Kalen
Kalen spent one night with Seth. It's the
first time he's talked to anyone that long in a long time, telling
stories and roasting marshmallows.
It ends as everything does and
Kalen burns the body that night. He burns all of the bodies, but he
burns Seth's body separate from the bodies of the zombies. He spends
the next day nailing bits of wood from the old house over ground floor
windows. Nailing more wood to reinforce doors.
He does not know
if he will be back or if anyone will come here, but along the front of
the porch he mixes ashes from Seth's fire and some of the seeds for
pumpkins and he does not know if they will grow or if anyone will see
them but he does not really know if those things matter more than the
act of doing something, anything, to honor the dead.
One
more night is spent in the house. And then, something like a remote
base established, Kalen sets out again for Denver with Sunshadow.
Ian
[Awareness would be useful here]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )
Ian
[Let's go with alertness too]
Dice: 5 d10 TN4 (2, 7, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Ian
[Stealth]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )
Kalen
[Oh. Nightmares]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (3, 6, 7, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Kalen
[And because I haven't yet, Wednesday WP D=9]
Dice: 6 d10 TN9 (1, 2, 5, 5, 7, 9) ( success x 1 )
Ian
It
was a hot, bright afternoon. Perhaps, had the past few months gone
differently, Ian might have had the presence of mind to keep a calendar
of the days. But he hadn't, so he didn't know what day of the week it
was (if it was Sunday or Wednesday or Friday.) He knew it was late
summer because of the weather and the hours in the day. He knew that it
had been a few months now since everything in the world had fallen
apart. But that was all he knew, and that was alright. His memory was
filled with landmarks, and it was those that he used to ground himself
and mark the passage of time.
It had been three months since the
last time he'd seen a familiar face. Many weeks now since he'd given up
hope of that ever happening. Other survivors talked about their loved
ones - about the hope they had of finding them alive somewhere. Ian
didn't do that. He didn't think about things like hope and love and a
better tomorrow. He thought about staying alive. About where to find his
next meal. The people he'd known before the end of the world - they
were either dead, or he was never going to see them again. It was easier
when you accepted that.
He'd been in New York (ground zero) when the outbreak hit. It was a miracle that he was still alive. That any of them were.
Ian
saw Kalen before he sensed him. It wasn't the first time he'd run into
another survivor on the road, but it had been... a while, now. Weeks,
maybe. That was a long time to be silent. A long time to feel as though
the world around you was nothing but a forsaken husk of what it once
was. And Ian was better at being alone than most. But even he was not
unaffected by it.
He didn't think it was Kalen. The thought never
even crossed his mind. It was a man on a horse - nothing more. Maybe a
threat, maybe not. Just a moving speck on the horizon. For a time, Ian
watched from a distance, weighing the potential benefits of approach. He
sat atop his own horse - a near-black warmblood mare - in the shadow of
a small outcropping of trees, and watched the coppery sheen of
Sunshadow's coat as it reflected the afternoon sun. There was a wide
field between him and the road. Tall grass, but no particular cover to
speak of.
After some consideration, Ian dismounted and tossed the
horse's reigns over a branch. He waited until he was at Kalen's back -
out of range of his peripheral vision - before he started to jog
carefully and quietly toward the road.
He had a gun ready in his
hand - just in case. And if Kalen turned around, he'd see his pursuer.
But Ian moved quietly, and was careful not to give himself away.
That's
when the resonance hit. And Ian stopped. Very suddenly, as though
something had just slapped him in the face. He pulled in a breath and
blinked, and his lips parted... but no sound came out.
From the
back, he couldn't tell whether it was really Kalen's hair or not. It was
about the right color, but they all looked so different these days.
Ian
kept going. He broke into a careful jog... until he was close enough
that surely Kalen (or the horse) would sense his presence. Then he
raised the gun and said, "Turn around."
Kalen
[Awareness]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )
Kalen
Kalen can sense Ian. Knows who is there behind him enough to recognize the voice even now.
So
he leaves all of his weapons be, turns to face Ian. There is no
initial greeting, though that is more shock than anything else. Over
what happened to the world. Over finding out that what he'd thought was
a rescue wasn't, not really. And now Ian.
Pale green eyes slide
over Ian. Make no eye contact. But he takes in Ian's hair, buzzed
where Kalen's has been mostly left to grow and has reached the point
where if he doesn't cut it soon it will be in his eyes. Neither of them
much resembles themselves last they met, and at least Kalen doesn't
even remember that night. It wouldn't much matter. The world before
this one seems more like a dream anyway, hazy and half-recalled and so
very far away.
