rank1: (Default)
Travis Touchdown ([personal profile] rank1) wrote in [community profile] returnjourneylogs2022-04-19 07:33 pm

#13 or something

Passengers: Travis Touchdown, Claire Fraser, William Temple and Misty Day
Location: The observation area outside the Loading Bay.
Date: sometime in April
Summary: Putting the "fun" in "funeral" by releasing the desiccated remains of a foam wife into space.
Warnings: Travis is going to say some really cringe shit but what else is new. And it is the loading bay, so the door is sometimes open, so if you want to crash it, hit me up.



Travis is putting in the slightest bit of effort to be laid back about this. Generally he wouldn't, but he's fortunate to be allowed to do this at all, so he's gotta make some gesture towards moderation. Can't risk William pulling the plug on this and putting the remains of his foam wife in the garburator or something, right? So here he is, dressed no different from any other day –– today's shirt says "WORLD FAMOUS". He has exactly one beer in him, which isn't really shit. The people he invited were chosen carefully, and they have exactly one thing in common, which he won't dare speak aloud. He knows what he's about, and that's what matters.

So this is how it starts: dearly beloved, we are gathered here to today to release the remains of one (1) foam wife into outer space. In the grand scheme of things, it would be cooler to do a sky burial where a sick-ass eagle comes and carries away the (foam) parts, or a viking type thing where the foam wife is sent out in a flaming Arvo or something, but neither is permissible, so here we are. Space-littering.
nineteenfortyfive: (AWKWARD)

[personal profile] nineteenfortyfive 2022-04-20 03:00 am (UTC)(link)
[This is the strangest thing yet. She's traveled through time because she touched a stone. She's in space, meeting people from other universes. She's made a deal to save her very life. She's become pals with the devil himself. She's examined a frost giant. She's--

Claire's gaze drifts over to William, wherever he is, and then back to Travis.

This is one of the strangest things yet. She could have said no, could have laughed and declined, but here she is, offering her condolences for a chunk of deteriorating foam.

Maybe it's one bad day until she desires a foam Jamie. The thought almost makes her laugh, and it would be a very unhinged and ugly noise, but she gracefully channels it into a sympathetic smile as she gives Travis a pat on the arm. See, she can be nice. (Being nice to him is what brought you here, a little shitty voice says. Strange...) ]


I hope this brings you some peace.

[Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ.]
nineteenfortyfive: (BEARS)

[personal profile] nineteenfortyfive 2022-04-20 03:23 am (UTC)(link)
[Claire looks down. That gruesome, in a hilarious way, and she has to fight a little harder not to lose her composure. She coughs and gingerly picks up that leg by the ankle, with the tips of her fingers, like she's found a discarded diaper on the floor.]

Ah. Here.

[She'll just try to hand that over to Travis.]

I think she's ready to go, too.
shadowsran: (144)

[personal profile] shadowsran 2022-04-20 06:18 am (UTC)(link)
[Misty has arrived with very, very few defined expectations. To be invited at all was a pleasant surprise she'd refused to let herself overthink. It would be a funeral, or funeral-shaped, and she'd preemptively accepted that she can only guess and do what little is within her power to stay roughly on-target regarding mood.

Black clothing is fortunately manageable, if unideal; her sole black top without embellishment is a crop top, but she's at least swapped out the Penny Lane boots for flats. Her rings are left in her cabin, any either jewelry or bauble left alongside it save a lone, modest chain around her neck, its pendant tucked under her neckline as if it would be offensive to catch any light. In case the proceedings demand any offering, she's brought along bread (a dinner roll, wrapped in a napkin) and "wine" (boxed grape juice), courtesy of the Automat.

Understandably dissatisfied with that alone, an hour before arriving she'd slipped into the Greenhouse for some careful and restrained thieving. The resulting bouquet — two strings of bluebells bearing twelve small flowers between them curling outward from a delicate, white bed of meadowsweet, their stalks wrapped and masked by ivy leaves and secured with string — is the only thing she bothers to actually approach Travis with.

Looking him in the face, she can't think of any of this as a joke. It's something about the presentation; she realizes with a pit in her stomach she'd been imagining some box, some table to gather around, and there's something shockingly tender about the way he's just...holding her. Threshold carries and the dramatic climax of tragic romances unwittingly spring to mind, and try as she might she can't totally banish them. She feels sheepish, suddenly, extending her meager bundle of flowers. Too few to carry the meaning she would have liked, too light as she places them delicately against Foam Sylvia's collarbone, a spot she sizes up to be her safest bet for it not accidentally rolling onto the floor.

