[ Well that sure is a text to get from an unknown number. Honestly it doesn't occur to him that this might be Edwin, because yes okay Charlie told him to stay away at least two times, but also that whole argument kinda rolls into one unhappy blur for him, and he certainly wouldn't expect his order to be politely respected.
...
So anyway, a little digging on the network later, he's put a name to the number and is staring into fucking space.
You know what? He has dinner in, like, ten minutes with two people who might be able to advise him on this one. Because what he wants to do is send back all of them and then break his communicator so that Yellow can't contact him, cauterise the fingers that held it, and wash out the eyes that read the words as if preventing the spread of infection. And at least the second part of that is probably not coming from his logical brain.
Charlie answers the door with a not-yet-lit roll-up in his mouth, and a look of faint surprise on his face when he sees it's not John. Usually when people call randomly on him, it's John.
He's in his shirtsleeves in his cabin, rolled up to the elbow, which means a couple of things are visible that usually aren't. One is the bracelet: ungaudy, hammered metal, plain except for a single tiny button. It could pass perfectly well as ordinary, if anachronistic, jewellery. The other is his scarred forearms, a match to his hands: unsurprising, as he's had no less than two or three changes in circumstance that could be reasonably called 'a life hard lived'.
"Mrs Anderson." He moves the cigarette to his hand. "What can I do for ya?"
A half-grin, which is not the only feeling he has on seeing her visit, but which is the only one he shows.
[Edwin's only concession for Charlie is that he uses text again, so the man doesn't have to see him. (It isn't, is not, because Edwin doesn't want to see Charlie's expression when he realizes who it is).]
I did every fucking thing you asked me. I stayed away. So stay the fuck away from me.
[ It's not that he doesn't think that Arthur would give him an opinion. It's that he's not sure Arthur's opinion will be helpful. His other half is so encouraging and usually very willing to let him try or do anything and he'd tell him, with all the love in his heart, that he can do whatever he prefers or enjoys best.
Well, yes, of course he can, but he'd really like to know which one looks snazzier. Maybe even...
Dare he say...
H o t ?
He can't ask Jedao since Jedao might mention it to Edwin and he doesn't want Edwin to have a panic attack about it. He might ask Maggie later, but he thinks that she might also be too supportive to be helpful.
Like hell is he asking Astarion.
Thus he ends up at Charlie's door, knocking when he has a good idea Charlie will be in. He's not in The Outfit In Question, just because he wants to check and make sure with Charlie if he's interested in helping first, but he had been trying out a tropical beach to see if it seemed like the kind of thing that Arthur or Charlie might like (complete with the appropriate swimwear) and he hadn't thought to change.
That should be fine.
[cough]
Help him, Charlie Dowd-Kenobi, you're his only hope. ]
[ Charlie isn't exactly a social butterfly flush with unexpected visitors, but he's started to recognise John's knock.
He was actually in the process of tackling his washing-up pile, and he answers the door in a rare state of tielessness, his shirtsleeves rolled above the elbow, drying suds off his hands with a tea-towel.
And his eyes go on a swift and unexpected journey to... to arcane symbols he hasn't noticed before and nothing else, that's the story and we're sticking to it. His eyebrows crook up a little in question.
John's human body is always very... it's very. It's a Leyendecker. It's an upside-down dorito. It's a side of beef that Charlie can't picture being stuffed inside Arthur's little rack of ribs, and now it's wearing that. He can't tell if John is actually going for a wolf whistle or if he doesn't even know. He can't possibly not know. Can he? Jesus Mary and all the saints, he doesn't know, does he? ]
There's nothing complicated but there is something very specific about the scent that comes down the hallway. It's the kind of thing he's smelled in one form or another most of his time in New York City, wafting out of a deli or a diner or even from a food cart down the avenue.
There might be some complicated feelings around the person holding onto the wrapped bundle from whence the aroma originates, but it's not something he's intending. Nope, John's looking pleased and warm and happy to see Charlie.
Charlie has wasted no time in going from 'sleeping for days' to 'tired', but his crooked grin at seeing John is genuine. There's just... a lot of catching up to do, suddenly. People to call; network posts to back-read; questions to ask about what the fuck happened while he was down and what he's apparently been assigned correct about (there's an obvious answer, but if it's a also a correct answer, then again he must ask: what the fuck happened). Things of that nature.
He's pleased to pause and give John his undivided attention for a bit.
Jedao will find him in the laundromat. When the going gets tough, the tough cling to pantomimes of normality, and there's nothing more normality than waiting for your damn sheets to finish washing.
Charlie's expression when Jedao sits down with him is, very briefly, surprise. In the next instant he realises what this must be about, and his face goes to politely professional before it can have a chance to go to anything else. He pulls out the wireless bud he was wearing in one ear.
