sixthiterationlogs | i got two hundred seconds

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i got two hundred seconds

WHO: Ty Rhodes and you!
WHERE: Bunker, Peach Orchard, House #15 in the South Village
WHEN: Around 9/30
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: None, TBA

[BUNKER ARRIVAL]
The sound of water rushing past him was what woke him initially, but like some kind of paralytic lucid dream, he was sluggish at waking. Which was odd, considering Ty was usually fairly alert as soon as he was awake, but he had difficulty even opening his eyes. Then there was the sudden sensation of falling, and hitting the unforgiving ground.

Groaning, he opened his eyes, vision blurry for a few moments as he tried to get his bearings. The last thing he remembered was heading home, snow crunching underneath his boots, mind racing a thousand miles a minute but this-

Gingerly, feeling returning to his limbs as if he’d been asleep for a long time, he reached up to wipe the water from his eyes. He ran his hands through his hair to keep it from dripping more liquid into his face, undoubtedly spiking it up in odd directions as he tried to slick it back.

It took a few heartbeats to figure out he was in some weird laboratory looking room, apparently he’d been stuck in a tube up until now, and whoever was standing at the console was the one to let him out. Or put him there in the first place.

“Thanks, I think.” His voice was rough with disuse, scrapped a bit raw. “Think I could trouble you for a towel?”

[PEACH ORCHARD]
Though there seemed to be communal resources, going for those first felt like some sort of failing on his part. He wanted to have something to contribute before he took anything, and unfortunately here it didn’t seem like he had anything from home. And while he was grateful the pack had given him clothes, he was a bit disappointed there hadn’t been one tool in there for use.

So instead he’d decided to forage, taking a few test bites of the peaches to make sure they weren’t anything strange. Quite the opposite, it seemed like eating them made him feel better somehow, so he was stuffing a few into his backpack when he heard someone approached. He had looked around the orchard to see if anyone was tending to it, but it had seemed like it wasn’t really anyone’s. Perhaps he’d made a mistake?

Slowly he raised his hands to show he didn’t have anything in them but a peach, turning his head to address whoever was coming up.

“Sorry, is this your land? Didn’t mean to trespass.”

[MAKING A HOUSE A HOME]
While Ty had some trepidation about using the communal resources for now, turning down shelter would just be shooting himself in the foot. Especially since he had no real tools to call his own and he had always been susceptible to cold.

It was a bit creepy to put roots in a house that looked like it had been abandoned for a long time, but it gave him something to do while he came up with a game plan for this place. In an effort to help out his mother, he had gotten in the habit of keeping things neat and tidy, so airing out the house, trying to combat all the dust and cobwebs, and checking to see what was in working order kept him from panicking too much, initially. He was here, he might as well make the best of it. And be on good terms with the people who lived nearby, considering he had no idea how long he was going to be stuck here.

He was in the process of beating all the dirt out of the linens, the blankets draped over the railing of the front porch, when he finally saw some signs of life in the neighborhood. He waved and called out a good morning to anyone who passed, before covering his face back up with his sleeve, and going back to work.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"You're going to catch a cold." Ty said, sounding more like a mother than an actual medical student, but he didn't stop Kira as he took off both of his shoes and kept walking. He had to wonder if he was watching some sort of strange break down, if Kira was on drugs, or if this was just some stage of dramatics he had never gotten to before. They'd been away from each other for a long time. Long enough for Ty to get perspective, maybe.

He nodded at Kira's answer, wanting to ask more about the tubes and bunkers, when he mentioned how long he'd been here, Ty's eyes widening in shock.

"A year? I just saw you-" He wanted to tell him that was impossible, he'd literally just saw him five minutes ago, that if this was a joke, he could let up. But Kira wasn't meeting his gaze, and Ty let that sink in, heavy as a stone. A whole year. While the village seemed like a fun exercise to Ty, it was probably the exact opposite for Kira. This place was stripped of everything that Kira enjoyed, and to be here a year-

"I'm sorry." He wasn't sure exactly what he was apologizing for, not being here or for treating this like a joke when it was rapidly becoming apparent it wasn't. Especially now that he was looking, really looking, he was seeing enough to distress him. "Is that from here?" He gestured vaguely by his ear, feeling sick. The scar looked old, and it was in a dangerous place.

