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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
Trying to have a calm conversation seems insane, but Bodhi can't think of anything to do that would seem otherwise. He follows Kira's lead as best he can, unsteady and twitchy but used to pretending to be normal through those challenges. "Your--your idea." He stalls for a moment, stuck on the impossibility of what he just said. If Kira doesn't remember, whose idea was it? "I, um, consolidating over at the other... Consolidating at the other house. For winter. It was, um, the plan was--There's travel time and fuel, mostly." He hasn't stammered and lost his place this badly in months, and even to his ears it's bad; the stumbling and sharp stops, a staccato edge of anger and the harsh sound of the Low Imperial accent he picked up in school and never lost.
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He doesn't know what to do with the dog. She keeps abortively following him, sniffing at his hands. Checking him, he imagines. Same smell, wrong--something.
She must be--she must be Bodhi's, or his idea. Kira's never taken much to dogs, and he's cagey at her approach. They were soured things back home, in need of rescue and kind hands--and lacking that, they'd become dangerous. Snarling things that could give away your position if they didn't just give chase. Logically, he knows she isn't going to hurt him, but--but he doesn't know shit, really.
"I think maybe this is a lot to cope with," he says, his voice hushed and dry. Stating things both obvious and usually not given voice is about as much sign of panic as he's got in him, and there's an automatic quality to his steps, walking deeper into the house. Some kind of dining room, big table, chairs. Chairs seem like a good, safe bet, and he sits, the bird still fussing at his hair. Let it. If that's all it wants of him, he can provide. "I'm going to sit," he says, already sitting. "Do you want to sit?"
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No, not a stranger. He knows this man. Kira's mannerisms are there, if not one of his more usual moods. A Kira who sees him as a stranger.
Beyond that, stillness is where Bodhi goes when he's calm. Right now he couldn't sit down and stay put for a minute. He looks around for some chore, but there really isn't one. This room isn't one he's very aware of. The kitchen is their communal space, the bedrooms their retreats (little use as Bodhi gets out of his), the living room good enough for comfortable laziness, and this? This isn't really anything to Bodhi.
"Look, did you... have you eaten?" It's no more absurd than standing here chatting. Food is always helpful in the face of social horribleness.
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He'd really like to sleep, and he'd really like to wake up in an equally shitty situation that at least had his boyfriend and family waiting on the other side of disaster.
But the moment passes, and it's clear that Bodhi's trying. Kira can try too, whatever that amounts to. "No, I--if you want to make something. I'd appreciate it." Would he have appreciated it previously? Did Bodhi often cook? What an absurd thing to care about. "I can--help?"
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No, he's going to kriffing offer the kriffing tea. To do otherwise would be admitting how miserably scared he is, how much he hates this, and he wouldn't be able to keep this going.
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He, or they, did that. He put this stuff here. He taught Bodhi to cook, he made decisions about their well-being. Decisions that make sense, even if he thinks--they'd make sense to anyone.
How much harder is this to deal with--is it harder at all--to arrive with no idea what's going on but no expectations, either? The crow at his shoulder ruffles it feathers, clambering across to the other side. Even this bird expects something of him, and he doesn't know what to give. "Bodhi," he says, before the man can disappear from the room. He knows that name at least. "What did I--what did we call them. The bird and the dog."
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"I...like them," he says. Strange, to admit the plausibility of any of this. "Crows, I mean. Was he injured, when we--when I first." He huffs a breath, mutters, Jesus. He doesn't know how to talk about this. "Hoshi, the name," he says instead: "it means star." Would Bodhi already know that? Why would he name a crow after something so bright? Why did anyone name that black dog after a kind of light?
He isn't sure he should have come here: there's a depth to this return that feels far over his head. It's more paralyzing than the cold of the water. "Bodhi," he says again, fixed in his chair, and maybe if he keeps saying the name it'll mean what it's supposed to. "I'm sorry."
no subject
The apology draws him out of the troubling question. It's unnecessary, but he's glad to it. If nothing else, it's an acknowledgement that he's upset and has a right to be. In his usual contrary way when it comes to feelings, he interprets this as more reason to try and keep those feelings tightly walled off, but it's still a nice gesture. "It's not your fault. These things never are." He looks away for a moment and adds, "You... helped me a lot, when I got here. Least I can do."
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He can't quite read anyone, the way he used to. That might be part of the problem. It was a lot easier to play nice in a strange place if no one was ever quite a stranger.
