come_sailaway | APRIL OPEN LOG: PIRATE JENNY

APRIL OPEN LOG: PIRATE JENNY

[early risers with odd-numbered rooms might notice that the morning sun doesn't quite come through the curtains as much as it usually does; they can peer out the portholes to see their views blocked by black-painted wood. everyone else won't realize something's off until the morning announcements. there's the chime, and Friday speaks, but...]

Passengers, I'd like for you all to join me in the atrium at your earliest possible convenience! We have a… situation!

[there is no bind on their legs; going is their choice. but, who wouldn't? something interesting is happening, at least. for once.

when they arrive, they will find Friday, and find that she is not alone. a woman - tall, dark, with a flowing coat and a lit cigar hanging from the side of her mouth like an old movie gangster - is standing on the raised area by the stairs; they are having a conversation that's too quiet to hear, and the woman's face is nearly as inscrutable. when enough have gathered, Friday steps forward, her empty hands clasped together in front of her, as the woman puts out the cigar on the heel of her boot and tosses it thoughtlessly to the ground.]

Good morning, everyone! I.. I'd like, I'd like to, well, I'd -

[the woman places a firm hand on Friday's shoulder - spins her, grabs her, dips her low to the ground, and kisses her soundly. at the first touch, Friday freezes; but, at the dip, she squeaks, and throws her arms up to hold herself up. the woman returns her to a normal position, and grins widely.]

Let me handle this, Dajutia. Hm? [Friday nods, and the woman turns to face the passengers.] Tau, everyone! My name is Jenny Storm, but all my friends call me Pirate Jenny! And I'd like to think we're all friends, sí? You could call me an... alumnus of the Serena Eterna; I spent a good five years being a thorn in the side of our good Captain! So, when I heard that he was getting up to his old tricks again, I decided to come around and see the fresh meat! And maybe have a bit of a vacation myself!

[she looks at each of them in turn. her grin widens, showing sharp canines.]

Now, I am sure you are thinking, "Señora Storm? You are a pirate! Are you here to rob us of our valuables?" [she barks out a laugh, then shakes her head.] No, no. First off, we're friends; it's Pirate Jenny! And Pirate Jenny is not interested in such things. In fact, I have valuables for you!

[she makes a quick movement: she sticks her pointer finger in her mouth, and then immediately uses that same finger to make some sort of sketch on her palm. seconds later, that same palm closes around a single white rose, which she extends to Friday. she pauses... then takes it, careful, holding it gentle as a bird.]

I may not be the Captain, but I happen to have a little bit of magic of my own! And, for a very, very low price, I can grant you a few small wishes! Trifles from home, maybe - do you like rocket launchers? I am getting very good at rocket launchers!

Jenny...

Okay, okay, no rocket launchers... Machine guns are as big as I'll go, promise!

[Friday just audibly sighs and shakes her head, but there's a clear sort of fondness in it, and Jenny laughs again.]

So, be sure to chat me up, sí? After breakfast! I may not miss much about this damned ship, but I do miss those little omelets!

[she salutes the audience, and then immediately leaves, taking the stairs down three at a time and needlessly pushing her way through the small crowd on her way to the elevators. Friday merely watches her go; her fingers have worried the rose to shreds that fall at her feet.

the rest of the month, until the 13th, is very much the same, with one exception: Jenny's ship remains at the Serena Eterna's side, a sailing ship somehow keeping pace with a modern engine craft. and Jenny doesn't seem to be keeping an especially close eye on it.]

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César has opinions on the topic of discussion. He does. Those opinions are forgotten when Johnny asks if César can stay the night, and Watson says he believes César shouldn't be alone.

He's human here. Allowed to experience emotions. Johnny and Watson are protective of him, they want him to feel safe, and they care. Just like how they all piled into the same bed that first night Rex had nearly died. Just the opposite of his first night at Providence that he slept that first night alone after losing his parents and finding his brother had no memories of him.

It's overwhelming to know he's supported like this, and it hasn't stopped being overwhelming. Over half a year of nothing, and then suddenly, he has just the support he needs. Support he knows he'll be able to return when the time comes, and they need him.

Just like it had become with his parents and Gabriel. Sharing that hug between the four of them when they saved Rex. Offering his mother and father hugs of support when he found them also struggling with what had and had nearly happened. And much later, the three and four of them talking together about what they had to do in order to save the world, all of one mind....

His parents would have loved Watson and Johnny. Papí would've spent hours talking to Watson about a great many things. Mama would've cooed over the fledgling romance between him and Johnny. She would've gone on and on about how she always hoped César might find someone that could eventually share a deep connection to each other's needs. Especially César, whom she always worried about, who wasn't the best at fulfilling or expressing his own needs. Both her sons had emotions as strong as hers, and while César was the easier going of the two, even his emotions exploded out of control sometimes.

(She of course would've wanted grandchildren, and César wants children himself, but he'd just build, test, and develop that artificial womb idea he's half-kicked around in his head before....)

