Chapter Text
Cold was no more for Marker. His life had been on the up and up recently. Ever since his alley way had been found and he got a letter about registration to be given a home to live in instead of being taken to an orphanage like he thought, Marker was able to put his focus elsewhere as he rode the public bus to the town his home was in. The expense on the bus ticket was well worth it. No longer would he need to worry about looking homeless, because he would have his own sink and backyard to keep his clothes clean. No longer would he need to worry about not having bathed in weeks, he could bathe everyday if he wanted to. Though, he actually hasn't seen his home yet, he hoped for something that would fit the needs he had no idea how to manage in the streets.
All the boy had in his bag were two other shirts, a bottle of green dish soap, and whatever food he didn't want to leave back at the alley way. In his hand, he carried the envelope that held his acceptance letter along with a house key. His dish soap was running pretty low, since he didn't want to smell like garbage while heading to his new home and used a lot of it to clean himself of dirt and grime from the past couple days. He would have preferred to use shampoo or body wash, but those things were a whole 93 cents! Dish soap was only 23 cents, and Marker was tight on money, so it would have to do.
Strangers stared, kids younger than him probably thanking whatever deity they worshiped that they weren't in his position right now. Marker new even with the amount of dish soap he used and best clothes he had, he still looked like your average sewer rat. But he couldn't think of that now when he had a whole home waiting for him at the end of this bus ride.
When his bus stop came, he thanked the bus driver, who gave him a simple tired smile, and hopped onto the clean sidewalk. Looking up to examine his newly found neighborhood, he noticed all the houses look pretty much the same. A few were of different colored window sash, or different colored front doors, but all retained the same structure. Small but seemingly cozy. A cookie cutter neighborhood, Marker believed these types of neighborhood were called.
Marker walked down the sidewalk while looking down at his acceptance letter and fidgeting with the rusty house key he assumed was for the house. He reread the four digits that were supposed to represent his home and committed them to memory. He had been so grateful while reading the letter for the first time, he still was now. Marker couldn't remember the last time he lived in a home, or slept in a bed.
It didn't take long for him to find the house with the matching address on his letter. The neighborhood made for a nice short walk, he couldn't help but skip to the front door with a smile. This had to be one of the best days of his life.
The porch was small, only big enough for barely three people to stand on. He noticed nicely grown flowers around the front as well, and while he loved to appreciate the lovely floral decoration, the pre-set decor made him feel like he was accidentally coming into someone else's home. But he was sure that he got the right address.
When Marker fumbled with the key for a bit before opening the front door, he didn't dare to step a foot inside. The dirt caught in the soles of his shoes only became more noticeable to him when his eyes were blessed with the inside of the house. Again, he was set off by the fact that the inside, from what he could see of what he assumed to be the living room, was already fully furnished and decorated. The floors were wooden, but somehow giving off that they were soft. Sunlight was gracefully beaming on the couch and coffee table from through the windows. After a few seconds of staring, Marker made sure to take his shoes off on the porch, stepped inside, and shut the door.
For a while, Marker let his childish curiosity get the better of him and explored every inch of the house he could find. There were two bedrooms, a small kitchen, and the main area you saw when entering the home, which he dubbed the living room. The corners of the ceiling were weirdly boxed, and some of the objects around the house seemed more heavy than Marker thought they should be. But any concerns or questions he might've had got swept away for the next hour or two from the novelty of actually being able to live in a house for the first time since he gained consciousness.
The end of the exploration left him face planted on the couch.
Maybe there was a god. If a miracle such as this one was possible. Marker basked in the elation imprinted in his heart.
All his current emotions, however, got disrupted by a knock on the front door. Marker forced himself to lift his head off the couch, a confused frown morphing on his face. Who could that be? Why were they knocking? He didn't know anyone around the area, let alone let anyone know he was now living in a home.
Whoever it was, couldn't be that bad, right? Hes slept almost his whole life on the outside concrete and nothing life threatening happened to him then. Marker got up and headed to the front door. Without giving it a second thought, he swung the door open and looked up at the taller man in front of him.
The figure presented to him behind the door was a man who was decently dressed. He wore a white collared shirt along with black dress pants. The guy was standing stiffly, using the hair at the front of his head to partially cover his eyes. He looked nervous as fuck.
"Hello, Sir!! Anything I could help you with?" Marker cheerily greeted. The best course of action when talking to strangers is to be overly polite, he would know a thing or two about having enemies.
The guy cleared his throat, "You're the uh, the new resident.. right?". He shook his head a bit midway through the question as if the action was going to clear his head, Marker noticed. His eyes also darted all over the place, as if he was looking for something to be around. Almost immediately, Marker could tell, this was a strange man.
"Yes, Sir. I am. I got permission to live here-"
"Assigned." The guy cut in.
"Excuse me?"
"oh, sorry." Again, another slight headshake. "Do you mind if I uhm, come in? I would like to get to know my new neighbor and all." He asked, a small smile playing on the corners of his lips. Marker couldn't quite put his finger on what exactly he felt about him, he couldn't even tell if it was a positive impression. But a simple invite inside could do no harm!
"Sure, but please take your shoes off on the porch if they're dirty." Marker granted, opening the door wider and giving space for the guy to come in. The man's smile dropped, looking down and lifting the bottom of his shoes to look at them for a second before walking in, deciding the slight dirt on the bottom of his shoes was probably nothing to worry about.
Heading inside, the man mumbled something Marker couldn't catch while passing by him. "What was that?" He asked, shutting the door and locking it.
"I was just saying my name.." The guy started before stopping himself, "..er, you can call me Pen."
"Marker" Marker replied, throwing himself on half the couch, sprawling across it, after forgetting to be polite for a second. The guy- Pen, reservedly sat next to him with his hands in his lap.
"Marker?" Pen repeated to himself, nodding. "Well, Marker, can you tell me what brings you here?"
He could feel blood rushing to his head from having it hang slightly off the couch, but didn't move to stop it from happening. "I got a letter saying that I could register for a home, and got accepted! That's so cool. I didn't know you could just do that."
"Well, now you can.." Pen mumbled, though loud enough so Marker heard it this time.
"You couldn't before?" He asked, looking at Pen questioningly.
"It's uh.." And again with the man's eyes searching for something that wasn't there. Marker was definitely going to ask about that later. "New law that was passed." Pen finished.
He smiled, "Well, isn't that nice? I was homeless before, but now I'm not."
"Yeah, nice.." Pen distantly agreed. It took a couple seconds for the words to process through his head before he looked up from his lap and his head whipped to look at Marker.
"Wait- Homeless? How old are you? You don't look a day over fourteen at the most! Do you have parents??" He sounded incredulous, which Marker had expected. Marker himself was still surprised that he didn't get sent to an orphanage. Maybe being older helped his case though.
….
Wait, 'not a day over fourteen'??
"I'm not a baby! I'm sixteen, well over fourteen, thank you!" Marker shot, offended that Pen said he looked young. Pen let out a small giggle at Marker's exclamation before muffling it with his hand for some reason, "Still, where are your parents? Sixteen is still a child."
"Don't have them anymore, Sir. They left me when I was a baby." He spoke. It was a bittersweet truth he had long accepted. It's been so many years for Marker that he doesn't really think about his parents much anymore. He's grown numb to the idea of what they might've done with him when he was younger, so questions on the subject didn't bother him much.
Pen's straight-lined mouth curled downward, he opened his mouth to speak, but Marker cut him off.
"You don't have to fake being sad or sorry for me, I got over it"
He felt Pen's pity-filled eyes staring at the side of his head, only the words, "I see…" coming from the man's mouth. Marker gave a small nod.
Dang it, now there's awkward silence. Marker opened and closed his mouth to speak multiple times, but no word he wanted to say felt right. Thankfully for him, Pen started talking.
"You have a television?" He asked, looking at the small box sitting on a desk across from the very couch they were sitting on. "Have you turned it on at all? Any channels interest you?"
Marker turned his head to the television and sure enough, he had it. Weird, didn't you have to pay for that sort of stuff? Actually, now that he thought about it, a newly brought house that was fully furnished and decorated was weird as well, he knew that enough. He wasn't very knowledgeable on the matter of house buying, but from the thousands of conversations he had eavesdrop on, people usually brought homes that contained only a few essential pieces of furniture.
"No, I haven't. I didn't realize it was there until now actually" Marker responded. He hasn't ever actually worked a TV before. There was different channels and on those channels he assumed only one type of video played, though he wasn't sure what or how it worked.
Pen looked at the other, a curious eyebrow raised. "Really? I would've thought that you'd turn it on at least once already." He paused, eyes examining the TV a bit differently now. Like something came up in his mind that made him suspicious. "Er, you should. It's pretty informative to look at.. any news channel you can get on there."
"Oh right, why is news so talked about everywhere?" Marker had heard mentions of news before, but people have been talking about it for a while now. Whatever news was, it must've been really impactful.
Pen chuckled, "The news? You know, channels and newspapers where you see all the updates going on in the world?"
"..oh."
A small smile played on Pen's lips after that little chuckle. Marker couldn't help but notice it. Its been a while since he was the direct cause for someone's joy. It felt nice.
"Would you like me to show you how to work the television before I head out?" Pen offered kindly. Marker let a smile of his own break out on his face.
"I would love that, please, Sir!" He exclaimed.
"Of course, also, you don't need to call me 'sir', Marker. It makes me feel old."
As the two walked and sat down in front of the television, Marker tilted his head. "How old are you actually?"
"Twenty-Three." Pen responded, Marker's face dropped.
"You ARE old! You can legally drink!" Marker proclaimed. He remembered finding a bottle of gin next to a garbage bin he often passed by in his alley way a year earlier. It was half empty when he found it, and completely dry when he finished it. That night wasn't very pleasant for his brain.
"I'm not that old! Twenty-Three is pretty young in my opinion." Pen argued, a bit amused that Marker called him old even after knowing his age.
"Where are your wife and kids, old man?"
"Where are your baby toys, infant?"
"I'm sixteen!!!"
"And I'm twenty-three!"
The two stared at each other for a good second or two before bursting out in laughter. Marker loved this guy. He couldn't remember the last time he genuinely, full on laughed. He had joked around with strangers in passing before, but this wasn't in passing anymore. Pen was his neighbor, and he was damn well happy about it.
After calming down, Pen cleared his throat. The small upward curl to his lips still very much prominent on his face as he explained how to turn the television on.
"Okay. So, you want to pull this towards you." Pen started, pulling one of the small knobs under the big knob of the TV towards himself. Looking at the screen, it turned to static. Marker's smile widened.
"I just pulled the volume knob, its what lets you control the loudness of the audio".
Marker stared at the letters under the knob Pen had pulled. It looked like the regular gibberish to him aside from a letter or two he knew. The roundest, the 'O', made the sound you would get from saying a surprised 'Oh!'. Other than that, Marker didn't know what the letters were or how they sounded to make the word, 'Volume'. Downsides to never having gone to school, he guessed.
"After you turn the TV on, you-" Pen continued, cutting himself off when he looked at the singular large knob in the panel where all the knobs and dials were. Marker tilted his head to the side, was something wrong?
"… that's uh, weird." Pen mumbled. "Only the VHF knob is here, no UHF.."
"UHF?" Marker questioned. He had no idea what that was.
"Yeah, UHF. Usually televisions have both- I-I'm pretty sure its legally required to have both? I don't know why yours only has one of them." Pen explained, searching for the other knob somewhere else on the TV.
"Maybe you just have a fancy television" Marker shrugged. "Maybe.." Pen agreed, though, he didn't look so convinced.
"Uh, anyway. Ignoring you don't have two knobs, this is for changing the channels." Pen explained. "Usually the other knob would let you have all the channels but, you don't have it, I suppose."
Marker nodded, looking back at Pen, "Can you put on the news you were talking about?"
"Yeah, sure." Pen agreed, turning the knob in hopes of finding the news channel. And he did. It was the first channel that appeared on the screen, actually. However, while flipping through the other channels, Pen found that there was only… one other channel.
Two channels. Despite the knob being able to point to several numbers, there were only two channels. Pen couldn't help but let out an incredulous noise from his throat.
"What-?! Why do you only have two channels? My TV has at least twelve!" Pen exclaimed, brows furrowed down has he alternated between the only two channels on the television.
"Fancy television" Marker responded. "I don't know. I mean, I didn't buy the TV myself. Of course its going to be a bit cheap."
Pen still didn't seem convinced. "Marker, literally no television is built like that."
Putting on the news channel again, Marker decided to keep quiet to watch.
On the TV, there was a guy wearing a black bandana-like face covering over his mouth. He was in front of a blue background, with a red slider. It had text, though the words were unreadable to Marker. The guy spoke,
"As we're entering early winter here in Yoyleland, more and more local shops are closing down earlier due to the weather, or closing down for days on end entirely. On days that the weather is predicted to be harsher than usual, we suggest any shopkeepers in the area do the same. As well as any individual who commonly provides delivery services of newspapers or outside media, we politely advise that you minimize delivery rounds throughout this season. In other light, across Goiky in Pillary, the towns authorities-"
"-Don't you think its weird that they're specifically telling newspapers to stop being delivered?" Pen interrupted, not loud at all. He was more whispering, a volume only Marker would be able to hear.
Marker raised an eyebrow, "Why is that weird? It's for the safety of the delivery people." He wasn't sure where Pen was getting this from. The news channel clearly said that the weather wasn't going to be nice starting this winter (thankfully he wasn't out in the streets to experience that in the worse way anymore).
The other looked away to one of the windows that showed the front of the house. "I don't know, it's just weird that they're refusing civilians to be kept up to date with independent newspapers and other news besides the news channel… that the government controls to some extent."
With a voice louder than Pen's, Marker responded, "That's a bit out there what you're suggesting, why would the go-"
"Shut your mouth, Marker."
Dead serious tone. Marker didn't hear a single bit of a playful voice or small smile with that command. Naturally, it confused him. In the hour he knew him, Pen didn't talk like that.
"What, Pen-"
"Did you know the television can pick up outside audio sometimes? Its interesting for sure, I'm curious if yours can."
With that sentence, Marker shut up. He didn't know exactly what Pen was trying to tell him, but whatever it was, it wasn't something he could say out loud for some reason. Marker just accepted the hints and trusted that Pen would tell him later if he could.
The rest of their conversation for a while was tense, though it did eventually wash off. For ten minutes, Pen turned off the television, though told Marker to try turning the news channel back on at some point just to see what it said. Marker agreed, though didn't exactly have any plans to turn the channel back on. Maybe when he was bored or couldn't sit in the quietness, he would turn it on again.
"I think I should head out. I've got a ton of work to do tomorrow and I want to make sure I sleep well." Pen brought up after a while of silence. Marker's first instinct was to frown, though quickly shook it off and smiled. "Sure, I hope your existent wife and kids sleep well too."
"Oh, shut up" Pen snorted, getting up off the couch and starting to head to the door. Before fully opening though, he turned his head around a bit to speak, "Catch you later, Marker?"
"See you!" Marker smiled, waving as Pen closed the door after himself.
Alone he was again. Though, it was pretty late out. Traveling over to this town of Yoyleland took a while, the nearest bus stop from his alley way that took him directly here was a long walk after all.
The sky out had darkened, though not completely. Marker still took the time to organize anything he could and change into more comfortable clothes. He could decide what exactly to start with getting done, now that he has a house, tomorrow.
For now, Marker headed to the room he had claimed his bedroom and plopped down on the soft floor with a simple blanket and pillow. Beds were nice and all, but Marker was more used to the ground. The cushion of the bed made his back feel weird, and he didn't feel up for dealing with that.
Closing his eyes, his mind began to wander. Pen was strange at first. Very observant for whatever reason. Also very vague at times. Marker wasn't sure he could trust the guy fully, though Pen didn't seem to have malicious intentions with anything he said. The guy was more awkward than anything, unless he spoke about something he knew a lot about.
He mentioned having work to do. Which meant Marker probably wasn't going to be able to see him tomorrow. That was fine though, he planned to go to the main plaza area where many shops were tomorrow. To get to know the place and all. Also, to see what he was able to buy nearby. He wasn't ever one for stealing, though there were times his stomach growled a bit too much while his pockets were empty. Most the coins and slips he got were either from the floor or odd small jobs he would do here and there. No one really hired him for anything permanent though.
Hopefully now that he was no longer a street rat, Marker could find somewhere to work. Eventually, he could have a normal life. Meet a few people like he met Pen today.
That was up to what would happen tomorrow though, he would have to wait and see.