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sixthiterationlogs2017-11-02 12:53 pm
3ofswords) wrote in sixthiterationlogs2017-11-02 12:53 pm
[reset] 001 | the shit is running and it runs deep
WHO: Kira Akiyama
WHERE: Fountain, Village
WHEN: November 3rd and later
OPEN TO: OTA with closed starters
WARNINGS: Gunshot wound and recovery description
Fountain (Mark)
Cold and exhausted were feelings he was well acquainted with, but neither had gone this deep before. The fact of water and depth scrambled immediate memory; the cold of the water scrambled everything else. Cool shadows weren't specific enough to blur for his eyes, but the light above was surprisingly uninviting, sparking only that insect response to move toward it.
When had he fallen into water? Had he really made it back to the garage? Had he fallen at the shot scraping his head and only dreamed getting up?
Checking his pockets for the orange bottle was too much to ask of them, right now. He needed air to keep up the questions; he needed more visual cues to fill in the answers. Swimming wasn't something he'd done often, but he knew his head with its held breath would aim up, and there was at least that much light, showing a surface to be found. Kira raised his hands toward it, cupped them outward, and pulled himself toward the world like splitting a hole to crawl out of.
It was even colder, topside; his head broke enough to suck in a breath, spit it out, take a better one. His arms and shoulders rested at the top of the water, treading it as he looked around: a stone barrier, a short lip, open sky and trees. Water fell behind him from tiered stone, the deepest fountain he'd ever—well, the only fountain he'd ever fallen into. His hair plastered to his face, and dark clothes stuck to his chest, billowed up from his arms like water-wings before they deflated with his strokes. It wasn't far to the edge, and cold as it was—he set his hands to it, cautiously peering over.
It was some kind of park, the grass poorly kept, the trees edging in naturally, rather than within thin fences.
The strangest part was the thin layer of snow.
It had choked New York for months now, no services running to clear it—and no room on the car and body clogged streets for them to run. He'd hidden face-down in it on his way into the safehouse, and he'd fallen back into it after the shot—
One arm slung over the edge, bracing his side against it, he touched the tight skin over his temple. There was a rough patch, curling back into his hair, a raised texture under his fingers. The hair was still haphazardly clipped away, where Nicky had cut away a bloody mat to stitch him up. Just a graze. Just lucky enough to move his head at the right time, like luck ever had anything to do with it. Kira coughed, a tickle running down the back of his head and throat, and stopped examining the wound. He couldn't feel the stitches any longer, but it felt closed, and at least it let him know—that much was real. The shot, the care. He'd made it back to the garage. He'd finished what he'd set out to do.
Rolling himself over the edge of the fountain, he stayed low to the ground, cold earth at his wet back. The sky held no more answers than it did when he broke surface, or when the light was shifting on the water. Clouded, cold. The sun was setting, painting the scene pink and orange, but the dark didn't worry him. Dark was better now: without the rule of law, nobody had to wait for dark. They could take aim in the daylight and pull the trigger.
It was the loudest sound he'd ever heard, the hottest thing he'd ever felt. He'd already been throwing himself to one side, and the glancing blow had whipped his head right into the brick. When he'd woken up in the snow, his coat had been gone, with his cards, his cigarettes—but the orange bottle had been stuffed down into his underwear, elastic holding it at his hip. When he'd gotten up and shaken himself down, it had rolled out of his pant leg onto the pavement.
After that—he doesn't know what else was real. Nicky patched up his head, and someone had taken the pills to Ty's room. Had he gone there after? Had he woken up with a hand in his hair, fought off the collective panic of the safehouse and allowed the loss of his cards for the sake of Ty, awake, recovering?
Laying out in the cold wasn't going to resolve it. Kira curled himself up, shaky on his feet. Looking down at black scrubs, stuck to his body with heavy water and thinly falling snow—he didn’t question them. He wasn’t feeling the cold much at all, except where it tightened his chest. He needed shelter before anything else.
Coughing so hard it pinched the muscles in his back, he pitched one step forward, two more, before he tripped over his waterlogged boots and hit the frozen grass with a muffled crunch.
Inn (OTA)
Whatever he does or doesn’t believe about this place, he’s keeping his mouth shut until he has the strength to deal with it. So far no one’s walked him by the wall of strung up cops or offered him jerky of questionable origin—he wants to believe this is some waypoint, some remote safe haven in upstate New York they were transported to while he was unconscious. But if it is, everyone’s gone off the fucking rocker.
He’s never been here before. Certainly not as recently as three days ago. The gap in his memory, between getting shot and Ty’s sickbed—that doesn’t contain a fucking year.
