Future Imperfect [Canon Update, wherever your heart feels re: Time Ripples]

[whyarewehere]

[ Judging by the fake sunlight, Grif is somewhere on the hab deck. Somewhere open, with a bright sky, but most of the frame is taken up by his helmet and shoulders so it's hard to pick out where exactly.

Despite his conversational tone he sounds... sort of tired. There's an edge in his voice that doesn't really show up in his usual bullshit comm posts. ]

Time travel. We all hate time travel.

[ Count on Grif to be able to read the team mood, right? ]

So, here's some time travel life advice: If somebody from the future ever tells you that you shouldn't ask future questions and know future stuff and it's for the best if you don't know, trust them?

It's not for your best and you need to tell them to fuck off. Trust me instead.

[ It's just a friendly PSA. There is no way he's vagueing about Wash Tucker anyone that anyone here knows. Not at all. This is just Grif being topical and irreverent, the scamp.

...But really, he's actually pretty upset right now. He's gained 5 years' worth of memory, and his most recent involves writing off everyone he thought he considered a friend. Grif is still mad. And, perhaps, though he wouldn't admit it, just a little hurt. ]

((NOTE: Grif has been updated to episode 6 of season 15. ))

Comments

Video

[unrecovered]

[Well. This was always an option, wasn't it. Might as well bite the bullet.]

What's the last thing you remember?

[Callback humor?]

[whyarewehere]

Ohhhh no. No no no no. We're not doing this shit. You don't get to find out things from me after holding out on me, Wash. It doesn't work that way.

[ He refuses to make a joke back. Is Wash still worrying about things Grif now has the answers to? For all Grif knows, yeah. And he's just angry enough to twist that knife. ]

[unrecovered]

[Well. Wash can't exactly blame him for that, especially now that he's on the other end of that exchange and knows how it feels.]

[But then Tucker hits the conversation like a raging bull, and Wash sits back to watch that particular trainwreck, at least until it suddenly stops - probably flipped to private. Evidently that's as much information as he's going to get - might as well rejoin this half of the discussion.]

Fair enough. [He'll just bribe you later after you've calmed down.]

Be honest: if you'd known any of that was coming down the line, would you have come back?

[whyarewehere]

No.

[ There it is. There's the unshocking truth. ]

And honestly, I don't think there's anything any of you can do to make me go back now.

[video]

[short_changed]

[Connie just stares for a while at the video before she responds.]

You sound like you could use a drink.

[whyarewehere]

And a smoke. And a pizza. And probably thirty other things the vegan space future won't get right, yeah.

[ There's none of the usual wink-and-nod in the way he says it, though. God fuck the vegan space future, he doesn't need its crap right now. ]

[short_changed]

Hm.

[She notices the hard edge in his voice that didn't use to be there. He looks like he's seen a lot more hell, too.]

I've got booze at my place if you need somewhere to go.

[whyarewehere]

[ He got strongarmed into some kind of friend intervention by Rich already, but he still gets Connie's invitation. ]

Not yet. Rain check me? I feel like I'm gonna be future facts Santa Claus out of spite here, and it's one of those stories booze is gonna help.

Video

[lovernotafighter]

[Well, this isn't the sound of someone who got good news, huh?

He wanted to throw out something vague, something he wasn't sure if anyone else would get. Church was too broad; there were eight million points in the timeline where he was being a pain in all their asses. Carolina singing? Grif didn't seem in the best space for that joke.]

Not everything is going to be Back to the Future, dude. [At the risk of reusing the same movie reference that he used for Wash. What was he going to use, Butterfly Effect? He has taste.]

What happened?

[whyarewehere]

You know exactly what happened. And you know exactly where to shove it.

[ Grif finally has the context for what Tucker was getting at when Tucker first came in. It's made him even angrier about that, actually, because now he knows he was in the right. ...Or as close to being in the right as any of them ever get. From Grif's perspective.

Maybe it's small, in the grand scheme of things, but the rest of the crew turning their backs on his concerns as usual hurts. After all they've been through, after all they've done together, he still doesn't merit any consideration. It's finally hurt too much for him to keep sucking it up. ]

[lovernotafighter]

[No, Grif! You weren't in the right! You don't turn a back on a friend, and even if Tucker's "reason" was completely biased and invested in Church probably more than most of the others, you still don't fucking do it. You don't bail. You don't walk away.

Tucker leaned back, no helmet, just that annoyed look flashing over his face. There wasn't a way to hide it even if he wanted to.]

Oh, come the fuck on, Grif. You're the one who is fucking us over!

[Fucking Church over.]

