[party post] come sail away with me

[varymydays]

You've come through a door, and you are on a boat. Specifically, you're on a cruise ship in the middle of some giant body of water. You've come through the door behind you which is attached to nothing and may now be locked. It's relatively empty as giant as it appears to be. The only other passengers that are here appear to also have come through the door for the most part and it is not nearly enough to fill up this entire cruise ship.

Also, who knows who the hell is driving this thing since all of the employees appear to be either ghosts or holograms...

Is this your first time here or your hundredth time here? Do you want a drink or a dip in the pool? Is it day or night? Do you stumble on your room or some other situation either fun or painful within its many rooms, shops, and facilities? Do you run into someone you know or a complete stranger?

The possibilities are unlimited!

Comments

ᴏᴛᴀ

[crashdown]

She's dreaming. She fell asleep at her desk and this is her subconscious telling her that she should've stayed in Florida and gone on a cruise instead of heading back to Roswell before school started. All because she bumped into Max Evans, because bumping into him has thrown her plan of attack all out of whack. Liz had it all clearly outlined with her internship, her classes, her goals, the scholarships she was eying and the corresponding essays she was already planning on writing. Bumping in to Max was not on that outline, he wasn't even a sub-point to any of those bullets. He was part of some whimsical notion that amazing things happened to normal people, a poorly thought out rough draft that had already been balled up and tossed in the trash months ago.

Dreaming or not dreaming, at least she's not dreaming of Max. That would only be adding insult to injury, and she was through with being hurt and pushed aside.

Though apparently not when it came to being messed with for reasons that were beyond her, because it's quickly becoming apparent that this isn't a dream. (Mindwarp? No, Tess couldn't hold it together for this long and it's been hours.) She's on a boat in the middle of the ocean and she's not dreaming. She's not in Roswell, she's not at her desk, she's not filing those folders Congresswoman Whitaker had left for her to take care of, not locking up the offices on her way out—

"This isn't happening." Denial is strong with this one. Sometimes. A realist with a dreamer's denial streak. "This can't be happening."

Not again. It was supposed to be over, the crazy part of her life. No more aliens or FBI agents, no more running, hiding, and being scared all the time.

Slumping down against one of the walls just outside the changing room near the pool, Liz pulls out her cellphone and tries to dial home for what has to be the millionth time, but nobody answers. Not the Crashdown, not her parents, not Maria, Alex, or Kyle — not even Max, whose number she dialed in a last ditch effort to raise someone. Anyone.

He doesn't answer.

"...this is really happening."

[aleksandar]

It's not every day you can say you've experienced the end of a world.

This isn't to say Alek is necessarily proud of the fact. If he'd had a choice in the matter, there wouldn't have been an apocalypse to boast of. The rifts would've continued down their crazy path without making the entire universe collapse with it. He didn't necessarily understand all the scientific jargon being utilized in the broadcast prior to the event. All he knew was the rifts were at fault. They were the reason the world was eating itself from the inside out, and soon enough, it would be gone. The only home he'd ever known would be wiped along with it.

At the end of the day, he shouldn't have been surprised. Whether you're a good person or a bad person, something shitty is going to happen to you sooner or later.

(If Liz is a realist with a dreamer's denial streak, Alek is a fatalist with a dreamer's bruised disappointment.)

In some ways, if he's honest with himself, maybe he's relieved. The fact Chicago is nothing but a distant memory now means he doesn't have to confront the things he knew he lacked the bravery in confronting. It meant he and his brothers wouldn't have to keep running from their father and a destiny he never chose. Sometimes, in the dark of the night, Alek dreams of him. A howl that splits the moon in half and claws that sink right into his heart, but he never says this.

He has left it behind him.

"It's happening," a voice from behind her confirms. Alek is leaning across the opposite wall, his arms folded loosely across his chest. He's been watching Liz's argument with herself for some time now with some faint amusement that's very much inward. "If it helps, eventually you get sent back. Most of the time."

Not his first rodeo where kidnapping cruise ships are concerned.

[crashdown]

She doesn't get up, but she does twist around enough to get a good view of the owner of that voice. Tall, dark hair— She's reminded of Max and scolds herself immediately. Why is it that her gut reaction to fear and uncertainty is still Max Evans? There was so much about him that she (that he) didn't know, yet there was something about him that was comforting, reassuring. Like being near him made everything okay, made her feel like things were going to turn out right no matter what.

It's the situation, the uncertainty. Or so she tells herself. It's making her long for days when there was something to look forward to at the end of the tunnel of a bad, impossible situation. Like stepping foot on an off-limits military base or dodging the FBI. There was always pay off, always a reason for the danger and the unexplainable.

There is no reason here. No reason she can see, anyway. Her mind retreats to Max in a futile attempt to feel safe inside this bubble of uncertainty. But Max isn't here and can't be here. It's becoming more and more apparent that this is a sticky situation she's stuck in all by her lonesome. And it has little to do with aliens.

"Most of the time indicates that some people don't. That's not very reassuring."

[aleksandar]

"I'm not good at being reassuring," Alek says. He would sound more apologetic about that if he hadn't long ago accepted he wasn't built a certain way. (And he was literally built, all but made with his father's hands to be molded into a weapon. It's terrible and he tells himself he doesn't care.) He tends to stick to himself, for the most part, and although there is a whole world that was left behind in his wake, there weren't many people left to miss. Jeremy, Tyler, Caroline. Okay, so maybe there are more people than he would like to admit. For all of his attempts at asserting himself as someone that doesn't need anyone, he ends up attaching himself to people regardless.

It's part of the pack mentality he and his brothers have, runs as deep as the blood that has made him. "And the truth isn't always reassuring, either," he adds. Alek isn't someone that's going to give a pretty lie over an uncomfortable truth.

Sometimes that's all you have.

(Do you want the truth or something beautiful?)

[crashdown]

There's been dozens of times over the past year where being lied to would've been easier, where saying lie to me would've kept her safe and happy, free of the sort of burdens no high school sophomore should ever be expected to bear. Lying was easy, but it was also cowardly. Telling the truth took guts, and even though there was a part of her that regretting learning the truth about the trio of aliens at her high school, what Max did had taken an outstanding amount of bravery. He put his life in danger for her, told her a truth that she could've easily taken to Valenti before Kyle's dad joined their side — Max's side. A side she was no longer on because she'd declared herself neutral. Switzerland.

It hurt to think about what he'd done for her, because it no longer mattered as long as Tess was in the picture and shouldn't matter, because she was getting back to being normal.

Liz rises to her feet, still clutching her large, obviously dated cell phone in her hands. "I don't think either would be very reassuring right now. It just isn't a reassuring situation, you know? Portals you can't see — or at least, what I assume was a portal. Otherwise, it's a phasing thing, and I don't— It's just not something you can easily tell someone to calm down from. You're not where you're supposed to be and that's going to suck regardless of whether most go home or not, y'know?"

[aleksandar]

Alek has often felt the same, except then he was lied to about something life-altering. His brothers lied to him about their own family history and it led to it all blowing up in their faces.

There's a slight smile in response. It's not at Liz's expense. More so, it's at the irony of her statement. Most do end up going home. Alek will not be one of those people. There is nothing to go back home to. The end of the world made sure of that. The city he loved and once called home was burned to ashes until nothign was left of it. "I'm won't ask you to calm down," he says, though not unkindly. "I find that patronizing, and I actually think letting yourself go every now and then can be pretty cathartic."

He may have done this when he first showed up, once he found a room that had a sandbag with his name on it. It may be why he is so calm at the moment. Alek isn't known for many things but his rage issues are sometimes one of them. He's not the best of influences, Liz. The narration apologizes for it.

"And back where I'm from, they were called Rifts, not portals, but I think they end up being the same thing. Wormholes that take you away from where you're from. Whether it's science or magic or both, I wouldn't be able to tell you."

[crashdown]

"Wormholes."

Once, she saw something she thought looked like the traditional (likely ill-informed) idea of what a wormhole was supposed to be. Or, at least, what the brightest human scientific minds thought was a wormhole. It probably wasn't anything close to it and Nasedo and whatever knowledge Max and the others still possessed from their previous lives could likely prove them wrong, but she'd seen... something. A flash from Max, a quick burst of images that lasted only a few seconds but were so incredibly breathtaking. Swirls of color and light, unlike anything she'd ever seen.

"That's one theory. Did you ever go through any of these Rifts? Frequently? Back and forth?"

[aleksandar]

A small chuckle is pulled from his mouth.

The question is so painfully accurate that he thinks this is what irony feels like. If there's a small ache in his chest at the reminder, Alek promptly ignores it. "A lot of times, actually. My world was filled with them." Was. It is strange to speak of it in past tense, something that once existed and no longer does, but he's learning. If this is the worst that it gets, then he has no room to complain. There are many worlds, some of which are far more unforgiving.

"It's like ... this swirling vortex," he says thoughtfully, canting his head to the side while he studies her. "Light that's almost blinding. You blink and then you're somewhere else."

[crashdown]

"Mine doesn't have anything like that."

Or maybe it did. It probably did, somewhere out there, if the flashes she got from Max could be trusted at all. There was so much that she knew for a fact that mankind was just beginning to understand. This was probably one of those things.

