exsiliumlogs | slip of the tongue

Entry tags:

slip of the tongue

Date & Time: 2/28 dayish
Location: miles north of the hold and such
Characters: Bariyan and Marty
Summary: PATERNAL INSTINCTS?? PLAIN OL' GUILT? whatever it is it's making this dead dude sniff out this kiddo
Warnings: Fightytimes and scarytimes

The tempering stones sparked uselessly for their second appearance in a row, but Martin had less time to reflect and be disappointed than before. No time, actually, not with those...things hot on his tail. Whatever they were, monster or not, they were strong. Not the sort of thing Martin would suspect any of his cousins to take on their own...hardly the sort he'd stand up to alone, either. That was for sure.

I said I'd come and kill them all, he thought despairingly, ducking behind another sickly, thick-bodied tree and dropping to a crouch, head down and panting. If I can't kill even one, then...Then what good was he, really? Maybe that'd be proof enough he was really not cut out for...for whatever it was this place wanted him for. Maybe this is all a big test.

The further away from the crumbled and ruined cities Martin ran, the fewer encounters he had. All the better. He ought to conserve his energy for returning straight to the Hold, where Martin (big Martin), Bariyan, Eliot, Nik and all the others were. Keeping the scourge burning in the palm of his hand from getting out of control was important – the blacker it got, the less he could conjure. So if I don't have to conjure anything for another three hours...

After waiting for the sound of...of anything and hearing little and less, Martin slid to sit at the roots, letting himself catch his breath. He winced before he could sit all the way, having to sit up and pull the netbook out of the back of his pants (a satchel would really have helped...) before plopping on the ground.

He took a few steadying breaths. Skirting away from the towns and broken cities, yes...He could do that. Veer a little, but always have eyes for the south. He might be a little late, but...but it was better than being a lot dead.

I have to at least try...

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Martin was a great deal less animated in his discomfort with the truck the second time around – what he'd admitted was true, and he was too tired to flail about anymore. Aside from pinning himself as still as he could when the truck jerked and rattled into motion at the start, he was silent and withdrawn. He huddled himself up in the seat best he could without slipping and took to staring out of the passenger-side window as vacant countryside passed him by. All alien, littered here and there with the ruins of a civilization he couldn't imagine, even with the bit of time he spent at the Hold. Drinking in details wasn't something he had a knack for.

Hazy daylight made the inside of his eyelids red, obliging him to open them and recoil, ducking his head in his arm. Hours or days...he didn't remember falling asleep, but all the same. His stomach wasn't going to let him hide like that for long, either. A small bump in the road helped get his head back up, blinking blearily to find he was...still in the truck. It wasn't something he could dream away.

Stiffly, he uncurled, dragging fingers across the back of his neck and making a small waking sound.

"Where are we?" he mumbled, covering his eyes against the glare through the window.

Two answers came to mind immediately: bumfuck nowhere and hell if I know. Neither of them were good answers, so Bariyan settled for, "Some town. Looks like it's empty."

Bariyan rolled the truck to a halt in the town's gas station and killed the engine. Without so much as a word to Martin, he stepped out of the truck.

No cars in this station, and no sign of the underground tanks having been broken into yet. That was promising, but Bariyan's first order of business was to duck into the store. It looked to be in better shape than the last one, at least. There were still bottles of water standing on the shelves or on the floor. Plastic. Bariyan was suspicious of that. He instead made his way over to the back where the refrigerators stood.

The power had long since been cut, and most of the shelves were empty, but Bariyan picked up a bottle -- glass -- of carbonated water from one of the lower shelves, weighed it in his hand, and twisted the cap off. It fizzed, and seemed odorless. He assumed it was safe.

"Martin." Bariyan took the open bottle and went back for the boy -- he hadn't seen if Martin had left the car, though. "Here you go, kid."

For much of the time Bariyan was gone, Martin stayed huddled up against the daylight, wanting very much to sleep until he was back in Olvoski for good. It was really no use, however, and he wound up straightening up once more until joints cracked and muscles ached with the strain. He squinted out of the window at the new building – not too different from the one in the dark, he realized. Just...not as aged, perhaps. Details. He pushed open the door when Bariyan reappeared, letting his legs dangle off the side of the seat, fresh air billowing in to wake him up a bit more.

