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.)
no subject
It's jarring, unexpected, something he's never considered yet only now realizes he direly wished he could feel, and-
And Arthur has the audacity to ask what he did. Yes, he was laughing and sobbing in a way so painfully familiar knowing how close he was to never hearing that again-
He got a hold of himself figuratively and of Arthur literally, grabbing what he could reach while hugged and holding Arthur firmly.
"What the fuck do you mean, this time? Arthur, you slit your fucking throat!" John barks, with the shake in his voice that came when he was furious with fear and grief. "Why?!"
no subject
Arthur pulls back a bit from the hug, since John is bellowing directly into his eardrum. He feels not entirely unlike a cat being scruffed, as John, instead of holding onto him, gets, um, a hold of him.
"You know about that?" Now he's confused, though. Hasn't John been in the Nothing?
no subject
John is, in his usual way, too hopped up on being shocked and scared and angry to shut the fuck up and think for a second, either about letting Arthur know how and why he's back or remembering that his voice is now real, eardrum-rattling sound.
no subject
Incredible detective work, Arthur. Top marks.
no subject
"We went back, Arthur! We forgot the ship but we went back, and you-"
Of course he knows he's on the ship again, having just been scouring it for Arthur, but the thought snags enough this time to make him pause and finally think for a fucking second.
"-and we're here again - did Kayne do this?"
Look he has no idea how a wound from a knife with the worst vibes leads to manifesting on a ship they needed no help arriving on the first time, but give him some time he'll figure it out.
no subject
"You're-- you're fashionably late again, friend. It's been two- nearly two full months since then, for me." And the two months of stress wind themselves through his words, throwing harsh light on his relief. The dozens of times he nearly put something for John on the memorial, then cursed himself for giving up. His attempt to get a lead from the Captain on bringing people back, the end of which is just a despairing blur.
At least-- at least he wasn't suffering in the Nothing. Whether he might have been suffering all the same -- god, how far did John go beyond Arthur's last moments with him-- did his deal with Kayne bring John here, albeit belatedly?
no subject
"Two months?"
John's grip loosens so much that his hands are staying more from gravity than effort as he processes the time difference. Not the first time, no, but so much worse now since - since it sounds like they split at the same time again - he'll have to check that in a moment.
For now, he's imagining what he felt in these minutes searching for Arthur and stretching it through hours, days, weeks. The uncertainty, the guilt, the pain, all of it...
"Arthur... I'm sorry." John says, much quieter now. At an indoor voice, really, but that serves the same for him.
no subject
"John, it's not your fault. I-- I'm just glad you aren't in this god damn ship's engine."
He can't describe how glad. But at the same time, there's a leaden weight calling for his attention, wondering if John has been somewhere that must be just as intolerable as the Nothing.
"Has it... been long for you? Since I--" (he has the decency to be grimacing as he says it) "--cut my throat? Is that the, the last thing you remember, or..."
no subject
Their hands... John watches them. It's strange, to be able to hold Arthur's hand like this. It's been months since the ship in the strange simultaneous way his mind's trying to order his memories... But even before 'leaving', he and Arthur hadn't entirely been in each other's company, to put it one way.
Hardly a surprise. How they were before the ship and how they were before their return was like night and day.
Still... even with the three months off the ship, the two months apart might have changed things again. In other words, should he even be holding Arthur's hand? Or simply take it for the temporary contact it was, before they'd inevitably distance each other again?
"Has it been long..." John repeats, to get himself back into the conversation. And he smiles invisibly under his mask and shakes his head. Of course, Arthur wouldn't be able to see it for himself - then again, it's not like there would have been anything to see in the Dreamlands anyway.
"As near as I can tell, not very long at all." John answers with a steadier voice. "In fact, I think your blood on my shirt is still damp."
You know, just to paint the picture for him.
At least he isn't using his corpse voice.no subject
Internally, his worry strengthens into... he doesn't know. This could be evidence that his deal with Kayne worked, and John was pulled out. But Kayne also said John would forget him, so it could mean precisely the opposite: that John is here, but still has the King's torment to look forward to, should the timeline oopsie-daisy itself again.