September - [OPEN]

[theweakhavepurpose]

Who: Deputy Pratt and YOU!
What: Hanging out in places that aren't just the arcade, getting a shitty regain, trying to figure out old people sports.
When: Beginning of September
Where: Sports deck, pool, around the ship
Warnings: Shockingly none! Potential for cult talk in the Pool thread but probably nothing too bad. Also, he's not wearing the jacket, everyone be proud of him.
Note: I'll match style so feel free to come at me with prose.

1. Sports Deck
[Pratt spends 95% of his time either in the buffet snarfing down mashed potatoes, or in the arcade. But he has all the high scores on the games he likes, and he should probably do something other than those two things for the rest of eternity.

The entirety of his experience with sports is watching it on TV. He didn't play on any teams in high school, not that his tiny high school of about sixty people even had sports teams, so he's sort of at a loss with most of the things here.

Currently he's standing by the shuffleboard area, holding one of the sticks, trying to figure out what he's supposed to do.]

Any idea how this works? Are the numbers points?

[The weighted disc is sitting at his feet and he occasionally pokes it with the stick to send it meandering around just to be doing something. Judging from the disc sized holes in the far wall he may have given it a much heavier whack to begin with than necessary. Look he's twenty-six and his first assumption was to hit it as hard as possible.]

2. Pool Deck
[The last few things he'd gotten from the Sundries shop hadn't been too bad. The nightlite thing was probably supposed to be insulting or something but he was fucking keeping it. So instead of fretting away in his room he actually goes to grab this one. The hallucination of Jacob had been silent for a few days, which was usually a bad sign but...

As soon as he picks it up, he knows what it is immediately, he doesn't even need to open it. The weight, the little clinking sound it makes... He freezes, hand closing around the package and darting out of there. But the longer he carries it, the less scared he gets. The feeling of anxiety being replaced with annoyance and anger. Because fuck this!

Instead of going to hide in his room he goes to sit by the pool, grabbing a huge cherry shaved ice to go sit in a lounger, sipping from that in between tossing the unopened package from hand to hand, listening to the metal chain noise from inside.]

Do me a solid and tell me to just open this shit.

[Go ahead and open it.]

Not you! [Glaring at something to his right and then taking a deep breath.] Sorry. Yeah. Tell me to get it over with, I know what it is.

3. Wildcard
[Come find him! He can be found literally anywhere except the library because this nerd doesn't read. He also still has cigarettes from his last regain if anyone wants to try and bum one off him.]

Comments

2

[makemeasong]

[ Clara's walking by, set on laying out because can dead women tan? She doesn't know so she's decided to find out. She's about to jokingly ask Pratt why he's so underdressed when he says a thing, then another thing. She decides not to joke. ]

Sounds like you should open that shit, mate.

[ Clara drops into the lounger next to him. ] Gonna be okay when you do?

[theweakhavepurpose]

Yeah, [He holds it up to his ear shaking it.] You know the jacket I normally have? J. Seed the jacket... this is his dog tags.

[Sighing.]

Guess I'm gonna get his entire fucking outfit piece by piece.

[makemeasong]

What the fuck. [ She breathes it out softly, her eyebrows drawing together. ]

This place is a psychological nightmare, huh?

[theweakhavepurpose]

Seems like it. Man, last time it was cigarettes and a light up little... thing.

[He makes a gesture with his hands indicating a small orb or ball. He's not really sure how to describe the weird dumpling night light he got.]

Rather have that then this.

[With a final shake he tears the paper off finally, staring at the white box inside before popping the lid off. As expected, it's a set of dog tags, Jacob Seed emblazoned on them. Pratt pulls them out of there, running his thumb over the embossed letters.]

Was kinda hoping I'd be wrong.

[makemeasong]

[ Clara's quiet, letting him talk and giving the moment the weight it deserves. Giving it a moment of silence, she looks at Pratt and her voice is soft. ]

If you feel like talking about him, I'd like to hear. It's helped me when I lose people but it's also not for everyone.

1.

[decohere]

"Maybe," Ava responds blankly, glancing down at the markings of the game board she's currently stepping upon. She attempted figuring out the same, months ago. Never found anyone that knew, nobody interested in playing with her.

Her shoulders slump. She's not exactly in the mood for fun. She likes Pratt well enough, but seeing him now just reminds her of the last time they'd spoken. At the diner.

"I hit it too hard the first few times too."

[theweakhavepurpose]

"Yeah it's so heavy I thought I had to hit it super hard, didn't realize it slides really well and uh..." He gestures to the holes in the wall that he's hoping fix themselves when they leave.

