taxonomites | [Holo] [Arrival] this is the first day of the rest of your life

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[Holo] [Arrival] this is the first day of the rest of your life

[Maybe 20 minutes after Johannes eventually leaves the arrival room]

Another new arrival, as shown by the holographic image being broadcast to the tablets of everyone in Taxon, as usual. However, this man is lying on the floor of the arrival room, tangled up in a blanket, curled half-around a body pillow. He is snoring. And maybe drooling a little.

After twenty seconds or so, the chill of the hard metal floor starts to penetrate the sleeping man's consciousness. He grimaces, shifts around as if trying to get comfortable, and then slowly cracks an eye open.

"Whussat?"

Eyes squeezed shut, unshaven face squinching into a grimace. Man, what the hell... 's cold, and hard, and this is not his bed, he's pretty sure he went to bed in his bed last night, and yeah, he was doing shots pretty heavily, but he's pretty sure he did not drink to the point of passing out on a sidewalk, or... He risks opening his eyes again.

Definitely not the Strip. Not anywhere he knows. Fuzzily, Jeremy Fischer sits up, blanket falling down around his waist, showing that he's not wearing a shirt. He is still clutching the body pillow to him like a protective talisman. The holo shows a man in his probable late thirties, extremely scruffy, with an enormous amount of untamed curly brown hair and a stocky body.

"Uh...." He looks around him at the steel walls, the weird thing overheard, the utter alienness of his current surroundings. He runs a hand over his face, through his shaggy curly hair, and scratches at his head.

"The fuck...?"

Then he starts laughing. "Okay. Nice. Good one, Charlie! Not sure how the hell you got me here without waking me up, but seriously, nice one. Lunch is on me. It might be our last, right?"

There's a few beats of silence. He shivers a little in the coldness of the room and pulls the blanket up over his shoulders, grin slowly fading.

"Charlie?"

***

Sometime later, Jeremy is outside. This is a problem, since he's wearing his underwear, socks, and a blanket wrapped around himself, and it's freaking cold.

"THIS IS BULLSHIT!" Jeremy hollers at anyone who might listen, trying to avoid the patches of snow on the sidewalk as he looks around the Bazaar for clothes.

Or shoes. Shoes at least would be a great fuckin' start.

eta to add in alternate run-in location of Jeremy at the Bazaar

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"Here, let me - "

Metody has figured out a few things. He shows him how to remove the screen and expand it, then uncertainly pecks through the menus.

"Okay, okay....so, here's the map, and this is one of the bad things: it always shows where you are. These two dots are us, see? What's your friend's name?"

Up close to Metody, there is a....smell. A polluted, sick, unpleasant smell. Enjoy.

He blinks stupidly at the tablet popping out and then... enlarging. "Fuck me, Apple can't do that," he mumbles, but then leans in close to see what she's doing, worry still overriding other emotions.

He registers the smell-- distantly-- unconsciously wrinkles his nose the way a man does on first scenting dog shit on his shoes (or cat piss on his mattress), but at the moment it hasn't quite penetrated that Metody's the source.

"Charlie. Charlie King," Jeremy says, eyes darting over the cool map screen that he doesn't really appreciate right now. "Charles, maybe? Maybe there's a Charles there--"

No such name is appearing there. Jeremy buries his hands into his hair for a moment, then grabs the tablet back from her rudely and jams at the buttons to make a call-- he's familiar with smartphones, so now that the tablet's OUT of the watch he gets the basic concept fine.

Except where his iPhone at home gives him a number pad to enter a phone number manually, this just has the list of names. The list of names that has no Charlie.

"Shit, Charlie, where are you," Jeremy says. Everything will probably make sense if Charlie's here. Charlie makes shit make sense, Charlie has direction, Charlie's the guy who knows what is going on and has a plan for how to get there.

When it becomes clear there's still no Charlie on the list, Jeremy lets the tablet drop to the table with a clatter and slumps back in his chair, staring blankly down at the tabletop.

It takes him a few seconds to remember Metody's there, and that he'd snatched the tablet from her fingers.

"...sorry," he says in a mumble.

She risks a gentle pat to his arm.

"It's okay."

"I spent a long time looking for my family. Any of my family." And then, softer, "I have a very big family."

