jackrabbitspalace | (no subject)

Try as he might, Bobby cannot remember the last time he felt this fucking tired. In a way, it doesn't seem fair. Apparently, people were having hallucinations for weeks leading up to that movie screening, and seeing awful, personal things. That chaos in the theater the night it played, there wasn't anything that pertained to him specifically; he didn't even get there until everything had already started. Still, the things he saw then have stayed with him since. Not just that unnatural version of Laura, though that, more than anything, has been hard to stop reliving when he closes his eyes, disturbing in how much sense it makes. (He always knew she was afraid of something. He supposes that, now, he knows what that was.) But while Twin Peaks was never as quaint and pleasant as it seemed on the surface, the beings in that theater, the violence and the screaming, was worse than anything he's seen before or could have anticipated.

Things seem to have settled down now, everything having gone back to normal, or whatever amounts to it here, but he doubts he's the only person who's haunted by it in some regard. In order to try to keep his mind off it, he's stopped at a diner on his way back to his apartment after work, not really ready to be alone there just yet. Besides, while this place isn't the Double R by any stretch of the imagination — no pie will ever be as good as Norma's, as far as he's concerned, and then, of course, there's no Shelly here — it has a similar sort of feeling, pleasantly familiar, maybe the closest thing he's got here to home.

Coffee is coffee, anyway. Sitting at the counter, he smiles at the waitress who fills his cup, idly skimming the menu as he says quietly to himself, "Jesus. What a week."

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"From Earth, yes," Bobby says, his eyes widening a little in surprise, though his tone stays good-natured. He's seen a lot of weird shit since he got here, from everything that happened in the theater to meeting a girl who was actually dead, and heard plenty of other stories, too. People coming from places other than Earth is a difficult concept to wrap his head around, but nothing he would outright question by now. If nothing else, he thinks his own sanity might require that. "2014, for whatever that's worth."

"Yeah, I've heard of that time," Rowan replies, though it's with a faint wince, as if he's sorry. Sorry that he's from the future and things are so different from him. Sorry that Bobby's got to live in that time that's seemingly so miserable compared to the life that Rowan's lived.

"We stopped counting the years after, uh... we learned how not to die."

"Shit," Bobby blurts out, the word a short, dry laugh. "Sorry. Uh, that's a new one." Again, he thinks that it should be impossible. Once, he would have unquestionably assumed as much. Whether it's the nature of Darrow or the fact that he's started getting used to some pretty weird shit, though, he doesn't think it's untrue. There's no reason someone would make something like that up, anyway.

"How do you... learn not to die?"

Rowan winces in a friendly, understanding sort of way. Over time, the normalness of being immortal has faded away. He's well aware how it sounds when he blurts out something like that, but how else can he talk about it than to blurt? It's not the kind of thing that gets easier with some gentle build up.

"Ah, science? It's tough to explain fully, I mean the history of it, but basically these nanites were developed that live inside our bodies, healing any and all damage that comes our way. They make it impossible for us to die."

Bobby shakes his head a little, but it's only due to the strangeness of it, not any actual sense of disbelief. Again, he thinks it's too downright weird to be something made up. Rowan sounds like he means it, and besides, haven't there been all sorts of weird advances along those lines? They aren't there yet in his world, not remotely, but it wouldn't surprise him if someone were working on a similar concept.

"And that's... everyone?" he asks. "Has them, I mean. The... nanites."

"Everyone," Rowan confirms with a nod. He thinks he understands where Bobby's coming from with the question. Or he makes the assumption at least, given how he figures the older man's come from a world like the Age of Mortality, where nothing's fair.

"It helped... well, a lot of things changed with immortality. But we've eliminated poverty, war, all that kind of stuff. All of humanity benefits from what we've learned. No one's left out."

"I can't even imagine," Bobby says. Even conceptually, the world he knows was a long way off from eradicating things like that. To him, it sounds like the plot of some science fiction movie, maybe, the sort where equality is achieved but at some great cost that doesn't turn out to be worth paying. Maybe in Rowan's world, or that future or whatever, it actually works rather than needing a moral to the story.

"Those were still... very big problems for us."

Rowan nods in quiet understanding, his mouth a thin line. It's a grim look, but it's a kind of respect for a grim time. The Age of Mortality was terrible in so many ways. But Rowan had learned to admire the spirit of humanity in that time, the willingness to continue despite the odds.

That spirit which seems drained from humanity in the Age of Immortality.

"I don't know if I'm from your future or not, but... I figure it helps to know that these things are possible? It's not all hopeless."