come_sailaway | Something beautiful happens in this world [Open]

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Something beautiful happens in this world [Open]

Who: Deputy Pratt and YOU!
What: Cake decorating, showing off his artistic prowess, shovel knight time
When: Later half of January
Where:Sand Dollars, the Library, Upper Deck
Warnings: None! (Well that's rare for him)

1. Sand Dollars
Pratt has completed his scientific research (having Sharky eat various cupcakes while naked) and has taken actual notes which are in the little notepad next to him while he sits at a table in Sand Dollars. He has one of the plastic trays from the buffet and has assembled a circle of cupcakes onto it to resemble a cake and is using a plastic butter knife to spread the frosting around so it looks like it's all one piece.

The wrappers from all of them are on the table nearby, along with some colorful other cupcakes that he's going to scoop the frosting off of in order to write out a message on this cake.

Yes, he is making the Captain a "Congrats on the Sex" cake. Sure it's been a few weeks but his memory is trash okay. He's trying.

2. The Library
Well, the binder is gone, which sucks because Pratt has already forgotten 80% of the contents. He assumes one of those people obsessed with blowing the place up stole it. So he will add his contribution to its recovery.

In its place is a Serena Eterna spiral notebook with a ship on the front, the ship is crossed out and instead there's a reproduction of Ryan's original cat drawing of Guatauva, but every page afterwards also has a cat drawing. He has faithfully recreated every cat internet meme he can think of. There's space above and below to make them into ship-centric memes. So have at.

His drawings look like this because I'm not going to draw 30 cat memes.

3. Deck
Pratt picked up the best package from home he's ever gotten. It was huge heavy and when he unwrapped it he squealed like a school girl because he's so damn excited. Friday is his favorite person for the next few hours because he has his shovel launcher now. Which is exactly what it sounds like, it is a rocket launcher, that shoots shovels.

He has a pile of shovels next to him, as he stands on the deck, aiming at the hull of the ship and then KUHTHUWNK the thing embeds itself into the metal siding and Pratt straight up cackles. Oh this is fantastic.

On the other side of him is his Christmas present he never opened which is 99 cans of Pabst in an absurdly long box and he's about to have the best day. Drink some beer, launch some shovels, spend way too long prying shovels out of the ship to do it again.

Montana's finest, right here.

4. Wildcard
Hit me with anything. He's always in the buffet or arcade or around the deck doing random patrols.

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He grins up at Max, hoping he's from Earth and maybe gets the reference. Though to Pratt its funny either way.

"The Captain. It was a joke back at the resort cuz you know how it was silent every evening? Probably cuz that skeleton makes xylophone noises when they fuck. So I'm making a 'Congrats on the Sex' cake for the Captain." A pause and then a soft curse, "Damn, should have said when they bone."

Cursed to understand puns and never be able to make them himself. At least that's better than Rook who didn't get them in the first place.

"Oh." Yep. He gets the reference. "Oh my GOD. I haven't even formally met Skulduggery yet and now I'm going to be thinking about that the first time I shake his hand. Fuck." He's trying so hard not to bust out laughing, though, so he's not actually mad.

"Even worse. You should have said xyloBONE." Max loves puns. All of them. Not just the good ones.

"I actually helped make a cake for them when we were still back at the resort, and I think they liked it. So. Do you want me to help you with this one too? I'm really good at piping words. If we find a plastic bag, I can make a discount piping bag out of it and get really fancy."

"Laughing hysterically for no reason is probably better than when I first saw him. I tried to crack his skull open with a shovel which like... in my defense I think is a normal reaction to a walking, talking, skeleton?" He's going to stand by that attempted shovelling with no regrets.

"Ugh, that's even worse. You and Sharky are gonna pun at each other for days, levelling up like that's a fucking skill tree and then just annihilate everyone on board." Because that's definitely how language works.

"Oh shit, that's cute. I knew you were in the kitchen not that you were legit baking cakes and shit. And yeah if you can help me that'd be rad because my culinary prowess is uh.. working at a pizza place in high school. So if you need pepperoni evenly distributed I got it. But frosting - not so much." Even spreading it even is harder than he expected. It's not terrible but it's still lumpy in some places.

"Oh, shit. Yeah. I mean... if I saw a skeleton walking around with no context I'd think the worst too." So it's really a good thing his introduction to the entire thing was in the middle of a wedding party.

"Sharky? Oh! I met him recently in the hot tub. He's a cool guy. He mentioned you, too." They will absolutely start a pun war. May as well just get yourself ready for the cringe now, buddy.

"Did I forget to mention I wanted to be a baker when I grew up? Like, I was going to culinary school for it and everything. If there was a public use kitchen here on this ship, I'd practically be living in it. Cakes are my specialty."

