sail_ooc | TEST DRIVE MEME #1

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TEST DRIVE MEME #1

1. now it's fun to wake up in a strange chateau

[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! We're so glad to have you!

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

2. messing with my mind was fun at the time

[freshly lei'd, your legs are forced to lead out onto the deck and towards your muster station. the same woman is there, carrying a clipboard. this time, she introduces herself as Gal Friday, the cruise director, before immediately going into the muster drill spiel. it is very boring, and you are not allowed to move, except when you are required to show you know how to put your life vest on. you could try to not do this, but Friday will move to stand in front of you very closely and just. look in your direction until such a time that you decide to do it. and I'm sure your fellow passengers want you to just get on with it, too.

but, once it ends? she reiterates her desire to welcome you aboard. and, then, you're free.

well, free to move about the ship at your own leisure, of course. which is a kind of free, and probably the best one you can hope for. you could try to escape, maybe, if you have the means to; Friday certainly won't be one to stop you. that's what the barrier is for, after all.

but, wouldn't you much rather have fun?

the buffet is full. the pool is open. the casino jingles and chimes.

welcome aboard.]

3. lots of mystery in the history of the devils I knew

[you were never alone.

a few days have passed since you first arrived on the Serena Eterna. perhaps you've made yourself a little routine, and settled in a bit. or maybe you haven't done that at all. either way, you're here, and it looks like somebody is pretty pissed off about it.

it starts small. sometimes nearby plates skid off tables, or a pool chair upends while you're walking next to it. and sometimes that chair is aimed right at your head. objects are moving with quickly increasing frequency, and a wide variety of styles: some are dropped, or pushed, and others and others are tossed, but a few of the items are thrown, with great force and odd accuracy. if Friday is around during the lighter moments, she simply titters and cleans up whatever mess is made. if a pot of soup sails off the buffet line and nearly drenches you in boiling minestrone, she simply walks away.

and then there's the voices. hundreds, maybe thousands, calling out. not all are intelligible English, but you seem to understand them anyway. some sound scared, or angry. some are screams, others whispers. some sound entirely strange, while others are achingly familiar. and they're all saying the same exact thing:

Get Out.]

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( shitfaced in a bar and seasick while being kidnapped on a strange cruise ship are two entirely different scenarios, and she's always more inclined to help her fellow victims of unwanted circumstances. )

Your guess is as good as mine. I can't see any landmarks.

( and they haven't been allowed a lot of time to try to break away from the pack and snoop. or allowed to do much other than walk upstairs and grab a few moments reprieve before the mandatory safety meeting. they've been given some sort of communication device, but clarke hasn't had the time to look through and see if it came with any sort of directions.

even if it came with a map, she's doubtful it'd show the emergency exits, or latitude and longitude. )

But it is cold. You need to put something else on.

( not gonna let her eyeline dip below his collar bones, just gonna fret about his health. )

Landmarks. Heh. You're funny. [Probably wasn't intentional on her part. Now he'll just need to hunt down some panadol and a tall glass of water, and he'll be able to ramp up from 75% functional to somewhere a little over 80%.]

I'm usually... [Less of an alcoholic disaster, but that seems like a questionable kind of not-quite-truth to tout.] ...more together. [There's nothing left to be salvaged of this first impression, but she can't fault him for not trying.]

I'm sure I can nick a shirt off a rack somewhere. [And by 'nick' he clearly means 'borrow with little intention of returning', at least until he figures out how to get back into his own room and get his own clothes back.] Or one of those pool towels at least... in any case, I'll be alright, love.

( she's actually the least funny person maybe in existence, but thanks for believing in her john. it means... very little in the moment, not when put up against the fact that, yanno. they're on a boat in the middle of nowhere, against their will. clarke also couldn't care much if alcoholic disaster was his default or not: maybe flirting with the definition of liability, being naked and vomiting. but he's standing, he's talking. and there's a sort of instant conspiratorial nature between kidnap victims that undermines any kneejerk judgements of character flaws.

tl;dr: she doesn't care, but still thinks they should find him some pants. )

It's Clarke. ( clarke, who's busy casting around for any sort of clothing rack nearby. she sees lifebuoy's attached to the side railing and, a little further down, some deckchairs with complimentary towels folded neatly at the foot of the mesh recliners. perfect. ) And I'll get you a towel.

