InsaneJournal

sailing for adventure.
WHO Jocelyn "Mickey" Samuels & Felix Vinter
WHERE The good ship Hispaniola
WHEN January 16th, Morning
RATING tame as tame can be for two panicking demigods.
SUMMARY They definitely didn’t go to sleep on a boat...
STATUS Complete


The first thing she felt was a gentle rocking as she woke that morning. It was actually quite peaceful; the feeling slowly coaxing her to wake as she wrinkled her nose, trying to catch a few more minutes of rest. The second thing she noticed was that... Well, her bed didn’t seem all that comfortable today. In fact, it seemed hard, a little damp and she had no idea where she had misplaced her pillow. She put it down to a nightmare that she had and had subsequently forgotten about, and felt a little pleased that she had avoided the panic of waking up after a terrible dream. But as her mind cleared of sleep and she smiled at her private victory, she heard a strange sound. A familiar sound, from summer vacations and trips with her grandparents, but a strange sound nonetheless. Because although Mickey did enjoy the sound of roaring waves and water lapping against wood, she was fairly confident that there should be no water anywhere near her bedroom door.

Another wrinkling of her nose, then her eyes opened ever so slowly, bleary as she realised she was in some degree of darkness. It was a darkness she wasn’t expecting: she distinctly remembered that she hadn’t closed her curtains the evening before. For a few brief moments, in fact, she wondered if it was still night time outside and for some reason, she had woken early. Her vision still wasn’t brilliant and she rubbed at her eyes for a second, frustrated. Then, of course, she discovered what wasn’t right. Something being ‘not right’ was actually something of an understatement here, as Mickey Samuels was coming to the conclusion that she wasn’t in her bedroom, and couldn’t fathom in her sleep-addled brain how she had managed to leave. Surely she hadn’t sleep-walked out of her house?

She moved into a sitting position, cross legged with a distinct case of bed head as she looked through lidded eyes at her surroundings. Her eyes widened increasingly. Quickly. Erratically. She was surrounded by damp, wooden boards, covered by some sort of old sacking. Crates piled high around her creaked, and the rocking was beginning to make her feel nauseous as she realised she definitely wasn’t in her house. Mickey was on a boat. This was definitely a boat. And she didn’t at all know how she managed to get onto said boat. The panic began to cloud her brain just as easily as sleep had.

Mickey staggered to her feet, the rocking of the ship sending her flying towards one side. Was that port? Starboard? She wasn’t quite sure why that was important right now, but she did feel as if some knowledge of that may have helped her cope. She clung to a crate, gripping onto it tightly as she felt splinters pierce her skin. The slight pain told her she wasn’t dreaming. “H-he-hello?!” She squeaked, the little colour that her cheeks possessed draining rapidly as a sickening feeling filled the pit of her stomach. Her head turned again and again, desperately seeking a friendly face. A familiar face would do. “Anybody? Anybody there?!”

When Felix wakes, he is caught up in his sheets. Or at least, he thinks he is. His bed feels weird. Not quite warm enough, not quite as supportive. It also smells kind of moldy. “Barkly, did you pee in here...?” he mumbles, trying to fumble free from the cocoon he’s created. However, his dog is not up. That is a little odd. Usually, Barkly is up and patiently waiting beside him to be fed and taken for his morning walk. There’s no yipping or whining or even panting, though. Felix manages to push the sheet aside, and abruptly finds himself vaulting face forward into the floor. He lets out a little sound of shock and pain. The boards are slick and smell a little like liquor and grime. He sits up, rubbing his nose, and looks at his bed, which is not a bed, but a hammock made of sheets that look half-rotten.

He gets to his feet and realizes he’s already dressed, which is another oddity. Not just dressed, but even wearing boots. The toe of the right shoe of said boots flops open whenever he steps forward. It’s dark in the room, but he can see others getting up, moving around. He shouldn’t be here, wherever here is. He needs to recollect, so before he can be seen by the others, he hurried ducks away, slipping deeper into the hold. He’s got on a pair of grimy trousers, a thick leather belt, and a white shirt that’s definitely had better days. A handkerchief is tucked into his pocket. He’s not sure what it’s for, but when he feels his head - scratching as he tries to figure out what’s going on - he thinks he knows what it must be for. His hair is very greasy.

