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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Steve does laugh, though not at Chrissy. More at the suggestion, the thought of himself in some cutesy Halloween shirt, than anything. It's a short and breathy thing, but it might be the first real laugh he's had on the boat.

"Yeah, I don't know if it's really my style," he says with a crooked smile. "Let's see."

He considers her other question as he digs through the other shirts to see if there might be anything he'd ever consider wearing.

"There could be a party," he says thoughtfully as he searches. "If there's not one planned already we could always throw one. I haven't been to a Halloween party since —" Since Tina's big Halloween bash where he and Nancy experienced the beginning of their massive downhill slide into breaking up? Yeesh. "— since... uh. High school."

Ah, here we go! He finds a shirt he will definitely never, ever wear but hopes might get a laugh out of Chrissy. He pulls it off the rack and holds it in front of himself.

"What do you think? Is it me?"

He has a nice laugh, Chrissy thinks. It feels like it's been ages since she was able to laugh like that, and she can't help feeling a little jealous now. How long has it been since that day in the clearing? Chrissy has no idea, and Steve probably wouldn't be able to tell her, anyway, if he's been here for a month now.

"On second thought, you might be right." It's probably too cutesy for him, anyway.

"That's usually how these things work, right? Holiday parties and everything?" It's probably a little ridiculous to assume Steve would have any more of an idea of how these things are supposed to go than she does, but he did say he's been here for a while.

Maybe that was something they'd explained at some point. "A party could be fun." If nothing else, it might be a decent distraction. Chrissy catches that slight hesitation and decides to just let it go. There are more important things to think about.

Eventually, he does find another shirt, and Chrissy can't help but grin when he holds it up so she can see. "That one is definitely you, Steve." It's not as bright as the other one, but she still can't quite picture him wearing it.

"What, like, cruises?" Steve asks. Do cruises usually have holiday parties and stuff? Maybe, but he's not sure, so he shrugs. "No idea. My parents go on them sometimes but they've never taken me."

This place isn't exactly the golden standard for cruises, either. He's still debating how to broach that particular subject with Chrissy. Interrupting a fun Halloween chat with unimaginable horrors and existential crises feels wildly inappropriate yet he can't ignore the situation forever, so he decides to ease into it. He drapes the shirt over his arm and starts meandering down the aisle, trusting she'll follow, as if to continue their little shopping trip.

"So. Uh," he starts. "What were you doing before you woke up here?"

With luck, she remembers something nice like Hawkins winning the tournament and that's that. No trailer park, no death, nothing terrible.

"Yea." Maybe it's foolish to assume he'd know more about it than she does, but the list of things Chrissy has never done is quite a bit longer than the list of things she has so it feels like a pretty safe assumption. She flashes him an apologetic smile when he speaks up again. "Sorry! I just assumed you'd know more about them than I do."

Now that she's thinking about it, Chrissy realizes that she doesn't even know if her parents have ever been on a cruise. Not that this place seems like the typical experience by any stretch of the imagination. Either way, she hopes he's not too upset about it. She's quick to follow as he starts down the aisle, though, figuring there might be a better selection at the other end.

"Oh." The question isn't surprising, but the answer isn't something she particularly wants to talk about. She's quiet for a long moment, worrying her lower lip with her teeth as she tries to make a decision. In the end, though, honesty wins out. "I was with Eddie." Trying to buy drugs from Eddie, she adds silently.

Steve just shrugs off her apology — it's really no big deal. He's as used to people making assumptions about him like that as he assumes she is. Why shouldn't Hawkins' resident rich boy know how cruises work, right?

But his expression darkens when she says she was with Eddie. He doesn't respond with the perhaps predictable, disbelieving "Eddie Munson?" or whatever, which is, of course, because he already knows that she was with Eddie. And why she was with Eddie.

"You mean like at his house?" he ventures instead, still hoping for an answer that's at least a little more pleasant than what he's suspecting is the truth. Maybe she was with Eddie at school. Maybe she was with Eddie in his van, headed to the trailer park. Maybe she wasn't dead in Eddie's living room, bones snapped and eyes popped.

Throughout this whole chain of worried thoughts he's paused to inspect a display of novelty candy bowls. Some of them have hands that pop up to grab unsuspecting trick or treaters when they reach in for candy, others just have creepy little figures attached that make spooky noises when they detect movement. It's a lot easier to stare at these than to spare a glance at Chrissy right now.

For someone that finds it irritating when people make those sorts of assumptions about her, Chrissy had certainly been quick to do the same about him. Maybe she'll find a way to make it up to him later. It doesn't seem like he's that mad about it, at least.

She's not actually looking at Steve so she completely misses that expression change. Maybe it's for the best. She can't even imagine what he must be thinking about hearing it. The question makes her eyes widen as she turns to look at him. "Yea. We were hanging out."

