taxonomites | [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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Aha - ahahaha - " It's breathless, slightly hysterical laughter, because the alternative is crying or screaming. She takes a step back, gasping.

"Oh, golly, I know you meant well, but please don't take my feet off the ground."

Hand on a building. Okay, okay, it's all fine, it was just for the tiniest, tiniest moment and it's over and done with anyway, and he didn't mean anything by it. And now she should say something before it gets even more awkward.

" - my brother calls me Flower. After the skunk."

Jeremy's face falls the instant he registers he's done something wrong.

"Aw-- aw jeez, I'm really sorry," Jeremy says with a wince, running a hand through his hair. "I shoulda asked. No lifting, gotcha. You can slug me if you want."

He blinks, then half-smiles, then laughs. "Well it is a hell of a bouquet."

"It's fine! It's okay!" Oh, no, don't look like that, Jeremy, now she feels guilty. " - it's kind of a strange thing, I know."

She smiles sheepishly, eagerly seizing on this hopefully distracting topic. "Yeah...it's a bit, uh, piquant, I know. But I've lived in Steel City for gosh, about six years now. Can't wash that off."

"Hey, we all got our quirks."

He tilts his head, clear bemusement tinging the reflexive smile he answers her sheepish one. "Steel City? Like... Pittsburgh? I'm in Sin City and I have yet to acquire any long-term traits from that.

"--aside from tattoos. And twenty extra pounds."

"Pittsburgh? I have some friends who live there." Sort of. Ish. Metody has had a great deal of trouble meeting people back home. "I live in Oakland, though."

" - You got a city tattoo?" Oh, goodness. Was he some kind of gambling addict?

"Oakland." Jeremy's face scrunches. "--not Oakland, California?"

The transaction processed, Jeremy's wearing most of the bought clothes and the rest go into a bag he picks up.

"Tattoos I got while in the city," he clarifies. "I wouldn't say they're really tats of the city."

"No, Oakland in Steel City? The neighborhood?"

She's so terribly lost. It feels like she's missed half the conversation. Again. This keeps happening over and over and over...

"Oh - I see! I thought you didn't have a- I mean, I didn't see any. What are they of?"

Jeremy remains genially confused, but shrugs it away with his hands stuffed in his pockets. "Guess I'm not familiar with Steel City? Sorry."

There's something slightly off about this whole convo from his end too, yeah. The way Metody says it suggests universal familiarity, but beyond Steel City being a nickname for Pitts, he's never heard of it, and he's lived East Coast and West Coast and he's not ignorant, okay. And even if she lives in like the scummiest part of Detroit, that doesn't make you legit stink, and the way she talks about the tattoos is weird too, and...

There's a lot of weird. Jeremy slots it into the part of his brain currently devoted to Not Thinking Too Hard.

"Oh, uh-- I've got a playing card on this shoulder, kinda sorta," he says, jerking his chin towards his back. "What about you, you got any ink?

"Oh, yeah, everywhere but my face and feet and hands - " She grabs at the stiff collar of her suit and tugs down, but of course she can't get it far enough.

" - well. It's mostly the leaves of the tree of life. This darned thing makes it a bit hard to show you, sorry. But they're beautifully done, I think."

"Leaves of the tree of life?" Jeremy echoes, peering at the few green tips he can barely see peeking above the suit's collar. Don't make a pot joke, don't make a pot joke, don't make a--

"If you're not careful Buffalo Bill might try and smoke your skin."

He picks up the stackful of paid-for clothes. "--why're you wearing that, anyhow? Is that like... uh... body armor, or a fashion statement, or what?"

"I - what? The cowboy...?" Good gosh, what kind of murderous heckhole was he from?

"Oh - sort of? I'm from Steel City?" And, when that fails to elicit understanding, "It's cursed and polluted - the pollution is most of the curse, actually. If you don't wear protective gear when you go outside, the sure can burn out your lungs and burn your skin. Or kill you. I mean, depending on how bad the day is."

"So...breathing equipment and...you know. The smell."

"No, the... never mind, it was a joke," Jeremy says with a crooked grin at his own expense, shrugging one shoulder. "Not a very good one."

He listens with blank incomprehension shading his face as Metody explains. Curses and pollution. What even. Dedicated cosplayer? Reallllly method actor? Fucking nutsoid?

His mind leaps from possibility to possibility, unhappy with all of them because none of them add up, none of them are the right answer and he knows that, somewhere, there's something bigger and more awful here that his mind just keeps shying away from seriously entertaining.

"That sounds pretty harsh," he says after several seconds of silence, because he has to say something. "I guess they don't recycle in Steel City, huh."

It's lame but his mouth keeps moving so that there's no weird pauses where he has to really start thinking hard about which one of them is crazy, pale little Metody or he himself. "...so why wear the suit here, the air seems pretty clean?"

He takes a deep breath as if to assure himself it is not searing out his lungs. Nope. Seems clean.

"Oh, we do! We even mine the air, not literally, of course, but we've got some very profitable and effective concentration and refining programs. It's just that theres a lot there to go through."

She reddens little, ducking her head. "It just....feels safer. You get used to it, and after a long time, it feels crazy to be without it. Because what if something happens? Some people even sleep in them."

"Also, I get cold super easy, and it makes a really good coat."

"Awww," saith the Jeremy, mostly at Metody's ducked head. "Well, shit, I can't bitch, I wear my lucky underwear seven days a week."

He looks doubtful, though. "--really, it's warm? It just looks kinda uncomfy to me. Space-Age lining stuff?"

Back home this is the point at which he would probably offer one of his own coats. Here, well, he can't.

"Y...you do?" asks the woman who showers three times a day.

"It is! It's airtight, so sometimes it gets too hot. They can be dangerous in summer. It's got moisture wicking lining stuff, and that's kind pof fuzzy?"

"Absolutely," Jeremy says breezily. He feels no need to point out that you can have many pairs of lucky underwear.

He still looks unconvinced as to the comfort of Fremen still-suits or whatever they are, but shrugs it away, not like he'll argue it.

"Okay, suit yourself. --ahahahah good one, self."

Outside the store now. With a warm sweater on, Jeremy can shiver deliciously in the wind rather than freeeeeze.

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

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject