( open ) happy moonsgiving, everyone! (forward dated to 11/15)

[crocodilesmiles]

Date & Time: All Day, November 15th, 3313
Location: Focused centrally on the Moon Base Cafeteria.
Characters: Any and all!
Summary: It's a feast on the moon under the guise of being a new sort of Thanksgiving! Food, drink, merriment, food comas... lend a helping hand, fill a few plates of goodies, and meet friends new and old!
Warnings: None right now. Please PM this account should anything go beyond a "my grandmother is also reading this and that is okay" level of appropriate.
Notes: Tag in action or prose, and please specify a time of day, location, or activity your character is participating in! (Set-up, the feast, clean up, etc.) Feel free to offer multiple prompts, as your heart desires! Also, Collette is asking for people to write something they're thankful for on butchers paper on the wall before getting their first plate of food. This is 100% optional!

In the morning, the setting up begins. It's hard to say what's a morning versus what isn't on the moon, but using the lighting system as a sort of guide, those who offered to help set up the feast or continue on with the cooking will all be there bright and early.

After things are cleaned, the cooking continues on while further set up of plateware and silverware and hard to break glasses are left to those helping hands with a mind for arrangement details. The whole of one section has been converted into a sort of buffet-style lineup, waiting for the dishes to be complete and set at ready. All varieties of the usual dietary fare have been offered, some in greater quantities than others.

Then comes the time where people stopping by or trickling in aren't just turned around or co-opted into assisting; it's feast time, though not before an announcement that each person getting a plate of food must write at least one thing they're thankful for on a large sheet of butcher paper taped up to the wall. There's a variety of colored markers and pens provided, from someone's personal (and eclectic) collection. It's a soft price to pay for free food and plenty of it!

When the feasting has wound down, so begins the clean up. Tired, drunk, well fed, over fed, or simply content, people will be shuffled out or dragged into helping turn the cafeteria back into working, normal form. What decorations were added will need collecting (or stealing), plates and dishes and cooking implements and pots and pans will need washing, and floors a good sweeping and waterless mopping before things are all back in order. Leftovers, if there are any, will need to be placed in sealable containers and put into refrigeration.

And then, blissfully unaware of anything impending on the horizon, to bed, or different haunts, for the night.

Comments

[crocodilesmiles]

If I helped make it happen, I'm supposed to help all the way through, aren't I?

[firstroar]

I'm not certain there's any solid rule about it... [tilting his head at her.] But if you're determined to carry on, it's fine. [it's not like there's much worry about sunrises or sunsets to sleep through.]

[crocodilesmiles]

( This is a degree of stubbornness because she thinks she should do this, and when she does go away for the night, it is just a little lonely. Still better overall, but lonely before she passes out.

So she nods to him, and returns to picking up glasses, carefully stacking a few plates on top of each other.

But she gets distracted arranging the silverware to all point in one direction, zoning out staring at the tines on a fork.

Woah man.

Forks are... that's a fork. Huh! )

[firstroar]

[wow, Collette. Blue is like...a professional sleeper and he thinks this sure is something precious.

he's gone only in the time it takes to move those plates she's stacked, finding her and the magical fork.

he carefully plucks it out of her hand before leaning down:]

I've done what I can here. Would you walk me back to the quarters? [the closer he can get her to bed the better the world will be.]

[crocodilesmiles]

( Collette ends up looking toward the doors, and around the room, before she answers. It's not difficult to tell there's some internal struggle, like she isn't sure if she needs to stay here to make it seem like she's been responsible the whole time, or if it's okay to walk a friend home -- lightly suspicious as she may be of those motivations.

Friend wins out over responsibility. There's enough done, and the place almost seems regular, for her to agree in her head it's okay to go. Probably. Man, that's going to take some effort!

Still, she smiles at Blue. )

Wanting an escort, Blue? Fine, fine, I'll be happy to see you safely to your door!

[firstroar]

I'm honored.

[honored to probably not even be making it to his room; she needs the escort more than he. that's more or less the plan, anyway, as he turns and moves to fall into step beside her once she's moving.]

Which one happens to be yours, again?

[crocodilesmiles]

Hm? Oh, I'm way out of the way, from where I used to be. I'm in the West Wing now!

( Which isn't way out of any way, though it is opposite to where she had been before. She gestures toward the direction her wing lies. )

[firstroar]

[he glances that way, slowing.]

How far out of the way?

[crocodilesmiles]

I've got a bunch of empty rooms in the same hall around me kind of out of the way. Not for the next wing afterward, just in mine, but... yeah.

( She shrugs, slowing her chair's forward momentum down to match Blue's pace. )

[firstroar]

[he's turning toward that wing now.]

It seems lonely, Collette. Why not occupy one of the nearer, vacant rooms?

