TEST DRIVE MEME #5

[sailmods]

1. not subtle revealings

[you wake up.

it doesn't matter where you were before. going to bed? dying? opening the door to face a great evil? same result. you wake up in a soft bed with starched sheets in a cool, darkened room, sunlight peeking out from behind thick curtains. maybe you're alone; maybe you aren't. maybe you immediately notice the folded paper on the bedside table near your head. if you don't, you better fix that real quick: you won't be able to even open the door before you read it.

the note itself is written in a neat hand on white card stock; there is a stylized logo of a ship with the words SERENA ETERNA printed underneath. the note reads as follows:

Dear Passenger(s),

As your cruise director, it is my great honor to welcome you aboard the Serena Eterna, your destination for fun and adventure! We know you could have chosen any cruise line for your vacation, and we're very grateful you chose ours! On behalf of the Captain, I would like to assure each and every passenger that will we do whatever it takes to fulfill all your needs and desires during your journey with us.

At your earliest possible convenience, please attend the mandatory lifeboat drill by the end of the day. I'm sure everyone is very eager to get started on all the fun and sun, but safety always comes first! You can find your life jacket in your cabin's closet; carry it to your assigned muster station on deck one, where I will take you through the drill. If you can't find me in the crowd, just look for the gal with the winning smile!

See You Real Soon!

Sincerely,
Gal Friday

you walk to deck one. you have no other choice: every time you try to step in a direction some unseen being considers "not towards deck one," you find your legs no longer move, staying stock still, frozen. whether compelled quickly by curiosity, or delayed by pure stubbornness, the result is the same, and you are left milling around with other similarly curious or stubborn people.

you see someone in uniform near the front of the crowd. she seems to be a gal, but is missing the winning smile, along with most of her other features. she seems to see you, though, rushing to your side and placing a lei around your neck with great formality. a voice, cheery but artificial, sees to come from nowhere and everywhere.]

Welcome! I'm very glad to have you aboard!

[you touch the lei. rooster feathers, lotus seeds, and a carved circle of something white and hard, linked onto a silk string.

after the drill is completed, you are seemingly free to go. or, well, your legs work, now. and maybe that's as good as it's gonna get.]

2. a permanent reminder of a temporary feeling

[the reflections are missing. all of them. in mirrors. in television screens. on the backs of spoons. nothing looks back at you.

then, figures do show up. not your own, like you'd expect. thin, wispy apparitions, people with pleading eyes and hands, reaching out to place their palms against the surface, from their own end. faces familiar and not, beckoning, mouthing words you just can't quite make out. help me, it might be. get me out, perhaps. just until you're close enough, until your skin warms the surface of whatever it is you're peering into. and then, those same hands wrap, all too real, burning-cold against your flesh, and pull, trying to drag you through the surface, making up for their lack of strength with desperation. any flesh unlucky enough to enter the reflection comes back bone-white and cold, all sensation dead, though it will fade within a few hours.

in retrospect, it looks a bit more like they were saying something different. something more like, better you than me. or maybe it's not even words at all. they look a bit more like they're laughing.]

3. complex mementos

[but, hey. sometimes changes are good! like, today, in Playback, there's a brand-new game available for all the children to play! it's an old-fashioned sort of claw machine, the type that's so large, a particularly dedicated kindergartner could wriggle their way inside. the prizes vary, and sit loose: bags of candy, stuffed toys, firearms, painfully early-00s electronics, actually that one just looks like a dead iguana, tiny ship-branded knickknacks... like all the other games in the arcade, the game starts up automatically upon being touched; lack of quarters shouldn't keep you from having fun! pro tip: they are loaded, and they will go off if you suck at claw games and let it fall.]

Comments

[justneedsomehelp]

Oh, he's being very serious right now, shoving Marc, huffing about Khonshu. Honestly. It gets Marc to pull a bit of a face.

