Good For You, You Look Happy And Healthy

[iwearnomask]

Who: John Doe is back! You know, the guy with the mask who's 80% invisible? he's fine.
What: Looking for a friend, adjusting to life on the ship post canon update
Where: various places on the ship
When: late November.
Warnings: Potential mentions of injury and torture, canon was not kind to John and Arthur; likewise canon is not always kind when talking about mental health; will list anything specific in thread headers as they come up.

“You cannot defeat it. But you don’t have to let it win.”

The knife glistens.

“Goodbye, John-”

“Arthur! No-!”

Two lengths of memories fight to find their place in his mind: Months aboard a strange cruise ship in a pocket dimension, drifting further and further from Arthur and trying to find some sense of himself with his own body. Months in a prison pit in the Dreamlands, a harrowing journey in another world growing closer and closer to Arthur, despite the terrible things he said and did. Quietly moving on. Violently dying for each other.

And now: The ceiling of a clean cruise ship cabin.

The first thought, of course, is that this isn’t real.

Some trick of the King’s, meant to torment him, punishment for his defiance, something to force him back in line, but...

He couldn’t remember the cruise in the Dreamlands, he realizes, so how would the King think to weave this as an illusion? Unless his memories of his first stint aboard were also a product of the King, but even the labyrinth was tame by the King’s standards.

So... This was real. Lucky chance, or Kayne’s intervention? He didn’t know, but it also didn’t matter.

He was back, and Arthur -

Arthur!

1. You’re doing great out there without me, baby [closed to Arthur]

Did Arthur go back when he did? Did he come back when he did?

Given the state they both were last in (dying, separated, doomed), John is nothing short of frantic as he searches the ship for Arthur... So urgently that he doesn’t even try to find new clothes, running around in the bloody mess that Arthur had been wearing when they - they encountered the King.

It takes him ten minutes into the search to remember the communication devices, and he fumbles out a message to Arthur’s number:

Arthur its john where the fuck are you

2. Maybe I’m too emotional

John’s thoughts are so fixated on Arthur that he spares nothing for himself.

He really should have, because, uh, he isn’t in the cult robes anymore. And he’s not in the leggings and tights and beachwear, either.

No, passengers on the ship are instead witness to a pallid mask floating above bloody clothes, a pair of eyes visible through the eye-holes of the mask from the front and no other angle, the only bit of flesh visible being his left hand, and even then the smallest finger has been removed, seemingly replaced by a twig that’s grown into its place.

Gone is the caution he lurked around the ship with before; now his movements are frantic and his eyes are wild as he tries to remember Arthur’s haunts in the promenade, a memory simultaneously months ago and hardly a day old. His search takes him a few steps into each location, enough to see what’s there and who’s there and if any of that involves Arthur, sometimes even calling out-

“Arthur! Where are you?! Are you here?!”

3. You found a new girl, and it only took a couple weeks [closed to mother (: ]

Once he knows where and how Arthur is, he’s able to calm down. Which is good, because he also realizes he’s in dire need of a change of clothes, for comfort if not for not getting stared at by every fucking person on the ship.

At least he’s not in fucking cult robes again.

John searches through the racks of clothing for something to his tastes, avoiding everything yellow no matter how nicely the colour clicks in his mind. But he does so with caution, having not forgotten that the clothing store was home to a cougar. No matter how level-headed he remembered that cougar being, John can’t bring himself to be at ease in the domain of a predator at the moment.

4. You’re so unaffected, I really don’t get it.

After all that excitement, John finds himself back in the library. It was a place he went to regularly when he was previously on the ship. He read the poetry available, in part - he could admit now - to understand Arthur and his interests, but he also dipped his toes into the prose. Some attempt to understand more of himself as well, to find himself in stories and words.

Now that he had months of very visceral memories with Arthur, he could admit something else: His drifting through the library was just another form of apathy. Rather than simply being uninterested in the world and the people in it, he was maintaining distance, engaging with an imitation to avoid reality.

And yet, he’s there again, a book of poetry in hand, contemplating if and how it’ll hit different after just a little more time spent in someone else’s head.

(At least he’s dressed in normal Tommy Bahama clothes now. The mask is still there, though, and everything else is invisible but his left hand and his left leg from the calf-down, but hey, beats a cult robe.)


5. But I guess, good for you [Wildcard]

It seems quite a lot has happened since John was here last. There’s a bowling lane now? Was that there before or did he just overlook it? There’s wooden signposts on the sportsdeck, a table beside it, an ongoing project?

