Cuthbert Allgood (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wise_ass) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
edge_of_forever2013-09-04 05:32 pm
wise_ass) wrote in edge_of_forever2013-09-04 05:32 pm
August 12 | 10:45 PM | The holodeck, open to everyone.
It's late, but still a fairly respectable time to be up and about. He passes a few people on his way up to the holodeck but thankfully, when he gets to the door, he finds there's nobody else in sight. He lights up a cigarette and stands in the center of the dimly lit room, a blank page waiting impassively for his command. Bert takes a long, easy breath and sighs; the cigarette smoke is toasty, familiar, divine. The first one he's had in days.
"You wouldn't happen to know Mejis, would you?" he asks. His tone is polite-- it sounds like he's already forgiven the computer for not having the first fucking clue about where Mejis is, but before he can explain himself, the room has already started coming to life.
It flickers a few times through scenes Bert's not sure he recognizes as even from his world, but when it finally settles, he finds himself standing on one of the rolling hills overlooking the little town. The oil derricks, far over the hills to his left, are backlit by a fiercely beautiful sunset. On his right he can see a wide, treeless horizon that tells him he's not far from the Clean Sea.
It must have been a market day. The people below are packing up their stalls and loading up their carts. There's a tense moment where he's terrified he'll see something, someone he'll recognize before he realizes that the computer's brought him to a Mejis about fifty years prior to his ka-tet's infamous visit.
He heads down the hill and wanders a bit, trying to stay out of people's way, but enjoying, as he usually does, the novelty of secret immersion, not even minding when a woman gives him the obligatory small-town stink eye reserved for unfamiliar, unaccompanied young men. In fact, it makes him smile. It doesn't seem to improve her opinion of him any, but he can't help it. He walks through the market with that shit-eating grin, hands stuffed in his pockets, enjoying the alien quaintness of it all with a bizarre brand of contentment he figures can only be enjoyed by holidaymakers in other worlds.
He's in another world even now, though, isn't he? The station? The idea is an uncomfortable but not unwelcome knot at the base of his skull. He's spent nearly all of his time here doing penance, even if he hasn't realized it, but the last month has actually been penance in earnest. Bert had been drinking whiskey when zombi Alain had helpfully suggested he eat a bullet to better cope with his guilt, and mayhap it was a blessing, because the stuff just hadn't tasted the same after that. Or mayhap it was his own self-pity that didn't go down sweet anymore.
Cuthbert wasn't sure what he'd expected to feel, standing in the red dirt of Lower Market, surrounded by the smells and sights and sounds he's spent the last seven or so years trying to smother from memory. And mayhap it'd be different if he'd been dropped in at the right time and seen ole Kimba Rimer or Cordelia Delgado strutting through town. Mayhap.
But right now, the air feels clean, and somewhere a hundred wheels away, Cuthbert Allgood hasn't even been born yet. He closes his eyes and lets the idea sink in.
Behind him, the holodeck door opens, and he smiles-- that wide, idiot grin that says he's actually pleased for company-- and squints to see who it is.
"Hey there," he calls out, his voice warm and animated. "Just mind the cow pies."
"You wouldn't happen to know Mejis, would you?" he asks. His tone is polite-- it sounds like he's already forgiven the computer for not having the first fucking clue about where Mejis is, but before he can explain himself, the room has already started coming to life.
It flickers a few times through scenes Bert's not sure he recognizes as even from his world, but when it finally settles, he finds himself standing on one of the rolling hills overlooking the little town. The oil derricks, far over the hills to his left, are backlit by a fiercely beautiful sunset. On his right he can see a wide, treeless horizon that tells him he's not far from the Clean Sea.
It must have been a market day. The people below are packing up their stalls and loading up their carts. There's a tense moment where he's terrified he'll see something, someone he'll recognize before he realizes that the computer's brought him to a Mejis about fifty years prior to his ka-tet's infamous visit.
He heads down the hill and wanders a bit, trying to stay out of people's way, but enjoying, as he usually does, the novelty of secret immersion, not even minding when a woman gives him the obligatory small-town stink eye reserved for unfamiliar, unaccompanied young men. In fact, it makes him smile. It doesn't seem to improve her opinion of him any, but he can't help it. He walks through the market with that shit-eating grin, hands stuffed in his pockets, enjoying the alien quaintness of it all with a bizarre brand of contentment he figures can only be enjoyed by holidaymakers in other worlds.
He's in another world even now, though, isn't he? The station? The idea is an uncomfortable but not unwelcome knot at the base of his skull. He's spent nearly all of his time here doing penance, even if he hasn't realized it, but the last month has actually been penance in earnest. Bert had been drinking whiskey when zombi Alain had helpfully suggested he eat a bullet to better cope with his guilt, and mayhap it was a blessing, because the stuff just hadn't tasted the same after that. Or mayhap it was his own self-pity that didn't go down sweet anymore.
Cuthbert wasn't sure what he'd expected to feel, standing in the red dirt of Lower Market, surrounded by the smells and sights and sounds he's spent the last seven or so years trying to smother from memory. And mayhap it'd be different if he'd been dropped in at the right time and seen ole Kimba Rimer or Cordelia Delgado strutting through town. Mayhap.
But right now, the air feels clean, and somewhere a hundred wheels away, Cuthbert Allgood hasn't even been born yet. He closes his eyes and lets the idea sink in.
Behind him, the holodeck door opens, and he smiles-- that wide, idiot grin that says he's actually pleased for company-- and squints to see who it is.
"Hey there," he calls out, his voice warm and animated. "Just mind the cow pies."
no subject
Lauren's not a touchy-feely type of person, generally, but as Bert shares his thoughts and the circumstances of his past she can't help but feel the urge to wrap him up in her arms and promise him that everything will work out in the end. Except it might not, and she doesn't think he'll believe it any more than she does.
Had he died? She can remember the feel of hands around her throat, the burning in her chest, the creeping black that edged her vision threatening to block out Nadia's face contorted with rage. If Bert says he died, well, she believes him, because she isn't completely convinced she hadn't too.
"Look, Bert," she says eventually, trying not to let the silence creep out too long so that he starts getting nervous or regrets telling her. "I like problems that have answers. Things you can put under a microscope and study and eventually crack... it makes it easy to solve them with a pill or an injection. But this sort of stuff... there's no pill for it, is there?" Maybe he's depressed, and maybe a pill will help him feel a bit better, but it won''t answer his questions or give him a purpose. "But this is what I think: Heaven or hell or limbo or whatever this is, we're in it together. Whatever you end up being willing and able to offer, people will take it, and they'll give back in turn. I can't claim to know everybody here well, or even like them all, but we need each other. We need you to do whatever you can do to make this work - be it shooting things or making chili or cracking jokes or something else you haven't discovered you want to do yet."
She stands as well, turning to look over the landscape for a moment before turning back to him. "And maybe I shouldn't be speaking for everyone else and I'm dead wrong about them. But I think that dead or not, you've got a lot to offer, Bert. Just look at what you're bringing with you."
no subject
What would life be like if he really put all that to bed? Not all of it; it was his life, it made him who he is, and yet-- it was brutally short and truthfully, he was filled with regrets. Winning his guns had been one of the most important days in his life, but he can't say in earnest it was one of the best. He'd always thought that one day he'd marry and have kids like his own father. He'd barely had a chance to be a child he'd been so busy preparing to be a soldier, and then had come being a soldier... he'd never even had a proper girl, for Gan's sake, just a string of (occasionally very sweet and memorable) hookers. There had been a few girls, fine, but none he'd really been able to court. And he would've liked to train under Vannay, for instance, if there'd been time. Ideally before he needed a cane to get up the tower stairs. He'd never gotten to see Kashamin or the Western Sea or, now that he's thinking of it, Roland's gods-be-damned Dark Tower... or more accurately, the crestfallen, slightly confused expression on Roland's face when they got to the ends of the earth and he realized it really was a ridiculous fairy tale.
And his juggling still needs a lot of work, say true. The gypsies would never take him at this rate.
He sits down next to her, looking both a little lost and suddenly energized.
"You don't have a handkerchief, do you? That would've made the angels weep."
Bert looks at her, and though his eyes are dry, his half-laugh, half-sigh has a shaky, breathless sound to it.
"Thank you, Lauren. I am remarkably functional for a dead man, if nothing else."
no subject
"That's something to be proud of," Lauren replies with a wry grin. She's glad to see Bert's not dismissing her words out of hand; maybe she's not as bad as this as she always felt she was. Or maybe he's just that desperate for reassurance.
Anyway.
"So. Sam'll have my head if I don't invite you for dinner once you're up for it. Consider it an open invitation to the replicator's finest."
no subject
Bert grabs her hand tightly and fixes her with an imploring look. "Whittling!"
no subject
"That does sound dire," she says, chuckling at his expression and generally lightened demeanour - not artificial, she thinks, or at least hopes. "Well, if you find yourself with idle hands and nothing to carve I could always use another pair of hands in the lab. Or... better yet, you should talk to Sam." The other woman was much in the same situation as Bert, without anything to occupy her and a growing ennui that Lauren was beginning to worry about.
"Just no whittling. That's the last thing I need."
no subject
Bert scratches his temple, fixing Lauren with a slightly rueful smile. "I can't imagine she's enjoying this."
Sharon and Sam had that much in common, anyway; Restless Peacekeeper Syndrome. He feels a little guilty that he's not more disturbed to find their levels forcibly occupied, honestly; it makes him more nervous to see how it's affecting the others.
no subject
"No, not really. So any distractions are welcome. Just... don't tell her I arranged them."