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

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

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.

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Martin's footsteps sounded far too loud to be his as he trudged up the stairs to the second floor. He was exhausted, but nowhere wrecked as he'd been not so long ago. Still, his head a bunch of rubber bands being stretched too far and too fast, leaving him with no sense at all. Stay, hide...friends, strangers — he didn't know what was right anymore. He'd upset Ico, confounded people he hardly knew...Wasn't it better to just disappear? He thought so.

Bariyan didn't think so. Neither did those strangers. And, if he compared his credibility to others, he was never right. But his family...

He scrubbed at his scalp, fighting off a warning throb of a future headache, landing heavily on the second floor. With the deep breath and sigh, a the familiar scent wafted into his nostrils. He stopped, lingering near the window. He didn't remember his feverish wanderings, slipping into that room...he barely remembered Bariyan then, and the strangers.

Martin was staring still, shaking himself out of those broken memories. He couldn't account for it, could probably apologize high and low about later if he needed to, but for now...

He'd taken little time to think about it, even realize what he was doing, before he was lingering at the window, seeing nothing but the fabric and glass slid open. His fingers tapped the glass, then his hand tilted and his knuckles drummed it. The second the sound rang, his blood chilled and filled him with fear.

What am I doing...?!

Bariyan swore when he was jolted out of his thoughts by the tapping, instinctively going for the knife again. What? Who? Wouldn't be one of his roommates, they'd have at least tried his door first. A... bird, maybe? Bariyan let the knife go as he got up off the floor to walk over. Gods, he hoped it was just a bird.

He threw the curtains open and stared Martin down through the open window. He stiffened, glanced briefly at the mess he'd made of his own limbs, glanced back at Martin-- and quickly walked away again.

Turned away from the boy, Bariyan ground his teeth together and hung his head. Of all the things that had to happen tonight.

"What, Darkov?"

The sound had spurred Martin to recoil, backing into the second-story railing with a little "uh" sound of surprise. He looking up after his startling stop, he found himself staring right back at Bariyan. His own gaze was late to follow where the other's went, and could only see but a glimpse of the problem.

Martin grimaced as the window emptied. What had he been thinking? For someone who wanted to not cause anymore aggravation, he seemed to do nothing but...

His apology was mumbled and inaudible, and when he recognized this, he caught his breath and spoke louder, mortified.

"I-I'm sorry...I was only...I..." What? Wanted to see him? Was that aggravating, too?

Bariyan reappeared suddenly, sticking his head out the window to glare at Martin again. The glare was interrupted as he winced at what little light there was.

"Stop," he said. His left arm was folded over the windowsill, hand kept close to his chest to hide his missing fingers. "I'm sorry. You startled me, is all."

Bariyan paused to look at Martin, and his expression softened, creases of suspicion and displeasure easing out of his face. He didn't understand what was happening to his temper these days, but on the few occasions that he was sober and stable enough to reflect upon it, he didn't like what he saw. He had to reel this in.

Bariyan cocked his head to the side. "Go on."

Martin's gaze dropped immediately to the ground, ashamed. He couldn't possibly accept an apology when he was the foolish one.

"I'm sorry," he said, practically steamrolling over Bariyan at the offer to continue. "I...was...I mean, I only wanted to make sure you...you'd know. I was back."

Bariyan blinked. "I knew that already.... We just spoke over the network."

But that seemed like a strange thing to say, a casual dismissal of something that Martin obviously thought important for Bariyan to know. Besides, when was the last time Martin had sought him out? Last week didn't count, he'd just been looking for a place to sleep.

He shifted, taking his weight off his arm so he could reach up and scratch the back of his head. "Well, I'm glad."

Oh. Right. That only made Martin feel more foolish. He shouldn't have even stopped. He shouldn't ha—

Glad? Martin's eyes lifted, surprised. That didn't seem to be...right. All he did was make him angry (but he's always angry, Bariyan said). He stared, searching for the truth of the matter — that glad was just a throwaway word.