Chrissy's not in the habit of lying about other people. She doesn't particularly enjoy doing it, either. But she's heard some of the things people say about Eddie, and while she can't do anything about the general population of their town, she can absolutely make sure that Steve doesn't have a reason to think the same things.

They're not friends, really, she and Eddie, but he's the only person in her life that had cared enough to realize that something was wrong- and he was barely in her life. In leiu of saying anything else, Chrissy busies herself with inspecting a set of orange cat ears.

"Hey, Munson's cool," Steve says quickly. He knows exactly what she must think he's thinking, because everyone in Hawkins thought those kinds of things about Eddie. Up until very recently he thought those kinds of things about him. "Seriously. I think it's great you were hanging out with him."

Does that sound sincere? He hopes it does.

"It's just..." He pulls attention from the candy bowls and looks at Chrissy, who's currently looking at some costume cat ears. For some reason this particular sight, this incredibly mundane scene, sends a stab of grief through his chest — it just really sucks, you know? She was just a normal girl with a bright future before that creep cursed her or whatever.

Jesus, this is hard. He doesn't actually know where to go from here, how to say what he needs to say. He slings the stupid t-shirt over his shoulder and plants one hand on his hip, scrubbing the other over his face with a sigh.

"Look, this is going to sound weird," he says, "But I know about the— the clocks and shit, okay? You know Max Mayfield? The same thing started happening to her. Fred Benson and Patrick McKinney, too."

Is he going too far? Is he not saying enough? Not for the first time, he finds himself wishing Nance were here. She'd be a hell of a lot better at this than he is.

"He's nice." He was being nice to her, at least. He hadn't laughed at her or turned her away when she'd tracked him down that day. Hadn't looked at her like he thought she was just making things up for attention, either. Chrissy was grateful, honestly, even if he hadn't been able to help in the long run.

"He's not like what people say, you know." She'd been a little worried that he might turn out to be mean, or that she'd be afraid of him. But in the end, he'd turned out to be charming and funny enough to almost make her forget the reason she'd needed his help in the first place.

Chrissy's not even sure why she feels the need to defend Eddie to Steve. Sure, he'd been nice to her when she wasn't expecting it, and she'd thought they had a moment years ago in middle school, but it still doesn't explain the sudden urge to protect him. Maybe she feels like she owes him for trying to help when nobody else would. Maybe she's just looking for a distraction. Maybe it doesn't matter.

She looks up in time to frown at Steve's body language, and guesses that whatever's on his mind is a bit heavier than silly themed clothing and costumes. Still, she's not necessarily prepared for what he has to say. Chrissy's eyes widen as she whirls to face him.

"I never told anyone about that..." She hadn't told Eddie because she didn't want him to look at her the way Jason had when she'd tried bringing it up before. "Was it really happening to all of them?" It's not a comforting thought. She'd figured it was just her, but hearing that she wasn't even the only one just made her feel worse.

"Yeah, it was," Steve nods. "Like I said, I know it sounds weird but Hawkins isn't exactly what you'd call a normal town. Back when Will Byers and Barbara Holland went missing? That was all related to the clock guy, too. It's a whole... situation."

Calling the Upside Down and everything that goes with it a situation is a bit of an understatement but he's going to ease into that. No need to plunge Chrissy right into the pool of crazy. She can dip her toes, first. They'll work up to "there's an alternate dimension that's just like a scary copy of Hawkins and full of monsters and also remember when Billy Hargrove died in that mall fire? Yeah, that was monsters, too" in due time.

He'll just leave it at that for now, in case she has any questions. Or, like, totally understandable doubts.

"Oh. I'm sorry." She knows, logically, that it's not her fault. She also knows that apologizing for things that are out of her control is generally not going to accomplish anything, but she wants to say something and she's not sure what else to say. Maybe she doesn't have to say anything.

"I remember hearing about that. Both of those, actually." It's weird to think that those two events are somehow connected to what happened to her- what happened to other people, but it's not even the strangest thing she's had to wrap her head around recently. She's quiet for a long moment after that, because there are so many things she wants to ask. She's just a little afraid of what the answers might be.

In the end, she settles for something that seems a lot less complicated. "How did you find out about all of it?"

Steve shoots her a baffled look when she apologizes because he's not sure what she's apologizing for, but shrugs it off as she continues. He's not really sure how to begin explaining it all. He definitely doesn't want to open with "well, you see, you died and now Eddie Munson is wanted for your murder," he knows that much.

"Let's see," he sighs. He's in full Serious Action Guy Mode, both hands on his hips now. "You want the long version or the short one? Either way, it's gonna sound crazy. But —" He shrugs. "— we're here, so. I guess crazy is relative."

It's a valid question, she supposes. There's so much she doesn't know about what happened, and what happened after the monster found her. If Steve can help with that, then all the better.

