[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.

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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

[ex_enlisted288]

You don't say.

[ Now his tone is tinged with a little dry, Brooklyn sass.

So there's the thing about the clones. Steve isn't sure if he fully believes that, but he's seen too many weird things to dismiss the notion out of hand. He's an actual science experiment, after all. Property of Howard Stark's vita-rays and the US Army.

He's fought a super nazi with a red skull.

He's fought alien lizards bent on subduing Earth.

He's fought HYDRA scientists bent on turning kids into weapons of mass destruction.

So clones aren't the weirdest thing he's come across. But it is something serious, and people without his life experience are rightly shaken by the discoveries. ]

Got anything stronger than water?

[ Because it had to be said. ]

[freightcars]

Lemme check.

[ He says, then comedically lifts the bottle to his face. Inspects it. Holds it out in offer again. ]

Wouldn't you know it, I found some vodka.

[ In that same damn tone, too. ]

[ex_enlisted288]

It's a miracle.

[ Maybe his voice sounds a little over-reverent now. Mocking.

Not that it stops Steve from accepting the bottle. And it definitely won't stop him from drinking a mouthful.

Or trying to contain a small cough once the stuff is down his throat. ]

[freightcars]

[ Steve's smartass tone earns him a wry smile, something that only grows more pleased when he accepts the bottle and coughs down a decent portion. ]

Say what you want about this place, it's nice to actually feel booze again.

[ He observes idly, accepting the bottle back. He tips the mouth of it a little in a sort of cheers in Steve's general direction, then swallows down his own mouthful without flinching.

Felt like they were gonna need it in a situation like this.

Another second later and he's nudging Steve's shoulder with his own. ]

So what the hell've you been up to anyway, lately?

[ex_enlisted288]

[ Well, clearly, Bucky brings out the best in Steve. Or his inner smartass. It's definitely one of the two. ]

Lots of people seem to agree.

[ In that he's noticed the uptick in alcohol consumption. Reminds him a little of the time right after Prohibition was repealed. Speakeasies turned legitimate nightclubs as far as the eye could see.

Bubbly practically running through the streets of New York.

Steve nudges back after a moment, then flips the pad to a clean page and starts sketching out the broad strokes of a 1930's club scene, with champagne flowing everywhere. ]

Just keeping busy. Working on a few things.

[ It's a standard response, but part of his tone actually sounds like he means it. ]

[freightcars]

[ Best? Worst? Inner smartass? All of these things are synonymous as far as Barnes is concerned.

His eyes flicker down to Steve's empty page and his pencil, searching in the blankness and the lines for where Steve's mind might be leading him. He can't begin to imagine, and there won't be enough marks on that paper for a while yet for him to put it together. By the time it does he'll have moved on to something else, and Bucky finds he regrets not knowing the imagine that set it off.

He doesn't ask, though, because there are bigger issues at hand. Steve gives him a nonanswer just like he used to when he'd get moody and isolate himself a hundred years ago, a lifetime ago.

Abruptly, he feels guilty for not having more conscientiously checked in before now. Anything other than a reluctant sounding more or less nebulous explanation of some project is generally a bad sign. It means he's stewing, brooding, or hiding something. Bucky can't know which it is based solely on that impassive expression on Steve's face. ]

Workin' on a few things by yourself?

[ He asks instead, brow wrinkling. ]

[ex_enlisted288]

[ They probably are. Steve's just a ball of various kinds of trouble.

The scene will take shape sooner rather than later, although it will err on the side of later to bring it fully to life. The outline is often the easiest. It's filling in the details that's harder. Takes more patience and skill.

And Bucky has nothing to be guilty for. He gets to build a new life here, make friends and rediscover himself, even if their participation was forced on them. Steve maybe only wishes he could have given that to his friend in their own world. ]

Yep. Best way to get things done, right.

[freightcars]

[ And that answer earns Steve an outright snort of disbelief. ]

Sure, unless it's construction, war, or bowling.

[ Or basically any other thing besides playing solitaire, frankly. He's not sold. ]

What kinda things are we talking? You going out fighting squirrels in a uniform made of scrubs and permanent marker?

[ex_enlisted288]

Okay, you got me there. I'm a terrible bowler.

[ Now it's Steve's turn to snort. Just the idea of scribbling things over his scrubs and then fighting wildlife -- small wildlife no less -- is ludicrous. Which was probably Bucky's aim. Probably. ]

There's a standup idea. With my luck, they'd kidnap me, take me to their leader, and then you guys would never see me again. I'd become a legend.

Roaming the wilderness outside town on the full moon. Followed by a killer squirrel army.