Instead of finding that not-truth, he found the vacancy on Bariyan's person. His eyes fixed on the missing side. Why...?

Bariyan spent a while wondering how to proceed in the silence until he finally decided to look at Martin, again, and noticed what Martin was looking at. The reason for pause. With a grimace, Bariyan stepped off to the side to half-hide behind the wall.

A twinge. That strange sensation of twisting, something crawling into his consciousness... Bariyan ignored it and looked Martin in the eye.

"Don't worry about it," he said, as lightly as he could.

Why...wait, that's not... Martin's eyes squinted, straining to discern the arm that wasn't there. He didn't realize that was actually what was wrong; it seemed absurd to even think that...

His eyes flickered up to Bariyan's face, growing in distress.

"About..." He stood away from the rail, hesitating. "But...what – Bariyan? Your arm..."

"Will grow back," Bariyan said. Eventually. Probably.

He stepped away from the window and disappeared further back into his room. Gone to check the door and make sure it was locked again, unwilling to entertain anymore unexpected visitors today. He'd paused before leaving the window, having been on the verge of shutting Martin out as well. But that would be unkind. And Bariyan had done Martin enough unkindness already.

He stayed at the door, though, hand held against the flat surface.

Grow back? Martin's face grayed, losing the flush of embarrassment. His foolishness was second to the massive problem at-hand. As Bariyan slunk further out of sight, Martin forced himself to move forward, fingers tentatively settling on the sill. He watched, the feeling of dread growing and growing.

Grow back—?! It was a horrible notion — it wasn't natural.

"What...happened?" he asked, voice beginning to strain.

What did happen? Bariyan appeared to have been blacked out for most of it. He could guess, though. He wasn't terribly unpredictable.

"I got into a fight." He drummed his fingers against the door, lightly. That wasn't the whole of it, of course -- he remembered events afterwards, quite clearly. There'd been a mage. That had been a problem. A priest? Bariyan made (another) note to check his network activity again, because he was almost certain he knew the man. But....

"I said not to worry," Bariyan said, now leaning his head up against the door. "It's under control."

Martin's fingers gripped the sill all the tighter. At the dismissal, he felt an uncomfortable wave of heat, from his arms and up to his neck, and the lump in his throat became a tighter knot. Words left his mouth without his thought.

"I...say that a lot." The heat lingered and grew at his ears. "Not to worry..."

Bariyan's shoulders draw together, and freeze. Right. He could see where this was going already.

"I know," he said, hastily, "but you I have to worry about. Me, this, it doesn't hurt, it'll fix itself." Would it? this wasn't any sort of magic that Bariyan had ever seen before. Only time would tell, now. He shrugged. "Eventually."

And he was talking to the door. Bariyan heaved a sigh and stepped back, dragging his feet over to seat himself on the rarely-used bed. His back was still turned to Martin at the window.

"I'll figure it out." A mumble, an empty assurance.

From where Martin stood, he couldn't hear the last. He wouldn't have believed it even if he did. It was the same kind of thing he'd have said if the tables were turned, and he knew it. And knowing it, he knew it couldn't be such a simple thing.

His arm was clean off!

He watched Bariyan skulk back and slump, staring at his back, silence stretching painfully long.

I just...

Martin swallowed, one hand wiping his forehead, dragging down the side of his face.

I just want to help.

"It happened before?" he asked, voice small, almost afraid to cut into the quiet.

"Something like it. Yes." Half a lie. Bariyan had gone through his fair share of injuries before -- and even during -- his stay in Exsilium, and his body had always managed to repair itself. But it'd never been subjected to whatever this was. There was nothing to do but wait it out and see. Either the unnatural forces that kept him together would successfully combat this new thing as well, or-- well, Bariyan was not particularly worried about the alternative.

He finally turned to look at Martin over his shoulder. Just a tiny figure leaning on the windowsill, still there, still questioning him. Odd. Odd was what Bariyan thought, odd that Martin stayed, odd that he hadn't left by now. Why? What was there to linger over?

