ten_fwd_ooc | TEST DRIVE #10 - Cetacean Pool and Ten Forward

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test drives

TEST DRIVE #10 - Cetacean Pool and Ten Forward

Option 001. Cetacean Pool/Aquatics Lab: Of all the places in the world, you open your eyes and you find yourself in a medium-sized aquatics laboratory, filled with various living specimens along with various science officers bustling about trying to maintain order. There's much to explore here (and hopefully, in the crew's opinion, not break), but the main attraction is the large pool at the far end of the lab; enormous but tanklike in appearance, it contains several dolphins happily swimming about, seemingly without a care in the world.

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Option 002. Aboard the Enterprise, Ten Forward: You have no idea what just happened. One minute you were home, and now you're on a spaceship, in the middle of a crowded room. It looks like a bar. There are people eating and drinking, some in uniform, others not. Some are clearly aliens.

You've managed to land in Ten Forward a long bar with barstools and a bartender, tables sprinkled throughout, and the far wall is nothing but windows out to space. It looks like a nice lounge, low conversation making the room hum.

Better ask some questions and find out where you are, or just tap the closest person on the shoulder and try to make friends. The bar is open.

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"Don't suppose you came with your shuttle."

It's not spoken like a question, though the owner of the amber voice sidles up beside Inara and puts her in the crosshairs of a curious look. Might even be a touch of hope in there, too.

"Or the whole tā māde niǎo ship?" she adds.

Be awful nice to see her husband, or just about any way back to home.

(She smiles, not something she's done an awful lot of since showing up here.)

"It's good to see you, Inara."

Howard smiles at the man in front of him. Seems nice enough, but the scales are a bit of a turn off. Still, he has other assets that are fascinating enough to him. He doesn't even get a chance to hear his answer, though, cut off by the sound of someone else replying behind him.

A voice that he also knows very well. He freezes, his shoulders tensing and he closes his eyes. It can't be. He has to be dreaming. No way is Steve Rogers right behind him, when he'd been searching for the man, never giving up. "My jaw is not that bad," he mumbles, but the snark wasn't there like it used to be.

Steve Rogers had thrown him off his game. Only two other people could do that to him. He opened his eyes, watching the other man walk away, cleary not falling for the Stark family charm. That didn't really matter to him, though. He had more important people to talk to.

When he turns around, he should be more surprised by what he sees. There is the Captain America, sitting at a table with a sketchpad like nothing had changed. Suddenly, Howard really wanted a drink.

"Now, how would you know what my jaw is like? I don't remember you sharing them with me? Was I drunk and I forgot about it? Because if that's the case, that would be a damn shame." He swallowed, trying to use snark to hide the surprise that is clearly still visible in his eyes. Striding over to Steve, he pulls out a chair and sits down, not trusting his legs to hold him up.

"Shouldn't you be a nice shade of blue, Captain?"

"...what the...?"

She caught that voice, and the nerd mind behind it. She knew it as well as she knew how to clean a service pistol or lean into a hip throw. That was how accustomed she'd come to Dresden being in her life in one form or another. Usually in the form of getting her busted up and ending in having to soak the blood out of her furniture.

"Uhh hold that drink order. I'll be right back." Karrin nodded to the woman behind the bar, a woman with a nearly disturbing enigmatic smile. Yeah that was a conversation she wanted to come back to.

She wound her way through the crowd and eyed the path the big knucklehead was crawling. It wasn't too difficult to put herself right in the path of that nerd magician. He'd ~~walk~~ crawl right into her. so, feet firmly planted she stood, arms folded over her chest.

There was some explaining to do and fifty fifty shot she was going to bust his jaw afterward. He more or less needed it to explain before the punch came.

Edited 2015-05-07 20:25 (UTC)

He's seen Stark flirt before, but this is new. His eyebrow tics as Howard goes still, an apology slipping into his smirk for the humanoid man who wanders away. The careless jabs and flirtations that used to make Steve squirm and turn red just make his smile turn more crooked, but there's more to it than that.

