theotherright | come sail away IC inbox

[Mind your step, Arthur, because the doorstep is wet and slick with something, giving off a sickening metallic scent. A crumpled yellow bathrobe lies just outside the door, soaked with the same liquid.

A dripping sound can be heard, as the door is similarly smeared. Should Arthur ask anyone to describe it, it spells:]

[ Arthur knows the smell of blood extremely well. He can tell what this is, and he can tell that there is a lot of it. ]

Oh, [ he says, low, shaken even without being able to see the uh, friendly little 'humans can lick too'-ass note. ] Oh jesus.

[ Okay, there's-- his cane is touching a soft lump outside the door and he really really hopes it's not a body. Impulsively, he crouches to check, and-- it's fabric? A towel?-- no, there are sleeves-- a robe? ]

Oh god, it's saturated--

[ His stomach turns over. He half intends to burst into the cabin itself and find out if this is a trail that leads inside, find out what the fuck is going on, but he stops himself-- he's reckless, but he's not that reckless. This much blood didn't get here by itself: someone's hurt or dead, and he doesn't know who but he's Worried and he needs his eyes right now--

Arthur's phone is in his now-bloody hand, and a quiet robot voice is very rapidly yelling out HOMESCREEN! SHIPTALK! RECENTS! as he hurriedly navigates to text his fucking roommate.

Crichton you need to get back to the cabin

Speech-to-text is a blessing, because he's still not used to using the weird little screen keyboard thing, and he's not about to stop and figure out the damn thing now. ]

Edited (what kind of a phone can't make calls. i'm leaving this cruise a bad review) 2022-10-11 21:34 (UTC)

[ ...no answer from Crichton. ]

Shit. ...Shit.

[ It might be coincidence; he might have just not heard his phone. But Arthur often has trouble believing in coincidence, and he's increasing his Worry to the level of Extremely Worry.

But it might be coincidence. He might have just not heard his phone.

But...

He puts his hand on the cabin's door-handle, and he turns his head, the better to hear the corridor behind him, and he rapidly calls April, and hopes that she's nearby. ]

Yellow?

*Hello fucking voice to text hey Arthur what's happening for the love of god tell me were still on for karaoke tomorrow

Edited 2022-10-11 21:28 (UTC)

Oh thank God for that blood on the door the cupboard the cupboard door candle curtains mine where are you

[ Speech-to-text does not like it when Arthur talks this quickly. ]

[April, having been French-Canadian for a stint, can recognize a technological linguistic hate crime in progress when they see one, and filters accordingly. Which doesn't translate the text perfectly mind you, but they can at least hazard a guess that Arthur is upset about something.

It takes them a moment to debate answering, in case he's the weepy kind of upset, but mention of blood has them curious enough to go for it.]

I'm headed to guest services why do you need anything

Come to the cabin come to the cabin I need ice

[ YOU KNOW WHAT, CLOSE ENOUGH ]

[April arrives ten minutes with their purse still over their shoulder and a bag of ice stolen from one of the bars in the other.

They come to a stop between their and Arthur's door and stare at the wall.]

Oh.

Edited 2022-10-11 23:02 (UTC)

[ Ten minutes is a long time when you're waiting by a bloody doorway. By the time April gets there, Arthur's bloody up to the wrists from investigating the bathrobe, and he's sent like, five increasingly Worried texts to Crichton's phone, all unanswered.

When April speaks, he shoves the bloodstained phone back in his pocket and turns in her direction, looking a little frantic. Please appreciate the self-control it has taken him not to go running off to find his roommate. ]

April? Have you seen Crichton? He- he's not answering his phone.

[April raises eyebrows they don't bother to manifest.]

Uh, not yet I haven't no. Hey, what the fuck?

[Now that they've taken in the scene, they've noticed that the blood on the wall is letters.]

The hell is this redrum shit? Where'd they get the blood-

[Ah, right, yeah.]

So, okay, you found the yellow bathrobe, that's good, but eh, keep calm for this next part because someone left you a note.

The yellow-- what the fuck?

[ Arthur's already... not at maximum alarmed, but at a reasonably high alarm level, so he doesn't necessarily sound more alarmed now. But the alarm certainly continues to exist.

That's targeted. That's specific. That's-- what the fuck. Who even knows about the-- okay, stupid question, roughly half the ship caught him throwing away the yellow robe. ]

A note? I didn't find a... [ beat. realisation. ] Oh.

[ He closes his bloodied hands. The note on the door is a little worse for wear, because he did sort of find it -- he just didn't know about it. ]

[Yep, there he goes, figuring it out. April nods, but for themselves.]

Honestly, kind of a dick move, you know? [Since, like, he's blind and all. It's not even in blood-braille.]

... If you're wondering, it says "Dear Arthur can't wait for you to join us", which is like, the most basic shit you can write trying to sound creepy. 'oooh come join ussss' you might as well just say 'you're going to die' for the same amount of finesse and presence. Which like, good for you, that's one of the constants in life, what's next? 'You'll pay your taxes'? Like hell I will. Fuck off.

[ Maybe he was supposed to wait for it to scab before trying to read it?

Either way, while it's pretty fucking creepy to be addressed by name in a blood message, some of the effect is lost in April's utterly unscary delivery. The robe honestly feels more like a threat, and already let him know that this little display was meant for him in particular. ]

Who the fuck...

