number22 | (no subject)

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yona

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Lately he's been receiving fewer and fewer calls to come work for Todd Chad and if Philip were the type to worry, this would be about the time he started. There's no reason for them to stop calling, he hasn't done anything with any of the information he has about the sad eyed pop star and he has no intention of doing so, not as long as they continue to pay him well. Another man in his position would have sold something by now, some behind the scenes photos or some kind of information to turn the public against him and Philip hasn't done anything like that.

But they seem suspicious lately. As if he might know something he shouldn't, which he really doesn't. The USB stick they'd had him retrieve had been destroyed and he hadn't bothered looking at it beforehand, because the money had been good.

For now, though, the money continues to be good when they do call him and Philip has no intention of letting that go to waste. The night is relatively young and he has no other plans, so he moves from one bar to another, trying to find the right place to go, the place he wants to be. He hasn't settled on anything just yet and in Darrow, he may be stuck here, but at least there are a good number of options to keep him busy.

The music in the club he's in now is just a touch too loud and he's considering leaving as he finishes his drink, all the while wishing he could smoke inside.

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Most nights, she goes out. Most nights, she wanders. To Yona, it never really makes much difference where she might wind up. One bar or club is as good as another, though she tends to gravitate to the ones that are dark and crowded. A funny thing, really, when that's how she spent so much of her life, but it's different like this, with the haze of alcohol and whatever else she's done that night, the pulse of the music thrumming in her veins, people seeming to move as one. The train, she knows now, was like being trapped. This is just freeing.

At the bar, she orders herself another drink, something fruity and sweet but deceptively strong, then turns to the man sitting nearby with a smile, warm as if they're old friends, though she doesn't think she's ever seen him before. "Hi."

"Hello," he answers with a smile that's equally as warm, though he's certain he's never seen her before. She's slight and young, but she has the sort of face and penetrating gaze he's certain he would remember if they'd run into each other before now, the sort of vivaciousness that a good portion of the world truly seems to lack. And young isn't the sort of thing that frightens him off an introduction either, not when she's old enough to have gotten into the bar.

He appreciates someone who can just begin a conversation with an utter stranger, too. So few people seem capable of that these days.

"Nice night?" he asks. She seems as if she's having a good time.

"Mmhmm," Yona replies without hesitation, nodding in easy agreement. One night's as good as any other, and she doesn't mind the tendency they have to blend one into another. If anything, there's a familiarity in that, one of the few reminders of the train that she actually likes. There wasn't much sense in keeping track of time then, and she was high more often than not anyway. Here, the substances vary — she drinks more than anything else, still lacking a real substitute for kronole, though she'll take whatever she can get — but the effect is largely the same, and the places she can go make the buzz even better. "I like it here. You?"

"The club or Darrow?" he asks, although he supposes it doesn't matter much, because the answer for him remains the same. There are plenty of people who don't like this city and he understands their reasons well enough, but he has his own for feeling content enough here. It's not perfect, he would prefer to be able to travel, at least a little, but it's preferable to death and so that in itself is all he really needs.

"Yes," he answers. "No matter which one you're asking about. I do like it here."

Perhaps the music is too loud for his tastes, but now she's here and there's nothing he likes more than meeting a new and interesting person. There's no telling what use they might become.

"The club," Yona confirms, though she doesn't mind thinking about it in those other terms, too. She's been taken with Darrow since the first day she stepped off one train and found another behind her, felt warm sunlight on her skin, breathed in fresh air. Maybe some of it isn't as new, as novel, as it once was, but she'll never stop loving this place. She thinks it's nice to find someone who'll so readily agree with that, when most people who've shown up here from somewhere else seem to harbor reservations at best. "But Darrow, too. It's always interesting here."

Interesting is the best word to describe this place, he's thought that since the start, and hearing her say it now makes Philip smile. So many people look upon it as a second chance and he supposes he does as well, but that's not the extent of the place. It's unusual and complex and interesting.

"I think so, too," he tells her, then shifts and offers her his hand. "I'm Philip."

And part of why it's so interesting is down to all the people he meets. While he'd certainly met interesting people before this place, Darrow offers things his time and his home never could.

"I'm Yona," she replies, offering him a smile as she shakes his offered hand. This in itself is one of the things she likes so much about the city — there are always new people to meet, new things to learn. She'd spent her life in a train car, surrounded by the same few people. She may have liked them, mostly because there hadn't been much of a choice in that regard, but she'd never realized just how big the world could be, just how many others there could be to meet. "It's nice to meet you, Philip."

"And you," he answers. "Do you smoke?"

