INTERMISSION

[piper90npcs]

Who: Everyone
What: Sudden Plot Break
Where: The Rig
When: Post-Pathless Woods 2
Warnings/Notes: n/a

The world... glitches. The last second repeats itself once, twice, four times, and then the colors stretch and blur, like an old television set that's losing the signal. Then everything goes black.

And suddenly, light. Bright, glaring. The smells rush back, the harsh bleach anti-septic of the Rig. And the noises are almost painful as total silence slams back into the normal workings of Piper 90.

Blinking owlishly, surprised and looking a little uncertain, is a middle-management type. His suit doesn't quite fit, half a size too large, and he's used too much hairspray. Or maybe that's just cologne. Either way, he smiles brightly. "Well, welcome back! Well done and congratulations on the success of your missions. We had some drones at a safe distance, purely for security reasons of course, and we were very pleased with how you handled yourselves. Especially the way you, uh." He pauses and checks his clipboard. The bit he wants to reference is just a smear of ink, the printer must have had an accident of some kind. The best he can read is... "Benedicted that whole cumberbatch issue."

There. He beams, pleased with his translation. It makes no sense, but if he pretends it does, then maybe they won't ask questions.

"Now, we're certain you've had a rough day doing... that thing that you did. So we've authorized an extra serving of dessert for everyone and the rest of today off. You have half of tomorrow off, too. But don't worry about the working half! I'm told that Mister Planker has a special reward in store, so it'll practically be a full vacation day for you!"

Comments

[wheyoftheadept]

((context: continuing from here))

Saturday's lungs seize as soon as her eyes open and she finds herself doubled over, coughing in the back as if to expel - nothing? There's nothing there. Where is she? Not dead, okay, that's good. She clutches her arms - her dry arms - runs a hand through her dry hair. She was drowning. A second ago, she was drowning.

There's a wall behind her. She reaches out to touch it and then leans against it, shaking. The place reeks of rust and oil. Got to be the rig. The ground beneath her feet trembles with the groan of metal. There's a horrible little weasel man pretending to give a shit. None of this makes sense, but here it is, and it's real, and it's not drowning in a river, so...

"What the fuck?" Saturday says, quietly and very upset.

[credit_not_blame]

"Whoa, hey."

Stacia moves to provide cover while Saturday collapses against the wall to catch her breath. She's feeling wild around the eyes too, but helping's a good distraction from the urge to start screaming and tearing at the people around her.

"Took the words right out of my mouth," she mutters. "You good?"

[wheyoftheadept]

"I - think so?" Saturday's throat is raw, or feels like it should be. She isn't entirely sure what's real and what isn't. "I mean, if this is the afterlife, just - fuck."

She clenches her fist hard. "What's the last thing you remember?"

[credit_not_blame]

"Isn't my afterlife, that's for sure," Stacia says. "I've never been personally, but I haven't done anything worth getting a Douchebags In Suits version of Werewolf Hell."

She snorts, scanning the room for anything that might give them a clue to what the fuck happened to get them here. "You mean before the world glitched out like a bad video game? Getting slammed into a tree by a flood of water thanks to the 'Demon Princess' or whatever. Didn't care for it."

[wheyoftheadept]

"About the same." Saturday grimaces. "Guts had me, water pulled me under - shit. I think I was drowning. Fuck."

She gulps air, suddenly very aware of the working of her lungs. "Oh, I do not like this place."

It's a fervent, terrified understatement. This is her first - death? Would she have died? She'll never know, now.

Maggie's done this twice. No wonder she's changed.

[credit_not_blame]

"Well, that's traumatic," Stacia says. "Upside: you are not currently drowning. Yaaaaay. Unfortunately, that's all I've got. Well, that and reassuring physical contact and a fervent agreement that this place is literally the worst."

[wheyoftheadept]

"Fucking goddamn right it is." She shudders under Stacia's hand, and straightens. "I'm gonna - go up top for some fresh air. Fucking christ."

[credit_not_blame]

Stacia pats Saturday's shoulder and then pulls her hand away to offer her a hand up.

"Do you want company or do you want space?"

[wheyoftheadept]

"Space, for now."

She takes the helping hand with a warm squeeze, so Stacia doesn't feel rejected. "'Preciate the offer, though."

[credit_not_blame]

Stacia squeezes Saturday's hand as well before letting go and making shooing motions.

"All right then, go on, get. I'll let you know if anyone says anything actually important here."

[garmr]

The last thing Guts remembered was the shock of real fear as Saturday slipped out of the grip of his false hand. In the split seconds he'd watched her go under, his first instinct screamed at him to leap into the river of detritus to get her. He was winked out of the flood before he could make the call.

What the fuck is right. None of this makes any sense at all. He fucking hates it, he's totally disoriented, and looks primed to snarl something he'd regret at the chattering rat of a man until he hears a familiar voice.

She was here. They were all here. The anger evaporates and is replaced with a deep, sinking relief as he sees her. It isn't often looks so shaken. All he can think to do is try to reach out to touch her shoulder as a gesture of support - with his good hand, this time.

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday reaches up to cover the hand on her shoulder, the one she recognizes instinctively. If she wasn't freaking all the way out, she might take a moment to wonder at how quickly she's apparently decided that Guts is part of her people, safe, allowed to touch her without warning.

"You better not be a hallucination," is all she says, instead.

[garmr]

"Sure hope not. That might make us both hallucinations," he retorts. He even manages a cheeky little grin, belying the relief swimming inside him.

Well, he doesn't know what the hell just happened, or why they're here, but the important things were also here with him, so he settles down some. Why was it always water that was so much trouble, anyway?

[wheyoftheadept]

"If the Stuff works the way it might, we could all be hallucinations," Saturday jokes back. "That's the kinda thing keeps me up nights."

She turns and leans up against the wall fully, crossing her arms. "What's the last thing you remember? The flood?"

[garmr]

"Yeah."

The less pleasant topic of conversation.

"Rushing water, and then you disappearing beneath it," he touches the the point where the flesh of his arm meets iron. Saturday slipping through his fingers had stirred something in him that he didn't want to think about.

"Suddenly we're here now, though. The hell is that all about?"

[wheyoftheadept]

"Dunno. Educated guess, the Stuff is behind this. But the memory loss..." She looks at her hands, which don't show even a trace of her struggles, even though she remembers the sting in her palms, the ache of nails torn off against stone. It's healed, all of it - or it never happened. "Don't like that. Not at all. It even looks like time has passed, see?"

Then she looks up at him, her face softening.

"It was the damn cart knocked me off kilter. Wasn't your fault."

[garmr]

He notices that look in her eyes. Was he so easily read? Guts shakes off the worry in his face, crossing his arms. He's fine. Everything is fine.

"Guess I should be thankful that I don't remember swimming against the current in armor."

NEVER AGAIN, he told himself. And yet here he was, totally ready to leap into a flood with more metal on him than before.

"What about that wound you had? On your leg?"

[wheyoftheadept]

"Dude, you'd better not have. That just makes two bodies, you know that." She says it absently, lightly scolding, the way you would a buddy who's getting lax on caring for his gear.

She pulls up her pantsleg in response to his second question, checking for the first time. It's not gone, but it's - smaller, paler. Less throbbing with its own malignant life. Gone dormant.

"...better, I guess?"

[garmr]

Guts takes the gentle admonishing in stride, even managing a cheeky grin for her. He might have. Knowing himself, he very well might have.

Upon taking a look at her leg, he manages to be a bit more optimistic than on the road.

"Well, it doesn't look infected. Why not ask Emily to take a look later?"

[wheyoftheadept]

"Probably smart," she says, and straightens up. She looks him over. "How are you doing?"

[garmr]

He blinks back at her, not expecting the question.

"...I'm fine. No broken bones or anything. Just wonderin' what the hell happened."

He rubs his temple a bit, as if nursing a budding headache. At least all the action took his mind off the hound.

[wheyoftheadept]

"Yeah, me too." Saturday clenches her fist in her clothes, briefly. "Wish I could get a fuckin' drink around here... I'm gonna go look for Emily, all right? See you back at the room?" It's a question asked under the assumption that he has things to do, but not one that implies she'd mind company.

[garmr]

He grumbles in agreement. A drink sounds pretty fucking good right about now.

"I can go with you. There's somethin' I gotta ask her, anyway."

About his arm, going by the way he traced the cannon's iron grooves with his thumb. Cart or not, having to choose between weapon and a functioning hand isn't ideal.

[wheyoftheadept]

"C'mon, then. Maybe Emily can whip us up something with her weird tech shit if we ask real nice." Saturday sets off, hands in her pockets.

[turntex]

[It's wildly unnerving. One second in the middle of unicorn hunting shenanigans, the next just back here with no explanation. He's gotten knocked out before, he knows what that feels like, and it's nothing like this weird glitch in reality. It's like he's missing time – a fucky enough thought to begin with for him of all people – but it's not just him. He can feel it even without asking anyone or extrapolating from everyone's confused faces. That time just isn't there. Not forgotten, just...bizarrely, impossibly, misplaced somehow.

In the middle of this random debriefing room back on the rig, Dave conveys this worrying thought with his typical eloquence.]

What.

[Dry, flat, not even a question at this point. He knows better than to expect answers.]

[heterochrocatic]

[ Catra has been sitting there, stiff and uncomfortable ever since they got back. It feels uncomfortably like something she has experienced before--the portal and it's ever-changing realities. She swallows, her claws digging into the cheap plastic seating of her chair. As Dave speaks, she looks over to him with a grimace. ]

Fuck if I know.

[turntex]

[The actual response, unhelpful though it may be, seems to snap him out of that stiff disbelief, and Dave drops unceremoniously into another of the shitty plasticky chairs.]

I don't even have the energy to address how fucked this is. I need a sub. Someone else play time god today, I'm calling out sick.

[heterochrocatic]

[ Catra looks like she feels about the same as Dave. She slumps down into her chair with a low, unhappy groan. Her whole body is trembling as adrenaline begins to leech out of her bloodstream. ]

Fuck this. Fuck them. What the fuck?