Test Drive Meme #6 (tw violence)

[spoofer]

Test Drive Meme #6

I want neither revenge nor relief.

INTRODUCTION ⇄ FAQ ⇄ APPLICATIONS

CRASH LANDING

Exit one dimension, enter the next. It was chaos: pressure against your ears, light bending in an impossible, unimaginable way. The very molecules of your body vibrating against one another. If you have windows, the view outside makes no sense. Even if not, your hands, your face, your feet seem like an uncertain thing. It's the feel of reality itself tearing apart, reshaping, reconnecting, thread by thread.

And suddenly, there's a beach— or ocean, whichever you land in. Smoke. Fire. Salt water churning up, fizzing around.


Maybe you crash, in a ship wrecking into sand. Maybe you merely stumble out of a portal, a ragged wormhole in space. Or maybe you fall off the back of an incredible steed, some creature that carried you into this place. Either way, there's pandemonium around you. Incredibly, severe injuries are far and few between— nobody's screaming about the dead. But you might have to help pull someone free of wreckage, or move quickly to salvage burning belongings from the landing craft. Maybe it's the crafts themselves, that you're trying to salvage.

Likely, you don't know them, these other strangers who arrived here^[1]. Maybe you don't trust them— you just came out of a dying world, after all. But you all have one thing in common: you're here now.

When you get a second to breathe, maybe you'll see it. The brilliant green forest across the sand. Beyond that, the glint of a faraway city.

BATTLE WITH D.E.S.T.I.N.Y.

November has barely begun, when chaos strikes again^[2]. Perhaps you've had weeks to settle in, finding yourself a new home and getting accustomed to the neighborhoods... or maybe you've had no time at all. Your daemon warns you of a massive invasion coming from the West, the ocean where you first arrived.

The enemy has come for you again. D.E.S.T.I.N.Y., the cosmic threat to not only your homeworld but the entire Multiverse.

When the violence makes land, it's shockingly similar to the exit from your original world, yet mashed in with the experiences and genres and world details of other refugees— soldiers in red armor wielding weapons of all kinds, both advanced and rudimentary; airships, bizarre monsters; firestorms and quakes that seem sentient in the way that they move, pursuing people through the beach and the forest. You see the injured and the dead, and people running in panic. Heat and gunfire break up the ordinary peace of wilderness, driving animals into stampedes and filling the sky with panicking birds.

There are children and doctors and engineers among the many refugees of Xistentia, and not everyone can fight back— but maybe you're one of those who can.

Think fast— that's a crimson spear launching at your head now.


The city's defenses are buckling too. While ordinarily, the civlization possesses unnatural physics that subvert violence, the onslaught starts to wear agains them. The only safe place is the Temple. Here, civilians and injured combatants are banding together to try and boost morale... which coincidentally also can boost the defenses of the land by with the energy collected from emotional connectivity. For better or worse, there is plenty of negative feeling to go around, the air thick with fear.

Whether you're recovering from injury or afraid to fight, you can still contribute here. Tell a story, sing a song, make a meal out of one of the cookfires started in the hallway, or even help with medicine. One thing is for certain: we're in this together.

NETWORK

Today, it's peace time. By now, the city of Xistentia has a population of over 500 people. Shops line the streets of downtown, and increasingly well-trodden paths will take you into the agricultural zones nearer to the forest or even down to the beach. There are still distinctive animal presences around— careful with that— but the most common critters you'll see are birds crapping on your stuff outside and tiny winged hairless people creeping your food.

One afternoon, you are taken from whatever you’re doing - taking a walk through the city, sunning yourself on the beach, running around in the forest shoring up defenses - by a message, appearing on your Daemon’s network screen. It’s a simple notification, that reads:

TEXT MESSAGE SENT

It would appear that your daemon accidentally sent a text message misfire.

