ataraxionlogs | twenty-eighth jump;

Entry tags:

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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( if she were thinking about it, she'd probably appreciate the professionalism; it is, however, something that she does have to take a moment to specifically think of and recontextualize to 'how other people view the world', so for the time being she is equally indifferent to her current state of dress, besides the gunk factor. she tests her weight a little bit, shifting, and more decisively : )

I think so. I mean, yes.

[ the professionalism comes easily, unthinkingly — this is hostile environment and ward has been placed here without his will, his mind is working in terms of strategy and tactical decisions rather than along more relaxed lines. ]

Good.

[ that means she isn't entirely helpless. ]

( acutely aware, all of a sudden, of just how long she's been a pathetically crumpled heap of drowned rat-- having established that she can get up, she does, albeit not hastily. there's no awkwardness, just...a decision is made, and then she's standing up, and it's as simple as that. everything is fine. she's fine. she's fucking fine.

she's really not. who would be? but she's been faking it for years. )

Who're you?

[ he watches and doesn't offer her a hand up. she's doing fine on her own and it gives him an opportunity to assess the way she moves, too. she doesn't seem to be a hostile, but that doesn't have to mean anything at all.

some people are very good at faking it. ]

Grant Ward.

[ either she already knows who he is, in which case telling her an alias will be of no use, or she doesn't, in which case looking him up will do her no good. ]

Ilde Featherstonehaugh. Don't try to spell it.

( since she just pronounced that mess Ihl-dey Fanshaw - it seems unlikely, under the circumstances, that he was going to do any such thing, but the offhand remark seems reflexive, her mouth running on autopilot while she gets her bearings. or ... doesn't really get her bearings, because nothing really makes any more sense now that she's standing up than a few moments ago.

she's pretty sure what's actually happened is that she's completely lost her mind. that seems like the most logical explanation. is there a logical explanation? no. probably not. )

You should find some pants. Men look less dignified than women do, naked.

( what. )

[ he wasn't going to try and spell it; hadn't even known that it might be anything more complicated than what it sounded like, but the reflexive way in which she tacks on that sentence to the end of her name tells him a lot.

there must be a logical explanation; ward just doesn't know it yet. ]

I —

[ congratulations. his nudity had absolutely not been a priority and had barely featured on his mental radar, too low on the list of priorities to make it into his assessment of the situation, but now she's forcibly dragged it to the top of the list and he's left floundering a little. ]

Are you going to be all right on your own?

( ilde's ability to throw even the most stoic off their game is unprecedented and unparalleled, it's true, especially considering the absent-minded and genuinely offhand way that it tends to happen. like now, when she's just sort of issuing a casual reminder that penises are not the most aesthetically or aerodynamically pleasing parts of the male anatomy and he might want to cover his shame or something.

her smile is a little more brittle, fleeting like light behind a shutter-- )

Probably only the one way to find out, I suppose.

[ he isn't ashamed of his body and he isn't shy about it, but her comment has still thrown him. finding something to cover up is on the list, just not very high up. he would feel less naked if he were armed.

and still — he's loathe to just leave her. she doesn't look all right. ]

Come on.

( that's-- actually, she genuinely wasn't expecting that, and it takes her a few moments to register what he means and then decide how she wants to react to it.

eventually: )

...okay.

( he might be imaginary, but he's an imaginary person who even nude and swinging his spare elbow skin around looks more competent than she is. )

[ he waits, still at a distance from her, until she's made a decision and then he gives a sharp nod, her prior comment alredy brushed aside in favour of decision-making — which way to go, what to do. he has to re-evaluate now that he must account for her as well instead of just for himself.

and then he starts walking, expecting her to follow. he's careful when he rounds corners, wary, thorough — and quiet. ]

( this is so many shades of surreal and can't-possibly-be-happening that ilde can't quite process it yet - especially when she doesn't even know exactly what she's supposed to be processing, exactly. like, where are they? why are they there? what kind of sick kidnapper picks someone like her and someone like him?

he doesn't know what's going on, either, she can tell. he seems like the type who would've made it clear if he did, especially now that she's following him around like a semi-naked duckling. )

What do your friends call you?

( just making conversation with the big naked guy. )

Ward.

[ he doesn't have any friends that really call him by his first name; he prefers it that way. professional distance. there are some people from whom he wouldn't mind it or protest the first name, but — well. ]

You?

[ he understands well enough that sometimes, people need distraction to cope. he doesn't, but he can chat. or at least not shut her down completely. ]

( the acknowledging sound she makes is-- unsurprised, really. if he'd made a stoic face and declared he had no friends, she probably would've made the same noise. or a comment. )

All sorts of things.

( some of them less flattering than others. ilde accumulates nicknames at an astonishing rate; 'little ilde' something affectionate, 'princess' something rather more snide. in spite of her aimlessness and her conversational air, though, she marks it when he slows, cautiously, at corners - stills and quiets accordingly, continues when he does. she is a lot of things, this one, but she's not as silly as she sometimes pretends. )

What do I call you?

[ frankly, he could very well have told her that he doesn't have friends. it would have been true enough; he doesn't consider much of anyone a friend. may is a colleague, maybe more, but friend doesn't cover it. he's skye's supervising officer. fitzsimmons are colleagues. and so on. ]

Ilde. Ilde Decima, if you feel like being twee.

( that's probably some kind of joke, given that he doesn't seem like a man who has ever felt like being twee in his life. if he's even familiar with the concept.

she decides, abruptly, that she is going to call him Grant. he will find this out at some point. )

Twee?

[ he is, in fact, not familiar with the concept at all. if she'd care to explain, now would be a good time — and it would provide the conversation she wanted while he creeps steadily forward, too. ]

Cutesy, affected. Quaint. Good golly gosh, what a fine little hat we'll momentarily imagine you're wearing to be effusively complimented on, Mr Big Naked Guy.

( look, she even provided an example. next: diagrams. or not, since neither of them have anything on them for the purpose. well. he could probably write his name, if they found some snow.

...unlikely. )

Right.

[ he's not impressed, and his tone very strongly hints at that, but he does get the general idea. so there is no need for diagrams and he most certainly won't write his name in any non-existent snow, either. ]

( she had a feeling it wasn't his thing. twee-ness, or generally swinging dick around. those two things are very different, but equal in their unlikeliness to at any time emanate (can dicks emanate? doesn't matter, they aren't doing it. not that he has multiple dicks.) from ward's being. )

You seem more like a 'this is me smiling' sort of fellow.

I don't know what you're talking about.

[ now the question is, is he really that socially inept and clueless, or is he just playing at it? ]

( Ilde considers her response to be very generous an assessment of his intellect: )

Look at that! ( brightly. ) You do have a sense of humour.

[ to be fair: his intellect is not the question, his social skills are. ]

If you say so.

( the fact Ilde would generally question his intellect right alongside his social skills is what makes this generous. )

That or you've been living under some form of rock for a very long time, but in that case I'd feel much less confident in you putting yourself in charge of anything.

( reasonings. )

I haven't been living under a rock.

[ dryyyy ]

Then you probably have enough of a broad idea of how other people interact with each other to grasp the judicious application of sarcasm, since I'm fairly sure you peppered that last remark with at least a hint of irony.

( her unnecessarily detailed analysis is both a useful thing to distract herself with, and extraordinarily matter of fact in how she is openly and casually picking apart what of him she can recognize and understand. )

It's more likely that you were being sassy in a Tommy Lee Jones sort of way than that you were actually raised by wolves with American accents.

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