silentspringlogs | Part Four: The Encounter

Who: Arthur Lester and PEOPLE
When: April/May catch-all
Where: All over Sweetwater!
Open/Closed: OPEN
Applicable Warnings: Discussion of torture and missing persons, general malaise and paranoia.

Solo
It's been... difficult in a way Arthur can't quite elaborate on.

Or, well. He can. It fucking sucks. But it's something he doesn't, because he doesn't want anyone pitying him more than he already has to fucking deal with. Because he knows (feels incredibly strongly) that everyone already sees him as useless - or worse, helpless. And he can fucking take care of himself, he managed it before Parker decided to hitch his cart onto this dead fucking horse.

Washing and drying his clothes, he can manage: he and Helly had to learn how to use the machines together to begin with. Ironing, he can't - he's not even going to pretend he won't burn himself, or set something on fire somehow.

Sorting is right out. So the meticulously matched suits of months past are gone completely; Arthur's new look, as May stretches on, are completely mismatched. At least to some degree his suits are still fine; all of his suit colours work together, so instead he just looks visibly rumpled, his tie is slightly but visibly uneven - at least he can shave and style his hair alone, but it's a rather disparate and unbecoming image, especially with the whispers he keeps leaving in his wake, about being constantly arrested and kidnapping that poor driver and maybe he's faking that he's blind--

It's difficult to keep up a foul mood all month, but by God is this place making him want to try. At least the other Book Club members (or whatever the fuck they're calling themselves) at least know that he's still up for a conversation if they find him in the diner, or the library trying to keep up studying Braille. Or even just on the street, having finally mastered his cane by sheer brute force.

With John

...and then he's not alone.

Because there's a teenager with him pretty much constantly from then on. A golden-haired youth with brown eyes that hangs out nearly exclusively on his left side, talking incessantly. It's not like it's a one-sided discussion, Arthur is clearly engaged and listening, replying even, but most of the time it's just the teenager talking at him about - pretty much everything, but a casual listener will definitely notice that it's mostly about the things around them, describing what he's seeing for Arthur.

And it's not subtle how John is staring down anyone who tries approaching them, to the point of glaring when people get too close, but there's the definite impression that if anyone wants to talk to Arthur in private - yeah, that's not happening. The child is coming too.

Threaded | Flat

He didn't know at the time, but it's easy enough to figure out once Arthur starts showing up sporadically around town with his usually immaculate sense of time period-appropriate style slowly going out the window, that there might be some trouble in paradise. Bucky didn't exactly snoop, per se, but he's more or less confirmed that Arthur is now flying solo, blind, and he's pretty sure that wasn't the case before even though he never really got to know Helly all that well.

Didn't think that the town would have saddled him with a kid though. That's new.

Bucky shows up at Arthur's doorstep, bringing a bag with a big foil tray of enough lasagna to last the both of them a week but under the guise of having unintentionally missed book club and looking to catch up on what he might have missed out on. He can't knock with his hand full so he has to kick gently at the door repeatedly to give Arthur some auditory cues.

"Uh. It's me, Bucky." He's not used to having to announce his arrival but even an old dog can learn a new trick or two if he's given enough patience and training.

One could suspect the Barnes household of coordinating, when Chell turns up knocking at Arthur's door. (One would be wrong. Coordination would require way more talking than either of them generally do at home. The Barnes house is a quiet one.)

The fact that she shows up empty-handed, aside from her notebook and purse, tends to suggest she's here with some kind of business in mind, though, rather than as a second round of food drop-off. She knocks on the door -- tok-tok-tok, tok-tok-tok -- and waits on the stoop, eyeing the street for passers-by.

Wrench, too, is dealing with a sudden but uneasy transition into the life of Sweetwater bachelorhood. The evidence may not be reflected in his appearance, but it's certainly transformed the home he used to share with Teddy. The portraits have taken on a strange new look, and all evidence of the person this town once called his wife has been erased from those frames. Where there were once photographs of Wrench and Teddy laughing and gazing into each others' eyes, now his is the only face that remains. It's like this town has seen fit to erase Teddy from its collective memory entirely.

So why are some people able to leave when they can't even get close enough to the border to see what's behind? It's the question -- one of the questions -- that's been plaguing Wrench since his unfortunate encounter with the whole of Sweetwater's police force. He's been trying to keep his head about him and maintain some semblance of routine, but it's getting increasingly difficult now that he's been dragged into the midst of a mystery he can't understand. So when he sees Arthur out in public, he doesn't think. He doesn't even check their surroundings to see who else might notice them. Wrench just walks up to the man and gives his arm their agreed-upon greeting squeeze. Then, into Arthur's free palm:

Healed OK?

with or without John, don't mind either way

House call!

no subject