[ The conversation with Bash has been running through his head, and it would be a neat explanation but... why would something possessing Jeff single out Arthur of all people? Is there more than one person with blood on their door today? Jesus, he hopes not, even if only because the blood all has to come from somewhere. From someone. ]

And why the robe... just to show that they know? I'm missing pieces of this picture, but I don't know how many. And...

[ Speaking of where the blood comes from, there's a question more pressing than any of this: ]

Come inside with me. I-if you're willing. I need someone to tell me if I see a... a body.

[ A body. Not anyone's specific body. Not the body of the friend who still hasn't messaged him back. Please no body, but particularly, please not that body. ]

Edited 2022-10-12 03:17 (UTC)

[...]

Yeah, sure.

[Said without the weight of judgement for the tryhard ghosts, or blandness from a lack of feeling about blood.

Plus that bag of ice is cold and wet and April would like to put it down in like, a minifridge or something]

Thank you.

[ He knows that's a bit of an ask.

Arthur braces himself, and pushes open the cabin door.

And there's... drumroll... ]

Fuckin nothing.

[April says, with a briefly blunted slightly nasal infliction. They take a few steps in, look around, ~~unmanifest their nose~~ and turn to Arthur.]

Clear, no stains or anything. Least the locks are still working, eh?

Yes, that's- that's something.

[ It's an automatic response, because his brain is revving. Okay. Crichton's still not answered, but he's also not lying dead in their room, so that's... a good sign? Please be a good sign?

Whether or not it's a good sign, Arthur's getting to the thinking-out-loud part of the process. ]

But that still leaves the question of where the blood came from. Or, more accurately, who the blood came from. Even I can tell that wasn't an amount you'd get from a, a- a superficial cut. Not to mention the question of who the hell 'us' is supposed to be.

[Once they're both in the room, April shuts the door behind them, because while they don't care, they also don't want to be interrupted.]

Obviously someone who doesn't know you too well, or they wouldn't have addressed it to you.

[Since-] Since it's not like you could read it. I mean, hell, if it weren't for the robe soaking up so much of it, would you have even noticed? Imagine if they did this while we were all out at the bar and all that shit dried up?

[Seriously, amateur hour stuff here.]

... You do have a good point about where it came from. Not like they have a farmer's market onboard. Seems like a lot of trouble to go through for such a piss-poor effort.

Well, the, the smell alone was pervasive, but I take your point.

[ Which doesn't rule out a possessed Jeff, if the thing possessing him can't access his memories -- as John couldn't. God, Arthur really doesn't like the direction his own thoughts are taking. ]

You know, we assumed it was a simple death threat, but what if it's even more straightforward than that? Instead of the dead in general, 'us' could simply mean the writer of the message. Still a threat, but... but not of death. I...

[ He can't help but fidget with his left hand, a tell that some unenjoyable bullshit is running through his mind. ]

I suppose there's no time like the present to mention that somebody on the ship has been possessed by one of the ghosts.

[ And if that's the case, then there's very much a text he needs to send. ]

Edited 2022-10-13 19:33 (UTC)

A death threat seems kind of pointless since-

[Wait, hold on, she started talking before Arthur was fully done, it seems and what he says is wild enough to stop her cold and listen.]

Wait, are you fucking serious?

[While said with incredulity, it's not the dismissive kind. The 'woah shit that's crazy' kind, not enthusiasm but wow, shocking news!

... they cross their arms.]

If this was that guy then I'm even more disappointed. Ghosts today.

[ There's a horrible pause in which Arthur considers the implications of more than one person being possessed, and attempts to run through every part of his and April's interaction so far, to look for moments where she might have acted strangely--

He doesn't think she has. Not that he's noticed. And doubting her just now feels a lot like doubting his own senses: that way lies madness, and, more importantly, the inability to get anything done. ]

Your job, [ he says, remembering. The detail had slipped his mind until now or he might have mentioned it to Bash before. ] Have you dealt with possessions before? Wait-- wait, no, I'm sorry, I need to tell Bash this happened. He's-- he told me about the first possession.

[ And he navigates through his contacts until his phone yells the right name, and then dictates an urgent-sounding text to Bash. ]

Edited 2022-10-13 21:53 (UTC)

[Ah, possessions. What a near-uselessly broad category. They politely wait while Arthur makes his text, busying themselves by heading over to the room's mini-fridge and jamming the bag of ice in there, since their fingers are getting waterlogged.

They answer once he's done:]

Only a few times personally, mostly read reports and research, and the major line is that possessions depend a lot on what's doing the possessing. And I'm gonna be honest, Arthur, ghosts are such a nebulous goddamn category even before you take into account that things could be different between my world and this one.

Alright, but then, is there a way we can narrow it down? We can't...

[ ...do nothing, is how he was going to finish that sentence, which okay, isn't what she said-- but he's distracted when his phone trills to announce a message.

From Crichton? No, from Bash. It's read out loud in fairly serviceable TTS, which Arthur interrupts by starting to swear at- well, you can probably guess which point. ]

Shit. Shit. Shit. Fuck! Crichton- fuck, god damnit!

[ He's a little upset, and when he tries to reply he talks a little too fast for speech-to-text to keep up. ]

[April takes a deep breath to elaborate further, but thats when Arthur starts freaking out.

Well, benefit of text to speech, April can indeed guess why.

They come around to Arthur's side to see the update on what's happening, and frown.]

Hey - hey, hey, hold on for a sec. I have an idea.

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