i'm feeling devious, you're looking glamorous | OPEN

[cacophonish]

WHO: Jeff & OPEN
WHEN: June 1 - June 10
WHERE: Random cabins, every bar, the buffet, idk basically anywhere
SUMMARY: A messy new arrival hits the ground, uh... stumbling to rock bottom. I swear he'll chill out after this.
WARNINGS: Binge drinking, references to demons, possession, trauma, and death. Oh and Billy Joel slander.

So, like...

All things considered, Jeff thinks he's taking this pretty well. Obviously, he's majorly fucking dead, which is about what he expected after performing the ritual to give his body over to a demon. And, okay, so the afterlife is a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean, and that's, like, really not his scene, but it's better than the big empty void of oblivion he'd been expecting, so... Things are already looking up.

Look at him. He's chill. He's copacetic. He's not freaking out about anything at all.

After the mandatory safety drills are done, you can find Jeff all over the Serena Eterna, exploring all the fine shops and amenities the ship has to offer.

i. bar hopping...

...fuck it, okay, fine, he's bar hopping. That's all he's doing. Look, there's a lot of places to get a drink here, and Jeff's a connoisseur of self destruction and debauchery, and besides, he's already dead, so it's not like he has any reason to sober up now.

So, really, if you stop by any bar on the ship, you're likely to run into Jeff there at some point or another, in various states of intoxication. Maybe he's holding a one-sided conversation with an indifferent ghost at the poolside bar, while it blends him a daiquiri. Maybe he's singing to himself and anyone around him at Hurrikane-- hey, wait, did a cocktail napkin spontaneously burst into flames while he was singing? Maybe he's dancing with anyone who's got the misfortune of being at Rischie at the same time as him. Or maybe he's grooving alone at John's, to the beat of some song in his head, stopping to hurl expletives at the ghostly piano player as it launches into its set. "Fuuuuuck you, Piano Man. Billy Joel's a hack. Ha... ha... Fuck. Billy Joel. I'm in hell..."

The ghost of the piano man doesn't even care. Somehow, the indifference stings.

ii. strange bedfellows...

Big messy breakdowns can take a lot out of a guy. Not that Jeff's having a breakdown. It's just a general observation, about breakdowns in general, for other people. Jeff's fine, after all. He's just having a good time.

But sooner or later, that breakdown good time starts to take its toll, and Jeff's gotta crawl back to his cabin to sleep it off. The only thing is, he doesn't actually remember his cabin number. It's... 123, right? No. Wait. 113. 102... He knows for a fact it starts with a 1.

(What do you mean every cabin starts with a 1?)

Eventually, Jeff finds his way back to his cabin, or at least what he thinks is his cabin. Maybe it's actually your cabin, in which case: if you left the door unlocked, he's definitely going to stumble in and zonk out on one of the beds, thinking it's his. Total Goldilocks move. If it's locked, well, he'll just slump down in front of the door and sleep the booze off there, in the hall. You might have to step over him, or just wake him up.

iii. breakfast of champions...

Decked out in Tommy Bahama, with sunglasses perched in his hair, Jeff looks like he's finally settling into the cruise life... as he groans and slumps his head down on a table at the buffet, a plate of untouched food beside him. What's the point of hangovers in the afterlife?

"'s not fair. I wanna diiiie..." he whines into the table, as if this hangover is, truly, the worst hangover anyone's suffered, ever, in the history of the universe. If you join him, Jeff will lift his head and look absolutely pitiful. For as much of a mess as he is, he really has mastered the art of puppy dog eyes. Somehow, he actually manages to look like some kind of innocent Disney princess decked out in Tommy Bahama.

"I don't think I'm doing so good right now," he confesses.

Fine. Okay. So maybe Jeff isn't taking any of this well at all.

iv. wildcard...

go wild, throw anything at me. hit me at weeyotch or weeyotch#8200 if you want to plot something in particular!

Comments

[serialskiller]

"Yeah, you're not worth killing. I'll be back."

Murderbot heads off to the buffet, returning with a plate of plain toast and a glass of orange powerade, setting them both down in front of Jeff. "Eat. Drink."

[cacophonish]

Jeff blinks, clearly thrown by the... dismissive reassurance??? But when the guy returns with life restoring toast and electrolytes, he shoots him a grateful smile.

"Oh. Thanks."

He eyes the toast, like he's waiting for his stomach to curdle into nausea at the thought of eating it, and then when it seems like the coast is clear, tears off a small piece to eat.

"So, uh..." He eyes the guy curiously. "What... would make me worth killing?"

[serialskiller]

“Being an actual threat to anyone, to start. Why, are you going to try to become worth killing? Suicide by SecUnit would be one of the dumbest things anyone on this ship has tried. For one thing, people don’t stay dead here.”

[cacophonish]

Jeff shakes his head, the movement enough to make him a little dizzy, what with the hangover, and he huffs and crosses his arms on the table, just so he can drop his head again. Ah. That's better. "No, I'm not-- I was just wondering--"

Why was he wondering, you ask?

"You could put it a nicer way is all," he mumbles into his arms. Jeff lifts his head just enough so he can look at the man. People don't stay dead... Right. He remembers reading that. And it makes sense, if this is some kind of boat ride to eternal damnation or whatever.

But. Now there's another question rolling around in his head.

"People died here already? Is that, like, a normal thing that happens here?"

[serialskiller]

“People have died. People have killed. I’ve died. It’s not fun, alright? It doesn’t fix anything. You wake up in bed the next morning and hate yourself, after dying. And hate the captain for bringing you back. And hate the sun for rising. It doesn’t make anything better.”

But then, maybe hating itself was just Murderbot’s natural state.

[cacophonish]

Death, murder, resurrection...

"Fuck..."

That's a lot to take in. He doesn't even know what to say at first. Jeff furrows his brows, frowning, then... "So someone... killed you? There's a killer on the boat?"

[serialskiller]

"There's a lot of killers on the boat. I am one of them, for the record. It comes with being created as a security cyborg construct. That's just a fancy way of saying I'm a murderbot. But I have yet to kill anyone on this ship."

And Jeff is not worth changing that status.

[cacophonish]

Jeff goes quiet for a few moments that feel like they're stretching forever in pure... awkward silence. Now there's even more to process.

"So... you're, like, a Terminator?"

What is with Jeff and assuming everyone is a terminator...

[serialskiller]

"I don't know what that is."

But in the back of its mind, it can almost hear Dr. Gurathin's voice, sharp and warning: "It calls itself Murderbot." Yes, yes it is like a Terminator, whatever one of those is.

[cacophonish]

"It's like..." Jeff takes a moment to find the right words, then concludes with, "a hot robot dude that kills people..."

Was it really necessary to call the killer robot hot? Yes.

"So, um... Do you have a name?"

[serialskiller]

"Ew. Why make a bot attractive unless they're a sexbot? You don't want murderbots to be appealing, that's not the point of us." It doesn't even have genitals, and it likes it that way.

"Anyway. You can call me Rin or you can call me SecUnit." Neither is its name, thank you.

[cacophonish]

"I mean, I don't think they're supposed to be hot. I think the hotness is just, you know..." Well. Jeff doesn't really know what he's trying to say. Does this say more about him than anyone else? Like he's got some fucked up attraction to anything that could kill him.

"Rin... Right on, okay. I'm Jeff."