sail_ooc | TEST DRIVE MEME #10

a. that's where we both belong

[you wake up.

it doesn't matter where you were before. going to bed? dying? opening the door to face a great evil? same result. you wake up in a soft bed with starched sheets in a cool, darkened room, sunlight peeking out from behind thick curtains. maybe you're alone; maybe you aren't. maybe you immediately notice the folded paper on the bedside table near your head. if you don't, you better fix that real quick: you won't be able to even open the door before you read it.

the note itself is written in a neat hand on white card stock; there is a stylized logo of a ship with the words SERENA ETERNA printed underneath. the note reads as follows:

Dear Passenger(s),

As your cruise director, it is my great honor to welcome you aboard the Serena Eterna, your destination for fun and adventure! We know you could have chosen any cruise line for your vacation, and we're very grateful you chose ours! On behalf of the Captain, I would like to assure each and every passenger that will we do whatever it takes to fulfill all your needs and desires during your journey with us.

At your earliest possible convenience, please attend the mandatory lifeboat drill by the end of the day. I'm sure everyone is very eager to get started on all the fun and sun, but safety always comes first! You can find your life jacket in your cabin's closet; carry it to your assigned muster station on deck one, where I will take you through the drill. If you can't find me in the crowd, just look for the gal with the winning smile!

See You Real Soon!

Sincerely,
Gal Friday

you walk to deck one. you have no other choice: every time you try to step in a direction some unseen being considers "not towards deck one," you find your legs no longer move, staying stock still, frozen. whether compelled quickly by curiosity, or delayed by pure stubbornness, the result is the same, and you are left milling around with other similarly curious or stubborn people.

you see someone in uniform near the front of the crowd. she seems to be a gal, but is missing the winning smile, along with most of her other features. she seems to see you, though, rushing to your side and placing a lei around your neck with great formality. a voice, cheery but artificial, sees to come from nowhere and everywhere.]

Welcome aboard! I'm so happy you could join us!

[you touch the lei. rooster feathers, lotus seeds, and a carved circle of something white and hard, linked onto a silk string.

after the drill is completed, you are seemingly free to go. or, well, your legs work, now. and maybe that's as good as it's gonna get.]

b. and there's plenty of that down by the sea

[it’s strange to think about, isn’t it? how all those new passengers, the ones grumbling or shouting their way through the forced muster drill, have absolutely no idea what happened just last month. no idea about the labyrinth. no concept of why anyone around them would be a bit more hesitant around shadows.

they’ll learn.

sometimes a shadow is darker than it’s supposed to be. very rarely does anything come of that; just a vague sense that someone is watching you, and little more. sometimes, though, the shadows move. sometimes they grab at your ankles as you walk. sometimes they give you a shove as you go down the stairs. sometimes they pull your hair, or pinch your arm.

sometimes you feel something sharp cut into your lower leg.

that’s not a shadow, though. that’s a fiddler crab. you see the crab, sometimes. the cut isn’t from its claws, which don’t look very intimating; it’s not a very large crab. the cut is from the large kitchen knife crudely taped onto its back. it’s probably fine. it's not chasing you. there isn't evil in its heart. probably.]

c. think I'll go back to the Keys

[one day, in the atrium, two pedestals suddenly appear. on each is a large button: one green, and one blue. pressing the blue button gives you a little treat, popping out of thin air next to you. pressing the green button sends a small electric shock through your body. weird, but, hey, pretty avoidable, right?

except, it seems to be spreading. to every other button on board.

in the elevator. on the soda machine. the arcade. your phone. the bell on Friday’s desk.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Does it seem like it's likely to scar, doctor?"

Bandaging is preferable if the answer is no. If there's no cause for the needle, he'd rather avoid it.

"Mmm, I doubt it. Perhaps a very small one."

Watson straightens. "I think we can safely let it heal on its own. I suppose serious injury from a... from a crab with a knife," he sounds annoyed, because that's almost insulting, "was fairly unlikely."

It is insulting, and he's relieved that someone else thinks so.

"Thank you. I appreciate your professional judgement in the matter."

One more glance to make sure it's not lurking about, though.

"I've only come aboard recently, so I'm less certain about what to expect during our travels."

Of course it's insulting. Half of this ship is insulting.

"I'd wondered. One does sometimes manage to miss people here and there, but generally a wholly new face is easy enough to pick out." Watson offers his head. "The name is Watson. Dr. John Watson."

He is almost afraid to hear what name he gets in return.