Cringing a little at that, he pulls the cloth out, tying it out of his face, so at least he doesn’t have lank, oily hair in his eyes. Gross. Why is he dirty? And where is he? And why does his stomach hurt? The floor is moving just a little under his feet, and it’s throwing him off. It’s then that he hears the female voice, and he follows it to its source, which appears to be some kind of storage room. He slowly pushes open the door. “Hello?” he calls, squinting into the darkness. “Is someone here?”

The door opened and Mickey’s immediate reaction was to drop to the floor in complete silence, hiding in darkness for just a few moments. The room smelled terrible, and the consistent rocking made her feel ill, but she could not be seen here. The idea of a stranger on a boat catching her when she had nowhere to escape to brought tears to the corner of her eyes, and her breathing became more panicked. She fumbled around her and grabbed onto something else to hide behind, anything to hide her face. A hat came easily to hand, a tricorn hat to be precise, and Mickey abruptly stopped to stare at it. Her eyes widened. Something was definitely not right, yet something stopped her from continuing in her line of thought. She had heard a familiar voice.

She would recognise the voice of a friend from miles away, and the fact that it was Felix only filled her with even more relief. “...F-Felix?! Is that you...?” She was still wary, admittedly, despite the fact that she felt the temptation to leap over the crate and go and cry on her poor roommate for a little while. Still, this could be a trick. So far, she didn’t even know where she was, and that was a bad thing. She took a deep breath and tried to control her voice for just a second, concerned that she was going to faint. She was shaking considerably, and she coughed before speaking to clear her throat. “Please, please tell me that’s you.”

She blinked once, then again, holding her arms out in front of her before patting her clothes down, trying to regain a sense of composure. She seemed to be wearing a white-more grey, actually-shirt, grimy trousers and boots, all pulled in with a brown sash and covered with a belt, and a red bandana. She wasn’t quite sure how she hadn’t noticed the head covering before. Immediately she felt the urge to tug it off and hide behind her hair, but even that was tied up and tucked underneath, almost painfully so. She felt like a child again, when adults would bind up her long hair for competitions. As she stood up she winced, peering up from behind the crate and waving the hat weakly. “It’s me. Mickey. Hey.”

It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the new level of darkness. There must have been a lantern in the main crews’ quarters, because it is darker in here. He squints for a long moment until he can see the outlines of crates and - as it seems - another person. Mickey’s voice is familiar, but not expected, so while he does recognize it on one level, on another it isn’t until she announces herself that it clicks. “Oh my God, Mickey!” he whisper-shouts and steps into the room, shutting the door behind him and leaning against it. He’s not entirely sure why. It just seems like the safe thing to do in this situation.

“Is that really you?” he asks, fishing around in his trousers, because he’s got something heavy in his pocket... Something that turns out to be his iPhone. He flips it on, momentarily illuminating his face and dimly lighting up the room. “Hey, I have my phone...” He looks up, grinning. “Well, that’s a start, huh? Except... Uh, where are we, and why are you dressed like a pirate?”

The ship gives a little rolls, perhaps hitting a bigger wave, and he nearly goes face first into the shelves across from him. He drops the phone, which it is perhaps only by some divine instance of luck doesn’t break, but skids across the floor towards Mickey as he catches himself. “Jeez, what was that? An earthquake?” He rubs his stinging hands on his legs, searching out the phone. “But wait. Wait. Where are we? And how did we even get here? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure that I didn’t go to bed in a hammock.”

The relief at Felix’s voice was immediately replaced with concern as he went almost went flying. She almost jumped to catch him, but instead mistimed her own footing and resorting to clinging to the crate again, legs shaking as her stomach collided with one sharp corner. The pain made her want to vomit, but instead she craned her neck to see where Felix was now and followed his phone skittering across the floor with her eyes. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to move at the present time, it hadn’t been going well for her that day.

Mickey realised she had questions to answer and that it was rude to ignore them, but it didn’t help that she had no hope of giving him any answers. She patted herself down again, hoping for a second that no, it wasn’t really her, and she was actually asleep in her own bed. No such luck. She sniffed, refusing to cry in panic, before nodding slowly. “It’s me. And... I don’t know. So are you.” Her answers were short to make sure she stopped stammering, but she took the time to point at Felix’s own attire before staring up at her surroundings. “I think that was a wave. It must have been. We’re at sea.” The words were more to convince herself, her voice still quiet and trembling. This was not a good morning.

