through the atmosphere

ind. & selective low-activity rp account for cid garlond from ffxiv. 

written by fer [i also run @soulprofitis​​]

rules below--

Nero’s too busy scribbling down the edits to his blueprint to say something snarky in return; he merely scoffs, eyes rolling at Cid. Cid hadn’t meant it to be mean, he’s far too daft for that, just…the very pretense of him acting like he still understood Nero…maybe that’s what Nero finds worthy of his scorn (the observation is correct, but still).

Either way, he has Cid’s pen, so Nero supposes he owes him in the end anyways.

Once he’s finished, Nero taps the pen shut with a satisfying click! and turns to  Cid, sticking it back where it belongs behind the other man’s ear. He smiles. Smugly.  "Of course not. Science cannot go backwards, only forwards. I’d expect you to know that–you’re the one who coined the ‘freedom through technology’ phrase.”  He turns away and leans back against the wall, exhaling soft and low, eyes casting back over to the elevator doors every once in a while. Arms droop over the top of his knees, thumb rubbing over thumb. He might say something spiteful about Cid looking away from things that matter, but Nero doesn’t feel like it. Honestly, he just wants to get out of the damned elevator and put some space between them. Won’t stop him from looping back to Cid’s heels like a hurt puppy, but regardless, his ego needs rekindling.

The immediate shift between them throws Cid off-kilter; He reaches reflexively to balance the pen at his ear, brushing Nero’s hand in passing, the only thing he knows to do in response. The pen is, however, expertly placed. Another thing he knows of the man is that Nero never leaves an element out of his own control if he can help it. If he wants Cid to look like a fool, he hardly needs to use a pen.

But what is there to say back? It’s clear to Cid that this is one of the [many] times where nothing will be correct. “Of course I know that.” [Oh, great one.] His hand drops so he can clear his throat against it, as if to cut himself off. He stays silent for a few moments and tries not to begin counting the seconds that pass. Instead counts the tiles of the floor. Multiplies them by each muffled clang of metal he can hear outside. Fourteen, twenty-eight, fourty-two...

Nero’s arm moves with Cid as the white-haired man stumbles and reorients himself; Nero’d almost expected the other to pull away from him like Cid had been burned / in truth, maybe Nero would find that more comforting than what really happens and how quick Cid is to lean into his touch. It’s not that Nero minds – he’s spent the better part of the last years of his life chasing Cid  – it’s just so strange and so reminiscent of what had ostensibly been an easier (and more ignorant) time in their lives. Like coffee. And aching eyes. Which is probably what Cid is thinking too. There’s a little pang in Nero’s chest, completely illogical and unfounded, that reminds him that the last time he let his guard down like this, it hadn’t stopped Cid from leaving.

Again, it makes no sense for him to feel a little frightened. But he is anyways. It’s something he hates about Cid; how much he ties himself up with the emotions of those around him, and how it bleeds over into Nero even when he finds it easy to distance himself from others.

Cid looks up at him and plays with his goggles and Nero feels distinctly like a teenage boy again, which is embarrassing given he’s now well in his thirties, and he’s sure his ears are tinged red. At least the light is low enough that there’s no chance Cid would notice the blush. He relinquishes his hold on Cid’s arm.  “Oh, please. I’ll be working nine parts to your one – to make your contributions amount to mere footnotes. You have nothing to fear about me running off with your chocoboscratch.”  Nero steps behind Cid, palm planting against his back, nudging him forward at the same time he lowers himself to sit at Cid’s cramped desk. His fingers flex out and wiggle, neck rolling as Nero prepares himself for a long night.  “Rest, Garlond.”  And he picks up the pen.

Being moved around like Nero is pushing him dusts off more memories than just that of the familiar camaraderie they once shared. In fact, there’s so much more than that swimming in the stream of his sleep deprivation that Cid can’t even find the surface of it. All he can hang onto is Nero’s smile like a kind of life raft that returns him to the present. If he could just take whatever this thing that tightens in his chest into his hands and tinker with the feeling longer than the few seconds he’s afforded, maybe then he’d understand. But as the moment begins to right itself, Nero releases him, Cid’s world slowly returns to its proper orbit after it was so unceremoniously turned it on its head, Nero sits, and everything begins to feel just out of reach. There’s a reason for it, too -- The wall that Cid built with his own hands and never fought to add a door to, one made to keep from feeling just like this.  [ Like he’s a student again and he can’t keep his hands from shaking. Like he’s chosen to lose something he’ll never hold again. ]  It, more than any lack of light, or lack of care, is why he misses Nero’s flush.