He stared at the bottle for a couple seconds before reaching out of impulse. Take things offered. He mumbled something unintelligible while drawing it back to himself – it was a What is it? lost in there. But it was very plainly water and that needed little and less explanation; he started gulping that stuff down without a second thought. The fizzing was alarming though, caused him to choke and cough, bending forward, spitting and sputtering in alarm.

"What--" he wiped his mouth with his sleeve, holding the bottle out and staring at it. He felt his face heating up, feeling foolish. "Oh, it just...tasted strange..."

But he said nothing of it, only taking a cautionary sniff of it before gulping more down. Don't cause any more problems.

"Not too strange, I hope," Bariyan said, arching an eyebrow. "Don't drink it if it makes you sick."

He ducked back into the building just a second to investigate again. This second sweep revealed two jerrycans sitting on the check-out counter. Bariyan picked them up and looked for damage -- there had to be some reason they were left behind -- but both seemed all right. He carried them back outside and fished the pipe and siphon out of the truck bed, from earlier.

He paused to look at Martin. "You coming along? I'm going to look around. Mostly for gas."

There was less than a third left when Bariyan reappeared, which meant whatever concerns Martin had about the drink came second to having something at all. He held the glass between his knees with both hands as his legs swayed now and then, toes curling and uncurling in his shoes. He leaned forward to watch Bariyan rummaging in the back of the truck – it was the first time he actually regarded something actually being back there.

He startled when eyes fell on him, blinking. For a moment he simply stared blankly, but soon fidgeted back into motion, sliding out of the truck and setting the bottle on the ground. He leaned against the side of the car for a moment, having straightened up too fast for his head to match pace, but recovered quickly enough.

"Yes, sir," he said, approaching and gradually looking more and more confused, even a little troubled. "Um. What's a gas?"

"It's the stuff this thing runs on," Bariyan said, patting the side of the truck. "If it runs out of gas, it stops moving. And we're going to be out soon."

That was optimistic. They were already just about out -- Bariyan didn't think they'd be able to clear the town if they kept going.

"Come on, then." Bariyan looked into the sun, frowned, and started to walk out of the station and towards the other side of the street.

"Oh."

Well, at least that made the truck less mysterious – it needed something to keep it moving. Martin nodded a little, staring blankly at the back tire until Bariyan began moving. That spurred him along, hopping into step behind him, the same spot as always. Once in place, he started looking about.

Martin didn't know much about the empty villages of Olvoski other than what others in the family told him – mostly that there were people once, but not anymore. Disease or famine or the monsters rushing in now and then...It wasn't uncommon. Still, he hadn't traveled to one before to see for himself. Whether he'd get the same feeling or not wasn't something he could say, but it wasn't a pleasant-feeling place to stroll about in.

The fact Bariyan reeked of...malignance didn't help make it any better, either. Martin wound up staring at him more than anything as they walked, and even moreso the stitching at the neck. It still made no sense to him at all, and he felt a dozen questions piling up, lacking conclusions to jump to.

"Sir?" The prompt left him before he had chance to check it. Immediately, he was afraid he was going to regret saying anything. "Um..."

The first car they came across was like a burnt-out wreck -- Bariyan doesn't a burned-out wreck, smashed in and hollowed out. Bariyan barely spared it a glance, except to wonder if it was the result of an attack or bad driving.

He'd just turned away from it when Martin's voice reached him. Bariyan stopped to look back at him, shrugging to keep the pipe from slipping off his shoulder, where he'd slung it.

"Uh-huh?"

Martin halted in step, moving his foot back. It would've been much better if Bariyan hadn't looked back over, he thought, and that drew his gaze down to the ground. He could hear his heart in his ears until he swallowed.

"How..." he took a breath, looking back up, trying to look as harmless as possible. The question wasn't coming out of a place of cruelty, after all. "I'm sorry. How are you...I mean, where I'm from, dead things...they don't..." His hand gestured a little. "Do anything. S-so..."

Bariyan's hand went to his stitches, out of instinct.

"I don't know," he said. "I didn't bring myself back. Someone else did, and I don't think that even he knew how he did it."

The familiar, nagging thought of I should be dead came back to him. He frowned. No, he hadn't brought himself back, and no, he hadn't asked for resurrection -- but once risen, he'd never tried to put himself back in the grave. As he knew he ought to.

