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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John is still wheezing on the floor, winded twice over by Arthur's outburst. It's the only thing stifling his white hot fury at Arthur's words and actions, spit in his face after he thought he'd taken everything from Arthur, that he rejected what he was too late to save Arthur's consciousness, that the choice he made meant nothing at all - and still doesn't matter.

Yes, he wanted to become whole again, but he refused when the cost became clear. Did that mean nothing? How little Arthur understood - and to blame John when he was the idiot who listened at the auditorium, who bound himself to that table? Who followed what the damn folio said and who didn't use the light when John told him to? He rejected John's advice and still blamed him for their misfortune?

He wants to hurt him back, to tell him that he did indeed take it all from Arthur, and he would never get it back, not even his fucking eyes, that he would do it all again with no thought, over and over again and that Arthur means nothing, just to shut him up for this outburst, so he can feel the same pain John is and more. But his mouth doesn't seem to want to work in sync with what air he can draw in, not as fast as the tension in his body and anger in his chest demands.

Instead, he lunges forward into Arthur's legs.

Arthur should have predicted that this might happen. Maybe he, too, is too used to John not having physical form, or maybe he just wasn't thinking; either way, he's not braced for an attack, and he can't see to dodge it, so when John hits his legs he goes backwards like a dropped sack of potatoes.

The clown keeps screeching and laughing at them, its sensors set off over and over by the violent motion going on in front of them.

"Agh," Arthur opines as his shoulder cracks painfully into the display shelf behind him. Several of the animal decorations there fall, and for a moment he's bathed in a shower of plastic skeletons with empty eyes and anatomically-confusing ears.

"Shit," he elaborates, as he lands on his back on the floor, just barely catching himself with one arm before his head cracks into the ground, his other arm momentarily paralysed and clanging with pain.

"Fuck you," he adds in summary of his argument, kicking with his legs as hard as he's able, hoping that a knee or foot will hit something vulnerable.

"Ugh John agrees as he falls into Arthur, who is falling against a shelf of false skeletons.

"Fuck-" John offers as a counterpoint, as Arthur's knee catches his chest and his foot tangles in his robes, preventing John from getting any meaningful use from that arm other than to keep Arthur's leg busy.

"Fuck you!" he concludes, not originally, as he tries to wrap his arm around that caught leg and haul himself up to land his left fist blindly on some part of Arthur's body.

When he's done with Arthur that fucking clown is next.

"You show up here-- agh," says Arthur furiously, interrupted by the noise he makes when John's fist hits the side of his ribcage. He grabs at that spot, finding fabric, plentiful rough fabric-- are those robes? Is John wearing their fucking robes? You know what, that's not important right now.

"I'll make you wish I could kill you--"

With the sleeve in his grip, Arthur climbs it hand-over-hand back up to John's head, and aims a wild punch at where he thinks John's face must be.

It doesn't perfectly connect. He manages a glancing blow against something hard and angular that jars his knuckles even as he feels it move under them. Arthur growls out an "Ow," and pulls his bruised fist automatically back towards his body, and only then realises: the mask? The fucking mask as well?

He's now holding onto the throat of John's robe with only one hand, his leg tangled in John's arm.

John releases Arthur's leg as he feels his way up his other arm, so when the punch comes and knocks his head back and his mask askew, he is free to swing that arm into the one holding his throat.

He squints through the offset eyes of the mask at Arthur's face, and with his own face twisting up he digs his fingers into Arthur's forearm.

"Fuck you! I should have taken everything from you!" he growls.

Their positioning is... awkward, but John doesn't think beyond striking Arthur back, so he manages what he can with his left on the outside of this engagement - he swipes his palm at Arthur's head.

John's palm connects, because, like, what's Arthur going to do? See it coming?

He's winding up for another punch, hanging onto John's robe despite the pain of those fingers digging mercilessly into his arm, when the slap takes him full in the face. It stings like an absolute bitch, and he tastes blood in his mouth -- the angle and the force made him bite the inside of his cheek.

John's words wake up something twisting and insane in him.

Arthur spits blood at John. His fingers on John's robe are loosening against his will as John's fingers dig between his radius and ulna, so he grabs with his left hand as well and drags him sideways in a crocodile roll, landing with Arthur on top.

"You should've?" He's shouting now, his voice whetted to a vicious edge. "Fuck you! What if I take them back!"

His right arm tries to twist free. His left hand darts up from John's collar. John's face has to be around here somewhere. He'll go through the sockets of the mask if he has to.

John is filled with furious, roaring rage, and as it always does, it escapes him as laughter. Cruel laughter, and then-

"Fuck!" he spits as they roll over.

The rage ebbs to a level where he just growls.

