revivalproject | Calibrations Waiting Room Mingle

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Calibrations Waiting Room Mingle

WHO: ALL HE ROWS
WHERE: The Secret Tunnel, which has become the Calibrations Waiting Room (or was it always...?)
WHAT: Mingle log for literally anything you'd like to take place in the waiting room between sleep cycles during the event
WHEN: June 3 - July 10
WARNINGS: Please mark individual threads with warnings

For those that have heeded Ga Re's warning, the door within the secret tunnel - which looks suspiciously like the hatch to one of your shuttles - is wide open, waiting for you. You walk through... and the door behind you disappears. You’re now standing in a cavernous, cold, white waiting room. There are hallways leading off the main corridor with names above each. One of them has your name and will draw you toward it, inevitably.

And on the wall, in pink, running letters is written this single greeting:

‘Welcome to Calibrations’.

The secret tunnel has become a large waiting room with chairs, tables, and the same food dispensers available in the shuttles. There are also communal bathrooms - one for each gender - with several toilet stalls and shower stalls in each, including basic shampoo and soap dispensers, like you might find in a hotel. The water isn’t hot, so hopefully you don’t mind lukewarm showers. Somehow, at least, it never goes cold.

Branching off the main waiting room room are the labeled hallways. At the end of each short hallway is a door, with the same character’s name written on them. Anyone can enter any room, regardless of the name written on it. Everyone has their own room, though of course people can share. Each room has a simple bed (approximately queen-sized) and a set of drawers.

You can opt to spend time in your room or in the larger, common waiting room. (And if you do, you can thread it out here!) But every 16 hours, you'll feel a compulsion: You need to sleep. Right now. You find yourself going into your room (or someone else's, if you really want). But you’re drawn to the bed. You can’t help but lie down. And then, you fall asleep.

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"Displeased?" Tony repeated, not sure how Reeve got there. "No, he can...use all of the batteries and fine motor skills you want." That wasn't what Reeve was responding to. Tony tugged Mini up to stand on his lap instead, one hand on him to keep him balanced but free to go wherever he wanted if he was sensing that Tony was displeased as well. "I just didn't think that he...What would he say?" he asked. And how much of it was he already telling Reeve, but that one had already gotten Tony into a bit of trouble.

"Whatever he wants. Cait Sith was quite the talker. He posed as a fortune teller for a while. But I think the first thing Mini-C would do was lecture me."

And there's a nod of agreement from Mini, a hand settling on his hip while his paw comes up to waggle at Reeve.

"He's a person, Tony. He has his own thoughts and feelings."

"I do know...that," Tony muttered, not nearly confident enough. Not that he wasn't very aware that Mini clearly was processing and reacting to everything around him, but with the depth of having a separate and cohesive enough identity from Reeve to lecture him, that part was a surprise. He gave Mini a small, apologetic pat for thinking and treating him like a strange accessory at first, and rather like a baby more recently, not sure how much of that he would have expressed his appreciation for if he had the ability to do so. The performance still did make Tony snicker, though, how could Reeve blame him for thinking of Mini like a puppet?, and he asked, "And what exactly do you have such a strong opinion about? He's working too much and not paying attention to you? I know, I could use some attention, too."

Well, clearly Mini would LIKE a mouth so he could go off, and even starts to turn to Tony as if to pantomime. Which earns wide eyes from Reeve and the man's hand snatching out to pinch an ear.

"That is between us," Reeve chides Mini. "It's not his concern."

Mini whacks at Reeve's hand with a paw, and Reeve releases him. The two share a stare down for a moment before Mini just shrugs for Tony. Like 'see what I have to deal with?'

"The longer the magic is sustained, the more distinct the personality," Reeve continues, patting the cat on his head. "And while Mini isn't as vocal as his brother, he's far less sassy. And more of a worrier over me. It happens to all of us. But he worries about a lot of people here. Like you, and his big brother Cayde."

The whole performance left Tony frozen in mild shock, leaning back out of the way and eyebrows raised, mostly surprised by Reeve's pinch and pretty sure he hadn't seen the guy move that fast before. Now that the energy was all wrong in the room and Tony was eyeing Reeve like he was a different person, trying to figure out how hard the pinch was and what anyone had to do to work him up enough to find out, he didn't know how to bring the conversation back to life. The hesitation was gone the moment Reeve mentioned Cayde, though, like Tony completely forgot what was happening to brighten enthusiastically and prompt, "You've seen him?" Of all people, Reeve had to understand Tony's suffering. He clasped a hand over his heart and fell listlessly back onto the bed, eyes rolling closed with a groan, like Reeve had just mentioned his teen heartthrob.

