InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Fan fiction: my anti-drug"

Doors Verse (doorsverse) wrote in doorslogs,
@ 2013-10-18 21:51:00

Entry tags:

plot: halloween

Who: Everyone!
What: The Halloween plot
Where: Passages → The RMS Mauretania
Notes: This is a group log, so anything goes as far as adult content. Please provide locations and warnings, whenever appropriate, in subject lines. Characters may only be in one place at a time, not in multiple threads simultaneously, and you must post using the “doorsween” anon account. This post is anonymous; no names, accents, or defining fonts, please. Lastly, comment with "dibs" on threads you intend to hit, and feel free to exit your characters from threads at any time.

The Mauritania is a ghost ship.

Launched in 1938, it's been decades since she sailed the oceans, and yet the doors of Passages open onto the night-darkened deck of a ship that is barely afloat. She tilts, she lurches, and she is cobweb-lined from her deserted bridge to her silent deck. There is no land to be sighted from any railing, and no light save that from the stars overhead. The promenade winds around the upper level in ominous silence, and haunting music can be heard beyond the doors that lead into the ship's interior.

Promenade; Elevator: It's a curious thing, this ghost ship's elevator. Opulent and splendid, it takes up the entire center of the grand entrance, and it is meant to carry passengers down into the belly of the ship. But it doesn't work just right. Sometimes, the elevator drops impossible lengths. Sometimes, the elevator stops altogether for hours at a time. Yet somehow it's always empty and awaiting new passengers.

First Class; Baths: The upper-level, with its height and distance from the ocean, feels safe and bright. Classical music can be heard in these halls, though there is no orchestra and the ballroom is ominously dark. Laughter leads passengers to the one mostly-lit area in first class, where a swimming bath leads to smaller, more private Turkish bath. The lights here are quiet, flickering and barely there, and shadows dance elusively in the depths of the pool, while ghostly laughter can be heard in the private bath stalls.

Second Class; Theater: Down a level, the second-class floor is louder than the elite first-class floor. Here the air is thick with cigar smoke, and glasses can be heard clinking from the open doors to the smoking room. But it's the theater that draws passengers on this floor. It is cramped and entirely dark, save for the monochrome film on the screen, hauntingly devoid of sound, where a collection of terrifying collages and darkly sexual imagery fill the screen.

Third Class; Dining: Claustrophobic stairs lead down to the narrow passages of the cramped third-class rooms, where the air is heavy and thick, and where the lights flicker and cast the hall into windowless darkness. Here, the ghostly gears of the engine room can be heard sputtering dangerously, and the sensation of the ship's tilting is most pronounced. At the end of the hall, the dining area gives the illusion of windows where none exist. Chairs are pushed aside to allow for dancing to soulful and intimate music, while ocean water teases shoes and heels.

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Second Class; Theater smoking room

doorsween
2013-10-18 10:22 pm UTC (link)

He had not booked passage on a ship. He had not even intended upon a celebration for he was certain that the music, faint but haunting, indicated that it was such. The man from the flickering celluloid, the gray glimmers of the silent screen stood with the heels of his shiny leather shoes neatly together and the comb grooves in the sharp part of his hair knew that he was not meant to be here at all, and the expanse of polished floors and the rich opulence of this floating ode to history ought be unsettling - but he did not appear to be unsettled. He pushed his hands into the pockets of the tailored suit, and he strolled, the slick leather of his soles slapped and he walked past the elevator cage with a twitch of his head to look at the bars, at the implication of being caught behind them and down the stairs with the neat little flick of steps that were a man made to dance.

Down. Down past the baths and the ripple of water and the glitter of voices; the man with his pocket-square neatly folded and the monochrome shirt did not look over at where the champagne likely flowed and the voices were meant to hold the clipped intonation of the wealthy, of first-class ticket holders who paid in advance for their berths. He turned sharply, click of the heels, where the hubbub was, where the cigar smoke wreathed over his head and turned the air faintly blue. The movie star breathed in the warm fug and he strolled toward an empty chair in the smoking room, withdrawing a silver, engraved cigarette case from his breast pocket and leaned across the nearest shoulder.

“Excuse me,” polite, with all the finesse of a bygone golden era played out in lights, “Do you have a light?” He held out his cigarette in the pinch of his fingers.

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Re: Second Class; Theater smoking room

doorsween
2013-10-18 10:56 pm UTC (link)

He came to the smoking room because the smoke felt right. It was hard to say why, except that it made him feel really fucking good, like the stuff was sinking into his pores.

