taxonomites | now i rock a house party at the drop of a hat.

It's around five o'clock in the morning when the citizens of Taxon find themselves inexplicably transported into rooms within the Sanctuary. Doors are left open and beds unmade, food abandoned and lights left on, still shining brightly for those who were awake and are no longer present. The Extras don't seem to notice the captive population's sudden disappearance, continuing on with their business as usual.

For those relocated, though, it's an entirely different story.

They find themselves in rooms with white, alabaster walls that gives them an almost too-clean feeling, as if the entire place was sanitized prior to their arrival. The room assignments are seemingly random, people placed on floors with those they don't know and don't like, people they would rather not be within twenty feet of. It matters not, for what's done is done and cannot be undone. For those who happen to have pets, they'll find them waiting for their owners in the rooms as if nothing is out of the ordinary.

The only thing the captives have managed to bring with them is the clothes on their back and the tablets. On them, they find the following message:

SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE PLEASE ENJOY YOUR STAY WHILE WE ADDRESS CERTAIN TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES

Unfortunately for those who try to find a means of escape, they'll discover there is none. Leaving the Sanctuary will prove to be as difficult as leaving Taxon itself. However, if one heads down the right corridor and the right floor, they'll find something else entirely lurking in their midst...

( ooc | sorry for the delay in posting! your mods were otherwise occupied with things of the irl variety this morning. THIS BE A PARTY POST, Y'ALL. room assignments are here, and refer back to the sott post proper for any additional information. please contact us with any questions/concerns you may have in regards to this plot. ♥ )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Cat's officially out of the bag, news at ten: Wyatt Cain does have a heart.

Right now, he'd very much prefer the opposite. The complete absence of memories rather than the diffuse ones currently occupying his mind, the stark lack of anything remotely resembling a heart rather than the aching mess crawling its way up his throat.

He shrugs stiffly, eyebrows scooting up a ways before settling, eyes looking elsewhere. "I don't know. Anything between sixteen and twenty. Looked twice as old at times. Had more frown lines than me.

"...looked just like his mother when he smiled. Like me when he didn't."

Cain's not looking at him, so Paul lets himself look at Cain; the drawn lines appearing on Cain's normally youthful face, the tight clench to his jaw.

Paul lets his eyes drift down to Cain's chest instead, although the tension and pain in the other man's just as visible in his shoulders and white knuckles than in his face.

Paul breathes out. Many times as he's had to express professional condolences, it's different when it's someone you give a personal damn about. Can't rely on Bureau-sanctioned lines then.

"But he's alive. Yeah? That's what I gathered from what you said before. It's a kick right in the balls and up into the heart no matter how you cut it, but you know he's out there somewhere, living. Does that make it any better, or just worse?"

He shakes his head. What else can he do but shake his head and allow himself a moment of wallowing in ill becoming self pity?

"I don't know. Last time I saw him, we were gearing up to spring a surprise attack on Queen Bitch HQ. Him and his men were going to act diversion to the guards by blowing stuff up and charging...while we sneaked in the back door."

In a manner of speaking, that is. He clears his throat. His voice still soft, still quiet. "Anything could have happened after we split up. I don't know, and it's killing me." For a brief, treacherous little heartbeat his lips almost wobbles right into a cynical, snide little smile.

"I don't know shit. I don't know if he's alive. I don't know when my wife died, or how. I don't know how come when I came here, two of my friends-in-arms had been here for months already. And you know the worst part?"

Paul brings up one knee to his chest, lets an elbow rest on it, his chin on his palm.

Lot of things he could say to Cain's words, but this isn't about his snappy comebacks, it isn't even really about advice. Sometimes someone needs to talk. Sometimes someone needs someone to listen. Paul considers himself a horrible choice for the figure of father confessor, he always has, hated the helplessness back when it was Angela, but it's a thing you do when you give a shit about the person.

