sail_ooc | TEST DRIVE MEME #7

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TEST DRIVE MEME #7

1. before she hung up, she said she was a skeleton

[there is no note in your cabin. no forces stall your legs if you decide to walk anywhere but the atrium. in fact, for the first time in hundreds of years, newly arrived passengers on the Serena Eterna are waking up with absolutely no guidance. nothing but your fellow passengers in the halls - or maybe in your bed.

perhaps you end up in the atrium eventually anyway. it is where guest services is, and where Gal Friday… actually hasn’t been in a few days. until today. and she is visibly frazzled, her hair uncoiffed, her suit rumpled, something a bit like a bruise blossoming down from her hairline and over her smooth features. more papers than ever cover her desk, and when she turns to face you, her voice is as cheerful as ever, but audibly strained.]

Welcome aboard the Serene Eterna! [a pause] You know how to work a life vest, right? Everyone knows that! You don’t need me to teach you that!

[a light bulb burns out behind her head.]

… I’ll get right on that!

[freedom includes the freedom to not know what the fuck is happening. maybe you should reflect on that.]

2. grandma went and can't stop screaming

[it’s something about the lighting fixtures, this month. has the Bellona always had a massive chandelier? maybe. who knows. don’t ask questions. either way, in the stillness of the night, or day, or late afternoon, there is a noise like a cord being cut, and the chandelier plunges into the audience below.

it hits nothing, of course. no one is ever in the theater. and that, perhaps, is what the trouble is.

so, the chandelier starts to… travel, one could say. it starts to hang in various rooms: the dining halls, the bars, the clubs… sometimes, if you’re out on the pool deck and suddenly realized you’re under a shadow, you can glance up and see it suspended 20 feet above your head, securely fastened to nothing in particular and yet remaining perfectly in place.

until it isn’t. until it falls, crystal shattering on whatever surface it lands on: floor, table, person… and, wherever the chandelier goes, a lilting childish voice follows it, singing without any obvious source.]

Ring-a-ring of roses, a pocket full of posies… ashes, ashes, we all…

3. jeff bezos murdered the infinite tommy bahama

[the lights of the Infinite Tommy Bahama go out three days into October.

barely an hour after its closure, the lights go on again, and a new banner is unfurled.

physically, it is the same store. you can even see the old signs hidden behind the new ones. however, long gone are the tropical prints and khaki dress shorts. now, one can purchase any number of officially licensed or legally distinct Halloween costumes, decorations, and various other haunted accoutrements, leading back as far as the eye can see, and then farther still. is that a Gal Friday mask? spooky! well, at least you’ll be good and ready for the Halloween party at the end of the month, which is absolutely just a normal party and in no way whatsoever anything even remotely resembling a trick. there are only treats at The Infinite Spirit Halloween!

note: bahamanuel is still here! somewhere! it kinda looks like dan bongino.]

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Gideon clutches her chest like she's been stabbed, gasping and staggering. "Erin, my lovely, my sweet, my dearest delight, I'm afraid it can never work out between us if you've been consorting with my mother. I've spent too much of my life around necrophilies to let myself date one!"

It hits Erin like a punch made of comedy; she has to hold herself up against the wall to stop from doubling over laughing. "I see how it is, I reveal my dead mom and you just hold yours in reserve for the fuckin' Uno Reverse. Motherfucker. Well-played."

She shakes her head, but she's smiling. "...Hey, up front. Flirt all you like, I'll have fun with it, but if you get serious about it prepare for a long fucking walk through my...no, I can't even call them issues, I have subscriptions. As you mighta been able to tell, y'know, back there, about a minute ago. We square there?"

"It's my sole inheritance from her; the perfect undercut for every last 'your mother' joke." She grins and feels that little flush of warmth come back in.

And were Gideon fully sober, she might be forced to bluster a little and bluff about Erin's soft rejection (or soft deflection?) to save herself from bruises. However, somewhat drunk and a little vulnerable after being brought a glass of water, she finds it in herself to admit the terrible truth. "We're more than square - the last girl I flirted with turned out to be ten-thousand years old and using me entirely and only for revenge. So I'm fine leaving our sweet nothings as sweet nothing at all."

"...I think you get to win broken heart contests, lass. I. I am struck with the urge to make you a medal for it." She shakes her head again and steps a little closer, offering a hand out. "At the very least I can get you alive to your cabin, yeah? Don't worry about the vomit, it'll get cleaned up...and also I'm legitimately not sure if this hellscape has mops."

