[MINGLE] Post-Bunker Support Group

[markwatney]

WHO: Mark Watney
WHERE: Town Hall & Inn
WHEN: 6 September 2018, Evening
OPEN TO: ALL - MINGLE
WARNINGS: Warn on your threads, please. PTSD is probably a given.
NOTES: Support group mingle! If your character needs some support after the latest meta plot or just generally, send them on over to Town Hall. Also, feel free to do top levels having to do with signing up for a tube monitoring shift. Please let me know if you want a Mark thread, I have notifs off for the post.

---

So, I have been down to what we all seem to be collectively calling the Bunker. It is... something, to say the least.

For some people it feels like hope and for others despair, and I can honestly see both sides of it. Some people need to feel like they have some control, even if it's illusory — Having a puzzle to possibly solve makes them feel less adrift. For others, it's too much reality, or the perception of, anyway. I can't say I'm personally convinced by any of it.

See, I've been here since the start of whatever this is, with a group that's almost entirely gone now. It's been five months since we were birthed into this expanded world, and I don't know if it's any more real than the last. That isn't me putting on a tin foil hat, that's just respecting the environment. Mars was the same way: You do what you need to do to eke out a life, to survive or even thrive, but it's dangerous to think you have any real control. Everything can go to shit in the blink of eye, and then you're tumbling around in an airlock while your entire food supply is turned to dust.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying people should stop hoping to get home, stop trying to figure it all out. I'm just saying we might all be a little easier mentally if we could express how scary it is to know, deep down, that the rug can be pulled out from under us at any moment... And then to accept that feeling that way is okay.

With that in mind, after a little meditating during my daily work in the fields, I put up two notices on the blackboard in the South Village inn:

Volunteers to monitor the bunker tubes for new arrivals, please sign up for a shift on the paper on the bar.

That's one thing we can do, at least. Just the illusion of control, but still important to some people, and definitely helpful for anybody new.

Below that:

Support Group Tonight
Town Hall - 7:00 PM
Everyone Welcome

I don't know how many people will actually show — We've got a surprisingly stubborn, resilient group, in my experience. But even if it helps just one person, it's worth doing.

Comments

Liv Moore | OTA

[living_proof]

To be honest, I am not a support group type of person.

...says, probably, everyone who needs a support group most. But I digress.

For a long time, my personal baggage has not been the sort that exactly comes with a group of people sitting around sharing their feelings. You learn to deal as best you can, and I've been lucky. Really lucky. I've had a great group of friends to help me along, even if some of them came with some hiccups at the start.

But even I, Olivia 'Take it on the Chin like a Trooper' Moore, can acknowledge that it's been a hell of a week and a half. It's easy for me to say I'm here in a supportive capacity, for the people I know who are having trouble getting past all of it, but the truth is that I came really close to losing it on the beach that day. I said some things that were... true but potentially dubious.

And I'm really kind of pissed off that Simon and Garfunkel is ruined for me forever.

So I slide onto one of the benches a few minutes before seven and try to play it cool, not make it obvious that I'm looking around to see who else turns up.

[underpinnings]

Owen's life has had more years of getting there when you get there than military school, and knowing the time doesn't make him much better at it. Somewhat temperamental and, it would seem, experimental animals don't give a shit where you might need to be.

'Box of experimental puppies' is not the thing to suggest, four days out. When he makes it in, a few people are already talking, and he takes the circle of the room to hear a round of statements, apologies, and answers by the time he slips over the back of the bench next to Liv.

In the claustrophobic press of the bunker, in the time crunch of crisis and immediate recovery, he'd let the words fall aside. They don't always feel necessary--he doesn't much like any kind of thanks himself--but sitting where they are, trying to hold things together in more ways than the physical, he cants his head her way to speak without interrupting.

"Forgot to tell you good job, the other day. Not everybody's that quick to pull together."