And now he’s leaving again. It has to make a difference that he’s being asked to, he tells himself. It has to.

“I really appreciate you coming. I know how busy they keep you these days,” Cid says as he pushes open the doors to his workshop in Mor Dhona, holding them there for Abbas to pass through. There’s a good-natured smile on his face that makes his eyes shine in the overhead fluorescent lights. Assumed you’d want to get a hold of these before anyone else.”

He stares back, holding Cid’s gaze as seriously as he had when he first tested him in his resolve, and Nero is reminded of that turret they built a long time ago. It seems so far away now, especially with the world as twisted as it is, but it’s an oddly comforting thought nonetheless. “Alright, then.”  He straightens up. And that’s that. Beginning now, this is what drives them forward – for Cid, it’s about the promise of lives that were snuffed out in the blink of an eye. For Nero, it’s simply what’s asked of him by the only person who’s ever offered up anything to him. Like Cid says, there’s too little of the world left to bother being obstinate. Nero will oblige.

And just like that, Nero snaps back to being Nero, gesturing at the smeared mess of ink on the papers before him – some of it has even translated onto Cid’s sleeve at this point.  “First off, you had better go to bed. I can barely read your bloody handwriting when you’re not running on fumes. And the way you’ve gone about organizing this is a mess. I’ll try, but if I can’t make heads or tails of what you’ve written, no one else will be able to either. And that aside, you’ll write yourself into an early grave if you keep at it.”  Nero crosses to the other side of the desk so he’s standing by Cid’s right shoulder, and then he reaches for his arm, fingers curling around his bicep as he hoists Cid up to his feet. Before he relinquishes his hold on Cid’s arm though, Nero adds on more.  “I’m already up and I doubt I’ll fall back asleep now. So if you really take my word for it, you’ll let me attempt to decipher your equations and go to bed.”  They’re close now, closer than they’ve been in years, Nero’s arm fixed at a right angle, the heat of Cid’s arm against his torso, and it occurs to Nero for the first time in twenty years just how short Cid is.

The latter half of Nero’s words cut off a near-immediate protest to the idea of ‘going to bed.’ If there’s anything he should be doing it’s this. What would his early grave matter if the problem was solved? A small hammer whacks him from the inside of his skull, something others might call a rational thought, though at this time of day it feels painful to recognize, reminding him that he hasn’t done anything yet. No groundwork has been lain yet and, as Nero says it Cid knows it to be true, almost nobody can read his handwriting. And then there’s that finality in Nero’s voice -- Or is it a challenge?

After everything, he does take Nero’s words as truth. Cid hadn’t thought to doubt them. Perhaps he truly is a fool, but he doesn’t feel like one. Well. Until Nero takes his arm, at least. He teeters on his feet for a moment with the unexpected movement and has to lean back into Nero’s hold on him to balance. It’s not the the kind of leaning on Nero he thought he’d do today; It feels like nights of studying too late and mornings of falling asleep into their breakfasts. Or like the early mornings spent toiling over Omega. They were hardly ever so close then, but the taste of it is the same. Coffee and aching eyes and the almost-intimacy of sharing a space. If they’re going to work as a team, Cid decides with a touch of humor, it’s better to start sooner than later. He glances up to say as much with a weak sort of chuckle, the back of his hair brushing against signature red fabric, and lifts his free hand to the goggles hanging around his neck, as if they might help with his balance. Then he catches the look in Nero’s eyes.

Nero might have been embarrassed had he been saying all this another time and another place but what the hell – the world’s ending anyways.  "You really are a bloody idiot.”  His arms cross in front of his chest, staring down at Cid / Cid who looks like a deer in the headlights. Nero can’t really fathom why this comes as such a shock to him after their long storied history together, but then again Cid’s always missed things like that.  “Yes, for that long. Are you going to keep staring at me with your mouth open like a goldfish?”  A sharp silence weighs itself amongst the corpse-like shadows of the room for a moment both too long and too short. Nero sighs. He reaches down for the pen and plucks it gently from Cid’s fingers, setting it on its side beside the worn-out journal. His arms remain splayed on the table, lowered so he’s nearly eye-to-eye with Cid now.

