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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Not unless the answer is all of the above. [The last time that happened he found himself on the inside of the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, sitting in one of Chilton's dunking booths while he lobbed balls in his direction hoping to make a splash.

It doesn't get more livelier than that, bur Will still has that to look forward to.]

It wasn't entirely altruistic, but you're welcome. [the other man vomiting would, in all likelihood end with his own vomiting and it would turn into an unproductive cycle, but he was honest about it, nevertheless.

Pointedly avoiding eye contact, so his companion didn't have to think about what his face was doing, Will adjusts his life vest (which is currently shouldered) to check his jacket pockets. His search upends a bottle of aspirin that he removes before shucking off his jacket and, though it was unsolicited, he deposited on the stranger's shoulders.

For both of their sakes.]

I was going to ask you the same thing but judging by [Will vaguely gestures at the nudity, the life vest, and the staggered posture in general] you're not used to these accommodations.

[Being abord a ship, that is.]

We're in the same boat...no pun intended [thumbing the cap of the bottle, he shook a few pills into the palm of his hand, popping them into his mouth before pocketing the bottle. He would need to get his bearings if they were going to figure anything out.]

The note said that this ship was called the Serena Eterna, peace everlasting, whether it's hyperbolic or a threat? [He didn't shrug, but it could be heard in his voice.]

[He doesn't usually get seasick - not that he spends that much time out on the water - but the floor bobbing along to the waves while he's nursing a headache and a terrible hangover would make anyone nauseous. He's a little envious of that bottle of pills, considering he's got nothing on him at all at the moment, but he does score a temporary jacket, so really he has nothing to be jealous about.]

Awful kind of ye', mate. I don't work 'ere, no. Not unless there's a stripclub or a magic show and - let's be honest luv, I'm all skin and bones. The wee hand luggage's not that oversized. I'd be a much better magician than a stripper. [If he has it, he would flaunt it, and even if he doesn't have it, he would try and flaunt it also. But John's under no illusion that he's not some muscular twelve inch bloke who would be appreciated strutting around with his arse and all his other bits hanging out like he's God's gift to mankind.]

You remember anything from last night? [He means before the other man was taken or brought onboard or whatever the hell happened, and not necessarily a dramatic retelling of everything that's happened, but John would sit through a long and thorough recount of a story if he'd brought that upon himself.]

You seem dressed to the nines, mate. Were you out somewhere? With somebody?

[Will doesn't pocket the pills immediately, he's lost in thought, but it doesn't stop him from deftly shaking a few more pills into the palm of his hand and holding that same hand out to the other man, palm up.

Again, if they are going to sleuth around the ship, it was best to have his bearings, but it was also to his benefit that his current companion be lucid as well...more or less.

Morbid curiosity moved Will to glance the other man's way to see if his assessment of himself was right. Not a stripper, but objectively he's typical, winsome from a certain perspective, though perhaps that's the way Will saw himself, average, his pursuits giving him strength and shape, but nothing terribly extraordinary.

Still pointedly avoiding eye-contact he fixed his gaze on a point down the corridor, honing his senses.]

Magician...that's very specific. [Was he the pulling the rabbit out of the hat sort of magician or the hand is quicker than the eye sort of magician? He was about to inquire, curious about the specificity, but he didn't get the opportunity to follow up before John turned the questions on him.]

I...[what was the last thing he could remember]...I was standing on a beach, the middle of winter, it was cold...[explains why Will had layers, could even explain why Will was currently here, but cruises in the middle of winter?]...but it wasn't for pleasure, it was a crime scene, it was me, the FBI, and a totem of bodies...[he closed his eyes trying to visualize, maybe he could figure out how he got from there to here]...dried dead faces getting fresher and fresher towards the top, a resume, a body of work, a drop of blood falling on my face...[he shook his head and opened his eyes realizing that's where his memories stopped]...and then nothing.

I'm the greatest magician in the world. [He shoots Will a winning smile as he pops a couple of those aspiring tablets himself. Technically, he's the greatest conman in the world, but he also happens to be fairly decent at magic. Can't really announce the con artist bit though, can he? Especially not to someone who works for law enforcement. Although it sounds like he's working on something rather fucked up, if you ask Johnny boy.]

I was a private detective of sorts. [He doesn't look it without his trenchcoat and his shirt and tie, but Constantine usually looks like he came straight out of a noir novel. Technically he's an occult detective, but people used to come to him for all sorts of strange happenings. A totem of bodies definitely falls in the realm of strange, but unless it's demonic or ghostly in nature, not much John can do about it.] Sounds like a mighty bollocksed up case if you ask me.

