* A CERTAIN LOW-FI CHARM.

jon’d hoped martin was peacefully and dreamlessly asleep the same way he hopes that all of their friends in london are safe and that this changed world will be proven a horrible dream in the morning      :      with full brutal knowledge of the foolishness behind it.      hope isn’t kind nowadays.      he’s not prone to the easy denial martin falls into,      cannot imagine the ruins being put back together by any hands,      particularly not the ones who’d caused the destruction in the first place.

the village below is far enough that it had been a chore to walk there,      when walking anywhere was still an option,      but not far enough to elude his everpresent sight.      tonight he’s watched a hunter attacking.      the few remaining people stand their ground but their petty knives and guns are hopeless in the face of such sharp teeth,      gnawing and tearing and gnashing and      —      jon thinks of daisy and wonders if she,      somewhere in london,      is doing the same.      clawing her name into the bones of the city.      it isn’t the first time such destruction has forced its way behind his eyes,      but it’s the first in a long while that this particular comparison has come to him.      enough to make him dislike being alone with his thoughts.

‘      define okay,      ’            he says.      there’s no immediate danger to the two of them      —      in the ruins of their world,      this is what passes for okay,      so he nods in the dark,      hoping the sound of it will suffice if martin cannot see him.      shifts closer in,      nestling his cheek against their joint hands.            ‘      i’m fine,      just      …      thinking.      watching.      ’            no need to worry martin with what,      exactly,      he has seen.      it isn’t as if they can help those people;      by now,      nobody can.            ‘      i suppose that’s all i’m ever doing nowadays,      isn’t it?      ’

“   what do you see  ?  ”   martin murmurs into the dim light between them , knowing jon won’t elaborate without prompting , yet not sure even as he does , that he wants to hear the answer ; martin can admit , he’s fearful of truth or gentle lie in equal measure.    but every word between them , rumbled into his skin wearily with jon curled in next to him , familiar weight and the itch of old , inherited wool blankets  ---  it keeps martin here. tethered.

and perhaps it’s martin’s particular fear of it which keeps him open to such fickle frailty as feeling alone , when outside the world slowly ends , and ends , and ends.    like a sheet of ice on the window pane on a chilly morning , back when day was distinguishable from night , the frost is there whenever martin opens his eyes from unremembered nightmare , chill set deeper than his bones , and even the slow decay just behind these ice-capped walls can seem worlds and worlds away.

@eyesolate gets a plotted starter!

        This is stupid.  He knows this is stupid.  He knows Martin doesn’t like him much, doesn’t trust him much.  Which is understandable, given the impression that everyone else has of Gerard Keay.  In that context, the gesture he’s about to make could very well be read as threatening at worst, and just plain weird at best.  But dammit, the man’s been living on a couch in the archives for days, and after all he’s been through, it’s the least anyone can do to make sure he gets an actual dinner.

        Gerard takes a deep breath, and knocks on the door.  After an appropriate pause, he gently nudges the door open, easing it along the hinges until it’s just ajar enough for him to peer into the room, cradling the insulated food bag against his chest.

        “Hey, sorry to bother you.  Just figured, well - crashing in this dump is depressing enough without having to live on microwave meals.”  Martin’s not screaming yet, so Gerard opens the door a little further, just so Martin can see he comes bearing gifts.  “Uh.  I brought… risotto and… eggplant parmesan.”

" for the last time , tim , no i don’t think i’d consider sleeping with a worm to buy my freed-    oh-- ”

spring-rung stretcher groaning not subtly as martin’s frame shifts toward the door , there’s a moment of suspended time in which martin cannot process that it’s not tim , come back to rile him some more , who knocks , so taken aback is he by the visage of gerard keay standing in the doorway of his makeshift bedroom , and the offering he presents. 

heat flood’s martin’s chest in a flash of well , not embarrassment , but perhaps a strange feeling of ineptitude , or guilt , because as gerard nudges the door open , it strikes martin that he approaches slowly , as one might come to the aid a kicked dog.        a strange thought , martin notices in the moment , as if the metaphor were to stand , he might have otherwise thought of gerard keay as the boot.

“  oh , uh , that’s-- you didn’t have t- that’s for me ? ”  a glance cast around the room , martin keeps an eye out perhaps for a tape recorder tim had left behind -- any sign he was being punk’d.    nothing.  unsure quite how to respond yet , he stands from his makeshift bed and gestures to the table he’d repurposed from the breakroom , still a little unsure but definitely aware enough of his manners to not say no to the gesture. he laughs , a little uncertainly ;

@arcvist        &  *     from what i’ve seen so far, the good ones always seem to break. 

eyes closed , martin breathes slow and deep , steady despite the distant howl of outside horrors.   he guesses jon already knows , in that awful reflexive way of knowing , the answer to the question , despite his lacklustre attempts to feign sleep and put the other man’s mid at ease  –  a night , perhaps jon might think , of whatever brief peaceful slumber martin could manage with the world as it is.   just once without his every nightmare -- of thick , swathing fog and the cloying smell of rot and smoke , and the feeling of insects beneath his skin squirming and itching -- being broadcast straight into jon’s mind like some godawful guilt trip from the universe.

“  well , you’d know if i wasn’t , wouldn’t you.  ”   a slow sigh and martin rolls onto his side ,  offering his response not unkindly into the cool space between their bodies. he can’t see in the darkness if jon is looking at him , can only barely make out the long silhouette of him in the dull flashes of lightning or beholding which make up the skies now ,  still managing to penetrate the otherwise blacked out room.  their going to bed together is more habit than necessity by now , just some semblance of keeping time , keeping routine , keeping each other grounded. 

@eyesolate​      :        i’ve learned to like it here. it’s quiet. i can be alone.      *

there’s a faint hum in the air      :      far - off wind,      or static,      or simply the absence of sound,      which in itself must be a noise,      right?      vanya’s always been good at picking up things like that.      music where there is none.      the life of a musician,      right,      she’d laughed once,      after she had pointed out the melody in a then - almost - girlfriend’s voice      &      been met with a blank stare in return,      as if there was nothing musical to comment on at all.      as if a voice was ever only a voice.

speaking of voices      :      it is nice to hear one.      nice in that far - off way things are here,      nice in the way she is trying to cling to with both hands      —      please,      don’t stop being nice,      because if she can’t even think a thing is nice anymore then she is truly gone,      isn’t she?      as a child she’d dreamt about being a ghost,      wandering through the halls unseen and unheard,      and now she wonders if she is still dreaming.      martin’s existence seems to confirm she is not.      and it is because of him      —      because there is another person here,      because she can hear a voice and think it is nice to do so,      because she is still gripping her violin in her hand with a strength she’d forgotten she possessed      —      that she is able to stop drowning in the nothingness for just a moment of clarity.

‘      do you really?      ’            like it here,      she means.      she can’t imagine liking it here,      even if the concept of liking anything didn’t feel so distant.      (      she lists things she likes in her mind in an attempt to bring it closer.      she likes music,      the kind of classical music that sounds angry,      the kind of modern music that sounds calm.      she likes the way the sun comes through her window and turns the buildings across the street golden,      and she likes coffee with cinnamon on top.      )            

‘      i’m,      uh      —      i’m sorry,      for intruding on your alone time,      i guess      —      i just      —      i don’t      —      i don’t know if it’s a good idea,      to be alone here.      ’            it might be deadly.      she thinks the words and suddenly is sure it will be,      and there’s an ice - cold fear that strikes her,      and she curls in on herself a bit further and speaks in a whisper,      like she is afraid the fog will hear her and tear them apart and leave them each truly and fully alone again.      she’s afraid the world won’t come back this time.            ‘      i’ll be quiet,      if that’s what you want,      but      —      can i stay with you?      just until the fog goes away.      ’

it’s strange to hear another voice    ---    not remarkably so  ,    it’s sort of hard to find something genuinely surprising here    ;     as with much sensation   ,    it all comes as if muffled by heavy cloth    ...     the pleasant knock of a stranger on a neighbours door   ,     the sounds of people coming from behind a wall   ,     from somewhere down the hall     ...

it’d been his own voice then  ,    intoning before he’d had to think about it any further  ,   ‘ i like it here ,    it’s quiet. ’     but didn’t she know  ?     didn’t she feel it too  ?     the relief that came with the quiet   ,     with the giving up hope and the knowing that at least  ,     if it was all it was going to be forever  ,     at least it would be peaceful  ?    lonely  ,     yes   ;    oh so very lonely  ,     but quiet.    gentle.    swathing  ,   not smothering.  

martin couldn’t really say how long he’d been walking before now   ,     day and night are difficult to parse here.        though he does know he’d been looking for something.     perhaps the Eye was getting restless  ,    with nothing more to Know in the fog than martin’s own mind and his old   ,     same fears      ---    some compulsion making him walk through the quiet sand and ever-distant horizon to any other it could find.

perhaps thats why he’s clinging to it now  ,     even through the haze  ,   the distance of her voice getting lesser the more he thinks about how nice it is to hear someone else’s words on the static breeze.    despite his dismissive first instinct  ,    caught as he is here  ---   martin finds himself grasping for the threads her question leaves in the cool air  ,    reaching before he can slip back into the fog  ,   as if to tether himself to them  ...    shakes off the impulse to suggest she just leave him alone  ,    digs a little deeper for the part of him which feels warmer than it has in god knows how long just to hear the sound of a voice.