"'Course, I got some time." With a glance at the washer, which backs him up on the facts. "How about we go somewhere private." Yeah, they're alone now, but who knows if that'll stay true.
It's not a conversation he'll try to dodge. He is going to absolutely hate this, just like he's hated every other conversation about it, but that's the consequences of your own actions for you.
[ Honestly that means a lot coming from Saga, who he has a hell of a lot of respect for. ]
I appreciate it, Mrs Anderson.
[ He's not sure how to read the long breath. Actually, that isn't exactly right: he reads it to mean that her name shows up in this file, and he's not sure whether that read is projection on his part. ]
Obviously, any specifics in the file are stayin' between me and the person they're about, unless that person says otherwise. [ In case that helps to know. ] But generally? Uh... shoot, you ain't ever given me bad advice so far. Feel like I'm gonna end up runnin' to you with questions sooner rather than later, so get ready.
[For all his own complicated feelings about Alan, it was still good that Charlie was paired. One less thing to have to worry about, in the Barge's grand scheme.]
He did tell Saga that he loses track of time, now and again. It's why he can't tell how long he's been in this little hellscape. It's changed--he's found himself stepping through doorways into other peoples' nightmares, more than once, but somehow he keeps getting separated from them.
And he hasn't tried to call Saga for a rescue yet, because...
Because he keeps seeing someone familiar passing around a distant corner or through a window that should look out on nothing but empty space. He keeps seeing someone familiar and he needs to know--
Caleb isn't here, he isn't, David knows he isn't.
But he has to make sure before he leaves.
He stumbles a little, going through a new doorway, when it spits him out in what looks like an ashy wasteland riddled with ditches. The most color comes from spears of rusting metal that look somehow out of place. Pieces of buildings that look like they've been dropped here and there from another place entirely.
He's standing out like a thumb broken sideways, and there's a whistling noise in the air that he knows too well.
David wants colour? In one of the closest ditches is an eye-catching swirl of red, drawn out by incongruous eddies into the dark water at the bottom. It comes from a body, face down, torn almost in half by machine gun fire.
The corpse is framed by a tiara of what must once have been trees, stubby and black and soft like rotten teeth.
From the back, the dead man looks strikingly familiar. Perhaps David's search is over.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Text;
hello sir
Can you tell me what movies you want to watch at the marathon so I can not be there for those?
no text at all
...
So anyway, a little digging on the network later, he's put a name to the number and is staring into fucking space.
You know what? He has dinner in, like, ten minutes with two people who might be able to advise him on this one. Because what he wants to do is send back
all of themand then break his communicator so that Yellow can't contact him, cauterise the fingers that held it, and wash out the eyes that read the words as if preventing the spread of infection. And at least the second part of that is probably not coming from his logical brain.At least for now, Edwin is left on read. ]
r i p
The day before!
[There's a playful lilt to his voice that he's not even attempting to hide.]
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Maybe. [ Yes. ] Whatcha need it for?
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After the Flood | cabin spam
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He's in his shirtsleeves in his cabin, rolled up to the elbow, which means a couple of things are visible that usually aren't. One is the bracelet: ungaudy, hammered metal, plain except for a single tiny button. It could pass perfectly well as ordinary, if anachronistic, jewellery. The other is his scarred forearms, a match to his hands: unsurprising, as he's had no less than two or three changes in circumstance that could be reasonably called 'a life hard lived'.
"Mrs Anderson." He moves the cigarette to his hand. "What can I do for ya?"
A half-grin, which is not the only feeling he has on seeing her visit, but which is the only one he shows.
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text; post-flood; can be before or after saga!
I did every fucking thing you asked me. I stayed away. So stay the fuck away from me.
and added during charlie's coma....
so this is happening: post John's birthday
Well, yes, of course he can, but he'd really like to know which one looks snazzier. Maybe even...
Dare he say...
H o t ?
He can't ask Jedao since Jedao might mention it to Edwin and he doesn't want Edwin to have a panic attack about it. He might ask Maggie later, but he thinks that she might also be too supportive to be helpful.
Like hell is he asking Astarion.
Thus he ends up at Charlie's door, knocking when he has a good idea Charlie will be in. He's not in The Outfit In Question, just because he wants to check and make sure with Charlie if he's interested in helping first, but he had been trying out a tropical beach to see if it seemed like the kind of thing that Arthur or Charlie might like (complete with the appropriate swimwear) and he hadn't thought to change.
That should be fine.
[cough]
Help him, Charlie Dowd-Kenobi, you're his only hope. ]
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He was actually in the process of tackling his washing-up pile, and he answers the door in a rare state of tielessness, his shirtsleeves rolled above the elbow, drying suds off his hands with a tea-towel.
