exsiliumlogs | new old pavements [open]

Entry tags:

new old pavements [open]

Date & Time: 10/5 and beyond if need be
Location: Not far from the Hold
Characters: Martin, you
Summary: Looks like a lot of things need rebuilding or fresh construction (be it in prose or brackets or drawthings)
Warnings: I...I don't have to warn about 8 billion apologies anymore.............HOW...

With bare feet and over-sized clothes, Martin looked more like a refugee than a familiar transport. But then, things weren't particularly familiar anymore. In that, it was exciting...and frightening. Already the expectations he had were greatly sobered through mere days alive in Exsilium. Perhaps the timing of his rebirth was off. Things had tapered to a tense silence above ground, though by the itching feeling in his throat and lungs, things weren't utterly clean of the attacks. Rubble and broken places – even the places where transports called their tentative homes...It wasn't as disturbing to him as it perhaps ought to have been. But he had little to compare it to; life as a Darkov was sheltered and sparse, with community life restricted to family and a rigorous cause.

All in the past. Exsilium was now, for good or ill.

He hugged his arms and settled them on his knees, seated on..a piece of wall? Something that wasn't designed to be a seat, whatever it was. Probably a piece of wall. His mind wasn't on it.

Where to start?

...Start? Hadn't things already begun? Strange, the way his mind started tapering away from the things he knew were right. The human condition was at play, dropping heavy drapes over his clarity. Heavy was the best word for it all – uncertainty, grief, excitement, guilt, relief...it wasn't the miserable trudge of days long gone. This was a steady and certain hope, not the desperate clawing and groping of a boy ignorant of the world and himself. Even with fear crowding in, the flicker of truth within remained.

It was going to be alright. Even through the worst of things...

His body shuddered against both the chill in the air and the unknowns.

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--Martin.

The call.

Bariyan had been letting the boy roam free for the past few days, not wanting to impose upon his newfound freedom, not wanting to isolate him from all the chances that were now his... and so Bariyan had suppressed his own gnawing worries and kept them to himself. But now-- now the call came, without knowing intention and without urgency but strong all the same, slow, its demand building up and piling until the whole thing rolled over and burst through the dam.

Now, the flood.

He was on the highest floor of a gutted building, one wall torn out completely, leaving him free to sit at the edge with his legs dangling into the air. He'd dragged up a crate of beer with him. The crate was half-empty, now, and he had taken to throwing the bottles out into the open air to watch them crash down in the debris below.

He slumped against the column to his left; hair falling across his eyes, head bowed, hunched and bleak. He'd been angry, at first. He'd been angry ever since they'd returned to the city. But that anger was gone from him, now, and it had left precious little behind.

--Martin.

Edited 2012-10-06 02:14 (UTC)

Even if he'd wanted to, Martin was unable to protest the summons, silent though it seemed. To him, it was an immediate pull, an alarm of sounds or smells or feelings – anything to shake him from his thoughts and refocus all of his attention on Bariyan.

Without a word or even thought of it, he scooted forward where he sat until he slid down, back against the bulk of the rock he'd been seated upon. And from there, his whole body sagged as his spirit fled, leaving it just the shell it truly was. It breathed shallow and made no sound, and would remain so until he could reclaim it...or some force or affliction forced him back to tend to it. That was part of the contract, after all...keeping that body. Keeping it well was important. But he was the human second, not first.

The gold ghost rose in a noiseless flap of billowing light, fluid in shape for its first seconds of resurgence. Burning, feline eyes were turned unblinking toward the source of the call, and the man's head bowed before shifting into motion. Flickering out and into time made distance nothing, and he was before Bariyan without another moment wasted in miserable silence.

Here I am.

Words without a physical voice still could resonate as he willed them to, and Martin posed a question in just a look while he hovered at Bariyan's knee, looking up and smiling all the while.

He didn't question the boy's appearance, his sudden presence when Bariyan needed him the most; questioning would come later. When his mind cleared.

