AUGUST EVENT: DRAGSTRIP RIOT

[sailmods]

[it begins with a PA announcement on the morning of the 12th, Friday’s voice coming through clear and cheerful.]

Any passengers that wish to debark to our latest port of call can exit the ship through the metal detectors on deck zero! Please be advised that all alcohol will be confiscated prior to your exit!

[and whoever heads down to the lowest deck will find that what she said was true: there is a metal detector set up there, with Friday manning it. after placing all metal objects (including weapons, and all your weapons) onto the tray, she gestures for the passenger to step through the metal detector.

they exit in an entirely different location. suffering from a splitting headache, and wearing an entirely different outfit than they had put on this morning, but unscathed. they even got their weapons back!

the interior of the diner is essentially your average jonathan rockets establishment. the narrow lane between booths and counter is manned by an entirely mute Friday clone, who cheerily takes orders and serves up food (cooked??? somewhere???) with an almost unnatural talent for roller blading. there is a jukebox in the corner that can be fed with quarters passengers will inexplicably find on their person. the available songs range from the 50s to the 80s, with a particularly wide selection of songs from the platters.

outside, the diner is a great chrome boxcar, circled by a small parking lot. a large neon sign proclaims it to be GIL’S; it buzzes and flickers on and off often. passengers who have regained vehicles will find these vehicles parked outside. there are also a handful of midcentury American cars; none of them seem to require keys, and the gas tank seems set at full.

past the parking lot is a seemingly endless expanse of desert sand and scrubland, bisecting by the empty highway that the diner abuts. a few miles down this highway, the road forks into a smaller one, which winds its way up a steep, ragged mountain until plateauing into another parking lot, with only a small, old wooden fence between the cars and the edge of the cliff.

should they wish to return to the ship, passengers can leave at any time the same way they entered: walking through a doorway that now claims to be a mop closet. passing through will leave them on deck zero, again with a splitting headache. it’s probably fine.]

Comments

[ninetoes]

"Don't- don't-" But it's a thin, breathy plea and one he doesn't actually want abided. This sort of understanding- this relief- it's too much. It's too much and he will crumble.

Darcy is right. It isn't fair. It isn't fair at all, and he doesn't know what to do about it. If there's anything to be done. He holds no power here. No resolutions besides bend the knee and Izzy would sooner fucking die.

He blinks hard and forces himself to take a ragged, wet breath. Get a hold of yourself Israel. You're not a child. Showing weakness is the easiest way to fall. Look at Edward.

"Let's just- My god, I shouldn't have told you."

[saltwaterlungs]

"Oh," said without meaning to, she stops the attempt to hug him and withdraws safely to her own side of the car. This is a hardened pirate, of course he doesn't want a hug, what was she thinking? Izzy's clearly having second thoughts now, and it's her fault.

"I shouldn't have pushed, I'm sorry," she agrees, hands up as if to surrender the argument, and Darcy moves to start the car again.

"The world loops around in another couple of kilometers, I'll get you back to the diner and we can just- pretend this conversation never happened."

[ninetoes]

No don't let go-

Too late. Izzy clears his throat and wipes his eyes, just in case something traitorous has escaped. This is probably for the best. He's supposed to be a role model, not some... sniveling, pathetic wreck.

"What's the point?" he asks by the time her hand is turning over the ignition. It may be a bigger question than he means.

"Really, what's the fucking point?"

[saltwaterlungs]

...

"I'll train harder. When we go back to your world, I want to be ready to be your first mate from the moment I hit the deck. Fuck him, and fuck what he did to you. You don't need to stay loyal to someone who doesn't reward your loyalty."

Darcy's eyes settle on the horizon, her hands steady on the wheel. Izzy doesn't need touchy-feely, he needs someone strong and reliable. So she'll be just that.

"And I'm sorry. You deserve better than what happened."

[ninetoes]

"I don't." It's reflex, but you know what? Maybe he does.

Maybe Edward doesn't deserve him.

That's a harrowing thought. His stomach turns again, even as he takes on the magnitude of what Darcy is saying. The loyalty she's confirming.

She sounds exactly as he had so many years ago. Convinced. Steadfast. Unshakable.

"I know this is a lot. A shouldn't have put it on you. I didn't mean to."

[saltwaterlungs]

"You do. if Undine treated me like this, how would you feel?"

Presumably ropable considering the shovel talk. How adamant he'd been about ensuring Undine wouldn't get in Darcy's way. She scoffs and shifts gears, casting a half-glance back at him.

"I can carry it. I'm strong enough."

She has to be.

[ninetoes]

“That’s not what I’m saying,” he starts before his scattered brain catches up.