Bariyan looked away, back at the door. "It's all right."

It was still so unbelievable. Martin had seen...He'd wished he'd never seen...the way bodies could be mangled. Hacked apart. He'd been in those battles — Rome, Norway...And Olvoski. His father.

They'd all died. Bariyan was bound to, by that logic. Yet there he was, saying it was going to be fine?

Unable to help, all Martin could do was hope it was true. Really, truly hope. After all he'd made Bariyan suffer on his account, if he were to just...be gone...The thought was difficult to linger on without feeling the choking lump in his throat tighten painfully.

"I. Hope it's soon..."

Unfortunately, Bariyan had an edge on everyone else that had passed through Martin Darkov's short life thus far. He'd already died.

Bariyan carefully swung both legs over the bed to get to the other side. He stood up, went back to the window, leaned a little to look over Martin's head at the sky. The gloom that had settled over Exsilium with the rain still stuck to the atmosphere, such that even Bariyan could sense it. He breathed it in, felt nothing, air sucked into useless lungs. He wondered what the air smelled like, what it felt like, wondered whether it was cold out....

This... whatever this was, this thing that had taken his fingers, his arm, possibly more of him to come. It hadn't hurt. But it had been something, and it'd been the closest to feeling that Bariyan had ever experienced in this second life. The closest he'd come. The closest he'd ever be, perhaps.

"Me too, child," Bariyan said, sadly, blinking at the clouds. "Me too."

Martin's chin settled on his folded arms — not that Bariyan needed any him to shrink to see past him. But he was there to stay, or simply linger a little longer, better or worse. He didn't want to go crawling back to his own room, possibly face his roommates...kind, good people, both of them. Not that Bariyan wasn't, but...Bariyan wasn't like them. And he'd been there right from the start. Martin didn't know how much that really mattered, one way or the other, but that wasn't making him move any quicker.

"I made...my friend cry," he murmured, curling his fingers into his sleeve. "Earlier tonight. I think he was trying to be. I don't know. I don't know anything about friends."

Bariyan listened and stayed quiet, giving realizations enough time to sink in for both of them. Strange, lonely existences....

"There's not much to know," he said, after a while. "Come to terms with the fact that they matter to you, and you to them. You just have to care."

But not too much. Too much would leave you blind to faults, protecting something not worth the cost, trying to save something that only existed in the imagination. Until it left you with nothing but the taste of steel buried into the back of your neck, two inches deep and biting deeper. Too late for even regrets. But that was only Bariyan's bitterness speaking, and in the end, what did he know about friendships? Only enough to regret.

He reached up and to touch the bottom edge of the window, pushing it up a little further, leaving his hand there. His fingerprints smeared into the dust on the glass.

Martin frowned against his arm, brow knitted as he puzzled over that reply. For how insistent some were about the whole thing, it didn't seem, according to Bariyan, to really be much at all. Or...maybe he was just leaving out things Martin didn't know. Commonplace for other people wasn't so for Darkovs.

He squished himself down a little when the arm moved toward the window, eyes trailing up to watch it through his bangs.

"That's it?" he asked at last, looking back down.

"As far as I know," Bariyan said. "As I said, it's not much."

It used to be easy, for Bariyan; he used to be the sort of person who attracted people the moment he stepped out the door. It hadn't been something he had to think about, or even work very hard for. He'd always cared. About everyone, about everything. Always wound up in business that he didn't understand and trying to untie knots that he hadn't made. But now his heart was all knotted up and he hadn't the will to fix it, only the will to linger and wait for the whole rotten thing to waste away.

It used to be easy... he used to have so many friends. Now lost, or dead, or worse. And gone was his ability to care.

"But don't take my word on it," Bariyan said. "Talk to the people here. The ones who'll listen to you. Ask them." Some of them would have better experiences to build off, surely.

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.

"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."

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.

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.

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."

"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.

"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."

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...?"

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.

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."

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..."

"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?"

"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."

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.

"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."

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.

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

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