Kira Akiyama | OTA | Rota signups and Bar tending

[3ofswords]

Any surprise at the sight of Kira signing on for bunker duty depends on how, and how long, one might know him. No, he's not volunteering to pick up a weapon and defend his liberties as a kidnapped clone villager; yes, he does still go by dumb bitch energy on his widely abused wrist device. Yes, he is probably taking recreational substances down with him.

But he is always at his best when doing something, and he's always kept a finger to the pulse of what the fuck is going on. Call it a holdover from Kira 1 or 5.0, he's not quite sure anymore.

If he's going to keep the list of names and colors going, all the better to tick them off at the source. At the very least, he can't let Karen experience the existential horror show without him. At the very, absolute lease, if they look like a shithead who might bolt or strangle him, he can opt out of opening the fucking tubes he knew they were being grown in. Fuck this place, honestly.

When he's done, he slips around to the other side of the bar in anticipation of the dinner crowd. Playing bartender isn't really his calling in life, but he's got moonshine to move out of Mark's pantry, a journal to update, and it beats having to hear the six hundredth complaint about the ironic tavern with no booze.

Late afternoon finds him sitting on a chair behind the bar, pen and notebook in hand, tumblers lined up on the bar itself. Behind him, the jars of moonshine gradient from amber to clear, a few of them labeled with color names from the birthday candy mixed into the mash. He won't be at the support group, not tonight--but he'll be here, offering his preferred antidote to adversity.

"Pick your poison," he says idly, as people drift into the room. "One of them might turn your hair blue."

[nonstopnarcissist]

Going to be a good example: Sure. That'll be a thing. But first a fortifying drink. Or two? No, just the one, Tony knows himself well enough that if he gives himself the room to have more he'll just linger here and idle away instead of going through with the best course of action and attending the hand holding kumbaya thing. So just the one that he spends a little bit longer trying to figure out what probably won't taste the worst.

Probably.

"I always assumed they'd make you go blind before they started changing your hair color." Which- also not something he wants to deal with on top of everything else, but the odds of that should be slim to none.

Should, but his luck has been shot to hell lately aside from 'managing to survive moon thrown at him.'

[nifties]

Someone's offering him alcohol? He'd been under the impression there was none, so he doesn't hesitate to slide onto a stool on the other side of the bar. John did not sign up for the shifts in the bunker, why bother? He prefers to work alone and if any of his team shows up here he'll have bigger trouble than some phony specimen room. If only Manny could do the angel thing right about now and get him the hell out of here. He supposes getting snockered is the next best thing, though.

"You pick for me, mate. You look like a bloke with good tastes." John's in his red scrubs with the black peacoat over top, the collar popped like he's some sort of badass. There's a few red lumps at his throat, near his collarbone, it maybe looks like a rash. When Kira looks his way, he winks, though it's over-the-top and painfully cheesy.

[underachievement]

The only reason Jess knows she isn't dreaming is because there aren't fully stocked shelves haloing the guy behind the bar, but he looks god damn angelic anyway beneath a row of pruno. If this is where the people who don't do support (taking or giving) are meeting, she's going to have to reconsider her stance on group therapy. Or maybe just the people who need it. Whatever it is that inspired this adult lemonade stand, more of it would be great.

"Ladies drink free?" she announces herself, walking up and setting her elbows on the bartop. Starting from the left and the darkest, she scans each mason jar with Terminator-like intensity.

Peter Parker | OTA

[fwips]

In recent days, it has come to Peter's attention that maybe a little tiny bit of emotional support wouldn't be remiss. A week ago, he might have claimed he was fine, but having both a panic attack and an emotional breakdown near and then on his mentor kind of highlighted that there might be a need. Just a small one.

So he's here, sitting on the back of one of the pews in the middle of the room, his feet planted on the smooth wooden seat, elbows on his knees. He told himself he's at least partly here for other people, to help them feel better, but he knows that the reason he really came is how lost he's felt the last four months and how afraid he's been pretty much all of the time.

