#9

[rank1]

Passengers: Travis and Misty
Location: the Gym
Date: Mar 13th
Summary: Temp-temp gym day
Warnings: none yet but it's Travis, there will be curse words



Travis shows up to the gym's door early. Needlessly early. Part of it feels like not having anything else exciting to do, and another part of it feels like he's accidentally given himself some sort of Pavlovian training. Iht's like how e used to have an automatic cat feeder for Jeane, and she'd gotten so used to the routine that six o'clock would come around and she'd be flinging herself across the room waiting for it, rolling around in front of it. Desperate for the food drop. He'd had the thing for three fucking weeks! It took three fucking years to wean her off it, get her to stop waiting for a specific time on the clock! How does a creature with no concept of time learn that shit!

Now he's the cat. At the tail end of his month with William, he's sitting at the gym door like an animal, waiting for that sweet, sweet dopamine hit from lifting a bunch of heavy shit, and pounding it out on the treadmill.

Travis cranes his neck to peer down the hall. She's not there. Of course she's not. He's here obscenely early. He sighs at himself, letting his head fall back against the wall.

With William pretty much done, now there's gonna be the new chick. He's curious to see what she'll wear. The airy shawls and big 'ol boots he'd glimpsed didn't look fit for anything but drifting around Coachella. He can teach her, he figures. Teaching other people gym shit isn't hard, but it does feel like being on the bunny hills after winning an Olympic medal. Okay, maybe not an Olympic medal. Travis is not catch-and-jerking close to 500 lbs. He probably never will, given that shit is a young man's game. But even if he's ancient at 34, he's put what, a decade into the gym? That's no small amount of time. You can do a lot of things in a decade. What experience does she have? Nothing? What if she isn't into it at all? What if she says nah, fuck it, let's go to the library instead? She looks smart. Maybe she's one of those sexy academic types.

When he finally sees her coming, he gets his ass up off the floor. He rolls his shoulders and settles quite comfortably in a posture he knows is cool. He decides to resist the urge to introduce himself too much: she probably knows. Even if he hadn't made a spectacle of himself with the commissary buy, William crosses his 'i's and dots his 't's. Hell, he does it so much he's earned himself a mission.

He settles on:

"You ever lifted before?"

It comes out a little over-eager anyway. Oh well.

Comments

[rank1]

Loki having been an inmate feels like a surprise, even if it isn’t actually one: the guy had been so good at preening for the camera that it feels hard to imagine him ever struggling. That is spoiled, isn’t it?

“Anyone can come up with something they’d get,” he replies. “But good people don’t usually come from fucked up places.”

[shadowsran]

"Don't they?" She's surprised and making no effort to disguise that. Curiosity manifests next; attempting to both explain herself and prompt him to continue on she asks, "How could anyone be good that hasn't had to struggle for it? People coming from anyplace perfect have never gone up against anything, what would they know?"

[rank1]

“Because it’s not something most people have to struggle for,” he explains, with a casual confidence. If he thought about it he’d have no idea how to articulate it but it spills out of him on the fly: “Every city has rows and rows of houses full of boring people who get nine-to-fives and pump out a couple of kids and go on one vacation a year and pay their parking tickets. When shit hits the fan and they get tested, evil doesn’t even cross their mind.”

[shadowsran]

"I don't think 'decent' and 'good' are the same," she replies, slowly. "And I think people who are living completely normal day-to-day, at least most people, aren't exactly making huge strides for good. And I don't think the shit hitting their fan is the same either — their evil's probably the kind you're just complicit in, and that might be appealing for a lot of them."

[rank1]

"Makes being good sound like a ton of work," he replies. Not that he's a stranger to it, but there's something about a daily grind in doing good that sounds just as exhausting as a 9-5. When's anyone got time for fun shit, living that way? "Everyone putting their back into making the world a better place every day, otherwise they're just decent. Anyone ever tell you you got high standards?"

[shadowsran]

"Sometimes, but I'm sure people think it a lot more than they say it. I mostly consider it a compliment — lot of people just seem to have low standards." And she sounds firm on this. Unapologetic.

"Not saying people have to be breaking their backs or that they can't take breaks, though. I just think there's a difference between 'decent' and 'good', and good's gonna eat more of your energy. Good means you're putting yourself into it, that you're chasing or fighting something. Condemning something versus stopping it, you know, one's changing more."

[rank1]

Sounds like a lot of effort, especially to a guy who has never managed more than a gym routine.

"That's true," he replies. "World would probably be a better place if more people went hard on something like that. End of the day, though, what do most people get out of that? Don't see a lot of jobs offering big bucks to make things better."

Even Superman has bills to pay.

[shadowsran]

"It's about more people than them, is the thing, but- I don't know, fulfillment, something to sink teeth into that benefits people. Worse things in life than not living like a movie star, anyway."

People can get by on much less.

[rank1]

“Sure, but people gotta have roofs over their head,” he says.

Retirement’s been good in some ways, but fuck if he doesn’t consider heading into the city and taking bullshit contracts until bills are an afterthought. Never lay in bed during a storm, wondering when the rain might sneak in from the roof. Just a matter of time, either way.

“It’s a great dream, though. Beautiful.”

[shadowsran]

"Some of it probably pays, and there's time in-between for...well, the bare minimum, anyway. It wouldn't be luxurious."

She's long since lost count, but feels she's reached an acceptable place to ditch the weights. They're there for his benefit anyway; nobody's worse off. Her arms hang motionless and she looks, more or less, nonchalant.

"And I mean, ideally there's like, friends and stuff around."

[rank1]

His gaze flicks to the dropped weights, but he's not about to press her to keep going.

"Friends, some money, stuff," he repeats. "Sure, sounds fine. But what do you have against luxury?"

[shadowsran]

"I just don't think anybody needs it, and who knows how things'd turn up if people put the energy they'd put into getting that toward something else." Better, she has to imagine. Closer to earth. "Just think there's better stuff to focus on."

Not that he sounds preoccupied with opulence, himself, but broadly, she's noticed trends.

[rank1]

There’s the slightest nod. She’s the type of person he would have disdained a handful of years ago, he considers, but that’s as deep as he reflects for the moment, right in front of her. He’s not sure if he is
or isn’t that guy anymore. It’s easier to look coolly assured.

“Sure, nobody needs it.” There’d been something raw about Sylvia, stripped down and destitute, that had him coming back to watch her. “But I don’t think most people can live by the Imagine code. That’s not how people are built. People wanna fight for it.”