[crocodilesmiles]

( There's conflict as he says that. Yes, it is a little, but -- )

I kept waking people up. This is easier.

( It's not perfect, but it's less stress on very volatile people. )

[firstroar]

[he wants to say because of bad dreams? but that's rude. that's like...admitting you float around sometimes checking in on people like a ghostly voyeur. and even if that's totally what you do, it's not nice to announce!

he's chewing on this, the farther they go. heck, even entertaining the thought of exploiting a particular power of his but...]

[crocodilesmiles]

( it's human to think of the things that make it easier -- and thankfully, it's the platonic that does -- so for a moment she recalls why L.A. had been simpler. it wasn't just being away from the enclosed tightness of space. it'd been a warm presence right by her, that she could touch, reassure herself was real, hear complain if she moved too much or was too hot or anything else too much of something else.

she wasn't so afraid of her own memories, and the perversion of fears tied up in those memories, when she didn't feel like she was on her own. but how to ask that of anyone? caesar had helped, without knowing what he was helping, and without precisely volunteering.

back here, it hasn't been as sharp as it was before, but her nightmares are still ugly masses of morphs held too long, partially human creations, burnt bodies twisting and screaming in a pain they can't escape. an explosion over a city. the zombies, taking on semi-familiar faces, first kelly, then james, later marco, even, and cassie. jake. timmy. her mother.

her brother. )

It's just dreams. They'll get better. They usually do, it's just -- hard when we're all living on top of each other, you know?

[firstroar]

[he stops once he's gotten some pulse of awareness, ownership to one of these rooms. he's not going to force her to move toward it, instead turning to her, watching, considering.]

They can be fought. Not as you would fight anything yourself, but...instead, as letting them fade into the background of your mind.

I can help you, if you wish.

[crocodilesmiles]

( She doesn't notice they've stopped outside her door. What Blue says has all her fractured attention, hope a warm spark behind her eyes. )

You can do something like that? I mean... It won't make you too tired?

( She remembers you dying, regardless of the word being most appropriate for Blue's winding down. Remembers, and fears. )

It can't make you tired, Blue.

[firstroar]

[he smiles, a little hurt in his eyes. but it's no real harm, that kind of concern. it's rooted in affection, after all.]

More than anything, it may be a benefit to the both of us. For your sake, setting aside painful memories. For mine...[a hand on his chest.] sharing what good memories I have to someone more than worthy of them.

[you've always wanted to become a living scrapbook, haven't you?]

[crocodilesmiles]

More worthy?

( It makes her laugh, just a little. She's too tired for more. )

I am a fan of sharing good memories. If it helps you out... I can't say no to that, can I?

[firstroar]

I should hope not. I wouldn't be able to walk away, knowing I could have helped and failed to do so. [he looks past her, at the number of doors.] Show me where to go, and we'll see about putting some of those unpleasant dreams aside for a time. Enough to give you some better rest.

[crocodilesmiles]

Mmm! ( She looks down the hall, realizing after a bleary moment they're -- actually there. It's funny, all of a sudden. Ha! Such perfect timing when they'd stopped! ) We're actually here already! This is me, right here.

( She points to the last door in a line. Like she said... far away in this wing from others. Restrooms between her and the next wing.

She moves for the door, opening it, watching it slide back into the wall with a hum of satisfaction. Everything inside is orderly, her signatures taped to the walls like a strange tapestry of decoration. The bed she uses is in clear evidence, as is how she uses the one across from her: she has a shirt folded on it even now, from when she'd gotten ready for dinner hours earlier. Her tablet sits there too, next to a book, no title to be seen. )

Did you want water or anything?

[firstroar]

No, thank you. [he follows her inside, a hand sliding under the collar of his cape where the fastener is set, peeling the purple off shoulder to shoulder and draping it over his arm. it makes him look smaller, sans flowing fabric.

he stops at the dumping-grounds bed, giving things a little regard one by one, staring a little longer at the book at wondering.]

[crocodilesmiles]

Okay, if you're sure!

( She backs her chair into the space by her chosen bunk, only then sort of belatedly realizing -- )

Wasn't I supposed to be taking you home?

[firstroar]

This a worthy diversion. [his smile is apologetic when he looks her way again.] I apologize; it was just an excuse to send you on your way here. You're very tired, Collette.

[crocodilesmiles]

I -- okay, maybe I am.

( Her smile certainly shows it. Canting her head to the side, she breathes out in a sigh, giving in to the inevitable. )

But it didn't seem right to leave before everything was finished up again. Like I need to be there for the whole thing, or something.

[firstroar]

[those words stick strangely in his head, keep him quiet for a time.]

I understand.

[crocodilesmiles]

( She looks at him, examining his face. She knows he does. Blue isn't one to say things for the sake of saying them. She likes that about him. )

What do I need to do for this dream thing?