Public Network Video - (Plus Two Private Messages)

[doubled_speed]

Public Video - [Posted During Ship Lock-Up]

[The video comes on and there's Tommy, a touch blurry around the edges. The background changes behind him constantly. One second he's pacing in what was clearly the dorm of the ship he's on. The next second he's in a mess hall, the protein paste machine in the background. Then the hangar. Then the bridge. Back to the mess and dorm and mess. This will be true for the whole video. There is no denying that he's very agitated, like ready to run up the walls. Or through them if he could.]

Dudes, who in the world decided this was the best plan that there was? Like, seriously, this plan? It's bogus. Being locked up on a ship is one thing. I wanna go to space. Space is fucking cool. All the stars and planets and traveling and that shit. But here, on the fucking ground, and there's like no way to go and travel between them and the space is small and itissosmallandthewalls are everywhere andican'tgetthrough

[He's shaking harder now, as he comes to a stop. This is miserable.]

Yo, Agrii or whatever. I don't fucking CARE about making friends. I can do that on my own time. But I want the fuck out. Let me go back to the greenhouse. I swear I just found a door that led to a whole section of a floor that was just fucking MINT. I like mint. Let me at the fucking mint.

justletmeoutofhere!



Private Message to Billy - October 13th

[He's calmed down a bit at this point, and it's important that he does this. That he seems calm for this. Because Billy deserves it.]

Yo, happy birthday, bro. Was gonna make you this whole salad with things from the Garden. But some ASSHOLES in charge here absolutely decided to blow birthday plans. I'm sorry this all sorta got blown up. Who you on wherever you're on with? I'm with Wanda. Which, you know, awkward. You know where V ended up? Whatever, not like it matters. Just be okay, right?



Private to Vision - October 13th

[This one has a more nervous looking Tommy. Like he isn't even sure he should be sending this.]

It's today, right? You sorta said that the math would come out to today, yeah? So you know, I don't hold it against you. Forgetting. And not, you know, doing the whole thing you said you would. But it's fine, right? I get it, that you'd want to. So don't worry about me, okay? Just make sure you wish Billy a happy birthday. This will probably be the first time he has to celebrate it without his family or friends or all that. It would mean a lot, I think, for you to reach out.

Because, you know, it's a good Dad thing to do. And he's used to having a good dad. So, you know Vision, do your best. We're nineteen now, so I guess throw that in too?



[OOC: If anyone of Tommy's cohort wants to run into him while he's recording messages, that's cool too. Just hit me up at churbooseanon and we can set it up.]

Comments

Action;

[ladiesss]

[Krista has been hiding in a dark little nook in the hallway, crunched up with her journal near the floor so that she's out of the way and practically invisible if she stays still enough. which means she's gotten to see (or hear, at least) a good chunk of Tommy's freakout as he zips between the bunks and the kitchen and then back to the hangar and then back to the bunk room again.

...She knows she can't really call out to get his attention, so she sighs and un-crunches and goes to try and find him wherever he's stopped and hopes that he isn't going to zip away in the other direction before she gets there.]

Hey, buddy... [very soft-spoken.] Whaaat's going on?

[doubled_speed]

[Congratulations, she's gotten him in a brief moment in the mess where he's filling a bowl with protein paste. The Spicy Chili kind really isn't too bad. But the machine goes so fucking SLOW. And with all the energy he's blowing on freaking out, his body needs calories BADLY. He does, though, flinch at the noise, turning and holding his hand up before him like it's a defense, and there is some vibrating from a nearby table before he lowers his hand.]

Just eating. You know. Food. Need to refuel. There's a lot to eat. Just need to eat. Food.

[Redundant? Yes. But he's so focused on trying to speak at speeds that other people can understand that putting the words together in reasonable ways is difficult. And he's trying NOT to talk about claustrophobia and the way this place feels like his cell back at Juvie only bigger and he's not okay with this, and he can't even just go to Wanda and ask her to take it from his head or just talk to him about stupid stuff he doesn't know about his family because she's not his family and he's breaking down here thanks.]

[ladiesss]

Ooookay.

[this is not a good situation... she follows most of his jittery movements (definitely notices that table), quiet for just a couple more seconds as she quickly calculates three or four things at once. she points a finger towards the bowl he's filling, starting to talk faster.]

Okay. Okay okay okay. Cool, that sounds good, keep doing that. Can I help you with anything. I've got tricks.

[that thing in the middle was technically a question, but it doesn't really sound like she's asking.]

