come_sailaway | Standing under an overpass in the rain [OPEN]

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Standing under an overpass in the rain [OPEN]

Who: Honoria Crabb & You!
What: Monthly shenanigans, truths/lies and otherwise
When: Throughout July
Where: Various spots around the ship
Warnings: None yet, will add
Notes: If anyone feels like helping me get this poor detective caught up on any plot stuff......

1. thinking, thinking (either library, lounge, Tauva, etc.)

Crabb hates feeling this idle for this long. Back in Gallery there's never a quiet moment, never a dearth of obvious work to be done. More often than not, she and Ferrier hop right from one job to the next, and she likes it that way. It's just the sort of person she is.

Maybe it'd have helped if she hadn't been far more rattled by her first months here than she'd expected, or if she just knew where to even start, but she was and she doesn't. Together, those things mean her "work" mostly amounts to sitting around places like the library, the lounge or Tauva, thinking and scribbling notes on everything from what little she personally knows, to the mountain of questions that cover what she doesn't, to the people she knows or has seen around enough to take note of.

Lately, this sometimes includes having a life-size plush of a strange little dog sat with her as she scribbles. Mostly, it just sits there, sometimes gets used as an arm rest, other times she almost seems to pet it idly or talking to it like she's using it to work out thoughts aloud.

Anyone who catches her doing so will be met with no sense of shame, just a, "What you looking at?"

2. caught in the rain (anywhere outside or just after coming inside, lies)

Crabb does her best not to get caught out in the rain, all things considered, but it still happens; she has to cross some open deck and ends up all drizzled on anyway. Much harder to completely avoid folks for an hour or two when that's how you end up wet, compared to all the more purposeful kinds like showers and so on.

Nice to know there's only different weather when it's inconvenient, she supposes.

"Bleedin' lovely weather we're having," is what she means to grumble, to no one in particular but aloud all the same, and in essence that's still what she actually says, give or take a couple words, but... it sure comes out sounding a lot more genuine than the sarcasm she was aiming for.

3. newfangled technology (Calgona's Gym)

When it is wet outside, Crabb has to shift the exercise routine she's fallen into. No running around the track out on the sports deck, which means if she wants to get a run in, she has to figure out how the treadmills work.

She is not having much luck.

She's got no problem with the concept, or the basic act of turning it on, but she's clearly a little more thrown by all the possible settings and might be cursing creatively under her breath. Maybe help the woman from 1917 out, here.

4. Wildcard

[ Catch her anywhere else; specify if you want a lies/truths thing and either pick which or I will, but otherwise I'll default to no effect.

bluecitrine or artisticblueteam#5757 if you want to plot something specific. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He eats enough brightly colored sugary things that's it's a miracle his blood isn't some kind of florescent sludge.

"You're trying to understand here? All the magic shit?" He shakes his head. "Good fucking luck."

He sits back in his chair, puffing out a nearly perfect smoke ring and looking real pleased with himself. Okay maybe there's one thing he likes about cigars. "Anything you've got so far? Because I just found out food from the buffet doesn't go bad and that's been a game changer."

She snorts something like a laugh—good fucking luck is about right for how she feels about it all, lately. But that's never stopped her ramming her head against something until it gives before, and it's not going to now.

"Not so much. 'sides the basics." Vaguely what the Captain wants from them being here, the fact no one dies, odds and ends like that. Common knowledge stuff, for the most part. "I'd be kicking holes in a mess like this by now, anywhere else, but the bleedin' magic nonsense and not having my usual connections doesn't help."

She's used to the kind of confusion you can brute force your way through with some old fashioned detective work and being out of time, out of Gallery, away from most of her usual team, and having magic in play isn't exactly turning anything in her favour.

Which, on magic nonsense, "Whadaya mean the food doesn't go bad? Like— at all?"

"Kinda hard when you don't have your force behind you. Or like... the internet." He so desperately wants to Google: what the fuck is going on.

"It gets cold but nothing else. I've had this tray of mashed potatoes in my room for two weeks and it hasn't even dried out and gotten crusty. It's still good, just.. room temp and kinda dusty because I forgot to cover it because I didn't think it would work." He shrugs, "I could probably eat two week old mashed potatoes and be okay, but it's definitely not rotten. I'm trying not to think about how that works and just enjoy it."

Crabb snorts. "That 'internet' stuff's way beyond me, wouldn't know much what to do with it if we had it. My team, though, yeah. My partner woulda made some ground by now, brilliant woman that she is."

She doesn't wish anyone else would be stuck here, considering all the death and other alarming things about it all, but sometimes you just want the woman who can read a man like a book, plus knows how your investigative brain works and how to unclog it, around.

