for you and @totally-six !! :D
More character reqs below
Dr fizzs for @dr-fizzovich , Lifering for @haveyouseenthisflower , and Tyler Bombard for @leederpfucker !! These were fun, only reason for no color is because art block is being mean to me :(. Hope ya'll like it!!!
It wasn't even a bad thing, inherently. They—he—had been waiting months to get back home. Or back to Earth, at least. Their own respective Earths. It had just been sudden. Too sudden. Bryce hadn't known what to make of it.
In which Bryce is left waiting in San Fransisco, and the consequences of having to be patient.
inspired by this drawing by @/sodabottlehfjone that i had life three separate ideas for a while back. admittedly this left the scope of my original idea a bit but still.
Also theyre humanizied here for consistency sake btw
2:58 a.m. An alley off 13th and Cabrillo, tucked between a shooting range decorated with little more than sun bleached targets and a diner sporting a crooked, half lit sign. Clear sky overhead. A dumpster half full of garbage and a skinny grey alley cat sniffing around near its base, where a few scraps had slipped through a torn bag and sprinkled the ground like an inverse confetti. No stars, not with the city light. In red and green blinks, though, an airplane crawled across the sky. The faint roar of its distant engines played Foley over the night.
It took one minute for the monotony to break. Kind of. Sixty seconds, the cat investigated a napkin and an empty grape jelly packet. The plane flew further eastward. Then, 2:59 on the dot, to the second, the millisecond even, and Bryce was there. Not there, then there, in an act so devoid of fanfare that, for several seconds afterwards—fifteen, to be exact—neither he nor the world itself seemed to have processed his appearance. Six months of grass stains were hidden only just by the green of his jacket. One hundred and eighty three days worth of wear showed on his pants, his shoes, his face tilted up and frozen mid one—sided—conversation. Longer hair with faded dye dripped down his head and shoulders and around his cheeks. The very first thing he saw, upon returning to Earth, was the plane retreating over the rooftops. Its green lights winked at him. Sixteen seconds after his appearance the wind blew stiff into his hair. Several strands tickled his nose. His mouth shut—clicked, with the tap of his teeth against each other so suddenly—and he took a deep breath in. It came back out heavy, something between a sigh and a growl and a groan.
"That idiot," he said. The cat looked up at him, his words alerting it to his presence for the very first time.
At 2:59 and twenty one seconds, the cat scampered around and away from him down the street. In the following thirty nine seconds the engine whirr faded from the air, and by 3:00 a.m on the dot Bryce was well and truly alone.
There were two ways he took that. On the one hand, he'd been alone a lot over the past six months or so. The plane wasn't massive really, but it was plenty big enough that he could wander far enough in the plug's direction for the silence to swallow him up. On the other, it never struck him as actual 'alone time'. Not like it was in his apartment, or his car, or the whole of Bridgeport, or now, with the smell of garbage starting to reach his nose. On the plane it was just separate. Quiet space. Maybe it was Liam that made it feel that way. Invisible and, if he wanted to be, inaudible above them in Airy's world.
Or was he besides them? Was that how Liam had described it?
At 3:01 a.m, Bryce decided not to sweat the details. He fished around in his pockets instead, pulling out first a blue sticky note and looking it over the same way he checked his phone for the time. It did not tell him the time. It read him a couple phone numbers, a couple names, a couple different handwritings, a couple too many crinkles along the corners from living in his jacket for so long. He stuck it back in his pocket. Next a few dollar bills. Some coins. 16.65 total, lucky him. They all went back in his pocket. Then came a receipt, a torn scrap of cardboard packaging. 'Charger' was the only thing of note written on both of them. With purpose Bryce tucked them away. By 3:03 a.m he had taken a full, meticulous stock of his pockets. He wasn't expecting to find his phone, having lost it multiverse jumping months back, but the lack of it still disappointed him. Even if he wasn't sure what messages he would've been coming back to.
A car drove past the alley. Headlights cast out around him, the LED kind that were brighter than the sun, and peeled away just as quickly without ever quite reaching him. Just an inch or two too far. The car in question had been red, he thought, and small.
