simplestgift | Nineteen Bells: [WRITTEN/ACTION/VOICE]

[Filtered from known villains and Grell, 100% unhackable]

[Written in a disguised hand, with the picture obscured.]

To anyone who is new, I would like to let you know that if, for any reason, you feel unsafe in your own home, you may go to the Welcome Center and ask to be placed with someone known to be safe until you are back on your feet. There does not have to be a reason--perhaps you were kidnapped recently or someone is threatening you. You do not need to tell why.

That said, I am in need of more women as volunteers. If any of you have a spare bed, your help would be most welcome. Even if you can be dispatched as a bodyguard, we would be glad of your assistance. A trusted member of the community must be able to vouch for you.

[/Filter]

[Tonight Archie will be waiting tables at Cloud 9. When he gets off, he will take an unusually long time coming home. At some point, he'll be perched on one of the docks on the ocean, staring blankly out to sea, oblivious to the world.

There isn't really one specific reason. It's everything, really, from the draft to William's disappearance. Archie is as bottled as they come, and...

Bottles.

Around one in the morning, a gunshot and shattering glass is heard. This is because Mr. Kennedy has set up a line of empty bottles from the night club on the fountain and is using them for target practice. Wine, beer, as long as it's empty and glass it gets used. If you are having difficulty sleeping because you keep hearing gunshots and shattering glass every thirty-one seconds (gotta take time to reload), this may be why.

For housemates, he'll be at close to three in the morning, looking like he's gotten a little bit of something out of his system.

He will then, late at night, make a voice post.]

If anyone would like to play a game of whist during whatever you call your midday meal tomorrow, you would be welcome. I cannot vouch for my cooking, but I'll make a game attempt.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Not without me to pull you off bridges and such. [He's saved your life so many times, Horatio. Well. Twice. But still.]

Pull me off bridges, jump off cliffs with me... [He has to chuckle.]

[He chuckles, too, and falls silent. This is nice. Remembering old times. Thinking about making new memories. Actually being Horatio's lieutenant for real instead of in theory.]

I'll have to think of other help. The lieutenant hires the crew, doesn't he?

You and I can manage it together, I think. Though you know the people here better than I do.

[...And here is the captain, the result of all the quiet contemplation Horatio has been often lost in as of late.]

We'll need cause to meet-- whist games, perhaps building this boat you suggested. Little things that it doesn't seem suspicious if a group is together.

The wi-- journals I don't trust. I want as little use of them as possible. And when we talk? I want them in another room. Just to be safe.

[He nods.] Of course. Buffy would be good to have on our side. [He's thinking.] Probably...God, I'm not sure. [His mind clicks through recent faces, and lands on one.] Derek Bliss. He was in the army, I believe. Quiet fellow, but Buffy trusts him, and that's all I need to know.

[He gets a bit of a look on his face at Buffy's name, but... He won't argue. If Archie wants her in... Well. He knows this place and its people better than he does.

And then he chuckles.]

Army experience. We could certainly use that. [A faint smile, amused despite the real threat his words underline.] This won't be much like a sea battle, certainly.

...Mutiny, Horatio.

[Not too different from a sea battle, in that way.]

[The smile vanishes from his face.]

Went so well the last time I tried.

[If we fail, we won't have a court martial to worry about.]

Don't tell me you regret it.

[A pause.]

It had to be done.

We didn't mutiny, Horatio. [He visibly catches himself, remembering what Horatio told him. Okay, we was now narrowed down to everyone on the ship but Horatio.] Well, anyway, you're right. It did.

I regret what it caused. [But he cannot say he regrets what he did or what they'd discussed doing. He regrets the former happened rather than the latter, but...

It had to happen.]

That fool Buckland being put in command? We'd have sunk if he hadn't been, as bad as he was.

We should have declared him unfit when he sent the Marines after us. If we hadn't run... if we'd just declared him unfit then... [But then there were a hundred other things that might have gone wrong.

He's well aware that hindsight doesn't help and the past can't be changed.]

They would have arrested us. It would be a court martial no matter what we did. Any time the captain cannot command, whether he is killed or mad. You know that, Horatio.

But if the circumstances... [He shakes his head. His own doing, his own failing.]

This time... We can only pray we do things right.

Horatio. [His voice is soft, even tender.] Sometimes there isn't a right or wrong way to do things. Sometimes everything you could possibly do is the wrong thing to do, and so is waiting for things to do themselves. It wasn't going to end well no matter what we did, and I suspect the same is true here. But the way things did end, at least you were alive and eventually made it to post-captain. Buckland was humiliated and Bush is doing well for himself. And so am I. [A little smile.] And so will Wellard.

[Horatio looked up.

But at such a cost. I cannot bear that again.

He managed to force a smile, though, and gave a thin laugh that didn't reach his eyes.]

Well. At least if Mr. Buckland decides to arrive here, I properly outrank him this time.

[There are a lot of things Archie thinks he could not bear again. Like being caged, even if he doesn't remember it. But Horatio is here, and the worst thing that could possibly happen, worse than if his seizures came back, would be for Horatio to be sent home.]

That is most comforting. [But it's hard to joke. The melancholy is digging its fingers back in, and his eyes go glassy.]

[And now Horatio's voice warms, and he squeezes Archie's shoulder.]

We'll do what we've done before-- gotten by. We have to fight, so we'll fight.

We do.

[He bows his head.]

We're in this together. Just how it ought to be.

[He nods. Just how it ought to be. But asking Horatio not to go back home is ridiculous--he has no control over it. So he looks up at him, meeting his eyes.

For this moment, everything is as it ought to be.]

I think they put me in a cage, Horatio. I'm frightened they did. But I don't know why it should matter if I can't remember any of it.

[Horatio frowned darkly at those words, and he gripped Archie's shoulder a bit more snugly.]

Because it does matter. And if you don't remember, you can't be certain.

[And Horatio knows that he would be most frightened of that part himself, of not being certain. Know every detail or know nothing at all... but to have only an idea.

Then, softly.]

We'll find a way to stop them.

[It wouldn't help what had gone before, but it could help what came after.]

We'll try. Even if we fail, not trying is worse than death. [Clayton.] And God knows that isn't much of anything to threaten us with.

[action]

captainhornblower - 2011-08-15 05:30 (UTC) - Expand

simplestgift - 2011-08-15 05:33 (UTC) - Expand

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captainhornblower - 2011-08-15 17:55 (UTC) - Expand

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Nineteen Bells: [WRITTEN/ACTION/VOICE]

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