sixthiteration | Test Drive 21 (October & November)

→ Holds and applications are always open. Holds are required for all applications.

→ Choose one of the scenarios below or make up your own. Feel free to try multiple scenarios.

→ Write LOGS or TEXT prompts, or both.

→ THERE ARE ONLY THREE RULES FOR THE TDM:

1. It has to take place in the 6I universe.
2. It cannot be the character's arrival into the game.
3. Please only test new characters who do not have a version in the game. Our cast list is here.

→ TDM threads cannot be used to meet AC, but if the character is accepted into the game and both players agree, you may keep the CR.

→ Character want ads are here.

Prompts

STAYING POWER - Go down to the bunker, they said. You can get yourself amazing powers from the vending machine, they said. Well, you've done that, and you've made your choice, but one thing nobody told you was that unless it's a power you're familiar with, you might be on a teensy bit of a learning curve when it comes to keeping it under control. You have a week to figure it out without killing anyone; have fun!

FORGIVE AND... - You poor thing, you've gotten into some dust moths. Not that you can remember that, because depending on how big that swarm was and how quickly you got out of it, you might not remember much at all. Better hope somebody's got some Forget Me Nots on hand.

HIT & RUN - Life in the village can be pretty sleepy... until suddenly, it's not. Were you being a troublemaker? Were you disturbing the local wildlife? Because it's now disturbing you, chasing you down the street in front of everyone. Maybe it's a herd of chupapaca or a swarm of fireflies. Or maybe you went old school and it's just a really pissed off badger. Godspeed and good luck.

WILDCARD - Choose your own adventure. Maybe play powers roulette.

Texts

All characters are fitted with a smart watch-like device on their left wrist, which they can use to send text messages to other villagers.

- Texts may only be 140 characters long
- No video or voice, text only
- Display names may be changed by characters on the fly, but anyone can tap to see someone's real full name

Please list your CHARACTER NAME, CANON & PROMPT in your SUBJECT LINE.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"A year?" He is just frustrated and hurt, and he hates that Vasquez teasing him hurts that bad. Fucking hell but he shouldn't care, and he definitely should feel betrayed. Even if they fought along side one another... back to back with one another... he is expecting too much. Obviously.

"It's been maybe three days. It can not have been more than three days since I was there in Rose Creek with you, and you're going to try and tell me it's been a year?"

He hates how much hurt there is in his chest, and it really makes him want to scream, or lash out, and instead he's just standing there, hands gripping tight at his side as his face screws up.

Jerking at that push, eyes flashing with anger and not pain. "Listen to yourself and tell me why you're acting like you're angry when you're telling me somehow it's been a damn year?! Be mad at me, but don't do that."

He can handle anger. Anger is easy. This? This he has no idea what to do with it and he so bad wants to fold his arms over his chest and stomp his foot and damn if he wants to even think about his eyes stinging as his nostrils flare.

"Yes, a year since I've seen your face," is his retort and it comes out filled with grief instead of something like teasing, because it's been so long that he's given up on the idea of seeing him again, but now he's here and Vasquez maybe has a shot to figure out where this goes after one hectic and wild week.

"I'm angry you don't believe me. You got yanked here and drowned, put in scrubs, and you want to think that I'm lying? I'm not," he spits at him, pissed off. "It has been a year and I thought I was never going to see you again, puta!" He's shouting now, a little wild, a little off kilter, but he sees no point in holding it in.

His face screws up, staring at Vasquez. Lifting one hand, about to start speaking and then he just turns. Hands going to his hips as his head bows, trying to find words. Turning back suddenly, stepping in close and knowing he's risking taking a punch and this could just go further downhill than it already is heading.

He's called Vasquez a liar, and he knows he has but hasn't meant to but he does mean it because he feels mocked and he hates that feeling of being treated like he's too stupid too see the truth. Sure he's not book learned like some they know, but he's not stupid.

"How? Tell me how the hell that's possible. I know it ain't been a year since I had to listen to that accent, so tell me how that even happens!"

Because he needs answers, and his eyes narrow, staring into Vasquez's eyes. It isn't a challenge that shows in the pain in his eyes. Pleading instead for an answer. Needing one and suspecting he's not going to get it, but begging Vasquez to give him an answer. Any answer.

How is he going to prove this, he thinks, and he decides that he has to do it with one of the only ways he knows how. It's why he starts to go for his shirt and vest, stripping himself down to the point that he can yank it aside and show Faraday the fully healed scar wound. "This," he says heatedly, "this is from the Gatling gun that took me, it hurt me."

"It's healed. See how healed? It's nothing but scar," he says, and he's running high on emotion, thinking that he could say something here he doesn't want to share, but he's angry and hurt and wants to do anything he can to keep him here, even if he's pissed at him.

