exsiliumlogs | [closed]

Entry tags:

[closed]

Date & Time: Noon of 3/28
Location: Abandoned school parking lot out in the city!!
Characters: Bariyan (

stonefaith), Martin Darkov (

theguideless)
Summary: More driving shenanigans! More driving shenanigans gone WRONG.
Warnings: watch out there's a darkov behind the wheel

Bariyan was beginning to feel just a little bit hopeful about Martin's driving lessons. The kid was doing all right now. He could sort of navigate his way around the parking lot, at least. Bariyan still wouldn't trust him to, say, try and maneuver his way up a mountain road while being chased by overpowered masked freaks. But Bariyan didn't exactly trust himself to do that sort of thing either.

After their last lesson, he'd told Martin to meet him at the parking lot again, today, at noon. Bariyan had arrived much earlier than that, mostly on account of having little else to do. He'd spent the last fifteen minutes or so lounging against the hood of the sedan watching the clouds make their slow roll across the sky and thinking idle thoughts.

He liked having the lessons. He was just trying to decide what it was that he liked about them: the teaching, the car, the way that time suddenly passed much faster, or maybe even Martin's company. Or all of them? In any case, it was a rather odd feeling. In all the time since his resurrection, this was the first time he'd ever felt anything but hollow misery.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The firm pressure on his leg, unexpected and unwanted, caused Martin to flinch, letting out a startled cry that staggered with a lack of fresh breath. It died off with a whine as he rocked back, then forward again, which unlocked the belt and sent his head down on the wheel. His hands dragged down from his ears and neck to the belt, curling his fingers tight around it.

"I ca--I can't--"

Bariyan forced himself to ignore Martin's misery as he steered the car around a nasty crack in the road. With only one hand his control was not as precise as it could have been so hit it anyway, and braced himself against the jolt.

But that appeared to be the worst of it. No more. Brakes down and cut from the engine, the car finally came to a halt. Bariyan killed the ignition immediately.

And paused. And let the horror catch up to him.

He let go of the wheel to pull away from Martin.

"Come on, Darkov. Out of the car." Bariyan threw his own door open. He wasn't sure why his first instinct was to get Martin out of there, other than the fact that it gave him a couple more seconds to try and come to terms with what had just happened. But that seemed unlikely to happen at all.

Martin's fingers curled until some of his nails found the heels of his palms, tightened and oblivious to the material in his grip. Can't.

He held his breath for as long as he could, lips curling into a toothy grimace, fighting sound and sadness to keep still. I can't. With one loud gasp (he couldn't hold his breath forever), he drew his leg back to him, curling up as much as he could against the shaking that overtook and made him feel ready to hurl.

The worst word: can't. I cannot. It was always true, even when he fought tooth and nail against it. No matter how hard he tried, nothing would change. Nothing. Couldn't go home, couldn't find Regina, couldn't seal a contract, couldn't fight for Father, couldn't...couldn't drive a car, which was probably not something to get very worked up about at all, but it was just one more little drop in a pool of negatives he was drowning in. Doing things was supposed to keep the truth at bay, maybe even change it.

You're supposed to get better if you try...

Bariyan stepped out first and, not entirely sure of what he was doing, checked the car. He couldn't see anything out of place. Obviously. He'd probably have to break it down to find the problem, but Bariyan wasn't sure he was good enough a mechanic to do that.

But when he was done looking the vehicle over and Martin still hadn't moved, Bariyan walked over to the other side of the car. He looked at Martin for the first time since the car had spun out of control and felt -- whatever he felt, Bariyan swallowed it down.

"Martin," he said, surprising himself with how level his voice was. "It's all right. It's over."

The words went unacknowledged from where Martin sat, wide-eyed and staring at the floor without focus. His forehead wrinkled with the effort taken to try and settle down, but he found himself shaking nonetheless. It never seemed to get better with demand to stop, he'd found, but rather to just lie down and endure it until either the shaking had worn down or he himself simply wore out of it and slept. Maybe throw up somewhere in there, but he hadn't eaten much at all yet.

Those were almost practical things for him, but they weren't on his mind, either. Bariyan's smell...it wasn't a happy scent, and it certainly didn't pin his frame of mind to the present. The car's rumbling had ceased, but Martin heard beasts in his ears and his name – not the reasonable tone of the now, but the alarm from the worst moment ever.

Tick-tock. Less than three months. Then she's dead, and it'll be my fault. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to pull his knees up from under the wheel.

I hate this I hate this I hate this so much. I'm so tired. I can't do anything. I'm trying but I hate everything.

Bariyan was starting to grow just as confused as he was worried. Yes, Bariyan did expect Martin to act nervous at times of high stress, as he always had previously -- and gods know they've went through more high stress in the last couple months than they should have -- but he hadn't expected a complete freeze-up like this.

He didn't know what to do. What would he have done? Before he died. Before any of that happened.

He couldn't recall.

Bariyan reached in through the open window to make sure Martin's door was unlocked, then went ahead and opened it for him. But he could not think beyond those few motions, let alone think of anything to say. Even if he did say anything, it didn't seem as if Martin was listening.

