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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.

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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?

Why? Words failed him, again, leaving him with nothing at all. Bariyan hung his head and stared at the ground for a long while. When an answer finally came to him, he spoke it to Martin's feet.

"Because you shouldn't have to," he said, words slow, heavy. "You shouldn't... be like this."

You shouldn't think that you're a burden upon the universe. Or upon anyone.

Only then did he look up again. "It's not right. I can't let you do this to yourself. I can't let you wear yourself down."

Somebody has to, he'd said before. Now, it's not right. To be...like this? Himself? Martin frowned (more than he was already). Maybe that's what everyone meant about humans. Looking alike doesn't make alike; we are fundamentally different and always will be.

He fidgeted, pressing his palms into the seat to give himself the means to push himself as close to the edge of it without sliding completely off. He drew in a deep breath as he went, holding it for a time. It didn't make the creepy-crawly feeling disappear, but it kept the smell out of his nose for a little bit.

"You're...really nice, Bariyan," he said, though it wasn't with much comforting warmth. His voice wasn't the sort to give or take compliments much at all. He swallowed. "But it's alright. I mean, so long as I get to fix what's wrong back home..." He shrugged, mouth tugging in a hapless ghost of a grin. "It doesn't...I mean, whatever else doesn't matter. What I do. You don't have to worry about something like me."

Bariyan shook his head. "Yes, I do."

He didn't take his eyes off Martin but he could no longer see him, or even sense him. He could barely feel anything, now. Except the certainty that it did matter. What Martin did. Of course it mattered. At the very least it mattered to Bariyan, because Bariyan absolutely could not let someone else break while under his wing. Someone else.

If Bariyan had still thought himself capable of genuine emotion, then what he was feeling now would have been close to dread.

"I know you have to fix your problems back home. And I can't help you there." I wish I could. "So for god's sake, Martin. Let me fix... whatever happens here."

Let me fix you, was what he'd almost said. The word had been on the tip of his tongue and he'd bitten it back. No. He had his limits. If he had been capable of that, they would not be here. Because Bariyan would have been alive.

His voice went even quieter. "Don't run away from me, kid."

And in his mind's eye. Another time, another place. Another child.

Cousin Adam had once pulled an old, heavy book from the archives and read passages aloud to the cousins still too young for advanced training. It had first- and second-hand accounts of monsters and beasts from Goldenia – a country not far from Olvoski.

"Here's a good one," Adam had said, flicking dust off the pages as he turned them. "'The corruption of the deceased followed the worst of the plague, where so many had died that the only choice was to bury them all at once, in the same place. Foul creatures worming in the ground somehow found the remains of a mind or a spirit, collective within the mass of bodies, and therein was its identity.

"'Men would claim to see their fathers or wives walking again, talking the common talk with little detail, looking as grave as they day they were sent to the grave. The naive were the food.

"'We have found it best to sever the tongues to remove the beast, for it is small. Burn the remains to ash. Most of all, never give a second of quarter to a human knowingly deceased, no matter how the people sway. Know the scent, or you will befriend your killer.'"

It was much of the last Martin remembered, imagining dead relatives walking back into the compound to embrace and kill them all. All the ones who doubted the stink, at least.

There he was, in some faraway, foreign world, doing exactly what he oughtn't. It gave him another chill as Bariyan pleaded him to stay, emoting much more than Martin ever expected someone dead to.

The worst part, he thought, was if he had no responsibility to Regina at all...there'd be little debate. It wouldn't matter, living or dying. No consequences for anyone else for his naivete.

Adam's story-voice wondered once again, What if he's just lying today to kill you tomorrow? Martin had given it less and less thought since returning to the Hold. He's had so many chances already. I'm dead five different times. at least!

He's just... Martin grimaced as the thought passed through him. Guilt, embarrassment, and shame. He just wants to help me.

Because...'somebody has to'? Why not someone who hadn't dealt with being accidentally attacked, or hunted down on the road like a dog because of him? It still didn't make proper sense in Martin's head.

"If..." No sense at all. It hurt his head. He was tired and incredibly sad and guilty. "If that's what you want..." If it's something he could do and not make someone's life worse...

Un-life. However that worked.

It shouldn't have had anything to do with what Bariyan wanted. It should have never been about him, in any case, in any iteration of this same struggle. But they always turned it back on him.

(Why? What were you looking for, and what did you find? What did you gain? Don't make this about me, he'd said-- but it had been about him. Even if he hadn't wanted it to be. He could not be completely selfless though gods knew he'd tried, time and time again.

But look where that got him.)

Bariyan closed his eyes.

"It is," he said. He would concede. If that was enough to make Martin stay.

(What had he said to Ko? Little. Not enough. Nothing. He'd just watched the boy go and now he was left wondering: could he have changed anything?

No. Too late.)

"...Alright."

The concession was barely audible, the last of the breath he'd held for so long. His shoulders slowly sagged. He was tired. If he could sleep and sleep and somehow wake up back where everything made sense or, better, never wake up while all else was well and fine without him...

Stupid fantasies.

Martin closed his eyes, almost ready to test the notion anyway, but found he felt none the better, and the sun was still glaring and hot on one side where the window was. It made the inside of his eyelids red.

When he opened them again, he refocused on the sad, talking dead man kneeling in front of him. No way could Martin understand why it was so important for him to accept his help, especially after all he'd put him through up to then. It made more sense for him to seek excuse to leave and never look back.