It itches him to move, even as his body protests. Wrapping a blanket tighter around himself, he moves away from the fire, starting to explore the lower floor of the inn. The blackboard waylays him for awhile, especially finding his name at the top of it. A house description, a—man or woman’s name, he can’t really tell. Rook, in the same location. Eleven months. Fuck.
Wandering away from it, he roots around at the bar, finding nothing for his nerves. The kitchen is next, the fire banked low this late. The dim lighting is something he’s used to, trying to avoid being seen in the dark. When he bangs into a chair despite all his practice, he muffles a curse into the blanket folded over his hand, held close.
The hardest part of this, inability to locate alcohol notwithstanding, is this: feeling half blind and deaf to the world. No warnings, no sense of the people around him. Everything he used to keep himself safe stripped away. Everything that would tell him if these people were lying.
He hopes they’re lying about the booze, at least, as he presses onward to start going through the cabinets.
House 39 (Bodhi)
It takes another couple of days before he’s recovered enough to brave the cold. A closet upstairs outfits him with sweaters and coats, and he manages to find the brick house he supposedly cleaned out—which hits him with the first piece of evidence that he might have existed here. The maps, carefully stacked by the linens, bear his handwriting, if not his actual cartography skills.
He loses several more hours exploring the space, finding touches of occupation. Trinkets in a bedside table, a pack of clothes that don’t—look or feel like his, but there’s a box in the closet that has his name fixed to it on a tag.
Kira Akiyama.
His full name, scraps of wrapping paper inside. From a December past? How many winters has he lived in the last four months?
Finding gloves and a pair of jeans, he layers himself again for the cold, and starts the trek across the village to the house marked on his hand-drawn map. Bodhi might be there, with the rest of their things. With answers of some kind, further proof that he’s existed here, or proof that this is an elaborate delusion.
He assumes it isn’t the burnt out husk of a house lightly dampened by snow, and climbs the porch of the other where the path ends. It’s an odd thing, knocking on a door you supposedly own, but he does it all the same. The first thing he hears is a dog’s low bark, rising with the scrape of claws on wood. Then the call of a bird, a clatter at the window that draws his eye—is that a crow?
Then, footsteps, and all he can do is square up and stare at the door.
[Kira's been canon updated as well as reset; he now comes from 3 days later than his first arrival, with knowledge that he did save his boyfriend and a healing graze wound to the side of his head.]
WHERE: Fountain, Village
WHEN: November 3rd and later
OPEN TO: OTA with closed starters
WARNINGS: Gunshot wound and recovery description
Fountain (Mark)
Cold and exhausted were feelings he was well acquainted with, but neither had gone this deep before. The fact of water and depth scrambled immediate memory; the cold of the water scrambled everything else. Cool shadows weren't specific enough to blur for his eyes, but the light above was surprisingly uninviting, sparking only that insect response to move toward it.
When had he fallen into water? Had he really made it back to the garage? Had he fallen at the shot scraping his head and only dreamed getting up?
Checking his pockets for the orange bottle was too much to ask of them, right now. He needed air to keep up the questions; he needed more visual cues to fill in the answers. Swimming wasn't something he'd done often, but he knew his head with its held breath would aim up, and there was at least that much light, showing a surface to be found. Kira raised his hands toward it, cupped them outward, and pulled himself toward the world like splitting a hole to crawl out of.
It was even colder, topside; his head broke enough to suck in a breath, spit it out, take a better one. His arms and shoulders rested at the top of the water, treading it as he looked around: a stone barrier, a short lip, open sky and trees. Water fell behind him from tiered stone, the deepest fountain he'd ever—well, the only fountain he'd ever fallen into. His hair plastered to his face, and dark clothes stuck to his chest, billowed up from his arms like water-wings before they deflated with his strokes. It wasn't far to the edge, and cold as it was—he set his hands to it, cautiously peering over.
It was some kind of park, the grass poorly kept, the trees edging in naturally, rather than within thin fences.
The strangest part was the thin layer of snow.
It had choked New York for months now, no services running to clear it—and no room on the car and body clogged streets for them to run. He'd hidden face-down in it on his way into the safehouse, and he'd fallen back into it after the shot—
One arm slung over the edge, bracing his side against it, he touched the tight skin over his temple. There was a rough patch, curling back into his hair, a raised texture under his fingers. The hair was still haphazardly clipped away, where Nicky had cut away a bloody mat to stitch him up. Just a graze. Just lucky enough to move his head at the right time, like luck ever had anything to do with it. Kira coughed, a tickle running down the back of his head and throat, and stopped examining the wound. He couldn't feel the stitches any longer, but it felt closed, and at least it let him know—that much was real. The shot, the care. He'd made it back to the garage. He'd finished what he'd set out to do.
