ataraxionlogs | twenty-eighth jump;

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twenty-eighth jump;

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: It could just be the standard sensation of air on wet skin, but if you bother to check, you might notice the steam rising from your body, barely there and gone within a minute. By the time you get to the showers, it will be clear that it's not just taking you time to adjust. The room is cold — colder than usual, but no worse than the last jump. While it's nothing dangerous, it's certainly motivation to hurry through the usual routine and get dressed quickly.

It's getting closer.

YOUR EYES ARE OPEN.

KEEP LOOKING.

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.

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[ peter snorts. LOUD. because he can and because his brother will always be his brother. and nathan isn't the only one to see the odd turn of events; it always used to be him who'd end up bawling and going to nathan, having scraped knees or a tumble down the stairs. as he'd gotten older he'd learned how to make it on his own with fights in the school yard and in the front lawn - his brother'd been busy after all. or at work, or at war.

this was its own war, and peter had played his part. it was his right to pick up some of the pieces. ]

Yeah, tell it to the judge, Nathan. [ the medbay had it's own corners and peter dragged nathan there easily enough, only halfway looking at him as he rummaged for a sterile, packaged needle. ] Asshole needed to take his issues out on someone else. You didn't make anyone come, you don't deserve the harassment.

[She looks and knows, before he finishes rolling his sleeve up, what she's going to be looking at. In turn, she lifts the sleeve of her dress to show her own tattoo, thumb lightly running over it. A month and it still surprises her whenever she glances at it, as if she'd forgotten it's there.]

Our numbers. This one [She points to her own, the 027 branded there.] is the cycle that you've arrived it. I arrived during the twenty-seventh. Yours is the twenty-eighth. Those also mark the floor that your room will be found on.

[She's mostly just reciting what she'd been told herself, when she'd tried rubbing it off, when Legolas and Thranduil had found her.] The number after is your personal number, for your room and your locker.

Later Claire is coming out of her room on the twenty-eighth floor, having quickly realized what the numbers on her arm had signified with some sort of minute relief. While that hasn't erased the overarching possibility that these numbers are for more nefarious purposes - something she's gotten the impression happens a lot around this place, given what she's picked up from others and sussed out on her own - it's at least given her a spot to drop her stuff. Sitting in her room and staring at the walls isn't exactly her style, though, and while she might not be able to find too much out during her first twenty-four hours aboard the Tranquility, she intends to determine what she can rather than siting idly. Not to mention the inherent claustrophobia she feels in being shut up inside that room. It's like being back in the dorms but without the added knowledge that she had actively chosen to be there.

So she's got her little communicator flat in the palm of her hand and is working on shoving it back down into one of her pockets as she steps out of her doorway. At least the jumpsuits are kind of cool, she thinks, and maybe once she can get a better handle about what's going on, she might be able to allow herself one momentary admission that being on a spaceship with a bunch of people who she's never met before is as exciting as it is horrifying. She walks at a comfortable pace, neither hurrying nor taking too long.

There are people scattered throughout, but Claire recognizes that face and the cagey posture without having to look twice. Maybe because it was one of the more interesting encounters she's had in an otherwise overwhelmingly eventful day, and maybe because he looks possibly even less pleasant than he had when she spoke to him the first time. "Hey!" she calls out, looking to get his attention more than anything else, coming close with every step. Claire has her hand up in a little (embarrassing) wave before she realizes that he's got blood on his shirt, which is about when the forcefulness of her approach drops down several degrees. "Is that blood?"

[ dudes hanging out on the floor isn't a new experience on the good ship crazytown; he's either new or a total pussy, no big deal either way. ( she's never seen him around and the scars and ink say new kid, but who knows. ) she's not the welcome wagon and never will be, so she's ready to just walk by and get cleaned up herself when he starts talking to himself.

the comment about shared showers makes her snort, though, and slow her pace from 'get to the showers right the fuck now' to 'stay and shoot the shit for a second'. ]

Yeah, I wouldn't get excited. Too many people playing the 'think about the kids' card to get anything going.