In the end, all he said was, "Take your time."

He walked away, off the road, onto the curb. Wondering at himself.

What would he have done?
He would have done better than that.

Minutes were ages to him then and there, fidgeting to hug his legs under the knees and squeeze them tightly against the shaking. It was miserable, no doubt pathetic...disgraceful. Nobody he ever knew was ever such a twitchy mess. Regina was scared a lot, too, but she could still accomplish things when she had to...

But she's going to get killed thanks to me. He gulped, burying his head against his knees, stifling his breath.

The sun was in a different place in the sky when he uncurled himself and grimaced into the light. It was too warm, even with the door open, with the sun glaring through the windshield. Definitely nowhere near Olvoski; the sun was much too big.

He dragged the back of his hand across his eyes and under his stuffed-up nose, rediscovering where he was. It made him nervous; he ought to get out. Sluggishly, he fumbled to unbuckle and slide out, legs quavering unreliably enough to cause him to sit back down and let them dangle. He made an unhappy, nasally sound as he sat and stared at the shadows on the concrete for minutes before lifting his eyes, now as adjusted as they were going to get, upward.

He'd wanted to move. He wasn't used to staying in one place for so long. He'd always been on the move. But Bariyan forced himself to stay, because how could he even think about leaving Martin alone? He had a duty. But whether or not the bulk of that duty was to Martin was certainly debatable, even to himself.

He forced himself to think, instead. Not about what could have caused the malfunction but about what he could have done about it. Too many should-haves and what-ifs, too many and too late. They chewed away at him for a while and when he heard Martin finally make some sort of movement, Bariyan gladly took the opportunity to get away from his own thoughts.

"Hey." Bariyan moved over, stopping a couple feet away. "Talk to me." Say something, please.

Martin stared at – through – Bariyan for a good minute before blinking, reacting. He licked his lips and swallowed against the dry, tight pain in his throat. The corner of his mouth tugged a little as he considered the command.

"M'sorry," he croaked at last. That was all he ever seemed to say, but it was really the truest thing, wasn't it? Saying much more seemed too much of a hazard right then and there.

Bariyan saw it coming. He very nearly mouthed the apology along with Martin but had the good sense to stop himself. But now what? Everything he could say at this point seemed hollow and trivial.

He said it anyway. "I am too." Which was hollow, trivial, and wrong -- in the sense that Martin shouldn't have had anything to apologize for. But Bariyan let that slip.

Bariyan scratched his head and his gaze shifted away again. "I don't... know what happened back there. That's not normal. I should have moved faster--" --I'm sorry, he nearly said, which would have been redundant. So instead he simply cut himself off and stared off to the right, awkwardly.

"I shouldn't be here," Martin uttered, nearly talking over the last of Bariyan's words. It was a blanket statement, for sure; of course he shouldn't have been there – the meddlers of the Initiative were the reason he was there at all. But here meant more than the general. It's against the rules to talk to humans.

Let alone dead ones.

"I'm sorry."

Bariyan's gaze shifted back. "I know."

He didn't understand the implications, obviously, or even guess at them, only taking Martin's words at surface value. He felt guilty enough for that. He'd promised to help Martin find a way out of here and -- what had he done so far? A little. Not much. He wasn't even close to anything resembling a solution.

No, he could beat himself up over that later. That was a different matter.

Bariyan found it awkward to remain standing as Martin was sitting, so he stepped forwards and crouched down in front of Martin, resting his arms over his knees, looking away from the car and down the street again.

"That is really nothing you should apologize for, though," he said. And still struggling for words, he tacked on a vague, unrelated statement: "I haven't been... very good at this."

Gods, listening to himself was painful.

Martin stared at him with a muted, undecipherable expression lost in exhaustion. At every turn, it seemed, Bariyan never accused or scolded. In fact, it seemed to Martin he was reaching for reasons to not blame him, which was...very hard to come to terms with. When one did something wrong, one ought to be held accountable. Bariyan wasn't the one driving.

He's making excuses for me, he thought blandly. It made his brow furrow a little. Why?

Guilt and more guilt. He was so tired of...of feeling so much. Martin's grimace broke the smooth blankness of his face.

"You don't...have to be," he worked out slowly, having to stop and swallow again. "I'm not supposed to be around people anyway."

He tried drawing in a slower breath.

"I'll...stop."

"Stop what? Being around people?" Bariyan still hadn't looked back to Martin, electing to continue staring down the road like he was waiting for something else to come down it.

But now that the conversation had moved at least a little away from recent events, Bariyan found that he had a lot more to say. There were suddenly a lot of things he could point out: that Martin was quite literally surrounded by people, that secluding himself wasn't going to do anyone an ounce of good, that there was no reason why he shouldn't be around people. Not when he seemed and acted just as human as anyone else here.

Bariyan switched all that out for one question.

"Are you running away?"

"Yes," he replied, weary and defeated. He swallowed again, still the raw and thick feeling as before – it seemed to never go away.