The downside of having his own body, he realizes, is that it truly removes much of the leverage he had on Arthur. Before, he could have laughed in Arthur's face and taunted him that he would be giving up all chance of getting his eyes back, but now...

It's an issue he is aware, distantly, that they will have to address. One that's concerning and raises many questions, but for now, he reaches awkwardly over Arthur's arm to try to catch the hand pawing at his face.

"Arthur-!" He grits out. He shuts his eyes against the blood that's dripped on his mask and Arthur's sesrching fingers as the it goes further askew, threatening to reveal what's beneath.

John growls and bucks, trying to throw Arthur off-balance, if not off him entirely.

(And for thise still wondering: the clown is still laughing.)

Edited 2022-10-09 22:49 (UTC)

Arthur's current quest is single-minded enough that he's caught unawares when John bucks under him. He's not thrown off, but he's knocked off-balance, and his left hand automatically goes to catch him-- escaping John's attempt to grab him, only to slam elbow-first into a floor that's much closer than anticipated.

"Shit!" he says loudly, as his arm seizes up painfully for the second time in quick succession; and now he rolls off of John.

Arthur said he was going to go see what the Tommy Bahama had changed into for Halloween, but that was a while ago. He's still not back. Maybe Crichton's just being a little overprotective but... what if that monster is still in there? He'd better go check.

As he approaches the shop, he can hear the unmistakable sound of a scuffle and shouting. Frell! Crichton grabs his gun from his holster and sprints into the store... just in time to see the two fully grown men grappling with each other on the ground. And one of them is wearing robes in a shade of yellow he's seen before.

"Arthur?! What the hell is going on?"

Arthur falls and John follows, scrambling to get his leg over him and get on top.

He should really stand, but - it would take too long to untangle from the mess of yellow robes, yes. He bunches his cloth-wrapped fists in Arthur's shirt.

"Listen to me, Arthur!" he says-

But he stops when the other voice cuts in.

Crichton finds a man draped in yellow robes over top tighter-fit black robes, wrapped tight up to his head. The pale mask, with its rough cut jaw and brow, sits askew on his face. While there are eyes visible through the eyeholes of the mask, behind the askew sides of it there is only an absent void where a face should be.

"Who the fuck is that?" John says.

Arthur's clothes are no less askew than John's mask, and there's a smear of blood at the corner of his mouth.

"I'm going to fucking kill him," he says hysterically. It's not really a sensible answer to either of their questions, but from his choice of words, it can be determined that he's taken in Crichton's arrival and sort of responded to what he said.

He gets hold of John's robe again and attempts a reprise of the crocodile roll, but this time John's knees are planted too firmly on either side of him, and he only succeeds in pulling some fabric skewiff.

O-kay. Clearly, Crichton is missing something here. Arthur doesn't seem to be in the state of mind to elaborate. Fine. He'll do his own introductions.

"Hiya," he says with a cheerful wave, completely at odds with Arthur's declaration of intended murder.

"Commander John Crichton here; I'm Arthur's roommate. Wanna tell me who you are Mustard Man before Arthur manages to take a piece out of you?" Note, Crichton is doing absolutely nothing to stop Arthur's attempts to do just that.

Arthur's yanking around of his robe does at least tug John off-balance, and so for the moment he's preoccupied with counter-struggling against Arthur's struggling. It does at least draw this stalled moment out enough for John to notice the weapon the other man named John has drawn.

"Take a piece out of- roommate?!" John (in the mask) begins, stops short, and looks down at Arthur.

The man has a weapon and his thoughts should be turned towards disarming him, getting himself and Arthur to safety, but instead what comes out of his mouth is, "Arthur, what the fuck is he talking about?"

Crichton's here to back him up, and John just keeps asking him what's going on, and it finally dawns on Arthur that this situation should be giving him deja vu: John's new to this universe, popped in without ready explanation. But this time Arthur knows what's going on, Arthur's the one with leverage, John's the one clueless and full of questions and Arthur's the one with the answers.

It's not funny, necessarily, but a cackle bursts out of him all the same: an unpleasantly triumphant noise that's not a million miles off from that of the stupid fucking halloween clown.

The urge to literally pop out John's fucking eyeballs has passed, but that doesn't mean Arthur's not still carried away with fury at him. For murdering Parker, a better man than either of them. For tearing away that little bit of stability and comfort that Arthur had built back up after everything. For showing up here and trying to talk to Arthur as if he'd be welcome, as if he'd be wanted.

"He's my friend," Arthur says, and he grins with all his teeth, and drags at John's robes as if to pull him closer so that he can't miss a word. He hopes hearing this hurts John. He hopes it hurts like a knife to their gut. "I don't need you, John. No-one here needs you, and no-one here wants you. Go to hell."

