ximilialog | OPEN | Ride It by Regard on blast

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OPEN | Ride It by Regard on blast

CHARACTERS: Drift and YOU
LOCATION: Simulation Room
DATE: Late April
CONTENT: Driving lessons! + closed starters
WARNINGS: TBD

SIMULATION ROOM

The important thing to remember is to take things slow. And ask me questions as we're going through this. Keep your left foot on the brake pedal at all times until you're ready to move.

[ Drift 'sat' in the passenger's seat where he and his student were parked in the simulation room. The simulation itself was nothing ostentatious or potentially distracting. They were idling in the middle of a nondescript parking lot in the middle of a forested area on a bright, sunny day. It was the sort of place you could find anywhere in middle America near a big box store, only without the store or any visible buildings. Drift wanted to keep things simple and remove the stimuli for dumb stunts. ]

The first thing is to keep both hands on the wheel until you're ready to shift gears. I'm automatic, thankfully. Think of a twelve-hour clock and put your hands at three and ten o'clock. [ A sigh erupts from Drift if the person receiving those instructions crosses their arms at the wrist to be cheeky. ] Alright, but with the corresponding hands — don't get smart.

Before we drive, you'll see two levers between us — the gear shift and the emergency brake. I want you to tell me which you think is which.

[ Hopefully, this wouldn't be too long of a day and Drift's transmission stays in tact. ]

SUNLIGHT ROOM closed to Yennefer

[ There wasn't much sun in the sunlight room. The artificial sky was a dying red ember splotched in the bruised purple of an early evening winding down into twilight. This late into the season, the full verdant green of the meadow had returned, now a carpet of deep blue in the dying light.

Drift hadn't wanted to meet Yennefer during the height of the illusory afternoon. One last means of him cleaving to the mask he had been hiding behind. It was an idea that was ridiculous once he sat down and thought about it. What Drift hadn't been a secret, or even a well-kept one if he had been. A few of the others had found out embarrassingly late into his time here that the man they knew was only a disguise because he tended to isolate himself out of some misguided need not to be a burden.

— And then the situation with Yennefer had turned into a uniquely well-timed mess. Drift hadn't intended to keep anything from her after that night, just as she hadn't expected naked honesty after one encounter. Compounded by the last mission, where they were out of contact through most of it, all she had to go on was a few alarming and understandably hard to believe text exchanges.

Activating his device, Drift sends out one more text — asking Yennefer to meet him in the sunlight room for the truth as promised. Then 'he' sat on the glossy white hood of the vehicle parked in the meadow just off the brook, half concealed in the grass like a crouching predator. There was enough daylight to spare, and the white sheen of this form could be spotted a mile away. ]

WILDCARED

( please feel free to hmu on pm or bretons if you want to write/receive a starter of running into drift anywhere around the station and don't feel like we need pre-existing CR! )

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[ Most of her visits to this room have been when the sun is at its zenith, leaving almost no spot untouched by warmth unless one seeks out respite beneath the dappled shade of a tree. By this time she would already be attempting a meal for herself in the kitchen or perhaps lingering in another part of the station, making any and all efforts to avoid returning to her room unless she knew it would be empty or Billy would already be asleep, even if the man has a snore like a troll.

Her conversations with Drift have been sparse since she’d contacted him with the intent of securing honesty once and for all — he’d given it to her, though not without some pressing, and even after its natural conclusion she’d had the nagging feeling that it wasn’t fully resolved, and likely wouldn’t be until she had the opportunity to hear the rest of it directly from his lips rather than words in her view.

So she’s here, the warmth of the sunlight room still persisting even as the light begins to disappear beyond the false horizon, leaving streaks of color in its wake. There is only so much ground for her to cover, and eventually she finds him easily, making her way off the path to where he has placed himself in wait for her. ]

I suppose it’s fitting, this being one of the rooms left on the station we haven’t talked in. [ She peers up at him perched on the smooth metal, an idle breeze stirring the grass around her feet and the hem of her dress. ]

Sorry, I regrettably left it out of the tour's itinerary. [ Drift answered a bit sheepishly as he sat up a bit straighter. This was normal when he spoke with someone whose reaction he couldn't gauge — go meek, apologize, and let the other person lead the conversation. A holdover from the days after the war and the introduction of the Reintegration Act. An entire universe away, meeting people who had never heard of his kind, Drift was still terrified someone would look too hard and see him for what he used to be. ]

Thank you for coming out here. Most of us come here for the eponymous sunlight, so I figured we wouldn't have interloppers.

