[hatch log] into the garbage chute, flyboy(s)

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: All
WHERE: The Station + Concordia
WHEN: DAY :43 - :44
SUMMARY: New hosts hatch on the Station; their arrival on Concordia is bumpier and smellier than usual.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary.

YOU WAKE UP and nothing will ever be the same again. A moment ago you were somewhere familiar - or familiar enough; now you're lying in a small faintly hexagonal chamber lit by a gentle white light emanating from the surrounding walls. You can't shake the sensation that you've been asleep for a long, long time.

The sluggishness of coming out of a deep, dreamless sleep persists all the way until you disconnect the tube running from the compartment's rear wall to the base of your neck. Then things get loud. A wave of emotion fills the void. Fear, uncertainty, relief, a sense of purpose or loneliness or anxiety; maybe some of these emotions are yours, but they can't all be. Somewhere, someone else is feeding their thoughts and emotions into your mind. On the plus side, it's easy to follow that digging, familiar sensation to each other. After all, you're part of the same brood. You belong together.

Welcome to Station 72. Sirius and Kavinsky will have one day aboard the Station to acclimate to their new reality before they're whisked away to Concordia to join the rest of the young hosts. Get to know one another, ask some burning questions; in a day's time you'll be boarding a shuttle and going somewhere far, far away.

MEANWHILE IN CONCORDIA, the host's espionage efforts are coming to a head. Preparations for infiltrating Public Security HQ are in full swing, a handful of hosts are planning to get in close with Representative Goram Saffit himself and there's currently a semi-functional android taking up one of the beds of the Bearings apartment block. Honestly, there's more than enough on everyone's plate without piling new hosts on top of it all. But that doesn't stop Nirad from disappearing when he's called to return to the Station. Presumably, this means everyone better get ready to debrief some new arrivals soon...

     ON THE STATION, there's a hum in the air - or the mind, rather. Follow the buzz and it'll lead to the Hangar Deck where a slick brick-shaped black transport is waiting. The source of the mental hum seems to be a young man: Nirad has come to collect you. He'll answer any questions; in fact, he seems happy to talk and length about absolutely anything. The boy's apparently the rambling type with little to no filter between his brain and his mouth. The combination of talking and mental hum can be disorienting. Once safely aboard the transport, the ship’s landing platform descends through the floor of the hangar. It snaps into place in the airlock. For a moment there’s a beat of perfect stillness, a shiver of anticipation. Then the transport is flung through the shaft and ejected into the wild black of space. There’s a nauseating lurch in your belly as it bursts through the delicate shell of the multiverse and snaps into real space above the blue and yellow marble of the planet Opia. Somewhere, thousands of miles below in the city of Concordia, the rest of your brood is waiting for you.

     A BUMPY LANDING
The stealth ship slices down toward the planet until it fills the entire viewscreen. "All right, everyone out," Nirad announces, unbuckling his harness and jumping to his feet. Uh. What?

He leads to the port side of the transport ship where there's a small series of circular ports. They're roughly shoulder width. At a touch of a button, the ports open out to a series of escape pods. There's only enough room for one and it looks like you'll be lying on your back the whole trip. "Hop in. I'll launch you and then follow you down in my own. The pod's stealth tech should keep you invisible to the locals until someone comes to find it, but don't forget to scrap the pod when you're out of it. We can't risk someone finding it laying around." A pause. "Sorry, by the way. Usually we'd just land the ship but it's getting kind of obvious."

Hopefully you weren't expecting a nice, easy trip down to the planet because this is dark and joyless. The escape pod has no windows. It launches from the transport ship and rockets downward at the behest of the planet's gravity. Everything shakes. It's desperately cold, then violently hot and then-- something gives. The sound of something whistling. A jerk. The escape pod trembles as the anti-grav jets at the base deploy. It's a last attempt to soften the landing, then the pod drives down into a mountain of debris like a tent stake into muddy earth.

Congratulations, you've landed more or less safely in Concordia's only open air landfill.

     SEARCH & RESCUE
It's three in the morning and maybe you're asleep in Bearings or maybe you're burning the midnight oil; either way, Carata is in your mind telling you to get up and get ready. "The new hosts have landed. Let's go pick them up, shall we? If I were were, I'd wear some clothes you don't really care for."

Time to go digging through the city's biggest dumpster transfer facility!

The escape pods will have to be unearthed and opened from the outside to rescue their inhabitants. Once free, be sure to dismantle pods and scatter them through the piles of debris. Eventually all of this will be recycled, but we don't want anyone finding mysterious alien technology in one piece now do we?

---

((OOC Notes: This is the hatch log for all new and recently returning hosts; any threads on the Station should be closed to newly awakened hosts or Station-based NPCs. Any threads on Concordia can be open to both new and old hosts!

If you have questions about the mission specifically, direct them to the most recent calendar post HERE. You can find a more detailed overview of the hatching process HERE; you might also want to take a glance at the MISSION CONCORDIA BRIEFING. For all other questions, please hit up either the FAQ or MOD CONTACT pages.))

NAVIGATION • SETTING • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

cathaway | npc | station 72 ota

[polyphonos]

[The Station is a tangled labyrinth of corridors and overlooks, great empty halls and small seemingly secret passages. Every one is very like the nest, colored in a gentle dappled natural light that shifts so marginally it's difficult to say at what moment you were in a room patterned in white light and how you came here: to a passage painted in some subterranean purple. How did you come here? What brought you here?

More to the point: how are you going to get back?

And then the passage turns. It opens out onto some kind of naturally formed catwalk overlooking a great canyon of a room. The catwalk features a series of railed outcroppings. On one of them is a bench and on the bench is a grey-haired woman decked in fine gold chains and metallic charms. She sits with one leg tucked under herself and appears to be reading something on thin metallic datapad. It's not so different from taking a moment to enjoy a scenic overlook, only there's not much to look at.

A hum murmurs through the great room and across the walkway. It sounds like breathing, but no air stirs.]

joseph kavinsky | OTA

[100mitsubishis]

1. Search and Rescue

[He stops kicking the pod when his knee begins to complain awfully loud about its likelihood of breaking if he continues making a fuss. It's been an hour, he thinks, or ten minutes. In a coffin, alone, everything tends to feel the same. Kavinsky shuts his eyes and reaches into his pocket to paw at the pills he knows are still there. He could sleep this out and possibly dream himself up an oxygen tank. What did that last slasher film he saw say small spaces like this had in terms of air? About five hours? He's got his gun. Slick and chrome and unreal. He doesn't have a holster, but he has the weapon, and he's starting to think this whole thing was a trick. Some kind of fucked up lie to get him to die in the lamest way possible.

While waiting.

One last upward bang of his knee and the bone there swears it's going to split down the middle if he tries it just one more time.

He can feel something, a tenuous connection between him and others, though it's dampened when he's trapped in this miniature cell. A diet version of what he felt with that guy up in the station.

The pod is darkness all around, so his eyes can stay shut or they could be wide open. He'll get the same view. His leg throbs, which reminds him he's alive, and his head hurts which reminds him he's probably dehydrated.

Whoever finds him will find him with his eyes shut, looking quiet and lovely for all of a moment, but he's got a gun in his hand, tapping against his chest. Just as his eyes pop open and his mouth tucks into a half-grin, he says:]

Hey.

2. Garbage Pick-Up

[He's free now, and while Kavinsky isn't much of a guy for rules or following orders, he likes breaking stuff. Especially stuff that has done him a particular disservice, such as the pod which acted as a prison for far longer than he was comfortable with. His imprisonment has been taken personally, and he's happy to trash the whole pod personally if nobody's around to help him. Amidst the garbage, he discovered a thick pipe, perhaps once used to transport water or gas, but now it makes for a handy weapon. It's with a certain kind of joy, only found in the heat of destruction, that he bangs the pipe solidly against the pod. He's chipping away at it until it's in smaller, easy to hide chunks, though that part of the process is less interesting to him.

What he likes is this part. The crunching sound of metal. The way things break away from the whole. He doesn't need help, but he'll accept it. Provided that 'help' is willing to get close.]

