Calibrations Waiting Room Mingle

[trpmods]

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.

Comments

[in_extremis]

Why did no one agree with him about Poe's pirate thing? Someone else had to see it, maybe someone else who had watched enough Star Trek to see the dashing space rogue. All of these alien cultures had terrible cultural touchstones, they couldn't be reasoned with. With the glasses against his palm again, Tony gingerly touched Jon's fingertips with a flutter of anxiety changing the beat under his palm, but didn't tug them away, only nudged between his knuckles like he meant to arrange them nonchalantly. The work jumped as Tony started to chuckle again and asked, enchanted by this outline Jon was sketching for him, "What kind of pub was this?" The kind of offers young Jon must have been getting while dolled up in a bar didn't sound like they came with a contract. "I'm sorry I missed your big debut. You could have been a kept man all this time. Hey, you could be the entertainment-- that'll keep you occupied."

[beholding_archivist]

Jon watches Tony's fingers against his own and peers up at the man's laugh, smiling softly but not without the hint of a smirk and the slightest tilt of the head indicating a shrug "The locations changed. Pubs were one thing - Just imagine a regular pub. But I was also dragged to small events and- Whatever paid. I believe most of the group hoped to get into the arts. Me? I just could sing, yell at a room of drunk strangers and pretend to hold an instrument. Trust me, it was dreadful." And yet for once it was nice to talk about something other than monsters and things that wanted him dead.

"Though I'm afraid I must reject your offer to serve as general entertainment for the assembled souls." Jon notes with his eyes back to where his hand rests on Tony's chest, his index finger drawing faint circles where it lies without the rest of his palm moving. "I'm good with entertaining you."

[in_extremis]

"Wait--" As interested as Tony was in all of the ways Jon could be entertaining him, this one took precedence, enough to have him tipping Jon back onto the bed to brace himself up and stare down at him, ecstatic. Up until now, he had been picturing 'space pirates' as some kind of weird play act, maybe very misguided sketch comedy at an open mic night, he hadn't really made the connection that the venue must have meant a musical event. "Was this some kind of Bowie cover band?" he asked, and ruffled Jon's hair up to help form the image for himself which was already thoroughly in place, and this did the opposite of helping. Still, this was an exciting enough concept to him that he bounced up onto his knees again, saying, "And they paid you for it? I would have given anything to be able to go full Johnny Rotten and break bottles over my head when I was in school, I couldn't even do that shit outside of the workshop. I already had a gig lined up. You didn't want to do that?"

[beholding_archivist]

Oof. And he had just gotten comfortable...

Jon blinks up at Tony in momentary irritation, but that excited expression the man gives him- Well, fine. He may have no choice but to forgive. The question makes him chuckle, but also shake his head "Don't worry. We had our own songs. As I said: Most of the group hoped to turn this into a career. It just... It wasn't what I wanted to do with my life?" It's a truth. A truth followed by a second truth, delivered with a single, raised index finger "Besides, you start breaking bottles in a pub, and you will be the first they toss out. Part of the entertainment group or not."

[in_extremis]

At this age, it was obvious that leading a punk band was not a productive career choice, but Tony couldn't imagine having any degree of success at it when he was sixteen, restless and bored with his thesis, and thinking it wasn't really for him. The car crash probably would have taken a lot of the fun out of it, in hindsight. Jon probably had that kind of clarity, too, and now Tony really was sorry he had missed that phase of his, it wasn't sounding like he was eager to make a comeback and Tony could fully understand making inappropriate offers if Jon was shouting at him in a leather jacket. "Your friends sound awesome," he pointed out. "You've been holding out on me. What other incredibly sexy adventures were you getting into before you settled down in your old age? Did you discover a star while in school? Were you the TA that carried a ruler just to be kind of threatening? Did you wear the space pirate getup to the class where you made students call you Mr. Sims and first saw the star?"

[beholding_archivist]

Those assumptions get a snort out of Jon who now sits up and pulls up one of his knees to rest his arm on while giving the other man an uneven, yet challenging smirk "Tony, there is very little more embarrassing than having to run to class in your full stage outfit because the night ended up longer than planned and you didn't get to go home and maybe had a little too much to drink and you are sore and tired and hungry - And your teacher calls you by your goddamn stage name to step up before the entire class to answer some questions she was certain you had no answers for." A pause is what follows, mostly for dramatic effect. "Needless to say I hijacked her class. In-character. Then aggressively 3taught them everything about diffusiophoresis and diffusioosmosis. She never risked it again, but I did... Occasionally... Wear the heavy coat to lectures."