(she spots the gun but would he dare shoot? he didn't charge at her the first time he stepped foot on this boat and they've spoken maybe twice during his stay. so could this just be a bluff? but as her father would say if he were here and alive to never let your guard down.

so right as she swings back up, the bullet sours right pass her face -- grazing her cheek. there's a brush of sensation she feels there but not pain (due to her shimmer side effect in her bloodstream). it looks like this man means business so hastily, jinx balances herself up on the beam.)

Oooo, nasty! — That's gonna leave a mark. (she trails her fingertip along the now freshly cut.) Sheesh, what's with everyone always out to get me? I didn't do anything this time!! Was it the "Old Timer" remark?

I guess Izzy did say for me to show you respect. But you just look so... old.

"You give me a medal, I'll wear it and lie through my teeth that I got it saving a dozen beautiful necromancers, all of them with asses you could bounce a coin off." Gideon stares at the offered hand, trying to decide if it's a trap or not. Probably. It's always a trap. She's a slow learner but she does learn, eventually, maybe. Sometimes.

Getting back to her cabin is what she wants though, so she decides not to learn anything and takes the offered hand to stay upright. "Do people clean up around here? Everything I've seen today says that they don't."

"Good news! The same unholy forces that provide all the free stuff also make your new home self-cleaning."

Beat.

"Usually. C'mon, I'll hold you up, just don't touch me more than strictly necessary and I'll keep Traitor Brain in check."

Erin offers her shoulder to lean on and braces herself for the inevitable weight of one (1) Gideon.

Maybe it starts as a frightened sort of fascination, but that's about to morph into flabbergasted excitement in all of three seconds flat.

Literally all it takes is one word: Ninth. And every ounce of lingering wariness and distrust melts off her features. Suddenly Clarke's transported back to driving in the desert with Palamedes and listening to him talk about his home world with only the vague distraction of the open road before them. She does that a lot, just sit and keep her ears primed around him; has picked up on the finer points of his particular brand of magic by now, as well as integrated a bit of his lexicon into hers. But has also just absorbed the parts of his story he'd been willing to share and taken them to heart, enough to belatedly recognize when coming face to face with another key player. The Sixth were librarians, steeped in knowledge. The Eight were zealots who thought themselves above reproach. The Fifth were spirit magicians, the sort they'd desperately needed throughout the month of October. The heirs of the Third dabbled in flesh magic, but he wouldn't trust them as far as he could throw them. And the Ninth, he'd told her, were bone adepts. Had spoken as fondly about Harrowhark Nonagesimus's failures as he did her successes, as much as he did her —

"Never seen one," Clarke confirms, and there's a whole new level of conviction filtering into her voice now. Her eyes dance, she practically beams. "But I've heard a lot about you, Gideon Nav."

Really makes a man question his fucking humanity. If Edward has any left.

"Then the protection is pointless. A pacifier of sorts to make us all feel safe." he sighs, "Most of this fucking mirage is pointless." Whatever. He'll save the rest of his commentary for behind closed doors where they can't be heard, anyway.

Either way, alternatives to death is something Edward is already contemplating, particularly for those who threaten him.

[ The look Steve gets from Eddie is not too dissimilar to the look he had when Steve, Dustin, Robin, and Max were trying to explain the Upside Down to him. Which, he will never get over, the fact that they had been dealing with this shit for years and Eddie had been none the wiser. ]

The future? Jesus. [ He follows Steve out of the elevator and towards the infirmary, his nerves starting to act up as the full implications start to set in. ] Are we talking, like, a future connected to ours? Or, like. Alternate universes? [ Henderson was more of the science nerd, but he's read enough science fiction to know what theories there are out there.

He's personally hoping it's an alternate universe kind of thing. He isn't sure he wants to know what happens to their world, knowing that he will never live to see it. ]

I have. Still fucking weird, that I've been harassing a Steve that's not you, by the way. [ And by harassing, he of course means flirting, but. Steve doesn't need to know that. ]

That's a good question. What did Clarke say again?

"Uncanny valley," he intones, clearly quoting someone else and finding their argument lacking, "the features are wrong, human but not you." Natsuno shrugs and continues in a more normal tone: "that's my friend says, anyway. Thinks clowns are creepy."

He gives the mask another critical look.

"Maybe it's not scary on its own, but if you surprise someone in the dark..."

Clarke will definitely shoot him for this. But it'll be funny.

And Izzy Hands looks fucking young? Kill him now.

As soon as she begins to move, he realizes his shot is going to miss,and sets about reloading immediately. An 18th century weapon is the only thing keeping him from a speedy second shot, obviously, but he's well practiced.

