MAY 1ST - 3RD | AFTER THE ACCIDENT |
There was an accident. The details are hazy and obscure, but it's still the first thing you remember. Maybe a car wreck — metal and broken glass everywhere, and the sirens and the
screaming. Maybe your bike hit a rock and you careened uncontrollably off a mountain path. Maybe something less mundane, even impossible seems to have happened to you. You can't quite make out the details, not who was at fault or why. Try as you might, the chaos is all you can truly remember.
It's also the
last thing you remember from before waking up.
When you open your eyes, the accident is gone, replaced with white sterility. Perhaps somewhat alarming at first, until you blink at your surroundings and realize that you're in a hospital bed. You try to move but are sluggish, covered in a scattering of minor injuries you only vaguely remember receiving, not to mention the possibility of the partially healed remnants of other, seemingly older wounds.
It's a shame you won't be able to tell the difference between the two. Your memories are an indiscernible fog where they're not absent altogether, only a few standing out in your mind with any kind of certainty.
If the room happens to be empty when you wake, it's not for long. Nurses bustle in, taking your vitals and asking your name and anything else you might remember. Don't worry, they tell you. You'll make a full recovery here. Much of what you say (especially anything unusual, anything about monsters or magic or outlandish technology) will earn placating speculation of head trauma from the accident. You'll be told to stay put, not to push yourself, and to wait for the doctor to clear you before you leave.
Then you'll be left alone. Or maybe you'll find yourself visited by loved ones: family, or friends. You've lived here much or all of your life, so of course you have those things. Of course they already remember you being here, and may remember visiting you in the hospital while you were still unconscious.
Either way, the hospital's population is quadruple the usual, and you get the impression the nurses are working themselves ragged just running damage control. You might hear talk around the hospital of other small population spikes over the past few days, though many patients appeared to be well enough to be released the same day, and the same might be said of you. Or at least the staff doesn't seem to be too concerned. You can even leave your room without much fuss, any doctor or nurse that might try to intercept you getting called away almost immediately to deal with something even more pressing.
Of course, it's not so unusual to settle in until you're discharged, either. You may choose to wait for loved ones to come pick you up, even speak to your fellow patients, whether roommates or others wandering the halls. The more enterprising and suspicious might even consider it an opportunity to poke around for a few basic answers.
MAY 1ST - 4TH | GETTING USED TO HOME AGAIN |
However you get there, outside the birds sing a joyful song, and though the air is just a bit crisp, the sky's as sunny as you've ever seen it. It's bright enough to make you squint for a moment before you feast your eyes on the quaint little mountain town of Wayward Pines, though that might just be some sort of side effect from your accident. Trees line the street at regular intervals, carefully manicured and slightly waterlogged from the recent flood. Cars cruise by at a safe and respectable speed. Fellow pedestrians spare you glances, some wary, others concerned or just friendly. It probably depends on how clothed you were when you left the hospital.
This isn't even the picturesque city center, though a colorful nearby sign reads "
Main Street" with an arrow pointing due south, followed in smaller font by a list of businesses you don't recognize (could be a good direction to head in, though — maybe it'll jog your memory), and one that you might: Wayward Pines Sheriff's Department. You've likely caught wind by now that any clothing or other items you had on you at the time of your accident are being held by the Sheriff until you're well enough to claim them. Not to mention the keys to your home, kept locked and safe at the station for you. That should probably be your next stop, though if anything's missing in what they hand over you'd be the last to know.
It's time to get home, to recover from your ordeal and try to sort through your memories. Do you remember this house, the pictures of family on the walls and how to navigate to the bathroom in the middle of the night? Maybe it's easier with loved ones living with you, helping you get settled, or maybe you're on your own. Either way, over the next few days it's a good idea to try to remember your routines, to get out and finally visit Main Street if you haven't already. Maybe you even remembered that you work in one of the more familiar sounding shops, or elsewhere in town. Makes sense they'd give you some time off to recover and get reacclimated to your life here, but eventually you should probably get back to work. You haven't seen your co-workers in a few days, and besides, you have to be able to put bread on the table.
Or at the very least some of the delicious treats at the school bake sale you're seeing flyers for all over town!
