come_sailaway | [open] automated vacation message

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[open] automated vacation message

Who: Skulduggery Pleasant and...??? You. Definitely you. Really you, right?
What: After his canon-jump and the confirmation that like, technically he is both real and unreal, Skulduggery has decided he is mentally checking out for the week. Yep, definitely an appropriate coping mechanism that will not backfire continuously and spectacularly.
When: After the camping trip through the last week of June!
Where: Tommy Bahama, Karaoke, the pool, also far away from it all
Warnings: Auditory & visual hallucinations, probably talk of extensive torture, eldritch madness, and general trauma. Some violence is possible/probable.
Notes: See this post for an idea of how Skulduggery might be different post-canon jump! New CR will be more likely to see a balanced, "regular" Skulduggery (since his hallucinations are strictly people he knows), while his current CR might notice him avoiding direct communication until he can prove you're really there. He might also try to throw things at you. You know, it's fine.
(I'll match tagging style!)

[locked to Darcy] I know what I think doesn't matter anymore, but I'd say his mind is gone
[It takes Skulduggery approximately an hour after his conversation with the captain before he starts to have a complete and total meltdown about it. Not that he would classify it as such; no, this is just... a period of adjustment to new facts. He tries his best to write it all down before he forgets, but the more he thinks about it the less sense it makes and --

It takes him almost a full day to get some sort of grip on himself, and in that time he comes up with what may be the stupidest plan he's ever had. Well, the stupidest plan he's ever had thus far. If reality is burning him out, then he simply must not engage with it any more than strictly necessary. That, he figures, is as close to a vacation as one can get aboard this godforsaken ship, and that's just what he needs.

That means: no theorizing, plotting or hypothesizing about current or future affairs; no concerted efforts to solve any problems; no worrying about the captain's plans or personhood or name or anything; and most importantly, no taking things too seriously.

But to do it all, he unfortunately must break the last rule almost immediately. There is an unfortunate side-effect to his sudden temporal upheaval that must be dealt with, first.

The gauntlets haven't changed since he last laid eyes on them, but he has. There's a distant singing sensation in the base of his skull now when he touches them, like a finger along the rim of a champagne glass. He wraps them tight in a towel. Doesn't help. Stuffs the towel in a bag. Still doesn't help. Just being in the room with them is enough to feel it. Throwing them overboard isn't an option; he can't guarantee who will find them. The only choice he has, as far as he can see, is to find someone he trusts to hide them for him. Somewhere he'll never be able to go, or never think to look.

Skulduggery takes the bag, wraps it in yet another towel, and avoids the mirror on his way out. No need to look at himself to recognize the guilt already brewing at putting this burden on somebody else. Maybe it wouldn't sting as much if he were handing them over to Jade, or Palamedes -- but the former would put the pieces together too quickly, and the latter would likely wind up hurting himself. Darcy, he surmises, has no necromancy in her background, and therefore is unlikely to draw even the slightest energy from the cold, dead metal.

She's going to ask a lot of questions, and he'll have to lie to her face about most of it, but at least he can trust her to help. He just has to hope that she's actually in her cabin when he comes knocking.]

1. [tommy bahama] There was a reason why I came here (but I guess now it doesn't matter)
[There is a six-foot-four skeleton in a full suit somewhere inside the Tommy Bahama. You can't see him from the front of the shop, but if you walk the rows long enough -- maybe fifteen, thirty minutes down the aisle -- you're bound to come across Skulduggery. He seems to be browsing the shirts at first glance, but his movements are a bit... Stilted. He doesn't react to any of the patterns or the quiet muzak or the fake lime scent pumped into the store. Truthfully, he isn't even aware of how far into the store he's gotten. He'd been mostly trying to outpace the obnoxious Valkyrie hallucination following him, laughing at the ugly shirts he's pretending to look at. She's the only other voice in the shop, which makes her the one thing ruining this place from being truly peaceful. The silence, the solitude... if he could destroy the speakers, it would be perfect.