César's allowed to feel here. His mind cycles through these images quickly and uncontrolled, all prompted just from the fact he'd be sharing a bed with someone who cares. A neurotypical mind wouldn't be slammed with such weak-strong connected memories, wouldn't have such thoughts rolling together through their brains in a tempest. Now he knows why he's like this when most other people aren't.

Back home, César kept his mind solely focused on work for this reason. He doesn't have work, here. Who he does have is Johnny and Watson.

It's impossible for the two of them to know the thoughts that just slammed through César's mind, and he knows he needs to try to offer up an explanation. But first he has to make it through the emotions overwhelming him in the moment.

César drops the washcloth on top of the blood-soaked shirt still in his lap. He chokes back an unmistakable sob. Then he covers his eyes with his left hand and twists his body so that he can bury his face into Watson while still letting him tend to his other hand.

"Sorry—! I-It's that...." ADHD, per mentioned to Watson, a completely incomplete explanation; then, louder, to them both: "My parents would have loved having you both in my life...."

He certainly is suddenly very emotional, huh.

Watson lets out a breath, part surprise and part fondness, and maybe a little bit of annoyance because he's trying to work here, César, if you haven't noticed.

"Easy," he says, soothing, and slightly awkwardly pats César's shoulder with the back of his hand -- awkward, because his hand is full of bandage. "Easy, there. For the time being, we're all quite safe, but you've had a serious shock."

Johnny at the sink stops moving completely for a few seconds at the mention of parents. It's quick, so easy to miss, and then he goes back to scrubbing the vest and drying it off with a towel.

It makes sense, though, that César's parents would accept him, given everything he'd said about them at Mikabo.

He grabs a hanger from the closet and hangs the vest up to finish drying, and then lingers in the doorway between bathroom and bedroom, watching Watson work. "I can grab a handkerchief if you need one. Or some toilet paper, your preference."

César tried his best to not get too in the way of Watson's work, but there's only so much one can do when they lean against someone's chest. Which of course means he misses the sound of Johnny's motions ceasing then restarting. Gentle touches and voices. He's grateful.

To keep successive thoughts from forming, César turns his attention fully outward. Remembering where Watson just pat him with the back of an occupied hand, where Johnny's voice is coming from. The way they care. Everyone's exact position in the room.

He breathes deeply and regains control, leaning away and sideways to look at Johnny with wet eyes. "Handkerchief." Sniff. "Not just this. My brother nearly dying. My parents' deaths. Months of horrors. What happened the day I arrived. And I got reminded about everything at once."

He didn't think about all those things just now, but he knows they're a part of it.

César looks devastated. "I'm sacrificed so much of myself back home. Buried everything deep. Focused only on work." A choked laugh. "But then I ended up here with the two of you. And now I-I just want to cry about everything at once. It's so hard to stem the tide, now...."

"These things don't stay buried, in my experience," Watson says, seriously. "As I know, to my sorrow. You might manage it for a time, but never permanently."

He ties up the bandage with practiced care. "Still, next time... well, let's not worry about next time. Right now, we need to take care of you. "

It comes without thought, breathed out through a tightening throat. "People don't take care of me. Not anymore."

"You hear that, Watson? We're not people." It's so light and playful, as he hands César a handkerchief and moves to sit on the bed behind him. Chest to back, lips brushing the back of his neck. Literally and figuratively offering himself to be César's support. He's close enough to feel every breath, to feel every word.

And he hums, quietly. Mostly tunelessly, letting César feel the vibrations. It's as close as he can get to purring comfortingly like an oversized cat.

"Goodness, and here I thought I was."

For a moment he just takes this scene in, smiling. It feels an eternity since he was involved in anything so... well, quietly domestic, if it wasn't for the massive amounts of blood. He's sort of missed this, which is terrible because this is not a good situation.

"Perhaps I shouldn't try so hard."

The outburst brings with it a round of embarrassment. He sounds childish. But Johnny doesn't respond with condemnation but a lightness that feels so oddly comfortable.

His swimming vision makes the colors of the handkerchief bleed together as he looks down. Johnny settles in behind him as Watson replies with the same lightness. He blinks as Johnny leans up against him, gentle lips on his neck, hands softly resting against his outside thighs. There's gentle, loving humming vibrating against his skin.

It brings a measure of calm, enough that César's vision clears for a moment as he blinks tears down his face. He sees the way Watson is looking at them tenderly. An auxiliary thought occurs to him, one that also has nothing to do with the grief at hand.

"Oh. You know about—...this?" The second he asks, he realizes how truly obvious they had been.

Did he just get distracted from his own grief for a moment? Yes. Oops.

"You and I haven't been particularly subtle, at least not within this room. And I haven't tried to hide anything from Watson, either."

He chuckles, remaining close.

"He knew about me being transgender before you did, even if neither of us had the words at the time."

Watson laughs, all in a rush, with his face colouring a bit. "Grant me some talent for observation," he says. "I'm hardly -- well, one of those things was entirely new to me, and the other would have been extremely illegal in my time and a matter for some extreme subtlety, but you two have been rather obvious, you realise? But it's very sweet."