She checked her own pockets for a second, batting at them in the hope of finding a phone. It was there, in one pocket and Mickey breathed a deep sigh of relief at finding it. Life was being a little kinder to her. She pulled the phone out gingerly with two fingers, almost not catching the piece of paper that fell with it. It was only as the light from her phone illuminated the space around her that she bent down to scoop it up from the grimy floor. “I’m not sure... I went to bed, slept soundly as far as I know, then woke up. Well, here.” She opened the message with a quiet rustling, eyes narrowed against the darkness. It was surprisingly difficult to read but the illumination on her phone helped, and she managed eventually. Of course, she had to catch sight of the message on her phone. Then her eyes widened. And widened some more. She grabbed at the crate for support.

“Oh?” Her voice had become a squeak again. “Oh dear.”

He manages to collect his phone. So, they’re at sea. Well, that would explain why the ground feels funny, and why it’s so damp and moldy smelling. Also, why he was sleeping in a hammock, and there’s no light. Plus, their outfits. So they’re probably on a pirate ship. “So... somehow, we’re on a pirate ship? That’s... well, that’s kind of a first?” he says, looking around at the stores a moment. There’s no electric switch anywhere. No light bulb overhead. “Like ‘Pirates of the Caribbean.’ What time period was that?”

He glances at his phone. It looks like there’s even a message, but before he can check it, Mickey has gotten out her phone and is making worried little sounds, so he turns his off and sticks it back into his pocket for safe keeping, coming over to crouch beside her to see what’s up. “What is it?” he asks, trying to see what’s got her worried. “Are you getting a signal?”

”Check your phone.” She muttered weakly, staring with defeat at her phone. ”I did not have this message last night.” Mickey shook violently for a second, the panic setting in. “F-find the heart of the book. ...That’s what it says!” There was a touch of hysteria to her voice at the end, and she was very grateful that she was clinging on to something. The situation just seemed to get worse with time and she blinked at Felix with bewilderment, hoping he had some more answers.

“I think we’re in a story. Something set on a ship. In the... 1700s? Maybe? I think that’s the time.” She didn’t actually dare look up from the crate, the room was beginning to spin. She’d always been prone to fainting but this just wasn’t the time. They needed to figure out what was going on first. Glancing back to the scrap of paper, she noticed only a few inscriptions of writing and shoved it back into her pocket. Something that came with the outfit, she presumed. “Can you think of any stories set on a boat in the 1700s? One about pirates?” Her brain was too muddled to work.

”I, uh...” Felix is not an expert on literature. Just looking at him, it’s probably obvious he’s not really that much into reading. Sure, he likes a good audio book here and there, but usually fluff. All that high end stuff? It goes right over his head, so he turns a little red as he tries to think of an answer that won’t be embarrassing. In order to stall, he takes out his phone to look at the message. It reads just as she said: Find the heart of the book. “Oh,” he mutters. That’s not very illuminating. He puts it back away and runs a hand over his face, eyes flicking up toward the ceiling, chewing on his lower lip. “I’ve never been that good with like English classes, so bear with me...” He tries to think back to his high school courses, to the one class he took at college. “Um, A High Wind in Jamaica, Treasure Island, um... That series that like all those Errol Flynn movies are based on...?”

She does sound a little panicky, so he reaches out, trying to put a hand on her head comfortingly. “Okay, maybe that’s all I can think of, but look here. Most books about pirates, except maybe the Jamaica one, are about treasure, right? So probably, what we gotta do is find some treasure, and then that’ll be the heart of the book, and then we can go home, yeah? So no problem. Probably we’re on our way to find treasure already, so all we gotta do is wait until we get wherever we’re going, and then like... find it. Or find whatever the moral is if it isn’t exactly treasure, but I figure, we just go with the flow, the heart’s bound to show up, right?”

But there is the problem that Mickey is a woman. He wonders if it’s insensitive to bring that up. “I think you should... maybe say you’re... what did they call it back then...?”