MAY 5TH | ANNUAL BAKE SALE, PRESENTED BY THE PTA! |
It's that time of year again. The time when everyone digs into their wallet, ignores their diet, and spends a little time supporting the local school bake fair. You know, for the good of the children. Or, in this particular case, the hospital. There's no denying the hospital has had a hard time of it lately, between the steady influx of accident victims at the start of each month and the recent outbreak scare, and the Wayward Pines Academy PTA has come up with the perfect solution to show their support to the hard working hospital staff by vowing to donate half of the proceeds for the sale today. Maybe the hospital can see about finally getting the staff breakroom a decent coffee machine!
And it doesn't hurt that Linda's Blondie recipe is honestly to die for. The PTA has pulled out all the stops this year in the hopes of encouraging a good community turn out, posters advertising the sale plastering every street corner and flyers stuffed into every mailbox for a solid week leading up to the event, and today is finally the day.
There's at least two dozen different tables set up with all manner of delectable treats, even one or two offering vegan alternatives for those inclined. Not to mention a few others catering to some of the townspeople's more... unique palates.
Maybe you've got your own table set up with your wares, or were simply lured to the park today by the appetizing scents wafting through the air. Either way it seems like the whole town has come out to show their support today, and why wouldn't they? Children are our future, after all. Or maybe it's just Linda's Blondie recipe.
Yeah, that's probably it.
MOD NOTES
Welcome to our fourth mingle log for newbies and oldbies alike!
This log is meant to cover characters' first five days in Wayward Pines. Characters for this round will appear staggered in the hospital between the
1st and the
3rd, and a CR building event will occur on the
5th, after everyone has had a suitable amount of time to get settled in town. For the most part, only the five memories detailed in your character's application are remembered throughout the duration of this log, although their false Wayward Pines memories may also begin to surface (in those who've opted to utilize this mechanic) as the week wears on. These memories, as noted in the FAQ, feel very real and are accompanied by as much emotion or sentiment as a real memory would be.
PLEASE INCLUDE IN SUBJECT LINE:
Character Name,
date,
location, and
Open or
Closed, to help keep things organized and make your character easy to find.
If you have any questions regarding this intro log, feel free to ask them on the FAQ or the relevant plurk.
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pineslog2017-04-30 08:52 pm
INTRODUCTION LOG
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But Caroline's attention is torn from him, even as he comes up to her and gets so close and her eyes flutter a little at his touch because it's so achingly familiar and yet... it feels almost like a dream. "Poe, I..." Her smile turns shy, the sort of smile that a girl gets when she's flattered and flustered and pleased to... "Wait--" her noses scrunches up and her eyes dart to-- "Is that a robot? Like an actual robot?"
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Except he's had BB-8 for ages. So how could she not know him?
Unthinking, Poe takes her hand and leads her over to the droid, the pull light enough that she can draw away at a moment's notice. "Caroline, this is BB-8. He's an astromech droid. My flying partner. Bee, this is..."
He falters at the return introduction, turning to her. That lost feeling is back. The one that's so incredibly foreign, that he's coming to hate so incredibly much.
"Car." It's a diminutive. A nickname, and suddenly he remembers another: Car-so-fine, his answer to Damn-o-man. It's horribly real. It's all so horribly real.
Poe looks down at her hands, moving to take them both in his. "It's been a weird couple of days."
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He reminds her of someone, when he calls her by the nickname. There's a warmth that blooms within her, fond memories that spring up that feel both real and fake. She knows what this place is, what does and she struggles to remind herself that the way seeing him makes her feel isn't... real.
But it feels like it. There's a lonely longing in her heart and she can't help but say the words, "I didn't think I'd see you again." Again? Had she ever seen him? Of course, it felt like she had as she pulls one hand from his to brush his curls from his forehead, a gesture she'd done countless times. Or not.
She catches herself and pulls her other hand from his, gently, moving to tuck her own hair behind her ears, a nervous tick she's always done. He broke your heart, remember? "I'm..." She doesn't know what to say but she does speak the truth. "It has been... weird lately but... I'm glad to see you."
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One of these days she very well may not see him again.
"I'm sorry," Poe says, and tucks his hands in his pockets to keep himself from brushing her hair back himself. "I was being... I'm not supposed to do that, am I."