"That's the rest of it. This is...not home. I keep hoping it's a big hallucination, that I got exposed to something or my heart went and I had a stroke, or something and...it's awfully real. Everything here is horribly real."

"I don't," he says in a mumbled answer to Metody's words of family. But he registers the tone, sympathy, empathy, and he bites his lip, looking up at the slight pale girl.

(Who smells weird. --man, Jesus, that is some funk--)

He hears what she's saying but it still doesn't make any sense. It can't make any sense. Nothing about tonight-- shape-changing iPads and weird people who don't meet your eyes the right way and goth girls who walk around in body armor and the fact that he's sitting around in his underwear with said goth girl*-- nothing makes any sense.

Jeremy plants his elbows on the table and plops his face into his hands. "I have no idea what's going on," he says dully.

"And you're telling me it's not a bad trip."

*Okay, the sitting around in his underwear is actually pretty normal for some nights of the week

"If it is drugs or toxins, it is lasting for quite a long time, and there is a great deal of internal logic and orderliness. I...hope that it is, because I would like to go home."

And somehow, having this conversation makes it all real for her. Being told it, and seeing it herself, that she could disregard, but speaking it out loud to someone else, that felt...permanent. She looks down, and reaches out for her sugar sludge.

"I'm sorry. I wish I could tell you different."

Because I would like to go home.

Jeremy looks up, his puppy-dog-esque eyes seeking out Metody's. The words are a perfect vocalization of what he's feeling, and the emotion behind them, even soft as Metody's voice is, tings all the bells.

He really looks at her, brain trying to register more than his own personal crisis for a bit. Man, she's small. If she went through the same crazy night he's having, the waking up in the steel room and staggering out almost naked into a city that makes no sense (he would be a little piqued to learn he's the only almost-nude arrival)...

"... I, um. Okay, I'm not sure I'm really buying any of this. But you're being super nice to me, sweetheart, so, you know, you don't have anything to apologize for, 'kay? Fuck, you got me coffee, I think that qualifies you as a superhero."

He offers a disarming-if-shaky smile, and holds up his blanket. "Look, I even brought you a cape?"

It's a coping mechanism, sure-- his joke is strained, lame, dopey-- but it's also what he does-- try to make everyone smile, try to make everyone happy.

If Metody had woken up naked in a strange place, the echoes of the enraged panicking would still be reverberating in that little metal room.

She blinks at him, then laughs, plucking at the edge of the blanket. She is more than willing to dodge their looming mutual emotional breakdowns by goofing around. She's not being silly for her own sake. It's all for him.

Really.

"And what a wonderful cape it is! It looks very snuggly. Golly, do I get a tiara if I find you a pair of pants? Because I could use a tiara."

"It kinda still smells of cat pee from the last time Tunaface got into my room," Jeremy offers cheerfully, "but it's yours all yours, beautiful.

"--and if you get me pants, oh my god, I will-- actually, I can do it for you right now."

He gets to his feet to go grab from straws from the counter-- woops, no, grab the blanket, haha, sorry there Metody, there we are, blanket yanked back up and Jeremy plucks a handful of the thin brown coffee stirrers.

He shuffles back over, drops back down into his chair, and quickly starts braiding the plastic bits together.

"Your tiara is in production! Now where's my pants?"

"Oh, man, you sure make it sound amazing, but I'd hate to deprive - " She laughs, watching him wandering off.

"Oh, Jeremy. Look inside your heart: your pants were always there, deep inside you."

"Or down the street at the clothing store, along with a shirt and a coat, and some shoes. Because you seriously can't be walking around like that. You'll get frostbite in places you'll wish you didn't have."

"No, no way," Jeremy groans about his pants being 'deep inside him'. "The last time I had to get in touch with my inner clothing, it was my inner sequined thong, and I needed three doses of Ex-lax to retrieve it. Don't get me started on the cleaning bill."

He is definitely far more at his ease with jokes than he is thinking about anything else that is going on. His fingers work while he talk, deftly twisting the straws together. He does a lot of street origami-- big hit with the kids-- but he's been known to use whatever's at hand. Straws work.

"Clothing store-- check. Only problem is I don't think I have any cash."

Perhaps that other feature of the tablet bears explaining.

"That sounds terribly uncomfortable to extract. It'd be all...cheese gratery."