"Oh my God," Valkyrie says, "You are totally pathetic. Do you really think a sunhat is going to fix all of this?"

Yes, actually. Skulduggery does think a sunhat will fix things. For one thing, he can throw them at the bothersome figment. For another, he's now left a trail of various hats and pieces of clothing as a trail for him to follow back to the front. (Or, perhaps, for other people to find him...)]

2. [chatterbox] There is a certain kind of feeling that you get, when you're totally helpless
[Karaoke seems to be limited to a single hour every night, but Skulduggery doesn't want to wait for nine PM. He doesn't have time to sit around waiting for things to happen. He needs to be throwing himself into this vacation of his full force, and no semi-sentient teleprompter is going to stand in the way of his good time, damn it.

Skulduggery sits on top of the karaoke machine itself, having the monitor pulled up right in front of him for easy access. He sits in silence a lot for somebody who's supposedly trying to sing, flipping through the catalog seemingly at random. In the audience, he only has to worry about China, who smiles and hums What is Life Without a Wife. She only stops when he uses the ship's translator to translate some of the now-dead language he'd learned. Mostly, that just leaves him shouting things like "Help, help," and "The pain is everlasting," into a silent room. But that's okay. It's fine. Now he knows what those words meant when they were being shouted at him by survivors of a now-dead alien race. The more you know!

When he does sing, he throws his chest into it, so to speak, and for what it's worth, it does seem that he's having a good time. Every time the machine tries to rattle like it might return to its closet, Skulduggery reaches down and punches the side to get it to stop. The truth is, Skulduggery is holding the damned thing hostage. And he knows it. Which is why he will occasionally hit it extra hard and mention,] I will set you ablaze, you know.

[It seems to do the trick.]

3. [the pool] I had a good, good, good, good reason (but I guess now you couldn't care)
[The only one of Gordon Edgley's books that Skulduggery can find is The Vanishing Knight, which is a fun story about teleporters and based loosely on Skulduggery's knowledge of the Grotesquery. Now that he's gotten a little more real-world experience with both matters, he's decided to settle in by the pool and do a little post-humous editing. This issue's got some simple grammatical mistakes, and Gordon always tended toward rambling sentences; on top of that, he certainly took some artistic liberties with the way things were handled.

Interestingly enough, despite being a normally chatty friend, Gordon is a quiet sort of figment beside him, just there to listen and silently chuckle at Skulduggery's asides. He thinks maybe he's just worried he won't be able to get Gordon's voice quite right. That's fine, though; Gordon's a nice, comfortable presence to have lingering around. He doesn't complain, not even as Skulduggery gets lost in rambling asides that are half-spoken and half-thought. This might as well be the closest to self-care Skulduggerys gotten in either a week or a year, depending on which angle you come at it.

He's wearing his suit, but of course, the hat has been replaced by a Tommy Bahama sunhat. Valkyrie has not bothered him once since he put it on, and so as far as he's concerned, this is his new look.]

[wildcard] I got pressure bearing down on me
(Have something in mind? Message me or just throw something up and see what happens!)

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"No, your singing was fine. You have a nice voice."

He'll be egotistical about the compliment, but she's willing to put up with that for the moment.

"No opinion. I don't think I've heard of them."

Darcy's delving into older music was mostly due to Avery, and even then, it was a lot of Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, Tim Buckley. Avery often fed into her pretensions about hating pop music, or most music that couldn't be played at a funeral.

She expects his ego to rise to the bait, but he offers only a soft, brief laugh. "See? You're already cheering me up."

It's a bit of an angle, but Skulduggery manages to pull the catalog prompter down to a reachable level. "They're a classic rock band from Dublin. Phil Lynott, the lead singer, his wax figure was used as a sort of doorman to the Irish Sanctuary, at least until recently." Mmmm, maybe not The Boys Are Back, that one's a bit too upbeat for him now. Maybe later. Aaah -- "I think this one is about the ocean. Seems fitting. Then again, most Irish music refers to the sea once in a while..."