His fingers tighten on the laces of his boots, making them turn slightly, tap against his thigh. Arrivals are hard. Arrivals are harder because he's bad at them: no patience, a scabbed over wound of disappointment, thinking he wanted this and not getting it. Unfamiliar face after unfamiliar face, and this is worse.

He's shiny and new and he doesn't know.

He doesn't know how new he is. He doesn't know what--did or didn't happen, doesn't know what they recreated or just assigned Kira, even if he was still in it. Kira stops walking and lets Ty catch up, pull enough ahead to look in the eye.

This is not his fault. He's not even real--Kira isn't either, but here they are, comparing how much of a past they were given to work with. "No. You didn't see me, and that isn't from here. This is from here." Lifting his sweater and shirt, he shows some of the lingering marks from his fall through a treehouse floor.

"Ty," he asks, smoothing his shirt back down: "I need you to tell me the last thing you remember. Before the tubes."

When Kira finally slowed to a halt so Ty could see the expression on his face, that ruled out the drugs theory. Kira's pupils looked fine, his face was pinched, and he looked so damn tired that Ty had to fight the urge to just tell him that they could sort this out later. Like they did with most important things.

He couldn't stop the small hiss of sympathy pain that escaped him when Kira lifted up his shirt, and he took a few steps forward to get a better look, eyes narrowing.

"What the hell Kira?" Because nothing he was saying was making sense. And those marks had looked ugly and gnarly, Ty flicking his gaze back up to Kira's mouth drawn. "You should be getting that treated. How long ago were those from?"

Because that was more important than trying to make sense of whatever else Kira was talking about at the moment. Here or there could be sorted out later. But Kira being hurt should be addressed now.

In the moment, he's not sure why he showed him: some real and permanent consequence, some sign that his body is real even if everything else seems up for debate? To drive something home, to--to hear that concern.

Or had he hoped Ty would reach across, put a hand on them?

Kira swaps his boots to the side between them, hangs his arm close enough to pull the fabric down at his hip. "Months ago, they're fine. I'm fine. Answer the fucking question, Ty."

"Did you not get them treated months ago? Because that's what it looks like." Ty argued, mulish. He was used to Kira's whiplash moods, and it rarely bothered him to coast along with them, but the tone Kira used on him was new. He raised his eyebrows, a bit surprised, straightening back up to his full height since it seemed like Kira didn't want him near him.

"Stopping those looters from stealing your parka from you." Which, quite frankly, was more fuel to the fire now that he remembered, Ty's mouth tightening in annoyance. "What were you still doing in New York anyway? You were supposed to be long gone." And safe, but instead it seemed like Kira had picked up the habit of being everywhere he was supposed to.

"No, I did not--"

Kira stops, makes himself start again, manages a series of steps and puts his free hand over his sinking face. Ty should know the answer to that, he should not be sitting on the edge of that fucking argument, again, and--

"It's your fucking parka," is the correction that makes it through, his throat closing up against the tinny feeling in his chest. Tines vibrating right on his sternum. Four months is enough time that he has to think about how long that was, a full year between that end and now. The last Kira thought Ty was dead, that he'd never made it back. Ty--this Ty--didn't get the full programming either. Maybe none of them ever fucking do.

Four months is enough time for a lot of things. Four months isn't the sum of them, but it's an important fucking piece.

"I didn't fucking go. I didn't get on the helicopter, it got shot down, they locked us in. And now we are here, and I am not trying to stand here and defend some shit I did or didn't do sixteen months ago to you."

Ty had thought, erroneously, that having someone from home as a lodestone would be useful. That it would help ground him and give him some comfort. Instead, being here was making even less sense than Ty thought possible. A bit frustrated, he started to pace back and forth, restless. When he was given problems he couldn't solve or when situations got to be too much, going on runs or doing something with himself helped clear his mind and helped him focus. There were well worn tracks in his house and at the Akiyamas where he would pace in circles until he found his solution and broke out of it.