SIRIUS BLACK || OTA & one closed thing

[doggo]

THE STATION || closed to Kavinsky

[Panic is what first crashes through Sirius. Sluggishness is brief, half-asleep only for a moment before his eyes snap open. Startled panic, and then anger, an emotion pulled taut and anxious. He is in no state of mind for a tranquil reentry to the world. His movements are a fight, wild-eyed, trying to find the dementor that was there just a moment ago. Instead he finds nothing. Nothing, and there is some thing, at his neck, and he tears at it with ragged fingernails. The moment the tube pulls free, it pulls at something in him, pulls taut enough that he nearly passes out: crushed by the weight of feeling, like something has rooted in his brain, like being under the scrutiny of eyes he cannot see, awareness tingling at the edge of everything, like a finger pressed in the softest part of his head.

When it subsides, it isn't fully gone. This feeling. He has no name for it; he can barely think. His sodden clothes are in a neat pile, with the witch's wand balanced on top; he shoves aside the papery white uniform and grabs for the familiar instead. The ladder is the only way out, and Sirius makes his way clumsily, collapses outright on the floor. He's quick to shove himself to his hands and knees, breathing hard. He looks up, his hair hanging stringy around his face, and finds the room wide and white and spacious, clean in a way he hasn't known for years. Holes, in the wall. An expanse of floor. The wand is tight in his grip. The deep feeling that is nearly sound is eating at the corners of his brain and it does not subsist; he twists against it, feral, angry.

And there is someone else. A boy. Across the room. Sirius stares at him. He is still crouched on the floor. The boy has no wand. Looks familiar, elegant, clean. He knows him. How does he know him? He doesn't ask; he doesn't say anything, tries instead to fight down the urge to growl or vomit or both, a battle he is going to lose any second now.]

SEARCH & RESCUE

[A day has done little to calm Sirius. He's only listless, bled tired--but his agitation returns in force once he's enclosed in the tight confines of the escape pod. The familiar for Sirius has been the deep chill of Azkaban, four walls, endlessly predictable, twelve years of sharp damp nothing, then brief freedom, the whole world wide open again--and now there's this, enclosed space, unfamiliar, and that quiet thrum of noise and feeling that he can't shut his mind against.

He'd obeyed Nirad's instructions because he did not know what else to do, because at least it got him free of the station--though not free of Kavinksy, awareness like a soft bruising on the inside of his head. It gets worse. It gets unbearable. The soft reminder of connection only makes him feel like he wants to chew off his fingers, tear this pod to pieces, and suddenly the confines are too small, suddenly he wants to taste air again, real air. The wand is shoved in his pocket. He doesn't want the wand anyways; this has gone on too long, and he's as helpless as he is angry which only makes him angrier. He scrabbles at the front of the pod with his fingers, clawing at it for a few moments before he pounds at it, with his fists, beats his hands against the surface, over and over--

There is blood stamped across the door of the escape pod, once it's dragged open. Sirius' knuckles are broken and bleeding. Cool air hits his face. He blinks; sucks in a breath through his teeth. None of this makes him look any less crazed.

Neither does the way he eventually pulls himself, loose limbed, living corpse-like, from the pod. He falls on the soft bed of rubbish, on his hands and knees again. Stares, numbly, at what--and who--is around him.]

TIDYING UP

[--Or, not.

Sirius isn't cooperating. He wants, badly, to run, but there is very little strength in him after his attack on the escape pod, and he can't dig deep enough to find more. Not yet. He's walking, instead, without purpose or direction.

His hands hang at his sides, fingers stiff and still bloody. He should heal them. He can do that, now, but he doesn't. The wand is still in his pocket. The smell of the rubbish heap is overpowering, sweet and rotted, but not half as overpowering as the well of feeling and awareness that is pressing at the inside of his head.

Sirius stops. Presses the heel of his hand hard against his right eye. Sucks in a ragged breath.]

tidying up

[tropism]

[ it's a bit difficult to ignore new hosts. giorno wonders if he had been like this when he first came - it seems like forever, now, but his temperament and his attitudes towards a lot of things meant that he'd come with far less distress than most people had. he finds that the longer things stay, the more difficult it becomes for some to align themselves with the matrix of things or their stay intensifies certain emotions - distrust, anger, an overarching need to protect their selves from the press of the symbiote at the back of their minds. he had been living with it for a week or so, but he's listened in on people and watched them in the bearings. no host is exactly the same.

he finds him the same way most people find hosts; with the ebb and flow of the nest in them. giorno walks slowly into his view, his nose crinkling at the smell.

it will probably not be a good idea to communicate with him the way most of them already do, so he tries to do it with words instead. ]

You'll feel a lot better after a shower and a meal. And a nap, probably.