[doubled_speed]

[Okay, the talking faster definitely has Tommy slowing down for half a second because... that's interesting. Like, he's heard humans talk fast, but never fast. Even those people that do speed-reads for ads aren't that impressive to him. But most people can't do that. So now he's interested.]

What... kinds of tricks?

[ladiesss]

[it is extremely difficult, and kind of draining, but she's trying her best to talk at a speed she imagines his mind is going at anyway. she's been under a Quicksilver spell before, she understands what it's like to have to wait for people to talk.]

Uh, okay. Don't know if any of this would be helpful, but there's making some basic shit appear, mending things, breaking things-- [she starts counting them off on her fingers, at this point, though she isn't as fast as that as she is as talking.] Uh, casting magical armor I guess, though I don't know how that would be applicable here--and I could probably turn you into a cat.

[a brief pause.] Or a lawn chair. Or a tube of toothpaste. Or like, a tree or something, I can basically turn anything into anything.

encrypted text;

[unbearablynaive]

[The reply comes almost as instantaneous as the network will permit.]

I did not forget, Tommy. I was waiting until morning, in fact, but I suppose I shouldn't count on anyone having a regular sleep schedule.

Don't worry. I've made something for your brother as well.

Happy birthday, Speed.

[Attached to the message is an image file. Rather than a photograph, it looks like a painting - the colors might be familiar to Tommy, as the Vision has been testing various plants in the greenhouse for pigments, although he'd said at the time it was for developing ink for writing. (Which was technically true. It had been for both.) Most of it had been done by hand, but there are places, especially in the background, that have been added or touched up digitally, thanks to the unexpected trip to a spaceship before the work had been completed.

The subject of the painting is, unsurprisingly, one Thomas Shepherd. He's running on the shallow lake with water in a plume following him; his expression is happy, laughing. Wanda and Billy are both floating in the air nearby, as if cheering him on, and the Vision is waiting at one end of the painting on an iceberg with a birthday cake.]

[doubled_speed]

[Hilariously, he'd forgotten about texting. About someone keeping up with him. About the promise to talk at speeds that were more Tommy's standard. And he almost forgets to type now. He does remember to turn the video feed off. No one needs to see how he's in just short of tears from the gift. He remembered. He remembered and made something. Better than a rock. Something that's undeniably family. Them as they always should have been. In his world. In Vision's. Them as a family, something he'd never really had. Yeah. Choked up was something Tommy didn't know he could be.

And oh boy does his fingers fly over the keys. It's clumsy and fumbling for a while as he tries to adjust to the maximum input rates of the system, which are still slow, but it's something. And thus his own reply is almost instantaneous too.]

fucking hell i don't know how to use computer things well
how do i save this?
can i make this a background on something?
no that's a bad idea that would totally give everything away if wanda saw it
but seriously how do i save this?

[unbearablynaive]

[And here comes unintentional gift number two: someone who can text back at the same speed.]

It should automatically save to the device; there is a Files section where you can access it at will.

Wanda's seen it, though she doesn't know the significance beyond that the two of you have worked with your world's version of her. I have the physical painting back at the shop where we have been staying, though it is only about 83% complete. I had hoped for a few more days to work on it.

[He'd picked up painting back when they were often trapped for weeks at a time on this kind of ship. A digital painting frame is a good way to whittle away the hours, as it happens, and he'd been the keeper of a mural on one of the large ships as well.

Also, that's definitely an "I like this" reaction from Tommy, so he's pleased.]

It's nowhere near the same, but you could take the chocolate protein gel and freeze it for a poor ice cream substitute. If we can acquire real cream or an equivalent, I can teach you to make ice cream using the liquid nitrogen supplies in the ship.

[doubled_speed]

[That's a gift that can't be taken lightly. Not in the slightest. Really, Tommy needs more robot and android friends. Still, the more he's doing this, the more he's 'talking' with Vision and realizing he really can do this at his own speeds, that he can type more comfortably and still expect quick responses, the more his typing style shapes up. No doubt by the end of the month Vision, at least, will actually get reliable punctuation and paragraphs.]

i'm really surprised that you did all this near here and she didn't really question it. like that's super weird but i'll take it for what it is.

when we get out of these tin cans you're going to teach me how to find this file function
because i can't be bothered to do it now

[Such a lie. He's going to be looking at this thing a lot.]

and you take the time you need to finish the real one because i've got to get the agrii to understand the idea of nails and a hammer and maybe whatever wires or strings or whatever people use to put up pictures. gonna put it in my room with billy

and can i just say all this protein paste/gel shit?
it's amazing like it's not PERFECT for me but it's definitely better and i can be speedy some
so i'll try the whole ice cream substitute the best i can though i think someone has a cow

[seeingscarlet]

Wanda's too mentally and emotionally exhausted to be bothered trying to drag her bedding into the cargo hold. She's spent the day split between trying to force the doors open, trying desperately to reach out for Vision and her friends, and fiddling with the network to reach out to anyone she can't immediately account for.

