sixthiterationlogs | ( OPEN ) I hope you're comfortable in that quiet plastic grave.

Entry tags:

( OPEN ) I hope you're comfortable in that quiet plastic grave.

WHERE: Fountain Park, The Inn, wherever
WHEN: June 18
OPEN TO: ALL
WARNINGS: tl;dr (sorry), near-drowning, sad bro times, panic attacks idk

it's only water

He comes to with cool water rushing all around him and his heart immediately seizes with panic. The last thing he remembers is stepping through his apartment door after four long months in a city that shouldn't exist. Reims - or was it Rouen? It says something about him that as he looks around even deep underwater he isn't sure whether New York or that silent place was the dream. In a fucked up way, he's banking on New York. It was a kindness he wasn't owed, to see his friends go home after their shared nightmare.

It's taking him too long to get to the surface, he can see the light, he's so close, but he's afraid to splash. What if he's back? Or in another Sound Eater haven? He's trying to remember the list he had compiled. Perth, Yokohama, Bogota, Tehran, Karachi, Moscow, Bangkok, Frankfurt... With every city, he's getting closer to the surface but he's losing oxygen fast in trying to stay silent. However he got here, he doesn't have to get everyone nearby killed because of his fuck up.

Eventually, and it feels even longer than the reality, he spills out of the fountain with a loud slap against the stone, his body hanging over the edge, prone for entire moments. Suddenly - involuntarily - he sputters, puking up water from his lungs and slowly coming back to full consciousness. He blinks rapidly to clear his eyes too, trying to remember dying, but also knowing it never works that way. This isn't the Reset Room, and there's no red dust. Something that becomes all too apparent when he grabs a handful of dirt from the ground sprawling out in front of the fountain. The monsters aren't here yet, so he upturns himself and slips over the side of the fountain as silently as he can.

It's only then that he feels the weight of the pack on his back, missing the familiar shelter of his combat boots when earth sticks to the bottoms of his wet feet. He feels behind him at the backpack, but it's closed with a zipper. He'll have to find a soundproofed place to know what's inside. Hopefully it isn't a bomb???

He dutifully makes his way into the village on silent feet, scanning the area as he goes for anything that seems familiar. Istanbul, Lima, Rio de Janeiro... Nothing. This isn't France, though, not either version he's familiar with. That's honestly the most jarring part, somehow. There's no Constance to greet him, no one shushing him. Just wide open space. He doesn't think he's ever been so terrified in his life, and this coming from a guy who's seen combat. Who's waged it, personally.

The first person he sees will be met with the full brunt of his concerned stare, and it's a doozy. Fear is clearly reflected in his gaze as it darts around, like a wild animal who's been cornered. Similarly, he might bolt any minute, so approach with caution. Or don't, YOLO.

it's only fire

Some wandering and strategic shaking later and a dryer version of the Mayor finds himself inside the Inn where he makes quick work of opening the bag, doing it silently though there are sounds all around him. Soft talking and shuffling that assaults his delicate senses like a category 6 maelstrom. Socks and boots are donned in an instant, just as quietly as he continues to drip on the furniture. This place has to be soundproofed, he reasons, or somehow he's made it far enough away from the monsters...?

In something of a daze, he finds his way to the roaring fireplace and resigns himself to sitting by the flames until he's at least moderately less soaked. He doesn't turn enough to see who comes in, but every time the door opens his face moves towards the sound. It's so - normal. Maybe this is the dream, that would make the most sense of all. Frank pulls his teal scrub top away from his body to help it dry faster, closing his eyes for just a moment. Just one... He nods off, just like that, sitting in front of the fire with his expression deeply furrowed. His eyes twitch like he's dreaming, though it's only been a few moments. Not enough time has passed for REM, but his mind is supplying him images anyway, and if the twitches in his frame are any indication none of them are particularly pleasant.

If he's woken either purposefully by a second party, by someone making too much noise near him, or merely by his own cruel thoughts pushing him back to consciousness, he'll start awake, eyes flying open wide. Though his mouth opens into a gasp, that too is silent. He's dry and warm now, and it's time to move on. He gets to his feet one inch at a time, trying to avoid the crackle and pop of tired bones though one dislodges in his neck anyway and earns a grimace from him. It wouldn't have been enough to get him killed, even in Reims, but any sound is deafening now after over 100 days of consecutive silence.

He shoulders his pack and makes his way back out to the square, and the cacophony of villagers gathering outside causes bile rise up his throat in dread. The wheels on carts and the soft stomp of trudging feet carrying the louder din of voices and laughter have his heart pounding fast all over again. Something is very, very wrong and he doesn't have the data to get to the bottom of it. He'll be frozen there in the middle of the causeway for some time before carrying on to find a quiet place to be alone.

it's only love

Frank will be wandering the 6I/7I village(s) for most of the day until someone directs him more specifically. Feel free to encounter him anywhere along the way.

