ataraxionlogs | forty-fourth jump;

Entry tags:

forty-fourth 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: 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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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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He smiles and shakes his head. "I'm really not plannin' on it."

Unless she needs more practice. Then maybe he'll have to consider, despite how completely terrible it felt.

Healing scars? Firo's eyebrows go up in genuine and complete surprise. "Wow. That's... that's pretty crazy. Sometimes it seems like the most they do back home is tape you together."

If you can afford it. Treatment wouldn't have saved a lot of the sick people he grew up with anyway--at least, not the treatment they had available at the time--but it would have helped some.

Even if she did need more practice, Rey wouldn't want to subject Firo to that. Unless he offered first, and she would still not be very keen on the idea.

She isn't surprised by his reaction, knowing some things about American history.

"It's pretty crazy even in my world. Also, tape wouldn't do much for open lesions."

Yes she's aware that he didn't mean actual tape. She just smirks somewhat at the thought.

Someone else may have been offended, having seen the suffering with nothing to alleviate it firsthand. But Firo tends to be more than a little callous himself and he takes said hopeless suffering somewhat for granted. He laughs. "Thanks, smartass. I'll be sure to give everybody the memo when I get back."

If he gets back. He's not quite as confident of their return as he acted like he was when speaking to Nowi.

"You takin' a break here or what?" Despite the fact she's made it clear enough that she's okay, he still has to worry and ask. It's his duty.

Yes, Firo. Go forth and spread your knowledge of the future.

Rey then scoffs at his question. "Something like that."

She stops and looks at him. Even if they hadn't missed a jump, and for him it had only been a few hours since they'd last spoke, for Rey it still had been months since she had seen her friend. And briefly she's feeling torn, between worrying about the state of things she had left back home, to the very real possibility that she would never see Firo again and this conversation would be moot.

Without warning, she moves to bring her arms over Firo's shoulders, drawing herself into a hug. Not so much forgetting that she's wearing only a towel in the middle of the locker room, but just not giving a shit.

At least it's a big towel.

"Am fine. Just missed you," she says against his shoulder, the words jumbled up from what she was going to say.

I would have missed you, dammit.

He just smiles dumbly as she looks at him, concern flickering in his eyes.

He gasps as she puts her arms around him, his own arms hanging out and away at their sides. Because even if he wants to hug back, where the heck does he touch her?

Okay, play it cool, Firo. This is obviously important to Rey and it's not like he isn't happy to see her too. And, heck, he'd even be happy to hug her just like normal.

Normal. When she's fully clothed.

He can already feel his heart hammering in his chest and his cheeks turning red, no matter how hard he tries to stop it. "U-um, yeah... I-I missed you t-too. I-I'm sorry that you... th-that you went back a-and all that."

This is by far the most terrifying thing that has happened to him on the ship.

It occurs to her immediately that Firo is reacting differently from the other times she's hugged him, though she can't even fathom why until...

...

Rey leans back, quickly letting go like she might've just physically hurt him or something.

"Shit, sorry! Forgot." She glances down at her towel, and then back at his beat red face.

For Rey, that detail is easy to forget with how much fucks she gives about clothes. But knowing how Firo is about this sort of thing, she can't help but feel a little careless. And also sorry for the poor little man.

"Sorry," she says again. "Didn't mean to make this weird or anything."

She should... probably get dressed, shouldn't she?

Firo feels a flash of guilt for mucking that up, especially when, for her, she's been gone a while. Even so, it's a bit of a relief when she releases him. He scuttles back a few steps, eyes fixed on the ground now.

"N-no, it's... it's okay. I-it's not your fault or anything."

It's his, for being so freaking weird. He's at least started to accept that the problem's with him and not the entire damn world.

"I-I'm sorry." No matter how it happened, he's the guy and they touched. It's his fault.

Rey isn't quick to decide who gets to blame who for anything. She'd never tell him this, but she actually feels more sympathetic towards Firo than anything else, and can imagine most people wouldn't understand why he is 'so freaking weird'.

But she does, and she chooses not to tease him over it.

"You didn't do anything wrong, either," she tells him softly.

Where she's coming from, sexism and gender roles aren't a big deal. People have better things to fuss over, like not getting blown up. At least, that was what Rey's life was all about for a long time.

She goes to her locker, opening it with her number. Then she stops, looking to Firo with his head down like a chastised dog.

"Would you be comfortable with just turning around for a minute?" After that, she's not about to change right then and there. "Maybe try to imagine I'm a guy or whatever."

She really doesn't want him to go just yet, but at the same time she's become more mindful now so not to make him embarrassed. More so than he already is.

Edited 2015-06-13 10:25 (UTC)

Her reassurance does mean something to him, deep down, even if he's entirely convinced that she's wrong. He tries to shrug casually, though it comes out more as just a twitch of his shoulder.

It means something too that she also doesn't strip down right then and there; Firo realizes with some horror that that is probably the sort of thing Rey would do.

He sighs, "That'd be about half as bad in a different way..." Pretending she's a guy that is. Normally half bad would mean a good thing, but it still means pretty bad when you're dealing with something as heinous as being near a woman changing.

Even he's not sure if he's trying to make a joke about it or allowing himself to be honest with her. Maybe doing the latter through the former.

But he nods anyway, the motion somewhat awkward and jerky. "I'll just. Um, call me when you're ready."

One good thing about so few people from the first jump remaining is that he doesn't really have any other naked people to contend with in this area. He turns his back to Rey, wanders away several paces, stands right up against a wall, and covers his face with his hands.

"Okay, sure," she tells him before he retreats to the wall. For a moment she just watches him standing there with his hands over his face, finding it a little much but at least he didn't flee like a prude maniac instead.

Rey exhales through her nose, and turns her head to her locker. It only takes less than an actual minute for her to get dressed, not squandering any time trying to decide what to wear and whatnot. When you were used to living in the middle of a war zone, you didn't always get the luxury of taking your time prepping, and the routine has just become like clockwork for her now.

So much that she nearly overlooks a certain addition lingering in the back of her locker, behind the fancy evening dress she's had in there for some time. Her brows furrow, reaching inside with one hand while holding the locker door ajar with the other.

"Finished," Rey calls to Firo as she sifts through the inside of her locker space. He'll find her fully dressed in all but her socks and boots before getting distracted.

See? He's growing so much, Rey. He didn't flee and he didn't fall over in a stone faint. Improvement.

As she considers her locker and clothes herself, he tries to focus on willing the blush-blood out of his face. It kind of works, eventually leaving him only a little pink by the time she calls over.

"O-okay." He waits a couple more seconds before slowly pulling his hands away from his face and peeking over his shoulder. It's not that he thinks Rey will deceive him and insult him with the sight of skin (well, more skin than her usual shameless arms). Just that he has been tricked before (thanks, Czes) and he tries to be cautious.

He makes his way over, trying to peek over her shoulder as she searches. "You lose somethin' in there?"

His eyes wander to the fancy dress. He glimpsed it when they'd come down here looking for the notebook, but he was still curious about it. It seemed so not-Rey.

Such shameless arms. Look at how many fucks Rey gives about her revealing her arms to the world!

As Firo sneaks a look over her shoulder, there are a few new additions to Rey's locker space since the last time he had joined her here. A harmonica on the top shelf, with a player and some other items. Other than the fancy dress and TQ jumpsuit and a couple spare set of clothes, Rey doesn't tend to store much in here anymore.

She reaches in, confirming her mental query when she takes the sleeve of a black, full body suit behind the dress. It's definitely more material than Rey is used to wearing.

"The opposite," she says absentmindedly. "Looks like something came back with me. Should be useful, actually."

Firo's eyes bounce from the other contents to the suit she's holding. Useful, huh? He'll nod and pretend that immediately makes sense. "Oh."