[normalguy]

Peter is perched up on one of the lounging chairs outside of the pool, working on something that he has in his hands with tools and the like. He got really tired of wearing spandex and just decided that the Door had decided he should be locked up on this ship for a very long time. Hopefully it doesn't drag him through without the suit on or his life will be over, because everyone in the world will know that Peter Parker is Spider-man. Secret identities are a thing for a reason, a very important reason. His leg is hanging off the side of the lounge chair, and he is wearing glasses at the moment, but he lifts his head up when he hears someone slump down against the wall over by the pool.

He swallows a bit and then slips his hand up through his hair. Peter knows it would be-- it would be nice to be able to say No, this is totally a dream, and you will wake up if you pinch yourself really hard, but that is not a thing he can say cause it isn't true. He does enough lying in his day to day life, and he is terrible at it. Practice doesn't make perfect when it comes to lying.

"It's real," Peter offers from where he is sitting, lifting his head up. His hair is sticking every which way like it does whenever he is deep in some project of his like the more focused that he becomes, the less focused his... hair is. "But it won't last forever? I mean, usually it doesn't. I've come and gone a whole bunch of times. You just can't go back until it... lets you. It being the ship. I know that sounds weird because ships shouldn't have a consciousness, but... I don't know what makes the door lock or unlock so until I figure it out, I'm just going with it's the ship's decision."

It is a very unscientific way of stating it, but he has yet to find a scientific explanation, and sometimes Peter Parker is a dork.

[crashdown]

Secrets are important. There might've been a point in Liz's life where she undervalued the importance of secrets and judged those who kept them, but those days are long over. Even she has something to hide, a cross that she bears that nobody will ever be allowed to see. She was shot and died of the floor of her parents' café and given a new chance at life by an alien king from another planet who was destined to be with someone else. It was a secret that, in spite of the danger, was too depressing to share with anyone else. A failed love story not worth publishing.

When something isn't worth publishing, you get really good at lying about the words that could be printed but can't. Won't. You get so good at it that even you start to believe your own deceptions and the things your head tells your heart, even though your heart knows they aren't true. Funny thing about the heart, is that it doesn't always get what it wants. Very rarely in fact. It's easier to listen to the lies and guard your heart than it is to embrace the truth and watch your heart get hurt in the process.

"You're the second person to use the word usually." Liz gets up, rising to her feet. "Though the first to insist that the ship is sentient. I'd call that crazy and impossible, but so is being picked up from a desert town in the middle of New Mexico and dropped off on some ship in the middle of nowhere."

Which, she realizes in sudden, panicked hindsight, sounds more alien than it ought to be. People make alien jokes and cracks about her hometown all the time. It shouldn't be this alarming, but when you make FBI watch lists, it's not so funny anymore.

[normalguy]

Secrets save lives. The truth can be dangerous. Most of the people who found out his secret, they ended up dead so he stopped telling people, and for a year, he kept the secret to himself close to his chest. Now his girlfriend is the only person that knows his secret. He told her the truth before he told her how he feels about her, but the truth can be heavy too. Being one of the only people who know the truth, it means being in the line of fire, knowing so much that every sign of trouble brings fear and worry. Secrets are heavy to carry even when carrying someone else's secret.

Peter leans back as she gets to her feet, and there are still tools scattered out all around him. He found this stuff in one of the other endless rooms that appear on this ship. There are 'stores' that never require any money. There are restaurants and clubs and rooms that just happen to have whatever someone is looking for at the time. It all goes into the mystery that is this place, and he's yet to solve it though he is planning on trying. Any place that grabs people against their will can't be good.

"Well, I've never heard of anyone who couldn't go back, but I don't want to say always in case one time I'm wrong and then it's like... I gave someone false hope," Peter says, and then he shrugs a tiny bit, biting at the end of the tool that he has in his mouth without... thinking. He makes a face at it when he realizes what he's doing, lifting up a hand to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "I haven't found a scientific explanation for any of it yet or I'd be explaining... under those terms. I really wish I knew... why this happened or how to get back when you needed to, or why this happens--"

Any of the above? It'd be really, really good to know, but answers aren't really easy to find.

[crashdown]

Very, very dangerous. If what the FBI learned about Max in the white room got out, it would be the end for them. All of them. Not just the royal four, but her, Maria, and Alex, too. Even Kyle and Sheriff Valenti. All their names were on that list, Topolsky had said so and she believed it. Nasedo was supposed to be doing something about that, but she had the sinking feeling that it would never be over. Which is why the truth would always be told in the form of a lie with the real story buried forever, hidden from everyone.

It would never be truly safe for them. Safe was relative to have careful you were, how much distance you put between those secrets and yourself.

The middle of the ocean was a good distance from Roswell, at the very least. Upside? Not really. Not by a long shot.

"No scientific explanation for it means there's no pattern to follow. The appearances are random, no telltale warning sings that someone's about to pop up?"