He didn't know how he'd come to be on a boat, but he could feel its gentle rocking well under his feet. The fact that there were miles of water down there unsettled him, but he felt good. Really, really good. Mostly, it seemed to be because of the horns.

He'd made other plans for Halloween, but when his feet first skidded across the wet deck upstairs, he noticed them first. The horns. The heavy hooks of fear were pulled loose from his soul on arrival, and the world seemed lighter even as his head was heavier.

They curved up from his head, hematite black with a red, pearlescent sheen. They twisted subtly on their way to disappear beneath his matted hair. His predictably black eyes were all out of sync with those lips like a cartoon cherub, too red and full to be real. He was missing a shirt, but that only exposed bare chest the color of milk, smooth and perhaps dead. He looked more like a ghost than a demon, actually, killed halfway dressed. Long, loose fitting blue jeans trailed under his dirty heels. The boy next door had gone all wrong somewhere, but he mostly seemed confused. He wasn't worried because he couldn't summon up the feeling, but he knew he ought to be.

It was the horns that kept drawing his attention, and what little fight remained in him to be concerned. They tingled and pulsed, faintly. He could feel them as much as he could feel his fingers, or his legs, and he knew that if he was given the opportunity to do so he would use them to make people do very bad things.

That was innate. It bubbled up from inside him. He could bring out the worst in people, and that was a fact.It was hard to make himself fret about doing it, but something felt wrong, and he was going to try not to. He really, really was.

When the flickering figure asked for a light, the horned man turned sharply, startled, big black doe eyes staring back like dead coals.

He answered without hesitation, even a little eager, glad to be of help. "Of course." He reached up and snapped his fingers, without thinking, and fire sparked from them in a short gout, lighting the cigarette in a red hot flame. He looked from the cigarette end to the pretty film star for a moment, lingering just an inch too close, then drew back, puzzled, and looked at his fingers. "Huh."

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Re: Second Class; Theater smoking room

doorsween
2013-10-18 11:20 pm UTC (link)

The cigarette case snapped with a suddenness as the cigarette jumped with copper-bright flare of flame. The celluloid center-piece had startled, but he thumbed the catch open once again with a deftness that said it had been handled often. It was worn silver, and the initials were etched deep, scuffed and faded with use. He held it out, as if men who wore the world’s nightmares curled high from their heads were usual companions in places men came to gather, with a dapper politeness.

“That’s a neat trick,” he remarked, and he lifted his own cigarette to his lips with the very tips of fingers with neatly trimmed nails. There was no evident fear from the man in shades of gray. It looked as if he’d caught the man off-guard and when you looked like that, whether for a night or a lifetime it was best not to be startled. Poor fellow. As the movie star gazed intently at where the flame had risen, it was with the scuttering flicker of celluloid skipping, traction lost briefly on old projectors.

“Would you like one?” He thought it best not to comment on the shirt. Someone might have a spare, somewhere. It wouldn’t be polite to say anything, particularly if the gentleman with the long, coiled headgear couldn’t help his informality.

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Re: Second Class; Theater smoking room

doorsween
2013-10-19 01:53 am UTC (link)

"Yeah," said the horned man, with his soft, smoke hoarse voice. "I guess it is." His fingers were tipped in nails the color of ash, hard and sharp as shards of bone could be. He studied the flickering man with brief intensity, and the horns lightly tingled, reminding him that they were there, what he could do. What he could.

He took a cigarette from the case, plucking it between two clawed nails. He removed it with a deft ease that seemed comfortable, as natural as if he did it every day. He lifted the cigarette to his mouth and watched as it lit himself, the contact of his lips enough to set the end alight.

He took a long drag and hummed with satisfaction. It soothed his inside better than the clear air ever could. The pull was short and airless, and he held the smoke in his lungs until he felt the smooth, vivifying burn of it fade. Everything about his body seemed new and old at once, changed but comfortable, sparking every few moments with pleasure.

Despite his long dark gaze and the dramatic curl of horns, there was something sweet in his smile, something that damnation couldn't touch. There were teeth, too, white and sharp under flush red lips. "That's a pretty neat trick too," he said, of the movie star's fluttering image, the horned man's curiosity spiraling quickly into a need to touch and see. He reached out a hand without asking, but with an innocent fascination. He was captivated by the celluloid man. He wanted to see if his hand went right through him, or whether, beneath the projection, there was a screen of flesh. "Do you feel anything?" he asked, as the tips of his fingers crept toward the other man's arm. Whorls of smoke trailed up from the cigarette at his side and wafted closer to his body, against the draft in the room. They curled around the arch of his bare hip bone, exposed over the top of his blue blue jeans.

