THE SPACE NAVY AU (18+)

"Well, it sure means you're a hell of an artist," you tell him. Cup his face and kiss him. He looks about nine sweeps old, wide-eyed and barely scarred. "But you must be feeling like hell. What a migraine-scape. May I... add to it? Fill things out a little? I'm rusty, but this system is more responsive than the one I trained on, I think I can avoid screwing it up."

 

You nod. He's very tall, like this, big and broad as a tank. You're almost entirely sure he's made his horns thicker and taller than they really are, too. "I— sure, alright, but tell me how the ship's doing. Pancho told me to make a list of things to pass on to you and Lainey, but I couldn't before everything went tits-up and then no matter how hard I tried none of us could communicate— it's not that I don't trust you—" (it is, though, rather) "— it's that how are you to know everything, you haven't been here half a sweep, there's so much to do, there's always so much to do and I'm useless right now. How am I supposed to just sit around and be alright with that? And Jethro just showed up yesterday." You make an exasperated little sneer. "Of course any ship the decking's not actively coming off of looks fine if you just show up yesterday."

 

"Erskin, we're not trying to get everything done. We're just keeping things from getting worse while we wait for you to recover." Keeping an arm around him, you half turn away and study the ochre half-darkness of his personal hellscape, working out how you can leaven it with your own vision. "Cleaning up and doing repairs from the Zero Sum incident, that sort of thing. I've made some progress on a few minor personnel issues, like that uniform mixup. Lainey's been handling the bridge most nights. I followed up on a few disciplinary issues from the incident; I just gave extra work in all but one case. One of the launch deck shooters is in the brig waiting on you. Mostly because he needs to calm down, he's got a case of the blameys and won't accept that his own panic over potential zombification didn't justify breaking an espresso maker over his bunkmate's head. If he doesn't settle his shit and take responsibility soon I'd recommend transferring him to a different department with a demotion, just so his squaddies don't have to deal with his defensive flipouts. But the bunkmate came through with nothing but a cracked horn and a mild concussion, so nobody's pushing to space him."

You stop to put the final touches on your additions, and wait for his opinion. The environment is fully 3-D now, rather than a diorama. Winter-dry grass and heathers spread underfoot, delicately outlined with frost, and the visual context makes Erskin's dead vegetation look more sere than diseased. In the direction away from the shore, you've continued the theme into rocky foothills like the ones you grew up among:



And just offshore, where some awful things flitted around, you've placed a misty island and changed the movement to sea birds:



"Better? Less headachey? But not as interestingly surreal, I don't have the right sort of imagination, sorry."

 

"I think I prefer yours to mine," you say, sincerely. "This is nice. It looks a little like where I lived when I was a wiggler, I think. It was an island somewhere." You set off through the crunchy, frosted grass, kicking aside bones and knobbly grabbing things. Your leg isn't quite sure whether it should be there or not, but you force it. You don't quite remember anymore the feeling of two organic legs, but the one you had when you went to the desert, that was a pretty sturdy thing, it served you well.

You look now about like you had in the desert, you realize. Sharp and small and hungry as a lizard, with peeling sunburnt skin to match, and a carelessly ragged kilt knotted around your hips just to keep sand out of your unmentionables— it'd be embarrassing, if Bel's warcraft fantasy avatar weren't so amusingly lantern-jawed and studly. His hand in yours looks like it's made out of cannon barrels.

The combination of shore and island and black sand produces a fascinating, alien sort of landscape, even leaving aside the squirming rusty dead things trying to crawl out from underground.



"Uniform mixup?" you ask. "I don't think that was happening before I went down. Tell me." At his admonishing look you say, defensively, "Look, I just want to know, it sounds amusing."

 

"I wish it was funny. It's just a lot of emailing with the Admiralty supply office. They sent us a statistically representative batch of uniforms, instead of the itemized list we asked for. Since this ship is disproportionately lowbloods, there weren't enough smalls, and way too many larges, plus like fifteen sets of work grays for somebody my size, even though I'm the only full-grown cobalt on board. Well, aside from Murf, but he's out of uniform now, doing his bartender thing. He's healing up nicely, by the way, sends his regards."

The black beach is bugging you. Not just because he keeps zombie-movie-ing it. You squat on your heels, grab a handful of volcanic grit, roll it between your fingers. Wet and rough. Familiar. But it needs complexity. It needs color.



There. Much better. "Now it really looks like where I grew up. You grew up on an island like this too? Might've been part of the same chain. Old dormant volcanic hills, lots of good climbing cliffs, northern temperate latitude with a warm offshore current to moderate the weather? Thunderstorms all winter, I loved it. I miss it."

 

You grin, squatting down on your heels to pick up the smooth rocks and look at the colors.

"I don't know, that sounds about right, but I think it's all mixed up in my head with the desert I went to, later, after the thing with the Emissary. It was— a salt flat, I think? I'd have died if it wasn't. I didn't know the words for it, by the time I got there my electronics had all worn out. A great big black bowl, weeks across, lots of rough jaggedy lava rocks, and this sort of packed-down crust you could break chunks off of and lick... I made a sort of big stone pile around one of the little springs I found. Lots of places to crawl into and hide, and some pools... Once there was more shade and standing water, plants started to grow... so more things came. Insects. Lizards. Trolls sometimes. I liked the lizards most, they were pretty, and you could eat them..." You shrug. "I was always so hungry, but. I miss it, too. It was quiet."

You look around at everything, all the fake sky and the ocean. "It seems so impossible I'll never go back," you say. "I'm going to be a thousand sweeps old and I'll never be there again."

You feel peaceful, though, now. You sit on the wet sand. It's quiet here too.

 

START OF CLOWN INTERMISSION 2

=> Be the hungover indigo.

When you wake up, nights or weeks or sweeps later, you feel like absolute shit.

Spoiler: read more part 1

You’d think this wouldn’t come as a surprise to you, the sheer amount of shit you are feeling. But it does, every single time. Once upon a time, you thought that the fact that you always forgot the comedown was some kind of defense mechanism, because if you actually remembered that madness, you’d never want to do stardust again.

Right now, you’re pretty sure it’s because you’re a fucking idiot.

You spend some time drifting in and out of sleep. You dream crazy tripped out dreams that you forget instantly upon waking, but they leave you feeling wrung out nonetheless. Sometimes you wake up babbling shit that doesn’t make any kind of sense. One time you wake up crying--from what, you’re not exactly sure; all you know is that you dreamed something about being made of spun sugar and somebody pushed you in a swimming pool and you watched yourself melting away with a nauseated sort of slow-motion horror--

It’s a good thing you haven’t eaten in awhile, because otherwise you would have done worse than dry heaving over the rim of the cupe.

Whose cupe is this anyway? It’s not yours. This room isn’t yours. You don’t feel up to piecing together reality just yet--all you’re up for is crawling out of the cupe and over to the gaper, leaving a horrible messy slime trail behind you.

You’re glad it’s dark in here, and you’re glad you’re alone. You think that if the slightest thing startled you right now, your brittle bones would just shatter and your jittery bloodpump would explode and that would be the end of you.

You sit in the ablution chamber for what feels like a long time, letting the water rinse the slime and sweat and grime (and Cloris’s stubbornly lingering skin scent) down the drain. You fall asleep in there for a little while, but when you jerk awake you haven’t flooded the place from sitting on the drain or anything, so you don’t assume you napped for very long.

Somehow you make it back in the cupe again and let the world fade away for awhile. As far as you’re concerned, it can stay that way.

When you wake again, your thinkpan feels like it’s up for thinking thoughts again. You peek out from over the rim, but there’s no one there. Good. You’ve left the place an awful mess--slime and towels and shit knocked over everywhere. What kind of blockmate even are you, leaving a place that ain’t even yours all messy as shit?

After halfheartedly wiping yourself off with a towel, you find more cans of that beefy broth shit and chug them down, and then you get to work tidying up. It’s not an easy or fun job, as wobbly as you are. Your braincase is throbbing miserably, and your limbs feel all heavy, and all you want to do is go back to sleep, but you make yourself clear the floor at least, wiping up the slime trails with dirty towels and propping shit you knocked over.

You don’t know where anything goes, so you make sure to leave it out where Twitch can find it. It’s bad enough her memory’s all like to being as a goldfish, she doesn’t need to wonder if she lost shit too. You hate losing shit, and you imagine it’s even worse for her.

When you finish, it’s not the best job you ever did--you’re kind of shit at cleaning even when you’re not like this--but it looks better than before at least. You fumble with your simon sez modus, thinking you’ll climb into a fresh set of clothes before passing the fuck back out again.

Instead, you end up ejecting everything. Various articles of clothing, your makeup kit, faygo, and lusus go flying, your mom hitting the opposite wall with a loud splat, all her tentacles splayed out.

You crack up and burst into tears at the same time.

*

Galley watches the proceedings with mounting bafflement and indignation. Eventually, irritated beyond tolerance by the highblood’s newest inexplicable shitfit, he clicks on the two-way audio device in his auxillary helmsman’s quarters, and demands:

“What are you doing with Helmsman Twitch’s quarters, Highblood? Requisition your own living space.”

*

That voice booms all around you and it startles you so badly that you’re left crabwalking backwards until you hit the nearest wall, one hand pressed to your chest where your bloodpump is pounding fit to burst. You look around wildly for the source of the grousing, and the first coherent thought in your head is, God, is that you?

But no, it’s not god, and it’s not the other god. There is a beat of silence, and then you remember.

“YOU MOTHERFUCKER, I JUST ABOUT SHAT EVERYWHERE, YOU TRYINA KILL ME?!” you shriek, clutching your chest more.

Your mom, radiating concern, creeps over to you and climbs into your lap. You cling to her like she’s a comfort plush and glare at the ceiling over her pulsing mantle.

*

"I’m not authorized to kill you yet, you haven’t committed a serious enough offense against the Sunslammer or her crew.” Galley sounds sour.

There’s a pause, and Galley says, with eager menace: “Are you stealing Helmsman Twitch’s space and items living allotment or in any way tampering with her ability to carry out such duties as have been assigned to her by her superior officers?”

*

You decide you like his voice a lot more when it isn’t coming out of a fucking speaker. You press your earfins flat and groan and bury your face in your mom, and she twines more tentacles around you.

Then a question occurs to you: how does he even know you’re in here? This doesn’t sound like a speaker that the whole ship can hear, thank your Lords for small favors.

In spite of the volume, it takes you a second or two to get what he’s asking. “Fuck NO? I was just all to be getting in my napzone when your fool ass comes screeching fit to scare the soul right outta my fuckin’ bones. Shiiiit.” You shake your head a bit to clear it and hunch your shoulders. “How are you even knowing this shit anyway, can y’all up and see my ass?”

*

“No, your Worship, I do not have a current line of sight on your ass, such as it is. You’re sitting on it.”

A pause. “Did I really scare you?”

He sounds very pleased.

*

You make a face like you just caught a whiff of a bad smell. “Quit callin’ me that! And shit YES you scared my shit, all comin’ out of the ceiling being like ‘ELUSCA WHAT THE FUCK’ when all I was doin’ was cleaning up my shit.”

Grumbling, you peel your lusus off you--the sound of her suction cups coming off makes a rapidfire poppoppop!--and scan the walls and ceiling for some kind of husktop or camera or some shit.

Then you remember that you never put your paints back on after your ablutions. Your eyes widen in scandalized horror and you clap your hands over your face. You haven’t let anyone see your naked visage in forever and now this fucker gets a free show? “FUCK ME where the shitting hell did my paints get to?!”

*

This is too close to a direct query for Galley to stay quiet. He grudgingly says, “They’re in the corner under your hideous skirt. No. The other one. The other hideous skirt. There."

*

You spend a humiliating few minutes walking on your knees with your hands over your face until you finally find them. Prying it open with shaky fingers, you proceed to slap on a very basic, smeary mask--just a blank white base with a dashes of gray across the mouth and eyes, no fancy swirls or stars or color accents. It doesn’t even make a smiley face.

It’s messy work, but it’s better than nothing. Shoulders slumping, you lift your head and start of looking for the camera again, and this time you spot it almost right away. It’s tiny and shaped like a beetle. You point a finger at it triumphantly.

“HAH. Found you.”

Now that you have your mask on and you know where he is, you have absolutely no qualms about returning to your earlier task of changing clothes. Which involves taking your current clothes off.

You turn your back to the camera and get to work. Under normal circumstances you’d include at least a lewd wiggle or two, but you’re too goddamn tired. Peeling the garments off takes enough energy as it is.

Even still, you can’t help but grin a little to yourself. Fine, if he wants to spy at you, here’s a high def view of your magnificent bare ass.

*

Galley winces away from monitoring Twitch’s room. Since he’s got root access to the Sunslammer’s monitoring system, he’s got sweeps of footage of crewmembers engaged in every possible state of undress. But it’s one thing to privately enjoy archived scenes on his own initiative, or looking in on Bel or the Captain or Bel and the Captain, and it’s an entirely different thing to have a highblood getting naked directly in front of him. Or at least— figuratively in front of him? basically? She knows he’s looking at her, is what he means.

It’s a really, really unpleasant thing. He’s had too many highbloods getting naked at him for one lifetime. He goes and monitors one of the lusus parks instead.

*

You yank a dayshirt over your head and turn around to grin at the camera. “That shut you up? Didn’t know my glutes were being that impressive, goddamn.”

You are wearing the lime green shirt that features a little bleatbeast with a sleeping mask over its eyes. It’s wearing little polka-dot slippers and walking with its arms extended. Underneath it are the words “SLEEP WALKER” in comic sans.

When he doesn’t answer right away, you wobble your way over to the little corner that the beetle shaped camera is lurking in and manage to stand on Twitchy’s chair so you’re eye-to-eye with the thing. “Helloooo? C’mon, you were talking my ears off not a minute before. Come back!”

*

“Yes, your—” she had told him to stop calling her Worship, so she’s evidently not affiliated with the mirthful church in any legitimate capacity— “Uh. Highblood. I am here. Now. What may I assist you with?”

*You can ASS-ist me by getting your explain on as to why you’re all talkin’ like a BUTT-ler for.” you reply, and grin like a shark into the little lens. “Also I can’t remember our last talk for shit, camera bro, I was tripping such globes.”

*
Galley makes an inarticulate rage noise. “You broke into— you accessed my helmsblock under the influence of a serious fucking amount of drugs, harassed me, and diverted the attention of auxillary Helmsman Twitch, who I called in to deal with you, Highblood. As for my manner, you aggravating purple pain in my aft, it is my unfortunate fucking mandate in this shitshow other people keep calling my life to dance attendance on anyone with the proper hemostatus, no matter how underage and inappropriately here, on my ship, with me, wasting everyone’s goddamn time. Highblood.”

*

You are not unaccustomed to inarticulate rage noises, (Cloris’s were fuckin’ hysterical) and you are all too used to long tirades pointing out your many, many flaws. What boggles you about his response is that it’s straight up blunt and in your face in a way that you haven’t experienced in quite some time. You turn it over in your head, trying to figure out what head game he’s got goin’ on, but nope, it’s all completely sincere and merciless, and the sting it leaves behind is strangely compelling underneath the initial hurt.

“Twitch set me up here out of the goodness of her blessed lil’ bloodpump, you squirrelly fuck. I asked her and she said yes, so don’t even play,” Then he starts going on about your age and you hiss at him and wave your hands frantically, which almost makes you topple off the chair. “Ssst! Fuckin’ hell, man, stow that talk. How are you all knowing my age for anyhow?”

