come_sailaway | well they said she died easy of a broken heart disease

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well they said she died easy of a broken heart disease

Who: Ava & OTA
What: Not doing so great! And an attempted memorial
When: Post-Excursion
Where: room 114, the literal walls, buffet, gym shower, cafe, the promenade
Warnings: these are not fun prompts. loss, self loathing and failing struggle with depression are very strong themes.

i. room 114.

The mission was a success. With no actual contribution on Ava's part and a growing list of mistakes she's neatly compiled in her thoughts, waiting to unravel for whenever Skulduggery finally tracks her down. And she dreads it, knows well enough how these things go.

It was her choice, Skulduggery was quite right. Her choice to sideline herself and pretend she wasn't even there because she couldn't handle dealing with a small group. Of people that already didn't like her, and any minor progress she made with Darcy she's sure has been entirely undone, confirming that she was right all along to treat her so poorly. It would have been a struggle on a good day, but after isolating herself for the last few weeks... God, she was wrong to think she'd be ready.

She should have bowed out before it even began, but her wellbeing was never a priority, not with so much on the line. And it had been all she had to look forward to, the only small scrap of hope that she might be able to help out. Prove to Skulduggery and the others she wasn't a complete deadweight. Prove Izzy wrong that no crew would ever want her. Reestablish that maybe there was a purpose to her continued existence and allow her to recover.

And then it all went from bad to worse with the series of curses, with Maximilien the only one caring to go after her as she took off running as madness infected her already weak mind. And he shouldn't have. She compromised them both, and then ordered him around because in her panic she had no idea how else to get him to follow, and she hates herself for it. And he must hate her now too, because he stormed off and she hasn't heard from him since.

The mission was a success with the added bonus of reuniting Friday with her girlfriend, even under such circumstances. She half expects the ship to be torn apart in a storm any moment, and can't will herself to care. She thought Jenny was valid the first time she attacked. She feels so even more now that her freedom has been stripped of her once more. But there had been mention knowing where her brothers were, and so she hopes. Hopes for Jenny's sake that it's true.

The mission was a success, and Ava's at critical failure. Huddled under her bed ever since she got dumped back at her room. Still in her stealth suit, gripping the katana that she had salvaged from Malcolm's room in trembling hands as her last line of comfort. Unaware of how much time has passed, unaware of her need to eat, never quite managing more than a fitful hour of sleep.

And that's where she'll remain until somebody convinces her otherwise.

ii. the walls.

And then she'll sneak off to fun new hiding spots, places she thinks nobody will be able to look for her, if anyone bothers at all. The advantage of being able to phase is finding nice cozy spaces between the walls, between the floor and the ceiling below it. Ava feels rather considerate of this as well, taking her misery somewhere far more private and out of the way while everyone else continues happily on. Her depression cruelly and completely crippling her ability to reach out for the help she so desperately needs and knows she doesn't deserve.

She's doing her very best to wait out her soul finally fading away with the rest of her, because that's what happens to the weak. And Ava knows that's what she is, despite all her attempts to tell people otherwise.

But somebody passing might hear the stifled crying from the walls, or catch a knee poking out from the ceiling. What first seemed like a great idea turns out to be a bit more cramped and uncomfortable than she was counting on. Try as she might, she can't quite get herself to join the rest of the ship ghosts. It feels very unfair.

At some point, she hears somebody walking far too loudly on the floor she's hiding within, and she reaches out to grab an ankle, phase claws and all.

iii. buffet.

Eventually she does get hungry enough that she can't ignore it anymore, a dizzy sort of sway as she stares blankly at the buffet. Despite the familiar variety, absolutely nothing looks good. She picks at a few packets of crackers and sits right there on the floor, removing her face mask that she's worn for far too long now leaving the skin under it in rough condition. She takes a couple disinterested bites, and then crumbles the rest in her fist. The crumbs get all over her already dirtied suit. With her mask off, she can tell just how bad she smells. That manages to ruin the rest of her desire to eat.

iv. gym.

She hits up the gym showers. She can't get her fingers through her hair, matted from being stuck under her hood for so long. She can't work up enough energy to feel upset about it, instead sits on the floor and watches the water drain.

v. sand dollars.

Grabbing her notebook from its hiding place in her room, Ava takes it with her to the coffee shop, finally dressed in something other than her stealth suit. A plain t-shirt and a pair of camp shorts that fit far looser than months ago. With a pair of scissors, she begins cutting the pages into smaller and smaller pieces, destroying all the notes she'd taken on the Captain and the mystery of the ship and all the things she's decided aren't important. She stops once she gets to the pages of the names of the vanished passengers, her throat constricting.

She never decided what to do about it, but it was a responsibility she took on. Ava sips uneasily at her mint tea, ignoring the small bits of paper that have fallen into it. They're scattered all over the table around her, some having drifted to the floor.

vi. the promenade.

Only a handful of people helped her with her project of collecting names earlier that month, and Ava does her best to fill in as many as she can with her limited interactions. Sarge and Wanda and Natasha and Peter... all from her own world. Eleanor, who helped her with the laundry, and her brother Luke. Kore, she'd been told about. Claudia, her late night company when so few others were up and about. Reigen who hosted that first information sharing meeting who called her out for snooping, who helped her toss the casino coins overboard. Dean, who all she knows about was that he was hot, and something about Diana's opinion on his hair. Flynn, Fio's roommate who had talked down Jenny, only to be replaced by somebody who looked so similar. That she kicked out of the camp cabin, and never got to apologize to. Conner, her first roommate that she had immediately chased off and never had a chance to apologize to. Lucy, who she killed by phasing into a tree during the Battle Royale. And never had a chance to apologize to. Conan (that she doesn't realize has returned.) Ginko, who had been so calming and kind. Lucas, who she was annoyed about when she found out Malcolm had another roommate.

And Malcolm. The only person she's ever allowed so close, that made her feel like she mattered and could be better. Who dedicated his life to getting justice for the dead. She feels guilty she can't think of more, knows there's so many others she's missing.

Lucius had left her art supplies awhile back. So she writes out each of their names in red paint along the floor of the promenade, leaves flowers she's made out of paper under each. She's sure it'll be cleaned up soon enough, but maybe if she keeps watch... There's more paint, for anyone that wants to contribute. As Ava continues quietly folding flowers at one of the tables.

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Ava's had more difficulty convincing others, but from what he's said about time travel and paradoxes, she figures Klaus is used enough to the concept to take it at face value. She's glad she doesn't have to argue the point.

"It's not that I'm trying to... ruin your hope," Ava follows up, isn't trying to bring people down with her. But it hurts to hear him talk about things like finding his siblings, knowing he'll never make it back to the life he was stolen from.

She stares at her cup again. "Needed marshmallows," she corrects.

Klaus shrugs. "I'm used to existing in the shit pile. What's one more shit pile?" But he's feeling the drag of it more and he feels a clawing need to drink it away, to get high and deal with absolutely nothing that he's feeling in that moment. It's easier. And Klaus is nothing if not the type to seek out an easy street type of situation.

"Does this ship have something against marshmallows? Does the Captain? Is he like...in a fight with a marshmallow?" Nothing would surprise him to be honest.

What she has been trying to convince people of is that this is the better option, when all she hears about is how doomed all the worlds they've come from are. That sure, they're up against quite a challenge with their very souls on the line, but there's opportunity in it if they just look at their circumstances from another angle. She's never been a traditional sort of optimist, but for so long that one scrap of hope that they'd figure this out was something she could believe in. Her promise to Fio hinges upon it.

She doesn't even have that anymore. Not for herself, at least. And so she's not so sure how to comfort Klaus about the unfortunate truth, just rests her head against his shoulder with a defeated sigh.

"Tell me another story," she requests.

Klaus can't help but feel like he's been sucker punched a bit. He assumed he'd been here for a little while and go home but now he can't go home and he'll never see his siblings again. But he's doing his best not to react even if it's entirely obvious if she looks at his face that he's trying to deal with the loss of something he's never had to deal with before. Not fully.

He tries to think of a story that's not about sex or some weird, fucked up shit they've all been forced to deal with. It's harder than he thought.

"When we were back in the 60s again," he says quietly. "I got put in jail cause I stole this asshole's truck and it was fucking hilarious. He deserved it." He shrugs. "Anyway. I met my brother-in-law there. He was in jail for some bullshit of the time. Anyway. Ben and I worked together to scare the police into letting him out of jail. It was great. Also his face when he realized we were family. Also hilarious. But you know...it was one of those things...surpriiiise!"

Even though Klaus didn't protest the factuality of their situation... yeah, she can read it upon his expression that the actual emotional processing isn't going as well. She has nothing to really go back for, and had managed to come to the conclusion on her own with basic logical reasoning, even before it was outright confirmed. But the way he talks at great length about his family, it's clear that Klaus had plenty to get back to.

