[open] life is a flower

[broshaw]

Who: Sharky Boshaw and YOU!
What: Flower Power baby!!!
When: Across September
Where: The laundry room, Bobby B's, and the usual hot tub prompt!
Warnings: General Sharky warnings apply (so check his info post)

[laundry room] hyssops
[Sharky's breakfast had taken place in the buffet, next to a bunch of tall purple flowers that were actually super pretty. By the time he finished, he found himself suffering from an intense need to do some late spring cleaning... some fall cleaning, really.

Anyone who comes into the laundry room today will find it completely stuffed with various bits and bobs: old Tommy Bahama shirts; denim jeans from the diner; swimsuits; leather boots; and a whole pile of absolutely trashed clothes from his arrival back home. Sharky is in the midst of it all, stripped down to his boxers (out of respect for the young impressionable eyes on the ship!), his boombox playing a variety of disco music at a frankly obnoxious volume. He's hand-washing his boots while all of the laundry machines rock and roll.

The second the effects of the flower wears off, he'll abandon almost all of this mess for someone else to clean up, but right now? Right now, he is single-minded on his task, to the point where he won't notice if someone else comes in.]

[bobby b's] purple hyacinth
[He'd thought they were just more intense cleaning flowers, but the joke's on him! Hyacinths are a completely different kind of flower, and they do something much worse than turning him into a temporary clean freak. This one is a straight-up bummer.

Sharky can be found suffering from an intense bout of remorse in the evening, sitting in the back of Bobby's with a pack of cigarettes, his boombox, and a half-drunken bottle of old, expensive whiskey. Despite his bleary eyes, he isn't anywhere close to passing out, too busy going over the last fifty-ish years of his life and picking apart all the ways he's fucked up his life.

For some reason, he's picked some twangy indie-sounding chorus music to listen to, although at a much lower volume than he usually bothers with. Country music is the traditional music of a sad Montana boy, but he's fresh out, so he's making do.]

[hot tub] pansies
[What is with this dude and the color purple??? Anyway. After dealing with chronic cleaning and a level of regret that normally only comes after a long night of getting cross-faded, Sharky's doing his best to avoid any and all flowers!

Unfortunately, the hot tub is slowly being crowded by thirsty flowers; his usual 1 AM skinny dipping sesh means tolerating whatever fucked up thing said flowers are going to do to him. After about five minutes of standing nervously around in his shorts, he decides that they must be safe enough, so he shucks off his clothes and plops down in the hot, bubbly water that he knows and loves so well.

No drink this time; instead, he's just quietly reading a Nancy Drew book and enjoying some peace and fuckin' quiet. The boombox, a constant companion these days, is set up by his towel, playing the BeeGee's greatest hits at a normal volume. Sharky sings quietly to himself as he reads, and it sounds so normal to him that he doesn't even realize his mouth isn't moving while he does it!]

[wildflowers]
[hmu for something specific, or set up a prompt with a flower in the header and I'll roll with it!]

Comments

[broshaw]

[Sharky sinks further down into the water, until most of his beard is submerged.]

It's a weird flower thing, [siiiiigh] but I'm not givin' up so easy this time. Not if it means givin' up the hot tub, too!

[busball]

[Klaus watches him quietly for a moment before nodding.] That's fair. I mean, I don't think that I would give up if someone could hear my thoughts. I mean, it's on them if they want to know what crazy stuff is in my brain, right?

[broshaw]

I guess I was just hopin' for (privacy) some peace and fuckin' quiet for once. Feels like everything's been happenin' all at once now that we're on this fuckin' "everything has to suck if we wanna survive" path. At least the renn faire world had turkey legs. And (no magic) people came back like right after they died instead of takin' three days...

[busball]

[Klaus fidgets slightly and nods.] Yeah. It's been a lot. Um. Do you want me to go? I'm not very good at peace or quiet and I'm like...you know...uhh...me.

[broshaw]

Nah, it's fine, dude. You know what's up now, so like, just don't hold anything I think-say personally. Besides, I say pretty much everything I think (except the weird shit) so it's no big deal.

[he pauses just long enough to sigh again at his own weird extra thoughts, gesturing for Klaus to join him in the tub.]

And you know, like, vice-versa, I won't hold anything weird you think against ya.

[busball]

Nah. I'll probably be fine. Like...I don't think you'll think anything too weird to me. [But now they're a little concerned about weird shit they'll think and hope they won't think too much about Nobunaga which is probably gonna take some skill.]

I'm already sorry for whatever you have to hear, but it's fine. [They'll climb into the water anyway.] Have you had anything good happen because of the flowers?

[broshaw]

A couple stray thoughts about (porkin' boobs sex) you know, that kinda stuff, ain't gonna mean shit after (murder possession labyrinth) the sorta crap we've been through.

[case in point!!]

And, uhhh, welllll, I cleaned my room? Which, like, kinda can't say it was a bad thing since I needed to do it, even if I hate cleanin'. What about you?

[busball]

[There's a soft laugh about that.] Yeah. I guess you're right. I mean, we've been through like...a lot. It's been awkward (especially murdering people).

That's a weird side effect. What flowers make you clean? I want to avoid those. Nobunaga is like...all the cleaning. He cleans even the Tommy Bahama. I don't get it. [There's a beat as they try to remember the flowers] Well, I got hit a little with a few things? But nothing too disastrous. Except for a slight bit of amnesia.

Oh! [His eyes light up a bit and he holds up his hands.] I got my hand tattoos which are waaay better than the Umbrella Academy tattoo. [Enjoy a little musical adventure in which multiple 'hello, goodbye' songs are happening. The left hand has GOODBYE and the right has HELLO.]