The description of the food gets a furrowed brow. "That's... really bleedin' weird. Somehow feels weirder than the whole not staying dead thing. Why the hell wouldn't the food..." Christ, this place sometimes feels like an never ending headache. "It's not even like we run outta food around here."

"Maybe but also.. maybe not? This place don't make sense so I dunno that anyone's got a grip on it." He'll avoid the internet convo for now because he's not about to explain the neverending cat-pictures machine to someone.

"I dunno. Everyone says it's 'magic' and I don't know dick about how magic works. Don't know that I wanna either. Maybe in case the ghosts go on strike and stop bringing it out through the walls, or maybe there's just nothing to make it rot here. I got run through with a sword and that didn't get infected so maybe there's just.. no bacteria?"

She nods her head to the side, fair enough point; it's pretty easy to think someone else might crack it open when they're not here, but. "Still, if I had to put my money on anyone..."

The idea of the ghosts going on strike almost makes her laugh, because that sentence is damned insane and yet you spend long enough here and you just have to accept it, and honestly, who could blame the ghosts if they did. And then he goes on.

"God's teeth, if you're getting run through with swords the existence of bleedin' bacteria seems like the least of your problems. Sounds like maybe that's as feasible an explanation as any, sure, but..." She shakes her head.

"It was.. kinda a misunderstanding. I think. He thought I was a ghost and just kinda leapt around a corner sword first. Also it was his first day on the ship and he's a weird pirate so.." Pratt doesn't sound too upset about it. Sure it had hurt but he's had worse.

"I mean, considering I heard there was some battle royale thing probably good that we won't all get gangrene?"

"Oh, right, well that makes it okay then." The sarcasm's heavy, but she leaves it at that, because whilst a part of her thinks you should probably take getting stabbed a lot more personally, even in a misunderstanding with a weird pirate, she isn't holding being actually killed in that very Battle Royale against Ava anymore, so...

Pot, kettle, so on.

"Come to think of it, I got shot in that damned murder game and never did see signs of infection setting in either. 'Course, I got my damn heart crushed and woke up without a wound in sight in the end, but..."

She nods her head to the side. Point given.

"What am I gonna do? Stab him back? If I kill him he'll just come back to life, and probably be pissed at me. Which is shitty in case we all need to work together to not die permanently here." Granted he doesn't actually wanna leave the ship, because he's dead back home, but he doesn't wanna die for reals. Again.

"Yeah I got killed too and came back and the sword wound was gone. Which is kinda nice? But also really fucking weird." A pause, wait a second, "Your heart was crushed?"

"Yeah, yeah, point taken." She waves a hand vaguely, sighing. "Life on this ship's bleedin' weird, but what's new."

She used to think her life was weird with all the masked fighters, heroic and villainous alike, running around, with their weird science nonsense behind them. But everything about this ship is far weirder.

"Anyway, it sure was. Reached right in there and just..." she helpfully mimes along, reaching out vaguely in front of her and making a squeezing motion with her fist, "like that. Don't recommend the experience."

"This shit is so weird I'm starting to not notice just how bizarre it is. That's probably bad right? Getting uh.. complacent." He should probably care more about being surrounded by people with super powers on a daily basis and that damaging the ship repairs itself but.. it's hard to live in a constant state of being freaked out by things that don't directly injure you. He has priorities when it comes to survival.

"Uh.. okay that sounds horrible?" He's imagining the scene in Indiana Jones right now. "Was it quick at least?"

"Probably." She snorts. "Not sure what the hell we're s'posed to do about it, exactly. Alternative's risking losing your damn mind, right? No winning."

Bit of a narrow balance to find, not going insane versus becoming totally numb to it all. How much undercurrent of fear and preparation is enough, how much is too much, so on.

"Quick as anything, yeah. Over in a second, really. But Christ, you do not forget that feeling." She shudders slightly. "Eugh."

"Definitely a no win situation. Because we can't sit around freaked out about it since we can't do anything to fix it. Well I mean, not really. It's sorta all or nothing right? We either solve the whole damn thing and escape, or we don't. Hard to do incremental changes."

He frowns because that sounds really pessimistic, but he can't help it. He's just trying to think shit through.

"Yeah I uh.. imagine not. Sorry you had to deal with that. Thats some traumatic shit."

"Yeah, the fella up top don't exactly strike me as the type that's gonna concede to any demands for better conditions." Another snort; she's only seen the guy the once, at the party after the battle royale, but you don't need to see him to know that. "It's get out or put up. Or put up until we get out, I guess."

She's got no doubt people are working on it, even if she's not yet found herself in the circles where most of the information's getting shared.

She vaguely waves a hand. Yeah, it's traumatic shit, but saying so in her own words feels weird, so she doesn't. "Sure it won't be the last time I die. Guess I should just hope it's the worst time."

