I don't like walking around this old and empty house.

[the_marshal]

WHO| Wyatt and Semi-OTA (Open physically to anyone with him in District 10, with some preset threads for Howard and Max in the comments.)
WHAT| Bb gets with the times.
WHERE| District 10
WHEN| A day or two after arriving in the Districts.
Warnings/Notes| Some mild swearing perhaps? Edit: Two clueless gents flirting over the skype equivalent below. You are warned. Edit edit: It went a bit beyond flirting. Gird yourself.



Wyatt had made a promise to Howard, and he was determined to keep it. After settling in as best as he could in their temporary housing, he dug out his communicator and set about trying to get the thing to work.

At one of the heavy, thick-cut tables in the dining room, he moved his fingers over the keys just as he remembered watching Howard do -- and somehow set off a bell, a shrill alarm that cut through the quiet of the late morning like a knife through warm butter. Quickly, he clapped his hands over it and stabbed another button, managing to silence it out of sheer luck.

Glancing around, he nodded in apology to those at the nearest tables - trying to ignore the heat threatening to curl around the back of his neck - and tried again.

That time he nearly blinded himself.

Wiping the bright flash from his eyes, cursing lowly to himself, he dropped the device on the table and leaned back in his chair in defeat.

Time to consider a re-approach.

Comments

District 10 OTA

[the_marshal]

For Howard

[the_marshal]

After getting some help, Wyatt finally managed to get the damned box to do what he wished.

It took a few minutes for him to get the camera squared up on the whole of his face, but when he was satisfied that Howard would be able to see him, his smiled wryly.

"Think I finally got it right this time. Hopefully ya can see this--" he glanced at something off screen, then over his shoulder toward the window behind him, then back at the camera once more. "I'm here in Ten. Safe an' sound."

His brow furrowed gently. "I hope yer not worryin' yerself too much, Howard. Everythin's gonna be alright."

For Max

[the_marshal]

Wyatt paused a long moment after getting through to Howard, staring down at the little device for several heartbeats. He missed Max. The man's absence was glaring hole after how close he'd been, how closed he'd stayed since they'd found their way back to each other.

But that had been Max's choice, and Wyatt didn't want to take his space from him. Didn't want to push.

...When he finally gave in, it was a few hours later, and he was outside, hoping for some privacy in the chilly afternoon air. Behind him, a storm brewed on the dark horizon as his eyes moved hopefully over the communicator's screen.

[gluteus]

He kept the communicator on him, but he rarely touched it, and hearing it beep at him was unnerving, to say the least. After a moment he fetched it out of his jacket, frowned down at it and somehow managed to turn it on.

"Hello?" he asked the box gruffly.

[the_marshal]

"...Max?"

There was moment's uncertainty before Max came into view, then Wyatt grinned, wide and relieved when that familiar face appeared.

"Afternoon, stranger. District Ten sends its regards."

[gluteus]

Max was in the relative comfort and privacy of his room in district 3, and he visibly relaxed when he saw Wyatt. He sat down on the edge of the bed and shrugged his jacket from his shoulder while he tried to keep the communicator pointed to his face.

"You've arrived safely then. I am relieved to hear it." He switched hands as he shrugged the jacket off the opposite shoulder.

[the_marshal]

"Well, enough," he replied, thinking briefly of his encounter with Sigma - brushing the memory away as quickly as it surfaced.

His breath misted as he spoke, a gentle stream of fog from his mouth and nose, steaming against the camera and screen. He swiped at it with his thumb, striking his face with wet.

"How's things in Three? ...Machines, ain't it?"

Like the communicator he held in hand, if he remembered correctly.

Re: District 10 OTA

[callmecharles]

Orc...or has he was trying to think of himself now "Charles" Had settled into the home and was sinking into a leather sofa by the window watching everyone mill about. There were some friendly questions about his "Condition" Which he politely avoided answering.

Most couldn't even recognize him in the form he was in now.

Re: For Howard

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard shows up on the screen, looking tired but glad to see Wyatt. He hasn't slept much.

"This is public, so everyone can see it." The less they talk about how nervous Howard was, the better. "No private functions on these things."

He grins, though. "How's District Ten?"

[gluteus]

"So I've heard, though I've seen nothing of how anything is made. We are stationed in a city, with the straightest lines I have ever seen." He turned his camera around, clunkily, to show a very very straight street, the view completely uninterrupted even by the buildings lining either side, with the ocean in the distance.