[And not one he's going to be able to solve on a cruise ship. John's pretty sure he would remember a totem of bodies if that's what he was doing last night, but he's pretty sure he's not met Will before, so he won't have any luck figuring out his blackout talking to this bloke. Still, that's not going to stop him from offering some candid advice.]

Well since you're here, don't worry about the case mate. Cruises are meant to be fun. Take a couple days off. Maybe you'll think of sommin' you couldn't when you were too close to the whole thing, eh?

I was a homicide detective, but I couldn't pull the trigger [naturally Will couldn't keep the job] so I teach forensics for the FBI...but lately I've been called to consult. I'm too unstable for the field, but I have a knack for the monsters.

[That's what his therapist said anyway, and it wasn't untrue, it was a gift and a curse to do what he could do. Lately however, he couldn't do anything except question whether or not any of this was good for him, what looking at the horrors and putting himself into the minds of darkness did to his own sense of self.]

There are plenty of bollocksed up cases out there: angel makers, gardeners...the homework never ends. If it did then we'd be out of a job [we as in two individuals who have a history of detective work of some kind, and it was difficult being in their line of work if the world was perfect] though it would give me plenty of time to devote to boat repairs and fishing.

[True enough, Will couldn't do anything about the Totem case from here and there was very little point in dwelling on it when his primary concern was figuring out his current situation.]

Do you plan on enjoying yourself? Swimming, disco, shuffleboard, bingo? [Will turned his face in John's direction offering a smile that completely transformed his face. Will wouldn't know what happens on cruise ships outside of the stereotypes of relaxation and leisure, his family was dirt poor, so he'd never set foot on a ship like this.] Though we should probably find you some pants, I'm not sure they'll let you do the Funky Chicken au naturel.

Edited 2022-02-14 05:05 (UTC)

Eh? Don't the detectives usually catch the fuckers pulling the trigger? [He must be missing something. This must be some real Hollywood wild west shite over there, where the coppers are more bang bang pow pow than the criminals themselves.] Scotland Yard doesn't even have guns, love. I suppose MI6 might, but. Either way mate, you're on the wrong side of the pond.

[The way this guy says 'bollocksed' gets a bit of a laugh out of John but he tries not to be mean or cruel about it.]

Bit of a monster man meself. Suppose I'd say I'd prefer boat repairs 'nd fishing, if I was that way inclined, but. Once you're fucked in the head, once you've had a monster or two in there having tea parties and redoing the furnishings in your own mind, what's the point? Can't unscramble an egg once it's served up on a breakfast platter. I want the monsters in me life. The cheap thrills from chasing 'em down. [Sometimes he can't even decide if he wants to put the monsters down, send them to hell, or invite them to bed. Sometimes he looks in the mirror and he's not sure what to do with the monster lurking in there, or who will come along to put him down.

But while he's still here, he's fully planning on enjoying himself, yes.]

Well, haven't seen any monsters yet, and the ship's going to come to a port and kick us all off eventually. Why not enjoy everything while we can? I'm going to gamble, hit up the bar, drink one of everything on the menu, smoke a whole pack of some brand of ciggies I've never heard of, and I'm going to charm the underpants off of some of these beautiful people and fuck their brains out. [John shoots a wink at the tall, dark and handsome stranger whose jacket he's currently wearing. If a bacchanal, chaotic, out of control, hedonistic night is in the cards, John's hoping that his name will show up on this dance card.]

You're welcome to join me. Pants optional.

Emergency response, fire-arm use, and self-defense all come with the training. It's not just casing crime scenes for evidence and facts, you interview witnesses and suspects, perpetrators tend to loiter around their own crimes. Every now and then you might come into contact with a perpetrator feeling the squeeze and when they know they're about to be caught they fight back. [Will tugged at collar of his layers, pulling them as far to his right shoulder as he could manage, revealing, in part, the beginnings of a nasty scar.] Instead of pulling the trigger, I let him stab me, and that made me unfit for active duty.

[Fortunately, and as evidence by the fact that Will was prepared to take a knife rather than pull a trigger, he had thick skin and could handle being insulted.]

I guess that's one way of looking at it, until you wake up one morning and find you've wrapped your head so tightly around the monsters that you've lost yourself in translation. That you've either forgotten who you are or...[what's worse, in Will's mind]...you've found who you are and everything else before was make-believe, standing in the way of your becoming.

[And as a punctuation to the end of a sentence will adds, more matter-of-fact than anything else, as if there could be any mistaking Will.]

I know who I am.