He's beinging back the hammer a second time and reaiming as she continues to mock him from the ceiling. Not doing so good with first impressions. Then again, Edward's never been called old before, not like this, and not from a stranger. He doesn't fucking like it. He'd climb up there himself and grab her by the braid but he has no earthly idea how she got up there to begin with.

"Not to cut into your tight-five routine, but you're making me waste my ammo." he mutters, "And I don't recall signing up for a fucking roast. So fuck off or die."

The knife at his throat wavers, just a little. It's enough to tell him that despite whatever Stede did to Ed - Edward - Blackbeard - to make him so angry at him, he's still himself under it all. Somewhere.

"I'm not lying, Blackbeard," he says with a calm he doesn't even remotely feel. Saying the title, Blackbeard, instead of Ed or Edward hurts in a way he hadn't expected it to. He'd never insisted on the title before, preferring his name, even introducing himself to Stede as Ed rather than Blackbeard.

(He really wants to ask what happened to the beard, but the scrap of common sense he has tells him that now is not the time.)

"The bill had come due," he says, his voice finally trembling. He's been trying not to think about it, but the explanation requires it. "But if I had to die anywhere, I would have chosen the Revenge. I lived with my mistakes, and then I died with them, in front of the best men I ever knew."

A dangerous gamble, but then, quietly: "That includes you."

Edward’s jaw drops slightly, his eyes feeling incredibly wet. His hand shakes almost as much as his breath-- he cannot fucking believe what he's hearing. The gall.

Perhaps hell is real, and this is it. Stede is just another demon here to torture him.

"Do you... really not remember how that went?!" he asks finally, voice on the brink of breakdown. All that he'd done- the lengths he'd went for Stede, forgotten. Edward’s chest feels like he's the one that took a line of bullets suddenly; like they'd left a hole in their wake.

"I gave up everything to save your life that day. And you're going to act like that just... didn't happen?"

Gideon doesn’t understand him, but why would she? Back at Canaan House, Palamedes had called the lyctorhood theorem ghastly and obvious, and Ianthe had laughed at him, assuming the Master Warden of the Library was merely too queasy to do what needed to be done. She had misunderstood what he meant then, just as Gideon does now. It isn’t merely that the path to lyctorhood was laid with evil acts; it’s that there was another path entirely. A better one, a purer one. One purposefully hidden away for a myriad.

Given enough time, they could have found it: he, Harrow, Cam, and Gideon. Instead, they had been forced to take desperate measures—Gideon is right about that much. With their backs to the wall, what other choice could they have made?

But with enough time? Oh, the wonders they might have uncovered and the tides they might have turned! Palamedes has to believe that they might still set matters to rights, if only Cam and Harrow can pull him out of his bubble in the River. If only he—and now Gideon—can find a way to escape this place.

He offers Gideon a wry smile. “Granted, the Serena Eterna has its advantages, but don’t get too comfortable. The Captain likes to play deadly games with us. Sometimes he uses monsters, sometimes psychological tests meant to set us against each other. Thus far, the passengers have managed to remain a united front, but our alliances are tenuous at best.”

"You...what?"

There's genuine bafflement on Stede's face.

The knife at his throat is shaking again. The voice coming from the knife's holder is shaking, too.

"The last thing I recall is hearing them take aim from behind the blindfold - what do you mean you gave up everything? I don't understand."

The last time he'd heard Blackbeard this broken was when he'd confessed to killing his father. He's missing pieces of the puzzle and it's utterly infuriating that everything he's being told makes no sense.

"I'm sorry." He's not entirely sure what he's apologizing for, but he is sorry. "You didn't have to come back for us." If he'd stayed at Blind Man's Cove with Jack, things would have been different. For him, at least. Stede would still be dead.

Given how much he'd hurt Blackbeard, though, maybe that would have been the best option. You're supposed to avoid lighthouses. Leaving with Jack had been a better choice on his part. Self-preservation, even. Get as far away from the lighthouse as you can.

Stede apologizes and Ed breaks, shaking his head as tears finally roll down his cheeks, bringing black kohl with them. "Stop--" he gasps, the knife slipping slightly, not pressed to Stede's skin anymore but still in the hand that's now practically resting on Stede's chest. He's trembling- he wants so badly to throw his arms around this man and press his face to his chest. To let his tears soak his fancy clothing while Stede comforts him and he lets it all out. He'd give anything for that, but he's so, so terribly afraid.

