He brought me out into the hall, I could have sworn it was haunted (OTA)

[saltwaterlungs]

CHARACTERS: Darcy, Erin, and you?
DATE: Mid-october
LOCATION: Sports deck, Drunken Sailor, Life boats
SITUATION: Darcy’s no good very bad hell cruise
WARNINGS: Shit’s probably going to get dark here folks. CWs for underaged drinking and suicidal ideation at the least.

To hear that there was nothing that I could do to save you (Erin)

The fight club following Darcy’s talk with Skulduggery is… distinctly less enthusiastic than the previous iterations. Erin will find Darcy sat over by the training sabres, rumpled like she’s slept in her clothes. She’s keeping an eye on the rest of the club over folded arms resting on her knees, and she barely looks up when Erin approaches.

The choir's gonna sing and then this thing is gonna kill you

Friday apparently isn’t checking up on anyone sneaking drinks when they’re not meant to. Of course, initially Darcy wasn’t going to try and drink her problems away like she was in a fucking country song. It had just made her sad the one time she’d tried it with Izzy. But after a couple of days of a mess of feelings that she feels entirely unequipped to deal with, Darcy kind of wants to just deal with sad. It’s not like she can talk to anyone about one of her most important relationships aboard the ship utterly imploding. Once again, she is alone in her burdens.

Find her curled up in one of the comfy chairs of the Drunken Sailor with a bottle of rum, headphones in, avoiding everyone.

Something in my throat made my next words shake

Even being on the ship gets too claustrophobic eventually. Like all the secrets she’s been forced to keep will come spilling out of her at the slightest provocation. She can’t bring herself to try and help the aimless newbies, she can’t hunt the Bahamanal in the newly-halloween-ified Tommy Bahama, she can’t drag herself to training. Eventually she packs the backpack she got from camp with some changes of clothes and whatever she can find in the buffet that seems like it’ll keep for a couple of days. And then, she sets herself to stealing one of the life boats.

Stop her or help her, if you want.

And something in the wires made the light bulbs break (wildcard)

(go nuts, show nuts, whatever)

Comments

Just A Faint Reflection (Darcy)

[crushed_pearls]

Erin's feeling pretty good, right up until she enters the club and catches a taste of the Glamour coming off Darcy. Her ears droop in concern, but she comes to a decision pretty quick.

"Hey," she greets, softly. "You wanna fuck off somewhere a bit more private? I can get Ruby to run me through my paces later. You seem...out of it."

[saltwaterlungs]

"'m fine, just didn't sleep well," she says like she's ever had a good nights rest in her life and she's not giving off sufficient wrath and sorrow to power half a freehold for a year.

"You wanted to be shown the training sabres, right? I'll need to get you a jacket first."

Things must be bad if she can't even muster up enthusiasm to talk swords.

[crushed_pearls]

"Okay. Let me be a teacher for a minute then: you're in no condition, I can tell, and I'm not gonna let you hurt yourself training raw like this." Erin jerks her head towards the corridors. "...You probably don't think of me as a friend but you're closer to one than I've had in a long time. Everyone can think the blind bitch didn't want them to see you kick her ass."

[saltwaterlungs]

"That's honestly really sad for you."

Darcy rolls her eyes and glances towards the corridors and the elevator and such.

"It's not anything I can talk about. And I mean properly seriously. Not 'you can wheedle it out of me' if you try hard enough, I mean if you bother me about it I will fucking deck you."

Something in my throat made my next words shake

[prince_of_beasts]

Dimitri hasn't been sleeping lately. Or rather, he's been sleeping even less than usual. The nightmares have been worse since learning he can't go home -- that he's never been home. He occupies his restless hours patrolling the ship's floors, making long loops around each deck before moving to the next.

His pulse skips as, midway down the open deck, he sees a figure by the mechanism for the lifeboats. He picks up his pace, then breaks into a jog, until he's close enough that the silhouette resolves in recognition.

"Darcy?"

[saltwaterlungs]

Shit.

Darcy throws the last of her things into the life boat and vaults herself in, immediately going for the mechanism to winch herself down. A prayer to St Expedite on her lips as she tries to remember how Clarke had worked it all those months ago.

"C'mon- shit, c'mon-"

[prince_of_beasts]

Something's wrong. Dimitri starts to run, long legs covering the distance quickly. "What's wrong? What's happening?!" he shouts.

If Darcy is lowering the lifeboats, there must be an emergency.

[saltwaterlungs]

Darcy pulls her hood up over her head as if that was going to prevent Dimitri from recognizing her and just... stops. Leans her head against the side of the ship.

"Nothing's happening, Dimitri, I just... want to not be around people for a while."

my next words

[goodweather]

[ Darcy is a good fifty feet down the side of the ship already when--silent as a shadow, his tattered wings barely a whisper on the air as they buffet his descent--Phil drops into the lifeboat. Pins have finally started to come in where a hole was ripped through the feathers, but the whole looks more unkempt than usual.

This also means that if Darcy wants to put Phil back on the ship, she has to do it herself. ]

You got a plan?

Re: my next words

[saltwaterlungs]

"Gah- Jesus-"

Darcy startles- revenge for all the times she's snuck up on him- managing just to keep her footing. Fuck.

"Spend like, a day or two by my fucking self, fucking hell-" Darcy makes her way over to the mechanism and stops the boat's descent.

"Leave me alone."

[goodweather]

"Sure."

He doesn't move.

[saltwaterlungs]

"I'll throw you off this fucking boat, I can do it," she snaps, burning in her throat.

"I can't fucking do this. Fuck off."

