#toothpaste hfjone

Objectober Day 28: in real pictures

Bienvenue dans le Nouveau Monde

(Simple bg version + bonus sketch under cut lol)

He’d tried using the radio, over and over again, trying to reach his home. Through universe after universe, he’d die, again, and go back to the waiting room. It would start to annoy him after a while, and then he’d remember home, France, and kept going. He couldn’t even see what he missed most on Earth anymore. He couldn’t see his mother holding out a hand for him to take, asking him “Are you going to keep me waiting, sunshine?” and he wanted to go with her, to have the peace she had too, but it was too late for him now. He was all alone.

He remembered his time on the Plane. He remembered Oscar and the others, everyone confused- him most of all, not able to understand half of what anyone was saying- at being suddenly taken from their lives. He remembered Oscar being the first to go home, and holding out hope that maybe, just maybe, he could go home too. But Airy had ended up wreaking havoc and crushing them all, maybe by accident, maybe not- he and the others were dead.

And he was the only one who stubbornly stayed.

He’d seen someone else, too. Once. A green backpack that he never caught the name of, who’s leg looked like it had been broken. He disappeared soon after, just out of thin air. He wondered if maybe he had imagined it.

After so long, he’d given up. He just sat there, hand on the radio. Then, out of nowhere, he saw the backpack again, coming up to him with purpose in his eyes. He sat silently as he explained something that he didn’t understand fully until...

“..San Francisco. You can use this number to go home.”

Home. Yes, that was something he’d been looking for once, hadn’t it? He studied the number and put all of his will to moving his hand to change the number, making sure it was correct all the way through. He couldn’t afford to mess this up.

The backpack told him something about lifting the radio antenna up. I already know how it works, he wanted to say, bitterly. I’ve tried it so many times I got sick of it. Instead he just lifted it, too tired to argue.

“Yeah, like that,” his saviour smiled, real and genuine.

“C’est... fini?” he asked, his eyes brimming with tears for the first time in what seemed like years.

“Now lift it up,” the backpack urged gently.

He wanted to smile, but he could barely bring himself to after years of nothing other than his loneliness and the feeling of despair. “Merci,” he whispered, letting himself finally rest back, mentally and physically.

The sun shone on his face over a sprawling river that looked like gold in the light, and he wept silently. He was home. Cars passed behind him. The metal felt real to the touch. He was really home.