lifeaftr | get your towels ready, it's about to go down

Entry tags:

get your towels ready, it's about to go down

Who: Whoever would like to have been picked up after March's event.
What: We're on a boat. No, seriously. That's the whole pitch.
When: Very late on March 19th, presumably.
Where: The middle of the ocean, my friends.
Warnings: Y'all can handle that.

On paper, the plan was simple: get a boat, sail everyone back. In practice . . . It was a lot less simple.

Getting the boat had been something of an ordeal, but it happened. Nobody has to know that the blind man stole it, because Connor is the one sailing it. He is sure as fuck sailing it back to Enso, despite the fact that he has never in his life actually sailed anything as big as the boat they stole and may have lied a little when he said he could "sail." Nobody had to know that either, okay? Nobody had to know any of that, because he is going to sail this boat back and the Jormun are going to fucking help him.

Hours 1&2
Unfortunately, Connor was in such a hurry to, like, leave? That he did not exactly ask the Jormun what the best route back was. He just kinda picked a direction and went which has led to a run in with some new shit from the bestiary: lightning eels. To quote the bestiary:

Considerably territorial, lightning eels range between four to eight feet in length. Sleek grey, their pointed, though rather small teeth may convey a sense of little threat- until they begin to spark, that is. Lightning eels are highly conductive to electricity and store up to a lightning bolt's worth of electricity in their small frames; whilst they won't release it all in one go, those close by them will certainly find these slithering creatures to be quite... shocking.

Have fun with that. The lightning won't really do much to the boat itself, so just don't fucking fall in, yeah? Seriously. Please don't fall in, Connor did not actually complete his lifesaving merit badge and only has a vague idea of how to perform water rescues.

Hours 3&4
A decent chunk of the way into the journey back, Connor will point to something in the water and say "Oh, they're here. We're going the right way." In the water is a group of sea otters. If you ask nicely, the Jormun will catch a few so . . . you can all eat. Unsurprisingly? Connor did not think to pack food for this hastily assembled rescue mission, so if you're hungry, sea otter is all you're getting. Bone apple tea, everyone.

Bonus: sea otter pelts. They're very soft and warm. Sea otters have fur up the wazoo.

Hours 5&6
Do you want to sail the boat? Great, because Connor is about to hand the wheel over to whoever's closest because he has to go talk with the Jormun about something. It's fine. Just keep the boat straight for ten minutes, you won't crash anything out in the open sea. If you want to listen in, Connor and the Jormun are discussing a type of plant known as lightroot. It can be picked and will act like a lantern for a while, but what they're actually talking about is cultivating it as a kind of . . . underwater landing strip. Don't worry about it. I'm sure this will never come up again.

Once Enso is in sight, Connor will actually sail around the island until he reaches the cove in D8. He's just gonna leave the boat there, like 20m/22yd out in the water, so. If you wanna swim to shore, that's fine. If you can't swim or don't want to, he'll come back with the boat from islet 2 after he swims to shore. Y'all are responsible for getting your own asses home after he brings the boat, though. It is not his responsibility anymore? He got everyone home, he's out.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I said you could keep it if it didn't belong to anybody! Half of those have names on them, stupid.

[Which means they probably belong to one of the Storyteller's people. It's the same hecking bag they all have.]

Yeah, and they probably died.

[Well, at least two people were left behind in the Water. Maybe more. Doesn't that put their stuff up to the lottery or something? Finders keepers?]

I helped get it back, so I get first dibs. [THAT'S SUPER HOW THIS WORKS NOW.]

How can you say that. [There's tears in his eyes now. Because it's true. Some of those whose bags are here won't be on this boat. They won't return to Enso. They would be dead because they hadn't saved everyone.

Shion hadn't saved anyone. He hadn't had the control to save anyone. People had died. He remembered the boy in the city, looking for Seto. Was Seto dead? Ren? The injured prisoner who Shion had tried to help.

Dead or sleeping forever, it was the same thing really. And this boy didn't even seem to care. He shook his head and reached over to the packs again] I'm giving these back to everyone.

. . . You know you just come back when you die here, right?

[That was like the first thing people told him when he arrived. Admittedly, that is 100% because Connor is Connor and probably not something people just tell other people when they arrive but he doesn't know that. Sometimes he forgets that not everyone is suffering from various forms of brain junk.

He also forgets that not everyone is as casual about death as he is. It's stopped mattering to him, on a certain level, and he forgets that death is a thing people fear. A thing that they feel.]

It sucks and it's worse than dying for real, but you can't keep people's shit because they're temporarily dead.

They might not come back. You never know.

[Yep, this is super something you should be voicing aloud to Connor fucking Murphy.]

The Water’s this big scary thing that no one understands. Can’t really know if someone will come back - at all. ]He sure is reveling in this, though it might have more to do with the effect it’s having on Shion.]

[Shion had picked up two of the rucksacks but at Ceej's words he froze, the bags fell to the deck with a thunk.

You know you just come back when you die

It was like the Tower. People didn't stay dead. They died and came back. It wasn't real. They weren't real. Trapped souls, who knew what these islands were in reality. Fake like the Tower? False.

He had had a list in his head since he arrived, ever since the islands in the sky he had been leaning towards this conclusion but this confirmed it. A noise escaped him, if it was a sob or a laugh he had no idea.

It didn't even matter. The other boy was still talking, the water might be worse than death. Was worse than death. People wouldn't come back from that but they could from death.]

Shut up.

[The words burst out of him, he is shaking but he's not sure if it's panic or anger. Helplessness or rage. He's span around again facing the other boy but the anger is quickly drained. It's all too much... this on top of everything.]

You wanna bet? Because I'll kill myself again. I have no fucking qualms about dying.

[Connor doesn't - well, he actually does mean that. He always means it, because for as much as being on the islands has improved his general mood it didn't magically cure him of depression. Of the constant, constant wish to just not exist. To just stop.

He's about to keep yelling at Gabe, but Shion cuts in and he remembers that. That there's people? Who actively care about his wellbeing? It's such a foreign concept to him, but. But Muffet brought him bread. Tim - Tim asked if he was okay. They - they'd probably care if he died again.]

. . . Sorry. I didn't. I didn't mean that.

[Nobody has to know that that's a lie but him.]

[That stops him dead, for all the wrong reasons.]

[I’ll kill myself again.]

[It’s not that he’s stupid, although he is. It’s that he’s spent too much of his non-existence actively straining the boundaries of reality, pressing up against edges, frantic to even mimic the sensation of being alive for his own sake. Always a specter of memory, just out of sight, always just barely qualifying as a presence in the family purely out of his absence from it.]

[The fact that someone would take their own life for any reason at all when he would’ve given anything to live his - hasn’t really occurred to him.]

You killed yourself. [It sounds more like a question than it does a repetition of what was just said, but there it is.] You killed yourself?

[Ceej's words make Shion turn to him instead, blinking at him sadly. Shion doesn't know if he that again means that he killed himself here on these islands, or before. But it doesn't really matter. Wanting to end everything, wishing to stop existing. That feeling was the same even if you were aware it could only be temporary.

The idea that Ceej died, that Ceej took his own life is horrifying. Hearing him announce he had no qualms about dying...

Shion had no qualms about dying either. But hearing that sentiment from someone else, someone he cared about filled him with sadness. He didn't want Ceej to feel like that, wouldn't want anyone to feel like that.

He vaguely is aware of the other boys words but he is just staring up at Ceej, looking worried and upset.

[Connor's going to respond, but all that comes out is hysterical laughter.

Back home, nobody believed him. He'd said it over and over and over and they didn't believe him. They said if he went outside, the crushing ennui of life would just go away, and the irony of that has just hit him. He's stuck outside, doing physical work and getting sun and all these other crap people told him would make him better and it didn't really make anything better.

He's sailing a fucking boat, he's the big damn hero people always want to be and . . . he still wants to die. He still wants to fucking jump in the water, sink, and never come back up.]

Yeah. [He hiccups, trying to stop the laughter.] I fucking did. And then I did it again! Because I'm still a fucking useless basketcase!

[It's funny because his only hobby is making baskets, see.]