There's a lull at one point and he lifts a hand, asking permission to speak like he's sitting in class back home.

"I just wanted to say sorry to anybody who got upset over what I said at the crab party," he says, and pauses, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. "I thought it was the right thing to do, but I know now it wasn't the right way to go about it."

[nonstopnarcissist]

"So-" He says, instead of making a thing of it as he sits down next to Peter for a moment. "I have, for you, a thing-"

A small thing, all delicate gold metal and tiny gears, strands of wire with a wind up key set flat against the side to be lifted and turned to bring the thing to life. It doesn't do much, skitters like a spider here and there, a tiny clockwork buddy that honestly...has no use, but making things for the sake of making them is a quiet joy of Tony's and after the first time they met in this place? Maybe a little clockwork spider to be Peter's Rubber Duck Re engineering or chemistry might be just the thing. Maybe. He doesn't know.

"Thought you might be missing Droney." At least that'll be his excuse.

[cinere]

Asch was near the back through most of the meeting. He had noticed the guy hold up a hand before he spoke. He had no real knowledge of whatever the crab party was, but this one had spoken up on his own and that was curious. He certainly never would have, part of him wasn't even sure why he had stuck around when he realized what the point of this meeting was.

Eventually he moved, pushing his hair behind his shoulders, and leaning on the chair next to Peter from behind so his hands were on the back of the chair, despite his face being tanned his arms and hands were pale from years wearing long gloves. "Crab party?" Were the only two words that he spoke, questioningly at that, but seafood sounded good, and he would take whatever information he could get.

[womanofvalue]

Peggy's dragged herself out from the bunker because her eyes have started to go blurry and a bit hard. She'd heard that there was something happening, something to help support people, and while she didn't think that she was awful, she knows that it wouldn't hurt to go and give herself a break. It might allow her to even process what's happened and hear theories about what they can do next.

When Peter starts apologizing about a thing at the crab party, though, Peggy has to wonder if she's missing more sleep than she'd though. "What on earth did you say at the crab party?" she asks him quietly when she settles in the seat behind him, not wanting to make a scene.

[cannily]

Integrating into society is getting a few false starts: first he has to check from his bedroom window, or peer over the stairs at the breakfast crowd, to make sure he's not doing anything obviously out of fashion with sundry clothing items. Then he has to do a lot of nodding and smiling in the downstairs, glad the fare and silverware are simplified from what he's used to, rather than foreign.

He has no idea what patch of woods they're in. He's still shaky on science, as a concept. As a word. There's a growing list of them in the margins of the journal he'd scavenged, and often as not when he's taking notes near groups of people, he's writing I don't know in a scrawl, linked in the loops of his handwriting until they run off the page. Litanies are good, fine. Eventually it'll have a rhythm, and he'll at least be distracted, if still uncertain.

There's no real aim in sitting next to the boy; he thinks the meeting is something to do with how he got here, and the place it happened in. He'd told John, it seemed like a surprise to them. He'd also wondered if they weren't the ones responsible for it all, putting on a show. Hearing a few people out, he might cross that off the list, but first, he's taking diligent notes to make some sense of later. "Crab party," he murmurs, finishing the quote. That it stands out, and comes from so close, has him looking up briefly.

"Well, I suppose I can forgive you if you invite me to any crab parties in the future." Brow raised, it's a first step to admitting he has no idea what any of them are talking about.

[morphogenia]

Kamala is here to be supportive. Nevermind the fact that she might actually benefit from talking literally any of the messed up stuff she's been through. She really doesn't see the need. She's just here to listen, support, and wonder why they don't have more meetings like this. They have a mystery to solve! People know stuff!!

She's leaving that aside for now because this is help your friends time not try to save the world one life at a time as Ms. Marvel time. She's just going to chime in here because she totally missed his announcement despite arriving that day. "You said something at the crab party? What was it?" Context helps when you're supporting someone!! Also she's nosy.