There's something so remarkably feral about that laugh from Arthur, and the spread of his teeth. He's only ever seen the man like that when he's on the edge of his sanity thinking about things from... home. Puzzle pieces are falling into place. These two are speaking to each other like they know each other. Have history with each other. What really clinches it is that name. That name he's heard on Arthur's lips when he's talking to himself. Only, he was never just talking to himself.

I don't need you, John.

No. It can't be. Can it?

Horror-stricken, Crichton turns to look a that masked face, look into the eyes behind it, and his gun comes up and is now firmly trained on that sharply angled space between the eye holes.

"Arthur... Is this who I think it is? Is this the voice from your head?"

There's an explosion inside of John. Fury, yes, but there's a gully in it that runs hot with an emotion that tears against the grain of his being. It floods through his mind, dragging it into a whirlpool of thoughts too sharp and hot to hold together - he doesn't need him - he's not wanted - he's right - how dare he - why would he be wanted - FUCK him -

His grip on Arthur's shirt grows loose, his breathing harsh in his mask. Internally, the blaze still burns, a raging war between outrage and hurt, needing to return the pain tenfold while knowing it's all true. Trying to reconcile this Arthur fighting him and saying these things with the desperate plea to remember his name.

But that had never meant anything more than an attempt to survive, had it? The entirety of their partnership was built around that, a mutual need, and that is all it ever meant. For both of them. Means to an end, no more meaning than that.

The edges of his mind feel jagged, and there is an urge to introduce himself by a different name, a name he was an idiot to reject - but despite it all, there is still that kernel he found in the hospital. The idea that there can be change, that there can be meaning found in the meaningless, time found in the fleeting instant, company in aching loneliness of the universe.

His grip relaxes completely. He has his answer.

"Yes." John says, voice dripping malice. "And Arthur is useless to me now."

Edited 2022-10-10 15:28 (UTC)

John's words, and his tone, are more of a slap in the face than the actual hand that hit Arthur's actual cheek.

"You piece of shit," he chokes out.

Useless to him? Is that right? Is that it? After every fucking thing they went through together. John's apparent compassion for the wraith; the way he really, really did seem to have found a new way to look at the world after the hospital. John's repeated insistence that he wasn't taking over Arthur's body by choice. John describing the streets of the city for him, unprompted, long before he was even John. After Arthur trusted him and listened to him and gave him second chance after second chance after second chance, his only use to John really was, as he feared, as a body to carve pieces off one by one?

"You think you had me fooled for a fucking second with y-y-your humanity bullshit?"

(He did. He really really did.)

"Your reassurances? Your fake fucking story about the nurse?"

Arthur's own grip is as tight as it was before, but for a moment, he can't seem to find the strength to lash out physically. Words are doing just fine, though.

Well, this is getting ugly. But, in a way, it sounds cathartic too. John finally showed his true colors all the way. That makes this next part a lot easier.

"I got a gun trained right between his eyes, Arthur. Just say the word, I'll blow him away. Hell, I'll give you the thing and tell you where to aim." Because that's only fair. This is Arthur's revenge to take and Crichton is here to make it happen for him.

"We can show this bastard who the useless one is."

John stays completely still as Arthur sputters his answer. He wants to scream. He wants to swing his fists. What the fuck is wrong with Arthur that he can call John useless but sound so hurt when that same judgement is cast on him. Does it only matter when it's addressed to someone human?

Again and again, John feels like an idiot for ever reconsidering himself, for holding desperately onto Arthur when they were being ripped apart. He feels like an idiot, which makes him furious; he feels hurt, which makes him furious; he feels fury which makes him furious. All of this and the accusation that he was lying at a time he was being honest. After everything!

John laughs, a deep and croaking sound, and sounds like he's grinning.

"Yes, that's right Arthur. What's one more death at your command?" he says.

He lifts his hands and straightens his mask back into place. It feels right, and if this is how they are ending things, then he would prefer to have his true face back where it belongs.

"You even have someone else ready to guide you, or to pull the trigger if you find yourself lacking the guts to do it. You truly don't have use for me anymore, no more than I have use for you."

He plants one foot on the ground, then the other, then rises off of Arthur. He's trusting that this man Arthur calls his friend won't shoot without his say-so, or maybe he's just aware again of how little it matters. How little anything matters, how meaningless everything is.

Besides, if Arthur decides to take the gun, he'll need space to do so.

"What will it be, Arthur? How will our partnership end?"

Edited 2022-10-10 18:05 (UTC)

Crichton says he has a gun, even offers to give it to Arthur to shoot, and for a moment that seems so tempting. So well-fucking-deserved. Revenge for Parker, revenge for Arthur, and something evil removed from the ship, at least until it's brought back in some cabin at 6am. He's committed murder on more spurious grounds than that.

None of those reasons hold up, of course. Parker wouldn't be avenged, and Arthur's barely worth avenging. And John's not evil, just an unbelievable prick.

But oh, it's like John's trying to goad him into it. At one more death Arthur moves as if to fight, wanting to shut John up, especially in front of Crichton-- but he stops short of actually kicking or throwing a punch, and he has no good verbal counter.

John rises to his feet (his feet, god, Arthur's still not used to it), and after a moment, Arthur scrambles to his own. Even though he can't see it, he's so, so very aware of the gun that must surely still be pointed at John. Not a permanent death, not here, but a little bit of pain in return for the pain he's dealt out.

Arthur's hands are in fists, and the fists are trembling.

No, he doesn't want to fucking kill John. Abruptly, he doesn't even really want to hurt John. He doesn't want to think about John, he doesn't want to know John. He doesn't want to fuel the captain by fighting with John. Everything about this is bullshit, just a fucking mess.

"It ended when I woke up here a month ago," he says, sounding more irritable now than angry. He's so, so fucking tired of this ship and its games. He'd started to make peace with the idea of not going back to his own specific world, and then... god, as if the captain had read his mind, this fucking happens. Just... fuck.

How would it have gone if Arthur hadn't punched him? Well. He'll never know now.

"I don't want to kill you, I just... fuck. Just, just go away. You got yourself a body; now we don't have to darken each other's fucking doorways ever again."

"Hey, you piece of shit, I don't need to take orders from him to blow you away. I was just offering him first dibs as a courtesy."

Is it wrong if he's just a tiny bit disappointed he doesn't get to pull this trigger? Yeah, he probably should be worried about that. Maybe he's taking this thing too personally, but who can blame him? Still, with a sigh, he does lower his gun. But like hell is he putting it away.

"Now I think I agree with Arthur, you ain't worth it."

Crichton crosses around and very deliberately puts a hand on Arthur's shoulder, a gesture that's come to be a regular thing between these two.

"Come on, man. Let's go home. This asshole can find his own way around."

John ignores the bravado of the other man. That's not what's important, anyway.

It's Arthur's words that strike him. That he has, impossibly, been here a month already. That in his mind, their partnership already ended. Perhaps an explanation for how easily he can be dismissed.

And, finally, his dismissal. The truth that John has his own body, and as they found an answer in that amphitheatre, they have both achieved the original goals they had for their partnership.

That Arthur doesn't want to kill him after everything is a small comfort.

With Arthur's eyes, he sees the defeat in the other man's shoulders. No, not defeat, not quite surrender, stronger than giving up... Quitting. He watches Arthur quit.

He also watches this 'Crichton' put his hand on Arthur. It shouldn't matter. He never put his hand - Arthur's hand - on Arthur's shoulder. It would have been a pointless gesture, redundant, ridiculous, and perhaps a cruel reminder that John was - as Arthur called him - a parasite, taking what wasn't his.

It still blasts air over the coals in his chest. John's hands form fists at his sides, but they stay there.

John should say something. A parting word to seal this conclusion. He should be furious, he should get in one more insult at Arthur, or a taunt, tell Crichton what kind of a friend Arthur can be.

He breathes in, he breathes out. The mask makes the air sound so noisy in his ears.

"... Alright." he says, dull compared to what he could - what he wants to fire at Arthur.

He doesn't (he can't) do anything to stop them.

Edited 2022-10-16 16:11 (UTC)

Crichton's hand on Arthur's shoulder is a reassuring backup. But even with that, Arthur spends longer than a moment rooted in place.

Despite what he said out loud, it feels so wrong for things to just... suddenly be over. No denouement, no close, no climactic alliance or betrayal, just... over. Over from one moment to the next, because the Captain on a whim happened to pluck them into his world at different times and in different bodies.

But separation is what he wanted for the whole time they were together, right? Arthur got John out of his head, and his eyes are fucked, and his nerves haven't gone back to normal. John got a body of his own, and a cosy place trapped in a shitty little pocket dimension where everyone will know not to trust him. They both got what they wanted, and it was shit for both of them.

And so Arthur does something that he's never been able to do before:

He walks away from John.

Arthur leaves. The other man does too, but it's Arthur's back he's watching as it disappears through the doors of the costume shop. He does nothing. He says nothing.

Until, "Goodbye, Arthur."

Spoken to an audience of hollow masks. John remains in the center of the aisle, standing, watching the empty doorway.

And when he turns at last and marches away from the door, away from Arthur, he grabs the throat of that automaton clown in passing and dashes it into the floor.

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TEST DRIVE MEME #7

lmao spoilers for season 1 that didn't take me long

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walks into the flaming store holding a pizza box

my god it's crichton with the chair

[distant sound of john cena intro music]

and the crowd goes wild!

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