"Oh! Well, you kind of actually do. Here, see, this?" She taps at the screen, able to read just fine upside down. "This, the Bank Buddy. That's your money. It's all electronic, so you can't lose it. And don't worry, I've got a little bit of money to help get you stuff. I hunt and trap, and I don't live in an apartment, so I don't really have all that many expenses."

"I have money?" Jeremy blinks down at the screen as Metody demonstrates the Bankbuddy. Holy shit, he does have money. Three hundred bucks. Or three hundred circles with pokey bits. Simoleans, maybe.

"Okay, so. I do have money. Yeah, this is definitely me tripping out."

He looks up, blinks a few more times at Metody. I hunt and trap is hitting some extreme cognitive dissonance with the girl's delicate face, features, and build. On the other hand there is the body armor.

"You're not like... one of those apocalypse survivalist cultists, are you? I always imagined you people a lot-- hairier."

"You do. And work is wonderfully easy to find. It's great."

She blinks at him, eyes a bit wide. "What? Oh, golly, no. I'm just...independent. And highly cheap. Highly, highly cheap. Why should I pay for what I can procure on my own?"

And do you have any idea how awkward it is to buy all that bone in a butcher shop? You can only make so much soup in a week.

"Yeah, but hunting and trapping? Isn't that-- I dunno-- a shitton of work?"

Says the guy whose closest experience with nature is 'camping trips' in the woods around San Francisco, and by camping trips we mean 'getting high as fuck around a campfire with some friends'.

"I...guess? It's not so bad, once you know what you're doing. And it's satisfying, and you always know exactly what your getting. And anyway, meat is so darned expensive. I just wish I had the right stuff to do tanning."

If she were someone else, she might try using urine, but she knows what kind of chemicals are in her own, and she it's not prepared to ask for someone else's.

"Want to go find you some clothes and a place to stay?"

"I will take your word on that, Princess Rambo," Jeremy says with the earnestness of the hungover. It's fortunate he doesn't know what's used in tanning, because he'd probably offer his pee.

"Oh! Yeah. Right. Clothes. Clothes would-- amazing." He pretty sure, and by pretty sure we mean hoping & praying, that he's going to wake up and shit will be back to normal, but hell, might as well be comfortable in the extremely vivid dream world until then.

Jeremy tugs his socks up, wraps his blankie around himself toga-style, and downs a last swig of his coffee before standing up. The half-finished straw-tiara he hangs onto. He'll finish it, probably, if he remembers to.

"Fortumately, the air here is pretty clean, so you probably don't need breathing equipment. I...actually haven't found a place that sells it." Which is a terribly worrying thought. The chemical components of hers will need recharging soon.

She pays, then politely holds the door for him. As soon as they are both out, she zoos down the street at top speed; she can't imagine he wants to linger in the cold.

"Okay so...pants first, I think. They've got jeans over there. Those should be god against the cold. And they'll be durable." And they are just as soft on the skin a concrete. Snuggly.

"Why would I need...." he lets it go with a shrug.

Metody holding the door for him makes him grin, then grin broader, but he doesn't object to it. He is not really attached to the gender roles of his world. But it's still funny that Tiny Chick is holding it for him.

Still, he has no problems at all following her at top (sock-wearing) speed down the sidewalk. "Blue Jean -- I just met a girl named Blue Jean--"

Except it's Metody, not Blue Jean, but hey. "Hey, listen-- thank you," he say as he quick-steps after her, picking his way along the sidewalk. "You're being amazingly nice to a guy in his underwear!"

"If anyone needs some niceness, it's the guy wandering around in winter weather in nothing but boxers." She grins at him, holding the door to the clothing store. Oh, golly, she hopes this doesn't cost too much; she's spent some time wistfully lingering at the windows, but she's never gone in to see what they actually had to offer.

"So...uh...what size shirt are you? I can look for something while you try on pants."

"Not arguing, sister."

Especially since just the quick trek along the sidewalk has got him shivering once more, teeth chattering.

"Large works. L." Jeremy does not usually wear shirts classy enough to use numbers, okay, not when you can grab T-shirts extremely cheaply at many places in Las Vegas. "Doesn't gotta be fancy, hon, just a T-shirt-- make that sweatshirt, snowwwwww-- and ooh look at all the clothes."

