forty-fourth 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: Awareness comes to you slowly in the smothering quiet of the blue fluid. In the light piercing through from the medical bay you realise there's a shadow, a figure stood at the glass of your gravcouch, a hand pressed to the surface just above your face. Fear spikes through your gut as waves of alien sensation crash into your mind, a rage that feels endless, all-consuming, furious, molten hatred that you know is for you.

When the fluid drains, door sliding open to deposit you on the medbay floor, you remember it. Remember it coming again and again, like a nightmare that plagued your sleep over and over, leaving you with no respite, no rest. Days. Perhaps even longer.

You remember that the light coming through from behind the shadow was red.

New arrivals will find messages spray-painted in red 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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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.

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Comments

[betterangels]

Rick has never owned a dog before, but he's seen a dog fight -- the real thing, not the metaphor. Snarling and biting and clumsy but fast and utterly absorbed in what they're doing, ignorant to the world around them. He remembers -- maybe it was an owner, maybe a quick thinking bystander -- the swift kick to the bigger dog's ribs, the piercing yelp, the sudden stop. It was a kindness then.

It's a kindness now, when he arrives out of nowhere as blunt force into Max's side, ramming him right back into the row of lockers with a loud thud of meat on metal.

That's it, though. He doesn't start throwing punches, or delivering kicks. He could, always on the precipice of his own manner of madness, but he was only summoned here by the sounds of Daryl's distinct hollerings echoing off the rafters, and so that's where Rick's energy goes next, the blunt of his forearm coming up to slam-shove into his friend's chest, getting in between.

If anyone's gonna be thrown into space jail, it's gonna be the one he doesn't care about.

But to take stock: Rick has had the privileged of getting all the way to pants by the time this broke out. His shirt hangs open to lean and wiry musculature and various scars, some little, some lethal, the starbust entry point of a bullet at his shoulder, and the lower down ugly smile of where a knife had landed, once. There's grey shot through the bristle grown in along his neck and cheek, but his eyes are a bright and vivid wolf's blue, something hard and adrenalised and assessing when he snaps attention back towards the stranger.

And more importantly still, there's a gun in his hand, a silver revolver, but it's not pointing at anyone. Yet. It's directed off wildly from the arm used to stay Daryl, his finger alongside trigger rather than on it.

[slurpeesinhell]

Hey, that's not how it works. You're supposed to wait till he's finished shouting at you. The punch is well-aimed, the foot thing a nice touch, but it's not like he's going to stop to appreciate it, what with the new pain striking jagged through his jaw like shitty lightning, forking to ignite his temper for real. Had the ship not just shredded his capacity for Zen down to dry tinder, this might have unfolded differently—he might not have engaged Max at all, let it be somebody else's problem—but he's been primed to burn and this was just the excuse he needed to make it happen. Hell, even on a good day, few things can enrage Daryl Dixon so swiftly as a cheap shot.
And that stupid smirk on Max's stupid face? That was a big ol' splash of gasoline.

Fortunately—and annoyingly—Rick throws his weight in there just in time to absorb his furious rebound.

"That was a bitch move!"

Blood flying fresh from his mouth as he snarls in outrage, he tries to surge past the human barricade without hurting it unduly, which makes for a lot of blunt muscular shoving and failed attempts to weave around. It would probably help if he were actually looking at Rick and not lancing Max over there with fierce daggers of hatred while they grapple, but his eyes are locked. He won't even use his words to tell Rick to move. The time for trash talk has passed on by and left behind a vocabulary reduced once more to a few low, throaty, nasty sounds scratching and rumbling past his blood-rimmed teeth.

(And for the record, he too is a member of Team Pants, fully zipped into his flight suit with the arms shorn off. You're the only weird naked guy in this scenario, Max.)

[theroadwarrior]

Were Max a more happily violent man who wasn't fighting just to get rid of a barricade, he'd have greatly enjoyed that response -- but currently, he's not really wanting to deal with multiple people. And when his eye flashes to the gun, it all comes flooding back: knee caps blasted, the muffled hearing in his right ear, the feel of cold steel at his cheek or neck or back. Gun. A gun is officially involved and his gaze snaps back to Rick's eyes for a moment -- his own blue-gray stare is focused but chaotic, his figure twitching with energy as he assessed for a split second. The man isn't going to shoot him if he runs; if he had plans to, he would have already done it. Which is an anomaly -- people don't just pass up the opportunity to fire unless they're bluffing, but the way Rick holds his gun low tells him there are bullets.

He thinks about his opinions, but inevitably the biggest pain in the ass is the American -- and he can't waste anymore time. Not with the things he sees nipping at his heels; he flinches at the throb of his head, gaze shifts to the clear escape route, and without a second glance at Daryl or Rick he's limping at a surprisingly fast speed from the scene.

And sure, he's naked, but it's not like it's the first time he's fought or outran something while naked.

Small mercies.

Hope he doesn't have to see your face again, wild redneck man.

NOT HERE.

[kutte]

[slurpeesinhell]

[Whatever happened to cool jacket club solidarity...]

[kutte]

[ smashcut to next thread where jax tenderly sticks bandaids on daryl's wounds. ]

[slurpeesinhell]

[that's more like it]

[betterangels]

RICK KIND OF JUST FUCKing tries to manage Daryl the best way he knows how -- remain a human barricade, his other arm crossing over to plant empty palm against the other man's shoulder, while maintaining something of a dominance stare on Max as he watches his wheels turn. Watches him consider that gun, flashing silver. This isn't someone Rick can talk down, he thinks, but before he can reconsider--

--well, there goes the sun-weathered naked man sprinting off out the medical bay, Rick twisting around to watch him go and finally letting up off Daryl. There's a twitch, a curl at Rick's mouth, dim annoyance that he isn't doing more to. Help. Or stop.

But Jesus Christ.

"He's not goin' far," he gruffs out, gun lowered at his side, a sideways glance tossed at Daryl to see if the other man's taken on more injury than just some bloodied up teeth.

[slurpeesinhell]

Were this human barricade not made of a man he respects, Daryl wouldn't think twice about bulldozing through it to dog the stranger down. Damn right he ain't, he would snarl, and throw an unforgiving elbow, maybe even grab his bow first. Just to scare the guy, you know. Maybe. But it is made of such a man, and the look Rick puts on him is heavy enough to repel him at last.
That and the gun. He doesn't expect it to swing his way, but he's seen that weapon's lethal eye more than once—and he respects its stare, too.

"Son of a bitch," he grouses, aimed nowhere in particular; he's just using all the syllables he can while he's still able. His hand comes up to his jaw, holds it, comes away again to fling out a frustrated gesture. "The hell you do that for?" That, on the other hand, was definitely aimed at Rick. "Not far, my ass—you know how big this place is?"

Pacing, pacing all the while, like he's waiting for a lapse in his friend's vigilance, not even pausing while he spits a red glob on the tile. Then another. Lip glossy with blood, the swelling well on its way.

[betterangels]

That gets a rough sound of concession. They've been at least a little exposed to how vast this place is, how easy it is to get lost -- the chalk lines, the tip of the ground, the weird descent into darkness. But Rick still doesn't seem inclined to go chasing after naked lunatics, holstering weapon.

"Not our problem," he says, more coolly than he really feels. He means it a little literally, besides, adding; "If anyone's wrangling him, it'll be Security. It's what they're for. But he won't get far 'til he realises that people aren't the enemy."

Because that attack on Daryl had been ruthless enough to connote more than just panic. The man was seeing phantoms.