"I'm sorry I...I wasted your time." He stopped again, feeling his voice waver. "I won't. Anymore."

Bariyan's eyes flashed red.

"Absolutely not."

He wasn't even sure which part of Martin's answer he was refusing. It was a very general sort of refusal. In fact, if it had been possible for Bariyan to refuse every negative thing Martin had said from the moment they met to now, it would have been best characterized in those two words. In that moment.

He'd whipped his head back around to look at Martin but no further explanation seemed to be forthcoming. Not because there was none, but because Bariyan could hardly even sort his own thoughts out in his moment of panic.

The intensity of those words caused Martin to flinch, a sharp knot twisting and tightening in his gut and halting his breath in a hiss. For a second, he was braced for a strike – a cuff across his ears, shake at the shoulders...rough things he'd hardly felt, not the way he imagined.

"I'm sorry," he blurted out quickly, shrinking as Bariyan turned around. He wanted to crawl away and hide. "I--I'm sorry, I don't--"

Oh, shit. Bariyan blinked and panicked again, this time for completely different reasons.

That wasn't what he had wanted to do at all.

He started to rise out of his crouch before realizing that the height difference would probably just make things even worse, so he settled for catching his balance by placing a hand against the side of the car, bent at the knees, stuck in an awkward half-standing stance.

"I-- damn." Bariyan swore some more under his breath, and started to reach a hand out towards Martin. "I didn't mean to scare you."

"I don't want--trouble," Martin blurted, stammering over Bariyan's remark. He spoke to his knees, slipping back into the seat a little with fingers curling on the edges.

No, misspoke. His head shook slightly. "To cause it. Anymore. Because it's what I'm...I do. All the time. For everyone. Always." The attempt to look up failed, and he continued talking miserably to the view downward. "I, I'm sorry. I don't feel like...like bothering you or anybody anymore. It's bad. S-so..."

Okay. Fuck. Bariyan straightened up all the way and ran both hands through his hair, wracked with horror. He had to stop, to actually think his words through. Couldn't risk letting his emotions take over again. Could he even call them emotions? No, he would sort the rest of that out later. Here, he needed to focus.

"You're not causing anyone trouble. It's not bad." Just simple refusals, not likely to even be heard, but Bariyan felt that they still needed to be said. There was so much here that needed to be said, to be done, and Bariyan was growing less and less certain that he was the right person for that.

But right now, he was the only one.

After a moment of struggle, he tried to put a hand on Martin's shoulder and continued. "You can't let everything be your fault," he said, almost sadly. "You can't... carry that much weight, Martin."

As if things weren't confusing enough, all that earnestness was countered by the unpleasant sensation being touched caused. Martin felt his skin crawl at the neck, little hairs standing up; he couldn't help but tense a little against it. Aside from the unavoidable feeling, though, he wasn't thinking so much about how awful it was as much as how...unexpected? Or unwarranted.

He's not family... And people didn't talk to Darkovs. Not ones like him anyway.

The other unsettling thing was how intent Bariyan seemed to be to excusing him from everything – even things he was really at fault for. Not that he knew anything about it. Martin's mouth pressed into a thin, unhappy line as he forced himself to not talk over him once again, insist for the opposite.

But still. He had to carry what was his, didn't he? Every awful thing (how dare he forget for even a second).

"I won't...feel bad about the car," he said, as if cutting a deal he was getting the lesser share of. "If you want."

Bariyan's mouth twisted to the side, some weird expression between a smile and frown.

"That's a start," he said, also rather reluctantly. "But it has nothing to do with what I want."

He paused only long enough to let that sink in -- hopefully -- before moving on. "You've got... things to worry about back home. Don't you?"

"Yes," Martin replied, practically a mumble. Worry was an understatement, but he hardly felt compelled to correct it. It wasn't anyone else's problem to fix.

"Right. And I can't help you there." Whatever those burdens were, Bariyan would concede that they actually were Martin's -- for now. But only because Bariyan knew nothing about them and could make no other judgments.

"But you can't shoulder all that and everything that's happened here too," he said. "So don't."

Bariyan had seen people try to do that before, and he'd watched someone buckle under that weight to the point of snapping. To a point beyond saving, to the point where Bariyan had to accept that the person he'd called his friend was long dead and had only left some dead-eyed monster in his wake. He didn't think that Martin would go down the same path but he did think that it could break him all the same. That it would.

Bariyan knelt down again to look up at Martin. "You have to accept that the troubles here aren't yours. Let me handle them."

Obedient as he tended to be, it'd take a lot more drilling for Martin to really take the advice to heart, logical as it was. He just wasn't wired that way. Everyone else on the compound carried their weight – no stragglers, no slackers. He had to keep up.

Doubtful, as always. But--

He fidgeted, increasingly uncomfortable. The eye level was probably supposed to play to his advantage, but it only made him feel more out of place, on the spot. And worse...'Let me handle them.'

"W..." He looked increasingly baffled and worried. "Why?"

Why him?

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject