Die Another Day [Post-Death Open Post + some closed]

[be_seeing_you]

Who: Number 6 & YOU
What: Waking up from death after a sliiiight miscalculation
Where: Cabin 113 + Other places around the ship, just going about his day like nothing happened
When: The day after the beach party
Warnings: discussion and depictions of death, trauma, grief



That was unpleasant.

Pain is the last thing he remembers. Pain, and the distant sounds of screams. One of the voices may have been his. The black abyss they'd tipped into was akin to being swallowed whole in a nightmare. Fittingly, when you die in a nightmare you wake up. So too, does Number 6 awaken again at exactly 6:00 am the next morning, safe in bed. But not safe from the memory of the black and the way it scraped at his mind like a dull cheese grater.

He lies there a moment reorienting himself. Above him, the sight of his familiar cabin roof is both sickening and a comfort. He's alive. He's... unharmed? Why does that fact make him furious? He'd hoped, foolishly, that if he did meet death out there on the water it would be the kind that lasts. It would free him from the fate of being tied forever to the Eterna. No such luck. But if he's here then... Arthur! And young Steve! They must be just waking up as well.

There's no time to wallow in his failure. If he must continue to live here, then he may as well get on with it. He should go see how his fellows are doing. He thought he saw a group of people lingering on the beach after the last call went out. Were they planning their own escape, or was there something else going on? The only way to find out is to get out of here and go see for himself.

Number 6 can be found all around the ship, going about his day like he didn't just fall off the edge of the map like a chump. And, no, he really doesn't want to talk about it, thanks very much. (So definitely bring it up to him, wink.) He kicks off this brand new day with his usual routine of training on the sport's deck. Does he seem like he's hitting that punching bag just a little harder than is necessary?

After training and then a long shower, he'll go down to Sand Dollars to order himself a coffee (yes, you heard that right) and a cake. Today, apparently, he's making an exception about his no sugar rule. He'll stay there for an hour, reading a book with an aura radiating off him that threatens violence to anyone that approaches. (But when has anyone let that stop them?)

Full of caffeine and sugar, he'll spend the next part of the day pacing the decks and the promenade, feeling the need to just move and keep moving. During that time, he will realize with dismay that he knows neither Arthur nor Steve's cabin numbers, so he will either have to ask someone else or wait to find them on his own. Mostly, he's choosing the latter.

He finished the book Clara gave him this morning over his coffee, so once the pacing gets too tiring, he tries popping back into the library to find something else. All he ends up doing is staring at the titles without hardly reading them. He's not really in the mood.

Eventually, he will drag himself to the Windjammer for an evening meal. And sit alone. As one does when trying to avoid talking to anyone about their first death experience. He's got himself an entire plate of bangers and mash but he's mostly just pushing it around his plate. He just keeps seeing the black. Over and over. How is he going to sleep tonight? He supposes he will cross that bridge when he comes to it. Which won't be until well after midnight this time. He's got some more pacing on the deck to do first.

But he's fine. Really. He's fine. There's no need for anyone to talk to him about this. Ever.

Comments

[businessorlibation]

"We're doing this, then." He nods quietly. "Right. Growing up, my parents thought they had a daughter, a little girl to teach to be pretty and poised, to prepare to marry into the right family. I was delicate, fine-figured, soft...and miserable. I hated the trappings of girlhood, and I feared womanhood, and I felt out of place entirely for most of my youth. At some point I realized that for me, femininity is and always has been a lie. To grow up and marry some man and be his wife would be a deception, always wearing a mask to cover up the person I truly am. At sixteen, I ran away from home and started working to build a life where I can be myself, the person I actually am."

He gestures up and down himself. "Johnny Summer is not a disguise, not a lie or act of deception, Mr. Smith. He's who I truly am, even if parts of my physical form would say otherwise."

[be_seeing_you]

Something about the way Johnny says that: "We're doing this, then" makes Number 6 wonder if he hasn't been waiting for this opening for some time. And now, as he listens, he realizes what it was that Cesar was hinting at before, too. They'd both been pushing him--haven't they?-- little by little, to the edge of this moment, waiting for him to take the dive.

So he does listen, openly and with as little judgment as a man like him can muster. He hears the common threads that unite him and Johnny, despite this hard-to-swallow revelation. He resists looking too hard at Johnny's features, to see if he can find the remnants of the person that was. That person is gone and Johnny has firmly put them in the grave. That much is immutable fact. And now he finally sees why Johnny had been so earnest in refusing to give away Number 6's secret, refusing even the idea of calling him by anything else. The pieces fall into place, at last.

He's quiet for a long moment after Johnny finishes explaining. It's a pensive silence. He's taking his time to digest. Another piece of advice he'd been given by Cesar. It is still shocking, he decides, to encounter someone who has eschewed their previous gender like this. But is it more Shocking than a girl who can change form with a thought, or phase through walls, or shoot magic from her hands? No. He decides it isn't.

"The physical parts of you that might say otherwise are of no concern to anyone but your lovers, whom I already know are in complete support of you." There, that was the hardest part out of the way.

"I know what it is to live a lie, day in and day out. And you already know why that is. It's no way to live." Miserable, just like Johnny said. It is miserable. Number 6 is... miserable.

"So, you are who you say you are." It's what Johnny had said to him, and it's advice worth taking. "And I believe you. I... respect you still."

[businessorlibation]

Johnny relaxes visibly at hearing that conclusion, smiling down at his ice cream. "It does mean a lot to hear that from you, after everything. I wasn't sure where you'd fall when it all came out. But you've grown, in the past couple of months, haven't you?"

[be_seeing_you]

"Yes..." He has to admit it, though it still feels very unlike himself to be so candid--so vulnerable. "Yes, I have. I do not think I could have accepted you this way if not for, well, your patient prodding."

[businessorlibation]

Johnny nods a bit, not bothering to hide his smile.

"The way you approached me during the pool party made me realize you perhaps needed that patience. That you weren't accustomed to being given grace."

[be_seeing_you]

"No, I suppose I wasn't. There's never been much room for error in my line of work." It also meant he had to take in information quickly and make fast judgments. That's been working both for and against him here.

"Even less in The Village."

[businessorlibation]

"Well. You have it here--at least from me. Probably from others, if you open yourself to it. But you have to be willing to accept it."

Which he knows is the rub.

[be_seeing_you]

"I'm willing to open myself up to it in the same way you are willing to leave this ship for excursions." There's no harsh tone of judgment in that, just a very matter-of-fact statement. They both have their difficulties, don't they? It can't be changed overnight.

[businessorlibation]

"'The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.'" He nods his understanding quietly, getting what Number 6 means completely. "I managed it when the zombies attacked, somehow."

[be_seeing_you]

"And I've managed it with you, and a few others." Not quite as dramatic as a zombie attack, but no less meaningful.

"It must mean there's hope for us, yet."

[businessorlibation]

"Hope, and an eternity of time before us to work on our problems." Johnny offers a crooked little smile. Because it's true. It's true and worth looking on the bright side of.