She'll start winding the mechanism to draw the boat back up. Because she is, of course, full of shit.

The choir's gonna sing and then this thing is gonna kill you

[decohere]

She's wandered in to see if there's any cups to salvage because she's beginning to run low in the cafe, and then she spots Darcy.

Who doesn't look like she wants to be bothered. Ava stares for a moment in worry, no idea if she's even noticed in return. And then disappears just as quietly as she came.

She returns awhile later with a blanket and a hot tea, draping the first over Darcy and setting the drink down on the table near her.

[saltwaterlungs]

Darcy pretends not to notice when Ava enters the first time. Pretends like the alcohol has dulled her hypervigilance at all, like she's not sat with a view of the door like her mother taught her. But she's a decent bit more tipsy when Ava returns, so startles a little when the blanket appears on her. She glances down at the tea and then up at Ava.

"Thanks," she mumbles, pulling it a little tighter over herself, forced to set the bottle down by the chair. She hasn't made much progress on it, but it turns out she's a lightweight.

"You didn't... thanks."

[decohere]

"Need to?" Ava suggests the missing words, hovering by the arm of the chair. She'd expected to be told off instead, and she's not sure if that means Darcy is in a worse state or a better one than she anticipated.

She breathes out slowly. She knows she tends to say all the wrong things to the young woman. She knows she can never get her words right despite all her best intentions. So she tries to use fewer of them. "I know. But I wanted to."

[saltwaterlungs]

"Mm," Darcy confirms, shifting how she's curled up on the seat to get comfier.

"You can sit if you want. I don't feel like talking, but you don't have to go."

Hollow Hunger (Closed to Dimitri; Just After The Big Darcy Talk Above)

[crushed_pearls]

Erin comes back alone after leaving with Darcy. She looks worse for wear; her clothes are hanging differently (putting all her weapons back in a hurry will do that to a lass), and she won't stop wiping at her nose with the back of her wrist. Her normally confident movements have a certain raggedness to the edges, and yet she unerringly seeks out Dimitri where the lad is performing his customary routines.

"Got a bit of an offer, youngblood," she not-greets. Her voice is a thousand miles away. "I won't bitch about how hard you hit me as long as you return the favor and we both keep all our bones and teeth. Whaddya say? Want a piece of something that bites back?"

[prince_of_beasts]

Dimitri's not in much better shape. His form is steady, but his movements are jerky and hurried. He's trying to push himself, trying not to think, trying to dissolve into the familiar patterns and forget anything but the beat of his heart, the swell of his breath, the chill of sweat outlining his skin.

It's not really working. Erin's approach is more than welcome; a moment later, Dimitri registers that Darcy's gone, and pieces the scene back together.

"I'd like nothing better," he says, sounding exhausted. His diction's blurred around the edges, scorched and flaky, his accent thicker than usual. "What happened to Darcy? Is she alright?"

[crushed_pearls]

Erin sighs. "No, but...maybe a bit better after she sits with it for a bit. We had a long talk and it's not all my business to tell. Weapons or hand to hand?"

Something in my throat made my next words shake

[sabigoe]

Whenever Darcy turns away from making preparations on the lifeboat, she'll make eye contact with a certain tiny, blonde pigtailed girl. It's Fio... and Calcite, only the floating plush dragon present with her at this time. Judith appears to have been left behind today.

She stares at Darcy, not saying anything for a moment. Only with a look of distress across her face.

"You're going away?" It's not as if any of them can get past the barrier, but still... she sounds hurt, almost accusatory. "Don't leave."

[saltwaterlungs]

Why are there so many fucking people out on this particular part of the deck at this hour of night- and it's Fio. She can't even be mad, because it's Fio. Darcy takes a deep breath and retrieves her shit from the life boat, crouching down in front of her.

"Hey- 'm not going anywhere, okay? I'm here."

She reaches to smooth Fio's hair, unable to muster the wherewithal to smile.

"Where's Judie?"

[sabigoe]

It's rare, but it's not all that unusual to be finding Fio wandering the ship aimlessly at weird hours of the night.

"She's back in my cabin with Princess Pink." Which she says, like Darcy would even know who 'Princess Pink' would be. Just one of the newer additions to her stuffed doll collection. Someday, she'll introduce the third. Some nights she doesn't have all of them, but there's always at least one present for protection.

Deep breaths, trying to calm herself. Don't cry. She doesn't feel entirely soothed even when Darcy touches her hair.

"If you weren't going away, then... then what's the backpack for?"

the choir's gonna sing

[uncodlyawwesome]

It's definitely a good thing that the teenagers on this boat are allowed to drink, and not a disaster waiting to happen! Especially because Eridan is technically only six Earth years old. He'll have to wait a while before this ship lets him drink!

Eridan wanders into the Drunken Sailor like he owns the place, mostly because he thinks he kind of does. He clocks Darcy in the corner and squints in her direction, but doesn't immediately bother her. He is, after all, on a mission!

That mission? Apparently includes loudly picking through the bottles behind the bar. Clanking bottles, loud scoffing, and the occasional loud rrrrrrrrip as he tries with various degrees of success to pull the labels of various bottles.

[saltwaterlungs]

"If you don't stop making noises and shit then I'm cutting you open and seeing if you have a swim bladder."

Darcy croaks, not looking in his direction.

[uncodlyawwesome]

"Blah blah blah." Eridan rolls his eyes. RRRRRRRRip, that one came off nice! "You don't look like you got the energy to stand, much less gut me. Just sit ovver there listenin' to Troll Elliot Smith an' leavve me to my machinations."