come_sailaway | AUGUST EVENT: DRAGSTRIP RIOT

Entry tags:

AUGUST EVENT: DRAGSTRIP RIOT

[it begins with a PA announcement on the morning of the 12th, Friday’s voice coming through clear and cheerful.]

Any passengers that wish to debark to our latest port of call can exit the ship through the metal detectors on deck zero! Please be advised that all alcohol will be confiscated prior to your exit!

[and whoever heads down to the lowest deck will find that what she said was true: there is a metal detector set up there, with Friday manning it. after placing all metal objects (including weapons, and all your weapons) onto the tray, she gestures for the passenger to step through the metal detector.

they exit in an entirely different location. suffering from a splitting headache, and wearing an entirely different outfit than they had put on this morning, but unscathed. they even got their weapons back!

the interior of the diner is essentially your average jonathan rockets establishment. the narrow lane between booths and counter is manned by an entirely mute Friday clone, who cheerily takes orders and serves up food (cooked??? somewhere???) with an almost unnatural talent for roller blading. there is a jukebox in the corner that can be fed with quarters passengers will inexplicably find on their person. the available songs range from the 50s to the 80s, with a particularly wide selection of songs from the platters.

outside, the diner is a great chrome boxcar, circled by a small parking lot. a large neon sign proclaims it to be GIL’S; it buzzes and flickers on and off often. passengers who have regained vehicles will find these vehicles parked outside. there are also a handful of midcentury American cars; none of them seem to require keys, and the gas tank seems set at full.

past the parking lot is a seemingly endless expanse of desert sand and scrubland, bisecting by the empty highway that the diner abuts. a few miles down this highway, the road forks into a smaller one, which winds its way up a steep, ragged mountain until plateauing into another parking lot, with only a small, old wooden fence between the cars and the edge of the cliff.

should they wish to return to the ship, passengers can leave at any time the same way they entered: walking through a doorway that now claims to be a mop closet. passing through will leave them on deck zero, again with a splitting headache. it’s probably fine.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

( this is it, then. they've been waiting for this moment for weeks, all the anticipation of losing teeth and it's going to be a bad one culminating in a damn near rush to once friday unveils the metal detector. clarke watches one or two people step through the security gate, seemingly vanish where they ought to have reappeared on the other side, and immediately turned to make a beeline for her cabin. she'll return sum fifteen minutes later in full apocalyptic war regalia, kitted with a gun on one side of the holster and a rough made knife in the other. doesn't matter if the ambient temperature around the ship is uncomfortably hot, it's better to swelter and be prepared than be comfortable and maybe forget something. she also has that rucksack from sleepaway camp, rattling with extra ammunition, a set of car keys, notebooks and pens. all is divested into a bin at friday's bidding, clarke a temporary picturesque example of grim faced cooperation if it'll get her through this new method of worldly transportation faster.

and it's finally her turn to step through the metal detectors and — this is going to be fine, right? bad, maybe, but ultimately fine and maybe they'd learn something new by the end of this excursion. teeth set, brow furrowed, and ignoring the way her heartrate picks up in anticipation, she's stepping through the archway. )

i. aw shit here we go again ( right out the metal detector, open | the 12th )

( and out into a shiny new reality. literally shiny, the sunlight streaming through the windows and hitting the metal edging on the diner tables is temporarily blinding after the fluorescents of deck zero. clarke moves to lift a hand to shield her eyes, but finds her arms full of everything she'd put in the tray and is unwilling to drop it. she gets one good sweeping look around the room before the pain starts — like something blunt has just been cracked through her temple and her entire field of vision suddenly goes a bit wonky. hazy but searingly bright at the same time, spots of multicolored light dancing about while the entire restaurant backdrop slants at an alarming axis. it hurts, it hurts so intensely that for a second she has to wonder if this is what they were doomed to endure the entire time out on this trip. it certainly feels like torture; like every neuron in her brain is melting into a barbed point, like her eyeballs might give to the building pressure behind them, like she's going to tip sideways and lay on the tiled floor in full scale convulsions.