I found it well enough on my own. [ She had, and she’d ventured here enough times that it’s become more of a preferred place over many others. It isn’t wariness or caution that prompts her to maintain a space between them, to afford him a certain berth. Mostly, she’s staying removed until she has a better understanding of it all — or until he bids her to come in closer, whichever happens first. ]

I wasn’t aware it followed a cycle. [ Though perhaps, like any real sun, even this one must descend eventually, offering the illusion of another day reaching its conclusion. But knowing how popular the room is amongst the other others, it does appear to only be theirs for the moment, and her voice softens for the first time since her initial approach. ]

You don’t need to hide from me.

[ He glanced up with his human eyes at the evening sky — the violet was now an ink spill slowly bleeding in. It was a sight that could lull him into believing it was real even after the hundreds of times he had spent here. The choice of location felt appropriate, revealing an illusion in an even larger one. ]

It does, but since space travel throws off the circadian rhythm in people, no one wanders in during its twilight hours too often. [ The comment and his voice were a bit off — momentarily distracted, answering rhetorical questions to fill space.

He didn't necessarily need to 'look' back at Yennefer to see she hadn't moved. One set of eyes was looking elsewhere, but another was still trained on her. Only when he did had Drift slid off the hood and stood on the ground with all the solidity of a man. ]

I am sorry — I wasn't hiding anything. It was only afterward that it even crossed my mind to be more forthcoming. [ There truthfully wasn't much going on at all upstairs when this had all started. He hadn't been thinking.

Drift looked at the point of his show that dug in the spring soft ground under the long grass as he gave one momentary fidget before saying: ] I shouldn't leave you in suspense.

[ — And then he was gone. The man standing there hadn't disappeared with any dramatic flare. There wasn't any puff of smoke or rattle of mysterious thunder. Drift was there was a moment only to abruptly flicker out of existence with all the fanfare of getting too close to a mirage.

The machine left behind then lurched. The flank of its white paneling shot outward as if it suffered an explosion from within, only for every jettisoned segment to remain attached, revealing that each moving part was working in concert. Metal slid against metal smoothly without colliding or scraping against each other as one shape formed another.

Then, standing there in the grass, was a man. This creature was nearly three meters in height and barely human in appearance. Made of metal and something that moved expressively like human flesh while still holding that alien, inorganic quality like quicksilver. The burning blue-white eyes were set in a face with almost familiar contours obscured by the helm that framed it. The face even had the same wane smile that was still so grim and weatherworn. ]

Hi. [ Drift said ]

[ The part about internal rhythms comes as less of a surprise to her, considering how restless she'd been when she'd first arrived on the station with no concept of the time of day or how many hours it would be until night technically fell; in the interim, she'd simply chosen to forego sleeping until she was too exhausted to remain alert, although some of that rest had also taken place in Drift's bed, coincidentally.

There are suspicions she'd harbored — how could she not, given what had transpired between them shortly before they'd been sent on that mission and separated by space and realm? Something had instinctually prompted her to reach for the weighty metallic shape he had been leaning against, the same exact form that accompanied him now. But she believes him when he expresses his regret; somehow, she does, even if she has no full explanation for why.

Before she has half a mind to broach the question in response to what he intends to do, what he wants to reveal to her here, now — he is suddenly there one instant and gone the next, as understated as a blink, without so much as even a sound to herald his disappearance. It is abrupt enough to make her start slightly, awareness heightened as she glances around the modest clearing for those fleeting, silent moments until that large shape heaves, shifts, begins to transform before her.

This wasn't the structure that had been present on the platform with her before, but the sleek alloy that forges into an entirely different configuration has enough familiarity to it that she can find the places in the structure that resemble her own anatomy — limbs, and a center, and a set of features in which a pair of cold-flame eyes are looking back at her, regarding her.

All at once, she knows — it is him, there in the smile, the weariness that she had been so drawn to in spite of herself, had wanted to uncover the stories that had placed it there. She draws in a breath, but it is almost a gasp, sharp and wondering, and utterly fascinated. ]

... Fuck.

[ Questions had darted behind Yennefer's violet gaze like the stray sparks breaking off from the flame of fire — furtive but curious only to burn out without anything to hold onto. Still, she was alert and still taking stock — neither running in fear nor stirring her anger.

Drift wasn't especially large on the station. At three meters compared to his usual eight, Yennefer wasn't so dwarfed, but still, Drift made an effort to defang himself. The two blades holstered to his sides were unsheathed and struck firmly into the ground to render them momentarily ineffective. Drift lowered to one knee with his head bowed and his burning eyes downcast upon that gesture. ]

I wasn't hiding, it's just hard to get through the doors. [ Drift hollowly joked before adding: ]

If you're angry, that's alright.