Rolling himself over the edge of the fountain, he stayed low to the ground, cold earth at his wet back. The sky held no more answers than it did when he broke surface, or when the light was shifting on the water. Clouded, cold. The sun was setting, painting the scene pink and orange, but the dark didn't worry him. Dark was better now: without the rule of law, nobody had to wait for dark. They could take aim in the daylight and pull the trigger.
It was the loudest sound he'd ever heard, the hottest thing he'd ever felt. He'd already been throwing himself to one side, and the glancing blow had whipped his head right into the brick. When he'd woken up in the snow, his coat had been gone, with his cards, his cigarettes—but the orange bottle had been stuffed down into his underwear, elastic holding it at his hip. When he'd gotten up and shaken himself down, it had rolled out of his pant leg onto the pavement.
After that—he doesn't know what else was real. Nicky patched up his head, and someone had taken the pills to Ty's room. Had he gone there after? Had he woken up with a hand in his hair, fought off the collective panic of the safehouse and allowed the loss of his cards for the sake of Ty, awake, recovering?
Laying out in the cold wasn't going to resolve it. Kira curled himself up, shaky on his feet. Looking down at black scrubs, stuck to his body with heavy water and thinly falling snow—he didn’t question them. He wasn’t feeling the cold much at all, except where it tightened his chest. He needed shelter before anything else.
Coughing so hard it pinched the muscles in his back, he pitched one step forward, two more, before he tripped over his waterlogged boots and hit the frozen grass with a muffled crunch.
Inn (OTA)
Whatever he does or doesn’t believe about this place, he’s keeping his mouth shut until he has the strength to deal with it. So far no one’s walked him by the wall of strung up cops or offered him jerky of questionable origin—he wants to believe this is some waypoint, some remote safe haven in upstate New York they were transported to while he was unconscious. But if it is, everyone’s gone off the fucking rocker.
He’s never been here before. Certainly not as recently as three days ago. The gap in his memory, between getting shot and Ty’s sickbed—that doesn’t contain a fucking year.
It itches him to move, even as his body protests. Wrapping a blanket tighter around himself, he moves away from the fire, starting to explore the lower floor of the inn. The blackboard waylays him for awhile, especially finding his name at the top of it. A house description, a—man or woman’s name, he can’t really tell. Rook, in the same location. Eleven months. Fuck.
Wandering away from it, he roots around at the bar, finding nothing for his nerves. The kitchen is next, the fire banked low this late. The dim lighting is something he’s used to, trying to avoid being seen in the dark. When he bangs into a chair despite all his practice, he muffles a curse into the blanket folded over his hand, held close.
The hardest part of this, inability to locate alcohol notwithstanding, is this: feeling half blind and deaf to the world. No warnings, no sense of the people around him. Everything he used to keep himself safe stripped away. Everything that would tell him if these people were lying.
He hopes they’re lying about the booze, at least, as he presses onward to start going through the cabinets.
House 39 (Bodhi)
It takes another couple of days before he’s recovered enough to brave the cold. A closet upstairs outfits him with sweaters and coats, and he manages to find the brick house he supposedly cleaned out—which hits him with the first piece of evidence that he might have existed here. The maps, carefully stacked by the linens, bear his handwriting, if not his actual cartography skills.
He loses several more hours exploring the space, finding touches of occupation. Trinkets in a bedside table, a pack of clothes that don’t—look or feel like his, but there’s a box in the closet that has his name fixed to it on a tag.
Kira Akiyama.
His full name, scraps of wrapping paper inside. From a December past? How many winters has he lived in the last four months?
Finding gloves and a pair of jeans, he layers himself again for the cold, and starts the trek across the village to the house marked on his hand-drawn map. Bodhi might be there, with the rest of their things. With answers of some kind, further proof that he’s existed here, or proof that this is an elaborate delusion.
He assumes it isn’t the burnt out husk of a house lightly dampened by snow, and climbs the porch of the other where the path ends. It’s an odd thing, knocking on a door you supposedly own, but he does it all the same. The first thing he hears is a dog’s low bark, rising with the scrape of claws on wood. Then the call of a bird, a clatter at the window that draws his eye—is that a crow?
Then, footsteps, and all he can do is square up and stare at the door.
[Kira's been canon updated as well as reset; he now comes from 3 days later than his first arrival, with knowledge that he did save his boyfriend and a healing graze wound to the side of his head.]
no subject
Jax can see the wound too. It hadn't been there the last time he saw Kira but that means very little; Kira's not someone he spends a lot of time with and Christ only knows all the different ways someone can get injured in this fucking place. He whistles lowly.
"You wanna do something about the head wound before you have a smoke?"
no subject
Doesn't stop his consideration from tripping over whiskey. What is it with this kind of guy and that shit? It's not like there aren't equally cheap clear liquors. "I guess if that's all you have," he says, barely turning to look at the guy, much less immediately follow. He keeps the jar in his hand, grip changing over the lid.