César even manages a laugh for a moment. His emotions are everywhere. But that's okay, being between these two.

"I suppose not," César acquiesces. "But I promise you we were subtle compared to my parents—ah."

His expression falls away to melancholy again, and he looks down at his hands. With Watson finished, César can compare the two of them, flexing them slowly with only a small twinge of pain in the right. Bandaged and bloody versus not. He hadn't gotten rid of all the blood under his fingernails. Too distracted.

César leans back into Johnny a bit, eyes growing unfocused; his rising crescendo of emotion had been interrupted, reset to quieter note, almost like he had forgotten. "Rex—" Who has amnesia, they both know. "—and his new family... They're good people. Yet I had to bury my grief. They didn't see me as a person who could grieve. Because to them, I'm a little off, kooky, crazy, and strange... a mad genius whose only contributions were his equations, algorithms, and contraptions."

He reaches over to take the up his watch again, pushing down the crown to click it open. A picture of his family. He's between his parents, just like his much younger brother. César watches the second hand turn.

"Or memories of our parents, for Rex. So I-I don't understand, how do you already care? They couldn't."

Johnny's arms slowly move, snaking up around César's torso in a gentle hold.

"You're not the first mad genius I've met. I know that you brilliant sorts have layers to you that the world doesn't always see or understand. But perhaps more than that, we're not comparing you to him. For us, you've always just been our César, not 'Rex's brother'."

"What a wonderful way to put it," Watson says. He sits down beside them. "Mad geniuses are not difficult to love, in my experience, for anyone who has the patience to look past the surface." Frustrating, impossible, ridiculous? Certainly. But nothing but admirable when the soul under that is a good one. "I cannot speak for your brother, or what he might be struggling with, but I know a good man when I see one."

"Your César—I like the sound of that." He gives in to the two of them, letting them comfort him properly at last; he presses the crown of the watch down and closes it, setting it aside. "You're both good men."

César leans a bit, just enough to rest his upper arm against Watson's. He tucks his cheek against his own shoulder and closes his eyes. With that and the arms encircling his torso, he could let his emotional exhaustion take him. Except not so much, with his bloody shirt resting over his bloody pants still.

"As for what Rex struggles with—he's sixteen. So, puberty. But he's safe and in the care of people who also love him, so that's all that matters in the end. It'll just have to be enough. I need to let him go...."

"Not entirely, but stop using him as the marker by which you measure your self-worth." With Watson close, he can keep his voice low and sort, gently squeezing the man in his arms. "You're a complete person in your own right."

"What sixteen-year-old is truly wise?" Watson points out. "I can't say if he might come around, but for now... well, you can't put your entire happiness into the hands of one person, a child who isn't even here."

He reaches for César's hand and squeezes it. "You should probably get out of those clothes," he observes.

"I know, I know...." César doesn't specify to what, but probably everything about Rex, squeezing Watson's hand back and placing his bandaged one on one of Johnny's as he gives him a squeeze.

Then he drops the subject of Rex entirely, because their statements are entirely too close to the mark.

"I should get out of these clothes and maybe take a quick shower. I can use a plastic bag and rubber band to keep the bandage clean." He smiles weakly, not opening his eyes. "But this is also nice."

"You can have more of this after you're clean, I promise. All night long, even. Feel free to use the towel hanging above the toilet, I washed it when I did laundry last night."

He gently nudges at César, arms unraveling from around him.

Watson gives César a warm squeeze on the shoulder. "Yes, go on. Don't hesitate to give us a shout if you feel unwell, but get yourself cleaned up. You'll feel much better afterwards, I suspect."

All night long. That does sound rather nice. Just as nice as getting clean.

"I suspect you're right." César replies to Watson, lowly standing with his shirt hanging over his arm again.

He turns and leans over to kiss Johnny very tenderly on the cheek. "Certainly need to be clean if I'm to spend all night in your bed." He lingers there, to give Johnny a chance to take a moment of his own.

Johnny relaxes into the kiss, blushing warmly, his smile soft and almost goofy. He feels floaty and warm and all sorts of nice, like this.

"Go, go. I'll lay out something for you to change into when you get back."

Watson smiles indulgently, turning back to his bag to pack it up again. He's rather glad that it showed up, unexpected and unexplained as it is. "I would almost feel like I'm intruding," he says mildly.

"Thank you." Then, Watson interjects, and César's laughter puffs against Johnny's cheek before César straightens up.

"If you think that's bad," he turns and starts walking towards the bathroom, carrying his shirt and the wash cloth; he stops at the door and leans back, grinning conspiratorially to Johnny. "Wait until I can safely confirm my nanites won't infect him."

He's mildly surprised that he can deliver that threat so cheerfully, but it most certainly feels good.

"We're not going to do anything too untoward around Watson. That'd be poor roommate etiquette." He laughs, though, leaning in to nudge his dear roommate lightly. "I tell you, I didn't expect this from the start of the cruise. Even in the midst of fear and panic, we can still have joy."

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Interjection w/ permission and now heeeere's Johnny!

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