PRP - Its not stalking (Rodney + Lawr)

[Baneful]

It wasn't really stalking, not in the same way he couldn't help but pursue America, but since he'd run off into the jungle Lawrence had been following Rodney now and then as he went on his way about the island, already aware of his routines more or less from living with him. Melvin he couldn't afford to risk, the other man too prone to aggressive questioning and potentially capture tactics but Rodney was different, Rodney was calm and passive.

It was the bag which had prompted him to come and wait for the man on his morning jog. It had had so many blessedly required things, including toothpaste which he had badly, badly wanted since finding himself in his state of self-ostracism.

Leaning against a tree he watched the sky overhead, knowing it was around the time when he would show and hoping that today wasn't a day where he had some kind of duty or mission to attend. He hadn't slept much at all that night, constantly jarred awake by sounds and the lingering thought that there were shadowlings nearby. On previous nights he'd had to fight a few of the things so they were out there and a danger which was not about to go away even as he strength slowly did.

He was still dressed in the loose overalls, scruffy looking but like a man who was still paddling somewhere around the surface of clean through sheer effort. He looked older than his age and was lapsing back into the shallow gauntness of when they'd first addressed his problems. Everything about him frankly looked tired other than his still bright blue eyes.

 

[Toshihiko Two]

Rodney didn't jog, before he came to the island. He had done a lot of hauling, first working for the Tennessee Marble Company, and then later for Jesse's exhibitions. He liked walks, and went on ghost tours and urban exploration adventures armed with a camera.

Seven was the one who liked to run. The gargoyle named strange, alien rock types as they went, like listing old friends. Rodney was only sorry that his partner had lost their legs. He didn't mind lending his. At first it had been unbearable, and he'd been short of breath after the first couple laps. But it got easier with time, and now they both enjoyed the time together. He would have preferred additional company (he never much cared for being alone), but Seven was a welcome (if gruff) friend. He chatted to them softly through the circuit. He usually didn't go down all the way to the beach, since it was hard on the knees, and stayed closer to campus.

He was surprised to see a lean figure waiting along the edge of the path.

Rodney shook himself out of the haze of momentum, slowing and catching his breath. He rested his hands on his knees.

"Hi," was all he said, although worry was written on his features.  

[Baneful]

Lawrence glanced up at Rodney's approach and something resembling a smile tugged at the edge of his expression as the other man greeted him. He wasn't too happy about presenting such an unpleasant appearance to Rodney who was normally so appreciative of beauty, it felt like a slight and he was rather apologetic about it.

"Hello." he said. "Wanted to thank you for the bag."

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"You're...welcome." Rodney unfastened the water bottle from his waist and took a few sips, catching his breath.

"I didn't know how much you'd packed, so..."

There were a lot of questions and concerns. Melvin had been frantic. He'd been cooking, he could do that at least, but how tired Melvin was getting of beans and alfalfa sprouts, he wasn't sure. Lawrence looked haggard and exhausted. But there were only a few questions that were the most present.

"Are you okay?"  

[Baneful]

"Not much, unfortunately." Lawr replied. "I was not thinking particularly clearly at the time. I just needed to get away." He sighed shallowly.

At the question from Rodney the first instinct was to lie, an instinct which he suppressed solely because he tried not to lie to the other man out of a sense of personal pride to himself. "I am getting by, I am not dead." as if this was suitable to being okay.

"I just couldn't do it Rodney." he said. "I got on the scales and I was 101 and me, that other me. The me who was a vet and a father and a husband. That was me. I can't go backwards."

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"Trying love again, you mean?" Rodney asked quietly. Lawrence already was a father, and he helped the sick and injured in the infirmary. He thought it might be the last one, the husband, which had gone so badly before and that he was afraid of now. But it wasn't just romantic love. It was...love in a broader sense. Each of them, charity, friendship, a lifestyle.  

[Baneful]

Rodney got a long despairing look for his question. The subject of love was one that they had discussed many many times and which he still didn't understand at all. When Rodney referred to love he seemed to refer to something separate from the intangible and impossible to grasp emotion which Lawrence knew he had never experienced in the same way everyone else did. It was supposed to be something which happened like arousal without much warning or control, or so he'd heard. It happened to people in his experience when you were nice to them for a while, but even when people were pleasant to him he didn't feel the same way. Rodney didn't buy this, he talked about love as an act, as a commitment which was made daily in actions and support. It distressed Lawrence because by that very definition he had been doing everything he could to love Maja and yet had still failed. Rodney had to be wrong, it had to be inexperience talking more than anything else, because it didn't work.

"Not quite." he said. "It is..complex." he rubbed his cheek with his hand, hating to discuss the arrangement of his mind but figuring that he owed Rodney it. "If I look a certain way, if I am dressed a certain way sometimes it becomes too easy to ...method act. To the point I almost end up trapped. Jan is a...less prominent role?" he tried couching it in acting terms. "Now. So it means if I look like a previous role, i.e the me who was crafted specifically for a normal human life I will end up trapped there. I would be forced into all the weaknesses that I experienced then, all the attempts to simulate grief and hurt and yes, perhaps love also."

He gestured with his hand in the direction of the facility in the distance. "It is no use here. I will die. I cannot put that costume back on."

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"There's a saying, 'You can't go home again'. It means once you leave a place, you and the place both change. None of us can go back. Only forward. It wouldn't be the same, even if you wanted to be. This is a different place. And you're a different person. I'm vulnerable too. And afraid. But....still, I think it's worthwhile."  

[Baneful]

Lawrence didn't look entirely convinced but there was some grain of truth to what Rodney had to say. He had come to the island as Jan and over time had found that things were reversed here, a persona designed around being considered a "young man" who was endearingly eccentric but who had good manners and charisma did not work at all on an island where so many individuals were far far younger than he was and who found eccentricity ridiculous rather than anything else. The persona's lack of usefulness had eroded and changed the very nature of the thing and had become something else.

Perhaps, if given half a chance, the same might actually happen to that old persona, it would just be a very uncomfortable teething process doing so.

"I could try." he said hesitantly. "I could permit it to happen, but it might end up killing me or getting me killed."

<> Butch snarled <>

He ignored this, though it was a valid comment. "And everyone on the island will simply think it is me putting on an act, they will attempt to "unmask" me. It will be awful I do not doubt it. You might not even like what I become, it won't be meant to be what you want. Melvin might dislike it too. I confess I don't know what will happen, it is why I did not want to let it."

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"Everyone dies," Rodney returned quietly. "We both will, one day. What we get to choose is how we live. If you feel like it's too dangerous, you can try something else. But you don't have to be afraid to walk a different path. I've...enjoyed getting to know you. And Valerie, and Chantelle. And I'll look forward to meeting that person, too."  

[Baneful]

Rodney got a very weary and resigned sigh. "I am not afraid of danger." he said. "I just prefer to avoid humiliation. But if you are sure." he shook his head. "They don't have a different name. It's just me, how I was when I didn't try to be what other people wanted quite in the same way I do now. Dr Lawrence Sandviken Weiman " and he said the name as if it was the title of some fallen and disgraced figure in an epic poem.

"I can do it, however, if you think that is the path I should be taking, if you think it will be different somehow." Butch yammered desperate encouragement in his thoughts, pushing him and pushing him in the direction of not starving to death over something he didn't understand.

"I get a temper when I am not hungry also." he said. "There is nothing to distract, you understand." But it seemed that he had made a decision of sorts. "If you do not mind me interrupting your jog, we should go retrieve your bag." He took a slightly shaky breath. "And get lunch."

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"When you're not sick, you mean," Rodney said. It was easier to deaden impulses and temper when you didn't have the energy. "No, that's okay. I didn't have too much further to go." He could use the walk to cool down.

He smiled a little at lunch.

"Okay. Well," he continued softly, "it's nice to meet you, Lawrence."
 

[Baneful]

Lawrence nodded. "Yes." he conceded, though to him it felt less like being ill and more like having some toxic and invasive shard of humanity deadened into harmlessness. "When I'm not sick."

Rodney's introduction got a smile and a genuine look of amusement, something very definitely seeming to soften in Lawr's manner, less severe, less tightly drawn. "It means a lot that you are all right with this." And his accent seemed different somehow, less flat and with more genuine inflection and just a bit of a repressed Manchester twang as he gestured at himself. "Other people are going to find it weeeird I just know it."

He shook his head as he turned and headed back into the jungle, leading the way to his makeshift little camp where he had stored some of his things just inside a cave by the sea.

Picking up the bag which had his good clothes stowed in it he handed it to Rodney, not asking him to carry it but expecting the help as he turned back to retrieve his mission cloak. "It is horrible sleeping out here." he said with a shiver. "I would not recommend it."

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"You don't like camping?" Rodney asked with a small smile, accepting the bag. Lawrence was capable of it, but he didn't think he really liked roughing it. Rodney didn't mind, but it started to wear on you after a few months. Cold, wet basements. Ancient mattresses. Canned vegetables. The cave wasn't far off, although it must have been even damper.

"I'll be...glad to have you back at the apartment." Melvin would be too.

They were way off grid now, out of the sights of cameras. Remote.

"Did you...run into anything? Out here?"  

[Baneful]

"Hahah. That obvious eh?" he said. "I'm not much of a fan. My dad liked it though, he used to drag all four of us to the Lake District sometimes, sometimes in a tent sometimes in a caravan." he looked into the distance before shaking his head. "It was certainly something. I prefer running water and amenities, but I did like some of the social things." he folded the cloak over his arm. "Campfire stories and animals were the parts I liked, fishing was fun. I did not like swimming." And he still didn't. "My brothers used to drag me to the lake, it was less than enjoyable."

Rodney got a proper smile for the compliment. "You just want someone back to cook your dinners." but his tone was obvious he was joking.

"And it was mostly shadowlings out here, had to fight a few, nothing bigger, though you hear strange things coming from towns sometimes."