His expression stays blank. Empty. He doesn't smile, doesn't speak. Nothing.
Ian
It
was one of the first things he'd done after getting out of New York:
cut his hair. Keeping it buzzed was easier than trying to deal with it
as it grew out. Ian was skinnier than Kalen would remember. The planes
of his face looked sharper, and he hadn't shaved in a few days so there
was a shadow of soft facial hair along his chin and jaw and upper lip.
The clothes he had on were rough and serviceable: A white t-shirt and
black army pants, with a gun holster strapped to his thigh and a
sheathed katana worn at his back. His shirt looked relatively new (he'd
taken it from a store in the last town he'd been through) but there was a
spray of coppery red pin-point stains over one area and patches of
sweat from the heat.
Maybe Kalen didn't recognize him. Maybe it wasn't really Kalen. (Maybe it was a fucking mirage.)
Ian let out a shaky breath and lowered his gun.
"Kalen?"
It was all he could think to say.
Kalen
"Yeah." And that tone is as expressionless as those eyes.
But
he he dismounts, murmurs something pointless to Sunshadow and pats her
on the neck before he leads her a few feet off the road.
He turns
back to Ian. Frowns, just slightly. Opens his mouth like he's actually
going to say something. A proper greeting. A question about how Ian
is. For about ten whole seconds Ian gets eye contact.
And then there is a flickering of something that isn't distance but he looks away again.
He has to swallow twice before he manages speaking. "Hey," is all he says.
Ian
[Empathy]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
Kalen
[Kalen is...well, Ian has no prior experience with Kalen like this, not really.
He's
seem Kalen when he's upset and trying to simultaneously tell Ian
something like the truth and not say enough that he spills into being
overwhelmed by memory. But when that happened Kalen was still making it
clear that he wanted to be there, he wanted a real connection even if
it wasn't going to be the warmest of friendships or a conventional date.
This
is Kalen so upset he isn't really trying for any of that. He'd started
to, met Ian's eyes and started like he was going to really talk to him.
And then the act of trying to talk to someone he actually knew from
before this happened, of trying to talk to anyone since he had to shoot
and then burn the body of a child he'd rather liked and had failed to
save caught him.
So. Translated - that would be pretty much all the trauma. I mean, he hasn't rolled Awarepathy once
at Ian. He hasn't checked to see about bite marks or any kind of
wounds. He's not really even watching on purpose for threats,
which...it's the zombie apocalypse....]
Ian
Something
passed across Ian's face - a mix of subtle confusion and wariness and
burgeoning concern. Almost, it seemed as though he might raise his gun
again. Not to point it at Kalen but to seek out and threaten whatever
unseen force had done this to them both. But he didn't do that. Instead
he put the safety on and slid the gun back into the holster on his leg.
It took some effort to do that, and it showed in the deliberate slowness
of his movement and the way the muscles in his hand shook ever so
softly.
That was his own trauma - that fear of vulnerability. Of
not being able to protect himself, even now when confronted not with an
enemy but with a friend he'd thought long gone.
He put the gun away and he raised his hands to show he intended no harm.
"... How are you alive?"
Kalen
could easily ask him the same question. But at the moment, it didn't
look like Kalen was of a mind to do or ask much of anything. Ian took a
step forward. Then another. If Kalen didn't spook, Ian would close the
distance between them slowly. But not completely. He left a bubble of
space around the both of them - an invisible barrier that he was perhaps
afraid to cross. (Or maybe he'd grown numb to the idea of human contact
and simply didn't know how to try.)
"Kalen..." there was a quiet resonance to the way Ian spoke his name. Like an echo of some past time.
He didn't know what to say. If there was even anything he could say.
And
suddenly his legs collapsed under him and he sank down onto the hot
surface of the road. Ian made a sound - a low, muffled thing that hid in
the lining of his throat - and he put his head in his hands.
Kalen
"Be a good horse, and warn me if I need to know something," Kalen says absently to Sunshadow.
And
then he crosses the last bit of distance, sinks to the ground beside
Ian. "Years of training. Years of...years of less formal training."
He smiles, just a little, and it would be hard to call it hopeful
because his eyes are too haunted for that, but it is something. "Hey.
I'm here now." He reaches out to embrace Ian. "It-"
But he
can't. He can't say that it is okay or that it will be okay. Everyone
keeps leaving him. Everyone keeps dying. The last person he was
reassuring was dying at the time. His voice breaks and he doesn't keep
talking immediately.
Ian
The second Kalen's hand
passed into Ian's field of gravity, a tremor ran through Ian's body and
he jolted away so suddenly that from a distance it might look as though
Kalen had hurt him. It was a telling thing, that response. Ian had never
shied away from physical contact before.
(They were all different people now.)
Ian's
eyes had a look of panic for a moment. One of his hands flew back and
hit the pavement. It scraped the skin on his palm painfully. The other
hand was at the knife on his belt before he even realized what he was
doing.
But he slowed his breathing, and a moment later his hand dropped away from the knife.
"Don't touch me," he said, very quietly.
After a deep breath, his pulse began to slow. That was when his brain began to process what Kalen had just said.
"Jesus, Kalen, that's not what I meant."
Not: How have you kept yourself from dying? But: How is it that there is a familiar face still alive in this world where everything that matters is dead?
Ian
stayed there for what seemed like a long time, letting the heat from
the sun-baked pavement seep into his body. But he was already
overheated, and sitting uselessly in the middle of the road was a good
way to get yourself killed these days, so eventually he pushed back up
to his feet, wiping dirt and a little blood from his hands.
"Where are you headed?"
Kalen
Kalen
jerks his hand back, then holds both hands spread where Ian can see
them. "Hey-hey-hey...okay. Okay. Easy. Okay." It's the first time
his voice sounds like anything Ian can even recognize as anything like
Kalen as he knew him, and the warm, gentle tone lasts precisely as long
as it takes to say those words.
And then he lets his hands drop, and he settles onto the ground, knees half tucked against his body.
"Sorry.
I've managed to have a fucked up week even for this." His voice is
shaky, but it is at least less creepy than the voice that was hollow.
Like an echo of a person.
He watches Ian stand, but he stays still. "Denver, I guess. I was anyway. I think maybe that was a mistake now."
Ian
"You weren't there before?"
See,
Ian didn't know that Kalen had been planning a trip to Santiago. He
didn't know that Kalen had been stuck in Miami when the outbreak hit -
anymore than Kalen had known of Ian's whereabouts. The last time Ian
remembered speaking to Kalen, it was when he'd asked Kalen over text if
he wanted to go dancing. But they'd never actually done that, for
whatever reason (Ian couldn't remember.) And then there'd been the job
in NYC, and then...
Truthfully, Ian wasn't entirely sure what the definition of 'fucked up' even was anymore.
He'd said don't touch me.
But now that their positions were reversed, Ian took a hesitant step
forward and held out a hand (the one that hadn't gotten scraped up on
the road.)
"What happened?"
Kalen
Kalen
looks up at him, then takes his hand and lets Ian pull him to his feet.
It isn't so much because he wants to be standing as because he wants
Ian's hand. He very clearly has to remind himself to release Ian's hand
once he's on his feet. Slightly less obviously has to remind himself
not to step into Ian.
"I was in Miami. I was coming back and things were horrible, but...I was almost here and I had seeds for Sid and I-"
He
shudders. Takes a deep breath and it's too shaky to be particularly
helpful in being calming. "So. There was a house and I could see them
heading for it. Almost a dozen. There nine. I didn't really count
them then. They were headed to try get in so I knew someone was inside.
I shot at them, I killed some. And Seth killed some, he wasn't
helpless. Two of them got in before I could there. And they bit him.
Well. One. It doesn't matter though because just once, right?
"He
like thirteen or something. Young, not that anyone is young now
but...he was young." Kalen's lips press together and his entire body
shudders but he does not make a damned sound. He almost sinks back to
the ground, but then stays up. Barely.
"So we roasted
marshmallows and I told him stories and I waited and then-" He
swallows. Sniffs. Blinks agitatedly because his eyes sting. "There is
a point beyond which it is just not better to live. So I shot him in
the head. I mean...what else was there?
"And then I burned the body because I couldn't-I couldn't leave him there. And I took-"
And
then storytime is over because he almost collapses again and shakes his
head and this time there are real tears and not just the threat of
them.
Ian
[WP - be a human being today Ian, okay?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (1, 6, 6, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
Ian
Kalen
told his story, and it took everything Ian had to stay present. To
listen - without allowing his own memories to overflow. He didn't make
any motion to touch Kalen, but neither did he shy away from the
proximity. It was as much comfort as he could offer in that moment,
really. To simply be there, and to let Kalen speak. Let him purge this
thing from his heart.
But something happened when Kalen started to
cry. Ian's hand twitched, and his lips parted, and you could see this
sharpening of his eyes... like something in him was waking up.
Or maybe he was just seeing - really seeing - Kalen for the first time.