3:04 a.m, he realized he could see the reflection of the sign next door on the windows across the street. He couldn't tell what the buildings were—shops, restaurants, apartments. Whatever it was, the lights inside were dark. From the distance, Bryce couldn't see his reflection.
3:05 a.m, he resisted the urge to pace. It was tempting, but he bit it back. He turned a pocket nickel in his fingers instead.
3:06 a.m, someone walked by. Tall, but not thin, with hair up in a bun. He guessed it was blonde, or white.
3:09 a.m, Bryce replayed their last interaction. 'Stop' wasn't what he'd meant to say, but everyone had vanished, one by one, and shouting Liam's name had hardly seemed to work. He'd given them no warning. Bryce had been telling Amelia a story. Then, Amelia was gone. Subway followed. Then Charlotte. Atom.
Quiet. A slight shuffle in the air. "Did you—"
"Yeah. Yeah, I did"
It wasn't even a bad thing, inherently. They—he—had been waiting months to get back home. Or back to Earth, at least. Their own respective Earths. It had just been sudden. Too sudden. Bryce hadn't known what to make of it.
"are you gonna... can you send yourself back?"
Pause. "Maybe. Probably."
2:59 a.m. Keyboard clacking.
"You've gotta go back"
Less a pause, more a breath. "I—"
"Go home , Liam."
3:10 a.m, Liam was never good at listening to him, not in Bridgeport and not now. Bryce didn't know what he was waiting for.
3:11 a.m, he considered leaving the alley.
3:11 a.m and one second.
3:11 a.m and two seconds.
3:11 a.m and four seconds.
3:11 a.m and eight seconds.
3:11 a.m and sixteen seconds.
3:11 a.m and twenty-one seconds.
3:11 a.m and twenty-two seconds, on the dot. To the millisecond, even. And Liam was there. Bryce was no longer alone.
They stared at each other. Liam clutched the strap of his backpack.
"Sorry," Liam said, simply. Another car passed, this one blue. Bryce could make out a baseline thumping through it's doors. diner—scent wafted above the garbage, slightly. The tense energy wound up in his gut lessened, tired.
3:11 a.m and fifty-nine seconds. "Come on," Bryce walked around a proper reply, "let's eat."
* * *
The diner itself was fine. Small. A little dimly lit. Empty save for one guy in a worn-out suit jacket slowly chewing on a hot dog while watching a lets play on his phone. A counter with some assorted old barstools and booths that ran along the walls. Glancing at the bored server behind the counter—short and older with an abstract tattoo running along their neck—they sat at a booth beside a window. From this angle, Bryce could spot the moon hanging over them. Yellowed and crescent thin.
He wasn't all that hungry, honestly. He wasn't sure why he'd brought them here, beyond the promise of coffee that would chase away the sleepiness hanging over him. Regardless, he traded away the majority of his 16.65 in pocket money and contemplated swiping a bite or two of Liam's waffle—lightly syruped, and unbuttered—while waiting for his coffee—sweetened, but without milk—to cool, if only to keep hunger from catching up to him. He knew it would, sooner or later.
Bryce set his chin on the table, slowly but surely giving in to sleep. They hadn't said much since they'd walked in, and it was the quiet between them that kept him from slipping under completely. He shut his eyes.
Liam, moments later, was the first to break that quiet.
"You alright?" he asked.
"Tired," Bryce replied, halfway to a mumble. Liam hummed. There was music playing in the diner, a dad-rock sounding band Bryce didn't know the name of, just loud enough to hear and acknowledge before it faded to the back of his awareness. If he bothered to listen closer, he could hear the sound of people shuffling around in the kitchen. Above all that, though, came the sound of ceramics across laminate. Bryce pried his eyes open. The waffle sat in front of his nose. Glancing up, he found Liam looking back. A scrap of waffle was pierced on his fork. He glanced between it, the plate, Bryce. Bryce, for his part, flicked his eyes towards his still steaming mug, then back to Liam. Liam bit off his waffle scrap and gestured with his fork. Bryce scoffed a bit. Once again, Liam was never particularly good at listening to him. Still though, he sat up and snatched his fork from its resting place on the table, his pinkie brushing the warm mug in the process.
"You never know when to quit," Bryce told him.
