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CHARACTERS: EVERYONE
LOCATION: MED BAY
WARNINGS: ... Partial nudity? It should be pretty tame, but let me know if I need to add anything.
SUMMARY: Side-effects of a jump may include disorientation and temporary memory loss. Fortunately, there are a handful of others who have been through this before.
NOTES: Yes, it's a rehashing of the game premise. Don't worry, you can personalize your own (re-)introduction!

You wake up, alone in the dark.

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.

Don't worry, you are not alone. There are others who have come before you, others who are awakening beside you. Some may be familiar to you, perhaps even friends. They will help you through your disorientation, even though they might suffer from it too.

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.

This is your welcome party.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Jack smiles, wide and bright and honestly, really relieved to see the other man. A part of him is still expecting to wake up and find the other man had disappeared on him, and considering that they appeared there in the gravity couches he half expected in some far corner of his mind for Ianto to disappear on him this time around. He tries not to let that on, but it might show a little as he steps forward to run his hand through Ianto's hair, taming it down.

"I didn't cheat. I guess I'm just more used to waking up in those sorts of things and getting my bearings." Which reminds him that he needs to take Ianto on a trip with the vortex manipulator sometime. Then maybe he'll understand a little better.

There's a bit too much relief in the way Jack approaches him, and it blunts the sharp edges of Ianto's irritation. He's still displeased by the situation, but his annoyance at Jack melts away without protest.

"I don't believe you. You probably discovered the ship is sentient and flirted your way into her favor," he argues without any earnestness. He leans in for a kiss, to reassure his lover and to soak up some of Jack's heat. There's only the slightest bit of lingering pique that allows him some vindictive pleasure as he presses against Jack, the gel on his skin undoubtedly seeping into the other man's clothes as he wraps his arms around him.

Jack lingers on the kiss, pleased at the public display of affection despite the company all around them. Ianto isn't always so open with himself in front of people, and the fact that he is and for his sake - he can tell that Ianto's noticed his relief and is reacting to it - makes him smile. "Maybe I have," he says in return. "Are you jealous? I may have flirted my way into her favor but it's you that I plan on going to bed with tonight, if you'll have me." He grins slightly. "We might need to have ourselves another shower or a bath, though. This gel stuff leaves much to be desired, even when you're fully clothed."

Ianto finds it hard to be self-conscious about public displays when he's already wearing nothing but his shorts, among a few dozen other disoriented people in various states of undress. If there's anything left to be self-conscious about, he doesn't care. Not when he's cold and Jack has that look on his face. Oddly, he'll probably be more reticent about kissing in public later, when the two of them are showered and clothed.

"If I'm jealous, it's because she likes you so much. Put in a good word for me next time, yeah?" He smiles and teases, a little more on balance now. Jack's kisses seem to have that effect, sometimes. "But I don't suppose she can do much about the public facilities," he complains, wrinkling his nose. He misses shower sex. They'd done it on the ship only once, that first day when they'd been lost in each other and no one else had really existed to them, but not since. Ianto is too paranoid about being walked in on, though he gets the distinct impression Jack couldn't care less.

"Mmm, no," Jack says, with a faked sigh. "I think that she enjoys the show, unfortunately for the rest of us. Not exactly the TARDIS, so we're not going to get a new private bathroom springing up out of the blue no matter how nicely we ask. Not unless we happen to stumble on one that already existed. Though it makes you wonder what sort of digs the officers quarters are. Maybe she'll show me to them some day and we can snag a room."

He leans forward to press another kiss to Ianto's lips before pulling back, smirking at him. "Well, we should probably go and get cleaned up. If I know you like I think I do, you're not gonna feel comfortable until we do anyway."

Ianto frowns, Jack's words sending the mental gears turning even as he absently returns the kiss and nods in agreement, eager to be rid of the last vestiges of goopy gel. He makes a mental note to ask more about the TARDIS sometime, before filing it away to think on more pressing matters.

"There have to be officers quarters, don't there? And there's only two bloody crew. If Ward has been holding out on us and there's a whole hallway of rooms with private baths somewhere, I am going to be having words with that man." The silent conviction of justice in his eyes, Ianto moves a few lockers down to his own, marked 007, and opens it to retrieve his jumpsuit.

Jack trails after him, sticking his hands in his pockets, smiling at the other man's grumping. "'Ward'," he says, repeating the name that Ianto had iterated. "Do you know him, then? You've spoken to the captain of the ship?" Jack himself hasn't managed it yet - not for lack of trying, but he supposes that he's just been busy every time that the captain and his first mate have made any sort of addresses to the ship itself.

"Not really. I made some requests when we landed at that station, but he never got back to me. Still, that doesn't mean I won't be able to track him down if I find it necessary." Ianto can track just about anyone down if he finds it necessary, and the ship is really only so large, with so many places to hide.

He pulls on his jumpsuit, making a face at it. He'd really like a suit at some point, or even jeans. Mostly, he'd definitely like a shower.

"Requests, huh? Should I ask?" he muses, as he hangs back and watches the other man shimmy into the jumpsuit. Jack can honestly say that he missed seeing Ianto in normal clothes as well, much as he enjoys the jump suit. It's harder to admire the other man's waistline when it's being hidden underneath a one-piece suit, rather than a three-piece one.

"I asked for coffee beans and a three-piece suit in my measurements. Barring that, I asked for a sewing machine and materials. He might have found the specifics too difficult to remember," he says cattily. Zipping up his jumpsuit, he sighs. "Right, then. Let's get ourselves to the showers."

Ianto really doesn't mind the way Jack admires his arse in the jumpsuit, but for Ianto, the suits are like the captain's greatcoat. He can get on fine without it, but he doesn't feel entirely like himself when he's wearing something else. It's fine when he wears something more casual on occasion, but that's his own choice and the suits are still hung up neatly in his closet. Here, they aren't. Here, he has one option, and he's less thrilled with that than anything else.

Jack makes a bit of a face before he ushers Ianto along the hallway towards the lifts and consequentially, the showers. "I wouldn't write it off too soon. Maybe the handout just got jumbled in the jump. You'll have to ask him the next time you see him. And let him know of his error if he didn't."

As they approach the lifts, he hits the button to go up. "Aparently this is going to be a thing that happens. Every time we make a jump, we need to go in those gravity couches. And apparently, we also get more people every time we jump as well."

Ianto sighs and slumps against the wall of the lift as they step inside, all the snark draining out of him to leave him weary and rueful.

"Sorry. I'm being irritable, aren't I? I don't think I'm ever going to get used to the gravity couches." Everything is rubbing him the wrong way right now. He won't be comfortable until he's showered and relaxing with Jack in their room, and even then he still has too much on his mind to be completely at ease. The new arrivals are a part of that.

"Maybe there's something we can do to make their adjustment a little less traumatic than ours was." He'd like to think he helped Roxanne when he'd met her outside the grav couches, but he still feels as if he could have done more, somehow.

Jack smiles softly at Ianto's apology, and bites back a comment about how yeah, Ianto is being a little irritable, but it's alright. He steps forward, running a hand over Ianto's jumpsuit lapel and generally just smoothing the fabric down, and hopefully soothing Ianto in the process as well. "It's alright," he says. "How're you feeling? Those things can leave you pretty down and out for a while even after you've woken up out of them."

He isn't sure what to make of Ianto's other comment, though. About making the adjustment less traumatic. What they need is answers, and those are answers that none of them really have, yet. Answers that Jack is still trying to figure out.

"Pretty down and out," he echoes ruefully. "It's not as bad as last time. My memory isn't completely bollocksed up, just... Everything seems a bit out of focus. And I'm not tired this time, just hungry."

Jack's touch does help though; it always helps. He straightens up some, hooking his fingers in Jack's braces and letting them rest there comfortably. "Some of these people can't even grasp that we're in space," he continues with his earlier thought, "And some of them... some of them might know each other, but come from different times." Like us, his eyes seem to say as they bore into Jack's. "I just wish we could do something to present them the facts in a convincing manner before they all stumble off confused. It isn't responsible to let everyone out of stasis with nothing more than a short notice about where the passenger quarters are."

Like them. Ianto doesn't need to say it, but the words are there, a suggestion in his tone and the loss of Ianto too raw in his mind to be able not to go there. He likes the fingers hooked in his braces, though. The lift is going to take a bit longer to get them from the med bay to the passenger's quarters, he's going to enjoy their moment alone while it does.

"What d'you suggest?" he asks. "What is there to tell them that might make them feel better about being here?" The pair of them know perfectly well what sort of situations some of them are showing up on the ship coming out of. "What would you have liked to hear, coming out of one of those things?"

"I would have liked... I would have liked to have been informed right off that we weren't prisoners. That was my first thought, when I came out of the gravity couch that first time. I was somewhere strange with a number tattooed on my wrist, and I thought I'd been taken prisoner." In a way, it's even true, but in all the ways that count, it's not. They have rights and free reign, and so it doesn't matter quite so much that they ended up here against their will and can't leave. It's a pretty illusion, at least.

"If the captain would take the time to record a message explaining the situation... Or anyone really, it doesn't matter whether it's the captain, only it should be his responsibility." And Ianto feels very strongly about that. More than anything, he feels that Ward should be handling this situation with more initiative. More like Jack probably would, were this his ship. Ianto has no doubts he'd be down there with all the new passengers after every jump, announcing himself and turning on the charm to keep them all calm.