I’m not — angry.

[ Anger would be part of the makeup of a different emotion than what she’s feeling right now after finding herself in the position of having to process everything she’s laying eyes on for the first time. She’s known the truth in small increments long before this reveal, anyway; he’d given her the one surrounding his longevity and exactly how many years he’s spent in this existence, but now she has to reconcile it with what he’s unveiled to her now.

There are pieces that get placed down with the methodical fluidity of shedding armor, though these are weapons by the looks of them — familiar, by what had adorned the wall of his room the first night she’d been in it. ]

It is still you. [ That alone puts her more at ease than if it was something so wholly unrecognizable from the face she’d come to know. ] And everything you experience in your other form… is shared in this one?

[ His smile is less melocholic, it actually reaches his impossible bright eyes. ] Well, thank god for that.

Yes — I am only myself. [ Drift answers with sincerity as he lowers himself even further until he lays as down in the long grass as any tenuously tamed creature was, leaving itself up to chance and fate. Arms folded under his chin and helm bowed, Drift looked evenly at Yennefer as his massive form vented with deep, heavy breaths. ]

It's going to be a long evening, even in the vacuum in space. We can stay a while and I'll answer your questions.

That clarifies at least one little detail. [ That even if there are two separate forms he can appear as, there is a link between them, a tether that creates the opportunity for shared experience — and by extension, sensation. (It certainly casts one of their previous conversations into new light, given what he’s only just uttered now.)

She thinks she might nearly have to retreat as he situates himself lower, positioning his frame across the ground and within the tall grass. The manner in which he reclines, though, brings him closer to her eye level, and so there she remains, but she does take another step or two nearer to him, listening to the calm, even sound of his amplified resting breaths. ]

The other form, that… projection, of a sort. When did you first create it?

[ Before the bottle he held loose between his knees emptied, and his mind drowned in a churning dark sea of high grade mixed with questionable unfiltered fuel, Drift attempted to take stock. Drift had accomplished the following in the last forty-eight hours: Continued to sleep around instead of greeting the new arrivals. He had told the only person who consistently had his back that he was a monster and deserved to die alone. Then, one of the only two people in the galaxy who wouldn't let Megatron die alone had shown up — and proceeded to nearly divorce their head from their shoulders with a wild haymaker Drift threw in a fit of pique over an innocent comment.

So like anyone in Drift's situation, he had dug up the bottle of the most intoxicating Cybetronian fuel that would hopefully do to his internals what paint thinner did to the human liver. Insofar it was going pretty well — a fifth in, and he hadn't even started sobbing, just watching the wall start to tilt in the direction of the ceiling slowly. Instead, he raised the bottle as its noxiously green contents sloshed around, raised it to an inactive holo-photo he had on his nightstand, and grunted. ]

I know your old atheist box of a frame is double over laughing somewhere from the irony, Ratty.

( New arrivals typically made things busy in the infirmary, but fate smiled on them at last, and the place was mercifully quiet. With much of the preparations in place for the next mission, McCoy is all too happy to take advantage of the free time, stopping by to thumb the chime on Drift's door.

He hasn't seen him for a couple days, but that isn't out of the ordinary for either of them. )

Hey Drift, you in?

S'open.

[ The spaces between his words were starting to stumble over themselves when Drift remotely unlocked the door. Bones would see that Drift had a pointed look on his face with narrowed eyes and a hard frown. He looked angry, which he was, but he was concentrating on where the walls met the floor at that exact moment. ]

( Pausing on the threshold, he took in the scene before him, Drift listing, unhappily, with his acrid bottle of rotgut. An old hand to seeking solace like that, he let the door close behind him, and crossed the floor to the 'bot. )

Lordy. What happened?

( Let him, maybe, take that fuel away, pulling the sleeves of his sweater over his hands so they won't come into direct contact with the container. )

[ Drift can see that Bones was essentially trying to disarm him. That made sense, medical professional or not. Get tanked enough that you're in the horrors, and either the bottle in your hand makes it worse or turns into something sharp and broken one flails around to guard that hazy 'peace' like a starved animal over a bone. Drift takes one last, somewhat defiant swig and relinquishes it.

Looking down at his empty hands, still holding that expression of trying not to upchuck, Drift explains ]

I told Megatron he would die alone, and then the 'bot he had been mooning over showed up with the new crowd like a big slap in the face.