1

[inflori]

[ The call to the veteran hosts doesn't wake Petre up - he spends most of his nights awake anyway, wasting his energy and productivity in upping his scores on the various Bout It Out tournaments, and tonight wasn't being any different. At that particular moment, he'd been on the online forums for the obligatory flame wars against his haters and the people who found him fun to watch while losing his shit, so irritation was at the ready when the order was issued. Kicking off his seat, Petre throws a jacket and some boots on, and heads out without waiting for the rest of the group to follow. He just wants to get this over with and preferably not have to deal with these annoying idiots.

He makes no thought of how easily he's drawn to Kavinsky once they arrive at the landfill, hands in his pockets, vapor in the cold air of the night. Petre makes a face and complains loudly about the smell, then simply follows the restlessness hiding somewhere in the trash, something about pills and guns and bones threatening to break - it's a mess like he's not sure he's sensed in anyone else linked to his head, and it feels... familiar. A taste of home, if only because someone like that would have been prime for him and Diana to corrupt, turn into a demon and ship to hell.

Claws digging into the hatch, he yanks it off with a lot more strength than any sixteen year-old boy should have, staring down at the newest arrival with curious uncertainty.

He's got a gun. And he's grinning. This is the one. ]

... You woke me up.

1

[decommission]

[ This is a new one.

Finding the new folks isn't too hard, it's digging through the debris that takes extra effort. Though the smell could be worse, the heavy scent of oil and the chemical tang on the back of his tongue itches down his throat. He steps forward to start pulling away a chunk of metal siding, the surface of his skin humming from his fingertips to just above his elbow, a familiar sensation now. It's been spreading, he's noticed. Like a fancy pair of bulletproof opera gloves to go with his equally bulletproof long socks.

By the time his metal-plated hands reach the escape pod's door there's sweat on his brow, a streak of grease smudged across his cheekbone. He fiddles with the opening mechanism for a moment, expecting a loud creeeaaak that doesn't happen. ]

Hi.

[ Surprise flickers across Steve's expression, gaze fixing on the young man's face - then his gun - and back to his face again. A beat, and a wariness to his tone when he reaches out with a metallic palm, offering a hand to help the kid hop out. ] Welcome to Concordia.

closed // cw: Kavinsky is a gross and terrible nightmare teen

[100mitsubishis]

[Kavinsky's been awake.

The murky space between true sleep and the please-thrill-me waking world was (and is) a known purgatory. Being a dreamer, he's more aware than most of when he's really asleep. If he stuck around longer than he needed to, it was to sample a buzz he might not get to try again. The flow, the ebb. He's a connoisseur of narcotics and that stasis became one more downer. What he likes about the void: it's endless. But that means it outranks and outclasses him, so he has to get up. Ease the tube out his neck, ease his body out his cell. His clothes are fine, but he wants to see what he'd look like in the stark, white pajamas. The color is so pure that on his body it's got to be made obscene. Doesn't suit him at all.

He found a spot of floor and took a seat there, watching the other guy. Feeling him, too. That connection between them stretches out like spiderthread dipped in cement, drenched in honey, sticky and solid and part of a web.

Kavinsky picks at the simmering anger and he likes it. The grief-- a heady spice on top. He sends out his warmest regards, wondering if it's only in his imagination or if this stranger (that might as well be his other half) will really, really feel it. God, he wants him to. (Though something is still missing. The puzzle isn't complete.)

Ronan felt like enough, but Ronan never let himself get inside of Kavinsky. Not in his head, not in any fun way. He took what he needed and bailed. But Kavinsky and Scruff McGruff don't have a choice, do they?

Never too early to work out some daddy issues.]

Go ahead and throw up.

[Permission granted. Kavinsky smiles in his bright, white attire.]

I'll wait.