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She doesn't ask him to speak, it's mainly to try and catalogue what's happened. Something clearly has, but Peggy's not going to demand that he sit there and speak to her, she's not going to be that rude and demanding. Instead, she reaches for his arm as gently as she can, continuing to tap.

Y-O-U-D-O-N-T-H-A-V-E-T-O. Giving him a wry smile, she figures she ought to let him in on a little secret that he'll figure out soon enough. C-U-R-I-O-U-S. Always, she always is, no matter what.

It gets a smile, and another nod, far less gloomy this time. N-O-T-A-C-A-T-R-I-T-E? Because curiosity kills those, he'll be here all week folks. His dad jokes are unparalleled.

Then he shrugs his free shoulder and offers up something he wouldn't usually: an AMA with the Punisher turned Mayor of Silent Horrorville. N-O-T-B-U-S-Y. If she wants to ask anything else, he's not going anywhere. He doesn't have anywhere to be, which is jarring unto itself. He keeps feeling like he's late for one of his five jobs or ten volunteer positions or to help move someone in, move someone out, or just counsel them through whatever terrible thing just happened. Having free time seems fake all the way around, honestly.

She might not be a cat, not really, but she thinks that a spy with nothing to do might as well be like a feline with too many lives to spare. She's not sure that she knows where to start, but she needs to dig into the part about his memory and that means trying to think of a short way to ask.

Else, she might get all tapped out, literally. D-O-N-T-R-E-M-E-M-B-E-R? And with that, she lifts her brows and gestures to herself, because she would like to think that she's quite memorable, thank you.

Remember. It's such a loaded question that he stalls, pulling his hand from her grip with a frown. He wants to deny that he knows what she's asking, but Karen had told him he was here before. Peggy must have known him. It's way too surreal being on the other side of this coin. After a long beat, his eyebrows knit together and he shakes his head 'No.' He couldn't look more apologetic about it, signing Sorry in Native though he knows she won't get it - mouthing the word in English so she's sure to at least get a vague idea.

Then he's reaching for her again to resume their chat. W-A-S-N-T-M-E. Not the version of him that's here now, anyway. He isn't sure how to explain. W-A-S-I-A-N-A-S-S? There, that's close.

She doesn't pull back, but there is a critical look in Peggy's eyes as she regards him, waiting for an answer. She does briefly wonder if she's gone too far, but it's a fleeting thing (she absolutely doesn't think so) and when he resumes the conversation, then she feels renewed in her rightness.

She shakes her head to indicate that no, he hadn't been awful. He had been very polite and called her Ma'am, had been good to her. Though, they hadn't been too close. Ironically, she recalls him having been somewhat friends with the other man who'd been here who didn't speak very much and always wore that hat.

K-I-N-D, she taps back. She mouths 'respectable' a touch teasingly, because he had been, but considering she's much younger, she doesn't think that it had been completely due. She wonders if he anticipates being an arse, which she hopes not. She'd hate for her good estimation of him to slip.

The next part, she knows would take too long to communicate, so she says it. "You disappeared, like a lot of people do here."

Definitely not too far, he's still looking into her eyes - a steady trust there that what she says is true, like he has experience in this exact situation. He nods, relieved by her assurance. G-O-O-D. So past him wasn't a total dick, it's a good sign, he thinks. Frank nods to her words a second later too, not flinching this time even in his eyes. It's starting to really sink in that it's safe here, at least relatively speaking. Much safer than the place he'd been in any instance.

N-E-V-E-R-T-H-I-S-S-I-D-E he spells out slowly, eyes imploring her to understand. He had been in her position what feels like a million times before, but never on this side of the equation. Even when he'd died and lost his recent memory for a time, it wasn't like this. He'd known that he was in Reims and what his function was there. This... this is entirely foreign to him. As is Peggy, unfortunately.

It does take her a moment more than she likes before she understands what he's saying, but she has some sort of understanding. A-L-W-A-Y-S-T-H-I-S-S-I-D-E is her return, because for all the people that have come and gone, Peggy stays. She ought to feel like that's some sort of message to her or should be a sign, but she tells herself it's because this is where she's needed.

"There's no rush to get used to it," Peggy murmurs with a promising nod. She gestures to the river that's near them, hoping that perhaps she can coax him to action. F-I-S-H. She raises her brows to add the question mark, because she'd been ready to start and wonders now if he'd like to join.

He nods, understanding what it's like to always be the guy giving the explanations. He may not be the Frank she knows, a veteran of this place, but he's still a veteran of a place like it. She can save her speeches.

