thirty-ninth jump;

[ataraxites]

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.

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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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Comments

[strayed]

[There's a brief second where it's on the tip of her tongue to tell him staples do happen, sometimes. But she glances at him and decides maybe it's best not to introduce that fact into his worldview, if stitches are already so difficult for him.]

He should have asked.

[She says, instead, to the idea of this Fitz poking around in cupboards. But Sirius is apparently here asking in his place, working as some kind of go-between that makes Cora another go-between. She hopes whatever might be wrong with Fitz isn't actually urgent for having to go through this chain, wasting time, and her opinion of that is evident enough in her tone as she finally agrees:]

I can talk to the doctors. Find out who's better with brains. [A beat.] And keep an eye on him.

[doggedly]

[He shrugs at the first bit, shoulders worked briefly against the mattress and blankets and pillow. Yes, perhaps he should have: but he didn't, and there's nothing to be done about it now. A very blase Gryffindor attitude to things. Deal with consequences as consequences come, and don't even think for a second about sensible foresight and prevention. Whatever.

Her agreement--however dull--gets him to grin, and he sits up, pushes up onto his elbows. His hair has grown out that there's enough to fall, briefly, over his eyes, before he shifts around to free a hand and push it back.]

Really, 'cos that would be brilliant. Thanks. I owe you something incredible for this. You'll probably like him more than you like me, anyways. Even if he is a prat. Don't say anything about the jumpers.

[strayed]

[It's a mistake to look at him, right in that moment. Her eyes get caught on the sweep of his fingers through his hair, and then she's-- glaring, straight at him, as if he'd done that deliberately. He probably had.]

I'm making sure someone who needs help gets it. You don't owe me for that.

[doggedly]

[Sirius--who is not, by the way, a Purposeful Hair-Sweeper, not when James Potter has had that market cornered for a good many years, thanks very much--remains mostly unbothered by the intensity of that glare turned suddenly on him. He's had worse. He's had worse from Cora.

(Although he does wonder, momentarily, what he could have done to earn that particular look in that particular moment. Their conversation had been going pretty well. Does he blame this glare on a capricious attitude, or do some self reflection?)

(Easy answer, that. Never any self reflection.)

So, rather than wallow, or self-reflect, or ask her outright why she's suddenly looking at him like a housefly sitting on her sandwich--]

Fair enough. Then you owe me.