Siffleur (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
teethoftherisk) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
come_sailaway2023-11-01 01:16 am
teethoftherisk) wrote in come_sailaway2023-11-01 01:16 am
I want God to come and take me home [OPEN]
Who: You and... Siffleur?
When: 3-days after the end of the Oct expedition, into November
Where: Daisy's cabin, various places around the ship
Warnings: Gore, body horror, cosmic horror, self-harm, CPTSD/trauma, etc.
1. who am I supposed to be? (Closed to Daisy)
It’s common for Siffleur to show up in the room after expeditions, his body dragged in by Friday sometime in the night and left to finish waking up. They’ve got a system by now - he wakes up, grabs his emergency clothes, and takes off. It’s fairly predictable and simple.
Today, Siffleur starts breathing like usual. His body twitches as he’s on the edge of waking up. Then spasms. And then, with a terrible crunching sound, his ribcage splits wide open and blood splatters over the walls and furnishing. The split doesn’t stop there, quickly spreading up his throat and skull, his face opening like a book until even the bone splits and his pink throbbing brain is on full display. His eyes roll and slither, no longer held in sockets, and his lower-half kicks and twists as it splits in two as well. All of him folds open, and keeps opening, keeps turning until his insides are outside, his organs sliding out of the cavity, his intestines writhing and crawling and still, he keeps turning.
Until finally, with one last wet crunch, all of him inverts again and from the gorey mess on the bed comes flesh - hands and arms and a torso, a whole body birthed from the mess that was Siffleur. It’s an old woman with white hair, scars all over her, and missing toes on one foot. She’s somehow sound asleep despite it all - despite the entrails sliding inside of her unseen back, until the only trace remaining of all of that chaos is the blood still flecked everywhere, and the puddle underneath her.
The woman’s chest rises and falls a few times, and her eyes slowly open.
2. the illusion that you feel is real (Assorted - Open)
There is a stranger on board the ship. She gives a wide berth to people, carrying a nervous and somewhat frantic energy as she ducks out of corridors instead of sharing them, or quickly puts a table or shelf between herself and whoever has come in. She’s older, weighed down by layers of clothing taken from the Tommy Bahamas, but she wears no shoes as she pads silently wherever she goes.
A select few who have the ability to see what others can’t will notice there’s something in her skull, a long sharp sliver of something that glows with a sickly deadlight, an oily shimmering sheen that flickers. Looking at it directly for too long causes an awful headache to form right behind the eyes. She sometimes swats at it, though her hands always go through it.
Occasionally, she’ll stay in one place and not scurry off when others come near. This is mostly at the buffet or bar, where she’ll guard her food or the bottle of vodka she’s drinking from. Occasionally, she has a book in front of her instead - the book Siffleur almost always seems to be writing in. The page she’s on is blank and nothing appears, no matter how much she glares at it.
Anyone who does approach her will get a wary look if they’re a stranger, or a more nervous look if they’re someone who knows Siffleur - and who knows her. She’s older than those who met her in dreams will remember her being, but her voice will be much the same as she tries to fend off the inevitable questions with a- “I don’t know how I got here.”
3. I survived. I speak, I breathe, I'm incomplete (Sports Deck - Open)
Despite how apprehensive she is, despite how much she shrinks in on herself, that’s not her only mood.
As those unfortunate souls who come up to the sports deck will find, emotional regulation is not something she’s capable of. In fact, some poor soul’s first introduction is likely to be of the woman muttering furiously to herself while drawing intricate ritual circles on the deck with sharpies taken from Sundries, her irritation quickly and violently boiling over into screaming, full-body tantrums. She howls and thrashes, slamming her hands and face against the deck, contorting her body and clawing at herself until she draws blood, until she exhausts herself enough that she has no choice but to be calm as she lies on the deck, panting while her wounds slowly heal.
And when she’s calm enough, she starts over, trying desperately to finish a SOS call that can go nowhere.
4. Does anyone ever get this right? (Wildcard - any prompts welcome, DM me if you have any questions)
When: 3-days after the end of the Oct expedition, into November
Where: Daisy's cabin, various places around the ship
Warnings: Gore, body horror, cosmic horror, self-harm, CPTSD/trauma, etc.