but, stubborn as her nature, she forces herself to move a few tables away from their arrival point before absolutely giving in to the weakness of the human body against headaches. dumps her bag and weaponry onto a polyester lined seat of a booth, and bends to press her forehead to the glassy tabletop like it'd offer any cool relief.

and that's exactly where she stays for the duration of the splitting headache. shivering, retching every so often, and silently begging it to stop. this wasn't what she'd expected, and missing being gassed in the tender was not on her august bingo sheet. clarke doesn't even realize she's been magically stripped of her protective leather jacket and redressed in a red and black 1950's aesthetic from head to foot.

all that effort, ultimately nothing, because now she's dying for the next three minutes.

eventually the pain inside her skull with subside and clarke will gather her belongings, ignoring the cotton state of her tongue, try and fail to figure out where to put her gun in this tight belt and venture outside the doors to — )

ii. beep beep, is that my bestie in a tessie ( closed for natsuno & jade | the 12th )

( a blazing hot parking lot. this time she manages to rearrange her armful of personal effects enough to bring a hand up to shade her eyes against the relentless arizona sun, sets about scanning the horizon and then the neatly parked arrangement of cars. clocks the retro chevy's, thunderbirds, spyders, even a corvette and then —

oh.

sticking out like a sore thumb among sleek paintjobs, bubbled hoods, and recognizable brand symbols there sits rover 1 in all it's dusty, dinged, apocalypse weathered glory. the very sight of a vehicle from her home world — the very one she'd been riding shotgun in not that long before her death, at the end of the world with some of her most treasured people at her side, decked out in hazmat suits and scared — evokes some weird mix of longing and elation in clarke's chest. it hasn't been that long since bellamy blake disappeared from the serena eterna, and he'd been driving last time they'd tried to outrun death which... probably doesn't mean anything significant, right? the potential thematic matching up will be done later, stopping dead in her tracks with a slight gasp. natsuno's presumably behind her, they tend to walk into the jaws of death as a team, and he's going to need those vampire reflexes to avoid just outright slamming into her back. suddenly, aggressively, dropping her rucksack and digging through the miscellaneous war detritus at the bottom until she's pulling out an equally battered and ancient set of keys like a magician surprised by their own magic. )

Oh my god, it's really here.

( was being gifted cars unheard of? absolutely not. did it still feel like it held the potential to be a trick when given a nautically wrapped box of keys from your homeworld but not being able to actually look at or touch the vehicle in question? yes absolutely. but somehow the most underwhelming surprise still hits like a kid walking into a dark room, flipping on the lights, and finding the makings of a surprise party splayed out in front of them. clarke's not outright beaming, but her eyes are wide and bright, tell tale excitement right down to the way she rocks on the balls of her feet while pointing out the rover to natsuno. and can't finish a proper sentence. )

Look, that's my — do you want to — do you know how to drive?

iii. we can drive home with one headlight ( parking lot, open | the 12th )

( it's not until later, after returning from driving lessons and comedic scare tactics with jade and natsuno out in the desert, that she truly digs into the messy internal dressings of the rovers. ( a. ) alone for a moment and able to just sit in the car. looking at all the seats and imagining vestiges of her friends where they'd once been, fiddling with the audio hookup and even going so far to drag memories of the smell of cramped bodies in the cab; sweaty and dirt caked, sometimes with the tangy scent of blood that sat deep on the back of one's tongue, and the ever-present overhang of gunpowder and hydrazine.

this is basically the prompt for folks who love a mad max wannabe car to oogle the rover's grimy, dinged appearance, and be subsequently spotted by clarke through the barred windows and waved at. or accosted proper if they deign to get a little too close: opening the doors, kicking the wheels, someone please climb on the hood and touch the mini gatling gun.

