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Dayna wasn't answering, no matter how many times he called, yelled, into the bracelet. Avon had been picked up, but he wasn't necessarily transported to where he was supposed to be. Or wanted to be. It certainly wasn't the flight deck of Scorpio.
Where he was should have been familiar, to an extent. It was Earth, after all, through a rare fault in the ship's teleport system.
After walking through the woods, following the light to the nearest dome, London Dome, Avon began to hear voices. Thinking it might have been his crew at first, he found himself grossly mistaken and at the edge of a crowd of freedom-seekers and their not-terribly-secret political rally.
Blake had been watching the proceedings intently, having been invited to this gathering and several before it, once he'd started making clear his unease with a number of government procedures. His sister had led him to them with her knowledge of his love for rare and old literature, first whetting the appetite of his dissent with unsanctioned readers full of old calendar history, talking him into lengthy comparisons spanning history, opening his eyes to what the Federation were doing to ensure their irrevocable rule. Naturally, he thrilled to the idea of revolution and the possibility of reaching for a hero's role - he was a young man, after all.
The ideas of Bran Foster were the most mesmerising to him, he was beginning to find. He looked forward to that man's segments most of all: peaceable rebellion, resistance without violence. It was beautiful to imagine. Someday, he would have the courage to speak to Foster in person.
It probably wouldn't be tonight. He'd been late to this gathering due to an unfortunate bungle on his end of the Aquitar stress tests for the day, and had missed the better-known chink in the troop patrols to sneak through. He was glad he hadn't missed much of Foster's address, at least.
A rustle in the foliage a short way behind him told Blake of someone's presence, and he turned to find... a somewhat outrageously dressed figure with a deeply sour expression. Looked eerily familiar, though Blake couldn't quite put a guess to it. Federation troops were nowhere near that... stylish, he supposed was a word for it. And none of the Dome citizens cared to be so, either. The figure revealed itself to be a man as it came closer, and Blake decided he must be one of the outsiders. He smiled and waved the man closer, stepping back a bit to greet him quietly.
"You haven't missed much, by my measure. Don't worry, I'm late too. Brilliant though, isn't he? Foster, I mean?"
Avon darted quickly to the man that waved him into the fold. There could have been troopers anywhere - everyone standing outside of the dome were idiotic for doing so, in his opinion. Even if the short-term ideals and politics that they were speaking against were a few years outdated, it was still a punishable offense to be outside the dome.
He remembered the small outbursts that Foster's group would cause as distractions to slightly larger upsets against the Federation. They had their accomplishments, if memory served, but they never got further than a few dents in a seemingly unbreakable wall. If they could have only made a proper go of it before-
Before even giving the public speaker a chance to prove himself otherwise, he barked, falling into an all too familiar sort of comfort with the rebel. "What are you talking about? Foster's-"
Dead. He bit his tongue as he turned his head and realized that Foster, indeed, was standing before the assemblage. Foster was dead, killed in an attack with numerous others in the underground. Blake was-
He found himself suddenly short on breath, with his eyes widened as he realized, also, just how familiar the voice coming from the enthusiastic young man was. "...yes, brilliant."
Blake quirked an eyebrow at the strange half-outburst. He was sure he knew that voice somehow... and suddenly, the familiarity became clear. He remembered glimpses of and brief exchanges with this man on occasion, when the engineering and programming divisions of the project met to calibrate their progress. Held an idle fancy for him and his odd severity, maybe, though Blake would never admit it. But something was off about the man now, his clothing not the least of it. Blake clapped his shoulder in greeting anyway, smiling and keeping his tone low so as not to disturb the meeting.
"I know you, don't I? From the-- you're one of the programming supervisors, right? I'm the junior supervisor in the engineering division. Name's Blake, Roj Blake. I didn't know you were part of this too! Should make the sabotage plan loads easier, eh?"
The last data pull pinpointed Blake to the outer worlds - one planet in particular, but Orac wasn't yet ready to proclaim the conclusion as definite. Blake may have even been on that planet for some time, unless he had been travelling between two points. Avon had been following his trail long enough to know that he wouldn't have been anywhere near Earth, let alone...
Nothing about this was right, but the clap on the shoulder was enough to remind him that he had not been dreaming. It was Blake, a far younger version - one he never took the time to know properly. Their paths just didn't end up crossing in that favour, at the time.
"Aquitar," he remembered quietly aloud. How long ago had that been? Well before his involvement with Maco, anyway. His expression settled a little in thought, but he probably still seemed a bit bewildered by everything surrounding him. "I am Kerr Avon. I guess you could say that I am, in a way."
A single-target assassin with bigger plans. That's who he had been. One responsible for a great shakeup within the Federation's high council. But they would never know. Nor would they ever find out.
Blake put a finger to his own lips, grinning. He seemed not to understand the gravity of the situation quite yet, perhaps acting as if in a stage play, but at least his heart was in the right place.
"Don't name it here; there're deltas about. The third-stage sabotage meeting is in two days' time, though. I'd love to--" And he paused, his grin flattening like old champagne, though no less sincere. "We can compare schemes then. It suits you, by the way," he added, falling now to a soft and almost bashful smile. "Kerr Avon. I imagine rivers would act as you do, at any rate."
He had a sneaking feeling he'd be eating his own foot for that in a moment's time, but he'd never imagined a programmer that strict in the project to be interested in the resistance, so... perhaps he could trust his bad judgement in this, too.
The gravity might have been a loose idea, given Avon's distance, while he tried to focus on the situation. He recalled the problematic aspects about the Aquitar project - and the series of malfunctions that hindered the project as the development progressed. It was a rare occurrence, but Scorpio's teleportation system, no matter how brilliant Dorian was, wasn't entirely safe from malfunctions.
"Oh, no. Of course." He feigned, knowing a couple of deltas personally who were worth their weight in strength and misappropriation. "Yes, perhaps - if I haven't been... called away by then." He hoped that it wouldn't take days for his crew to recall him, if it was possible, even through some kind of fluke chance. He paused to smirk briefly, and turned to his displaced companion. "And what is that supposed to mean, Roj?"
Blake should have kept his talk to relevant topics after all. Rejection was one thing; even returned flirtations were a bit less confounding than a response involving personal names. He couldn't say he'd ever heard his own outside of intimacy or family discussions. It was...
It... was...
"Kerr," he tried, not really as a form of address, but an experiment in reference. Without years of mindwiped ravage hanging from it, his voice behaved very differently. It handled the name gently and wrapped it in a rich, furtive depth, almost as if he were hiding a piece of fine art under a cloak and stealing away with it. He liked it, and his smile rested more easily.
"Well, I've seen you sometimes, while we work. I expect rivers are relentless and focused, and you were certainly that. Ruthless, even. They should be mysterious, without aid of a map. Deep and convoluted." He tilted his head, and added in a sly fit of internal humour, "Cold and enticing, I think. Am I wrong?"
It was... an exercise in determining reality. The Blake that he knew, from his appropriate time, wouldn't have reacted with a flush to the sound of his personal name. One wouldn't know about the present, or if he even still thought of Avon in any capacity as the years pressed on. These were the years since passed, however. Unknown territory in either direction, from the one from in which he came.
"Poetically put," he began, with a hint of amusement. "But, the deepest pools hold the greatest mysteries, don't they?"
Oh, but if his future could see him, it wouldn't know whether to yearn or shriek warning. Young Roj, as idealistic and excited as he would be haunted and determined in only a fistful of years, didn't know what to do with the business of seduction or being seduced. Couldn't even tell yet, the way he would someday learn to, whether Kerr was being sincere or simply testing him to sate some unrevealed curiosity.
The mischievous smirk, the way he took the cautious hand to lead his cold and enticing acquaintance away from the meeting and toward the woods, were almost sophomoric, which likely posed an even more amusing image, from a grown man. Blake was versed in trysts, of course, but something about this, game and all, seemed beyond such a concept, and more exciting. It wasn't often - hell, probably never - that he'd dared pursue an intellectual equal, for one thing.
"An awful lot of classical mythology enjoys the common ground of underwater mysteries, you know," he eventually confided, releasing Avon's hand to lean against a tree. "Mostly in the form of beasts and faeries who look to capture and kill wandering mortal fools. Is that what you'd do, Kerr, if I wandered too close?" The smile widened. "Or would you sweep the beasties away and drown me in the river itself?"