"What's he look like anyway? I've never actually seen him. I was imagining a lot of tentacles but apparently that's not the case." Which is a bummer because that would have been way cooler.

"Damn, you're right but. Never thought about how many times I might die. Normally it's trying to avoid the one, and now I gotta avoid a potential fifty deaths? Fuck. That's a lot."

"Remarkably normal, all things told. Wouldn't look twice at him if I passed him on the street. Granted his grand entrance back at the dinner party I'm pretty sure he started as a buncha smoke, but the shape he showed us? Regular bloke."

She didn't have any real preconceived notions of the guy, but truth be told she probably would've said she expected him to look normal just because it's hard for her to conceptualise much else.

"Sure bleedin' is. Last excursion may've been safer, but I sure ain't expecting that to hold and I ain't gonna just stay on this ship every time, either."

"Huh, I guess I'm not surprised. The worst monsters always look like the most normal people. Maybe so they blend in or something." For how awful the leaders of Eden's Gate were they should have had capes and volcano lairs and been ten feet tall. Instead of three pretty normal dudes from Georgia.

"Yeah staying on the ship was kinda boring. Also not as many people around so it was eerily quiet. I hung out in the casino just because it was noisy. But I'll probably go on the next one just to do something. And I guess hope it's not terrible. There's no way to win is there, either its awful or it isn't and you missed out on something good."

"Ain't that the truth." Gall and his lackeys, Lady Hawthorne, they're just normal people with terrible morals and too much power. And it's them, and people like them, that created some of the folks who seem less normal on the surface level.

"Pretty damn much, yeah. I hung around the atrium some, tried to explore whilst there were less folks around, but..." She shakes her head. "Not knowing what was happening out on the trip was driving me insane. Rather see it for myself than sit around restless."

"Exactly. Weird that we can't even contact them. Like the phones don't have signal at that point or something? Guess that's part of why the Captain does it, so the people that stay behind freak out and also give him something to eat." He shakes his head because that's still so fucking weird to him.

"I didn't even know emotion vampires were a thing." Not that regular vampires were a thing in his world either. He stubs his cigar out, looking at the end of it to make sure it's not still burning embers. "I think eventually there won't be anyone left on the ship."

"You mean during excursions, or after he's done swallowing up our souls or whatever?" In this line of conversation it could honestly be either or both. She's certainly gathered enough to figure that whenever the Captain's 'done' with them there won't be much left.

She sits more upright where she'd started slouching, glancing at her notebook before sighing and flipping it shut. "Sure hope we figure something out before it gets to the point of the latter, either way."

He screws up his face cuz he hadn't meant that second worse option, but it's not wrong, "I meant during excursions but.. yeah that other one tracks too. Eventually, right? If we don't figure it all out?"

He sighs, and as she sits forward, he slouches back in the booth, looking up at the ceiling, "Man, me too. I don't want to go home, but I don't want everyone to get eaten. And being here totally alone would massively suck. There's got to be other ways - I'm just not smart enough to think them up."

"Eventually. And for what it's worth you're probably not wrong about the other thing, anyway; at least, mostly."

There's at least one person on board she expects to keep dodging excursions for a while, but she's also thinking of the constant cycle of people going through the cycle of a bad excursion, deciding whether to risk a second or not, and so on.

"You don't wanna go home? Christ, how bad's your world?"

"Well it's a nuclear wasteland now, but also I'm dead so I kinda don't wanna go back to being a corpse? At least I assume that's what happens but I'm not about to test it out." He doesn't know how this works, or if it works. There might not be a way out at all which is a possibility he's trying not to think about.

"Who knows what happens if I go back and am alive again but my skeleton is still out there somewhere. Does that cause a singularity and reality collapses?"

He's pretty sure that's what happened in Event Horizon or something.

The nuclear part of that doesn't mean much to Crabb, but it doesn't really need to since 'wasteland' does enough heavy lifting in on its own, at least.

And you know, the 'I'm dead' goes a ways all of its own.

"Why in the blue blazes would it make reality collapse?" She raises a brow, then shakes her head. "Sorry you're dead, that's uh. Well. Yeah. Guess being here's technically an improvement on death."

"No clue, it just seems like something bad would happen if I'm supposed to be dead and not? I dunno, maybe that's only a problem if I were to show up at an earlier time and there were two of me. Science is not my thing." Which is probably a bit obvious, he'd be more concerned with the important question of should he make out with himself if they're not really clones but timeline travellers?

"It's a shit ton better. But I have a feeling I might be the only one, so I'm pretty sure everyone else is working on how to get home somehow. Or at least worrying about it."

Standing under an overpass in the rain [OPEN]

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