trans_9 | He Holds His Crayon Rosary [Open]

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He Holds His Crayon Rosary [Open]

It's been a long time since Howard engaged in some harmless graffiti. Two years, if not a little more. He's exhausted from a long shift in Med Bay and then hitting the Media Library for his new Leon-appointed position, but it seems like the urge to vandalize things has been pent up for so long that he has all the energy in the world to do this.

The memory-statues and painting under the giant lit-up head in the Art Hall are as good a place as any. Using permanent marker, some pink spraypaint and his knife, he starts to carve and mark things into the shifting wall.

DGIG KILLED 1ST CREW

STACY WIPES MINDS

DON'T TRUST THEM

The paintings and statues shift and mold to his memories, images both calm and terrifying, images he remembers and ones he's long forgotten. There's him playing basketball in his driveway. There's Orc's face torn open by flesh-eating worms. There's a massacre, and there's a busy cafeteria, and there's Disneyland, there's the first time he broke his nose and there's him sleeping in math class. The statue becomes a child's corpse and then an impatient P.E. coach and then his grandmother. On the wall, the images keep shifting, but the marks he's making stay where they are, black and pink and chiseled.

WRITE IT ALL DOWN

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"It's only ever picked up stuff halfway with you so far," Howard says, but if John's that set on letting it drop Howard will let it drop. And maybe nose around John's junky spaceship so he can try and figure out what it is by his own means, although he'll have to be careful. He thinks John will be a lot less forgiving if he catches Howard at his module a second time.

"Oh yeah. Totally. I'm always expecting the sky to start shitting gold coins and mana at me." Thus, the only time Howard has ever been accused of optimism is drowned by the sarcasm just dripping from his words. He pulls the knife out and starts carving new words in: DGIG...

"Yup. Even the one of that racist neo-nazi getting her arms cut off and fused back on again, hoping we'd get some clues. So far the only one I got's that the Daligig really don't give a shit about us and we probably should start caring." He shakes out his hand before carving more. "But you already knew that, right? I mean, you just don't sound like the type of person to accept our evil overlords just because they tell you to."

Maybe he's the one with some innate talent for Statue Aptititude, or...whatever. John doesn't know how to explain it. It's like story of his life post-wormhole. At some point you gotta just nod and smile and act like it was another day in the neighborhood.

"You think we'd be ready for this," John says, chewing the inside of his cheek and glancing at Howard. "Y'know, all the movies telling us aliens are gonna stomp all over us. Guess it never really sinks in until you're in knee-deep." John crosses his arms over his chest, shrugging. "I've had enough experience with aliens to not expect them to have your best interests at heart just 'cause they say so. But this's my first time encountering them, so it's not like I'm suddenly an expert."

But aliens could have all kinds of motivations, some of them weird, some of them scarily human, and he'd given up trying to just cover the whole group of them with a blanket impression. What he wanted to make sure was they didn't get blown out of the sky for showing signs they weren't that cool with how the Daligig were running things.

"The movies also tell us that if you have Jeff Goldblum on your side, you can hack into an alien computer in a matter of hours." Howard laughs at his own joke. "Oh, man, you have no idea how good it feels to have someone to talk to who'll probably understand that joke. Wait, no, you probably do."

Howard realizes that he probably feels less fish-out-of-water than some people who arrive here, especially crew members who are the only representatives of their species or from cultures that, in Howard's opinion, make zero sense compared to most people's worlds. Then again, Howard doesn't really care about their existential angst so much as his own, and the small joy that comes with being able to reference scifi films is a welcome one.

"Nobody's ever got your best interests at heart except you. That's obvious." He angles his head over at John. There's a little crack from somewhere in the vertebra of his neck. He's been hunched over the art wall so long that he's gotten stiff - he must have been here a few hours. "What were your aliens back home angling at, anyway?"

John almost turns into a little fangirl right there on the spot. It’s toe-curlingly awesome to finally meet someone who could reference Independence Day and not think it was another historical example of Earth’s backwater failures.

“Believe me, I do,” John says. “

Yeah, he’s glad all over again he hadn’t shot Howard the other day. John grins despite himself, one of those relieved grins that feels good and not in the “I survived another day without alien snot to the eyes or getting shot at” kind of relief. He almost forgot what it felt like. He decides if he’s gonna be here awhile, he might as well park his butt somewhere and not stand there towering over Howard, since it doesn’t look like the kid is going anywhere either. John sits down at the base of one of the statues, a blob of something that he doesn’t think he can even begin to describe as a lowly human here.