There’s a lot of little changes on the ship, and John takes a moment to note each one as he passes.

(Except for the memorial. He avoids that one for now.)

Comments

[iwearnomask]

The urge to run away is still inside him. The memory of how quick someone could go from scared to sad to murderous would never go away. He knew what deep, inflicted madness was like, and that he was safer away from it. They'd both be safer away from each other, but-

He sees the way the shard turns, and the woman seems small as she trembles, and...

This isn't the Dreamlands. It isn't even Arthur's earth. They're all passengers on the same strange ship, and so... he should make an effort. It's what he told himself last time, dull as he felt, but-

John's grateful (for once) over his lack of face and reliance on a mask now hiding his grimace, as he raises his hands a little and tries to negotiate.

"I didn't do anything, I-" with the mask and lack of face fresh on his mind, John realizes how absurd this sounds, but he's in this deep: "I think you've just mistaken me for someone else."

[teethoftherisk]

Her first impulse is to demand he answer her, a raw and furious scream to know where her son is, and what this thing is doing in his body.

But this isn't home. There... there are other worlds. There could even be their world, again. Siffleur twice over but- but this isn't her Siffleur. It's his shape, so familiar to her, unmistakable even with only one eye.

She pulls her hands away again, wringing them, pacing a little to try burn off the energy in her body that's making her feel panicked and upset. "N-no, no, I haven't. I-I- I know what h-he looks like. He's the only person w-who looks the same. Everyone else- they c-change shape. When it gets bad, they look wrong but he never, ever looks wrong to me and you're- you're in his shape but you're not him-"

A hand goes to her mouth and she bites down hard on her knuckle, drawing blood as she fights to stay focused. The constant pain from her missing eye has helped some. But not enough. Never enough. Fuck. Who is this? How can he be Siffleur and not Siffleur?

She takes her hand from her mouth, blood in her teeth. "What's- what's your name? W-who are you?"

[iwearnomask]

John, without realizing it, takes another step back as the woman bites her own hand.

A part of him is still screaming to run away. But he just-

"Uh, I'm - John. Doe." he says. The name is easy, the 'who' is complicated.

Although - although, what catches in his mind as he keeps watching the woman for sudden movement, as that shard twists further through her skull, is how she again says he looks like Siffleur, somehow.

The way she sees the world has been broken, fractured like that shard in her head, and somehow it skews his appearance as well. He can only wonder how, but...

If he thinks about it later, he might find it funny to be the one needing help to see.

For now, he asks - slowly, but not quite reluctantly - "How... What do I look like to you?"

[teethoftherisk]

John Doe, John Doe...

"Like h-him like... like my son." She starts to say, but. That's not useful is it? That's not useful. So. She starts again, taking a breath and trying so desperately to hold tight to everything she can.

"T-tall and gaunt and pale, with- with golden eyes, and a sharp face." Her hands twist again, blood dripping slowly on the ground. "L-like him. Just like him. Even his- his beard." And she reaches up to touch her face, smearing blood over her jawline by accident. "It's- it's red like his..."

But... there is a difference, and she wants to grab his hand badly, but she just grabs her own. "B-but your- oh your hand, what's- what happened to your hand? What did they do? Your finger..."

[iwearnomask]

She sees flesh and blood where no one else does. She sees someone who - John can't say if that does or doesn't resemble him. Building a self-image is hard when your existence was madness and masks, and largely immaterial.

Curiously, it's the hand she balks at, and he looks at it now, slowly flexing his fingers, including the one rebuilt by the forest. It's his hand. It was Arthur's.

"... It's a long story, but we were somewhere... Far from here. A forest. We had to leave something behind and bring something with us to escape."

Though, to be honest, he still wasn't sure if that was how it was supposed to be, if cutting the finger had been necessary. But maybe, he was being a coward about it after the fact, trying to bargain against a loss he already took.

But at least it was his loss, and not...

...

"I did it to myself." he concludes.

[teethoftherisk]

Her fingers flex. Ah. Yes, she knows about paying prices. With a great deal of care, she pushes off the shoe and sock she's wearing, showing John Doe the missing toes on her foot.

"I t-told- I told my son it was f-frostbite. But it wasn't. Sometimes, y-you have to pay the price. Sometimes, you h-have to leave something behind, so you c-can bring what you need to escape with you..."

