[Travis Touchdown listens to this and turns on the video feed to reveal the boring, textureless ceiling of one of the hallways. In a voice that is a truly terrible imitation of Archimedes:]
Hello, Mr. Volk. You have reached the inbox of the deadest motherfucker on the ship, Travis Touchdown––
[Okay this impression is bad. He rakes a hand through his hair so it's a little more upright, adjusts his shades on his nose, and he jerks the phone to focus on his face instead.
Tahdah! Here's one Travis Touchdown, in one piece. This is now a walk-and-talk vlog type affair.]
I'm just pulling your leg, I'm fine. And hey, don't worry about it. You probably would have lost your shit out there. I realized there was fucking nothing out there, figured there was no way off-planet, so it went sideways pretty fast.
[A pause, presumably a thoughtful one, but that expression just looks vacant on Travis.]
But you know, without you... we really were missing the brains of the operation.
[That's about the owl impression. He sounds amused when Travis puts himself back on camera, though.]
Ohhhh fuckin ... boy.
I'm ... not cut out for this, Trav. I have to go home. I don't care about the universe getting better. I can't even make my life better. Why does the fucking universe have a right to take away what few things I've got on a vague promise of- of -
[Okay, he's panicking. He yanks the yoke up, pulls out of the nosedive.]
Yeah. Look, I don't know. You guys aren't dumb, you're just, fucking -
[Hammy? Goofy?
Volk suspects that neither Travis nor Rhys has ever had their dignity and self-respect thoroughly stripped from them. It's never been about looking someone in the eye who has been nothing but condescending, patronizing, and has in fact delivered you news that has knocked your entire life's plan directly into the toilet, and having a choice between thanking them for their help or not seeing daylight for another month.]
I don't know. I don't know what it's like to be other people. I probably shouldn't have put you two in the same car to begin with.
[Still meandering around over here. Travis listens, nodding periodically.]
Hey, you thought you were doing us both a favor. And who knows, maybe it wouldn't have made a difference. What were you gonna do, argue that I kill the guy instead of just knocking him out?
[Maybe ditch him in the wilderness instead of taking him with them, but hey...]
Let's just call it a trial run, buddy. Next port, we'll try again.
[Straight? Travis has given it literally no thought, but now that he's forced to, he figures William is definitely a lot more straight than James "Let's Talk About My Asshole" Barnes, that's for sure.
Wait.]
Flip? What, you're gonna pull a fucking honey trap on them?
No, that was a joke. I think I can get them to turn on their boss because the Navarch has no control over her own narrative. She's hands-off and that means we can shape what the conception of her is.
If I can get one the rest will become so much easier...
Jeez, that's sneaky. Some of them are a lot more into being wardens than you think, though. I don't know if they'll care about the Navarch when they're looking for a chance to go all mall cop.
If they accept that we're people and that we don't deserve this, that it's actually hurting significantly and not helping anything or anyone, blah blah blah, then they'd have to feel guilty about it. You and I, we're guilt. They'd do anything to shut us up, if we really got threatening. Like, not physically threatening? I mean ego threatening.
The first ones to crack won't be the people who think of themselves as ethical, even though what we're appealing to is ethics. Or, well, I am. It'll be the ones that not-subtly-at-all hate themselves. We're not going to rock their shit that hard by saying they're the bad guys here. Self-loathing makes you emotionally stable, honestly. It keeps you hungry.
[AWFUL FUCKING TAKES BULK DISCOUNT EMPORIUM]
Waver actually wasn't a bad choice, considering that. Sorry, I've had basically nothing to do but think about this.
[Travis thinks there isn't a chance in the universe any of these motherfuckers feels an iota of guilt over cuffing him to furniture or throwing him in solitary. Maybe endless griping and existential distress is a better approach after all.
... Nah, just wrapping his head around a lot of this is making him antsy.
Except that one bit:]
Self-loathing makes you emotionally stable? That's the most ass-backwards thing I've ever heard.
Also, Waver has a hidden dark side. Motherfucker shot me point blank in the face with the stun gun.
I'm fine NOW, yeah. I don't remember anything that happened between getting shot and waking up in solitary, though, so maybe it killed a few brain cells. Just saying, though, takes a certain kind of person to take this work.
Okay, obviously in his position I wouldn't have shot you either way, I think nobody should shoot anyone, but did you happen to be beating the shit out of him at the time by chance?
[Not a medical expert or anything, but if Travis hasn't had anything weird after a week he probably doesn't have... whatever it is tasers can do to your heart. Volk hasn't had search engines in so long.]
We need you in for the long haul, apparently.
Fuck me, I can't believe we're in space. This is going to be a nightmare to pull off. Did you get Lucifer back?
Yeah, bro, we're in space. It'll be hard but at least we can go anywhere, right? It'd be a nightmare if we were trapped on a planet with no way to get off.
[A fact he accepts readily because it seems ridiculous to deny it when he would love nothing more than to fly around space in an 80s gundam. This is the closest he'll ever get.]
And nah, not yet. I gotta wait for an opening. He's got all those powers, right? I wanna figure out if the stun guns work on him. Anyone tell you that I had the gun for a bit back there? I couldn't get it to fire. There's something up with it.
Doubt Rhys gave a shit about anything that happened beyond his own [busted :)] nose, anyway, so it's not like he'd be able to tell you shit. But yeah. Could've been a lot worse.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
around the time when either rhys pops out of solitary or waver tells volk what happened -
If you're actually alive and reading this I want to apologize for[Deletes that. Doesn't send. Can't think of how to phrase it. He clicks on audio.]
I should have stuck with you. I... thought you were dead until about four minutes ago. I'm sorry. I - ugh.
I'm not doing well with the space thing. I'm doing bad.
Maybe being there wouldn't have changed anything, but whatever happened I should have helped move us forward.
You are actually alive, right? If I'm about to get the owl making a dial tone noise I'm going to be pissed.
video
Hello, Mr. Volk. You have reached the inbox of the deadest motherfucker on the ship, Travis Touchdown––
[Okay this impression is bad. He rakes a hand through his hair so it's a little more upright, adjusts his shades on his nose, and he jerks the phone to focus on his face instead.
Tahdah! Here's one Travis Touchdown, in one piece. This is now a walk-and-talk vlog type affair.]
I'm just pulling your leg, I'm fine. And hey, don't worry about it. You probably would have lost your shit out there. I realized there was fucking nothing out there, figured there was no way off-planet, so it went sideways pretty fast.
[A pause, presumably a thoughtful one, but that expression just looks vacant on Travis.]
But you know, without you... we really were missing the brains of the operation.
audio
[That's about the owl impression. He sounds amused when Travis puts himself back on camera, though.]
Ohhhh fuckin ... boy.
I'm ... not cut out for this, Trav. I have to go home. I don't care about the universe getting better. I can't even make my life better. Why does the fucking universe have a right to take away what few things I've got on a vague promise of- of -
[Okay, he's panicking. He yanks the yoke up, pulls out of the nosedive.]
Yeah. Look, I don't know. You guys aren't dumb, you're just, fucking -
[Hammy? Goofy?
Volk suspects that neither Travis nor Rhys has ever had their dignity and self-respect thoroughly stripped from them. It's never been about looking someone in the eye who has been nothing but condescending, patronizing, and has in fact delivered you news that has knocked your entire life's plan directly into the toilet, and having a choice between thanking them for their help or not seeing daylight for another month.]
I don't know. I don't know what it's like to be other people. I probably shouldn't have put you two in the same car to begin with.
Video
Hey, you thought you were doing us both a favor. And who knows, maybe it wouldn't have made a difference. What were you gonna do, argue that I kill the guy instead of just knocking him out?
[Maybe ditch him in the wilderness instead of taking him with them, but hey...]
Let's just call it a trial run, buddy. Next port, we'll try again.
[Assuming he's even allowed off.]
audio
[No he doesn't, no one likes him.]
The biggest weakness in this whole system is the wardens.
Re: audio
Wait.]
Flip? What, you're gonna pull a fucking honey trap on them?
audio
If I can get one the rest will become so much easier...
audio
audio 1/2
If they accept that we're people and that we don't deserve this, that it's actually hurting significantly and not helping anything or anyone, blah blah blah, then they'd have to feel guilty about it. You and I, we're guilt. They'd do anything to shut us up, if we really got threatening. Like, not physically threatening? I mean ego threatening.
audio 2/2
[AWFUL FUCKING TAKES BULK DISCOUNT EMPORIUM]
Waver actually wasn't a bad choice, considering that. Sorry, I've had basically nothing to do but think about this.
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... Nah, just wrapping his head around a lot of this is making him antsy.
Except that one bit:]
Self-loathing makes you emotionally stable? That's the most ass-backwards thing I've ever heard.
Also, Waver has a hidden dark side. Motherfucker shot me point blank in the face with the stun gun.
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[Love that!]
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[Backing off.]
So you chose to let him shoot you?
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One more and I'll drop it, promise. Do you feel alright? Headaches, weird heartbeat?
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[Not a medical expert or anything, but if Travis hasn't had anything weird after a week he probably doesn't have... whatever it is tasers can do to your heart. Volk hasn't had search engines in so long.]
We need you in for the long haul, apparently.
Fuck me, I can't believe we're in space. This is going to be a nightmare to pull off. Did you get Lucifer back?
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[A fact he accepts readily because it seems ridiculous to deny it when he would love nothing more than to fly around space in an 80s gundam. This is the closest he'll ever get.]
And nah, not yet. I gotta wait for an opening. He's got all those powers, right? I wanna figure out if the stun guns work on him. Anyone tell you that I had the gun for a bit back there? I couldn't get it to fire. There's something up with it.
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Crowns, this ...honestly, the fact that everybody's alive is better than I was thinking.
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You think they'd get in trouble for killing us?
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