“Back where I come from? Far as I know, I was the first and only human to make contact with ET,” John rolls his shoulders in a shrug. “Long story. They weren’t angling for world wide domination of Earth though, I can tell you that. Last alien I talked to said Earth sounded like a planet of primitives.”

It was a long way from the Earth being so important every alien species out there was licking their chops and hopping at the chance to conquer it. In a way it was kinda humbling to be told that basically you were a bunch of savages and this alien didn’t really care what your crappy planet did, one way or another.

"You don't think the crazy people who say they got abducted in the desert and the government's covering it up have a point?" Howard's not sure how he feels about alien abductions. On one hand, clearly, they already have been abducted by aliens. On the other, nobody's tried to probe him yet, and he's not going to tempt fate by claiming the idea is impossible.

Howard chews the tip of his pen, then pops the cap off and rolls it around in his mouth. Old habits, the kind that come from perpetual hunger - it's easy enough to trick your stomach into believing it's about to be fed if your tongue's feeling something up. Granted, they're all well-nourished here, but sometimes your brain finds a tic and just sticks with it for no good reason except to make people look at you funny.

"We are a planet of primitives, compared to all this. But we're still the most popular species on the ship, so we've got to be doing something right. Even if it's just like, breeding six billion of us so there's more of us to choose from than any other race."

The blobular statue behind John starts taking the form of a small muppet-looking alien. Whatever, definitely not from Howard's memory, but it doesn't look intimidating or especially interesting so Howard doesn't pay it much attention. Seen one alien, seen them all, and so on.

“The Area 51 nutcases? Yeah, right,” John laughs. The real aliens out there make those Roswell Grays look like cuddly toys, in his opinion. Besides, if there had been actual alien contact before with Earth, he figured the aliens would’ve had an even lower opinion of humans than they already did, so there’s that. “Never thought of it as that way though. So what we got going for us is we’re basically the intergalactic version of rabbits?”

Humbling thought, but he’d been called worse. Hairless space rabbit somehow wasn’t all that bad. John doesn’t seem to notice the Rygel forming behind him, which is probably for the best because if there’s one alien on Moya’s crew he had to pick to pop up on Stacy, Rygel wasn’t anywhere near the top three. Not unless you wanted to be babysitting a klepto spoiled, pain in the royal ass.

Although he had to admit, the klepto face-off between Rygel, Chiana and Howard would be totally worth the money. And the front row seat. So long as you didn’t keep anything valuable on you.

John shifts his weight, crossing his legs.

“Still, they’re not exactly encouraging us to hop right to the whole breeding part,” John says. It does make him wonder why there does seem to be more humans. He’s had two years to get used to the idea of humans not being even close to the top of the food chain, so…

"The government covered up superpowers where I'm from. Why not aliens?" Howard spits the cap out and wipes it on his pant leg before fixing it again to the pen.

"I hear Stacy jacks you full of birth control if you try to screw someone around here. Haven't tried it myself, don't really get the point." Thus making Howard feel like the most abnormal fifteen year-old in the history of teenagedom. Were he better read he'd realize his non-existent sex drive is a long-term side-effect of having starved, but instead he just feels like the rest of the world is interested in something he flat-out doesn't get.

He glances over at John. So, maybe John knows from experience about Stacy's tentacles. Howard thinks back to the dark-haired, entirely humorless woman he met in the TARDIS, and how she seemed to take teasing about being in love with John way too seriously to be apathetic. But maybe she comes from a culture completely devoid of a sense of fun.

"But you wouldn't know about Stacy's anti-sextacles, right?"

John has to admit he’s still trying to get used to the idea of there being multiple Earths were apparently you really could be the next Spidey if you just put your mind to it. It’s kinda hard to get used to people like Howard talking casually about superpowers and yet still be working past their own close encounters.

And of course Howard’s more on the ball with the whole sex situation than he is. Kids. John can safely say he hasn’t had some - close to some – since he woke up on this boat and even back on Moya, it wasn’t like he’d been rolling in Bond girls either. The idea of getting shot up with some space version of a condom though…yeah, it didn’t sound any better on paper. It’s weird Howard hasn’t, y’know, put it to the test like any other guy but maybe aliens or Bucket List Sex wasn’t high on his priorities. Or something.