[oorah]

Frank isn't part of the sharing circle, though he did bring a drum circle's worth of canines along with. This is why no one ever believes he does these things by accident, and he knows it, but for some people being a dick just comes naturally, right? He should probably just leave, in fact, he's going to soon either way, but Kamala is getting close to this kid. He should probably at least make an effort to get to know him. When it's the next person's turn, Frank moves to sit by Peter, all of the dogs except the Corgi's following suit. Aurora is getting in the boy's face, while Aretha and Aloe sit on either side of Frank and the big white dog stares into Peter's soul.

"Yeah, I'm sorry too," he says, tone light but sincere as he takes a long sip of coffee from his mug and licks the remainder from his mustache. He's looking straight ahead and definitely not listening to whoever is talking now, all of his focus on Peter although an attempt is being made to be far less intense than the last time they spoke.

Tony Stark | OTA

[nonstopnarcissist]

On the one hand: talking about his emotions in a shared open space? Isn't Tony's bag. He'd tried working through it when he was younger (which turned out so well) and sparingly after the whole 'oh you have PTSD and aren't managing it well DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT SHIT' conversation with Pepper pre, mid, and post Mandarin Incident, Ultron, The accords-

He's dabbled, he's a dabbler, and some of those conversations went well but none of them happened in a group setting.

On the other: Being a good example for Peter. The kid is sixteen. Sixteen. He needs a support network that includes people that know what the fuck they're doing, not just a busted up genius with more issues than good sense. Also that...continued PTSD thing which they now likely share which, fuck, not something he ever wished on the kid.

Gnawing on it doesn't do him any good, hammering it out (literally) By dishing a sheet for one of his myriad of projects doesn't do any good, it's only when the flicker of that same blue glow catches his eye and- right. Okay. Maybe he should? He should. So he does. Journal and pencil in hand (for sketching and taking orders, following up on progress reports, the bullshit paperwork he'd loathed so much standing as a point of comfort for him) Tony sticks to the edges of the crowd for the most part. He's listening, even if it seems like all of his focus is taken up by a two page spread of 'PROS - CONS' re weapon development.

[living_proof]

For a semi-primitive village surrounded by strange and potentially-lethal plants and animals, being a doctor in these parts is pretty darned staid. Like sitting around twiddling your thumbs, catching yourself wishing something terrible would happen and then feeling massively guilty about it. Even after the werewolf-thing, there wasn't much for me to do that Claire, as a nurse, wasn't just as equipped to take care of: Slap a bandage on it, prescribe the hot springs. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I might be just a little excited by the prospect of having an actual patient, even if said hot springs and its fruity cousins, the peaches, mean my doctoring will be relatively short. People heal fast here, that's what I should want— Is what I want. Absolutely.

"How's the gut?" I ask as I slide over across the pew, head canted. "Any pain or swelling?"

Owen Prichard | OTA | Support Group

[underpinnings]

Used to be, he drifted into these things to get the lay of the land, push certain sentiments. Destabilization missions meant hearing people out, finding the beads of dissent and stringing them together. Meetings in basements, tense gatherings just outside the walls of a zone.

This is different.

He's still watching people come through the door, observing how they position themselves in the room, getting a feel for the mood of the many by the reactions of the few willing to share--but not to push them against an antagonizing force. Not to know who his allies are when he has to steal from the people in charge.

Kamala walked into the lake. A lot of people did--and before the impetus was revealed, he'd feared the worst. That circumstances were tipping toward a breaking point, that these people, who had proven better than most groups he'd passed through all of his short life, were starting to snap. That he wants to protect them is already proven, even to himself.

That he wants to protect them from themselves is a stranger thing to contend with. There are skills to teach, stores to be filled before winter--but none of it means anything if they're falling apart. If they're focused on unfairness, or spiraling over a blow to identity.

You can't have an identity if you're dead; you can't do the basic work to stay alive if you don't maintain some basic, irrational blocks of what makes you a person. Welcome to the fucking tragedy of the human condition.

