ataraxionlogs | thirty-fifth jump;

Entry tags:

thirty-fifth 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: You wake feeling cold and alone. There is a strange sense of emptiness, and the jump holds no surprises for you. There is nothing buffering the jump sickness and disorientation for you this month, and those still suffering the lingering effects of August's plot may find it more difficult than usual to get through the post-jump routine.

New arrivals will find messages spraypainted across their lockers telling them not to follow their tattoo numbers, and instead to find a room on Floors 001-010.

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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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[Emily nods, gives her an apologetic look in response] Yeah, unfortunately.

It's okay— I know it's hard to hear too and I still can't quite believe I'm been here that long myself but from my experience things back home kind of on pause while we're here.

[ Perhaps not the most delicate way to phrase it. ]

I can imagine how disconcerting that must be for you.

Might I ask your name? Perhaps I can lend some insight.

[ it's certainly putting it mildly, but she's not interested in spreading panic. caution, certainly, but not panic. ] You might still be able to. [ a beat, and she forces a hand through her hair, pace slowing a little as another wave of nausea hits and she has to breathe through it.

( she hates this. )

once that's passed, she continues: ] I don't know how it works, but some people have gone home and come back here, and for them it was as though they never left their worlds to begin with. You don't remember ever having been here, and seemingly no time has passed.

[ and, more quietly: ] There was a boy here, a while ago, Takeshi. He's gone now, though.

[ there are a lot of people that anderson wants to look out for, but none of them are children anymore: charles xavier, the soldier, alex summers, erik lehnsherr- the list goes on. ]

Right. Yes, it would.

[ He dimly recalls that being a thing, for all that the most exploring he did upon his own return was scurrying from locker to his room on level fourteen. Charles is quiet again, studying changed face and reflecting a little how quickly he'd accepted it as normal, just now. It's the one he remembers best, anyway, not the more leonine bone structure and musculature from before the serum.

The serum being a topic he opts not to bring up. Nor how he'd handled it, before. Not asking for it directly. ]

It's good to see you again, [ is added, like it occurs to him just then that ten years worth of memory is now arrived, and that it doesn't have to be just mortifying, but. Familiar.

Charles is only a little aware that this is probably an odd sentiment for Hank, either version of him having only just seen Charles fairly recently, but for Charles, it's been a few months, in a way. ]

Really? [Leia fingers the crown for herself before putting it on.] They're lovely.

[Then her brown eyes widen and she smiles brightly.]

Are you Lúthien? We spoke over the network, but I was a little ill at the time.

So, why don't you show me to the nearest one and we can finish this story? And then maybe you can tell me whatever it is that's got you makin' that face.

[Did you really think you were going to be able to keep anything from her, Wash? Really?]

[Mysterious diseases, strange tech, obvious messing with their brainpans...]

The tattoos have anything to do with this? And the crew to this...ship? You seen any of 'em since you arrived?

[She's curious to know if she's been here before but doesn't remember it like he claims for himself, but she figures that's a question that can wait until later.]

This way.

[he starts leading her toward the passenger levels]

What face?

[Is he making a face? He probably is.]

( ilde laughs, quiet-- ) I'm not saying it because I'm annoyed with him or-- I mean he's just happy to do as he pleases and couldn't give a damn what people end up thinking of him as a result. You see enough tabloid photographs of a man falling out of a bar with someone else's wife after getting into a brawl with the husband and it becomes difficult, if you don't know him personally, to reconcile that with his charity work and his career.

My mother was much more succinct on the topic: his greatest accomplishment, bar myself, was shutting up and looking pretty and he wasn't very good at the former. Fair play to her, he can't keep an opinion to himself for the life of him.

