[open] don't you know you rock my world?

[crownless]

WHO? Travis Touchdown crownless
WHAT? A dream, a nightmare, and enough caffeine, guarana, and taurine to down a large bull.
WHEN? On base or ~in your dreams~.
ANYTHING ELSE? Warning for violence, Travis' ex-girlfriend, and a scantily clad anime girl. Feel free to switch to brackets or throw your own starter at me, orrrr hit me at smithsyndicate or over PM if you wanna do something different!

ONE - DREAM;

It should be plain as day that Travis' bright dreamscape is false: a landscape of color and sound, low and distant bass thumping like a heartbeat, characters spotted in the corners of one's eyes as if childishly scribbled into the world's margins. But there's something about the technicolor lights and glittering, other-worldly stars that is as disorienting as it is deeply distracting-- a grand, pacifying diversion from the outside.

Travis himself, in the center of the expanse and starkly hyperreal against all else, doesn't seem to question much of anything. He's seated in a red armchair playing some obsolete video game console, hooked up to an older television model. A fat gray tabby cat purrs away in his lap as he and a minimally-clad, pink-haired magical girl duke it out in some super-sentai themed game. Both maintain a laser focus on the screen, with only the faint sound of finger-on-button clacking to signal that anything is happening at all.

Suddenly, Strawberry jumps to her feet, the bounce of her twintails a physics-defying exaggeration. She swears at Travis, some rough approximation of Japanese, and chucks the controller at his face--

"What gives?!" --but, hey, he catches the thing before it smashes into his sunglasses-- "Sore loser."

As the girl stomps away, Travis turns to whomever's invaded his dream. Unabashed, he offers them the controller.

"It's two players. C'mon. Wanna play?"

TWO - NIGHTMARE;

There's deep red splatters on the black-and-white checkerboard tile, a sense of urgency that tingles up and down the spine, the biting acrid taste of metal, of gore and rot, in the back of the throat.

Travis' presence has been here as long as his dream-invader's has, but it's only when they can register that they're surrounded by the walls of an eerily too-large suburban home that he speaks at last.

"You need to leave," Travis demands. His eyes are set, livid with rage but pulled wide-- a panicked animal in the throes of a fight-or-flight adrenaline high. "I know this shit's not real. You gotta leave. You gotta wake me up."

Drawing ever-nearer are the sounds of bare feet on the cool floor... and a woman's voice.

"Travis?"

"You heard me," he repeats, insistent. "Wake me up!"

THREE - HOT SPOTTIN' / WHATEVER YOU WANNA;

After that disaster, Travis is taking a novel approach to the current dream situation, called "get the mess hall droids to synthesize you the equivalent of 5 Red Bulls in one hellish slurry and down it in one go".

It's going about well as you'd expect.

Off-kilter, jumpy, and sleep-deprived, Travis is skulking through the halls trying to find something-- anything-- to occupy his mind long enough to keep him awake. He's snapping at people he runs into; he's knocking shit over and swearing at droids; even the crows, all of whom he's taken a shine to, aren't immune to his messy sleepless self. Stop him or not, he's gonna keep going until the alien hot spots knock him out once more.

Comments

two ✨💀❤💀✨

[tommygunned]

Don't fucking yell at me.

[It doesn't quite come out in a snap. If anything, it's distracted; Lup's got her head canted, ears twitching as she listens to the voice. Nothing familiar, no notes to latch onto--but this lady, whoever she is, knows Travis, and Travis is scared of her. So . . .]

[She glances at him, expression thoughtful. And then she pokes him in the chest.]

What'd you do?

❤❤❤

[crownless]

I didn't do shit! [Travis recoils, barely noting who Lup is: just the fact that she's a stranger trapped in memories he shouldn't still be trapped in either.] I didn't even know she--

Liar.

[He casts an anxious glance over his shoulder as the dream-shade of the woman nears, closing in on rounding the corner at the end of a too-long hallway.]

Look. Just wake me up. Please.

[tommygunned]

[Again, Lup stills, listening to the voice. It's calm, really--especially compared to Travis's shrill tones. There's a sense of righteousness about it, which doesn't mean that the speaker is just. It does mean there's history here, and Lup isn't sure how she should intervene. Which way is right. She just doesn't have the evidence.]

[But doing nothing isn't an option. Inaction solves jack shit, and anyway, Travis is obviously terrified. If you die in a dream, can you die in real life? It's a stupid question. Somewhere in the multiverse, it's happened. It's happening now.]

I don't know how.

[It's regretful, although not quite apologetic. She takes half a step back, but it's not to run; no, instead there's a flash of red, fiery light, and instead of Lup there's a wraith, a bright red robe covering a skeletal form. One of those long, bony hands holds a scythe.]

[Her voice echoes a little, next time she speaks.]

You're gonna have to face her, cowboy.

[crownless]

Fuck. [He exhales, a hand running through his hair; there's a nervous, live-wire energy to his every motion,
as if he's hoping it'll help his chances of shaking himself back into the waking world.] I'm sick of this.

I shouldn't have to: I already did. [It feels absurd. He'd be surprised if Lup even remembered his damn name, but here he is, flayed open. Every bit of this makes his skin crawl.] She's long dead.

