Shu Lyn O'Keefe

[rosebleed]

🚬🥀

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WEEK 0: First Saturday

[rosebleed]

[Reading through the profiles was one thing but memorizing the contents was quite another. She has a flash of deja vu looking at the confident fellow seated at the bar, but no clear recollection of whether he was trustworthy.

Discreetly attempting to find his entry before she addresses him.]

Hi there, uh...[FLIPS FASTER. SWEATS.] ...good sir! [Fuck it we ball. hastily deactivates IRIS.] Pardon me, but are you free to speak for a moment?

[roseoftexas]

[ watches her look like she’s about to melt into the ground, implode and maybe fall off the chair in one go like— ]

… Sure, it’s not like I have anywhere else to be.

[ and now he’s concerned she’s about to give herself a panic attack. ]

You seem stressed.

[rosebleed]

Why do people keep saying that?

[Don't answer that. She knows. Rosamund blows out a sigh and tucks a hair behind her ear.]

And you aren't? Don't tell me this is all old hat for you. Being kidnapped. Forced into inconceivable circumstances...

WEEK 0: First Sunday

[rosebleed]

[As much as she's not in the mood for company, company keeps finding her.

This time it's in the mess hall, where she has settled for dinner in the quietest corner she can find. There is no bread on her plate. (trauma) Rosamund lifts her head to look at the approaching shadow, but stays rather ducked down overall.]

...Hello.

[roseoftexas]

[ her bread trauma after all this death…. will she ever eat a panini again? ]

Hello.

[ given she’s tucked away in a corner like a little nervous animal, he won’t get all up in her business. he’s not sure he’d really want someone wandering and dropping themselves next to him right now either. ]

… Not quite how I expected this weekend to go.

[rosebleed]

Well, if you had, people would call you crazy.

[What a nightmare.

Rosamund may press her lips tight, may feel prickly to stand too near, but she does gesture to the seat across from her.]

You can sit if you like. I don't mind.

[It might be better to keep a little company today. Just for a bit.]

WEEK 1: Friday

[rosebleed]

[Rosamund actually laughs when she spots the silvery head of hair and the casual stance from the corner of her eye.]

We've got to stop meeting like this. [She smiles, though it is grim.] I only see you when something's gone very wrong.

[roseoftexas]

[ good news, he’s smoking. and looking at his IRIS because a lot is happening, jesus. ]

… [ oh. ] Yeah, maybe I should try and run into you early in the week so these meetings have less of a doom and misery element to them.

[ a sigh. ]

So. Again, then.

[rosebleed]

You mean when we're all goats and worms?

[extremely likely. What a wild world this is.]

Again. It's at the same time, too. Like clockwork.

WEEK 1: Sunday

[rosebleed]

[To the simulation room with them both.

Rosamund is taking refuge in places more familiar to her. She needs something grounding, not more of these echoing steel and searing lights. If Shu wanders in though, he finds himself at a decidedly unpleasant locale: the middle of the ocean, by way of a derelict floating amusement park. An ancient one at that, and empty, littered with donkey bones and rotten wood, barnacles, and the odour of what can only be described as "rancid hotdogs" in the air.

Rosamund has taken refuge at a wee shack labelled "Slappy's Bubblegum and Whisky", where she is wearily pouring herself a shot from a bottle with a crayon label. The "k" in whisky is backwards.]

Oh. [She freezes on the spot.] ...Sorry. Did you want the room?

[roseoftexas]

[ me like we need to have them stop meeting on the worst days and i’ll start the next pc sldjslkgd.

this… isn’t actually what he expected to see when he walked in here, but honestly what can anyone expect to see if they wander into the simulation room unprompted? anyone could be in there and it’s well established now that so many of them have very different lives and homes and backgrounds. he could be underwater, or in some weird magic tower for all he knew.

but an amusement park? that’s different. even if the smell is making his nose wrinkle a little. ]

… [ somehow, rosamund freezing like he just caught her doing something bad makes him feel even more like he’s intruding, actually. ] No, not really. Kinda came here on auto-pilot. Can you get drunk off simulation room drinks?

