suffer a sea-change (ad astra)

[jollyboat]

Being on the ship is taking adjusting. There's no feeling of the ocean; no smell of the sea breeze. No bells to help keep time.

At least he has more time now. He has time to wander about the ship and get his bearings. Has time to find the oxygen gardens and find a nice little place to tuck away.

Time to frown and poke at the network and fail to figure out how to download the books he wishes to, and certainly time to write to the young man he's started to befriend.

In the oxy gardens, when you're free!

Comments

[whisted]

It's probably selfish, being glad someone else has been dragged into this situation. It's probably particularly selfish to be glad that there's someone else more or less from home, knowing exactly how difficult this adjustment had been.

But it puts the slightest bit of a spring in his step to know he's going to spend a bit of time with someone who understands.

His own holotech is tucked under his arm--not exactly the volume of a book, but almost close enough--as he trots quietly into the oxygen gardens to look for: "--Mr Kennedy?"

f...first time meeting face to face or?

[jollyboat]

"Mr. Hornblower!"

The pulse of contentment will ring down the empathy bond rather instantly. It's clear the grin on his face is from an entirely genuine emotion.

"Thank you, for your time. It's-- nice to have someone who understands."

coin-flip said yes

[whisted]

The general pulse of other people's emotions is becoming a little easier to bear, but the flicker of genuine expression on this particular face--the face of someone who'd lived very much the life that had helped force Horatio's own features into stillness--is something just briefly arresting.

Still, hard not to be entirely excited. He has to give the other young man that.

"It is." There's a certain carefulness to finding a place to settle in beside Archie, strictly mindful of the limit of his own capacity to keep himself within himself. "You're settling all right, all the same?"

excellent

[jollyboat]

"As best as one can. It's-- very different, isn't it?"

Albeit very freeing. He can tell just from the very-- regimented feel of him that Horatio knows how well the Navy can keep them firmly in check.

[whisted]

His breath comes in a very soft little puff. It's looser now than when he first arrived, but he's fairly certain this particular individual will have had more than a little experience with the suppression of a tired laugh.

"More than a bit." But not all bad. Certainly not all bad if someone who had come up the same hard road he had could crack a proper smile here. "Some's not so different, though."

There was still Shakespeare, even if the holotech isn't exactly a book. At least he's starting to feel a certain competence scrolling his way through certain menus to find it--and share it.

[jollyboat]

"Suppose that's fair."

They're still sailing, after a fashion. And certainly they're able to still read. He's going to watch curiously as Horatio scrolls through to the book, trying to understand the technology for himself.

"--'s pretty incredible, isn't it?"

Unlike anything they've ever seen, really.

[whisted]

That briefly pauses his fingers on the pad. Lots of this was incredible, after all. The fact he had managed to get even half a comfortable with even this small corner of it certainly was--but so was being in space, and so was crashing so often into people from entirely different universe, and so was finding someone who seemed very much to have come from his own.

Another beat, and his fingers scroll on again, scanning over the histories quickly.

"Certainly more than a bit."

[jollyboat]

"I hope we get to-- something like this back home, someday."

He can't help but sound a little wistful for it.

"I mean, I know we won't see it, but it's-- exciting. To think that however many hundreds of years from when we were, ships will still be around and full of technology like this."

Because there's all those books, just there on a pad! It's incredible!

[whisted]

The crease of his brow is slight, the brief flicker of a furrow smoothed almost as quickly as it appears. (That's still the same, at least. That's been broken into him too hard for even this to jolt him entirely out of.)

"I... suppose."

But there's a flickering well of doubt that can't be entirely suppressed. It's one thing to be entirely gungho about understanding this 'world' while they're here. It's something else to imagine everything they know fading away--even into something as fascinating as this.

[jollyboat]

Archie's something of an open book, when it comes to emotions-- expressing and receiving. Other, worse moments or problems might get him closing off but this, right now? He's no reason to be anything but himself. So the flicker of doubt is going to earn a lift of Archie's brow and a glimmer of surprise and curiosity.

"Only suppose?"

[whisted]

Explaining himself has never been easy. Explaining his anxieties has never truly been attempted.

His fingers smooth absently against the first few lines of the play now open in his lap--the master and the boatswain, fighting through the storm--and he can feel his brow knitting almost against his will.

"A bit... daunting to imagine."

[jollyboat]

"That's fair."

It is a lot to take in, after all.

"It'd mean-- quite a bit of change, I suppose."

And that is a daunting thought.

[whisted]

He doesn't have the words for this. His lips press together firmly for a moment, holding back at exactly the sort of thought that usually had to be held back and tamped down and unacknowledged.

"Rather... difficult change."

But maybe it's all right, here, to let his grip on the empathy bond between them slip. Horatio might not have the words for what scares him about the idea, but it isn't such a terrible thing to share just a sliver of the utter devotion he has for the ships they usually sail, the special pride that wells in his gut at understanding them.

It's hard to accept something you love being replaced.

[jollyboat]

It takes a moment to consider the emotion that reaches him, his lips pursing just slightly. After the moment, he does nod with a bit of a soft smile.

"Suppose it's not one we'll-- ever have to see. And I imagine there's got to be some people that will still want to sail ships. Can't imagine you can sail one of these on the ocean."

[whisted]

The gentleness is... well. The gentleness isn't incongruous with his experience of Mister Midshipman Kennedy thus far in life, but it still puts the slightest bit of squirreliness into his shoulders for a moment.

It had been one thing to feel a little camaraderie. It's another thing to feel easily understood.

"...hm." It's almost genuinely clearing his throat more than a cover, something oddly tight in his chest at the sensation. "I imagine you're right."

[jollyboat]

That's a strange sort of emotion. Archie can't entirely parse what it is, and Horatio doesn't seem entirely inclined to examine it, so instead he decides to shift the subject even as he shifts a little closer.

"Guess that means we can stick to enjoying the ships we know, then." A proper grin as he finally opens the book, "And since we can't sail at the moment, I suppose-- this way's the closest we can get."

With a ship in a storm, and some Shakespeare.

[whisted]

Horatio isn't at all used to this sort of easy happiness just beside him. Archie had always been cheerful enough, but it's utterly distinct here--when that contentment can bleed under his skin from the simplicity of the other young man shifting a hair closer.

It relaxes something tense from his shoulders--not entirely, but enough.

"Right again, Mr. Kennedy."

[jollyboat]

It's a good feeling. It's one certainly echoed in Archie, as well.

"Shall we, then, Mr. Hornblower?"

It's good to feel relaxed and content, even in a place so strange as this.

It's even better to be with someone almost like a friend.