He's seen enough hollowed-out men on the front lines to know that look in Howard's eyes. The way he ambles up and takes a seat like no time has passed, the bob of his Adam's apple, and the near desperation that oozes from his pores to hold onto his wit, his charm, his control. The war changed them all, in ways big and small. But it's only now, in this moment, that Steve really wonders about what happened to Stark after he hit the ice.

"I could ask you the same question," he says, eyebrows arched. In 2014, Steve Rogers is still kicking while Howard Stark has given up that particular race. Funny how things change in 70 years. "And trust me, I think if that had happened you'd remember; Peggy would have given you a sore jaw in the more traditional way."

He reaches over and claps Howard's shoulder, a bracing gesture meant for one purpose.

This is real.

He stares at Steve like he is dreaming. He wonders if he asks Steve to pinch him what might happen. There's a slight tremor in his voice, one he can't push away when he speaks. Peggy, he thinks to himself. Focus on Peg and talk about her. That's easy, wasn't it? She was a pal, a friend to the end. They could have a conversation about Peggy and that would be normal.

Who was he kidding? A conversation with a dead friend is never normal.

He swallows, nodding his head in response. "Trust me pal, she has." He reaches up, rubbing absentmindedly at his jaw as he thinks about that time in her room, long after Steve had disappeared. Much as he hated himself for doing it, he'd kept a secret from her. A doozy at that. And oh, did she make him pay for it. Well deserved, but still painful. "Don't ever tempt her right hook. Or her left one."

And then there it is. Steve's reaching over and squeezing his shoulder. He's real. Steve is really real. Not at the bottom of a cold body of water, being looked for by a potentially madman millionaire who has been told many times to just give up already.

"I... I need a drink." Forcing a smile, Howard gently extricates Steve's hand from his shoulder and stumbles over to the bar. Leaning against it, he orders the strongest, oldest scotch he can get his hands on. He downs it fast, feeling the familiar burning feel of the liquid in his throat before he orders a second to take back to the table with him.

When he returns, he sits down a little closer to Steve, grabbing the chair beside him instead of the one across from him. Reaching out, he takes one of Steve's hands in his, marveling at just how big it is. "This is real. I'm not just dreaming? I'm in space and Captain America isn't dead? I think this might call for a toast. Peggy isn't here somewhere, waiting to hit me again, is she?"

Inara turned around, smiling softly at Zoe. For her, the smile is more genuine, with a hint of sadness in her eyes. If she had her shuttle or Serenity, she would have been a lot happier. As it was, at least she had found someone that she knew.

She gives a slight shake of her head as she steps closer, lowering her voice. "I do wish that were the case. Sadly, I have found very little on this ship. It may be large, but it is a bit foreign to me. Nothing like the ships from our world." Her hand tightened on her glass and she stared at Zoe.

"It's good to see you too. Zoe... Where are we? Is... Is Mal here?"

She's not sure she wants to know the answer, but she does have to ask.

"Kaylee!" She smiles and steps forward, not even trying to hide her excitement. For Inara, her excitement is still a little reserved compared to the firecracker that is Kaylee, but she does not hold back.

Strong arms reach out, wrapping around Kaylee and pulling her in for a gentle hug. "Mei mei." Her eyes close and she lingers in the hug a moment before finally pulling away. "I didn't expect to see anyone I knew here. Wherever here is?"

Kaylee hugged Inara back, maybe a little more enthusiastically than was quite needed.

"Me an' Simon are here, here... this is the Enterprise. She ain't really like Serenity, much bigger and a whole lotta folk on board. Don't think the Cap'n would like many new folk on board our girl. But the Cap'n here is okay, ain't Mal, but he didn't go droppin' us off on the nearest rock. An' there's all sorta folk here." Kaylee is talking and talking.

"I missed you."

Steve's become something of an authority on having conversations with dead friends, and one thing it's never been is normal. His first few months here, after Bucky and Sinthia and then Peggy, he started to think about what it would be like if other long gone friends showed up, and he wondered if that meant he was losing his mind. He knows what Howard went through to find him. He deserves the closure.