*

Squirrely fuck! Squirrely fuck. Galley’s eyes narrow.

“Uh, because I’m not blind, and you’re not Wolfen Liekan, thirty two sweeps, blueblood? Whitey could fucking stand to give his people better fake work manifests, I’m going to fucking tell him. Um. Make the Captain tell him.”

Galley sees Lu’s fearful, furtive look around the room and leans forward, grinning to himself in his helmsblock. Squirrely fuck indeed.

“According to my sensors and some basic fucking applied cognition, your horn cores and skeletal development indexed against your hemotype indicate you’re seven, maybe eight, horrifically physically undersized and mentally underdeveloped, and pretty much every organ packed into your wobbly little bonecase is in the process of crapping the fuck out on you because you’ve been doing catastrophic amounts of really, really illegal drugs for sweeps, on top of—” Galley runs through the footage of her changing her clothes, “—rainbowdrinker association. So that’s what that thrall is. It’s an honest to clown gods miracle you haven’t rendered yourself droolingly insane, pupa. Also, if you and Whitey are planning on tracking stardust through this ship, I don’t care, I’m totally in favor of shit that kills highbloods, but if you get so much as a grain near my officers I am going to explosively decompress every last dumbass cell of your stupid body.”

*

The moment he mentions the fucker whose place you took, the bottom of your bilesac drops out and every inch of your skin goes cold. You listen to him go on and look at your hands splayed out on either side of the camera, and they don’t feel like your hands. The whole block feels distant and unreal. It’s a wonder your knees don’t collapse.

You’ve never had anyone tear you down this small before. With Cloris, with others, you could always keep some little secret tucked away, or there was some element of pettiness to it that allowed you to keep some scrap of pride, but somehow through some scaryass technomagic, this complete stranger has managed to learn pretty much everything about you and ruthlessly dissect every horrible little detail.

You couldn’t have been rendered more effectively breathless if he’d punched you in the digestive sac.

In another context, being ripped wide open like this would have had you dreaming of spades for weeks, (god, he called you pupa) but in this setting all you feel is a sick, horrible dismay.

You rest your forehead against the wall near the camera and whisper, barely audible even to you: “Oh shit, no. Okay. I’m sorry, whatever I did, I’m so fucking sorry, I don’t got no stardust on me, I swear. Please. Please, don’t tell. Don’t tell, I’ll do anything you fucking want, just don’t tell them I’m goddamn begging you don’t make me go back there, just shove me out of a fucking airlock instead, please don’t send me back there--”

*

“I won’t,” Galley says at first. He slouches back in his hammock, feeling unusually guilty. Beating up on a little wiggler, good job, Enkidi, that really shows some skill! But the frantic pleading—the commands— keep coming, drilling through his spine and into his brain.

“Hey. Hey, pupa, sh— shut up. I won’t— I didn’t— I-” a burst of painful static, a whine. “Won’t, please, I obey. I obey. Highblood. Sir. I obey.”

*

It takes you a minute to stop babbling, to actually hear what he’s saying, and you can’t help but sob for a breath or three when it finally registers. You keep your face hidden against the wall and shake.

“I’ll be good,” you whisper. In some corner of your pan, you realize you’re both kind of babbling the same panicky shit about obeying and apologizing, and it would have been funny if you didn’t feel like crying until you puked. In spite of his repeated insistence that he wouldn’t rat you out, you’re still terrified down to your core that he’ll find some loophole, some reason to go back on his word. He could, and the smallest possibility is enough to give you daymares for perigees to come. “I’ll be whatever you want, you won’t even know I’m here if you don’t want to.”

*

Galley stays curled up small in his hammock, breathing in pained, shakey huffs. Being so suborned by his programming is a rare occasion these sweeps, and it’s rattled him badly.

“Get your shit together,” he rasps out. “Get your fucking shit together. Sir. Highblood. And we won’t h— we’ll have. Less. Problems. No problems. While you’re here.”


He gives another convulsive shiver. Fucking highbloods.

*

You’re nodding even before he’s finished talking, even as a weirdly miserable shame rips through you, sharper than anything Cloris ever caused in you. Nonetheless, you’re eager to grasp at whatever condition he throws at you. “Yeah. Okay. Okay.”

It’s a few minutes before you can bring yourself to draw back from the wall and look at the camera. You don’t imagine you’re a pretty sight, all smeary with tears and paint and snot.

“‘Night,” you mumble, at a loss for anything else to say. You hop down off the chair, make your way back to the cupe, and crawl inside, curled up against the side that hides you the best from that camera. Were it anyone else, you would have broken it or put something over it, but you don’t want to give him any reason to think you’re not doing exactly what he says.

In time, you doze off enough that the world falls away a little, though you’re awake enough to hear your own snores. At some point your mom joins you in the cupe and only then do you drift deeper into sleep.

 

Spoiler: read more part 2

Twitch stumbles back in, after a few hours. She’s been on her feet running errands for a full day and night cycle, forgetting to rest, until someone thought to write GO SLEEP on her arm in spidery ballpoint. She reads the sign on her door, but is tired enough that her working memory’s even shorter than usual. By the time she’s made it inside her hive, peeled off her stress-stained clothes, and gotten a leg over the edge of the ‘cupe, she is completely surprised to find someone already in there.

“Is this my hive?” she groggily asks the dozing highblood. “I thought it was my hive...”

*

You lift your head laboriously from where you had it tilted back against the rim of the cupe. Your neck is not happy with you, and you make a hoarse miserable sound before the source of the voice registers, and something heavy and stressful in your thorax instantly lifts.

“Mmh… Twitch? Yeah, this’s bein’ your chill zone, yeah, ‘member? You all up and invited me in…” You pause to yawn and wince as your jaw pops loudly. “Shit, I feel like shit…” This is an understatement. “Dang, you look wore out. I tried to clean up somma my mess while you were gone, but I got tired as fuck and then this asshole inside the camera started yellin’ at me and I decided to stop bein’ awake for awhile.”

*

“Galley,” Twitch nods. “He does that. I think I’ve been up for awhile... I never really know. Maybe I’m just lazy.”

She is probably not lazy. She’s got dark circles under her eyes and a livid ochre burn across her shoulder and neck, and is clearly falling asleep as she sits.

“I’m going to sleep with you, mystery date,” she says. “I’m too tired for fancy wooing. I guess go escape if that’s not how we’re, uh, are.” She settles into the slime, pulling Lu into her arms like a bony comfort toy.

*

“Galley, huh.” You want to grumble something snarky about that name, but your pan doesn’t feel up to the task.

But then she’s twining around you and pulling you close like it’s the most nonchalant thing she ever did. Your eyes widen and you emit a tiny squeak. “Uhh, w-well, um, fuck. Uh.” You’re blushing so hard she can probably feel it. You don’t wanna lie to her, because the two of you ain’t that way, not really?

But you want to be.

And she’s so sleepy. And you’re so sleepy.

You decide in the end that the matter isn’t worth the fuss you’re making and relax against her, dropping off almost immediately.

*
Fourteen hours later, Twitch wakes up. After some initial moaning she makes it over the rim of the recuperacoon, then stumbles into the washroom portion of the studio to relieve herself and take a shower. She yowls with pain when the hot water hits her burn, zips straight out again, then stands in the washroom in upset confusion, shifting her weight from foot to foot and gingerly prodding at the long, bright, blistering splash. She makes helpless, abortive steps towards various cabinets only to be overwhelmed by confused fear and stumble to a halt again, dripping with pink lines of lightning. Panic and pain have cut her working memory down to something like a few seconds, and she spends them going in little circles.