[He can't wrap his mind around it. He can't just...why would you? He fought tooth and nail for some semblance of living, for some ghost of the experience of getting to exist the way everyone else does, and someone just ups and throws it away? Twice over?]

You lived, and you just - chose not to? [He almost sounds angry. THIS IS GREAT.]

You threw it away?

[The laughter confused him for a moment, but even though Shion is awful at picking up humour he doesn't think this is some kind of joke that he is missing. Not with the way the other boy is reacting, not with the way Ceej looks. The laughter is more panic than actual laughter. Some sort of non laughter that has a million emotions of which none are actual amusement.

He opens his mouth to speak. Because if Shion's not allowed to call himself a nutjob than Ceej isn't allowed to call himself a useless basketcase. Because useless is the very last thing that Ceej is. He literally just saved all their lives. But the other boy is speaking again, speaking angrily.]

I said shut up. [His eyes are blazing as he turns back to the other boy. Because Shion won't let him get angry at Ceej.]

[You threw it away?

The anger seeping into Gabe's voice snaps him out of his hysteria. It's a trained response, and Connor visibly flinches when he hears it.]

. . . You sound just like him. [It's quieter than he's been for the rest of the conversation - not really intended to carry across the distance. Then, more loudly:] Sorry my crazy offends you. I'll try harder to be less depressed in the future.

[There's a heavily sarcastic undertone to the statement, because that's just. That's just how he's been trained to deal with situations like this. Lash out, get into a fight, and maybe feel something other than crushing ennui for a brief moment. It's chasing the worst high he knows, and he can't stop himself from doing it.]

You lived for years. For years, and then you just -

[He just chose not to?]

[He barely registers that he's being told to shut up on both sides, that he's crossed lines. He crosses lines practically for a living. Or for an unliving. He sounds just like him, just like...whoever! He doesn't care.]

I'd kill for that.

[It had to stop. This boy was upsetting Ceej, but it was clear that something... this boy was upset too. But he had to stop, this all had to stop. Shion's breath was coming to quickly but he didn't have time to calm down.]

Stop [He's stepped up to Gabe again, in his face] Stop talking.

[The retort is on the tip of his tongue: Then do it.

He wants to say it. He wants to, but he knows he can't because he has a stupid responsibility and this is his ~~water bottle~~ boat now so he has to be responsible for it.]

I'm mentally ill, motherfucker. Sometimes you just want to -

[Connor doesn't finish. He just shrugs. There's no point in explaining it.]

[He shouts around Shion, because he's at least taller than the little bastard. His expression is as far removed from that cocky smirk as it's possible to be - cold, locked, and ever so bitter.]

At least you've got the courage to admit it. Not everyone does, you know!

They say it's just a hiccup, when she bleeds out on the bathroom floor, so they have to shock it out of her.

[Shion has... well he's realised that he doesn't know what is going on here. He understands all the words that are being said but the context, he's missing something. He's not stupid, he can work out what Ceej means by mentally ill. Sort of. But his experiences of the world being a 'perfect' city, a slum town and a Tower of horrors beyond the worlds before these islands this is the first time he's ever heard the term, the idea that you could be ill mentally. Though he understood what Ceej meant when he says it. His mind tries to think of a thousand things at once and he tries to wrench it back to the moment.

The other boy though, he seems to know and he's still talking and Shion is barely following his words but his eyes are cold and bitter and it's hard for Shion to meet them with his own, confused and panicked.]

Shock it out of her? [His voice is quiet, he doesn't even seem to realise he has spoken outloud. Shock who? Shock how?]

At least she gets treatment! You know why I'm so fucked up? I'm not worth the cost of treatment. [I'm not paying for this if you won't even try to get better, Connor!] I'm not worth anything, because I'm not perfect little Zoe with her perfectly neurotypical brain.

[Larry Murphy ruined a lot of things, but the biggest thing he ever ruined was Connor's self-esteem. Connor used to try, but then he realized there wasn't any point to trying. If he tried his hardest, it never fucking matched up to whatever unreasonable standard his father set. It never even came close - anything below an A+ was a personal reflection of how lazy Connor was. Every missed pitch was proof he'd never amount to anything.]

