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.

----------------

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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ᴘᴏᴅs

( what the entire fresh fuck.

it takes her a few minutes to pull herself together enough to sit up off the floor, viscous fluid dripping from her body; how do you even react to something like that? you go to sleep in your own bed, in your own soft-worn buttondown and the faint smell of aftershave, and you wake up with a fucking tube in your throat, getting spat out onto the floor of...

ilde has heard stories about prometheus. she's remembering them as she stands up, slowly, but-- then she'd still be in the container, presumably. 'letting you wander around' isn't really the reported MO. so it's-- probably not that, unless...no, it doesn't look like an escape, either.

she isn't sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. )

ʟᴏᴄᴋᴇʀs

( showering was a relief; she finds the locker that matches her number - OPR? one what? - after toweling herself dry, leans her hands against it and lets herself just breathe for a few moments before opening it. things are starting to feel familiar, like she's been here before, done this before, but it's...a lot to deal with. she isn't sure what exactly it is, but: a lot of it. whatever. she feels almost hungover, run down, and it takes her a while to match mind to movement, sifting through the locker's contents.

clothing. small mercies. gervase's research, his laptop - at least she doesn't have to fret about where it is and who's looking after it. her wedding rings - it felt odd, waking up bare-handed - go back where they belong, and she slides the pictures of her children in with gervase's work. her shoes get dropped to the floor with a clatter, and she toes them back in front of her, pulling her knickers on and trying to think straight.

any minute now, this is going to start making sense. )

( two things strike elizabeth, as she nears ilde's locker, her fingers tying off the last of her ribbons. one, she looks confused. two, she looks older. elizabeth pauses, unsure of what to do or say; it could just be a trick of the light, or her imagination. but her illness and her discord with cesare have not impeded her ability to read others. suddenly she is glad that she is dressed to the nines and that her hair has been meticulously styled as best as she might manage without a maidservant to do it.

if her friend is truly older by some magic this ship is capable of, then she would look her best to make a good impression in case she does not remember her. and how awkward would that be? her stomach lurches, nearly twisting at the idea. how many people will this ship or her own foolishness take from her? she has seen enough departures.

this time, if this friend does not remember her, she will endeavour to befriend her again. she cannot lose ilde, too. so elizabeth stands straight and tall, and approaches as gracefully as she might; which is far more so than she would were she not miserable, in all honesty. for all the world, it appears as though nothing is wrong with her. she offers the woman a small smile, and a gentle touch at the shoulder. )

Has the ship seen fit to supply you with vestments? If not, you may make use of some of mine.

Edited 2014-09-08 04:52 (UTC)

sʜᴏᴡᴇʀs

( mila stands beneath the spray of water for much longer than necessary, face tilted up and eyes closed; the past month has worn her down to the bone, and there was a part of her that gave serious thought to just lying down beside her pod and refusing to move. can't be bothered. tired, sick of feeling sick, too much still to do-- fuck it.

she lingers under the water instead, and then when she shuts it off, stands there a little longer, remembering how to be herself. how straight her back always is, how purposeful her walk. the particular way that she holds herself up, the tilt of her chin and the way she doesn't fidget, just moves. when she's sure she's not going to disappoint herself, she reaches for her towel. )

( the voice is familiar enough, somehow, that ilde restrains her instinctive response - less than friendly - and turns, pushing her damp hair over her shoulder and out of her way. some things don't change, and 'ilde having more hair than any one woman actually needs' is one of them. )

I've-- yeah, I have a couple of things, thank you.

( it's not a total lack of recognition on her part - she's scrutinizing elizabeth like she's sure she should know this girl, just...it's on the tip of her tongue. she's nearly got it. )

[ somehow, sally'd been hoping her mouth might be back to normal when she fell out of the pod this time around. she's not hurling anymore, she's not dizzy, she doesn't ache all over - and yet she's still got this big stupid mouth full of what she can only assume is supposed to be wolf teeth, which is not nearly as funny as a few hundred nanites seem to think it is. or... seemed to think it was. but the fact that they're dead now does absolutely nothing to make her feel better about it here and now, so it's with an abnormal lack of chatter that she's made her way through the showers and off to her locker, wrapped tight in a towel.

sally brushes her arm across the locker routinely, her head tilting to the side a little as she exhales a sigh through her nose. and now it's unlocked and she's pulling it open and -

retracting her hands sharply like it burned her. because now her locker's open and there's a face staring back, eyeless and toothless and limp - just a near-black pelt, not that she's paying much attention to that, because for a horrifying second it almost looked like a wolf.

