on this the night all hallows' eve

[sailmods]

who: the living and the damned
when: October 31st, 8PM to 11:59 PM
where: around the main pool on deck 6
what: HALLOWEEN PARTY, 1/2
warnings: TBA

[as you exit the elevator and walk towards the pool deck on Halloween night, you follow a sort of labyrinth of panels and decorations. about halfway through the maze, a scythe swings into your path, and a tall animatronic crackles to life:]

It is harvest time. I can smell it in the air. And I sense your soul is ripe for harvesting as well. When your time comes, my scythe will cleave your soul right off the vine like a ripened pumpkin. Time for carving!

[welcome to Halloween aboard the Serena Eterna.

the Infinite Spirit Halloween has been put to good use by a crack team of Mizuki and Ebalon, and half of it seems to now be located around the deck on the main pool. the pool has been dyed a swamp-like green; fake plastic vines and (hopefully) fake plastic limbs float in the waters. there are fog machines studded throughout that are putting out a frankly dangerous amount of fog, and it can be pretty difficult to tell if your next step is onto the floor or directly into the pool.

there is food available on a long table on the side, but it’s entirely the usual fare found in the buffet, though there are also two punch bowls: one is a delicious fruit punch, and the other is about 99% vodka and then a single orange. the bar is also open, with extra liquor bottles scavenged from the other bars on the ship. Halloween music plays from unseen speakers.

Friday is here, and dressed in costume, but never seems to stop fussing and rushing around long enough to actually have a conversation with. but, hey! Jenny is here! hooray!

have fun. you have ‘til midnight.]

Comments

[theotherright]

That's the authentic Arthur experience; accept no substitutes!

"Well, er... music!"

Arthur says this with sort of the same expression with which one might pass a 'do you like me? □Y □N' note across a classroom. The quiet navigational yelling of his phone stops for a few moments, because he can't really do both that and talk at the same time.

"It's. Well. It's... a-all the songs, from the- the Muppet pictures that you like. I asked, and Rin provided them; i-it, er, it recorded them itself, I think?" A pause, because he knows what he'd think if he heard somebody calling a person 'it'. It feels like some sort of clumsy, confusing swing at an insult. "To be clear, I'm not... attempting to be dehumanising. Rin asked to be called that. Sort of a quirk of its being a machine, I think."

[ss_buttcrack]

"Oh, yeah?" He sounds excited to hear that [check y ] especially when...

"The Muppet soundtracks. Score! Hell yeah!"

Wait. Talking about "it" reminds him of something Erin said earlier. Holy shit. It really was the same Arthur. He needs to text her back like... as soon as he's done here.

"Uh, actually. I think I heard a little about that from someone else here already. You know who Erin is? She kinda-sorta told me how you got a little stuck on the term in a conversation with her. Which, I mean, I get it. I've met Rin once and he--shit, it was being kind of a jerk to me. We never got around to that part of introductions, I guess. But a robot asshole wants to be called 'it?' Sure. Whatever dude. As long as it stays out of my business." A pause. "Damn, I guess I shouldn't call it an asshole since now I get to listen to Muppets whenever I want. Frell."

[theotherright]

Arthur looks entirely delighted by Crichton's reaction. Swing and a hit.

He blinks, though, at the mention of Erin, and though it would've taken him a moment to recall the name, the situation described stands out all too clearly in his memory. And then he scowls.

"Christ," he says, irritably. "I-I don't know how she represented the conversation to you, but I was clear that I would use the word, and yet she still went into an almost-incomprehensible rant. The way she refused to say who she was talking about and whether it was nonhuman would make you think that was a matter of national fucking secrecy."

He didn't think he was still lowkey mad about this, but apparently he is! Oh and while he's good and ready to bristle--

"Wait, what did Rin say to you?" Bark bark grr bark. Arthur's never had what he would personally consider a very bad interaction with the machine, but he's more than willing to get into the ring with it for Crichton's sake.

cw: drugs/addiction

[ss_buttcrack]

"Well, she did start off by saying the conversation you had about Muppets and music was cool." Which is true. She did say that... before she called him a wet ferret. Crichton still doesn't know what to make of that but it almost sounds fitting? In a weird way. Or, maybe not. Either way, he isn't repeating that part.

"I think she might have just been feeling really protective. But, it's fine now, right? I can try and clear it up with her if you want me to?"

Speaking of feeling protective. Oh boy, he better do something before Arthur goes guard dog mode on Rin. He's put himself in a bad predicament now, of course. Because the conversation he had most recently with Rin was over his use of Lakah.