It's a shame - she really should have made the effort to find somewhere else to sleep. The sterility of their surroundings, the suddenness of being cut off from Vision's presence, and the nightmares of those around her are a recipe for disaster.

In her dreams, she finds herself in a sparse hallway, dressed in the same drab olive outfit that HYDRA had put her in. This could have been somewhere in the base, but there are pieces of it that she can't quite place. She shouldn't be here. She's not allowed out of her cell, and if they find her they're going to sedate her and then she'll be left in that awful haze - able to feel and hear everything around her but barely able to process it and completely unable to fight it. She's sure she would have gone mad without Pietro in the next cell over. At least she can try to listen to him to drown everything else out.

She needs to find him, but she also needs to find a place to hide. There has to be something around here...the base doesn't have anything like a broom closet that she's seen, but there must be a locker or cabinet...

[doubled_speed]

White. He never understood why they chose white. White scrubs were perfect for showing off things like blood, dirt, soot from the explosions. They always chose white though. White scrubs, thin white sandals because they would wear out too fast for him to really get anywhere or do anything. It's always white, and that goes with the sterile walls and the sterile scents and the sterile everything.

It's all so close, it's all so familiar. He's in a hall, like and not like where he was. Right for training. Conditioning. Treadmills and walls of increasing strength and stand-ins for human forms. To the left...

No. He can feel it around his neck. The collar. It holds, restrains, controls. Suppresses all that makes him special. They used it for transfers before. They'll use it for transfers again. And he doesn't like that. Doesn't like this. It's a mess. What's he supposed to do?

"I don't want to be here anymore," he says, backing against the wall and sliding down it, pulling his legs up against his chest. Can't run. The Mandroids will get him. Their little almost-sentinels. There's only so much he can do. And right now he can't do any of it because there are footsteps. There are footsteps coming and he doesn't know where they're coming from, but they're going to find him.

He has to move. He's so scared. But he rolls to his feet and starts shuffling on. Got to find a way out. Not to the left. Never to the left. He turns right and starts down the hall. There has to be an out.

[seeingscarlet]

Wanda continues shuffling barefoot down the hall. She's cold and getting scared by the stillness. There are always so many people watching or poking and prodding her and the only true privacy she's had is in her mind. She can see so much of what they are; more, she suspects, than Strucker would ever have wanted her to see. She knows he lied to them. She knows how many Sokovians he's killed in his quest for power. And she knows exactly what he wants from her.

He won't let her out of his sight for long.

She rounds a corner and sees someone up ahead of her - not Pietro but close and even though though he was never here, dream-logic means that she doesn't question it. "Tommy?"

Her voice is hoarse from either disuse or screaming or both, and this is probably the most disheveled he's ever seen her. The olive hides more than the white he's wearing does, but her hair is a complete mess and the bandage wrapped around her right hand is getting dirty. She's more than a number to them now, but she's still not a person who needs a basic standard of care and it shows.

"We need to go," she says, trying both to be quiet and to catch up with him, but finding that she's too uncoordinated to move at any significant speed. "If they find us..." Well, her neck is littered with enough tiny bruises from needles to sedate her and she's not looking to collect any more.

[doubled_speed]

"Wanda," he gasps, and immediately he shifts to head for her. It's backwards. It's toward the left. Doesn't care. Gotta get her safe.

He wants to break things, to see how she is. How they treated her. But he can't. He's powerless. He's just a kid. But he wraps an arm around her waist to help keep her moving.

"If they find us, it'll be bad."

Because of course it will be bad. It was always bad before, and it's going to be bad now. "Gotta... get out. Can't get through the walls. Sorry."

[theladyofwinterfell]

Sansa isn't pleased about being cooped up on her own ship but as much as she's uncomfortable, Lady is much more so. She's been trying to walk the direwolf along the length of the ship several times a day since she cannot let her roam outside and it's one of those passes that she finds Tommy recording videos. She stands in the doorway and listens, wholeheartedly agreeing with his sentiment that being trapped on this ship is inconvenient at best and unbearable at worst. When he seems to be finished recording, she decides to speak.

"This has happened before in the Fleet but I didn't like it then, either. Even still, Lady likes it much less than I do." As if she knows she's being talked about, Lady lets out a plaintive whine.

"She misses roaming outdoors and I miss my husband. I'm Sansa Stark."