“You need to be ready. Your reputation will be reduced to that of a madman. I, for one, don’t care about the world’s vitriol. But you do. So, Cid,”  it hits Nero all at once that he’s using Cid’s first name again and not Garlond,  “is that a risk you’re willing to take? I know what I believe in. You need to make sure you do too.”

He pauses and then cracks a wry smile, one reminiscent of his days in the Academy. It’s poorly worn on his older face.  “But I daresay I’m already quite invigorated at the thought of unraveling the secrets of time travel.”  It’s not a question of IF they’ll figure it out, not with the two of their minds, but a question of WHEN. If the social pressure and a smoldering reputation doesn’t crush Cid first.  “Listen. I’ll stay. No matter what you pick. But you can’t choose one and then change your mind later. It’s a bad look not only for you but the ones we have had to bury.”

If this was another time, Cid would keep staring. It’s as if something finally clicks together in his mind. Twenty years--Cid has spent more of his life knowing Nero than not.  He’s spent more of it with Nero, than without him.  How many times had Cid turned his head to speak to the man’s ghost in the moments in between, when more than an ocean separated them and he told himself it had to be that way. Everything Cid had ever known in his life before was wrong. So how can Nero’s smile, a relic of that time, that place, one he abandoned and gave up the right to ever see again, still make him feel like this time things are different. Nero has made him feel confident rather than cautious on purpose only a few times. Each as significant as the last. And just that expression pulling at Nero’s lips, however ill-fitting it might be these days, confirms everything for Cid. His breath catches a little at the sight of it.

“I’m not changing my mind.” He doesn’t sit back, doesn’t pull away from the small bubble of space between them. “Not when a world exists where we’ll never have had to bury them at all.” It’s clear as crystal who he thinks of first: the Warrior of Light, Wedge, the Scions and Ironworks members who were never seen again. Too many questions have the wrong answers--Dead--or none at all. “I’ve abandoned a cause before. I won’t do it when this one is right.” When Nero is, when there’s room to reach out their hands and graze the very bones of the past and twist it how it should be. No, once he had realized what had to be done, he may as well have wrung the death knell of all that ‘Freedom through Technology’ meant to him before. But he was expecting to find that new meaning alone.

    little  cogs  in  his  brain  begin  to  turn  at  the  mention  of  mor  dhona , looking  at  the  aircraft  that  was  gestured  towards , until  a  light  bulb  goes  off  and  he  is  smiling  from  ear  to  ear , registering  that  this  stranger  must  be  a  member  of  the  ironworks  in  mor  dhona .     “   i  journeyed  to  mor  dhona  before  my  research  took  me  up  here  to  coerthas ,   “   he  exclaimed  happily ,   “    i  got  to  see  the  ironworks  there , they’re  a  huge  inspiration  to  me  and  my  father .   “     a  garlean , trusted  and  working  to  make  eorzea  better  –  it’s  a  dream  that  maybe  one  day  lovek  might  have  a  chance  to  live .     like  clockwork  lovek  finds  himself  immediately  friendly  and  talkative  to  this  stranger , looking  over  at  his  machine  for  a  moment  and  getting  giddy  with  excitement .     “   no , no , please  feel  free ! once  i  start  up  the  machine  it’ll  take  an  hour  or  so  for  to  get  the  sample , and  it’s  not  a  noiseless  princess  either .   “     speaking  of , he  moved  a  bit  back  to  the  machine , finishing  sealing  it  into  the  ice  for  drilling .     “   the  names  lovek , i’m  an  aetherology  student  in  sharlayan  –  it’s  nice  to  meet  you .   “

Before realizing it, Cid is already moving to get a better view of Lovek’s device. His curiosity is a beast all it’s own, one he’s nearly given up on controlling. He gets a general grasp of the tool from its appearance, but then he processes what Lovek has said. His eyes widen a fraction of an ilm.

“Really?” He looks up with a start and gives a slanted sort of smile, almost like he’s been found guilty of something. “It’s nice to meet you, too. I thought I recognized Sharlayan tech. It’s good to know I haven’t lost my touch. But, ah--”

“ ’Why are you still here…?’ ”  He repeats it back below his breath, processing it all. And then Nero’s hands ball into fists at his side. He stares down at Cid incredulously although his expression remains without bite – in fact, his mouth falls open into a loud scoff, eyes casting over this pathetic room Cid has drawn himself into, a shade of the former Ironworks institution.

