come_sailaway | [CLOSED and opens later] yes, to err is human, so don't be one

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[CLOSED and opens later] yes, to err is human, so don't be one

Who: Arthur, Crichton, Darcy, April. There will be open prompts in the future too but it's late and I'm so sleepy
What: Ferret Confirmed; braille lessons derailed; antimeme gossiped with
Where: Cabins, library
When: Early November
Warnings: There'll be irresponsible drinking, will add more if/when it's necessary.

[ 1. Closed to Crichton ]

When Crichton walks into his cabin, he'll find an eye-catching yellow snack bag in the middle of the floor, open and empty.

At first, one might assume that this is a case of Crichton's annoying roommate eating in there and not cleaning up after himself (not unheard of, because if he drops a wrapper or a packet or some crumbs, it can take a lot of finding again). But a second glance reveals that they are pet treats, with a big glossy picture of a happy ferret licking its chops on the front.

The bag is, we cannot stress this enough, empty but for a few crumbs.

Surely he wouldn't.

[ 2. Closed to Darcy ]

It's Monday afternoon, which means lessons in the library. On this occasion, Arthur walks through the door in the manner of a high-wire acrobat who's starting to lose their balance.

In one hand is his cane -- actually, since the last one bit the dust in the jaws of a zombie deer, his staff -- with two fingers freed to manipulate the door-handle, and three wrapped awkwardly round the staff itself. The other hand cluches the straps of two large tote bags, trying with Sisyphean determination to keep them both on his shoulder. One bag is his usual, with notes, blunt pencils, and so on. The other appears to carry about his body weight's worth in bottles of wine.

"Oh christ," he mutters, as the bags slip and pull his wrist to a weird angle, and he tries to grab at them with his right hand without 1) letting go of the cane or 2) having it hit him in the nose as it goes past. He succeeds at one. The bags are now caught with a weirdly bent hand and two fingers, and the door closes on them with an alarming clinking noise before he shoves it back open with his foot. "Nooo no, please don't break."

It's a real house of cards over here. You really get the impression that, had he lived in the right era and had working eyes, this man would have killed at Twister.

[ 3. Closed to April ]

It's not a Monday. It is barely lunchtime, but the text from Arthur that appears on April's phone still reads thusly:

Drinks question mark.

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Hey, brunch was invented for a reason.

Drinks exclamation point

April can be found at the usual spot.

Arthur arrives, and calls "April, you about?" as he strides through the entryway.

He got started without them. Not so much that he isn't steady on his feet, but enough to be audible. It's taken the edge off.

Hey, pregaming, April can't fault efficiency.

"Over here!" April calls, at the usual spot in the usual spot. "Not that it matters, but what's the occasion?"

"Lost some ribs to a resurrection," Arthur announces, without angst, as he takes the usual route towards April. "So I've got a bit of empty space to fill."

He's almost never given someone the real reason that he's drinking, and he's not about to start now.

"Let's say it's for... Guy Fawkes' Night, or Armistice Day, whichever is closer."

"How biblical of you." Missing ribs happened in the bible somewhere, right? April never read it - not the real ones, anyway, and they figure anything coming through storage wasn't representative of the real deal, and they never got around to it before the bunker, but eh given the age and how weird people were about it, probably.

Anyway, one of the keystones of this friendship is April's ambivalence towards the truth, lies, and obfuscation and they're not about to start caring now. They raise a glass Arthur can't see and take a drink.

"Good enough for me." they say. "Like - Victoria day, or Family day, reason doesn't matter when it gets you a day off either way."

Arthur makes a theatrical sort of expression. "If I'm Adam, then God help the human race." Which to be fair was more or less the point of those stories, but anyway--

His cane skips off the floor as he gets closer. The light, wheeled number he had before has been replaced with a hefty quarterstaff, cut to more like a one-sixth-staff, and boy is he going to have some arm muscles back by the end of the week. Progress across the floor is a little janky. Going from his previous cane to a heavy tapping-type one has been... an adjustment.

"Family Day? Don't think I've come across that one."

"Modern Canadian invention," April continues, a sort of audio lighthouse to navigate by, "It's in February and I'm pretty sure it was created entirely to break up the most depressing month of the year with a day off. Pretty sure the name was an afterthought, honestly, but I'm not going to complain if it gets me out of work for a day."

"Pour me a drink, and I'll toast to days off work."

Perhaps not to family, though. He doesn't think he deserves that.

Liquid pouring into a glass and set down audibly on the bartop. They pour another, and lift that one up.

"Cheers, may I never work in that town again." April says, and drinks.

His eyes are drawn to that bright yellow bag the moment he comes through the door. Is that a... ferret on the front? Is this, oh, God, it is. Empty too. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to put two and two together.