The song he picks, Philomena, opens with a twangy guitar string, just to ensure everyone knows this is a dad rock song. Skulduggery pushes the teleprompter back into place, the microphone half-forgotten as he mostly sings for Darcy's pleasure. Or, well, his own pleasure, but he certainly hopes she enjoys his singing.

"Well I've been a wild, wild rover, sailed all over the sea; but this thing that makes me wonder has made a fool of me..."

He knows the song well enough that he doesn't have to actively check the monitor, and he watches China's unreadable expression for any sign of relief. Valkyrie had disappeared with the hat -- what will it take to make China leave him alone, too? And for how long? If she's humming along, he can't hear it, singing straight through with more focus than necessary, "It's home, boy, it's home, when you fire across the farm!"

It's actually nice that he doesn't preen over it, that he just accepts the compliment. At least she can do this right. Darcy makes some minor attempt to move so he can reach the prompter, but he seems to have it mostly handled, so she doesn't displace herself too much. He doesn't ask her to move for him to sing either, and she keeps her head on his chest, feeling his voice reverberate in his chest. The song he picks is bad. Or rather she wouldn't admit to liking it, but she doesn't admit to liking a lot of things.

It's always hard to tell where Skulduggery's looking, due to his lack of eyes. But it is odd that he's looking out to the empty audience. Maybe he just doesn't want to be staring up at the ceiling, or looking at her, but she tries to follow his gaze a little, work out what has his attention. It doesn't... seem like he's staring into space, maybe.

Truly not one of the best Thin Lizzy songs out there, but it's a fun one, and Skulduggery can hardly pass up the chance for a deep cut on the karaoke machine. And he might as well pay some sort of homage to the second death of Phil Lynott. The wax figure was even more artificial than Friday, but it had just gotten the hang of singing Jailbreak all by itself, and it didn't deserve to be disintegrated like the rest of the Sanctuary.

God. How is he even meant to deal with that? How will he deal with it? The entire seat of magic in Ireland has collapsed in on itself and he has no idea how they'll handle it.

The middle guitar solo is significantly reduced, to a point that Skulduggery is almost offended out of his reverie, but he manages to keep to the beat. "--Tell her I'm keeping fine, will you tell her that I love her, and I'll try to write sometime?" Even with China frowning slowly at him, like he's the one who ruined a perfectly good guitar solo.

The lyrics are an easy fade-out from there, and he lets it go without a fight. As the music fades off into the usual comedy club silence, he turns his head to look at Darcy. She's been watching him, he knows; but he also knows if he tells her what's wrong, she won't let him continue with this pretense.

Instead, he holds the microphone out for her. "Would you like to take a turn? It's fun." And cathartic! He already feels a little better.

"I'm allergic to fun and I can't sing," she deadpans instantaneously, having prepared herself for when he suggested that she give it a go. But then Darcy feels a little guilty. This whole thing feels like being dragged out on a fishing trip with an over-eager dad where the both of you don't want to acknowledge the divorce, and he's trying to get you involved in what he's doing. She kind of doesn't want to break his heart further. So she takes the microphone, stating "it's not my fault if you hate it."

She scrolls for a bit, wrinkling up her face a little at the selection of music. A lot of it was too peppy for her mood, but she recognizes one of the names on the list, taps through, then picks a song she's pretty sure she remembers.
Northern Sky, this was one of the vinyls that Avery had smuggled out of Turin with him, one he'd occasionally put on while making post-investigation-night-meal, as he'd put it. She starts the song without ceremony, putting the microphone to the side so that nobody from the outside can hear her.

"I never felt magic crazy as this, I never saw moons, knew the meaning of the sea,"

Lucky for her, Nick Drake has a fairly low and flat register, one she can match easily. It's better than her first time with the machine. Even if she has to keep glancing at the lyrics.