sally realizes now that she's holding her breath, and she lets it out slow, tongue running hard over the points of her sharpest teeth as she resists the urge to say, "Yeah, okay," or anything even remotely similar in the dry 'whatever, man' kind of way, as if whoever put the thing in her locker's just waiting in the wings to see whether or not she freaks. her arms cross for a second, but that just reminds her that she's in a towel, so her arm slips in under the pelt to reach for her clothes. ]

( Not a total lack of recognition, no. but neither is it the camaraderie she has become so used to over the past several months. to her credit, elizabeth doesn't miss a beat, as she casually drops her hand from the woman's shoulder with a small but friendly smile. )

That is good. Have you any need of assistance? You and I are ( her mind leaps to think of the word. ) assigned a shared quarters.

So if there is anything you need, I am here.

( sam has also taken a good long shower. she is tired of feeling and looking gross, and has taken an extra care this time so that she at least resembles the maid she'd been before the blight hit, and everything else leading up to this rather nasty bout of plague. her skin might be red in a lot of places where she has scrubbed too hard, but otherwise she glows much more than she has in a while.

the difference being as healthy as she can be in her circumstances and having a full repository of mana makes! she exits the shower slowly, reaching a hand back to comb a hand idly through her hair before reaching for a towel. it is then that she notices mila not more than a few feet from her, and in relief a grin breaks across her face. )

You're looking lovely today. And well. ( mild flirtation aside, her smile softens more genuinely. ) I'm glad.

Edited (subject line woes) 2014-09-08 05:37 (UTC)

( ilde hooks her bra into place and tugs her fingers through her hair - there's a small fortune in jewels on her left hand, like more diamonds were supposed to make their marriage more secure - before she exhales, too forceful to be called a sigh, and... christ, there's so much 'and' here. and what. she doesn't know. they'll be fine without her, and that's the worst part-- )

I don't suppose that room happens to have a stiff drink in it.

( it's ilde's room. of course it does. )

--no, I do know you, don't I?

pods

[Pepper's bones are still glowing a bright reddish-orange as she falls to the floor with pod sickness. Her body wracking with the dry heaves that she's come to expect from every jump. She can feel the heat of her body starting to thicken and dry the goo on her and she knows it's going to be hard to scrub it off this time.]

Lockers

[For once Pepper is wearing the jump suit instead of her normal clothing. She's trying to cover her glowing bones and the heat. She's exhausted and hot and thankfully not getting sick anymore; it's just the superficial manifestation and she knows what it was trying to manifest. It's mimicking the alterations in her body from what Killian had done to her. Thankfully no questions had been asked yet, but the sooner she can get away from people and hide this the better. It's why she never went to the med bay before they found a cure.]

( the tattoo covering most of milagros' back, rosevines wound around the words vive memor leti, is a bit of a departure from the impression she otherwise gives. she turns as soon as she hears sam's voice, though, so it's not something the other woman gets too long a look at-- )

I missed out on the worst of it. As did you, I can see.

( what with the lack of lingering mutations. ) Well done.

p o d s.
[What worries him most isn't being covered in blue shit - the dried blood on him and the idea of soy sauce in his veins is still way more gross. What worries him is that somehow Cassie never saw this coming. She was a crappy artist, but that pad of hers always had something to say about the future, and it never shied away from anything bad. He hits the floor hard, and he's naked, nauseated, and confused. Yeah, this is definitely bad.

But it doesn't feel like Division, not unless they've joined with the space program and are taking their human weapons to the stars. It feels like it could be something even worse, and Nick huffs a soft, humorless laugh at that one, until he starts coughing up god knows what.]

Shit.

[You can quote him on that.]

l o c k e r s.
[So he has a new tattoo. It isn't his first, probably not his worst. At least this one seems to have a purpose beyond being a drunken mistake or a souvenir on his skin. Nick wanders along the rows of lockers, stopping at the one that's been designated as his. He gets a sick feeling for about a second, maybe from the big red message painted across it. But there's no way they could fit a thirteen year old in there, right?

He's relieved to find his clothes, even more relieved to find his gun. But one thing brings fresh worry to his mind.

Take an umbrella. It's gonna rain.

