Nobody calls me that. [ But it's not a complaint. There's a laugh, or something, lodged in his throat. He breathes out slow. ] You want a copy? [ Absently, half to himself: ] You should have a copy.
[ About thirty seconds—and one text message consisting solely of the letter p—later, there it is on Travis' CommLink. ]
[Cool cool cool cool cool cool cool. Sure. Okay. Travis deletes what he was typing when the copy beats him to an excuse for why he doesn’t want it. Also cool. Cool!
He skims it. Decides he knows it better than anyone.]
[ Another pause, his grip on the comm tightening as if to steady himself. It all seems backwards, grotesque—telling someone about the pain their life put you through. He could pull up the file or not, open or close it. Travis had lived it.
But he's resolved to be honest, to share his fucking feelings. ] Yeah. Your sister. [ It sounds like the beginning of a list, but he trails off. ] I couldn't think what else to do.
I wanted to [ —his voice turns bitterly ironic— ] pay my respects.
[Sister forces him to open up his file again just to check what's actually there. He imagines the sight of the text searing a hole straight through his corneas and into his brain, and it's hard not to feel bitter suddenly. He hasn't talked about her out loud in nearly a decade and this breaks the seal?
He contemplates switching to text, but that's too obvious. Better stick with the hard note of disgust.]
Yeah, I'm sure Jeane would have loved some guy getting drunk off his ass after reading about how fucked up her life was.
[ Frustration wells up, resentment—the familiar sensation of being locked out of the world. What was he supposed to do? Name his cat after her, his kid?
He leans against the nearest wall, lets his head fall back. That fucking foam cat. Travis' protectiveness of it. ] You're right. [ He says, voice bottoming out. ] Where are you?
[ Ominous. Ominous? He's too drunk, brain sodden with liquor and secondhand tragedy, to tease out the subtleties. ] If you're in the fucking elevator... [ It's somewhere between a laugh and a groan, as though his voice has hit a speed bump. ]
You weren't cool in high school. [ Comes the retort—blurted out, slightly dazed. It may or may not be audible from the passenger seat.
He stands there with his CommLink in hand, dizzy from the turn the conversation's taken—the wall it's smashed into. He feels like he could puke or read the file again, and either option would be insane. He has to find Travis.
William darts between the loading bay doors twenty minutes later. He doesn't trip or stagger: what he does is stop, turn a slow half-circle, gaze roaming the space, posture open. He seems somehow lankier than usual, limbs less controlled. He strides decisively to the observation deck—“out of bounds” and where a version of Sylvia was laid to rest—and decisively back.
He looks around again, breathing in the cool air, and—because it's there, because it's eye-poppingly bright—approaches the car. ]
[Travis's foot moves to the gas when William passes by the first time. The car is idle, but he digs into the mental image of revving up that shitty little engine and flooring the gas. Make the car live up to the legend or crash right through the loading bay doors and into space. That'd be pretty sick, right?
And then, before he can even think of how long it'd take to hotwire the fucking thing, William's coming back. Travis watches him with narrowed eyes, but his mirrored sunglasses hide everything but the hard line of his mouth. He drums his fingers against the steering wheel for an instant, and then slides them off.
Travis waits until William gets close and then lays two fingers on the horn and pushes and holds.]
[ William's hand comes down on the roof of the car—reflexive, immediately stinging from the blow. He's swept up in a directionless anger, like a drunk staggering in circles. He lowers his head and cranes his neck until he's glaring through the window at the side of Travis' head, and makes a cranking motion. ]
[ William's frown deepens. He pulls on the door; it flies open with such force he has to make a frantic grab for it before it bounces closed again. He's quick—not graceful, but quick—to put his body between it and Travis. ]
Scoot over! [ He yells, trying to out-blare the horn and giving no consideration to how ridiculous this request is. ]
[This clumsy-ass drunk motherfucker. Travis gives him a deadpan look that does not matter at all with his sunglasses on, and he keeps his finger on the horn. The bird becomes a gesture to the passenger seat. As if this possibly needed clarification, he shouts back:]
Fuck you, I'm driving!
[Which he isn't, but it's the principle of the matter.]
[ For a stubborn, sullen moment William contemplates flinging himself inside. Landing wherever the fuck. Then—leaving the door open—he walks around the front of the car to the passenger's side. Opens the door and slides in.
