InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "You hate me? I dont know you!"

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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Re: second floor ; smoking

doorsween
2013-10-27 02:04 am UTC (link)

"You may be those things, but you are wise, too," he told her. "There are things we are known for and things we are not, but we are all more than what others know of us, are we not?" What people did not know about him could fill the pages of many books, after all, and he suspected the same was true for her. The world looked at her and saw a pretty face, which she was, but there was more to her than vapid beauty. "Wisdom is never dull, and those who say it is are those who lack it," he said with a smile. The assassin had crafted his facade well, and he knew the dangers of losing oneself in the pretense and forgetting the truth. "It is a balance, I think, which is difficult to maintain." Though some could. He laughed, good humor returned for a moment, when she asked if he would force Italian men to listen to her. "I would," he vowed, before a more sobering topic followed suit. "The answer to that, I think, is a matter of opinion."

They were the words of a stranger, her assurances that he would remember his parents, but he held it close regardless. For tonight, at least, he believed it was true. "Do I?" he asked of inspiring confidences, but it was more of a rhetorical question than one he expected an answer to. "Di niente. Secrets, when entrusted, are meant to be safeguarded," he said simply. He held his own secrets close and to entrust them to another was the greatest act of trust; a betrayal would cut deep, and he would never do such a thing to another.

He was a man who fought each battle as though it was his last, who bore his scars proudly, who lamented each loss as though every one was his own personal failure. Pleasure was different when blood was spilled and lives lost or saved, but he had more control over that, at least. "I don't know," he admitted, of which was more valuable. "Someone who truly cares, who is there before and after, will they be content to stand aside while I fight? Should they not be first, and the battle second? I am not sure I can be that man." Which, he thought, might be why the woman was gone in the first place.

No, she was not his lover. She was not the woman he thought of, who he might have lost, and he was not a man who could love her as she wished to be loved. But the assassin could feel the weariness in her touch, the cold, too, and he raised his gaze to meet hers. "To remember," he echoed, and in very belated acquiesce to her earlier request in the elevator he leaned forward, all but rising from his chair, and kissed her.

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Re: second floor ; smoking

doorsween
2013-10-27 05:06 am UTC (link)

"You assume there is more to everyone than what you see," she countered. "Not everyone is gifted with your depth. I have known many men, and most would not have sat here talking to me about things for this long, not without a goal that involved pillows and a very soft surface. Is there more to those men than the conquest? Or are they simply what you see?" Tellingly, she didn't disagree with his observation; she simply didn't address it. His comment about wisdom earned him a laugh, and her platinum blonde curls danced with her mirth. "Ah, I think you are wrong, bello. The happiest people are those who are not wise. What does wisdom bring us? Knowledge is suffering. Better to smile and laugh and hope you come to believe your own lies." It was a jaded view, but it fit her as well as her dress. Her youth had not been a kind one, and she had never had the luxury of dreaming.

But he did inspire confidences, and she inclined her head when he asked for verification of that fact. "Si." Her expression had gone serious for that response, because he deserved the seriousness. But the severity melted somewhat with his statement about secrets. "Secrets are shared for a reason. I shared mine with you because I thought you would listen. That you would keep them close is a kindness. I am certain that I will not speak the words again, not once we are away from here," she said, motioning to indicate the ship and their surrounding, the increasingly pervasive sweetness of decay accompanying the gesture. "It was nice to have confessed," she added, favoring him with a smile that could light up a screen.

She was unsurprised that he was uncertain about which kind of woman to value most. Without his saying, she had already realized that this man was no womanizer. His mother had raised a gentleman, he said, but she suspected it went beyond that. "Why must they stand by? Better said, why do you consider it standing by? Is being there for you, before and after, not its own brand of aid?" she asked. "There must be some strength to be found in knowing someone waits for you, in knowing someone shares your burdens." She had no burdens of her own, none beyond the growing weight of her limbs and the blurriness of her vision. Even away from here, she sensed she felt unnecessary in a way that made little sense to a life lived in the spotlight. But even the best parts were only parts. This man, he had significance in more relevant ways. "If you love, is the one you love not always first? Even if the battle comes, as it sometimes must, must it be a competition between them?"

Nephritis made a living from kisses that looked beautiful. Like all her other pretenses, kissing was something that could either appear beautiful, or if could truly be a thing of beauty. The two things were not the same, regardless of what the audience believed. When he kissed her, she returned the kiss with one that would not make the audience swoon. Her other hand was just as heavy and cold as she lifted it to his cheek, and her fingers were nearly imperceptible against the curve of his jaw. The kiss was slow and thorough, knowing, but not rushed, and she smiled once it was done, her hands sliding down along his arms. "Will you bring diamonds to my grave?" she teased, funerary breath mingling with his, because she understood now. How could she not?

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Re: second floor ; smoking

doorsween
2013-10-27 09:59 pm UTC (link)

Here was a topic he could speak on earnestly, with conviction, as the lines between the assassin he was now and the being he was beyond the confines of the ship were less defined, more blurred. "I believe there is," he said. "I believe everyone has potential. There is the surface, and there is that which lies beneath. Some keep it buried and refuse to unearth it, others do not. But it's there." That was his opinion, at least. It was one forged over time, and he had his doubts, but if there was one thing he refused to lose it was his faith, for without it he was fighting for nothing. "Ah, you believe ignorance is bliss, as they say?" He could understand wishing to find happiness in lies, but that was not the path he chose. The truth was difficult. The truth carved scars into his skin and weighed him down. But, at least, he lived his life in clarity, never willfully blind. "Is it true happiness, though, if it is based upon lies?"