or ( b | cw: mass suicide at the end of the world references are inevitable ) pass by some time later, when she's unearthed a specific set of goggles from underneath the back bench of the rover.

maybe for a second she doesn't realize what she's holding but they're instantly recognizable for clarke, and when she brushes a thumb across the reflective lens covering and feels an immediate swell of emotion lodge so tightly in the back of her throat that it hurts. first she presses the goggles to her mouth, like that'd do anything to stifle the abrupt sob that slithers past her teeth. like a parting goodbye kiss for a friend long gone. fresh hot tears well in the corners of her eyes, catch in her lashes, but eventually spill over and gather beneath her chin anyways when she drags the ancient eyewear down to the middle of her sternum and hugs it so tightly that the hard rims around the eyes bite through the fabric of her shirt and will likely leave indentations in her skin.

this should be a private moment, but the back loading door of the rover is wide open and she's not thinking about the potential of someone sticking their head in out of idle curiosity. no, she's thinking of jasper jordan, and how she never got to properly apologize or say goodbye. )

iv. life is just a bowl of cherries ( diner, open | the 13th )

( another day, another trip through the metal detector, another era appropriate outfit.

there's no denying it's hot as hell out there in the semblance of the nevada desert. even if the second day emulates much of the first and clarke spends most of her time out driving, it's inevitable that she'd return to gil's diner regularly — a sweaty, dust covered mess in need of hydration. today it's about half past noon that she pushes open the doors of the jonathan rocket's style establishment, approaches the silent version of friday behind the counter and asks for water, but loses herself in pondering aloud why the menu images of the vanilla milkshake are so big and look so good. it's a classic restaurant industry communication blunder when she's inevitable served a tall ice water, condensation thick on the glass siding of the cup, right alongside the most offensively delicious looking blended ice cream drink and the chilled metal mixing cup full of thick, beaten leftovers. clarke doesn't even get a word in edgewise about how she'd never asked for this frozen treat before friday is skating away to serve other customers, and.

what's she going to do, just let it melt? come on, she's a warlord with questionable morals and a reckless streak, but not a complete insult to the human race.

so you'll find her tucked away in booth near the door, water untouched and swiping a finger through sprinkle topped whipped cream. or like, five to ten minutes later, when she's neck deep in a horrendous brain freeze and going to start complaining her stomach hurts, because people aren't supposed to finish an entire milkshake that quickly, clarke, god.

multiple milkshakes will be consumed through out the day until she's managed to try every. single. flavor. so help me barbatos... )

v. in the backseat of your rover ( closed to pal | the 14th )

( so far, nothing outwardly atrocious has happened, and the almost serene peace that comes with driving in the desert all day is eating her alive. it's the same strange sort of suspense she'd held in her chest during the sleep away camp, only made ten times worse after ruminating for so long on what it would be that made this particular outing "a bad one". there's very rare moments — in the middle of accelerating down a twisting dusty road, yanking the wheel and watching jade and natsuno's souls metaphorically leave their bodies, or patiently but insistently demanding natsuno try flooring it while teaching him to drive, or that first sip of a strawberry milkshake, or taking in the scent of land, fake or not — where clarke feels something other than dread, but in the end it's all very second verse, same as the first.

there is a whole lot of waiting and watching. she straight up hadn't gone back to the ship last night, just sat in a vinyl covered booth seat and stared out the window, half expecting the sky to snap or ground to shudder and split. maybe caught an hour or two of sleep on the bench, slipping down just below the tabletop after heat exhaustion won out. and this afternoon of the third day is the same, save now clarke's seated low in the driver's seat of her rover and staring moodily out across the parking lot.

when's it going to start, when's it going to start, when's it g — oh, i recognize the back of that head. palamedes is presumably doing his own thing, winding through cars, and the idea of picking his brain in regards to the logistics of putting wards on the wall paneling of the rover stirs clarke to get out of her seat. feet planted on the center console between driver and passenger, and sticking her head and torso out the open sun roof to flag him down. )