Liam held out his knife. "It's been six months"
"So?" Bryce took it, "plus, they burned it"
True to his word, the left side of the waffle was overdone. Less of a golden shade of brown and more of a dark, dark one.
"So?" Liam returned. Bryce didn't argue with him. Instead, He focused on cutting up one of the better looking sections he'd been offered. It gave fairly easily under the knife, soft and springy. He came away with a single square, a tiny puddle of syrup pooled within it. Sticky threads followed it some ways from the plate as he lifted it. The song faded out, shifting from electric guitars to acoustic, different in tone but not inherently more mellow. The waffle piece sat patiently on his fork. Bryce did not bite it.
"What took you so long?" he asked. Liam, once again, paused. "to get here,"
A singer began, voice low. Liam looked just left of Bryce, like he was looking at his ear instead, or the counter behind them.
"I had to get Texty," he began, patting his backpack, "for one"
"That took ten minutes?"
"It could've"
Quiet seeped back over them. Bryce leveled him, disbelieving, but Liam still didn't meet his eye. Bryce dipped his piece in a thin syrup streak on the plate. He took his time, dragging it through, gathering up a heap of what was most likely artificial maple onto his piece. With one final glance at Liam that, once again, missed him, he bit into it. Sweetness filled his mouth, sweetness and the taste of maple. He couldn't remember maple flavour enough to speak to the authenticity of it—even before everything, maple syrup had never exactly been a frequent part of his diet. The syrup hadn't soaked the waffle completely. It was springy, relatively soft, thankfully devoid of burnt flavour. All told, it broke over him like a wave. He still wasn't hungry, but his body knew he hadn't eaten in months. The dissonance shook up his senses as he swallowed, foreign, familiar, a good reminder that he was on Earth again, even if he wasn't home, all at once. It all must've shown on his face, because he found Liam looking at him again, slightly puzzled.
"God, that's weird," Bryce summed up, "how did you put up with eating again, the first time?"
Liam shrugged, "I don't know. I guess I was so focused on getting to Bridgeport I just didn't think about how long it'd been." He pierced another piece with his fork, glancing out the window. "Honestly, seeing the sunrise again threw me off more than anything"
Bryce followed his gaze. It wasn't even 4 a.m; the sun wasn't rising yet. The moon hadn't moved much. It still watched them from the sky. Another plane was slowly making its way across the sky, though. Blinking, red and green. The door swung open, shut. Less than three seconds later the suited man walked past their window, leaving them the only patrons inside.
"I guess I can see that," Bryce said. They watched the city sleep a little longer.
A minute passed in this quiet.
Then another.
And another.
Then, as Bryce's eyes began to droop again—
"You told me to go home," Liam said, suddenly. Bryce looked at him, but caught the fading green of his hair rather than his eyes once again.
"Yeah?"
"You said I had to go home"
"Yeah, what's your point?"
"Why?"
Bryce blinked.
"Why?" he parroted.
Liam turned to him. "Why?"
Bryce shifted, leaning away from the window to look at him fully.
"What kind of question is that?"
Liam, following his lead, turned away from the window as well. He shrugged.
"It was over," Bryce said, "you stopped Airy, you sent us home, you didn't need to be there anymore." He grabbed his coffee, which had finally cooled enough to drink. Sipping it, he found it much less sweet and much more burnt than the waffle had been. Like he was sipping from the same pot they'd prepped the morning before—a likely bet, if he was to guess. At the very least he could appreciate its warmth.
He watched Liam's expression shift, and somewhere along the line he began fidgeting with a stained blue sleeve. Setting his mug down, Bryce nudged the half eaten, half forgotten plate into Liam's hands.
"You needed to go home," He said, "That's it. End of story." Bryce tried to keep his voice firm, certain, as though his thoughts on the matter began and ended here. Consciously, he didn't think of 2:59 a.m, how he'd felt when he'd opened his mouth. The coulds and woulds and formless opinions he had on Liam's fate. Either way, he'd known and still knew now, Bryce wouldn't have been able to do anything about it, not really. So instead, he picked up his fork. It left a sticky spot on the table where he'd left it.
Liam looked at him. His lips were pressed thin and his look measured. Almost like he didn't believe him, or had more to share. But whatever it was stayed in his head.
Without another word, he grabbed his fork and began, again, to eat.