His ears are ringing. It's hard to separate from the drunkenness, his lurching emotions. ] What now? [ It's snippy, to the extent that anything hollered at the top of one's lungs can be.
Only belatedly does it occur to him to look Travis over, make sure he's okay. ]
[Holding the horn like this is giving Travis some combination of a finger cramp, a looming headache, and spiking frustration, and no matter how stony he tries to be about it, he’s getting increasingly pissed about it. There’s a tension in him even just sitting there, one foot hovering over the gas pedal, his jaw squared. Two empty beer bottles lay abandoned at William’s feet; nothing, Travis imagines, to whatever this guy has pounded back.]
I don’t know! Maybe we—- [actually, fuck this. He releases the horn. Louder than necessary in the sudden silence:] You kill your sister or something?
[ William sits back, head bumping the headrest. ] Thank Christ. [ For a luxurious few seconds he does nothing but savor the silence, the relief palpable. Then he shakes his head, wordless. Looks sidelong at Travis. ] They're not usually that literal.
[ His gaze shifts away to stare out through the windshield; his hands settle in his lap. He thinks, of all things, of a secondhand memory—Larry's son's birthday. The way he'd recoiled when William attempted to share in turn. ] I have a daughter. I didn't talk about her for months on the—on the fucking Barge.
[ His voice is slight and focused, as if he's speaking to no one at all. ]
[Travis leans towards the dash, eyes dead ahead, his spine curved forward like he might want to rest his nose on the top of the wheel. He curls his fingers around the wheel like it could be an anchor.]
Because who wants to tell a bunch of lunatics on a space ship about their kids, right? [As if anyone here is so dangerous, so capricious or conniving to track them down across space and time. Bunch of people who can't even look past their own problems, and some dutiful would-be saviors. It makes him sour, mulling it over, and his tone comes out sharp:] Figures, though. You've got "dad" written all over you. What's her name?
They were crazy about kids. [ He murmurs, not meeting Travis' eyes—not that they're available to be met. ] Crazy. Like someone decided to convene a PTA meeting in hell.
[ His posture locks up, compresses, knees and shoulders stiff—as if he's trying to fathom how to wedge himself into Travis' description. A wave of unspoken objections pass through him, but in the end he says: ] Emily. She'll be eleven soon. [ He breathes out and twists clumsily in his seat, drawing a leg up underneath himself and facing Travis as best he can. ] I didn't think about her either. That whole time.
[For a hot minute, he's sitting with Sylvia in a 7-11 parking lot, straddling Schpeltiger and considering how much easier it would be to hit the gas than process the idea of having kids. Whether being a father is supposed to make you feel like a freak.
In reality, he's setting his jaw. It's the wind up run to a jump.]
I think about them all the time.
[Compared to what? Anime? He can't imagine how often other parents think about their kids. Not thinking about them, however, feels like an impossibility. He laughs, a single scoff of disbelief.]
But you left your CEO job, yeah? Big mistake. You're gonna have a hell of a time paying for her therapy.
[ He looks hurt; looks as if he'd been hurt all along and just now caught sight of the gaping wound. He imagines Emily waiting alone at a black door. Behind it the condescending props that had cluttered the Barge's counseling office.
But he doesn't retreat. Fragile as he seems, his gaze doesn't falter. ] I want her to know me. Really. [ He shrugs, the gesture more in his hands than his shoulders. As though he's splaying them for Travis, showing how empty they are. ] I wanna be worth knowing.
[Travis turns his head sharply, his fingers sliding down the curve of the steering wheel. Fuck you sits on his breath, but it doesn't feel like there's time for that.]
Your kids don't have to really know you. Hell, it's better for them if they don't. They should know the best version of you, even if it's not the whole picture. That's protecting them. [He almost breathes, but he barrels on instead, with a finger in William's face:] Have your feelings about this shit, but keep it together. I'm not spinning out about it and it's my fucking life.
[ At first he barely reacts—a matter of dulled reflexes rather than nerve—to the finger jabbed in his face. Then he thrusts his head toward Travis, the finger poised to poke just left of his nose if Travis doesn't move it. ] I'm in your life. And [ —he snaps, as if it's some killing blow and not a borderline non-sequitur— ] this isn't even your car.
[ He sits back, still askew in the seat. ] You know it's bullshit. [ He says, voice low—the fire in it banked. ] It's lying, it's a lie. You just want to give them someone to miss.
[Travis pulls his finger back, just an inch. He argues, carelessly loud:]
It’s not a lie. They’re like, four! Put on an episode of Backyardigans and I might as well not exist. They got some abstract concept of Daddy and that’s about it.
[The hell does anyone remember of being four, anyway? Seeing a movie in theaters for the first time, getting shushed for every noise? Skinned knees? Crying because you don’t want to eat peas and your mom won’t let you leave the table?
He could vibrate right out of this seat.
He impulsively puts a palm to William’s forehead to shove him back.]
Bullshit! [ William repeats. He's shoved, falls—it has a lot in common with a flop—back, but snatches at Travis' wrist as he goes. Chances are he ends up grabbing a fistful of air or digging his fingers into Travis' arm. In any case, whether he's using Travis as leverage or scrabbling at the seat behind him, he tries to haul himself back into a sitting position. ] You think they don't know? They don't know who holds them after they cry? [ Voice rising to match Travis': ] You sleep with a fucking pillow!
[ Silence falls, sudden and complete. Taken aback by his own outburst, William crosses his arms. After a shamefaced pause: ] I don't wanna fight. I wanna talk.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2022-05-22 07:11 pm (UTC)[ About thirty seconds—and one text message consisting solely of the letter p—later, there it is on Travis' CommLink. ]
no subject
Date: 2022-05-22 08:57 pm (UTC)[Cool cool cool cool cool cool cool. Sure. Okay. Travis deletes what he was typing when the copy beats him to an excuse for why he doesn’t want it. Also cool. Cool!
He skims it. Decides he knows it better than anyone.]
Reading that really fucked with you, huh?
no subject
Date: 2022-05-24 05:20 pm (UTC)But he's resolved to be honest, to share his fucking feelings. ] Yeah. Your sister. [ It sounds like the beginning of a list, but he trails off. ] I couldn't think what else to do.
I wanted to [ —his voice turns bitterly ironic— ] pay my respects.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-24 07:29 pm (UTC)He contemplates switching to text, but that's too obvious. Better stick with the hard note of disgust.]
Yeah, I'm sure Jeane would have loved some guy getting drunk off his ass after reading about how fucked up her life was.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-25 06:13 pm (UTC)He leans against the nearest wall, lets his head fall back. That fucking foam cat. Travis' protectiveness of it. ] You're right. [ He says, voice bottoming out. ] Where are you?
no subject
Date: 2022-05-25 06:30 pm (UTC)["Dare you to do something about it."
He's in the Loading Bay, still sitting in the driver's seat of Claire's car hours after Jason hit the hay.]
no subject
Date: 2022-05-27 08:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-05-27 08:53 pm (UTC)[Travis rolls his eyes and tosses his communicator into the passenger seat.]
actioN!
Date: 2022-05-31 04:45 pm (UTC)He stands there with his CommLink in hand, dizzy from the turn the conversation's taken—the wall it's smashed into. He feels like he could puke or read the file again, and either option would be insane. He has to find Travis.
William darts between the loading bay doors twenty minutes later. He doesn't trip or stagger: what he does is stop, turn a slow half-circle, gaze roaming the space, posture open. He seems somehow lankier than usual, limbs less controlled. He strides decisively to the observation deck—“out of bounds” and where a version of Sylvia was laid to rest—and decisively back.
He looks around again, breathing in the cool air, and—because it's there, because it's eye-poppingly bright—approaches the car. ]
no subject
Date: 2022-05-31 05:32 pm (UTC)And then, before he can even think of how long it'd take to hotwire the fucking thing, William's coming back. Travis watches him with narrowed eyes, but his mirrored sunglasses hide everything but the hard line of his mouth. He drums his fingers against the steering wheel for an instant, and then slides them off.
Travis waits until William gets close and then lays two fingers on the horn and pushes and holds.]
no subject
Date: 2022-06-03 09:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-06-03 09:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-06-04 01:26 am (UTC)Scoot over! [ He yells, trying to out-blare the horn and giving no consideration to how ridiculous this request is. ]
no subject
Date: 2022-06-04 01:43 am (UTC)Fuck you, I'm driving!
