On board the Cape Rouge, off the coast of Fandom, Sunday afternoon [NFB]

[betterthanaplan]

Duke had met his contact that morning out to sea, picking up Hera's spicy tea as well as a handful of other items of a more . . . personal nature. Once the man had headed off again, he took the Cape Rouge back towards Fandom, steering her on an impulse towards the wild side of the island, instead of straight back into port. He found a quiet, secluded looking spot and stripped down to his shorts. He'd done a fair amount of socializing this week, most of it talking about things well outside his comfort zone; a little free diving would help him feel a bit more like himself again. He stretched, enjoying the feeling of the sun against his bare shoulders, and dove in.

And scrambled back up onto the deck fifteen minutes later, panting and staring wild-eyed back at the water.

"That is not okay!" Once he was sure no tentacles had tried to follow him to the surface, he turned his face to the sky. "Giant squid monsters are not okay!" He shoved his hands into his hair, pulling it back out of his face, and tried to catch his breath.

Right. Swimming was out. Yoga was -- not going to happen right now. He swallowed and looked over to the crates his contact had given him. After another moment spent staring suspiciously at the water, he grabbed a bottle of Jamaican spiced rum from one of them, poured several fingers into a glass, and set the glass and the open bottle in a nice central location for the -- the goddamn radio squirrels -- and headed below decks.

Time for some chemical assistance.

Duke was no stranger to mind-altering drugs. It wasn't a regular habit for him or anything, but he was a firm believer of "try anything once", and frankly, with the life he'd lived, a little acid or peyote or, in this case, shrooms could be downright therapeutic. He made himself a quick stir fry with enough shrooms for what he figured would be a mild high, washed it down with a bit of his own rum, and stretched out on his bed to watch the clouds drift and spiral past his skylight for awhile.

Time dilated. Duke thought about radio squirrels and gremlins and children from the future. Doppelgangers. Aliens and shark-people. Giant tentacled sea monsters. He frowned and tried to focus on the clouds again.

The clouds took on shapes with teeth.

". . . This was a mistake."

[for one. NFB. Kraken spotted with permission. Contains drug use and will likely refer to some traumatic backstory in the comments. Because Duke was really taking all of this far too well. . . . *evil cackle*]

Comments

[following_my_fishie]

Delirium's roommate had turned into a tiny yellow crab. That didn't bother her and why would it? She didn't stay the same shape even most of the time. But he was a crab and they needed sea water and she thought it might be a nice treat for him so off she went to the beach, tiny crab on a safety line perched on her shoulder. Barnabas wasn't with them, he was off talking to Lucien about something and she'd been told she should try to stay in the dorms since she'd be unsupervised but Norman was here and he was sensible and she felt like he was enough supervision.

On the beach, she put him on the pebbles and poked him once so he'd head toward the water. Norman took one look at the Atlantic Ocean and scrambled away from it just as fast as his legs could take him, gesticulating wildly at Delirium with his claws. He was a tropical crab, Delirium!

She stared at him and the water at the same time for a few minutes and then nodded. "Okay, so you need a warm bath. I can make it warm." Dragging a toe through the pebbles, she scored a line and let the ocean follow her to a shallow tide-pool area. Which, after a moment, warmed. Norman scuttled toward it and dipped in the tip of one leg. Then he scuttled into it and sank up to his eyestalks. Ahhh!

Delirium beamed. "Yay! But I probably shouldn't watch you take a bath. That might be rude. Even if you are a crab today." She turned and looked a different way. She could see the Cape Rouge park in the cove and Duke dive over the side. "Look, Norman! Duke's playing in the water too! You're playing in the water with Duke! .. Sort of? It's sort of social? We are Socializing, Sort Of!" Delirium was a little proud of this. Duke's hasty exit made her nod thoughtfully, "He doesn't like the cold water either. I probably shouldn't make the whole ocean warm right now." She watched until he went inside and then turned her attention back to Norman, building him a tiny little pebbled castle in his tide pool, complete with crenelated walls and towers.