"Really? We've resorted to eating pet treats now? Did the buffet run out of chips?"

It doesn't take a detective, either, to put two and two together.

The snacks smelled fine, and tasted all right: chickeny, salty, maybe stale. And he realised once he'd had one that he was hungry. So, while it wasn't smart of him, they were gone in the time it took him to walk from Sundries to this cabin.

That's the first two. The second two is the part where he got fur and a tail and started smelling things as if his nose put on a good pair of glasses.

He has, for instance, been able to smell Crichton since he came into the room, even with his nose assaulted by the boxes of tea-bags on his left, and the containers of cooked sausages and cheese-and-pineapple sticks on his right. But he's stayed very still and quiet, for reasons both Arthur and mustelid.

Now, though, he speaks up, indignant: "I- how was I supposed to know they were pet treats?"

His voice is coming from under the bed.

"Arthur? Wha--where are you?" Crichton is looking around, eyeing the bathroom door even though that sounded like it came from... under the bed?

"They didn't taste off to you?"

Arthur has been 100% caught red-pawed doing something he knows is really dumb, which means he can do only one thing: double the fuck down.

"Well, yes, but- but half the things I've eaten here taste off. I've had horse flavoured ice cream. I've had sweets that nearly burnt a hole in my mouth. Hell, there's a restaurant that serves fish raw." He says, as if he wasn't in Mikabo at every opportunity until the restaurants started dicking around. "Even if they tasted strange, I didn't know they would be magic goddamn pet treats."

He didn't actually answer the question but... that voice, along with a slight rustling, is definitely coming from under the bed...

"That's sushi, Arthur, it's supposed to be raw." He sees you doubling down, mister. Well, not... see. Yet.

"Magic? W-wait." He gets down on his knees and lifts the end of the bedspread to look.

"Oh my God, you're a ferret!"

Arthur the ferret crouches warily in a space under the bed, his nose and whiskers twitching overtime as he sniffs. He has the same look that human Arthur does, the one of having lost a lot of fistfights, and he also has the same shrunken wooden fingertip, almost too small to see on his little paw. Otherwise, though, he looks like a perfectly ordinary little domesticated mustelid.

"Yes, I'm a-- wait."

Resignation gets interrupted by surprise.

"A ferret? I-I thought I must be a cat."

He feels like a cat would at least be a little more dignified.

Edited 2023-11-14 02:09 (UTC)

"Nnnnope," Crichton says, just barely stifling a laugh. "Didn't Erin accuse you of being a ferret once? Maybe the Erda agrees. 'Cause, buddy, you ain't a cat. Now, come on out of there. I'm not going to step on you."

"Heaven help me if the Erda is siding with Erin Peters."

Arthur lifts up onto his back legs to walk, finds his head and shoulders crowded up against the slats on the bottom of the bed, and kind of scrabbles at them with his claws for a few moments before dropping down on all fours again.

"I feel like I'm crawling," he complains, as he emerges slowly from under the bed, one quadrupedal foot at a time.

"She's right and you know it."

He stays laying on the carpet watching Arthur's awkward struggle to get out, fully glad Arthur can't see the shit-eating grin plastered on his face.

"You're low to the ground. May as well be. How does it feel having your front legs so far away from the back ones? It's like watching a noodle sprout legs and walk."

"Well now she is." Grump grump grump.

"It's awful," he answers readily, because for the English, complaining counts as enrichment. "I finally understand how dachshunds feel. We don't clean under the bed nearly as well as I thought we did, by the way. Am I out yet?"

He is, but for his awkwardly flicking tail.

She always was. Hey, at least that one stayed inside his head.

"We? I'm sorry, but I'm not the one stuffing food supplies for three apocalypses under there." That's a you problem, Arthur.

"Yeah, you're out. Except for the tail. You know, you're kinda cute like that."

Darcy nearly stood up to try and help him when he walked in but now... Wow. It's almost genuinely impressive how tangled up in himself he's getting. Darcy is absolutely not moving a muscle to help him until either he's at significantly greater risk of harming himself, or those bottles he has break. For now they're just going to prop their cheek up on their palm and watch.

With his staff held awkwardly in his armpit, Arthur manages to take hold of the bags more securely, freeing himself to shelter them with his arms while he does a standing tactical roll out of the way of the door.

The door which, in his moment of triumph, closes on one end of his staff (which is now sticking out horizontally), turning it into a lever and him into the object being levered. He's pushed sideways with a surprised "fuck!", and gets pressed into the library desk with the cane as his extremely annoying lap bar.

He extricates himself after a moment, while muttering scathing criticisms of the door, the staff, and the laws of physics in general.

Darcy cackles suddenly, sharp and maybe a little cruel. But honestly what jury would convict them. This is hysterical.

"Are-" he wheezes- "are you okay??"