[in_extremis]

Sore and tired and hungry had to be where Jon did his best work because Tony hadn't had the chance to see him be anything else in this place, so adding hungover to that powerful mix must have been his sweet spot. Tony might never have listened to anything Jon said more attentively than he did now, absolutely ready for embarrassing if that was what Jon was offering and receiving a much greater gift that had him nodding encouragingly with an open grin, trying very hard not to interrupt with a laugh. If Jon had any doubt about how Tony felt about this story, he cleared it up quickly by dropping forward for a kiss, a slow slide of his lips at first as he finally fumbled to release the glasses he had stolen onto the book at Jon's side among the vials of his experiments, so he could take Jon's face in both hands to tip it up into a truly filthy probe of his tongue to best convey what the words 'aggressively taught' did to him. Maybe a private lecture series, that was how they could keep Jon occupied, but he was right, that wasn't the kind of thing decent people did in public. Tony only drew back enough to ask, starting to laugh finally, "What was your stage name?"

[beholding_archivist]

If Jon is perfectly honest, then that isn't the reaction he would have expected. Especially not in such intensity. Being laughed at, yes, he would have expected that, but- Who is he to complain? This is by far better than being laughed at. And it leaves Jon with having to figure out which part of his story resulted in this particular reaction.

Jon's reaction to the kiss is to instinctively hold onto Tony's arm and shoulder and close his eyes once the first moment of stunned stupidity to return the kiss while it lasts. Yes, he definitely will have to figure out what caused this. Tony pulling back has Jon blinks a few times, licking his lips at the laugh and lightly biting his lip at the question. Now this is certain to lead to Tony having a new nickname to use on him. So while his vision is a little blurry due to the lack of his glasses, Jon still can see Tony well enough to lock his eyes with the other man's as he now closes some more of the gap between them to reply with a low. almost a little too serious voice "Jonny d'Ville." The name is followed by a brief, simple kiss - A quiet note that he trusts Tony to not use it in public.

"So." He says, leaning his head back just enough to ask the important question himself: "Do I need to dress up, sing or teach you chemistry?"

[in_extremis]

That might not have been the kind of trust Jon should have been putting in Tony, he had basically just handed him some top shelf, finely aged Humiliation and asked him not to indulge. "That is dreadful," he agreed, "Really bad," clearly gleeful to have this new fodder by the way his fingers itched restlessly over the back of Jon's neck and up through his hair. The came back down over Jon's throat to smooth down his chest before dropping back to the bed for Tony to hold himself up as he considered the question very seriously, thoughtful hum belied by his gaze jumping around Jon's face that kept on tugging back to his mouth. "You know what, considering new information that has come to light, I'm thinking I should maybe meditate on it a bit, you know, figure out what kind of people I should be associating with for the sake of my own reputation," he smirked.

[beholding_archivist]

This Archivist just wants to trust those he cares for, that's all. It's up to Tony no to abuse that trust.

"Well, obviously you like to associate with space pirates." Jon remarks, letting his fingers trail down Tony's arm with a slightly tilted head before leaning back further and regarding the man before him, raising a challenging brow that barely manages to hide some freshly budding insecurities. At least Jon's hands aren't shaking. But no. Tony enjoys teasing much more than outright cruelty. "Does this meditation fall under my yoga lessons?"

[in_extremis]

Tony had been caught already, reputation in tatters; he clutched a hand to his heart, eyes closed, smiling like he couldn't have been suffering that much. It was true, he had a weakness, even for space pirates with secret identities. "Hey!" he jumped out of the performance, jolted by the reminder of yoga and thrilled that Jon hadn't been the one to forget. "We have a trade now. You sing for me, I let you pretend to be a terrible student to keep me correcting your posture," he said, innocent grin back as though both those things weren't going to be purely for Tony's entertainment. "Don't expect too much from the mediation part, though, can't help you there, this place is Grand Central," he added with a gesture up toward his face. "Maybe we'll figure it out together."

[beholding_archivist]

Maybe not purely Tony's entertainment. If it means that Jon gets to ensure Tony has those hands of his in just the right, strategically chosen places... Isn't that one of the reasons why he hasn't dismissed the offer of Tony's yoga lessons? Of course it is.

He meets Tony's proposal with a confident smile as he accepts "We have a deal. And I agree. We may have to find our own... Mental... Plane... I suppose." The last bit breaks off into a little, involuntary chuckle. If there is one thing Jon sure if perfectly aware of, then that Tony's have have proven very skilled at shifting Jon's thoughts away from reality. Maybe not a common form of meditation, but still most effective.