Ava wishes she had a more delicate way of delivering that information. There's no real nice way to put it, though. No right time to share it. She reaches out her hand for his, grasping at his fingers, a small squeeze of understanding.

"You had a brother-in-law back in the 60s..." Ava repeats, trying to mentally wrap her thoughts around that. "Your sister really went back in time to marry a man?" And she only assumes sister because of the marriage laws at the time. "What about when you... needed to return?"

There was a time when he wouldn’t have minded as much, but that’s not this time. He misses his siblings and he’s going to drink heavily about it later. Probably alone. Or he’ll find Clara and see if she’s fine with letting him just lay next to her for a few, likely drunk, moments.

He isn’t expecting the feeling of a hand on his and so he stills for a moment and looks down to see Ava’s fingers squeezing his gently. “Bet Dad would get a kick out of this,” he replies.

“Yeah. We all went back in time. It was a weird situation.” They shrug slightly. “We went back together and it actually ended horribly considering Allison left everything for her daughter and she wasn’t there anymore cause our moms were accidentally killed and we weren’t born.”

"I really am sorry," she tells Klaus quietly. "I can tell how much they mean to you. And I know it must be hard, knowing there's still... problems left unresolved." She remembers that being difficult for Malcolm, not being there to clean up the mess and support his family, not knowing how things played out. All that's really waiting for her is half the world turning to dust, so she's not exactly missing much. But she understands well enough.

"But if it makes you feel better, there's a version of you still with them, figuring things out. You haven't abandoned them when they need you. So it'll be okay back there, right?" she insists.

"And here... you have me, okay? And we'll figure it out too. As hopeless as... everything feels." Which is a rather significant flip in her script from trying to hide away and disappear into the floor. Because it's a lot easier to be hopeful for somebody else.

It's less worrying that he won't be there and more the trying to come to terms with the fact that he'll very likely never see them again unless it's a torture device. "I..." He sighs. "Yeah. I have you." It's not exactly the same thing, but...he guesses it's all he's going to be given in the long run.

He does want to know if Allison and Sloan are okay. He doesn't want to steal his family away from home to this place even if he does miss them. They don't need to die over and over and become whatever this place makes people who would not adjust to it as well. He doesn't want Allison stripped away from anything if it's good and if she's happy.

"This sucks worse than anything Dad ever did to us."

"He sounds like a piece of work." She looks down. No, she's not a replacement for his family. And suddenly she feels like crawling right back into the floor again, realizing how that might have come off. But she knows that wishing for his siblings to join him would be a terrible thing as well. It's not like she expected it to actually make him feel any better. It was a flimsy attempt at giving herself something to be hopeful for.

"I'm just making things worse for the both of us, aren't I?"

Klaus sighs. "He's the worst." They wish they could kick him right in the shin, but he'd probably stab them and that's just messy.

He sighs and moves to lie over her lap. It's fine. He's just going to be mildly depressed for a while until he drinks more and finds a way to distract himself from it. "You're fine," he says quietly after a moment. "It's just a bad time. I'm sure I'll find some drugs to get over it."

Ava nods, isn't going to disagree.

"Does that work?" she asks, quietly working her fingers through Klaus's hair. Except the thickness of the gloves doesn't lend well to the motion, and she finally slips them off. Starts combing fingertips through his hair, and then separating it out into strands to braid. She's had a lot of practice. Nowhere near as good as Undine of course, but she's trying.

Klaus shrugs, settling into where he is and letting Ava do whatever she wants with his hair. It's fine. "Sometimes? It at least makes things feel different." He doesn't know if it's helping, but he also doesn't really want to look at his coping mechanisms too closely. Because he's pretty sure that he needs something to keep him from going off kilter.

"The skeleton guy...your friend...just said not to die from it. I can probably not die from it."

"I'm not sure I could handle the loss of control, sometimes it feels like... my mind is all I have," she says softly, the same reason she didn't enjoy drinking all that heavily. And she didn't take being cursed all that well.

But she gets how thoughts can turn against you. She still feels so lost within her own negative spiral. Maybe if he's willing to share... but no, she doesn't want to slip into a habit she can't break. And it doesn't truly feel like overcoming her problems, just hiding them for awhile. But she's not the sort to tell others what's right for them.

She doesn't have any hair ties, so the ends of the little braids she weaves through Klaus's hair hang loose. "I'd prefer that, yes. He's quite wise, you know."