How does this guy know him, and why is he offering what might be the last of his alcohol? "Do you have cigarettes too," he asks, question for question. "My head's as seen to as it's going to get, thanks."
no subject
"We've got doctors here, you know. You could go see one. Still, I'll share the whiskey. Last that I've got, though, so savor it."
no subject
He fucking hates this.
"Why do I feel like you want more than to impress your expert medical opinions on me," he asks, finger now tapping at the glass. "I mean, fuck it, I'll drink what you've got, but why give it to me?"
no subject
He's not really sure why Kira doesn't remember that, though. It'd been something that stuck out, the feast.
"You don't remember that? Big feast?"
no subject
Or had he just lost his mind, and all of it, even this aspect of it, it's all in his head?
Last one seems most likely, even if he doesn't feel crazy. He just feels like he needs a fucking drink. "Should I remember that," he asks, instead of hitting this guy with the truth and starting another round of questions and explanations.
no subject
If there's anything remotely approaching a good cause around here, it's having your head busted open and forgetting your whole life - even if it's a life in this place and not back home. Jax thinks he can donate alcohol to that kind of cause.
no subject
It would be one thing if people were just--mistaking him for a familiar face. But the name, the things they seem to think he's done, they make a kind of sense. He'd go smoke or drink on Easter. He'd shack up with someone on the farthest side of the village from a communal space like this.
Doesn't mean he believes any of it happened, but--plausible behaviors. "If there's no booze in this building, might as well head where there is," he agrees, motioning for Jax to lead the way.
no subject
"Happy to share the alcohol, though, if only because it's the only way to get through this place sometimes. You're gonna need it if you end up having people tell you they know you and you don't know them at all."
no subject
"No one who is actually secure in their position with women says pretty occupied with pussy," is what he decides for now, giving in to the impulse to roll his eyes. In a way, he's doing it for the whole situation, and this man has decided to bear the burden.
All he can do is walk into the lion's den and pray this phantom of himself never gave the guy cause to think he'd suck his dick. "Is it that obvious," he asks, "that I don't know what the fuck any of you are talking about?"
no subject
As to the other, Jax has to agree with him. It's a ridiculous thing to say and he gives Kira a grin. "Look, I've got a couple options here but I don't got an old lady. Shit might go sideways if someone decides they want me exclusively. You don't want to be around when that shit goes down. Gets ugly."
no subject
God, he wants this drink.
Kira's never had anything to qualify as an old lady in his life, but he'd been in that situation a few times. It does get ugly; he rolls his eyes anyway. "Left the ring at home, I guess," he says, remembering the pale ring of skin on one of Jax's hands, back in the flickering light of the kitchen. There'd been more than one, honestly, maybe some kind of class ring, but he doesn't really care where or if Jax graduated.
no subject
"There you go, free to a good home. No glasses but I don't figure you're gonna get hung up on that kind of shit, right?"
no subject
"Here," he adds, opening the bottle and offering it back. He doesn't make a production of it, just an offer to share what's been given, but he thinks he might not drink it until he sees Jax do it first.
Why Jax would give him anything but booze, he has no idea; he also doesn't know why Jax is giving it to him in the first place.
no subject
"What's the last shit you remember before winding up here? I've never had someone leave and come back on me."
no subject
"Thanks," he says anyway: a gift is a gift. He still doesn't know why the guy wants to give it to him. Leave and come back on me is such an odd phrasing. Kira can't decide if it's camaraderie or intimacy, and he's afraid to ask.
Probably if it were the latter, there'd be fewer assurances about pussy. Or more? Masc dudes are fucking weird. "I mean, I don't remember any of this, at all. I remember getting my head stitched up a lot less than two weeks before I showed up here with them out." Which, really, is another reason to tip the bottle for a third time.
no subject
It's sad, when he breaks it down like that, and Jax doesn't want to think about how long he's been away from Tara and the kids so, he doesn't. Instead he focuses on Kira.
"I want to ask how you got out of here but since you don't remember being here to begin with, it's not gonna help, is it?"
no subject
It just doesn't have his people, even if it wants him to pretend it has a different set.
"Sorry if that's what you brought me here for. You've had eight months; I've had less than eight hours."
no subject
Leaving and coming back is definitely new, even if Kira doesn't have the memories to go with it. Damn.
no subject
"So, were you hoping I'd drink myself to sleep here, or back at the inn?" The look he manages toward Jax isn't even very arch: fun Kira went face-down in the snow about a week ago, and hasn't yet come in from the cold.
no subject
He figures he owes the guy a solid, considering he's wound up back in purgatory with the rest of them and lost all the know-how that he'd had the first time around. Jax isn't much for newbie orientation but if the guy wants to crash with him, he's not going to say no.
no subject