[100mitsubishis]

[Beep, beep, beep, like a GPS that works off the essence of his soul, though stronger, sweeter, somehow. Kavinsky's given in for the time being, figuring that the joke is on him, and if he has to, he'll find a way to survive. Forget manifesting more air, he'll manifest a crowbar or a key that can open any lock even when there isn't one visible. All he has to do is relax, let himself drift off, and eventually set a pill on the tip of his tongue-- swallow it down. Wait. But the mental beeps keeps up.

Not beeps. Beeps are annoying. This is a homing beacon, it's a kinship ignorant of unimportant things like knowing the other person. This is a straight line from point A to point B, and he's point B and someone is coming for him.

He doesn't sleep. His eyelids dip down, but he is smiling by the time his pod is opened.

This one he felt strongly. A big beep, one could say. The kind of ping that takes up the whole screen-- nobody expected to find a submarine that large.]

My hero.

[He lifts up the gun, but he lets it go loose in his fingers. He's offering the guy his wrist.]

Help me out.

[100mitsubishis]

[Kavinsky's become a creature that's more feeling than anything else. Sight's been lost, there's nothing to taste but his own spit, and forget touching. Smelling. Hearing. Every sense has to be shut down in the dark, absurdly small shuttle he's stuck inside of. All that's left is the new, sixth sense, and there aren't dead people, but living coming for him. More of his brood. A family without a choice. There's a siren song to his dilemma, and they're all on their way. For once, he can be patient, though his fingers twitch and his eyelids flutter. Kavinsky was built to move and move and never stop, his key turned a thousand times so he can't help himself. The only time he stills is in sleep, but his dreams remain active.

He's a growing boy. He's got a lot on his mind.

The door opens and it's one of them. A blond, though hardly the bleached out kind that show up at Kavinsky's parties. This guy looks like he may have never gone to a party in his life.

But he's a cyborg, so that counts for something. His hand matches Kavinsky's gun in the dim light.

The gun is set down so he can grip the hand and pull up.]

No offense, but your house smells like shit.

[Scent has suddenly begun to matter again.]

1, because making him climb out of that pod a third time makes me laugh

[headinjuries]

[ "Let's go pick them up." That had been confusing, in the three-in-the-morning haze of dreams that were sure a lot better than whatever was happening now. None of them had gone along on any of the previous pickup runs, after all, so why would they take anyone now? It was just back at the station, right?

But then everything starts to make sense. Horrible, smelly, are-you-kidding-me sense.

Oh, boy.

It's not hard to zero in on the newcomers, at least, because going to a dumpster at stupid in the morning is bad enough without having to spend a couple hours trying to actually find wherever they crashed, and there's an irate bout of existential angst - no, maybe more like just existential annoyance - going in Sam's head when he starts digging his way through. Blowing all of this stuff up would be easier, but he figures that using his powers is likely to draw attention he doesn't want on him, so...getting friendly with the garbage it is. Ugh.

But there's a sense of relief when he finally pops the hatch, and -

- gun? Huh. ]

Dude. You guys really took the low road to get here.

pod me baby one more time

[100mitsubishis]

[Gun. Gun pointing at kid, little younger than Kavinsky if the shape of his face has any story to tell. The kid doesn't read as dangerous, not in the serpentine, sharp-angled way that Kavinsky does, so that means he's not a threat. Not a kindred soul, either, but they're tied together by that invisible cord that spreads out into a tapestry of too much and not enough.

He kinda sorta misses Sirius and also thinks the break from the intensity of Them is nice.

As long as it's only a break.

The gun dips down. With only mild grumbling from his knee, he wrenches himself up until he's sitting.

The gun's stuck into the back of his pants like he's an action star or a guy that really isn't scared of blowing a second hole in his ass.]

Flying coach keeps me humble, man. I forgot it always smells like a sewer.

search and rescue

[headinjuries]

[ The anger, the panic - it's like a big blinking sign: newbie buried here. Who says being upset never helps anything?

It still takes longer than Sam would like to get through the debris and clear the hatch, and he's sure it's not helping at all on the inside - so he tries to think loudly that it's cool, he's working on it, they're gonna get him out -

And he's yanking on the door the moment there's enough clearance. ]

Hey, sorry that took so l-

[ ...wow.

Uh.