And his eyes go on a swift and unexpected journey to... to arcane symbols he hasn't noticed before and nothing else, that's the story and we're sticking to it. His eyebrows crook up a little in question.
John's human body is always very... it's very. It's a Leyendecker. It's an upside-down dorito. It's a side of beef that Charlie can't picture being stuffed inside Arthur's little rack of ribs, and now it's wearing that. He can't tell if John is actually going for a wolf whistle or if he doesn't even know. He can't possibly not know. Can he? Jesus Mary and all the saints, he doesn't know, does he? ]
Hey John, what can I do you for?
[ Cheerfully. Nailed it. What? ]
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AFTER ARTHUR
post coma - breakfast sandwich
There's nothing complicated but there is something very specific about the scent that comes down the hallway. It's the kind of thing he's smelled in one form or another most of his time in New York City, wafting out of a deli or a diner or even from a food cart down the avenue.
There might be some complicated feelings around the person holding onto the wrapped bundle from whence the aroma originates, but it's not something he's intending. Nope, John's looking pleased and warm and happy to see Charlie.
"As promised. I'm glad to see you awake again."
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Charlie has wasted no time in going from 'sleeping for days' to 'tired', but his crooked grin at seeing John is genuine. There's just... a lot of catching up to do, suddenly. People to call; network posts to back-read; questions to ask about what the fuck happened while he was down and what he's apparently been assigned correct about (there's an obvious answer, but if it's a also a correct answer, then again he must ask: what the fuck happened). Things of that nature.
He's pleased to pause and give John his undivided attention for a bit.
"Survived alright without me?"
He gestures John inside.
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cw suicidal ideation
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text
What's your favorite kind of cookie?
no subject
Have always been fond of ginger snaps.
Yrs.,
Charlie Dowd
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Backdated: After the Put Our Service to the Test guest flood, before Charlie falls into his coma
"Hello, Mister Dowd. I'd like to have a conversation with you, and I suspect it's going to be a difficult one."
His affect is - quiet, calm, pragmatic, forthright.
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Charlie's expression when Jedao sits down with him is, very briefly, surprise. In the next instant he realises what this must be about, and his face goes to politely professional before it can have a chance to go to anything else. He pulls out the wireless bud he was wearing in one ear.
"'Course, I got some time." With a glance at the washer, which backs him up on the facts. "How about we go somewhere private." Yeah, they're alone now, but who knows if that'll stay true.
It's not a conversation he'll try to dodge. He is going to absolutely hate this, just like he's hated every other conversation about it, but that's the consequences of your own actions for you.
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voice
Nebulously handwave a date
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Sure, fire away.
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after pairings | audio
Hey. Congratulations on the pairing. Can't think of better hands he could be in.
[ a breath in ]
Obviously, if you need anything from me, I'm there. Just let me know how I can help.
Re: after pairings | audio
I appreciate it, Mrs Anderson.
[ He's not sure how to read the long breath. Actually, that isn't exactly right: he reads it to mean that her name shows up in this file, and he's not sure whether that read is projection on his part. ]
Obviously, any specifics in the file are stayin' between me and the person they're about, unless that person says otherwise. [ In case that helps to know. ] But generally? Uh... shoot, you ain't ever given me bad advice so far. Feel like I'm gonna end up runnin' to you with questions sooner rather than later, so get ready.
Re: after pairings | audio
Re: after pairings | audio
Re: after pairings | audio
Re: after pairings | audio
Re: after pairings | audio
audio
[ Pure, warm happiness for him. ]
Re: audio
I'm glad it ended up bein' Wake. We get along pretty good already.
Re: audio
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Audio
[For all his own complicated feelings about Alan, it was still good that Charlie was paired. One less thing to have to worry about, in the Barge's grand scheme.]
SILENT HILL ADVENTURES
And he hasn't tried to call Saga for a rescue yet, because...
Because he keeps seeing someone familiar passing around a distant corner or through a window that should look out on nothing but empty space. He keeps seeing someone familiar and he needs to know--
Caleb isn't here, he isn't, David knows he isn't.
But he has to make sure before he leaves.
He stumbles a little, going through a new doorway, when it spits him out in what looks like an ashy wasteland riddled with ditches. The most color comes from spears of rusting metal that look somehow out of place. Pieces of buildings that look like they've been dropped here and there from another place entirely.
He's standing out like a thumb broken sideways, and there's a whistling noise in the air that he knows too well.
body horror be warned ye who enter here
The corpse is framed by a tiara of what must once have been trees, stubby and black and soft like rotten teeth.
From the back, the dead man looks strikingly familiar. Perhaps David's search is over.
and so on and so forth ad nauseam
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cw suicidal ideation
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ANNND MORE CW FOR SI
does he need a snack
chokesputter
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