He looks up at her hearing that morose tone of voice, "Wanna smack some pucks around and pretend we know what we're doing?"

[decohere]

"Sometimes you just need to hit something really hard," Ava agrees, nudging one of the pucks off to the side with her toes.

"Yeah." Not like she's doing much else. She's hovering somewhere between everything now feels like a waste of time, and the need for a distraction.

[theweakhavepurpose]

He knocks one into the area marked "10" because sure, that seems like some amount of points or something.

"You aight? Were you there for the zombie thing?"

[decohere]

She picks up one of the sticks, pondering if it has a more specific sort of name and deciding she doesn't particularly care. And gives a shove at the other puck, which doesn't make it onto the board at all.

"Oh. No, I left when it started. Wasn't interested."

1

[killed]

Yes, that's precisely it. The numbers are the points that you get, but it has to be fully inside the section. There's no points if the puck - the "biscuit," as they call it - is touching an edge.

[ Hiyori hums as he takes a cue stick off the wall himself before stepping over. He uses his stick to push one of the pucks about on the board, first onto the number seven and then letting it touch the edge by way of demonstration. ]

The ten at the bottom is minus ten points, and any that land outside of the . The rules are fairly simple, so it's an easy game to pick up.

[ Then again, maybe not given that he appears to have put one of them through the wall. ]

[theweakhavepurpose]

"Biscuit huh. That's cute." He tilts his head studying it, "So it's kinda horizontal skee-ball. Do you get more than one uh... 'hit' on it? Like you're on a putting green in golf? Or just one whack per biscuit?"

He thinks he sort of gets it now that he's looking at the board a bit more like a flat bowling alley and less like it's weird air-hockey.

[killed]

Both are apt comparison, and he nods in agreement with the comparison. It's one of many that share rules with it, albeit it's a touch more friendly to different age groups.

"Just one. If it lands in the center then it's disqualified and kicked off the lane... The game typically goes on for eight rounds, but there's no fast and hard rule on it... It's a fairly easy easy game to pick up, especially if you've tried similar games in the past... Would you like to try? We can go a couple rounds."

Experience is the best way to learn, after all, or at least to see if it's worth continuing to try.

[theweakhavepurpose]

"Sure! I'm game. Trying to learn new things and it's kinda hard when there's no like.. printed instructions." Not that he actually looked to verify that. He's a manly man, he doesn't need instructions.

Except where he totally does and that's why he launched a disc into the wall.

Using his stick he gathers all the same colored biscuits from where he's been knocking them around brings them back to the beginning of the lane.

"You can go first, since you uh.. know what you're doing." He grins, because he absolutely wants to see how this is done before making a fool of himself.

[killed]

"It is, but it works out well in these cases. After all, there's no better than experience! I'm sure you'll have it down in no time." He nods once, fixing the position of his own disc and taking a moment to check everything over before taking a couple of steps behind the line. It isn't all completely unlike bowling in the simplicity of the technique. He presses the cue stick to the disc and takes one, two steps forward up to the line and uses he momentum to push it forward. It slides across the board, neatly landing in one of the "8" squares.

He taps the stick against the group before looking to his companion with a smile, offering him his turn. "By the way, I don't believe I've introduced myself. My name is Sou Hiyori, it's a pleasure to meet you."

2

[wimdy]

[ sometime after his little misadventures as a silly little fairy...

venti frequents the pool bar even if he's maybe a bit wary of the pool itself, and so he'd be nearby with a cocktail when pratt starts... talking to something unseen. w e l l. he's friends with jinx so he might be familiar enough with people and their hallucinations, and this is someone who'd helped him out. ]

You know what's inside? Really? [ that does catch his attention though, he peers at the box with a tilt of his head. ] Out of anything in the world or beyond that it could be... you're that certain?

[theweakhavepurpose]

Well, I mean, [He shakes it, a very metal slidey sound of something that might be a chain.] yeah.

Okay sure it could be something completely fucking random, but since I already got the jacket, I know this is the dog-tags. [he looks thoughtful for a moment.] Could be the bunker key I guess, but pretty sure this is dog-tags.

[wimdy]

[ … ] Why would you be given dog tags? You’re not a… [ he gives pratt an odd look, because.

well, in ~fantasy germany~ where he comes from, dog tags sure aren’t common form of ID except for presumably dogs. so this is bringing up all kinds of questionable thoughts for him, oddly enough. ]

[theweakhavepurpose]

[ Pratt starts laughing because this is funny for multiple reasons.]

I kind of am a dog. Treated like one anyway.