Pal — hey, Pal!

vi. filling in the blanks, it's so hard to stay awake on an empty tank ( closed to jade | the 14th )

( and then it's much later the same evening. the sun has set, some of heat has faded, and while hungry, clarke has no desire to sit in the diner and spend another evening with her skin sticking to the vinyl covered seating. so she gets this meal to go, and climbs on the hood of the rover to alternate staring up at the night sky, out across the arid expanse of dry land, and maybe do a little bit of people watching. all while mulling over the inevitability of death, destruction, suffering, fear, and pain — and nibbling on a few french fries.

the parking lot is dim but lit well enough by the outpouring of florescents from the diner window that it's easy enough to see. people are still discernable by their features, gaits, clothes and hair, and when she sees jade curtiss either slipping out the door of gil's or making his way through the car park, he's one of the only people who gets a partially raised hand in greeting. it's a weird sort of bond one makes with a full grown man with a polar opposite disposition after asking him to put a white hot knife inside of you, and he actually does it. it feels a lot like... appreciation, probably respect too. and for as hard as it is to trust implicitly here, if clarke gets to pick and choose who she considers her people, jade now makes the cut.

if he feels so inclined to climb up the front grate of the rover and sit on the other side of the forward mounted mini gatling gun currently serving as a perch for her paper boat of french fries, and a support for a sweating paper cup of soda — she wouldn't stop him. nor even bat an eye. actually the second jade is close enough to be within ear shot, clarke's striking up a somber conversation. )

When we were told it was "going to be bad", I thought it'd be like the battle royale. Aggressive and violent from the very start, but this is — ( briefly she trails off, gesturing around the serene parking lot with a fry. sure, there'd been a little chaos. ebalon fired a laser somehow, there's bound to have been close calls with running people over or flipping their vehicles, but by and large... they were just all doing it again. having fun, living up the amenities offered and plenty content with paying the cost of those splitting headaches ton excersize their freedom to come and go as they pleased.

the whole lot is relatively quiet. not even the buzz of insects, just the distant roar of engines and muffled chatter within the diner. )

— this is worse. Right? It definitely doesn't feel better

vii. wildcard

( y'all know the drill with this, clarke will mostly be found driving around the desert in her rover, will absolutely stop to offer assistance if you need it or watch you do something dumb through the barred windows of her sick ride. want anything specific? hit me up at inb4circlejerk or the game discord! )

[Jade's just emerging from the diner entrance, yes, with a travel cup of hot coffee in hand. The unpleasant ache of a metaphorical icepick nailing the front of one's skull has worn off, by now, in the time it took for the area-exclusive Friday to fetch the drink; he's newly returned from a brief visit back to the ship earlier in the day, and currently intent on having another look at the area here at this later point in the evening. Any signs of possible changes, hints at whatever must surely be getting built up--the captain's bid at a recharge, for a new bout of experiments. Three entire days of this place being accessible has yielded positively nothing so far, in the way of...any particularly notable event, yet Jade remains convinced this won't be all there is to it. ...For all that pausing to take a cursory sweeping glance of the quiet parking lot, just outside the diner entrance, yields utterly nothing of interest to--

--Oh, no, hold on. There, off to the side--shrouded somewhat in the gloom of evening, a small distance away from the pool of lights pouring from the windows of the diner, but the silhouette becomes discernible with a proper look focused that way. Clarke's rover continues to cut a rough contrast against the smaller and sleeker frames of the other vehicles peppered about the lot, and Jade's eye is drawn by the hand that waves from a form atop the hood, settled beside the mini gatling gun mounted upon it. ...Quite easy enough to guess who that might be, now isn't it? And besides. ...Not as if he's about to be up to anything else particularly important in this place for the immediate future, by the looks of things...

