come_sailaway | Pack it up, pack it in,

Entry tags:

Pack it up, pack it in,

CHARACTERS: Darcy, and YOU?!
DATE: First half of September prior to the event
LOCATION: Sports deck
SITUATION: A pirate-sponsored fight club for the sake of ~~beating the shit out of each other~~ bettering each other
WARNINGS: It’s a fight club. Violence is to be expected.

I came to win

Fliers go up around the ship, as they so often do. This time put up with a reasonable amount of tape and written in a much less flowery hand than people would expect, the announcement ‘FIGHT CLUB TUESDAY EVENINGS SPORTS DECK: MAKE FRIENDS AND THEN HIT THEM’.
Anyone going to the sport’s deck after 7pm for the Tuesdays before the excursion will find tennis court set up for an impromptu fight club. There’s a notebook with a pen off to one side as a sign-in sheet, and a small list of rules written in the same handwriting as the fliers.
-No killing or dying
-Respect tapping out
-If you’re learning, respect your teacher/s
-If you’re teaching, respect your student/s
-Cause problems, get kicked out

Off to the sidelines, Darcy can be found supervising, keeping an eye out for any issues.

Battle me that's a sin

In one corner is supplies for fencing and swordplay. Three protective jackets, mesh masks, and blunt training sabers in a loose pile, plus whatever weaponry people themselves supply. There’s a circular arena drawn out on the ground, with a narrower fencing piste drawn through the middle of it.

I won't ever slack up

For those more inclined to hand-to-hand combat, a couple of the punching bags from the gym have been dragged out onto the court, along with focus-pads and a couple of long strips of bandages bandages to wrap one’s hands with. An arena has been drawn out, about the right dimensions for a boxing ring.

Punk you better back up

Over on the furthest side- deliberately angled to face off the ship- there’s a makeshift shooting range consisting of a bunch of water bottles and some mannequins from the Tommy Bahama laid out as targets to shoot at. A line has been drawn on the ground, presumably to stand behind when shooting.

Try and play the role and yo the whole crew'll act up

Right in the middle of everything is an arena marked out for no clear purpose, with no equipment nearby. It can probably be presumed that this is somewhere for people to spar, or more likely, show off in front of everyone.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Fight club? Hell yes. That sounds right up his alley. If he's not involved in any extracurriculars at school it's only because they weren't cool enough to have a fight club.

But as soon as he enters and starts to write his name down on the sign-up sheet, he sees who else is there, acting all supervisor-like. "Aw, fuck me, of course," he says, slamming the pen back down against the table.

It's partly that he's still angry (Vance's anger is notoriously long-lasting) and partly because he expects another apology will be in order before he's allowed to fight and he simply doesn't want to give one.

Vance earns himself a glare fit to curdle milk from across the court.

But then she looks away, making no effort to stop him from signing up or moving any closer to him. Darcy's here in a professional capacity, after all, and so long as he abides by the rules, she's got no issues with him.

He picks the pen back up and finishes writing his name down. It's in all caps, and his penmanship needs work, but it's perfectly legible.

"I'm gonna fight here, whether you like it or not."

"...is there anything here that suggests I don't want you to be fighting people? Did I accidentally put up fliers for a fucking tea party?"

Darcy gives him an incredulous look.

"You read the rules. You follow them, I don't give a shit what you do. Maybe you'll find someone who's more of a challenge than a fucking teddy bear."

"Okay, first off, that was before we talked," he says, "Second off: who fucking snitched? Is this whole place in the goddamn teddy bear defense squad?"

"Yes, Vance, you're literally the only fucking person on this ship who's not on the teddy bear defense squad!"

Deep breath, she's here because of Stede and she can't go picking non-agreed-upon fights with people.

"Skulduggery told me. Because the adults here care when kids get hurt. Fucking wild. And like- I was going to apologise for overstepping and bossing you around, but now? Not happening. Go find someone to punch."

"The skeleton guy? Of course. Can't trust adults," he says. And here he thought they had an alright conversation only to find that he got tattled on.

"She's what, eight? If I would've cried over a fucking teddy bear at that age my dad would've smacked me silly. That's not a threat or anything, I'll leave the damn kid alone, but none of you are gonna get by if you're so soft."

Being hurt and getting used to it is what makes you tough, he thinks. Or maybe he just resents the fact that no one was there to look after him all those times he needed it and is coping by saying he's better off for it. Why would he be on the teddy bear defense squad when the Vance Hopper defense squad has always been a party of one? He knows it makes him look like a jackass, but there are worse things, he supposes.

Darcy stares for a good long minute before pressing both palms to her eyes.

"That's- okay you have to know that's bad, right? You have to know that's not okay. You shouldn't have- you're not meant to be tough when you're eight. You're meant to be eight and fucking, obsessed with ponies or dragons or whatever."

She keeps those palms there, pressing lightly. God this kid gives her a headache.

"You're not tough because you got smacked around, Vance. You're not tough. You went after a kid with a teddy bear. That's just... depressing. And I'm sorry that happened to you or whatever, but Jesus fucking Christ dude- what were you thinking?"

