THE SPACE NAVY AU (18+)

The idea of others being grateful to you just honestly never occurred to you. You feel a bit silly now, because of course they would be, given the situation. Knowing that you chose to lead the search for survivors because you were the most logical choice probably wouldn't even make them like you less. And somehow, even though you know they'd feel this way about anyone who stuck his neck out on their behalf doesn't make you any less touched or grateful.

You love this ship. You're so glad you got stationed here. You need a tissue.

The news about Heinsz makes you laugh a little despite yourself. "I can absolutely see her biting a medic, there are a couple times I think she wanted to bite me with no spores to blame for it, just my personality." You offer the cards back to him: "Keep these safe for me, will you? I don't have a sylladex at the moment. Hm, yeah, I noticed Murf and I seemed to be hallucinating about the same amount, but he's got the imaginative powers of a stale jam donut, and I'm a bookworm who used to write poetry and draw and whatnot. If anything, his hallucinations are more bizarre than mine."

 

"Yeah, we've had some interesting chats— the eyes are apparently inside, er, everything, now. Gruesome to think about, I hope he doesn't start picking at himself. Be sort of an embarrassing how-I-got-this-scar-story to tell at the bar, wouldn't it? 'Oh, right, I tried to pull out my eyeball. Yes, the eyeball in my elbow. Mmhm.' Not the sort of thing that persuades anyone to take you home for the morning."

You scratch your nose, considering the level of appropriateness of the conversation. "Sid's hallucinations are that kittens are stuck in his clothes," you offer. "He keeps stripping hatchday naked in medical trying to look for them. It's a fine view, but the fourth of fifth time you're called in to say 'I'm your superior officer and I command you to put these pants on,' it starts feeling a trifle silly."

 

You laugh, as he meant you to. He's good at that. Maybe a little too good at that... no, that's silly, you get so melodramatic when you're paranoid.

"I'm still hearing the squirrels, but now I know they can't hurt me. Someone's going to have to clean the candy out of the vents, though, or we're going to have roaches."

 

"We'll have a scavenger hunt," you propose. "Round up anyone under— hm, yea high— and send 'em off. Winner takes all."

A medic taps your elbow and hands you a claw trimmer and friction stick with a significant look, then makes himself scarce.

"Oh, ah. Hm." You eye Kadros just a little nervously. He's being a damn good sport, but he's also twitchy as a sackful of bore-hole worms. "Look, how do you feel about—?" You raise the trimmer. "I do love your claws but it does make sense. And I can promise if anyone shows up with a fucking bit or whatever I'll stick it straight up their chute for you."

 

You frown, considering the issue, but eventually you nod and offer your hand. "Since I use fistkind, losing my claws doesn't reduce my ability to defend myself, and who knows when I might start thinking there are squirrels hiding food in my veins. It'll be a shame that I can't give you a good scratching when we celebrate my recovery, but I can still pull your hair." You give him a wicked grin that's only about half put-on for morale-raising purposes.

 

"Well, if anyone wants to tape fuzzy mittens on you they can do it themselves," you decide. You're blushing, of course— he's got such a nice smile, even gone all raggedy— but you won't let him get you on the defensive. You ease on to the edge of the cot beside him, to take some weight off your leg, and get hold of his hand. Usually you're too busy to notice how much larger he is but like this, it's striking. You clip his claws as close as you can without hurting the quick, then sand down the sharp edges, and it looks... disgraceful, really. Wrong. You liked his neat, well-kept claws, they fit in with, with everything else, his rough calluses, how clean he likes to keep, how composed. You rest your forehead against his bare shoulder. He smells awful.

Sal comes by the cot, pauses, clears his throat pointedly.

"Oh my god, Sal, fuck OFF," you snap at him, bristling. This is your— yours, he's yours. Kadros is yours and he looks so tired and so worried and you are one nasty little word away from fucking goring this bastard over it.

((erskin's not infected, he's just stressed as fuck and super tired and not great at keeping his temper anyway. bel can either bristle up too, or have a turn calming erskin down. whichever!))

 

You look up at Sal, and just for the moment you are utterly, brutally lucid. You make the deliberate choice to let your old self show in your eyes when you meet Sal's. Your last-sweep self, the one whose superior officer was so conveniently taken out by an alien sniper shortly after giving the order that would've doomed your whole squadron.

"We play it pretty loose with the chain of command on this ship, I understand that," you say softly. "And you're a valuable specialist, and I respect you. Which is why I didn't pop your head off like a bottlecap when you grabbed me by the horn a while back. But if you stop my rival and me from comforting each other one more time, Sal, I swear to fuck I will break your long bones until your limbs are floppy like noodles, tie you in a pretty bow, and stuff you facedown into the compost hopper. Do I make myself clear?"

 

Sal looks at you.

"I'll let him," you tell him, and you're— not actually sure if you're bluffing. You're so tired. But it works well enough. He nods at Kadros, uneasily, and slinks off.

You take advantage of the madness to scoot more closely against Kadros and tuck your face under his chin, get your arms around him. His blood's gone dark enough all the blue tint to his softer places has faded out, leaving a sickly grey-on-grey mottling.

"Tell me one reason not to just bite you myself and spend the rest of this nightmare in your block with you," you say. Your voice comes out pathetically small, and you'd meant it as a joke, but. You don't manage to say it like one.

