sooner or later we're gonna die ( open )

[darkart]

CHARACTERS: rainbow brite and the color kids
LOCATION: various
WARNINGS: sometimes people are jerks (tba)
SUMMARY: catch-all for stuff this month! shoot me a pm if you'd like to do something. or slam into this post with whatever.
NOTES: parts of this header might be a lie


There are times when Severus feels similar to when he did before the war hit full speed; in the years that lingered as twilight before the worst night fell on all of them. His talents were nurtured and he was rewarded not for unraveling the dreary methods to achieving good marks, but for challenging himself and rising above peers thought to be 'brilliant'. Scholastic drudgery became tasteless. He remembers Professor Slughorn pulling him aside one day in seventh year, wringing his clammy, clean hands, telling him that he was going to give him zero credit on an essay for doing parts on potions he shouldn't even know about the existence of.

(I can't have anyone think I'm exposing you to that sort of thing.)

It's not unlike those days. Here, in space. With no head of house to stare at him nervously, but also no dark wizard to touch his shoulders and whisper validation (pulling him in like gravity). It's just Severus, working on puzzling out how to get what he wants from a new set of circumstances and series of limitations. The Tranquility is the trade-off to escape politics, and what a bloody abysmal deal on both sides that is.

He swears a lot in private. At the ship, at the way magic slips from his fingers when it shouldn't. He spends his free hours in the dark of his quarters, deep inside the walls of Occlumency, finding small respite in the silence of his own mind. But mostly he works: Xenogen of course, still occasionally drifting through Medical - though they need fewer extra people now, thankfully, it means he's less likely to run into Lily - and tending to the portion of the gardens now set aside for proper herbology.

He moves to level 010. He sort of hates it. What else is new.

Comments

(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ hyperion

[darkart]

Before the old genetics labs vanished entirely, Severus had already been conservatively limiting the sort of magic he used onboard the ship - his broken wards deep in the ruined laboratory maze the jump prior to the disappearance had instilled caution and curiosity in equal measure. Now he's even more wary, but after having given it a jump, he's decided to engage in more significant ward-casting again; it's not something he can let sit permanently, given what he does, and the wards he's installed in the areas used to contain his werewolf patients have kept up fine.

So: here we are. Severus is mapping laylines in the lobby of Xenogen's labs, setting the groundwork for a visitor-alert system. He remains carefully attuned to shifts in magic, his work slow and precise.

i have come at last

[nightblogs]

Oh, he has no doubt that magic's all around this godforsaken ship, be it from those trapped in it or even whoever's running the whole show. How do you get to be called 'smiley' and come up with all these stupid magical riddles? Pfah. It's all bull to him, if you ask him. Which is probably why they don't. Ask him.

It's not that he isn't aware of all the dangers of wandering out in the ship. He didn't follow those other people with Shepard, which was actually a smart move, looks like, but he still goes out and about whenever he's bored enough to do so. Usually that just means going to the gardens and smoking up another joint, but today, uh. Today's different.

"What're you doin'?" Comes a voice from apparently out of nowhere, hovering over Snape's back.

He's chewing on a sandwich.

and i'm sort of alive

[darkart]

It's a good thing for everyone involved that the war hasn't quite managed to give Severus the sort of shot nerves surviving Aurors have ended up with-- instead of startling, whirling around, and turning Hyperion into a writhing mass of curses and loud noises, Severus just stills for a moment.

Without turning around: "Making immediate plans to start locking the laboratory doors."

Leaving them open to prevent people being locked out without nanite access has been normal. But now. Finally Severus turns his head, staring at at him with a critical gaze. "What are you doing here?"

[nightblogs]

He's making a face all the way through the explanation to the moment he turns. The kind of face that says both 'oh that makes sense', and 'I have no idea why that's supposed to make sense'.

"Just walking around," He shrugs with one shoulder, still chewing, mouth full. It's a pretty good sandwich, now that he thinks about it, with his other hand shoved in a pocket. He offers it over. "Want some? It's pretty damn good."

（ ´∀｀）☆ rogue

[darkart]

Despite his misgivings on this working at all, Severus would have liked to have had something to show this young woman before now - but it's proving to be about as difficult as he thought it would be. (Which is: very.)

