rickitikitarr | 4. voice

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4. voice

All right, this is all good fun and games, kids, but I'm going to be the one who spoils it by asking the question.

What the hell is going on?

And, for that matter, if we're the ones apparently running the show now, is anyone steering the boat?

[Ricki does not want the barge to smash into a sun and everyone to burn up, even though he's currently in the inmate-reclaimed bar and part of him is rather enjoying the fiddling.]

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Easy. But who's Vic?

my in former inmate

jax shot him last week i've been waiting on the admiral to bring him back

then i managed to do it myself

Well that's a new talent. All right about to balance things in my hands, see you in a bit.

not for this ship it's not. just never with me pulling the reins.

cabin 5/15 like the Who song or was that before your time? anyway door's open

thank you bb <3 <3

[Iris' cabin is large, pink and messy: the vast bed with its zebra-print bedspread dominates the room, although the other furniture looks just as comfortable and overstuffed. The room's focal point is the huge surrealist painting of a nude blonde in a skewed, red landscape filled with giant glass bees, metal dragons and melting clocks. Beside it are a set of framed Wanted posters featuring Iris, David Cain, Barbara Gordon and an unfamiliar, scarred and pitted face that the poster's text names as Wade Wilson.

Victor Creed is sprawled over the bed, breathing but otherwise unresponsive, and Iris is using him for a pillow. Elvis and Solace scramble down when the door opens to caper lovingly around Ricki and poke his tender spots with their noses.]

'Ey Ricki! Ta ever so for this.

Jesus Lord, Iris-

[He feels like he's walking into a brothel. His cheeks actually colour- but the painting, and she's in bed with a man, and good lord.

He just comes over and sets the tray down next to her on the bed.]

[Iris is so used to everyone being used to her that Ricki's reaction takes her a little aback, but the blushing tips it from weird all the way into adorable, and she winks at him as she heaves herself upright.

She's had to cut off most of what Victor was wearing on account of the bullet wounds. But Iris is mostly dressed, and quite chastely - by her standards - on top of the bedspread.]

People always thought Vic and me were shagging, but as it 'appens I just didn't want to park 'im in 'is own room. It's a flipping prison cell again, I'm changing that as soon as we both feel a bit better. 'Ave a seat and pull yourself up a vodka, there's glasses in the cabinet.

Nah, I'm fine.

[He's off the sauce, actually. This place is so centered around 'pour yourself a drink and join me' what with the pub, that if he let himself he could get into trouble. He has the personality type for it, but is just a little too meticulous to let it happen.]

Water in the tap, though?

[He'll go for a glass of that, so he can spare a moment and sit.]

'Course, darling, 'elp yourself. Or there's mango juice in the fridge.

[She pinches the bridge of her nose tiredly and eyes the food as though working up the energy for it.]

Flippin' 'eck, I've felt better'n this death tolling meself. Who'd be Admiral?

...they're all going nuts up there, aren't they?

Kids in a candy shop.

[He agrees, getting himself a glass of juice, before settling down in a chair.]

I don't know who's what currently.

It's not right. I'm all for water parks and free booze in general but that's not 'ow she's meant to work. I just don't reckon I'd 'ave much luck trying to talk anyone down right now.

[She picks up a cold chicken leg and eyes it uneasily.]

And we do need someone picking up the threads. Can't leave folk lying around dead. If I 'adn't got Dillon to do 'is entropy trick Vic would've been ...well past 'is sell by date before I got 'im alive again.

How long do you think before people realize that if you wanted the chance to off yourself to get off the ride permanently, this would be the moment?

[Suicide is generally an impermanent escape, after all. That might not be the case for long if this lasts.]

[That's a thing that hadn't occurred to Iris, and she startles visibly at it.]

Good grief, Ricki, is that where your 'ead's going? I'd be more worried about people offing each other, to be honest. We're going to 'ave to keep an eye out for that.

[He smiles. It shows what side of the fence they're each on. She's worried about the local decay of social order, he's thinking about the ways this could be used to get the hell out, even though his thoughts on the subject are alarmingly ruthless.]

I'll keep an eye out for bodies.

Someone wants off this boat badly enough to do themselves in, I'd say it's their choice. Not 'aving anyone else choose for 'em, though. I'll get back to patrolling soon's I can get up.

[She starts tearing and swallowing strips off the chicken leg, more dutiful than enthused.]

Worst comes to the worst, I can probably get everyone off the boat in time. I'll 'ave to do a test run, see if the barriers come down.

Get off to where? Some local planet?

[He hasn't actually been down to a port yet, at this point, so this is hard for him to picture.]

We're outside of space and time 'ere, Ricki, local doesn't exactly apply. No - if I can get anyone off, and that's a big if - I'll drop 'em where they need to go. That part's no problem, I've got me own transport.

More than that, we're between universes. You're saying your ship could get to my version of earth, and Anya's- where there are mutants, and that fellow where the nuclear strike happened?

[Because as poor as his understanding of the multiverse is, that's a tall order.]

Oh aye, that's not a problem. The problem is that this ship won't let 'er inmates leave. I tried once, in a flood where I didn't know what I were doing 'ere. The bus dematerialised just fine, but Aslan just landed on the carpet in my room.

But if she's really dying, that should stop 'appening too. If it 'asn't already.

Rest up. It's good to have the option.

[But he's standing.]

Have a leash for these two?

[She actually looks confused for an instant, as though leash were a word in a foreign language.]

A what? Oh no. They'll stick with you, don't fret about that. My lads know what's what all right.

If they maul someone and I end up in the basement I'm going to blame you.

[Just so she knows.]

Ricki. Come 'ere a sec, will you?

[She reaches out a hand, as though offering to shake.]

[He pads over and takes her hand, not thinking much of it. He doesn't really know what there is to her.]

[Her hands are cold - Iris' natural body temperature is lower than a human's - and she smiles up at him with her very best slightly dotty, fluffy old lady expression: wide eyed, utterly guileless.

She does not invade his mind, make any attempt to read his thoughts or probe his secrets. She simply rests her mind around the outside of Ricki's, to give him a narrow glimpse of who and what she is.

Her perspective is dizzying. She has many more senses than the human norm: touching Ricki shows her the shape of his past and the exponential spread of his possible futures. Here is the boundary between the ocean of time and the tidepool of that ocean that is the barge's particular bubble, outside that complex ebb and flow: every second that passes is as perceptible to her as the individual insects in a swarm of bees, if the bees happened to have centred their swarm on her head without, somehow, obscuring her other senses.

Here, too, perfectly perceptible, are the minds of her dogs, twin balls of (presently) delighted curiosity and affection: without words, all three give him to understand that they live their lives in constant contact. Here, too, is a fourth entity, much larger and stranger than either Iris or the dogs, as solid and supportive to Iris' mind as the bed and floor are to her body.

She holds it for an instant and then lets go, leaving only the impression of her touch like a lingering scent in a room after the perfume wearer has moved on, only a swirl of displaced air.]

They won't do anything they shouldn't. Well, apart from you can't trust Elvis with toilet rolls, but that's about it.

Iris,

[Ricki says, very, very levelly- and this close there's a good chance she'll feel the mayhem in him, the panic, the way his total stillness indicates an actual diminishing grip on his self-control.]

You do that to me again without warning me, and I will probably try to break your silly neck.

[He wouldn't even want to, is the thing. He withdraws his hand now, and his fingertips are shaking. They're lucky that she's lying here, drawn and helpless, because if she hadn't been he probably would have lost the battle with instinct. As it is he's getting off the bed, fast.]

4. voice

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