All of Martin's attention was there, though even that wasn't going to get him to wholly understand...or empathize. How could he? It was an unprecedented thing to him. He'd hoped for something to explain it away, to uproot some of his misgivings, but...nothing. His eyes dropped back down to the ground. Oh.

"Does that...happen a lot?"

"Not at all," Bariyan said. He turned away, started walking again."There was me and... at least two others. Possibly a third. All of us around the same time. That's it, though."

The others who'd been brought back hadn't fared well. Their personalities had come back warped -- enough that Bariyan wasn't entirely certain what, exactly, was living in their bodies. But he felt enough like himself to be certain of his own identity.

"You say you don't have undead in your world?" Bariyan asked. "So how'd you recognize me?"

All right, the stitches were somewhat of a big hint -- but that was about it, as far as Bariyan was concerned. And it wasn't enough. Especially given that it'd been nighttime when Martin had first seen him, and panicked.

The boy remained rooted until it was hard to hear Bariyan's words. Martin hopped into motion, regaining his place two paces behind, watching the back of the dead man's head as he spoke.

No, nothing like Bariyan back in Olvoski. But even so...Martin had gotten such a bad hunch; it just took the dead man to fill in the blanks. He answered with silence for a few paces, still uneasy.

"The smell," he confessed at last, hopping over a raised crack in the pavement. "Your...smell. It's like...like monsters back home." He swallowed, feeling terrible for admitting it. "Sorry."

Smell? Bariyan looked down at himself. Shit, he hadn't been aware that he smelled like anything. No one else had ever brought it up before. But that explained why he'd gotten attacked at first sight.

"Oh," Bariyan said, doing his best not to frown. "No, it's fine. Just... don't count me as a monster, all right?"

Yet even as he spoke, he felt like he ought to be saying the very opposite: watch out. Put me down if I step out of line. Bariyan was well aware of the fact that he had done and could do things that he never would have even thought about back when he was alive.

But it was his job to control himself. No one else's. Especially not Martin's, for his own sake.

Yes, sir, got stuck in his throat. If he said that, it meant he trusted him to not be a liar at all, smell or no. Dead or alive. It was like calling someone by name, giving them power and authority in his life, even if it's only slightly more than it was without the name. In their case, right then and there, it was a lot. He'd wound up relying on Bariyan to look after him for...for however long it had been since coming across him in the wilderness.

Yet, Martin thought, it was absurd for any vicious entity to drag out a charade so long with someone like him. Someone who was easily bested and mocked by a monstrous...dragon-thing days ago. If he wanted to shred him down to bones, he'd had ample opportunity.

He helped me.

"Yes, sir."

"And you're still stuck on the 'sir', I see," Bariyan grumbled. Oh well.

They hit better luck on the next car, a minivan stranded in someone's front yard. Bariyan plunked one end of the tube down into the car's tank, and started to siphon the fuel off into one of the cans he'd brought along. He briefly wondered if they ought to switch cars while they were here, but the truck seemed to be doing well enough for now.

Bariyan started to think aloud as he waited for the tank to drain. "We should probably look around for food and water, too... I don't know how long we're going to be stuck out here." He frowned. "And weapons."

"Sorry," Martin uttered, almost inaudible as he followed along. His heart was still pounding with his decision, as if he were expecting something awful to come of it. Instead, the silence stretched and he found himself watching Bariyan fiddle with his...strange tools and a different kind of vehicle. He tuned in at food and blinked to attention.

Weapons? Well. Well, Martin didn't need one, considering...But Bariyan, perhaps. Martin nodded absently, looking about and landing eyes on the house.

"I can go look," he offered, looking from Bariyan and back to the house.

"Over there?" Bariyan followed Martin's gaze towards the house and gave it a long look. It remained silent and non-threatening. He wasn't sure what they might find in there, but as of right now it didn't look like they'd find anything alive, at least. And that was good.

"Sure. Can you handle yourself?"

"Yes, sir," Martine replied, then flinched. "I mean...Sorry. I..." His face colored as he started backing away. "I forgot your, um...I'll go. I'll be fast."

And that was enough to spur him along, trotting to the house. The front door was locked sensibly enough, so he wasted little time there, moving around the perimeter to find another door or some unfortunate, open window. He found one with enough room to get his fingers underneath it, working it open enough and pushing the screen in. Oops. He waited for the sounds of...of someone, but there was no response.