A small and idle wave back, in acknowledgment, is soon followed by the distance being closed at a similarly idle pace. The diner mop closet has tossed him out in more casual wear this time around, on top of tying his hair back to evidently better complement the look, and while Jade is still rather put out by the lack of sleeves...well, it at least suits the climate outdoors well enough, fairly warm even in the cooler bent of evening here and now. The overall cut of the clothing is more agreeable all around too, seeing as how these shorts are at least not nearly so atrociously short as they were at the camp? ...And the socks are alright, sure, as needs must. All such details grow less relevant in the thin lighting of night, of course, though it's a notably casual contrast against the teal uniform Jade still prefers to wear more often than not aboard the ship all the same...

To be fair, though, the atmosphere here and now really is the epitome of casual in itself--or at least, as casual as anything can be, when there's a perpetual background sense of mutually waiting for the proverbial second shoe to drop. Clarke's form atop the rover solidifies as he draws near: her perch on the hood, and the food and drink also precariously perched atop the weapon of war at her elbow...such an utterly teenaged sort of haunt to take up, at a glance, with the inevitable irony it draws against the perfectly serviceable chairs and tables for dining in the building literally a few dozen yards away. Yet she speaks up as soon as he's close enough to hear, and the contents of the words quite promptly shatter the illusion--this, too, not so surprising.

Jade's chuckles dryly, as he draws to a halt in front of the rover.]

No, it really doesn't feel better, does it? There's always quite a difference, after all--between swiftly driving a blade through a heart, and carving out a path with slow shallow cuts instead...

[You know, the conventional definition of something torturous, as it were. Hm--] Or, well, in this case. I guess it's actually more like having the knife being pointed your way, and not yet being sure exactly where it's going first. Even more unpleasant, in that sense. --My, you certainly make that look comfortable up there! Would you mind me joining you?

[The question is leveled with exactly as much idle cheer as the awful metaphors had been laid out with mere moments prior--you know, as he does. The front grate of the rover's certainly robust enough to offer ready footholds for a small climb; there's perhaps something slightly surprisingly nimble, even, in the way Jade manages to lever himself up onto the hood one-handed, coffee cup still upheld, movements measured and meticulous even in this sort of completely inconsequential undertaking.

Sure, he probably could have just settled for leaning back against the front of the rover instead, or something more dignified like that...but also, it'd be impossible to steal any of Clarke's fries at all, from such a position?? Incidentally, just a bit of fry-theft may or may not be extremely casually happening now that he's settling on the other side of the gatling gun, but don't worry about that--]

Edited (wait i can actually count days i swear) 2022-08-14 00:28 (UTC)

( he's more than welcome to climb up and join her, which is indicated with a slight jerk of her chin even as jade's already begun to climb. after all, clarke had been the one to summon him over, to pick at his brain in a manner at least a little less painfully than the metal detector had a habit of doing. and maybe it would have lent to the overall aesthetic of a respectable adult for him to keep both feet on the ground and just causally lean, but with those socks already ruining it....

what is far less welcome here is fry theft. but she'd been looking at his face, perpetually disconcerted by the smooth, impenetrable sheen of casual fascination and ease, where somber frowns felt better fitting for the dire straits they were keying up to discuss. yanno, the likelihood their own impending torturous deaths? and sufficiently distracted, mouth already parting to ask after his take on this reality's set dressings, she's a fraction of a second too slow to snatch her snack back. jade's already managed to make off with a few french fries by the time clarke's fingers brush the edge of the stiff paper boat, possessive and a little miffed. not shy about clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth, and giving a four second glare — but ultimately doesn't mention it.

the diner is right there, and he just left it. coulda gotten your own fries, old man. ~~is this a dad tax?~~ if he tries again, there will be hand slaps. )

Still. The knife's gotta land eventually. Do you think our anxiety counts as suffering as much as actually dying?

grips ur shoulder...it's ok, twinks have many fans too--

fonomena - 2022-09-07 20:10 (UTC) - Expand

coins the term "tag twink" for myself

skaikru - 2022-09-08 07:14 (UTC) - Expand

There's probably very little reason Darcy wouldn't be avoiding Clarke after their last encounter. It was just... a mess of too many feelings and too much honesty. Exemplary of the reason why nobody actually wants to be able to read minds.

Darcy had half an eye on the mad max looking jeep thing in the parking lot when she was first inspecting the other vehicles, figured it belonged to someone like the Bentley and most of the other not-60's vehicles. Clarke probably wasn't her first guess for the owner, but that's... definitely the sound of Clarke sobbing from inside it now as she goes past.

Darcy lingers at the door, trying to figure out if she should say anything. Almost definitely long enough for Clarke to notice.

Long enough for Clarke to notice ends up being... kind of a long time. Not hours or anything, not even ten minutes, but a solid five in which Darcy gets to languish out in the insufferable heat of the Nevada sun and listen to the ugly, snot-thick sniffs and choked back sobbing of someone in active mourning. Inside the Rover isn't any cooler, but compare the heat of this faux world to the flames of hell, and grieving sinners get comfortable in it really quick; every ounce of discomfort feels righteous, and sweat goes right along with the tears spilling from her eyes.

It's ultimately her shadow that gives her away. Clarke buckles back an ounce of the sorrow, slides her fingers across her cheeks (which does nothing to obscure the ruddy flush of crying, and actually just smears more dirt along her face), and has just covered her mouth with her own palm when the stretch of dark across sand in the doorway of the Rover catches her eyes. Oh. Maybe it ought to be embarrassing, being caught red-handedly emotional and weak in a moment of home-world nostalgia, but being able to feel anything other than the crushing weight of loss would require way more mental capability than she has right now.

Admittedly, she's greaser-style blind. Sort of assumes it's Natsuno in all his James Dean glory returned for another set of donuts in the desert, or because super sensory powers heard her crying from a mile away. But when Clarke picks herself up and sticks her head outside the loading doors, it's only Darcy. And that triggers a whole new wave of crippling emotion that she can't quite put her finger on the origin of. It's probably a whole lot of everything, special mention to their last conversation, and specifically the mention of her failures at friendship while still clutching Jasper Jordan's goggles to her chest.

Clarke's mouth opens like she's about to say something, maybe blurt out an explanation or just wail. But then her jaw closes again, with an audible clicks of her teeth meeting. She steps down the drop from Rober bed to dusty ground, and — after a few years practice, it's not hard to bear the negative weight hanging around her neck like a noose yet to be tightened. Her composure gradually begins to button back up, as she gestures to the vehicle they're stationed besides.

"Hi, Darcy. Do you like my car?"

It's a slow rebuttoning, though. Clarke still sounds absolutely wrecked. Can they just pretend nothing happened? Always, about everything?

Darcy... huffs a weak laugh when Clarke tries to act as if she wasn't just sobbing her eyes out alone in the car. It's an instinct she can relate to, and... well, honestly, Darcy also wants to pretend like that whole conversation never happened. Finding out from the truth effects that she had a crush was frankly not even the most embarrassing part of it. So... she'll go along with it, squish the desire to ask what's wrong down a little deeper.

"Yeah, it's pretty sick," she offers, sounding tired, giving the Rover a small pat, "this is yours?"

Nice, safe territory to navigate.

valiantly resists the urge to reference milkshake by kelis

tfw the tl needs a 2/2

tl powers just too thicc for the dw comment character limit smh......

tl powers thicc, timely tagback powers stick-thin smh

iii b

no subject

no subject

iiib hi yeah im here for sad

all sad, 25/8

no subject

Drive her own car, she don't need no Lyft

no subject

no subject

iv. what's (milk)shakin

no subject

no subject

V.

no subject

no subject