this is the way it ends; don't tell me it's meaningless

[hadtheshot]

He's heard about it, of course, and seen pictures online, though he has yet to see it firsthand for himself. News like this, there'd be no missing, and not just because of the way people have been describing it. As it is, that makes it all the more unsettling. The breach, they all call it, and talk about it bridging one world and another, and though he's heard, too, what's on the other side of it — a city much like this one — and that nothing has come through so far except its citizens, Chuck knows that there's no way anything good can come of it. There may not be monsters this time around, but it's unsettlingly familiar regardless, reminding him of things he'd rather not think about, that he spends too much time dwelling on as it is. All he can do, really, is hope that closing this rift doesn't take the same sort of effort that closing the Breach back home did. At least, in the meantime, cities aren't being destroyed — only the windows on Park Avenue.

Though he's chosen this far to steer clear of it, he sees them sometimes, people who've come from the other side, noticeable by the way they're dressed or their resemblance to those who already live here or both. He doesn't think much of it, just goes about his business like he normally would, and if he's been going after the punching bags in the gym a little harder than usual or having an extra drink or two at the bar after, he doesn't think he could be entirely blamed for that.

The last time he saw a breach between worlds, he blew himself up as part of an attempt to close it.

Still, as is so often the case in Darrow, even when he's fully aware of something going on, there's a way for it to catch him off-guard. Heading down the sidewalk, gym bag slung over his shoulder, he stops short at the sight of a familiar face, genuinely unsure if it is who it looks like or if it's just another one of those weird doppelgängers that this place seems to be so fond of. There's only one way to find out. Brow furrowing, he frowns, and asks, "Becket?"

Comments

[fightthehurricane]

It figures, doesn't it? No matter what city, no matter what universe, there's always a way through to another one. Raleigh doesn't get it, what it is that makes the worlds butt up against so close to each other, that makes them rip each other open, but he chalks it up to violence. Two things, too similar, too close, and they tear each other apart. Naturally, Raleigh decides, the best thing to do is get closer.

After coming through to the city the first time, this isn't such a bad adjustment. Hell, it feels more like home than the city he's been put in. It feels more grounded, more like the world he knows. In one way, it's a comfort. On the other, though, it just hurts more, reminds him more of his real home, and everything - everyone - he left behind.

He hears someone call his name and it makes him pause, unsure if he's imagining things. If this place is anything like where he's from, he probably isn't hearing things. He stops walking and considers before turning. Even knowing these things are possible, it still takes the wind out of him.

"Holy shit," he mutters, approaching faster now, "so you ended up here?"

[hadtheshot]

It isn't exactly a surprising reaction, less so than the fact of Raleigh actually being here — again — in the first place. Chuck knows full well what happened to him, after all, and that there wasn't supposed to be anything when, instead, he washed up on the shore here, inexplicably in one piece. It shows in the look on his face, too, a wry resignation, when he nods. Though he's struggled to come to terms with the very fact of that, it doesn't make it any less true, or a subject to try to talk around with someone who he's guessing came from after their trip down to the Breach.

"Yep," he says, "turned up here a few years ago. Not exactly what I was expecting, after dying at the bottom of the ocean, but who would?"

[fightthehurricane]

"I don't know what I expect if I die, but I don't think it involves anything like this place." Raleigh gestures to the city, meaning here and where he just came from. It's been a few years since Chuck sacrificed himself for nothing and a couple since he arrived in Darrow, and to see Chuck now, on this side of an entirely new breach, throws him - but only just. He feels strangely naked without his Drivesuit when standing in front of Hansen, and feels even more strange dressed the way he is. Darrow has been a weird adjustment, but the clothes have been some of the weirdest.

He takes a deep breath, looking Chuck over, and he looks... exactly the same. It makes everything that's happened that much more surreal. "This is weird."

[hadtheshot]

"Yeah, tell me about it," Chuck says, letting out a short laugh. With a few years under his belt, he's gotten used to it here, or at least as much as he thinks anyone could, but weird is still putting it mildly, especially in light of what's been going on lately. A portal between dimensions may not, strictly speaking, be anything new, but another version of the city certainly is, and a very different one at that, from what he's gathered. Hell, just the sight of Raleigh in front of him would speak to that, his clothing a far cry from anything Chuck would have imagined seeing him in. "So what's it like on the other side?"