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE

hells yeah

Footnotes

1. Some of these can be nameless, plot-device NPCs to facilitate interactions! But even in this case, please avoid gore in describing their current state of being. Anyone dead or catastrophically injured will have disappeared by the time your characters make it to Xistentia. There are no corpses or dying here.
   
   
2. This is connected to the war plot, coming up in November. Please read the announcement for more information! Features include good, old-fashioned violence, hurt/comfort, and "drift compatibility."

Comments

[money]

( it hurts more than he thought it would, honestly. he'd imagined the pain of waking up in a bed alone would've been his greatest heartbreak, but seeing juno here, wounded and sick, and being incapable of helping him feels stifling, feels worse than any prior ache. he longs for him. or maybe he just longs for an easier time, where juno could look at peter and not cross his features with anguish, or when peter could make some sort of tease and see the sharp lines of juno's shoulders silently relax. it's different, now -- complicated is a good word for it. peter's used to being confident and aware, but he feels the tingling of self-doubt curdle his belly, feeling just as sick as juno says.

it'd be easy to say they don't have time for this. there's a whole war going on out there that peter has no intention to fight for, regardless of the safety of worlds and mars, and whatever incentive is supposed to will them into fighting. peter doesn't care about mars. he is not the blindly heroic one out of the two of them. peter cares about juno, and if juno is safe, then that's all that matters. even if he isn't ... it's not really his responsibility anymore, is it?

that's funny. as if juno could be in trouble and peter wouldn't come to his rescue. as if juno could say he feels sick, and peter could just let that be.

his steps forward are a little more measured, more careful, his heels hardly making a sound. he nods his head to the flanking walls of the corridor, offering a hand, should juno need help. )

You should sit. ( he offers a short, mostly fake smile. ) At least this situation is a little bit better than the last time I saw you covered in blood, hm? Now that I've got free range, I can go ... find something to clean you up with. I think I saw basins of water further in. You'll feel better when you're clean.

( pointedly. ignoring the elephant in the room. it's much easier to deny than to talk.

junod seems a little bit taken with dahliad -- a bit smaller, but no less nurturing. flying from peter's shoulder, it rubs its black head on the underside of dahliad's chin, attempting to clean with its feathers.

it's not that easy, junod. )

[monologue]

[ juno would be an awful detective if he couldn't identify fake, even if the room is tilting a little and he feels very close to puking right on his shoes. he swallows the feeling down, eyeballing the hand stretched out to him and then nureyev, who looks...

like a dream he wants to never wake up from and jolt awake from at the same time. they start like this, nureyev swinging in on his proverbial shooting star and juno scrambling for an answer, for an excuse, for anything other than he had to because that big mean city will eat everyone alive if he isn't there to stop it. what a time and a place for the master thief himself to show his face, a place where he can't roam far, a place that isn't fair like that.

he swallows the nausea and it's almost without thinking that he hesitates, hand streaked bloody, shaking.

he grabs his fingers but only because the room won't stop moving and nureyev is right there and he swears underneath the iron smell-taste-feel of blood there's nureyev's cologne--spiced and cloying and abating the tide of sick in his belly. his voice is rough and he hesitates to meet peter's eyes, but needs to in order to be sure. he's not a figment, not a dream, not a wish because when things seems bleak, peter is... always there.

so he looks him in the eye with both of his own now, one a faint green, the other mottled with blinking lights as he looks at peter's face, catalogs everything from the one impossible night. oh god. ]

Just... gotta sit. It's okay. I can clean myself up later.

[ the prospect is more than he ever deserves. he'll get clean in his own time. whatever. but he'll let peter lead him to a place to sit, he'll let that happen as dahliad rucks up her feathers just a bit and leans down just faintly to nudge junod with a delicate tap of thanks. she's fickle, but no less curious, her elegant neck rearing tall now as she seems to beckon quietly for the magpie to follow. she won't be caught far from her charge if she can help it, her tail leaving a faint, gauzy pink trail in its wake.

juno adds: ]

You were doing something there. Whatever it was... had to be important or something, right?

