John Doe (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
iwearnomask) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
come_sailaway2023-11-26 06:55 pm
iwearnomask) wrote in come_sailaway2023-11-26 06:55 pm
Entry tags:
Good For You, You Look Happy And Healthy
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.)
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.)
Hey man hows it been, still scared of music boxes?
It's a very brief memory, because there's much more important fucking things to worry about.
"No. It's Arthur's." John says. He almost sounds out of breath, strange after so long without even having organs. It's one of the reasons he's not thinking - if he were the one in the backseat, he'd be berating the driver for saying something that stupid to a cop.
But no, he's the one with enough of a body to feel adrenaline and say rock stupid things because of it.
"Is he on the ship?! Have you seen him anywhere?!"
You know it!
"Yeah? I think he's still here. What do you mean it's Arthur's blood?"
no subject
"I mean it's Arthur's fucking blood!" John snaps. "Where the fuck is he?!"
In John's mind, it's just as obvious that his need to find Arthur is out of concern. He does not connect how his extremely aggressive body language and actual language could run counter to that to anyone else watching, even including Arthur himself.
It should be noted at this point, that John's clothes seem the bloodiest right below the neck.
no subject
"Alright alright. Let's just calm down and start from the beginning. What happened to Arthur and why do you need to find him so badly?" Anything you say can and will be used against you.
no subject
"Because Arthur slit his fucking throat!" John says, looking so goddamn crazy in the face of Pratt's professional calm, and then tries to storm for the exit in a huff.
no subject
"Then he'd be in the morgue." Just cold rationality, because very few people survive slitting their own throats and as a Deputy he'd encountered the aftermath more than he'd like to think about.
"Or back in his room tomorrow morning."