Maybe they are being held prisoner, but Jack finds himself not really wanting to find an escape back to Cardiff. Torchwood is gone. Gwen's better off without him, with her family - Rhys and the new baby on the way. There's no reason to stick around on Earth, and ironically he'd been thinking of leaving when he'd suddenly woken up here. Where Ianto is. And maybe it isn't ideal, but he's got him back, so he doesn't quite care what the circumstances are exactly.

"Maybe he should do that. But he isn't. Is it really the place for one of the passengers to make such an announcement in lieu of the captain?" Jack questions. Because Ianto's right, Jack would. If it were his ship, he'd be doing what he could to soothe the situation because he knows what people can be like when they think they're captives. But it isn't, and he's not sure that it's entirely his place either. He is curious, though.

The left reaches the passengers quarters and the door opens, but Ianto doesn't move immediately.

"Maybe not, but someone has to do something. If Ward won't, then sooner or later one of these people is going to be trouble." And sometimes all it takes is one person to overthrow a ship's captain, or worse. Ianto has faith that Jack would do everything in his power to get them both off the ship if things went badly wrong one day. They could find a nice planet somewhere, find jobs, have a life... But there are dozens of other people on the ship with homes to return to, and they deserve a chance to get there.

Jack stands there, looking at Ianto for a long moment, weighing his options. This other man has so much faith in him. Faith that got him killed, and he still trusts him, even now. He wonders what he ever did to deserve such devotion. He wonders if Ianto remembers the circumstances surrounding his death any more now than he did the night that they had shown up there. He isn't quite sure he wants to ask, though. He's afraid that the answer will be no, and that when he does remember, something about this blind faith will go away.

"...next time, I'll try something," he says. "A test announcement. See if it makes a difference. Of course. We're going to have to gather all the information there is about this place to announce to them. I could use your help on that, you know."

Ianto remembers completely now, and he doesn't blame Jack for a bit of it. It's still a subject they'll have to broach one day, probably soon, but it doesn't change Ianto's faith in Jack. He knows without a shadow of a doubt that Jack will never leave him behind if he can possibly help it.

The door begins to close automatically, and Ianto shoots out a hand to press the door open button.

"Of course." He smiles gratefully, glad for the support in an endeavor he honestly would have attempted with or without Jack's help. "I'm good with that sort of thing. Thank you."

He pulls him close and gives him a kiss.

Jack smiles and gives in to the kiss, enjoying the feeling of the other man pressed up against him, enjoying the fact that he's still there with him, enjoying that they have this moment to share with each other, that they're both on this ship by some miracle and not letting any moment of it go to waste.

Jack's arm slips around Ianto's waist and he pulls him closer, deepening the kiss properly before pulling back. "C'mon, then," he said, nodding towards the door. "Any more of that and we'll be taking our chances getting caught in the shower again. Not that I mind..." he adds, with a wicked grin.

Ianto flushes a little, his pupils dilating. That grin does things to him, and his resolve to refrain from public shower sex experiences a moment of doubt. Maybe they can find a shower in the corner, and be very quiet. Or maybe they can just make it a brisk shower and get back to their room in record time. Either way, Ianto returns the grin with a smile that may be unintentionally desirous, and gives one last tug to Jack's braces before letting one of them snap back with just enough force to say behave.

He slips out the door and into the hallway, heading toward the showers. He keeps a keen eye out along the way for others, just in case.

Jack doesn't doubt that they can find a shower and be quiet. Or maybe they can make it back to their room in time. Who knows? It's really up to whatever Ianto lets him get away with, lets him know is okay. Sticking his hands in his pockets, Jack follows along with Ianto down the hallway towards the shower, letting Ianto keep his eye out for others while Jack himself rather admired the other man's figure in that jumpsuit, how it clung in several places and pulled over his body when he walked. Ianto always did have nice legs and a cute butt, nice broad shoulders, and much though Ianto would prefer to wear something else it was definitely a good look on him.

Ianto can feel Jack's eyes on him, but he doesn't mind. He never minds. Sometimes he'll even do something provocative like 'accidentally' drop a pen and then bend over enticingly to pick it up, all while keeping a straight face. Unfortunately he doesn't have a pen, and his stomach is growling.

Quick shower then, then a quick trip to the kitchen, then some very leisurely sex.

Still, once they get to the showers, he can't help but strip in a way he knows will get Jack going, stretching and arching and exaggerating his movements just enough to show off.

Jack loves that Ianto plays along with his needs, and he admires the show that the other man is giving him with a grin, moving to start stripping himself.

"You keep teasing me like that, Mr. Jones, and I'm not sure that we'll make it as far as our room," he warns the other man.