"I never held emotion in the palm of my hand, or felt sweet breezes in the top of a tree-" yeah it's making her think of Undine. This maybe wasn't the best choice, but she's going to power through.

Having been fully prepared not to push the matter, Skulduggery can't help but be pleased when she reluctantly accepts the microphone. Part of him knows that she's doing it out of pity, likely from the sight of him slumped on the floor. The greater part of him, comforted by her presence and the bracelet wound around his wrist, is just grateful she didn't make a big deal out of it.

It's a good song, a good choice. He doesn't know if he's heard it before, maybe he has, but he knows it sounds nice the way she sings it. Even if her embarrassment clearly shows, she keeps on going, and he knows it is entirely for his benefit. He doesn't know if she'd reduce herself to this level for many people aboard... he's grateful to be one of the privileged few.

He stops looking for China shortly after she begins, and the empty audience, for now, is well and truly empty.

"Oh, if you would and you could, straighten my new mind's eye,"

He's not laughing at her, which is something. If he dislikes the song or her singing, he sure isn't letting it show, and it always feels like it's harder to read people when she's waiting on their approval, much less someone with a skull for a face, who seems to be paying attention to her and not the empty audience now. Darcy generally likes being good at things, doesn't often venture out into the wide breadth of things that she's not a prodigy in, especially hates having to do so in front of others. But she's also someone who has laid her life down for the sake of others. Putting up with karaoke is the least she can do.

"Would you love me for my money? Would you love me for my head? Would you love me through the winter? Would you love me 'til I'm dead?"

She prefers the original to her own rendition. Nick Drake had a voice that sounded mournful and weathered, even in what's meant to be a happy song. She just sounds flat and insincere. To her own ear anyway. When the song ends, she flops her head back on Skulduggery, not bothering to hand back the microphone, and now of all times the mocking question of 'if you ever get older' circles through her head. Darcy feels painfully aware of how green and coltish she is, having only barely had one relationship that she was now in the process of trying to wither. With the limited people aboard and no idea how long they were going to last... It felt like she was standing on the precipice of something more meaningful and richer, knowing she could never get to touch it herself. She broods off in her head, such that she forgets to sign off the song with any sort of comment.

Certainly, even if Darcy's singing had been atrocious, Skulduggery would have happily suffered through it. Because right now, in this moment, things are clear. Things are real. He is here, with Darcy, in an empty room, far away from the Faceless Ones.

Far away from Valkyrie and his other friends, too -- but that isn't so bad. There's a version of him there to take care of them, to handle the fallout from the Desolation Engine, to deal with Darquesse and to save the world again and again. He can be let the timeline be how it is, and focus his attention solely on the people who matter here and now.

She finishes with the gloomy pensiveness Skulduggery is starting to associate with her more and more; he can tell when she lays back against him that her thoughts are miles away. He knows how that feels.

He should break the silence with a joke. Ask her if she's planning on singing another song, or maybe if she'd like to try a duet. He knows she'd try to bolt if he does either.

"...Thank you for that," he says instead, with unhidden sincerity. "That was lovely."

"Don't mention it."

Darcy nearly makes a joke about really not mentioning it, for the sake of her reputation, but he made the choice to be sincere about it, so she supposes she can too.

She feels a little bad for getting carried away in her brooding. Skulduggery's stuff he's going through is almost definitely worse than her realising what it seems so many people already knew. That their relationships were a liability, that she was going to be used to hurt other people.
Maybe if she tried hard enough, she could help more than she could be used to hurt.

"I'm not going anywhere, if you want to pick another one."

Because he kind of kicked her knee in. Her capacity to bolt is severely limited.

She should probably get that looked at, honestly. Skulduggery doesn't even realize he'd gotten her badly at all -- really, he doesn't remember putting up much of a fuss at all. (He's steadily running out of places to store those distant memories of hysterics, but there's a lot of space for compartmentalization in this skull of his.)