"Just stop-- I can't--" he shakes his head again, "You broke my fucking heart, Bonnet-- I can't do this again."

Of all the things Stede had expected to hear, that was not even in the top thousand. Well, now he knows what he's apologizing for.

Saying 'what?' again? Bad idea. Exceedingly bad idea. What does he say to this? What does he do?

Never had it crossed his mind that he was capable of breaking anyone's heart, let alone Blackbeard's. For most of his life, he'd been pretty sure that nobody at all would miss him if he just disappeared. Mary certainly wouldn't have. To think that anyone would care that much about him to let him break their heart? It beggared belief. Or it would, if his best friend wasn't nearly having a breakdown in front of him because of something he'd done.

He'd cocked it all up again, and he needed to make it right.

"I'm so sorry, Ed," he says quietly. "I'm so sorry. I'd never hurt you on purpose. Please know that."

"Please-" Ed hiccups, feeling weak and pathetic again as his emotions catch the best of him. He doesn't even know what he's asking for, just knows that somehow, once again, he's crying in front of Stede Bonnet, a mess of himself and for what? Stede doesn't even remember what he's done.

He could just curl up into a ball and die. That might be better. The knife falls the rest of the way, Ed's arms limp at his sides as he staggers back weakly, ready to give up. This is what he deserves, he reckons; Stede should be afraid of him, see him for what he is once and for all.

The knife falls, and Ed steps back. A normal person, a sensible person, a person with a sense of self-preservation would run before the dread pirate Blackbeard changed his mind.

Stede, being none of those things, steps closer.

"Hey," he says softly. "It's...fuck, I wish I could remember what I'd done to hurt you so. Please forgive me."

He wants to hug Ed, but that would probably be a bad idea. He's hurting, he's hurting because of Stede.

Once again, Stede Bonnet's iron-clad balls leave Edward Teach fucking speechless. Ed literally threatened his life, so why is he still here? It's absolutely fucking absurd. It's crazy. Ed's crazy because despite it all he's still in love with this absurd little man.

All he can do is shake his head. He doesn't want this, not like this. He doesn't want to feel weak. It doesn't feel right to feel anger for someone who hasn't even committed the crimes against him that he's angry about yet. It doesn't feel right anyway because it doesn't make sense. Edward can't trust it, doesn't want to- if he's hurt like this again he'll fucking die.

"You're always going to see what I am..." he mumbles low, "One way or another, you'll flee from the Kraken every chance you get." he sniffs, glaring up at Stede through his eyelashes. "It's better this way." he continues more confidently, even if the confidence is fabricated and he's hurting more than ever. Ed takes a step backwards, just out of reach. "You'll see."

Gee, are those my only two options? Can't you throw in a third? It gets boring hearin' the same ol' "fuck off or die" shtick.

(without a care in the world when she should be, jinx walks along the beam with her arms extended outward. this is extremely dangerous seeing she can slip off and fall to her death at any second. but she lives the motto of "why live if you don't take any risks?". )

— Besides I was here first. Maaaaybe you oughta leave.

(she comes to a stop with her foot hovering; now balancing herself on one leg. her gaze is back to him with a lopsided grin.)

Or if you're really runnin' out of juice, I can give ya some. Whaddya say?

Edited 2022-11-05 20:31 (UTC)

"Mm, yeah, when you put it like that." Hard to argue, and he doesn't disagree as they take the stairs up a floor to get to the cabins. No Elevators, Izzy doesn't trust them.

"And whilst death may not be permanent, that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, so I don't recommend trying for funsies. It's the torture you really have to watch out for. The Captain is fond. You know he can't even sail? Unbelievable."

Ed's given him an out. He can leave, and they can part ways on his terms, and the thought of that hurts like when the Spanish captain stabbed him in the gut.

You'll flee from the Kraken every chance you get.

Someone normal would. They'd run and run and never look back.

Stede steps forward, keeping the space between him and Ed the same. "I'm not fleeing." His tone is half-gentle, half-stubborn. "If my leaving hurt you, then I'm not doing that again, Edward."

"Never knew you as one to shy away from pain." he replies. Is he teasing? Who knows. As if Izzy’s tolerated his teasing at any point in recent history, anyway.

"Who doesn't love a bit of torture, Iz? Can't blame him for that." he continues... it's as if Izzy had read his mind. At least he has that leg up on this Captain, though... Edward can actually sail.

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TEST DRIVE MEME #7

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this is way funnier when you remember they're still at the muster station as friday's like "..."

having a real normal one with his pal stede on orientation day

being really normal up here on deck

just mens bein friens

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