apocalypsehowcomm | I like to see it lap the miles [Open Log]

Who: George Milton and various
When: May catch-all
Where: ADI, the library, the train, various
Summary: TDM and non-TDM prompts throughout the month
Warnings: CW from the current TDM posts, will warn in individual threads for anything additional.

1. Well Read

George would never call himself a reader at the best of times beyond a few of the Western pulps always stashed in the bunkhouses back home, the newspaper, and now some select training material so he's not completely useless in his job with ADI. The flyers were inviting, though, and he'd had enough fun at the fair to put on his hat and head out to the library.

Once there, he finds to his disappointment there's nowhere to hang it, a common issue with the places in town it seems, so he holds it in one hand and picks at the books with the other. There are at least a few Westerns that look interesting in the huge pile of the sorts of things he never would have touched or looked twice at back home. Maybe he should now, though? It's different here. These aren't stuff and nonsense, maybe not all of them.

He rubs at his mouth, frowning and trying to decide. Cryptids: Fact, Fiction, or Local Conspiracy? The Haunting of Bell Hollow? Or maybe, The Monster Under the Bed: What to do when it absolutely, positively isn't rats in the wall? Good God, that one sounds grim.

OR

"An' I'm tellin' you I only been in town a month. I don't care what that little box says. I ain't in your system, and I never checked out Pie in the Sky or whatever the hell you're tryin' to say I did." He's clearly had it with the librarian behind the checkout desk, enough that he's committing the cardinal sin (in his time, at least) of raising his voice.

"It's Eye in the Sky, sir," she says, completely unflapped. "We have you burning through the first several books in our Louis L'amour collection. You even have two more on hold right here. George Milton. If you show me your ID, I can tell you if it matches our address on file."

"I ain't showing you nothin', lady. You take alla that out."

If you're waiting in line behind him, sorry. This may take a while.

OR

Someone has stopped behind you at one of the computers while you're taking one of those book quizzes. It's not that he means to be a lookie loo or pry into your business, but you're the one who was muttering to yourself angrily and acting like you'd rather be anywhere but here.

What does he see?

2. Training Wheels Off

Scratchmarks

George very suddenly bursts through the door leading out of your car into the space between the next, wild eyed and breathing heavily. "Jesus Christ!" The sight of you standing right there in his face has him jumping back, which in turn has him twisting wildly to avoid setting foot in the cramped space again.

"I wouldn't go that way if'n I was you," he says, voice steadier but a strange tremor at the edges. "Door's stuck, an' it looks like I wasn't the first one got trapped."

OR

"Hang on! I'm working to get it open quick as I can. You think I'm Jesse Owens? Ain't easy to run on a blasted train." His voice sounds like it's getting closer. You hear a latch turn, and George yanks the door open suddenly.

"What happened? You get stuck?"

Fearful Tunnel Syndrome

George has never been particularly scared of the dark most of his life, except maybe deep out in the scrub with the mountain lions screaming in the night or the heavy, animal lumber of a bear close enough to make him hang onto Lennie and pet his hair to keep him quiet until it passed. This is different. This is night so deep it swallows a man alive. This is the pressure of a void that closes in and chokes off breath, disembodies a body to the point he can't be sure it's his hand in front of his eyes or the secret pressure of another, less than an inch away. Leering and waiting to touch.

And that tapping. What in the name of God would be tapping the windows in a tunnel? He's quiet at first, the tense, drawn in on himself kind of quiet that's a will to disappear and not be seen, but the longer this goes, the harder it is to sit there. Say nothing. Do nothing.

As quiet as he's trying to be, his whisper startles him, much too loud in his own ears. "I ain't the only one hearing that, right?"

OR

You sound like you're having a bad time of it. Despite the shivers chasing themselves down his skin and spine, George can't ignore somebody who clearly needs help. "Hey." It's soft and deep, and if there's an edge of uncertainty to it, can anyone blame him? "You ain't alone, OK? Follow my voice. I'll take your hand. It's George."

Burned Bridges

"No, I'm tellin' you I didn't see nothing. I was looking out the window same as you. If you'll jes' calm down and tell me what you seen, maybe we can figure it out." He's not going to go so far as to say nothing was there, but if it was, he has no idea how he missed it.

3. Wild Card

If you'd like to wild card a prep for the trip thread or something else at the apartments or in town, feel free to hit me. George fairly routinely goes to the general store and a bar by the docks. He can also be found at various bus stops, in the ADI library researching on a computer, and elsewhere on the campus wandering or training.

If you want to thread something weird, please just contact me first so we can get a general idea of what, and I'd rather not wildcard any of the other TDM prompts here. Also, if you take the reading over the shoulder prompt, be aware if George learns truly awful things about your character and hasn't had some incredibly positive CR with them over the past month, it will affect any development with him in a negative way moving forward. I like negative CR and am fine with that, but I also like for these sorts of things to be in the open so nobody gets a nasty surprise.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Ain't you jes' a gas," he says almost as dry. He seems to have taken it as humor at least. Not funny! But an attempt.

"Might be a good idea to stay close either way. Whatever that is out there busts in, it'll be all hands on deck." His voice is still tight. It sounds like he's trying for deeper breaths, trying to center himself in his own body and connect with what he can feel, the seat under him and at his back, the vibration of the train beneath his feet, both points of contact between him and Garner.

"What's the scariest thing you ever seen before comin' here?" Fight fear with fear? It's something vivid enough, he thinks, but also in the past that maybe it'll work to settle both of them. He's already trying to think of his own answer.

He can feel George trying to keep his breathing steady and Garner squeezes his hands in a way he hopes comes across as the comforting gesture it's meant to be.

The question earns a chuckle, not only of humor but mild disbelief. "We're frightened in the dark and you want tales of terror? I appreciate the way you think, George." And now it's Garner's turn to think. It isn't a hard question to answer, really.

"I saw a being my community worshipped reach true godhood, though that was more in my mind than externally." He thinks. "Would you like a performatively scary creature or something that truly scared me?"

"No one ever accused me of a whole lick a' common sense," he says. It's more strained than it should be for real humor. It's an echo of it, the best attempt he has in him at the moment. He returns the squeeze, appreciative.

"Think a god would do it for me. Your choice. I'm sure I ain't got nothin' nearly as good." Besides, if he starts talking about what really scared him at home, the worst he could conjure is a dead woman's pretty face in a nimbus of hay and the golden, dust mote glory of a sunbeam shining through a chink in a barn roof.

He could go into detail about the god, but...well, it was a complicated tale. Better left untouched as much as possible. Truly scary it was, then. It would likely serve their purpose better.

"I suppose...what truly scared me was the last thing I saw. My best friend's face, their hurt and betrayal. Then I saw the look in their eye turn to deep anger: cold and determined. I saw their movement and the brief second of their hand holding their dagger...and then I saw nothing. That scared me more than most things I've experienced. The god thing not withstanding."

"Shit, Garner." That grip of his goes tight for a few, a solid hold. It's awful, not one of the worst things he's ever heard or imagined, but there's a whole lot in that, best friend, anger, betrayal. "Think that'd scare the tarnation outta me, too."

It's working, too. That tapping's still there, still creepy and wrong. The darkness is still pressing, choking, but now he's imagining the latter all day every day for the rest of his life, and enduring this is...less.

"Scariest thing I ever seen..." Somehow it's easier to get closer to this, too, with his face hidden with the rest of him, feeling like all he is could be a disembodied voice coming from somewhere in a chest. "Was a dead woman in a barn." Not the body. He'd seen bodies. He'd seen mutilations from the war, farm equipment, wild animals. He'd seen men go hard in more ways than he could count. It's what he knew it meant. What'd come next.

"Changed...everything."

It only occurs to him as George squeezes his hand that he's never actually said that out loud before. Cazriel had never asked and the friends he'd started making back home hadn't known him even as long as the people here now did, it simply hadn't been important. He's not sure how he feels, but relief might be closest. It's something to analyze later as he turns focus instead on George when he speaks up.

Maybe it's the equal footing of the darkness, maybe it's something in the quality of George's voice, but Garner doesn't miss the emphasis under what's said. It wasn't just the dead body itself, but the context. At least...he thinks so.

"I'm sorry. She was important to you?"

"No." There's a melange of emotion in the single word, anger, contempt, outrage and sorrow. But when he goes on, the anger wins out. "She wasn't nothin' but a stupid bitch couldn't do what she was told."

His hand on Garner doesn't shift its grip much. He reserves that for clenching his other fist into his own jeans. "Caused a lot a' grief." He knows he should feel bad for what Lennie did. He should feel...something...other than hot hatred and resentment for the woman who didn't know what she was getting into and couldn't leave well enough alone.

But he doesn't, and now he's starting to regret his proposal. He thinks feeling scared might be preferable to this and the weight of it in his chest.

He's not the best at reading people, but he's good at seeing connections and there was only one reason he could see George might be so angry and hurt and yet not care for the woman herself. There's context missing, but he squeezes the hand he has on George and makes a guess.

"Her death was foolish. Needless, maybe? And it hurt someone else. Someone you cared for." Maybe a friend or lover or relative?

He nods, realizing he can't see him and forces out a gruff, "Yeah." The darkness has gone from terror to strange refuge, even with that God awful tapping. He feels like he needs it, like somehow his skin is thicker and it keeps him from spilling his guts.

"When you knew there was no going back to what you had before, what you knew... Right in that moment, that's what this was." Different circumstances, different consequences, but the heaviness of things that can never be undone. A lot of men fear death. He thinks maybe he fears inevitability more.

As George speaks, Gate's face runs through his mind again. Garner's decision had been made to leave that day, but until that moment when Gate's expression had gone cold, the door hadn't truly shut. If Garner had taken their offer, he could have simply gone back.

Yes, he thinks he understands what George means. "I'm sorry you suffered that. You and your friend."

The tapping continues but it seems like so much background noise, just another thing to weather until it passes. At least it seemed a little easier now.

And then all at once, there's a shift in the darkness, a pitch black that turns suddenly to a dark grey to his right eye as light seems to be restored and the tapping cuts out. Garner lifts his head, expression one of concentration as he listens for anything that sounded like the tapping. Or something receding.

"Lights are back," he announces abruptly. He gives Garner's hand a final squeeze before he releases him. "Think we should probably go try to find the others. Check to see if everybody's OK." He can hear other voices carrying. Mostly he wants to find Nick and see if what shut everything else down shut him down, too.

He edges out of his seat to stand in the aisle and waits for Garner to follow.

((OOC: Good ftb point where they can check on others?))

"Yes, good idea."

He waits until he feels George shift and stand, then follows. There's plenty of ambient noise and chatter making navigating a little difficult, but it seems it's hard to get lost on a train.

((OOC: Sounds perfect!))

I like to see it lap the miles [Open Log]

no subject

no subject

no subject

cw: refrence to eye injury

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject