ataraxionlogs | thirty-fifth 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: You wake feeling cold and alone. There is a strange sense of emptiness, and the jump holds no surprises for you. There is nothing buffering the jump sickness and disorientation for you this month, and those still suffering the lingering effects of August's plot may find it more difficult than usual to get through the post-jump 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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You wake up in darkness.

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.

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. 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.

This is your welcome party.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[The comment--tired, in a long-suffering way--makes him look around again.]

What?

[--Because it's not that he'd expected her not to notice the weight of his gaze. Even humans typically have a sense of when they're being watched with any real intensity, the same way a rabbit might suddenly fall still under a predator's watch. And she's not human--not exactly; he gets that, the prickle of the extra sensory isn't something easy to ignore.

So, really, the only thing surprising here is that she calls him out.]

Do I mind what?

( her expression is not quite unfriendly - not hostile, just sort of exhausted by people and this situation and suddenly being expected to put up with one more thing. she didn't have to call him out. he was walking away; she could've pretended as if she hadn't noticed, and just ignored it, and forgotten it, and let it go. he probably wouldn't even have remembered, a few days later. she can't imagine 'staring at random semi-naked women' is such an unusual thing for most men that he'd recall specifics, offhand--

which is annoying enough, conceptually, that she doesn't feel like letting him off the hook. fuck it. )

If you can't be polite, ( very carefully, ) then pretend and be discreet.

[Carefully said, but also with a hint of scolding to it--or something just up the road from scolding, at least. Which, to be fair, he absolutely deserved. After all, he was, to all intents and purposes, looking over a mostly naked woman. Whether or not he's also a blip on her supernatural radar won't be immaterial--well, neither is really a strike in his favour.

And while there's some part of him that would encourage reacting quite differently, Mitchell does his very best to fight that down--and keep it down.]

I wasn't trying-- [Not the best start; he cuts himself off and tries again.] Sorry.

[Only a little mutinous, more embarrassed and mumbled to be taken as sullen.]

Thought you were someone else.

[Which is a lie and not even a very good one. Does going off blood mean that he's losing his touch? Yes it does, and Mitchell winces, a little, and says again--]

Sorry.

[Christ, but her blood smells good.]

( this is getting bizarrely reminiscent of disciplining recalcitrant children, which-- she has done, thanks much, even if jasper has done most of the heavy lifting over the years. with the everything. it is still slightly surreal, anyway, because the last time she heard that tone she was taking something off guy that he knew he wasn't supposed to have. also, he was thirteen. )

Au contraire, stranger, I imagine you are very trying. ( drolly. )

Fine, whatever. Go on.

( get!! )

[She's not serious.

Except she is, actually, serious, and dismissive, like she's something. She is something, undefined supernatural, but this is more of a superior something, like she can order him to go and he'll go. There is a moment, then, of dark gravitas, like everything in him gathers, and when he looks at her, it's something else that looks out.]

Yeah?

[Do you have any idea, but she doesn't. And there, plainly, on his face, disgust and scorn shines through--a flash, for a moment, of something blacker and uglier. It all twists in him for a moment, fed by hunger and anger both-- and then he wrestles it down, and shrinks back a step, more chastised than before. He even presses a hand over his mouth, fingers bunched into a fist, as if he's going to be sick, and the hunger in him fights back, weakening his resolve. It's a weird struggle, and eventually Mitchell can only just manage to turn away, with a snapped-out:]

Fine. See ya.

[Or hopefully not.]

thirty-fifth jump;

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