exsiliumlogs | [closed]

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Date & Time: 05/10 evening
Location: Unit 201
Characters: Bariyan e Kodhi (

stonefaith), Martin Darkov (

theguideless)
Summary: new fears and familiar faces
Warnings: N/A

Bariyan practically burst into the apartment. A quick glance around showed that Koltira wasn't in, but Martin's door was cracked open and light was spilling out from behind it. Looked like the boy was here. Bariyan took a step towards the light -- paused -- thought better of it. He turned and went for the kitchen instead and went through a ritual he'd gone through a million times before; head to freezer, open door, reach for the nearest bottle-- but this time he hesitated again. After a moment's thought, he put the bottle away.

Not now.

He headed for his own room instead and looked around for his tablet. He didn't see it anywhere. When was the last time he'd used it? Last night, after talking to Thassarian... he'd been outside then. And where was it now? He had brought it back, right?

Bariyan placed his hand against the door jamb, and curled his fingers into a fist.

"Damn it," he said, to himself. Then he looked over his shoulder. "Martin!"

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He handed it over without a word, without hesitation. He stared, his concern growing by the second, trying to understand why Bariyan's quiet, his distraction, was different. It took conscious discipline to keep still and let Bariyan do what he had wished to. Don't interrupt.

Yet the moment Bariyan's eyes lifted away from the screen, Martin couldn't keep quiet.

"Bariyan," he straightened up, reaching and putting a hand on his knee. "Is something happening?"

Bariyan took the tablet and started flicking through it immediately, with familiar ease. He only looked up to answer Martin's question.

"I don't know," he said. "I think... maybe a few new transports came in."

Well, yes. It was that time of the month. There had been new transports. But Bariyan was seeing faces that seemed a little too familiar to him, and he'd started more than a few times at the sound of an overheard voice that, when sought after, vanished into the general mix of whatever crowd Bariyan was standing in at the time.

Maybe it was the crash and the new housing, he thought. Maybe the recent upheaval was just confusing his senses.

Martin leaned forward, trying to peer at the screen without getting too far in Bariyan's way.

"Are you looking for one of them?" he asked, squinting.

"Yes," Bariyan said. He'd found the contacts list, and was idly flipping through them now. None of the names here stood out to him -- still, it wasn't like someone couldn't register with a false name, or otherwise get their contact struck off the list -- there had to be plenty of ways to hide.

Not seeing the name in the contacts only made Bariyan feel even more uneasy. He eventually tapped the screen, closed the list, handed it back to Martin. He put his head back in his hands.

"I'm afraid someone from my world might be here," Bariyan said, finally.

"From..."

Bariyan rarely, if ever, spoke of that place – his world. It was something Martin wondered about, but not often. Something he wondered only when he saw him, when there were questions he didn't have immediate answers for in his regard.

"You saw them?" he prompted, his fingers curling against Bariyan's knee. "Someone bad? You said you're afraid..."

"I'm not afraid," Bariyan said, sitting up straight.

That was a lie. God, that was the only thing he'd been afraid of for a while -- the idea that someone he knew might show up here.

"I think I saw them. I can't... be sure." He ruffled Martin's hair, absently. "I don't know. Maybe I've been drinking too much. I'm seeing a lot of strange things recently."

For all that, he didn't sound nearly as worried as before, though. Martin's presence was calming. Now Bariyan was just thinking aloud, running through memories, trying to decipher them for hidden meanings.

Drinking too much? Martin looked puzzled, a shade more worried. That stuff Bariyan drank (never again, on his own part)...more of it? Wouldn't Martin have noticed? All the bottles around were as common as anything else relating to his image of Bariyan; it was hard to imagine more or less of it changing him.

One eye open, still fidgeting under the hand on his head, Martin frowned.

"A lot of things? More than just people you remember?"

"Yes." Bariyan frowned. Really... it was just Cat that he saw and recognized. There'd been other things, too. Things he didn't know anything about. He wasn't sure if that ought to make him more or less wary.

He sat up a little straighter. "There's a monster sometimes, too -- maybe? I can never see it clearly. It's always just a big shadow behind a building, or something."

He stopped there, realizing how insane he was starting to sound. Yes, there'd been actual, real monsters in Exsilium a few months ago, but the existence of those creatures had been fairly obvious and non-negotiable. Bariyan's new monster was apparently something that only he could see.

That sort of thing never boded well for anyone.

The boy grew still, eyes big and unblinking as he listened. Monsters...things Martin and Bariyan knew well enough about to not take them so lightly.

"Here, in the city?" he asked, half to Bariyan, half to himself. "Is it following you?"

Bariyan exhaled in annoyance at himself, at these nonsensical visions.

"Yes," he said. He made a vague gesture out towards the window. "More towards the edge of the city than near here, though. I don't think it's following me-- I don't see it very often."

Mostly he just saw Cat. Cat turning a corner, disappearing behind a car, closing a window five stories up in an abandoned building, maybe a flash of a face in a mirrored window before disappearing entirely. Bariyan lingered on that thought for a while.

He folded his hands together.

"Then there's a woman -- I think she's a woman, anyway." Bariyan frowned. "That one might be an actual Transport. I can't be sure. I don't recognize her. But I can never seem to actually talk to her when I try."

A woman?

Martin frowned again. Even as Bariyan explained, he couldn't connect it to some pressing, immediate danger afflicting Exsilium.

Woman...monsters...Those things were a lifetime away; they had no business in the here and now, as far as Martin felt was right.

"They don't talk to you, do they?" Martin asked, sounding doubtful in asking. "They just...appear?"

He didn't know of hallucinations, mirages, or lucid dreams. They were as real as anything else Bariyan could see, surely?

"No. I can never get close enough. They always disappear when I look at them too closely, or try to get close." Bariyan twisted his mouth in a half-smile, staring up at the ceiling. Lord. What was happening to him? "I swear I'm not making this up... not on purpose, anyway."

Making it up? Martin watched him, feeling a twinge of unease different than the others. Bariyan thought he wouldn't believe him? Not possible.

He drew himself up, using Bariyan's knee as a means to balance as he moved from the floor to the bed beside him, clutching his wrist.

"I believe you," he insisted. "I believe you, but...But I'm not sure what to do."

He was supposed to do something, wasn't he? That twinge in his gut led him to believe so.

"Nothing," Bariyan said. "You don't have to do anything. I don't think there's anything you can do."

Bariyan used his free hand to rub his eyes. He just needed to get that out... it was hard to keep his anxieties to himself, now that he knew he had people who would listen to him. But now he wondered if that was all right. Or if he should have just shut up and kept quiet; kept his worries from settling upon other peoples' shoulders.

"I'm sure I'm just seeing things," Bariyan said, after a bit. "And if I'm the only one seeing them, it shouldn't be a problem."

"Why would it be only you?"

He didn't understand. Was it supposed to be...like dreaming? But while awake...He'd never heard of such a thing. Dreams were forgettable things to him now, and daydreaming moreso...Never with monsters, either.

"Doesn't it still make you unhappy?" Wasn't it still a problem?

"No-- it's just a bit strange, is all." Bariyan ran a hand through his hair, shook his head. "I'm just seeing things. I'll be unhappy when I start thinking that I'm getting attacked by things that aren't there."

He didn't answer the first question. That one bothered him more than he was letting on. Why him, indeed? Was there something wrong with him? Was it a sign that he'd been existing in this undead state for too long, that it was nearing time for him to go, again?

He didn't know. He doubted anyone else would, either.

Martin couldn't let that happen. The thought struck him rather suddenly, rather strongly, and tied a fresh knot in his gut as it echoed two and three times over in his head. Each time it was chased after by a dubious, questioning voice. How? What can I even do?

The unwavering trust that had anchored him for so long was impossible to hear, then, as Martin's head drooped and leaned against Bariyan's shoulder. There was only worry, ripples caused by those roundabout thoughts.

"What if..." He hadn't thought it all out yet, despite speaking up already. "What if someone with magic could make it go away?"

Ashraf. Madoka. Aileen. Powerful, useful people...

Bariyan shook his head immediately. No-- god, he'd almost told Thassarian about his visions, but had decided against it in the end. He didn't want to tell anyone else. Martin was the only one with whom he felt comfortable enough to confess to.

"It won't be a problem," he said, firmly. "It doesn't need to go away... or, well. I'm sure it'll go away eventually. On its own."

If they don't, thought Martin, I have to do something, don't I? That's...I'm supposed to, aren't I? His face scrunched up with a frown, staring hard at the opposite side of the room as he wrestled with the thought. He remembered his hands, lifting his free one and squinting at it, flexing his fingers as he turned it palm up.

I can't do that anymore, though...

He let out an almost huffy kind of sigh through his nose as he let his hand drop into his lap, pushing those thoughts away as of no use.

"I'll think of something," he insisted, both to himself and to Bariyan.

Bariyan grinned, without mirth.

"Don't fret over it," he said. "I don't want you to worry. Could be I'm just paranoid."

He was starting to convince himself that that was exactly the case, actually. It made more sense than any alternative.

He stood up, sighed, brushed himself off. There wasn't any use talking about this anymore; he'd said all he had to say on the subject. Or all that he dared to say.

"Do you want to go see if we can find Koltira?" Bariyan scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Should be about dinnertime for you soon..."

It was as close to that mechanical yes, sir as Martin had gotten in a long time, but the impulse was not what it was before. He watched Bariyan rise and situate, his mouth opening to make a reply right away at the question, unthinking. He stopped, however, and gave thought to the question.

With how troubled Bariyan had been minutes ago, Martin struggled to shift out of worry for his sake. It made his voice thick with a dubiousness he didn't intend.

"I don't remember where he went, but..." He unclenched his fingers, using his hand as leverage to push himself up to stand at his side. "We can look, right?"

He stared at Martin for a while, watching carefully, noting the still-obvious discomfort in Martin's demeanor. Maybe it had been a mistake to tell Martin. Bariyan hadn't meant to cause the boy worry.

He sighed.

"Yes," Bariyan said, standing up. He held his hand out to Martin. And, in an attempt to reassure him, Bariyan added: "It'll do me good to go out for a walk, anyhow."

And if you see any of those things, thought Martin as he took the hand, I should be able to...

Do something. He hoped, anyway. Rather, part of him hoped for that: The rest hoped for no such business at all, for phantoms or monsters to leave Bariyan alone. Martin didn't cut an intimidating figure to anything other than, perhaps, cockroaches or small things underfoot, and he knew it. So while he could hope for the best, he still doubted, and there was a trace of a frown that was much more familiar months before on his face as he left the room at Bariyan's side.

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