"See," is softer, quieter, "Why would I lie to you? I never have, querido."

Still red from the anger he's feeling, Joshua's face screws up when the first answer he gets if the man undressing. Mouth hanging open, wanting to ask what the hell he thinks he's doing, but then there's an answer. One as verbally give as it is visual.

Faraday has seen Vasquez naked, and recently, and there was no wound like this.

"A Gatling gun." He repeats that, marveling at the very idea. "They brought..." It's a cold splash of reality as he reaches out, his stomach turning as he hesitates, not quite touching it. Afraid Vasquez will pull away in that moment, deny him that and then his fingers close the gap, brushing over the scar.

Definitely old. Sealed and healed and... He swallows hard against the wave of nausea hits him. "I left you to that?"

His eyes close, all of that anger turning in on himself. He left them to face a Goddamn Gatling gun, and no matter what he's told the idea he was there and can't remember it...

"I... How..." His gaze raises from the scar to Vasquez's face. "How bad was I hurt? Is that why I can't remember?" Frowning heavily, his hand going to the hem of the weird night shirt he's wearing, lifting the hem to try and look at his stomach, his chest, trying to see if he bears scars that would explain how he went a year without a thought. Without those he'd gone to war with. Without Vasquez.

Vasquez hates hearing Faraday talk about the battle like he had been the one to run away. It irritates him wildly, which is why he thinks that he's going to give up the ghost and say all the things that he hadn't meant to say.

"You didn't leave," he spits out. "Stop saying this." The only way he'd left had been dying and that had been something that Faraday doesn't want to spend much time thinking about, because it still leaves a pock-marked hole of grief on his heart.

He swallows hard at the touch to his scar, not wanting to move. He wants to freeze in this moment to let Faraday keep touching him, leaning into it, his eyes turning sad when Faraday looks to his chest. "Do you want to know the truth?"

He won't say unless Faraday asks for it.

His hand splays over the wound, pressing his palm flat to it. Feeling the heat of Vasquez's skin against his, the edges of the smooth scar, the very idea in his head of a bullet ripping through his skin, through muscle and bone and taking the abilities of a gunman like that.

He swallows hard, a sound that felt like it echoed in the air around them as his hand flexes, dragging his nails over the edge of the scar.

The entire time his gaze doesn't leave Vasquez's face. Seeing that pain there, the way his expression is just as tight as his words. For a long time he stands there like that, both holding Vasquez at a distance with his arm and desperately holding onto that contact though he's not sure why it's suddenly so important to him.

After a time he shakes his head. "The truth is that I must have spent the last year sick from the fight. I must have only just woken up," he says, speaking a truth he isn't sure he believes but needs to say out loud as if that makes everything okay.

Vasquez wishes that maybe he had something to drink or a reason that he could cite for why he stares at Faraday so long, why he lets that pain show on his face, but he has nothing. All that he has is the grief of losing something on the cusp of it becoming something.

He'd wanted it to become something so badly, he can barely put it to words. He doesn't know if he should elaborate, if he should say something else, but he'll leave it to Faraday to choose. "Tell me, if you want to know how it all ended. I know," is all he says, simply.

Moving to clap a hand on Faraday's other shoulder, he holds onto him. "I can show you where I've been staying." Though, maybe now with Faraday here, the inn isn't where they'll stay, because maybe privacy will be a better option.

It's not good. So not good. It didn't take a man that could read others like Faraday to see that pain on Vasquez's face, and he's pretty damn sure it isn't just about the wound he could feel against his palm still. A Gatling gun did damage, destroyed lives, but that look carries so much pain and Joshua isn't sure what to think about that. More what it means about him.

He shakes his head again, quick and in short shakes. Not caring that maybe his expression shows more than it should, a fear that he isn't trying to hide. "I don't want to know. There's nothing to be had out of knowing."

That gets a nod from him. "Yeah. Show me where we are," he says. "Where are we?" It doesn't look familiar, and he can't remember anything before waking up in the water.

That means the touching is going to have to stop, at least the way it's been happening. He makes a different kind of face now, a sour one, and it probably looks funny from the outside, but it's a reflection of how much he doesn't like the fact that he has to let go and Faraday has to let go either.

That's a complicated thing for him to think about later. Right now, he has things to show him. "I don't know. Some village? It's not any America that I've seen, even if I've only mostly been from Texas to California," he admits.

His fingers slowly withdraws his fingers, letting them drag along his shoulder and then dropping to his side. For a long moment he still doesn't step away, watching Vasquez for a long moment.