Clearing his throat, he pulls himself away from the back wall. He probably shouldn't lead with that. "Don't they usually have coffee at these things. Makes me want one of those little straws to chew on."

[markwatney]

"Don't look at me, when our benevolent overlords provide the coffee plants, I will do my best to grow them." Not ideal in this climate, but if I can make tomatoes work, I could manage coffee. Just probably not as effusively as most people here would prefer.

"I am a little disappointed by the lack of pastries, though. I would have thought we could at least crank out a danish or two. They could even be stale, for that proper support group vibe."

Asch the Bloody | OTA

[cinere]

It was less than twenty four hours since Asch shoot out of the fountain, he was still just as disenchanted as he had been when Natasha found him. He knew he had died, and yet here he was walking around without wounds from the swords that had cut him down. Everything was disorienting. A touch disappointing as well.

He had seen the signs, and despite the fact that a support group sounded like a group of drecks whining, it seemed the best way to get more information. So, when the time came, he made his way to the townhall in his black scrubs, his long red hair that seemed to be darker at the bottom was hanging free around him it went all the way to his mid back, his bangs covering half of his face so that only one of his tired green eyes were visible. He moved in quietly, moving to lean against a back wall for now to watch people.

Did he need support? Probably, but did he want it? No. He wanted information.

Karen Page | OTA

[digging]

To Karen's credit, she did not carry the vial of Matt's blood with her to this support group where people are probably going to discuss how unhealthy it is to carry Matt's blood with her anywhere. She did, in fact, slip it into the back of a drawer after only a day, safely secure behind a couple of folded quilts. If nothing else, she can rest easy in knowing she's not reached the 'string it on a chain and wear it like Angelina Jolie' portion of her emotional breakdown.

Her notebook and pencil are absent, too, for obvious reasons, and she can't seem to figure out what to do with her hands, folding them in her lap, then shifting them to the smooth edge of the pew's seat, then catching hold of her elbows. She's tucked up in the back of the room, mouth very assuredly closed but eyes and ears open, her heart heavy and bruised but chugging along in her chest.

[theluckygirl]

Claire arrives a little late, not on purpose but because she'd found another box on their porch that was far too heavy to carry in one haul given the 16 various bottles of booze in it. So she had no choice but to lessen the load by taking half out first before transporting the rest inside.

As soon as she does enter the Hall, she sees Karen and she knows how hard things have been for her. Both of them have been thinking a lot about home lately, of losing Matt and of course, everything going on there.

Sliding in beside her friend, Claire doesn't say anything, just slips her hand into Karen's and holds it supportively.

"How are you doing?" she asks, only she somehow knows the answer.

Elena Gilbert ; OTA

[copingskills]

[She almost didn't come.

Elena wasn't sure she wanted to be 'the girl that drowned.' She didn't want people to worry about her, to make sure she was okay, because she wasn't and she probably wouldn't be for awhile. Showing up to a support group made that even more real and it was easier to fake a smile and pretend like she hadn't sunk to the bottom of a lake and woke up a dozen days later in a tube like nothing had happened.

But she also knew that she needed people. She couldn't hide forever.

So she showed up and she hoped someone would have coffee. Or alcohol. And was willing to openly share because she probably wouldn't bring herself to ask.

She also forces herself to sign up for some tube monitoring because nothing says fuck you to your fears than forcing yourself to face them, right? Besides, she could never live with herself if someone died down there because there weren't enough people to cover all the shifts.]

[nonstopnarcissist]

I know this took a little bit longer than I thought, but I've got a reason-

[ Something she'll have to get used to, the drive by conversations, the flitting from thought to thought topic to topic- and deadlines being somewhat fluid no matter what he promises because of the 'good reasons' he lays out which make perfect sense to him. Tony's aware he's eccentric and flighty, reasons he doesn't intend to put too much weight on this girl's shoulders.

She signed up to help him keep track of his work, not anything else. Compartmentalization is key.

