ataraxionlogs | thirty-ninth jump;

Entry tags:

thirty-ninth 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: A feeling of deep dread greets you as you stumble out of the gravcouch, strong enough to hold you still for a long moment, searching your surroundings for the source of your wariness. Nothing becomes apparent, only your fellow passengers waking up. Eventually you gather the resolve to pick yourself up and start moving, the feeling fading slowly as you progress through 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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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.

ＹＯ́Ｕ̴ ̧Ａ̨ＲＥＮＯＴ҉ ̷ＡＬＯ̨ＮＥ҉

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.

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Of course she doesn't put down the glowing heart. Partly because, well: it's Annie. She can be compliant and cautious, but she's got a mind of her own, really. God love her. (Or something like that; God love her is a bit too direct of a blessing for Mitchell to think without feeling a little-- itchy.)

But also: she's right. The heart doesn't smell like blood, or like an actual organ. And it is glowing, somewhat gently, a little like a nursery night-light. Seen like this, one might think it benign and harmless. Then again, a large part of Mitchell's killing career was founded on the virtue of a harmless appearance. Everybody's friend: that's a total vampire trick.

Maybe it's unfair to ascribe that to a heart. After all, it's only a heart.

That's still glowing.

"Uh, you know." He looks up at Annie, with a crook of a smile. "Twenty-two Jumps, that's when they say you really get the hang of it." There have been better, and there have been worse, as well she knows. It's sweet of her to ask all the same. "What about you? Besides your new..." His eyes flick down again. Still glowing. "Heart."

It's not that she's not cautious. It's that she's willing to think the best of things, most of the time. It's that nature that made her stay with Owen, she thinks sometimes, but it's also what got her to stay with Mitchell, and well, she won't complain about that.

She holds it up a bit. "It's rather pretty, don't you agree? Glowing and lovely like this. I wonder why I got it. Do you think it's something from home? We can keep it in the room," she says, rather brightly, not at all concerned. It's not that she's avoiding how she is, but the truth is she is a little disappointed George is still missing, so this is a pleasant distraction.

Pretty. Only Annie would call a glowing heart pretty. Mitchell looks at it, and the glow that it casts on Annie's face. There's something pretty about that, at least, but it's more to do with Annie than the heart.

"Right, and what are we going t' do with a heart, exactly?" His tone is already shading more toward amusement than anything else. The distraction, yeah, but also, just: Annie. "I don't like sleeping with the lights on."

Edited (whoops) 2015-01-08 22:57 (UTC)

She looks at it for a long moment. "Maybe we can suss a way to turn it off. If I squeeze it?" And she does, experimentally, squeezing it once, then again a bit harder, and a third time, just a little bit harder, but no, it's still glowing. Hm. Well. "Or not," she adds, and waves a hand as if to say oh well.

"Well, we can put it in the television room, can't we? That way it won't be in the room when you're sleeping." And when Annie is lying next to him, with her eyes closed, pretending they are a normal couple and not at all creepy.

Squeezing it seems logical in a weird and totally mental way, so. Sure, why not. But there are no results, and Mitchell just shrugs a little, echoing Annie's oh well.

"The television room would be all right. I just don't really get why we're keeping it." Perhaps it's not the sort of thing you question, like someone installing a corkboard in the kitchen, or adding cushions to the kitchen chairs. It is what it is, right? In this case, it just happens to be a heart, but so what. There's weirder decorative pieces out there. "Is this 'cause you can't get a dog?"

"Because it's mine, it was in my locker, after all. What if it's something important from home?" She cradles it, then. Of course, this is Annie logic, this is something only Annie would ever come up with. But then-

"I do not understand what you have against me getting a dog! It would be lovely to have one, we'd have to lock it up loads less than George, after all-" she says, clearly rehashing an old argument. It's not like dogs can really see her but she would be able to see the dog and love it like that, it would be fine!

"I don't think it's from home." But he says it mildly, fully prepared to have her just ignore it and move on. In that moment, Mitchell misses George--not with the keen sharp feeling that he's been missing him, but something a little more manageable. If George were here, he'd have caught that line. He'd have had something to say about it, something clever, or less-than-clever but still amusing in its way, however inadvertent.

No one wants to know what George would have to say about getting a dog, but Mitchell feels momentarily compelled to keep the side up, in George's memory. It helps that he's not the biggest fan of dogs himself.

"Oh--" God, this again; he raises one hand, placating. "You people, and your dogs-- Look. It's not that I've got anything against dog, all right? I like dogs. But I like actual dogs. The ones you pointed out were always so-- so little. Anything that would sleep on a pillow is automatically out of the question."

To be totally fair, Annie could usually only point out dogs from inside the house, smacking them on the arm mid-conversation and gesturing suddenly out of the nearest window. And the neighborhood taste in dogs ran a bit small and fluffy, so her sampling was a little unfair, but Mitchell doesn't undercut his own argument with these facts. If George were here, he'd undercut George with these facts, but he's not about to self-sabotage.

Ignoring it and moving on is exactly what she does. She's fixated, now, even as she puts the heart in the crook of her arm so she doesn't drop it again while she's gesticulating. "I like big dogs, too! I don't know why I keep having to say that, it isn't as if I'm desperate for a chihuahua, although I would not say no to a Yorkie-but that's not the point! You would rather no dog at all!"

She points them out because they're cute and friendly and rather like Annie. "I could even agree to a cat, but George thinks it'll eat him in his sleep or something-"

"Christ, you'd think the neighbor's cat was a man-eating lion, the way he goes on about it. Remember when it bit him? And he said, he was just going in to pat it on the head, I don't know why he even tried--"

Although, to be fair--Mitchell looks down at his hand, with faint criticism.

"Animals... don't really like us very much." Cats or dogs. "Maybe we really are better off with a heart, even if it's creepy."

She looks at the heart again. It's not creepy, it's kind of cute, actually. Adorable, really. "We ought to name it," she decides, then. "I think it's a girl."

Sometimes Annie gets this way, and Mitchell, really, it's best if you don't argue with it. Besides, it distracts from the sorry fact that animals don't like vampires.

It's a sad fact for Annie, maybe. Mitchell has grown fairly indifferent to animals, thanks to a few lifetimes of being unable to approach them without hissing and barking and whining. Still-- not entirely convinced that keeping a heart as a pet is a normal thing, or a good idea, but--

"A girl?" He laughs, despite himself. It's easy to go along with Annie, humour and indulge her. She's quick to attach herself to things, and quick to enthusiasm. Right now, that's cute. "Last time I checked, hearts didn't have sexes, but... What makes you think it's a girl?"

"Oh, I don't know. It's so glowing and pretty," she says, because obviously, those are girl traits, in Annie's head. And maybe she just wants someone (something?) on her side. Not that the heart is going to help her win any arguments.

And maybe she knows that Mitchell is humoring her, but really she doesn't mind, not even a little bit. Instead she seems to take it as a point of pride. "What do you think we should name it?"

He could probably argue that, too--glowy, absolutely, and while beauty is in the eye of the beholder or whatever, he's pretty sure that extending the description to disembodied hearts is stretching things a little, but--

"Oh, we're naming it now. Really getting into this pretending-it's-a-pet thing, aren't we." Then again, Annie looks pretty happy. Continuing to humor her on this won't take that much effort. "Ah, I don't know, I'm crap at naming things. Uh. Rosie." Because it's red, see, and-- Valentines, and stuff.

She looks at it for a moment. "Well, Rosie, that's not a bad name, if it's short for something. Like Roxanne, you know, like that song by the Police. I think it's rather clever, then," she adds, because Roxanne put on the red light, and all right, maybe Annie is missing that it's about prostitution, really, but who cares?

"It's likely a better pet than any animal, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but... Roxanne, that's a bit--"

Prostitute-y, but then he thinks better of saying it. You've got to pick your battles sometimes, and if Annie wants Roxanne "Rosie" the Heart, then she can have it that way.

"I mean, Roxie's usually the nickname for Roxanne, yeah." Smoothly navigating away from his critique, Mitchell keeps going with Annie's train of thought. "And I guess it's a little better. I mean, it's not going to piss in the house or anything, or-- eat any shoes." It's not really going to do anything, but maybe that's all right. "It's not... like, beating or anything, is it?"

"Well, Rosanne is a terrible name," Annie says, with a wrinkle of her nose. "I suppose we could name her Rose, but that's rather, well. Well, no. Rose, then. Rose." She holds the heart up to eye level.

And actually, it is beating, faintly, and Annie nods. "But not, well, just a little quick, yes, but calmly, I like it."

"It is," Mitchell agrees, evenly, "so it's a good thing I never suggested Rosanne." Rose, or Roxie, or both interchangeably: it doesn't actually make that much of a difference to Mitchell, who is fairly indifferent about having a heart for a pet. Less indifferent about Annie, which is sort of how this began anyways.

"Maybe don't squeeze it anymore, if it's beating," he suggests. "'Cause I think that means it's alive."

Some... how. This should really be weirder than it is, but they're a couple of supernaturals standing in space, so maybe it doesn't matter.

Edited (no tagging after midnight cee) 2015-01-13 06:42 (UTC)

Well, it's a new thing, so probably it's a bit of a fad anyway. Although when Mitchell suggests that-

"Oh, no, I hope I didn't hurt it," she says holding it up again. Now she's handling it again, but very carefully, like maybe it is alive.

"It looks all right." Mitchell squints at the heart in question, already reassuring even when he doesn't have any actual idea of what he's talking about. How would they know if it wasn't all right? How would they know if it was?

"Come on, let's get back to the room," he suggests, for-- lack of a better suggestion. "D'you want to wrap it up, so you're not seen carrying a glowing organ around the ship, or are you secure in that image of yourself."

"It does, doesn't it?" she says, and then remembers why he's saying it, and - "oh, well, yes, I think it's fine. It's still glowing, right?" she amends, because maybe that sounds a little less like she's admiring the lovely glow of her heart.

Which she totally isn't.

So she takes the end of her jumper and wraps it up. "There. Safe and sound."

This is, Mitchell thinks, with a bemused little smile, going to be like Tim all over again. Except instead of a ghost baby, it's a heart.

But there's worse things out there. And this happens to be making Annie very happy right now, which she's not been in a long time. Far be it from him to kill that at all prematurely, with good sense and questions and okay-but-Annie-the-heart-does-probably-belong-to-someone-somewhere-also-it's-a-bloody-organ. The glow of the heart shows through the thin material of her jumper, like she's got a low-level lamp wrapped up in there--and, despite himself, Mitchell smiles, and holds his hand out to her.

"Come on, then. We'll go slowly so we don't wake it."

She reaches and takes his hand, and squeezes tight. This is like Tim all over again, or it will be, if she ever has to give it back (ha ha). She smiles at him, then, pleased with herself, and starts heading towards the elevator.

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