[closed] do you not have doors where you come from

[stonefaith]

Date & Time: 7/19 (ish) / sometime after this
Location: Unit 202
Characters: Bariyan e Kodhi (stonefaith), Martin Darkov (theguideless)
Summary: Darkov decides to pay a visit at the WORST POSSIBLE TIME.
Warnings: Bariyan's sorta falling apart into rotting bits it's kinda gross tbh

---

There wasn't much light filtering into Bariyan's room right now. He'd locked his door and closed the curtains -- but kept the window open, not wanting to lock the smell in to the apartment. Kept quiet as he could (except, of course, for the part where he'd been nearly yelling at his netbook) and hoped that none of his roommates would want to visit. Even if they did, Bariyan had no intention of seeing anyone in person. Not in this state.

He exhaled, sharply.

That was.... most of a limb gone. Bariyan, seated on the floor, stared unhappily at his right arm. Which was currently laying two feet away from him, and in bad shape to boot. Skin and flesh had started sloughing off earlier and now he could see hints of bone in places. Shit, how was he going to get rid of this?

Bariyan looked to his other arm. He'd broken off the fingers that had started to rot before it could spread -- or at least, he thought he had. Couldn't tell now. The spread had been strange and unpredictable and he wasn't sure where it would strike next, or if it would strike at all. He hoped it wouldn't. He rather needed all the remaining limbs left to him.

Bariyan made a frustrated growl low in his throat, and put his face in one hand. Right now, all he could think about was how badly he needed a drink.

Comments

[theguideless]

Martin's grunt was muffled against his arm, balking at the idea of having to go seek out and talk to anybody. He'd been a humiliating mess — would continue to be one, no doubt, any time he came across someone being so kind. And I told Lea I couldn't be a friend...

He made another unhappy sound, stifled still as he fidgeted, shifting weight to his other leg as one grew tired of standing there. It had been easy, right? Being in the routine of a Darkov, in the shuffle...right? Or maybe it just seemed easier compared to all of this. Back home, he at least knew what his place was and what was expected. Here, not so much.

[stonefaith]

"You'll make a good friend someday," Bariyan said. "To someone. Maybe you already are."

Because Martin worried too, didn't he? He'd waited for Bariyan, once. Not so long ago. He'd waited, he'd stayed, he.... well, there was something there all right, though it was hidden under layers of apologies and a questionable upbringing. But there all the same.

Rather awkwardly, Bariyan crossed his single arm over, meaning to pat Martin's shoulder. He hesitated just long enough to reflect upon the current state of his vessel and decide that it would be better to continue with minimal contact. So instead he set his hand back down to brace against the sill.

"Hold on," Bariyan said. How was he going to do this? It didn't seem like the loss of an arm should be able to impede such a simple task. "I'm coming out."

[theguideless]

Martin's eyes lifted, seeing only bits of Bariyan move from behind his bangs. His head soon lifted, and, the words actually sinking, he straightened out of his slouch.

"Oh...Al-alright..." He began to lean away, his fingers still curled on the sill until his arms stretched to their length and his weight pulled him away. He stepped back, glancing toward the apartment door.

[stonefaith]

Bariyan managed to get one leg up onto the sill. That was enough to pull the rest of him over. He slipped out, feet hitting the floor soundlessly, swaying a little as he straightened out. When he found his balance, he moved over to lean against the railing and look down into the courtyard. Too much rain, as of late; the lawns looked near drowned.

"You didn't catch sick in the storms?" Bariyan turned to look at Martin more closely.

[theguideless]

Martin did a bit of a double-take as he saw Bariyan climbing out of the window. He hesitated, teetering on his feet between moving to help or move out of the way. He wound up with the latter, well after the need was gone, bending his arms and propping his palms on the rail behind him.

"No, sir," he replied, his gaze dropping on impulse. He glanced back up quickly, however. "I'm fine now. Since..." He started to squint, failing to come up with a precise number. "A little while, I guess. Sorry."

[stonefaith]

"You did get sick, then." Bariyan sounded only vaguely disappointed. He looked Martin over, critical, lingering, searching for signs of some lingering illness. But truth be told, Martin did not seem sick. He did look in much better shape than the last time they'd spoken.

He scuffed his shoe against the ground and caught it between the rails. Still. Martin had run off, and Bariyan....

"I probably should've been keeping closer tabs on you," he admitted. First in a line of apologies that had been slowly building up over the last few hours. It was an uncomfortable thing to say aloud, uncomfortable to face the fact that he had spent almost an entire week blackout drunk. Letting Martin run off in this weather without even noticing.

[theguideless]

"Oh, no, I—" Martin piped up quickly, realizing he'd explained wrong. Still, he stifled when Bariyan spoke once more, and found he'd forgotten to keep trying to speak up. It...still bothered him, the way Bariyan shouldered all the responsibility of his safety upon himself. And so insistently, too.