He inclined his head with a small smile. "I am better at listening than I am speaking beyond this place, but here or there, I keep secrets well." There were few he confided in, and fewer still that he would consider betraying one's confidence to. Only in the most dire of circumstances, usually. "Confessions free of us the weight a secret carries," he said. "It can be a relief, to lighten our load, yet some of us become too accustomed to carrying it to part with it easily." The assassin had grown familiar with his own burden to bear, and freedom always came with a price.

"I do not," he said, after a moment's thought to untangle his thoughts. "She does. She believes my duty comes first, and she comes after. In her eyes, I expect her to wait." It wasn't quite right, the way he was wording it, but the meaning behind the words was true enough. "My burdens are not easily shared, and I believe that yes, it must be a competition, in her eyes." Perhaps it was unfair to her, this mystery woman, but he believed it to be true.

Being well versed in kisses were part of his facade, but he was no inexperienced schoolboy. He covered her hand with his, an unthinking gesture, as though he could somehow transfer his warmth to her, and he savored it in the way of those who wished to remember did, a memory imprinted upon his lips and his mind. There was a hint of sadness in his expression as the assassin looked at her, though he tried, for her sake, to smile. "I will bring whatever you wish, bella."

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Re: second floor ; smoking

doorsween
2013-10-27 10:39 pm UTC (link)

"You think better of people than I do," she said without shame. She wasn't a pessimist. She wanted to believe the best of people; she'd wanted that since she was a child. But time had taught her that more people turned a blind than otherwise. "I know everyone has potential, but many people can't summon it. If there's no one there to unearth it, and someone does monstrous things, then what good are those things beneath the surface? If someone's been so twisted by life that no one can reach that potential at all anymore, what of them?" She tilted her head in acquiescence. "But if the argument is that everyone begins with something innately good, then I can see your point. I agree with it. Monsters aren't born monsters," she said with empathy. "There are things I would rather not know. Aren't there things it would make you happier not to know? Who are we to decide what true happiness is? Are we happy?"

Secrets were a part of the trade. No one walked onto a set and created a starlet without secrets. The studio lied about her hair, calling her a towheaded child that had always been white blonde. Everything from there down to her shoes was one kind of lie or another. She was a secret in her chair, breathing the same air as him and pretending the reaper wasn't tapping her on the shoulder with his rawboned fingers. "I never say anything that anyone likes," she admitted of conversations had beyond this chair. "That doesn't keep me from saying things. Does it keep you from saying things?" asked him, her smile a cue that she already knew the response to her own question.

"Causes and people aren't the same. You can let family, lovers and friends come first, and that doesn't mean you have to give up your beliefs. It only means you need to consider the flesh and blood people closest to you as carefully as you consider missions. Do you think it's a competition?" she asked with sadness. "I was married at sixteen," she explained, though that only pertained to the girl in the chair, and not to anything beyond this ship. "It's lonely, bello, to lie down beside someone who has something in his life that he treasures more than you."

She recognized the sadness in his expression. She realized that he had known for longer than she had, but what point was there in discussing things that could not change? This was only meant to be an evening. It couldn't exist beyond that, which they both knew. She sat back in her chair with a heavy exhale of taint. "Now, bello, you will honor my request and go. Memories are better when they're beautiful." She pulled her hand from beneath his, and she held it out for him to kiss. "A domani," she added, knowing with perfect clarity that she would not be seeing him tomorrow.

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Re: second floor ; smoking

doorsween
2013-10-28 02:59 pm UTC (link)

"I did not always," the assassin admitted, for there was a time when he had seen nothing but corruption when he looked upon the world and its people, and he had known only pain and loss. It had taken years for him to recover the hope he'd lost when his heart was torn from his chest, and maintaining it, keeping that flame lit and burning, was no easy task. "Once, bella, I had no faith. There was nothing worth fighting for and no one worth saving. It was no simple task to get from there," he gestured to his right, "to here." And he gestured to himself, then. "Those things beneath the surface keep us human, no matter what we've done. Even monsters have a sliver of humanity within them. I like to believe there is always hope," he said with an almost self-deprecating laugh, "but I acknowledge reality, and I know that some cannot be reached." When all was said and done, he was a realist. He did not live in a fantasy world where evil was only a tale told to children and good always prevailed. "There are, yes, but I would be a different man if I did not know them." He paused, the hint of a frown flitting over his features before he pushed it away. "Are we happy?" He echoed her question back at her. "Perhaps some of us are not meant to be."

That made him laugh. He had lost count of the number of people he had angered, offended, or otherwise left disgruntled with his words, but it made him no more inclined to hold his tongue. Men like him were rarely silenced. "No. I speak the truth, and I speak my mind, and I will continue to do so regardless of whether they like it or not." There was no bitterness in his tone, nothing vindictive. It was simple fact, though he thought there were some with whom he might have tried, at least, to soften the blow.

He shook his head. "I do not wish it to be one, no," he said. That might not have answered whether or not it was, that balance between his loved ones and his duty, but he was loathe to lose either, though he had carried the latter with him for much longer. He thought of the woman he vaguely remembered, and he thought of her loneliness, of him causing it, and there was something like discomfort in the slope of his shoulders; he didn't want to dwell on such things. If he failed to put her first it was not intentional, but did that matter? Would she care? He doubted it would be so.

To the assassin Death might have been an old friend, but beneath that facade was one who denied it, who would fight until his last breath to thwart it, and leaving her to be taken by that which had taken his parents was no easy feat. Yet he managed to rise, finding his feet as he looked upon her, and when she held out her hand he brought it to his lips, a last farewell which lingered. "A domani, bella," he echoed, a sad smile upon his features as he let her fingers slip from his. "I will remember." A promise before he left her, before Death claimed what he had waited for.

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