A little while later and her attention turned back to the ship. "Uh oh," she said softly, "Come on, Norman. We've gotta go. Duke's calling us. Well, me, but you're here and I'm not leaving you here with seagulls so he's calling us." She scooped up her roommate and put him on her shoulder. She started walking at first but the steps sped up until she was sprinting - and then between one step and the next she was on the deck and facing the opening to belowdeck. She bit her lip and thought about knocking on the wall or a door or something but.. well.. he'd invited her and sometimes loud banging noises were bad when people invited her.

She decided that would be bad. Delirium blinked out from the deck of the ship and slowly began to fade into view near Duke. She could have materialized all at once but that was also sometimes startling. Duke was on the bed but not asleep and he didn't look like he was enjoying what he was seeing.

"Duke?" Del asked quietly, "Are you okay? Um. Because you called me? Hello?"

[OOC: Norman modded with permission.]

[betterthanaplan]

Not startling Duke was a very good plan right now. There were far too many weapons in reach of -- basically anywhere on the Rouge -- and he would feel bad later about aiming a gun at one of his students.

"Fuck." Duke pressed one hand over his eyes. The teeth followed him. He gasped and opened his eyes again, slowly managing to focus on Delirium. Who was . . . here? How. . . ?

Barnabas had warned him about this, hadn't he. Fuck. He opened his mouth to -- apologize, maybe? Explain? Probably curse again. But what came out was:

"There's a crab on you."

[following_my_fishie]

Delirium thought about all of the ways to answer that comment so it took a minute or so before she could find one that wouldn't upset Duke right now. Because he was upset already. She didn't know why. She could see the teeth, of course, she just didn't know why those were upsetting.

"I know," she responded eventually, "He's really there. It's okay. He doesn't bite or pinch." She watched Duke for another moment and then bit her lip again. He wasn't okay. After a minute, she sat on the floor next to his bed and said, "It's alright. I'm here. You're safe. I won't let anything hurt you, I promise."

[betterthanaplan]

Because they were teeth. Because there was a sea monster under his boat, and a moose had forced him to teach a class, and he was a little worried the guy with his face wore it better than him.

"Yeah," he said, after a moment. "I'm fine, I'll be --" He lurched upright and fumbled for a shirt. Because Endless or not, Delirium was still supposed to be his student and that was so much easier to focus on right now than did the mermen kill his dad? "Jesus fuck, that's not helpful right now, brain."

[following_my_fishie]

She wouldn't have understood why any of those first few things were upsetting, even if she could see they clearly were upsetting to Duke.

"You're not, you know," Delirium told him quietly, "Fine. Not right now, no you're not. If you were, I wouldn't be here and I am." She looked around for a thing to focus him on that wasn't something his brain had already tried. "Um. Duke? Can you tell me about your boat? It's a nice boat." She patted the floor approvingly.

[betterthanaplan]

He was absolutely not fine. But there were very few people in the multiverse whom he'd ever admit that to out loud.

Because his dad had drowned, right there in front of him, just dropped under water like maybe he'd been pulled and left Duke all by himself --

"What?" Duke squinted at her -- why were there clouds in the state rooms? Fuck, right, shrooms -- then pressed his hand to his eyes and shook his head. "Um. Boat. Yeah. Y-yeah, she's -- she's a real good boat."

[following_my_fishie]

He didn't have to admit it out loud. Delirium watched, her mismatched eyes seeing more than just the clouds. Two paths. There were two paths through her Realm right here. She couldn't stop him from walking without hurting him.

One of the paths had Duke talking about the boat and looking at the pretty clouds and sleeping.

The other was dark and full of fear and death and loneliness. It wasn't somewhere she wanted him to walk but that choice was never up to her. And maybe... maybe that was why he called her? Because he wanted to but he didn't want to go alone?