1. who am I supposed to be? (Closed to Daisy)
It’s common for Siffleur to show up in the room after expeditions, his body dragged in by Friday sometime in the night and left to finish waking up. They’ve got a system by now - he wakes up, grabs his emergency clothes, and takes off. It’s fairly predictable and simple.
Today, Siffleur starts breathing like usual. His body twitches as he’s on the edge of waking up. Then spasms. And then, with a terrible crunching sound, his ribcage splits wide open and blood splatters over the walls and furnishing. The split doesn’t stop there, quickly spreading up his throat and skull, his face opening like a book until even the bone splits and his pink throbbing brain is on full display. His eyes roll and slither, no longer held in sockets, and his lower-half kicks and twists as it splits in two as well. All of him folds open, and keeps opening, keeps turning until his insides are outside, his organs sliding out of the cavity, his intestines writhing and crawling and still, he keeps turning.
Until finally, with one last wet crunch, all of him inverts again and from the gorey mess on the bed comes flesh - hands and arms and a torso, a whole body birthed from the mess that was Siffleur. It’s an old woman with white hair, scars all over her, and missing toes on one foot. She’s somehow sound asleep despite it all - despite the entrails sliding inside of her unseen back, until the only trace remaining of all of that chaos is the blood still flecked everywhere, and the puddle underneath her.
The woman’s chest rises and falls a few times, and her eyes slowly open.
2. the illusion that you feel is real (Assorted - Open)
There is a stranger on board the ship. She gives a wide berth to people, carrying a nervous and somewhat frantic energy as she ducks out of corridors instead of sharing them, or quickly puts a table or shelf between herself and whoever has come in. She’s older, weighed down by layers of clothing taken from the Tommy Bahamas, but she wears no shoes as she pads silently wherever she goes.
A select few who have the ability to see what others can’t will notice there’s something in her skull, a long sharp sliver of something that glows with a sickly deadlight, an oily shimmering sheen that flickers. Looking at it directly for too long causes an awful headache to form right behind the eyes. She sometimes swats at it, though her hands always go through it.
Occasionally, she’ll stay in one place and not scurry off when others come near. This is mostly at the buffet or bar, where she’ll guard her food or the bottle of vodka she’s drinking from. Occasionally, she has a book in front of her instead - the book Siffleur almost always seems to be writing in. The page she’s on is blank and nothing appears, no matter how much she glares at it.
Anyone who does approach her will get a wary look if they’re a stranger, or a more nervous look if they’re someone who knows Siffleur - and who knows her. She’s older than those who met her in dreams will remember her being, but her voice will be much the same as she tries to fend off the inevitable questions with a- “I don’t know how I got here.”
3. I survived. I speak, I breathe, I'm incomplete (Sports Deck - Open)
Despite how apprehensive she is, despite how much she shrinks in on herself, that’s not her only mood.
As those unfortunate souls who come up to the sports deck will find, emotional regulation is not something she’s capable of. In fact, some poor soul’s first introduction is likely to be of the woman muttering furiously to herself while drawing intricate ritual circles on the deck with sharpies taken from Sundries, her irritation quickly and violently boiling over into screaming, full-body tantrums. She howls and thrashes, slamming her hands and face against the deck, contorting her body and clawing at herself until she draws blood, until she exhausts herself enough that she has no choice but to be calm as she lies on the deck, panting while her wounds slowly heal.
And when she’s calm enough, she starts over, trying desperately to finish a SOS call that can go nowhere.
4. Does anyone ever get this right? (Wildcard - any prompts welcome, DM me if you have any questions)
2
So, as he would on a normal day, he heads to the buffet for breakfast, and he makes it all the way to the food before he realizes why that woman looks familiar.
No. It can't - how is she - what is she doing here?
Jack stares a little more and then recalls starkly how that's probably not a great idea with someone in... Siffleur's mom's condition, so he nuts up and walks over to her table.