The person that Avon was at Blake's present age had no time for poetic interludes that would distract from his life outside of the research facility. In essence, this could never have happened, and he knew that. He had been no stranger to giving into his human side and things that it demanded of him, but at that point and time for his younger self, and with Anna in and out of his reach, it held little importance.
There was a momentary pause on his behalf as he listened to the bait-ladened words come forth. Coming from Blake, it was almost frightening - astonishing? In how easily, albeit with a touch nervousness for the situation, that he produced them. The nervousness came from uncertainty, certainly, and not from the after effects of a torn apart mind.
He should have known better, but he couldn't help himself, given their future history. He leaned with his back against the same tree, arms folded, and replied with sincerity. "Oh, I would drown you, Roj."
Whatever goal Avon had aimed for, he earned an unsteady hiss of breath. The sound of that name, in this man's voice, was heady indeed; further, it promised entropy just as much as pleasure. But, most alluring (and perhaps unnerving) of all, it presumed to know him - in a way he wasn't certain he wished to challenge.
Blake tucked the edge of a fingertip into his mouth, chewing as he thought (his sister scolded so whenever he did, but she'd never been able to train him out of it). He marvelled at how easily they'd fallen into this strange verbal... ritual, it almost felt like. He'd thought at first that he was flirting, maybe succeeding, stumbled and got lost burbling through his own literary interests as he did sometimes, but it was dawning on him that this time he'd been lured the same as he'd pursued, blustering pleasantly around Avon's sparse but precise replies.
The man was a hazard and a right devil.
Blake laughed fairly breathlessly, dropping his finger, and rolled against the trunk until he was facing Avon's profile, beaming like the hopeful lover he wanted to be into a consuming darkness he didn't know he was trying to reach through. He reached, less nervous now, to coax the sharply etched face toward him and invite - beseech, even - with warm eyes yet unburdened by ghosts.
"Drown me, then," he rumbled, enthralled already and daring by tones. "Keep me trapped in your undertow, if you'd like... I'd stay."
It wasn't Avon's intention to lead, or be lead, but underlying entanglements had their ways of making themselves known.
"Roj."
It was wrong, so wrong, with the implications and the potential consequences at hand, but he grabbed the grinning fool by the throat and kissed him deeply with a sudden fury. Even if this wasn't his time or place, the ability resist such action wasn't even worth the moral or temporal debate. It had been far, far too long since he felt whatever it was that he called it, if it wasn't love (had he known the word, even his own skewed way?), then some other all-encompassing emotion for this man. He broke the bond and grip when the breathlessness became apparent and reclaimed his place against the tree.
With a haunted look of bewilderment, steadied only by the upper hand of future knowledge, he breathed deeply in a few times to catch his breath. "And I'll follow you to the edge of the known galaxy if you try to escape me," he added, perhaps as a confession to someone who hadn't the slightest clue as to why.
A saner man would have pulled away to run the instant he was seized. Young and blind, Blake should have done exactly that. Liberty, however, forged her vanguards in an unforgiving and inescapable fire, and consequently burned away their desire to escape. Blake fought back - fought fury with hunger - and gladly sacrificed his breath for the ominous but addictive hint of destiny he tasted in the struggle. The previously gently guiding fingers clutched possessively at the neatly trimmed hair guarding Avon's nape, and tightened when Avon let go. Omens didn't often work that way, but there it was.
Blake only admitted his need for air by panting, and meekly retrieved his hand once his immediate awareness returned. The nerves just under his skin were singing and erratic, his body almost uncomfortably attentive and insistent beyond his cognizant control. He stared for a moment, partially wary and all of him snared. That kiss belonged to no type of dalliance he was acquainted with. He rather felt captured and branded by it, but the thought... wasn't entirely unwelcome. Avon's sudden conviction, therefore, garnered neither surprise nor fear. Instead, Blake smiled, brilliant and pleased.
"You do that, Kerr," he challenged, thrilling again to the name on his tongue and coveting the promises it made. Again he reached, pulling Avon against him by the collar of that ornate jacket and trapping him in arms massed even in youth. "I'll leave a river of stars for you to follow, and wait for you at the end of it."