But he's pulling himself away and leaving the table, and Steve is left frowning in his wake. He gets up, moving to follow him at first, and then he thinks better of it. He stands about a foot away from the table and pockets his hands, watching Howard order, drink, and order again. His brow beetles, wondering if this is too much to put on him like this, but it's too late now. Howard's in space, in the future he spent so many years dreaming about, and still he's being haunted by the ghosts of his past.

The careful look of concentration on his face breaks into a smirk when Howard returns, grabs his hand like he's had one too many already, and starts babbling. He sits back down on the edge of his seat, keeping the space between them close.

"Not a dream, sorry," he says, pushing away the offer of a toast. The smile on his face stays true, but his words soften. "And no, Peggy isn't here anymore. But you're gonna have to tell me the story behind that right and left hook sometime."

You'd think after all this time he wouldn't look a little jealous as he says so, but the roots Peggy's left in his heart have grown deep. "Howard. Take a breath. I know this is all -- strange, but it is good to see you. I'm gonna need you to slow down and hold off on the toasts long enough for me to explain, though."

Harry kept moving, shuffling along just so, taking out a pad and taking a note or two now and then, until he ran into two legs. He had been concentrating so hard on what he was doing, and had grown so used to this place that he had let his guard down. The feeling of the unfamiliar contact made that all change. He rocked backward from her and to his feet in one smooth motion.

Yes, he was still practicing what Murph had taught him, all those days and months ago. He shifted stance to ready even as his eyes swept up the body in front of him... a body that looked rather familiar. His eyes slid across her face, and the Sight slammed into him once more. Like a dawn breaking over the hills, the blaze of her as she appeared to him to his Sight shone in the room, and a grin shot to his mouth, stretching it wide. Not on her eyes, never that, but on her face, even as he hastily shut down his Sight. "Murphy! How long have you been here?"

He probably looked like he wanted to hug her, which he did want to do, even if he knew better. She was Murphy. Karrin, sometimes, yes, but always Murphy. And he just grinned at her, the way he did, when the humor was on him. Having her around was good. It meant they would probably get home a lot faster. If anyone could intimidate Q, it was her.

"I am, nonetheless, Thor." He pondered this somewhat rude young man. And remembered his own youth. Hmmm.

"Perhaps the Thor you know is one of another universe? It seems many of those who are brought here come from different universes." Thor was trying to be helpful.

Right, looked like a Dresden , certainly acted like one. But as she knew all too well, it didn't mean it was him. Her arms remained folded and she watched him with the quiet intense weight that only mothers and police officers seem to possess so easily.

After a lingering and intentionally uncomfortable moment she spoke. It was low and measured and not given to startling anyone around her; but there could be no questioning the force of it. "You have thirty seconds to convince me you are who you appear to be and then I start trying to figure out what dimension you slithered out of."

Harry wasn't dead, she was sure of it. No body meant there was no proof. How many times had he rambled on about comic books and when there was no death in the panel you couldn't assume that it had really happened? She was counting on that familiarity with Harry now to let her tell truth from the other.

She'd been hurt before, in the deepest way possible, she wasn't about to let some fairy/demon/vampire/shapeshifter go around in that particular skin wrecking havoc. Not on her watch.

Really? Well, okay, that sounded a lot like Murphy, really. Even so. "Hell's Bells, Murphy..."

Harry squinted at her, pondering this, then sighed. "I'm a chauvinist, you're a feminist, and yet we still manage to be friends most of the time because despite that, we respect each other. Somehow." He paused, then shook his head. "Not sure why you put up with me, most of the time." He stopped again, rubbed his face.

"Wait... one second. What is the last thing back home you remember before being beamed up to this strange new world? It kind of affects what I would say."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, handkerchief, moving slowly, and unfolded it. Inside, there was a bent, crumpled, torn, but still legible, barely, flyer for a missing kid. The first case they ever met on, oh so long ago now. "We first worked together facing an honest to god troll bridge, and neither had any idea we would end up working together for years."

"Anyone who spent five minutes with Harry Dresden would know that. I'm not convinced. Something only he would know and the clock is ticking." Yeah, nice try demonface, Harry was enough of a pain in everyone's ass that even his friends would call him that to his face.