"Duke? I don't know which way you want to go. Right now it's that thing? Proverb thing? Not so good as a tattoo proverb but still one of 'em? 'The only way out is through'? Have you heard that one? Um. Cuz.. cuz that's kinda right now? You called me and I'm here, but now you gotta be a Captain and choose which way to go. I can't.." Her voice trailed off for a minute before resuming softly, "I can't choose for you. I don't know which one you want. But you called me and I'm here and .. and you're safe. I'll be with you. You'll be safe. No matter which you choose."

Delirium held out her hand. She rarely touched people and never any that weren't - or who had not been - hers, because that too was a saying, 'touched by madness' and mostly when they said it they didn't know just how true it was. Right now, Duke was most assuredly one of hers, he was walking himself right into her Realm - and he'd called her. So she held out her hand, waiting for him to take it.

Waiting for him to choose which way they'd go.

She wasn't worried about Norman. He'd already been touching her when she arrived here so she could make sure he didn't see anything that was scary. When it came to Norman, 'scary' had kind of a big scope though. At the moment, she was a little worried about Duke.

[betterthanaplan]

Consciously, Duke was all for pretty clouds and boat talk. That was what he'd been aiming for when he took the shrooms in the first place, though he hadn't expected company. Unfortunately his conscious mind wasn't so much running this show anymore, and when he reached out to take her hand, darkness rolled in like a cloud from every side.

"Um."

They were on a boat. Not the Cape Rouge, but smaller and junkier, one of Simon Crocker's 'floating trash heaps'. It was night, and the sea spread out deep and endless in every direction. Duke stumbled back a step without letting go of Delirium's hand.

"Oh that's not good."

[following_my_fishie]

He couldn't have let go of her. He wasn't, you see, holding her. She was holding him. She gave a tiny sigh and looked around. Everything was dark and scary and so much bigger than it ought to be. Anyplace but here. Memory warped by trauma, a view she was all too familiar with.

"Duke? When are we?" She knew where they were, of course. They were in her Realm and in one of his memories. It wasn't now.

She kept using his name, calling his name, because sometimes...

Sometimes if she didn't, people forgot. Del couldn't let him forget now, not who he was. Not when he was in one of his own memories.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke took a shaky breath and tried to focus on her question and not the water. "I don't --" He did know. "This is -- the night my father died."

The boat rocked beneath them as a man hustled a young boy out of the wheelhouse, shaking the boy by his shoulders.

"You promise me, Duke. Swear it. Swear you'll come back."

Duke's hand tightened in Del's, his other one forming a fist as he stared at the memory of his father. "Let go of him."

[following_my_fishie]

Delirium scrunched up her face at the memory. She didn't like the shaking either. Del tightened her hand on Duke's to let him know she was still there.

"It won't work, you know," Del said quietly, "Telling him or even hitting him. This when has already happened. It can't be changed from here."

But Duke focusing on that scene was possibly better than having him look around. He was invested in this memory and that was keeping him from noticing the other parts of her Realm floating around them. Owls with people faces, butterflies that sang three-part harmonies, colors that were tastes and sound that was sight. In the distance, the sundial waited. They'd have to head that way eventually, but not yet. Not until this played out.

"What promise, Duke?" she asked, looking up at him, "You know you don't gotta, right? He's making you and promises can't be stolen like that. They aren't binding when they're stolen."

[betterthanaplan]

"The Troubles," Duke said, practically spitting the words out. "If they ever come back to Haven, I -- I have to go back."

The boat rocked harder as the memory!Duke stuttered out his promise. Duke turned away, looking out to sea, and flinched before he could even begin to make sense of the chaos happening around the edges of the world.

"This is going to suck."

Something large and dark rose up from the water around them. This hadn't happened quite like this in 1983, but such was the nature of memory. Duke had seen and been freaked out by a sea monster, and the sea monster filled in the gaps of something he'd never properly understood in the first place. The boat jerked, slammed into by something enormous and unnatural, pitching the memory!Duke to the boat floor and sending his father tumbling over the side. Duke lunged forward, caught up in the memory again. "Dad! No!"

[following_my_fishie]

"No," Delirium said absently, "You don't. He wants you to but you don't gotta do it."

