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

[theladyofwinterfell]

Sansa rolls her eyes but it's more playful than anything else. Sometimes she doesn't know what's true and what's false with Tony but he does seem to have good intentions unlike other men she's known.

"You can't tell me you couldn't have any woman you wanted any hour of the day or night. You could easily have that vice, I think, even if it wasn't a vice in the traditional sense. Some people just don't like to be lonely."

Sansa goes quiet for a moment. "I'm always alone now - or I will be."

[in_extremis]

That was much more astute than it should have been for someone who usually seemed to be doing Tony the favour of not really listening to him, but Tony's myriad of less traditional vices were much more difficult to talk about without the practice and structure of a recovery program behind him, and he was starting to suspect that was a more personal story for her, too. That would have been safe enough territory to pursue as Tony combed Sansa's hair back through his fingers again, only to find himself stopping once more with the length twisted in one hand to chastise, "I thought we solved this problem. You've got James now, whatever you think of anyone else in this place, you can't be alone. And, not for nothing, but I have it on pretty good authority that some people around here would take offense to that."

[theladyofwinterfell]

"I know. I just never thought this place would widow me. I thought these Agrii were good. I thought since they blessed me with James that they were happy to give us things and not take from us. I never trusted the Atroma, before, but these Agrii I trusted. They spoke as children to us and asked our help. They took my son's father from me."

Sansa swallows thickly, trying not to cry. She isn't crying. The old Sansa would have but the Queen in the North is not going to cry when she needs to be a mother and a woman who can do things alone.

"I trusted when I shouldn't have. I thought I wasn't that little girl any longer."

[in_extremis]

Emergency, it was happening, alert. "Hey," Tony dissuaded the tearful tone creeping into Sansa's voice, bowing over the back of her chair to follow his hands down her arms to wrap together over James and mutter closer, "hey, hey." That was about as good as he had, more comfortable giving her hand a reassuring pat and pressing a kiss to her hair than trying to offer any platitudes. Instead, he said, "Don't start crying or you'll get it all over him, that's not fair, he's got enough of that." He really didn't have anything nice to say about the trust anyone put in the Agrii to do good by them. The creatures had kidnapped them to put them to work in an alien dimension, and that was the most charitable version of events here.

[theladyofwinterfell]

"I won't cry," Sansa huffs. "I'm the Queen in the North, the Winter Queen, the Queen Who Stood. What use am I going to be if I cry like a little girl who's skinned her knee playing?"

Sansa's tears have all dried up - at least she hopes they have. If they haven't, she doesn't want everyone in this godsforsaken cave to see her broken down and miserable.

"I'm a Stark. We don't cry."

[in_extremis]

Sansa hadn't exactly skinned her knee; crying, Tony thought, was a pretty reasonable response in her situation-- hell, any of them could use a good cry at this point just from being trapped down here, without the extra baggage. He just wasn't the one to do it in front of, because he would definitely make it worse. Apologetic for making her get defensive about it, he leaned away again, leaving just one hand on her shoulder, and it tensed and gave a firm pat before he was tucking both into his pockets when he confirmed, "Made of iron," to her back.

[theladyofwinterfell]

"Steel," Sansa corrects softly. "I went from Porcelain, to Ivory, to Steel. There's more steel in me than most people, I think. I've had a difficult life. It's not been without joy, no, but I've borne a lot of loss for someone as young as I am."

She exhales softly. "I'm sorry, Tony. I shouldn't be...if I had a place to mourn quietly and privately, I would. I just have no place to be alone. I have to do it in front of everyone here and I hate it."

[in_extremis]

Resenting the vulnerability that came with the mourning was a very familiar feeling, and Tony did understand what Sansa was struggling to protect, so that left him at quite a loss for what he could do to help; if it were him, he would just want to be left alone with a bottle to meditate on. And Sansa's correction, steel instead of iron, didn't make him any less tense, biting down on his lip as he watched the curve of her shoulder how she held James and wondering how much of that she was going to be impressing onto him, and how much Tony could stand to watch.

"We're all falling apart down here, don't worry about it," he muttered, trying to indicate that she wasn't alone in trying to keep up appearances, but without anyone else to point out how shaken they actually looked under any level of scrutiny-- scrutiny most of them weren't turning on each other in their focus to hold it together.

[theladyofwinterfell]

"I want to bury myself into my bed and not leave it for days. I can't do that but I want to, terribly. I don't want to have to wear the mask here and have it slip over and over again. I want to have my time and come away so I don't have to pretend any longer. I know how to mourn. You do it quickly and quietly," she says.

"I'm a queen and a mother. I don't have time to mourn. I have to be me if for no other reason than James. I have to be me again."

She looks over at Tony and cuts her eyes slyly. "And don't you give me the line about me being allowed to have feelings. I know I'm allowed. I just want to have them in private. Say something funny about me so I can be annoyed at it."

[in_extremis]

They were going in circles, and would continue to until Sansa wasn't so close to this loss, both temporally and physically, and there wasn't much Tony could do about either of those proximities--he had tried plenty already, and they were still stuck here. The invitation to break the cycle was welcome, but Tony was feeling lifeless and discouraged, and he dropped his arms limply, eyes up to search the ceiling for help being a more familiar jackass.

"You'd probably have a real ugly cry, anyway. Absolutely atrocious. All blotchy, snot everywhere," he suggested, gesturing for the general state of her face, then dropping his arms again, apologetic. "It has to be natural, you know, now you've got me thinking about it and I feel like I have to apologize to everyone here, I'm not enjoying the self-reflection, that's what the drink was supposed to put a stop to."

[theladyofwinterfell]

He's not wrong about it having to come naturally but Sansa thinks she can manage enough humor to get themselves out of the hole they've dug. She smooths at her hair for a moment and watches him, tries to decide exactly how she's going to do this. His comments are so very often about how she looks so it seems she ought to go that way, doesn't it? She hides a laugh behind her hand and gives him an appraising look. She can do this. She can do this as well as anyone and she's going to pretend until she's happy again.

"For all your talk, I bet you'd fumble if I let you kiss me. You wouldn't have any idea what to do with it, at all, and end up all thumbs and embarrassed like I get when you have me against the wall with words. How right am I?"

[in_extremis]

Tony had lost the thread of whatever this game was early apparently, and, still irritable and listless, frowned at the accusation before crafting a brief, crooked smile, bringing a hand to his hip. "You're right, we're both lucky you're holding me back, it would be embarrassing all around, I'd have to be excommunicated to live in the woods with the weird little pigs and there aren't enough cleansing rituals to restore your dignity," he mused, other hand to his chin like he was already plotting his inevitable life as a hermit outcast for his trespasses, or maybe just this weird situation Sansa had contrived where he wasn't sure who was supposed to be in control. "May your defenses never slip, Lady."

[theladyofwinterfell]

"May they never. Although, someday, I might take pity upon you and allow it if only to see how you react. You shall never know when it will happen."

Sansa smiles a little but it's softer and not as triumphant as it usually is in these situations.

"Thank you for playing along. I wanted...to feel normal for a moment."