Event Log: All Or Nothing

[hadrielmods]

Who: All characters participating in the event
What: The event log for the All Or Nothing event
Where: All over the city
When: April 24th-May 2nd
Warnings: None

You woke up today and you just... weren't feeling it. Feeling what? Well, anything. Nothing seems to get you excited, but nothing seems to make you mad or angry either, so maybe that's fine. Maybe it's better this way. It's not like you can get too worked up about it, in any case, so you might as well coast through your day, incredibly chill.

But that's not how it is for everyone. Your best friend might be feeling the exact opposite - you said they look nice today and they started crying with happiness. You ate half their lunch and they tried to punch you out. Everything's heightened, for some reason they just have absolutely no chill at all. You don't get it, but it's not a big deal.

Unless, of course, you switch, and suddenly it's the biggest deal of all time. The idea of controlling your emotions seems like a myth, and it's time to freak out over everything, positive and negative. It's gonna be a mood swingy week or so!

► This log covers April 24th-May 2nd
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► If things go way too far in either direction and you explode of happiness, please let us know here.

Comments

[deploy]

[Like commander, like soldier. On a normal day, John would be doing what Finn was doing. Right there with him. Keeping busy. Staying active. Running so hard and fast the worst of his fears and regrets can't keep up with him. Anything to get away from that crumbling cliff threatening to send him over the edge and into a deep, dark spiral he can't claw his way back out of.

He misses his job. His purpose. His city, so beautiful, and so damn needy he has every excuse to keep sleeping/eating/stopping to the bare minimum. Atlantis is a fickle lover. She asks a lot from her people, and she's worth every drop of blood and sweat sacrificed in her honour.

Today isn't a normal day. John wakes up on his designated mattress, and his eyes and body are so heavy, he has to wonder if the group didn't prank him by stacking every other mattress on top of him. He opens his tired eyes to an empty room. Tangled up in threadbare blankets. Alone. Today he's the last one up and out. That in itself is unusual. John's an early-riser by military habit, automatically awake at the ass-crack of dawn.

Why does sleeping in feel like he hasn't slept at all?

Through some complicated flail of movements, joints popping and cracking, he rolls out of the pile and climbs to his feet. Everything hurts today. That much isn't a surprise, but usually he can push through it. Put one booted foot in front of the other like the wear and tear on his body is something he can buff and polish away in the armoury.

Today, he can't pull himself up by his bootstraps, because putting his boots on feels like too much effort. So he pads into the 'kitchen' on bare feet, and nearly trips over 1 Finn scrubbing the floor with a toothbrush.]

What the hell--

[John just barely catches himself on the opposing counter, shooting a look back over his shoulder so sharp he could've thrown a knife.

Momentary spike of an emotion both hot and cold aside, he squints out through the window at this train-wreck of a city with a scowl.]

What time is it? Why did no one wake me up?

[bythehand]

[ Oh, there he be. The John himself. Up and at them again. Finn forgot he was still over there, in the absentminded way of someone who had half a thought about it a while ago, but fumbled on getting back around to it in a timely fashion. But it's fine.

It's John. So it's fine. He's not someone to be nervous about. Unless today is the day he is. Everyone has limits. Some things are conditional even though people don't think they are. And that's ignoring the fact that one time John turned into a big lizard or something and tried to be feral in a cave forever, which is suddenly 4 steps higher on the concerns list than it was two seconds ago.

Finn pauses mid-scrub. He already regrets it. This is fine. They're both super chill. ]

Sorry. [ Reflexive 'sir'? Swallowed like a champ. He does rattle off the time, though, or his best guesstimate of it. It is, most definitely, late by the John Sheppard standard. ] Didn't remember you saying you had an early appointment to get to.

[ There used to be a time he had his days fully scheduled from wake-up to lights out, and his head would hit the pillow and next thing he knew, it was morning again. No time to think. The only thing here is grasping at straws over and over again. Waiting. It's the worst. ]

[deploy]

I don't. Smart-ass.

[John's schedule is open. Vacant. Empty. Non-existent. He has nowhere to be.

And it's crushing him. At least in Riverview he had a job. Could keep busy when the anxiety/pain/loneliness/depression strikes and ride it through whatever mission he's doing, because when John works he is focused. His mind on the job, his people, and getting in and out without losses. There's no room to wallow on the battle-field. If you want to throw yourself a pity-party, you have to do it on your own time. Off the clock.

Which is why John is always on the clock. Day in, day out. Rain or shine.

Except for today. Make that this entire week.

God, he hates it here. Hates himself here. Who is he without an air-frame to fly, or a city to protect? A fucked up, lonely, black-mark of a man with nothing else to live for.]

You want some coffee?

[His voice cracks on the offer, because coffee used to mean something back in Riverview. His team in their broom-closet of an office, Chyler filling out paperwork, Finn organizing files, and John arguing with the higher-ups over email to get the provisions they need for their next reconnaissance mission.

For all that they crammed themselves in their day and night, working their asses off with limited supplies and manpower, that was as close to happy as John ever was without Atlantis.

That, and... he who shall not be named. Who isn't here (John refuses to call this place home) right now, and is probably avoiding him. John can't blame him. He's doing the same damn thing.]

You've got your choice between freeze-dried jet fuel, or freeze-dried engine oil.

[bythehand]

[ What they've got here with their usual "work to not think and start to slowly spiral without that routine to fall back on" methods is a big case of... Same Shitty Coping. That's the real highlight of everyone in this apartment squad. How none of them have healthy ways of dealing with themselves. Shoutout to everyone in a space war against unfathomable odds.

The offer gets him. Even without the undeniable break in John's voice, it would have gotten to him. Possibly even on a day when he doesn't feel set to scrub a hole through the kitchen and then keep going after he falls through to the next floor, but as it stands, especially today, when that's the mood so far. The feeling of being up to his chin in water and having no drains in sight.

Finn misses Riverview. Every day. He misses it with a childish intensity that he never learned how to ease. He misses his apartment, and the organized collection of things he owned or was given, that he knew the Falcon wouldn't have room for when he left. The shortcuts he learned to get to where he needed to be faster, the dumb planet hanging in the skyline, the routine he built for himself there from scratch. Good work doing what he's skilled at, with a teammate he cares about more than he could ever say in words, who cared about him right back, and a C.O. who treated them both like people. His stupid pet fish.

He never really had a home back home. Never had a family or a "before the war" to think back on. Still hasn't gotten the hang of thinking about after the war, because??? If he even gets there, he's not sure he's actually equipped for it?

Thanks to Riverview, he guesses he can add homesick to his repertoire of new life experiences. Riverview was more home than... home.

He misses the people more than the place. More than just about anything. He misses Chyler. Both Chylers, he guesses. It's as good to have John here as it can be to have anyone, but it makes it that much stranger not having her with them. ]

Yeah.

[ Maybe it would be cool if the floor actually did open up and give them something else to deal with right now. The scrubbing has lost its appeal, officially. It can no longer fill the void. He leaves the toothbrush there and sits up straight. He has all day to stand up, though. He'll work on that. ]

Guess it's nice to still have a choice about something.

[ Plenty of small-scale options. Coffee options. MRE options. None about like, the general direction of his life, but he's used to that. ]