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Re: Second Class; Theater smoking room

doorsween
2013-10-19 02:19 am UTC (link)

The pleasure the horned man took in his cigarette was entirely obvious; he drew in a long breath and made a small sound and the celluloid gentleman coughed politely and turned his head aside as if to allow room for privacy. He had watched, fascinated, with only the tiniest recalibration of his self during the process of cigarette catching once again without mechanism nor lighter and he snapped shut the cigarette case and tucked it away once again into the breast pocket of the suit. The lining flashed as he did so, a ripple of expensive-looking silk in a dark soft color that could (had he been technicolor rather than prior) have been close to violet. It was a nothing color just then but the man fastened the button of his jacket fastidiously as if he were more than a projection on a silver screen.

It was a pleasant smile, for all the problems that the horned man presently had, and the movie star smiled back, the smile snapped in newspapers and printed in the gossip magazines. He looked directly at him, despite the ripple of teeth just beyond the edge of the horned man’s lip and the movie star’s gaze was as untroubled as if there had been no reason for concern at all. The weight of the man’s hand was warm, and the wool of the suit creased beneath his palm, expensive wrinkles in the fabric. The strident comb-markings in his dark hair were obvious as the movie star lowered his head to look at where the hand lay. “Yes,” he said, flummoxed by the question - but the monochrome star had no idea that he flickered at all. He did not look at himself, after all. Did the horned man think himself a ghost?

“You’re quite solid,” he reassured him, and put his cigarette to his lips, “Yes, I can feel your hand.” He wanted to ask if the man was cold, but thought perhaps that might be impolite.

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Re: Second Class; Theater smoking room

doorsween
2013-10-19 10:34 pm UTC (link)

So the flickering man was real after all. The devil took the fool briefly between his fingers, rubbing the ribbed fabric. The reality of his conversation companion brought him just a little close, though he released the fabric of his suit.

He placed the cigarette back between his lips again, too practiced to simply be an artifact of a demon's flair for wickedness. He glanced up. The closer he came to the film star, the more his dark eyes seemed to lighten, just a little, just a tiny ring of scarlet light on a black field.

The devil sucked in another lungful of cigarette smoke, and it was as comforting a balm as a warm, clean breeze might be to a human being. The thready circles of fire inside his eyes lit a little brighter. "I should warn you," he said, with a vague twist of apprehension. "I bring out the worst in people." The horns pulsed, faintly. "I can, I mean." It was not at all a metaphorical proposition. He could feel it, the power to tilt someone's will and self-resolve into damned deeds and the headiness of mad, bad acts. He shouldn't, but oh how he would like to. He wondered what bad things the film star might want to do, and hesitated, a needle sharp fang resting against his lower lip. He ought not to, but he still couldn't remember why not. This wouldn't be any different than usual, would it? Every day, he brought out the worst in everyone. Himself included.

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Re: Second Class; Theater smoking room

doorsween
2013-10-19 11:30 pm UTC (link)

With the suit unsnagged, the man of celluloid took a step to balance himself, stumbling a little on the shiny leather shoes and he caught a whiff of the lit cigarette, the coil of smoke curling up his nose. The cigarette in his own fingers was a comfort, a bad habit that was sociable except in poor weather. He had an idea that he didn’t much smoke these days but his cigarette case was full as he put it back into his breast pocket, so perhaps he’d taken it back up recently. He looked at his companion directly, the true straight-down-the-barrel gaze they paid the big bucks for, and he saw the flicker of red as it gleamed in black - unsettling, but the man couldn’t help it, he supposed.

“What kind of the worst?” Human suffering was very far from the celluloid man’s mind, he dusted off the wrinkles in his suit shoulder delicately with the flat of his gray palm and he thought of bad habits, a little distractedly. “I’m sure you don’t intend to.” Driving very fast was one of his, and the slide of dirty feet inside clean sheets when he was too tired to bother. He was not the most sinful of men but the pocket square gleamed gray-bright from his breast - he was an era of church on Sundays.

He put a comforting hand on the bared shoulder. “I’ve nothing at all to worry about.” It was a lie but one as comfortingly easy as the gesture and it sounded true. The poor chap had enough to worry about without his shirt to think of bringing out the worst in anyone at all.