He hands off a slim, finely chased box and similarly designed flat iron. Floral scrolling around the case and the handles of the iron, inside a small flat folded stand and chamber for burning alcohol, filled with moonshine. It'll work for the moment. ] But I remember in market testing beauty tools sell better when they're also beautiful, so. There you go.

Logan | Open

[notan_animal]

Logan isn't there because he needs to 'talk' out his feelings about the bunker, or lean on someone who has been similarly triggered by some past experience. He doesn't want to think about the fact that he's been spending more time clenching his fists out of habit because PTSD doesn't care when and where it hits the hardest.

He's there out of curiosity on why exactly everyone was heading towards one of the buildings. Had he seen the sign over at the inn he wouldn't be there and when he realizes what this all is, Logan lets out a:

"You got to be fucking kidding me."

[nonstopnarcissist]

"Oh no, solidarity and emotional support in a trying time. How terrible." Tony snorts, flicking another point on his 'CONS' side of the equation. Assholes, that's a con, right? Assholes with weapons never end well for people that aren't assholes and don't know how to defend themselves.

"Even if you don't have shit to say, standing here and not judging- with an emphasis on the not judging part- helps a group heal or. Something." There's probably more detailed science backing up the whole solidarity angle but Tony wasn't ever really one for the softer sciences.

Kat | Open

[mediumhoodie]

Kat wasn't sure what would come out of this 'support ground' meeting but she wanted to show up and see what it was all about. She kept her ears and eyes open as she looked around those who had gathered. She didn't stay towards the back of the room but she did stand out of the way and listened more than she said anything.

She wasn't sure what to say. Her life was hard and the information from the bunker startling but her life was always hard and she'd gotten used to it.

Her path took her by the shift sign up sheet for the bunker and she paused long enough to sign up her name. Kat. She never used her full name and only Vergil knew what it was.

With that done, she returned to the meeting and those who had gathered.

steve rogers | ota

[ex_enlisted288]

[ Steve doesn't know why he's here.

Not consciously. Maybe, deep down, he knows he should talk about the things that have happened to him. The last time he was roped into talking to someone, it was a SHIELD-appointed shrink who wanted to know how he felt after being thawed. After taking a nearly seventy-year nap in the ice. After losing everyone and everything he loved.

After trying to comm-- never mind.

The point is that he doesn't talk about it. That's not how his generation was raised. (You don't talk to a stranger about personal problems. You get hurt, you walk it off. You lose someone, you walk it off. You die? You fucking walk it off. And you don't let it show.)

He settles in a chair near the wall, grateful to have something solid against his back. Something stable and real and unlikely to crumble under him, which is how everything else feels lately. There are no plans to actually talk, although maybe he might listen to those brave enough to speak out. Until that happens, though, he'll sit there quietly and sketch various people with the pencil and notebook he brought. ]

[cinere]

[ A newbie had been busy doing pretty much nothing but watching the group from the back. His expression was one of judgement. He didn't see the point in such things, but he also didn't know what he had missed. If he realized what the bunker and tubes meant he would probably have had a minor breakdown. Luckily he had not paid enough attention yet to realize it, thankfully.

He had noticed the man with his back to a wall writing or drawing, towards the end of the talks, he finally made his way over, rudely trying to peer from the side, but out of hitting distance to see what the man was doing. ]

Samantha Moon | OTA | Potato Vodka Available...Surprise, Surprise

[thegreatexperiment]

It was another one of those gatherings where Sam found herself pressed up against the wall. Like a junior high dance, all over again. Only this time, she'd brought some booze and no parents could call her out on it. Of course, she was fairly sure no one would notice her anyway. But the bottles were on hand. People coped in different ways and she wasn't judging. Actually, she was kind of jealous. She wished she could drink some of her own toxic swill.

Then again, the last time she'd gotten drunk, she'd pretty much destroyed several relationships she'd been building here. Par for the course in the long-run. But this place did make her think less about the long-run and more about the day-to-day.

