singillatim | Part One: The Cabin

Who: Arthur Lester and others
What: Adjusting to life and vision
When: Late August/Early Sept
Where: Largely Milton generally

Content Warnings: Catch-all warning for Malevolent content (Lovecraftian horror et al) and spoilers through S5

Getting by on getting by (Early on)

It took Arthur a few days for it to really sink in.

It was one thing to know that John wasn't there, that he had his vision back, his arm and leg and was expected to just. Learn how to survive all over again, in a new town in a new world in an environment he had only ever associated with death and hardship, not least of all his own.

It was another entirely to make peace with the fact: to finish smashing the mirrors in his claimed cabin and screaming for Kayne until his voice went hoarse. Either the god wasn't listening or couldn't hear him, and Arthur wasn't sure which was worse.

This too shall pass. And if it didn't, then he'd fucking well learn to live with it. Just like everything else.

The house next to his had been half demolished by something in the past, which left him with plenty of lumber to wade through the ruins and collect, ripping it loose with his gloved hands if he has to, and board over the bottom storey windows of his own cabin. And an empty house across the street provided blankets aplenty to throw over his shoulders, and haul awkwardly back to cut to shreds and insulate the windows inside.

(It also gave him a quite stellar view of the community centre, so. Something to stare at and make notes on, memorise the silhouettes when he needed a break.

Anything but thinking.)

Make Yourself Seen (September)

After that, he hasn't got much excuse to avoid people.

He'd met a few people already, but this time he's rugged up securely in scavenged clothes, hiding his malnourished frame. Not much to be done about the rough sand scars across his right temple, but at least he could hide his ruined ear beneath a knit hat and pray no-one asked much further.

So he starts actively hanging around. Exploring Milton properly. There's plenty of people to meet, it seems like, even if all he does is loiter around the message board. He does eventually pin something there, nondescript and no-nonsense about it, before he walks away.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He doesn't mind the staring as much as he's accepted it's inevitable, so the urge to shove Hickey is allowed to pass unanswered.

Hickey himself just gets a dry look.

"A friend. I don't know if he's here, but I figure if he is then there's a message he'll understand, so he knows I am too."

"Yeah, if you're looking for someone, it's better to put their full name?" Just saying. It's obvious as hell to Hickey. Just putting down initials makes him think that Lester's trying to hide something—probably the full name of JD? What, is this guy a murderer or something? Why would he hide the full name?

It's curious. And Hickey kind of wants answers.

"I know a JD myself. John Diggle, ship's cook. It's probably not your JD, but how'm I supposed to know that if I'm just looking at the note?"

"If it's not for him, then it won't make sense and so it won't matter," he points our flatly. "Definitely not my John."

And since it's half-out anyway, and he can practically feel Hickey ready to pounce on that opening, he just rolls his eyes. "It's John Doe."

"That wasn't so hard," Hickey sasses. "Anyway, course it matters. If I knew your John Doe then I could tell you if he's here, he's not here, or he was here and he died—that is an option, you know," he muses.

After all, it's not like the survival rate of Interlopers is that great. The majority live, yeah. But there's a large number who die or simply vanish from the group (which Hickey is pretty sure is also dying, just without a body).

"Regrettably, John Doe is a far more common name than you might expect."

Easier than explaining to the man that it was the name for a nameless man. And let's not even start on how John got the name to begin with.

"Plus, I, er." He grimaces slightly as he looks back at his notice. "I couldn't tell you what he looks like, regardless. I've never seen him - we spent our whole time together with me blind."

And with the scars he's got, the one on his temple even threatening to take his eye with it, it's a pretty feasible explanation even for the mundane version.

Wait.

What?

Hickey frowns, looking at Arthur, meeting his eyes, staring him down like a creep as he points out, "How the fuck does someone go from 'blind' to 'not blind'?"

Arthur meets his gaze, even and unimpressed - and on closer inspection, what might have passed as hazel eyes at a glance are actually dark brown, with flecks of painterly, unnatural yellow.

"The same way we all get kidnapped to Canada by a damn aurora. I wasn't expecting that myself, if it helps."

"So you have no idea," Hickey points out. The same way we all got to Canada, nobody knows how they got to Canada. So Arthur's got no idea how he regained his eyesight.

That's aggravating.

"Do you at least have any idea of where to start looking?"

He was more thinking divine intervention, whether he liked it or not but if Hickey wants to dismiss that, he'll let him have the easy out.

"For John? No. As you said, he might not be here, or he might have been here and be dead already." And as much as he dreads the thought, he can't afford not to be realistic about it. "And with what calling someone John Doe implies, there's no point simply asking for that name, I'd sound like an idiot."

"Mate, you really are new if you think you'd sound like an idiot asking about a name that half of our number wouldn't recognize the significance behind."

Hickey does, of course. John Doe, that's what you call a corpse. But someone like Ruby, Randvi, the various Russians...they'd probably think that it's just a name, nothing more.

"Word of advice from someone who's been here close to a year? Leave all your preconceived notions behind you. Even as something as basic as morality, as a law that you think everyone should know? Forget it. If you're not meeting this place with a sense of openness, it'll snap you in half."

Part One: The Cabin

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