[ not that she's still annoyed that everyone tells her to put her top back on sooner rather than later or anything. ]

[she pauses before reaching one arm around him to give him a brief squeeze. They've only just met really, but she feels a bit like they have a bond forged in flame.]

You gave us all quite a scare. We worked to try to open the doors best we could.

And I got mouthy with some bloke called Edgeworth when he tried to make us go back to our pods.

What now. Severus stalls when she calls out to him, reeling in the impulse to fall into a defensive mindset. It's not someone who's going to attack him - if it was, he thinks they'd be missing a limb by now. His patience is threadbare.

.. Is it? He glances down. Oh. Right. Severus looks back up at her, expression flat. "Yes." Well. "It seems I've only half-heeded your advice."

He didn't get punched in the medical area, anyway. Severus raises a hand to his face to make sure he's not still got anything on his skin, having only done a quick job of healing himself after he and Sirius finally parted ways. It's fine, though, just the remains on his shirt standing out still. He'll clean it out soon enough but he'd like a mirror, and also to not have to deal with any more former classmates. Ever.

[ Nathan was good enough with needles. He'd had enough of them over his various visits to hospitals to know when to just get on with it--and this is one of the times when he just gets on with it. The bruises are almos a badge of honor, but he'll feel better with them gone, and if it turns out he has to justify himself to the network he's not doing it while looking like a gothic panda on ladies night.

He smiles at his brother as he takes the defensive. It's ironic, really. ]

Took you till we got to space for you to start backing my policies, I see how it is.

[ He steps aside, finding his way over to one of the benches, and reaches up to scrub at his own wet hair while they talk. ]

I'm not sure which one of the two of you I'd take bets on winning that one. How'd it go down?

He doesn't spot her until he's almost about to leave, and by then Nathan is anxious, afraid that something really has happened to her after all, that Caffrey was right and if he displeased It, acted against the ship the way he proposed to, then it would take Claire.

He's relieved to see her. It's like a wash of nerves suddenly subsides at once, and he steps urgently toward her side, seizing her into an instant hug full of all the relief he feels in the world. He'd sent a message, but he hadn't been sure it got through--a message to say goodbye. Now he didn't care if it had or hadn't. He was alive, so was his daughter, and the ship had tried its best and failed. It couldn't break him, not that easily. It had made a valiant effort, but he'd come out victorious, and he felt more alive than he had in almost two years.

"Claire, thank God."

No, it took me actually agreeing with you.

[ peter shook the wrapped up syringe at nathan, pointing at him in the process. as much as peter hated to admit it, it had something to do with agreeing with nathan's methods. maybe not so much his policies as his desperate need to do anything to get them the hell out. too many people were getting complacent, and too many people had started acting like this was some kind of a vacation.

like he had started to do. and it was time for it to stop. someone had to take a stand.

pulling back the wrapping of the needle, peter'd done this all too many times before in nursing school to even stop and think twice. curling the fingers of his left hand into a fist, squeezing hard, peter used the back of his right fingers to flick a vein into bulging existence, the needle still held precariously. at least until he used his teeth to pull the cap off. ]

And if you start complaining about me feeling sorry for you- I don't. Think the blame being pointed directly on you's bullshit, though. You shouldn't have had to take all the hits.

It has to.

[He stares down at the floor, sucking in a breath that's a little ragged. It feels as if he's been punched, a little, as if there's something jagged that's taken up living in his chest.]

It has to decide somehow. How else do we end up here, with people we know? If it was just random action, we'd all be strangers. There has to be something.

[And something, then, to blame, though he doesn't say that aloud.]

[There's an echoing silence. Sirius stares at Edgeworth, waiting for something more. When nothing comes, he barks a laugh, short.]

'Yes', what?

[ coming out of the pods at the jump always sucks, is always a sudden and overwhelming shock to damon's system akin to being shot full of vervain. ok maybe that's an exaggeration, but it's pretty much the worst and he'll never dress it up as anything but.

this time around it's worse. the second he's awake he remembers elena, not being able to get that stupid door open, talking to caroline. as far as he knows the moment his feet hit the floor, she's dead and gone like all the other people who have failed to get into their pods before her.

down on one knee on the floor he breathes but it comes in and out ragged, not able to tell if his eyes are blurry because the blue goo or not. he just...sits there, eyes fixed on the sterile ground. he needs a minute.

before that minute is up though she's there, next to him, whole and in one piece. there's nothing but shock there on his face and joy, his hands coming up to either side of her face. ]

Elena?

[ screw it. she says she's going to kiss him, but it's damon who does the kissing. ]

[ Nathan had expected someone to take a swing at him, somewhere in the fog of his mind, where the reality of all that tension and emotion ended up in people being angry--because they would, already had been, and sooner or later that anger was going to be physically violent.

But he was still half asleep, dozing, not paying enough attention to his surroundings because the water just felt so damn good. So when there's suddenly a fist flying at his face and a naked arm thrusting him back against the pipes, Nathan takes almost the full two seconds to react, and by then Erik is tumbling toward the wet floor, and his grip on Nathan's wrist is pulling him down too.

Not hitting the floor is easy. All flying is, after all, is throwing yourself at the ground and missing--so Nathan misses. Then he gets an arm around Erik's head and pulls them both upright, though not onto their feet. There's a cushion of air beneath them, and Nathan, still bruised from the first punch, raises his arm high and brings his elbow down toward Erik's face. Then he lets him go. ]

[Standing in the doorway, the room feels small before he even goes into it. Too small, confining, like he's going to break something just by stepping over the threshold--but he goes inside anyways, goes to sit on the bed almost automatically, his shoulders hunched.]

Remus left last month. So now it's just me, I s'ppose. Better suited for this fucking place than either of them were anyways.

[And that isn't a compliment to himself. Far from it. He stares down at the floor again.]

[ after allison there's only one person chris is really concerned about checking in on this jump. the situation with taking the bridge was a hairy one, and between the posts to the network and what little information trickled into him helped keep an eye on things was...well, concerned at the very least.

they haven't known each other long but chris doesn't lend out his guns lightly either. ]

Funny, I was about to say the same thing.

[ classic argent humor brought to you with hardly any inflection. enjoy it jax. ]

That invisible shove hits him hard, again, pushes him off--and it only makes Sirius angrier. If Snape is going to be here, if he's going to be pushing Sirius off of him with magic, then Sirius is going to learn to counter that--because like hell is he going to let Snape get one over him, any time--

And like hell he's going to take pointers from him, either. That's almost worse.

"Oh, fuck you," he snarls, "you evil little bastard, fuck you," and he raises his wand again, his anger blazing hot in his chest--so heated that the stunning spell he fires off feels hot even to him, on this end--and another one, straight after, stupefy, and if that's not enough he's going to try, at least, for a full-body bind, something that will get him down so he can stomp on his smarmy face--and if he blocks, then Sirius is going to throw his wand away and punch him again, see if that works.

[ tig has to remember that he doesn't have any pants on.

tig has to remember that he's supposed to care that he doesn't have any pants on.

but nothing gets in the way of giving her a stare down and if tig's middle name had been obvious, it couldn't have gotten any closer to the truth. he's got no reason to lie about most shit and when it comes to women - namely, gorgeous ones - they deserved a little staring. and a whole lot of hitting on but he had just been kidnapped. there were things he was supposed to be getting to first, things that he just kept filling back under what was in front of him. ]

There's kids here? [ he narrows his gaze, squints at her, wonders how much he's supposed to care about that one, too. ] Then they might as well learn a thing or two, those shitty books they give out tell 'em all the wrong shit.

Severus blocks them because, frankly, he's good at it, and because Sirius is so angry right now that everything he does is as obvious to him as an oncoming freight train. "Try again," he tells him, still sitting on the floor, one knee up, wand pointed at the other. At this rate they're going to have an audience. "You don't have to ask me if you want to get better at dark curses, I'm sure cousin Bella would love to offer you some pointers. Might help you fit in--"

In your cell in Azkaban probably never gets out.

[She sits next to him, cross legged, dropping her violin case on the floor, her slate on her lap. She doesn't move to hold him, or kiss him, just sits quietly for a moment, and the finally takes his hand in both of hers.

He's so angry.

She wishes she knew how to fix this.]

[She's dainty. She throws the towel up into the air and lunges for the catnip, and when she moves away she only has the bag dangling from her mouth, his hand unharmed.]

["Stupid" or worse was his guess, yeah. He gives the direwolf a glance as he goes back to his plate, hunching over it with his elbows leaning on the counter.]

Got her or found her?

[Because she isn't the kind of thing you pick up at the pet shop, and she isn't the kind of thing Father Christmas would slip in to a stocking.]

What's she eat?

[ oh, elena has missed this. she doesn't ever care about the fact that they're naked, both pod-gross and covered in goo, in public. the second his lips touch hers, the whole world melts away -- the ship could be collapsing around them and elena wouldn't have any idea -- and her hands go to his hips, pulling him as close as she can. screw public decency, this is the first chance she's gotten to kiss the man she loves in two months, and she's not wasting it.

one of them should probably pull away -- they have a lot to talk about, after all, and elena has a lot to apologize for -- but elena is happy right where she is, thanks, and she's not moving. after everything she's gone through in the past six days, she feels like she deserves to just let herself be happy, even for just a few seconds. after this damon's probably going to yell, and she'll take it because she deserves it, but right now everything is perfect. ]

[He barely registers the bag snatched out of his hand, too busy catching the towel with his other hand before it lands on his head. Catching it out of the air, the next thing he does is wrap it around his waist, then looks down at the tiger.]

Thank you.

[Said in a more "finally" sort of way than an actual thank you, but.]

( closed to teresa )

[ after the bridge incident and a really heartfelt reunion with elena, they part ways for the time being. she's got other people to check in with and, like with every jump, damon wants to get through this process as quickly as possible and back up to his room so he can have a drink and clear his mind (hahaha he's in for some rude awakenings when he gets up there.) he keeps to himself after he's done at the pods, gets the goop off of him as quickly as possible in the showers (without making small talk with anyone no less) and it isn't until he's towel wrapped and traveling down the locker row that something catches her eye.

teresa, that girl he helped that one time and got sassed for (an exchange he's unphased by), is rummaging through her locker a ways down from his. he passes by completely, his glance turning into a full on stare and furrowed eyebrows when he catches sight of the crude writing on her back.

but damon doubles back, both of them still dripping and in towels, but he doesn't bother letting that get to him as he moves in closer, puts a single finger on her back. ]

That's weird, Teresa. Fire your tattoo artist.

[ up close he gets a better look at the words, a hand flicking some wet strands out of the way. ]

What the hell is this?

( lockers and beyond | open )

[ this is a rough jump, for more reasons than one. damon just wants to go back to his room, drink excessively, remind himself that elena is safe and sound and with her surrogate family. he probably owes caroline a thank you or an apology—he's not sure which—but he can't do that in his preferred medium until he's back in his room.

he gets dressed and dried off quickly, staring at the clutter in his locker for a minute. there are things in his locker, things from home, that he decides to pocket in his jacket this time around and take with him back to his room (a white oak stake covered in metallic veins, a gaudy men's ring, burnt pages of notebook paper from a journal). ]

Edited 2014-02-10 23:54 (UTC)

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Page 33 of 113

twenty-eighth jump;

yes good i win the prize

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you knew this was coming

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lockers

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s'all good! same goes for you, let me know if you need anything changed.

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chris argent here to dad you, jax teller

the fight scene that never ends i'm sorry YOU'RE JUST THE WORST snape

AND OH HOW I'VE WAITED FOR IT

lmao i love it 8D

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damon salvatore | closed + open after lockers POSSIBLE MAZE RUNNER SPOILERS!