( serious, down to business, unwilling to be deterred now that she's chosen to help. she'll be down the walkway and back with two towels in a matter of moments. )

[Clarke's still going to be 'love', but at least he'll have another name to cycle through. He manages a few more steps further down the corridor, as though it'd be less cold, but he doesn't stray off the path when she finds him again, towels in hand.]

Alright Clarke. [He gives her an appreciative grunt as he takes one of the towels and shakes it out, leans forward a bit so he can wrap the towel around his waist without the lifevest in the way. It's not exactly a shirt or pants, but it's much better than strutting around naked save for the jacket.]

I'm John. Constantine. [He'd shake her hand, but. He figures maybe she'd want to wait for the formalities until after he's cleaned up a bit, put on some proper clothes.]

Did you have one hell of a night too?

( better for all parties involved, really. clarke feels like she can shift to focus more on their questionable surroundings, and imagine it must be a little comforting not to feel quite so bare and vulnerable on his part. handshaking can wait, though; past the ominous nature of this meeting, it's still awkward as hell.

she notes his name. almost says nice to meet you, but that just doesn't track right. again: kidnapping, nudity, vomit, and — no, it's mainly the kidnapping that's rubbing her wrong here. )

More or less. I'm pretty sure I was dying, but now I'm here, and it still feels very... real. ( her face hurts when the salty breeze hits it, and the sun off the waves is burning her eyes. she's breathing, and until proven otherwise, is pretty decided that it's all very real. )

Unh, well, we're all dying y'know. I was dying too. Been going through a pack a day long as I remember. [He's not trying to overshare. He'll lie, cheat, scam, hoodwink, swindle, double-cross, cut deals, barter his way out of hell, same as he always does. He's just saying he can relate.]

I've always wanted to go on me own terms. Not like this, but. [He purses his lips and shrugs. Being stuck on a cruise ship on borrowed time is not bad at all, all things considered.]

You're not dead yet, love. Another day you 'ave 'ere is another 'fuck you' to all those cunts who'll want to see you put down, eh?

( death did seem to have a way of finding them all in the end, no matter how artfully it'd been dodged in the past. in the moments before clarke woke up in a far too soft bed rocked gently by waves, she'd been sure that had been it. despite a desperate dash to a radiation proof bunker as the wall of fire bore down on earth, she'd been burning from the inside-out and choking on the fluids welling up in her lungs. and she hadn't wanted to die in that moment, but would have at least done so for a good cause. stayed behind by choice, saved her friends, made sure other factions of her people were safe underground.

it would have been a good death, and now she's here. and john says not like this, which has clarke shallowly nodding. be this borrowed time, some sort of limbo, or a flat out kidnapping — all of it rubs her the wrong way. )

I don't have anything left I'm trying to prove to people. ( who wants to put her down? for the first time in a while, clarke griffin has no explicit enemies aside from the actual apocalypse. well — actually, the mysterious gal friday was undoubtedly somewhere on this deck. if she's about to start looking for new enemies, that seems like the default. ) And I don't like the feeling we're all about to be asked to prove something anyway. Or be used by... whoever or what ever brought us here.

[John's mastered the art of saying 'fuck you' to death. And 'fuck you' to everyone else, really. He doesn't care. He'd tell God 'fuck you' to His face if he could. Even on those days where he's just so tired, in a mess of his own making or just some kind of mess he's found himself in general, he somehow always has it in himself to pick himself back up, to dust himself off and keep on going. The alternative, of having everyone he's ever lied to picking over the scraps of his soul - that's not how he's going to spend the rest of eternity.

And if he has someone along for the ride, however short he wants their stint to be so they don't go down this sinking ship with him, proverbially speaking, then all the better for it. It's not so bad to walk this lonely path with company every once in a while - as long as he doesn't get them killed for it.]

Everyone you'll ever meet in your life is going to use you. If you can't be used they'll have left you in the lurch the moment they met you. And this life - these mean fucking wankers you'll meet - they'll wear you down to the bone, chew all your meat off, spit you out. It's all on you now, if you want to 'ave the last laugh. [And Constantine is definitely planning on having plenty of laughs before his time is up, on this oversized overcompensating boat or wherever his wretched life takes him next.]