She left the wall once, to sign up on Watney's paper:

Sam Moon. I can take nights. I don't sleep.

Monitoring the tubes, at least, would make her feel marginally useful. And it would be a nice break in the routine. And if someone she knew ever showed up...

Well. No. No, that wasn't likely. Not based on all the data she'd collected in her little notebook. And something else. Some kind of instinct too. But she didn't like relying on instinct. Too Kindred. Not scientific enough.

MAYOR HOTDOG | OTA

[oorah]

town hall

Frank hadn't actually seen the posting, so when he stumbles upon a meeting, it's with six dogs in tow and one seriously confused face. Aretha and Aurora are flanking him as always, people who know him will know both dogs as Karen's and Kira's respectively, a black-and-tan bloodhound with good manners and social skills and a sleek black German Shepherd prone to jumping and barking at random but sweet as pie. Joining his menagerie today are two lazy Corgis, a fluffy Samoyed and a slate gray Pit Bull who Frank has taken a shine to, unsurprisingly. He's the only dog other than Aretha who abides by his cryptic hand signals for the dogs. Attempting to be sneaky, he edges along the outside of the group and snags a coffee from a pot someone made and brought over. He'll just be... listening from over here. He's had about enough group therapy for a lifetime.

It's only after he's been there a few minutes that he realizes they're talking about the bunker and then he's listening more closely, the vial of Jessica's blood he'd stolen all but burning a hole in his pocket. So now they want to talk, it's fascinating if nothing else. For the first three months he'd been here he could only ever get a hushed conversation about unfounded theories. He supposes now that they have some real evidence that will change, though he can't help but feel this whole todo is dramatic, still. And that's coming from the dramaqueen himself.

inn

Later on finds Frank, Aretha, and the pit bull recently named Aloe at the Inn signing up for whichever shifts are left empty down in the bunker. He knows, save the lecture, but he really needs to know if anyone he recognizes shows up before anyone else. He'll be doing small projects around the Inn after that, cleaning up the kitchen and staining windows he repaired with Danny after the Wendigo, as well as organizing and accounting for the weapons cache. Anything he can do to fill the time, really.

If someone approaches, he'll tell the two dogs to sit and wait. Aloe is still learning, but Aretha does as she's told if she's not already laying on the ground. Aloe is a curious dog, sniffing at anyone's shoes who happens by if Frank will let him get away with it. "You been by the Town Hall?" he asks without turning around, wondering if everyone knew about that except him. That seems to be a running theme around here.

inn

[cannily]

The inn, as a hub of activity, is the ideal place to observe. No one's questioned him too much, perhaps out of politeness, but having trained to play roles in the confines of Caridian society, Cael is struggling to cobble together the baseline of who he's meant to be.

Cael, sudden arrival to the Southern Village. No named country, no great landmarks by which to navigate. He's no longer quite sure it is Vilksir, or even the stretches of country conquered for Glasdant. In the storage of the inn, he's found a single tunic, and garments that at least resemble hose, in fit if not in material or color. A young woman in one of the other rooms seemed to put the short pants over her own, and he's copied that much, accepting the somewhat shapeless and over-sized top half to blend him in for now.

Whatever this place is, whoever these people actually are: if they don't know who he is, they can't know what he's done. Whatever lie he cobbles together, trying to pass for their own or simply a complete foreigner to these parts, he can float on his anonymity until he has some idea of what's happening.

He's dead, obviously, but no one ever came back from death to tell you how to do what comes after.

Today, he's parked near the fireplace. There are no instruments he's found in the village, so it's certainly some kind of hell. He almost wonders if he can't get a sense of who to mimic here, because there's no cohesive sense of the village itself. Even at the meeting, people had spoken differently of what he now pieces together as the same topics, going over his notes.

Or: going over his notes until the man came in, hulking over a pack of dogs. Vilksir is an irrationality at this point, yes, but it spikes in his mind at certain times. The man yelling about his fur coat, the pack of dogs swarming into the room. The grey one is especially something he hasn't seen before: there were only the dogs in the farmlands, back home, and they were scrappy things. Cael stares in fascination at its wrinkled face, fingers curled over the edges of his journal.

"The meeting? Yes, I stayed awhile. At points I felt more a subject than a participant: I didn't know what to add."

Jessica Jones, OTA

[underachievement]

TOWN HALL CREEPIN (6:50-7:20), THEN INN - BAR

Free pizza wasn't on offer but Jess is here to check anyway. Watney's other get togethers revolved around food and if she's remembering correctly, he's part of the daily lunch effort she takes advantage of whenever she doesn't sleep through it. She arrives ten minutes before the meeting's set to start, hoping to sneak away with a coffee before the majority of attendees filter in. But there's no coffee, or scones or whatever bread-based equivalent to donuts that she knows from experience is typically at these things. Jess continues to hang around, leaning her shoulder blades to the wall and crossing her arms and lackadaisically observing person after person walk in not holding a casserole dish.

Maybe that's why there are so many so-called models around here. Nobody eats their feelings.

Disappointment ushering in the mildest of resentment, she sticks around til about 7:15PM to soak up the sadness in the room. Nothing puts her less in the mood for people than group therapy. Some people voice thoughts she's had about possibly being a clone and she almost envies how deeply shaken they are. Since she's lingering just to be an asshole, she peels away from the wall and quietly leaves before someone can call her on it. As she walks aimlessly through town, she passes by someone who reeks most delightfully and ducks into the building they wobbled out of. Fuck her sideways, is that a functioning bar she sees?

If the end is occupied, it's the seat she will be making her way to throughout the night as other 'patrons' come and go. Whatever she's nursing she will insist not go dry, as long as there's booze behind the counter and someone to pour it, and that someone could be her, if desperate times call for desperate measures. (They won't.)

[ to hash out CR with Jess ahead of time for this post or future events and plots, use my plot post! ]

[nifties]

John has been drinking a little while now, his coat on the back of his chair as the moonshine makes his limbs feel warm and loose. He doesn't even notice her pass him to sit at the end of the bar, a seat between them. When he turns to pour another finger of the jar Kira left him, that's when he sees her out of the corner of his eye. Confusion moves into bemusement, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips as his hazy gaze slowly rolls across the bartop to meet hers. The first thing he notices isn't her dark hair or large eyes, her leather jacket or the Devil-may-care attitude weighing her down. It's the red communicator peeking out of her left sleeve that matches his; that matches the scrubs he's still wearing labeling him the probie. He slides her the jar, turning to lean against his hand as he props his elbow against the counter, putting his matching smartwatch on display.

"Looking for this, luv?" he asks in his usual Liverpoolian drawl, perhaps a bit more slurred than usual. If anyone could tell the difference.

Finnick Odair | OTA

[fishermansweater]

Finnick hadn't read the notice, and even if he had, he wouldn't have known what it meant if he did. And even if he had, he might not have come, not unless Annie persuaded him. The only reason he's in the village at all is that the little crocodile dog had run off, again, and he's following after it.

"Coco!"

The creature may have learned the name they'd given it, but it hasn't learned obedience. Or not to run away. Or to come when Finnick runs after it calling out its name. He's chased the creature all the way into the village when he finally catches it up beside the Town Hall.

"We need to get you a collar," he tells the little dog as he scoops it up into his arms. He gets a reptilian grin in exchange, and as he turns, he notices the lights and the open door. Had he missed some sort of meeting notification? He's missed out on a lot of things happening in the village lately (like Peeta going to get himself killed). But when he steps into the room, the dog in his arms, it's to see chairs set out and people seated in them, some in deep conversation and some listening. And some pretending not to listen.

"What is this?" he asks someone, as he puts the dog down on an empty chair between them.

Coco, as usual, just grins.