"Mini and I met him when we returned to Temba as a group. He also helped me when Mini got trapped once. Mini has declared the man his brother. His... function is so amazing."

yes, he's a touch jealous of that design. For a moment he chuckles as he watches Tony, and there, at last, is that soft fondness he tended to look at Tony with. Finally back.

"You are so jealous of his technology, aren't you? Silly man."

Emphatically to the ceiling, hands up and twisting, Tony declared, "I don't even know what I'm jealous of. I've never seen anything like him. He's perfect. Almost--" Sitting up on an elbow enough then to meet Reeve's eye again, he asked, "Do you know, he thinks he still has a human brain? I don't even know if he was serious. I don't know anything about him." Collapsing back again, Tony covered his face, another groan, because that wasn't true, he knew Cayde was impulsive and cocky and sarcastic and definitely going to get him killed, if not by breaking his heart then without a doubt in an explosion. But Tony didn't know how any part of him worked, and Cayde didn't seem keen to find out, either. Into his hands, Tony moaned, "I've never felt so inadequate and horny. Is that normal? I thought only engines could do that to me."

Tony Stark, literally just like that. Reeve can't help but laugh.

"First, it's weird to compare a man to an engine, but it's accurate enough so yes, I can understand how that would be normal to you. Second, the more you open your mouth, the more you remind me of my twenties."

Yes yes, call him old.

Tony's mournful whining broke easily into a chuckle. With a delicate hand to his heart, holding it for tenderest honesty, he replied, "First, it is the highest of honours. And second." He sat up on his hands to flash Reeve a dangerous grin, threatening the most devastating of ageist slander, only to lie flagrantly, "You wish you were half as fun as I am at twenty-seven." That was about as low as he thought he could get away with, and he squinted at Reeve with his tongue between his teeth, daring him to challenge it. "I'd bet you were still working on a doctorate and banging on the walls when the undergrads got rowdy."

Oh really, they're playing at this game? Reeve reaches out, his fingers gentle as they lingered at the faintest hint of lines around Tony's eyes.

"You're most definitely not twenty-seven, my friend. You're older than that. I'd say, what, early thirties as the absolute best. And I'll have you know I don't have a doctorate, just a Masters. Programs don't go higher than that in what I do. And I have a few. Architecture, electrical engineering, civil engineering, city planning... I was a bit... eager when I was young. But I was in the workforce by twenty-two."

He was a prodigy, and a master in his fields. "I was a bit of a hassle when I first accepted a job with Shinra. I grew out of it."

"The absolute best?" Tony hissed, looking genuinely stricken for a moment and clearly calculating the cost of a few cosmetic procedures the moment he had access to them. A few months without his skincare routine was taking its toll, he had just died, please--Tony slapped the hand away, nose wrinkled for being put through that existential crisis.

Not convinced his assessment had been that wrong, Tony sniffed, "You seem like a consummate academic," but that could have just been the way Reeve spoke and reminded Tony of more than a few professors. He didn't have a good vision of what 'a bit of a hassle' could mean, though, and slowly grinned, eyebrows raising expectantly. "Mr. Tuesti, who's daughter did you knock up?" he tried.

Now Reeve DEFINITELY look horrified. Not at the academic thing. He can live with that.

"I haven't gotten anyone pregnant. I was always careful with women. It would be disrespectful to do that. I may have enjoyed parties and easy sex, but that doesn't mean I wanted to leave someone in a family way, Tony."

Did he really think so little of Reeve? The man is almost offended. Almost. But not really. He sighs and shakes his head, watching Tony carefully. He looks so... light.

"Besides, you well know that I'm not all academics. I've got practical skills as well. Through rigorous, hands on practice. Not that they get used often."

Finally, something that seemed to make Reeve squirm that wasn't his little companion. Tony narrowed his eyes, tongue pressed to a canine as he watched Reeve's reaction with an open grin and slow nod, clearly thinking this was a very impassioned defense to mount for an innocent man without having to openly quote the Shakespeare. Would that have been a reference Reeve got? Note to ask later. Reeve didn't even have alternatives for Tony of his bad behaviour, letting Tony wonder how careful he really could have been. Tony was careful, too; that didn't mean his decision making skills were great when he was shitfaced, which was most of the time when he was 'enjoying parties'. It didn't necessarily take landing the wrong gal in a 'family way' to create a scandal. "I'm sure you got plenty of hands on practice then," he prodded, cocking his head with a smile that was unconvincingly innocent. "And maybe designed some buildings, too."

“I seem to remember you lacking complaint about my hands on experience,” Reeve counters with a touch of amusement. It had seemed enough for the other man. Or perhaps they had both just been too long since an encounter.

“And I designed more than a few buildings. A whole city actually.”

Defensive hand to his heart, Tony asked, "Did I sound like I was complaining?" He would never cast such aspersions on someone's generously shared talents, he was merely acknowledging a storied history that earned him the fruits of Reeve's labour. And he would have apologized thoroughly for the offense, but was easily distracted to brightly infer, "The stilt city," with a grin that faded almost as quickly as it came on. He had lost his chance to pursue the subject last time, but found himself unavoidably reminded why and didn't need Reeve's thoughts going there, too. Quickly, he snaked an arm around Reeve's to tug him closer, into the distracting warmth of Tony's press against his shoulder and breath against his ear as Tony asked, "Is that what you're working on?" They had a whole city in need of some professional attention right here.

See, Reeve was absolutely going to talk about Midgar and his hopes for Temba. Except, you know, then the man is pulling Reeve close and it’s nice. Nice and warm and it hurts in a way. He pulls away from the words said so close.

Don’t cause his heart to race, Tony. It isn’t fair.

“I am used to rebuilding broken things.” Himself and his heart included. “This city is broken so that is what I’m working on. Midgar has already fallen.”

Edited 2020-06-07 19:03 (UTC)

That backfired. With a frown, Tony pressed both his hands back into the bed, dropping his ear toward his shoulder to lean away as Reeve drew back, and muttered, "Sorry," for reminding Reeve about what he had left back home again. Shifting his tension, Tony freed a hand to pat sympathetically up Reeve's back then squeeze his close shoulder, not sure what about this situation didn't remind him of a hollowed out city. Being trapped underground by some sadistic aliens, maybe. "You could be thinking of this as a vacation," he offered with a knowing smile, sure that Reeve had a poor understanding of the word and he would have been working at his sketches while laid up with in a sunhat with a pina colada, never mind in a clinical storm cellar. "Maybe...work on something you love," Tony suggested, plucking up one of the pencils that had fallen from the bundle he carried in to indicate the other sketchbook.

It wasn’t Midgar. It wasn’t even the rest of everything. It was that touch, so familiar. So wonderful. It wasn’t being reminded of the place he lost but something else entirely.

“This is practice. I have no issues with the work here, Tony. It will be nice. And I don’t mind working on Mini either. I just...”

Honesty. That was something Tony deserved, wasn’t it?

“I would be happy to tell you of Midgar and anything you want. I just ask you not use me as a pillow. The last thing I desire is Jon wandering in here to ask me something and thinking I was attempting to seduce you.”

Tony had mouthed 'nice' with a skeptical smirk, definitely not the way he saw the indentured servitude, but it was gone quickly, along with Tony's hand, the moment Reeve asked him to back off. Complete backfire. Bracing his hands safely behind him again where they couldn't get anywhere they weren't welcome, Tony sucked his lip between his teeth then muttered, "Wouldn't want that." Not sure what to do with himself now, not sure what he was doing here at all if they weren't getting along as well as Tony felt they had been and wondering how badly he had misread Reeve in such a short amount of time, Tony searched the room for his place in it only to realize he hadn't been invited in the first place. With a glance to the sketchbook he had brought back, he easily produced a hard smile and accepted, "Right," of course he had done his job, anything for the work, and rolled up to his feet, not about to overstay his welcome anymore. "Let me know if you run into any more roadblocks," he said.

“I will,” Reeve agrees, reaching out and scooping Mini into his arms as if the doll could protect him.

Only then does he look at his friend, but without expression. A very guarded look.

“I need to apologize for my behavior at the hospital that day. If I had known that you and Jon were... dancing around each other, I would have behaved differently. Both of you are good men who deserved better than my even unknowing meddling.”