"Now you're clearly humoring me," he says, although it lacks any real petulance. But if that's the case, then he might as well lean into it. "Could find some more Frank Sinatra... Or maybe you'd be interested in singing something together? Fully embrace the insanity of the moment."

If she runs, well, she runs!

"I'm clearly humerus-ing you."

Ha, gottem. She's willing to overcome her antipathy for puns just to make fun of him for being bones.

"If you pick something I know, I'll see if I feel like singing it," she offers. Which is better than both bolting and a no. It could be nice. Maybe. Even beyond wanting to cheer him up at the moment, she's sometimes struck with how much she wants to do things for his approval, like she could get dragged away on a fishing trip and still enjoy herself because he'd like that she was making an effort. It's a weird recursive loop, one she often finds herself in, since for some reason people here are more generous with their praise and approval than anyone is back home. Maybe she'll examine those feelings one day, but for now, it's karaoke time, which clearly means neither of them examining anything too closely.

Oh, good God. That's right, Darcy has a girlfriend, now, and that girlfriend is burdened with far too many skeleton puns. He shakes his head ruefully. "I can't believe you," he says, trying to sound scandalized and falling just short.

Of course, now he knows she's pitying him. Puns and the open-ended approval of a duet? This is palliative care if he's ever seen it -- which is both troubling and comforting in equal measures.

But he isn't about to look a traumatized horse in the mouth. He enjoys singing, he wants to relax, and so here he is, at karaoke, joined by his teenage sidekick. It's as simple as that.

Maybe a bit on the nose, but when Skulduggery spots one song in particular in the catalogue, he has to suggest it. "Please tell me you've at least heard Under Pressure. I'll certainly go mad if you haven't."

He doesn't seem totally distraught by her pun, and she can tell he's a little more upbeat at the idea of getting to sing with her. This was good, she was going to ~~help him release his ties to the earthly realm and move on~~ get a good grade in friendship.

"Of course I've heard Under Pressure. It's Bowie and Freddie Mercury. I'm gay." she states, as if that explains everything, "but you're going to have to handle Freddie's part, I don't have the range for it."

Skulduggery does the headtilt. He didn't even know he still knew how to do it but there it is, that minor motion that indicates he's rolling his eyes. "Silly me, must have slipped my mind." Because obviously he, the 451-year-old skeleton mage, is fully up to date with what today's youth considers "queer culture." Sure, ~~Jan~~ Darcy.

Of course, he isn't exactly ranged for Freddie Mercury either, but is that going to stop him? Absolutely not. "If we make it through to the other side, I will gladly leave the Chatterbox with you for a time." Not a long time, because again, this is literally one of two places he can do any sort of relaxing activity, but as she's only sticking around for his benefit, he can at least make an effort to return the generosity.

That being said, he is certainly going to cue up a song most befitting both of their moments of crisis.

"I'll be gay harder so you don't forget."

She's not sure how she'll do that, but damnit if she won't try.

"Yeah, taking me to the infirmary for my knee you kicked in would be nice."

She grumbles just a little. It is still painful, but this wouldn't be the first time she's put aside pain for the sake of someone else. But even the sourness of remembering him attacking her gives way at the start of the instrumental. It was iconic for a reason.

"Pressure pushing down on me, pressing down on you, no man ask for-" she doesn't even need to look at the lyrics for this one. Which is good, it means she can stay by his side and not have to move.

That is not possible and Skulduggery knows it. But he will help her to the infirmary, and maybe he should have realized just how badly he'd done in her knee, but... to be fair, she'd attacked him first. Although his idea of what an attack is has broadened somewhat since the other day...

He'll have to make it up to her. He isn't sure how, but he'll figure it out so long as he remembers.

"Under pressure, that brings a building down, splits a family in two..."

As if he needs to look either! Especially given how many of his lines are nonsense chants and short exclamations...

It's kind of weird, singing a song that sounds so upbeat, ostensibly relevant to their situations. There's a weight on Darcy's shoulders but it doesn't feel like this, and it's too close to home to be relieving. Still, she agreed to it, and she'll keep to her word. But she's not having fun. Even if it's gay culture.