You weren't 'dying' last night, you were living, lass. Own it, Clarke.

I —

( on the list of "places i didn't really expect this conversation to go", pretty high up there is passionate pep talk about not dying. it's a kind sentiment, even if clarke's kneejerk response is to furrow her brow and brush it off. that internalized fear of killing off new friends would also be brushed off if he voiced it aloud; she's adamant the odds of jeopardy by association are much higher the other way around, despite how hard to kill john may be. )

...Thanks. ( ??? )

But I intend to find out what's going on here before deciding if I want to laugh about it at all.

That'll come in time. [John says it with the surety of somebody who's been dragged into many a strange or desperate predicament unwittingly and has had to fight his way through it. It's never really been a good experience to be dropped somewhere unceremoniously and have to figure everything out, but no good's really come from dwelling on it too much either.]

I'd rather not be bothered by things I can't do anything about, but suit yourself love. [He doesn't see the point of saving her laughing until right at the end, and even then there might not be any opportunity to laugh at all.]

( that'll come in time, john says. and clarke internally counters with: yes, and on my timeline.

boil the soup stock down to the bones, there's no real reason for her to fight that hard against their current predicament. all her friends back home are either burnt, buried, and blindly sailing through space on a fools mission. clarke herself had been dying on a cold tile floor, miserably alone. there's no life to go back to, but she'll be digging her heels in to find a link back to her home world regardless. fighting comes second nature now; a change of scenery doesn't immediately shake well learned survival techniques.

so she wants to fight, and he wants to laugh. they're easily at odds with priorities, but that doesn't mean it's not useful to maintain a reasonable acquaintanceship. who knows, maybe they'd each prove useful to the other in time. )

Alright. ( clarke's chewing on her lower lip, the skin already so dry, cracked, tasting of blood, and smarting. ) I hope you're right and this is all something we can laugh about in the future, but. I can't sit still and just accept there's nothing to be done or learned about it.

No, you're right. [There's always something to be learnt and Lord knows he's not always a quick study. Sometimes he has to learn things the hard way through the same lesson being delivered multiple times through multiple different avenues. He'd like to think he's been getting better, but. He's stubborn and sometimes tries to overcomplicate things that should be rather simple.]

Well let's not sit still then. Where would you like to go? [He's sufficiently decent even if he's not necessarily properly dressed, and he doesn't have any plans considering he knows about as much as she does (probably even less) about where 'here' is, why he's 'here' and what he's supposed to do, so. He'll follow her around if she doesn't mind the company.]

( clarke hadn't gotten that far in her plan, and pauses a moment to bite the inside of her cheek and try to figure out the logical next step. it doesn't take long to put her finger on the starting point, a method that hasn't failed her yet.

low, almost conspiratorially: )

Every ship has a captain. Someone here's in charge, so I just need to —

( but that's unfortunately time on their brief reprieve. the side-adventure of vomiting and finding towels and trying to get a jumpstart on insubordination is suddenly rudely interrupted by that compelling force on their legs, making to drag them further toward the amassed crowd of new arrivals and faceless welcome party. for a moment, clarke panics and tries to grab onto the railing.

magic and ghosts aren't her forte, and when in rome... fight the customs? however the saying doesn't go. she wouldn't have minded the company if john had tagged around in her shadow, but seems they don't get a say about that until after orientation. )

[She just needs to...? Confront the captain and demand answers? Nick a butter knife from the restaurant and coup d'cruise? It all sounds very ambitious and tiresome either way, John just wants to sit around and have a couple drinks, and--

Well, maybe they can table this conversation for later. At least he's got a towel, thanks to her, so he won't be showing up completely stark naked to the safety briefing.]

( yup, that's exactly it. you got it in one, john. clarke already has sabotage and subterfuge on the brain, it just seems like the ship and various parties in charge have other ideas.

eventually she manages to swallow panic, gives the towel clad man one last look that manages to convey — you didn't hear me say that, if anyone asks and i'll let you know what i find out if you ask later. but then she's pulled sharply to the left and forced to fall in with others for the safety spiel and life jacket demonstration. bye tentative new ally. )

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TEST DRIVE MEME #1

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cw cancer

cw: general death talk + radioactive apocalypse fallout/burns

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