theotherright | come sail away IC inbox

"Hey, Arthur!" Crichton practically bursts into their shared room, completely forgetting to use the secret knock again in his excitement.

"I found something in the shop. I think you'll like it." Listen to him. He's so proud. What could it be?

"Oh-- er, hi."

Arthur doesn't startle, which might be character development or might just be depression, the jury is out. He's sitting on the sofa with his legs pulled under him, slowly and distractedly tearing one of the banknotes that came with him -- a $10, so like, two hundred bucks -- into extremely tiny shreds. He's gotten about halfway through it and the sofa cushions are covered in confetti. This is a normal thing to do.

"Er... do tell?"

"Heyyyyyy, buddy," Crichton says as he steps in and surveys all those tiny little pieces of money. That's not concerning at all...

Good thing Crichton brought him a little cheer-up gift.

"I found some sweet aviator sunglasses. Try one on. I got us a matching pair."

It's fiiiiine! He's just stuck in a little post-death loop of unhappiness, and needed to do something with his hands. He's fiiiine.

Okay but sarcasm aside, he genuinely is more fine than he was a few seconds ago before the door opened. Crichton thought to get him something? That's actually really touching??

"Matching, eh?" Something about the idea brings a slow grin to Arthur's face. His energy's in the pits, so he doesn't spring off the sofa as he would've in his first week here, but he holds out a hand for the glasses. "You'll have to tell me how we look in them, so I can admire us properly."

Well, it could be worse. Arthur could be doing space drugs.

"That's right. We can be twins. For all you know, we look the same." They could look the same, maybe a little, if you squint.

He puts the glasses into Arthur's hand. "No one looks bad in aviators."

"You're this handsome?"

Arthur's sense of humour has made a special appearance for the occasion!

He pops the aviators onto his face, gets them sitting on there comfortably, and the result is radical as hell. Then he spreads his hands in a 'how do I look' sort of gesture that betrays a certain non-zero amount of self-consciousness.

"Well, um, what do you think?"

"You bet your ass I am." Arthur might sense some movement from Crichton but he should be grateful he can't see his roommate doing what can only be described as fondling his own ass while he shakes it.

He stops so he can get a good look at Arthur through his own dark shades.

"I'd let you fly a plane in those." Thumbs up that Arthur also cannot see.

Thank god and christ that there is not a specific identifiable sound associated with that action.

A snort. "But would you get on the plane?" And then, in more of a thinking-out-loud sort of way: "Suppose it couldn't go much worse than driving a car..."

Arthur's sanity is barely hanging on as it is.

"Arthur...?" There is a definite tone of suspicion in that. "Tell me you didn't drive a car while blind?"

Arthur
takes
a little
too long
to answer that.

"Well, I-I-I don't want to lie to you."

It's a simple question. It should have a simple answer. Why is it taking so long??

Oh.

That's why.

...

"Arthur! What the hell were you thinking?!"

"I was thinking we had to get somewhere, some- some way away, a-a-and I had a car!"

The maths! The maths adds up!

"One of us could see! It is not as bad as you're making out."

The maths, Crichton!

"One of us..." Oh no. No, he doesn't mean...?

"You were letting the thing that stole your eyeballs from you tell you where to turn? And that seemed like a good idea?"

You suck at math, Arthur.

You know those moments when you should quit while you're behind and stop talking? Well,

"Well, no, i-it only takes one hand on the wheel to steer, so I, I was- I was just working the stick and pedals..."

Now Crichton remembers what Arthur said about his left hand. And his own slowly drags over his face, disrupting the aviators on its way down.

"Arthur... do you know how insane that sounds?"

"It was a means to an end, all right? I don't think you quite understand how few options I had."

Now Arthur is definitely not going to tell him that they also totally crashed the car.

"So, why don't you tell me the whole story, Bullseye?"

He can guess how it ends. He is 80% sure a crash is how this ends.

"Bulls--" Oh my god. "I-- alright, alright, I deserve that."

The story definitely doesn't end anywhere good, because Arthur's tell for 'things that went badly' tends to be fiddling with his left hand, and just now there's nothing quite so grabbable and move-about-able as his left hand.

"The whole story's a bit-- long, really. W-we ended up where we were trying to go." A month and change later.

"You really had me going, you know that?" Crichton chuckles. So funny, being held at gunpoint. Happy memories.

Happier than the ones that seem to come with this story. Crichton's been living with the guy long enough now that he can tell what it means when his hand starts doing the Jitterbug.

"So, you didn't end up with the car in a ditch?"

"Most successful bluff I think I've ever pulled." Ha ha, they have fun.

"Well, no, I-- well, yes. But the baby wasn't hurt at all--" Oh. Oh he didn't mention the baby up until now. He totally could have just kept not mentioning the baby.

"Ah..."

Arthur wears the face of someone who knows they've just ripped the top clean off a can of worms.

"Baby?!" Crichton sputters like a backfiring car.

"H-ow? WHY? Why were you and your left hand driving a baby anywhere? And you DID land in a ditch? With the baby in the car?!"

There they go, worms everywhere.

"Yes, we landed in a fucking ditch," Arthur snaps, feeling suddenly cornered. "Because we drove off fast, because there was a-a-a-an insane cultist woman trying to kill us and probably the child as well! I'd like to see you handle that better!"

(The missing step in that sequence of events is the oncoming car, please don't make him talk about the oncoming car...)

Edited (it's no longer 4am) 2022-10-07 11:20 (UTC)

Okay. Fine. That's probably fair. He wasn't there to see what happened in person.

"Okay. Okay. Sorry. You did what you had to do, I guess. Just sounds like one hell of a wild time. How'd you even end up in a situation like that?"

[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:]

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