"What about up north? I mean, could be you got far North, out by the gold mines up that way," he says, considering. "How'd we get here?" A year or not, he just can't make any sense of it all. "And what's with the night clothes?" He asks, picking at the scrub shirt, and how come you're all dressed like that?"

Just as he'd suspected, when the touch goes away, Vasquez can help but feel the disappointment running through him. He knows that they're not close, but it had felt like something was brewing when they'd fought back to back, not to mention when they'd drank together and the bickering (and flirting) as they set up.

With one last sigh, he gives in to knowing he doesn't get Faraday's touch anymore. "I've never been that far North, I hate the cold." Which, eyes flashing with worry, he now thinks of something he hasn't paid much mind to. "It's probably going to get really cold here. Mierda."

He glances down at his clothes, then to Faraday's, smirking as he does. "I think someone likes me more."

Joshua is acutely aware of how long his hand lingered against Vasquez's skin. Just like he's aware of how it feels like burning against his palm now, how he feels the scar still against his own palm. Not to mention he figures he really needs to work out just what he thought some of those words and teasing and all had been before all of this. If he's wrong, then he's fixin' to get himself laid out and that's really not something he wants to have happen.

If he's right... then maybe it really does matter what that look was all about when they stopped talking about how it's been a year.

"You better buck up then, Muchacho, because lookin' around this place? It's probably going to get real cold. Awww, it's gonna be your first snow," he teases, because that's easier than thinking on emotions.

He snorts at the comment about being more liked. "I just got here. Only one that knows me is you. And who'd you steal them from? Might have to make a stop by there myself."

Vasquez keeps making a face and decides he's going to have to start finding blankets and coats and thick, warm things. That, or he's going to have to convince some of his better friends to keep him warm through the winter. Staring at Faraday, now, he wonders if he's going to be able to keep that going.

He should, it's safer, and besides, if Faraday is himself, then he'll probably make himself known as the world's greatest lover to the population soon enough. "No stealing, they came for me in a box with my lasso," he says. "And cigarettes," he adds, with the bliss of a man who's very happy. "So much tobacco and rolling papers that I'll smoke for months."

No cigars, though, but beggars can't be choosers.

"I don't know, you look okay in those," he says, tipping his head to the side to study him. "Not so bad to look at, guerito."

Knowing that he's got some serious feelings stirring for another and giving up on being the world's greatest lover? Come on. Why make that decision? Why give it up? Okay it came down to give it up or keep Vasquez, that'd be another story but not what he's thinking. Course, right now he's not even thinking about the fact that the feelings he has and what they could be are at all the same thing.

How could he even believe they might be the same? Flirting and sharp words didn't mean anything more between men like them.

"So you got someone in this place giving you presents, huh? Is that what this dang thing is?" He holds up his hand, showing the device on his wrist. "What even is this made from? I mean, never seen anything like it."

Though he glances over, smirking, putting a wiggle in his step. "I'm not such a bad look in anything so..."

Vasquez's eyes are still on Faraday's body, not sure he's been able to take them off since he got here. He's used to staring at the man, hasn't been able to take his fascinated eyes off him since he tripped off a horse and insulted him.

It had been promising and exciting, because Vasquez hand't been sure if they were going to kill one another or have something else. "I have lots of people giving me presents," he agrees, but the thing on his wrist, this he doesn't know much about. "Some kind of watch that also does things. Some people, they type on it," he says, but he's not looking at the watch.

No, he's still staring at Faraday, the way he moves, the view of his ass from where Vasquez has dropped back. "I can think of a few things that don't suit you," he says. "Or, maybe I just look better in them."

It's not unusual, the two of them watching one another. They could claim a lot of things, but it had just become second nature between them and it isn't likely to change. So he can't help but smirk at Vasquez when he makes that comment.

"Got yourself a pretty little harem here, huh?" He can't help himself, being a smart ass. "Hope they don't mind me crashing wherever you're sleeping. Been sleeping in an empty house for a few days, but figure eventually if I'm not hiding from a bounty..." He lets the words hang there, smiling sharp.

"Type on it? What?" He pokes at it, frowning suddenly. "This like the things I've seen in the house that are so... odd?"

H stops then, turning to look at Vasquez. He looks insulted. "Like what? What don't I look good in?"

He thinks about the people that he's been making some time with and for two out of three, maybe pretty is the right word, but he snorts a little when he thinks of Bobo as pretty. "They're not so bad. Besides, I don't think you can stay in the inn with me. Maybe, instead, I'll come to you."

After all, Faraday won't give a shit if he smokes and there'll be less of a line for the bathroom. He just hadn't wanted to be alone again, but he won't be, not now.