[doubled_speed]

Oh god, he wants to yelp at seeing a dog that big. That is a MASSIVE mutt, and it makes him flinch WAY more than the woman suddenly talking to him does. He scrambles back from the bit of wall he'd sat down against to record a message to Billy. Good thing she didn't catch him recording the one for Vision.

"Hey there, Sansa, and WOW that is a fucking giant dog."

[theladyofwinterfell]

"Oh, Lady? She's a direwolf," Sansa says, evaluating her for a moment before looking back at Tommy. "She doesn't mean you any harm, not really. Her favorite things to do are sleep, eat, and beg Lord Tyrion for pets."

Sansa pets her plenty, mind, but for some reason her pets aren't nearly as satisfying as Tyrion's seem to be.

"She won't hurt you so long as you aren't hurting me. I swear it."

[doubled_speed]

Tyrion. That name means something. But Tommy can't place it so he lets it go.

"Normally she wouldn't even be a threat. Could outrun her. But... How did you get a pet here?"

Video [Ship Lock Up]

[wearingthestars]

[Billy's brow betrays his worry, though he's trying to portray a calm expression. The blur behind Tommy makes him squint, feeling disoriented even though he's not moving himself.]

Hey- calm down, breathe. You're okay.

[He's really not sure how convincing he sounds, but he tries to offer a reassuring smile. It's followed by an anxious beat where he catches his lip in his teeth-]

...I can't get out either. But- we'll be okay.

[Switch to Messaging for Privacy]

[doubled_speed]

[It's not okay, but with Billy there. Tommy finds a small corner in the hanger and puts himself in it, just for the closest thing to privacy he can get. Doesn't bother hiding under or behind or something, too claustrophobic.]

This place isfuckingcrampedandsterile. Feels like juvie. Billy I was out. They arentallowedtoputme back.

[He's definitely not handling this well.]

Can't blow the walls out to get off. The took that power away and I can't vibrate through the walls. I tried. Itriedreallyhard.

[wearingthestars]

[It takes a bit of focus, but Billy's able to follow, even with Tommy's words starting to run together in his panic. He knows it's probably hard enough for him to be going this slow right now, let alone asking him to slow it down even more.]

I know. I know, I'm sorry, Tommy. You're not there. No one's going to hurt you, I promise.

[He's doing to his best to channel all the calm and reason of Rebecca Kaplan, but she's much better at it than him. More experience.]

I can't use my magic to leave either. Or to bring you here. I tried. But the Agrii need us. They aren't going to hurt us. They think they're helping. We just...we just have to wait, and they'll let us out again.

[doubled_speed]

[Yeah, this is hard. Tommy may have bounced off some walls in an attempt to knock a hole through them. It wasn't pretty.]

This doesn't HELP!

[Definitely shouting, and his voice echoes in the hold and he curls up smaller. Hopefully no one comes to find him.]

Don't care that they're giving me enough food to glut myself. I just... are you safe?

[Distract him, Billy. He needs it.]

Private to Tommy - October 13th

[wearingthestars]

[Billy looks surprised, not aware of just how close to their birthday they were, and then there's a flash of disappointment on his face.]

It's our birthday? All ready? I- oh- I was gonna-

[He tries to force his magic to cooperate, despite knowing well enough by now that it won't allow him to conjure up anything in Tommy's ship for him. His shoulders deflate with a frustrated sigh.]

I'm sorry. Happy Birthday.

[He shakes his head then.]

Vision's not on my ship, so not sure. Good to know Wanda's with you though.

[doubled_speed]

Pops has been helping me keep track of it. At least by his readings he thinks it's today. Thought. I don't know if he bothered checking.

[Tommy hadn't really figured out a gift. Other than asking the Agrii for help. But, yanno, this happened.]

I'm doing a bit better now. I mean, the walls are still everywhere and I want out, but dude, promise me that when we get out of here you're going exploring with me or something. I'm so fucking DONE with small spaces.

[wearingthestars]

Pops?

[Billy's lips quirk, looking curiously pleased with that development.]

You look better. And yeah- I mean, FIRST, we're having our birthday, but- I am pretty over small spaces myself. I can't even imagine how much worse it is for you. I spend half my time floating 'cause it feels like there's some extra space.

[doubled_speed]

Yeah. It's... what I'm calling him. You said I needed a better term. That's it. Don't make a big deal about it.

[Oh yeah, make a big deal about it. Tommy's got that nervous hands through his hair thing going on.]

There's a lady here, she offered to turn me into something small to try and get out. But hell, no, magic. Trust you. strangers? No.