( Lucky for Drift, Leonard's turned to place the bottle on the bedside table, so his sympathetic wince goes sight unseen. He hunts around for the lid and caps it. )

Well, that'll about do for shitty timing on the universe's part. You just stay right there, ( he tells him like he isn't drunk as a skunk, raiding the ensuite for a waste bin and a cool, damp cloth. The former gets placed within reach, just in case, the latter brought gently to Drift's face. )

Do you want to talk about it?

[ mal's pretty familiar with walking into unknown situations, to making do. he's shown up on a space station, here to change a regret and unwind the very threads of fate. it seems fantastical, but this isn't the afterlife that mal imagined when he'd spared a moment to pray to the saints.

he'd thought it would be less sterile, less of the same thing as before; fighting, missions, orders.

there's more food here though, comforts that mal's brain can't quite comprehend. no one's starving, no one's dying. he's supposed to get a room with just one roommate, instead of a cot in a barracks shared with a countless number of soldiers. it's a step in the world, nearly the little palace by some standards.

he's got a rifle strapped to his shoulder, is in his ravkan army uniform again now that it's clean, when he open the door to the room he thinks he's supposed to be in (mal's not really sure) and is met with the sight of --- actually, he's not sure what he's witnessing.

(who's ratty?)

he stops in the doorway, tilts is head and assesses.

meeting elthree means he's prepared for that fact his new roommate is 'inorganic' as she'd called it. he's not sure what it means, actually, but mal's never been to space or been before so what's normal? the whole sitting on the floor with a bottle between his, all that looks familiar though. ] Uh. Sorry. Am I interrupting something?

[ Lucky for Bones, Drift's inner workings weren't so analogous to organic life that he wasn't at any immediate risk of expelling his tanks all over his nice blue uniform. ]

Wasn't in any rush to break up my solitary meditatation. [ Drift grunted, wishing he had at least tried to meditate before diving into the bottle. ]

I'm a very angry person who pretends otherwise, [ Swaying, Drift leaned his considerable weight against the side of the bed where he sat on the floor. That very angry person is leaning into the touch like a balm. ] and I leave my friends holding the bag, Leonard. I don't need to be a doctor to level the accurate diagnosis of a 'pity party.'

Edited 2022-05-04 04:25 (UTC)

[ Somewhere, at some point, behind the oily curtain separating his more sober recollections of recent events to now had the idea of a roommate been floated in his direction. Drift had managed to skate around that living arrangement for the last five months, and while not opposed to the idea

— He just would have liked it to have a bit better timing.

Drift was mid-swig when he saw the man (kid, more like) enter as the sliding whoosh of the door slipped his considerably dulled notice. A mouthful of high-grade went down the wrong tube and Drift let out a frame-shaking sputtering cough that was half-gag, half-bark. ]

Ack-, oh, d-dammit— ! [ Barely making it in time, Drift managed to slap the bottle on the night stand before more than a few drops splattered on the floor between them. A few dry heaves wracked through him before Drift could string two coherent words together. ]

Sorry...sorry, ah — don't step in that. [ He nodded to the spill ] That's uncut it might burn through your shoes for all I know.

[ There wasn't only one reason she sought him out — even if the thought had crossed her mind fleetingly, Yennefer wasn't about to solely turn up at his door for that, but it's with the passing idea that she would rather be spending a few hours in his company over that of several others on the station that motivates her steps, bringing her to the place where she could simply plant herself here in the corridor before swiping a hand over the chime to declare her presence.

(Even in that, she has improved, having spent several days before the first mission just trying to figure out how to open the fucking doors around here.)

She's convinced she can almost hear the sounds of movement from within, and when she doesn't get a response immediately, she presses it again, more insistently this time. ]

[ The thought had occured to Drift, somewhere between the second or eighth pull, to seek company. For all his commitment to the role of a Loner with a Past, Drift handled solitude rather poorly. Even the worst company would have been an improvement over trying to keep his thoughts in the strangle hold of being too blind drunk to function.

Instead, he hadn't and continued to sit on there on the floor by his bedside ane sulk. There was some catharsis in that. Must be something about being a nomadic swordsman with difficulties opening up to others: to indulge in a good, solid sulk.

He was going to ruminate on that further but the bottle was barely to his lips when the door chimed. Once, then again with the insistence of someone dangerously close to tapping their foot with their hands on their hips.

It couldn't have been Megatron, so consider his inebriated interest piqued. ]

Com'in. [ He managed, remotely unlocking the door ]

[ Whatever event had transpired recently enough to leave him in his quarters, she remained unaware; in truth, she wasn't about to scour the entire station from top to bottom in search of him. If he hadn't been within, she merely would have turned tail and retreated to her own room — thereby forcing herself to put up with her shithead of a roommate once more.