*

That yowl has you scrambling out of the cupe before you even realize what you’re doing, your bloodpump thudding hard enough to hurt. For a moment all you can do is brace a hand against the side of it and gasp, not even recognizing the floor under your feet, and then noises and crackling from the ablution chamber register and it all comes rushing back.

Dizzy and disoriented, you stumble in and grimace at the flood of light that hits your eyes. After a few seconds you’re able to crack them open and squint past the swirling sparks--and there is Twitch, and she has a burn along her neck and shoulder.

You try to make words, but all that comes out is a bunch of worried sounding syllables. Holy fuck, your pan feels like it’s floating and spinning and bobbing gently inside your own nugbone, and you can’t hold onto a thought for more than a few seconds.

“Shit,” you manage, finally, blinking hard. “Twitch, oh my lords, what the hell happened to you?”

*

“It hurts,” Twitch whimpers, going in another circle. “I’m hurt, it hurts, something hurt me, it hurts.” She’s starting to leave scuffs and burn marks on anything she gets near, from the lash and sizzle of her uncontrolled psionics, which only distresses her further.

*

“Oooh, oh, oh, baby, shhh, shshsh--” You find yourself saying as you start toward her, hands held carefully out. You stop short and whimper as something hot and harsh sizzles across your knees. You freeze up, stricken with the thought that she might have done it on purpose to keep you away, but then you notice how she’s kinda crackling all over the place and looking more distressed by the second--

She kind of stumbles close and turns in your direction, and you get your arms around her, more by accident than anything. You try to ignore the little jolts of crackly pain and hug cautiously, careful not to touch that burn. Up close it looks even worse. You wish you could transfer it to your body instead, it’s not like your hide’s worth anything and you’ve been burned by shit before--Twitchy shouldn’t have to suffer like this.

“Hey, hey now, shhhh, chill honey, we’ll fix it, just relax yourself and I’ll catch your memory glands up, okay? It’s okay, you’re gonna be okay--”

*

“Okay. Okay. Okay.” Twitch clings to her, repeating herself shakily. “Okay. Okay.”

After about a minute of being stuck on the one word, she takes a deep, shuddery breath, and says: “You’re slimy.”

*

You cling back, patting her shoulders automatically. Her observation gets a weak giggle out of you. “Yeah, I barreled right outta your cupe. You okay?” You draw back to look at the burn again and hiss through your teeth. “Damn, looks like you got scalded or some shit, were you all makin’ your java again?”

You start guiding her to sit down on the nearest flat surface.

*

“I don’t know. I can’t remember. I can’t remember anything. I can’t remember.” She’s starting to freak out again. “I don’t know anything!” she wails, baring her fangs in frustration. When she lashes out it paints a stripe of her dark metal wall red-hot. “It HURTS.”

*

You grimace and flinch, hunching your shoulders up to your ears. “GAH. Twitchy, Twitchy, hey, you’re good, you’re fine, we don’t gotta know that right now, it’s okay. Don’t you even fret, we’ll get this sorted. Here, just you sit here a sec, lemme grab somethin’.”

You wobble back into the ablution chamber, sparks swimming in your vision. You grab a clean cloth, and soak it with cold water. “Here, honey, this’ll help.” You get a gentle arm around her and press the square of cloth over that burn. “You got any burn cream?”

*

Twitch sighs at the press of cool water, leaning into Lu. “Don’t know,” she says. “It’d be a smart thing to have. I’m hurt. When I’m hurt. Maybe I get hurt a lot. I’m hurt now. I don’t know.”

She waves around at the cabinets in the bathroom, the kitchen, and some kind of recreational area. “Why haven’t I taken the doors off?” she asks plaintively. “That’d be smart. Fuck.”

*

You have the worst urge to start giggling--not at her, but at yourself and the ridiculous amount of pity that blossoms painfully in you when she says she wished she’d taken the cabinet doors off. You grab a nearby clean towel and go about carefully helping her dry off in the most businesslike manner you can manage.

“Aw, lookit you, you’re all like to be turnin’ into a lil’ shivering yellow raisin. Just you chill there, I’ll get looking.”

You check the medicine cabinet, some of the food prep cupboards, and various shelves. “Fuck. Sorry, Twitchy, I think we’re fresh out.”

*

“Out of what?” Twitch asks blankly. She pulls on underthings and jeans from her sylladex, then startles herself when she tries to put a shirt on. “I’m hurt! Hey, you over there, I’m hurt, what happened? Is this a scald? It hurts, wow! Fuck!”

Patting at the blistered stripe gingerly, she starts to go in circles in the bathroom again, peering at the cabinets and in the tub and back to the cabinets. They’re more complete, thoughtful circles than before, though.

*

“Yeah, looks like it to me,” you say, frowning. “I was just all to be lookin’ for some burn cream or some shit for you, but it looks like you don’t got none, leastwise not in here. I dunno what happened, I was all asleep when you came in, and then I woke up and you was all wailin’ and cracklin’ lil pink sparks everywhere.”

You look down at yourself. You are naked and covered in drying sopor, and it’s turning you into one big itch.

“Tell you what. Lemme rinse this shit off and we can go find us a mediculler who can get you fixed up. I won’t take but two seconds. That okay with you? And, oh yeah, if you’re all wondering what a weirdass naked clown is all up in your block for, there’s a note on your door what explains shit, so go and read that if you wanna.”

*

Twitch obediently goes to read the note. Then she looks back inside at Lu showering. Then she reads the note again. Then she looks at Lu showering. Then she reads the note again, nods decisively, and strides over to the kitchen to heat up two cups of sweetened condensed protein sludge.

When she turns around to look at why her shower’s running, a tentacled lump is slowly oozing out from behind her recuperacoon. She shrieks, jumps on to the counter, and zaps it with a bolt of pink lightning.

*

One minute you’re scrubbing your fingers in your hair, and the next something jolts through you and your right arm goes numb all the way up to your shoulder. Absurdly, the first thought that comes to your mind is that time you got drunk and thought it would be hilarious to stick your hand in the very new and fashionable light railing Cloris had installed for a party. It disorients you so thoroughly that you don’t realize you’ve lost your balance until you land hard on your ass.

For a few seconds you can only emit strangled pain noises gape unseeingly at the floor tiles, the water pelting you, before you realize that what you’re feeling is second hand pain.

Even so, it hurts like a motherfucker. There are random prickles going up your palm and arm that feel like somebody’s poking you with needles, and it only feels worse when you rub at it; you can only imagine what your lusus is going through.

You find the presence of mind to turn off the water before staggering into the block--and there is poor Twitchy crouched on the counter like the floor’s crawling with fire centipedes. Your mom has squished herself into the tiny gap between the wall and the cupe, and your hand meets your forehead with an audible smack as you realize what happened.

“Aahhh, fuck, ah fuck--” You make your way over to where your mom is radiating panic and hurt feelings and gently ease her out. She looks okay, nothing bleeding or burned, but a few of her arms are stuck a weird brownish green while the rest of her skin roils in upset colors. Cooing, you gently rub the arms and whisper general nothings at her until she calms down a bit, and only then do you look up at Twitchy.

“Fuck, I’m a straight-up idiot, I’m so sorry Twitch,” You say, gathering your lusus up in your arms and letting her cling to your chest. “I shoulda told you I let mom out, you prolly got the everloving shit scared outta you, huh? You okay?”

*
Twitch nods uncertainly. “I’m hurt...?” she says. “Did I burn us...? Did I burn you?” She looks at the octopus. “Who was screaming...? Is everyone okay?"

*

Grimacing, you adjust your mom so she can cling to your shoulder and shake out your right hand. “Ah, that was me, sorry. I… I was all hatched with this rapport business all up in my pan?” You twiddle your fingers near an earfin. “Like, not just lusus rapport, but like, with all critters, so’s if they get hurt or upset or some shit I feel it all up inside me. It’s kinda my thing, I guess, Lords even know why. It’s all good, though, don’t feel bad about it. You was just startled, and mom’s more wigged out than anything. She’s gonna be fine.”