He reached out, fingers passing through and grasping at the intangible light that made up Martin's ghost. And he wondered, again, with a lurching horror, whether this whole thing was a lie. Where would he wake up this time? Back on the moors, the medallion still clutched in his hands, cold and lifeless? Or even further away -- thrown centuries into the future in a world far away, forced to start again. This time alone.

At least that would invalidate his current woes.

And that was altogether too much to contemplate at once. Parts of Bariyan's mind began to close off. He let his walls fall away, holding on for just one moment before giving in. Because Martin was the one person around whom Bariyan didn't need to defend himself.

He looked up, wretchedly, staring blind into the sky.

"Koltira is gone." His words rang curiously flat and calm. Gone. Not dead, not hurt. Just gone.

For the past few days, Ico helped rebuild the city while others recovered. He wanted to help in any way he could but there were some places where he was not allowed to go. The citizens kept him away from the dead but he knew they were out there. He could tell by the look on their faces as they moved in front of him to hide the bodies.

But seeing Martin alive again was enough to make him smile. At times, he still thought it was all a dream. He called out to Martin to see if he was real enough to hear him.

“Martin!”

Ico’s voice sounded louder today in contrast with the quiet of the city. The residual gas was not enough to make his throat hurt. He did not feel it at all at this point. The pieces of rubble scratched the ground under his feet as he ran to him, as if he thought Martin would disappear if he dawdled.

“What are you doing out here?”

It was something realized, though already known; Martin couldn't have touched that truth without being directed to, with the greatest expanses of his power restrained in a mortal world. An existence with no need of time, residing in time regardless...it made for strange gaps in awareness. Yet the young man's face did not show surprise, only a gentle waning of a warm smile to show sympathy. He couldn't despair in the news, but he could feel the pull of grief for the terrible violence he felt echoing in the recent past.

Arms reached out and settled around Bariyan's shoulders as Martin's head came to a hovering rest against one of them. With the gesture came the gentle rush of affection and condolence, cloaking him in it.

Will you tell him you grieved? The question bubbled up from beneath all that. When you see him again.

There was no doubt in Martin of that. Nothing within the span of time could truly unmake the made, evil or otherwise. There was only change – it was the change itself he could no longer track. To that, not fear, but anticipation. He had yet to have the chance himself to address Koltira as he wished...so how would he in the future?

Martin's head lifted at the sound of his name, searching the source out in quick glances before settling on the shape rushing toward him. There was no mistaking those horns, let alone the sound of the call. He could still hear the desperate please in the back of his mind, echoing as reminder of the unforgettable horrors of his past life. In that, a fresh chill creeping across his skin as he shifted and rose from his seat. Regardless, he was smiling.

He held out his arms.

There, that smile was a source of great joy to him and yet it raised the most questions. Martin had changed now and while Ico was glad that he looked happier, he wondered about what happened. Maybe it was all an elaborate dream yet he could feel his warmth when he hugged him. He put his head under his chin so the bend of his horn circled the side of Martin’s neck. The sharp, blackened tip was pointed away so Martin was in no danger of getting hurt.

Ico squeezed him a little tighter before he let go. His face was getting red with tears but he wiped them away before they fell.

“You’re really back, right?”

He couldn't hug away the past, but the contact was comforting – something Martin would've never offered, let alone taken, as the scared boy he was before. Finding the truth of yourself after death kind of washes out the need or use for such fears, though. He made a sound, feeling his hair tickle under his ear when the horn moved to place. And, freed, he was no less beset by emotion.

"Yes, I am," he said, nodding.

Bariyan closed his eyes against the embrace, unmoving, unable to return the gesture. But appreciating it more than he could express, in words or otherwise.

"I am not grieving," Bariyan said. His voice still flat. But there was a growl at the edges; perhaps his anger, come back in a brief flash. Soon gone again. "I--"

If he was not grieving, then what? Where had his anger come from, and where had it gone? Why this terrible bleakness in its wake? He knew he would have to search his own thoughts to find out, but he no longer wanted to. The longer he stayed here the more he avoided himself, too afraid of what he might find in his own subconscious to try. He who was once afraid of nothing, now afraid of himself.

