ataraxites: (Default)
axmods. ([personal profile] ataraxites) wrote in [community profile] ataraxionlogs2015-01-08 12:01 am

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.


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


YOU͘ ̨WAKE̢ ̧UP ́IN DA̛RKN̢E̕SS̶


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 ̧ĄRE NOT҉ ̷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.

TH̀IS͜ ̶I͠S͡ ͘Y̵O͝UR ̕W͝E̛L̨C͡O͝M͏E P̛AR̴TY͜
deservesadaisy: (unimpressed)

[personal profile] deservesadaisy 2015-01-19 11:06 pm (UTC)(link)
Christ. I can't say which I'd rather it be, at that point.

[Delayed DTs from the blood or haunted by the dead crew of the Tranquility. Neither option sounds horribly appealing.]

I don't know I'd count time spent in the jump as awake, precisely, but I also don't want to rule anything out prematurely. Though I suppose unless and until I remember what I dreamed about, it's relatively moot.
humanistic: (stand - you never want to have no chicks)

[personal profile] humanistic 2015-01-20 03:31 pm (UTC)(link)
[His smile is a little grim as he takes another drag on his cigarette, considering the end of it rather than looking over at Ivan again.]

Maybe it's better, not remembering.

[If they were Ivan's dreams, not remembering would be weaseling out, almost escaping a punishment. If it's the ship-- God knows what any of that means anyways.]

I wouldn't try too hard to remember, if I was you. We don't get to forget too much.

[And rightly so. They shouldn't be let off lightly. But he still feels some-- prickle of sympathy, like if he could ease this off of Ivan, he would. It's stupid.]
deservesadaisy: (light)

[personal profile] deservesadaisy 2015-01-22 03:04 am (UTC)(link)
The edges wear down, you know. Give it another century.

[For all Ivan is the one off-balance, Mitchell still seems like a raw nerve, at least from Ivan's perspective. What Ivan does and does not remember from his own over-long set of years is a conversation for another day. The comment has something like sympathy. But he adds:]

I don't like not understanding things, but this ship certainly doesn't especially reward curiosity, that's true.
humanistic: (down - your tears mean dick to me)

[personal profile] humanistic 2015-01-22 10:41 pm (UTC)(link)
[Grimly again, Mitchell smiles, staring down at the floor. The offer of advice feels somehow familiar, the same old Ivan and the same old Mitchell.]

That's what they say. [More sincerely:] Thanks.

[It's kindly meant--nearly as kind as Ivan gets--so he'll take it kindly. Although he does wonder about the truth of it, if it's some nice little lie that everyone tells themselves, and everyone around them. Wouldn't be surprising. How much does Ivan remember? How much can you remember when you're dozens and dozens of centuries old?

He pushes his fingers through his hair, with an exhale.]


Doesn't reward anything. Or give us any answers. You have to admire the people still plugging away at it, like it's some puzzle they're going t' be able to solve. [Humanity, right? Weird.] But, I guess, what choice does anyone have in that. People aren't made for eternity.

[Not like them. In that, at least, it's like Ivan says: the edges wear down.]
deservesadaisy: (you look awful)

[personal profile] deservesadaisy 2015-01-23 03:20 am (UTC)(link)
Well, I suppose everyone finds their own ways of staying some approximation of sane. Though it seems like people tend to die or vanish before eternity becomes a practical issue.

[Even Ivan can gather as much, though since he missed the last jump, he doesn't have any inkling it might touch Mitchell personally.]
humanistic: (stare - this isn't like law school)

[personal profile] humanistic 2015-01-23 08:13 pm (UTC)(link)
[Mitchell thinks, again, of George. Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last. There's something human in thinking only of the present moment, never focusing on the day that was always going to come, eventually. Not the day that George moved house--that had been such a small thing, at the time, a thing that Mitchell knew how to manage. There was no finality to it. But to lose him--to really, really lose him--

He flicks ash from the end of his cigarette and watches it drift to the floor, and flare, and die.]


And what would you say has been your way?

[Of keeping sane, he means. He thinks, then, of Daisy. It's still sometimes weird, not to see her right at Ivan's arm.]
deservesadaisy: (disinclined)

[personal profile] deservesadaisy 2015-01-24 12:52 am (UTC)(link)
Here, or generally? Because I don't know if I'd go so far as to say I've found one yet, if you meant the former.

[The momentary disorientation is passing, now, but he's still on a spaceship where self-preservation means he can't freely indulge his addiction and he has fuck all to do otherwise. He's surviving, but he knows he can't go on like he has been forever.]
humanistic: (down - your tears mean dick to me)

[personal profile] humanistic 2015-01-26 10:02 pm (UTC)(link)
No, just--

[Not here. Maybe at home. But suddenly it's not something that he wants to talk about. He knows all about Ivan at home. They're friends. And Mitchell feels suddenly very tired. He wants to tell Ivan about George, but what the fuck would it matter? Sometimes everything here feels like a noose.

He rubs his wrist against his forehead, an almost unconscious gesture of stress, putting the ember and ash end of his cigarette dangerously close to his hair.]


George is gone.

[There. He's said it. Abrupt topic change.]

It happened last month.
deservesadaisy: (don't look back in anger)

[personal profile] deservesadaisy 2015-01-26 10:41 pm (UTC)(link)
[Mitchell doesn't need to be told how Ivan felt about his friendship with George - that it baffled him, that he thought it inappropriate. But either Ivan's off-balance enough that he isn't in the mood for a sarcastic rejoinder, or he is unwilling to risk the only thing like friendship he really has on the ship.]

Shit, mate. Your ghost, is she still here at least?

[And if something like concerned is not Ivan's usual way... well. It isn't Ivan's usual context.]
humanistic: (sad - this like blows dick for skittles)

[personal profile] humanistic 2015-01-27 06:19 pm (UTC)(link)
Annie. Yeah.