Fix things here for him? Someone has to. As if Darkovs weren't supposed to handle their own affairs. Bariyan didn't seem to grasp that part, that was certain...but Martin wasn't very good at talking about simple things, let alone the complexities of his very identity. He hardly knew enough; going with the flow had always worked.

Not so much anymore.

Which was as good an answer as Bariyan supposed he would ever get. He was grateful enough for it, for the sheer fact that Martin was still here. So he owed it to Martin do better. To make himself worthy of... this. Of whatever Martin had given him. It didn't feel like trust or friendship, not that Bariyan expected or deserved anything of that sort. What it felt like was compromise, though that was better than nothing at all.

He looked back up, expression blank again.

"Thank you." It seemed like a strange thing to say. Perhaps even wrong. Still it was a truth and so Bariyan let it go. But....

You nearly lost him, he thought, uneasy with that truth. Nearly. It had been close. So had it been anyone else, anyone with a stronger constitution than Martin, it would have been a sure thing. Had Martin noticed-- had he noticed? What else had the boy seen, in that moment? When Bariyan had let slip that part of him that was alien and strange, the revenant in himself that he did not recognize, the thing had woken from the dead to walk the world red-eyed and restless. That thing that he had been trying to put behind him. That Martin had been so wary of, at first, but--

(So how much longer can you hide yourself, Kodhiyan?)

A voice at the back of his head, more and more prevalent as his sleepless nights here dragged on. Laughing and familiar.

(Did you remember that you once swore an oath to never kill again? Do you remember any of the oaths that you made? I imagine not. You crossed a desert and a sea to kill a man but, please, can you recall for me: how many did you kill just to reach him? Did you count, Bariyan? Did you care?)

(If he had met you then, do you think you could have still tricked him into this?)

(But you will show your hand again. Soon. You know that you will and you know what is to come. You will let this one down, too. Just as you let me down.)

(Bastard.)

Thank him? Martin practically winced. He wasn't doing anything praiseworthy at all! Please don't say that...!

"N--Uh..." He fidgeted, frowning. "What do you...want me to do?"

Martin's voice snapped Bariyan out of his thoughts and back into the present. Good. Better to be here than stuck in the confines of his own mind and all the voices that lived there. He knew he couldn't stave them off forever but it helped when he had other things to deal with, things in physical space, in reality.

"Nothing for now. Just...." Bariyan sighed. And almost inaudibly, finished, "Forgive me."

Then he stood back up, brushing himself off, expression settling back into that blankness that he had grown used to. "Come on. I'll walk you back."

Forgive what? he wanted to ask, but he let the question die in his throat. He didn't want to know – not right then and there, with the sun glaring and his head starting to throb, wiped out from all kinds of panic. Sleep and sleep and wake up where everything makes sense...

Or never again.

"Yes, sir," he murmured, looking down at his feet, toes of his shoes barely grazing the concrete from where he sat. He slid until they settled flat, pushing out of the car slowly – but not slow enough to avoid the dizzy feeling of going from stillness to motion. He dragged the heel of a hand across his forehead, as if to scrape the feeling right out.

He squinted up at Bariyan, mouth tugging a little as he swallowed, shoulders dropping with an exhale. Alright...

It took Bariyan a moment to get his bearings straight and figure out the shortest way to get back to the Hold from here. Once that was done he immediately started walking. He felt more relieved for it; it was just more natural to be on the move.

He'd figure out what to do about that car later.

He had one more thing to tell Martin that he'd forgotten about in all that chaos. But Bariyan didn't say anything during the walk. There'd been a lot of words back there, a lot more talking than he was used to now. He could think of no natural segue away from it. So he let the silence sit and he let himself turn the conversation back over in his head, picking at both his words and Martin's. Not searching for mistakes or oddities or anything, yet. Only trying to commit it to memory. Only trying to calm down.

Martin followed along in silence, walking in Bariyan's shadow best he could. Whatever morning clouds there had been were dispersed, much to his disappointment. It was too warm for his liking. Tired. Unhappy.

With the first familiar shape of a building in sight, his shuffling slowed, shading his eyes as he looked up. He shot a tentative glance at Bariyan's back.

"I know where to go...from here."

"Sure." Bariyan stopped walking. He felt... not much. Resigned. He should have felt tired.

He did a half-turn, looking back at Martin from over his shoulder, and cleared his throat. "Hey. So... I might be around for the next couple days."

Which was probably for the best. It would give them both time. It would be for the best so long as nothing happened in the meantime, anyway.

Leaving? Martin thought, brow beginning to furrow. But everyone said no one could go anywhere – and when someone did, everyone clamored for them to come back!

"Where?" he asked, frowning more and more. "What's happening?"

He struggled a moment with the decision of whether to tell Martin or not. What was the worst that could happen? That the Initiative would get wind of their plans? The message had already been posted on the network. It wasn't hard to figure out, but no one had made any attempt to stop them yet. Or that Martin might try to follow? He could certainly try, but he was not likely to succeed.

Bariyan sighed. "A couple of us are planning to cross the water into... that empire out there. It doesn't concern you." Which was not entirely truthful, but Martin didn't need to know that.

Martin felt a knot of a different kind form in his gut.

"Why?" he pressed, louder, urgent. "What's over there? What're you going for?" Is there...is there even a chance there's a way...?

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