"Do you mind if I ask you--about before? People have told me a bit, but if I was staying here, you might know better than them. I don't have to ask it all right now." He doesn't even know everything there is to ask, at this point. "And if you want me to go, I won't mind."
He'd hardly know how.
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Is he going to meet anyone here, who isn't concerned with a version of him that he doesn't know, that he hardly believes exists? Does he get ten minutes to process what has been the last year of his life, four months of it in a war zone? Or does he just have to keep setting that down, one foot in front of the other, another long winter stretched out before him?
He has permission to ask, and he isn't sure what he even wants to know. Friends he's lost he never knew he had. Ty, given a fighting chance, alive, but so far away that he might as well have died. It's like his lonely trek into the upper east side isn't going to end. More snow. More loss.
"You said were," he zeroes in on. It's shitty how much of a respite that word represents. Were. He might not have to deal with as many people like Bodhi as he thought. "Did something happen?"
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He still doesn't want to sit, but talking across the room feels stupid. He moves to lean his hip on the table instead. "You're not even the first with, um, different memories, I think. Who knows how many times we've all done this." There's a slightly frantic note, though he keeps his voice so low the tightness is hard to hear. That's the thought that's been chasing him since Kira made the worst clear.
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Well, after awhile. He'd spent more than a few nights locked in his apartment, lights off, drinking to get to sleep.
On some level he realizes: Bodhi's as upset to lose a friend as he is to understand some new possibility. Old possibility--who fucking knows. Maybe it doesn't count until it happens to you, in your own home. Maybe Kira will get a taste of it and remember, this time. "Don't," he says, and then stops. He doesn't want Bodhi to tell him, about people he lost, that he won't even know. He doesn't want Bodhi to panic, either, but he doesn't know what that would take. "Pretend I'm someone new," he says, because he is. He's new to all of this. "Or just--realize. To me, I've never been here. If it's easier for you, just, think of it that way. Kick me out if you want, grieve whoever you lost. Or teach me where the things are in the kitchen because you want to make a meal together, not--you can't teach me to be that person. I'm already a person, I--"
He can't cope with this place and change, somehow. He can't do that at the same time, right now. He's getting closer to panic himself, the more he tries to grapple with it.
no subject
And one big part of what had brought him around, or at least pointed him toward his current state of half-competent relative coherency, had been staying busy. "Come on, I'll show you the kitchen while I get the kettle on." It's a shallow, fragile peace and he doesn't know how long he'll be able to keep it up. But it'll do for right now.
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Whatever else he can't be to Bodhi, he can still cook. "The first guy, he mentioned crops at some point. Is there anything fresh to work with?" He could deal with it if it wasn't--the salted and cured fare at the inn had been a wildly flavorful improvement over cans of anything they could find--be it intended for adult humans or very young dogs. "I think if you have a piece of fruit to spare I'll cry."
It's a conversational sort of exaggeration, but on the truer side. If he's going to prove himself his own--person, whatever--he might as well say what comes to mind.
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"Apples sound wonderful," he says, truth in it--and he's glad he can let Bodhi do anything for him at all. Make this all feel a little less terrible for a few minutes. "I'll try not to get too emotional when I taste them."
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It's an indirect question as to why; he isn't sure he wants to directly question the state of the house. It just calls to attention how utterly foreign it is to him. Looking up, the picture hanging on the wall catches his eye, and he drifts closer to it. "Did you make this," he asks, admiring the portrait of the dog and crow. It's the most--home making thing he's seen in the space, with so much packed up in the front hall.
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He looks over at the picture and smiles faintly. It makes him feel better. And he hasn't decided yet whether to take it and the rest of Jude's gifts with him or keep them here at home. He likes having them in his own sanctuary, but he doesn't want to leave them so far away, either. "Um, no, I couldn't pos--Jude drew it for me. I don't think you really knew him," he adds, because that's going to need qualifying whenever anyone comes up.
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It isn't something he's been around long enough to comment on, but he turns away--relieved, in a way. Someone's got Bodhi's back, regardless of whatever's been lost between them. "It's nice," he says, wondering if he ever commented on it--last time. Bodhi's reaction to him, the dog and the bird--more than anything else so far, they're forcing him to accept the possibility. He was here, people knew him.
What he's meant to do about it, he has no fucking idea, but acceptance must be part of the process. "Are the earthquakes common," he asks, drifting back over to some useful, instructive orbit.
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"Where did we get all this stuff," he asks, basic kitchen implements and relatively nice plates tallied up in his head with the piles in the other room. "Mark found me with nothing but the clothes on my back."
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