I did not want to come back. That was the deepest he would go, the most that he would dare to say. But, gods, not to Martin. He would not spit upon the boy's happiness.

Bariyan slumped forwards, as if to lean against Martin's spirit.

"Will I see him again?" Bariyan finally asked, quietly. Questions and answers. Easier to question the world without than the troubles within.

Edited 2012-10-06 14:54 (UTC)

Yes.

That was the simple answer. The whole answer was well beyond his reach, there in time.

I cannot see when, where...or how. Things change. People change. He'd changed, hadn't he? And Bariyan, too...in his own time. More things Martin was blind to. It didn't disturb him to not know; life wasn't as exciting if one knew all the ins and outs.

He shifted, taking on the illusion of sitting at his side.

I want to see him. --Too? Whether Bariyan wanted that at all was unclear.

“Then why are you sitting here?” His smile grew into a grin and then he laughed. “We should do something fun!”

Martin was more comfortable with physical contact this time, so Ico tried to grab his hand without asking. Regardless, he noticed something that made him stop and look down.

“Martin, don’t your feet hurt without shoes?”

Without protest, but with a little fumbling, Martin's hand closed over Ico's, not much bigger than the boy's. He'd always been small, after all. With his free hand, he swiped under an itchy eyelid and then blinked, looking down where Ico looked, still smiling faintly in the afterthought of the laugh.

"Oh...Well, yes," he admitted, with a little chuckle in his own breath. "I guess that's why I was sitting. There's a lot of sharp things on the ground up here."

You can't know that, he thought. Only for a moment, before pushing it away. Further doubts and more questioning would only lead towards pain. Emma had said that Koltira was dead, but a good portion of Bariyan's sanity depended upon that being a lie. Koltira was not dead; Koltira would be back. And there would be nothing more to say about it.

Perhaps.

Bariyan straightened when Martin moved, but not for long -- he reached behind him back towards the crate, fumbling for a new bottle. Once found, he went slack again, leaning against the column and away from Martin.

"What for?"

Martin's unblinking gaze never left Bariyan, hardly flickered in judgment or concern at his posture. What Bariyan did were his choices to make – Martin understood that very clearly in this state. He could but persuade through genuine love, not outright control. As it ought to be, even when the consequences were unkind. Wearing humanity, he would've found new motivations and little fears in the unknown. But not in this moment.

I want him to understand. The hands remained where they were, though Bariyan had shifted away. Martin was slow to retract them. He has not hurt me. He cannot kill me. If he will be afraid of doing so in this future, I want him to know better.

He has been kind to me.

Barnaby never thought he'd grow to like this city in any way, but there's something horrible about seeing it taken apart. Every cracked wall, piece of rubble, broken space makes the anger bubbling in his chest that much hotter, more ready to overflow into action. His earlier thoughts about possibly staying out of the conflict were foolish, he sees now; the Initiative has made the war a pressing concern for all of the transports, and he can accept that now. The United Earth, whatever else they are, have done something horrific and unforgivable, and he'll be happier to see them gone.

(And before when he looked around these roads, these walls, these paths, he'd seen a city not so unlike his own; now he sees where people had to flee, where people have died, where fire consumed.)

He'd been looking for a purpose before, fumbling around in the dark for a reason to keep going; and now he has one, all but literally falling into his lap. It's his own will (he's sure, right?) to accept it.

It's lost in thoughts like these that he approaches the area where Martin sits.

The sound shook him out of his train of thought, and Martin turned his head toward the source. Barnaby was no one he'd met prior to his unwinding, but given the chance to watch and consider and put the pieces together. They'd encountered just once after the fact, but it was enough, fresh enough in Martin's memory to make it all click. Everything but a name.

He shifted where he sat, hands pressing on the rubble on either side of him, ready to stand if the need struck. Words were likewise in a state of pause; what was he to say? In what way? What sort of man was this stranger who'd wound up in the tangled mess the Darkov made not so long ago?