Felix did seem a little embarrassed for a second, and Mickey felt terrible for acting so panicked. She should’ve at least attempted to maintain composure for his sake. “I-it’s okay. I haven’t read it either.” She mentally berated herself for just a few seconds, forcing herself to pull herself together as she scanned through her phone. Entries were popping up on the network about what was going on and she pushed the phone between them so Felix could scan too, as she attempted to control her thoughts and make them run in a sensible order. After one more deep, deep breath, as if it was the last one she could ever take, she started to consider the options.

“If it’s Treasure Island-that’s the only one I know-then there will be a cook with one leg. And a cabin boy called... John? Jim?” She scrunched her face up a little, one hand drummed on the crate again. “And the boat has a name. The Hispaniola. If it’s that, we know what it is.” She nodded, turning to Felix now she’d gone through that mental tirade at herself. “And then we find the treasure.” She bit down very hard on her lip, standing up properly at last, Her moves were small and cautious; she was still in a little pain from her earlier fall into the crate. “After all, we can’t do much else.” She made a half-hearted gesture at their surroundings. It wasn’t like they could go anywhere.

“Maybe-” Her words were stopped abruptly by Felix’s own and she quirked an eyebrow, a little confused. Then it hit her and her eyes widened. “Oh.” She looked down at herself, from her feminine looking legs to the top half of her body, and tugged at her trousers to make them bag out a little more. “I see. But... pretend to be what?”

Now Felix really is rather embarrassed, because he is well aware of the fact that Mickey possesses much great mental faculties than himself, but at the same time... He clears his throat faintly. “Um, I think... I think it’s... deaf and dumb,” he mumbles. “That way, you know, they might not spend too much time ordering you around? You won’t have to talk, either, ‘cause they’ll think you’re mute.” He stops there, feeling a little worried that she might think he’s calling her dumb. “I mean, I know you’re super smart, but it might be better to play dumb for a little while, just to avoid attention.” He has a knife in his belt, but he doesn’t seem to be much better armed than that. He definitely doesn’t want to have to crew getting... feisty on them. It probably won’t go well for either.

“But you know, it’ll probably be fine. You just keep sleeping in here at night, and maybe we can set up some kinda alarm system. Then you act like you’re slow and mute during the day and all... We’ll get to the treasure before you know it, and then we’ll be home again. Maybe even with some treasure!” He grins, trying to look confident, but maybe it’s her earlier case of nerves, or maybe it’s the fact that he’s finally had enough time to digest this situation, but he feels uneasy. He doesn’t know the first thing about ships, and he isn’t that hot with history either. He hasn’t actually read Treasure Island, though he’s seen the Muppet movie version. He’s just not so sure that counts. Still, he has to at least put on a good show, because the more confident they act, the less problems they’ll run into.

“Okay, so let’s go explore this ship,” he says, getting to his feet and offering her his hand.

Mickey gave Felix a very, very grateful look as he started to speak again, and she stuck her hands into her pockets back with her phone, resisting the temptation to turn slowly around and look at her surroundings again. It seemed to be a wholly unbelievable situation. But then again, now it seemed that the gods were involved, she honestly wasn’t as surprised. More annoyed. As her companion continued to speak, she couldn’t help but shake her head at his suggestion, somehow managing to shrink into her new sailing attire.”I’m not smart. If I was I wouldn’t be this scared.” The admittance of being terrified did make her feel better, and she managed to look directly at Felix for a second, reassuringly. “You’re doing way better than me.”

The cogs started working in her brain again, and she considered what he had said.”You’re right.I can play mute, that’s what I’ll do.” Her nods were getting all the more erratic as more and more ideas on what to do plagued her brain. This was manageable. She didn’t know the story of Treasure Island. “Then I can still be useful, but won’t have to talk. And then we can work on the alarm system.” She shifted from foot to foot before perfecting more of a masculine stance. “...This can’t be too hard?” The topic shift to treasure wasn’t fooling either of them, but Mickey gave a weak smile at the thought. “It could pay the rent for a few weeks! Maybe this is a good thing.” A pause, and then a further, slightly quieter addition followed. “And we can learn about pirates! Pirates are fun, right?”

Mickey hesitated for just a second, ever so slightly concerned. She still wasn’t altogether comfortable with physical contact. But she had a feeling both of them needed to be as strong as possible and putting on her best fake, optimistic smile, she took hold of Felix’s hand. “Okay. Let’s go.”