THE SPACE NAVY AU (18+)

"I like movies where everyone dies," Galley says. "I like shipwrecks. There are forums. I save pictures."

There's a long pause as the credits roll on. Then Galley says, very quietly, "I, uh. I didn't like being attacked. I thought I would. Like the, uh, the destruction. But. If it's going to break apart. It's. Going to be me doing it, I get to end it."

 

You turn his words over in your mind, working to parse them in context. "Are you talking about the movie? Or the Zero-Sum?

 

"The first part was about observable media. The second part was about my desire to blow everyone up."

 

"I would sincerely prefer not to be exploded," you point out, snuggling into the bean bag chair 'pile' that was provided for your lounging needs. "I'm finally starting to be really into this whole 'being alive' thing. Although I do see the appeal of splodeys."

 

"If I do explode everyone, I'll give you an escape pod, so you can watch," Galley offers. His tone of voice indicates complete sincerity.

 

"So I can watch my friends and quadrants and everything important to me blow up? No thank you!" You hug yourself, trying to ignore the crawling sense of wrongness in the back of your mind. "Galley? Are, are you really offering to make me watch everyone I care about die, or am I hallucinating again?"

 

"I— no, I meant— I mean— yes, but— I thought you said the— it appealed to you? You said 'I do see the appeal of splodeys'. But uh, you don't have to watch, I won't make you, it's okay. And I'm not going to blow up anything now. Or even crash. You're sick, so, uh, it would be a real asshole thing to do. Please don't cry again? I'm sorry."

 

"I like explosions where nobody I care about gets hurt. And I care about the whole crew of this ship. Not to mention Murfey's my best friend, and I'm pitch for Erskin, and flushed for you, and Pancho is on her way to join the medical team, no, I like explosions like when Murf blows up alien bunkers, or obsolete weaponry getting spiked, not this, not my ship." You're sniffling like a wiggler, but for the moment you don't even care. You press your hand to the wall as if the ship itself can feel you: "I finally belong somewhere. My captain says I'm not expendable. Please don't blow up."

(if galley is monitoring his vitals, they're all over the place; this is the same kind of loss of impulse control that will later cause rage spaz.)

 

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry—" The tablet fizzes into static, cut through with snips of the helmsman's frantic apologies. Erskin comes stumbling through the door after only another minute, out of breath but bristling like a dire beast.

"Galley said— said to— run— what's—?"

 

"I don't wanna blow up!" you bawl. At the moment, this fear is plausible and urgent, and you can't seem to stop yourself from wailing about it.

 

"Galley!" you snap accusingly. There's a time and a place for his stupid sense of humor, and this wasn't it. From the loudly upset fizzling of Kadros's tablet, though, you suspect he's figured that out. You scoop it off the floor and bully your crying kismesis into the beanbag pile, then sit on his lap so he can't curl up into his own irrational misery.

"Absolutely no one is going to blow up while I'm on the job," you say, looping an arm around his bare, quivering shoulders, rubbing your forehead against his. You fuss with your phone's screen until you've got the latest batch of bullshit forwarded from Lainey on display. You wave the screen in front of Bel's soggy face.

"We're going to do some paperwork now instead of thinking about things that aren't happening and won't ever happen," you tell him sternly. "No one is blowing up. But I still can't read spreadsheets worth a damn, and Medical Bay's produced enough paperwork in the last week to walpaper the whole bloody ship. Make yourself useful and tell me what all these rows of fiddly bits mean."

 

"Galley wants to explode!" you blubber. He smacks you on the head with the tablet. "Ow!"

It takes some persistence on his part, and half a dozen handkerchiefs on yours, but he eventually bullies you out of your panic spiral and gets you to at least try to focus on what he's showing you. "What, these...? Oh, they're notes to make incident reports, every medical procedure generates an incident report. Sal's too busy to fill them out so he's just dittoing them. We'll have to write them up afterwards. See, it's the same crew members every eight hours. When we're not in crisis mode anymore, we'll have to go over each one and write up what supplies got used and so forth. It's important so we can reorder, and for crewmen's medical records and stuff."

You let your heavy head fall on his shoulder. "Is Galley okay?" you say in a small voice.

 

"He's fine," you tell him. "He's a morbid little bastard who's very sorry for worrying you. But he's fine."