"That's life," he says, and it is. For him, at least, and a lot of the other kids in his neck of the woods. Nobody really cared. "And don't you tell me I'm not tough. I know what tough is."

At least, he hopes he does. But it's not antagonizing a child that makes him doubt it. It's the fact that he couldn't take on and defeat the grown man who killed him all by himself.

"She's the one who came up to me. I gave her every chance to run away. She didn't, so I grabbed the fucking bear. I wasn't actually going to attack her, I just wanted to scare her off. It's better if she stays away from me, anyway."

"It's literally not. It's not just life. There are so many fucking people whose dads don't hit them. That's like, the majority of people, and it's why there's fucking laws against it?!"

Was this an old timey people thing?

"No, you really don't, and I'm not arguing with you on this," she will, inevitably.

"You wanted to scare her off?? What the fuck did she do to you? Fio's like, the sweetest kid I've ever known, she was probably just trying to be your friend you fucking psychopath?"

"Not everyone has to deal with it, but I know a whole lot of kids who do, and unless this place has an age limit on torture you better get used to it, too," he says.

"I was in the library looking at this really funny comic book, so I was laughing, and she comes by telling me to shush," he says, "I told her to mind her business, and she wouldn't."

So he had a little fun, but in his mind saying sorry and quieting down would mean looking like he's scared of a kid.

"Okay but they're both bad. Neither of those things are okay. I'm not getting used to anything here, because this isn't okay and we shouldn't be going through this."

Darcy briefly considers making him a board book explaining that bad things happening are bad and shouldn't be accepted.

"..." Darcy finally removes the palms from her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose instead, "you went after her for telling you to be quiet. In a fucking library. You could've just... taken the comic anywhere else. Jesus."

"No, it's not okay, but no one's ever gonna fix it or help you so you can deal or you can die," he says, raising his voice.

Yeah, they're both dead. He knows.

"And then everyone here would know that I take orders from little kids. I wasn't gonna hurt her, but I'm not making myself a target just to spare her feelings, either."

"You really think you can just show up and start saying how this place works, don't you?"

Darcy lowers her voice, "I'm fixing it. I'm helping people. Since the day I fucking got here I've been breaking my back to sort this out, and because I'm not a little fucking bitch who just decides everything's hopeless and you've just got to get used to it, we've been making progress. You can do whatever you want, dude, but you can't say nobody will, because I'm somebody. And I'm not the only one helping and fixing shit."

She folds her arms, "and now everyone knows you're an asshole and a bully. Hope you're happy."

"I know how life works," says Vance, age 15, "I know how the world works. And you're the one who was telling me it was hopeless to attack the captain. I want to kill the bastard. I want to get us out of here."

And violence is the only thing he's good for, so if he can't use that then he's got nothing. He clenches his teeth, and dips his head low, his hair falling in front of his face.

"People leave assholes and bullies alone. That's the best that some of us can get."

"Because killing him isn't the way out of here. There's so many fucking other ways to help, and you haven't asked what else needs to be fucking done."

Once again, she feels the need to make apologies to people for what she was like when she first arrived.

"They don't. Not here. People here are the fucking worst. They never leave you alone, no matter how hard you hit or how much of an asshole you are. You're never alone. And it fucking sucks, but that's life here. I was a bitch back home and I'm a bitch here, and now I have people who care about me, and you're just not that fucking special that it won't happen to you too."

"What're you gonna do, ask him nicely to please let you go? Ha!"

He assumes that anyone who'd hold people hostage and torment them is like the bastard he already dealt with, and all he can think of is how many times The Grabber gave him false hope only to take it away.

And he was desperate, so he fell for it every time.

"Yeah, well, they're wasting their fucking time if they do. I'm a ghost. I'm here to get revenge and then go to hell or wherever you end up."

"No, we're not. You don't get it and you don't want to get it."

Why did she even bother? Darcy huffs and casts her gaze over to the rest of the court, checking to see if anyone else needed her help.

... And then Vance reminds her why, because of the oath she swore. Because this kid is dead and needs to be taken care of in the way he wasn't in life. The way she wasn't.

"You don't go to hell. And maybe it is a waste of time, but they're still going to do it. I'm still going to do it. It's not like anyone here has anywhere else to go or anything else to be doing. And the dead should stick together."

"And what if I can't appreciate it anymore? What if the only part of me that lingered after death is the angry, hateful part?" he says, "What if the rest of me's deader than dead?"

After he died he only felt rage for the longest time. Then one moment of relief, and then he was here and full of rage again, and any respite from it is short-lived because other emotions make him ache for the life that was taken from him.

Anger, at least, feels just as good dead as it did alive. Maybe even a little better.

"...the angry hateful part that likes comics and Led Zeppelin?" she asks, "I've seen what happens to ghosts that have nothing left dude. You're... surprisingly lucid. You remember things about yourself, about your life. I think you're just... used to being an asshole and nobody liking you, and you're looking for any reason not to move on from it and try something new."

Darcy somewhat pointedly looks away again, scanning the court, "it's hard trying anything else. But being actually strong means not just staying in place because you're too scared to do something different. You know the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and hoping for different results, ehn? You don't have to keep playing the bad guy."

i came to win

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cw: child abuse mention

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cw child abuse

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