( ilde, both her father's daughter by temperament and by emery's doting attention, had a difficult and complex relationship with annegret sauvageon-- the fondness in her tone is real enough, but lacks intimacy, as if she were discussing an acquaintance she liked well enough but knew only passingly. )

My stepmother - sort of, they annulled it - actually had a film career, though. They met when she was on location in Italy, and she stayed with us instead of at a hotel - he gave me her engagement ring when they separated, I used to wear it to all of her premieres. ( --whereas hasibe is spoken of with immediate pride. )

Edited 2014-09-22 23:53 (UTC)

Ilde Knox. ( a beat, because-- who knows, if it's been that long-- ) My maiden name was Featherstonehaugh.

( 'fanshaw', because british people are fucking weird, that's why, so she's not unaware that if he knew it from having seen it written down, for instance, it may be completely useless. it does not sound even a little bit like how it's spelled. )

[ Last person to judge someone for translucent skin, right here, though it's definitely noted. The sickness from last month has been covered, too, so he's assuming that's the cause. ]

Kieren. [ Not expecting the friendly introduction, but he rolls with it easily, still slightly distracted by that glimpse of her tattoo. He's aware of his own, of course, but it's still a strange concept to get used to. Another check in the "feels like we're chattel, kind of like Norfolk" column. ]

Second jump makes it one month, right? You seem to have the hang of it.

[ Happy to be predictable. The answer provides more questions than answers, frankly. Discworld, Reg Shoe?? The mention of setting things straight sounds more ominous than reassuring, but he keeps that to himself. ]

No, that's fine. I mean this is still very informative. [ Manners. He doesn't look any less bemused than he'd started out. ] I think Undead's the preferred term where I'm from, as well. Reg Shoe— is that a name?

Sorry. Guess I just have one of those faces.

[Speaking of, Nick reaches for the nearest stack of towels and takes two, one to wipe said face off with before pulling the other around him. He's going over what the guy just said, and it's not getting any easier to believe. But that's not saying much when he isn't sure what to believe right now.]

What do they want us for? Tests? Weapons?

[ Which is very weird. Hostility isn't welcome, but it's the usual; the absence of it from someone who doesn't owe him anything is weirdly jarring, and it takes Kieren a beat to catch back up to the conversation.

He looks to the case in question, and there's apparently more thought being put into the answer than expected. The question's easy, yes or no. The bemusement's caused by the fact that the entire point of the contacts is to make people comfortable, to help him fit in (as if it's not obvious, anyway).

He's not wearing them now, and nobody seems to give a shit. There have been reactions, sure, each quickly followed up by genuine manners, casual conversation. It's hardly enough to negate his own need to dodge the white eyes that look back at him in the mirror, but it is enough to make him wonder why he's still so worried about hiding behind them. ]

It's supposed to make me look more like before. [ And it hardly accomplishes that, really. The train of thought's sidelined as he looks back up to Mitchell. ] Is that...

[ No idea what he's trying to ask, here. Why are you so okay with zombies?? ] Do you know about The Rising?

[ she exhales a tired-looking grin. ] I think 'seem's the key word there. [ reassuring, right? ]

I will say it's not as bad once you know where you're at. [ a hand lifts to vaguely mime the throat tube. ] Hurts a lot less if you don't panic.

Neighbors, definitely. [ and she glances back at the words for a second, tilting her head a little. ] I can't really speak for any of the others, but fifth floor's actually pretty rockin'. [ and as an afterthought, she gestures to her ridiculous jaw situation, with a hopefully-reassuring: ] Totally unrelated.

A rising. Yeah. Just one in specific.

[Not counting his own technical rise from the grave. Just the one zombie--there were others, but Mitchell's not going to get into the video he and Annie had found. Corpses thrashing around on the gurney, and the whir of the saw. There's vampire shit, and then there's torture. Sometimes they overlap, depending on who you are, but never for Mitchell. Even when he was at his worst, you have to have standards.

'Like before', like when he was alive. It doesn't need to be said. Vampires are lucky, they get premade disguises. Then again, it could be worse for Kieren. He thinks, again, of Sasha, simpering and giggling and rotting to pieces, all I need is a bit of slap--Christ. It could be so much worse.]

But I'm guessin' the one you're talking about is a bigger thing. Did you do the contacts yourself?

Mine's Benny.