"Insanity laughs under pressure we're breaking-"

It's a little bitter in her mouth. She doesn't feel like she's breaking. Just... sinking.

Skulduggery can pretend to have fun for both of them, although even he's more subdued than his previous more full-bodied performances. "Can't we give ourselves one more chance, why can't we give love that one more chance," which winds up with him more-or-less humming the repeating line of "give love."

He gives her shoulder a gentle nudge. If she were to cut out in the last verse, he wouldn't complain. She's more than satisfied his desire for a few minutes' reprieve from reality, and besides... he did force her into this after taking out her knee.

He ought to know by now that if she's going to do something, she's going to do it properly. So she gets through the last verse, "because love's such an old-fashioned word, and love dares you to care for the people on the edge of the night, and love dares you to change our way of caring about ourselves-"

It's not like it was going to kill her. She sits herself up properly, finally removing herself from where she was all-but glued to him, then eases herself up using the karaoke machine, managing to get herself back to her feet. Or, rather, foot, she's leaning on the machine.

"It's definitely going to need tape. And ice. You couldn't like, shoot me so I wake up with it better, ehn?"

She was leaning on him nearly the entire time, it would've been hard not to feel that he was actually wearing his guns now.

Her perfectionism does mean he gets to enjoy quality time with her, so... Worth it, honestly.

He keeps out of her way as she gets to her feet, although obviously when it comes time for him to stand, he just... does it. He's not the one with a battered knee, after all.

"I could shoot you," he reasons, "But I'm certain that you'd wake up missing your kneecap entirely. Or some other bit of body-related horror would ensue. Plus, it would be deeply traumatic. Probably." He tilts his head, then straightens his hat. "You should let me carry you. It'll be faster."

"Probably."

Yeah none of that sounded ideal, and she'd been half-joking anyway. She... wasn't the biggest fan of the idea of having to be carried. Darcy hated weakness, hid it like that story of the Spartan and the wolf cub until she dropped. She kind of wanted to pull what she did on the bus, denying the help, but now she had the memory of both Clarke and Watson scolding her for trying to be a tough guy. And probably would have Watson scolding her again when she showed up hobbling to the infirmary.

"Fine, if you think you can."

She didn't know how strong his bones were, after all.

Out of all of the things Darcy's done today to throw him for a loop, accepting the offer to be carried is by far the most surprising one. He stares at her for a moment, as if she might disappear all at once, but when she doesn't...

"If I think I can? Darcy. Really."

There is no preamble before he scoops her up. She's heavier than Valkyrie, being older and with considerably more muscle, but he has little trouble carrying that weight.

"Well, this certainly won't be endearing me to any more medical personnel aboard..." Sigh. Oh well...

"I can accept help-" she starts snarkily, but being picked up suddenly cuts that train of thought off, and she muffles a yelp in surprise. The bastard did that on purpose. Still, it's good being off the knee, and being carried is only... moderately embarrassing. Moderate-to-high.

"Okay- okay, point taken."

She tries to take some of her own weight, holding herself up by his shoulders.

"What do you mean? I tripped on some stairs. I'm not telling Watson you did shit."

There is something soothing about embarrassing teenagers. Maybe that can be one of his new coping mechanisms!

"The alibi is appreciated," immensely, because Skulduggery has sort of a bad track record with bringing teenagers in for medical assistance. Not here, of course; here, he's never actually been in the infirmary more than to casually poke around. "Although Watson cannot possibly be the only doctor who lurks in the bowels of the ship." Right?

It's become one of Darcy's hobbies, lying to people about where she got injuries. What's another one added to her long list?

"If there's another one, I haven't met them. Watson was the one who helped me with my stab wound, and he's the only person I see in there when I go past usually."

She's quietly glad to be leaving Chatterbox, having been not totally comfortable in there with the machine, in case it decided to start strangling again.

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