[money]

( there, it isn't so bad. peter clings back on juno's hand, taking that inch and sweeping forward, catching a hand at the curve of juno's waist. supporting him, mindlessly pulling him to the wall to rest against. peter crouches down with him, forcing him into a sit, hand against his chest for a fleeting moment as if pining him there. the temple has been the safest place in the city throughout all this, but now that peter actually has something to protect, he worries about the fortress, sharing paranoid glances to all his sides as if expecting someone to come raging in. as it stands, they're entirely alone -- most people either fighting outside, or situated on the healing beds somewhat further inside. most people don't have the time for emotional breakdowns, but peter and juno are everything before they're most people.

leaning silently back, peter picks off the coat from around his own shoulders and lays it atop juno, sort of -- well, hoping it's reassuring, but also encouraging that he cleans himself off with it. a lot of the blood looks cakey and dried, but some of it is still sticky and likely uncomfortable to have on. peter can draw his own conclusions to the lights in juno's eye -- it isn't that hard to guess, provided he knows whatever struggles juno had with it before -- but he kindly keeps any questions about it to himself, for now. the question game is turn based, after all, a juno made the first move.

peter looks back at the console, considering. he has his hands on juno's thighs, briefly, before he pushes himself off and sits against the wall beside him, one knee bent. he stares at the screen. stares and stares. he can see peter nureyev even from here, only because he knows what he's looking for. )

I'm assuming this machine somehow gets cataloged with every new person brought into the city. My name's in there -- yours is too.

( he clears his throat. a small crack in his ever-perfect disguise, a nervous hand threading once through his hair. )

You can see how that is ... distressing. I was attempting to override the system.

( a pleased trill leaves junod, a somewhat shy sounding if undoubtedly happy, hopping with her scratchy bird feet on the floor, blindly following dahliad's lead. )

[monologue]

[ this coat is too nice to clean up with.

way too nice.

but it's warm and it smells like peter, suffuses his clothes with his scent, surrounds him in something he was fairly sure he'd never come across ever again in his wildest nightmares. he looks over at the console as peter speaks, sees what he'd been doing--opening up the roster, scrolling through. the theia helps just a little, sharpening juno's vision enough that he can see the faint outline of peter nureyev's name, a name that shouldn't be anywhere save a criminal registry somewhere on the outer rim. it should be off in the furthest reaches of space, terrorizing a floating city in the sky with the threat of plummeting to the ground. it shouldn't be here. shouldn't be for anyone's eyes to see. ]

Shit, Nureyev... [ he croaks, the name almost foreign on his tongue, bitter like a poison he drinks down. that's a problem, a problem peter's probably been able to do away with before. ] If you wanna get back to it... don't let me stop you.

[ the little stab of anger grows hot in his gut. peter's name, more precious than any goddamn thing in space, here on a registry. his eyes flick from the console that's just a worthless bunch of beeping lights to him right now (the theia is exhausted now, the headache it brings on is something dull and thrumming over and over again) and then to peter, sitting so close. the warmth of his hands on his thighs for a second feels tattooed there.

peter. peter nureyev sitting beside him, looking put together for everyone else. but juno can see the hairline fracture, thin and apoxied over again and again from close calls and near misses that he imagines come with anyone's youthful days of their career. peter's an expert now (it's always the thieves with years under their belts that are the most dangerous) and to have his name there on display for anyone to walk through and see if they dug around enough.

would it mean anything to anyone here?

there's no point in taking that chance. in breaking a sacred rule peter's held up since he left brahma (he knows too much, juno knows too damn much and it hurts.)

he reaches up a hand and starts to unbutton the front of his shirt from beneath peter's jacket. he doesn't use the expensive material to wipe himself down, rather, almost to keep up some modicum of modesty that doesn't matter in a place like this where it's the two of them and their daemons mingling with one another. looking at the pair of birds (god this place is weird) makes juno sink further down into peter's jacket as dahliad is settling close by to slowly dip down and start to preen the magpie's dark feathers with her beak. juno turns away and uses the fabric of his button down to slowly wipe away at the blood, shoulders peeking up bare from the jacket. he'll find something to replace his shirt with eventually.

god.

the last thing he needs is to muck up anything else in peter's life. ] I can watch the door if you want to keep trying.

