[accidental visual | location: twelfth floor] trust our deepest secrets to the artificial lake

[honoraryhobo.livejournal.com]

The sun's scrambled high into the sky like a sure-footed kid climbing a tree—it's the itch under his collar and the sweat on his palms. He raises the hoe and swings it down into dry earth, sending up a puff of dust. There's always one weed left. Sun's baleful glare on his back, he drives the blade in again. He hears himself grunt (it sounds more like a squeal, like he's gonna cry) as if from far away.

He must close his eyes because the next thing he knows his hands are empty—slick with sweat and streaked with dirt but empty. He wipes them on his pants and looks up.

His eyes go wide. His arms prickle with goosebumps; he hugs himself against the sudden cold. He takes a step back, then another—it's a white room with a bed and the covers are rumpled. Maybe he should see if they're warm but he takes another step back and stumbles over a bottle. A gasp snags on something before it can escape his throat. He freezes, goes rigid. Listens with all his might.

The tablet switches on to show a dark-haired boy in clothes—a grimy shirt, suspenders, brown pants—that are worn but not ratty stooping to carefully right a whisky bottle.

Comments

[visual]

[honoraryhobo.livejournal.com]

He shakes his head. “No.” He should keep moving, and a part of him—the part that senses the weight of someone's gaze on him, that pricks up the hair on the back of his neck—is urging him onto the next room, but he looks questioningly at the man. “What's it called?”

[visual]

[stepintoshadows.livejournal.com]

"A treadmill," he responds, without inflection, without any connection to the word itself other than that needed to actually relate it. "You walk on it while it stays in place. The belt rolls as you walk; you keep pace." A ridiculous piece of equipment as far as he's concerned; if you want to walk, then walk, there's no need to resort to a machine to regulate it for you.

He falls silent for a few long moments, glancing around the room the best he can and then looking around the greenhouse. It's empty, silent, and there seems to be no real cause for him to remain where he is. Glancing back at the boy, he speaks again, suddenly and without preamble.

"You shouldn't be wandering on your own. Can accompany if there's no-one."

The idea makes him uncomfortable, of course, since he never knows what he's supposed to do around kids, but the idea that the boy is on his own in the large building with all the things and people lurking in it sits even less easily with him. He's willing to exchange one comfort for another, and he could use the change of scenery anyway.