He rubs at one of the scabbed-over scratches near his hairline. It's itchy. "I'm told there was an accident, one I was in, and I don't remember... I don't remember everything I should."
The truth, every word of it.
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"It's... we were young and..." The words feel like ash in her mouth, falsehoods. Being young didn't mean it couldn't have worked or been wonderful. And they hadn't been that young... she thinks. It feels like she's slogging through memories and when he mentions the accident, she's shaken back to the reality she knew to be true. "It'll start coming back." And suddenly her heart ached for something that was never really hers to begin with.
She can't fight the way she looks concerned, seeing the scratches and taking a step closer to look. "Are you... Do you feel okay though?" She has to play the part now, until he remembers. She has to play the part of friendly-ex-girlfriend. He's not yours. He never really was.
But I think I loved him a little.
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"I'll be fine." As proof, he knocks his knuckles lightly against his forehead. He's not about to tell her how the really got the scratches. He hasn't told anyone, but she doesn't need to know. Not about something like that. The tiny smile on his face fades.
She does know about the memories. He can tell, from the things she leaves out. They've both been dancing around it, but there doesn't seem to be much point if it's a shared awareness.
"I know. About the way things are here." He'd been told, sure. He had no idea how real the memories would feel, or how much he would want to believe them. "You don't have to pretend for me."
He pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to banish the desire to pull her into a kiss and forget all of the confusion and anxiety for a few seconds. For one thing, it wouldn't be right to use her or anyone that way. For another....
He's afraid of what kissing her might make him remember. Whatever he's feeling, whatever they had, it isn't real. Besides, she said "we were young". Were. It's over, no matter what manufactured feelings the people who run this place put into his head.
Remember that, he thinks. Remember that they did this to you.
"I'm... here, now. In town." He almost adds discharged, but it isn't true. He won't repeat their lies.
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She watches him pinch his nose and she, too, has to resist the urge to reach for his hand and pull it away so that she can kiss him, to watch that furrow in his brow smooth out in surprise and then contentment. It's what she used to do when he worried, she thinks, she reminds herself.
Blinking a little, she looks at him. "You're... so you're living here then?" Instead of just visiting? She couldn't remember for the life of here where he came from. Nor did remember exactly where he'd left her for, only that she saw a uniform and remembers the cool metal of his dog tags between her fingers each time she'd dragged him in for a kiss.
"With... your..." Who was it he came to visit? The memory also feels foggy. How could that be? How could she so clearly remember the way his hair felt between her fingers but couldn't remember who was important to him? How could they do this to her? To them?
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"Living here, yeah. Not with Cassian, though. My cousin."
Poe looks back at the huge house, wondering idly if Cassian would want to move in. It's not like there isn't room. It would be nice to have someone else around. He automatically looks down at BB-8, and mentally adds, someone else.
"It's a little chilly. D'you."
Poe gestures dumbly toward the front door. Want to come in are the words he's looking for.
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"That's great, Poe. I mean it." Caroline means it, even if she doesn't know if that's something that makes him happy, being here. There's a voice in her head that tells her that he'll be safe here, which she also reminds herself that she can't know that for sure.
At his 'question', she glances towards the way of his house and then hers before she nods. "Yeah, it'd be nice to catch up." Compare stories is more like it but she's talking the talk. And the romantic in her, wants to see what else she remembers because this place has been strange and lonely.
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There's a comfort (a false comfort, a gentle poison) in having her close by, something so wholly good after the darkness that's been keeping him awake. It's a selfish impulse, and he almost, almost corrects himself and says it's late and maybe it would be better if they catch up later.
But then he's at the front door, holding it open, and as BB-8 rolls by the little droid whistles worried noises and Poe's lips twitch into a humorless smile. "I promise I'll explain later, buddy."
Probably after beating the crap out of a punching bag or three.
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She shouldn't have agreed either, she should go home but she, too, lives alone in a house too big and too empty.
A curious smile quirks at the corners of her mouth as she hears him speak to the little robot and when she moves to step inside the house, she forgets herself and hits the invisible barrier, stopping her short of entering the house.
Crap.