“Only whatever it was we ran into that first day out of the pods. Thank God.” John shudders. He’s not exactly a tentacle man himself. No offense to D’Argo. But at least D’Argo doesn’t run around shoving his tentacles where the sun don’t shine, so he’s thankful for that. “So that basically strikes off the humans as breeding stock thing.”

"So you and that totally unfunny chick with the dark hair don't have a thing going on? Because it totally seemed like you were rocking a thing." Howard taps the tip of his pen against his lower lip, as if deep in thought. He keeps an eye on John, looking for a response, not really interested in the topic of this conversation for any reason other than seeing if it gets under John's skin.

The statue morphs again, from the weird squat little alien that Howard has mentally dubbed 'Sluggo' to a more familiar and uncomfortable pose, apropos to the discussion of tentacles: Howard and Orc's sociopathic captive, Drake, looking for all the world like a despairing 14 year-old locked up, starved and beaten, if not for the one arm that no longer ends in a hand but in a long fleshy whip. Howard snorts and sighs at the display, like he's just remembered why he doesn't like it.

"This stupid thing never chooses birthday parties. Why doesn't it bring back memories of Disneyland or whatever?" He puts his fingers to his temples as if trying to Charles Xavier it into being something else, to no avail, but it does give him an idea. "I wonder if we got Cerebro on this ship."

John has to take a moment to think about who this chick could be. Oh, he has to mean Aeryn. It’s probably not worth going into that she’s not exactly born without a sense of humor, it’s just kinda deadpan, sneaks up on you. John doesn’t miss a beat.

“Yeah, you try telling her that.” He’s tried to explain to Aeryn the whole boyfriend-girlfriend thing, but she doesn’t get it. Probably thinks it’s another backward Earth custom. He glances around when he notices Howard looking over his shoulder at something as there’s a real nasty smell in the room, his nose crinkling. There’s what looks like a mutated kid, John about to ask who it is when Howard goes on. “I wouldn’t be surprised. That anyone you’ve seen on the ship?”

If so, he doesn’t think they’re up for some happy reunion or whatever. John still hasn’t figured out what kids are doing on the ship if they’re going with the drafted army theory.

Wow, John. If Howard had wanted a non-answer about your romantic life, he wouldn't have asked a question, would he have? Howard rolls his eyes in an excessively dramatic fashion, the type he once reserved for his parents if they asked why he was in detention yet again.

"Huh?" Howard glances back at the statue, before it begins to transform yet again. "No, thank god. And if you ever see that kid, you let me know so I get a chance to run and wet myself before he kills me. That's my jail ward."

Howard sighs and rubs the side of his face. "If anything, the fact that Stacy's stuffed to the gills with bad guys and robots and gross stuff just means that Stacy's the worst military barracks ever. And the fact that we're here means that she's bad at picking her champions."

Yes, he is including John in that.

John is totally a girl like that. And when you’re in a non-relationship with someone like Aeryn Sun, you will end up the chick there. It’s something he’s gotten used to, basically.

“So that’s your zombie you were telling me about,” John frowns. He takes a good long look at him – it? – and even with the weird tentacle hand thing, it’s still way too close to looking like a real kid for his comfort zone. John almost starts laughing all over again. Yeah, they make pretty crappy champions and he’d be the first on board with that idea. Not everyone’s cut out to be the Han Solo of the universe. “Well, nothing we can do about that now. Way things are going, we’re probably gonna get jumped by the Daligig before the Ohm get a run at us.”

John gets to his feet, dusting the knees of his plantsuit off out of habit. He’s still not used to wearing the thing and it’s gotten to the point where he actually misses the leathers back on Moya.

"I'm getting wigged out looking at the Memory Lane ghetto over here." Howard stands up and tucks the pen into his pocket. The statue is melting and reforming again, but Drake's face remains until the end, and it looks way too sympathetic. As if Howard would understand feeling sorry for the guy, if it weren't for the whips-toddlers-to-death-and-feeds-them-to-coyotes bit.

"I'm going to head out and start graffitying the City, where Stacy isn't going to get in my brain for a little bit." He mock-salutes John. "See you around."

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He Holds His Crayon Rosary [Open]

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