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Entry tags:
- aziraphale,
- beckett mariner,
- bradward boimler,
- elle bryant,
- gwen stacy (spiderverse),
- loki (mcu),
- miguel o'hara (spiderverse),
- nog,
- sam winchester,
- stacia novik,
- ✘ aiden price,
- ✘ dean winchester,
- ✘ drift,
- ✘ eddie munson,
- ✘ garviel loken,
- ✘ henry townshend,
- ✘ jennifer,
- ✘ kon-el,
- ✘ mackenzie haynes,
- ✘ nyara,
- ✘ peter b parker (spiderverse),
- ✘ puss in boots,
- ✘ rowan heart-eater,
- ✘ sam wyldhammer,
- ✘ sarah kerrigan,
- ✘ steve harrington,
- ✘ tim drake (comics)
SLEIGH BELLS RING ❄ MINGLE
SLEIGH BELLS RING
Those that escape from the theater all seem to come out through the same doors. When they get there, they can see that the theater isn't actually a building. There's only a free-standing set of theater doors on the playground. At the rear side of them is a brick wall.
Those that exit will find they can't re-enter.
None of the humans have seemed to notice the door or them, even those driving by.
Not everyone escapes at the same time. It comes in fits and starts, them filtering of the theater. Some can walk out mostly unharmed, some limp out, some come out supporting each other.
What they find outside is... uncanny. There in the playground is a massive sleigh, but one that looks not-exactly-traditional, with equipment and boosters that look almost like a mix of technology and something magical.
It's been expanded into many carriages, almost like a roller coaster. Harnessed to it are eight massive reindeer, champing slightly at their bits. It appears the people that attacked and created the theater are at least long gone. That means that as people slowly filter out they can check up on each other, provide first aid, and reassure each other.
❅ Status effects: Any injuries or damage that happens to a character will stick when they leave the Multiplex. That means that someone that gets facehugged by a facehugger will have an alien larva problem that may be causing some serious indigestion soon. Anyone that gets Borg-nanited through the neck will start having the nanites take over them. However the myth healing will slow these processes down until they can get to the Pole, and there are magical means at the Pole to help the characters survive this.
❅ First Aid/Other Supplies: The sleigh will have magically anticipated their needs. While it won't have the antivenom for Kaa because only a magical plant that grows at the Pole can cure the bites, it will have plenty of well-stocked general first aid kits. Applying first aid can help the myth healing heal someone more quickly and is important for injured characters that opted out of the myth healing.
❅ Timing: People can bendytime the timing of when their characters have escaped to play in this and "Let's All Go To The Movies" at the same time. People can also intro here late if they need to wrap some things up in the other post first.
❅ Intro: Players can use this post to intro instead if that's their preference. You can just assume your characters had to run from scary things in the theater and either handwave their circumstances, or assume your character found a way out more quickly than others.
closed to Mariner, cw: body horror
[The mix of horror and whimsy he's dealt with today would be too much even if he hadn't just had his life ruined.]
[Outside the Multi-plex, he looks...bad. Really bad. The damage to his uniform is more obvious outside of the darkness of the theater. There are cuts and slashes, a few places were some small glass fragments are caught in the fabric. And he's filthy. He'd washed most of the blood from the creepy possessed monsters out of his hair and off his face but there's still some dried blood there. And it was harder to wash it out of his uniform, which has brown stains all over. It doesn't look like it seeped from a cut somewhere, it looks...splattered.]
[The nanites are working fast. Over time the Borg have gotten better and better at assimilation and in the place they were taken from, they'd managed to assimilate a solid chunk of the Enterprise crew within a few hours.]
[Even as he's supported over to the sleigh, he cries out as a metallic implant burrows out of the skin of his cheek and splays itself in a star shape there, in the middle of the spiral of blood vessels that look like they're blackened with poison.]
[Boimler is completely out of it as he winds up sliding down to sit with his back against one of the weird roller coaster-like cars of the sleigh. He's starting to get pal and clammy, his breathing coming harder.]
[He's also silent. Not panicking like he normally would over something alarming.]
[Boimler, like Mariner, is rarely ever silent. He may not be the most outgoing of the four of them, he's definitely the most reserved, but their whole group of friends is pretty talkative and rambunctious.]
[Cringing slightly in pain, with the discomfort of what's burning through his veins, he knocks his head backwards against the sleigh, muscles involuntarily jerking as some of them are altered, as his spine starts to feel like the nerves are being twanged like the strings of a banjo. He draws his knees up to his chest to try to still the involuntary jerking.]
[Then he stares straight ahead.]
