Arthur Lester (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
theotherright) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
come_sailaway2023-09-07 02:13 pm
theotherright) wrote in come_sailaway2023-09-07 02:13 pm
[OPEN and one CLOSED] I shall not forget how his laugh rang out.
Whomst: Arthur and you!
Whenst: September
Wherest: About
Whatst: Canon update, fraying at the edges, a rescue mission that's doomed before it begins, and also some flowers
Warningst'dve: Starvation/imprisonment, man going through it, more as they come up.
Visual Note: Arthur's come off a canon update where he sustained some injuries and was starved for a while, so he looks Bad. For the sake of brevity, I didn't describe him in full in every prompt, but there are details in the first one should you need them.
[CLOSED to Crichton] it was just as the light was beginning to fail
At 6am, in cabin 127, several things happen:
The record player, which hasn't been wound in some time, lets out the last of the tension in its spring with a noise that's more 'old music used in a horror movie' than 'cosy crackling gramophone'.
Arthur turns — or has turned, perhaps, sometime in the night — from a miserable but healthy man into a guy who looks like his last square meal happened before the first world war. He slept without a shirt, and so there's nothing to hide the prominence of his ribs — the livid blotches that might be bruising — the plethora of new scars. There's a nasty circle on his belly that must be what the bite Tendi healed would've eventually curdled into. There's a zigzag of electrical scars, scrapes as if he lost a fight with sandpaper, a pale and pitted chunk out of his throat, and one finger reduced to what looks like blackened bone. There's a good inch of dark, brittle beard flavour-saving dust and blood on the bottom half of his face.
Arthur wakes up, lets out a breath like he's suddenly in a lot less pain than he was a moment ago, lets out another breath like he's confused, and says aloud, accusing, afraid: "Wait— what did you do? Where the hell did you send me?"
And then, and only then, he realises that he knows the answer — that he knows, that he remembers, more, so very many more, people and places and events than he did when he was talking to Kayne just a moment ago.
[OPEN, deck zero] that I suddenly heard all I needed to hear
Ya boy has a mission. It's one he has no clear idea of how he's going to achieve, but what's new?
Arthur looks absolutely fucking godawful: see the prompt above, though he has, thank goodness, shaved since then. Nevertheless, he's energetic, borderline frantic, running both hands over the bulkhead door that seals the crew quarters, muttering to himself. They all came out this way once. There must be a way back in.
Anyone hovering nearby may catch key words such as 'drill', 'shapeshift', and 'explosives'.
[OPEN, around the ship] it has lasted me many and many a year.
Is it a bird? Is it a plane?
No, it's Arthur: floating unmoored across the deck a few feet in the air, clutching a half-blown dandelion like it's the only sane thing in an insane world.
He's located a wall with his cane and is trying to find some way of hooking himself closer, but tragically, all he manages is to push himself further in the other direction. "No, oh no nono come back-- ah, damn it."
If there's a very subtle note of hysteria behind his voice, it's because there's something weirdly funny about -- about going through everything he has, and then having to deal with floating. Not imprisonment, not almost dying every five minutes, but drifting on the breeze like a bubble. Not torturous, but ridiculous. He's almost tempted to remember how to have fun, just for the occasion.
[WILDCARD] wildcard
Wildcard!
Whenst: September
Wherest: About
Whatst: Canon update, fraying at the edges, a rescue mission that's doomed before it begins, and also some flowers
Warningst'dve: Starvation/imprisonment, man going through it, more as they come up.
Visual Note: Arthur's come off a canon update where he sustained some injuries and was starved for a while, so he looks Bad. For the sake of brevity, I didn't describe him in full in every prompt, but there are details in the first one should you need them.
[CLOSED to Crichton] it was just as the light was beginning to fail
At 6am, in cabin 127, several things happen:
The record player, which hasn't been wound in some time, lets out the last of the tension in its spring with a noise that's more 'old music used in a horror movie' than 'cosy crackling gramophone'.
Arthur turns — or has turned, perhaps, sometime in the night — from a miserable but healthy man into a guy who looks like his last square meal happened before the first world war. He slept without a shirt, and so there's nothing to hide the prominence of his ribs — the livid blotches that might be bruising — the plethora of new scars. There's a nasty circle on his belly that must be what the bite Tendi healed would've eventually curdled into. There's a zigzag of electrical scars, scrapes as if he lost a fight with sandpaper, a pale and pitted chunk out of his throat, and one finger reduced to what looks like blackened bone. There's a good inch of dark, brittle beard flavour-saving dust and blood on the bottom half of his face.
Arthur wakes up, lets out a breath like he's suddenly in a lot less pain than he was a moment ago, lets out another breath like he's confused, and says aloud, accusing, afraid: "Wait— what did you do? Where the hell did you send me?"
And then, and only then, he realises that he knows the answer — that he knows, that he remembers, more, so very many more, people and places and events than he did when he was talking to Kayne just a moment ago.
[OPEN, deck zero] that I suddenly heard all I needed to hear
Ya boy has a mission. It's one he has no clear idea of how he's going to achieve, but what's new?
Arthur looks absolutely fucking godawful: see the prompt above, though he has, thank goodness, shaved since then. Nevertheless, he's energetic, borderline frantic, running both hands over the bulkhead door that seals the crew quarters, muttering to himself. They all came out this way once. There must be a way back in.
Anyone hovering nearby may catch key words such as 'drill', 'shapeshift', and 'explosives'.
[OPEN, around the ship] it has lasted me many and many a year.
Is it a bird? Is it a plane?
No, it's Arthur: floating unmoored across the deck a few feet in the air, clutching a half-blown dandelion like it's the only sane thing in an insane world.
He's located a wall with his cane and is trying to find some way of hooking himself closer, but tragically, all he manages is to push himself further in the other direction. "No, oh no nono come back-- ah, damn it."
If there's a very subtle note of hysteria behind his voice, it's because there's something weirdly funny about -- about going through everything he has, and then having to deal with floating. Not imprisonment, not almost dying every five minutes, but drifting on the breeze like a bubble. Not torturous, but ridiculous. He's almost tempted to remember how to have fun, just for the occasion.
[WILDCARD] wildcard
Wildcard!
no subject
Then he realises that -- so far as he knows, anyway -- Skulduggery doesn't have supernatural discernment, and is probably just asking why he looks like shit.
It takes a moment to shift the haunted, hunted look from his face, and replace it with an impassive smirk. "What? I think I wear it well, though I am sure you wear it better."
no subject
"It's true, being a skeleton means my own experiences with skipping through time didn't leave a mark. And it's much easier for me to appear unphased by it. I have an incredibly good poker face, after all."
no subject
Skulduggery's gone through it too? Then he must have a damn good reason to believe that he didn't really leave the ship, or an even better damn good reason for hiding it from the others. Skipping through time sounds a lot like what Crichton suggested. But he doesn't know. He wasn't there, he didn't hear Kayne's promise, and he didn't feel his only companion in the world ripped out of his head.
"Time and space, unless I'm very much mistaken." His voice isn't quite steady.
no subject
"A little bit of both. And somehow, at the same time, neither." He moves closer, taking to leaning one shoulder against the bulkhead now. "It happened to me over a year ago. I was walking the decks after an excursion and woke up the next morning with a new skull full of memories. The Captain could explain what happened, but not how it happened."
All Arthur has to do is ask, and Skulduggery will explain the way he'd interpreted the Captain's words.
no subject
He can't promise he'll believe it, but there's no world in which he doesn't ask.
His tone is halfway between desperation and challenge. His remaining knuckles are white on the unmoving locking-wheel of the bulkhead door, the door separating him from what's left of John in this universe.
no subject
It makes sense in his mind, even if it's nearly impossible to explain aloud.
no subject
Arthur doesn't like it any more the second time.
"I was sent back."
His voice is hoarse. He knew this once and he refuses to know it. There has never been a man more clearly holding himself a hair's breadth above a devastating tailspin.
"I want to hear this from the Captain."
no subject
"I can arrange that. We could go to the bridge. Or I could shout for him, although I'm not actually sure if he ever pays attention to what I'm doing when I'm not with him." He can't help the affection creeping into his voice when he says, "His explanation won't make much more sense, and he'll be insufferable about answering questions, but that's part of his charm."
no subject
Getting back what they had. Losing it again, violently.
He's somehow held his breath against the overload of memories since returning here -- the knowledge that one way or another, those memories were planted or manipulated again -- the fact that he had people here, and should have missed them, and forgot them instead -- the fact that he's here, and so even if he made a deal with Kayne, it was a wish made on a monkey's paw, and getting John back may really be out of reach --
Skulduggery talking about his partner with love and warmth is what fucks him up a little bit too much.
Abruptly, he's crying, and doesn't know how to make it stop.
"We're going." He forces himself to say it, even though his voice is breaking away from him. "We're going there now." Just as soon as he takes his hands off this door.
no subject
Emotional sensitivity is something that Skulduggery has had to relearn since his encounter with the Faceless Ones. It'd been easy enough before that; people's emotions made sense, and even if he couldn't understand them, he could at least sympathize with what they were going through. Nowadays, he finds himself stumbling over hurdles he hadn't even realized were there. Honestly, if it weren't for Ava, Darcy and Fio, he probably wouldn't bother.
"Okay," he replies, falling into the same voice he uses whenever Darcy voices something with finality or when Ava tells him exactly what she needs from him. He doesn't know if he's supposed to acknowledge Arthur's tears or not, but it seems wisest to simply ignore them. "We'll take the elevator up to deck seven, then walk to the bridge. Easy as that."
oh lord i thought i tagged this, sorry
He lets go of the door, and uses a hand to angle himself perpendicular to it, and starts to march: "Down and- and right. Down, right, there's a- there's a step. Don't miss the step."
There's a bit of a limp to his walk, an ankle that didn't heal perfectly and then got walked to exhaustion on, and the irony isn't lost on him that Kayne healed his shattered leg but left his twisted ankle alone. Bastard. Bastard. This, Arthur being here, the tormented ghost of John--
"It's not what I agreed to." Arthur's muttering it to himself, only half realising that it's out loud. "This- this isn't what I agreed to."
np at all im in no rush!!
His curiosity is much harder to satiate than most people's, and so of course he jumps on the opportunity to pick apart his out-loud rambling. "What deal did you make, and with whom?"
no subject
"Shit!"
Of course. Of course he'd fucking do that. And it highlights his aches and pains and neglected injuries, and it highlights his exhaustion, and it highlights how he can't do anything right, and it highlights his useless fucking eyes and the absence in his head.
He swears, and he keeps walking towards where he remembers the lifts being, hands half-lifted, gritting his teeth as his ankle throbs.
no subject
On the one hand, offering to help would be awkward as hell. On the other hand, Arthur isn't looking so hot. (On the third hand, he'll probably reject any offer of assistance just because he seems like that sort of stubborn man.)
"I could help you, if you'd like." Better couch that genuine offer in some playful sarcasm before people think you care, buddy. "I could help you even if you don't like, but it seems polite to offer."