You, however, are not fine. The floor keeps spinning and you want to throw up. Your arm still hurts enough to make your eyes water (though at least you can mostly feel your fingers now) and in spite of your shower you are sweating like mad and shaky all over. It feels like somebody poured pop rocks and soda in your pan and then shook it all up--there are weird dancing sparks swirling in your vision and you think that if one more bad thing happens to you, you will just break into a million pieces then and there.

And your face is naked again. But somehow you can’t bring yourself to be embarrassed right now.

“Uhh,” You really don’t feel up to catching Twitchy up again, but it’s not her fault her pan short circuited. Swaying a little, you activate your modus and tuck your mom back into her compartment--she doesn’t really like living up in there for too long, but it’s quiet and dark and safe and that’s all you care about. Then you pull out another nightshirt--this one is gray and pink with a Hello Mewbeast face on it--and pull it over your head without bothering to dry off.

“Listen, how ‘bout you and me go find a mediculler and I can get my explanation on while we walk? I ain’t doin’ so good neither.”

*

Twitch examines the strange girl, and nods quietly, then gets carefully off the counter. She rolls her shoulder and grimaces.

“I’m not putting a shirt on,” she decides, and fumbles her way wincingly into a sphere holster. “Gnnghhhhst. Mediculler. You look bad. Are you on drugs? You look like you’re on a lot of drugs. Bad drugs.”

She takes Lu’s elbow, gently, and steers them out of the block.

“Mediculler, right? You’re sick?” she asks, for confirmation, once they’re standing in the hallway. Then she sets off at the same brisk, near-trotting pace as she’d traveled at the last time she was escorting Lu, only to stumble and look back in confusion when Lu drags on her arm.

“Oh, um,” she says, blushing, and tries to walk more slowly. It takes her several more repeats of going too fast and being dragged back before she stops forgetting immediately to stay slow.

*

If you didn’t feel like complete shit, you’d probably be blushing your face off about now. Even so, you do feel a little flicker of appreciation, ‘cause her rumblespheres are pretty goddamn adorable. You mumble something about that being a good idea, that way she won’t hurt her burn more, but you know yourself too well.

You nod at her question. “Mh, kinda. Comin’ down’s a bitch. I don’t got no more dust on me though, so I’m in for a fun time, hahahahaha…” You try not to lean on her too heavily, but you can’t help but do it a little. The hall lights are way too fucking bright (why didn’t you think to pack some goddamn sunglasses??) and you have stabbing pains in your eyesockets and all you wanna do is turn right back around and go hide in her cupe.

Instead, you do your best to keep up, blinking back dizziness and trying to keep your head up, as staring at the floor makes it worse. You crack a grin at that blush and pat her arm. “S’okay,” you mutter.

Ten minutes or ten sweeps later, the two of you finally arrive. You cling to Twitchy’s arm and try not to vomit.

 

Spoiler: read more part 3

Twitch pats at Lu’s shoulder as she drags her over to sit on a cot, then dashes off to find Sal.

“What,” he grumbles, when hailed. He was playing tetris on his communication device. “No, shoo.”

Twitch glares and blanks his device. “My friend is sick,” she says. “And I’m hurt. I got scalded probably. Give me burn cream.”

Sal looks at her burn, then takes her by the shoulder and prods it roughly, testing the blisters. “Wiggler,” he growls, when she yelps and tries to get away. “This is nothing. You’re fine.”

He drops her and goes over to Lu.

“And you, what are you whining for?” he wants to know, scowling.

*

You manage a grateful smile at that pat and try very hard not to lie down. You’ve never really been in a place like this before, so you don’t know the protocol. For a few quiet minutes you just kinda zone out and stare at the remnants of claw polish on your toes, and then Twitchy yelps and you immediately stiffen.

Then you hear what he says to her and your earfins flare wide. Your vision goes all sharp and over saturated as he heads over, and you think, good, I won’t black out while stomping over there to kick his ass.

You fist your hands in his coat, yank him down to your level, and bare your teeth right in his face. “Give her. The motherfucking burn cream. Or I will kick your rude ass so hard you’ll have to clear your throat to fart.”

*

“Baby junkie thinks she’s smart, huh?” he grunts, eye-to-eye and supremely unimpressed. “Ok, Lady, you’re the doctor.”

He digs the pads of his thumbs into the livid bitemarks on her wrists and straightens back up when her hands spasm open. “Do some doctoring,” he tells her, and indicates the medbay with one hand. The other is still pressed against the freshest area of broken skin. “Amaze me.”

*

The growl gathering in the back of your throat turns into a thin whine the moment his thumbs press like that. Your eyes glaze over and for a second or two you gape at him in flustered nausea, your face hot.

You move to backhand him as hard as you can, but then a voice in your head says get your fucking shit together pupa and you snarl and shove him off you instead.

“Touch me again, you piece of shit, and see if I don’t bite your fucking hands off.”

You turn away and immediately start pulling out drawers from the nearest cabinet. If he wants amazement, you’ll give him motherfucking amazement.

Breathless and dizzy, you watch your arms move on automatic. Is the burn cream in here? No, that’s a drawer filled with gooshy cold packs. You toss it on the floor. Is it in this one? Nope, that’s tongue applicators and cotton swabs and shit. Away it goes.

You kick open cabinet doors. Cleaning supplies, towels, no burn cream. Maybe it’s in the trash can! You bend down, pick it up, and tip it over. Lots of paper wads and candy wrappers and opened mail. No burn cream.

You spy a desk. It’s the one he was leaning on when Twitchy went to talk to him. You stomp over in three long strides, grab the edge, and flip it. Administrative papers and coffee mugs and paperweights go flying.

“Well, fuck me!” you say, flashing a wide, ghastly grin at Dr. Sexual Harassment. “It ain’t in here neither! You gonna tell me where it is, or do I gotta go look some more?” You give his desk kick to illustrate your point.

This is probably going to get you thrown out an airlock, but watching his face, you can’t bring yourself to care.

*

Standing stiffly upright in the wreckage, a strange little smile on his thin lips, Sal points at a cabinet across the room that Lu hadn’t gotten to yet. He folds his hands behind his back and watches her stumble through the mess.

“You’re going to pay for this,” he says. Calm, even amused.

*
You shrug and smile sweetly at him. Yeah, you know you’re going to pay, and it’s making your heart pound how much attention this is gonna get you, but you’ve already started shit, you might as well go whole oinkbeast before they kill you.

Besides, he fucking deserves this. And what kind of Mirthful would you even be if you sat by while some asshole sludgeblood picked on somebody all hurt and scared and in pain?

Picking your way through your mess isn’t easy, as wobbly as you are, and it takes some time. You give him a wide berth when you have to pass him, not taking your eyes off his for one second, ready to bite his nose if he so much as takes a step toward you.

He doesn’t. You open the drawer. There’s the burn cream! You win!

“Now wouldn’t it’ve been easier,” you say, turning to look at him. “if y’all’d’ve told me that from the fucking beginning?”

*

Sal shrugs. “Not here to cater to cullbait,” he says dismissively. “Tantrums change nothing.” Stalking through the wreckage, he flips his chair back upright, sits down, and resumes his game of tetris.

*

 

Spoiler: read more part 4

Your left eye twitches. “Fine.”

Burn cream acquired, you toddle over to where… Twitchy is hiding inside a cabinet you ransacked and looking at you like you’re going to turn her inside out. You are instantly ashamed and regret everything.

“I… aw, Twitch, honey,” you say and crouch down to sit on your knees. “Hey. Hey, s’okay, look what I got.”