[This is a fear almost all Starfleet officers have. They all know about how horrible the Borg are, have heard the reports of whole ships gone missing. He doesn't know how this will work if the Borg were...constructs or something, but the nanites in his blood feel very real. Even if there is no collective locally it won't stop them from rewriting his brain.]
[That might even be worse, being rewritten to be a Borg but one that's aimless. Forever trying to reach out for other voices that aren't there. Remade into something that isn't a person, that's a cog in a machine that he can't even snap into place with. Just a...part that can't suffer existing alone in its own head anymore.]
[But that also can't feel actual love or acceptance or the kind of belonging that's real. That isn't forced. The kind he knows he has. One thing he can be secure in is the knowledge of how this will affect the people that love him. Especially his friends.]
[Knowing what it will do to them makes all this worse.]
no subject
The odd mildewy stench of the Borg and the rankness of the blood and effluvia and everything else splattered all over her means it's real. The heart-in-her-throat fear means it's real. The anger at herself for not being quick enough means it's real.]
Hey, hey, hey hey hey hey hey, c'mon, stay with me, Boimler. We got this. We got this.
[She fights the urge to rip that new implant directly out of his face, and only manages because she knows it won't help. She can fight drones or a cube or the Borg Queen herself but she can't fight the nanites, the essential building block, she can't go in there with her phaser and bat'leth and break everything that's turning her friend into something he's not.]
We can fix this. We can fix this. Just hang on.
no subject
[Right now, all he can do is re-excavate himself each time he responds.]
Maybe if we were back home. Dr. T'Ana could find some way to slow it down. They could get me to Starfleet Medical, put a call into the EMH.
[After all the Borg nonsense in the Delta quadrant and dealing with a Borg crew member's health needs, he's one of the most qualified doctors in Starfleet when it comes to dealing with Borg assimilation.]
[But they're all over there. He and Mariner are here, in some alternate dimension, where no specialist in de-assimilating someone can be found.]
[He digs up words he knows Mariner won't want to hear. They still need to be said.]
I have three just-in-case holocubes in my bunk storage. I recorded them after William...
[The words drop off. He hadn't thought to record them before then. A life in Starfleet is dangerous but when you're young and starting out, you don't worry a whole lot about your mortality at first.]
[Until something makes you confront it.]
One's for the crew as a whole. [He isn't super close to everyone but he has plenty of friendly acquaintances at this point. Has had moments of solidarity with the command crew that have built better relationships over time. He has reasons for gratitude to some of them, especially as they've given him more and more encouragement.] One's for my parents.
[His eyes finally tear up but it's not when talking about the one for his folks.] And one's for you, Rutherford, and Tendi.
[He's standing in a random completely empty field in all of them. Very tasteful.]
no subject
Thanks for the info, but I'm not gonna need it, [she says, a little more bluntly than she means to.] Because you are making it through this. We carved our names in that shitty dive bar on Starbase 25, we made a promise--!
[Her voice cracks.]
You're gonna be my first officer one day, okay? So no quitter talk.
no subject
[He gestures wildly to the sleigh.]
Okay, what, are we going to ask Santa for a cure to Borg assimilation?
Maybe see if the Easter... [He digs for old Earth folklore. A lot of the classic folklore characters around the holidays waned in popularity after many many world wars] wombat knows how to restore someone's individual consciousness?
Let's face it, we're probably multiple worlds away from anyone that can help me. So we just have to be pragmatic here and figure out how to handle...whatever comes next.
no subject
(For a brief, fleeting moment she has the silly thought that his experience in the simulation had taught his immune system how to fight the nanites. It doesn't make any sense, but nothing makes sense right now.)]
I don't know! [she says angrily, because the last time she asked Santa for anything it had been a Toby the Targ holoprogram.
Then she sighs, feeling the fight go out of her.] I don't know. [And admitting that stings. Mariner doesn't want to let him just clock out, becoming Borg Drone #291,019,818,103,661 or whatever. She's running through everything in her head, but she's coming up empty on every single possibility. There has to be a way out of this! Kirk wouldn't give up, Picard wouldn't give up, Janeway wouldn't give up! And if their positions were reversed, Boimler wouldn't give up on her.
Keep him talking. Same principle as not letting someone who's been hurt really bad lose consciousness. As long as he's talking, as long as he's here, he's still Boimler.]
So, okay, I know about the holocubes now. Anything else?
no subject
[Whether she'd want to or find it too sad is up in the air but he likes to think his friends might enjoy one last little bit of fun left behind for them. Someday when they feel up for it emotionally. To make up just a little for things like all the missed future Bat'leths & BiHnuchs games.]
I don't have any, uh, you know. Stolen crew member appearance. Kinds of things?
But I also don't want anyone from Ops accidentally seeing any of those while deleting them.