Inside, he got a little too lost in the sights to remember being fast. He'd never been in a human house before. It was...full of things. Packed. He had no idea what even half of the stuff he saw was for, furniture aside. Some of it looked like the things he saw in that room the lady took him to, but...not completely alike. Things were old and overused here. He had a hard time imagining what it was like to--

Oh. Fast. Right.

He rummaged around, finding small, useless knives and utensils he'd never seen before, gently setting them aside and trying to not make so much of a mess. Not that there was anyone around to protest, but still.

In the end, he'd unearthed a worn picnic basket and loaded it with the useful sharp-pointies he could find, wrapped up in a dingy hand towel. As far as food went...it took overlooking things more than once to realize everything was just bound up in crinkly, thick materials and not laid bare. He couldn't read the labels very well, given some of the fonts or letter combinations he'd never seen before. Sticks of jerky, stale chips, bread so moldy he almost gagged before slamming the cupboard shut...He stuffed whatever seemed feasible in the basket and left the rest.

After scouring the emptier rooms for useful things and finding nothing (how was he supposed to know a shotgun was useful?), he fiddled with the front door until he figured out the lock and slid outside. The basket rattled against the door frame, a bunch of metal in tow.

"There were only knives," he said once he was close enough, starting to rifle through his find. "Dried meat and something else, too...but nothing very big." He lifted a carving knife. "Just things like this."

The tank took longer to drain than Bariyan had expected, but by the time it had finished Martin still wasn't back. Bariyan forced the back door of the van open and sat down to wait, arms folded across his knees and legs sprawled out in front of him. And shut his eyes to take a moment to reflect.

Bariyan only opened them when he heard footsteps. He took the knife from Martin when that was done, and weighed it in his hand. He wasn't much good with knives -- didn't see how anyone could be, they were small and had no range and throwing was difficult -- but it'd have to do. They'd be useful as tools, at least.

"Good enough," he said. He slid out of the van and picked his things back up, keeping the knife for himself. "We better keep going. You didn't see anyone inside, right?"

"No, s--" Martin clamped down on sir, eyes big for having caught himself fast enough. "No, I didn't."

He let out his breath, shoulders sagging. Everyone says 'don't apologize,' 'don't call me sir,' but...

"Good." Bariyan would prefer not to run into anyone else while they're out here.

He picked through a couple more cars along the way before hitting another one with a non-empty tank. By then they'd reached the parking lot of some store. Bariyan started the siphon up again and looked towards the building. It was small, the windows were blown out, but the door was still on its hinges. There were words painted on the side, worn away by time and weather. He couldn't tell if there'd be anything of use inside, but they probably ought to take a look later anyway.

He sat down on the hood of the car and motioned for Martin to follow. "We'll probably be here a bit. You should eat."

Martin nodded without a word – yes, sir. He shuffled to a stop next to the front of the car, setting the basket down next to Bariyan. Shoving the knives to one side, he pulled out one of the wrapped sticks of jerky.

He fiddled with it for a minute or so to no real result, mouth tugging in a frown. He eventually just tore the wrapper apart with his teeth, snapping off a bite thoughtlessly. It reminded him how hungry he was, and that stick was no more for the world.

"You don't eat?" he asked, one hand back in the basket, fishing for more.

Bariyan smiled when Martin figured out how to get past the packaging. It felt like the first time he'd seen the boy look anything but miserable -- which was sad, in and of itself. Of course he always looked unhappy. Martin didn't belong here.

But in all honesty, Bariyan did not think that Martin's homeworld sounded like a much better place.

He shook his head in response to the question. "No. That's one of the perks of being dead. Or one of the losses, depending." He frowned off into the distance. Definitely a loss, for Bariyan.

Oh.

Martin stopped tearing at the second wrapper, starting to color again. Why did I even ask? Of course he wouldn't eat if he--

"Sorry," he mumbled, slurred by the plastic in his mouth. He tore it, shaking the remains back into the basket (it seemed better than just letting it drop on the ground). He kept his gaze low, watching his distorted reflection in the weathered paint, squinting against the glare from occasional sunlight as clouds rolled past. Small flakes of jerky sprinkled down now and then as he bit down and pulled another piece free. It wasn't very appetizing anymore.

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