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#1

Passengers: Travis Touchdown and youuuu
Location: Various, but initially the loading bay.
Date: Jan 24th
Summary: Arrival.
Warnings: we shall seeeee

Travis arrives in a cool fury.

Who can blame him, really? He'd come to on the transport ship as it pulled into the loading bay, and while the various systems that be went through various protocols and whatever-the-fucks that happened with the arrival of a new inmate, he'd watched the inmate orientation with a steadily ticking frustration. What, a fucking tutorial video? Were they going to explain how to move, too? Of course he knows what he did –– he was fucking there. He was already arrested for it. He was released. Dressing it up like a video game doesn't make it any more tedious to dredge up.

What a pain in the ass.

He strolls off the transport. He walks like he's ready to run, shoulders set in a hard line, near vibrating with anticipation. He is glad that he is wearing a more or less fresh change of clothes after the last marathon –– in this case, ratty jeans and a t-shirt that say... well, whatever you interpret this to be communicating. You tell me. The important part is that he looks cool, even unarmed.

"Every prison level has some bullshit bit where you have to get your gear back," he says as he walks out of the loading bay. "Gotta find a guard, maybe fight a miniboss..." He flexes as he goes, lacing his fingers and stretching his hands out in front of him until his wrists pop. He rolls his neck dramatically, sighs when it cracks. "Unless it's a goddamn stealth mission... that shit is boring as hell."

Travis dips into a low lunge suddenly, first one leg, then the other. A grimace slides across his face. Oof. It gets harder and harder to let his gaming jags run through to four A.M. every year.

"But if it's a fight... fuck, I better not be out of shape."

Doing this without a beam katana is going to fucking suck.

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Gaunt dude in a hoodie and jacket walks by the door.

Gaunt dude backs up to do a double take.

"New. You're new. You -"

They bring in new people. There's contact with the outside.

His eyes dart to the loading bay behind Travis - holy shit, if there's a door or opening still open he's going to sprint for it.

Okay, not who he expected to come across. What's with the weedy guy? Don't they want to staff this place with hulking fighters, people who might stand a chance against him and all his fighting prowess? He's a top-tier assassin, for fuck's sake!

"Yeah, motherfucker, I'm new–– hey?!"

Getting charged's not what he expected from a weedy guy, either. Travis steps right into Volk's path, elbow out. Not today, asshole!

Volk is a dude with a desk job. Reflexes are not his strongest suit - he more or less bounces off of Travis like a tennis ball. His glasses ping off in a completely different direction.

"Right," he gasps from the ground. He looks kind of dazed. "Of course. Warden. That was fucking stupid of me."

It's like something out of a cartoon, watching Volk go down like that, and if he wasn't in such a sour mood, Travis would laugh. Instead, he moves to collect Volk with a fist wound into the front of his shirt, his other fist at the ready, and haul him back on his feet.

"Hey!" he says, inches from Volk's face. More to prove a point than anything: "I'm no fucking cop, alright?"

Volk bursts out a single, harsh laugh.

"That's what they're all saying."

Volk is light - not just oh he's a small guy light, like light enough that the physics of how much mass a human body should have literally doesn't add up. Probably nothing, don't worry about it. He's holding his eyes too-far-open, like a doll's. They're so bloodshot the whites aren't even white - just shades of pink.

"Hit me, go ahead. I'll make you a fucking star. You will be all I talk about to the others."

"Is this working? I can't see you at all, my glasses are like, over there."

Travis feels like he could chuck this guy across the hall. Kinda contemplates doing just that, actually –– it'd be satisfying, especially when this personified stack of shit thinks he has fuck-all to do with wardens. (He hasn't even met one yet and he's already decided they blow ass.)

"What's with the freak eyes?" Travis demands. He rattles Volk with a hard shake. "Fuck your glasses, what the hell is this?"

"What - uch."

Rattle. This hurts. Instead of a noise of anything like pain, it sounds more like frustration.

"Just how the fuck am I supposed to see my own eyes? I knew this would happen. You guys can't out-argue me so you stop pretending to be civil."

Yes, Volk. That's why this is happening. Because you're so smart.

Volk reaches to the hand holding him up and knocks on it like it's a door.

"Let go now." Not a demand or a threat, just: now is time for that action.

"Fine," he says. Travis drops Volk with little care for whether he has his feet properly under him. Not his problem. He strolls away a few steps, sneakers squeaking on the polished floor. (Not cool.) He comes back and shoves a finger in Volk's face. "But to make something crystal clear, I'm an inmate."