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Re: Second Class; Theater smoking room

doorsween
2013-10-20 10:57 pm UTC (link)

The devil stared back into that straight gaze and did not wilt, only looked, fascinated, and looked a little more. He wanted to understand the celluloid man, to get to know him. His shoulders, light from lack of fear, could bear the weight of knowing someone, and given the opportunity he grasped desperately through the sudden opening, like light shining on a man in an airless prison. "Sinful things," he said. "Things people know they shouldn't do." Sin didn't concern him much, never had done, but he thought about it every once in a while, contrary to what people might think. "Things their God has told them not to do. Or not told them," he added, with a dash of humor, a first for the conversation, peeling his attention from that vulnerable need for just a half second. "God doesn't talk much to people, unless they're crazy."

At the soothing touch of grayscale hand to his shoulder, the devil looked down. His white skin was warm to the touch, and it warmed a little more when he took another drag from his cigarette. Smoke filtered slowly out from behind sharp teeth and wreathed his head, across his open eyes and past, but he didn't flinch, nor did his eyes water or narrow. "Nothing?" asked the devil, his voice confessional quiet and absolving, and then a pulse went through the horns on his head and into the hand of the film star. It was a pulse of the sin he was made of. He couldn't resist the urge to do it. What had he been made for, after all, if not this? The pulse was warm, tingling, licking with pleasure of the moment and promising pleasure to come as tactile as the skin under the film star's fingers. Whatever it was, whatever bad habits the film star professed not to have, there they would be, tempting as fruit hanging just out of reach. Sweeter than honey from the rock, stronger than man-rejoicing wine -

Unless the nature of celluloid was too static to be really touched, in which case, the devil would be thankful later. Come and see. In the moment, it simply felt really fucking good. Pressure he hadn't even noticed was there was released, and he felt perfectly content and perfectly right, acting as what he was, avatar of temptation and destruction, wide-eyed, unknowing, disastrous. Come buy, come buy.

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Re: Second Class; Theater smoking room

doorsween
2013-10-21 11:08 am UTC (link)

There were no sins in the celluloid dream, only tinsel. People could do all manner of things by cover of darkness and the gentleman in his grayscale suit showed no notion of thinking of any particular one. There was sex - of course there was, men and women were made for it, pearlescent flesh and grease smeared on the lens to make it more alluring, but the collar was buttoned very tightly and the cuffs of his sleeves were snowy white. He was very smoky, this companion of his and the gray man sneezed, once and then twice in rapid succession and produced a pocket square apologetically as pure white as his intentions. There was sex and there was vice but he hadn’t been snipped from that sort of reel, but ill-intent smeared itself like burst fruit, stickily spoiling one’s sleeves.

“Nothing,” the gray man said resolutely, for the poor gentleman couldn’t help his horns nor his taste, but he rippled, a starburst of interruption and black static. When he flickered back to life he looked embarrassed and he coughed neatly, just the once. He was family entertainment, for little people with their noses pressed to the glass and little people thought little of devils and nothing at all of sin. “I can’t, you see.” A little shrug that rippled the wrinkled wool. “I’m not scripted that way.”

But an ember of doubt glowed at his center, a lit match caught alight by a breeze. The movie star looked uncertain, he could feel it pull his face in ways it ought not and the ambiguity was clear as glass. “Are you all right?” He dug into his pocket for another pocket square, clean and ironed white and the shadow where an initial might once have been stitched. “It isn’t mine,” he said, “But it’s clean. So you can borrow it, if you need.”

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Re: Second Class; Theater smoking room

doorsween
2013-10-21 11:44 pm UTC (link)

The devil was relieved.

Deeply, truly, he was. It was a shock and an honest blessing to realize somebody was out of his fucking reach, good god. That was so good to know. Outside, he would have feared that. Here, he could let himself experience the sensation of graciousness. There was someone he couldn't make into the worst version of themselves.

The kind offering of the handkerchief was another thing entirely. He stared, surprised, for a half second, and then he took it delicately in clawed fingers. "Thank you," he murmured, still reeling from the recoil on that sharp burst of activity, and he wiped at his eyes. The handkerchief came away dirty with soot, and he looked guiltily at the gray smears on the fabric. He ruined things, generally. He besmirched them, right down to pretty little scraps of white linen. Nothing ever really came away untouched.

He looked up at the film star, uncertain, his fingers halfway to handing it back, halfway to his chest, hovering. "You're sweet for a movie star," he said, with a small, watery smile. He must be a movie star, mustn't he? He flickered like film, and had the poise of the silver screen.

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Re: Second Class; Theater smoking room

doorsween
2013-10-22 01:05 pm UTC (link)

The handkerchief was worn enough to be thrown away, but call him sentimental. You could crisp up anything with a bit of starch, wash it snowy-white and there was go in it still. Even a handkerchief deserved a second chance. And the poor man stared like a bit of kindness was beyond him, staggered him like a man in a skit, weak-kneed and silly at the prospect of a little bit of humanity. Celluloid made the best of humanity, painted it up there in silver and lights, dramatized it for the afternoon’s entertainment. It wasn’t his fault he had horns, after all.