“For a man with as sharp as an intellect as yours, you can be amazingly daft. Seven hells – I can’t believe I need to spell this out for you – you have always needed to believe in people, or in a cause, or in something that can justify the reason for you and your big brain to go on existing. I’m not like you! I don’t need that! Cid. All I’ve needed to believe in is you. That you’ll keep me on my toes. I don’t need your aspirations, or your dream of ‘freedom through technology,’ I just need you to push me forward. That’s all I’ve known for the past – how long has it even been, 20 years?”  He draws in a breath, the words having left him in one big rush that he could hardly contain, as if he’s giving up the ghost.  “You might have been the one who left all those years ago, but I hardly intend to repeat your mistake. So–no, I’m not leaving, and I’ll be damned if you don’t learn from the past if you want to fix it so badly! Do you hear me?!”

His voice has drawn louder and louder over the course of his speech. Nero isn’t exactly yelling, but anyone sleeping just outside the room or even down the hall will surely have woken by now. Nero swallows and straightens. Takes a long breath. Voice more restrained:  “Gods above, Cid. What, did you think I truly believed or even cared about Gaius’s pathetic dream? Have you misunderstood me that badly this whole time?”

He does hear. Every word.

The pen almost slips from his fingers with how still Cid goes as he listens. Everything else suddenly feels so unimportant, like his vision is narrowing to a singular focal point. When someone turns in a circle, they often find a spot to focus on--A paint spatter on a wall or a particular trinket on a shelf--to keep from getting dizzy. Cid is more than turning now. He is caught in a veritable tailspin with only the ground below to comfort him in its inevitability, every success or failure always marking an end. But Nero still stands. Solid as the foundations of the homes they one lived in, whose frames and occupants have long since fallen to ash. The two of them are what is left. Maybe all that is left.

Has he misunderstood? There are many things Cid doesn’t know and that idea only ever spurred him forward, higher, closer to every truth he could reach until it was his. Maybe once he had believed that Nero shared the values of the Empire, but ever since defecting he has done everything in his power to make Cid question that belief. So much so that he can’t say he’s held it in years. No, he hasn’t been that far from the truth. But the rest is--

Everything went to hell in the blink of an eye. Even Nero, who considers himself fairly adaptable in new circumstances, had struggled to keep up with a post-Black Rose Eorzea, stumbling over himself to get to every request the people made of Garlond Ironworks. Suddenly there wasn’t time to go adventuring, or learn new technology, or one-up anyone, just an unrelenting call to use what scrap there was to assist whomever needed it in whatever way they required. Nero isn’t known for his bleeding heart, but his brain relished in the stimulation, and so despite the odds – he had stayed.

Which was more than most other people could say. A few weeks ago Cid had started mumbling something about evening–no, rewriting the odds, and from there he had neatly traveled downriver, and anyone with an onze of common sense abandoned ship. But Nero hasn’t needed to believe in much. So he stayed. That’s right, damn you Garlond, he stayed. Which brings Nero to the tiny ‘office’ Cid is now inhabiting, holding a new well of ink in his hand.

“Wrong,”  he says, but his voice lacks the relish it usually sports, maybe because of how late it is.  “I saw the light and I figured telling you to go to bed would fall on deaf ears, so I brought you a new inkwell. That pen’s scratching is loud enough to keep anyone up.”  He sets it on the corner of Cid’s pathetic desk, next to the nearly empty one. The formulae are upside down and the candle’s light is weak, but Nero manages to identify a few familiar equations, although they’ve been twisted and altered in a way that makes his brow scrunch up.

“You should have known what was going to happen when you made that announcement.”  His fingers drum lightly against the wood paneling of the desk.  “You’d better be sure this is something you want to do, and I mean that quite seriously, Garlond. There’s no going back anymore. Resources, extra hands, gil…all of it. It’s all going to be gone.”  Nero looks gravely at Cid while he speaks. One more warning, although Nero puts it more factually than anything:  “And even if you get it right, it’s still going to be a dead end for us.”

There’s an apology trapped in the glassiness of his eyes when he looks up, though whether it’s for this mistake or a hundred others remains unclear when he does not give the words a voice. Cid’s shoulders curl in a bit as he leans to dip his pen in the new well. It makes him look small. “I did know,” he says, as evenly as he can manage.  [He had been stupid enough to hope, though.]  As tired as he is, somehow he keeps in mind that he doesn’t want to snap. He can’t remember why, though. “There’s nothing else to accept from people, Nero. I won’t ask anyone else to believe in something just because I do.”