"You're not making any sense." Ty said, far more calmly than he felt, his mind working a mile a minute. He was relieved that Kira wasn't on a helicopter that had gotten shot down, but what about the rest of his family? Hadn't Kira said he'd been here a year? What was this sixteen months business? What was he talking about when he got one scar there and not here? And he would have laughed if this situation wasn't so serious that he felt the need to fight him over a parka Ty hadn't seen in ages.

"Can we do this somewhere else? Preferably somewhere you're not going to get frostbite." Ty was cold just looking at him, and maybe walking somewhere would help him try to make sense of all of this. "I'm all the way at the other village. Where are you staying?"

Now he's getting it. The pacing is at least a sign that things are sinking in, that Ty 2 or 7.0 didn't ship without all the nuts and bolts attached. Sane enough to feel some anxiety about the facts, such as they are. Himself enough to pace a little circle while he thinks about it.

Fuck, but it's weird to stand next to that again, and know it's also the first time.

This is the first and maybe only Ty he, this Kira is going to get. He doesn't want to do this any more now than he did back by the peach trees. "I'm not going to get frostbite," he huffs, looking toward the nearest houses. "And it's a long walk back, everyone lives on the other side. We can walk and talk or we can borrow a house, but stop--momming me, Jesus."

"Sorry, I can't hear you because how many times have you been injured since I last saw you?" Kira could say it'd been sixteen months all he wanted, but for Ty it still had only been five minutes. It was his homecoming all over again, where people had filled him in on what he'd missed, except less hilarious and bittersweet and more horrifying.

He started towards the houses nearby because he wasn't going to make Kira walk all the way back to the other side, annoyed and sick with worry. This place hadn't seemed so dangerous, but Kira bore the marks to prove otherwise.

"Start from the beginning. What do you last remember before coming here?"

Kira stands his patch of ground, watching Ty's little circle suddenly wind him out toward a house. If he's the dramatic one, they swap places for the cold: it's warming up from fifty-something, easy, and Ty would rather wear a circle in a wood floor than just walk.

He should let him peel off and just keep going. There are stores enough at the house he could go a couple of days without leaving it--but almost anyone Ty asked would be able to point out where he lives. Bad plan. All plans are pretty bad, where he's concerned, which is probably why the answer to the question is more than once.

Act first, let the chips fall. Kira trudges past the house Ty's made a line toward just to be contrary, and slips into the next one over. It's colder inside than out, the closed space gaining nothing from the sun. By the time Ty follows through the door, Kira's pulled the hatchet from his bag, offers it handle-first. "Break down a chair for me, we can light the stove at least."

Answers, well--those can stay on the shelf for later. Cannibalizing furniture for warmth isn't as much of a non-answer as Ty might think.

Even though a good chunk of time had passed since they had last seen each other, it was comforting to know that Kira was still mostly Kira. Being contrary just to do it was almost endearing, if he wasn't already so annoyed. Asking Ty to do physical labor wasn't new either, but the fact that Kira carried around an axe. He accepted it with wide eyes, turning it over in his hands as if he couldn't believe it was real. The Kira he had known hadn't carried anything heavier than his phone or deck of cards, so this was... Something.

He did as he was told without comment, running the things Kira had said to him over and over, like those words were a crumpled piece of paper that needed to be smoothed out to reveal an actual message.

"What else do you have in there?" It seemed like a neutral topic, and necessary to get all the little distractions out of the way before they really sat down and hashed this out.

He doesn't carry much more than the cards if he can help it: a lighter, a photo, certain vials of certain possible persons' possible blood, stolen from a bullshit wall of samples. If there's someone to foist the pack on, he will; if there isn't, well, better if everyone underestimates him for as long as possible.

"A firestarting kit, for one." He stares at Ty from under raised brows, nodding at the chairs around the dining table. They'll break down easy, and should be easiest to replace if someone moves in.

Which is a distraction within the distraction of the question, taken up in both hands. Doing something is really the only way to clear his head, and if Ty drags the moment long enough, he might take the ax back and try it himself. For now, he pulls Tony's little case from the bag and sets it on the stove, opening it to remove a wax and tinder pellet. Underneath it, he finds a jar of goldbells, kept on hand after the incident with the snakes.