[He flinches at the sight of the wraith-- Lup couldn't have picked a more reaper-like form for a situation like this?-- and even begins to stumble backward. Until the woman rounds the corner with her hands behind her back, smile as crisp and clean as the white sundress she wears.]

Just because I'm gone doesn't mean you get to forget.

[Jeane's eyes drift to the wraith.]

Not even if you've got company.

[tommygunned]

[If she had eyes in her bounty hunter form--which she does not, for aesthetic purposes--she'd roll them. I shouldn't have to, I already did it, tough titty, Travis Touchdown, sometimes the dead don't stay dead. If it happens in your dreams, count yourself lucky.]

[But she doesn't say it. Less because she doesn't have time--fuck if she won't make time to be a dick if she really feels it's necessary--but because that girl there looks like she wants to bite Travis's face off in a quiet way, and she wants to know why.]

[So she raises the hand without the scythe in it and says:] Sup. [And then:] Two questions: are you real, and why are you so pissed at him?

1

[handsomefoil]

Henry is not much of a gamer. He knows of games, plays the occasional game in the form of other less recreational means (the kind that are no fun for anyone involved except himself, mind games, violent ones, etc) but never video games. He'll indulge in fantasy and sci-fi themes, movies and books, but if you asked him what his favorite games were, he'd be at a loss for choices.

The scene is garish, and typical of what he expects from the kind of media his brother consumes. Paying it no mind, he simply watched the scene unfold and took the controller from Travis as it's offered. In a normal situation, he wouldn't have taken the offer because Travis would've never offered it to begin with, but this is a surreal situation. Shit happens.

"What are we playing this time?"

[crownless]

"I dunno. Don't really care, either." Travis snorts, patting the empty space beside him-- the arm of his beaten, well-worn chair-- as a means of offering Henry a seat. "I think we're supposed to shoot each other out?"

'HAJIME!!' blares the console, and suddenly their brightly-colored rangers on the screen are at a standoff, guns held at the ready. (The screen flickers momentarily; a shot of Santa Destroy, blood and bodies in the street. Travis barely flinches.)

"Start firing, bro. I ain't got all day."

[handsomefoil]

He takes the seat without question, just putting most of his weight on his feet as he balances himself on the arm of the chair. The goal seems easy enough, and the intentions behind it familiar. When the screen flickers of the city, it barely registers in Henry's dream mind.

"Literally just started, Travis."

And he smashes the button repeatedly, hoping that any of these shots that actually hit are doing any sort of damage. There's no health bar and no indication of where the bullet may have hit. Only that their characters were hit at all.

[crownless]

"Hey, at least tell me start--!"

The music swells, and that half a second head start of button-mashing is enough to get Henry a win. Travis' ersatz Power Ranger collapses in a heap on screen and he drops his controller in his lap, defeated.

"Fucker." Travis rolls his eyes, the faint strains of music briefly off-key. "Can't even let me win in a dream, can you?"

[handsomefoil]

"Make up your bloody mind!"

There's little bite behind the exclamation though, as they continue to button mash. Once his ranger is victorious, he just holds the controller with disinterest. Then tosses the controller into Travis's lap to join its partner.

"Afraid not. If anything, it's the one place I certainly will not let you win."

[crownless]

Travis makes a surprised sound, but he actually manages to catch the controller handily when Henry lobs it up at him.

"You suck." The controllers rattle against each other as Travis turns. "Seriously. You know that's the only way that I can--

--that we can... break outta this thing." He gestures, unenthusiastically around, at their candy-colored environment. "One of us has to really lose, right?"

[handsomefoil]

He pushes himself off the arm, adjusting his tie and his cuff links. The environment is unsuitable for what he thinks Travis is getting at, but there's really no way around it. What Travis says is true, after all, even without weird dream logic involved.

"My statement still stands, brother," he says, reaching for his beam saber which... definitely wasn't around before. But now it's there, in his hand. "Don't think I'm ever unprepared where a fight is involved."

[crownless]

"Hah! You're on."

Gripping a controller in each hand, Travis hops out of his seat to assume a fighting stance; as if they were his old pair of katanas all along, they hum to life, solid pink light emerging from both hilts of Rose Nasty. The comfort of Travis' imaginary room fades around them, and as both of their intentions shift, so too do their surroundings-- they've moved, as it seems, outside. Out on the asphalt of the motel's parking lot.

Just like the last time they'd gone head to head.

"Round two." Travis gestures his way with a katana, grinning toothily. "Always wanted to give it another shot."

[handsomefoil]

Accepting that as something completely normal, Henry activates his own beam and then with a flourish of his wrist holds it down by his side in a defensive posture. As their surroundings change, he looks side to side with a slow grin, much more pleased by the aesthetic and meaning behind it.

Just like their last fight.

He nods in agreement. If there's one thing he wanted to know is who would kill the other in a fair fight? Here, it'd be even easier as it's just a dream.

"And with no interruptions."

He raises a hand slowly, holding his hand out for a second before flicking his two fingers in a 'come at me' gesture.