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» WHO? The Roci Crew and whoever else wants in on this mess
» WHEN? after the gravity is back
» WHERE? A few different places
» WHAT? A few different prompts as well as a catch-all for any roci crew or related logs for the month of june
» WARNINGS? these are all just terrible people what do you want from me

001: Alex, Bobbie and Amos are Judging You

The Martians and the Earther are sitting at a table in the Mess Hall, and they've started a game. That game? To rate everyone else on the ship in order of attractiveness. Want to be rated? Find the comment header below, drop a picture in of your character, and watch the comments fly. Feel free to overhear them and give them hell.

002: Closed, Alex >> Frank

Going on the morning walk-about to search for Holden was ritual, at this point, and Alex was very used to Frank coming over first thing before they headed out. So the door was already open, waiting for him. Alex was fishing through his drawers, trying to find where he'd stashed that singular glove that he'd found, to show him for a laugh. But instead his fingers found something else - a thin sheet of plastic, creased and bent a hundred thousand times, and Alex's heart nearly stopped.

He pulled it out of the drawer like it was made of plutonium, careful not to touch the edges of the drawer with it.

Christ. Oh, Christ.

003: Open, Alex >> Anyone who wants to find this wrecked man.

He goes straight to the bar.

It's not that he isn't a fairly regular fixture there, anyway, but especially right now, all he really wants is to drink until he numbs everything. So hi, have a depressed Martian with a bottle of who knows what, sitting at the bar and just staring at a picture of a woman and a child smiling lovingly at the camera. He keeps stroking his thumb over it, then looking wrecked and saying something like 'god damn it' under his breath before he pours himself another drink. One of his arms is still wrapped up in a sling against his chest.

If he recognizes you, he might look up when you get close, and sigh. "Hey, partner. Everythin' alright?" Because it's a lot easier to worry about other people, than to keep being miserable about yourself.

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He doesn't know what to say to that, guilt and loss lancing through him almost equally, then tied up in everything that had happened since--

So he just found himself nodding, dumbly.

"It's a few years outta date." His voice is tight. "They sent it to me a couple years back, got it printed out--" Fuck, he felt miserable.

"... Thought I might never see their faces again, out here. Tore through my room tryin' to find that, the first day, then you show up and tell me about what happened and I can't even start t' blame her, and then--"

He gestured at the picture.

"I can't decide if they're takin' pity on me, or taunting me."

"I'm sorry." It's inadequate at best and she knows it, so she squeezes his shoulder gently. This is tearing him up, and she's not sure telling him that he didn't have his ring on last time she saw him at home was a good thing. He's taken it off since that conversation, and she can't help but feel guilty about it.

"I don't know if they're taunting you, but if they are, fuck them. You've got it back now. That's something, right?"

He leans a little into her hand, as if letting her take some of the weight, and just sort of nods through the sympathy.

"... Yeah, I just --" Just what? Had just started to be able to let them go? After a whole month?

God damn it, Kamal. Reachin' new heights of coward every day. He sucked in a breath, spreading the picture out on the bar, smoothing its edges. Trying to ignore the way the heat behind his eyes was making them blur.

Edited 2018-06-08 22:23 (UTC)

She keeps her hand where it is, squeezing a bit more firmly, letting him lean into her as much as he wants. "Just what, Alex?" Her voice isn't prodding, it's gentle, quiet enough so that only he'll hear.

He felt miserable, half tempted to just start spilling his guts and tell her everything and half desperately hoping he could save her impression of him. But the latter was probably a lost cause. He raised a hand, scrubbing at his eyes with the heel of his palm.

"I don't know, Gunny. I've been tryin' really damn hard to not think about it."

Oh, Alex. Bobbie sighs, not entirely sure what he needs from her. "If you don't want to talk about it, we don't have to, but I'll listen if you need it."

He didn't know what he needed, either, but then, he never had. He'd needed a family, but never managed to fit into it, and he needed a ship, but now couldn't find it.

His fingers curled around the photo, thumb brushing over his son's face.

"... Haven't been there in almost five years," he murmured lowly. "Only difference now is that keepin' my distance isn't a choice."

She watches him for a moment, going quiet as she tracks the motion of his fingers. She's still not entirely sure she understands the situation with his family. It's not something you can assess from one conversation.

"Why didn't you ever go back? You never told me."

"... Kept tellin' myself that I would." He doesn't look at her while he says it. "That I'd - that I'd change, or suddenly none of it would matter anymore and I'd be able to just - be the man I had to be, for 'em. Kept tellin' myself that one day I wouldn't feel so damn restless and I'd be able to keep my own feet in one damn place."

He pulled away, setting the picture down so that he could pick up his glass again, and take a long drink.

"Took gettin' on the Roci to figure out what the hell it was I'd been lookin' for the whole damn. That I doubt I ever really meant to go back in the first place."

"But you couldn't tell them that."

As much as Bobbie cares about Alex, and as quickly as she's grown to care for him, it's pretty awful. She gets it, though. The idea of settling down on Mars sounds miserable, and it always has. The fact that she might never be a Marine again scares the shit out of her. Alex is the same, she thinks, he just never had the clarity she did until he'd already done his settling down.

"Do you think you'll ever want to go back?"

He shook his head. No. He couldn't tell them that. He'd just dragged them on, for years, continuously waiting for a husband and a father who wasn't coming back.

He finished his drink.

"... Doubt it. It's pretty damn telling when you feel relieved that someone thinks you're dead." The disgust he felt for himself was thick in his voice, almost sneering it on his face as he went for his bottle.