"We seem to be situated next to the sea, though I doubt I would be allowed down to its shores."

He turned the camera back to himself. "And there?"

[the_marshal]

Wyatt didn't. He'd never been particularly close with Orc to begin with, knowing him mostly through their connection with Howard, and honestly hadn't even noticed that the boy made of rocks hadn't been about.

(Even if he'd put his mind to it he'd have simply shrugged and assumed he was off enjoying whatever libations the District had to offer.)

So when he looked up and spotted the unfamiliar face across the way, he merely tipped his head politely in greeting and went back to the project at hand.

[the_marshal]

One of Wyatt's eyebrows shot up, mouth pulling unhappily - though he supposed he really shouldn't be surprised. The Capitol didn't seem to know what a private conversation was in any sense of it.

"It's cold here," he admitted. "Storm's brewin' up an' the escorts are all in a fuss 'bout it gettin' in the way of their big party."

His frown eased by fractions. "But it ain't so bad. It reminds me'a home... more than I thought it would."

[the_marshal]

Wyatt chuckled softly, listening to Max's description of it. Could imagine a city, precise and neat, appealing to man's strict military nature.

"Enjoyin' yerself, General?" he teased gently, smiling into the camera as it turned back to Max's face. "Sorry to report it ain't as fancy as all that here... but I think ya'd like it, given a chance."

He moved, camera bouncing slightly as he rounded the corner he'd tucked himself behind, and turned the communicator out toward the street. It was nearly empty, as the sky began to spit snow, a few hardy souls were hustling down the sidewalks, heads down against the cold. The buildings were mismatched, some wood, some stone, but all sturdy and strong.

A horse was led by, hooves clopping sharply against the street as it and its owner headed back for the barn beside the massive lodge - the biggest building in sight.

"All ranchers here, an' farmers." The camera swung back on Wyatt's face. "I wish ya couldn't seen the country we came through. Open land, as far as the eye could see."

Those rolling plains, not so different. Familiar, despite all the years.

[gluteus]

"I'd rather be there with you," Maximus said, and he meant it, on more than one level. He bent over the little screen, squinting to get a good look at what he was shown, but in honesty it was as foreign to him as this city was. A part of him resigned himself to never know the hills of his old country again.

"We saw some farmland as we went by," Maximus said, feeling winter's chill despite being in an area significantly warmer than Wyatt's. "I've never been on such a vessel - Rome would have conquered the world with such things. I assume that is how the Capitol did so."

[the_marshal]

Wyatt's grin softened, turning fond and warm - despite the chill of the air around him. He touched the screen again, a soft brush of his thumb.

He'd have given just about anything to have Max there with him... but with Howard's warning about the everything he said being public echoing in his ears, he forced himself to choke down the words.

"The trains, ya mean?" he asked instead. "We had 'em in my time. A might different, I'll grant ya--" slower, nosier, the ride nowhere as smooth, "-but it's a change I think I can find myself supportin'."

Bound to be one, he supposed.

"Was it a long trip for ya? Took us most of the day to get here."

[gluteus]

"Yes, the trains," He said, finally remembering the word. "They had them in your time as well?" Maximus said, honestly surprised.

Sometimes he forgot just how far apart their worlds had been.

He nodded to the question. "A full day. We slept on the train. First proper bed I've had since I came here," he added with a slight smirk.

[the_marshal]

Wyatt laughed at that, camera shaking gently as the sound rumbled through him. "'Spose it would be easier on the mighty Victor. Couldn't imagine none of yer tributes darin' to breathe sideways, much less fightin' ya for a bed."

Leaning back against the wall, he brushed a small dusting of snow from his mustache.

"When I was younger, my country joined the seas together by rail. One long, unbroken route of steel, runnin' across the whole country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It wasn't a quick a ride as these that the Capitol has, er even as nice, but it was easier than anythin' that came before." He said knowingly, remembering well the trip his family had taken as a boy, that long, hot, dusty wagon train to the west.

[callmecharles]

Orc caught the hat tipping and nodded back watching Waytt fiddle with his communicator. Orc never really did anything with his but he at least had a basic understanding of it's functions. In fact he drew it out of his pocket now to look at the messages.

Half a dozen from Howard. He really should let Howard know he wasn't dead. But every time he tried to put the words on the screen something was stopping him. He couldn't quite bring himself to say what happened.

Just thinking about it made him sick and he wanted to throw up. The sensation alone was enough to stop him and distract him long enough that he didn't get around to it.

