Title: The Love Boat
Rating: T
Authoress: T-R-Us
Setting: AU: Modern-Day
Upload Day: Saturdays
Summary: Itey's the Captain's son. Racetrack's dad runs the bar. Bumlets cooks, Mush sweeps. A group of teens roughing it the deluxe way on a luxurious cruise ship – it's anchors aweigh on the Pacific Princess.
Disclaimer: Yadda yadda, owneth Newsies, I do not. (Except the DVD, CD, complete film score, cabbie hat, marbles, website, pictures and dexterity to dance the dances.) Also – all original characters belong to themselves, and I have no connection to Princess Cruises, or the Love Boat TV show which inspired this fic.
Authoress's Note: The casting call is at the bottom, and information regarding the closing of it, etc., etc. are there as well. However, it's strongly suggested you take the time to actually read the story before you go hop-skipping down there. Notes for this introduction – it's in a first person narrative, but that's probably only going to be this one chapter, largely because I have no charries other then mine, a friend's and the Newsies. On another note, my character isn't paired off to anyone. It's more interesting to let others have who they want.
Chapter One: Introduction
For the past two weeks, every one I knew had been studying. End of the year exams will do that to you – especially if you, like most of my friends, are stuck with calculus, physics, chemistry or law. Fortunately for me, while every one was holed away with their text books, I was packing my sunglasses and fifteen different pairs of bathing suits. Man, do I love summer.
Anyone who might care to look at my course selections for the semester would probably see me as being "artsy" – instrumental music, photography, drama and a spare will certainly give that impression – but I picture myself as someone a little more structured than that. Some of my friends would go far enough to call me square – but who's the one without any formal exams, huh?
I like to think there's a reason for every thing I do. Music is something I just love doing. I've been second chair in the flute section for about as long as I can remember. Second chair doesn't bother me so much though, I'm the one who's responsible for handing out music and fundraising forms. (First chair is an amazing flautist, but not such a good passer-outer.) Photography is my other 'sit back and enjoy the class' class, and drama is good for my job.
You see, I've been working with people for even longer than I've been second chair in concert band, and is that ever a long time. This sorta brings me back to my classes, of course. My spare. Most high school juniors take spares so they can goof off and have no class. I use mine to edit passenger manifests for my family's cruise line.
Got you there, huh?
For three generations, us Davenport's have been running a cruise line that functions throughout the Caribbean. We have a fleet that's six ships strong, and operating year-round. It's cool – not every one gets to spend their summer as a youth vacation director on a cruise ship, which is what I've been doing every summer for my entire life.
"Good morning, Chelsea." I strolled into the kitchen, nodding at my mother's greeting, before taking my place across from Vincent at the breakfast table. Toast and orange juice all set out for me, courtesy of my mom, who as usual was feeling a little teary about me going away for three months.
"What time are we leaving?" I directed this at Vincent, who looked half asleep over his bowl of cheerios. For someone who can be so fully alert at six o'clock in the morning at sea, my cousin has never been much of a morning person at home. He blinked up at me blearily.
"I think we want to be out of here by twelve." He slurred, before returning to a semi-comatose state.
Seriously. Vincent is more like a brother to me than a cousin, which may or may not be a bad thing. For him, at least, it certainly entitled me to kick him in the shin, eliciting an expression of surprise. At least we were making some segue way on the waking up front. "Did you have any particular reason for doing that?"
I blinked. "Who needs a reason?"
Vincent has been living with my family since he was three. Oh, my aunt and uncle aren't dead or anything. Uncle Peter is the captain of one of our ships – the Pacific Princess – the one we spend every summer aboard. Aunt Alessandra works on some of the islands where we port, smoothing things over with the locals and such. My own parents work the financial side of the business from our home in San Diego.
"Hey princess, you all packed up?"
I suffered through the kiss that my dad administered to my head, and watched as he ruffled Vincent's hair, asking if he was all set to go, too. I think it helps that my dad is a lot like Uncle Peter. How could Itey possibly miss his own dad when he has the exact clone right here?
Itey. That's his nickname. We all go by nicknames when we're at sea, it makes the experience so much more… I don't know. Anyway, both Itey's and mine are from when we were really little. For some reason, when Itey came out of the womb, he was a male clone of his mom. My Aunt Alessandra is pure Italian, and for a few years couldn't even speak a word of English. Cool, huh? That's why Itey's Itey.
And me? I'm the Ruse. There's a longer explanation, but it mostly just incorporates my love of X-Men, and an uncanny ability to render myself seemingly invisible during a game of hide-and-go-seek.
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There is nothing so beautiful as seeing your ship looming up in front of you in the harbor. The Princess is surprisingly small compared to the other ships in our line – small ship feel, big ship choices. She's no yacht though, 182 meters long, and tipping the scale at 30,200 tonnes.
"Chelsea, you'd think you'd never seen her before."
I poked Itey in the stomach, "You were staring too, dumbstuff."
Waving goodbye to my dad - who had a meeting to get to and didn't have time to hang around – we shouldered our luggage and started up the gang plank.
It always takes a few minutes to make our way all the way down to Deck 3, which is where the teen programme houses its members. Every summer, the Princess offers a sponsorship where teens between the ages of 16 and 19 are welcome to come aboard and work part-time for the summer. They get to lifeguard, cook, perform – and then when they're off duty, enjoy the luxury of a cruise.
Itey and I are exceptions to this, however. Neither of us are physically in the programme. He works with his dad – 'Captain Training 101' we all call it – while I run the teen programme. It's hard work, and there's a lot of yelling involved, but it's a heck of a lot of fun.
Ignoring Itey, who'd been ranting about having to eat dinner with the passengers every night, I unlocked the door to my stateroom – 3001. My personal Oceanview Double. It's not huge, in fact, it's smaller than your average hotel room, but on the Princess it's home. TV, bed, couch, bathroom, there isn't much more you really need.
Tossing my duffel onto the bed, I started putting stuff away. It was likely that this would be one of the few free minutes I had to myself before getting ready to accommodate however many teens would be joining us 'regular crew'.
"Ruse! You're here! Finally!" I whipped around in time to see Buttons Lee throw herself at me in excitement. "You won't believe how boring it is here right now. The only interesting thing that's happened all week was when Skittery got his head stuck in the deck rail." She flopped onto my bed. "If I get roped into sterilizing any more stethoscopes, I will go insane."
Buttons was another member of 'regular crew', teens who had parents onboard and either lived on the ship, or worked on her every summer. Dr. Lee ran the sick bay, and Buttons was often roped into helping him.
"So Mush and Skitts are here?" I asked, naming Miguel and Erik, both of whom had been staple parts of our Princess-family for at least half a decade.
"Yeah, so's Bumlets and Swifty, and every one else is coming in tomorrow." She paused, quickly counting out every one on her fingers, "Oh, and the sputch is coming with the newbs, he's got a cousin coming up." She was referring to Alex, or 'Dutchy' as his nickname should have been.
Two days. We were just two days away from being all together again, a real family.
"Well, well, well. I was wondering why Itey was cowering in his stateroom." Another of my friends – my best one, this time – had appeared in the doorway. I've known Racetrack Higgins for my entire life, and he's almost more of a brother than Itey is.
"Look who decided to join us." He entered the room, and swept me up in a hug. Race lives onboard, and with the exception of the few weeks every year that he comes to live at my house, I don't get to see him all that often. Pressed to his shoulder, I sniffed. "You've been smoking."
He took a step back, affronted. "So what if I have?" A pause. "You aiming to tell?"
Before leaving last summer, I'd taken his entire stash of cigarettes and tossed them overboard, making him promise to quit. He had seemed to be improving when he came up for Christmas, and then Easter – but now…
"I thought you promised to stop." My eyes bored into his, and his expression was registering on the guilty scale.
"I think I'll just go, now." Buttons was backing out of the room, but I didn't stop my silent confrontation with Racetrack to watch her go.
"I am, okay? Trust me. You left me going cold turkey, it's hard."
"Well it wouldn't be hard if you hadn't started in the first place."
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After letting Race off the hook – for now – I'd gone up to Deck 11 to see how things were faring. Rows and rows of vacant deck chairs surrounded the empty golf cage and shuffle boards, all except one.
"Skittery, you chog!" I hurled myself at the lanky youth, calling out the insult used to describe a chair hog. "Can't you see that you need to let ladies have the only available seat?"
He looked around, a little surprised, before gallantly rising. "Anything for you, Lady Ruse."
We hugged, exchanged 'what have you been up to's' and then I moved on. Walking through the empty decks was creepy, so many staterooms – all empty. No one in the restaurants, shops, pool, anywhere. It was weird to think that in just a few days, the ship would be crawling with over 600 passengers. But such is life on the lo-oooove boat – ah!
Closing Comments: Love Boat Trivia! Ruse mentions that there's six boats in the fleet; there's the Pacific Princess which this fic is set on, but also the Island Princess, the Stella Solaris, the Pearl of Scandinavia, the Royal Viking Sky and the Royal Princess. (All of which, of course, come from the TV Show which inspired the fic.)
The upload date on this fic is every Saturday. On Saturday, October 28th there will be no update – as I will be organizing the results of the casting call. The next update will be November 3rd.
This casting call is currently closed. It may be reopened at some point during the story, but at the moment I am not accepting any more applications. Thanks to those who submitted a character!
If you are interested in joining the cast of The Love Boat, please fill out the following and send it to me in either an email or a review.
Name:
Nickname (and why):
Family/Home Life:
Personality:
Hair Style and Color:
Eye Color:
Clothing Style:
Other (regarding appearance):
Perfect Date:
Ideal First Meeting (no character names, please):
Preferred Newsie (Love Interest):
Back-Up #1:
Back-Up #2:
Preferred Newsie (Friend):
Preferred Newsie (Friend):
Passenger or Crew:
If Crew, What Position (Arts, Culinary, Lifeguard, etc)?
Character's Interests:
Contact Info (Your FF account if in an email, or your email if in an anonymous review):
A few helpful notes on getting into the story:
- Make your character interesting and original: not every one is a tragic orphan.
- Yes, you have a favorite newsie, but please don't write their name everywhere or in all caps.
- Beauty won't necessarily make the newsies love you more.
Please bear the following in mind:
- I reserve the right to choose whether or not submissions are utilized, and I alone choose which newsie each character is paired with.
- You may or may not get the position or newsie you request.
- At some point, your character may disappear from the story.
Thank you!