come_sailaway | [CLOSED] Move him into the sun -

Entry tags:

[CLOSED] Move him into the sun -

Who: Arthur and Crichton
When: The morning after the event
Where: Cabin 127
Summary: Mistakes, it turns out, were made.
Warnings: Death and trauma will be all over this one, including a flashback. Also there's always a possibility that Arthur's strong frustrations with being disabled will come up.

He died, and it hurt the whole time he was dying.

Maybe Crichton saw Friday bring in the corpse -- wide-eyed, contorted of jaw, comically sunburned -- and tuck it into the folded-out sofa-bed as if to sleep. Maybe he slept right through the whole thing alongside a dead body! We're honestly not sure which is existentially worse.

Either way, the moment the clock ticks over to 6am, Arthur screams and curls up and grabs at the sheets and he's not falling? "John!" He's not falling. "John!!" He's not falling??? Fuck fuck fuck fuckf uckfuckfcukfuck fuckfuckfuck he just grabs white-knuckled on to the sheets with a lot of strangled whimpering and shaking.

In a moment he'll be present enough to realise his abdomen hurts, no doubt a symptom of trying to sail off the edge of the world with stitches in. The fine pink lobster sunburn has vanished as if never there.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Ok!" Tendi gets to her feet, packing up her medkit. "Be right back!" And with that, she heads off, to retrieve space coffee for the two of them.

Crichton waits a moment, to make sure she doesn't come back for anything. Then, he gets up and locks the door behind her with a click that surely won't be ominous at all for Arthur.

Another very pregnant pause, with only the soft slow sound of footsteps as Crichton crosses back to stand in front of his roommate. Where does he even start with this?

"Okay. Spill it. What's really going on with you?"

With the medical part of this over, Arthur has started buttoning his shirt back up, methodically, starting at the bottom to make sure the buttons line up. He was about to ask what Klingons are -- but instead, there's the heavy metallic click of the lock.

His fingers go quite still on his shirt, and he goes quite still on the bed.

As Crichton walks back towards him, Arthur turns his head just as slowly, tracking him by ear rather than eye. After a moment he starts doing his buttons again, casually, in an attempt to -- well, to look less like someone with something to hide. Although that ship seems to have sailed.

Admit to nothing. Force him to narrow down what he's gleaned.

"Well, what do you mean?" he asks, as if the whole previous everything didn't just happen. He unhurriedly fastens another button, covering the raised welt on his chest that is one of the gunshot scars.

"You want me to get specific?"

He lets out a harsh sigh. This bad cop act isn't doing shit with Arthur just sitting there buttoning his shirt like there's not a thing else to discuss. So, okay. On the level then.

"Who messed with your mind and what did they do?"

A couple of the fingers of his left hand start to tap unconsciously at his shirt. He was all ready to lie, but the quiet, breathy laugh that comes out of him instead takes him unawares.

"Yes, that scan caught me a bit by surprise as well," he says, thoughtfully, as if to himself.

Another button. He is trying so hard right now to think of a good explanation that won't lead to worse questions, and he's coming up with 1) jack and 2) shit.

Edited 2022-09-26 02:53 (UTC)

"Maybe it did but... listen, you've put your trust in me so far and I like to think I haven't let you down yet. But it goes both ways so..."

There's the sound of something dragging over the carpet. It's Crichton pulling the desk chair over turning it around and straddling it backwards so he can prop his chin on the backrest.

"You're not the only one. I've had people mess with me too. Practically everywhere I go, people want to crack me open to learn what I know. What I'm trying to say is that I get it. I understand what it's like. So tell me?"

He hasn't let Arthur down, it's true. In fact he's done the opposite, going out of his way for Arthur again and again. That pulls at something in his chest that makes him want to share the truth, but... at the same time, the truth, the whole truth, is not only insane, it's not only painful, but it's damning as well.

He wants to respond to what Crichton's saying with compassion. With questions. Instead he thinks about the bastard thief who stole his eyes, and what he says is "Do you get it?", and his voice is a snapping animal that he has to drag back by its chain.

--And there's sort of no taking that back, is there.

The sane thing to do when confronted by such a tone would be, probably, to get a little angry. Or defensive. That would be how sane people react.

Crichton laughs. It's a terrifying unhinged sound. It dies abruptly, like the quick snap of a neck. And in its place is just one long inhale through his nose.

And then, very softly, as he leans in closer, he says, "Try me."

It's not the first less-than-hinged laugh he's heard from Crichton, but it is the worst. It does not hit Arthur well. It visibly does not hit him well, as his mouth splits into a grin that's all tooth and no humour.

"Oh, you'd make a pretty fucking puppet for the King in Yellow." He's once again kinda talking to himself but also absolutely talking out loud. "If I was in my world I'd think you already were one."

That ugly grin sends a chill through Crichton. Is this really the same man who had previously let Crichton comfort him in his dark moment? Well, there was the gun incident before that.

"Yellow, like that robe you tried to hide under the sofa cushion?"

He's not backing down. In fact, he leans in even closer now, inches away from tilting the chair he's perched on.

"You're not in your world and I'm not in mine, but I know a little something about being used like a puppet. I've been living with a Nosferatu nightmare piggybacking in my brain for too damn long now. So..." he sucks in another harsh breath. "Tell me one thing? Am I going to regret sticking up for you, Arthur?"

All that shuts Arthur the fuck up.

The parody of a grin slips partway from his face, and he freezes, because for a few seconds he is the most scared he has been since his first day on the ship. He thought he might one day hear that confession again out of another person's mouth, another rambling and clearly insane person like Kellin, but he was completely unprepared for it to come from Crichton.

His first thought is that the hordes of the King have followed him here at last, after all.

"Oh no no no," he says, his voice soft but with the unmistakable tightness of swallowed panic. "Oh no, oh shit, oh- oh fuck."

Well put, Arthur.

But-- he tries to talk himself down. "No. No, that wouldn't make sense. I-if you were his, you'd already have..."

God, it even feels almost like the mirror has flipped. Like he's the Kellin now, explosively losing his marbles in front of some guy. Looking back at him down a mad, insane, horrifying road from only a couple of feet in front. Or, maybe, looking across, as they walk in step.

Another snap decision. A strong impulse. The vote isn't even close.

Arthur forces himself to take a deep breath. He says, if possible, even quieter than before: "You hear a voice too."

You hear a voice too.

Just once, just frelling once, Crichton would love not to have been right. Getting that admission doesn't feel like a victory when it's wrapped in panicked whispering--when Arthur's babbling at the edge of madness makes the bile rise in the back of Crichton's throat. He's seen people look at him with that same raw terror in their eyes before... but only once. Only when Harvey was the one driving. When Harvey was the one attacking his friends and... killing Aeryn. He can't stand to see that look coming from Arthur now; he swallows hard and looks away.

"Whatever you think it is, it's not." The harsh edge is gone from his voice, replaced with cracking vocal cords just barely able to push out sound. "I'm not under anyone's control right now. But...yes. I had a voice in my head too. His name was Harvey."

Arthur closes his mouth, and makes fists with his hands, working to pull himself the fuck together. If his fingernails weren't so short they would be biting into his palms.

It's the change in Crichton's voice that really hammers home how he's acting, not towards a puppet of the King, but towards a person and a friend. He doesn't miss the depth of the implication of that right now, but... it only gets a pin in it, one of many pins.

"I'm sorry," he says, because that seems so much more important to start off with. His voice is tight, but under control; his face has ceased to be outright terrified and instead settled on what one might consider a baseline level of sorrow and anxiety.

Does he mean sorry for being a prick? Or sorry for Crichton having to deal with a guy in his head? Why not both.

Jesus christ. Crichton has one too. Jesus christ.

"In my world... several people have, have tried very suddenly to kill me because they were influenced by him." He says it because he owes Crichton some kind of explanation, some fraction of the trust he's more than earned. "But I... I know he's not here. I know that's not you. I'm sorry. I- I was startled."

"I'm sorry, too. I knew exactly what kind of crap you were dealing with and I still pushed you." In retrospect, laughing like a lunatic at a man who's just come down off a traumatic flashback wasn't a great move. Not one of his better mornings.

"It scares me how much we have in common," he admits. "I'm being hunted right now in my world, by several different groups. Not to mention the bounty on my head." His literal head. The constant paranoia, oh yes, he's intimately familiar.

