[closed] So here's to drinks in the dark at the end of my road

[reconnaissance]

Date & Time: forward dated: Friday 22nd – Sunday 24th March
Location: a fair way into the Outlands
Characters:
Asami Sato chittybang, Cedric Diggory theboywhodied, Collette whatsupcroc, Ellie Linton reconnaissance, Fi Maxwell burnsinvisibly, Katniss Everdeen accidentalrebellion, Mitsuki Ishikawa drowns, Peter Parker arachnoid, Steph Brown controlledvariable
Summary: Nine teenagers with varying degrees of trauma decide to go camping.
(Actually, eight teenagers get bullied into going camping by Ellie.)
Warnings: Not sure yet; I'll add them as they come up. At the very least some language, and fallout from PTSD.



Ellie had found the place once before on her wandering into the Outlands; a dilapidated old barn, with stone walls and a roof that was, by some miracle, completely intact despite all the evidence of nature clambering up its walls and trying to reclaim it for the land. There's a hill leading down to it, and if you follow that hill down, you meet the woods, a big lake. It's beautiful, she thinks. Nowhere near so wild as Hell, but that was better.

Finding that place had been how it started, before thinking about getting some of the others together had kicked in. A way to unwind, after the body swap. At the very least a chance to get some decent people all together in the same place (and maybe a way to apologise to Asami for pointing a gun at her that one time).


OOC: Party style, adventures everyone.Just go wild, if you want it to be set at a particular time, maybe specify in the subject line? I'm doing some starters just... in case that helps but do whatever you like tbh. YEAH. There's also the ooc plotting post so chuck folks in there and scheme and let the madness and CR unfold.

Comments

[controlledvariable]

[Steph grins, but decides to leave that part of the conversation where it is, not wanting to push on that particular topic.

Instead, she eyes the marshmallow.]

I have a friend who could eat molten lava, if she wanted. [Kryptonians] And I think even she'd hesitate on that marshmallow.

[reconnaissance]

Did it taste good? ( Morbid curiousity. She's trying not to double take over all the weird shit from people's worlds, anymore. It gets exhausting, being bewildered all the time. )

Your loss.

( And yep, she's dragging the marshmallow off with her teeth. It might be a little too hot, but like hell she's going to let that show. )

[controlledvariable]

I didn't ask. I'm sure it just takes like rock.

[She watches Ellie eat that marshmallow, amused.]

Somehow, I think I'll survive.

[reconnaissance]

You know what your problem is? No sense of adventure.

( A wicked grin, yes. If she keeps trying to joke around and ignore that she feels weird and off kilter, it might get to the point where she tricks herself into forgetting. Think brave, right? Now it was think happy.

That sounded really stupid, even in her own head, but it was worth trying for the sake of not making Steph regret coming camping.

Meanwhile, idly tossing a marshmallow at her isn't going to make her regret being there at all.)

[controlledvariable]

[That gets a genuine laugh, even if it's just a brief one, as she plucks the marshmallow from the air and pops it into her mouth.]

Yeah, that is definitely my problem. I don't have a sense of adventure.

[So deadpan.]

[reconnaissance]

Yep. And you're really boring, too.

( : D )

[controlledvariable]

Well. [she feigns a bit of a haughty look, as if she's protecting injured pride.] At least I know how you really feel about me.

[reconnaissance]

You know me. Honesty is the best policy.

( Except for how she sometimes doen't talk to Steph and just shuts down about problems and confusion and weirdness. Except for that, honesty is the best policy.

And winding Steph up after she was a giant jerk earlier is the best policy, also, which is why she's kissing her on the cheek, and flicks her nose. ) Idiot.

[controlledvariable]

That is what we agreed to.

[It's not the first time Ellie has kissed her on the cheek; the last time was to distract her, but after the strange tension, this one leaves her even more confused. But she's nothing if not good at thinking on her feet, so she just smiles, then sticks her tongue out at Ellie.]

Aren't you sweet.

[reconnaissance]

( Ouch. That makes her feel guilty, and she's not quite sure why. )

Yeah, really sweet. That's why I tried to shove you in a river. That's real friendship, you know that? You're lucky to have me.

( Hah. )

[controlledvariable]

Better than knocking me unconscious and leaving me on a rooftop in the middle of the night.

[She says it with a grin but that's actually a thing that happened.]

[reconnaissance]

Sometimes the examples you use are worryingly specific, you know that, right?

( Etched with concern, fading out that smile and the effort at false cheer to try and force them back into a comfortable zone. )

[controlledvariable]

[No, Ellie, don't make that face.]

I have a specific pool of experiences to draw from. [She's still smiling, but there's something a bit pleading in it, a silent it's okay, please don't worry.]