"I'm not really a guy who keeps up on the superhero nonsense. I know they tried to-- do something about all the senseless destruction, get'em to register and all that. Sokovia Accords, I think." But whatever happened to that? He hasn't cared to keep up, if he's honest.

He rolls his eyes before nudging an elbow into Steven in return. "Yeah. That's right. We're-- retired, I guess."

[myagic]

She tilts her head, giving him a considering look. Clearly there's more that's going through his mind--not good, judging from his expression--but whether she feels it's pertinent enough information to pursue is a different story.

For now, she shrugs. "Then you have your answer, don't you? The captain doesn't let people go willingly--except Jenny, I guess, but from what I heard, she paid a hell of a price." In fact, she's just going to continue on as if that's probably not a topic he'll want to hear more about. "Anyway, sometimes people do disappear, but...it's not by anyone's choice."

cw i guess for not very graphic description of injuries

[inhairently]

[Well that's quite a résumé. His face goes on a journey as she speaks, beginning with baffled concern when she mentions weeping radiation burns and settling on grim acceptance by the end of it. Future Chief of Medical works for him. He nods. ]

Okay. Let's get this over with.

[ He peels the bandage away again and nearly tosses it in a nearby trashcan, but stops himself. There's no way to know how long he might be stuck here so if the only mementos he has from home are Eddie Munson's rank denim vest and a bloody scrap of Nancy's shirt, he'd better hang onto both. The cloth goes on the counter next to the vest, and he turns back to Clarke.

The wounds are strange, clearly animal in nature but no recognizable bite pattern. If the edges were cleaner it would almost look like someone took a knife to his gut and started digging. Some spots are only missing layers of skin, like he'd been flayed, but those spots lead to much deeper holes where it looks as if the bats had been trying to bore right through to his organs. At least he's not bleeding as badly as he had been at first (through the magic of plot armor, no doubt), and both wounds are just sort of oozing blood now.

Steve inhales sharply through his nose, biting back a noise that's something along the lines of "oh shit now that I'm not in full survival mode I'm starting to realize this hurts like hell" and "oh god oh man this looks bad huh." ]

Told ya it's gross. I mean it's no radiation burn, but...

[ because jokes is easier than real human emotion, sometimes. ]

[ss_buttcrack]

Oh, but he very much is interested in hearing about this Jenny. "Wait, wait. Back up. Who's Jenny? What kind of price?"

[myagic]

Rita frowns, more towards herself for rambling, as she considers him. Sure, the Space-Man here doesn't seem like a crazy murderer...yet, but she's still not sure she wants to go blabbing about Jenny sacrificing every other passenger.

Instead, she settles for a half-truth. "The captain imprisoned her brothers' souls somewhere on the ship, or something...? I didn't get all the details, since it was...a lot happened." That is, Rita didn't walk away from her confrontation with the captain that happened the same month, and so she had to be filled in--even then, the details are only half-remembered.

[prefers_magneto]

"...I see," Erik says, processing that. "I take it he has no... concept of morality as we know it."

[prefers_magneto]

Oh, sorry, you lost him when you said the 'r' word.

"...Register?" Erik echoes. "They made everyone with special abilities register?"

[configuration_birdwatcher]

// If he does, he only uses it as a reference point to generate more suffering. They sound grimly certain of that particular point. // I'm informed that he draws more power from negative emotions than positive.

[ss_buttcrack]

"Damn, you're not kidding. Trading her brothers for herself? That's cold." He already wasn't inclined to like the Captain but this is going pretty far.

"I'd never do that to my sisters. Not in a hundred years."

[myagic]

"Oh--not exactly. I mean, I don't think that part was intentional; it was more like...collateral damage, and she keeps coming back to look for them." It was something like that, yeah? Jenny was crazy enough to sacrifice everyone but family, but she wasn't quite that cold...from what Rita heard, anyway. If she were...Flynn probably wouldn't have been able to talk her out of drowning them all.

"So in the end, she isn't even that free."