It didn't help that Howard was strange. A changed man from who he was back in the FAYZ. In a way that was better. It meant he was getting more done on his own.

But he was still Howard, and he relied on Wyatt whenever he couldn't rely on Orc.

That inspired Orc, and he got up trundling over slowly offering Wyatt a gruff "Hey..." In greeting, hesitant because it still felt like talking to a grown up when he knew full well that just a week ago people wouldn't have been able to tell he was a teenage kid.

[gluteus]

"Mm, you'd be surprised," Maximus said, thinking of Cuthbert and his pile of blankets.

He listened, though, as Wyatt spoke of home, and he tried to think of Rome with the same power. The ability to travel right from the heart of the empire to the German border in a day, maybe two...?

It was nearly impossible. (And nearly terrifying.)

"If you had told me of such a thing before I had come here, I would have laughed. Now... Now I see just how the might of Rome is dwarfed."

And it saddened him.

[pillowmania]

Of course Katurian stayed in the temporary housing. There was no one to welcome him home to his old District.

He spied Wyatt from across the room. The cowboy. This had been the nickname he assigned to the man who now sat at the wooden dining tables. Not the marshal, not the police officer, not the hero. (Although he did think of him like a hero, a boyish figure from the books had Katurian read when he was just a boy -- and still believed in heroes.) It seemed right that the cowboy was here in District 10, surrounded by the grumbles of distant animals. Did they know that, when they assigned him? Could they have guessed?

He watched him for a long while before approaching, his feet shuffling in the dirt. Without a word, he sat down across from him. It seemed so much easier than asking permission.

"Do you need help, Mr. Earp?"

[the_marshal]

Wyatt peeled his gaze up from the communicator, eyebrows lifting in not a little bit of surprise. (He glanced to the sides quickly, as if expecting this strange young man to be addressing someone who had moved up beside him without his knowing.)

"Mornin'," he drawled slowly. Maybe he'd come to complain about the noise Wyatt had made with the box. Preemptively, he apologized. (The people had proven themselves decent enough thus far, the last thing he wanted was to pick a fight.) "My apologies, if I bothered ya, I'm still wrappin' my head 'round this damned thing." He gestured to the communicator, waving it gently.

[the_marshal]

Wyatt's smile faded, his brow creasing as Max quite, obviously troubled.

They both mourned the homes they had lost, but the bones of Wyatt's were still here. He could still see the shadow of the United States in the shape of Paneam. ...Max didn't even have that.

Wyatt could only imagine what it felt like, and even that he doubted was sufficient.

"The Empire fell," Wyatt murmured, watching his face, strangely textured in the feed, "but Rome lived on, Max. She was still there, in my time, and to tell ya the truth the United States shaped herself after it in a lot'a ways. We even had the same symbol."

He glanced around him, at the modern slice of the old west. Of the old world.

"We never thought they'd let us come out here to the Districts, but it happened. Maybe one day we'll get a chance to go even further."

To see if Rome was still out there, some version of it. Ariadne had believed France still existed, why not Rome?

[the_marshal]

It was something Wyatt had wondered over in his early days. Had the Capitol known somehow? Was there some memory of him that lingered on? So many tributes seemed to know of him, of the things he had done, perhaps his name was still spoken....

But it was a mystery he'd long let slip away. If they had, they'd never acknowledged it and he supposed he should just be grateful that if they'd had to put him anywhere they'd chosen Ten - whatever the reason.

If they hadn't, he wouldn't be here now. Wouldn't have had this chance to see what had become of his home for himself.

He looked up, brow furrowed, when the chair across him pulled out - Katurian's face taking him a moment to place. (He still remembered the tribute. That man with the face like Elias'.)

"Is it that obvious?" he snorted.

[gluteus]

"Mm, one day," Maximus said, with no real urge to continue that particular conversation.

He was not sure he would like to gaze upon the bones of Rome's corpse.

He cleared his throat and forced a smile. "Well. No matter. Tell me, have you had a lavish welcome?"

[the_marshal]

Wyatt frowned as Max's face twisted into some play of a smile, but he wasn't sure how ease his upset. Wasn't certain if apologizing for bringing it up to begin with wouldn't just make it worse.

So he let Max change the subject, shrugging noncommittally at the question.

"Storm's brewin' so I understand that's kept a lot of folks away, but the one's I've met seem decent enough lot. ...One of 'em brought some jerky for us, I saved ya some."