"Finally figured out where I was supposed to be, and now she's gone, too."

That's definitely a sentence to unpack, and while Bobbie knows it's not something a father is supposed to say about their family, she doesn't think he means Talissa and Melas. She thinks he means all the trappings that come along with them. Being a good husband and father is a very specific thing on Mars, with very specific expectations, and she can't help but think of her own father lying about that rescue story to make himself look better. No one's perfect.

She uses the hand on his shoulder to tug at him gently, trying to get him to turn. "Alex, look at me for a second."

He'd thought about it, before. Somehow getting Talissa and Melas off Mars - getting them into the sky with him. Talissa would hate it about as much as he hated being on Mars, and Melas... Space was no place for a kid. He couldn't do that to him. Couldn't curse him to brittle bones and never living in a gravity well. But if they could have been away from Mars, away from Talissa's family, away from the rigid box that Alex was supposed to fit in -- Maybe it would have worked.

Maybe it wouldn't feel like he was being pulled in two opposite directions all the time and being torn right down the middle.

It isn't easy, getting him to raise his eyes. The self-hatred has been drowned in alcohol and is making him stubborn and surly. But he can't quite ignore her direct request, so he turns his head a fraction and meets her eyes and hopes he doesn't see disgust in them.

He doesn't see disgust. Sympathy and concern, yes, but nothing malicious. "We'll find the Roci and get back home. And when we do, you can talk to Talissa. I can be there with you offscreen if it helps. We'll figure it out, yeah? If the Roci's where you belong, that's where you should be."

Fair or not, it won't do anyone any good if Alex just sequesters himself on Mars because it's what's expected of him. Maybe it's not an ideal, fairytale ending for him to stay a pilot, but life never has those.

The relief hits him first, and then the shame for feeling relieved in the first place. He hadn't realised just how much he needed Bobbie to understand. Amos never had. And Naomi and Holden - they just never talked about it. Never asked.

So he was relieved, and guilty, and he nodded his head, letting out a breath. Lowering his eyes.

"I meant to. That's how I knew, when you said -- I'd been planning it. Tryin' to figure out exactly what to say. I thought maybe - thought maybe there was a chance she'd understand, but--"

His shoulders slumped. "She never has. Don't know why I'd think she would now."

Oh, Alex. Bobbie leans in, wraps her arms around him, and hugs tight. She's not much of a hugger, usually, but she knows Alex is, and she doesn't know how else to make him feel better. This is a hard thing for him to deal with, made worse by the fact that they're stuck here.

The angle of approach means she catches him around the shoulders. He wasn't expecting it - can't actually remember the last time someone hugged him - and it makes something lodge itself in his throat. He brings his good hand up, gently letting it rest on her arm.

He just let out a long breath.

Then, lowly: "... Least I know I quit bein' a coward about it."

She just stays there for a moment, arms still circled around him, chin on his shoulder.

"You're the farthest possible thing from a coward. You screwed up in this, but everyone screws up. That doesn't mean you can't try to fix it, if that's what you want."

He sighed, just leaning there for a second, but eventually he pulled away, shaking his head.

"It ain't gonna be fixed, Bobbie." He leaned for the bottle again, pouring himself another drink. "We ain't- we ain't compatible. For a long time I thought that was somethin' I could change, that if I just - I don't know, got it out of my system - that I'd be able to be someone else. But I ain't. We got together when I was still in the navy, and I spent my whole damn time bein' split in two. But as soon as I finished my twenty, actually settled in to settle down..."

He shook his head, setting the bottle back down.

"Honestly, a good part of me is relieved, to know that it's over. ... Even if that makes me a bit of an asshole." He swallowed, looking at the picture. "But if they're dead, I--" he cut off, the words tight in his throat.

Edited 2018-06-09 13:35 (UTC)

She lets him pull away and settles back, out of his personal space. "You're not an asshole." But he sure seems determined to insult himself right now. "Why would you think they're dead?"

Or maybe he just said it so that he could hear Bobbie refute it. He's not sure which would be worse, but it still makes him feel a little better.

At the question, though, he looks visibly uncomfortable. This is something he's been avoiding talking about with the crew - especially Prax.

"We're a long way out, Gunny." Very quietly. "Depending on how we got here... They could have been dead for centuries."

Edited 2018-06-09 14:20 (UTC)

Oh. That's something she hasn't considered.

"You think... What? They put us in stasis and hauled us here? Wouldn't that be a waste of time?"

He shook his head.

"I have no idea how they got us here. Or where here is. But if they've been grabbing us... They got us here somehow. Who knows how long we've been out, or how long it would take to get back. Or why I can't even remember everythin'. For all we know, we ain't even in the same universe anymore, and maybe Earth and Mars ain't even in this one--"

He cut off, miserably.

"But if they're dead and I don't even remember gettin' to speak to them again--"

"Hey, you don't know that for sure."

Bobbie slides the bottle away from him gently. It's not doing anything to help.

"They could be just fine. After seeing what the protomolecule has done, you don't think there might be something else out there that could get us here without flying?"

He doesn't fight to keep the bottle. He's had too much already, and he can tell, it's just inertia that's keeping him going at this point.

"I don't know. I don't know a damn thing."

He let out a hard breath, then carefully picked up the picture, sliding it into his breast pocket, to sit alongside the ring that still lay there.

"Sorry, Gunny. You're right. Need to just - focus on what we're doin'. I just - I feel like maybe I got too comfortable, for a second, and then whoever it is that's doin' this to us just - went and shoved the knife in."

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