"The last thing?" She squinted and side eyed him, she might not have the Sight but she still had a cops gut. Not the doughnut kind but the instinct that could tell if you were on the right track. She felt like this would be ok, even if it was a demon it wasn't like this would be news.

"Drinking coffee, being a human pillow for Mister, following up on a few leads from," Wow, that was harder to say than she thought it would be. Karrin set her jaw and looked at the space just over his right shoulder. "Following up on some leads after the boat. Under the radar stuff since it's not like I have official police channels anymore." Yeah that sucked and made aspects of her job, more invested hobby now that she lost her shield, a hell of a lot harder.

Still she wasn't giving up, not yet anyway. And there were things, rumors, stuff was starting to happen and the city still needed her even if she wasn't wearing the badge anymore.

Howard nodded his head, listening to Steve as he spoke. As much as he didn't want to, he could slow down a little for the man who used to be his friend. He wasn't deluded enough to think he ranked up there with Barnes, but he had thought that he might have a small spot in Steve's life. It was complicated, to say the least.

His grip on Steve's hand loosens as he grips his glass a little tighter instead. There's something in his eyes, hurt perhaps. Thinking about that particular memory with Peggy isn't one he really wants to focus on too much. "I... I'm not sure you want to hear that story, Steve. You might sock me too." He already had let her down. He couldn't let him down too.

He turns, looking out the glass at the stars around them. "What is there to explain? I am staring at the stars, Steve. And they are so close that I could touch them!" He took another sip of his drink, leaning back in his chair. "Do they have a lab? Alien tech that I can hold and possibly play with?"

His voice lowers and he leans in a little closer. There was so much he wanted to say, but he just didn't know where to begin.

"To get... what you were after?" he asked softly. He was relieved that his brother had not been able to kill the man. Killing in revenge... that was a line that was too hard to come back from. His brother did not need that.

But they could get into that after.

"Aye, vengeance for what had happened. He took her away like that, there should have been some consequences. I never got it though. I came close, but I never did. After that I realized I'd gone down the wrong path."

He nodded. "Death for death... that isn't the answer, my brother. I'm glad you learned that before you crossed that threshold." He should have been there for him, and the pain of knowing how his brother suffered in his absence showed in his eyes as he squeezed Killian's arm again.

Well, no matter what happened, henceforth, he'd not separate from his brother, not again. From now on the Jones brothers would watch out for each other. He would trust Killian's instincts over his, but still help his brother find and keep the proper path.

"What is the answer then? How does he pay for what he did?" He's struggled with that one himself, especially as others have seemed increasingly willing to give the crocodile another chance.

"That is between him and the consequences of his action, Killian. Do not darken your own heart, brother, because of his dark heart. It is not for you nor I to decide the life and death of any other man."

"It is ours to mourn, and ours to learn how to better defend. You work towards ending his presence in your life, my brother, not towards ending his life all together. And any life that lacks you in it, is all the poorer, I assure you."

"Perhaps vengeance seems as though it would be satisfying, but it is bad form, brother, and more... it will never be enough. His death will not ease the pain, nor will it bring her back. It will only serve to hurt the person she loved, and to do her memory both dishonor and disservice."

"The best way to honor her memory and her love is to live well, to do ever things that would make her proud. To grieve, to mourn, then to eventually move on. A heart undarkened by killing, Killian, has infinite capacity to love. To heal. You can find happiness again, even love, so long as your heart is true. But my brother, the dark path of death and vengeance... it hurts you more than it hurts the one you would have your vengeance on."

"I am not saying that you are not entitled to your anger, for you most certainly are. But it is in service of nothing to do in one who did wrong by you and those you love. To kill for the law, because those trusted to be responsible and dispassionate and separate from the emotions of the incident... that... that be a stormy sea, my brother, and one I'd as soon not sail."

"Our ship saw little combat, because I could never resolve in my heart the need to kill men we knew not, even for king and country. We took missions to protect cargo ships, we killed only to defend, and only when we absolutely had to. Better to take prisoners, better to give all a chance to grow and redeem themselves, those who attacked that which we protected, and ourselves."