Taking it, he gives a quick handshake, firm but not one that overly lingers. And there is no recognition in those gray eyes, not a flicker of knowledge about a future that to him is still years away, and may yet take a different form.

"Mycroft Holmes. It's a pleasure, Dr. Watson."

Of all the names that he could have heard, that is the one he expected the least.

"You are not," Watson says immediately, suddenly heated then catches himself. Oh, he remembers Joan and everything they had in common, and the terrible, stupid parallels between their lives. He knows. That doesn't make this any easier to deal with. 'Mycroft Holmes' is, ultimately, not a common name. "No, forgive me. I knew a Mycroft Holmes, and he was not -- please. Humour me. Do you happen to have a brother named Sherlock?"

He's not at all sure what he wants the answer to be.

His eyebrow raises, a single motion while his gaze now turns to bore through Watson, truly analyzing him in that second. It's the sort of look that belongs to those of the family Holmes who make it their habit and their preference to gauge whatever they can about a man from a single moment, alert and knowing, forcing attention. It's a very uncommon name, he knows, but...if someone is impersonating him, then he'd believe it. Certain enemies of his have that amount of cunning.

"I must say, this is the first time I've been accused of not being myself." There's a note of deliberate calm in his voice, keeping steady. "As to my brother, that is his name, though if you know him and he has been passing off someone else as his elder brother to cover his indiscretions, that is a matter I'll have to take up with him when I see him again."

Watson sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose, and he takes a moment settle down down in a nearby chair. He needs to be seated for this conversation. There was Joan, of course. So he's not unprepared for this. But how can he possibly begin?

"While the Mycroft Holmes I have met is not yourself, I don't think that is the situation we have on hand. And yet, to explain it as it is... well, you might very well think I'm mad, or a fool. The Mycroft Holmes I know is... an older man than yourself, but the Sherlock I know, who is my very dear friend," despite everything that is still the case, "is in his late thirties. I have been here, on this ship for a year, but before I was, it was 1892. I'm curious as to what year it was for you."

There's a moment where Mycroft doesn't respond. Where instead, Watson will see him go to retrieve another cigar, cut it and light it, before taking his own seat. With the information that's just been dropped on his head, perhaps it can be forgiven, but it's not until he has the comforting taste of tobacco on his tongue that he speaks again.

"...1873." Nineteen years behind. "I have been encountering so much of the absurd, doctor, that something like this feels almost straightforward. You must be of my future, and I of your past -" no matter how strange that feels to say - "for the brother I just saw was not even twenty."

And yet, relief. Sherlock will not put himself in a place he cannot be freed from. No matter what mess he entangles himself in, no matter who is after them, he'll live to at least thirty eight. And his own situation...two decades more, at least. That's a decent amount of time to do things in.

Watson waits, because how could he not fail to give a man the time to process such an impossible thing that he was just told.

"1873? I was still in school, then." A promising young student, still working towards his bachelor's, never mind his M.D. "That is... quite the gap. Sherlock and I met in 1881. No wonder you are not the man I met. And yet--"

He has many questions, and many of them are unfair, and yet there are other things that need to be said.

"It may not even be as simple as that." Watson is almost apologetic. "There was a woman here, though she has since left us. Her name was Joan Watson, and she worked with a man named Sherlock Holmes in the early 21st century, some parallel to myself that I cannot explain. That you are as close in time as you are is admittedly almost a relief."

"Is there any possibility she could be a descendant of yours?"

That might explain it. Family traditions, handed down through generations. Names, a close family alliance. Improbable, but not impossible.

"Hm. While I suppose it might not be impossible for an American Chinese woman to be a descendant of mine, even if there were anyone to carry on the family name, which there is not... that was not the impression I had, from our discussions. She did not know of me. There were other names, other people that I knew, that she knew in some altered form."

The thought is rather nice, though.

A pensive moment, as he smokes, trying to rationalize it in his head. Even for someone of his intellect, he'd need a good while to think upon it, to feel the shape of it. While two points on a timeline is something he can fathom, though it feels fantastical, the next thing being suggested feels even more abstract.

Not for the first time today, he wishes he could talk to Cyrus, to let him give his own opinions on the situation. But he won't say that aloud. Not now. Perhaps not ever.

"Were there any others? For lack of a better word, those connected to us?"

"Not that I have met," he says.

Watson draws his cigarette case out of his pocket, and lights one, because he's been distracted enough to not do that, and he certainly feels he needs it for this conversation. "At least, not yet. I haven't been quite able to make up my mind as to whether it's more or less implausible than any other stories I've encountered here."

TEST DRIVE MEME #10

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