[Introductions are good, they help create the illusion of normalcy. He can't help feeling sympathetic as she presses her hands to her temples; it's a hell of a lot to take in, enough to make you feel like your head is spinning all the way around, but she's handling it better than some.

He cracks a warm half-smile, hooking his thumbs into his pockets.]

Hard to tell. Hundred and fifty years, maybe more. Lost track for a little while.

[That initial blood frenzy made everything that came before it feel hazy, and fifty years in Purgatory helped -- but unlike her, he's pretty damn sure he can tell what she is without asking. She's not exactly the same as him, but close. Real close.]

You're like me, aren't you?

Muscle memory.

[Something to be said for that. Even if she didn't know objectively where to go, some part of her seemed to.

His frown deepens slightly. He's heard of people leaving and coming back -- apparently, he's done it himself, but there hadn't been any memory of this place the second time around, not even instinct or a faint sense of deja vu. All he'd had was someone else's word.]

What about the people? You remember any of the people? Anyone look familiar?

[It's likely that if she had friends here before, they'll recognize her, maybe even help job her memory.]

Keep to myself, mostly.

[But there's a weight to his words that implies he agrees. Without someone to hang onto, someone to look to for help, someone to hold yourself accountable to, things got crazy real fast. An experience he wasn't quite sure was limited to this place.

He didn't do so well on his own, however much he insisted on staying that way.

He pauses, hesitant before cracking a smile, one that comes out small and lopsided but appreciative all the same.]

Now you're speakin' my language. Drinking may not be a permanent fix, but sure does help.

[Helps curb cravings, too, and God knows he needs all the help he can get with that.]

[The response is a tight, humorless smile. He'd been more than willing to go back, finding Purgatory easier to deal with, to appreciate than the real world had become, but all the same-- it was what it was.]

Purgatory.

[He holds up two fingers, just for a moment.]

Second time around. Went back in to do Dean a favor. One-way trip.

[Initially by choice, but circumstances had ensured that there was no changing his mind.]

Yeah, yeah-- figured as much.

[Seeing Dean again in the first place had been unexpected-- he'd already gone back to Purgatory with no plans of resurfacing. End of the line. They'd said their goodbyes then, no matter how hard Dean had tried to pretend it wasn't for good. They both knew.

He hadn't expected another chance, but he'd gotten it all the same. Now it seemed like he'd wasted it.]

That's what I've heard. Got told I'd been here before when I first showed up, but didn't remember any of it. Knew they weren't pullin' my leg, though. They knew too much to be makin' it up.

"Talked to her for a few minutes a little while back." He glances to further down the locker bank to indicate where. "Helped her get her bearings a little, maybe."

At the very least, they'd talked enough to figure out that they had a hell of a lot in common. It was good to know that not everyone that subscribed to the liquid diet on this ship was a judgmental stone-thrower. His first month on the ship had been tense. Better that he get to any new vampires first rather than let someone less welcoming come by, assume the worst and say the wrong thing.

"Seems like a nice girl."

Then if your friend ever returns hopefully he'll beat the odds.

( Or at least remember something positive of this place, and this man even if it wasn't all that happened here. Although forgetting any of it might not have been the blessing that it seemed when you returned )

Sometimes I wonder whether the numbers ever equal - or have to. ( How seemed to be silly to worry about as much when they never had an answer for that ) How many leave for new ones to arrive?

"I don't eat."

There's sharpness there, out of reflex—he doesn't pretend, he won't play make-believe to set anyone at ease—but it doesn't last, without any guile or judgment he can say he was rising to meet. She's possibly as strange as he is. And even without understanding where he is at all, thinking he's still in his own world and caught in someone new's experiment, he'd believe she doesn't know what he is or why it matters.

He's quiet for a few second, slipping his tie through his fingers to smooth out the places where it's twisted on itself. When he talks again he's a little more gentle, and what isn't gentle isn't meant for her. "Do they not feed you?"

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thirty-fifth jump;

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it's perfect that's what

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we can just both be slow then okok

aww you i bet you say that to all the girls

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