[It's a minor correction, and it lacks any real insult--not that he's any less sensitive to the disregard of Annie's name, but it's somehow less important right now. (Maybe it's got something to do with that same tenuous rare friendship.)]

She's here. She's-- all right. [Not that Ivan asked, but it's easy to turn toward--whatever that note is in his voice, concern or mere politeness or-- whatever.] It's not like there's anything to be done about it, just-- thought you should know.
deservesadaisy: (listening)

[personal profile] deservesadaisy 2015-01-27 06:32 pm (UTC)(link)
So it sounds like I did miss a jump, [after a moment.] Unless no one said anything on the network about it, I think I'd have noticed.

[He almost shakes it off though. The depth of how much he doesn't like to think of himself in suspended animation for an entire jump... that is something for him to unpack privately.]

Well. I suppose you'll be in the market for a new way to stay sane, then.
Edited (html fail) 2015-01-27 18:33 (UTC)
humanistic: (quiet - i am gonna get evicted)

[personal profile] humanistic 2015-01-27 07:17 pm (UTC)(link)
[He'd said something at the end of the month, but he'd hoped that Ivan had just overlooked it on purpose, maybe out of some gesture of kindness. That was a stupid assumption. Sleep had him silenced instead--after this conversation, that had sort of been Mitchell's guess, even if he'd not wanted to say it aloud. It's creepy enough by association. He can't imagine what Ivan must think, and feel. And he'll probably never know. The urge to ask are you okay isn't one that he gives in to. That's not the way it works.

Instead, Mitchell just-- nods, vaguely, like yeah-I-suppose-so. And maybe another time, he'd get prickly over that assessment--but instead he just huffs a laugh, once, short.]


Yeah. Maybe. Maybe I'll go out looking for a job, finally. I've nearly been here two years, maybe it's time.
deservesadaisy: (light)

[personal profile] deservesadaisy 2015-01-27 08:17 pm (UTC)(link)
Lord, you've been truant by your own standards. What would you do, if you looked for work?

[Ivan finds it hard to remember the last time he even pretended to have a job.]
humanistic: (listen - nooot what your sister thinks)

[personal profile] humanistic 2015-01-27 11:06 pm (UTC)(link)
[Mitchell smiles, thinly--but there's a genuine amusement to it.]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mild, and he lifts his cigarette and takes another drag, lets it out with maybe a surprisingly steadiness. He's certainly not over George being gone, but there's a weird normalcy to this, standing next to Ivan and taking shit from him.]

We can't all be disaffected romantics, or whatever it is you pretend like you are. Bloody well-dressed tramp. You might think of the same, for the sake of sanity. Something t' do.
deservesadaisy: (because it amuses me)

[personal profile] deservesadaisy 2015-01-27 11:13 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm a tourist, Mitchell. A tourist who is trapped on a bloody spaceship, at the moment, I grant you.

[A crooked grin.]

What do you imagine me doing, for work?

[He did, once, very long ago, but he doubts Mitchell will hit on that. Still, the suggestion of doing something isn't without some merit. He can't fill his time with exercise and reading network backscroll indefinitely.]
humanistic: (laugh - whatever peace bye)

[personal profile] humanistic 2015-01-28 03:30 pm (UTC)(link)
[Despite himself, Mitchell huffs a laugh.]

Ivan, mate--I have no idea. Honestly, the thought of you, working? Kind of impossible for me t' imagine.

[Even if he suggested it, it's kind of impossible. Tourist, right. As long as he's known Ivan, that's what he's been.]

Too bad they don't need any bloody salesmen in space. I could see you doin' sales.
deservesadaisy: (folly of the world)

[personal profile] deservesadaisy 2015-01-30 12:35 am (UTC)(link)
Oh lord, yes. They could give me a briefcase and my car back.

[He misses that car. He misses cars generally.]

Or perhaps I could go into advertising. I always thought it would be easier, for our sort. You have longer to see what makes people act as they do, after all.
humanistic: (grin - she looks like the dumbest bitch)

[personal profile] humanistic 2015-01-30 02:55 pm (UTC)(link)
[The fucking car. Mitchell smiles, again, despite himself--and for once, he doesn't flinch at our sort, or look away, or anything. Whatever, right?]

I think that counts as an unfair advantage. We'd be investigated for being too good in no time. Maybe we're better off stickin' with investments and funeral parlors.
deservesadaisy: (because it amuses me)

[personal profile] deservesadaisy 2015-01-31 02:08 pm (UTC)(link)
[Ivan spares a little grin for that.]

My portfolio was excellent, I'll have you know. They say the market favors the investor, over a long enough time horizon.
humanistic: (talk - you're the fakest)

[personal profile] humanistic 2015-02-03 03:36 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, you did have that. One of the longest time horizons of any investor out there. Maybe you should've gotten into stocks.

[He flicks ash from the end of his dwindling cigarette, the punctuation on that idea.]

Vampire stockbroker? Come on, the jokes practically write themselves.
deservesadaisy: (brush up your history)

[personal profile] deservesadaisy 2015-02-04 12:03 am (UTC)(link)
Well, first I'd have to construct a stock market. I should use cigarettes, that seems to be the hot commodity on board. I wonder if you could create a mutual fund using nicotine instead of traditional currency.

[Now he's just having the piss. ...probably.]
humanistic: (laugh - whatever peace bye)

[personal profile] humanistic 2015-02-04 02:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Around here? You probably could. God knows there's fuck-all else t' do besides smoke--between all the terror, and danger, and comas.

[Ha ha. He finishes off his cigarette and flicks the end to the floor, grinds it under the heel of his boot.]

But I'll leave the fine details to you. It can be your project. Definitely a way to keep busy.