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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.]
no subject
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."
no subject
"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.
no subject
"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."
no subject
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?"
no subject
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."
no subject
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."
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.