(( Open to Archbishop Timothy ))
Marco's back from the Nexus, with a man who's much better dressed than he is in tow. As they make their way from the pretty-nice park where the Nexus spits them out to the pretty-not-nice side of town where the apartment is, Marco fills the Archbishop in on the basics - Mom drowned two years ago, Dad never got over it, they're about one more late payment away from getting evicted, Dad's on some sort of pill that zones him out, Dad goes to work two, maybe three times a week to work as a janitor or unpack boxes at warehouses - and keeps it as light as he possibly can, which is still significantly darker than just about any other conversation he could be having.
For now, Marco leaves out the brain-stealing space slugs and the fact that he can turn into a gorilla to risk his life on a weekly basis.
As they get closer to the apartment and the graffiti on the walls gets more lewd, the trashcans get more overflowing and the street gets more and more badly lit, Marco talks to Archbishop Timothy less and less. He knows he's not supposed to be ashamed of where he lives, and that it's not his fault they're so dirt-poor right now, but coming home to the apartment always makes him feel even smaller inside than he is on the outside.
They go up two flights of stairs - one flight with the guard-rail completely torn off - before they get to the apartment itself. Marco notices with displeasure that the lock on the front door is jammed, leaving only the lock with the deadbolt. He'll have to find time to try and dismantle it and fix it, or else try to scrape together enough money to hire the world's cheapest locksmith. His dad may not be paranoid, but Marco has a very real aversion to being robbed.
The inside of the apartment's dark, lit only by the glow of the muted TV. If Peter notices that someone's opened his front door, he doesn't show any physical indication. He just stares at the television, sitting on the couch in a t-shirt and his boxers, burning cigarette in his hand, looking altogether like despite perfectly fine eyesight, he isn't seeing a single thing happening in the room.
He looks different from Marco, very tall and Caucasian, but if one were to stare at them side-by-side they'd see that they share a mouth, and eyebrows, and even where their hair parts. But right now they couldn't look more different; Marco standing there with his bright, lucid eyes and his mouth set in an expression somewhere between pity, exasperation and "yup, this is it", and Peter sitting there glazed over, as if he hasn't moved for days - which, Marco notes, is pretty likely.
"Well," he whispers to Archbishop Timothy, "that's him. I'm going to make myself scarce so that if this all goes wrong, I don't have to get the long pity-me looks later. Good luck."
And then he slips through the dark living room/kitchen conglomerate into the only bedroom in the apartment, which was designated as his whenever it was that Peter decided he couldn't even get up off the couch long enough to drag himself to bed.
For now, Marco leaves out the brain-stealing space slugs and the fact that he can turn into a gorilla to risk his life on a weekly basis.
As they get closer to the apartment and the graffiti on the walls gets more lewd, the trashcans get more overflowing and the street gets more and more badly lit, Marco talks to Archbishop Timothy less and less. He knows he's not supposed to be ashamed of where he lives, and that it's not his fault they're so dirt-poor right now, but coming home to the apartment always makes him feel even smaller inside than he is on the outside.
They go up two flights of stairs - one flight with the guard-rail completely torn off - before they get to the apartment itself. Marco notices with displeasure that the lock on the front door is jammed, leaving only the lock with the deadbolt. He'll have to find time to try and dismantle it and fix it, or else try to scrape together enough money to hire the world's cheapest locksmith. His dad may not be paranoid, but Marco has a very real aversion to being robbed.
The inside of the apartment's dark, lit only by the glow of the muted TV. If Peter notices that someone's opened his front door, he doesn't show any physical indication. He just stares at the television, sitting on the couch in a t-shirt and his boxers, burning cigarette in his hand, looking altogether like despite perfectly fine eyesight, he isn't seeing a single thing happening in the room.
He looks different from Marco, very tall and Caucasian, but if one were to stare at them side-by-side they'd see that they share a mouth, and eyebrows, and even where their hair parts. But right now they couldn't look more different; Marco standing there with his bright, lucid eyes and his mouth set in an expression somewhere between pity, exasperation and "yup, this is it", and Peter sitting there glazed over, as if he hasn't moved for days - which, Marco notes, is pretty likely.
"Well," he whispers to Archbishop Timothy, "that's him. I'm going to make myself scarce so that if this all goes wrong, I don't have to get the long pity-me looks later. Good luck."
And then he slips through the dark living room/kitchen conglomerate into the only bedroom in the apartment, which was designated as his whenever it was that Peter decided he couldn't even get up off the couch long enough to drag himself to bed.