All they need's a kettle and some heat. "Get your shit together and I'll make some tea."

"Handy." Ty said, not quite sure what to say in the face of this new and odd Kira who carried firestarting kits, axes, and scars like they were no big deal. He gathered up the chairs obediently enough, hefting them into a nearby room just to keep it tidy and give them both some space. He lined them up neatly, smiling despite how... off this whole situation was when Kira said he'd make tea.

He couldn't count how many times he'd been to the Akiyama household, where tea was the answer to a good number of things. Upset? Drink some tea. Feel like you were getting sick? Drink some tea. Need to relax? Drink some tea. And Mrs. Akiyama could make some damn good tea.

He made quick work of the chairs, bringing the wood next to the stove, leaning the axe against it. While he knew he was the last person who could judge anyone for not wanting to talk about something, communication had always been their biggest problem. They could talk about anything random, but the important things they never addressed. Ty had been willing to let it go when he was younger, but now he knew better.

"Did your family get out okay? Is anyone else here?" He at least had the comfort of knowing his family was safe, but the Akiyamas were family too.

It's not just the lost year, guiding Kira's hands, informing his flat stare in the face of what now hardly seems adversity. Make fire, need wood. At least in the village they can make as much noise as they want, can move between buildings without fear of being shot or stripped of supplies.

Ty--this version--doesn't remember New York, either. Four months of sneaking and scraping, four months of living past his expiration date in a situation he'd never prepared for. A situation he's started to wonder--if it was just to prepare him for this.

Maybe it was just included, to prepare him for this. At that point, they at least shipped Ty to the village with his training. It's almost familiar, if at a year's distance, to listen to Ty chop the chairs to pieces at his back. That it's only familiar to one of them, trying to get a fire going in a squat, making tea on a wood burning stove out of what he has on hand--Kira is trying to deal with. Kira is trying not to lose his shit, the way he had when the wound on his side was fresh.

It's been a day. If no one else saw fit to tell him, Kira's not dropping the nature of their existence into his lap. His hands busy on the kettle, filling it in the sink. "Just me, here. No one else we know. But my family got out before you even found me, I assume they went to be with my sister; I don't know if they made it to the other coast."

Kneeling at the stove, he lets Ty pass him the pieces, arranging them beneath the grate. "I remember up to February. It was almost over."

It was a relief to hear that the rest of the Akiyamas had made it out, Ty's shoulders slumping as he grinned happily at the news. Once he had gotten activated, there hadn't been much time to think or check up on loved ones. Everything had been chaotic, and it was still a blur despite the fact that he was here now. Maybe that was part of the problem. He'd been torn from one chaotic situation into another, without any real way to process either of them.

"That's good." He said finally, before quirking an eyebrow at the vague answer. 'February' didn't really tell him much, but that it had taken four months to contain the aftereffects of green poison was pretty impressive. It had seemed like an insurmountable task, at the beginning.

"So what happened? Was a cure found?"

"I don't know," he answers, nothing to undercut the honesty. No reason to withhold, quiet as it made him feel inside to think about. With where they'd found themselves, with this strange place and its strange systems--who's to say it ended at all? Who's to say they hadn't briefly lived the end of the world?

"Nicky just said you clearing the Darkness Zone. That we were getting a handle on New York. Maybe it was just that part that was over, I never found out."

He never got to leave. He never even saw Chiyo's campus outside of Facebook updates. Manhattan, and this place. And it's here he perfected building a fire, in a wood burning stove. Settling the broken spokes and legs, he takes up the flint and steel, striking them over the pellet until it lights. Using the steel, he nudges it under the wood, stays knelt at the grate. "You really just--you don't remember any of it? Just the beginning?"

It was surreal to watch Kira light a fire like it was nothing, like he had done it a hundred times before. The Kira he had known would have made him do it instead, or would have complained the whole time. It was an odd disconnect, and with each little idiosyncrasy, it forced to Ty to believe what he was saying was true. They were from different time periods, this place was dangerous, and it had forced someone like Kira to carry an axe with him. It was a lot to process, and he felt tired at the thought.