The handkerchief was smutty and dirty, beyond repair this time, maybe but the star accepted it back with the grace of a prince. He looked at it, soft linen and dark soot, turned to deepest gray in his hands and he held it out once more, shaking his head. “No, you keep it.” The flash of his suit coat once more, the silky inward lining and the movie-man held another soft white square in between his fingertips. “I’ve another, you see.” He sounded apologetic for such provision.

“I think,” said the celluloid man and he flickered with static, uncertainty in black and white, “I’m just written that way. Shot in a good light.” He smiled. That watery little thing went right to the heart, even the devil could look woebegone. He patted the outstretched hand. “You’ll be fine. It’s temporary.”

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Re: Second Class; Theater smoking room

doorsween
2013-10-22 11:16 pm UTC (link)

The devil blinked. The movie star really was perfect, wasn't he? Prepared for every eventuality, outfitted for every nightmarish set of circumstances, right down to the tragic loss of a handkerchief. He was as sheepish as a devil could be despite all his demonic accouterments, and he took the handkerchief back and tucked it into the pocket of his ragged jeans.

He was usually such a charmer. It came so easily, blunt but smooth as hammered steel, reflective and not the least bit soft. The veneer had come off in the polishing, and the base metal underneath showed through, despite the horns and the eyes like Johnny Cash might sing about. He found himself regretting that those easy words were out of his reach, that he couldn't pluck a perfect pickup or deflection from the air to save face, but it was gone as quickly as smoke through his fingers. It was all tied up in the fear, of course, and the fear was gone. He didn't fear the movie star. But he would have liked to be impressive, somehow, to be glamorous, to be sleek.

He was not those things. He was a cherubic herald of the dawn of destruction, and he was apologetic about the whole thing. He often wished that his life was different, and that he was someone else. He wished that now, even with a damned heart. "Too bad the rest of us can't blame our writing," he said, with eyes that seemed older, somehow, despite their strangeness, eyes that knew something, knew somebody somewhere.

The devil took hold of the movie star's patting hand. He knew how to turn his claws when he wanted to, and he didn't scratch him. He was conscious of himself as he dipped his head - the horns tilted, but nowhere near close enough to scratch. He kissed the back of the star's hand instead, a brief brush of warm lips on crackling film skin. Then the devil let go. "You ought to go find yourself a starlet," he advised, with a smile and a touch of regret. "Your type, they're always written to chase those."

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Re: Second Class; Theater smoking room

doorsween
2013-10-23 02:01 pm UTC (link)

Perfection in movies was plastic and primped. It was lit by hot, white lights and presided over by a man whose job it was to stand at the side and instruct the life to be lived on celluloid, the perfection to run in reels in theaters across America. The movie man was a flicker on film, dust caught in the cap of a lens but he knew perfection. It ran in his veins like silver tissue, like the ends of reels caught alight. He knew it was falser than young men’s hopes and futile dreams of heroics. He knew charmers too, they were written all the best lines. The celluloid gentleman stood silently and he smiled a very small, very private smile.

Whoever had written the devil into existence had conjured very handsome horns on his head. They had forgotten, the movie star thought, the very beginning of a good script. They had forgotten to make a horror-show that was believable. No one, the movie star thought, could believe he was anything less than human. It was a pity he’d been trussed up as if he were not. His eyes were frank when they met that doubt, that guilt, and they were a clear, soft gray and they had nothing in them but honest trust. They were gray because all of him was gray, this man with the neat shiny shoes who looked faintly surprised but only faintly when the devilish companion bent over his head and a whisper of heat skimmed his skin. It was a warm kiss, the simmer of dull coals and the faint smell of scorched plastic and celluloid hung in the air. The movie star pretended not to notice.

“There are no starlets for me,” he said quietly, but with no regret at all. The smile that deserved to be lit up in lights had gone and behind was something smaller, something kinder. “But I’m sure people will be chasing about. No one seems able to love anyone without them running away from them first.” It was something that had crept into the scripts, played out in living rooms and movie theaters. It was something that was a glorious kind of truth dramatized in celluloid. The dirty side of it was grubbier. Sadder. But no one wanted to know about what had been lost on the cutting room floor. “You go on now. Don’t get too caught up in,” he hesitated and made a neat gesture with his hand that encapsulated the horns a little helplessly, “This.”

A smile. He swung around on neat heels, and he walked away with a flutter of static as a parting gift.

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