[ss_buttcrack]

"Oh. That's... not as bad." Still not great, but he can respect an accident more than selling them out on purpose.

"I guess she isn't. But, how does she keep getting here? I don't even know how I got here."

[myagic]

"That sigil magic stuff, maybe...?" Rita hazards an educated guess. "You can ask around if you wanted to know more--like I said, I was kind of busy when she was here."

A beat later, she remembers another detail, so she just casually adds, "Oh, but she'll probably be back--not just for her brothers, but she has a thing for Friday, or something."

[skaikru]

( it looks bad. it looks very, very bad but at least not in a life threatening capacity if steve's still standing and cracking shitty, survivalist-mentality dark humor jokes. and it looks like it hurts, and looks wildly different from anything she's ever approached, but where clarke lacks in comedy she makes up with stone faced determination. not an eyelash batted, not a sour downturn of her mouth, not even a wince when she leans in to get an up close and personal look at each and every wound.

the more superficial damage — flayed skin, scratches, road rash — are pretty immediately discounted. it's the deeper puncture wounds that drag her interest like a moth to a particularly red flame. she'll reach out to touch them, with a thumb on one side of the gash and forefinger on the other, stretching skin and staring into the pit of fresh bared layers of flesh and fat and skin in attempt to see if viscera was a part of the mix. it probably hurts, and quietly, distractedly, clarke offers a repetitive — ) Sorry, I'm sorry. ( — in concert with any wince or twitch from steve.

blood doesn't bother in the slightest anymore. even as the distinct copper twang hits the back of her sinuses and carries over like a layer of salt across the back of her tongue. disgusting, but familiar. and after a few minutes of inspection and contemplation, she'll withdraw and offer: )

I don't think you're going to die from these. Nothing punctured your organs, and there's no initial sign of infection or foreign body remaining in the wound. We'll need to rinse them, rebandage, and monitor — and you'll probably end up with a few really gnarly scars. But you'll be okay. Are you okay with needles if I try to give you a shot?

[latersgators]

"It was on the news," Steven confirms with a few nods. "Well, mostly because that lunatic blew up the UN and killed and hurt people when they came to ratify the Accords." Steven tries not to glance around because they're safe in the room but he knows said lunatic is on this very ship. Or had been. Steven hasn't seen him in a while... which doesn't negate the chances of him getting punched in the face.

"But you have to register to operate as a superhero and if you don't you're-- illegal, I suppose. A vigilante or wha'ever." He wrinkles his nose and lowers his head. He's not really sure how he feels about it. Everyone understands the problems that the Accords are trying to fix but everyone's got their own opinion of how to fix said problems. He's not sure Marc could have done anything about Harrow, or Ammit, if his name was up there.

"Hope neither of you put your name down on anything... these days bringing that kind of attention to yourself is nothing but trouble."

[ss_buttcrack]

"Magic. Yeah. Of course." Oh, here comes the headache.

"Friday? The faceless lady? Seriously?"

[justneedsomehelp]

"It's ridiculous." Sure, he can understand the reasoning behind it and the problem superheroes or whatever pose, but-- registration rubs him the wrong way. It can't end in anything good.

"I've got no interest in registering." If he were alive. It'd make things too complicated for Steven anyway.

"Doesn't sound like this guy's even heard of it."

[inhairently]

[ Despite having had his ass thoroughly handed to him on more than one occasion, Steve had never fully understood the phrase "seeing stars." He gets it now. As soon as Clarke starts poking around his injuries, his vision clouds with bursts of bright white from the pain and he wonders just how big a bruise to his ego it might be if he fell over in front of weeping-radiation-burn girl.

But he does not fall over. Instead he grits his teeth and, yes, he winces, and flinches, and perhaps even says a few choice words such as "goddammit" and "shit" and "it's okay, no really, you're fine."

He answers her question with a thin-lipped, tight smile. As if needles would be where he draws the line after all this. ]

Mmhmm, [ he hums his consent, sounding a bit strained. ] Yep. Needles are great. Absolutely. Go for it.

[prefers_magneto]

Erik watches them for a moment, then pulls up the sleeve of his long-sleeved t-shirt to reveal 6 tidy digits tattooed on his forearm.

"I'm familiar with 'registration'," he tells them before tugging the sleeve back down to his wrist. "And it rears its head every decade or so in relation to mutants, but I won't let it happen."

[latersgators]

"...oh." Steven lowers his gaze and swallows the lump in his throat. Erik didn't look that old, Steven didn't think-- but he had met the Blackbeard. And the Nostradamus. And all these robots that are light years ahead of what the Avengers had fought in Sokovia. Of course anybody from any time in the past or future could be pulled here.

"I'm so sorry." Steven tries to school his expression into something less upset and more neutral.

Erik still doesn't get a free pass for being an arse. But it's the Marcs of this world, not the Stevens, who could have possibly survived what he did.

[justneedsomehelp]

Fuck-- Marc looks at the tattoo before his eyes dart back to Erik's. He wouldn't have guessed. Wouldn't have known. The guy doesn't exactly-- look much older than they are, honestly.

But yeah, there are pirates running around, so what does he know?

"Alright, so I guess you know in a way."

and now cw: needles. just. blanket cw for the whole thread tbh

[skaikru]

Cool.

( and honestly, as many props to him for not keeling over and passing out as were given for bursting into the muster drill trying to use a lifejacket as a weapon. respect is earned in small ways, but clarke still gestures towards the paper coated examination table in a silent instruction to get comfy.

a brief aside to her assembled makeshift trauma kit, where she's filling a syringe that looks straight out of world war 2 with no more than a finger of milky white liquid, then procuring a rolling stool from over by a desk and drawing level with steve's bloodied, maimed abdomen. if poking at sensitive, torn flesh with just fingers had been unpleasant, this wasn't about to be much better. though after the first few shallow injections, hopefully some warm sensation of relief and numbness should be working its way through his system — enough that when plunging the needle deeper into layers of muscle, he shouldn't suffer more than uncomfortable pressure and the knowledge that, yeah, someone's def poking inside those wounds now. )

So tell me about yourself. What year are you from? Read any good books lately?

( ...okay, so her small talk needs work. )

[myagic]

"Seriously," she confirms. Hey, Rita sympathizes with Friday, but she can agree it's more than a little weird that Jenny has a thing for her.

It's his response to magic that gets her shrugging. "So, what, you're another one who's never seen magic before?"

[screwtapethered]

The poet scowls, slings his guitar back into his hands. He starts strumming on it. Dimitri could swear he sees a sheen of gold reflecting off of its strings. A terrible familiarity resonates in that angry, powerful voice. "So they've tried to break your hearts / By takin' memories from their graves? / Go anywhere, it's all the same / The tricks the big men choose- / You see, the ones who deal the cards / They always get the ace of spades / There's few ways to win a game / and a million ways to lose... / Way down / way down / way down / way down / way, way, way, way down in the belly of the beast..."

[ss_buttcrack]

"I've seen things that look like magic, I guess." That mention of Maldis brings it to mind again. That probably was the closest thing to magic he's ever encountered. "But I always assumed it was some kind of science or alien ability. Wizards and witches are supposed to just be fantasy."

[inhairently]

[ The small talk helps. Really. It's enough to keep him occupied as she does whatever she's doing with that horrible needle. If he keeps his eyes on the ceiling and concentrates on her questions he can almost ignore that unnerving sense of pressure where he's been numbed. ]

Pretty sure the last thing I read was the back of a cereal box. And, uh. 1986? [ That's gotta be one of those questions medical people just ask, right? She's not about to drop another bomb about dates or something... right? He sighs, and it's inarguably the most world-weary sigh ever heaved by a 19-year-old in the history of all sighs. ] Why would you ask about the year?