The smile directed at Travis once the task is finished is, she feels, appropriately meek. Pleased to see him, touched to be called upon, but it's hardly a happy occasion.]


I appreciate the invite, really. How are you holding up?
Edited 2022-04-20 07:55 (UTC)
shadowsran: (152)

hold her (half of a) beer

[personal profile] shadowsran 2022-04-20 05:57 pm (UTC)(link)
[The longer all of this goes on, the more certain Misty feels that her interpretation isn't one wholly removed from sense and reason. There's something to all of this, something for Travis to get through, and by the time he's begun speaking she's comfortably resigned to witnessing it as soberly as can be managed. His actual speech largely reaffirms this. He introduces elements that give her some pause, alien edges, frequencies and colors she no longer fully believes she's evolved enough to correctly identify on sight, but the throughline of it is as real as she would have expected.

And as easy as all of this will be to write off, it feels unfair to risk his being the only tipped hand. Despite not having considered anything beforehand — not having known Sylvia, really, what could she have considered — she's taken the first step forward to visibly offer herself up before she's even fully realized it. The second foot is slower to follow, as the realization hits.]


Um. So. I've never spoken at a funeral before. I'm not a gifted public speaker or anything either, it's hitting me in waves. And I guess all of this might be silly, but I can't commit to that for long.

[It's a long moment, after, to try and gather her thoughts. Claire's borrowed jacket is draped across her shoulders, and she tugs absently at a sleeve as she lets her eyes settle on Foam Sylvia's degrading face. Her mind splinters in a reflexive way she doesn't particularly like; she imagines Randel voluntarily broken apart in a sterile room. Zoe impaled. Herself, charred beyond recognition face-down in uncharted muck. Dolores' mutilation, the use determined for her much more sophisticated composition. Sweeney, big and tall and storied, eroded so small as to be carted around in a ziploc bag and set loose on a breeze. She thinks of Travis, where his body rests currently, and wonders if they're all decomposing in real time. She wonders if any of them have had a service half as good as this. Her brow furrows, and it's another moment to walk herself back lest her voice break when she actually manages to continue.]

I had a radio break once, and it was like two dozen people dying. I knew obviously nobody had died, at least nobody who wasn't gone already, but you have it happen in the moment and all you can focus on is the absence. It's all transmissions and recordings, yeah, but it's voices, it's people who worked to produce that sound, to get it to you so you could find what you needed to with it, and for a long time that's what I'd had and suddenly it was gone. That radio broke and I screamed. I cried over it, sweeping together this plastic pile on my knees like things might have never fit together quite the same ever again. I don't think anybody gets to snicker at this, but I know for sure that I don't.

[A blink, a breath, and she refocuses.]

I don't know Sylvia, but I think the one with us lived a good life. She was...well made, with care. She was popular, talk of the town, and to get and hold the attention of the kind of folks who end up around here isn't nothing — and she did it without ever so much as talking. That's a presence. [She will be leaving out, of course, the Loki misadventure, because they're speaking about the genuine (foam) article.] She was a faithful companion. Reliable, patient, a good listener. She was pretty clearly loved. I think it's special to have had that, and rare, to be able to give someone so much and get so much of it back. It's hard to be enough for people, and harder than that to have two people who can share that.

And I think it's kind of even more impressive that she had all of that with a lifespan so short, and that despite everything on its face she gets to have a send-off, and people who care about her. A lot of great people never get that in places that mattered to them, let alone going to the trouble to try and make it happen up in space prison.

This is a very rare, great thing, and I'm touched I could be here for it, and I'm gonna stop hoping I think of a really good end note and just say— yeah. This was good. She led a good life, and this is good.

[And just as (un)smoothly, she steps back and bows her head.]
omniavincit: (the worst that can be has been done)

[personal profile] omniavincit 2022-04-21 02:40 am (UTC)(link)
[ Reluctant to give Travis too much time alone with his wife's crumbling remains—reluctant to think too hard about what would happen if he did—William accompanies him to the loading bay, rummaging for his CommLink to part the doors. He wears the only suit in his wardrobe, a bespoke dark blue number that isn't flashy but stinks of money nonetheless; he carries in his arms a cleaning bot, its lights dark and wheels still.

When they reach the observation chamber he sets the bot down, out of the way. It's gentle. ]
So nobody's stepping on her afterwards. [ He doesn't know what to feel, watching Travis with the lump of disintegrating foam in his arms. If he's excused from feeling at all. It's too easy to imagine her as something out of Area X, a woman shaped by touch, overtaken by grey. About to explode into something else entirely.

He's staring, he realizes. ]
If you wanna talk—if you wanna say something to her I can take a hike for a minute.
nineteenfortyfive: (WITCHES)

[personal profile] nineteenfortyfive 2022-04-21 04:02 am (UTC)(link)
[Claire hates that there are blurred memories from the simulation in her peripheral. Sitting around, mourning. Widows and widowers. Talking. She hates that this whole funeral has her feeling something deeper than she thought she would when she agreed to come along.

Love takes various forms, she supposes.

She maybe drifts off into thoughts of home during Travis' eulogy, the ache in her chest for Jamie only turning into a sharp pain. She snaps back to reality when he asks the room for words.]


... I can't really say much about Sylvia, my exposure only through Travis and Loki [and she frowns at that--her poor clothes], but it is very evident that she holds a special place in your heart.

[A nod to Travis. He's so strange.]

I think that alone is important enough to be... remembered. Celebrated, mourned. Whatever is needed to handle the loss and separation. Love isn't always perfect, and people on the outside may have their opinions, but I do truly hope that one day Travis [graduates, but she keeps that as the implication] is able to see Sylvia again.

[Not, like. On the other side. But--okay, Roger is the most pious one in the family, and Claire searches for something he might think to say.

She just sort of awkwardly stands there as nothing comes to mind. She's been to plenty of funerals, burials at sea, but none of it really stuck, did it?

Claire dips her head before deciding herself done. Where's her beer.]
shadowsran: (9)

[personal profile] shadowsran 2022-04-24 11:12 pm (UTC)(link)
Lonesome. [She says, declares, like she's pointing out true north. Because it can be normal, but normal so often falls short of good. Let alone happy.

There's a lot of potential responses to chew through, but she doesn't let herself overthink it. Shifting her weight to the opposite foot, she settles on the most prominent.]
Is she okay, back home?

[His lifestyle is clearly dangerous, so it may just be a matter of practicality. But undergoing this process knowing she was endangered back home... Misty would do a much poorer job of holding it together.]
shadowsran: (5)

[personal profile] shadowsran 2022-04-25 05:50 am (UTC)(link)
Doesn't make it any cakewalk for you, though. At least not that I can imagine.

[However well he may save face, that they're gathered here, that he had the doll made at all, must be indicative of something that can't be so easily waved off. Of course, her goal isn't to try and coax an outburst; all she can do is assess, and try to extend something he may have use for.

Claire doesn't seem overly swept up in the moment, and at a glance she wouldn't say this is the most impassioned she's ever seen William, either. Which is fine. She isn't unaware of the distance between this and your standard funeral. But should Travis need it, he's entitled to something open.]


I don't know if I'd call it worse in the earliest days or once it's dragging on, but it can hurt to be up here away from everything when you might not have had a choice. And I'm sorry, you know, even an in-between like this ends up being temporary. I'm really glad to hear the genuine article's good, though — for the both of you.
shadowsran: (7)

my brain interpreted that jacket as like a cardigan....lilac cardigan...

[personal profile] shadowsran 2022-04-25 06:54 pm (UTC)(link)
[Misty nods, understandingly. Her eyes drop to foam wife, settling from the meager force of a shrug.] I'm sorry. It sucks, even when there's those bubbles of it feeling typical, not even thinking about it.

This place is probably going to needle that. But uh, sometimes — or I guess it might have just been the other boat, but I hope not — the comms glitch out, and you can chat with people from home. It's rare, but you might get to spot her.
omniavincit: (just let me listen)

[personal profile] omniavincit 2022-04-25 10:11 pm (UTC)(link)
[ William catches his eye—remembers how his face had looked stripped of the glasses, soft and wondering at its proximity to death. If this were real, if it were her corpse in his arms, would Travis be clutching her the same way? Why is it that his mind jumps to some violent demise, her blood spilling down Travis' t-shirt? ]

I can't fucking stand parties. [ He confides, a hard glint of amusement beneath it. He sobers soon enough, drops his gaze. ] It's important, especially...all those people were lost twice over. To the Shimmer, then to us. That world.

[ He blows out a breath—harsher than expected. Looks to Travis reluctantly, anticipating the joke, the dismissal. ]
shadowsran: (7)

[personal profile] shadowsran 2022-04-25 11:06 pm (UTC)(link)
[However atypical or messy, that sentiment is important. People need anchors, particularly here. It's relieving to hear he's got that in the form of something more tangible than the joy of the fight.]

