come_sailaway | [Semi-Open] DYWTYLM

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[Semi-Open] DYWTYLM

Who: Wayne and CR
What: Trying to cope with the changes around here
When: Any time after leaving The Tube Room
Where: Throughout the ship
Warnings: Depression and existential ennui

Do you duck into deep blue safety? (All CR)
Wayne practically lives up on Deck Six, where he can get a decent amount of sun, soak in the hot tubs, or go and hide out down in the bottom of the pool when it doesn't seem as if anyone would notice or worry about him with everything else that's been happening in the aftermath. He keeps to where he can have an eye out on others coming and going when he's not down underwater. Which he is fairly often, likely to the chagrin of a few that know that he does this sometimes, regardless of whether or not they know he doesn't actually need to breathe. Nowadays at least he's got a relatively simple lifeline: A water-tight bag for his phone. It's not a perfect or permanent solution, but it's better than not having it at all. It means if someone wants to get ahold of him when he's down there, they can.

Someone may also simply spot him down there as they walk by, or do laps. His yellow kind of sticks out against the blue of the pool bottom.

Do you know what it is? (Close CR)
Wayne spends more time away from the rest of the ship now than he had in the months since his arrival. Call it depression, call it self-isolation, either way, the result is the same. He doesn't leave Cabin 144 for days at a time. At least he's clean, if a little bit cluttered, his bed remaining unmade most of the time and his cat figures still sitting on every available surface. There are even a couple of new ones, by now enough that he thinks perhaps he should label them.

For now, he simply exists on his own, sometimes plucking idle tunes without the need for an amplifier, other times simply dissociating in the familiar dimness of the cabin. He won't ignore anyone that comes to check in, but they may notice the light compression patches on his skin where he's leaned his head against the side of the couch or a wall for long periods.

Are you trying to live? (Wildcard)
Wayne looks lost, more often than not these days. He's been given a lot to think about recently, and all of it comes back to the sheer, crushing weight of the anxiety. It may have shifted in form, but it is very much something that he now lives with on a more present level. And now, other people know that it's a problem. Which in and of itself is a problem.

No matter where he ends up, be it the Lounge where he'll generally be curled up with a book from the library, or staring out of a window with the most dead-eyed expression, or at Sand Dollars or Stellar in the morning, Windjammer or Mikabo in the evening, or just up wherever there's a rail that he can sit beside, arms crossed atop it and eyes out on the not-so-infinite water.

It's getting harder to be (myself) (Closed, for Gil)
They needed to talk about things. He knows that. It's hard to think when he's not around the man, and he knows it's because of the attachment that he's long since given up on the idea of it being friendly or platonic. He's nervous, oh yes, but he also realizes that he can't just say that Gil is humoring him or playing along and letting him down as slowly and gently as possible. But he needs to know where they stand in the days following the head chamber, and the hourglass chamber that they'd awoken in. He needs to see him.

can I visit?

A message sent off late in the evening, when most everyone else seemed to be about to turn in. Nevermind that he's leaning against the wall opposite Gil's cabin door, wavering back and forth on whether to just invite himself in. In the end, he opts simply to wait.

I cannot hope to give you what I cannot give myself (Closed, for Crichton)
He'd promised to fix Crichton's shattered nose as soon as he had the material for it. Unfortunately, this had taken a few days thanks to the broken new system of restocking. Maybe not long at all in the grand scheme, but at least a couple of days longer than would have been preferable. But in the end, he's found what he needed: a cupcake, with pink frosting and plain white paper. He's already headed toward where he'd last spotted his friend, and doesn't actually think to take out his phone to warn the man that he's on his way. After all, he's got a cupcake! This is phenomenal news that needs to be delivered in person!

"Commander! Guess what!"

Smile back...at me...oh please... (Closed, for Helena)
He needed to sleep so badly, he had ended up passing out in his cabin before he could actually touch base with Helena again. He'd spent so long out of commission that it wasn't for another couple of days that he messaged her, already feeling guilty over the idea that he'd managed to worry her yet again.

remember when i was talking abt the cats in my cabin
and you talked about a larva

He's looking up at the pretty frosted crystal cat that represents her, now with her name written on its underside in marker.

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The confirmation that the worst he'd thought had come to pass had feels like a cold lump slipping into his stomach. He wraps his arms around Crichton's shoulders with a sigh into the fabric of his shirt.

"Fuck dude, I'm sorry." Now he guesses he should extend that invitation to crash with them a little bit longer, if only to make sure Crichton had somewhere to stay that wasn't the hallway.

Crichton leans heavily into Wayne's embrace, his shoulders shaking with a sob he tried desperately to hold in.

"Thank you. H-he...has every right to hate me for going into his memories like I did but...I never wanted to hurt him. You gotta believe me, I didn't do it on purpose."

The arms around him tighten, gathering him in close for a moment, before thinking better of it and drawing back, hand hooked around Crichton's arm to get him out of the walkway. Best not to make him have this moment out in the open.