"It's not... it's nothing important. It just happened to find me on one my down days and didn't really, uh... approve of my self medicating. You don't need to bring it up. It's fine."

cw: as above

[theotherright]

"I'm not sure what there is to clear up." Arthur still sounds grumpy, though, on general principles. "If we encounter each other again -- and I-I'm sure we will; it's not that large a ship -- then either she'll act like a goddamn adult about the subject, or we just won't talk."

Simple as.

Crichton's explanation, though, gives Arthur pause. Not because he doubts it, but because he -- wrongly -- thinks he knows what it's about. It's very easy, when you can't see a damn thing, to miss your roommate taking space drugs when he's determined to hide it, and to worry about his mood swings while attributing them to the wrong sources. It's less easy to overlook the number of times he's had to steer Crichton back from the bar, or, more often, April has had to steer them both. Something Arthur started out trying to help with, and then just... ended up more often than not joining in on.

He bites his lip. It's been on his mind.

"Well." Arthur sighs, and starts to move his cane back and forth beside him, like the upside-down pendulum of a clock. "That's no excuse. But. Ah... maybe we have both been self-medicating a bit... much."

The irony of saying this while lightly buzzing on vodka-and-one-orange is not lost on him.

cw: forever probably

[ss_buttcrack]

"Fair enough. Just thought I'd offer in case there were still some, you know, prickly feelings." Which, he's not gonna lie, it sounds like there might be... "What with the two of you being the only blind passengers on the ship it would be better if you could commiserate about it, don't you think?" Birds of a feather and all that.

Uh oh. He can see the wheels turning in Arthur's mind. Now, he has a choice to make. He could let the wrong assumption stand, the way he has done for all this time. He's admittedly been hitting the bottle pretty hard these days, too, to make up for what when the Lakah alone doesn't cut it. That should be a warning sign, probably. But so what? He dies of liver damage, he comes back good as new, right? ...Except, then Arthur might think it was his fault for not stepping in. The last thing he needs is an attempted intervention. Shit. What if Arthur goes to ask Rin about it too?

Dammit.

"Yeah. I guess we have." He brings his thumb up to his lips and bites nervously at his cuticle. Can he do this? Is now really the time or place? Is there ever really a good time for this?

"I need to tell you something. Try not to be instantly upset. Please? Because... I've been using a little bit more than just booze."

[theotherright]

The only what. That one takes Arthur by surprise. "She's blind? Good god. She didn't seem... hm." He assumed, at the time, that she could see his hand in order to shake it, but... huh. "I must have been mistaken. God, I'll have to start actually returning books in braille to the library."

A dry joke, but a joke nonetheless, as his irritation passes with the evolution of the subject.

At Crichton's prelude-to-confession... he pauses, and frowns, though it's a frown of attention -- and, faintly, of concern -- rather than one of anger.

"Go on."

cw: drugs/addiction

[ss_buttcrack]

"You didn't know either?" What is he going to do with these two? Seriously. "I think she's probably been blind a lot longer than you have. She got around pretty good from what I saw. But uh... she was also Smurf at the time so I almost stepped on her." Oh no. He's going to have to explain what a Smurf is, isn't he? He might prefer that explanation to the one he's going to have to give now.

He appreciates Arthur making a real effort here. So. Here goes. "There's a substance I ran into out there in space that... when you sniff it, it dulls yours emotions and...takes away your reactions to it for a while. Kind of like throwing a wet blanket over everything. You get a few hours of just feeling... numb."

cw continues obviously

[theotherright]

"And what's a Smurf when it's at home?" Yep, you set yourself up for that one Crichton buddy.

Arthur goes on a bit of an interesting face journey as he listens to Crichton begin his story, and skips ahead to the rather obvious conclusion, and tries, tries, tries not to get pissed, since he did implicitly agree not to. He presses his lips together. He turns his head off to one side, and then the other, and then back towards Crichton. He taps his fingers against his cane rather harder than necessary. He doesn't yell.

"And you've been using that substance here."

For how fucking long? No, he holds that in and gives Crichton a chance to reply. It must have been a while, though: certain moments and mood swings would make so much more sense if it has. God damn it. What's it been doing to him as the doses added up? And Arthur, meanwhile, has been a blind and oblivious idiot to it all. God damn it.

cw continues obviously

[ss_buttcrack]

"Long story..." He is tempted to get into that story if only to save himself from having to answer Arthur's more pressing question. Watching Arthur's face move through all those different emotions is its own kind of pain when he can practically hear the thoughts that must be ringing inside Arthur's head.

"... Yes." He has the good sense to sound ashamed, at least. "It showed up at the Sundries for me a little bit before that uh... meeting we had in the library." And then, after the revelations they got there, he fell back on an old crutch to help him cope with it all.

"It's not dangerous. There aren't any lasting side-effects." Aside from the obvious... an addiction to escaping emotion.