"Can we start over? I've got no hard feelings, man. I don't blame you. I still just want to help. I want to understand."

Just about everything Crichton says is sparking off new questions, new concerns. And Arthur looks downright worried by the idea that Crichton's being hunted too, never mind that whoever hunts him would probably lack the motive or indeed the means to look for him on a cruise ship in a pocket universe.

"Yes," he says. "Yes, please, let's start over."

Honestly-- he would have said the same thing even if Crichton wasn't sorry.

"What does it mean?" He can't help but jump into questions. There are too many pins, and they're starting to fall off the board. "Does the captain know about this? Did he assign us to the same cabin on purpose? Are there more people on board like us?"

Of course he doesn't expect Crichton to have the answers to these questions, but he has to give them voice anyway.

Whew. Okay, good. Starting over is good. They can put a couple ugly moments behind them and hopefully sleep easier tonight for it. Assuming either of them are going to sleep much now. ...The coffee will help, right?

"I'd bet my left asscheek the Captain knew exactly what he was doing putting us together. He was probably taking bets himself on how long it would take for one of us to let it slip" Wonder how they did on that.

"I'm tempted to say there can't be that many guys like us around but I'm not putting anything past this place."

But, okay, besides those questions, Crichton has a much bigger one that hits closer to home. "Since you got here, have you heard from yours?"

Ooooo Arthur's eyes narrow as they talk about the Captain. Ooo he would like very much to punch the Captain in the face sometime.

"My first night here, somebody told me that the Captain aims to... harvest his passengers' suffering, in some nebulous way. I guess our fighting out the issue plays directly into his hands." His voice is sour. He's still... so tense.

But also, yes, big question. "Not a peep," Arthur mutters, and still he doesn't draw the line for Crichton between the John of last night and the voice of this morning. He's trying to remember if he's said anything else since he arrived. Anything else that'll give away more about John than he wants to, if and when he draws that line. "And yours -- Harvey -- you said he was in your head."

Take a number Arthur and get in line.

"Yeah, I heard the same thing. He's an emotional vampire or something." And that would make perfect sense why he would house two volatile nutcases in one space. Makes too much sense. All the more reason to not tear each other apart.

"He hasn't made a single wise-crack this whole time. And I've tried to get at him. Either he's playing possum, or he's really gone. But...I don't know. I don't feel any different." He always thought he would. The other Crichton had said to Aeryn that he felt lighter somehow. Then again, the other Crichton was dying of radiation poisoning.

"That's one upside of being here. Good riddance. I'm not gonna miss the bastard."

"I was told he's trying to become a god," says Arthur harshly. "It's not hard to believe. Almost every time something goes wrong, it seems like there's a fucking god involved."

Okay there mister r/atheism.

"I don't know if I feel different." And uh, he makes a note that apparently Crichton was on worse terms with the voice in his head than Arthur was. Probably a more reasonable response to the whole thing, if he's honest. "Everything's changed so quickly, I don't... I don't know what my fucking baseline is any more. I've felt sort of-- loose, I guess, ever since he showed up, like- like I can turn the wheel but the car won't always listen. I suppose I always felt a-a-a bit like that, but he--"

His eyes are overloaded. They might not recover. He keeps circling fearfully round the thought like prey that can't turn it back on a predator. Even if he ever gets back home, John has ruined his fucking life, and if his eyes are yet another permanent casualty--

"He took my fucking eyes, Crichton." Arthur's voice intensifies into anger, into something trying very hard to be despair. "That's what happened to them. That fucking piece of shit stole my fucking eyes."

"You know... it doesn't surprise me either. He's he's already doing it to us, isn't he? Playing god." Power over life and death included.

Whatever other thoughts about theology Crichton might be about to expound on go right out the window with that last statement from Arthur. Crichton takes a horrified sharp breath in, and doesn't bother hiding how affected he is when he manages to squawk out his reply.

"He what?! H-how?" New fear unlocked.

"I don't know. I don't know! We hadn't worked out the- the catalyst, at least I didn't, and he said he didn't know, although lies are practically his native language. He didn't stop with my eyes: he took my hand, my foot--"

Arthur kneads his left hand erratically in the fingers of his right, to remind himself that he can still feel it.