“And if she treated you poorly in any way I’d help you sink her. But-“ and Izzy really can’t believe he’s saying this.

“-he isn’t my boyfriend. He is my captain. It’s not the same.”

[saltwaterlungs]

"You've made it sound like he was basically your husband. Which makes it worse. You get that, right?"

A pause.

"I'm not suggesting we sink him or anything. I'm just saying that you don't need him, and you don't have to put up with it. Loyalty has to be earned."

[ninetoes]

“It was earned, that’s the-“

Exhale. This is too complicated. And Blackbeard his husband? Ridiculous.

Their matelotage was… for economic reasons. His face is hot. This is ridiculous.

They’ve been married twenty years, Darcy.

Izzy gives up. All of it. Fine. Okay.

“I know.”

[saltwaterlungs]

Ah the classic gay maneuver, getting married for tax purposes.

Izzy acquiesces, but... obviously it doesn't sound like he's in agreement. It sounds like he wants to avoid the argument. Darcy knows she doesn't know all the details, hasn't lived his life or seen his history play out. She barely even knows Blackbeard aside from a couple of passing interactions, the legend that's in her mind from pop culture and interpretations of his legend.

But she knows one thing.

"I just think you deserve to be happy. That's it."

[ninetoes]

Yeah to avoid the discussion but also she’s right. And he does know. And he is listening.

Listening and watching as Darcy somehow manages to uncover and unpick the hooks set deep in Izzy’s skin. The deepest first. One by one, her aim and skill are uncanny.

Him. Happy? No one’s ever said that to him before. Ever.

A flurry of emotion crosses Izzy’s face and he’s glad they’re driving again so he can hide it through negligence. You can’t just say something like that to a person.

The gut reaction is to say he’s happy, of course he is, but that is a damn fucking lie. Things have been bad and stressed for years. Weren’t always, but they’re in breakdown and he knows it. Deeply depressed and anxious. Is that all there is now?

Izzy doesn’t recognise Edward anymore. Izzy isn’t sure he recognises himself anymore, either.

“Don’t see much of a chance for that. This mess is too.. it’s too grand, you know? Can’t be fixed’n-“

That’s not really the way, is it Izzy. Be honest now.

“I’m not sure I know how.”

Cw Suicide mention

[saltwaterlungs]

"...you know my plan for the last couple of years was to get the Olympics and then kill myself?"

Darcy drums her thumbs on the wheel, nodding a little as she talks.

"Then I died and that stopped being an option. And then I came here and like... all of a sudden you showed me I could have a future."

She looks over at him to punctuate her point.

"This place... we don't even have to go back there you know. We could find somewhere else. Anything's possible. And... you're smart. You'll work it out."

[ninetoes]

Darcy means well, Izzy knows she does, but his defences are too ingrained not to think first that she’s asking his to betray the man he’s dedicated his life to, and think second of the kindness she’s trying to convey.

Truly, he’s still processing the admission of her own planned demise.

It’s hits hard and sinks low in his uneasy gut, heavy as an anchor lashed to and thrown over. Izzy knows by now what The Olympics are. He knows Darcy well enough to follow her train of thought. Once she accomplished her goal what else would there be to accomplish? Without another ceiling to shatter the only way to go is down. It’s depressing but he can understand it.

But starting over somewhere else… that is… near incomprehensible. He is too old to start again. To broken. To jagged. He can’t imagine a life on land much less another new world.

And yet the concept teases. What would it be like to have a new life in complete. Start again. Be someone new. Maybe he could stop running. Maybe he could finally relax. Finally breathe. Find safety. What a notion.

“I’ll think about it.”

A beat.

“I’m glad you didn’t make it to The Olympics.”

[saltwaterlungs]

"I was too young. Not seasoned enough. I was only eighth in Europe."

Only.

"But that hasn't been the plan for a while, I- you don't need to worry about me. Not with that. It's... the only universal taboo with us. Sin-eaters. After you come back, it's... The worst thing you can do to reject the gift you've been given. The only thing that kills us for good is old age, so I'm just going to have to live a long life."

Funny how she sounds resigned to that, when it's a gift that many never get.

"Just think about it. That's all I ask."

[ninetoes]

It’s a gift almost no one Izzy knows has received. Most of the people he knows are dead. That’s just the way of it, and half the reason he feels so secure in Darcy’s future on the high seas.

He considers the placating and decides to accept it. Really the last thing he wants to think about is the risk of Darcy doing something like that.

But she says she won’t and now she can’t, so it’s a moot point. Izzy is thankful.

“Where would we even go? In my world you have a future. I can’t make that somewhere I haven’t been, why would you stay by me?”