Even more softly, she added a sad little, "But you will." She could see it, in a different when. He wasn't wrong that he had to go back. That entire other when wouldn't happen if he didn't.

Duke wouldn't get far with that lunge because Delirium wasn't moving and he couldn't let go of her hand if he tried. She looked at the thing, the form the water made. "What do you see?" It was.. almost certain that he didn't see what she saw, the energy and manipulation of the element and the very strange mix of feelings behind it.

It was.. very strange. Water didn't usually feel things. Not even in her Realm.

[betterthanaplan]

Everything in Haven had feelings. Or was at least powered by them. Something else Duke had spent his time at sea trying to forget.

He did try to let go of her, just for a moment, as the memory!Duke scrambled to his feet and watched his father disappear below the waves. His inability to do so had him recentering on Del again, instead of drowning in rage and grief from 25 years ago. He closed his eyes and focused on a breath.

"It's --" A giant squid, a submarine. The mermen. Poseidon himself. "-- A sea monster." He swallowed. "I just saw it under the Cape Rouge."

[following_my_fishie]

Del slowly shook her head. "No? Because that one even I can see but this one isn't the same. The hopes and dreams are different. The one under the Cape Rouge just mostly hopes for fish. This one.." She looked at it again, then looked at the memory of him. "You didn't make this. The feelings aren't the same." It wanted that man to die. That was its hope, that it would kill him. Neither Duke liked his father very much - but neither wanted him dead. "Duke, it wasn't your fault."

It really wasn't.

It was somebody's. She was watching a murder, here.

But it wasn't his fault. He couldn't have stopped it. What was driving it was too strong.

Too afraid.

[betterthanaplan]

"Of course it wasn't," Duke said, in the tone of someone who had told himself that more often than he'd believed it. "I was eight."

He watched himself -- the memory of himself -- curl into a ball on the boat. They both shivered.

"I wanted him to -- stop," Duke said slowly. "He'd go away for days at a time and come back -- strange." He laughed, though there wasn't even an ounce of humor in it. "I learned how to do stitches 'cause he'd come back bleeding. I remember he wanted to go fishing and I got so excited because that was almost normal. . . ."

[following_my_fishie]

"Of course it wasn't," Delirium repeated with a shrug, "Because it wasn't. It doesn't matter how old you were, it just matters that you didn't do this and it wasn't your fault."

She watched the man sink into the water, almost without time to fight. But he didn't fight. Del puzzled over that, given what Duke had just said. The man was a fighter. He came back with bleeding wounds which meant he was also a fight winner but he wasn't fighting now. Looked between the bubbles and the boy on the boat.

The boy on the boat.

His son.

"Oh," Del said, almost more breath than word, when she understood. She squeezed Duke's hand a little tighter. She didn't tell him, not yet, because she didn't know for sure if she really understood. Sometimes she didn't understand things right but she thought maybe this, she understood just fine. He hadn't fought, because the ..thing.. had grabbed him and if he fought, it might take Duke too.

"You were little," Delirium said simply, "And he was your dad."

[betterthanaplan]

"He was my dad," Duke agreed. "Only one I ever got."

Did the Endless have fathers? They had siblings, but parents . . . didn't seem likely.

He didn't have much time to consider it though, as the light flickered around them, a shutter-flash of a single moment, a memory caught in a photograph. Or a memory of a photograph. A crowd on a beach, standing over a body. It was there and gone in a moment, the only memory of that morning Duke had.

When it cleared, they were on a snowy hill. Duke smiled.

"This is better."

[following_my_fishie]

"We don't have parents," Del said, "Not even one. We made ourselves." She wasn't following the narrative, not really, only sort of apologizing for why she didn't wholly understand.

Delirium looked around at the snow and smiled. "Snow is nice. When are we now?"

[betterthanaplan]

". . . Earlier," Duke said. "Still . . . third grade?" He shrugged. The when wasn't so important here, except that his dad had still been alive. The what, though. . . .

A boy, not Duke, went whizzing by on a plastic sled, shrieking, and slammed into a tree. The other kids at the top of the hill cheered.

