come_sailaway | JUNE EVENT: CAMP

JUNE EVENT: CAMP

early on June 10th, Friday's morning announcements end with a request for everyone going on the latest excursion to meet her in the atrium. she seems in noticeably better spirits than she had been last time, and she leads them cheerfully to the tender. once they are all aboard, and the door is securely shut, the interior fills with gas, and, perhaps, their last thought before they slip into unconsciousness is "oh shit, not again."

passengers wake up on a rickety old school bus, driving down a dirt road surrounded by woods. what is it that they notice first? that, no matter what they were wearing before, they are now wearing a camp t-shirt and legitimately horrifyingly short shorts? the overstuffed backpack between their knees? the words "take one down and pass it around" dying on their lips? the fact that Friday is absolutely driving the bus?

or, maybe the fact that it's already slowing down, pulling up in front of a massive wooden sign, saying:

CAMP AION

when they get out of the bus, Friday is the one to divide them up into their cabin groups, and she is the one to give the counselors their very official-looking clipboards and whistles. she explains that they are in charge, and that she will be back to pick them up in a week, and... very little else. she responds to nothing outside of whatever is on her unseen little script, and she gets back on the bus shortly after, leaving them there.

welcome to camp. let's make some summer memories!

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"Yes... It's quite a feat." He sighs and sits, turning the plate just so, so that John will have access to as much rolls and butter and jam and honey as he wants.

"And thank you...that means a lot." To be able to join him whenever- that's friendship. It's a wonderful feeling. He opens a roll and begins to butter it slowly. "If... if it's alright with you though I'd rather not think about it just now..."

"Of course," Watson says at once. "We needn't speak of it at all, if you prefer."

He starts spreading a roll with butter and honey. If Stede brought him some bread, it would be ungentlemanly to refuse it. Not that this is a hardship. "What is on your mind, then? Something more pleasant, I hope."

"I'm sure we'll have plenty to speak about it later." But he doesn't want to think of that either. Instead he takes a moment to enjoy the roll because you just had to stop and smell the flowers sometimes.

"I was wondering... If you don't mind me asking... how close do you think is too close for a friend." He swallows. "Hypothetically speaking."

Watson tilts his head slightly, looking closely at Stede for a moment. That's such a peculiar question, and he can't quite figure out what's brought it on.

"I have had a few extremely close friendships," he says, as neutrally as he can. "I'm not sure there's a firm answer for that. Sometimes two souls fit together in an unexpected way, and sometimes it's romantic, and sometimes it's a brotherly sort of love, but either way, I'm not sure there's a real too close. You ought to be as close as you feel is right."

"Oh I see... Well there's physically and morally I suppose. And of course, hypothetically. Because this isn't a real situation at all. It's just made up. In my head. Overheard. From some friends. You know how it goes sometimes." He sips his tea.

"It doesn't help that, in this purely hypothetical situation... one of the friends knows what they are doing in the more...intimate aspect of their friendship and the other...does not. Making things a bit unbalanced. But it's difficult to find practice so hypothetically, this other person would have to ask someone with experience the best way to approach for example...sharing a kiss... just...you know, as a thought experiment."

Watson puts up his hand in a 'hold on' sort of sign, and then steeples his hands with his fingers just touching his moustache. For a moment he sits, eyes closed.

He is John "Three Continents" Watson and he's too much a romantic to not answer this.

"Stede," he says, and while that's a little more informal than he typically is, with all the 'Johns' Stede's been throwing around let him take this liberty here, in this conversation. "Stede, I very much hope that this is not meant to be asking me to help you practice kissing. Because I am not kissing you." Immediately, though, his expression softens. "But your, ah, friend," fine he'll play along, "may be overthinking the matter. Experience isn't that important."

"What? No! Listen, even if it were about me, which it isn't, I've no interest in you that way and anyway wouldn't come between you and your gentleman. Put that thought the furthest from your mind. Anyway, I am very happily married and have been for a very long time so I certainly know how to do that why would you think I wouldn't? We're very happy together happily so.

As I said this is about someone completely different. Theoretically. It could even be about..." Who? "Darcy. For instance. But I'm not saying it is. And it's not that simple because you'd want to be good, wouldn't you? You'd want them to be happy right? Not just sit there thinking: Gosh this friends that kiss thing would be a lot better if they could actually kiss.

I mean right?"

"Wonderful. Splendid to hear it. A weight off my shoulders."

Watson rests his chin on the back of his fist, trying not to smile.

"Stede, I will be plain. My days of sowing wild oats are behind me, but... I have had lovers who have been more experienced than I am, and ones who have been less experienced, and it doesn't matter. I have liked an inexpert kiss more than a perfectly skilled one because I liked the person giving me the former a little more. You can tell Darcy," he totally believes you, Stede, "that there is more to a good kiss -- or anything else -- than experience."