[reconnaissance]

( She's Ellie, of course she worries. She also protectively stalks her friends, and goes after people that hurt said friends. All in a day's work.

There's a comment on the tip of her tongue about if Vanadi ever, but she bites down on it and keeps the thought to herself. )

Better than-- ( No, this is a bad game to play. She grinds to a halt with that game, too, and idly tosses a marshmallow into the fire. ) Feel like mutant deer for dinner?

( Subtle, Linton. )

[controlledvariable]

[She frowns, part of her wanting to ask better than what? but mostly she doesn't want to linger on this, in case in brings back the awkwardness from before.

So she just wrinkles her nose.] Do we even know if that thing's safe to eat? I have a geiger counter, maybe we should check it.

[reconnaissance]

I've eaten the stuff from out here, before.

( Things she hasn't told Steph about her camping out: experimental meat decisions. ) Not the deer, mind you. Worst comes to worst, I eat a whole let of venison and wake up in the infirmary tomorrow.

( Ellie. )

[controlledvariable]

[Ellie.

Steph looks a little bit mortified]

I didn't know you were eating the stuff out here! [God Ellie she can't take you anywhere.] I'm pretty sure the resurrection tech isn't there so you can eat radioactive deer.

[reconnaissance]

Sometimes. It's good. I was thinking I'd start hunting more often, bring meat back and stuff. It's fresh, and free - better than the stuff you'll get at the shops.

( She shrugs, a bit guilty. ) It just reminded me of back home. We never bought meat, we always slaughtered it ourselves.

[controlledvariable]

El. [She understands, she does, but she's also seen the state of the animals out here.

She's seen Bludhaven, after Chemo was dropped on it, and it makes something like fear curl in her stomach.]

Will you let me do some tests on anything you bring back? So I can check it's safe to eat?

[reconnaissance]

I know it's feral.

( Quickly; just slightly defensive, slightly depressed, feeling at odds over the strangest things with city kids around. People who had a different frame of reference for normal, who had frames of reference that they still remembered that she couldn't quite master.

Without looking at Steph, she nods. ) That sounds smart.

[controlledvariable]

Have you seen the aftermath of nuclear warfare?

[It's not fair, she knows, to drag something like warfare up with Ellie. But there's a difference between feral and radioactive.

Cass was protecting Bludhaven, when it happened. It was sheer luck that she wasn't there when Chemo fell. Dana wasn't so lucky.]

[reconnaissance]

I saw pictures from World War Two, in history class.

( That was about the extent of her experience. It makes her feel a little stupid, so she's studying her hands, picking at the skin around her nails. )

It was just food.

( So very, very quietly. It was food, and she's used to starving, and hunting and doing things with her own hands felt so familiar. Blood that wasn't human, clean deaths, ritual. )

[controlledvariable]

They dropped a bomb on Gotham's sister.

[It's an explanation, maybe, for why this troubles her so much, for why she didn't just let it go.

Gently, carefully, like she's not sure it's allowed, she reaches out to take Ellie's hands.]

I just don't want you to get hurt. Things that might've been safe back home aren't safe here.

[reconnaissance]

( There aren't words for the horror that strikes her face, dashed across it like blood over a rock, that rock into a skull. She winces with her own thoughts, the violence in them, and she's scrambling. Just as well Steph is taking her hands, because she would have been reaching for Steph's. )

Who? Why would they do that?

( Who would do that? Who would want to see that again, see any kind of war or destruction like that again? It's horrifying, and it's real, and it's war that was too close to Steph. Here was different, this wasn't her home, but that's like a war on Steph's doorstep. )

Nothing's safe at home. ( Dismissive, brushing it away, before the impact of what she admits can catch up. ) Did you-- I mean. ( What happened? Was Steph safe? )

ugh fucking comics canon

[controlledvariable]

There's this creature, Chemo. It's not human, just this.... mass of chemicals and toxic waste.

[She doesn't think she's ever told this story before, because everyone back home knows it. Letting go of one of Ellie's hands, she rubs at her brow, trying not to think too hard.]

A bunch of supervillains dropped him on Bludhaven and over a hundred thousand people died, before Superman managed to fix it. He wasn't supposed to be radioactive, except... in the damage left by him, there was this radioactive fallout.

[A pause, a sigh, because this is all came from second hand sources, some of it told more frantically, depending on cirumstances. She remembers reading the newspaper.]

So they dropped what was basically a bomb on the city, and then there was all this shit for a year - I was in Africa at the time - and then there was another explosion, definitely nuclear that time. The city's just a crater, now.

[She looks at Ellie, something twisted in her expression, before she shrugs.]

Supervillains.