he felt. He was displaced out of time, and running out of time. He was never meant to be here, and he felt less substantial, like he was becoming more and more part of the surrounding air.

"Is this what God feels like?" He asked, nose dripping and voice dropping down to a whisper, eyes red rimmed and red through his sclera. Red cheeked, too, but that was from the alcohol. "So light? Thin? No, that's not, I don't... I'm fading!"

He started crying once more. "No one alive, no one knows why we're alive, death's just slow to catch up. Bye, bye, isn't that right, my -- who are you?"

The canteen was accepted automatically. Teenagers were pretty apt to pass a shared bottle around where he came from, so he'd already taken a sip before he wondered if maybe that wasn't a bad idea. But he didn't get long to dwell on that thought before he was sucking in a painful breath and taking a much more substantial chug from the bottle.

Fading? Jesus. He knew all about that. Tears stung his eyes too, though they didn't spill over. He blinked them away, and stared mournfully at the strange man again. Richard Lawson, from the United Earth, who was out of time. And apparently, so were the rest of them.

"Stanley." He offered. It was the only part of that he knew how to answer. What did God feel like? How would any of them know? This place was some kind of punishment anyway. He'd thought at first that it might be hell, though he couldn't have imagined what he'd done to end up there.

He still didn't know. But by now he was sure that it was. He just didn't know how to fix it yet.

"What are you doing here? I don't think you're supposed to be here."

What had he been doing here? Funny how he wasn't sure anymore when he's been asked. There'd been some sort of reason. He's relatively sure of it, but grasping for that logic was like trying to prevent sand from falling through his hands in the middle of a desert. The thought's there, somewhere, indistinguishable from thousands of other, similar ones.

"Not supposed to be anywhere," he said at last. "Should have died. Didn't. Looks like the record's changing now."

He rubbed at his face again, not even noticing when his wrist went like something insubstantial where it became exposed between the end of his glove and the start of his sleeve. Two garments rubbed against his face without anything stringing them together.

He felt numb and addled. "Stanley?" Right, that was what the kid had said. "I think... I went too far. We all did, before, your stupid lot too. Oh, let's rail against the Initiative, they said, let's never -- think it through, a whole world of people, a whole world that doesn't give a shit, doesn't know they're real -- they'd fuck it up again!" He was breathing too fast, blinking rapidly to clear the water from his eyes. It didn't clear the blurriness. "March in, light a match under the lion's tail, wonder why the whole damn pack came down to gnaw on them!"

Everything he has and hasn't done, and he knows, in that moment, that none of it has ever mattered.

"I know." Stan answered, feeling sick. He hadn't missed that flash of the end creeping in. He knows this argument like the back of his hand. He has it with people all of the time. It gets brushed off, when you're just a stupid kid.

For a moment, he wishes it was someone else here. Someone else so he doesn't have to see this again. Someone else so one of those self assured assholes had some idea of how truly and monumentally shitty it was to let people be snuffed out like this. How ugly and real and horrible it was. If he told this guy 'don't worry, you'll probably still be around somewhere in some form or another' he'd probably get punched in the teeth. And he'd deserve it. That familiar bitter feeling swells up, on behalf of this random man in a random barn behind a random pub that neither of them should've ever been in anyway. He doesn't belong here either.

What's worse, is he doesn't know what to do for this man. He's used to being useless, bu it's never felt quite so cloying before. He could choke on it. They could both drown in it. If they're really lucky, maybe the dude doesn't know exactly what he's in for...but he probably does.

"I'm sorry."

A hiccup of dark laughter forced its way out of Richard's throat. "Sorry for what? You didn't do a damn thing. That's the real shitter, isn't it?" He shook his head, an effort that ended with him bringing both hands up to it. He felt dizzy. He felt like he was shrinking in on himself.

Or did he? He couldn't figure it out. "Tries, no, they don't, that's the try, tried to take over, already in control. Yes. Yes, doing nothing, bunch of reactionary... People. We didn't expect you."

