[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

[fwips]

"Uh... I guess?" Peter allows with a skeptical rearing back of his head. Is this... He thinks maybe this is the fatherly shotgun talk. Which makes no sense to him at all, considering that he and Kamala have conversations about as often as anybody around here, but is also worrying since the last and only time he's gotten this talk, the father then tried to kill him. Repeatedly.

"We're just friends," he adds, an attempt to sidestep the awkwardness on deck.

[oorah]

He narrows his eyes, gleaning what he can from Peter's reaction to the line of inquiry. Defensive, but probably a normal amount for him being a nosy jerk.

"I know, I know that," he assures, shaking his head. "It's good. That's all I was gonna say. She needs friends her age."

[fwips]

"Oh," Peter says, surprised if still a little wary. He wants to get along with Frank, it seems like the right thing to do, but it's difficult to forget how they met or what he used to do back home. That's just something Peter could never agree with.

"Me too, really," he says. "For awhile, it was just me."

[oorah]

Frank would never ask Peter to condone what he did. Kamala sure as hell doesn't. But he wants to get along with him, too. He wants to see him safe and whatever version of happy exists for people here.

"That must've been hard," he says and it doesn't come out condescending or anything close to it. Frank sounds genuinely empathetic. "Where Kam and I were, there were... so many kids. Most of 'em way younger than you two." So that's the other side of the coin, he understandably sounds sad as he relays the information.

[fwips]

"I'm kind of glad we don't have more, especially little kids," Peter replies, his eyebrows pulling together as he considers the potential consequences of that. It's not something he's ever really considered before. "Things like the cryptid— The werewolf guy? That's scary for anybody, but little kids... it could be really bad, even if they were kept safe."

He leans forward, rests his arms across the back of Frank's pew. "I think it's possible the kids that are here, the teenagers, they were picked because they can take care of themselves. Or at least more than the average teen. Kamala's like, one of the nicest people I've ever met, but she's also tough and really smart."

[oorah]

That gets him to look up and he nods. Peter isn't wrong, about any of it.

"She's one of the toughest people I ever met, and I served in the Marines. You'd be lucky to have her watching your back."