 

"We were having a movie date, but I ruined it by flipping out." You sigh. "Not unexpected, I guess. Although I thought I was supposed to get mad, not weepy. For a little while there I sincerely believed the ship was like... scheduled to explode. Or something. I was grieving for everyone, it sucked. This whole spore thing sucks hagfish globes." You blow your nose one last time, wipe your hands and face with a sterile wipe (several boxes of which were included with the room), and take the tablet from him. "Okay. Apparently paperwork is the cure for irrational panic. Show me what else you need explained."

 

You sort of want to placate him, tell him it's alright, stress takes everyone differently, he's being very brave— instead you settle into his lap with a bit more pushing and shoving than might strictly be necessary to get comfortable, and put him to work doing all the tedious numbersy horseshit you've been dragging your heels on until he falls asleep on you.

God, you're tired. You make a heroic effort to get out of his arms and back to work, and fail entirely. You fall asleep on him until he's taken for blood filtering, and you're taken for a good chewing-out and a barrage of infection tests. Still clean but— anything could have happened.

You're yelled at until you agree not to go back into anyone's quarantine for any reason other than medical emergencies. Your kismesis needing some cuddles was not, apparently, a medical emergency.

Kadros is getting an IV shunt installed and taped into place, and you can hear his ragged pain noises from across the block. You blankly watch Sal growl and slam things around as he scolds you and you wonder if you can get away with punching his fucking head off.

 

Taking a lap around the medical block cools you off some. The greens are sick as anything, and appreciate a bit of heckling from the captain. You knock horns, tug a few ears, get a bit of slap-boxing in, tease them about hallucinations. Not much cheers a fellow when he's horking up black bile, but you hope the attention's bracing. And— and there's Kadros in the corner, miserably draped over his cot, seeing god-knows-what, like some gruesome foreshadowing plot sort of thingy.

"You'll do better than that," you tell patients, part flippant, part scornful. "Pshaw."

The three or so lowbloods are looking better, mostly, and the sole rustblood looks perfectly fine except for also scared out of her bloody mind.

"I know, I know, it's dumb, I just— you know, when I start horking up my guts these guys are all gonna be chewing the walls, everyone's already got their hands busy, and like— fevers are bad for us. I mean. I'm just— okay, it's dumb, but what if everyone forgets me?" she frets. "What if no one's watching because everyone else is having the big-time meltdowns and I, I choke on my own blood, or just, my brain boils or something. I could die just from the fever. What if no one remembers."

You give her your phone's number and tell her not to tell Sal.

"Is he doing okay?" she asks. "I mean, uh. Dumb question. He looks like shit. We're all scared for him. I— here, I forgot, here." She decaptchalogues a bunch of paper get-well-soon-or-else notes. "I'm dumb, my moirail gave me these to deliver, sorry! From his friends and shit. I just started thinking about what if— uh, like I said— and then I forgot why I was thinking of what I was thinking— okay, I'm just rambling now, sorry, go give him these cards."

You look through the notes, feeling a trifle guilty, but you want to make sure none of the or-elses are too gruesome. He's not likely to laugh much off, at the moment.

Get well soon or I'll come and cut your face off gets saved for later, as does or I'll put big spiders in all your shoes. The rest are pretty cute. Farting on dinners, dying his hair, spoiling all the books he's reading.

You go over to deliver the stack.

 

You eye him suspiciously, making sure it's really him, but catch yourself -- that's paranoia, that's the spores. Impersonating Erskin would be ridiculous, no one could pull it off. "You're one of a kind," you tell him, and manage a smile.

The cards baffle you at first. "They're... from the crew? For me?"

 

You gently punch his shoulder. "Carmin over there got 'em delivered. Everyone knows you're feeling poorly, asking after you, and all. You're a hero, what? I pulled some of the, er, rude ones, but you'll get them soon as you're feeling better. Or else!"

 

"What, no, I want the rude ones too, I want all of them. I never got get-well-or-else cards before." You begin paging through them, a wobbly little smile growing on your face, and occasionally have to fight back a sniffle. "I love this ship so much. How is everyone? I hope I'm the only one ahead of schedule."

 

You suppose the stoneface planetary stick-up-the-ass marines do not go in for sentimentality, but it's sad to think he might never have had any back on alternia either.

"Here-- not to condescend, but I do want to stress that no one actually intends to do the or-else bits," you caution him, giving the gruesome handful of notes over. "You saved a lot of lives, you know. That sort of maneuver is appreciated!"

As for his fellow infected: "You and Murfey remain the outliers, don't worry. I heard we had one case of further infection, from Heinsz of all people, biting a medic, but she's very sorry. She just got startled. The hallucinations seem to be a lot worse for some and we've no idea why-- it doesn't have anything to do with base imagination or psychic susceptibility or what have you."