He squatted down next to Kira to watch him work, allowing himself a moment to feel lost. He was torn between being proud that Kira had survived just fine on his own, and also a bit saddened.

"I really don't." He paused, turning to face Kira with a small frown. It seemed strange he kept asking, because it wasn't like Ty would lie. "What aren't you telling me?"

He'd trained himself for years: drank and smoked and snorted whatever made it okay, for people to be close to him. Whatever made them not so loud, whatever kept the lines of them from blurring with his own. No more personal space, no more holding the world at arm's length--not physically, anyway. Here in the village, he doesn't need it. No powers, no impressions of people. He has to know them the old fashioned way.

He should know Ty better than any of them. He should be used to Ty, up close. When Ty frowns at him, he can't help the hand reaching up, touching his eyebrow. It's hard to see, but he can feel the little blunt ridge of a scar.

He has not lost his mind enough, to ask to see Ty's hip. How is he the one with all the scars? The knowing he can live with. Knowing too much was his whole shit deal in life. But it was never history. He puts his hand down and blows across the bottom of the stove, stirring the flames higher. He pushes himself up.

"Me? When do I ever tell you anything? There's a whole book of shit that explains it better than I could."

After four years of being separated, of talking around each other, of finally having his hopes for them to be anything more than friends laid to rest, Ty would have thought his traitorous heart would have learned not to stutter just at a simple touch from Kira. He had made his peace with it, had thought he was ready to just be friends, but how can he when Kira still looked at him like he was something he wouldn't let himself have? There were only so many times Ty could put in 99% and still make excuses to himself why Kira wouldn't meet him at that last 1%. It was aggravating, to know he answered all of Kira's questions without hesitation, even when he shouldn't have, only to know it was completely one sided. Someday he wondered if they could be friends, let alone best ones, if he was constantly kept in the dark.

So instead he got up to walk away from him, unsure if he was more annoyed at himself or Kira.

"You're right. That was always our problem. We never talked about anything important." He said, even as he was making a mental note to look through those books as soon as he left. "That wasn't what I was asking and you know it. But if that's all you have to say, I'll come find you after I read up on everything."

Funny how the push and pull isn't familiar, anymore: a year and change without it, four months of holding on until Ty had to go play hero. Maybe if they'd had more practice about the important things, that conversation could have swung in Kira's favor. A lot of things could have, and this would make more sense, and he wouldn't have a hook of a scar on the side of his head.

It's not Ty's fault. A lot of things become less certain, when you circumvent one fate; who knows what would have happened if he'd stayed.

But it's still the last he saw of him. Laid up in a bed, held together but septic. Looking more like a corpse than a man when the corner turned. Kira sighs, letting him move but not quite leave the room before speaking up. "I don't have my gifts, here. They aren't part of the package: I can't fill in the blanks anymore."

At his back, the stove starts to warm; he stands with his arms folded high on his chest, hands in his armpits, squeezing. "The last thing I remember was February. You took a bad hit to the hip and you were laid up, almost dead. I didn't even get to see if you woke up, and now you're here like it didn't happen. I fucking mean it, about the records. It's a lot to fucking explain, Ty."

Kira's voice stopped him at the door, Ty shocked at the admission, turning to glance at his best friend, eyebrows raised almost to his hairline. He had to admit, while it had made lying or arguing about their long term relationship a pain, there had been perks to Kira's abilities. Namely that he hadn't had to spell everything out, and he would be the first to admit that made him lazy in communicating. Their break down of dialogue was on both of them really.

It would have been whiplash, how quickly his anger drained from him, but he was always far readier to be concerned with Kira than he was mad at him. He circled back, crossing his arms over his chest as he took that in.

"You holding up okay?" It had to be weird, not having his power here. Kira had relied on it so heavily back home, Ty was sure it was like losing a limb.

He was about to ask more when Kira spoke again, expression shuttering slightly. That would explain why Kira had been so frantic to know what it was he last remembered. The knowledge that he had been wounded and possibly dead was an uncomfortable one, but he had prepared for it. Signing up with the Division wasn't meant to be a walk in the park, and Ty had known the risks well.