Because from what he’d heard from Jon, the two men had been... well, Reeve hates to realize that he had made it awkward for everyone else.

That wasn't helping, and left Tony desperate for something to occupy his hands, one crawling up his chest to clutch over his heart and the other tucking purposefully into his pocket to pick at the loose threads there. This was the ludicrous interpretation that Tony could not follow the logic of: that Reeve was apologizing for Tony's fucking around on a relationship that Reeve himself could best define as 'dancing around', and every element of that sent a unique shock of self-resentment up Tony's spine, making him coil defensively against Reeve in case he had any more news about how Tony had been manipulating all of them. Somehow worse: that Reeve was letting him know how much he regretted getting involved at all.

"No apologies necessary. You're right, I should..." Tony didn't even know where to start with how he should have been behaving, knowing full well he was entirely capable of making the conscious decision not to hopefully cultivate either of their attention, not to respond when they invited him closer and not to take a drink when he was the one who had brought it to his lips. He spread his hand flat over his chest with a pat, suggesting he should maybe keep them to himself, that would have been a start, to think a little more clearly about what they were doing here. "Focus," he eventually landed on with a smile. Reeve was having no trouble getting the work done, and at best Tony had been distracting him from it. He had been on this ruined planet for months now. What did he have to show for it?

Geez, Reeve's making this a world more awkward, isn't he? Of course he is.

"I still want to be your friend, Tony. I just need a little bit more time to get over you so I can act like a mature man and not a love-struck idiot. Can you give me that? Just a little time to get my head on straight so I can smile and be supportive and friendly and comforting without just wanting to be petulant and possessive of someone I have no right to?"

Yep, tall order, he knows. But they're smart men and this place needs smart men like them if they ever want to get home. So just, well, give him a chance to get smart again.

That was Reeve acting like a love-struck idiot? He was worse than Steve; at least his idiocy came out in bursts of misplaced anger and melancholy that the women he was barely paying attention to had to tell him off for before shoving him back into the Mansion for Tony to deal with. Reeve was so closed off that Tony heard himself saying, "How was I supposed to know?" even as he processed that Reeve's doting kindness was his idiocy, and Tony's heart could have collapsed. He didn't want to give Reeve that. His fist had slowly curled again and Tony swayed where he was, at a loss, Reeve's instructions to keep his distance very clear but unsure how else to express himself. "I'd...give you anything," he eventually managed, gaze to the floor then darting back to the sketchbook, not exactly regretting laying out his heart in it but not sure what else he had to give after that. What Reeve was asking of him, of course. Chancing it with his shoulder to Reeve, facing more toward the door than to whatever further rejection Reeve might have for him testing the boundary, he asked, "Do you really want that?"

"How were you... Tony, are you so unused to someone being enamored with you, to someone being affectionate with you, that you couldn't see it?"

And if so, he pitied felt bad, because Tony deserved that love in his life. After a moment he released Mini, and the feline just shook its head because it didn't understand people.

"What I want is already spoken for, isn't it?"

The only possible answer Tony could give for his ignorance was a small, apologetic shrug, unable to articulate in any way that could make sense to someone who didn't even know who he was what it was like to spend most of his life sealed behind the armor, desperately hating the isolation that came with it at times and eagerly retreating into it at others, leaving him enchanted at every touch that didn't mean nearly the same to anyone who gave it. He had no idea what that looked like, every time he was sure he saw it he was left abandoned to a cold morning in an empty bed with another engagement ring to shove into the back of a drawer.

He didn't have a better answer for Reeve's next question, but his shoulders dropped with a sigh as he rolled his head back and he admitted, "I don't know," then tried another smile. How Jon felt about him was Tony's secret to jealously guard, not something he wanted Reeve to be so close to knowing, but he didn't know if that made him committed to anything. It would be gone soon enough. "I've had the incredible fortune for so many years to be surrounded by the most magnificent people..." The smile was gone and Tony dropped his head forward again, unable to explain that either. This affection he had earned from either of these men was false from the start; Tony hadn't shared a fraction of himself yet, and didn't think he was any closer to doing so, even if it meant he could better explain how he knew he would be falling in love all over again in the morning. "You're beautiful. I wish I had more time," he finally said, managing to meet Reeve's eye.

Calibrations Waiting Room Mingle

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