"I have those back, but my eyes are still-- What if he'd taken my- my ears next? My mouth? My mind?"

Now that he's popped the cork on actually talking about this to another human being, apparently all the fears that have spun around his head a hundred times are coming out as well. With a sharp breath, he forces himself to shut the fuck up. Because the logical end to the thought is John controlling everything, and that very briefly happened, and he still remembers the-- the look on Parker's face. Jesus, the look on Parker's face. Arthur's mind is an intricate system of closed boxes, each one filled to overflowing with the things he can't deal with right now, and in one of those boxes is the last look on Parker's face.

The fact that he talked about the two of them almost in the same breath last night makes him feel physically sick.

Took his hand and foot? What the hell does that even mean? How does something just take these things? From the inside?

Oh, but it starts to make a lot more sense as Crichton is reminded of how Harvey had possessed him, taken his body for a ride while Crichton was shoved into the back corner of his own mind. He could see, hear, feel everything happening. He couldn't stop it. What if he hadn't gotten that surgery? What if the chip stayed in his brain, digging and digging until the separation between them barely existed anymore, too tangled in the web of Harvey's tendrils?

"A-Arthur I--" He cuts himself off with a noisy swallow. "I don't think what's going on with you is the same as what I have, unless someone implanted a chip in your brain too, but I know that I've been... I've had Harvey take control of me, too."

The lack of comprehension on Arthur's face when Crichton mentions implanting chips will probably answer that question. Arthur himself won't be answering it, because it's not even close to the most important part of that sentence.

The words "Jesus christ" come out of him as a punched-out breath. His hands cling to each other like they're throats, and separate quickly.

"Jesus christ," he says again, because just once didn't seem to cut it. Not for having your body seized, and controlled, and used to commit horrible acts by some cold and alien intelligence. They say that a problem shared is a problem halved, but on the contrary: knowing that he, Arthur, isn't the only sorry bastard to whom this has happened makes it feel so many times worse.

(He's definitely projecting a bit, though on this occasion the projection is entirely warranted.)

"I'm sorry." His voice is nearly toneless. "I, I-- I wouldn't wish that on anyone."

Should he take it as a relief that his counterpart here probably hasn't also been reverse-lobotomized with a second personality via technology? Is possession by a ghost or possession by a ghost in the machine more preferable? Who can say?

"I don't think anyone with a heart ever would." Crichton sounds not angry, not sad, just very, very tired.

"Why don't we just... start from the beginning? I'll tell you how I got mine if you tell me how you got yours?"

Arthur breathes in, and then out, and then nods, slow but decisive.

"All right." But he doesn't launch into it straight away. Where the hell does he start? The book? The basement? The case that turned out to underpin it all?

Abruptly, he takes in a breath and says: "My own stupid fault. Peter and I... Peter Yang, that's, that was Parker's professional name. He and I were investigating the- the disappearance of a girl, Emily MacFarland, and the search led us to an abandoned house with... well, with evidence of cult activity, though I had no idea of the extent of it until later on."

His voice is low. He rolls the bedsheets restlessly between his fingers as he speaks, remembering.

"Peter didn't like it. He was... particularly unnerved by a symbol carved into the basement door -- sort of angular, overlapping lines. He thought we were being watched, so we called it in to the police, and- and that's when they told us they'd already found her body. So we went home. And then... a book arrived on our doorstep. The same symbol was drawn on its cover."

And though he's speaking pretty tonelessly, there's still anger and frustration with himself in there when he says: "I insisted on reading it."

He laughs under his breath, short and mocking.

"Idiot. He was trapped inside. I-I-I let him out, I let him straight into my head. And the first thing he did-- the first thing-- he--"

Arthur struggles on the precipice of the confession. But he has no right to hide from his mistakes. Crichton deserves to know just how badly Arthur fucked up, the kind of collateral damage he leaves in his wake with every impulsive and poorly-chosen decision.

In a rush: "Parker. He ki- he killed Parker."

He has to stop there, give Crichton a chance to answer, to ask, to judge, to shout, to leave in disgust if he has to.

[CLOSED] Move him into the sun -

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)