"C'mon," he says quietly, nodding back toward the cabins. On the way, he speaks up in thoughtful, distracted tones. "I don't think any of us are strictly innocent when it comes to messing around in other peoples' memories. I've been hearing about people trying to give the people they love better lives, or save them from things. I know I completely ruined a few..." Including Crichton's.

Crichton is easy to shepherd along. He walks listlessly, lips pressed together to keep it all bottled up inside as hard as he can until they get to somewhere private. He doesn't quite make it there, because he, irrationally, feels the need to make sure the blame stays on him and not on Arthur at all. Or Wayne.

"Yeah? Did anyone else go back in time and ruin the memories of the last days a man spent with his daughter? Pretty sure that was just me..."

Wayne leads the way slowly, holding loose onto Crichton's hand until they've made it back to his cabin, where it would be dark and covered in a bunch of disparate little kitten-shaped tchochkes. He bends to pull open the laces of his boots and shove them off, then settle onto the end of the pull-out couch bed. He lifts an arm to encourage Crichton under it to lean on him again.

"I haven't pried into what anyone else did, but people are on edge and less trustful than ever. Nobody managed to hurt me, but I know what I did has caused a lot of shit." Not the least of which has been his own spiked anxiety over how everything else had turned out. If only he'd just kept to himself...

So... he knew Wayne liked cats but this sure is some kind of decore. Giving him crazy cat lady vibes. Okay, fine, they are cute though.

He follows Wayne's lead by kicking off his own boots and letting them flop to the floor. Then he leans right into that open invitation and clings hard to Wayne's chest like it's the only solid thing left.

"I did something unforgivable to Arthur. I twisted the memories of his final days with his daughter by being in them... and then I saved her life in the memory."

Crichton wouldn't be the first one to get that impression either. Everyone else that's seen it so far besides Bastion has either said, or at least thought as much.

Wayne's arm wraps around Crichton's shoulders, his head coming to rest against the top of the other's with the other hand tucked between Crichton's hair and the bottom of his chin. He listens with a soft frown, eyes unfocused on the opposite wall.

"You didn't intend to hurt him when you set out, and it sounds like you were trying to help in the moment. That it turned out this way... You couldn't have known."

"I wasn't... I wasn't trying to do anything. I wasn't trying to help. I was just... living out a fantasy. For months. I actually convinced myself that maybe I'd just stay there forever. I was too stupid or too blind to realize what I was really doing. I was just using him to feel normal." Nine months went by so fast. It felt like the best time of his life and it wasn't even real. None of it was.

"But that's the thing. I should have known what it would do to him. I should have known. If I love him as much as I thought I did, I should have known that. Maybe I... maybe I didn't know him at all. Maybe we didn't really know each other as well as we thought. What if it was all wishful thinking, right from the start? What if we just loved the idea of each other more than the real thing? I just... I couldn't take being alone. It's my fault for messing with things I didn't have a right to, and he got hurt for it. He shouldn't forgive me for this. No one should."

Wayne is quiet for a long while as he listens. That's...a lot more than he expected. Crichton still has his sympathy, but it's complicated given the way it's all played out. He's aware now of how badly he'd fucked up, coming up on the situation as the and Gil had, but now it feels that much worse with the idea that they'd interrupted the kind of fight that probably should have happened and been resolved without anyone else's input. Harvey or not, they were all in the wrong.

Except for Arthur. Who Wayne is now even more certain that he will never get the chance to sit and talk to.

"Loving someone doesn't mean you're suddenly going to be totally selfless," he points out quietly. "It doesn't fix everything and it doesn't excuse when you do terrible things. I know my opinion doesn't really count for much, but I don't think you're a bad guy. I never have. Wouldn't invite you to hang out here until things calm down if I did.

"I do think that maybe you both need time to cool down and then talk on neutral ground, though. You need to apologize even if you don't expect forgiveness, but then he needs to be willing to listen too, and you can't really force that to happen."

"Your opinion counts for a lot," Crichton protests miserably. Wayne has a good head on his shoulders. Crichton trusts Wayne to give it to him straight, even if it hurts.

"I apologized. Of course, I apologized." There's a hint of defensiveness here. Does he really seem like the type who wouldn't apologize? He meant it. Each time. But Arthur wasn't ready to hear any of it. And between those times, Crichton dug the hole deeper and deeper. He gave Arthur less reason to trust that he meant it. Now, it's far too late. Nothing he says, no matter how sincere, will ever be trusted. He's lost that forever. That was his own doing.

"I don't think time is going to cool off anything. I'm... done. Just... done."

Wayne trusts that Crichton has tried, but there's a difference between profuse, desperate apology, and apology at the appropriate time and place when it won't just salt a wound. Watching some of the things that he's seen others go through, as well as some consumption of human media, has given him something of an idea of how these things might go a little better.

But Crichton is resigned, and while it hurts to see, he knows that he can't just browbeat the man into continuing to smash his head against that particular wall.