His eyes lost some of their confusion as he looked up and focused on Stanley's face. "Don't you know? We didn't expect you. That's the key." This time he did laugh, hitting a note of pain that left him gasping. "Great expectations, goodbyes, no time, none at all!" For a statement intending to have emphasis, it faded into a wheezing gasp instead of a note of strength by the end. Richard appeared to be literally deflating, desaturating. The reds looked like they were merging into uniform browns and shadows, his features having lost their crisp definition.

"It didn't expect..." I don't want to die.

What does that mean? They thought they'd have a more willing army? People who wouldn't do stupid things and end up hurting others by not thinking it through? Is that what it means? It sounds that way, but it's hard to tell. He's not that great at reading between lines, and it turns out he's not very good at understanding people when they babble. Which really fucking sucks, because this is important. It's the most important thing anyone's ever babbled at him.

And Richard really is running out of time. It's obvious. Stan's eyes widen, and he reaches his free hand out, putting it on the guy's arm, trying to anchor him into the universal fabric through willpower alone. "Hey...hey, wait. What do we do?"

He wants to close his eyes, shut out the pain and the woozy flux of the world that's turning into grays and darker.

Stan's touch prompts him into the great effort of opening his eyes again. What do we do?

Lie down and wait?

"Don't let the United Earth know you're here." He licks his lips, tries to swallow, but finds he can't. His mouth is too dry.

"It's still here. We don't -- want. Differences, out of control. Control. Fit the pattern, the..." He makes an abortive gesture toward the Yak. "You're all screwed."

He finishes. "If you don't stay hidden, from your UE. Even this one."

He closes his eyes again, feeling the world drop out from underneath as he fell over sideways to the ground.

Stan drops down beside Richard instinctively, making a soft sound that's something like a whine. It surprises him. He didn't mean to make that sound. But it's awful, and terrifying, and worse yet it answers some questions that he hadn't known he never wanted answered. He doesn't want to watch this man fade out of existence. But he can't just leave the guy, either. It'll still happen. If he leaves now, this will still happen and Richard will be alone when it does. The knowledge is like a rock in his stomach.

"Why is this happening?"

Stan had a good question. Why is this happening? Age old, asked in all kinds of cultures, expecting all different types of replies. Fate, God, the Chaos of the Universe, Human Nature...

The why always seemed to matter, and it was almost always left up to someone else to believe in what response made it easiest for them to keep moving forward through life.

Richard had no reply. He hadn't exactly heard Stan's question, registering the young man's voice and little else. His lungs felt like they were collapsing under invisible pressure, unable to pull enough oxygen in to breathe. He starts gasping for air, one arm falling back across his chest, then his sleeve slowly flattening out. A knee almost looks like it's inverting as the fabric falls flatter and flatter.

Richard is literally fading away, disappearing in disharmonious sections.

"No!"

It's a pointless objection. He knows it is. But in the moment, he can't accept that. The tears spill over now, helpless, hopeless tears for a stranger. Stan grasps anyway, trying to hold the man there somehow. But Richard's arm fades before he can close his numb fingers around it, and the rest of the man begins to follow.

He should say something reassuring, maybe. He should try to offer some small comfort to this man, but what comes out instead is a frightened plea.

"No, don't...please? Please don't go."

It was an unfair burden on Stanley, even if it had neither been intentional or desired on Richard's part to leave the world like this, under these conditions. The rational part of his mind had fled, along with most his consciousness. He didn't have to be aware of his own disappearance past the initial horror of it all.

He was going, going... and finally, gone. Stan was left with the accessories to human existence: a jacket, underclothes, pants, shoes, socks, even underwear. The canteen he already had. Richard had nothing else on him, and without Richard there to prop things up, everything deflated and crumpled on the stable floor.

One of his former boots fell over sideways, thumping into the hay.

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