H-O-W-L-O-N-G? Frank asks, even while planting his foot to get up as silently as possible. How long has she been here, he means, giving the newbie speech. Fishing sounds... good. Relaxing, maybe. Familiar, definitely. And the company doesn't suck either.

She holds up two fingers, to signify the years. She thinks it might be a little less, maybe a little more, but honestly, she's not sitting around making little ticks in the walls, though she suspects that she could (if it wouldn't be terribly depressing). She offers a shrug to this news, because it's not the worst place.

She's alive, she's been able to make friends, and even see some long lost faces. As she's talking, she's working to dig out her self-made fishing lures to connect them to the rudimentary rod, not wanting to linger in self-pity about her situation for very long at all.

The two gets a quizzical look. She can't mean months, can she? But years is unfathomable. Four months had felt like years in Reims. Frank understands not wanting to linger on things overly though, watching her set her lures and understanding the urge not to dwell even if he's not half as good at it.

"Where did you serve?" he asks suddenly, his tentative voice scratchy as it meets the open air. No matter how he tests things here, the Sound Eaters simply aren't here. They aren't taking notice. People tell him over and over this place is safe, but his heart is still pounding wildly for taking the risk.

"The second world war," she says, which seems odd to have to clarify in such a manner, but what she's learned is that for so many people, those skirmishes and that battle is a thing long removed. For her, it's barely a few years ago and she still feels the ache in her scars at times, still recalls how cold it was.

"All over, really, but with the Howling Commandos once I went into the field," she says, which is when they had let her, after Steve hit the ice. Before that, she'd been a liaison for the SSR and an agent, still, but not one with a team.

He thinks of Hawkeye when she says it. The conscripted pacifist whom he had become close friends with over the months in Reims. Frank swallows. If she's been here two years and knows enough to say it that way, she must know a lot of people from the future. Without talking, it had taken Hawkeye a much longer time to pick up on the time discrepancy. Frank too, honestly.

But wait - the Howling Commandos. It's all coming back to him and he's searching her eyes. That's why she looked familiar, like a woman he's seen on his TV a million times. In documentaries, dated interviews. He swallows. "You're Peggy Carter."

She gives him a blank look, mostly because Peggy's not entirely sure what the difference between being Peggy and Peggy Carter is, especially not when so many people know her in the village. She knows that this Frank is from her world, but apart from the respect the last version had given her, it hadn't impacted them too much.

"I am, yes," she agrees. "Rather proudly, and for twenty-seven years now," she deadpans, joking a little. "You're from my future, I think."

Right, she wouldn't know she's famous later. That tracks. Frank looks a little sheepish, but nods. "2016." Or it had been the first time he'd left for Reims. It's 2017 now, for him. It doesn't mean much in a place like this, he knows.

"I've heard a little of what happens," Peggy admits, seeing as it would be impossible not to, what with so many people having come from that rough timeframe. "I'm afraid that I also know that nothing I do can change that and even if I could, I'm stuck here."

"And," she goes on, a touch bitterly, "I do doubt that what I might fish or find is going to impact anything wildly so. Everything in my life appears inconsequential, nowadays."

Frank nods, understanding that. There had been people from their world in Reims too, of disparate timelines. There wasn't as much talking. Sometimes he hadn't even found out they were from the same world at all, like with Bucky. To the rest though... he thinks he understands that, now that his stint as the Mayor of Reims is up. Does that mean he'd wasted his time? He searches his heart and the answer surprises even himself.

"With all due respect, ma'am-" Of which there is a lot, actually. Frank admires her, but he doesn't need to get into that now (or ever.) He pushes past his own scratchy voice to insist: "That's bullshit."

He hardly knows her, which is why Frank is the recipient of an automatic reaction of her eyes narrowing, her hands on her hips. She doesn't appreciate being called out in such a way, especially when she doesn't think that he has any proof to the contrary.

"It's set," she says, annoyed by it, but that's the truth. "If I change anything, that future ceases to exist and right now, I have people here that confirm it doesn't change. I'm afraid that means, to me, that no matter what I do, the path is locked."

The path is locked. It's something Frank stalwartly refuses to believe, but he also respects her too much to start a real argument over it. He looks from the rudimentary fishing apparatus in her hand and back to her face.

"Did any future types happen to mention if we were gonna catch anything today?" It's a lot of words. More than he's spoken so far. If anyone's earned them, it's Peggy Carter.

Peggy thinks that it's just the right thing to say. She can feel some of the tension unspooling at her shoulders and she gives Frank an appreciative nod of her head, knowing that it's exactly what someone should be telling her.

"You know, I asked, but they weren't very keen on telling me that particular outcome. Shall we try?" she suggests. "We might be able to prove my theories wrong."

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( OPEN ) I hope you're comfortable in that quiet plastic grave.

it's only water

it's only fire

it's only love

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