She put her bare foot back down on the ground and she pulls her arms against herself. "... d-do you know the name Yog-Sothoth?"

[iwearnomask]

What little tension that left John comes back twofold at that question. His eyes narrow and his hands flex, but he doesn't run yet.

"I do." he says, his voice too tense to be neutral. "How do you know it?"

Was she a cultist? It seemed likely. But was she like the people in the amphitheatre, or was she like the widow in the cave?

[teethoftherisk]

She laughs, a fraught tense sound, and collapses on the ground like a puppet with her strings cut. Of course. There are other worlds, so many other worlds. So it only stands to reason that there would be other thems, other places touched by those terrible beings from beyond the stars, from beyond time and space.

"B-because I s-saw him. I s-saw him and he made me like t-this." She gestures to herself helplessly, barely able to sit upright. Her heart keeps beating in her chest like a bird trapped in chimney, battering itself against the bricks in a frenzy. "Me and Siffleur b-both. We were- we were changed, so completely a-and utterly. I went m-mad and he- he was born... less t-than human. Trapped between."

[iwearnomask]

Jesus Fucking Christ.

The thought stays in his head, but it probably reads clearly in his eye and in the sharp intake of breath.

She saw him? No wonder she was like this - no, it was a wonder she wasn't worse.

And Siffleur, Jesus Christ, he was touched by this too. No fucking wonder-

"I'm - sorry - that happened to you." he says. It's stilted, insufficient to express pity for someone whose mind was torn to shreds by something so massive and uncaring. But it's all he has.

[teethoftherisk]

She sighs, laughs, sighs again. Her hands clench at her pants and she just hangs her head forward, feeling that laughter threatening to bubble up over and over.

"Thank you. T-thank you, I... I deserve some of it, b-but not... not nearly as much as I got." And she looks at him, and she knows him, and she gives him the saddest smile. "I'm sorry t-this happened to you too. I'm... I'm sorry there wasn't a version of me waiting for you, when you came through."

[iwearnomask]

"..."

The woman's pity feels strange. Misplaced, and not just because he doesn't deserve it. It's a more direct and misplaced comparison to Siffleur, who was - as John is understanding it through her telling of it - born in that in-between. John, on the other hand, had never been human. Nothing happened to him; he happened to other people.

"... Thank you." He settles on. He has to keep his eyes on her face and not the shard in her skull.

[teethoftherisk]

She flutters her hand a few times. It is what it is. She doesn't know him, not the way she knows Siffleur. Not the way she knows herself.

But still... she knows he didn't want this. This isn't how they come into worlds. This isn't the way they want to be. He wouldn't look like her son if hadn't been changed the way Siffleur had.

She slowly picks herself up and pushes her hair over her shoulder, pulling her jacket close again. "Y-you're not my son b-but I... I know you anyway. I know you."

Her fingers pull at the buttons on her coat. "... I... I always wondered w-what part of him he g-got. I... I can't remember everything I felt when I... when I became more than h-human. It doesn't fit in a h-human mind neatly. I wondered but I... I was never sure." And she looks at him with her own yellow eyes. "I k-know now. Thank you."

[iwearnomask]

It's impossible to fathom a world where someone is thankful to have seen him, or know of him. Arthur expressed gratitude for knowing him, yes, but those moments came between cruel words and hard reminders of how much worse Arthur's life had been with him in it.

But does he tell this woman that? She obviously found some comfort in his familiarity. Would she still see it in the truth?

His eyes fix on the shard in her head. Just for a second, but it lingers in his mind just the same.

"... I... I'm not sure I'm a good example." he says. "We seem to be approaching humanity from different sides."

[teethoftherisk]

That gets a soft chuckle from her, a little dark, a little wry. "O-oh believe me, I... I expected d-different from him. I expected more of m-me, of..." She gestures to herself - to that spike squirming in her skull, grinding through her brain. "Well. L-less humanity. No humanity. I... I t-think it was... he w-wasn't a person w-when he was changed. H-he was a zygote. H-had months w-without a brain. Months of silence. It... it's n-not like it's a repeatable experiment."

And then she giggles to herself because, well... turns out it was. Not all the factors. John here is very different. Even if he looks like Siffleur, there's a hesitancy to him, a sense of guilt maybe. It's hard to tell. Her hands come to her face and she covers it until the giggles stop, which they do thankfully before they spiral out of control. "O-oh... we all... we all are j-just who we are. Nothing m-more."