"I thought he was gonna attack people! You know, like in a horror movie and shit. Trying to pre-empt that and then find out he's just a guy, who happens to be a skeleton. Who prooooobably shoulda killed me for that instead of just flinging me into some bookshelves." It's taken a while for Pratt to realize that he got off lucky there, especially with the subsequent Lord Vile stuff. Huh. That's interesting.

"Yeah he practically lives in the hot tub - his pants free dream I guess. He's gotta be all wrinkly in there though." Pratt scrunches up his nose, not sure why Sharky loves being human soup so much.

"Damn, fuck yes then. Help me out because I am shit at baking. I can barely make those pre done cookies you just gotta slice and put in the oven."

Max isn't going to say it out loud, but he's following that line of thought. Apparently, that skeleton could go hard on people if he wanted to. Good thing he's a mostly nice one. (Max thinks of Vile in the same way he thinks of vampires having a beast inside them. Sometimes they snap, but most of the time they are in control and totally fine.)

"Some of us like the wrinkle feeling. I know, weird, but what can I say? I'm on Sharky's side." You can take his hot tubs from his cold dead hands.

"Looks like I've come just in time. Don't worry, we got this. Give me a few while I scavenge a bag and I'll be right back." He's not even waiting. You have enlisted his help and therefore he is honor bound to give it.

He'll scurry off to find what he needs and come back about ten minutes later with a plastic baggie from Sundries along with some scissors.

"Okay! Good news. We can totally make this work."

"I don't think I'm allowed to kink shame. Keep on being wrinkly I guess." He holds his hands up in surrender, because that missing finger is a constant reminder of Pratt's own weirdo desires.

Pratt finishes up smoothing the frosting around, and starts organizing the remaining cupcakes by colors so they have easy access to all the stuff they might need. The cake seems to be about the right size for four simple words, this is gonna be great.

"Fuck and yes. Is this how cake frosting works? It goes in a bag? I dunno why I assumed they wrote stuff real carefully with like... knives and shit."

"I mean... you can, but I don't think we want to get started on that." Yeah, he's looking at that finger buddy. Just don't... don't ask him what he's been up to with the cougar lately.

"A knife? You'd have to be pretty damn good to write cursive with a knife, dude." He's laughing but in what he hopes is a good-natured way.

"Nah, here. Let me show you." He scoops a bunch of the red frosting up with a knife and globs it into his pilfered bag. He squeezes it down until it's all in one corner, then cuts the corner off.

"Okay, what do you want it to say? Be very specific."

"I dunno man, I didn't watch cooking shows. And we don't have a bakery in Hope County just the stuff from the coffee shop and it doesn't have fancy writing." He doesn't know dick about cooking or baking, it's a miracle he doesn't light everything on fire if he makes something more complicated than eggs.

He squints at the bag, kind of not getting how this works because his single brain cell is a little overloaded right now. "Okay, so 'Congrats on the Sex'. Easy. Simple. He can't misconstrue it but also knows it's a joke. Or we find out he has no sense of humor and turns me into powder. But like... aside from them probably both being evil, kinda cute that the Captain and the Skeleton found each other."

"No bakery at all. You were deprived." Not that a coffee shop necessarily is the worst place to get baked goods, but no proper bakery? That's a crime.

"Okay, that's easy-peasy. I uh... for the record? I hope he does have a sense of humor because I like you and I don't want to see you turned to dust." So anyway, here he goes writing it. He squeezes the bag and scrawls out that message in elegant looping cursive, complete with some flourishes beneath.

"You don't really think they are both evil, though, right?"

"You don't know what you don't have til someone tells you. Or you have to go to New York city for training and find out there's ten billion kinds of food you've never tried and then can never get again. I have been searching for this purple fucking japanese ice cream for like... five years man." This is a man who did not pay attention in most of training but he damn sure tried every sandwich shop in a five block radius.

"Well at least I'll come back. So there's that." He says with the confidence of a mediocre white man who has never considered that there might be consequences to his actions. Like the Captain permanently killing him.

"I dunno, I haven't talked to either one of them long enough, they both seem fine but ones a skeleton who casts magic and the other kidnapped us all here to eventually die and fuel his weird cruise liner. So like... there's some screws loose even if they're not stroking their respective goatees."

"Oh, shit, yeah. New York has everything." The bagels! God, he misses those. He's not so sure what ice cream Pratt is talking about, though. That's interesting. Now, he really wants to find out.

"I guess so..." He hopes Pratt would come back. But if it's the Captain doing it? Can they be sure?

"Mmm. You make a good point. Is it stupid if the kidnapping thing almost feels like a gift, sometimes?"