"I guess that's fair. I don't have that much, but sometimes I just like to forget I have anything at all, you know?" Which is definitely not her experience. She's already struggled with the other stuff. "But not everyone deals with things the same, you know? Sometimes the everything is too much."

Klaus doesn't move much, just lets his eyes close as she braids his hair. "I'll do my best. I don't want to lose my liver. That doesn't seem like a good time. He seems to be very proud of your high praise," he says quietly.

She pats the top of his head gently. "No, suppose not. That's usually when I try to just nap it off," Ava responds, though she hasn't managed much of a restful sleep lately. "Or crawl into the walls and try to stop existing until everything hurts less." Because everything can indeed be too much.

"Mn, the liver is probably important," Ava rebraids a chunk of hair that's already fallen loose. Then pauses, a curious little sound at the back of her throat. "You talked about me?"

“Maybe we can nap together sometime. As friends.” Because he doesn’t want to seem like he’s hitting on her. She’s like some weirdly annoying other sibling and he kind of likes that. Considering he has none here now. “Probably not the walls, though. That gets claustrophobic for me and I am just uh…claustrophobic, actually.”

He laughs nervously about it. It had been a lot but at least he’d made it out. “Well, duh. What else were we gonna talk about? I mean, sure, the Salamander people, but also…I figured it’d be easier to talk about something we had in common. And something less traumatic than playing busball with my dad.”

"As long as you promise not to snore," she gently pinches the tip of Klaus's nose shut, then releases again. And now she feels a bit bad for dragging him into the floor.

"What did you say?" she asks, glad to rank somewhere above Salamander people. "Was it nice things?" She wonders if Skulduggery would have nice things to say about her now. She's been avoiding him and much of everyone as possible since the island misadventure.

He swats at her hand. "Hey. I still need to breathe!" But he doesn't think he snores? Maybe. Either way, he's just going to go with he doesn't so that she'll agree to naps because he's kind of lonely in his room these days.

"Mostly that you're weird but like...in a good way. And some other stuff. I can't remember everything. But he seems to like you a lot." They shrug, humming quietly for a moment. "Did you get to try any Salamander people rum?"

She giggles despite how miserable everything feels, and very lightly swats Klaus back. "Fine, yeah, I could... probably use a bit more sleep," Ava admits, without a whole lot of energy to even move right now.

"Mn, no. I didn't really get out on the beach with everyone," Ava claims. It's technically the truth, deliberately to leave out what she was up to instead. Though the way news travels around here, she's sure it won't be long before... nah, she doubts even then anyone will care about her involvement.

Her expression drops, and she falls rather quiet again.

“You could also use a shower. Just saying.” He’s saying it in a teasing voice, but he is a little serious.

He looks up at her briefly before sitting up. The mood is changed, so they’re ready to move. “Come on you weird ceiling cat. Let’s get you in some different clothes so we can nap, then.”

"Ugh," she responds, because he's not wrong. But she much rather get in a nap first. She's not quite up for drowning herself in the shower yet.

She lets herself get pulled along, because there's really no point fighting this.

Klaus takes almost no time to find his room this time and that's mostly cause he's not as drunk as he usually is trying to find it. He pulls out whatever counts as the more girl-type clothes but also an option for the more masculine clothes in case she prefers those. "Whatever you want to wear. We're probably close...ish."

She'd have accepted either option if presented without the other, unfussed about fashion. She settles on whichever seems a softer fabric, a looser fit. Klaus is taller than her, but they are both rather thin. She waits for him to turn around before lazily changing, needing to brace a hand against the wall to avoid stumbling over as she strips out of the suit.

There's a few abrasions against her skin where the thick fabric has rubbed too harshly, and she frowns before quickly covering back up.

"Don't let me sleep too long."

Klaus does his best to let her have her privacy. He doesn't want to be creepy about it after all.

"Yeah yeah. I won't." Probably. It depends on if he lets himself sleep too long. But he grabs her hand and pulls her over toward the bed once he's changed into something sleep-clothing like. "You wanna be the big spoon or the little spoon?"

Ava flops over onto the bed in a confused arrangement of limbs, one of her arms phasing right through a pillow as she buries her face into the corner of it. "Little," she mumbles a response, curling up onto her side.

She reaches a hand behind her to grasp for Klaus's. And as much difficulty she usually has getting to sleep, she's out rather quickly.

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well they said she died easy of a broken heart disease

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