"So what will you do?" he asks quietly. "You're in a really shitty position with the dude in your brain, and I know none of us are really equipped to do anything about that, so the best we can do is help you through it, right? Maybe one day I can figure out how to blow up Harvey without having to hurt you in the process."

"I don't know." He sighs so heavily he needs to take in a big breath just to replace the air.

"Part of me hoped going into the labyrinth would take care of it all." Because he hoped he wasn't coming back.

"If Harvey starts hurting people again, just blow me up with him, man. I'd rather have it that way. Do what you gotta do."

"We already went over that, I'm gonna knock you out first. Exploding you's a last resort." Even though...he gets it. He really does. Just wanting it to end, just wanting to rest, wanting to not deal with it, especially when just giving up is easier and less exhausting. "Humans are gross when they explode and I don't like how much blood you all contain."

"No one does," he says with a wry chuckle. "Friday least of all, I'm sure. Clean up from that last time must'a been a bitch." He's just glad this didn't earn him a lecture about not giving up or giving in.

"What about you? Don't you have blood?"

He pulls a face over the mention of Friday's cleanup duties. He'd only just been starting to cope with having blown up Jacob Seed in Pratt's memory when all that went down. "The whole thing at the buffet was fucking rough and I only came up on it afterward."

A quiet sound in response to that question. "Mmnh, not as you guys understand it. Like it serves the same general function but it doesn't look or feel the same. It's more...sticky, I guess? But clearer, kind of pinkish. Definitely doesn't smell the same."

"Oh... Wayne... Damn, dude. I'm sorry you had to see that." Now he feels bad for making the joke. That was Wayne's boyfriend.

"It doesn't have to be the same. Honestly, I hope I never have to see it. I don't wanna see you hurt."

"I heard the explosion and wanted to see if there was anything I could do to help or...I don't know." Not knowing what had happened until days after the fact had made that whole scene a lot more surreal. "I didn't even realize it was you two until Gil told me about it."

He looks down at his free hand, fingers curling then flattening out again, the wrinkles merely gentle creases rather than distinct joint markers. "I'm kind of surprised nothing that bad has happened to me yet. You guys die around me and I'm just here, trying to keep it all together and doing a shitty job of it."

"That might have been for the best. I've seen what those explosions can do..." Dammit Harvey! You had to go and antagonize Gil, didn't you?

He reaches for Wayne's hand under the guise that he's the one doing the comforting. "Wayne... I'm sorry. I know what you're feeling but... it's not your responsibility to keep us all from getting hurt. That's too much to put on yourself."

Harvey would antagonize anyone if it meant breaking down Crichton's will, apparently. All Wayne can really hope to do is maybe try and make him regret it. Give Crichton a reason to believe things aren't as bad as they might feel. Be a friend, in other words.

Wayne takes hold of the hand that wraps around his, giving it a steady squeeze. He'd accept it, no matter the intention. "I know. Hard habit to break though, y'know? It's not like I can just shut off caring about people."

"Yeah, I know. It's one of the things about you I liked from day one, you know? You got a big heart and you care so much about everyone." Wayne is a hero--the real kind. The noble and selfless kind.

"I don't want you to stop caring. I can't tell you how much of a comfort it's been to lean on you lately. I just... I don't wanna lean too hard. I don't want you to hurt yourself trying to take care of me or anyone else. I'm... scared for you. People who get close to me get hurt..."

"Can't like to you dude, I'm kinda surprised nothing has happened to me yet. It's happening to everyone around me, and it feels like I'm not doing enough," he admits, eyes down on his free hand as his thumb rubs across his forefinger. He can't fight everyone's problems, especially when they were abstract. "I was built for support. It's what I'm best at, so I'm gonna keep trying. I love you guys and I don't want anything happening that we can't come back from, but I can come back from a lot. Probably more than most people. So, I want you to be able to lean on me, alright? Even when it sucks and it's hard."

"You're doing this," Crichton insists. "You're listening to my sob story even when I don't have any right to complain." He's the screw-up and he's still the one crying pathetically on Wayne's shoulder right now.

"You fixed up my nose too, man. I... I feel like I already owe you so much I can't repay. And I know you don't want or need anything for payment. But I still... I hope one day I'll get a chance to have your back. So you don't have to come back alone."

Wayne lays a hand on the opposite side of Crichton's head and pulls him just enough to be able to plant a kiss on the temple closest to him, hoping that the gesture would be more comforting than weird.

"I don't do what I do with the expectation of getting anything back," he points out, his forehead leaned against Crichton's head. "No matter what happens, I know wherever I come back, it'll be to where there are people I care about, no matter if it's here or home. But if you do come wait for me, we can go get something to eat afterward. Deal?"

The gesture is the most comforting thing anyone could do. It's just how his mother used to hold him and kiss his worries away. Hot tears roll down his face. No dam in the world could hold them back.

He sniffles, and says through a wet laugh, "Okay. Deal."

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[Semi-Open] DYWTYLM

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cw: suicide ideation

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might be a good place to wrap, have them settle down to cuddle and nap??