"I guess... could I get the long version?" Maybe it's better to get the full story than to just go on wondering. "Don't worry. This whole thing is pretty crazy already. I met a boy who said he's a ghost, but he doesn't really seem like one."

"Vance Hopper?" Steve asks. "He's pretty cool. He can be kind of a dick though." Not that he can blame the kid. He's got too much baggage for anyone his age to be dealing with.

Now, moving on to the important shit. Delivering the Comprehensive History of Hawkins, Indiana and the Upside Down in the middle of a Halloween store feels kind of inappropriate, but Steve is committed. This is how it's going to be. If there are animatronic witch cackles punctuating his tales of demogorgons, then so be it.

"You might want to sit down for this," he starts, and gives her a moment. It's not like there's chairs here, the only place to sit is the floor but if she chooses to then he'll copy. Once they're settled, he continues, "Okay, so. Essentially Hawkins has an alternate version of itself full of things like that creep that got in your head. We call it the Upside Down. There's this whole big government coverup thing going on, Russia was involved at one point. Basically everything weird you've ever heard in town is because of this shit."

He feels like he's doing a decent job of it so far. It's not the most concise rendition of the story but he's still trying to be as to the point as he can about it. "Chief Hopper and Billy Hargrove didn't die in a fire. Starcourt Mall? Totally a cover for a secret Russian base. There was never any fire. It was all a monster we called the Mind Flayer. Oh! There's also a girl with superpowers. She can move stuff with her mind."

He decides to pause there in case she has any questions. It's... yeah. Hawkins, man. Who knew such a boring town could have so much crazy hidden underneath.

"That's the one! He seemed nice enough to me." Which isn't to say that he's not also a dick, but whatever. Most of the people she's been friends with for years are also kind of mean. "He's really good at pinball."

"You should know that that sounds really ominous, Steve." Chrissy is fairly certain she's never heard good news following that phrase, so she decides to take her cute little sweatshirt and pull up a seat in front a nearby shelf. If she's going to get more bad news, at least she's going to be comfortable while doing so.

She's quiet when he begins, and has to fight the urge to interrupt several times because what he's saying sounds completely out there. But seeing and hearing things that weren't supposed to be there had also seemed really weird, especially when she still thought it just meant she was losing her mind. Hearing that there was another reason for it doesn't make it any better, honestly.

Hearing about other monsters and secret Russian bases isn't what she was expecting to deal with today, but she supposes it could be worse. Maybe. She'd always assumed there was something not quite right about Hawkins, and the confirmation doesn't feel as good as she was expecting it would. She's silent for a long moment, staring at the floor and worrying her lower lip with her teeth. "So... Hawkins has been like that forever?" It's not the first question she wants to ask, but it seems like a good enough place to start.

"Sort of?" Steve says, thinking back to something Dustin had said. "Like I think the Upside Down's existed for a long time, maybe since the dinosaurs." Yeah, so he'd scoffed when Dustin said it. Whatever.

"But things didn't get really weird until the night Will Byers went missing," he goes on. "The girl with the superpowers opened the first gate and uh. Yeah. The gates are basically doorways between regular Hawkins and the Upside Down."

There's a brief pause, in which he reflects on that night he'd gone to apologize to Jonathan Byers and he'd seen his first demogorgon. "If this it too much I get it," he adds. "I thought I was losing my mind when I first found out about it."

Chrissy's not sure what she was hoping for, but it isn't particularly comforting to hear that things had probably been the way they are for a very long time. "Oh wow. That's... a little crazy."

It's a lot crazy, but it's not the craziest thing she's heard today, so is it really that big a deal? Chrissy remembers hearing about Will Byers going missing, remembers how her mother had been really concerned for a while that there was someone taking kids. That's obviously not what was going on, and Laura had eventually let it drop.

This is a lot to take in, but she feels like she's following along well enough for now. "I mean... it is and it isn't," she admits. "I felt like I was losing my mind before, hearing and seeing things that weren't supposed to be there."

"Yeah, I know," Steve says. "The day I found out about it I'd been in a fight with Jonathan Byers over some stupid misunderstanding." And because he reacted to that misunderstanding in a very, very bad way.

"So I, uh. I went to his house to apologize but Nancy Wheeler was there, and this is back when we were dating, and sort of what the misunderstanding was about but that's not important," he goes on, dropping his focus to a spot on the floor. He scratches idly at it as he speaks, a sort of nervous tic as he recounts the night the world as he knew it changed entirely. "The thing is, they looked like they were getting ready for a war or something. Nance had a- a gun and she was gonna shoot me if I didn't leave and... Yeah. I really thought I was going crazy, and that was before a monster came out of the wall. So I get it. This whole thing, it's just really messed up."

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TEST DRIVE MEME #7

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