TENTH WAVE

[felinely]

CHARACTERS: any and all
LOCATION: Gravity Couches and beyond
WARNINGS: maybe some swearing, or even some violence, and more than likely some implied (and possibly explicit) nakedness.
SUMMARY: Another month, another jump, another round of new faces.
NOTES: Keeping up with the tradition and copy pasted like always from the last one


You wake up in darkness.


There's a breathing tube jammed down your trachea, and you're suspended in a tube of clear blue fluid. Upon registering your level of consciousness, the gravity couch drains the fluid surrounding you and retracts the breathing apparatus; the doors in front of you open, and you're deposited on the floor of a stark, sterile medical bay.

You are not alone.


There are others who have come before you, others who are awakening beside you. Some may be familiar to you, perhaps even friends. Others have much less amiable plans. Some are merely alien and inexplicable, but there are always those who might mean you harm.

After you catch your breath and your vision returns, you notice a number on the inside of your forearm. Maybe it's a familiar number. Maybe it means something. Maybe it's just a number. But the number—completely unique to you—is a tattoo, and it does not come off.

If you enter the room adjacent to the medbay, you will find a small locker with your number on it, surrounded by rows upon rows of identical lockers. Inside, you will find a few of your personal items, a communications device, and a ship's uniform in your exact size. The comms device is fully powered and connects directly to the ship's network; it's your only means of communication beyond physical conversation. Upon turning the device on, a neutral, automated voice will say, "Please take the blue lift to the passenger quarters." Any other attempts at communicating with the rest of the network are met only with static.

This is your welcome party.
 

Comments

[saidhe]

[ Jumps suck. Yes. Holmes concurs. He has a roiling stomach tossing about that agrees whole-heartedly with Wichita's own. He's perched on the bench - their lockers are, after all, adjacent - his own jumpsuit on and a towel about his shoulders, his face propped onto an open palm. ]

Goodness, I do think that someone has taken issue with your hairstyle.

[cons]

Hah, imagine? The ship must think I've let my bangs grow out too much.

[ Wichita turns away from her locker just to shoot him a wide grin, making a point to shake her bangs into her eyes before flicking them off to the side. when she turns back, it's just so she can pluck the first hat off the top of the pile - a worn fedora with a wide brim, one she doesn't ever remember seeing at the roadside shop, but it doesn't feel entirely foreign either. she tucks her bangs back into it, lowers the brim to shadow her eyes, then turns back around to face him properly. ]

Eh? How do I look? Is it me?

[saidhe]

You can scarcely see through them, so the blame lays not on whoever gave you the headwear, I think. [ Your hair is weird, Wichita, you don't even push it out of your face all unfashionably like Holmes, okay. ]

[ The hat is something of familiarity and it's almost relieving. The ship is both home and very much not by now, with little that he recognizes but much which he's learned to. A wide-brimmed fedora is something nearly straight from home - real home, real London - and he adjusts the brim so it has a bit of a rakish tilt to the side, as he would wear it proper. ] I think it's actually much more me, but I daresay you'll be amongst the dregs of society in no time.

[ She's already there, pretty much. ]

[cons]

[ not everybody can get their hair to side-swoosh, God. she's been cursed with middlebangs and you dare tease her for it! what a cad. still, he's adjusting her hat like he actually has an idea on how to wear it - Holmes, the man who let his hair grow out so long he looked a bit too much like a hobo to ignore, knows how to properly angle this fedora. and she can't help but wonder if that's why she got the hat in her locker to begin with. maybe the care package wasn't just meant for her. ]

Do you have a hat like this? [ she gasps, a very girlygossipy expression on her face for a second ] Tell me we have matching hats. Matching dregs-of-society fedoras. How trendy.

[saidhe]

Don't sound so utterly shocked and awed. [ He was stylish once upon a time. Sort of. When the times called for his going into public. And he chose to be. After all, it was much easier to blend in when you were dressed like the rest of London, wasn't it? Walking its streets with a purpose, without wanting to be bothered - you did so fashionably enough to fit in, not so fashionably you were stopped and asked for tips and tricks. He'd mastered it by now. ]

[ Well. He had there. ]

Had a hat like this. Had. [ He plucks at the hats, his eyes snagging with a kind of intensity on the top hat but not quite to touching it. ] Goodness, you've a small fortune in them now. [ He chooses the sombrero instead. Why not? ]

[cons]

Not shocked! I was just hoping we had matching hats. [ she almost continues, probably about to tease him for being jealous of her newly acquired hat collection, but instead she ends up laughing - a bright ohoho! - snatching the sombrero from him just so she can put it on his head for him. cocked to the side, just a bit, just as it's meant to be. ]

Wow. You were born to wear that hat, señor Holmes. My god, I think I'm a little turned on.

[ now she's reaching back into her locker, looking for her comm in a rush ] Don't move, I need to get a picture...

[saidhe]

We had matching hats.

[ He gives her a small, brief flick of a smile, pleased with himself, and he's about to turn the sombrero over in his hands when he is utterly and absolutely violated. An indignant sound leaves his mouth and everything. ]

Señorita. [ He shoots her a look, along with the quite frankly sassy Spanish. ] Why a picture - [ His voice very nearly goes up an octave as he waves a hand to try to block whatever lens might be aiming his way. ]

[cons]

[ Wichita's not even taking a picture yet, still trying to remember how to take a still shot using the video camera on her device, but then she's laughing because he's flailing and- ] Stop that, will you quit it, it's just a picture-! [ one hand is holding her device up flat, ready to snap the photo, the other is trying to smack his hand out of the way. ] -why? Because some things are meant to be remembered exactly the way they are and - Sherlock Holmes, in a sombrero, is one of them! [ CLICK. ] ... Bah, it's blurry. Hold still.

[saidhe]

[ Nuh uh, Wichita, not that easily. You've got yourself a guy who's very, very allergic to photos - even with a network, he spends more of his effort using text to explain himself away; audio, perhaps. ]

You're seeing it already, simply preserve the memory. [ He makes to snatch her phone out of her hand as soon as she's taken the picture, immediately sticking his tongue out at her. ] Of course it's blurry. I excel at blurry.

[cons]

Oh my God, since when are you a ninja?

[ because he just took her phone, fast like a freak, and she can't even think to try and grab it back because she's honestly too shocked to even. and. she can't.

do much else besides

stand there and hold her hand out flat like she's just expecting him to

give it

back.

please? ]

[saidhe]

Since always.

[ He says sagely, and takes the brim of the fedora and flips it off her head, smoothly, clapping the phone back into her hand. Then the hats are switched, so he's suddenly quite stylish at the same time she has become sufficiently more tourist. ]

[cons]

--whatjust?

[ STILL KINDA WIDE-EYED. until their hats are switched, and her fingers are closing around her phone, cause then she's just laughing, adjusting her sombrero with one hand. and then.

attempting to turn her phone so she can snap another photo from over here, off to the side, soooo sneaky..... ]

So, anyway. [ SO SNEAKY. ] You're right, that fedora is definitely more you than it is me. [ cllllick. ] You can borrow it, if you want. But only until you get your own, then I want it back.