[whyarewehere]

What, and everyone walking out on me to go do more stupid shit that's probably a trap over the same fucking dead guy that's been running our lives for the past forever isn't fucking me over?!

[ FUCK CHURCH! ]

video

[iamresponding]

[He's older again and the timing is good, because younger him would've stumbled into this and made it ten times worse.]

Grif.

[His tone says 'Do you really want to trash a bunch of your friendships publicly?' And then it gets softer. When Grif's genuinely angry, like how he'd yelled at people after Blue Rose died,
it's usually rooted in hurt or fear.]

Why don't you swing by my quarters for a beer?

[He sounds like he needs someone to talk to and a place where he can chill down.]

[whyarewehere]

And why don't you-

[ He almost comes in swinging, still pissed, but he catches himself. What the fuck. This is Rich, none of this has anything to do with him.

It feels like years since he's seen Rich, even though it's only been a matter of days. Memories from home and from his time in the UP are running side by side in the most confusing way, and he has to recalibrate for a second just to talk to him. ]

I-

[ He feels somehow cornered, there's only one way he can go now. Rich knows what he's doing here, damn him. Grif can't lash out at him without making this situation worse, he won't even get the satisfaction of tearing into Wash or Tucker or even an acquaintance he wouldn't mind starting a fight with. It's stupid Rich who's a stupid nice person and his stupid friend, and it would only end in Grif feeling even worse. His shoulders sink and he sighs. ]

Sure.

[ He's been defeated. Defeated in a contest he didn't want to win, but defeated nonetheless. He starts moving. ]

-> action

[iamresponding]

[When he gets there, Rich buzzes him in and there's a spoozball game on the TV, but with the sound low. He hands Grif a Silverale and plops on the couch, taking his own off the coffee table.]

Way I see it, we can do one of two things right now. One option is we can just hang out and watch the game so you have time to simmer a little. We can just dick around doing nothing, and you can make fun of me for how dumb I was when I was younger.

Or if you need to vent your spleen, you can go crazy. Hell, look, I even have pillows. [He pokes one with the hand not holding his beer.] You can scream into one of 'em if you need to.

[whyarewehere]

[ Grif takes the beer and claims a spot on Rich's couch, peeling his helmet off with one hand. It's a feat to work the seals that way, but he's had a lot of practice. He plops it down on the table as he rolls his eyes at Rich's mention of pillow screaming, haha, and leans as far back into the cushion as science will tolerate. ]

Okay.

[ The Eagle has landed. He takes a drink, then a long breath, and then exhales heavily. Grif isn't good at words, not real words. He's good at profanity and incoherent noises and slamming doors and comm channels and friendships. ]

I'm gonna talk. But only because B'ladixon is so far off his game lately that this is painful to watch.

[ He gestures at the screen. B'ladixon shoots, B'ladixon does not score. ]

So uh. It's been five years. Kind of.

[ That's the best place to start, he supposes. And Grif looks the part. He's regained the weight and lost his conditioning, he looks a bit older, even the helmet has a few more dings.

[rushing_by]

Looks like Rich has it covered, so I'm not going to ask if you want to talk, ut it's an open offer if you decide you want to anyways. If nothing else, I get time-travel sucking.

[whyarewehere]

[ He's starting to cool down, but having a semi-neutral topic does help. ]

I don't even know if I actually time traveled, but my head definitely did and all my memories are running together and it's stupid.

[text]

[the_civilian]

Time travel sucks like the vacuum nature abhors.

If you want to come laugh at me while I try and fail to light only certain things on fire, let me know.

[ That's we-don't-talk-about-our-feelings code for talking about feelings, right? ]

Text

[whyarewehere]

that depends. what are you trying to light?
[ He's in full dodge, and takes the line Tadashi threw him. Feelings? Who talks about those? ]

Text

[the_civilian]

Frisbees?

[ Have a picture of a bunch of wooden disks floating in the water on a beach somewhere on the Hab Deck. Probably Tadashi's beach, because he's considerate like that. ]

I'm working on my aim.

[ Tadashi. Tadashi talks about feelings, because Tadashi is the kind of guy who talks about feelings and also does Emergency Sex Ed in the name of "don't google that". ]

[whyarewehere]

alright, i can't resist fire. sign me up the next time you do.
you can even use my beach.

[ Because it's better, okay. ]

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[hallaifyouherd]

I'm fairly certain if we knew what was waiting for us in our respective futures, most of us would never go back to face it.

[whyarewehere]

Is that actually such a bad thing?

[hallaifyouherd]

If you care about things like self-preservation, probably not.