"Seriously. I didn't wanna fucking leave. Like don't get me wrong, Montana is beautiful but we don't have a zillion deli's or delivery sushi." Man, delivery food is so good. Why isn't there ship DoorDash so he doesn't have to lug trays of shit from the buffet back to his room all the time.

"No? I think it's awesome here. I'm fucking dead back home this is so much better than that. Plus food, a room with a locking door, it's great here. For the most part anyway. Man I shouldn't say anything, last time I said the Captain was okay the whole murder resort thing happened like he's personally trying to make me look like a liar."

"When you put it like that, yeah, this place is a lot better." Better than being dead is not a high bar, but it IS a bar to clear.

"I'm pretty sure that's all just a coincidence though. Me? I don't know where I stand yet. The Captain scares me. I want to like him and I want him to like me but I don't know if I'm brave enough to just try and talk to him, you know?"

"Have you seen him though? He's just... some dude. I mean sure he wore a weirdo suit during the trial and that was... bizarre. But normally he's just a guy. I dunno he doesn't seem that intimidating to me?" Though maybe Pratt's idea of intimidation is a little different than most peoples?

"I guess.. if there's something you want you could try asking him? Something he'll actually do not just: I wanna go home. Because that's not gonna work. If you wanted.. I don't know an oven to bake bread or something. I don't see why he can't just magic one up for you." Pratt's pretty sure that's how magic works.

"I saw him at the wedding. And... the trial." Two very, very different encounters.

"But looks can be deceiving, you know? My master is an entire foot shorter than I am but he can still pick me up and hold me over his head with one hand."

Still... the idea of getting an oven to bake in is so enticing. Could he just ask for that?

"Hmm. It might be worth asking, I guess. Or, I could always try and trade for it."

"OH fuck that's hot." He looks off into space imagining that.

Then he shakes himself back into the here and now. "You could try and trade, but honestly just ask for one first. Cuz he might make you do something weird. He does stuff he thinks is funny so... who knows what that might be."

"It super is. I'm a huge guy but I love being carried, dude. It sucks." Oh, to be a twink sometimes. Although, don't mind him keeping this idea for later because he's pretty sure he can lift Pratt like that.

"But if he likes funny things, maybe it would help if I found a way to make him laugh. Or, I don't know, played a game with him? He seems like he likes those. It feels weird to just go ask for something without having a way to say thank you to him."

"You need to find some body builders or some shit. Get someone to bench press you." That'd also be super hot, man now Pratt is super distracted. What were they talking about again?

"You good at any games? Because I'm pretty sure I challenged him to one v one me on Rust but don't think we have any consoles here..." He actually yelled that at the empty air but he just remembers saying it towards the Captain. "Maybe use the oven as a prize if you win? And if he wins you'll do something else."

"Fuck, I really do." Now Max is distracted too. These peanut brains are really great at getting off-topic together.

"Yeah. I'm pretty good at poker now. You have no idea how hard that is to play against someone who can hear your literal pulse change. I can bluff like a champ. Do you think he knows poker? Or... would it be tasteless as hell to suggest Battleship?"

"I'm so shit at poker, I can never remember what the good hands are unless I have multiples of the same card. Also fuck dude, if you can keep your heartrate from doing shit when you get amped up, you gotta teach me that. Cuz I'm pretty sure at some point I'm gonna get so wired I have a heart attack at age twenty-seven." He sighs, because he hates how easy it is to get riled up when he starts getting angry. Can't even blame Jacob or the cult for that, he's always been like that.

"Oh it's gotta be Battleship. Fuck yes dude. Challenge him to Battleship!"

"Only a little? Mostly I just know some breathing exercises to stay relaxed when I need to." He can't literally control his own heart rate. That would be really cool if he could. "I can still try to teach you those?" There are worse anger management techniques.

"I saw a bunch of games in one of the stores around here, I think. I'll have to check and see if Battleship is one of them. Everyone deserves someone to play with every once in a while, you know?"

"Can't hurt. That explosive shit is great for being a cop, not actually ideal when I'm trying to just.. be a person." Though maybe it wasn't great for being a cop, but it's too late now to try and imagine how things could have been different if he didn't have that alpha male hair trigger temper.

"Totally, lemme know when you challenge him. I'll send good vibes into the air for you to win."

"Are you a morning person? I do breathing and yoga exercises at the end of my workouts and you're welcome to join me then. 'Round about eight A.M. on the pool deck." As a bonus, Pratt can check him out in a speedo.

"I'll let you know for sure. Especially if I end up needing a second or something."

"I'm more a 'do not sleep' kind of person so.. I'm sometimes awake at eight. Yoga huh." He's not imagining a speedo, but he is imagining yoga pants that leave nothing to the imagination. "Keeps you limber huh."

They just cannot get through a single conversation without getting all horned up. "Aight. Keep me posted. On the game, and the yoga."

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