Volk bruises a knee pretty good, but manages not to completely land on his ass, which he considers a win.

(Especially since he got out of this without any actual blows being thrown. Definitely a win. Time to do the stupid Velma thing and try to find his god damn glasses.)

The pointed finger lands near the center of a face that's doing a full cranky squint.

"What! Why didn't you go for the OPEN DOOR!"

He gestures vehemently towards it.

Travis makes zero effort to help Volk get his glasses. What, you just knuckle under to bad vision like that? Train your eyes to be better, dude.

He gestures broadly instead, disbelieving.

"I just came from there, why the hell would I go back?"

"I don't fucking know, take the vehicle and drive it home?"

Okay. Okay. Let's switch to managerial mode, where we steer idiots around into doing things that are useful. Volk puts down his eyelashes - they didn't give him any eyeliner, so the full effect isn't really there, but from where he is near the floor, the body language should still look cowed and malleable. He lets the impatient lines in his shoulders and jaw soften. Acting school, fuck it, right?

"What did they bring you in? I've been trying to figure it out. I just woke up here, like I was drugged."

A gleam of metal catches his gaze - there, bingo. He makes the motion of picking them up look resigned and slow.

Oh fuck. Fuck!

"Shit, you're right!" Like walking right past some missable collectible –– what a rookie mistake. Jeez. Oh well. It's cooler not to care, even though it's going to bug him forever. Besides, this weird little coquette floor show is funny to watch. Why does he always meet the weirdest guys? "I woke up on some sort of transport ship. It dumped me off here. You were drugged?"

Glasses go on, and the pink tint completely hides whatever it was that's going on with his blood vessels. Hooray, eyesight again. He is way way more confident now that he's not going to just be kicked in the face. Not completely sure, but at least there's a chance to like, dodge or whatever.

"I just woke up here," he repeats. That's all he knows. He straightens up, smiles as well as he can manage and tries not to make it look sarcastic. He goes to walk past Travis to look at the door that just closed.

Okay. So. So. New inmates are arriving, through here. It's been almost a month since the rest of them arrived.

"Did it look like the other ones?"

Travis just turns on the spot as Volk passes him. He jams his thumbs in his pockets and watches. This guy a pilot? He looks like too much of a nerd to be a pilot, and not the kind of nerd that gets a lot of time in Flight Simulator GX3000. Man, is he going to have to help this guy get out of here? What a drag.

"It looked like something out of a sci-fi movie," he says, very helpfully. "It fucked off after it dumped me, too. Don't worry about it. The other ships in there look cooler anyway."

Edited 2022-01-29 01:24 (UTC)

So they decorated the van, but differently to the props in the garage.

"You're the first new arrival in a month. That means there might be more, which means that door has to open again. Was there a driver you could see?"

Oh, right. Volk waves carelessly.

"You're trapped, by the way. We all are."

"Like hell I am," Travis replies, flippant. It doesn't sink in easy. "Security can't be that good if I'm just walking around."

He gestures around them broadly before returning his thumbs to his pockets.

"I didn't see one. Maybe he was in the back taking a dump or something."

"Okay. Nobody to overpower, just a self-driving or remote access hookup we need to get into."

He doesn't know how to do that, at all. What can he do. What can he do with what he has?

"...I'll make you a bet. I bet you can't punch your way out of this place."

Volk still has his hands in his pockets, staring at where the door was open a second ago like he's trying to drill through it with his eyes.

"Punch my way out of this place?" Travis repeats, momentarily confused. What is this, a novelty Nintendo game? It's bullshit that they charge seventy fucking dollars for something with so few features. Win by punching! Cool. "Do you mean punch through the door, or punch a warden until they let us in? I was just thinking I'd find whoever was in charge and kill them."

Dial the impatience back. Sound sad.

"I meant just using violence, yes. I just don't think it's possible. You'll get yourself killed."

Sure, fuck it, that sounds enough like a stock phrase a compassionate person would use.

"Killed? Never," Travis scoffs.

But this guy seems pathetic. Travis almost feels a little bad for him; he can't take an elbow to the face, how is he supposed to get out of here okay? He sighs in a needlessly exaggerated way.

"If you don't think it's possible, what do you want me to do? Kick this door down for you?" he offers. "'Cause I'm gonna go kill whoever gets in my way anyway, but your doubt is a total buzzkill."