"Kids are dicks, aren't they," Duke observed.

[following_my_fishie]

Delirium blinked quite a lot. "Is that fun?" she asked timidly, "It looks .. not so very fun." She peered up at the other children, "Not all children are dicks. Why are these ones being dicks? That doesn't seem so very fun either. Being dicks."

[betterthanaplan]

"You're not really supposed to hit the tree," Duke said, as the boy who'd gone sledding by climbed to his feet and started back up the hill. Completely missing the blood pouring off his arm. "The dick thing. . . ." He shook his head. "Childhood is complicated."

Duke himself had mostly been a dick because his father had gone weird and he didn't know how to deal with his own emotions. And Nathan made for a good outlet.

The kids at the top of the hill started screaming, as the bleeding boy made it back to the top. All except tiny!Duke, who just rolled his eyes, grabbed the kid's other arm and pulled it over his shoulders to lead the kid away.

"That's Nathan," Duke explained. "He was my best friend." He frowned. "Sometimes."

[following_my_fishie]

"It doesn't seem like the tree would like it very much, being hit," Del admitted, and shook her head, "I don't know much about childhood. None of us were children. Not even me." Though she was, indeed, the most childlike of the Endless.

Most of the time.

"At least you had a best friend sometimes," she offered, watching Duke take care of his friend, "That's better than not having one at all. You're being a good friend to him right there, not screaming and just helping him. He's letting you, too. Sometimes people don't, you know?"

[betterthanaplan]

Duke nodded absently, staring after the two boys, and the bloody trail they left in the snow. “He could, then. Everything changed after this. He went numb. And Dad said we couldn’t be friends anymore.” He smiled sadly. “This was the last good day for awhile.”

The world shuddered, and that memory flash of that murder scene on the beach popped up again, washed in blood. Wild, singing swirls of it, red and black and red that buzzed along nerve endings and smelled like flowers. Duke reeled back, grabbing for Del with his free hand as he was abruptly reminded that this was not necessarily a good or happy place to be.

“What — what is that?!”

[following_my_fishie]

Delirium listened and frowned. "Your dad shouldn't oughta said you couldn't be friends, that's not for him to choose." A little sadly, "He wasn't a very nice man, was he? I don't think so. Not if he wanted to take away a friend."

She reached for Duke when he grabbed for her - stronger than she looks, and stronger than someone her size should be, able to hold him up if he staggers.

Delirium watched the flash again, rewinding it behind her own eyes so he didn't have to. It wasn't one thing, it was three. A memory; a man slumped back against a post, the flaccidity of his body implying either sleep or death. A woman holding the hand of a little boy - Duke, as a child - and the sorrow and shock on their faces told her which it was. Death, then. The woman's face was also resolved and her hand was tight on Duke's. The look on his face, not as shocked as it should have been. He'd seen death before. Not his father's body, then. She'd wondered.

The swirl of red was blood but it wasn't from this memory. Earlier. Little plinks of it through Duke's life, little moments where the blood had mattered and then this moment where his friend's blood was all over him. His friend was going numb and Duke..

"Oh," Delirium said in a tiny voice. The synesthesia. Duke had been walking the borders of her Realm far longer than he'd known. Always in the shadows but now, covered in his friend's blood, far closer than he had been before. And yet.. still on the border. She tilted her head and watched the memory of Duke leading Nathan away again. Duke wasn't stepping into her Realm because he couldn't let himself. His friend was hurt and needed the hospital. He couldn't let himself think about or feel anything but that because Nathan couldn't get there on his own. Nathan needed him and Duke wouldn't...could not.. let him down. And that.. She couldn't tell if it was the past or something yet to come. The two little boys was in the past. Duke wasn't little anymore. But the feeling. The resolve and the response to his friend's need.. That wasn't in the past alone.

She took a breath and, still watching. "It's some memories all mixed up. From when you were little and from some other time not right now. They sort of smashed? Banged together and threw sparks like shiny confetti? You're seeing the sparks. Um. Do you want me to tell you what the picture part was? That part's easy?"