He's not sure what he expected, but possibly disturbed hobo probably wasn't it. ]

[headinjuries]

[ He doesn't bat an eyelash when the gun gets pointed at him - maybe it's potentially misplaced trust that this guy isn't going to blow his head off for no good reason, maybe it's because he's pretty sure that even if he did, it would hurt less than some fights he's gotten into.

(And he knows approximately jack about the coach experience firsthand, since the only plane he's flown in is the Quinjet, but he's heard enough jokes about it to get the idea.)

That looks like a really bad place to put a gun, but okay, your ass, bro? ]

The good news is, there's a shower on the other end.

[ He offers a hand to help him out. Sam's pretty short, though. Try not to pull him in instead. ]

Once we take care of this thing, I mean.

tidying up.

[snaphiss]

[There's a homeless man wandering the streets. Mara's eyes pass right over him, until she feels the tug of the Nest. She looks back at him with a sour expression, clearly disapproving. Still, this can't be left alone. She looks this man straight in the eye, and... groans.]

[In quick, busy strides, Mara walks toward him and holds her hand out.] Come on, I don't have all day. When did you last eat?

[Hi.]

[doggo]

[Awareness wrings its way out of the press of other emotion. Not the same press of knowing as he'd felt on that station, nothing right, but--awareness, just a moment before he hears the words themselves.

Which means that Sirius is already looking around, narrow and wary, like a dog found at the back of an alley. He glares a moment longer than he should.

The words arrange themselves into something that makes sense a second later.]

Where.

[His voice is still rough from disuse. He doesn't try to correct it. The niggling sense of presence is there, hovering at the back of his head, like: trust this. He's getting to hate it a little.]

[tropism]

Where we stay. I can lead you, if you'll let me.

[ he tries to emphasize the urgency in 'we'. giorno steps more into his view, hands visible - not that that matters considering the nature of things, but he wants him to feel less wary. less likely to run away. he doubts that any of them would allow him to wander just by himself, but depending on the kind of host .... it takes time to get used to waking up here. ]

Do you have a name? Mine is Giorno. Giorno Giovanna. [ from bellatrix, he almost adds. one thing at a time. ]

[doggo]

[Brief sick sharp warmth: it's a greeting; he applies the word without knowing why. All so present that Sirius actually flinches. Like walking into a cobweb in the dark of a passageway. Gauntness turns his expression more dramatic, the hollows in his face that hollow out more.

His fingers curl on the wand in his grip. Some deep edge warns him; permissiveness makes him want to answer. Trust mingling with apprehension. Everything is wrong and the lights seem very bright, or maybe that's just the stark white of this kid's clothes that make that impression, the weird razored calm.

Sirius' jaw tightens.]

What the hell is this?

[His voice is rough, graveled from disuse. He goes on staring. There isn't much to him, which makes his stare worse. ]

[100mitsubishis]

[He used to keep the gun in his dashboard, sometimes under it, sometimes tucked beneath his thigh as he settled back into the driver's seat. Kavinsky didn't obtain this gun legally, or even under any typical illegal method; he has that bad habit. All his favorite things come from a source they shouldn't.

Kavinsky takes the hand, and because he's hated waiting around in the pod for so long, he doesn't jerk Sam down into a compromising position. The fun of starting a tussle wouldn't be nearly as good as making a strong ally and getting out of the coffin.

Can the other boy feel that? How cramped the box was? How much Kavinsky hated it? How he's been dying for company?

With care, he steps out of the pod, then wrinkles his nose. The smell hasn't gotten any better.]

They sent us down to a fucking garbage heap.

[Speaking of garbage heaps:]

There should be another pod.

[100mitsubishis]

You sound--

[and Kavinsky is very, very sure of himself in this moment--]

-- like shit.

[He's standing, one hand carelessly planted against his knee as he lifts himself up, fluid grace besides. Kavinsky's pretty like ivory's pretty; the sort of pleasing to look at that comes with a heavy sense of discomfort when you guess the origins. He's got sleepless eyes he likes to keep under sunglasses, but he doesn't have any on him right now.

Kavinsky doesn't hide anything, because he isn't certain how well he could. Here's honesty: the nice, innocent face is purely genetics. It doesn't mean anything. He's not going to be like that kid he thinks he saw in the not-dream state. The one that wasn't anyone he's ever met.]