"No. If whatever you're going to try doesn't work, I want you to help me camp out this door and wait for it to open again. I can't sit here twenty-four seven ... but three or four people could."

Or more.

He's doing the math, now. Seven wardens. Six inmates. Still not enough if the wardens started using those sidearms ... but enough to work together to actually get something done.

"You want me to sit by a door for hours on end just in case someone comes in or out?" he repeats, skeptically. That sounds incredibly fucking boring, even with four people. "Dude, we could take a warden hostage and make them open the door."

It works in movies.

"In case somebody comes in a vehicle we can escape with."

Just as a reminder. Because. They probably will need the fucking van. That's a step he might need to get Rhys to do something about.

"Trust me, there's nothing to do around here. Try the hostage thing too, if you want."

Volk will... not participate in that. He schools his face into neutrality about it, still facing the door.

"I get the feeling that the people at the top would rather let us shoot the wardens than open this, but you just got here. Get a feel for yourself and see if you believe me."

Especially since he suspects that the division is arbitrary. The lunatics are running the asylum in the most literal sense he can imagine.

"I'll scope it out," he replies. He's not agreeing to a watch. He'll work like a dog at a lot of things, but sitting on his ass looking at a door sounds like it'd bore him to tears, and if there's anything Travis Touchdown refuses to be, it's bored. "Hey. Before I take off, what's your name?"

"Volkhov."

He doesn't ask directly, just turns his head. You?

Haha. That's Russian, isn't it? And they're in space. That reminds Travis of those old space race propaganda posters. Shit, they had some real good graphic designers back then. Oops, digression.

"Travis Touchdown."

Stage name. Sure, whatever. He works on the Isle of Joy, you'll get that. Volk turns his head back to the door.

"Good luck."

"Thanks. Good luck, if I make it out of here before you."

Spoiler: he does not, in fact, make it anywhere.

The lights flicker.

They've been doing it all day, the omnipresent hum—noticeable only in its absence—abruptly dropping off. The ship more sinister, less stable, for that fraction of a second. William's looking down the hallway, following the wide, erratic loops of a cleaning bot with a busted wheel; William's looking up at the light caught dying in a pair of yellow sunglasses.

He's not imposing. He's not even dressed well—rolled up sleeves, some grease streaks, a clot of grey foam at the tip of one shoe. But his gaze is direct, unsparing. (And there is a vaguely space-age-looking tool hooked through one of his belt loops. It's a caulking gun.)

“Who are you?” A question, not a challenge.

Between them the bot stutters in place, then resumes tracing its deranged path, as though scrawling letters in some incomprehensible language.

Travis's head turns sharply. He's been seen, and his posture straightens. The harsh pitch of his eyebrows and the thin line of his mouth gives him an effortless and near-permanent scowl. One hand dangles at his side, flexing intermittently. Ready.

But when he sizes up William with a brief sweeping look, he apparently doesn't find what he's looking for. No way this guy is the big boss.

Still, his posture stays alert. Sure, he'll have a stand-off with a maintenance guy. No way he'd fall for that mild-mannered act twice. The guy's got a fucking blaster.

"Just a passin' assassin," he replies. "Travis Touchdown. Who are you?"

He knows that finger-twitch. The guy looks both like no one he's ever met—that hair, the glasses, the sharp angles of him—and anyone at all, a loser in a mall arcade, but William knows that twitch. A smile steals over his face. He savors the tension a moment.

“A man on a mission,” he says—of Travis, though he supposes it applies to him as well. The mission impossibly abstract, almost unbearably close. “William Temple. Warden.” The title is stiff on his tongue.

The bot spins a tight circle and careens toward Travis, on a direct course for his foot.

Travis gives a toothy grin. William Temple. Sounds real enough. And a mission, that's always good. Bodes well, even. Side quest.

"So you're one of the assholes running this place?" Travis replies, and he moves to stroll towards William, taking deliberate care to step around the cleaning bot –– it might not look cool to interrupt his cool, relaxed pace, but hey, it's the cute kind of robot. It'd take a sick fuck to kick R2D2, wouldn't it? "Was wondering when I'd meet one of you. Pony up the details or let's get to it."

He watches the bot zip to freedom—the kind of freedom requiring it to endlessly scrub halls, anyway—before his gaze returns to the other man. Something like surprise flitting briefly over his features.