"I don't know, I don't use it," he says bluntly. "I just see other people sending messages. And for your clothes..." He trails off, taking the time and the opportunity to look over Faraday, tongue pressed to his lower lip. "No," he says, like he's thought it over and doesn't intend to say. "You won't like hearing the truth."

Bobo might tell you he's damn pretty and don't forget that. It might come with a lot of alcohol, but he might still say it.

"What? I'm not allowed in civilized house?" He takes it wrong that he's not allowed in the Inn at all. "Is it because I'm in night clothes?" Fighting through that cultural line, not getting it because he's measuring this world by the world he's known.

He pokes at the thing on his wrist. "How is that..." He frowns, this being the first thing he's truly found an issue with. Most the rest at least generically made sense to him.

"No, you don't get to stop like that. Come on, Mexican. Try and tell me there's something I don't look good in. Even this," he says, tugging at the scrub top. "You can't name anything."

"It's more that I only have the one bed," Vasquez replies, but he's not telling Faraday he can't, just that he's not going to suggest that he can when he's not so sure about Faraday. Then again, how long is he going to be at the Inn? Maybe he'll take Bobo up on the offer and stay at his place and just bring Faraday along with him.

It wouldn't be so bad, but it might be awkward, considering what he's doing with Bobo right now and the things he wants to do to Faraday.

"You'd look so terrible in proper clothes," he says. "Proper Mexican ones, you couldn't carry off the patterns or styles at all." It had taken just about all his energy not to tell Faraday that he probably looked like shit when naked.

Maybe another day, he'll try that.

"Also, my name is Vasquez, guerito."

His eyes narrow, watching Vasquez closely. "That's all it is, not that you think I can't be around your friends?" Arching a brow, looking entirely insulted that it could ever be that.

"How can you believe that? I am a handsome man. I have broad shoulders. I can wear anything," he says, rolling his eyes and sounding way more insulted than he should all things considered.

Planting his hands on his hips, giving Vasquez a look, not at all impressed. "You get... I mean... My name..." He gestures as if he'll catch up. "Also, don't you have another name?"

"I think my friends would like you," Vasquez says with a laugh as he realizes how true that is. He thinks Bobo would and Wynonna would definitely like Faraday. He even thinks so would the others that he's met, so he doesn't think there's going to be bad blood anywhere, there

As to the clothes, he shakes his head and his finger, waggling it at Faraday. "The pants I used to wear? No." His pants, which had been probably too tight for the time, going with Vasquez's too-big shirt. "Besides, patterns? You wouldn't know what to do with bright colours, I think."

He stops so he can give Faraday an amused look about his name. "Of course I have another. I give it to the people I like the most."

"Everyone likes me," he says, sounding a bit prissy about it but amused at the same time. He knows it isn't true, but he definitely knows he can fair pretty well with people when he tries to be sociable. He's lovable!

"Oh those pants." He says it considering. He remembers those pants, definitely. "You saying I can't wear color? I feel insulted."

And yet he's not, and it shows. It's enjoying the games, the words, the flirting and banter between them. For him it was just yesterday and it's part of his life even as little as it's been in his life. It is what he expects, and gives as good as he expects to get.

Though that makes him roll his eyes. "Well then, obviously I won't have it." Because he's not asking. Nope. Dammit, why doesn't he know?!

"Goodnight didn't, sometimes," Vasquez counters, which is funny to him because for all that Vasquez had prodded and jibed at him with words, he seemed to tolerate Vasquez whereas he seemed sometimes jittery around Faraday. "And who says I like you?"

It would be the biggest bullshit lie in existence to say he doesn't, but he likes to bullshit, sometimes.

"Maybe you can earn my name eventually," he says with a casual shrug, as if he's not already thinking of when he can have it. Walking back towards the inn, he can feel the interest stirring again, fantasies he thought he'd buried resurfacing, of Faraday moaning his proper name in his ear. Cheeks going a touch hot, he stares forward. "And we'll see about colour. Maybe you can wear a big nose, like a clown?"

He snorts at that, rolling his eyes. "I'm not worried what he thinks of me," he says, still having a bitter taste in his mouth for the Cajun riding off, even if Vasquez says he came back. Though at that challenging question, he smirks at him.

"You do. You say it," he taunts, sounding smug though he's not going to point out to him just why he believes this. He know it's true though. Just like his sharp words don't mean he doesn't care about Vasquez either.

"If this involves cleaning up your horse, or begging, you're going to just get nicknames. Oh. I'll just start guessing, Carlos," he says, grinning wide then, amused with himself. Which isn't hard for him to do, amuse himself.

"Maybe you can bite my ass," he says in cheerful tones, striding along beside him.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject