ataraxionlogs | 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I was right. I told you what this place was like, and you didn't listen. You accomplished nothing, except almost dying.

[Alex still doesn't look over; he's still so angry, and he has to grip at it, so that he doesn't fall apart, to give in to the fact that he was terrified.]

[ Now Charles approaches, as if taking a hollow threat like how Alex won't talk to him as permission to sidle up towards the locks so that he clears peripheral vision. A hand places on the metal to lean in place.

He doesn't wait to be looked at. ]

I'm sorry.

[ It's a little cool, the way this is said, the place it comes from. He isn't prostrating himself at Alex's feet. His voice carves off these words with clinical efficiency, no quaver, no break.

But he is sorry. He can see through to the core of Alex, and for what he sees, he must be sorry. ]

I just--

-I can't lose you, okay?

[He has so little, sometimes. What Charles means to him is so complicated, in so many ways. But it always comes down to the man who saved him from himself, who gave him a second chance. Who told him that maybe there could be a different way.

He knows Charles is sorry; he believes it. And it gives him a chance to voice himself, if only just a little. He never has been very good at expressing himself verbally.]

I'm sorrier that I have nothing to show for the risk, not sorry for trying at all.

[ His gaze holds fast on Alex, whether the younger man wishes to look at him or not. There's a hint of regret for what will inevitably be a constant rift of disagreement between them, but-- ]

But I'll listen. There are times when I hope too desperately, and I never intended for it to be quite like this. All we have here are our friendships, and it was unfair of me to put such things in danger.

Yeah, you were.

[Alex deflates just slightly, running a hand through his hair. It's a sure sign he's uncomfortable; trying to speak on things like this just made him feel like a jumbled ball of stupid. He's gotten better about it, but in some ways, with Charles and Erik showing up, he's reverted in little ways.]

I know you want to help here. But you don't know how things work. You haven't been here long enough. All I'm asking is that you really listen and think about what I'm saying. I'm not the same kid that you got out of jail. I've had to live through this place. So just please listen.

[ A blink, a glance up and down, microgestures that suggest concession. Yes, of course, Alex is all grown up, and Charles has seen the scars of the recent past. The lessons that have made their marks, and now he has one of his own.

Still, even now-- ]

And Senator Petrelli, hasn't he lived through this place too?

It's because he isn't a friend that I listened to him, you know. He told me how I could help, rather than focus only on how to prevent me from doing so.

[ He glances away, watches as others filter into the lockers, his voice appropriately quiet for a private conversation in a public place. When he looks back, there's the earnest, prying search in his eyes, to detect whether Alex understands. ]

You couldn't possibly have known exactly how we'd fail.

He has. But I also think he's an arrogant guy who would throw people under the bus if it bettered his own position.

[Alex has not had good experiences with him, that's for sure.

He shakes his head.]

No. But I knew you guys would.

[And that's why he didn't go; if there had been any chance that they would have made it, he would have gone.]

Perhaps so.

But while I was there, I did good, Alex. I helped others. They were destined to be trapped in that room all along, and perhaps everything might have been fractionally more terrible for a few of them had I not.

And if you don't mind, I'll count that for something.

Count it for something all you want.

[Because really, he has a hunch that Charles doesn't really care in the end, what Alex thinks; he'll do what he wants. That's what happens. It reminded him, vaguely, of what happened during their first training session, after the mess with the flames and Darwin.]

I should get going.

[ The look Charles is giving him is familiar to most anyone familiar with Charles; it's the one where he has read every thought behind short words, and the prospect of dealing with them is daunting. Not an impassable mountain range of a problem, but filled with jagged edges.

And he is just too tired.

His hand goes out to gently touch Alex's back, a companionable gesture that also has him levering away. Time to go. ]

twenty-eighth jump;

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