[And he likes it that way, nothing worse than not knowing who you are and it's precisely the reason why he worked to keep others from invading his headspace. His thoughts were already unsavory enough.

As the topic again shifts to what John plans of doing with his time here will settles for an easy smile, he's not easily charmed, but the notion is novel considering his ability or inability to be social doesn't often make him the target of interest for most people. Will might move in similar circles with the stranger, but he had few expectations.]

A bottle is whiskey is requisite for any kind of pants optional shenanigans, but it's better than staying put. [Will's plans involved piecing together how he got here, but he would go the stranger's way for now, until or unless their agendas ended on different tracks.] I'm Will Graham, by the way, if having a name to shout later on helps.

[A double entendre. If the other man gets into trouble, but also leaning into John's flirtations as a means of playing along.]

[John studies the scar with mild interest. Takes a tremendous amount of foolishness, bravery, masochism and/or carelessness to get a scar like that and honestly, Will could spin the wheel on that and John wouldn't judge regardless of where that wheel lands.]

I think you've definitely spent too much time on these cases, mate. [Especially with all this 'becoming the monster' talk. Constantine doesn't deny that sometimes these strange paths lead to crossroads that involve some revelation, some form of self-actualisation. Takes one to know one, after all, and most people run away from the monsters rather than be drawn to them. John's made enough impossible choices to know the kind of monster he is, but he still thinks there's a line, even if he's disillusioned enough not to think of himself some kind of hero anymore.]

I like your idea, Mister Graham. [And he definitely likes being flirted back with, even if people don't always follow through. He'd hate the idea to be stuck on board this ship with a whole convent of prudes. There's meant to be decadence and overindulgence and all manner of sins on board a cruise ship. Taking their time here too seriously sucks all the fun out of it.]

John Constantine. I do hope one of us is going to be a real screamer. [John, cocky and smug bastard that he is, wouldn't be so full of it as to rule himself out.]

Shall we go find the whiskey? I'm sure there'll be pants along the way. [And if there isn't, well, there'll be whiskey.]

[Fear, honestly, prevented him from pulling the trigger, because if he did and if he killed someone how would that change him?]

You're probably right. Might be why I have a family of dogs and other hobbies to occupy my downtime so it's not just about the monsters. [It's an escape from the dark places in his imagination, though in thinking about he is concerned about his dogs and it adds another layer of motivation for him.]

You can call me Will [It was less formal that way, and might as well since he'd already seen more of John than he should in one conversation.] Unless Mister tickles some kind of fancy.

[Which it could, all things considered.]

As for the screaming I guess we'll find out [Will just tapers off at that, he's the sort of person who would change the topic of a subject flirtatiously without realizing he's doing it, likely part of his personality, but part of it has to do with mirroring others.]

Let's hope there's whiskey where we're going. [And to be honest Will had no idea where they were going, he just began moving his feet with purpose.] Though we might not be able to avoid Gal Friday forever.

[Dogs are much better than alcohol and cigarettes, all things considered. They offer a kind of escape that is of mutual benefit as opposed to just becoming a nuisance for everyone in the vicinity, or potentially ending the world in a drunken slip-up.]

What kind of fancy? [John's definitely not the naive and innocent sort but he'd love to hear what Will is thinking out loud, if nothing else because it would be amusing.]

Met her yet? Thoughts on Gal Friday? [If first impressions count for anything, John's encounter with her was... Well, it could have gone smoother, but it was actually alright. He tried to get some information out of her, to varying degrees of success. But he'd like to hear what other people think of her.]

[Dogs can keep a promise that a person can't. Love, companionship, loyalty, and affection.]

If I have to explain role playing to you, then you need to surrender your adult card. [He gave John a sideways glance well aware that someone who could be so frank about fucking people's brains out would be in anyway innocent about the windmill he was tipping at.

He was being obtuse.]

Aside from the very obvious uncanny valley vibes, I have difficulty trusting someone...something...so...mmm...benign. [People can be friendly, certainly, but Will got very little off of her and that in and of itself was suspicious.] If I can't see you then you can't see me. It could be a customer service facet, but the degree of accommodation seems performative.

[It's just over the top, or maybe Will just isn't used to it.]

Well no explanations necessary, but maybe you can show me later. [He clearly has no qualms with being naked so it should be no problems to play dress-up and... get up to naughty shenanigans, if they're being less crass about it.]