[money]

( i don't believe you is his surprising first thought, the spite in it something that makes his eyebrows wrinkle, confused. it's not an especially confusing topic, having your heart broken, but -- even still. why should he have faith if he shows juno his back, that the detective will still be there when he turns back around? as with all things there's no certainty on anything, peter certainly knows that better than most. but,

peter's trust in juno isn't there just because it's unquestionable, or relentless, or because he's in love with him. it's also necessary. you can pick who you trust, of course, but you have to trust someone.

so peter trusts him, then, believes he'll watch his back. even if he doesn't, it won't matter much -- a new alias and a new story, something different and something boring to not draw too much attention to himself. peter has lived a handsome life of luxury and finance, but there were early years bathed in poverty, eating one crumb after the other. there are down times between jobs when nothing gathers his interest. he knows how to rough it, how to live on the edge as easily as how he knows how to kick back and let fake credits and stolen good speak for themselves. if juno betrayed him, it wouldn't be the worst thing. it wouldn't be the first time.

turning his head once juno begins fumbling around, he grants him some privacy in returning to the console, shaking his head at junod when she feathers up to follow after him. ) Stay down, you're comfortable. I'll just be here.

( even still, he knows it's pretty useless to try. he's more pickpocket than hacker, and this isn't a technology he's familiar with. if there were a passcode he could figure out the ways to get it, but he can't find a space to type anything in -- no stolen pincodes, no funny spaces for puns. regardless, he tries. turns the chessboard, tries it from a different angle, but the game's the same and any way he turns it, he's still fucked.

upon losing gusto, he turns back to face juno, a distance away from him now. there are many things he could say, but instead of saying any of them, he sighs in frustration, clicking his heel once. )

No dice. It's fine, ( vaguely, he waves. ) I'll figure something out. More importantly, are you sure you're alright? Now's no time for heroes, Juno, there are healing beds further in.

[monologue]

[ if there's one thing that juno wouldn't blame peter for it's not trusting him. not after how after all they'd been through, everything that'd been said and done and heard and shared... he'd left. juno steel tries not to break promises, and that's one that couldn't have been avoided. he wasn't good enough to keep it, good enough to promise nureyev a lifetime of hopping from star to star, planet to planet...

he squeezes his eyes shut and leans his head back as peter turns to him, half-listening, half squeezing the crumpled material of his shirt in his hands, too soaked with blood for now to warrant putting back on just yet without making him feel sick again. instead, he drops it between his knees, shaking his head. ]

Fine. Like I said... most of it's not mine.

[ like he has to make himself sure of it too, though there's probably a laser graze he's missed, something he scraped in a bad fall torn open, but peter nureyev is like a healing balm, just looking at him.

one that makes him ache just as badly. he opens his mouth like he wants to apologize, but closes it. no. no, fuck, no. dahliad moves with a regal slowness to her steps, pressing herself in close to juno and nureyev's jacket. she looks like she might settle, but instead she stretches her long neck up and grabs a piece of juno's hair in her beak, tugging sharply down. ]

Ow--fuck!

[ a wince as his hand flies up and grabs hold of his hair, dahliad's voice ringing out softly: ]

Hairline fracture on your fourth rib. Another on your clavicle. I've yet to scan for further internal injuries. And you need a bath.

[ juno hesitates before glancing up. stupid weird robot program thing. man, fuck technology sometimes. he swallows a little. ]

Could do with a lay down.