Not much chance of that here, but Nick still takes it out and opens it up, looking up at it. He sighs, slams the locker door with a thoughtless little curve of his fingers and proceeds to stare at those painted words. Follow the tattoos, don't follow the tattoos. It's gotta be one or the other, and frankly he doesn't know what the hell to believe.]

pods.
Katrina!

[His wife's name is a strangled cry on his lips from the moment the pod spits him out. He feels nauseated, confused, but he gets his bearing sooner than most. For one good (or in this case, very bad) reason - he's been here before.]

No, no, no. This can't be.

[Ichabod repeats the word like a mantra or a prayer, though the latter would fall on deaf ears. He knows this ship, and he knows it to be God forsaken, far more likely to be under the other side's control. It is a Purgatory all its own, filled with lost souls just wanting to move on, wanting to repent for whatever sins they've committed and just go home.]

lockers.
[He isn't calm, not even when he finds his locker. The number is different this time. How odd, that life continues on here without them, when the very opposite seems to happen on their world while they're here.

Ichabod collects his things, thankful for the lack of skinny jeans this time. He slams the door shut, scowling dismissively at the act of vandalism across it, this supposed "warning".]

Poppycock.

Edited 2014-09-08 12:05 (UTC)

[ the first golf club is removed from the locker carefully. arya stares at it like she expects it to grow spikes or explode or something. it’s a good weight, she supposes, though too long for a real club. it would throw her off-balance.

that its head is caked in dry blood does not faze her. she scratches at it with a nail. rust colored flakes slips through the cool air to the ground. nymeria, who had come around to sniff at the strange object in the girl’s hands, jumps when arya carelessly tosses it to the ground. the club makes a loud sound when it strikes the floor; the rest of them ( thirteen, she counts them ) make an even louder commotion when she simply grabs them all at once and throws them down.

nymeria growls at the sound, ears flattening against her head, and backs away. arya sucks in an irritated between her teeth. ignoring the wolf, she reaches into her locker again for her tunic. once that’s over her head, she drops her towel. as she removes her breeches from the locker, she spares a skeptical glare at the clubs. ]

What are you good for?

[ brad is not particularly pleased, but brad has not been particularly pleased in a long time, so it barely bears mentioning anymore at this stage. his body is a mess of pale skin and segments that look less like skin and more like ice. at least the tattoos of his back aren't affected, as far as he can tell.

he's not really interested in socialising, but when mila keeps standing still under the shower, and remaining there for the entire time it takes him to wash up, which is longer than usual, when she was there before he even got to the showers, he can't help but drawl: ] Waiting to grow gills?

[ she's exhausted, and the nausea is near-overwhelming. she feels alone, too, and empty, and none of those sensations really pass as she drags herself through the motions of showering, of getting dressed-- the jumps and the sensations post-jump are rarely benign and she's been around long enough to understand that they are probably induced by something on the ship rather than her actual physical and psychological state, but she is experiencing them and that makes them real, no matter that they might not actually come from her.

what it means is that she finds herself wanting to reach out, to make a connection. it's not quite making a difference, at least not in the way she usually tries, but while she's resting her forehead against her locker in a show of exhaustion and vulnerability that is atypical and that she'd like to say is unusual, too, but isn't given the way she's dragged herself through the corridors since the illness had hit, she picks up a thought and replies to it, almost immediately: ]

It's not going to rain. [ a beat, and she forces her head up to look at the man whose mind she'd just read, and then at her locker to take her primary weapon out of it, to settle the gun in its holster. ] Unless the ship's sprinklers malfunction.

[She comes out of the jump, and it's just...another jump. Sometimes Seraphim wonders if maybe she's too used to this, if she has grown too well accustomed to this ritual, once a month. It's likely to make her crazy.

Crazier.

She opens her locker and takes her violin out, still upset over the fact that it's now gold, and there's no one who can fix it, as far as she knows. The artistry would be incredible, if she didn't know that once it was wood - the grain is accented by rose gold, the bridge and pegs made of a lighter white gold.

But it's her violin and she wants it back.]

[ This isn't the first time Vega has been here.

Hard to forget the whole being sicked up out of a pod, covered in blue shit and dumped on the floor like a piece of meat. But the memories are fuzzy around the edges of what he can feel is wrong on so many different levels. He'd found his locker after stumbling around and trying not to lose his legs out from under him in what probably looked as graceful as a newly born elephant trying to work out how to get its legs working together. A new tattoo is the least of his problems right now, he figures, and having gone through the motions of tugging on his Alliance uniform (one that he'd pulled on in crazier situations than this one) he'd decided to lean up against a bank of lockers that aren't his and try to pull his head together.

When he'd gone to sleep he'd been in London and now he's on a ship that looks kind of familiar. He hadn't given Hackett his answer yet even though he was going to say yeah to that offer of his own command. So why was he on a ship instead of in the borrowed apartment he'd been assigned to?

Sooner rather than later he knows he's going to get bored of not having any answers, but for right now he's just working through trying not to throw up the contents of his stomach like he's some little green cadet pendejo on his first post. No way in hell is James Vega going to puke his guts out on a ship. ]

[It's been taking Wash a bit longer than usual to make it to the lockers the past few jumps... actually, long enough that it probably qualifies as usual, by now.

But eventually, he makes it from the pods to the showers. And from there to his locker. He pulls on a new shirt, as obnoxious as his last, with a mere shrug. It certainly looked to be his.

But then there's the pictures. Most have Zoe. Some have other members of the crew. And every last one of them shows a baby girl.

He just stands there, going through the pictures. With a very confused look on his face.]

[It's never fun, getting the wake-up call that signals a new landing point in space, time, wherever they really are (and some days Bucky still wonders if he's dreaming it, laid out on Zola's lab bench and dreaming about being in some crappy radio serial - that one he and Steve listened to because it seemed like someone made it just for them: Buck Rogers in the 25th Century).

This go around's worse than most. Bucky's barely standing before the nausea threatens to knock him back off his feet, and it takes more than a minute to steady himself enough to put one foot in front of the other and move.

He makes it half way to his locker, wondering if there'll be anything new or at the least helpful in there this time (those soup crackers that used to be the only thing Steve'd keep down when he was sick - he could kill for a pack of those). But he stops at the sight of someone worse off than he is - the back of their shoulders hunched as they hack up blue ooze.

He stops, claps the guy on the back.]

Easy, don't fight it. Better out than in.

[Simon was still feeling weak and exhausted after the few weeks he'd had, and he thought about just going back to his quarters and sleeping for a long, long time. However, he'd noticed Wash lingering by his lockers and went over to ask if something was up- before he caught a glance of the pictures and his breath caught in his throat.

A baby. And he could see traces of the baby's mother and father in her right away...]

... She's a gorgeous child.

pods & lockers | open

[Ten years was significantly longer than the last time he'd been deposited from his pod with a head full of new memories, but this time Hank doesn't hide. Mostly he stands there doubled over, looking significantly more blue than everyone else despite being covered with presumably the same amount of stasis fluid. While he coughs and adjusts from the feeling of tube stuck down his throat, he looks up from under his brow and readies himself to be accosted - either from waking up in something reminiscent of a laboratory (Trask) or because his most recent memory was of fighting Erik.

The assault doesn't come; a nagging sense of familiarity does. He doesn't necessarily remember everything about his time on board The Tranquility in minute detail, but there's a sense of relief that he has opposable thumbs and the knowledge of shower, locker. It's a start.]

pods (later in the day) | closed

[And then comes the point where he does start to remember later on in the day, once he's read over what happened before the last jump and having bumped into a few familiar faces. But one in particular is missing and he finds his memories swithering between sitting at the side of a bed in sick bay and Paris.

He knows logically that she - Raven, Mystique - won't know any of this is going on anymore than he knew what was transpiring during the jump. Her remaining in stasis is not an isolated incident either and it doesn't necessarily mean anything sinister will happen. But it doesn't do much and he's left feeling more and more uncomfortable at the thought of leaving her alone down here in the dark.

If anything, Charles would worry - or at least that's what he tells himself when he finds himself looking at her unmoving figure, arms crossed and contemplating surveillance options in case of attack.]

[Move around, wait for breathing tube to be extracted, get out and walk around before returning to medbay. It was only the 3rd time Jennifer had been through a jump, but it was becoming routine- and this time, the fact that she was waking up and seeing the others meant that the hard work of many of the residents had paid off, had saved them.

She'd just wished she'd been able to do more.

No use worrying about that now, she knew- time to look for a certain someone who was still avoiding her.]

Colonel Sheppard? Come on, you can't run away from me forever...

[ Lily is tired.

She's tired and she looks it, pale and not gaunt but there's something off, just a little, like she's not comfortable in her skin. She isn't again, not yet—she has no large visible effects from the last jump's horrors but even so, she's unsettled and still feeling a little unwell.

Not unwell enough to ignore the world around her, though. The man leaning against the lockers doesn't look familiar but he does look like he's seen better days, and she pauses by him, all regulation jumpsuit and damp red hair. ]

Are you all right?

[ She is in Medical, after all!!! She may as well act like it. ]

[ there's a leaf drawn on her locker door. she'd done it herself, as an easy marker amidst the scrawl. katniss scratches at the red paint with a thumbnail for a moment, smiling, thinking of sirius. but even with all the towels, the soggy underwear she wore into the pods, she still feels awkwardly naked. maybe even moreso than usual, since even after the terrible, tormented medical process, her changes haven't gone away. ]

[ she's hairless, for one thing. not just her body hair: that might have been okay, like the Capitol fashion for waxing and plucking off all her natural fuzz. but right now she's bald, too. no braid this month for katniss everdeen. instead of hair, her body has sprouted feathery skin growths, over her head and shoulders and distorted, bone-warped back. ]

[ some things are better: her talons have fallen out, and her skin stopped growing painfully into itself, and she can see again. but she still feels monstrous, emaciated and disfigured, sprouting mutations like the mutt peeta had thought she was. so it doesn't take her long to open her lovker, wanting clothes. ]

[ and clothes are what she gets. the wedding dress spills out onto the floor almost as soon as she opens the door, and she steps back from the waterfall of white material in horror. trying to stuff it hastily back into the locker just means she won't be able to get to anything she needs, so she pulls it out and tosses it aside, lets it crumple in a heap on the floor. there's a white rose tucked into the bodice, stem threaded through the ribbon, and for the first time since being spat out of the tube she feels bile clawing up her throat. ]

[ there's more. bread — which makes her think of sirius telling her what panem means. it's rue's bread, and she pushes those memories away. it's peeta's bread, too, because all bread makes her think of her baker boy. it's bread from home, and instead of being a grateful comfort it's just one more awful thing. ]

[ honestly, the liquor is a relief. it carries its own memories, of course: when she uncaps it the strong ethanol smell makes her think immediately of haymitch. there's only half a bottle, but she takes a shot, lets it burn her nose and throat, lets the tears be a reaction to the fire of it and nothing else. miserable, she takes another drink, forcing herself to swallow, face twisting in displeasure before she finally recaps it. ]

[ as if all those memories weren't enough, there at the back with her familiar boots and jumpsuit is her mockingjay uniform. the one cinna designed before he died, the one she wore in all those propos. and her handmade bow is a child's toy next to the weapon from district thirteen that she's been gifted with. if she has to fight, here, she'll need nothing more. ]

[ eventually she just puts on her tranquility jumpsuit. might now she doesn't feel like a goddess of the revolution: she feels like a broken bird, all skin and bones. she feels sick and worn down with sadness. she feels like a girl who lost too many people she cared for. numbly, she starts to separate out what she wants to take back to her room on the first floor, and what she's going to shut away in her locker, to ignore until the next jump. ]

Edited (autocorrected cinna to comma THIS IS WHY WE DONT PHONETAG KIDS) 2014-09-09 01:16 (UTC)

[she'll always be the easiest one for him to find. as quiet as she may be, her presence has always been loud to him. has always resonated deep within his grace. the call of familiarity, of family. of home. so waking back up on the ship again, with his memories of tablets and naomi and dean's blood on his hands--

he's beside her a moment later, clean and clothed and wholly uncomfortable with being out in the open. with the tablet buried inside him, he knows it's hidden from the outside world. but that doesn't mean he can ignore the possibility of its existence being discovered here.]

Seraphim.

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Page 1 of 41

thirty-fifth jump;

ɪʟᴅᴇ ᴋɴᴏx | ᴏᴛᴀ

no subject

ᴍɪʟᴀɢʀᴏs ɢᴀʟʟᴏ | ᴏᴛᴀ

no subject

sally malik | lockers | ota

no subject

no subject

no subject

Pepper | Open

no subject

nick gant | ota

ichabod crane | ota

arya stark ( lockers | ota )

no subject

no subject

ota;

james vega | lockers ota

Lockers, OTA

pods.

no subject

hank mccoy | pods & lockers | ota & closed

Jennifer Keller | OTA

gently slam into ur thread i told u

katniss everdeen; ota

no subject