It bothered Martin more that he seemed to seek that guardian's attention out, even when he really shouldn't have. Yet there he was again.

"It wasn't...the rain," he said, remembering to say so aloud. "It was before. When I climbed in there...Before the rain. I got better. It's gotten colder."

[stonefaith]

Bariyan raised his eyebrows, and tried to make sense of Martin's disjointed explanation.

"You get sick when it's warm--" Bariyan stopped to try and collect his thoughts. His logic had been questionable at best for the past few months, his behavior shaky. Too many weeks of alcoholic binges interrupted by long sleeps. But he concentrated, trying to piece things together.

Not the rain, not the weather. Something else, then. What? Martin had broken into his room to sleep and he'd looked -- he'd been sick. And before that.... Bariyan had accused him of illness before that, too. A guess started to form.

"What was it, then?" Bariyan asked. "Why were you so ill...?"

[theguideless]

Martin had begun to rock onto his heels, leaning his back into the rail, causing his elbows to bend more while he kept fingers coiled around the top. It made muscles in his back stretch out of their usual, hunched tension, which was nice. About as nice as he could feel, thinking about unpleasant things. He made a throaty sound, stifled by a thin-lipped frown. His feet feel back flat onto the ground.

"I don't know," he mumbled, addressing Bariyan's feet. "I never got that sick before, I don't think." Something like it, once or twice, learning to conjure. Learning to expel and not swallow down the stuff, lest he walk away with a horrible stomachache. Never as horrible as that spell he'd had recently, he was sure.

He had a fair assumption, but he didn't like to think about it.

[stonefaith]

Bariyan considered that and all the unhappy implications. Could just be the place, the time, all the misfortunes that had come with Exsilium; being dragged away from home and into another world's wars couldn't be good for health, after all.

"Did you ever find John, then?" he asked. "After the mission."

[theguideless]

Martin grimaced.

"Ye-yes..." And that didn't play out how he really wanted. But in the end, "I got more of the medicine. But..." He let out a heavy breath through his nose, frowning at the ground. "I don't know. Maybe I just got sick over not having any for so long. But I have them back, so it's better now..."

[stonefaith]

"Good." Bariyan didn't see the grimace, or hear the uncomfortable tone of Martin's voice -- that was how Martin always sounded, to him.

Martin had used stones at first, from what Bariyan remembered from earlier, back when they'd first met. Probably something brought over from his own world, something he'd run out of. So now pills. He made a note to perhaps speak to John about that later on, though considering his behavior as of late, Bariyan doubted that he'd actually remember. He'd try....

What else?

"Are your roommates worried about you?" It took Bariyan a moment to recall who Martin's roommates were, even. He'd met at least Anora. "Do they know you're back?"

[theguideless]

"Uh," Martin breathed, dragging the note a bit in his reluctance to reply. "N...o. I didn't. Go back yet, so." His face scrunched up a little as he shot a fast glance back up at Bariyan. "I, I mean, it's dark, so...I don't want to. Wake anybody up. Is all. So."

[stonefaith]

Bariyan's gaze slipped from the courtyard below back to his hand. His nails had been bruised black ever since his revival, and the stumps of his missing fingers were burned dark, but it seemed to him that the veins traveling down his palm and wrist were swelling and blackening too, now. So? Would he have to cut this one off, as well? That would be a difficult thing to achieve without another hand.

He flexed his fingers before returning them to rest on the railing, and gave Martin a sidelong look.

"You should tell them soon," Bariyan said, gently.

[theguideless]

"Yes, sir."

Martin gave the reply to his shoes more than anything or anyone, shoulders sagging in a long sigh. Reluctance and relief all in the same breath. It was confusing to him, though he was hardly thinking about it. He was thinking, instead, of how much better things were going than he'd anticipated.

He'd anticipated a great deal more yelling, for once. Maybe a cuff for his trouble. But then, his more-or-less return wasn't quite over yet, so...

"Mmh." He pushed up away from the rail. He'd bothered long enough, hadn't he? He shouldn't wear his welcome out (it wasn't much of a welcome as it was a putting-up-with-unexpected-visitors, though, wasn't it?) "Sorry for..." Running off. Getting sick. Being a pain. Being around. "Umhn."

[stonefaith]

Bariyan raised his hand. "Don't," he said. "Don't start, Martin. Maybe you have other people to apologize to, but not me." Any apologies owed were the other way around, if anything.

He looked up, then, briefly at Martin and longer at his own hand. He was practically falling apart at the seams. Unsightly, grimly appropriate, and getting worse by the hour. Bariyan sighed. Even under normal circumstances, he was always slightly self-conscious about his physical state of being. This was worse.

"I'm sorry you had to see me like this," Bariyan said, lowering his hand back to his side as he stepped away, back towards the wall. He straightened up, looked down towards Martin. "You had better leave. Go back to your room." Said gently; only a suggestion.