You show her the burn cream. Twitch isn’t interested in the burn cream.

Maybe you’ll go throw yourself out the airlock and save them the trouble.

*

“I’m not going back,” Twitch says unsteadily. “You can’t take me back, I won’t go, I won’t go back, you can’t take me.” She’s breathing fast and shallow, too curled-inwards to throw off sparks, though points of light flicker and race under her skin.

“I’ll kill you first,” she says, and shudders with pain as the remains of her minder punishes her for it. “I will, I’ll kill us both. I’m not going back. I’m a person.”


Gaping at her, you can’t help but remember that you were sobbing very similar words into a camera a little while ago. But when Twitchy does it, it’s not pathetic, it’s goddamn heartbreaking.

“Heeey, hey, hey, Twitch, I…” You scoot the burn cream a little closer, within her reach, and fold your hands in your lap, earfins drooping. Your voice comes out all strangled and soft, and your vision starts to blur up with tears as you look at her ports. “Of course you’re a goddamn person, it was him what wasn’t treating you like one,” You jab a thumb at Dr. Plays Fuckin’ Games Insteada Helping Burn Victims without looking at him. “But I wasn’t gonna hurt’im any. I even up and told you before, when we were first meeting. I ain’t here to hurt nobody, or take you anywhere you don’t wanna go. Fuck. I’m so sorry I scared you. Could you come out now? I’ll even fuck off if you want me to, just don’t hide yourself in there.”

*

Twitch climbs out of the cabinet in pained obedience. She kneels on the ground, shuddering as her mental programming continues to punish her for her rebellion.

“I’m a person,” she mutters again. “You can— cram it, Highblood.” She grits her teeth through another shock. “Not going anywhere with you.”

*


You watch how she climbs out, and then you remember what feels like fuckin’ ages ago, you asking for a hug and her thanking you for not making it into an order, and you cringe and wrap your hands around your ugly little horn nubs.

You shrug your agreement. “Y-yeah, sure, I’ll cram it. This is me cramming it.” you say shakily.

There is a long pause where she doesn’t say anything, and it stretches to unbearable proportions. You feel like shit and you acted like shit and now you are shit, you are the worst kind of idiot fuckup, and you’re pretty certain you just lost the only person on the whole ship who was ever gonna be nice to you.

Abruptly you lurch to your feet, and you make it about three steps before the dizzy spell catches up with you and your legs turn to water. Down you go on your knees in the middle of the big mess you made, blackness pulsing in your vision, but you’re not so out of it that you pass out.

You did not get your shit taken care of. Now they folks in charge are gonna figure out that you’re not Mr. Blueblood Whatever His Name Even Is On The Worklist, and if there’s any justice in the world they’ll just eject you into space like so much toxic waste.

You let yourself flop over and stare at a thermometer that’s about an inch from your nose, waiting for them to arrive and do whatever it is they’re going to do to you.

*

Twitch kneels and shivers her way through the punishment routine, then, when it’s done with her, sits for a few more minutes, until her resolve to stay put wears away with her memory of why she’s there in the first place. She looks around at the wreck of the room, worried, then at the burn cream by her knees. She opens it up, attends to her scald mark—hissing a little at having to smooth cream over the raggedly burst blisters— and captchalogues the tube, then goes to stand up.

She’s distracted enough by the mess, and by attracting the attention of the menacingly still form of Sal, sitting at the edge of it and playing his game, that she nearly steps on Lu.

“Hello,” she says, pulling up in surprise. “Hey, uh, girl, are you okay? Are you... are you dead...?” She looks around the room again, totally lost.

*

You start giggling soundlessly. All of a sudden everything is horribly funny. You lie on your side and curl up like a little pill bug and just wheeze.

*

Twitch frowns, then checks her hand for any helpful reminders. She reads the one about clowns, looks down at Lu, and her face softens in pity. She kneels down, scoops Lu up in her arms, and casts around for painkillers. Spying a bottle of pills, she summons it over with a flick of her wrist and settles it on Lu’s hollow stomach.

“Let’s go to my room, okay, girl?” she says, unnecessarily smoothing Lu’s short bangs off her forehead. “You look really fucked up, but you’ll be safe there.”

Supporting the highblood with a careful web of pink psionics, she sets off.

*

You let her pick you up without resisting, and when she puts a bottle of pills on your belly, you wrap your hands around it like it holds the in-joke of the universe inside.

She smooths your hair and your snickering abruptly turns into a shuddery sob, like you’re one of them comedy/tragedy masks. You squeeze your eyes shut against tears and just nod at her suggestion, sniffling hard. She’s being sweet to you again, but she never let on that she got what you were saying, and now she doesn’t remember anything at all, so you’re left holding your sins without her even knowing about it.

You can’t say you’re sorry, and she can’t forgive you, at least not without a shitton of complicated explaining. You aren’t sure if you’re up for that kind of mental gymnastics right now, nor are you quite sure you would be able to endure it if she got mad at you again.

You’re pretty sure you saw something like this in a show once, where everything kept happening over and over until somebody figured out how to turn everything normalwise again. You think it was Troll Xena. Suddenly you are profoundly sorry for Troll Xena.

Breathing out a long sigh, you tuck your head into her shoulder and let her take care of your sorry ass.

*

As the girls leave, Sal raises his voice. “Helmsman Galgal, forward all footage of that indigo delinquent’s criminal behavior to the Commander.”

He grins savagely as they both flinch, Twitch in confused horror and Lu in fear.

“Beep boop,” Galley says flatly. “All cameras at your location have suffered a critical error. Abort, retry, or go fuck yourself?”

Twitch flees from Sal’s sudden, furious storm of cursing, Lu clutched protectively to her chest.

Lu still has both hands clamped over her mouth, eyes wide in pure, delighted amazement when they reach her block. The goldblood carries Lu back to her room, holding her closely even after she’s unsure why she’s carrying her. She pauses to read the message on the door and laughing in bright, happy understanding. She smooths Lu’s bangs again, almost possessively, then goes inside and looks around.

“I don’t think you should just sleep,” she says doubtfully. “I think you need help.” She goes and puts the sick, weepy highblood down on her lounging platform, in the recreation side of her tiny hive, then studies her.

“Okay,” she says. “Um, okay. You should take those pills, right? If you haven’t already. Oh—” she decaptchalogs a cup of milky coffee. “Um, it’s decaf. I think you should probably rest, not go zipping around. Did you tell me what was wrong with you...?”

She sidles off to the kitchenblock. “I’m hungry,” she says. “I’m gonna make us— oh, hey, breakfast. There’s breakfast in the heating unit. Convenient. Hope these things weren’t here too long.”

She takes the nutrient pods out of the heater and carries them back over to Lu, settling down beside her.

“Not very chatty, are you, girl,” she observes, and slurps her pod. “Unless I’ve been talking so long I forgot what you said. Did I?”

*

She is breaking your heart all over again with all of those awkwardly endearing questions. You can imagine little spiderweb cracks spreading out over your pump biscuit. You don’t even have the words to answer her, you’re so brimming over with overwhelmed gratitude and shame.

You take the coffee when she hands it to you and sips it. Milk isn’t the best for your digestive system, but she doesn’t know that and right now you don’t care, it tastes awesome. You peek at the bottle’s direction, pop four pills in your mouth, and wash them down.

Then she’s flitting off to the food prep block, and oh, she’s bringing food. Your bile sac, which has been alternating between being horribly queasy and absolutely starving, suddenly recalls that you haven’t had anything but salty meat broth since you got here.

You take the pod with shaky hands and wolf it down in a matter of seconds, praying that it stays down. It’s possibly the best thing you’ve ever eaten, besides the beef broth.

“Mmh, nah, you didn’t forget none,” you say, after you’re finished drinking what remains and then eating the container itself. When the new edible nutrition pods came out, you thought they were unreasonably nifty, and you still do. “... Well, there’s something you forgot, but it weren’t me talkin’, I just... “

You stare into your coffee glumly. “I don’t feel right pretendin’ what just happened didn’t happen just ‘cause your pan up and forgot it, soooo…” You straighten your spine and take a deep breath in. “A lil’ while ago I kinda flipped my shit all over this mediculler’s office ‘cause he wasn’t to be giving you any burn cream for that lil’ scald you got there, and when I up and found the fuckin’ burn cream you were all hidden up inside this bitty little cupboard and saying things at me like ‘you ain’t takin’ me nowhere’ and I felt fuckin’ awful for even making you think I might do something like that, but then you forgot all about it and I can’t stand it, I can’t fucking stand it, so I wanted to say I am so goddamn sorry, you ain’t been nothin’ but absolutely sweet to me and I went and made you have a motherfuckin’ meltdown.”

Those sure were a lot of words you just said. Shivering a little--lords you’re tired of being cold--you paw at your watery eyes and take another swallow of coffee.

*

Twitch is staring at her in flustered, blushing concern. “Um. Okay, then, thank you for telling me you did something bad to me, and that you didn’t mean to, and that you’re sorry. Right? That’s what you said? That’s pretty cool of you to tell me you fucked up when I already forgot. I mean, you know, I forget stuff, right? I only have like two or three minutes of working memory. It’s getting better but...” She shrugs. “Before I forget you said all that, I should definitely say I forgive you. It’s definitely not such a big deal you should feel so shitty about it. You look like you have a lot of other stuff going on to feel shitty about.”

She looks down at the dark metal ports studded through her bare arms. “They stole me and cut me up when I was like, six. And I’m eight now. So it makes sense I’d be really fucked up, especially about highbloods when they’re mad, and think that anyone over teal was coming to stick me back on the jut. But I just forget stuff in a couple minutes so I don’t think scaring me is really a big deal, you know? I’m un-scared right away. No big deal. I don’t think you have to feel bad about making someone feel bad if they, um. Don’t feel bad? Anymore? And I don’t. I’m ok.”

She shuffles a little closer to Lu on the couch. “You can lean on me if you want. If you’re, um, cold. You look really sick.”

*

The flood of relief that hearing that sends through you is so intense you almost don’t hear the rest of what she’s saying. You almost don’t believe it. How can she be so nice and easygoing and so sweetly worried for you?

“‘Kay,” you manage, after a bit. “If you say we’re cool, then I won’t all be agonizing myself over it.”

That is a blatant lie, you are going to be cringing about this in the moments before you fall asleep for weeks. But you’ll do your best.

You follow her gaze to her ports, and you have to lace your fingers together to keep from lightly touching one out of sheer pity. “Yeah, I don’t blame you none for freaking out, that is some fucked up shit they did with you. I mean… I mean, okay, I ain’t good with computers or nothin’, but I always thought ship helmsmen were like these little brain computers that up and ran things, leastwise in real life. I never up and met one, I’ve only ever been on one cruiser since I went spaceward.”

You shrug and sigh, and when she scoots closer, you lean toward her without really thinking about it. You shake a bit with silent laughter--god, how is she so goddamn adorable?--and tentatively lace your fingers with hers.

“Y-yeah, I’m pretty cold. I was high as fuck when I got here, and now I’m kinda comin’ down from that, so I don’t feel too hot right at this particular. But I’m already doin’ better now that I got food in me, and, fuck, I’m just so glad you’re here.” Your voice cracks a bit and you squeeze her hand, gathering your courage for what you’re about to say next. It comes out a mumble: “Uh, so. I’m kinda stupid pale for you, I gotta say.”

*

Twitch blinks at her. “Oh, well, ok, that explains stuff,” she says, blushing vividly. “Uh. You’re, um. Cute. You can sit on my lap if you want. Um. If that’s. Not weird. I don’t, um.” She laughs a little desperately. “I don’t even know your name, I’m sorry.”

*

You dip your head and snicker. Your ears feel like they’ve gone radioactive. “Uh, okay,” you whisper, strangely shy, and settle into her lap. You instantly feel much better, and you don’t stifle the sigh you make. “Oh, I’m Elusca. Or just Lu. I told it at you a couple times, so it’ll prolly stick soon. Uh. My butt ain’t bein’ all bony and stabbing you in the legs, is it?"

*

Twitch slouches against the back of the reclining platform and puts her arms carefully around the indigo. “Fuck, you’re all bones,” she says. “You don’t weigh more than a slice of toast, Lu.”

She rubs a hand up and down the sharp line of her spine. “Well, if you’re sticking around, um, if we’re, um, friends. Lu. Or more. I’ll get to recognize you. I think you’re... nice? I don’t know you but I think you’re nice. Um. I don’t— I don’t think— I don’t know how being in a quadrant would work. I don’t know if it can work. I’m eight, and, really fucked up, and I wouldn’t know you all the time, or most of the time, maybe I’d always be wondering who you were, and you could, you could do, um. Anything to me. And. I’d forget. I don’t know if you would, but, I can’t know. Because you could. Um. If that makes sense. I don’t know if it is.”

*

You grin doofily at that toast comment, your thoughts going pleasantly fuzzy at that rubbing. You’re almost sorry she started, because then she’ll have to stop. You are on the verge of purring and at this point you don’t think that would even embarrass you.

Her worrying brings you a bit more back down to earth. “Well, I ain’t never been pale either, but I think we could be all figuring it out.” You take the hand you were squeezing earlier and idly play with her fingers, keeping your eyes on your hands. “And, I dunno, like, it wouldn’t be hurting me if you didn’t get your recognition on or forgot or whatever, I mean, it ain’t like you can help that, and I think I’m getting pretty good at retelling shit at you. And as for doing shit at you, fuck, I can tell you I’d never treat you that way, but that don’t mean shit when you can’t keep it wedged in your thinkpan. But, tell you what, like, that Galley, he’s got eyes and ears and shit everywhere, right? Like, he was all in the med bay with us, and he was yelling his snarkass at me earlier.” You pause to flip the beetlecam your favorite finger. “Do you… do you think you could be trusting him to tell you if he saw me getting up to no good? Not that I would.”

*

Twitch blinks. “I— yeah, actually, that’s a good fix. I mean. Galley doesn’t watch everything, I don’t think. He’s got his own shit to do. But he checks on me, so, I think he’d notice if you were, um, bad. Right?”

“I am watching,” Galley cuts in, deep-voiced and authoritative, enough bass to his vowels to be felt in their horn cores. “I’m keeping an eye on you, Little Miss Slaughtermuffin. You’re an addict and a stowaway and a clown and pretty fucking handsy with my auxiliary helmsman and you are definitely on probation.”

Twitch just laughs. “Oh my god, how are you making your voice do the thing!”

“I am scary and important, is how,” Galley says. His voice drops word by word until it’s a thrumming monster growl. Giggling, Twitch gives the camera two middle fingers.

*

You open your mouth to say, yes, you definitely think Galley would be on your ass if you got up to anything, but then he speaks up himself and you can’t help but stiffen minutely, even as you kind of hate yourself for not being able to hide it. It’s just, it wasn’t so long ago that he was tearing you a new one.

But then you find that when he ain’t talking like he can read every shameful word written on your soul, Galley almost doesn't sound like an asshole.

Lots of things occur to you. Galley is witnessing the most awkward pale proposition you’ve ever made in your whole life. You don’t have your mask on. Lots of people have seen you without your paints on today, and it’s a fuckin’ wonder one of your skybros hasn’t dropped a light fixture on your backsliding heatheny head.

But mostly, you notice that Twitchy isn’t even slightly afraid or embarrassed at having been caught mid-snuggle.

And if she’s not embarrassed, you sure as hell have no reason to be.