But that's.. that's not what dog tags are. They're military things to identify people.

[ He gives it another shake and then finally sighs and rips the paper off it. Popping the lid he nods because yeah. Of course.]

See? I was right.

[ He holds them up by the chain, two tags one with JACOB SEED and another with his blood type. ]

[wimdy]

[ admittedly the military and him, a musician, are two fields rather faar away from each other, and what he’s familiar of the military of his nation are literally knights. #justmedievalthings.

still though, he very much recognizes that name, what clarke had told him— ] You’re Jacob Seed? [ really! but clarke had described him as violent, whereas he’d been… friendly enough, awfully accommodating to a little drunk fairy. not that he expects pratt to pull a weapon or anything, but the way he looks at him now is rather more cautious. ]

1

[theotherright]

Arthur is just lingering up here for the air and so that he can pretend for a while that he's not in an insane paranoia-inducing nightmare situation, because looking at that fact head-on for too long is driving him round the bend. He has no idea what the hell Pratt is asking about.

That doesn't mean he's not curious, though.

At first he just listens, assuming Pratt is talking to someone who's actually, you know, playing the mystery game with him. But when time stretches on with no answer he turns a little further from the ship's railing and more towards wherever Pratt is shuffling his boards, pretty obviously paying attention.

[theweakhavepurpose]

The silence stretches, it's a little awkward as Pratt stares at this guy, and then looks down at the shuffleboard pucks, back up at him.

"I'll take that as a no?"

He's never seen whoever this is before, unless he has and doesn't remember, which considering that his brain is peach tapioca is pretty plausible. Though... Fuck. Don't be someone he killed in a haze and forgot. He's not prepared to explain that at all right now.

"We met before?"

Please say no. Please say no.

[theotherright]

He was beginning to suspect it, but it's about at this point that Arthur realises for sure that he isn't an observer of this conversation but an (in)active participant in it. Realisation flashes across his face, chased by embarrassment.

"I- I ah, me? No, I'm- No, I don't think so."

He trails off, because it is going to be mad humiliating if that wasn't actually directed at him, and he just did the verbal equivalent of waving back at someone who was waving at a person behind you. God he wishes his seeing-eye John was here, even though he knows John would be absolutely laughing at him for this.

[theweakhavepurpose]

"Oh okay. Good." The relief is evident in his voice, which probably doesn't make much sense, but he's already had the awkward conversation of acting like nothing happened after threatening to skin someone, he's not looking forward to how many more of those situations might be brewing with people on the ship he doesn't remember being insane at.

"I'm Deputy Pratt." He gives one of the pucks at his feet a shove, sending them all clacking together because he's not really sure how this game is played. "Trying to figure out how shuffleboard works, because none of these numbers or lines make fucking sense."

[theotherright]

You have, in Arthur's opinion, to be a certain kind of person to introduce yourself with your rank in what amounts to an otherworldly survival situation. Unfortunately it seems like that's exactly the kind of people he's going to be meeting here.

Arthur's paper-thin impression of a man at ease tears here a bit, as the unexpected -- loud! -- clacking of the pucks makes him tense with a quick breath, hands tightening on the guard rail. No, no no no no no he's not going to do this, the guy's clearly playing a game of some sort a-and billiard balls make that noise. Hockey sticks make that noise. A game, then. Something with a lot of solid moving parts, parts with reason to hit one another, and, one would assume, a board with lines and numbers for scoring. That's a concept he can picture.

And he's trying, too, not to read anything sinister into Pratt's clear relief when Arthur didn't know him. He's made a pact with himself not to be like this. He's had to make a pact with himself not to be like this, because if he keeps assuming that every unknown here is out to get him, he's going to lose his fucking mind, or worse, hurt someone who doesn't deserve it.

The echo of the thought Arthur you fucking idiot crosses his mind, and not for the first time, he wishes John was here to be his eyes.

He breathes in again and--

"Er -- Arthur. Arthur Lester. A-and you're in luck, actually: I've got a lot of experience in things that don't make fucking sense."

A sensible chuckle. Funny joke. Great save!

"Let me guess. You're from Earth as well?"

Arthur surprises even himself with how normal he manages to make that question sound.

(Even now that they're officially talking, Arthur is not meeting Pratt's eye, but apparently looking somewhere behind his right ear. His face is thin, but not especially healthily so, and those eyes sit in sleepless dark sockets. His left forearm sports a bandage. His loud cruise outfit courtesy of Infinite Tommy Bahama is objectively hilarious, and does not suit the vibe he's otherwise got going on at all.)