[There's nothing sexy or anything and any of the romantically-inclined ones got deleted after enough teasing about girlfriends you could only meet on the Holodeck, but there is a lot of embarrassing wish fulfillment fantasy. He didn't go full Barclay, but he went at least, like, halfway Barclay.]
[
Please, best friend, delete his internet history.]no subject
Sure thing, bestie. Your browser history is safe with her.]Yeah, okay. Consider it done.
[It looks like she's wrestling with whether or not to say something for a moment before it finally bursts out of her.]
I'm sorry, Boims, I should have been faster, I should have noticed that little ankle-biting weirdo, I should've been able to stop this!
[Mariner doesn't cry, as a rule, not in front of people, but there's no damn point in trying to have that tough front now. It didn't mean anything. Not when it got your best friend sentenced to a fate worse than death and you can't do anything about it!
She hunches up small, her knees drawn close, unconsciously mimicking Boimler's position. She rubs the heel of her hand into her eye, wiping away the tears, almost as if she's trying to put them back where they came from.]
I'm sorry, Brad.
1/2
[He doesn't like that at all.]
No no no no. No. Mariner.
[He takes her by the shoulders, forcing her to look up at him. It's not an easy thing to do. His right hand is starting to cramp up as something is built from the blackened veins there. Probably assimilation tubules. He tries not to flex the knuckles too much, worried he might spring them and accidentally assimilate her or something. Fortunately, they don't feel anywhere close to complete.]
I missed him, too. It was dark and - and we were outnumbered. And we had to try to keep the Borg from escaping and getting everyone else.
[They had an objective they were focused on. It wasn't easy for them to meet it. Some other officers might have all wiped out completely, victims to the advancing horde. Especially after having to run around inside a terrifying maze fighting monsters and taking on injuries. They'd been exhausted by that point.]
[And they had done it. Trapped a whole contingent of Borg before they could cause more harm.]
[Judging from the people around them - and the increasingly larger crowd - it looks like they had mostly done a good job of it. Sure, people are hurt, and some seem like that have snake bites that are poisoned? But he sees only one other person so far that might be suffering from assimilation, with the blackened veins at his neck: the guy with a cape he'd met earlier. Not really any others.]
[That unit of Borg drones had been big enough to assimilate the entire group.]
[It's not shocking, though, that there were at least a few casualties.]
[But that's all logic. Logic doesn't matter here. Logic doesn't matter in the face of the people who have left Mariner behind. Or treated her like a problem, not seeing the good in her. Or died right in front of her.]
[He's come to understand more and more that even her completely unhinged behavior comes from a place that's different than he used to think - that many used to think. Even all her annoying the crap out of him over Barbara had been obsessing over him not getting his face eaten like one of her other friends.]
[Instead of seeking comfort, he pulls her into his arms, comforting her instead.]
Beckett, I -
[She's far more likely to Brad him than he is to Beckett her, but it feels like he should. Calling each other by last name is officer stuff, comrade stuff. This is best friend stuff.]
2/2
[And it isn't his best friend stubbornly telling him to fight for himself that makes him want to fight harder. It's Mariner, curled up like a small child and crying. When she's always a total badass. Mariner, who probably needs him to stay on-balance as much as he needs her to - especially here, in some awful situation in another universe.]
[Where his face looks past her as he hugs her, his expression changes. Eyebrows furrowing, lips pressing together.]
[No. No, it's not going down like this.]
No. No, you know what? No.
[He draws back to face her. He'd assumed this meant death. A death of a sort. Probably a physical death when someone inevitably mercy kills him. But he won't be dead-dead unless someone decides to make him that way and people have gotten disconnected from the collective before.]
The Borg aren't actually here. They were just some kind of...construct, right? Even if they made real Borg nanites. There won't be a - a vinculum. A central plexus. No hivemind, no Collective to connect to.
[Less infrastructure that would utterly subsume him.]
I'd need something to act as a regeneration alcove if I wasn't attached to the Collective, but the lieutenant is an engineer. Maybe he can figure something out, even with this era's technology. Or figure out a way to put me in some kind of long-term stasis.
[Hope. He digs for it, digs deep. It can be found, though. It's there. Perhaps not in that he'll somehow not be changed. Maybe it can be found in being changed back.]
Even if he can't set up some kind of stasis, you could just do something to restrain my hands so I keep my little tubules to myself and chain me up in a room somewhere. [The Borg implants that arise from the nanites would nourish his body, especially if they could find an alternate energy source for regeneration.] Until there's a way home. Then back in our universe everything can be removed.
And - and disconnected drones have regained individuality more than once, right? Even before we get home, the process would probably start because I wouldn't be connected to the Collective. Because there'll never be any other voices. So maybe it'll be easier to try to find my own again.