[ because why else would she be tiredly pouring herself shots of whiskey-rotated-k? ]

[rosebleed]

I suppose I'll find out. [The effects aren't supposed to last outside of this room, but supposedly they feel real enough while you're here. She'd felt the illusory thorns bite into her skin back when Luke caught her panicking in here, before she knew better, before she knew how to use it.

Rosamund pours a second shot and holds it out to him.]

It's terrible stuff. It was made by children. Fair warning.

w3, monday

[roseoftexas]

[ yahoo it's not a weekend pc!

i can't really cyoa killer, killer, so rosamund will get to view this wonderful scene early on a monday morning. yay! ]

[rosebleed]

[She was only trying to have her morning cup of tea in peace.

The people are mostly strangers, and the conversation stranger still. Shu is the only tether she has here, so she watches him close. Bewildered as the conversation unfurls, laying down pieces to a puzzle she was never supposed to solve.]

A hitman that kills hitmen?

[The terms are strange, but the ideas are all familiar. She watches the woman — cute, with kind eyes — struggle to mesh the man she knows and the man Shu is. When she leaves she takes half the air out of the room, and Rosamunds' breath goes with her.

Then when it fades, the man himself is across from her. She looks to him, stunned.]

...Shu? Was that...was that real?

[roseoftexas]

[ sometimes you're just trying to have a cup of tea and this place is rude. ]

...

Mmm. Happened around a month ago.

w3, thursday

[roseoftexas]

[ well after that he is actually willing to hover to make sure she gets her wrists bandaged, so i guess it's to the medbay with us.

where he will hover to make sure she gets her wrists bandaged. hell, he's probably helping. he can bandage wounds pretty well after all. ]

This was a mission? Amalthea was with you, so that should've meant you were pre-warned.

[rosebleed]

[Goddammit Shu.]

Yes, yes, we were pre-warned. I didn't want anyone to worry...

[Also he better be giving the same lecture to everyone today. Rosamund flinches as she cleans a deeper gash with antispetic.]

I swear, the smaller it is, the worse it feels getting fixed.

w4, monday

[roseoftexas]

[ you said the black hole and i was like that's the funniest thing i could imagine so that's where they're going.

shu is lurking at the side of the club though, rather than going into the main part of the club. keeping his back to the wall and it's clear he's not exactly happy to be somewhere with this many people.

but.

he is. and he looks at least a little bit interested in what's happening here, as illegal as it probably is. ]

Wonder if this place gets raided often?

[rosebleed]

Why would it be raided? Have they not paid their tithes?

[She comes from the era of Loot That Body, you're supposed to go where the booze is to do shady deals.]

Thanks for coming with me though, Shu. The last time I tried to go dancing on one of these planets I got led into the back and munched on by a couple vampires.

But this time should be fun!

Week 4: Thursday

[rosebleed]

[She walks in just as he's crawling out of his pod, books and a box of cookies in hand. She looks at him.

Then looks at the timer on the pod.

How long has Shu been cooking for?]

[roseoftexas]

[ technically, the timer will say an hour. but he looks too healed for it to just have been an hour. interesting!

hello. ]

w6, saturday

[roseoftexas]

[ observation deck it is!! yeah!!!


shu's perched on one of the viewing areas, splitting his time between starting out the window and staring at his iris. it's probably fine. ]

Hey. How's being alive again working out for you? No aches or pains?

[rosebleed]

[She slips up next to him and threads her arms around him, forehead to his shoulder. Sorry we missed hugs at returns so you're getting one now.]

I'm really quite fine, I'm just...honestly? Lightheaded. [She laughs a little.] But I know that's just from crying.

WEEK 7: Tuesday

[rosebleed]

[Does Shu like to hike?

He has no choice in it now. Rosamund leads the way with a confident stride. She's fully armed thanks to the armory stipulations being lifted, a modern bow and full quiver at her back, hunting knife at her hip.

She casts a look back to him.]

See anything unusual yet?

[Moreso than already.]

[roseoftexas]

[ he's not against a hike, which is good because he apparently had no choice and now he's on his way. hiking. shu has a couple of airsoft guns attached to his hip, roughly the size of a pistol, and he looks very at home with them.

they're just out here on this hike. decked out with weapons. ]

Nope. Other than it all just being a little too perfect and the unease of knowing what we know.