This is motivated by being cold rather than being any sort of clothes-hound. Excepting a few times where Charlie has harangued him into dressing up, Jeremy's wardrobe usually never climbs beyond 'college student', despite the fact that he should have outgrown Converse sneakers and band t-shirts a decade ago.

Hell, if it wasn't so cold he wouldn't really mind being in the city in nothing but his skivvies. But it is cold.

Fortunately though for Metody's bank balance, Jeremy's usual wardrobe is born out of cheapness too, and he's not so distracted right now that he forgets to look at price tags. A hundred-dollar (or whatever the weird symbol is) pair of jeans get tossed back onto the display, and Jeremy's head swivels and homes in on the rack in the back saying CLEARANCE! SALE SALE SALE!

The cashier is giving him the stinkeye at his state of undress; Jeremy offers her a big wave and smile as he snags a pair of battered looking jeans-- checks the size and price-- and drops his blanket to start tugging them on right there between the racks. What are dressing rooms?

They fit, they're marked down to eighteen bucks, he's not complaining.

She peers at him, looking a touch myopic, then wanders deeper into the sales racks. When she emerges, she's holding a light blue t-shirt and a maroon sweatshirt, both plain, both a little large for him.

"Here, try these- they'll look good with your eyes."

And while he's doing that, she'll wander and scoop up some essentials. Socks, he'll need more than one pair of those. Underwear too. And come to think of it, it'd be nice to have more than one pair of those for herself. Washing her clothes in the creek and sitting naked and paranoid as they dried by the fire has become a bit tiresome.

A towel. Oh, man, she should get a towel. That would really improve her quality of life. After that....a pillow.

She ambles back to Jeremy, thoughtful. "What else do you -right, shoes. And toiletries, too."

Jeremy answers Metody's words-that-he-can-take-as-a-compliment-and-therefore-will with a big grin and takes the offered clothes as well. "Thanks!"

The bushy head emerges through first one collar then the other; Jeremy looks around for the pale-haired girl and sees the top of her head just peeking above another rack.

"Shoes. Definitely shoes. Like everything else can be borne, but... shoes."

He sees a wall display with some and migrates that direction. Ohhh man, neon-green Chuck Taylors. Probably too much. He explores other options, flipping the soles up to check the sizes, gratefully taking the socks from Metody.

"I am going to have to something really nice for you. Like, nicer than a coffee-straw crown."

Except he's not sure what he gets a pint-size albino survivalist.

She laughs and clasps her hands together. "Ah! Now you look a little less crazy!"

"Shoes are, like, the most clever invention ev- no, nothing canvas, that just isn't practical. Try the boots. They'll keep your feet dry, and when they wear out, you can make sandals." And that probably reveals more about Metody's financial situation than she'd really be happy with.

"Oh, maybe you should get a scarf, too, or a hat. Something to protect your ears from the wind."

She smiles uncertainly a at the idea of repayment. "You can pay it forward. I'm sure they'll be someone else who needs a little help, soon enough."

"Yeah, I've graduated to Homeless Man: The Not Likely To Pee On Your Car Edition!"

He's really a canvas sneakers kinda dude, but, she's helping him out (and besides that his innate nature is to go along with things, go along with things, go along with things), so he dutifully takes a pair of the boots on display with their thick soles and fake-fur lining and these are probably in his size.

The comment about a hat just makes him grin though, waggling his brows. "And hide this beautiful hair?"

(You're being shy about repayment? He can work with that. He'll bring you plates of cookies. With extra sugar. Although still not anywhere enough for you to actually taste it. But. He tried. Or, uh, will have tried, in Meta-To-Be Land.)

"Oh - that's the next thing I should do. You need a place to stay. There's actually dorms..." somewhere. Where? She'd been so upset the first few nights that she hadn't really been paying attention to what she was doing.

"...I think in the big building. The first one. And I know there's empty buildings, too, or you can take one from the Extras, if you want it, but I didn't really pay attention to how that happens." Being able to get away and indulge in her shameful lack of humanity where no one would stumble on it had come as a painful relief. Her cave was not comfortable, at all, but it was the very first place she'd ever been where she felt safe. Ish.

And even if the Extras weren't real, it seemed wrong to take from them. Weren't they just as deserving of happiness and security as any one of her other possibly-hallucinations?

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