I've been myself a lot longer than I'll be a drone, even if we're stuck here for a while. That usually means a faster recovery, a - a more complete regain of someone's old personality.
[So what if it'll be awful. So what if he'll suffer (in a way he's already had an unpleasant taste of.) There is still an actual future to be had. There's still a chance he can dig his real self up again. There's a chance he might get to see the people he cares about as himself. Even if it it shatters him at the start, he at least knows there will be people there hovering around with adhesive, ready to help him pick up the pieces and put himself back together again.]
[He knows if Tendi and Rutherford were here, they'd be saying the same thing, they'd be insisting there's hope just like Mariner just had. He can imagine Rutherford talking about success rates in removal of most implants and how any left can be safely integrated into daily existence. He can imagine Tendi telling him that his friends will be there.]
[Just like Mariner is here right now. Just like he knows she'll be there until she can kick his butt right through some kind of dimensional door back to their universe someday.]
[He shrugs haplessly, tears in his eyes, but it isn't empty platitudes. This is real and he just dug it up for her. Just for her; she's the only one he probably could've managed it for.]
I can just...Picard it up.
[It's bad enough she's had so many friends leave her behind. He's not forcing her into leaving him behind.]
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Yeah. Yeah! There's a whole bunch - Picard, Hugh, Icheb, Seven of Nine from your favorite ship, VOY-- [Gentle ribbing. She's back, too.] --we can fight this. We can win.
And no matter what, you're always going to be my best friend. No stupid nanites are going to change that. Got it?
[Has she ever actually told him he's her best friend before? Surely she has. Right? Not just implied it? Suddenly she's not sure.]
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[He knows she'll be there. He knows she's not going to look at the mess he'll be and decide it's too much to deal with. That if he has to be slowly coaxed back into thinking for himself, she'll do it.]
I do have one request.
[The joke is teary. He's really pushing himself to make it. But it makes this whole thing feel like less of a death sentence to find some humor in something somewhere.]
When I'm a drone, occasionally toss some enrichment into my borg enclosure, okay? Just roll in a watermelon for me to assimilate every once in a while.
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Yeah, [she says, her voice just as teary as his. These aren't tears of despair anymore, but tears of sudden, newfound hope.] Might even mix it up sometimes. Give you a pumpkin for Halloween.
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[He seems to be dealing with the "it's either laugh or cry" of it all by getting stuck somewhere in the middle because the laughs are caught somewhere between being laughs and sobs. He's afraid, hence tears. But it's also the kind of laughter that makes you cry from mirth because why not? Why not laugh out a few tears while he still can? At the sheer absurdity of it all?]
[But then the time for laughter is over because even if this is a process he can survive, it's still going to be an unpleasant one.]
[He winces and lets out an "Aaah!" bowing over slightly and reaching a hand for his lower back.]
Spinal clamps! I think the spinal clamps are clamping! Ow. Ow ow ow.
[It does not feel good to be sitting down right now the same way sitting is terrible for any back problems.]
[Still cringing, he scoots a little in the grass of the playground and awkwardly lays down flat next to her. It does hurt less for the nanites to be screwing with his spine when its not as bent.]
[He's still wincing, though. Even when it doesn't hurt - and it does hurt off and on, he keeps getting it in waves - it feels jangly and uncomfortable.]
If I have to deal with Borg implants, they better make me smarter. And stronger.
[A pause.]
Taller. Taller would be nice. I know I'm not that short but it just feels like when I'm around someone like Shaxs that I should be asking for a booster seat when I'm manning the Conn.
[So weird. Feeling tall and short at the same time. He'd weirdly felt a lot taller when visiting Pike's crew for some reason.]
no subject
When Boimler winces and lies down on the ground, Mariner takes his hand. She wishes she had a medkit with a hypo full of something to take the edge off. It seems almost cruel that the assimilation process is so painful, but the Borg don't care. It's not cruelty, it's indifference. What does it matter if the individual suffers when joining the Collective?]
To be totally fair, Shaxs is, like, a man-mountain. It's kind of disturbing how tall he is.
no subject
[It is absolutely not a thing they do, holding hands. When there's affection between them, it's an arm around the shoulders or something. There's a weird innocent intimacy to it that makes him think of what it might have been like to meet her on the playground when they were kids. Whether she would've taken one look at his shy little ass and immediately dragged him off to poke at small animals or something.]
[It's kind of weird. And kind of nice.]
[And definitely comforting, like when your parents hold your hand when you're little and nervous about getting a hypospray at the doctor's office.]
Weirdly tall.
I only want to be just a little under Riker tall.
[He says this like it's a thing he can just politely request, like "hey nanites make me tall." Even thought they don't even do that.]