nomans_land | Somewhere between July and December

Somewhere between July and December

1.
[ It wasn't the fastest car he'd ever driven, but it made better time than the old man's shitty station wagon had, and it was definitely faster than walking across the desert. None of the maps he'd found tucked under the seat had Hopeland on them, which was worrisome as all hell, but on one of the maps there was an orphanage marked, just off of a city called December.

The ghost he'd talked to on that mountaintop had told him he'd die in December, but that ghost had also ruined his last cigarette, so fuck that guy. If he died, he died, but first, he was going to make sure Miss Melanie and the kids were okay.

The sedan hums its way across the desert, kicking up a dust cloud that can be seen for miles. ]

2.
[ With a shudder and a hard jolt, the car comes screeching to a halt, the dash going dead as the engine seizes up. Wolfwood swears, punches the dash, then swears again when the solid dash nearly breaks his hand for his trouble. He'd managed to get the car hotwired, but apparently cars in this messed up version of Noman's were more different from the ones he knew than he'd realized. Is it out of oil? Out of charge? Not like he can do anything about it, whatever the problem.

Please ignore the man in black, standing next to a very dead car in the middle of absolute nowhere and screaming at the sky. It's therapeutic profanity, and it really is helping. ]

3.
[ Sunburned and exhausted, Wolfwood crests the hill and finally, there before him, sees the building that his map identifies as the December Orphanage. Even from a distance it's clear that the chaos that's affected the rest of the planet hit here, too -- there's clear bullet holes in at least one side of the building, walls that have collapsed, and the whole place seems as deserted as everywhere else he's been.

But he's here now, so he might as well have a look around.

He really wishes he still had his Punisher, though. ]

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You think it's coming from the roof?

[ He's hollering from upstairs still, on his way back down with the handful of towels still left in the big washroom. ]

Could be! Let's go take a look, huh?

[ He assumed it was coming from the back door, flooding out from the ring of the canyon behind them, but there's only one way to know! His loafers slosh through the water on the hallway carpet, and he's already wishing for a pair of boots by the time he gets to the back half of the building.

And it turns out they're both right. There's water trickling from the ceiling, no doubt coming through a hole in the upper story roof, and it's clearly flooding into the building from under the back courtyard door. Fuck. ]

You think you can tarp it off? [ If Livio can get the roof sealed up, Wolfwood can secure this door, and any others on this side of the building. Together, they might just be able to stop this place from drowning. ] Let me get this, then do you need a hand?

[from the guy who has boots on, this isn't much better. the tops of his socks are beginning to dampen, but nothing as bad as Wolfwood's no freaking socks and his loafers, soft and soggy.

Now he does sigh, very loudly, drenched and all. but they have to do this-- maybe there's something salvageable from this.]

Yeah, I can. Uh, as for a tarp...lemme see.

[god, this is just. he feels a little helpless]

I'll figure it out, you focus on your job, yeah?

[ This place survived a hell of a shootout, right? They owe it to Melanie to make sure it doesn't fall apart because of a little water.

Or even a lot of water. ]

Got it, yell if you need anything.

[ Because this really is a lot of water! Wolfwood wades into the nearly ankle-deep water to the back door, and starts cramming towels into the crack at the bottom. Most places had big solid doors, with flaps at the edges to keep the sand and dust out, but the orphanage he remembered could never afford things like that, and it seems like this place is the same. Handing a little kid a broom in the back hallway was a thousand times cheaper than buying anything to keep the dust out, which meant that the gap under the door -- big enough to stick his fingers through without touching the door or the floor -- was doing nothing to stop the flood waters rushing in.

He gets the towels crammed into the gap, but they're threadbare things, hardly more than rags. Already he can see the water seeping through them, and he swears under his breath. This isn't going to work.

New plan: grab Punisher and head upstairs, away from the flooding, and hope that the walls really are made of stone like he's always assumed, and not mud brick. ]

How's the roof looking?

Bad!

[it isn't as though the orphanage looked like a castle, even in the golden nostalgia-tinted memories of Before. but he-- and they Eye, had really screwed it up worse, hadn't they. they would have fixed things up after, but going back to this is--

it's hard. the water isn't helping. Livio had found something tarp-like, something repellant to all this water, and some nails. So he's been trying not to slide off the tiles that remain up there, and hammer it down in place. In the biggest hole-area, because there are tons]

But maybe salvagable. What's going on down there?

[ Looking up from the second story, all Wolfwood can see is rain, and what looks like a tarp or a tablecloth or something, and more rain. Damn, is this hole from the fight earlier? ]

It's bad down here too! [ Punisher thunks against the far wall, hopefully out of drip range, and Wolfwood cranes his neck up to try and see what's going on up on the roof through that giant hole. ] Dunno about salvageable. There's a lot of water coming in.

[ At this point, he really doesn't know what they can do other than hunkering down and waiting it out. Assuming it stops! Assuming the whole place doesn't wash away. Who knows what rain will do, when there's never been rain before? ]

They shoot any other holes in the roof that you can see?

Just the big one is the one we should worry about. Anything smaller we can just get buckets and stuff for.

[Looks like this is the big one-- he's not sure if he'd been thrown through this, if someone else had-- if he had thrown Wolfwood-- and he refuses to think on it! that's that. Livio does what he can up here, a few more spots, the medium-sized ones, get some work done, but eventually he's climbing back down to join Wolfwood]

Man...

[ One of the few perks about buildings on Noman's -- these walls are solid. There's water dripping out of the roof in a dozen places, Wolfwood notes, running room to room and checking for any other big holes. But unlike traditional construction, unlike the way that the fancy buildings in the cities are built, these walls are solid stone, mined right out of the nearby cliffs. The things in the rooms might be destroyed when this is over, but the building itself, the bones of the place, those should be just fine.

Assuming the water doesn't keep coming. Assuming the whole place doesn't get washed away.

Eventually, Wolfwood's back downstairs, collecting everything he can think of to save to bring up into the rooms on the second floor. There's some food from the kitchen, a jug of clean water, every knife from the knife block -- he's got his priorities, okay? -- and it's all going up into whichever room upstairs is the biggest and driest. ]

If there's anything else down here you want to save, I think you should grab it now, before it gets washed away.

[ He spares a thought for the car outside, but there's nothing he can do about that. It's not like they could bring it up the stairs, and there's nowhere else it could go to get out of the rain and out of the flooding. He'll just have to let it ride out the storm on its own, and hope for the best.

He's pointedly not thinking about the grave out back. ]

[the question of saving anything has Livio pause in his tracks. does he...have any right to see what's left to save? sure, he had grown here, but he'd left, abandoned them, and then betrayed them?

he's going to have to check that spooky closet, isn't he. in case...of anything. Melanie usually kept the important things in a to-go bag in case of an emergency, but.]

Okay. Yeah, alright. I'll...

[he's also not thinking of that grave, twins!!!]

[ Livio seems stressed out, and Wolfwood can't blame him. Watching the orphanage flood out is messing with him too, although this orphanage is different enough from the one he's used to that he can put that worry aside a little. But it's still the place he grew up, still the place Livio grew up. There's still a lot of memories and feelings and all that shit tied up in this place, not to mention the body out back.

It's hard, wanting to protect something that you can't save.

But the kids are gone, safe, and Melanie with them -- he has to believe that. This place is just a place, and places can be rebuilt. ]

Hey.

[ His hands are full, so instead of clapping Livio on the back he bumps his shoulder into the other man's, grinning like he doesn't have a care in the world. ]

It'll be okay, don't cry.

[that almost makes him burst into tears, actually! the warmth in his smile, the attempt to reassure him. Livio somehow keeps it in, wringing his hands together again, helplessly.

there's nothing they can do about the memories, about the what-ifs. time is painful, it doesn't do more than dry little scabs on your wounds. and now it's being washed away.]

I'm not crying. It'll be fine.

[ It'll be fine! Here they are, dead in each other's respective worlds, but they've found each other here. Who cares what happens to a bunch of stuff, right? It's the people that are important.

Well. The people and the fuckoff big gun that he's got stored safely upstairs, out of the wet. ]

C'mon then, gimme a hand getting this shit upstairs.

[you're dead, I'm dead, he's dead, so who's flying the plane???

he nods, shoulders hitching up with some determination. he has to move on]

Alright, shorty, don't go overboard.

[ And you know what? What's everything's stored, once they've taken care of all their responsibilities here... Wolfwood's going back outside. Just outside the door, but he's got to see this rain for himself. Sure it's storming like nothing this planet's ever seen, sure the water's calf deep and rising, but c'mon! It's storming like this planet's never seen. It's a once in a lifetime event, they'd be fools not to go check it out!

He's gonna get soaked. It's gonna be great! ]

[he doesn't quite go over and join Wolfwood just yet. he stands just behind him, watching, a bemused smile curling across his face]

Think this'll last?

[ Enjoy the view, buddy -- Wolfwood's going to stand out in the full on rain until he's drenched head to toe, his face mostly turned up into the water. It's kinda cold, and the water's sweet, just clean and clear and fresh as Julai's finest. ]

I don't know what to think anymore. [ A shake of his head sprays water in all directions, like a dog, and it leaves his hair sticking up in a dozen weird angles. He looks delighted. ] I hope it lasts. I hope it rains for forty fucking days and forty fucking nights!

[ Enough to fill a whole ocean. Enough to wash this planet clean. ]

[Livio's smile widens as he watches. it's delight in that gaze, in that timid, timid step by step out into the rain--

he isn't afraid of it. he was just in it, out in it, in HERE in it--

but can this wash him clean too?]

And me without a couple of lions and an ark.

[ Nothing will ever wash all the blood off, but this rain might get close! Come stand in the rain with him, bro! Run in it, splash in it, whatever! Wolfwood's mostly just letting it wash over him like some kind of giant baptism, but don't let that stop you from having fun! ]

We might need an ark, if this keeps up. [ Which isn't a problem at all. They'll built a boat if they have to. They'll learn to swim. It's raining. There's so much water! He just can't get over how much water there is! ] It's unreal.

[ When he first showed up here, he thought he was dead. Miracles like this sure aren't doing much to dispel that idea! ]

[as though he's a timid little animal, he does eventually join Wolfwood out in the rain after a moment. it soaks into his hair, into his clothes. his eyelashes stick together.]

A miracle, if there ever was one.

[ An icy miracle, but a miracle nonetheless! The rain is getting colder, Wolfwood thinks, and it's not just because it's night and he's wet. He doesn't know the word for sleet, but that's what this is rapidly turning into -- somewhere in the sky a mile or so out, there's a great cold front moving toward them, turning the rain into a slushy half-frozen mess.

But fuck it -- if the rain is cold then it's cold. He's not budging. ]

What if this world's just different? [ He has to shout a little bit, to be heard over the wind and rain. ] What if whatever brought us here brought stuff from other places, too? What if...

[ It's a big, frightening thought, but oh it's a thought full of promise. ]

What if this is just how it's gonna be from now on?

You think this is entirely different? Like...not even our worlds squished together or something?

[that's what he'd thought this whole time. that things aren't completely out of their depths....clearly he just, was in denial maybe.

he doesn't like this...]

If it's normal rain, sure, it'd be nice...but not something weirder.

[ Wolfwood just shakes his head at that -- or maybe he's shaking the rain out of his ears, hard to tell. ]

Everything about this world is weird to me, pal.

[ And okay, brrr, standing in the rain was great and kinda holy and cleansing in a way he's not going to think too much about, but now that it's getting icy, he's done with it. Ready to head back inside, maybe wade through the kitchen in the hopes of a bottle of something in one of those cupboards they weren't supposed to know about as kids, and go see about getting warm again? ]

The food's wrong, the cars're wrong, the...

[ Okay, he was heading in, but... but there's a light in the storm clouds way over there. He taps Livio's shoulder with the back of his hand, and points -- does he see it, too? Blue lights, way in the distance, but definitely in the clouds? If planes existed here he wouldn't think twice, but they don't, so what in the hell...? ]

That's weird too, right?

[ That's not normal for this world, is it? ]

(ooc: the lights are a storm worm! they're about to be buzzed by a very big grand worm, like the big one they get swallowed by in stampede, only with blue-green lights like a plant. it's about to get much colder, and gravity might get wonky, so hold on!)

[it's weird to him too. he'd just...started to maybe think he can heal, can move on with his life, make a life for himself when all of this fell into his lap. fell on his head.

his hair drips in his face, he's positively drenched to his underwear. and out there on the horizon....something bad is going to happen. but-- but he can protect Wolfwood this time.]

It's all freaking weird. [a pause] The cars are wrong? How?

[ What is that? Did somebody cobble together enough lost tech to make a plane? Is it a balloon of some kind? He can barely make it out -- it's just a couple little lights way in the distance, like fireflies in a cloud. Or worm larvae, maybe? ]

None of 'em work right! [ He was heading back inside, but those lights are intriguing. Is there a better spot to see them? This courtyard's all just mud and more mud, and rain, and ice... could they get higher up? ] They all run on oil or somethin', except for that one I found. That one at least uses batteries like a real car.

[ The bell tower looks kinda rickety, but what about the roof! They could get to the roof, right? ]

Batteries....and not gas?

[no, that's wrong. there's something wrong there. there's something wrong....with all of it, naturally.

he doesn't like the looks of those lights.]

Think we should bunker down? Those are...coming this way.

[much as he wants to investigate-- only if Wolfwood wants to]

[ Damn right he wants to! Enough talking about cars that run on farts -- let's go check out the lights! ]

Bunker down? [ He slaps Livio on the back, heading for the house. ] Absolutely not! Let's go see what it is!

[ Walking through water is hard! High stepping doesn't work any better than shuffling through it, man. This stuff would suck to fight in! ]

How high up can we get from here? Roof of the chapel, you think?

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