littletonoidea | IC Inbox

[That gets a loud bark of laughter.]

Oh, please. You wouldn't last twenty-four hours on a space station, Romerella.

I'd be great at space. Fixing the sun, launching more space stations. Leaving my man spunk around the galaxy like good little cum-y cosmonaut.

Dude, why do you think one of my top ten 'what do you miss from home' list was porn mags? We don't get to get handsy forty thousand light years under the sea. Plus the AI's always watching you, it's kind of awkward when you have to explain to someone who's brain is the size of like, the entire Internet why you're wriggling around in your sleeping bag like you've got a bug in there.

If the AI's so smart why does it not know what every single red blooded American male does when left to his own devices? There's gotta be jerk-off protocol.

Because I asked once, and the boys back home didn't upload her with freakin' porn protocols. Which- honestly, I don't think I want Hera knowing my taste in mags, so I'm pretty okay with that.

[ Squint. ]

Why are you talking about your computer like it's real?

[That makes him squint right back.]

...wait, riiiight. They never made HAL a real thing for you guys, did they? Hera's a whole-ass person, dude.

[ What the fuck is HAL? Luckily, Roman can piece that shit together. Give him a few seconds to crunch some numbers, do some math, use the brain he never actually uses....]

Hera hot?

[That gets a loud scoff, and it's hard to tell whether it's derisive or agreeing.

And then a moment's pause.]

...you wanna come meet her?

[ Like Eiffel has to even ask. Roman at least makes a show out of thinking about it, though. ]

Yeah. Yeah, I guess.

Alright, meet me at the Enclosure in T-minus-ten. Wear something warm.

[Because he'll be there in his orange, Goddard-labelled jumpsuit with, for once, the sleeves actually on his arms and the zip mostly done up, so the stupid Star Wars t-shirt underneath is mostly obscured as he burns through a cigarette waiting for Roman.]

[ 'Wear something warm' throws him for more of a loop than it probably should, but he's there at a semi punctual time. In contrast to Eiffel's jumpsuit, Roman's suited for a fall night at some sort of outdoor resort complete with a scarf and leather gloves with an expensive, warm lining. Sleek, black and efficient. Costly but far from gaudy.

He's immediately squinting. ]

Are you trying to blind me with that outfit, Eiffel?

[In response he immediately holds both arms up as wide as he can to show off as much of the hideous jumpsuit as he can.]

Standard issue Goddard Futuristics jumpsuit, for all your sci-fi needs. Whether it's for a scientific, exploratory or disciplinary nature, you'll be the star of the runway in this day-glo orange wedgie machine.

[One of which he pointedly and gracelessly removes before he bounces up the stairs to the Enclosure two at a time.]

Come on, Romero!

[Because he's already inside and very quickly into the room's mic:]

The U.S.S. Hephaestus, dayyyyyy four hundred and forty-eight, all situations nominal please.

[So by the time Roman gets there, it's the inside of a spaceship, opening from a random doorway into the bowels of a ship - and it's exactly the kind of rinky-dink sci-fi bullshit you'd think. It's surprisingly spacious, symmetrical on all sides for ease of use because, surprise Roman, there's no gravity! And the hallway they've entered into had a huge, inches-thick plexiglass window that looks out onto a red dwarf, huge given the proximity of the ship itself, that casts the entire inside of the ship in an eerie red glow.

And, true to Eiffel's word, it's not very warm. Not freezing, sure, but below 70 Fahrenheit? Absolutely.]

[ Somewhere along the way Roman has started not giving Eiffel shit for getting his name wrong every single time. The problem is that now he actually doesn't mind it, even though it annoys him if literally anyone else does it. Mostly, though, he's left scrambling to catch up with Eiffel.

What he's not expecting is an actual space ship. He is, except that he isn't--Roman's used the enclosure a handful of times but he's still from a very grounded, very 'normal' version of New York, all things considered. Private jets and helicopters are a way of life for the Roys. It's the space-ness of it. The vastness, the difference of it. Roman's quick to scoff and treat things like a joke, but that's awful hard to do when he's in awe. It's rare for Roman Roy to not have anything to say, and yet here he is, visibly astonished. The barge is one thing, but this?

There's a lifting--floating? sensation the moment he actually physically enters, and almost immediately he's scrambling for the nearest surface to cling to, visibly panicking, eyes wide as he swears loudly. This is. Oh. Yeah, alright, no gravity. Actually fuck this. He's definitely not a fan. ]

I like the floor--turn the thingie on that gives me floor? Like. Now.

[ he's not scared or feeling like he's going to throw up via disorientation, not at all, shut up. ]

[Eiffel, install contrast, floats with the comfort of experience: this is absolutely his home turf, and he's only very gently drifting in a circle, which he corrects with a lazy, instinctual brush of his hand against a pipe on the wall to brace himself. And then smacks his own forehead gently with his other hand.]

Right, duh, obviously you don't have your space legs yet. Here--

[He springboards off the wall back to Roman - it looks less like swimming and more like flying, if they had to pick a motion verb, or maybe just gliding. But he catches himself on an overhead pipe-handle-thing and catches Roman by the forearm, his right on Roman's right so he can grip back.]

Sorry, buckaroo, but that artificial gravity thing only works in cartoons. You're gonna float and you're gonna like it. Or, y'know. [He tilts his head in a light shrug.] Vomit constantly for the first week from motion sickness. It's what I did.

Oh, yeah, my favourite thing to do is to pretend I'm Kate Moss.

[ The hand on his shoulders works wonders, though. At the very least it's grounding enough that Roman doesn't think he's actually going to hurl. He's stupid and rich, but not the type of stupid and rich to go into space just because. Especially not now.

(it's easy to ignore the fact that they're in space on the barge. This is different.) ]

I shouldn't have asked those stupid space questions.

Whaaaat? I had fun being Wikipedia! And like- you're the first person I've gotten to show the ship to!

[And then his eyes go wide because he remembers why they came here, and he grins brilliantly.] Oh-oh-oh! Hold on-!

[He drags Roman towards the wall, shoving his hand to grab a pipe there so he's anchored before he uses it to spin around, anchoring himself with a stupid three-point landing and looks around like he's looking for someone.

And despite the fact that he's practically vibrating with excitement, his voice is... surprisingly delicate. Gentle, in a way Roman may not have realised was possible from him.]

...Hera? You there, doll?

[And for a long moment, there's silence. Then, a female voice, completely neutral in a way that's not so much indifferent, but rather completely lacking in humanity.]

Error. No onboard personality operating program detected.

[ He's glad Eiffel zips off to take care of god-knows-what, mostly because he doesn't have to admit he was joking and this is kind of cool. Sure he feels like he's going to hurl still but the wave of nausea is slowly receding as his body's starting to adjust a little more.

Eiffel helping him around also helps, too, but he's mostly caught up in the look on his friend's face. Something's different, something's not so much changed as it has shifted. There's a type of genuine excitement on Eiffel's face that he's pretty sure he's only seen on Tom Wambsgans before.

For once, Roman doesn't want to be a dick. He stands--floats--as Eiffel does whatever the fuck he does, and listens to the computerized female voice. ]

We do have something like this--call her Alexa.

[ Not that it isn't impressive, Roman just has no idea how something that immediately announces that there's an error is something to get attached to. ]

[Eiffel isn't subtle with his expressions; when he feels something, he feels it with his entire body. So Roman will get to see, as soon as the voice responds in that clinical, artificial tone, how Eiffel deflates. His expressions falls, something beyond disappointed and straight into painfully, personally distraught, that leaks the energy from his shoulders and has him slide out of his dumb little pose to hang limp in the air for a moment, anchored only by his slack grip on his ceiling pipe.

Then he closes his eyes, and takes a breath, and - the sadness doesn't go away, but it gets buried, hard, and when he opens his eyes, his voice just comes out with a resigned, tired amusement.]

Well, looks like I'm not gonna get to introduce you to my best friend after all. It's on dummy mode right now. [He raps the wall with his knuckles.] This place doesn't do real people, right? Apparently she's enough of one to count.

[Which... it's unbelievably bittersweet, for him.

But he doesn't linger on it, instead pushing himself back to Roman with a weak grin.] But, since you're here, lemme show you around! Let's go full Cribs experience!

[ He's never seen a person deflate like a balloon before, much less actively cared about the person doing said deflating, but Eiffel's got the face of a kicked puppy dog and Roman can watch in real-time as he stitches himself together so quickly he may as well have been told he's got to talk to the press in less than two minutes. It would be remarkable if it wasn't just sort of... sad.

Eiffel's grin is meant with Roman's face scrunched up, looking half like he's wildly unsure and half like he's dreading something. He moves to put his hands on his hips, realizes he can't with the gravity, and half-flails to steady himself again, voice surprisingly soft. ]

Yeah, uuuuuuh, sure--you, uh...

[ How do you do this? ]

Are you, like, okay about Alexa though? It's not my fucking business, but you did the like, thing that some people do. With your face.

Her name's Hera.

[It's not aggressive, or even whiny. It's just a simple, firm correction.

Then he does a different thing with his face: a firm press that starts in one corner of his mouth and rolls into a pout as he considers sharing his feelings, and finally he folds his arms over his chest, so he's drifting gently loose in midair.]

And yeah, my face did a thing. It's called being disappointed. I'm not sure how much practice you've gotten with that back in St Petersburg, Romanov, but for the rest of the protaletariat it's a depressingly common feeling. And this was a big dog's barf on my bacon and eggs.

[He sighs, long and hard, and brushes his curls out of his face with one hand.]

...you know I came here from the U.S.S. In Space Nobody Can Hear You Scream, right? Not the Hephaestus. I got stuck on a shitty little emergency vehicle that got ejected by a functioning dead man's switch on a faulty captain, and I got sent off on a whirlwind adventure to the far corners of the galaxy. Alone.

[His drifting rolls him towards the window, and he cranes his neck to look at the bright red light.]

I lost contact with everyone in like, thirty seconds. I got stuck out there for three months.

[ Roman tracks Eiffel's moment with his eyes, refusing to join him in the float fest--fuck space, man, it's never been a good thing for him--and in a rare occurrence, actually shuts the fuck up. He even resists the urge to tell Eiffel he's wrong about the general populace versus the one percenters. How he's positive that Kendall just didn't fall asleep in his pool and fell in, that it was on purpose, that his entire family is fucking miserable. It seems like Eiffel's going somewhere with this, anyway.

So instead, he listens. To his credit, he lasts a few moments actually looking Eiffel in the eye before he feels too uncomfortable and settles for concentrating on the other's unruly blond curls instead.

He doesn't know shit about space, but there's something he does know about: loneliness and isolation. Not physically, not on the other's level, but the feeling of being trapped with only yourself rings true, just a little bit. Even if Eiffel's is clearly a more drastic situation. ]

Yeah, but like... [ He's digging for something positive or reassuring. Anything. He can't pick at his nails and he can't use his hand to tug on his ear, both his go-to nervous ticks, so he settles on gnawing at his lip. ] ...You made it out, right?

[ Three months. The span of time looms over the entire conversation, heavy in its weight. ]

Edited 2022-12-20 21:15 (UTC)

[Eiffel reaches out easily, hooking two fingers on the thick windowsill to hold himself in place.]

...not right away. When I go back after I'm done here, it'll be back in deep space. I won't get rescued by Kepler and Jacobi for another week or so. My water's gonna run out first.

[And he's gonna short-circuit half of the remaining electronics left when he tries to run cryo without it.]

But I only learned that after I got here. I thought I was gonna die out there. 'cos even when I did my best, it just... wasn't good enough.

[Not that Eiffel is good at recognising his strengths. That he lasted three months, on a single month's worth of rations and a thousand litres of water on a broken ship that couldn't even steer, hurtling some seventeen thousand clicks an hour into No Man's Void. That he still managed to make something in an impossible, losing situation. That against all odds, despite everything, it will end up working.

All he can see is how he fucked up.]

[ Roman's teeth bite down hard as he listens, temporarily startling him as he Eiffel explains a situation much more dire to how Roman got here. He can only picture it in a vague sense, in the way he can relate it to a movie or a book due to lack of any real experience: it's Interstellar, it's The Martian, it's Sunshine, but worse, because it's not Matt Damon. He actually knows the person its about.

It's kind of weird, hearing someone narrate their slow descent into hopelessness. Roman's face is pinched, and his gaze slides off of Eiffel's face altogether, shrugging, making a small noncommittal noise. ]

Well... [ He shrugs again, a rapid up-down-up of his shoulders and after a brief moment of contemplation he carefully lets go and lets himself float. ]

Yeah, sure, I mean, that sucks.

[ 'I'm all apart,' Kendall had said in Italy at their mother's wedding, weeping, sobbing, admitting his darkest secret as Roman and Siobhan listened. Roman had tried desperately to summon up anything he could, something to alleviate the situation. Focus on the tiny, tiny parts Kendall's story that show some sort of hope, or heroicism, or even just some levity. Roman clears his throat and tries that with Eiffel. ]

I don't know shit about space. I tried to accelerate the launch of one of our satellites so it could coincide with my sister's wedding, like it would be fireworks? And uh. Well. No one died, so win for me, I guess, but, um...

[ It's weird, floating, but it's strangely freeing. Roman tries his best to get as level as he can with Eiffel, even if he can't look him in the eye. ]

I'm just saying you got further than I would. Probably, like, most people. You're an idiot, but you're pretty fucking smart, I think. I'd bet my entire family fortune on the fact that because it was you in there doing shit, Captain Kirking with your big dick swinging around or whatever, that's why you made it. Are going to make it. Not luck or chance. But you.

[Eiffel glances back at Roman as his friend lets loose - literally and metaphorically, apparently, he's let go of his anchor as well - and then keeps watching him as he floats, and talks, and...

Maybe. Maybe he's onto something.

But.]

I started hearing voices when I was out there.

[Which. Isn't what he meant to say, and he looks away quickly, startled by his own admission. But- well, he's here now.]

Not like- going full cuckoo clock, just. I work best when I talk to people, I guess. So, when I don't have any other people, I just. Talk to myself. You should hear some of my logs, it's hours of stupid arguments with commanding officers me, myself and I.

[He lifts his free hand and scratches his stubble awkwardly.]

So, uh. Yeah. When I started panicking, I heard the Commander, she always has a cool head so she sorta helped me do inventory, see what I had that I could use, what wouldn't kill me to ignore, make the most outta what I did have. The captain talked me down from the ledge, showed me... the kind of crap you know you have to do, even if it really fucking sucks, to survive, you gotta do it. So off I went to Popsicle Town, population yours truly.

[He takes a breath, and sighs it out through his nose.]

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hello crusty backtag whats poppin

The crunch just makes it tastier

cw mentions of possible attempted suicide

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