And
Ian did something he hadn't done since... so long ago, he couldn't even
remember. Another life. Another version of himself that might have
grown up to be a better, kinder person. He stepped forward and put his
arms around Kalen's body and hugged him. Not a sexual embrace. Not a
flirtatious one. This was raw human comfort. He pulled Kalen into his
body, and the act dislodged so many dormant things inside of him
(instinct; terror [don't touch me]; loneliness...) that it nearly sent
him running again. But this time he pushed through it. This time he
stayed.
And he remembered what Kalen had said to him once while hiking in the park. (It's my second favorite thing about you.)
Ian
tightened his arms around Kalen and held him, and he let Kalen do
whatever he wanted to do. Fall into him. Fall apart. Or maybe just be
there for a few moments. And he did not let him go until the moment when
Kalen seemed to want to break away. Not even if it meant holding him
up.
After a few beats, he gave this broken little sob and leaned his head against Kalen's.
"I'm sorry." He half-whispered, his voice thick and unsteady. And a moment later "...I'm really glad you're alive."
Kalen
There
is a second where Kalen is still and unmoving. He doesn't seem to have
the same violent reaction to being touched, he's just not expecting it
after Ian startled enough to reach for a knife when he got close before.
And that, Kalen understands instincts. He's no more hurt by that than
by when Alexander tossed him over a park bench and onto the ground for
startling him. He laughed after that, but this was different.
Still...he understands enough not to have been hurt.
Understands
enough that it's a second before he leans into Ian and lets him hold
him. He's still crying, and Ian apologizing, Ian saying that he's glad
Kalen is alive makes him cry harder for a minute and then he laughs and
it is half-hysterical and astonished and he completely collapses against
Ian.
"When I woke up and they told me that my sister was dead my
mother was so drugged that the nurse held me. I learned that there
wasn't anybody left to trust. When I Awakened I did cry then, and it
was strangers again who were there. And they...I trusted them and they
never betrayed me and...but I didn't know them then." He doesn't
outright tell Ian that he's the first person who knows him to hold him
while he cries in almost twenty years. Not quite.
"I'm glad
you're alive too. I'm sorry. I was...I wasn't ready for that." He
doesn't make any move to pull away but his breathing eases and deepens a
little. And, perhaps notable to Ian, he makes no attempt to reclaim
his balance. "I am so glad. Maybe a little terrified, because-" He
shudders once, but doesn't start crying again.
And then, after a
minute. "Are you okay? I mean...no one's okay. But...now. Here. Do
you want me to move? I'm pretty sure I won't completely lose my mind
again if you let go." He might not be ready to move, but he remembers
how Ian flinched back. Still, he stays there, practically limp now that
he's stopped shaking, while he waits for an answer.
Ian
He
was quiet while Kalen spoke, and closed his eyes against the force of
tears that overflowed and ran slowly down his cheeks. It wasn't enough -
this small break. This fraction of raw honesty. But sometimes terrible
things had to be acknowledged in increments, or they just tore you
apart.
Kalen asked if he was okay. He wasn't. But that's not what Kalen meant.
"I'm sorry I did that," he murmured, brushing his lips against Kalen's ear. "It wasn't about you. I just..."
He
didn't know how to explain it. How to say that this was the first time
in months that he'd willingly touched another human being with anything
other than violence.
"I was in New York. But I don't want to talk about that, so... maybe we should find somewhere. To rest, when evening comes."
Kalen
"I
know." He picks his head up just long enough to nuzzle at Ian's jaw
and then lets his head fall back onto his shoulder. "It's okay. I
knew."
He nods a little when Ian says he was in New York and
doesn't want to talk about it. That they should move. "You don't have
to talk about it. You can if you change your mind, okay? If. I didn't
about a lot of things for a long time. I still don't, really.
So...yeah." He sighs and takes one more deep breath before he regains
his footing and pushes very gently away from Ian. Not far. But enough
so that he's not leaning into him. Not far enough to put him entirely
out of Ian's arms until Ian lets go.
"Somewhere to rest is good."
Ian
Ian
let his arms drop when Kalen stepped away. He brought a hand up to wipe
the tears away from his face, and there was something awkward about the
gesture. Like Ian just wasn't the kind of person who you ever pictured
doing something so human.
When he'd gotten himself more composed,
he turned around and made a gesture toward the distant grove of trees
where he'd left his horse and the rest of his things.
"This way. I need to go untie my horse."
And from there, the two of them (or rather, the four of them,) made their way out into the fields of Eastern Colorado.
