Worlds Apart
The time in space, with Bea was... well, a lot of fun. Simple, no strings attached, fun. He couldn't stay out that long though, a couple days gone, and his conscience was gnawing at him.
Travis spent his entire life as the helpless kid, hearing the terrible world around him, and mostly not even having images to put to it. Screams and sirens and sounds of flesh on flesh and breaking bones and knife on flesh and selling drugs and selling bodies, selling souls and selling hopes was somehow always worse when the pictures had to be filled in with imagination. And there was nothing he could do about it - plugging his ears just made it worse, because then he had no outlet on the world except the smell of garbage and worse.
And now he can do something about it. Ever since day one with the ring - any time he's had free and awake has been spent trying to make some dent in the ghosts of his childhood.
He knows he's done some good. Helped some people... but the ghosts never go away. There's always more to do, no matter how much power he has, no matter how much he wills it to get better.
Between patrols, he stops where he has almost every night - easy to be wherever when lightspeed is just a thought away. He can't hear their voices, but he knows that in the stacked jumble of rat infested one room apartments, there's a prostitute sleeping off her latest heroin rush... his little sister. A few blocks away, he's pretty sure his second brother is either pushing some powder or other to make money for his own fix... and the oldest might be getting his drunk on... or might have passed out... which would be for the best for his wife and four year old - last time Travis scanned them, they showed the signs he knows well. Deep bone bruises under a layer of makeup and carefully layered clothes... signs the kid has had a few 'accidents' already. He's gone down the list, scanned from afar, but just can't bring himself to be the one to turn those particular haunts in. Much as he takes the Lantern's oath deadly serious, he can't shine light on these particular demons and their drugs and alcohol and abuse.
He waits a little longer, trying to either find the push to finally do something here... or at least to go apologize, but to who?
Chimp? He almost got them all killed. He can't be sorry there.
Tara? Yeah, she deserves it. Best thing that ever happened to him, and he blew it, because he can't bring himself to live with a junkie... nor be the one to tear another family apart. He's pretty sure he'd just hurt her more if he tried.
Sand? Yeah... definitely. Him he owes at least that... and he fully intends to get there, but with Corrine missing (whom he still regularly scans what he can of the ley lines for), he figures Sand doesn't need more trouble.
So in the end, he does the same thing he's done every time things have gotten too complex - he does the easy thing - goes and finds a mugging, or a break-in, or any of the hundreds of other crimes he used to hear, the ones he knows all too well, and puts a stop to it. That, unlike so many other things, is easy, the right thing to do, and maybe, just maybe, it will shut the ghosts up for a little bit.
Travis spent his entire life as the helpless kid, hearing the terrible world around him, and mostly not even having images to put to it. Screams and sirens and sounds of flesh on flesh and breaking bones and knife on flesh and selling drugs and selling bodies, selling souls and selling hopes was somehow always worse when the pictures had to be filled in with imagination. And there was nothing he could do about it - plugging his ears just made it worse, because then he had no outlet on the world except the smell of garbage and worse.
And now he can do something about it. Ever since day one with the ring - any time he's had free and awake has been spent trying to make some dent in the ghosts of his childhood.
He knows he's done some good. Helped some people... but the ghosts never go away. There's always more to do, no matter how much power he has, no matter how much he wills it to get better.
Between patrols, he stops where he has almost every night - easy to be wherever when lightspeed is just a thought away. He can't hear their voices, but he knows that in the stacked jumble of rat infested one room apartments, there's a prostitute sleeping off her latest heroin rush... his little sister. A few blocks away, he's pretty sure his second brother is either pushing some powder or other to make money for his own fix... and the oldest might be getting his drunk on... or might have passed out... which would be for the best for his wife and four year old - last time Travis scanned them, they showed the signs he knows well. Deep bone bruises under a layer of makeup and carefully layered clothes... signs the kid has had a few 'accidents' already. He's gone down the list, scanned from afar, but just can't bring himself to be the one to turn those particular haunts in. Much as he takes the Lantern's oath deadly serious, he can't shine light on these particular demons and their drugs and alcohol and abuse.
He waits a little longer, trying to either find the push to finally do something here... or at least to go apologize, but to who?
Chimp? He almost got them all killed. He can't be sorry there.
Tara? Yeah, she deserves it. Best thing that ever happened to him, and he blew it, because he can't bring himself to live with a junkie... nor be the one to tear another family apart. He's pretty sure he'd just hurt her more if he tried.
Sand? Yeah... definitely. Him he owes at least that... and he fully intends to get there, but with Corrine missing (whom he still regularly scans what he can of the ley lines for), he figures Sand doesn't need more trouble.
So in the end, he does the same thing he's done every time things have gotten too complex - he does the easy thing - goes and finds a mugging, or a break-in, or any of the hundreds of other crimes he used to hear, the ones he knows all too well, and puts a stop to it. That, unlike so many other things, is easy, the right thing to do, and maybe, just maybe, it will shut the ghosts up for a little bit.