"What's the worst part, Wyatt?" he asks quietly, as near as he can recall the first time the other man's name has passed his lips.

When he finally speaks, his voice is soft with nearly palpable resignation. "All I have is hearsay. I have no way of getting hard evidence, and it's..."

He sighs. It's killing him, he doesn't say - it sounds too much like self pity, too pathetic. His tongue darts out to moisten lips gone too dry.

"I'm not coping very well."

Paul doesn't know what to say to that. Family dying is one thing-- family dying sucks considerable ass, but Paul knows about family dying. Be a cop long enough and death's inevitable, someone close to someone inevitably bites it. You go to the funerals. You say your words. You tell the widow if she needs anything to call you (and you mean it, and unlike five other cops to say it to her you're not cruising, which is something).

But there's no funeral here. Wyatt Cain didn't get to go to his wife's grave, has a son that may or may not be alive, and is stuck one reality away from getting even the answers to those questions, let alone a reunion.

Paul tries to think how he'd react if Angela had been in some sort of danger when he'd gotten pulled here. She's in theatre-- it's not a dangerous profession, to anything but the ego anyway. Even so, when he lets himself think about it, he worries for her-- worries mostly what's happened to him there, did he die, did she have to attend his funeral, because goddamn, he'd always hoped to spare her that-- but by and large Paul knows she's safe.

If she'd been about to go off on some dangerous mission? And he was here, not knowing how the hell it had even turned out? Yeah. Yeah. Paul rubs at his forehead.

(And a little voice whispers Connor and Murphy, too, because they do lead dangerous lives, and he's not there, not there to try and curb the fanaticism, try and be the voice of reason to the faithful--

(But the Saints aren't under his protection, they never have been. They've got Someone Else pulling that shift for them. He worried about the first few months and then he stopped because he couldn't do it anymore, couldn't live trying to fucking worry about brothers on a self-proclaimed crusade.)

Paul stirs himself from these thoughts. "You're alive," he says after a few more. "That may not be coping well but it's coping. It's a beyond bullshit situation, you're right about that. It's..." There really isn't an adjective.

"One foot in front of the other, yeah? One day at a time. Who knows--" Paul cracks a humorless joke, "--with the fondness they seem to have for your world, Jeb might show up here."

It's been Hell, to use an Othersided term. It's been like living through Hell, and while he doesn't have a clear sense of direction anymore, he hasn't felt any reason to change that. In all honesty, he still doesn't - trapped in a gigantic hole in the ground of some manner of alien planet, to the amusement of said aliens; what's the use of trying to make something of your future when you don't know how much time you have left here, when there's no rhyme or reason to people disappearing?

Home.

That's what they say. When people disappear, they go home. It's the single worst euphemism for death (or worse than death) that he's ever heard, and yet he can't help but hope it's true.

Humorless or not, it pulls at something better than despair deep inside his chest. He gives a brief, knee-jerk grin that feels like hope. Hope that Jeb will never set foot in this place. "Don't you even joke about that. I'll hold you personally responsible if he ever pops up in |holo|."

But joking aside, and worries and guilt and anxiety aside, he feels better for having voiced some of the darkness inside. "Yeah... Baby steps."

"If Jeb shows up here, you can punch me," Paul promises, because sure, that's logical.

He reaches out briefly-- very briefly-- to touch fingers to Cain's shoulder in a gesture of something-- comfort's the closest word he's got. (Which is warm, and starting to have actual muscle again-- no, Paul, don't go there...)

"Come on. Stretching's better for you than misery. Body moves, brain follows. Baby steps."

"And you know I will," he grouches softly, feeling like maybe, just maybe he can start putting himself together again.

The touch to his shoulder almost sends his brave attempts right down the drain, because it screams of compassion and Wyatt can't face it right now. But then it's gone, whisper soft like it was never there to begin with, only the lingering warmth of Paul's fingers left to remind him that they were.

"Right. Sounds good to me."

now i rock a house party at the drop of a hat.

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