"And I'll read the records soon. Probably a couple times." It felt odd, to ask about his death, but if it would help him in some way to survive here, he had to know. "How did I get hurt?"

Less like losing a limb than his sight, his sense of smell. He hadn't realized how much of his sense of time and place were caught up in it until it was gone. He'd seen enough, how emotions look on a person, he can compensate with his other senses. There's nothing to make up for that flow of moment to moment, a sense of right or wrong in each step.

It had been like walking all his life with his eyes closed, hand on a guiding line, and now the line is gone.

But after a year, he's learned how to open and use his eyes. The way he senses Ty in a space is different, but he looks the same. Holds himself the right way, distributes his weight the same, treads his boots over wood floors in a soft pad of sound that settles something. Kira feels like he knows him, in a way that isn't true of anyone else. The only person he spends that kind of time with is Mark.

Kira turns, puts the kettle on the stove with Ty turned back from the hall. "Big final push, I told you not to go. It didn't feel right, but my track record hadn't been perfect up to that point." He levels the look, the irritation, at the small shelf over the stove. "They brought you back with a piece of re-bar in your hip, mentioned--Kent? I don't know if that was a first name or last. It was a shit-show."

When Kira didn't answer, Ty figured it was best to leave that topic alone for now, instead recalling the activation notice he'd received. The first wave had gone missing, all presumably dead. They had been working on clearing out the streets and creating safehouses, and the second wave was to follow in their foot steps. A final push hadn't even been in sight, and Ty had to wonder who it was against. He almost wished that Nicky were here to explain the logistics of what Kira couldn't. Restlessly, as Kira put tea on, he started pacing again, the floor creaking beneath his steps.

Not that, he supposed, it would make much of a difference to know what was going on back home now. He couldn't help, and if he worried about that side too much, he might lose focus here.

He was startled out of his thoughts at the name drop, stopping to look at Kira wide eyed. He'd said he was part of the Division, yes, but he had never gone into details. That Kira would know that name...

"Kent's a good guy. He wouldn't-" But knowing someone in training wasn't the same as knowing someone when they were out on the field. Kent had been someone Ty had considered a friend, and they'd complained about conditions together, overcome obstacles, hell, Ty could have probably met the guy's family and been able to name everyone just by his stories alone. If he knew himself, he wouldn't have wanted to hurt Kent, which had clearly been the difference between life or death.

Shaking his head, he forced himself to exhale. "Sorry. I didn't mean to cause so much trouble."

Then, in a ( quite possibly terrible ) effort to lighten the mood, he looked Kira over again, curious. "So you've been here a year? What have you been up to?"

Like it was his homecoming all over again, and not some weird place they were trapped in for reasons no one seemed to know.

"Kent left you to die in a subway tunnel, Kent can go fuck himself." Staring at the kettle doesn't help it boil, but it's like--that fucking mental condition. If it's just Ty's voice at his back, it's like it's really him. If he just doesn't look at him, it almost makes sense.

Doesn't make it any less surreal

"You didn't cause any trouble," he promises. Not then, not even now. "You just walked into it while the don't fucking walk sign was blinking." Which they have in common, if each of his new scars can attest. "I have been up to surviving a world with no electronics, no central heating, no grocery stores. It's like the quarantine never ended, except with trees and complete strangers."

If it were anyone else, Ty might not have believed them. Delilah always told him he tended to look for the good in others, so much so that he tended to blind himself to everything else. But the way Kira was refusing to look at him, the tenseness of his stance, drove it home like a spike being hammered into the ground.

"Hey." Even though it seemed like another one of those 'walking when the don't walk sign' was flashing in bright ominous lights, Ty closed the distance between them, resting a hand on Kira's back as if he could help bleed out all the things that were eating at him with touch alone. Like they were still in high school and they were always finding excuses to touch. Soothingly, he ran a thumb along the back of Kira's neck, wishing there was more he could say, some way he could apologize. But how could he really, when he didn't really know what he was sorry for?

"We're in this together now, okay? And since you know this place better than me, I'll listen if you tell me not to walk."

i got two hundred seconds

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