Arthur's head swivels towards Darcy.

"All the better for your help." He's not genuinely annoyed, but if Darcy can laugh at his misfortune, then he can give them shit for it.

"You're welcome, nothing is too much to help a friend," they snark back, seconds before actually standing up to help him.

"What's with the bottles?"

"Sundries--" Arthur begins, before the cane tips loudly to the floor, making him freeze for a moment like a rabbit in front of a dog.

"Jesus," he breathes, as if to scold the interruption; then he continues, edging his foot towards the point the noise came from, hoping to avoid having to grope around for the stick later. "Sundries. I dropped by just now. I'm almost certain they're alcohol, so I, ah, for- for the sake of my roommate I decided not to take them to our cabin." He... has no idea whether Darcy has the life experience to pick up on his meaning, but if she asks, he can explain.

"And so, instead, they're here. Was I right in my guess?"

He sure was. And, for future reference, once they start digging into the bag, there'll be a heavy silver cup stuffed in there too.

"Good news, we're a loaf of bread and a priest away from a communion."

They know from Helena not to move his cane but that absolutely does not mean they have to help him find it again. Darcy also makes the educated guess that Arthur's roommate is trying to do what they are weakly trying to do in regards to avoiding alcohol.

"It's communion wine. Weird pick for the Erda, ehn?"

"Communion wine?"

Well that's... so out of left field that Arthur is audibly surprised. But, at the same time, it's so pregnant with meaning that he can't let it go uncommented-on.

"Well, the Erda's information is out of date: it's about a decade and a half too late for me." Lightly. Oh, and there's the cane. Arthur tilts his foot to sort of roll-scoop the thing back into his area of awareness.

"Mais, you're ex-Catholic? That explains so fucking much."

That's not even a joke it just really is.

"Why'd you leave?"

Arthur spends a moment resembling a shocked pikachu. "It - does?" He's not sure if that's intended as an insult??

"Well. There was my complete lack of belief," he deadpans. With a faint grunt, he bends down and retrieves his cane. "You could call that a sticking-point. There was the unending disgust I hold for the Church's treatment of people, and the way it influences them to treat one another." Beat. "There was the lure of staying in bed on a Sunday morning."

Edited 2024-01-02 19:17 (UTC)

"Yeah, the being angry all the time thing."

Nobody is angrier with God than ex-Catholics.

"If it makes you feel any better, God probably doesn't believe in you either. The Church is what she is, and always has been. And also, pussy. My family used to go to midnight mass for Christmas every year, through snow, literally as long as I've been alive."

Real Catholics would never let comfort be more important than sitting on uncomfortable wooden benches and being told what to do.

A pause, during which Arthur digests all that, and then briefly regains his vision for the specific purpose of looking directly into the camera.

"Oh."

A couple things happen that he doesn't intend: his lightheartedness thins, and his face settles for a moment into... not into the mask he came to wear around Daniel or the congregation, because unlike them, Darcy actually deserves his trust. But... into a certain bland neutrality, because good christ you'd think the most numerous and aggressive people he'd met in his life would be monsters or something but it's actually people who wouldn't let a second go by without berating him for leaving the faith. It makes you reactive after a while.

"Well."

And he doesn't put those people's words in Darcy's mouth, especially not the crueller ones; but a lot of words that he thought he'd forgotten flash across his mind again, just for a moment.

No, you know what, he's normal. He's normal. He attempts to perform a save:

"Well, that's, that's nice. I am glad your experience was good, truly."

...Hang on, isn't Darcy literally involved with another woman? Is Arthur about to learn something super unthinkably wild about the direction the Catholic church takes in the next century or so?

Darcy blinks, momentarily confused as to why the conversation has taken such a more sombre tone. Then it dawns on them that not everyone has the same relationship to the Catholic church as a kicked dog does to its master, and they silently grimace for a moment.

"I mean- I didn't say it's good, it just is what it is. It's- ehn, my family are all... It's what I grew up with. And then with the ghosts and everything, I couldn't- it's complicated."

And there goes the mood, which is not what Arthur wanted, but which is his doing nonetheless-

"Right, I, I understand. It's all right, you don't have to explain. I, er..."

He fiddles with the end of his quarterstaff, getting his stride back, and deliberately speaks with more nonchalance. "Just, just one thing. In my day, we walked to midnight mass uphill through snow. Both ways." And a tiny little smile.

(Also wait what ghosts?? The Holy Spirit???)

Darcy snorts dryly.

"Mine actually was up a hill. Ehn- up a mountain. Big basilica. We used to call it the upside-down elephant because it looked like it, you needed to catch one of the strings up there. Ehn- funiculars."

A small, mournful sigh.

"You could see the whole city from up there."

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[CLOSED and opens later] yes, to err is human, so don't be one

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