And he goes back to writing. The scratching is quieter, but no less erratic than before. Desperate. He’ll be lucky if he can use any of the work by morning. It’s better than nothing, though, and if Cid will be the only one checking over the computations, he’s sure he’ll eventually be able to decipher the smeared numbers and symbols. The thought alone makes it feel like something in his chest is snapping in half--All the muscle and tendon and bone of everything he’s built has caved in and this is what he’s left with.

Cid swallows and his grasp on the pen tightens. A part of him screams for him to be cold. In the end, his voice is hardly lukewarm. Concern bleeds into his sharp edges, sands them down and whittles away every pretense until all that’s left of Cid is how he feels-- Lost.

       seemed  that  minds  thought  alike  –    the  flat  that  they  stood  upon  was  a  lovely  landscape , perfect  for  tinkering  away  at  varying  experiments  for  the  both  of  them . lovek  assumed , looking  at  the  stranger  from  the  distance , that  they  were  at  first  a  patron  of  the  skysteel  manufactory . the  machine  he  worked  on  seemed  vaguely  similar  to  the  machine  he  had  saw  hanging  in  the  back  upon  his  initial  visit .       it’s  only  as  he  worked  on  setting  up  his  own  machinery  that  he  noticed  they  were  hyur , and  not  elezen . lovek  stands  up  when  he  is  spoken  to , nervously  adjusting  his  coat  to  keep  from  the  chill .     “   oh , no , i  stayed  at  an  encampment  nearby ,   “   he  explained , pointing  in  the  direction .    “   i’m  setting  up  a  machine  to  quickly  grab  a  sample  of  the  earth , about  a  hundred  years  or  so  of  what’s  been  compacted  into  it , to  test  any  aetherical  residue .   “     a  broad  explanation , but  if  anyone  would  tinker  on  machinery  like  the  one  he  sees  ahead  he’s  sure  they  could  understand  the  minimum .     “   are  you  from  the  manufactory ? i  didn’t  see  a  lot  hyur  in  ishgard … unfortunately .   “

Out of habit, Cid raises a hand to check that his goggles are still in place on his forehead as he shakes his head. He wore them properly earlier when he was soldering. Cid doesn’t mind talking with strangers, especially not other scientists, but it can’t hurt to be cautious.

“No, hah, I’m not Ishgardian. Came here from Mor Dhona, actually.” A timer goes off noisily behind him and he grabs it, switching it off with a quiet chuckle. Trading stories seems fair, at least. He motions towards the aircraft behind him. “The aether here leans towards wind and ice the most often. It’s a good place to test a new engine type, as a sort of control. But, uh.”

Without ceruleum or properly aspected crystals to keep up the power, working late into the night has become nearly impossible. It’s been months since the Ironworks had to begin scavenging for supplies--For food and water, for missing tools and broken broken parts, for blankets to keep warm in the ever-changing weather now that the seasons have been siphoned from the very earth--but there isn’t enough. There likely never will be again. The world is a dark reflection of the one he’s grown to love, one that snuffs out life as easy as breathing, if Black Rose was any example. An utter quagmire. Even if there was never a way to predict this outcome, he’s still sure that somehow, in some other life, he could have. He could have. He has to make up for it.

...And he nearly destroys what’s left of the Ironworks in one fell swoop. Their numbers may have been dwindling and Cid knows that his plan is not one that inspires hope, but he still had thought--What? That his far-off dreams of rewriting history itself would be enough? Unlike him, people have families to feed and protect. They value their present, and who could begrudge them that? He knew what their answers would be and still he had to ask. The few who remain don’t have time to monitor the lab for safety or check his calculations. More important things take precedence.

Every trip Cid takes to Azys Lla, whether for samples or further research, is bookended by a visit to Ishgard. With at least one Ironworks employee still stationed to man the airships there, he hardly ever has a reason to stay.

Today, though, he’s considering it. Jessie’s voice is ringing through the linkpearl in his ear--[Something...something... “signature” something...]--the flight back to Ironworks headquarters is starting to look less and less appealing. It feels like it’s been an age since he stayed in the city, like the last time he stepped foot on the stone streets might have been that same day Nidhogg was first killed. Or perhaps the color of the sky, a light blue that bleeds into dark grey as night approaches, is what brings that day to mind. Cid sighs to himself as he steps into a small passing crowd and heads in the direction of the Crozier. If he’s going to be scolded after a day of hard work, he needs a snack. While in this crowd, he catches sight of a pair of ears and light hair he would recognize anywhere.