The hope, at least, was that it wouldn't come to that, and when the door chimes again with the confirmation that it's been unlocked for her she doesn't hesitate to enter, stepping forward with enough definitiveness for it to draw back and admit her through and into the room itself.

Therein, it became almost too easy to decipher why he had been so delayed in responding to her knock — the smell, first and foremost, emanating from that bottle, is pungent enough to practically singe one's nose hairs from a mere inhale, and she doesn't spare more than a passing thought to whatever might be in the contents, even if it does prompt a visible scrunching-up in her features. ]

You look like shit.

[ She's not about to dance around the subject, but she doesn't issue that judgment with her typical level of bluntness, and she does trail over slowly to sit beside him, dropping down onto the floor and drawing her knees up toward her chest. ]

[ Yennefer had been a surprise, and under better circumstances Drift would have said a pleasant one at that. Her name had came up in the miserable haze of his drunken stupor more than once as someone to reach out to. They had bonded quickly, but Drift didn't want to burden her with his problems so new into their friendship. Yennefer was blunt, sure, but honest and accepting of what he truly was - she was also likely dealing with shit of her own if she wound up here. She didn't need to see him in such a state. He still wasn't going to pretend the relief he felt at her being here didn't exist, either. ]

Good thing my social calendar is so clear, otherwise public appearances would've been embarrassing.

[ The mild slur to his cadence takes the sarcastic bite from his words. Drift takes one last swig before screwing the cap on the bottle and shoving it aside on the nightstand. Out of sight, out of mind.

He adjusted himself so that Yennefer had more of the bed to lean against. He may only be three meters now, but it was still a tight fit. ]

I'd offer a drink, but you'd be safer swigging paint than that.[ Drift rubs the the ridge around his right eye and sighs, already feeling the beginning of a hangover. ] Sorry, I can't use my human guise right now. Difficult to concentrate when I'm... [ He winces ] like this.

[ If she was in a mood to be well and truly honest with herself, she'd have reached the inward admittance long before standing outside of his door that she hadn't sought out his company for what might have seemed like the most obvious reason, the clearest excuse for being here now.

Even in the short walk she'd taken from her own quarters to this one would have given her extremely ample opportunity to turn around and retreat in the direction she'd first come — but now, here she was, with her steps having led her to this place, and she couldn't even think up an alternate justification for why apart from the simple and slightly terrifying notion of just wanting to.

The strong scent of the liquor is deadened somewhat once he caps the bottle and sets it off to one side, and she doesn't outwardly mention that she hadn't seated herself close to force him to concede space for her; instead, she just watches him quietly, leaning until her back is propped up by the side of the bedframe. ]

You don't need to apologize for that. Not to me. [ If anything, the fact that he'd been willing to show her this face before had prepared her; now, she perceives it as merely another part of him, which is how she can tell that he's having a particular time of it. ]

I take it ordinary liquor doesn't do the job sufficiently enough, hence the... what is that? It smells horrendous.

I mean, I could but the effort would leave you essentially dealing with two drunk idiots in one. [ The attempt at levity fell flatter than rock dropped in stagnant water — he didn't even manage so much as an amused huff at his own joke. Drift's now empty hand flexed around nothing, the internal debate to just keep on drowning himself belligerent, company or not, there but steadily being quieted. ]

I — thank you, it is nice to simply be sometimes. [ Perhaps later, he'll take stock of that remark and how it factored into him and Yennefer coasting back into each other's orbit like two mercurial comets trapped in a familiar trajectory. ]

Stuff from home that arrived in a supply drop — 'Nightmare Fuel.' I don't have a liver, so what I need to knock me on my ass is a bit more potent and, in all likelihood, deadly to humans. I have — [ Drift trails off and looks around. ] Vodka and some sort of red, I believe. I don't exactly 'entertain' but, y'know, just in case.

One is more than enough for me to handle at this juncture. [ Even in agreeing with his ribbing remark there was no malice, no bite to her speech, and she let the sentiment over him being able to display his actual features fall without directly commenting on it, finally pushing herself back up to her feet when he made mention of alternative liquor options being present in the room. ]

I think the least you can do is to allow me the chance to catch up to where you are. It’s no fun being the one who’s entirely sober, you know.

[ Even standing, she was far from being eye-to-eye with him directly, though it was a closer angle than the one she’d taken before in sitting on the floor. Her own violet gaze narrows briefly, a playfulness there, before she gives the room another cursory glance. ] Point me in the right direction; I still don’t know where you keep everything important around here.

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OPEN | Ride It by Regard on blast

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CLOSED | close CR + new roomie, Malyen Oretsimp

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