[saltwaterlungs]

"Why... wouldn't I?" She asks, genuinely confused for a moment.

"You're the one who put the idea of not going home into my head. You've been teaching me so much, I've probably the best I've ever been at my swordsmanship. And... I feel safe knowing you have my back. Wherever we'd end up, we'd make it work."

A glance over to his side for a moment.

"I'm not just hanging around because I think you can make me a pirate queen. I consider you a friend."

[ninetoes]

People have started using the word friend around Izzy far too much recently. Said it genuinely. Meant it. First Lucius, now Darcy, it is becoming a pattern.

Izzy has one friend. And recently he isn't sure if he even has that, anymore.

Now, somehow, he has two more, said aloud, confirmed. No guess work, no wondering, they're friends. Why someone would ever want to be his friend he doesn't know, but it doesn't feel... bad. Maybe it's because he's useful. He's teaching Darcy. For Lucius he is the last testament of home that isn't their respective captain. It's familiar, he had said. It's easy.

Izzy has to agree with him. It is easy, weirdly so. This, here with Darcy, despite all the pain and difficulty wrenching his words out, his truth, his story, the actual existing next to each other is so, so natural.

To be safety for another person when he, himself, has nothing of the sort (so he thinks), feels absurd. But that has very often been his lot in life (so he thinks). His perspective is tainted. His narration terribly unreliable.

"You'd-" whuff, this is a lot. He's intense. He's unimaginative. He's a 'real bummer'.

"You, you want that?"

[saltwaterlungs]

"I'm not going to change my answer."

She's offered him her loyalty time and time again now. It will take more than him asking if she's really really sure to change her mind.

"Is it really that weird that I'd want to stick by someone who's been good to me?"

A sniff and she turns her attention properly back to the road.

"It's not like I have other plans for after we win anyway."

[ninetoes]

Darcy gives him the easier answer and Izzy elects to take it. Sure beats admitting he's having trouble accepting it because no one ever wants to be his friend. And why would he, he's an absolute cock, emotionally unavailable, stretched thin, prone to tantrums and break downs, and he knows it. Why would you willingly take that on?

Nice that she wants to, though. Maybe he should just...embrace it.

"No.. when you put it like that I suppose not."

[saltwaterlungs]

Ah yes, why would the ornery emotionally repressed teenager carrying burdens too heavy for her want to hang out with someone going through the same thing. Why on earth would she want to know she's not alone in her experiences, and why would knowing their shared boundaries that neither will cross bring her any feeling of security. A mystery of our time.

They've looped around by now, the diner slowly coming back into sight.

"The camp did the same thing, with the looping. It was weirder then because it was all on foot, and the world was much smaller."

[ninetoes]

It's so odd. Both the concept of going around and around a landscape that doubles back on itself, and the knowledge of this happening and it being simply accepted.

Quietly, he appreciates the shift in conversation. Nothing has been forgotten, but they don't need to talk about it any more. Go figure, the information is given and they both stop short of talking about the feelings behind it. Go figure, go figure, go figure.

No, Darcy. You are not alone. He just doesn't know how to say it's going to be okay because he is not okay.

"What was it like? The camp. I've heard it mentioned."

[saltwaterlungs]

"About the same as this? Captain picked our clothing- we all got put in awful short-shorts. There was a bit more to do though- like archery and arts and crafts. It was based on like, an American summer camp that people send their kids to for... some reason? Had an actual fucking working kitchen, too, I made so much bread just because I missed cooking. I was so pissed when I saw this place didn't have one."

Drums her thumbs on the wheel some more.

"Nothing actually happened there. Still trying to work out what the Captain's angle was, probably just trying to bait and switch us. I got basically no sleep that week, I was just... waiting for something to happen."

She knocks on her window lazily with two fingers, "Not this time though. The Captain told us to expect something big this trip. But he wouldn't say what."

[ninetoes]

Izzy doesn't understand half of all that, but it doesn't matter. nothing happened which is what he really wanted to know. He'd arrived just as people were returning. What a homecoming for his crew, he knows.

"Could be anything," he hazards.

"We can drive but we're still trapped. Feels perfect for an ambush."

[saltwaterlungs]

"We just need to keep our eyes open. Palamedes said that the last time people died here it was all suddenly in the parking lot, so..." a vague gesture, "that's probably everything we have to go off."

Darcy pulls up to the diner, managing to pull into a spot without hitting the other cars beside her. At last, she unlocks the door again.

"So, that's driving," she gestures as if showing him the experience of driving was the only thing that happened on this trip, "everyone does it in the future, so."

[ninetoes]

"Seems simple enough."

But uh. That information is pretty important.

"Did you say it all happened in the parking lot?"