It was the movement that caught his attention, making him pause and notice the boy not sitting far away. The same boy, he realized now, from the catacombs, and then before that from those tense few weeks when he was a fear, a danger to the people of Exsilium. Connecting that person - whom he'd even doubted to be a person at the time - to the polite, vulnerable-looking boy before him now was difficult.

He wasn't particularly in the mood for small talk, but he approached Martin anyway, expression settling into something neutral but not unfriendly.

"You're feeling better, I take it?"

Admittedly, he hadn't really thought much of Martin these past few weeks. Koltira told him he had died, and aside thinking about it for a few minutes, Eridan wasn't all that bothered about the whole thing, completely forgetting about it after he went off on his own for a while just before the bombing had started.

In fact, he still hadn't remembered. He had other things on his mind and it wasn't until he spotted the familiar figure outside during a little excursion out of the hold he recalled having not seen the guy in weeks, though it was surprisingly difficult to actually place it as that withdrawn, sad little figure he was so used to Martin being, but familiar enough to avoid passing him by entirely, instead approaching him by his makeshift seating.

"Mar?"

"I am."

He said it quickly, feeling a nervous flutter in his stomach. Nervous-worried or nervous-excited...it was hard to discern between the two then and there. The nod was after-the-fact, as was the small smile, but connected all the same. It was hard to smile; he could see himself lashing out at the man, incoherent and lost. I was terrible to so many people.

"I had..." How to put it? He'd tried different things in his head so many times lately, but putting things out into the world proved to be harder than just imagination. "I'd wanted to try and...explain. Maybe. Or...simply apologize." He felt his face warming up. "Though...I'd apologized so much before without knowing what it really meant..."

Martin, who was rubbing an itch at the corner of his eye, stopped at the sound, not certain what it was at first. It wasn't an often-used nickname, save for one person. And though he wondered how Eridan had been, he'd been far from his mind in the scope of the many he'd hurt – killed. In that way, it was a good thing. And it made the surprise a good one, as big eyes found the fishy-looking troll approaching.

It took a second more to click. He began to smile, shifting and rising up out of his seat.

"Eridan..."

"You're lookin' different. Well, ewen."

He takes note of...well, whatever seems different. It's definitely there, he's just not exactly sure what's changed yet, but at the very least he doesn't sound so timid anymore.

So much for being dead, too - well, unless he revived somehow. Back where he was from it wasn't exactly unheard of for that kind of thing to happen. Especially, for some reason, with all the wrong people. But Martin didn't fall into the category of people he'd want to stay dead, no; he was better than most of them, even if Eridan wouldn't exactly call on that often.

"I heard you died or somethin'."

Sounding all too blasé about the idea, too.

It took him a half-second longer than it normally would have to realize what it was Martin was talking about; he'd been referring to the cough. When he did, though, he just shook his head.

"You don't owe me any apologies."

He hadn't taken personally anything that Martin had done, and with his death the notion of him needing to be held accountable for his crimes had vanished - after all, what more could be asked of him without being cruel?

Martin nodded slightly, looking slightly worried despite the smile. It was a weird subject to touch on, and he hardly knew where to start or how. Even so, he was miles from the wretched, miserable child the monster grown from. Which meant...miles from this oddball friendship? He hoped not.

"I did. A lot happened really quickly..." He pushed up one of his sleeves over his elbow in idle movement, only to have it fall back down again. His shoulders lifted and fell with a breath that seemed to encourage him, brightening his expression again. "But nothing like that will happen again. And...I'm grateful you didn't get caught up in it. Very grateful."

"A thank you, then?" Martin tried, starting to smile shyly. "For helping stop the whole...whole mess. I don't think I ever knew you before then, yet you got caught up in it, too..."

More surprises. He hadn't been expecting thanks from anyone, let alone Martin himself.

"You can if you want, but I didn't do very much in the end."

It'd be a little tasteless to say that he couldn't help getting involved if people were getting hurt or anything like that (and even so, it wasn't entirely true anyway.

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new old pavements [open]

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oh god what are tenses

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things to be SMITTEN

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