"Well I've no interest in that," he mutters to himself as he breaks apart a roll into tiny pieces. He's sewed two and hadn't enjoyed it much and the entire process seems too stressful without everything else also on the table.

"Anyway, I hope you're right. For her sake. I feel like she's a bit anxious about it because who she's with is well-" He gestures vaguely. "-like you in a lot of ways. Very cool. Very much sewing of things, I'm sure. God, I hadn't even thought about that."

Had anything germinated? Were there children running about? He's not sure how he feels about that.

"And of course practice, with them, would make perfect eventually I'm sure. But...still... do you-- would you happen to have any tips?... That I can impart to her... Just in case she's curious... Hypothetically."

"You look positively green, my friend."

It's a real shame that Watson doesn't know Darcy is dating Undine, because that would certainly put a kink in the "someone like Watson" line.

"Hypothetically," Watson repeats, as seriously as he can. "Well, if Darcy comes asking you for kissing advice, what I would tell you to say to her is that no one is born knowing how to kiss, and yet humanity have been figuring it out somehow for uncounted thousands of years. A great kisser is not great because he knows some secret technique. A great kisser is great because he pays attention to what gives his lover pleasure and adapts what he knows."

What the actual fuck is his life right now.

"What one person may very much enjoy, another may not. There is no secret, Stede. You press your mouths together in a way that both of you enjoy. You might need to experiment a little, perhaps follow his lead." Watson tears off a piece of bread and pops it directly into his mouth. "I, ah, don't suppose Darcy's new paramour has complained?"

"Oh, I see..." It seems a good idea, to let Ed take the lead a little, to try and follow it and not screw it up. It's not as if he'll have an infinite number of chances to get it right.

But he thinks about the latter too. Perhaps too much. Imagining a scenario where he presses his mouth against Ed's- Only he hardly knows what he enjoys- but what a way to find out.

"Hm? Darcy's new?- oh! er- well no. Not that I've heard. It's still so new after all- maybe for the both of them in a lot of ways? Even though I'm sure he knows what he's doing it's-- the relationship is-- well friendship- is not-- traditional. In a sense."

Watson hides a smile with a strategic brush of his hand over his moustache in search of imaginary crumbs. Stede, at least try to keep track of your own story.

"'Traditional' is overrated," he says. "I have seen more people genuinely harmed by 'traditional' marriages they cannot escape than I care to list: couples who genuinely hate each other, women tied to blackguards who beat them, men who cannot be with the women they love because they cannot divorce someone they foolishly became entangled with. There has been nothing 'traditional' about any aspect of my romantic life for a very long time. There certainly isn't now." He leans forward in his seat a little. "All that should matter is the happiness of the people involved. And non-traditional people cannot be expected to be happy in a traditional relationships, surely."

Oh, that hits close to home. Very close to home. Though he is no blackguard and the foolishness was more a marriage transaction- he wouldn't shame her by divorcing her- the stigma on the children! But being trapped...

And then the last part which pricks like a thorn just under his skin and he shifts uncomfortably in his seat, beginning to mush the roll back together as it is very well kneaded.

"I'm very happy. Deliriously happy," he mutters miserably. "But...but...if I'm honest... I... we're not...good for each other. And that's not her fault." Though she could maybe try to like him a little more. "But I owe her something, don't I? Traditional or not, some things are sacred."

Watson's expression turns deeply sympathetic.

"I don't know," he says. "I'm hardly an expert on the divine. But I find it hard to believe that anything that makes people miserable can be sacred. In a just world, I think, marriage ought to be as easily left as it is entered, with no shame to it. What is sacred about two souls being miserable together rather than happy apart?" He shakes his head. "Not everyone thinks as I do, but I am not the only one."

"Well sad to say the world doesn't care much for one or two voices, unless they're especially strong ones." And even then. You didn't go against the flow of things and expect to come through unscathed. Even monarchs could suffer from that.

"But thanks, John, you're a good friend." Which is strange to say because he can count them on one hand. But John is and probably a better friend than he's ever heard besides Ed.

"Are your own here as well?" John's lovers, he means.

Watson's smile is little more than a brief flash.

"César and Johnny stayed behind on the ship, if that's what you mean," he says. "Which... well. I miss their company, but also I am thankful they are safe." As far as he knows. He hopes. There's no reason to suspect otherwise, anyway. "They are both far too sensible to charge into danger as I have a habit of doing."

Oh, look at that fondness. That's the best part about asking after them, just to see the expression John's face.

"Well we're men of danger, you and I. We live for the spike of adrenaline! The next rush! The thrill of combat! Can't tie us to a ship, no sir!" A beat. "But I'm glad they're keeping themselves safe... even if so far..." He gestures.

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JUNE EVENT: CAMP

CAMP AION

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