She glances at him, feeling a familiar panic, one that always flares up when she has to pretend to be human and cover her own ass. "Are you sure it's okay I come in? You don't have any anti-girl roommates or anything, right?" God, it's the lamest question and cover ever but... she plays it off, somehow.
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He glances at the droid, who's now rolling toward through the foyer toward the big central space next to the kitchen, with its big overstuffed couches, arm chairs, fireplace. It's all very homey, or it would seem so if they got any use.
"We've got more space than we know what to do with."
Oh.
Maybe he's misreading this.
"You don't have to come in, Caroline." Poe flashes a tiny smile. "I won't hold it against you. Promise."
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And yet, it feels real. The way she feels the need to reassure Poe that she does want to come inside feels real. The way it feels to try to figure out a way to get invited in is real. It's a cold splash of reality to the face. She's a vampire and that's not this place's truth but her own.
"No," she touches him arm, giving it a gentle squeeze. She thinks, she hopes, he knows she's a bad liar when it comes to her emotions, that he knows that when she says it, she means it, "I do want to come in." Please just say the words.
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He came here to visit Cassian first, but she was the one who started to make him think maybe he could come home.
It's all pouring in at once. The thought of summer nights on backyard blankets and winter evenings watching snow fall down is briefly more real than anything he woke up with, anything BB-8 has told him.
Poe is a flirt. There's no denying that. But at bottom, he's also a romantic. It's one of the things that keeps him away from these kind of relationships. He knows himself well enough to realize that he'll have to leave, that he might not come back, and he tells himself a thousand times over that the risk isn't worth it.
He tries to tell himself now: the risk isn't worth it.
But he's home. Discharged. And he's stepping back onto the porch, sliding one arm around her waist, ghosting the other over the nape of her neck and into her hair, and to his own surprise he's kissing her.
He's kissing her in a slow, practiced way, drawing back just enough to catch her lower lip between his teeth gently before he lets go.
Poe rests his forehead against hers, speaking as reality starts to flood back in and remind him what a terrible idea this is.
"Please come inside."
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It feels real, all of it, when he holds her like that and when he kisses her, she forgets that she's Caroline Forbes from Mystic Falls. Every doubt in her mind is silenced, any thought of Stefan or Elena or Bonnie or Damon slips away, because he tastes like memories. Good memories. Like spiced cider in the fall and being caught in a spring rainstorm. He tastes like summer love and heartbreak.
And like always (is it always?), she's drawn in, magnetized to him, her eyes closing as his forehead presses to hers. "Okay," she barely manages to get out with a slightly dopey smile, feeling a very real tug in her heart.
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"Beebee," Poe says, his voice suddenly flat and serious. "The cameras."
BB-8's response is vastly more enthusiastic, a cheerful burble of noises before the droid pops his arc welder from one of the panels at his side and starts rolling through the house joyfully shorting out every camera he can reach and shooting grapnels into the lenses of the ones he can't.
It gives Poe a moment to try and get his head on straight. Sort himself out. Put memories in proper context.
What doesn't help is seeing her standing in his foyer, luminescent, lips puffy from being kissed, and wanting very much to do that again. Ignore the rest, forget it all, and just kiss her.
It would be easy.
Poe's never been good at easy.
"I'm... sorry. I remembered. I mean, I remembered... what they wanted me to, I shouldn't have. I shouldn't have done that."
He touches her hand, the gesture like muscle memory, a little reassurance that she's there.
And then he yanks back sharply and takes a shaky breath. "I'm sorry."
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Her lips are still tingling and a hand slowly lifts to touch them for a moment before he starts apologizing and she snaps out of whatever little shocked trance she'd been in.
"Poe," her brow furrows and she shakes her head, wondering if that ever actually succeeds in clearing one's head. Her eyes lift to meet with his and she wraps her arms around herself as he yanks his hand away from hers like she's made of hot coals. "Stop apologizing, I was.... I had the same..." Memories. Thoughts. Urges.
Frustration flares up within in her, not directed at him but inward and at whoever's brought them here. "It felt... it feels so real," she murmurs, hands squeezing at her own arms. "It always does. I'm not... Don't be sorry, I probably would have kissed you if you hadn't kissed me first." Maybe. Caroline was pretty impulsive when it came to romantic gestures but in her memory, Poe had broken her heart.
She reaches up to tuck her hair back behind her ears again, glancing away before looking at him again. "Please don't feel bad."
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He remembers how it ended, who ended it, the fight, the excuses he gave. None of them quite true. Poe closes his eyes and leans back against the door again.
Even in this world, some things don't change.
"Too late," he says, a hint of irony in his tone.
It's hard not to look at her. But when he does, the feelings come back, the fabricated reality feels so real, and he's even less equipped to deal with this than he was the First Order's final interrogator. She makes him feel heartsick and homesick and whole all at once, and he wonders (stupidly) if that's how his parents felt when they looked at each other.
He doesn't even remember them enough to guess.
"It really does feel real," he says, and for a moment he's back in the interrogator's chair, having his mind wrenched apart.
It's only BB-8's reappearance and victorious whistle that keeps him from falling down that muckrat hole. He manages a smile for the droid. "Thanks, buddy."
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The smile on his face breaks her heart. She knew that smile and yet, she didn't. She knew what it meant, she had one of her own she brought out from time to time. "I can go... Would it be better for me to go?" She'd only just gotten there and they'd done quite a song and dance to get inside but... she'd leave if it was too much for him. He'd been here a few days, if that, given what he'd said and the fact she hadn't seen (or even thought of him) until today. She'd had a lot more time to process all... of it.
Only it didn't feel that way. It felt like she'd loved and lost (again) in the span of just a few minutes.
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There are people, Leia Organa likely among them, who would say Poe is a little too honest for his own good or anyone else's. It strikes now, as always, at the worst possible time.
"You're one of the few good things I actually remember. Well. 'Remember.'" He moves further into the house, trying not to bump against her as he passes, not sure what to do with the gut-tingling chemistry that makes him want to--
To not visualize what he wants to do, thanks so much.
There a moment when there eyes meet that he almost loses his grip on the truth again.
He has to force himself to look away. "Maybe we should introduce ourselves."
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She keeps her distance, if only because she's fighting the urge to touch him now, to soothe him, to smooth out that furrowed brow. At his suggestion, she laughs softly, nodding.
"Yeah, okay, um..." she thinks better of reaching out her hand, instead, she moves to touch the nearby wall idly. "I'm Caroline, that is my actual name and I like my bourbon neat." Which was definitely a hint that a drink would be nice right about now...
wookieepedia tells me there is no mention of bourbon in space \8D/
He has to actually read the alcohol bottles in the kitchen's lower cupboard to find the right one. He has no idea what half these things are, how strong, what they mix with or if they're even supposed to.
At least there seems to be a good amount of whatever these are.
"I'm Poe. Also my actual name. I'm a starfighter pilot from Yavin 4."
He straightens up, bottle of bourbon in hand. "And I don't actually know what 'neat' means for bourbon, because I've never heard of bourbon before."
:D
However, when he speaks again, first saying a bunch of nonsense that... well, is non-sensical, like the way he can talk to a robot and... It makes sense, suddenly. He doesn't know what bourbon is because he's from... She's not even sure what Yavin 4 is but it sounds future-y. Very future-y.
"It means just the way it is, in a glass." It feels weird, training someone how to drink bourbon when... suddenly she remembers a lecture she'd gotten from Damon about how to drink properly, back home. A real memory. "Here--" She moves to open the first cabinet she can, striking luck and finding the glasses. She pulls two down and holds her hand out for the bottle because... typical Caroline being bossy.
Her eyes close for a moment before she looks at him again. "Have you heard of Earth?" She asks it, thinking that she might be in some kind of weird scifi plot, like in the movies how everyone's heard of Earth and... well, whatever plot comes next involving it.
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"I don't remember, if I have. Bee?"
The droid seesaws back and forth for a moment before piping a negative. "He doesn't have any record of an Earth either."
Gratitude at the little droid's presence dovetails into a pang of homesickness, which he pushes aside. "I'd be lost without this guy. He knows more about me than I do."
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"Okay," she says calmly, pouring them each a glass before handing him his. She glances at at the droid, taking a much needed sip of bourbon before-- "So you understand what he says?"
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