[Which he isn't, but it's the principle of the matter.]
no subject
Date: 2022-06-04 03:06 pm (UTC)His ears are ringing. It's hard to separate from the drunkenness, his lurching emotions. ] What now? [ It's snippy, to the extent that anything hollered at the top of one's lungs can be.
Only belatedly does it occur to him to look Travis over, make sure he's okay. ]
no subject
Date: 2022-06-04 03:48 pm (UTC)I don’t know! Maybe we—- [actually, fuck this. He releases the horn. Louder than necessary in the sudden silence:] You kill your sister or something?
no subject
Date: 2022-06-07 10:41 pm (UTC)[ His gaze shifts away to stare out through the windshield; his hands settle in his lap. He thinks, of all things, of a secondhand memory—Larry's son's birthday. The way he'd recoiled when William attempted to share in turn. ] I have a daughter. I didn't talk about her for months on the—on the fucking Barge.
[ His voice is slight and focused, as if he's speaking to no one at all. ]
no subject
Date: 2022-06-08 03:38 am (UTC)[Travis leans towards the dash, eyes dead ahead, his spine curved forward like he might want to rest his nose on the top of the wheel. He curls his fingers around the wheel like it could be an anchor.]
Because who wants to tell a bunch of lunatics on a space ship about their kids, right? [As if anyone here is so dangerous, so capricious or conniving to track them down across space and time. Bunch of people who can't even look past their own problems, and some dutiful would-be saviors. It makes him sour, mulling it over, and his tone comes out sharp:] Figures, though. You've got "dad" written all over you. What's her name?
no subject
Date: 2022-06-08 09:58 pm (UTC)[ His posture locks up, compresses, knees and shoulders stiff—as if he's trying to fathom how to wedge himself into Travis' description. A wave of unspoken objections pass through him, but in the end he says: ] Emily. She'll be eleven soon. [ He breathes out and twists clumsily in his seat, drawing a leg up underneath himself and facing Travis as best he can. ] I didn't think about her either. That whole time.
no subject
Date: 2022-06-08 10:24 pm (UTC)In reality, he's setting his jaw. It's the wind up run to a jump.]
I think about them all the time.
[Compared to what? Anime? He can't imagine how often other parents think about their kids. Not thinking about them, however, feels like an impossibility. He laughs, a single scoff of disbelief.]
But you left your CEO job, yeah? Big mistake. You're gonna have a hell of a time paying for her therapy.
no subject
Date: 2022-06-09 09:26 pm (UTC)But he doesn't retreat. Fragile as he seems, his gaze doesn't falter. ] I want her to know me. Really. [ He shrugs, the gesture more in his hands than his shoulders. As though he's splaying them for Travis, showing how empty they are. ] I wanna be worth knowing.
no subject
Date: 2022-06-09 09:39 pm (UTC)Your kids don't have to really know you. Hell, it's better for them if they don't. They should know the best version of you, even if it's not the whole picture. That's protecting them. [He almost breathes, but he barrels on instead, with a finger in William's face:] Have your feelings about this shit, but keep it together. I'm not spinning out about it and it's my fucking life.
no subject
Date: 2022-06-09 11:59 pm (UTC)[ He sits back, still askew in the seat. ] You know it's bullshit. [ He says, voice low—the fire in it banked. ] It's lying, it's a lie. You just want to give them someone to miss.
no subject
Date: 2022-06-10 12:16 am (UTC)It’s not a lie. They’re like, four! Put on an episode of Backyardigans and I might as well not exist. They got some abstract concept of Daddy and that’s about it.
[The hell does anyone remember of being four, anyway? Seeing a movie in theaters for the first time, getting shushed for every noise? Skinned knees? Crying because you don’t want to eat peas and your mom won’t let you leave the table?
He could vibrate right out of this seat.
He impulsively puts a palm to William’s forehead to shove him back.]
Stay on your half.
no subject
Date: 2022-06-10 05:40 pm (UTC)[ Silence falls, sudden and complete. Taken aback by his own outburst, William crosses his arms. After a shamefaced pause: ] I don't wanna fight. I wanna talk.
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