[normalguy]

Safety is a feeling and a state of being that one can have and feel for such a long time without even realizing it or appreciating it or understanding how important it is. Then one day something (an event, a death, a threat) shatters it, and it's hard to remember what it used to be like to feel safe. He doesn't really remember it anymore.

It's not even his own safety that he is concerned about. It's the people around him. They're the ones that get hurt, that get killed.

Peter always survives somehow, always comes crawling out of the wreckage.

He smiles softly at the science talk, setting the tool to the side as he nods. "No sign at all that I have seen, and I started to pay close attention to it. They just appear, wondering how they got here and why and where here is. Unless they've been here before like I have then they wonder how long it'll be until the door unlocks again." Until they can go home.

[crashdown]

It's true, safety is something people take for granted — something she'd taken for granted and hadn't realized how much of it she had until she hadn't. She'd been safe before she was shot, safe under the wings of her parents, secure in her promising future in science with the guidance of the various teachers who encouraged her to aim high and seek out her dreams. Safe was more like a memory these days, something she knows she had once, but will likely never have again.

"I don't know if having a welcome wagon upon a rival would be more comforting or not."

[normalguy]

Peter has his head ducked a bit again, poking at the mechanical thing in front of him. He smirks though at what she says, looking back up at her slightly and scratching the back of his head half in thought. Peter tries to think back to the first time he ended up here, but it's... been a long time now. Maybe whatever the hell this is thought he really needed the vacation.

...not that he completely ever slows down or takes a load off even when he's here instead. Just not wired that way. He carries his guilt and his burdens and his responsibility always.

"Guess it depends on the welcome wagon," he says with a light smirk still, ducking his head again. "But appearing on a random mysterious, nowhere boat with a bunch of people waiting for you... might up the creep factor."

[crashdown]

"Maybe, but it could be worse. Horror movie worse. Unless this is the Queen Mary, then we're definitely already in horror movie territory."

Somehow, being on the deck of an infamously haunted ship seemed preferable to being strapped to a chair with FBI agents surrounding her. She'd never been in the white room personally, but she saw flashes of it in Max's mind and it was probably the most horrific thing she'd ever seen. No movie would ever compare to the terror she felt ripping through Max while Pierce interrogated him.

Re: ᴏᴛᴀ

[lockwood]

Tyler has been on the ship for a while now. A couple of weeks. Sure, he could complain but a) it's not Mystic Falls and b) his mother was alive here.

All things considered, it could be worse.

Still, he gets that it can be jarring and he's trying to be a better person again and helping people where he can. So when his sharp senses pick up on someone freaking out he decides to follow it. This place likes to throw surprises at you, after all.

"Yeah, it's happening. Which sucks, but doesn't make it less real."

Okay, so as far as greetings go it isn't the best but no one said he was good at this or anything.

[crashdown]

It could be worse. A lot worse. Liz could be locked in a white room with agents from the FBI's Special Unit, men and women in lab coats hoping to coax information about Max, Nasedo, and the others by whatever means necessary. The mere thought of that very real possibility makes her stomach churn more than the barely detectable motions of the boat do.

Still seated, Liz looks up at him. "Isn't there some sort of 'no place like home' clause? Can't I just click my heels and go back to where I came from?"

[lockwood]

"Somehow, I don't think it's that easy. I mean, it can't be, right?"

Because in Tyler's experience things are never, ever that easy. They're always more difficult than they need to be, than you could ever possibly expect. So just because you want to leave the boat -- well that doesn't mean you're going to.

Not by a longshot.

[crashdown]

"No, of course it isn't."

But that doesn't stop her from wishing it could be, for indulging in that wishful side of herself that knows for a fact that sometimes the impossible happens. Sometimes, you get what you want whether it's a quick trip home or not dying because someone's gun went off in your family's diner.

"You don't seem too bothered by that."

[lockwood]

"Home's not that great."

Understatement of the year, honestly, but Tyler isn't about to go into details with someone he doesn't know. He's not that open of a person, probably never would be.

[crashdown]

"Oh."

Sounds like something Michael would say. Liz knew that was one of the driving forces behind Michael's desire to get the hell off the planet and go back to Antar. Home wasn't great and she'd had the (mis)fortune of seeing that with her very own eyes. His foster father hadn't really been a stellar example of humanity.

"I'm Liz. Can I ask where home's supposed to be?"

[lockwood]

"Tyler. And it's Mystic Falls, Virgina."

He's not really expecting her to have heard of it -- it's a pretty small town, honestly. Easy to miss if you weren't looking for it. It'd be unremarkable if it wasn't for all the supernatural creatures it seems to lure in.

[crashdown]

"I've never been that far east, unless Florida counts. I don't think it does." It was more south than east in spite of sharing part of the east coast. "I'm from Roswell, New Mexico."