pineslog | (may intro) WELCOME TO WAYWARD PINES!

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(may intro) WELCOME TO WAYWARD PINES!

INTRODUCTION LOG

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

So, even the mutual memories are incomplete. By design or by an accident of whatever mental programming they use?

"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.

Cousin. Right. Cassian. His face comes into focus in her memory. In fact, she feels herself smile at the thought of him, of he and Poe's relationship even if there's no concrete memories of it. There's warmth in her mind.

"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.

This is dangerous and idiotic. He should offer to walk her home, not walk her inside.

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.

Caroline finds it hard to reconcile reality with the false memories that this place has given her. Perhaps that's the point. The memories she has here, many of them, are better, sweeter than what she has back home. It's dangerous, how much she wishes they were real even if she's never wanted to be ordinary, not really, it's hard not to fall into it.

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.

"Only BB-8."

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."

The thing is, she wants to go in. He's not misreading anything. Maybe that's bad, maybe she's playing with fire and doing the very thing Damon's been trying to dissuade her from doing, falling into the life here as if those memories are real and mean something.

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.

She's a terrible liar. That knowledge comes and integrates itself into the picture his mind keeps painting of her, and the way her hair always smells faintly like her shampoo, the smoothness of her skin, the spray of summer freckles that will probably start to show soon across the bridge of her nose and cheeks.

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."

This is bad. This is really bad. This isn't real. None of it is real. Her mind screams at her but her heart sends butterflies to her stomach, her heart directs her to lay her hands on his shoulders, to curl her fingers at collar of his shirt or the lapels or edges of his jacket, whichever he's wearing.

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.

He keeps his arm around her waist until they're through the front door, then he turns away long enough to close it. Lean against it. Thump his head lightly on the wood.

"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."

Edited 2017-05-02 23:46 (UTC)

Things happen quicker than she expected, the moment they're inside (oh thank god, he invited her in and didn't try to just pull her in). He pulls away and suddenly reality comes crashing down upon her shoulders (and apparently his). He's speaking to the robot and then she's watching BB-8 damage the cameras around the house, the well placed ones she'd found the second day she arrived.

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."

Then he remembers.

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."

"I know it's a lot," she said gently, her arms unfolding as she wrings her hands in front of her slowly, her voice is low, still paranoid of being heard. "I've been here just over a month, I think." She could have been here longer for all she knew, time was confusing when reality was fractured as theirs was. "I would say it gets easier but..." Today had proven her wrong and despite her eternal optimism, which was forced at times, she wondered if this sort of thing would happen every time she saw someone new.

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.

"No--" He says it too quickly, and then isn't sure what he was going to follow that with.

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."

Poe isn't yours. He never really loved you. Of course, as she thinks those, her mind reminds her that she thought those very things when he left her, here, in this reality. It only makes things worse, more muddy and she lets out a breath when he moves past her, further into the house.

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...

"Bourbon. Right."

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."

For a moment, she thinks he's judging her for wanting a drink, the way he says 'Bourbon. Right.' and she feels annoyed because there's no way they didn't get drunk together when they were.... Oh, right. They weren't together. Not really.

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.

He hands the bottle over, somehow relieved at how well and how casually she's taking it. Something in the way Cassian talked about this place--something also in the way others reacted to BB-8--made him wonder if she'd think he was crazy.

"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."

The thing is? Caroline is used to crazy. She's used to things being completely... nuts. And showing up here? In this place? As a girl turned vampire who watched her best friend Stefan's heart get ripped out of his chest by a guy possessing her ex's body only to see Stefan here, alive and well in a place that makes things that aren't real feel real? A guy from another planet, possibly from the future, who talked to a beeping robot didn't seem all that insane.

"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?"

Poe raises the liquor to smell it, not detecting anything particularly strange or anything particularly familiar. He takes a sip--

And discovers that he must not be much of a drinker, because the bourbon hits the back of his throat like a ghostly fist. He gives himself a second before answering, savoring the smoky aftertaste and making sure he won't cough the moment he opens his mouth.

"He speaks Compressed Binary. I guess I do, too. I'm not sure the sheriff knew what he was doing, giving me my buddy back."

He takes another sip from the glass, better braced for the kick of it this time. "You said you've been here about a month?"

She bites back laughter when he makes the face he does at the first sip. He handles it better than she did the first time she had it, although come to think of it, that memory is too foggy to remember, she just imagines that it wasn't good. She probably gagged or coughed or made some kind of sound.

"I didn't get anything like it... him." Not that she had a droid or anything like him to have in the first place. It's clear, however, she's a uncomfortable, glancing to where she knows the cameras are, despite them being broken. "Yeah, just over a month." She looks down at her glass before-- "I don't... We don't normally talk this freely. You know they're going to come fix these cameras and probably put more.

I destroyed the ones in my bedroom because... gross. And I found three next the next day."

"BB-8 will tell me where they are."

He scowls, though clearly not at her. "It's worth it to be able to just talk for a little while. To be honest."

He's not going to add the fact that he wants to know her while he can. He tells himself it's to have something real to set against the false memories. The truth is that, and that he wants to know the Caroline these memories hide. If she's more or less like the woman he made himself leave.

(No, he didn't, stop it, stop it.)

"Take the chance while we've got it. Tell me about Earth."

She hesitates when he mentions honesty because she's been living this double life for a month and speaking plainly, truthfully, honestly hasn't been a thing she does aloud. She can dream walk, she can get into someone's head and speak honestly, but she hadn't done that with anyone but Stefan and Damon.

Moving to sit on one of the couches, she moves with the grace of someone comfortable with her present company, which she shouldn't be. She doesn't know him, not really. And yet, those memories, as false as they are, make her trust him (something she knows Damon would scoff at).

"I wouldn't even know where to start, it's... a planet with oceans and continents. Almost two hundred countries with about six billion people living on it, speaking, like, five thousand different languages. But most people can only speak one and they definitely don't speak robot."

It's surprisingly easy for him to imagine. Maybe it's because of what BB-8 has told him about his own travels, how far he's gone and how many worlds he's seen.

He wants to remember that. But hearing about a new world is the next best thing.

The trust is mutual, even if it shouldn't be. Poe has always taken to people quickly, but he doesn't know how to resist the feeling of knowing her, even if he can resist the memories themselves.

He sits down next to her on the couch, half turning, one leg drawn up onto the cushion and the other dangling over the edge.

Too close, he realizes, too late. Poe swallows and scoots back a little.

BB-8 rolls over to the foot of the couch like a small chaperone, tootling a series of notes.

"Beebee says most people know at least enough of a few languages to get by, if they travel. The rest have protocol droids to do the translating. What's it like where you're from?"

"It's a lot like... this place except less..." She waves her hand, realizing she can't make a Stepford reference because he wouldn't understand it so... "Monochromatic. More eclectic." Eat your heart out Mystic Falls High School teachers, Caroline actually learned a few things.

When he sits next to her, she feels a pang of the familiarity of it. There's no memory that stands out, just a nagging feeling that this isn't the first time they've sat close together. Except, it is.

Is her heart ever going to stop aching whenever she looks at him? It makes her think of Stefan suddenly and she moves to take a quick swig of bourbon as BB-8 speaks and Poe translates.

"We don't have those yet.... We have phones that can do some translations." There's a pause before she looks at him. "You know what phones are, right?" He's got one in his house here and she thinks that maybe someone would have explained them. Obviously he's not behind on technology.

"So a starfighter," she says moving to turn on the couch to face him more, arm draping over the back of it for support. "Does that mean... is that a space ship?"

Poe chuckles. "I know what phones are. We didn't call them phones. I... can't remember what we did call them. The internet is the HoloNet, I remember that."

Another sip of burboun.

"A starfighter is a class of spacecraft. Maneuverable, high fire power, built for engagements in atmosphere or above the exosphere."

And that's where he has to stop. Frustration jabs at him again. He knows so much more than that, there's so much more to know, and so much more he could tell her and wants to. His palms itch to hold a flight stick, to feel the tug of thinning atmosphere, to show her the stars, and he has to remind himself again, again, again, that the memories he has of her aren't real. They've never met. This is the first time, and probably the only time they'll be able to talk to each other openly.

And, because Poe is an idiot and incredibly tactile, he touches the back of her hand where it rests on the couch. "I'm sorry they did this to us."

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wookieepedia tells me there is no mention of bourbon in space \8D/

:D

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