More clothes? That's good, Rey definitely needs more clothes. But the way even she acknowledges its usefulness makes him think that there's something more to it.

He blinks at it, the intense half second of thought he gives it not sufficient to crack the mysteries of that outfit. "...What is it?"

"It's supposed to help amplify and transmit the same type of heat energy my body emits." She lets go of the sleeve, looking over her shoulder to him. "Only used it once, but it works, despite how old it is and the fact that it's a prototype."

Even though Rey has better control when she lights up like a roman candle, it's good to have something she can utilize that ability with and not worry about burning off all her clothes. Firo would probably be relieved to know that.

Thank goodness Rey's so laconic, because there are more syllables in some of those words than he wants to deal with. So having only a few of them helps his comprehension.

Somewhat.

Again, he feigns understanding and nods. "So it makes you... more on fire?"

Truly Rey is a lass of very few words.

"Sort of. It acts more like a modulator." She bites her lower lip. "And it's also fireproof."

That much she knows Firo should be able to understand, at least.

"Actually... Figured out how to not burn out of control just before coming back. Turned out to be rather simple, really."

In spite of the circumstances at the time, she may be a little proud of herself.

She'd be right; his eyes light up "Really? Too bad they couldn't've given you that from the start."

It would have brought great peace of mind when he saw her practicing.

If Rey's only a little proud, then Firo has more than enough joy and pride to make up for it. His grin grows even broader and for one of those rare moments, he bounces up on his toes without a care for how childish he looks.

"Hey!" He shoves at her shoulder playfully. Because that's how you congratulate people. "That's amazin'!"

It would have been nice... if the suits hadn't been destroyed, and the imperfect prototype in a previously inaccessible location for several decades. But hey, she's not complaining now. It's not like she'd have been able to make much use of it if she couldn't even control her own energy.

The corner of her lip tugs into a tiny smile at Firo's excitement. "That's nothing until you see this."

She holds out her right hand, the stumps curled towards her palm so her two remaining digits can form the shape of a mock-gun. Her thumb presses downward six times, each one completed with a bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang! for effect. And each time, the tip of her index finger lights up. The neon veins wrapping around her digit to let out a six-inch spark of flame from her bone to her skin.

Afterwards, she bends her elbow, a surprised look on her face.

"Shit. Can't believe that worked."

His eyes pop open at the display in unabashed wonder, mouth dropping open a little more at each flare up.

"Wow..."

He laughs at her comment, raising an eyebrow. "What were you gonna show off if it didn't, huh?" But he doesn't so much expect an answer to that question, so he dives right into the next one. Hey, he's excited. "Do you have to pretend your hand's a gun for it to work?"

Rey just barks a quiet laugh rather than answer that first question. He's right about that, at least.

She then gives him an amused look.

"Hell no. That was just for show." Good god, that would suck.

When he first met here, Firo would've been surprised to think of Rey doing anything just to be fancy.

He shakes his head and just barely keeps the sarcasm out of his words. "It made you look really cool, just so you know, cowboy."

She preens, her hand smoothing through her thorny hair. "More like Calamity fucking Jane, but thank you."

I'll be here all week.

Her other hand shuts the door to the locker, securing away its contents.

He grins and puts his hands on his hips in a gesture of mock skepticism. "I wouldn't've thought you were a fan a' stuff like that. You kids in the future even still have her pamphlets circlin' around?"

"Wouldn't know about any pamphlets around, but--" She shrugs. "My brother was enough of a fanatic that I learned more about the Wild West than I ever cared to."

Not that it sounds like she's complaining, as she tries harder not to worry about the state of things the last time she had actually seen Orion...

Yeah, not going to think about that right now. There's already enough bullshit to go around.

"No way, he is?" Firo grins broadly, thinking of all the western movies he'd snuck into as a kid. "He's got good taste."

He knew he liked that guy.

He pauses a moment. "Was it good? Seein' him again, I mean."

She looks like she's been through the wringer. If anything, he hopes Orion's presence could provide a little bit of light in the dark times.

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