It's not a question he asks everyone, but he's about ready to head out for a cigarette and while there are people he'd be willing to leave, Yona is new and she's interesting and he'd rather she come outside with him.

If she's willing, anyway. There are plenty of people in Darrow who don't smoke or who find it utterly repulsive, though Philip hasn't quite adjusted to that mentality. It's so different from what he's used to.

"I do," Yona says easily, nodding. She smokes any number of things, in fact, not exactly discriminate about the substances she consumes, but she assumes he means cigarettes, and that's about the simplest response there is, short of if he'd asked if she drinks. That much clearly speaks for itself already. She has a particular fondness for cigarette smoke, anyway, remembering the case of them that her father carried around for all that time, conserving them after the end of the world. They're in abundance here. Everything is. Smiling, she asks, "Looking for company?"

Philip nods in response and then inclines his head toward the door. "They tend to prefer it when I smoke outside in these places, something I'm still not quite used to. Would you care to join me?"

He's going outside either way, but she's interesting enough to him so far that he'd prefer if she were to come with him. And while she's younger than he is, quite significantly -- and too young, he suspects a good number of people might say -- he's interested to see where else the night might go. The club is fine and he's learned how to dance like people do in this modern world, so he'll fit in well enough, but it's not his favourite activity. Not here.

"Sure," Yona replies with a nod, smiling easily. She loves it in here, the crush of bodies, the air that seems almost stale and reminds her of home for it, but she's never one to turn down company, and it isn't like there's anything in particular compelling her to stay. There are a dozen places like this across the city and then some, and she'll likely find her way to one or another of them later tonight or tomorrow or the next night. This is how things stay interesting: by seeing what happens and going with it, not trying to plan ahead or stick to some rigid schedule. She's never had this much freedom in her life. "I'd be glad to."

The night air is still a little cool, but it's refreshing after the interior of the club and all those people. Philip doesn't mind the crowd at all, enjoys it, in fact, but there's still no denying this is pleasurable, too. He holds the door open for Yona to follow him, then steps away, slipping his hand into his pocket for his cigarettes and his lighter. It's not the cheap plastic things he's seen people all over this city using, but a smooth, shining metal.

For the most part, he prefers to blend in. It makes things easier. But this is one thing he likes to have for himself, one place where he refuses to be like everyone else.

Without a word, Philip offers the cigarettes to her, then flips open the lighter to spark the flame.

Yona weaves her way through the crowd and after Philip with no trouble at all, as small and as limber as ever, grinning brightly when she steps out to the sidewalk. She may have spent years here, but fresh air still sometimes seems like such a novelty, practically fucking miraculous, especially after leaving a packed, stifled room. Tipping her head back, she breathes in deep, looking up for a moment at the stars — or, at least, what's visible of them — before she turns her gaze to Philip again, taking a cigarette and holding it to the flame of his lighter. "Thanks," she says, and clearly seems to mean it, then lifts it to her mouth, taking a long, deep drag. "I like your lighter."

"Thank you," he answers as he lights his own cigarette, the little flame throwing dancing shadows across his features for a moment. Then he snaps it shut and turns the lighter over in his fingers, looking at it before he tucks it away into his pocket.

"I couldn't help myself," he admits as he takes a drag of his cigarette. "I had to change most things to make sure I blended into the Darrow crowds a little better, but I missed my lighter from home. Had to have one just like it."

"I don't think I've ever seen one like it before," Yona says thoughtfully, her head tipping to the side. Surely he isn't the only person in Darrow to carry one, but if she's known or seen anyone else who has, it hasn't caught her notice. Mostly people seem to use the little plastic ones she sees by the registers in stores, the brightly-colored plastic always enough to make her smile. This is appealing in a different sort of way, with the sense of it being something new. "No one had lighters anymore where I'm from. Just one pack of matches."

Her father held onto them like they were the most important thing on the train, and in a way, she thinks now that they might have been. Without a way to light the fuse, it would never have ended. "Where's home for you?"

"One pack of matches," he echoes. "For everyone. Can't have been many smokers, then."

Even the small group on Soldier Island wouldn't have survived with a single pack of matches for the weekend they spent there. Certainly they'd all been dying, but they hadn't been aware of it at the time and he's aware there had been a good number of strong personalities in that home that weekend.

"Dublin originally," he says. Not everyone knows what he means when he says that, something he's still adjusting to. The idea that Ireland, Europe might not even exist in the world where she's from is an odd one even after all these months. "In Ireland. What about you?"

Dublin, she's never heard of, but Ireland, she has, his accent close to Edgar's, even if Edgar is really almost as much from the train as she is. Maybe not born there, but not old enough to remember anything else, either, a train baby in all the ways that count. "Not anymore," she says, knowing that this answer, as it always is, will probably sound strange to someone not from there. "I lived on a train. It was later than most people are from, there wasn't anything else left."

Strange or not, Yona generally finds it easier to get right to the point than to talk around it. For her, this will always be stranger, anyway, and hers isn't exactly the kind of story that will ever go over particularly well.

"Nothing at all?" he asks, his interest certainly grabbed by that bit of information. Since arriving in Darrow, Philip has learned a great deal about the different worlds others have come from, he's learned about technology, he's discovered a great deal of things he'd never known before, but this is something new. Something he hasn't encountered yet.

"Just a train?" He wonders if it was a moving train or if it had just been a convenient place for people to hide when whatever had happened to her world had happened. "I come from much earlier than most people, so I suppose whatever you tell me may sound a bit like science fiction, but then, so did my phone when I first began using it."

"I think it sounds like science fiction to most people," Yona says, the term one that she has, at least, become familiar with since arriving in Darrow. It's a rather good way to explain how it comes across, anyway, without any of the alarm that typically comes with it. She understands that, in a way, and has come to expect it, but that doesn't make it seem any less strange, as much so on her end as anyone else's, she supposes. That's how this place works. They all have their ideas of what the world is supposed to be, and have to accept that there are potentially countless others.

"But yes," she continues, "just a train. Everything froze."

"It froze," he says before taking a drag from his cigarette, blowing smoke up into the night air. "The entire world froze."

He imagines it has to be possible, considering it's happened before, although he doesn't know what might cause it to happen again. It seems like the sort of thing that shouldn't happen for another million years, then then, for all he knows, she's from a million years into the future.

"How'd that happen?" he asks.

"There was something called global warming," Yona says, lips pursing thoughtfully. That's something she knows very little about as well, but she's heard the words often enough, one thing that didn't go forgotten or unmentioned in growing up on the train. "People used a chemical to try to stop it, but it did too much. Made everything too cold instead." She can still see it sometimes, the world of white outside dirty windows, such a far cry from the warm greens of Darrow's spring. She misses it and she doesn't all at once. "So it froze."

"Christ," he says and he doesn't quite laugh, but there's a hint of amusement in his voice. Since coming to Darrow he's read about global warming, the way the simple arrogance of humanity had caused the entire climate to shift in catastrophic ways, and he thinks it's fitting that in trying to fix things, they'd only managed to cause more damage.

"Trust man to really bugger things up, eh?" he asks with a shake of his head, blowing more smoke out into the night sky. "I wish I could say an end like that surprised me, but..." He trails off and shrugs. It was really only a matter of time before the entire species screwed itself into extinction.

"It's all I ever knew," Yona says with a slight shake of her head, though in that, she supposes it can't be all that unexpected. She saw how things were on the train, after all, falling apart and kept together by people doing the jobs of machinery. It isn't too much of a stretch to think of them doing that sort of damage and trying to come up with an ultimately ineffective fix for it. At least Darrow doesn't seem to be too much like that. It has its share of excess, sure, but she's never seen a disparity as great as the one between the front of the train and the back. "So it's not surprising to me either."

"No, I suppose it wouldn't be," he agrees with a small smirk, imagining for her, everything they're talking about is as usual as hopping on a train to go from one city to another is for him. Their lives are entirely different, as his is from most people who come to Darrow, but he still has to acknowledge that whatever bizarre situation they might come from, it's the usual for them. It's their entire lives. It's not nearly as strange as he thinks it to be.

But people have always struck him as being generally ineffectual when it comes to positive change. They can fuck things up without much effort, but going back the other way seems impossible for them. This just seres to exist as one more example of that.

"So Darrow's a bit of a change for you, then," he comments.

"Mmhmm," Yona confirms, nodding, and at that, she smiles broadly. It is a change, and it's still incredibly difficult to wrap her head around at times, but it's a good change. There's so much more to the world than she ever thought there was, and for someone like her, so curious by nature, it means there's no shortage of things or people to find out about, something new practically around every corner. "I'd never seen spring before. Or places like this." She gestures behind them at the club they've left, the likes of which she'd only glimpsed as they made their way to the front of the train. Somehow, in spite of that, she tends to feel more at home there than she does anywhere else. Whether it's because of the bodies packed together or whatever substance she's taken coursing through her veins or some combination of the two, she doesn't know, but she thrives on it.

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