[broshaw]

Hey, at least they come back afterward. (Awkwardness is better than guilt!) [makes a face, but eh, when he's right he's right!]

Ew, why clean the TB? That place is nasty on purpose. The bahanimal or whatever likes it messy. And Siffluer's always huntin' people in there... IDK which flower it was, but it was purple, that's for sure. Most of the flowers I've gotten hit by have been purple.

Ooooh, dude, those are sick as hell! Love that for you, man, they look great!

[busball]

I guess so. (Murdering your own husband super sucks, though) [And they'd only JUST started dating.] I'm used to me dying over and over, but less other people. It's more difficult to get used to.

[Klaus shrugs.] I dunno. He just has weird things he likes to do sometimes. At least I don't have to clean? [They hum softly at that.] Well, purple's my favorite color...not that it was my fault. But...I guess the purple likes you? (Can a color like someone? Oh well. You already said it, idiot.)

[They smile brightly at that.] Yeah! It's great. I don't really want all of them (cause it might get awkward having a tattoo that commemorates your dead ex boyfriend when you're married) but at least this one is nice. All the others I got when I was in Vietnam.

[broshaw]

You shouldn't get used to it. That shit's messed up, you know? Besides, when we get outta here, you don't wanna be used to people coming back. (But who wants to talk about THAT?)

[not him! which is why he jumps on the other train of conversation.]

You're not an idiot, flowers are alive after all, maybe I just have purple flower energy or somethin'. And people get married with ex tattoos all the time! Nobunaga's smart, he wouldn't hold it against you.

[busball]

Oh. [Klaus looks momentarily surprised] I mean, yeah. I didn't know you were on team 'thinking about getting out of this place'. But I hope we get somewhere nicer?

Ha. Oops. (I was hoping you wouldn't hear that) [They shrug slightly.] He isn't weird about Dave when I talk about him at least. So that's...good, right? I've been thinking about getting tattoos for my siblings somehow...but it's a matter of how.

[broshaw]

Eh, I'm kinda whatever about what happens. But things suck harder nowadays than they did back when I got here. Like, other than Halloween... and Christmas... it was pretty chill. Now it's like never chill. Everyone's super upset and depressed and it bums me the fuck out.

I guess you could ask around, see if anyone's got a tattoo gun? Or, like, the old-fashioned poke method...

[busball]

Yeaaah. I mean, things have been pretty messy. I've been like...surviving? [But, yeah, lots of people have been uuuuuber depressed.] Maybe we'll get somewhere where people can like...work out their stuff and not be in fight of flight constantly.

Yeah. I guess that's possible. Maybe there's one around. I dunno about the stick and pokes.

[broshaw]

That'd be pretty good. Think there'd be less blow-back on a Battle Royale now, huh? And y'know, I gave Hurk a tat in the bunker, right on his hand. (Looked like shit) -- ugh, it was not the prettiest, but I know how to do it! Y'know. If you get desperate, haha.

[busball]

I missed out on that part. So I can't say. Probably been through enough to like...forgive about it if it was before me. (Or not. I'm not everyone's mom. Mom because Dad wouldn't forgive anyone and probably would kill everyone) [They shrug.]

What was the tattoo? Nobunaga got a 4. Eddie did it for him. (It's cute when you ignore like...the childhood trauma)

[broshaw]

A four??? (Childhood trauma??) [those come out basically one on top of another.] Ummm, Hurk's was supposed to be a flag with a pair of knives under it, like a Marine kinda thing? Buuuut I forgot if it was 50 stars or 50 stripes and uh. It was already kinda small so it sorta just turned into a black rectangle. With pointy sticks underneath it.

[busball]

[Klaus hears them both together and squints a bit at it.] Oh, you know. Since I'm like...Number Four? [They look down and off to the side.] Like that's my name. Klaus is just the name Mom gave me.

Wow. That sounds terrible. But it's okay. Things happen. [Klaus pats Sharky's arm] Sometimes we can't be good at everything.

[broshaw]

Oh, right, I just -- huh. And you're cool with him gettin' that as a tattoo? I guess so, otherwise he wouldn'ta done it, but still.

[busball]

I guess it's like...it feels less awful when he says it. Maybe it's cause he has obvious loving expressions on his face when he says it. But I like when he manages to use Japanese to refer to me best.

[broshaw]

Awww. Yeah, I get you! He uses it like a pet name, not, like, an identification number or somethin'. Must be really hard for him to use Japanese, though, isn't the translator like, super hard to get around??

[busball]

[Klaus nods. Yeah. That's exactly it.] And he doesn't call me Number Four. [The name gets a fairly dramatized Reginald Hargreeves impression.] That's how Dad used to always say it. No ounce of affection. Just...like someone saddled with seven kids he didn't like. [There's a little smile at the mention of the translator.] I've like...never tried it? But you know how stubborn Nobunaga gets when he gets an idea in his head. So it tracks that he'd be able to get around it when he wants.

[broshaw]

That's on him, man. If he didn't want to be a dad, he shouldn't've collected a bunch of kids like Pokemon! Still cant get over him numberin' y'all like that... Total bitch behavior. (Like all dads!)

[sighs. why do dads gotta be that way.]

I'd try messin' with the translator, but I don't know any other languages. Really not my, uhhh, my whole bag.

[busball]

[Klaus laughs at that.] You can't tell him anything. He fucks up with one set of kids and gets another. Now we're all fucked up. But yeah. He's a total bitch. (I can't believe I let him trick me again)

I know a little stuff from traveling, but I'm too lazy to mess with it, really.