She doesn't seem like a person. [Which hasn't stopped John from flirting with anyone, but it's difficult to get anything out of someone who's so scripted, borderline robotic. He likes to think there's something more to her than just a service machine, and sometimes he thinks he catches glimpses of it, but he can't be sure what she is. ]

I mean like a real person. I'd be surprised to find her near the whiskey and the buffet. Unless she's schmoozing. [Would there be a reason to schmooze with the guests? He doesn't know. Maybe they were chosen to be here for some reason - a reason she might or might not know. But trying to get answers out of her, maybe he'd have better luck talking to an answering machine.]

As long as you're able to manage your expectations when you find your disappointment to be immeasurable. [After all knocking boots required a degree of social acumen Will didn't possess in abundance and he could count his encounters on a single hand. What Will did have was an eidetic memory and imagination that was bountiful.]

She does like to schmooze and it could be that she's just being friendly or maybe we're all just children and she's a walking, talking baby monitor. [The idea that someone, or something could and would be monitoring their activities and comfort level while they are here was a bit unsettling for Will.

Before he could expand on it however, he abruptly shoulders John into the nearest corridor, flattening both of them against a wall. His face is close to his companion's shoulder, his arms barring him against the wall (protectively?) but he's not looking at him, instead he's looking up as though he might have caught a noise. Talking? Whispering? Screaming?]

Did you hear that? [Will wasn't about to admit to things like lost time, sleep walking, and hallucinations as he knew what it would look like, and Will also knew what sort of crazy he was. He was also attuned to his environment and had an overactive imagination, the price of imagination.

Maybe he wasn't hearing things though.]

[Well he didn't just mysteriously come on board expecting much of anything so, so far things are going rather swimmingly in his mind. He certainly wasn't expecting Gal Friday but she's not terrible company either if he's honest. She's certainly rather dynamic and responsive. He's not seeing what's particularly disappointing about Will right now either, and that's not necessarily his non-existent optimism talking. Maybe his batshit crazy just isn't leaking out fast or hard enough just yet.]

We could just be adults needing adult supervision. [He would happily admit that, for as much as he is inclined to take the loner path, he could have benefitted from adult supervision a few times in his life. More than just a few, actually, come to think of it...]

Oof-- [Constantine was a little lost in his thoughts and not really prepared for getting so roughly manhandled. He doesn't mind the accosting - he likes a confident, assertive bloke same as anyone else - but there's usually a bit more foreplay, and his gaze distractedly flits from Will's lips to eyes to a spot on the ceiling and then back to Will's face again.]

'ppreciate the enthusiasm mate but the wall's cold and I didn't bring any lube...

[It was probably more aggressive than Will had intended, but so was the sudden aural intrusion that caused him to react without thinking so much as responding reflexively. Instead of pinning him Will placed both hands on the wall on either side of John and took a few steps back.

For the first time since their encounter, he leveled his eyes with John, not much of a height difference which made it less avoidable. He was searching John's expression for recognition, that it wasn't him, that he'd heard something as well.]

Sorry [His eyes flit away once again, still trying to process if what he heard was real or not.]

You didn't hear anything? [Aside from Will's own breathing trying to settle.]

[John unfortunately, just has this small little smile and slightly raised eyebrows. He's used to being the only one who can hear or sense some of the more supernatural occurrences around him, so he doesn't find it quite so unnerving. Maybe he did at one point, many years ago, but he doesn't seem to know what Will is talking about, nor does he appear to be too bothered by it.]

Not... yet? [It seems silly to rule out the possibility that he might, at some point, hear something. But hopefully it won't be interrupting any whiskey or whatever else ends up transpiring later.]

What did you hear?

[So Will was the only one hearing things, typically not a great sign in his own past experience, but there was nothing he could do about it except bow his head slightly discomfited and step back a few paces now that he was certain there was no external threat.]

Voices, whispers, screams...just noise...could be passengers or maybe my head is still on my pillow. [Not a lie but he is redirecting, it's likely that he is tired given how riddled his dreams often were with imagery that would haunt most anyone's waking hours.

Part of Will's imagination is reconstruction, but it didn't cause him to hear things so it must have been something else.]

Pretty sure you're awake. [Insofar as he's pretty sure he's real and not a figment of Will's imagination. Could be that they're all asleep somewhere, dreaming about being together, but usually John would have had to ingest a fair amount of mind-altering substances and cast a dodgy spell for that. And Will, well. He doesn't look like the spell type. He investigates real crimes with body totems and all.]

Well you know the good thing about whiskey - either you'll hear more and can't tell much of a difference, or you'll stop giving a toss. [Either way, he comes out on top. Which just means they'll be needing a bottle sooner rather than later.]

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TEST DRIVE MEME #1

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