driftfleet | You can check out anytime you'd like.. [Hotel Corona Mingle]

You can check out anytime you'd like.. [Hotel Corona Mingle]

Who: The Fleet!
Broadcast: If you want
Action: Hotel Corona or Planet Ikke
When: December 7th onward

a wheel-shaped space station

[After the mystery and isolation of their last destination, the Marsiva seems determined to head to brighter, busier territory. After a long journey through remote, nebula-painted space, speeding along at a brisk pace for the Host ship, the Marsiva brings her Fleet to a sudden and prominent point of traffic.

It seems that the Fleet has happened upon some sort of vacation destination! Maybe Atroma thinks that the passengers deserve some rest and relaxation... or just wants to distract them with something huge and shiny.

Welcome to Hotel Corona! Feel free to enjoy yourselves and enjoy the sites! If a hotel resort isn't your thing, you can head on over to the nearby planet and explore it's icy wonders.

In order words: it's a mingle!! Everyone get in! ]

[>> Plot Post]

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[Movement is good. Movement means that they can get a room, that Stefan can focus on throwing fire into the warm stove and bundling his friend with blankets. He doesn't have a full first-aid kit with him - he didn't think of it, with all the blood he was intending to lug back.

He takes in a deep breath, more out of habit than heaviness and exhaustion - Stefan hasn't even broken a sweat.]

Nope, [he admits a little too cheerfully as they get inside and rush towards the front door with unnatural speed.] So let me do all the talking.

[The conversation takes maybe half a minute at most. The front clerk's about to suggest a far steeper price, at the sight of Eugene, but Stefan only has to look into the clerk's eyes and insist that no, the more reasonable price sounds fair. It also sounds like they could use extra firewood and could they throw in some extra frostbite treatment on the house?

Stefan's expression is a relieved one as he snags that room key, drags Eugene into the room, and sets his friend onto the couch. Hang on, friend - he'll get this room warm in no time.]

[Stubbornly putting one foot in front of the other, all the way to the point of actual collapse, is something Eugene can do. It's something he's already done once, and feeling a lot worse than he does now. As it is, he just feels tired, mostly. Sort of tingly and overwarm if anything, nerves jangling into a confusion of sensation as he enters the actual warm room and bounces down onto the couch. He's still shivering in earnest, even if his skin feels feverish under all the layers of clothing, and he works at the fasteners of his coat with clumsy, gloved fingers as he watches Stefan fuss over the room and the fire. His hands are shaking too much with the renewed shivering to really have much effect. As is his voice, though he tries to talk all the same, fill the uncomfortable reality of being worried over.]

I-I guess-s you don't g-get cold, huh.

[Once the fire's roaring, Stefan turns his attention back to his friend. He grabs those extra blankets and brings them over, setting them aside for a moment so that he can pull the coat off. The mittens feel a little wet, too - he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pair of gloves he used earlier.

(Sorry, bro - there's the faint, metallic stench of his kills. He hasn't had time to get them cleaned.)

Hastily, he pries those gloves off and carefully replaces them with the drier (if a little smelly) ones.]

Not really. [His smile doesn't quite reach his eyes: he has a friend to look after, even if said friend doesn't necessarily want to be looked after.] Why do you think I drink so much tea?

[It artificially raises his temperature, leaving him permanently warm to the touch - because normally? In this weather? He would feel like the icicle he is. He then reaches for the blankets and pulls them over Eugene, with an almost methodical and one-track-mind approach.]

[He drinks tea because he's a vampire. That's what it sounds like, and Eugene laughs voicelessly into the blanket swaddled around him, peering up at Stefan.

Yeah. This is a really, really stupid situation to be in. And there's so much tumbling around in his head, in such lurching uneven orbits, that he can't start to pull it together. But there is a vampire playing nurse to him and that- that is amazing.]

Hey, ev-v-veryone has a. A vice, eh? C-caffeine isn't t-too bad. [He tugs the blanket tighter, finally feeling the cold for the first time since before he foundered his snow craft.] N-not that blood is- is any d-different. Never minded a. A black pudding. Myself.

[Talking is good. Talking means that Eugene's staying awake, and that Stefan doesn't have to worry so much about force-feeding him something warm like coffee or tea - which, coincidentally, that clerk's bringing over in a couple of minutes.

He reaches for another blanket - he's going to probably wrap up his friend like a burrito at this point, but he'll deal with the consequences later.]

I can't say I've had black pudding. [There's an edge of skepticism because this isn't the time for Stefan to admit that he hates who he is, he hates drinking blood, that there's no pleasure in what he eats anymore. Taste went out the window years ago.] But you're right, as far as vices go? An eternal tea addiction's the best of 'em all.

How do you take yours again? Cream? Sugar? Both?

Black.