Fuck it. He steps forward too—straight-backed, arms at his sides. Until he sees his own reflection in those shades. “There's no way out,” he says gravely. “Well, there is, but it's not...” Straightforward. Not a bullet to the heart.

He stares at Travis' shirt a long moment. “Do you feel responsible for them? The people you've killed.”

Travis stops right in front of William, and the question wipes the smile from his face.

"Sure do! They were my fights," Travis replies, with a thread of pride, but it doesn't quite reach his expression –– steely, dispassionate. He jerks a thumb towards the robot as it careens off. "If you want to hear their side, I can send you to hell with them. I bet their stories would be great."

“Yeah,” William says, almost to himself. His mouth softening into a smile. It holds undeniable appeal—not death, but the idea of descending into the underworld to be regaled by the forgotten dead. If only this place ran that way.

He doesn't compose himself—his expression is searching, insistent. Prepared to turn to disappointment. He meets Travis' eyes, takes a breath, and says, “If you kill me, you will definitely be responsible.”

Yes or no.

Edited 2022-01-29 14:46 (UTC)

Jeez, what's with this guy? He's got weird vibes, all that mystery packed behind such a simple phrase. Like that infamous like idiots online like to dunk on, people die if they are killed. The intricacies of the Japanese language are lost on jackasses with no respect for Nasu Kinoko watching the inferior English dub, when it was always a rumination on the implications of immortality. Not every anime is surface-level bullshit like F**ry T**l.

... Yeah. If he fights this guy right now, and kills him, he will be responsible! It's got meaning. Something deeper!

Travis nods, geared up.

"Yeah. Yeah! You want a fight, right now?" Travis asks. "'Cause I'm not gonna waste my time if you're not going to make it good."

Edited 2022-01-29 16:58 (UTC)

For a second reality itself seems to flicker—the polished floors, the distant rumors of asteroids colliding with the ship's shields. He can't tell if the man he stands toe-to-toe with is deathly serious or an elaborate joke. But he believes the flex of his fingers, the way he moves.

In his heart of hearts, he wants to fight. Fight and lose. Fight and die, maybe. It's been a whole year without bloodshed. He doesn't know what it is—self-loathing, nostalgia. A yearning for the kind of intimacy that only comes with violence.

(Something darker, and worse.)

But this isn't about him. “It's all up to you,” he says. Simple.

All you do is make choices.

"Cryptic," Travis replies, with a little twist of intrigue to his voice.

He's imagining the story here: space janitor thought life amongst the stars would be interesting, but it's just the same old floors to mop, the same daily grind. Surrounded by people who have done insane enough shit with their lives to wind up here, desperate for something to get the blood pumping. Getting wasted by one of them would be something to talk about. Excitement to die for. That'd be worth it, right? Go out on a high note, put up a fight for once??

Fuck, that'd be cool. An honour. There's already a little bounce to the way he stands, a readiness to spring, even this close.

But it's just a guess. It's not real. It's gotta be real.

"But just so one thing's clear," he says, real heat on his voice. "I'm not some random murdering fuckhead, alright? So with me, you're not just giving up your life, you're betting it. If you don't put everything in this, if I get any impression that you're going to pussy out on killing me, I'm done. Got that?"

“No,” he says, expression faltering into sympathy. The corners of his mouth softening. He looks momentarily younger, disarmed—as though he's stepped blinking from a darkened theater into the harsh sun. “Not really. If I die it's because that's what you wanted.”

Not cryptic: to the point.

William lifts his chin. He remembers how Yunlan had died trying to save Norton, how easily he'd dismissed it—couldn't he go home? Wasn't that the least he could do, enduring a few seconds of excruciating pain? And now—he searches every corner of his own intentions for anything false or hollow.

“But I think you're right. I think that's what I came here to do—put everything on the line. If you want that to mean dying, sure. All right. But I can give you more.”

The longer this goes on, the more he craves the first blow. It’s weird thinking about killing with his bare hands, but that’s more intimate, right? Flesh on flesh. Death closes in. He feels like a tiger, skin and bones. Desperate for a taste. Only the need to look cool keeps him from vibrating out of his skin.

But how long has it been since he had a conversation with someone ready to face death with him? Taken time to look at someone’s face and watch them ease into the violence coming to them both? Too long. He’s been away too long.

“Alright,” he repeats. “You got me curious. What’s worth more than a fight to the death?”

Wanting revenge was so different.

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