Think you'll tell her about this whole thing, when you see her again? [She asks, optimistic in response to that grim.]
shadowsran: (102)

[personal profile] shadowsran 2022-04-26 03:11 am (UTC)(link)
[New name. Misty perks accordingly, blinks. Surely she'd have noticed another foam person, right? People couldn't have been so thrown by the first that a second would completely go without mention.]

Who's Jeane?
nineteenfortyfive: (OUTSIDE)

[personal profile] nineteenfortyfive 2022-04-26 03:34 am (UTC)(link)
All the more reason to strive for such... times again, no?

[What the hell is she even saying?]
shadowsran: (67)

[personal profile] shadowsran 2022-04-26 05:54 pm (UTC)(link)
[Before she can stop herself, she's smiling. Imagining it, a little foam cat tucked under his bunk. Wondering if he pets it, and then more soberly, if it's in similarly poor shape and simply more likely to go without the ceremony foam Sylvia does.]

I'd love to meet them sometime, [she finally says, both amused and earnest.] The real thing with you back home, or the missus?

[Maybe rivals would stoop to going after a cat. Who's to say?]
shadowsran: (67)

[personal profile] shadowsran 2022-04-26 07:32 pm (UTC)(link)
[Since she was a kitten. Sweet.]

Nah. Brought home strays nonstop when I was a kid, but my mom wasn't having it. Lifestyle's a little too off-road to get one now, even if I'd like it. Had a dog for a little while on the other ship, but it's the same deal — these places have to be scary for an animal. Better they be someplace stable.
nineteenfortyfive: (FORCED)

[personal profile] nineteenfortyfive 2022-04-27 03:49 am (UTC)(link)
[Killing people--

No, she bites her tongue.

Paying the big bills--

Her teeth clench down harder.

Claire smiles, lips kept together.]


Right. But I do hope she'd find it in her heart to be touched by the effort you've put forth in gathering us here today.
omniavincit: (pic#12264115)

[personal profile] omniavincit 2022-04-28 08:29 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Some of the wariness melts away—it's subtle, William's posture easing beneath the strict lines of his suit. His expression one of tentative consideration. ] No. I don't wanna take this from you. [ His gaze flicks uncertainly to Sylvia's frozen face, her made-up foam lips. ] But it's good someone'll be mourned.

[ To the assessment of the simulation he nods. He was brutal, and it had nothing to do with his facility with a knife. ] You were pretty hard on Theo. He just wanted somebody to ask about his brother.
omniavincit: (deaf as a fire)

[personal profile] omniavincit 2022-04-29 03:09 pm (UTC)(link)
It's tough to respect. [ He says to the man entangled with the moldering limbs of his wifealike. Countless conversations with wardens who refused to commit one way or another—wishy-washy even in the face of murder—rear up in his memory and he amends: ] I don't respect it. Makes me fucking crazy sometimes.

That place was brutal, you're right—but that doesn't mean you had to be. You could've helped him feel less alone. It doesn't take much.
omniavincit: (pic#12264102)

[personal profile] omniavincit 2022-04-29 05:19 pm (UTC)(link)
Decent? [ William regards him a long moment—as though awaiting some shift, something behind those sunglasses.

The moment ends. Quiet, stiff: ]
Did it feel good?
omniavincit: (don't remind me)

[personal profile] omniavincit 2022-04-30 05:22 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Surprise lives and dies in the span of a glance, gives way to a heaviness in his chest. Theo's been scarce in the dorms, coming and going at odd hours. A bristling shadow. ] Why? [ No more uncertainty: the question's dull, his gaze flat. ] What'd you do?
omniavincit: (pic#12264167)

[personal profile] omniavincit 2022-05-01 12:24 am (UTC)(link)
I don't have to worry that you beat up a kid? [ His incredulity sputters out before the end of the sentence. He sounds resigned, shakes off Travis—it feels like that, anyway—to stand at the railing. He's tired, the elaborate preparations, the small, caring gestures toward a disintegrating lump of foam now just a mockery of a real person's pain.

It's a minute or two before he looks back. ]
It's not even—it wouldn't have cost you anything to back off. You hurt him because you could.
shadowsran: (10)

[personal profile] shadowsran 2022-05-10 01:06 am (UTC)(link)
The minute I'm retired. [She agrees readily, enthusiastically, with a nod of her head.] I'll finish up with spaceships and getting dumped on alien worlds or other versions of myself and have a couple strays by sundown. Nice to look forward to.