His workstation is cleared up for the night - as cleared up as it gets - and he's set up on another laboratory table, stools pulled around it, various items laid out. When Rogue shows up they're going to have an interesting time test driving this thing.

[notmarieanymore]

One of the things Rogue hates, like most mutants, is the thought of becoming a lab rat. Held in a cage and tested on. She knew it had happened before. Hell, she had more than just one person's memories of such things, however muddled they were.

After receiving Severus' text, she makes her way down to his offices. It doesn't take too long, but she still waits a few minutes before slowly making her way down the corridors towards the workstation.

"Severus?" She called when she drew closer. "It's Rogue- I'm, ah, here."

[darkart]

Perhaps the fact that his workspace is so unscientific will help - or maybe it'll just be unnerving and alien. The containers set out aren't glass beakers but jars full of more earthy substances, with fresh and dried plants organized in varying places - some even hanging from the ceiling in the backed, charmed to flat. Boards covered in hand-written notes, flat blades and mortars and charcoal sticks instead of needles and pens. It's obvious that he's used to something quite different, and is just trying to make it work.

Severus goes to greet her, reserved as usual. He nods. "You may sit down here," he gestures at the table set up with whatever mysterious thing he's crafted. "This will take a little while to get through. I can't be certain of any results or necessary fine-tuning until you've tried it."

Someone else might have tried smalltalk. Severus is businesslike, but certainly not unkind. It's just that he's far more at ease in a working environment than a social one (probably obvious by the neon blinking 'nerd' sign over his head visible to the socially adept).

[notmarieanymore]

She was so much more used to smalltalk. But all the same, Rogue nodded, looking around at the odd workspace. It looked like some set from a movie, and she was about to comment on it, when she remembered that, right, Severus was indeed a wizard, and such comments would be considered... Something. Weird, probably. Rude, even.

On the table, Rogue places her gloved hands in her lap, trying not to appear anxious by any means. It was not the most successful of her plans, as her luck would have it.

"How are we going to test it?" She already knew the answer.

insert magical emoji here

[technologist]

Fitz ends up in engineering, but the truth is that it's the more traditional labs that remind him of home. Before being dragged to the ship, he'd been spending most of his time at a desk, next to Jemma, solving problems and inventing fixes. Messing with circuits and gears in the bowels of the ship is familiar, it just isn't entirely nostalgic.

The labs are. Or close enough, anyway. This isn't the first time he's gone nosing around in them, but it's the first time he interrupts someone.

"Ah, sorry." Said in the way where he's more curious than legitimately sorry, which is probably made obvious for the fact that he's not turning around and leaving. He doesn't even look at the guy when he says it, too busy trying to get a look at what he's working on instead. Considering the fact that there's more than a handful of feet and one desk between them, he isn't having much luck.

kyaaaa

[darkart]

With so many people coming and going this jump, Severus hasn't bothered keeping the main doors to this level closed - it's too much of a bother to go down there every single time he has to let someone without SCI nanite access in. But he does keep a close watch. Like now.

He stays where he is, quiet, and observes the fluttering visitor, elbows on the tabletop, fingers laced. He's as capable of going unnoticed as he is making dramatic entrances.

A moment after the absent apology, Severus finally speaks, his deep voice cutting through the silence like a light-switch suddenly being turned: "You're awfully eager to see what this is for someone who seems to think I'm ignorant about my own craft."

[technologist]

"I never said that." It's a shade too quick to sound anything but defensive. He finally looks at Severus, curiosity regarding whatever's on the table between them abandoned in the face of the perceived insult.

His tone's flat, though, expression neutral. There's no real delay between the comment and the connection; Fitz remembers the discussion, the promise to come look in on his work, and he takes a moment to consider Severus now that he's put two and two together.

"I wasn't trying to insult you. It just isn't—," he stops short. Magic doesn't exist. Not true, obviously. Probably not even true in his world, even if that's a new revelation. Better not to finish that sentence. "I meant what I said. Not that thing about ignorance, but about wanting to learn— it being a real discipline."

Sudden flashbacks to the academy and his least favorite teacher, frankly. Awful start.

[darkart]

(Flashbacks to least favorite teachers are very appropriate.)