It's cool if you don't talk. I bet we can use this.

[He's drilling his index finger into his temple. This. The thing between them. The formidable, endless feedback loop.]

[doggo]

[Sirius stares back, which likely doesn't encourage any further overtures of friendship. The detachment in his look is mostly because he's trying to figure out what to do with this kid, whose impression is something vaguely harmonious but not-- it. The itch at the inside of his skull, still there.

The reminder of connection raises his hackles, sharpens up his glare. He grabs for the edge of the pod, tries to haul himself up without saying thank you, or anything; too thin in his wits for politeness. In fact the sorry occurs to him a second later, layered with a kind of intention.

This is the other side. Where they were sent. This kid is part of it. Confusion blooms quick, and maybe it's his. The stinging in his hands reminds him that this is all really happening, and of course it is, because it's so different than anything he's known. There is distrust still in the glint of Sirius' eyes as he tries, again, to pull himself up. He still doesn't say anything. His mouth is a thin line.]

garbage pick up

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ Honestly, Sam isn't the least bit annoyed at the three am wake up call, or the location of their search and rescue. He spent two years of his life training to do pretty much exactly this, and a good portion of that being sent places more hazardous than a garbage dump. It's nice to have something that feels almost familiar.

And maybe it's also because the open air landfill means he can take advantage of his wings. He's still keeping reasonably low to the ground, both so he can use his goggles to scan through the mounds of garbage for the pods they're looking for and in case anyone's watching the sky, but he still gets to fly.

When he spots the guy beating up one of the pods, he feels the unmistakable pull of another host, and he swoops down to land. His wings retract back into the metal pack on his back and he pushes his goggles up to the top of his head as he moves in closer. ]

Hey, man, you want some help with that thing?

[100mitsubishis]

[Kavinsky doesn't have a car with a stereo system that reaches up to Heaven, so the only song he's got is the one he's hissing under his breath. It isn't in English. And he doesn't care about that beat so much as the clang and crack of the pod losing its shape. Break anything down to tiny, unrecognizable bits, and you get to decide what it was. Nobody's gonna know the difference.

He stops when there's a shadow falling over him. Reaches with the pipe to scratch its side against the ear that sports the stud. His head tilts back, and he appraises the angel that's on its way to making a landing.

Nah, not an angel. Too close to the ground, and when he stops, the wings are unmistakably fake.

Still.]

Those.

[Kavinsky points the pipe at the guy's chest, but it's clear what he's actually talking about.]

Are what I'm talking about. Hell yeah.

[It isn't really an answer to the question.]

[doggo]

[He doesn't like the settle of the woman's gaze. He likes less the twang that snaps taut in him, which he recognises a second too late to do anything about it. Thinks of running but slows to a stop instead.

When he looks at her hand, it's in a way that suggests he isn't sure of what to do with it, let alone with the rest of her.]

You could keep walking.

[If she doesn't have all day. Might be better. It's not quite a joke. Maybe he ate yesterday. Time makes little sense.]

[doggo]

[We. Like someone's put a finger on a bruise. Sirius' eyes move, quickly, over the man's hands, tracing arcs.]

Sirius.

[And then, unexpectedly, he barks a laugh. It isn't exactly funny. It's just that he's not had to introduce himself to anyone in years. Wouldn't, with his face on the wanted posters.

At least grim amusement bleeds some of his tension. His shoulders sink a few notches.]

If I'll let you? What's that mean?

search and rescue

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ Search and rescue is pretty much what Sam does - or did - and the moment they'd all gotten the wake up call, he'd geared up without a second thought. He's been flying more than he's been walking, as he searches, until he feels the waves of panic coming from a buried pod.

He lands, tucking his wings away as he starts digging, and doing his best not to react to the panic. Sam'd learned his lesson more than once about instinctively shoving soothing feelings at anyone panicking at him, and instead he keeps his shields up and just tries to be as calm of a presence as possible.

And he keeps it up when he yanks open the door and a man who's clearly seen better days falls out. Honestly, Sam's seen worse from back in his pararescue days - of course, that isn't exactly encouraging, considering what the soldiers he picked up had usually gone through. ]

You're okay, man, you're okay. I'm Sam Wilson, what's your name?