"But Killian... every man who ever died upon the decks of my ship... I see every night in my dreams, and before them. Is it not the same for you? Men who died because we defended a civilian vessel, men who died because they took ill and we were too far from shore to fetch help."

He closed his eyes. "Mayhaps, brother, that was why I was so eager to believe the king... think of it... a way that no one ever had to die upon our decks again, a way to undo death itself, to protect but not kill...."

"That, my brother, would have truly been the best form."

She gives a pretty speech. She always has. It's how she got him to go back to the Institute in the first place. Does she remember that? Did it even happen in her universe?

He looks away from her, because she reminds him of what could be, what might have been. And that hurts, as much as he hates to admit it.

"Are there any others here?" Because he wants to know. They all let him be taken to the FBI. He needs to know who to avoid.

Alternate universes? He wishes he'd paid more attention in that class, but the math had just gone over his head. He's not sure that he ever understood anything that was going on, when it came to things the X-Men dealt with.

And, frankly, he hadn't been the best of students anyway. then they'd turned him over to the FBI.

Better to not get into that now. He wants to get some answers. "I need a pair of gloves." He says, finally. He wants himself to be safe for others to be around. Then, he'll worry about everything else.

He blinks at the swearing. It isn't his fault! He can't help it!

"No, not magic." He swallows hard, and stuffs his hands back into his pockets. Now that he's fed the need, it's going to get stronger and he's going to have a headache later.

"I'm a mutant." That explains everything, right?

It's not that he's looking. In fact, anything but. Finnick learned that beauty can't be trusted a very long time ago, partly a side effect of his own famously uncanny beauty, and partly a result of what that beauty has done to him. Beauty is nothing more than a physical characteristic. It can be enhanced, certainly, accentuated, downplayed, manipulated. But beauty itself says nothing about the person.

Finnick should know. He's used to being the one people stare at when he walks into a room, although fewer people do it here, because here he's not famous. Here, he's just another guest from a different world. But he has an eye for beauty and its tricks, so he notices the woman. He notices the way she walks, the way she moves around the room as though the conversation were a dance.

Notices it, and recognizes it. It's not unlike the way he'd behave at a party in the Capitol, when he'd mingle with his admirers, pause to speak here, to dance there, to share a joke somewhere else, before he settled to the real reason he was there.

The similarity has his attention.

He's been watching her, but it's unobtrusive. To most observers, he'd just look vaguely uninterested. Perhaps an acute observer might notice the way he eyes the exits and the slight tension in his shoulders. They'd have to be very good at reading people to notice that the tall, strongly built man with the fine cheekbones and stunningly sea-green eyes was watching anyone in particular.

Finnick leans back against the bar on his elbows and smiles at the woman.

"I haven't seen you in here before."

"Smegging hell! What is this now?"

Of course it was something strange again, finding himself misplaced out of his universe. How many times a year does this happen? At least twice. Or had he switched bodies? A despair squid? Oh it could be a video game!

Lister adjusted the hat on his head, squinting out of one eye but grinning in that sort of yeah, okay uncertain half-smile. People, though! People were good. People were nice company. Having been the only human in the infinite reaches of space on what felt like a futile mission home for a while certainly made one appreciate all types. And as if it had some magnetic Scouser adhering properties Lister found himself immediately drawn to the bar, where he could promptly disappointed in the idea of synthehol.

"Civilization ahoy! I can drink to that. I've been going out of me head without proper company. If you're real, anyway. Patent pending." Surely the Cat, or Kryten, or Rimmer ~~god help him~~ would show up to provide him aid and some exit back to his universe. "I would like to know why everyone is still dressed in pyjamas." Because the Enterprise uniforms? Weren't exactly what one would think of as "uniforms" in his neck of the woods.

Edited 2015-05-08 14:25 (UTC)

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TEST DRIVE #10 - Cetacean Pool and Ten Forward

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You have no idea how long I have wanted to bounce this guy off an Inara!!!

Dave Lister | Red Dwarf | 2. Ten Forward