"Does-" Siffleur know, he almost asks, but then recalls that if she's here as a passenger, she wouldn't even know who he is. He winces and then tries to pull an introduction out of this.
"Sorry, that is, are you new here?" he asks like this is normal. It is normal, right?
no subject
"Jack." She says his name, pushing her plate aside as she gestures for him to sit down. "Jack I-I'm- I'm sorry, something terrible happened. I-I... I'm in his b-body and he's- he's n-not here."
no subject
Oh, shit.
She knows him, and that explains a lot before she explains the rest. Which, uh, worse than he could have expected just seeing her here.
It's probably clear on his face, the mix of worry and uncomfortable sympathy as he takes the indicated seat.
"Okay, okay, uh." Jack says, trying to come up with something good, something comforting, maybe. "Is there anything I can help with?"
He really means that broadly, because he sure as hell doesn't know enough about whatever happened to Siffleur and his mother to know where to start and so - asking is free.
no subject
no subject
Well, maybe he isn't completely useless here.
"Yeah - yeah, of course, I can try." Jack says, and cautiously reaches his hand out, watching Siffleur's mom to see if she's fine with it, if that's what she was getting at.
"Uh - here, now? Do I just say his name?"
no subject
"Yes. Just... j-just talk to him. His name and- and a-anything he usually likes to hear."
no subject
"Siffleur? Siffleur? Are you there, ah..."
Jack's hand is warm and solid, but not inescapable, even as he squeezes hers slightly.
"Your fur is really... soft..." this feels awkward, but maybe he just needs to warm up.
no subject
She gives his hand a squeeze back and adds softly- "Go on."
no subject
Look, Siffleur was proud of his fur and cat-ness, and Jack was subjected to a book of children's rhymes when he was briefly in Tenenbaum's safehouse, it just kind of started one of the nights they were using each other a pillows and went from there.
Actually - that's an idea. Jack stops and looks at Siffleur's mom in the face - though not directly as he quickly remembers how she saw the world sometimes.
"Hey - do you... You're able to be a cougar too, right? He likes being one, so, that might help?"
Even more if he'd been in the mood to be a cat more than a man at the time he and his mother switched, but Jack would try anything.
no subject
"I'll try that. It... It might work. He's always been more cat than man. S-still not sure if that's my fault or..." A shrug, and she takes her hand back. She takes off two of the layers she's wearing and sets them on the bench.
Her shapeshifting isn't as violent as Siffleur's, but it's still an obviously grotesque experience to go through, her bones, breaking and skin tearing. And at the end there's left an older cougar, one ear bent, her fur somewhat raggedy.
no subject
And, alright, hopefully she doesn't mind this, but since the point of this exercise is to call to Siffleur with familiarity, Jack slides himself to the floor and kneels there, providing a lap the perfect size for a cougar's head.
It's not a surprise that she looks different from Siffleur, but the differences between their forms and what's different is curious, and - he could ask about all of that later, when they both know Siffleur is okay.
For now, he looks at her and hopes she's comfortable enough to come close.
no subject
She carefully sits beside him, and then slowly lowers herself down so her head is in his lap. But unlike her son, she's tense and boney, loose skin scrunched around her neck and chest. She closes her eyes and waits desperately for him to respond in some way.
no subject
It's strange, how he notices the differences. Her head is much smaller, fur not quite as soft.
That probably isn't helpful, though, if they're trying for something familiar enough to draw out Siffleur. He closes his eyes and lets his hand settle at the spot behind her ear the way Siffleur liked, and moved his fingers through her fur.
And - his face warms up a little, but he starts humming. Siffleur liked that too, sometimes, and it felt calming for both of them now.
no subject
Slowly, reluctantly, her eyes close as Jack's soft humming makes her relax. She clears her mind as best she can, pushing aside all those sounds and reaching out for him, making space. Just... come back. Come back please. Come back...
Her breathing evens out. The tension eases some - but not entirely, never entirely.
no subject
When they're both about as relaxed as they're going to get (or, rather, when it goes long enough to almost become unbearable), Jack pauses his song to ask - softly -
"Siffleur?"
no subject
Her tail thrashes before she can stop it.