"What I do is very disciplined," he says smoothly, splaying his hands on the table. "And I work in many fields. But you must understand, also, that there are many witches and wizards who do not work in academia and still live with magic as a total lifestyle. We have shop clerks and janitors and housewives the same as anyone."

Severus is working on adapting a calming draught for someone completely fucking crazy (spoilers: Corvo), and on the table before him are notes, plants, jars with strange things in them, tools... a slim blade is set near his fingertips, the edge still dyed with pigment from flower petals.

"I'm curious why you want to know."

yooooo

[culver]

Learning sign language had been... well, challenging was a good word for it. But not in a bad way. Nill has a sharp mind, she just hasn't had much of a chance to apply it. But working with Severus had given her the opportunity to really work at something that took thought and concentration, and she couldn't be happier about it.

Before heading to her lesson, she had made a loaf of lemon poppyseed bread--she doesn't know if he eats things like that, but it would have been rude not to share. The bread, wrapped in a cloth, is under one arm and the references he'd made for her weeks ago are under the other. Since Heine had left she hasn't had anyone besides Severus to practice with, and she doesn't want to fall behind. When she reaches their usual room she knocks gently before peeking inside.

eeeeey

[darkart]

As ever, Severus is slightly early and already setting out their notes. He's been busy - he's always busy - but he continues to do these sessions with Nill. She's not a patient, he doesn't really have any reason to keep up with it, but he's come to find the break in his otherwise hectic schedule almost calming.

"Hello," he says when she knocks, and he signs a greeting at the same time. He's taken to trying to keep it up at all times when they're studying, and by now, occasionally dropping the verbal half.

[culver]

The smile that finds her face is automatic, but not insincere. When she signs hello in return, she allows herself to feel a brief moment of pride. She appreciates that Severus doesn't coddle her because she's mute, and that he actually makes her try. There are times when she has trouble keeping up with his gestures, but she usually manages to figure things out with context.

Her wings flutter before settling against her back as she approaches, placing both the papers and bread on the table once she's there. The pages have clearly been gone over again and again judging from their slightly wrinkled look and smudged markings. The bread, however, is fresh and still warm. She moves the cloth and signs, Would you like bread?

[darkart]

Wrinkled notes are a sign of actual studying, in his experience, and Severus is always silently satisfied to know Nill puts in the effort that she does. He wouldn't bother with this otherwise.

He watches her hands, his expression sharing a brief flicker of curiosity at her question before it returns to his usual indecipherable state. "Yes, thank you. Did you make it?" He signs along, and of course he knows she must have made it, given circumstances, but discussing it will give her something besides normal lesson plans to 'talk' to him about.

powerpooooooooes

[dogbane]

"Snape! Snape." Noise precedes William's immediate appearance twofold. There is his talking, of course, which tends to have an impressive blast radius all the time. There is also, however, the music-- space space jangle with lyrics that seem to have found a metaphorically sufficient comparison between piloting a spaceship and being under the influence of drugs. "Sna-aape.

"Aye aye. Awright, son?" He swoops out of the hedge and tramples around the most obvious part of the herb field, after a somewhat precarious stop and sway right on the edge of a few tender new growths. For the first time in some time, he isn't wearing a white coat, his Tranquility-issue jumpsuit boasting his comm device clipped to the and the collar gapped open around his neck and his ID discs swinging haphazardly around in loose syncopation with his stride, which is barrelling toward the wizard. Arms out, as if to catch Severus, which is what he's apparently doing, unless he's frozen magically or transformed into a toad or kneed in the balls or something in which case you can disregard the next two sentences:

They have at least two bars to dance along parallel to the anise. "Your garden is top fucking hole, did you do magic to it."

[darkart]

It's jarring to hear his surname hollered out like that, an uncomfortable flashback to school halls that sets his teeth on edge and his shoulders stiff. He doesn't like it. Especially out of William, who-- well, who he is never going to have any kind of physically intimate moment with, but who he still doesn't want to conflate with any of those people.

"If you don't get off there I'll help Netherlands string you up by your bollocks," is thus more sharp than it should be, as is the accompanying glare. The wizard stands up and preempts William with a decisive point back where he came, towards a bench. "Out. Yes, it's magic, but out."

[dogbane]

William takes the hand that is offered to him, although the pointy-finger is a somewhat awkward position so he winds up having to sort of awkwardly wrap his palm around it as he aims an ambitious grab with his other hand for Severus' hip. "Come wif me," he says. He thinks Severus looks unhappy today, but not more unhappy than his baseline, which is good, compared to the alternative. "Come on, two bars. Come on.

"Besides Ned wouldn't, Heather'd never forgive 'im." William smiles benignly, hugely, and his smile smells like whisky. He manages not to stomp on anything specifically because he's trying very hard not to, but his superpowers have to be good for something-- balancing out inebriation, for example. Balancing out himself among the rows of anise and somethingwort. "And she's a bad-arse cyborg innit."

[darkart]

Severus's eyes go wide as William grabs him, for a moment too gripped in shock and rapidly-increasing panic to react.

A second later William is back at the garden bench, far away from Severus and his rows of plants, the wizard's palm raised and recoiling from the dissipating flash of pale red light. He looks angry, but it's a mask. The tightness around his eyes betrays genuine anxiety.

"Don't ever do that again."

charles xaVIER ┬──┬ ノ( ゜-゜ノ) backdated to the 14th

[forgodssake]

When Charles arrives at the laboratories, it's clear he's gone the scenic route.

Not because he didn't know, because that had been among the first things he'd been told, about the looping hallways, the disappearing genetics labs, and not accidentally. He steps through the doors and turns on a heel to consider the path he came by, nothing much hinting at the bending of space save for the errant flutter at the hem of tweed jacket and his studious pause, sunglasses drawn off his face.

Pristine silver and glass, no charcoal black and low-cast magical lighting, or the gutted remains as such since he'd last seen it, being necessarily abandoned as wards had come apart like straw houses.

He enters further, backwards for a few paces as consideration lingers, before this is broken and he turns to greet the room proper. He pockets tinted glasses.

[darkart]

Severus prefers a dungeon atmosphere, it's true. But he's never complained about having to use the blindingly bright science labs, irritatingly hooked up to invasive, wasteful power sources-- he adjusts everything as he sees fit. The world has never come pre-made to his standards; here is no different. Like a living thing, his influence has devoured a considerable area, and it's only grown since Charles has last been here.

"Have you begun to feel it wearing off?" his voice floats from the back portion of the workspace. Severus does not look up, seated at a lab table behind several others, scratching away notes into the well-worn notebook that the ship saw fit to give him when he arrived.

[forgodssake]

Aimless, hesitant wander gains some direction and momentum both as Severus' voice winds through. Someone still needs a haircut and any kind of consistent sleeping pattern, but he's otherwise clean, upright, dressed especially for public walk-about, and of course, walking about.

An improvement, in Charles' opinion. Severus' presence is less marked than Charles' own absence, under his scrutiny, even if its as minor as less half-filled cups of tea gone cold and left in random places, playing paperweight to written notes when the glaring holographic monitors had become too much of a chore.

"Only this morning," he confirms. "It fades slowly."

He comes to a halt, hand in pocket, standing on the opposite side of Severus' chosen table. A customary look is tipped to the notes in front of the younger man.

[darkart]

He feels like he's forcing himself to set down his work and converse properly. (He's forcing himself to-- do something. Be something. Both more angry than he needs to be and reeling himself in. Torn.) He follows through anyway, hands stilling, head raising.

"It should be a smooth transition." And so Charles's assessment is the answer he wanted to hear; good. "Side effects?"

Professor Xavier should know the drill with reporting on new medication use. Severus doesn't bother with twenty questions.

capriCA six (natasi) ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* \(◕‿◕✿)/ *:･ﾟ

[xerampelinae]

Natasi gets as far as her access allows, but doesn't immediately pull out her comms device to alert Severus of her presence.

Everything holds a fascination. Everything reminds her a little of home, too, although there had been a kind of austere heaviness to the construction of the Basestars for all that they'd traveled the galaxy with far more organic grace than anything a human could invent. But there are corners of the Tranquility that hold fragility and it reminds Natasi that this ship may never have seen war, or at least, never expected to.

And the laboratories are practically a china shop. She drifts through, clad in jeans and tank top and a feminine leather jacket cropped high above her waist, and she catches sight of the labs through a window pane. She smiles, cruising by like a shark in its tank, fingertips running along the glass.