[He's getting better at talking around the shivering. Or maybe the shivering is just steadying out, muffled under all the layers of blankets.

This has to be enough blankets, right? He can already appreciate the weight of them, and it's not hard to imagine a few more layers pinning him down. Especially with how tired he is.]

Sugar if it's cheap.

When it's me talking? Everything's cheap.

[Stefan's smile is an overconfident one as he gets up and scans the room for a tea kettle. The room comes with instant coffee and tea, along with some nondairy creamer - sugar would have to be obtained from the front office, he suspects.

He'll go ahead and get some water boiling, just in case - and also? He wouldn't mind some for himself.]

Now, how much sugar do you take?

One spoon's fine.

[He follows Stefan in his course around the room, mostly with his eyes, though he shifts occasionally to see whatever he's doing.]

I- I think I'm going to be okay. Really. [He half-grins with the reassurance, probably mercifully unaware of how awful he still looks, even if some color is finally coming back into his face.]

Of course you are. You've got me looking after you.

[Stefan doesn't even miss a beat as he reaches for a couple of mugs and waits for the water to reach boiling temperatures. He's not leaving until he's certain everything's okay, for real.

As he opens the tea bags and pours boiling hot water into each mug, he then adds milk to one and sugar to another and brings them over.]

It wasn't like I had other plans or anything, and if I did? I would've still dropped 'em.

[So much for Stefan leaving him be. He can't quite tell if that's good or bad anymore, and the uncertainty sits strangely in his gut as he accepts the tea and just basks in the fragrant steam.

He isn't even sure he knows what he wanted to happen when he drove out earlier today, but it wasn't this. It wasn't someone fishing him out of the snow, let alone someone he cares about enough to do his best it's fine really for. Someone whose concern makes him feel more guilty than annoyed.]

... thanks.

No problem. That's what friends are for.

[Stefan ducks his head, choosing to peer into the warm tea rather then his friend's face. No matter how close he grows to someone, he still can't believe that he can throw around words like friend and sincerely mean them. The chaos in both Mystic Falls and Locke City had left little time for those — and he would've never guessed that an outer space reality show would give him those. And a chance to breathe.

He takes a sip, wrapping both hands around his mug. He hadn't honestly realized just how stubborn his bro could be, either. Today was certainly full of surprises.]

[Eugene looks up automatically at the movement, unsure why Stefan's looking down at first. Is he . . . bashful? Is that it? It can't be; it doesn't fit. Stefan is the kind of Earnestly Good Guy who has to have friends by the boatload, among them people who are a lot more worth getting flustered over.]

Yeah.

[There's still an itchy corner of his mind that squirms at the thought of the concept of 'friends,' when even light-years away he's still in a place where anyone could be gone tomorrow. But that's what they are - almost indisputably, if they're to the Sharing Deep Dark Secrets phase.]

I wish you'd told me. [He tries at a sip of tea, hissing when it burns his tongue. His voice is still wavering with shivers, but he can mostly hold the shape of his words together, now.] Every time I manage to get real meat I've just been running the extra blood down the drain.

[His laugh is an incredibly amused one - most people wouldn't think to follow up on "I'm a vampire" with "I could've given you blood." Then again, most people weren't Eugene. Stefan's always, always admired how with Eugene, food is life and life is food. Within their limited confines, he manages to make the impossible very possible.]

Well, that's what you're supposed to do with blood. [He's still laughing, hang on. It'll take him a few more seconds to compose himself.] I can't blame you for doing the right thing. I'm perfectly capable of hunting my own - I mean, that's what I was doing back there.

[He doesn't like to think about his hunts, about how necessary they are; it's a lot better to frame them in terms of how much meat he'd acquire and how happy his crew would look when he walked back in with deer or zebra or once, half a T-Rex.

Food is life, and life is food, and Stefan wanted to pretend for just a little longer, that he was part of that giant chain.]

You get the whole package, huh? Super strength and super speed and . . . you know. General superness?

[He's usually more eloquent, and when he isn't? It's usually for comedic effect r because he's dead tired. Right now? It's both. He's exhausted, but the tiny part of him that isn't is so gratified to hear Stefan laugh that he'll do the bit he can to nudge him toward another one. Albeit considerately.]

Though- um. If you don't want to talk about the vampire stuff. That's okay too.

Now you're just flattering me. [He snorts at the idea of him being like Superman. Get out of here – he can't help people, only feed on them and make them feel weak. Undead creatures of the night can't be heroes. This, he has known from day one.] But uh, kind of.

I get super senses, immortality, and a healing factor. The downside is that I'm always terrified of fire and super sharp pencils. And I guess vampire hunters, because we've had those for a while too.

[He doesn't mention compulsion or daylight rings; neither have been relevant on the Fleet.]

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You can check out anytime you'd like.. [Hotel Corona Mingle]

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