applesaucedream | Between the Roots and Branches [Open to All]

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Between the Roots and Branches [Open to All]

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Don't worry, dreamers of Manhattan. There will be no humiliating episodes of sudden-onset-clumsiness tonight - at least, nothing more severe than what you might experience naturally. Your physical and mental faculties will be left perfectly intact. What a treat! And what luck, because if you do lose your footing, it's a long way down to the forest floor.

But hey, who wants to be on the boring old ground when there are so many wonderful treehouses to explore? There are dozens of them spread throughout the surrounding forest, connected by a series of bridges and catwalks (some, admittedly, a bit more stable than others). It's easy to forget - or fail to notice - that there really is no easy or conventional way down to the ground when you're surrounded by such splendor.

The houses' styles range from charming and rustic to modern and sleek, with many falling somewhere in between. There are viewing platforms for bird-watching or simply taking in the scenery (trees, mostly, though if you venture high enough, you'll be treated the sight of the forest canopy stretched across a valley far below). But the insides of the treehouses are comfortably furnished to varying degrees as well, so there's no need to immerse yourself in nature if you'd really rather not. Some are complete houses in their own right, with all the amenities of a Manhattan apartment and then some.

Go for a climb, or kick back and relax. The only enemies you'll find here are other dreamers... and, potentially, gravity.

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It's like trying to catch water between his fingers, and every paling instant where he thinks he could claw back some measure of calm is lost in something trembling and breathless. He's trying not to let his shoulders shake when he looks out again, trying not to let his hands shake. Fuck. He's fine. He's normal, he's fine. Fuck.

"I wasn't doing anything," he says, but now his voice is wavering, great. He probably sounds like he's having some sort of nervous breakdown. Unless he is? Maybe this is what nervous breakdowns feel like. There's no prickling and numbness to signal an onset of panic. Fuck, fuck. Has he ever had a nervous breakdown?

He has to explain. He has to do something. He can't just sit here talking in circles to this guy who clearly, clearly does not know how to handle this and Tim can't blame him, because he doesn't know how to handle this either.

"I really," he whispers, locking eyes with Yuri, dark and terrified, "really. Don't like trees."

That's no fucking explanation, and he knows it. He catches a stuttering breath and tries again.

"There's something wrong," he mutters, one hand fluttering up in a helpless gesticulation that explains exactly nothing. "There's something - can't you - ?" He drifts off. His heart's pounding. His mouth's dry. There's nothing out there. ~~There's something out there.~~ Fuck.

Yuri seems to be faced with a man about to have a panic attack due to being surrounded by trees, and he has absolutely no idea what to do about that. "I can't?" he replies, uncertainty suffusing his voice until he realizes that whatever he does, letting Tim hear how worried he is will not help. "I mean, no," he says, trying to sound more sure of himself. "There's nothing -- I don't see anything. It's just the woods, there's nothing -- nothing unusual." But...trees. If he doesn't like trees, being in normal woods isn't going to help.

"Let's -- let's sit back down," he suggests. "And not look at them. And, uh, breathe. Deeply."

He's trying, Tim can tell by the strain in his voice that he's trying - trying to work this out, trying to figure out what's going on, but he has no idea, no idea at all, and Tim's terrified he is fucking terrified of what will happen of what is going to happen of what always happens - doesn't it? Doesn't it always happen?

Tim twists away, braces hands on the sill of the open square cut out from the wood that is, for all intents and purposes, this place's window. He surveys the surrounding area raggedly, again and again, just sit back down, Tim, there's nothing there.

Nothing but his uncertainty and his paranoia.

His completely justified paranoia.

"Don't worry about it," he says thickly, shoulders hunching, probably completely unconvincingly, then turns back around. He's not looking at corners. His breathing is - okay, so it's not normal but it's never been normal, and at least he's not hacking up a lung. He rasps out a noise, something meant to convey wry amusement or irony, and sweeps another hand through his hair.

"I'm not panicking," he says, a little too desperately to be meant as a reassurance for Yuri alone. "I'm not."

"Okay," agrees Yuri, because he is really trying to be helpful and saying what he really thinks isn't going to help right now. He really did make this worse; at least the guy was sitting quietly before Yuri came and got him all worked up talking about the trees. "You're not. Would it help if we talked about something else?"

Because he can't just leave Tim here now that he knows someone's off panicking because trees, and he can't stay here without trying to help, and he's rapidly exhausting all his best guesses about how to make this better.

Yeah, subject changes, that's good. Ignore the trees for a minute. Ignore the things in them. Ignore the eyes in the branches, because all those branches have eyes even if they never tell you. Let's talk about Tim's life. Let's not talk about Tim's life. Let's talk about anything else.

"Like what?" he fires back, unsure why the words cut like a challenge when, when no, really, please, he would like to think about anything else, anything else, please.

He's breathing way too rapidly. He's pretty sure it shows. God. God, no.

He should leave. It's pretty obvious he's not wanted here -- unless he is? Tim hasn't told him to leave yet, and Yuri's kind of guessing he wouldn't be shy about saying it if he really wanted Yuri gone. He grasps for something to say when he has no idea if the two of them even have anything in common.

"Are you in Manhattan?" blurts Yuri, because isn't that the topic everyone jumps to when they need to make small talk?

He closes his eyes, trying to just fucking breathe like a normal person because he can at least act fucking normal for Yuri's benefit, can't he? He can do that. He can do that, yeah.

"Yeah." He nods jerkily, eyes still shut. They flare open when he squints at a point past Yuri's shoulder, at the winding little wooden stairway thing leading down here. There's no railing. There's nothing.

It's probably a really long drop.

He forces his gaze to slide back to Yuri. "Yeah. I guess - you too, huh?" No one would ask unless they were.

"For a long time, yeah," says Yuri. Okay. Common ground. He found common ground and they can talk about that instead of talking about trees or all the ways in which Yuri is totally unequipped to help right now. "I haven't seen you around. Did you come through more recently?"

Or is he with ROMAC, is the million dollar question.

"Yeah," says Tim, his eyes still darting and wary, breaking off to scan the walls of the tiny suspended house they're both in. His neck won't stop prickling. That's nothing new. He's freaking this guy out, and for good fucking reason. He's acting fucking weird with next to no explanation other than he doesn't like trees. Sure, he doesn't. But it's less the trees and more their potential, what could be between them.

"Couple weeks ago," he breathes. Gotta keep this moving. Conversation. That's normal. He can do that. "Keep to myself. Don't go out much."

His wrist twitches, involuntary, one hand delving into his pocket in search for the lighter he isn't carrying and, failing that, wrapping fingers around the little orange bottle buried there. Just. Just to be safe.

Yuri nods slowly. Why is he not surprised that Tim doesn't go out much? He shoves his own hands into his pockets in a sympathetic gesture that then feels weird because it's too imitative, and shifts his weight from foot to foot for a moment before he can catch himself at it and stop.

"You have a place to stay?"

"With a friend." The corner of his mouth twitches as he says it. Liar. But there's not really a common word for friend-turned-enemy-turned-friend-turned-relative-ally, or however the hell he chooses to categorize that little relationship, so he settles for something a bit more standard. It's easier.

It's also getting more difficult to lend the conversation any kind of tangible focus, evidenced by the irregular cadence of the words, the consequence of his constantly being forced to redirect his attention back to Yuri and not the looming, noiseless threat of too many trees.

"He's at the Rebel place. I'm - kind of staying under the radar."

This isn't working so great, but it's at least working better than trying to talk about why Tim doesn't like the trees, or about the lighter he refused to talk back, or any of the weird stuff like that. Much safer to discuss the ordinary old Rift.

"Oh?" he says. "I'm, uh, with the rebels. Maybe I know your friend."

Tim utters a tiny, darkly amused snort, relaxing fractionally in the slight release of dry humor.

"Probably not. He doesn't really go out either." Though he's pretty sure no one would forget him, the way he lugs cameras around wherever he goes. He hovers one hand in front of his eye, a loosely cupped vertical arc - a camera in pantomime. "Jay. Hauls a camera around. Films everything." The hand drops. "He's a paranoid bastard, what can I say."

Not to say that Tim isn't. He's just a little better at not broadcasting it, usually. He's been doing a miserable job of it so far here, but his dreams have never built themselves into a forgiving landscape.

"Oh," says Yuri for what feels like the fifteenth time. "No-o. No, I don't know him?" He does sound pretty distinctive; Yuri's pretty sure he would remember someone who always went around pointing a camera at everyone (and hasn't anyone told him to, like, not do that around the base? Maybe he hasn't really been in the base). "Are you guys in the apartments? I'm in the, uh, base. Spend most of my time down there."

Tim's expression shifts, briefly, hardening into something more definitively unsettled. He doesn't want to think about the Base or those - those things down there, those things that were cats without being cats.

"Yeah," he says shortly. "Apartments. I'm just - staying out of the whole political thing. I'm not - I don't - "

He makes a jerking, abortive movement with his chin and glances away. If this guy's at the Base he's probably in full support of these Rebel people. Tim wishes he hadn't given him his name at all. It's safer that way. It's always safer that way. What was he thinking.

"I try to stay out of it," he finishes unhelpfully, shrugging with a too-rigid shoulder. "Much as I can."

"...But you do live in our apartments," clarifies Yuri dubiously, not even realizing until after he says it just how much ownership of the organization he's taking in that statement. Still, though -- if the guy wants to 'stay out of it,' that's okay (he guesses), but it strikes Yuri as distinctly not cool that he'd say that and avoid registering and then take advantage of them anyway.

"It's not even political," he protests, failing to remember that the point of this conversation was to put Tim at his ease, not to suss out his apparent mooching. "We're just trying to help people."

The pronoun use hasn't escaped him. The full power of Tim's uneven wariness sharpens fully, fixing on the man in front of him - who seems friendly and earnest and set in his belief that he must be helping people, he must be, he - he can't not be.

The complete lack of self-awareness about his own naivete. The initial disarming approach. The overwhelming desire to help, to convince Tim that he's trying to help.

Well. It's one hundred percent Jay. It's the exact same fucking tactic, except that won't work on Tim twice.

"Sure," Tim says sharply, dubiously, hand tight around the tiny orange bottle in his pocket that is going to stay in his pocket, well and truly out of sight. "Sure you are. And it's my personal choice to stay out of it."

Yuri's brow darkens and his mouth sets into a hard line. He feels...hurt, really. How can someone act like the Rebels are out to get him when he hasn't even given them a chance? When he's practically stealing from them when all they'd even want in exchange for a place to live is to account for him and make sure he has the things he actually needs instead of leaving him to couch surf?

But Tim is practically panicking over trees, too, and Yuri does his best to rain in the urge to snap back at him. "You're not being fair," he grumbles, not resisting entirely perfectly.

He meets Yuri's stare steadily, more steady and firm and adamant than he's been this entire dream.

He's right. Talking did help ground him. Suddenly he's not quite so preoccupied by the trees anymore. He's more concerned about the million other things wrong with his life, with his entire situation, with the fact that he's just given himself away to someone who might very well draw attention to him in the waking world. That's not what he needs. Not on top of everything else.

Sure handled this interaction well, didn't he? He isn't Jay and he isn't Alex - he should be better at this.

"You don't get what I've dealt with," Tim says flatly. "There are reasons for it, and trust me when I say that it is far," he hesitates, knowing the risk he might be taking with the word choice but he's been more or less backed into a corner at this point and if it'll keep Yuri from mentioning this to anyone once he's awake - "safer," Tim says finally, carefully, eyes dark and meaningful, "this way."

If Tim means to turn Yuri away from informing on him to the Rebels, he is saying all the wrong things right now. Maybe Tim thinks he knows how to handle whatever his problem is by himself, but if it's something that's not safe it kind of strikes Yuri as counterintuitive to have him living in secret among registered people who don't know what his deal might be.

And maybe it's nothing, anyway. He wouldn't be the first rifty to just plain be paranoid.

"Maybe other people have dealt with things you don't get," he points out. He huffs and shakes his head, still cleaving to a sense of duty telling him to stay here and help Tim deal with his...tree...thing, but also trying to decide whether that was a threat just now.

He looks away for a minute, swallowing hard, fighting back the choking sensation of guilt. It's ridiculous. He shouldn't be -

"I get that," Tim answers. "I do. And believe me when I say that I wish -" He forces himself to look the guy in the eyes, straining for some sincerity. He's not a liar. He's not. He's just - he's just trying to not fuck something up for once. For once. Let him deal with this, oh god let him deal with this and not have it - all of it - come back to bite him in the ass.

"It's not a permanent solution," he says quietly, carefully. "I know that. And it's not meant to be. It's just until I can find someplace - better," he finishes vaguely, opening a hand.

That...doesn't really solve the original problem, and it doesn't really reassure Yuri. He's somewhat mollified, though, by Tim's implied promise to eventually stop living the way he has been, even if it doesn't sound like he means to actually come clean. Yuri sighs and rubs his neck. It isn't going to help if he pushes really hard, but he can't help but try.

"Just, you know," he says, "maybe people could help you if you gave them a chance."

He looks to be backing off. That's - good. Hopefully he won't go reporting him to the Base, or whatever it is people aligned with the Rebels do. He doesn't know if that's a thing. He doesn't care. He wishes he hadn't shared as much as he did but he hadn't been thinking, he hadn't been focused on what was important. He'd been too preoccupied over trying to breathe for all the goddamn trees.

In the end, it hadn't really been anything. Just Tim. Stupid, panicking Tim with his dishonesty and his paranoia.

"Yeah," he says darkly. "Haven't heard that one before."

Of course, he's now kind of living with the last guy who tried, repeatedly and unsuccessfully, to help.

Well. Tim's always known he's a fucking hypocrite.

He takes a short breath and holds out his hand, palm flat.

"I'd like my lighter back."

And more weird hostility, okay. Yuri beetles his brow at Tim, more than a little hurt and annoyed that he won't even try to let what worked for Yuri work for him, that he's being so -- so -- standoffish. That he's rapidly changed his mind about the lighter is unsettling, but it is his lighter even if Yuri feels uneasy as he digs in his pocket for it.

"Yeah," he says curtly, putting it in Tim's hand. "Here. Seriously, if you just -- you can look me up, when you're awake." Tim should look him up when he's awake, is what he means.

Great, so now he's pissed him off. Tim's just so good at that, isn't he? He can even pinpoint the exact moment the conversation went south, and that was when it turned personal. People asking questions. Questions about Tim, and Tim's life, and topics he shouldn't be disclosing. He should have gone for the tired lies. Those are always safer.

He shoves the thing back in his pocket without giving it a second look.

"I'll think on it." It just comes so fucking naturally to him, the distant neutrality, dodging the questions. "Right now I think I'm just gonna - yeah."

With an evasive shrug of one shoulder, he ducks out of the weird spherical treehouse and starts navigating the stairs up and away, praying the guy won't follow. Tim's got enough problems without getting on the bad side of his indirect providers.

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stronglikebear - 2015-04-18 21:39 (UTC) - Expand

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