Everything I ever did was just for attention. Me, bleeding out in a bathtub? I just wanted attention.

[There's a seething fury in the way Connor says the word "attention," like that specific word is the cause of all his problems. And maybe it is: if anyone had ever paid attention to him when he was alive, maybe none of this would be happening.]

Oh, it was treatment all right. [Now he looks Shion in the eye, but it's all cold spite, devoid of even the cruel, false friendliness he paints across himself.] They said it would help. Said it would cure her, so she wouldn't do it again. Y'know what happened instead?

She forgot everything. Everything. Nineteen years, and she - and they said she was better for it.

[He seethes, glowering at the pair of them.]

You think that's worth it, when she forgets everything you used to be?

You are. [He drags his eyes away from the cold spite of the other boy and turns back towards Ceej. The other boy is shouting again, about cures and forgetting and he has no idea who she is but it was awful. No one should be made to forget anything. Memories were so precious, no one was better for forgetting. What awful place did this boy come from that he knew someone who had nineteen years of memory wiped from them.

But Ceej's words are also ringing in his mind, not worth anything, not worth the cost. Like people could put a price on such things. On people. Anger rises in him that someone had convinced Ceej he was not worth anything. Convinced him so much that it had led him to die.

The same anger that had risen him in the city was threatening to rise again. There was no where that was not awful. Shion was a naive brat and it was on him that he was just finding this out. The anger rose and he had to control it. Couldn't lose control not again. Not on this boat.

It's so much, so much awfulness. He wanted to hurt whoever had told Ceej he was worth nothing, he wanted to hurt whoever thought wiping memories was the answer to anything. Wanted to hurt this boy for not caring about people who had died, however temporary. His hands were clenched by his side, his breath coming far too fast. He squeezed his eyes shut but opened them again a second later when the dark got too much for him, clenched his teeth together, his arms were trembling, panic and anger warring against each other.]

[The fight drains out of Connor, shoulders slumping. He's too tired for this argument. Too tired to explain that yeah, actually. He'd take being better at almost any cost, because it would almost certainly be better than fading away into the background. It would almost certainly be better than being systematically cut out of people's lives because they just didn't want to deal with him.]

Whatever, dude. I have more important shit to do than argue with you about whatever mental health hang-ups you've acquired because your [Mom? Sister? Probably mom.] mother was a basketcase. Can you just not cause any more trouble for the next . . . four hours?

[His blood's still roaring, but Shion looks like he's about to pass out, and if no one's willing to pick that fight with him, then where's the fun in bothering? He scoffs and tries jamming his hands into his pockets before remembering he cut them off, and has to settle for crossing his arms across his chest instead. Shrugging, like that might imply this was his idea, and therefore that he can take away some kind of imaginary victory from it.]

Yeah. Try not to drown us. Or do, if you want it that badly.

[Shion's nails bite into his palms with the effort of not turning round and throwing himself at the other boy in rage. Because he is still speaking, still throwing vile words at Ceej and part of Shion wants to tear his throat out. The part of him that he is desperately trying to suppress.

Because Ceej is trying to sail a boat and he said to cause no trouble, no fighting. Four hours. Shion had caused far too much trouble so far. He had to calm down. Breathe. A step, another step. Walking away. He could see Aster sleeping. She couldn't be more than twelve steps away.

He focused on breathing, on causing no trouble on not turning around and starting another fight. On not crumpling to the floor and screaming at nothing and everything. One foot, another foot. He barely made it but he finally collapsed at his sisters side and brought his knees up to his chest, hugging his knees with his good arm. At Aster's side he was as safe as he could ever be and he closed his eyes, falling into the chaos of his mind.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

get your towels ready, it's about to go down

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

cw: suicide as . . . a threat. i'm very sorry.

cw for more of That Shit tbh

continues the cw: suicide

cw: connor being connor tbh

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

cw: suicide mention

cw: suicide mention

cw: child neglect (and also attempted suicide)

no subject

cw: mentions of suicide and also panic

no subject

no subject

no subject