“Yeeeah, yeah, go on and talk like you ain’t palming your nonexistent lil bitchtits over there at this blessed fuckoff pale party we’re up and making at each other,” you say, grinning. “Don’t you worry, Twitchy’s gonna keep me straight.” You give her an obnoxious little nuzzle, like a nipped up cat.

*

Twitch gives a giggly shriek, trying to wriggle away from Lu without letting her go, and flops sideways.

“I’m trapped in here with a real brutal deviant,” she grins. “I’d better watch out! You could— you could— you could pap my butt! My actual butt! To death! Galley, I hope you enjoy underage snuff, cuz—”

Galley makes an offended baritone “!” noise, then cuts out on them.

*

You bust up laughing and flop over with her. “Ooo, and you’re all callin’ ME a deviant!” you shout and soon the two of you are a tangle of legs and arms as she bats at you and you try to tickle her with scary claw fingers. You only laugh harder when Galley leaves--it’s harder than you’ve laughed in weeks, helpless hooting cackles--and as if his signing off evoked a change, you promptly stop writhing around and start snuggling.

“Alone at last.” you whisper blissfully, grinning.

You pap her butt.

 

Spoiler: read more part 5

Twitch twitches, then giggles— a little more nervously— and retaliates with horn rubs.

“Is this ok...?” she asks, trying to be careful of brushing her claws against the cracks and chips as she kneads at the lowest red bands. “These are— these are really fucked up, girl. These look awful.”

*

You shudder and butt your head up into her hands in nonverbal request for yes, more please. You can’t help it, it’s been forever since anybody touched your horns, and her fingertips are so warm. It’s not long before that kneading has your eyelids fluttering.

“Mmh. They usedta be a lot bigger,” you mumble. Usually you like to joke about it, tell people a different story every time as to why your horns are ugly lumps, but you don’t want to do that with Twitchy. For one, hearing her talk like that doesn’t put you in a mood for jokes, nevermind that it’s only funny when people can remember all your excuses and puns and elaborate shaggy woofbeast stories.

But to do that to Twitchy would be cruel. It occurs to you that other people have probably done that very thing to her before, and it sends a stab of anger and protectiveness through you.


“Maybe sometime I’ll tell you what all went down, if you want,” You give her a squeeze and cup her cheek, making a teeny amazed smile that they're here, like this. “But not right now.”

*
“Ok. Ok. Hey, is that— is this— oh, wow. Mmh.” Twitch leans her face into Lu’s palm, going soft and vague. “Wow. ‘s nice. Do. More. They break? Mm, your, ummh. Your horns. Someone. Broke you. I think...”

*
For the first time in ages, you think about what happened and your throat closes up. Blinking hard, you stroke the backs of her fingers along her jawline, watching her face carefully. “Yeah…” you manage, tracing her eyebrows and drawing a slow line down the bridge of her nose before cupping her face in both hands and resting your forehead against hers. “Yeah, somebody did.”

*

Twitch gently strokes the sweeps-long accumulation of bite marks down Lu’s throat. “That’s really fucked up, I’m sorry,” she says. “If they, um. If they ever come back. To bother you. Point ‘em out to me. I can blow people up, you know, I’m not Galley but I can. I can fuck up someone’s night.” High on pacification hormones, she does not look especially threatening. She sloppily kisses Lu’s cheek. “You’re so cute, though. You’re... why would anyone...” The rest is a dozey, purring mumble. Twitch’s fingers drift back to run slowly through Lu’s short hair.

*

You draw in a started breath as her fingers move down your neck--you still have lingering gross feelings from when that fucking mediculler groped you--but Twitchy is all gentle exploration and nothing more, and you let your breath out slowly.


You crack a grin. “Heheh, I doubt it, but I feel safer knowin’ that.” Your smile grows when she kisses your cheek, and you give her doting, daring little pecks all over her face in return, a rusty purr rumbling to life in you.

That last little question is so sweet it hurts. Instead of answering, you bury your face in her neck and cling like something might tear you away.

It doesn’t take long for Twitchy’s drowsy petting to ease the miserable knot in your chest.

Wrapped up in her, you let yourself drift.

END OF CLOWN INTERMISSION 2

 

"Oh, er, rather, I'm not the best hand at computers, and things," you say, suddenly overwhelmingly shy and conscious. It was one thing to be a skinny little snip of a wild thing when you had Kadros around to climb on and dodge around (and shelter under), and it's quite another to be meeting someone on a professional, Captain Aspera sort of basis.

You try to pull yourself together into a more adult shape, an important and impressive meeting-strangers shape, a Captain shape.

From the expression on his face, you don't think it's worked very well.

You look around at the mess you've made of all Kadros's bits, now that he's gone. "Er. Sorry I can't really offer you a, a seat, or. Anything. I don't suppose this is anyone's idea of a cozy sitting block, is it?"

 

"Yeah, no, this is very, uh... trollish." You make a wry face. But you're not here to judge his mindscape, nor to cheer him up or make him less miserable in any non-medical way. No matter how much you're starting to want to. "You're seeming a lot more awake, at least. So I think it's time to go over what you can expect from this next phase of treatment, and what you'll need to do to make sure it's successful."

 

"I'm all ears," you say, seating at least some of your angles down on a sort of fungus thing. "And, er, and elbows, haha."

You try to collect yourself into a more coherent shape, but now that you're in bits nothing seems to want to take, especially with Jethro there looking at you. You're too flustered, and, dimly, you're aware you've lost touch with where your regular body is, what it is, to, to sort of try and copy from. It had better not be crying again, wherever it is.

Ugh, maybe you should have done this through the text box. Frustrating's a lot better than embarrassing.

(erskin's weird construct is sort of pulling itself apart up front and growing more angles and weird metal container bits from the back. there's some number of limbs but they keep phasing in and out, and his speaking face is the dark one looking anxious behind a smiling, confident white mask. he should probably have stuck to 'jumpy feral baby' if he wanted to be less transparent)

 

"Wow, that's hard to look at," you say honestly. "Do you want to take a minute to customize a standard avatar 'fore we start? Holding a image together by sheer brainpower ain't easy."

 

"Oh, is that what I'm doing?" you ask. You are sort of incorporating the fungus thing. Or you're the fungus and incorporating the sad little mannequin thing. "I'd jolly well like to stop, none of this is particularly scenic."

 

"Yeah, it's kinda giving me a headache, bro." Your chuckle is sympathetic. "Okay, on the text panel, bring up the same menu we brought up before..."

You walk him through finding the avatar customization utility, which is a lot like the character creation screen in a lot of video games. A blank gray trollshape appears before him, half merged in places with the ever-shifting anxiety nightmare he's wearing, and starts flicking through hairstyles and horn shapes as he looks for the options closest to his real ones.

"I have a super-accurate avatar because Sigs did a body scan on me," you explain. "I don't think that'd work in the heal tank, though."

 

"I looked more real when Kadros was here," you say. "But he made everything a lot more normal than I can seem to manage. Perhaps we were collaborating."

You get the avatar into shape. Backswept horns, even if they're not recurved, and stiff, stumpy fins, a blandly simple face. It doesn't need to look just like you, it just needs to be coherent, right?

"Alright, do I just..." you take the avatar in your various appendages and make its arm wave hello. "Is this how it works? Do I sort of wave it around at you? Is that better?" You push and pull until the body's hind end is on a stump and the two arms are in its lap, then back off a ways. "Do you... talk to it now...?"

You move a few fingers in and tilt the avatar's head to be looking at Jethro.

(this is probably not how it works.)

 

You entirely crack up.

When you're done hooting at his puppet show, you wipe your eyes and wave vaguely overhead, where the 'menu' dropdown probably appeared on his own text panel. "Select 'save and use'. Then you'll be wearing it."