 

"Because I might hurt you for real," you say, in a voice pretty much exactly as small, and you hug him as tightly as the needles in your arm will allow. Maybe you should talk to him about duty instead, about how the crew is depending on him, but you feel so terrible, just this once you want to be selfish. "At the rate I'm progressing, I'll be -- by the time Pancho gets here -- I won't know you, Erskin. I'll be an animal, and you'll be an intruder. Or a meal. Just -- for now, while I still know you, I need you. I'm so glad you're here." Whoops, sniffle time again. "Also thank you for not mocking this overemotional crap while it's still happening. It'll be funny as hell once I'm better."

 

"I'm sure Galley's storing all the footage in a special folder," you promise him. "We'll make it into a music video. Set to troll yackedy sax."

You push him over, gently, to lie on his side on the cot so you can curl up against him properly. He's running awfully warm, and you know that's bad, but it feels so good against all your aches.

"Think I'll restrict myself to the medical block," you murmur. "Just to be safe. And cut down on... all this, this running about, bloody pointless fucking paperwork, and, and pulling weeds, I don't care. Lainey can do it. Delegation. I want to be here." You close your eyes. His heartbeat still sounds the same. That's good.

 

"Everyone's glad to see you -- everyone but Sal, anyway. You're keeping morale up." It comes out in a mumble. The sedative in the IV didn't seem to be doing anything this time, but now it's catching up to you. You can feel your pulse slowing. Muscle aches pinging from sharp to dull as your tense body relaxes.

"It'll be all right," you promise him softly. "Pancho will get here in time, and what's in the vents, I know it's not squirrels really, but it can't get in. Anyone who wants to get at you has to go through me. And Galley is watching over us. We're going to be okay."

You work hard to hang onto that thought, the sense of warmth and life and tribe, and not think too much about how the Sunslammer is a tiny mote in searing cold nothingness, and if something happens to Whitey's ship on the way here, no one else will lift a frond to save you. You may be hanging onto a narrow hope, but it's strong. And it's not like you have anything better to do.

 

It's a damn good thing you carved out a block of hours for sleeping with Kadros towards morning, because things get steadily more harrowing. By the next evening Murfey's stopped eating entirely, convinced his teeth are rotting out and that anything he puts in his mouth will keep healthy teeth from growing back in.

"I don't want what would grow back in," he explains, as you trim his claws down. He's started scratching himself up, like you feared, trying to dig out the extra eyes— at least if he's paranoid about his teeth, he probably won't chew. And, and at least he doesn't have a moirail, or at least, you don't think, and if he does then you hope they don't mind how long you sit with him, petting him all over, gently tying his hair back up. Pretending to help him look for growths that are frankly going to give you fucking day terrors the next time you close your eyes.

The ochres are hitting the really disgusting stage of fever while the greens are starting to white-knuckle their way through progressively scarier delusions, everyone's getting their nails clipped, sedative is getting used faster than it can be mixed up. Two medics have presented headaches and nausea and a third got sneezed on in the face— they're still working, because why the hell not?

The bright point of the morning is that the sad handful of the Zero-Sum's survivors are bouncing back admirably, and pitching in with the care. A lot of them have the guilty passion of fellows attempting to make up for past sins, in the way they sit with your crew, read to them, pet them, tease them out of fits, monitor the machines and run samples around. Various suits seem to developing as well as might be expected, under the circumstances. More paperwork to put in, you suppose, all the transfers you'll be logging after this mess is sorted.

Kadros is... Kadros, only more so. Murfey's turned inwards, but Kadros has only gotten more watchful, more protective. He spends his evening shift too tense to sleep, holding you like he thinks he's going to be taking a bullet for it at any moment. Over your head he watches everyone, paying special attention to anywhere anyone's in distress, and the routes of the medics, and the tide of patients back and forth from quarantine to dialysis. He bristles at Sal anytime the man comes anywhere close, even incidentally.

A scuffle breaks out between an ochre and her security escort, at one point. "Put me back," she wails, clawing frantically at the armored gloves, "It's too dark here, it's too dark, don't make me— the shadows— they're watching us, they're LEARNING—"

Kadros makes as if to get off his cot and go help, his jaw set rugged and heroic, and it's all you can do to bully him back on his cot. It's slick with sopor, and it's hard to get the leverage to make up for the weight disparity. Without anything to brace against he can simply pick you up.

"She's not your problem," you tell him, finally getting a good grip on his ear. "See, it's over, it's alright, she's sedated, she'll feel better after her session, it's alright, TRUST ME."

 

You struggle against him for a moment more, but when he tugs your ear hard enough to hurt, the pain cuts through your instincts and you're able to overrule them with logic. Yes, of course, she needs her blood filtration session, that will help. Even if she's glimpsed the Enemy's true intentions, it's no good shouting them to the whole block. You settle back down.

"Cover her face while she's sleeping, though," you whisper to Erskin. "Some gauze or something, even a sheet, over her nose and mouth. Make it look casual. I don't think they're smart enough to know what it means, but if she's right, if they're learning..."

 

A cold shudder goes down your spine.

"Right," you say sickly. "I've got to sit with you, now, you know, but we'll just keep an eye on her, yes? And I'll get on it as soon as you're squared away. Don't worry." You laugh miserably. "Well, worry away, actually who gives a fuck, not as if you can help it. Here, what do you think of more lights in the quarantine blocks? We thought dim lighting would be soothing, you know, let you all get more sleep, there's all these studies about how stressful it is to be overlit for too long, but fear of dark spaces has been a, a, a sort of unifying thread across all presented paranoias.... We could put some sunlight bulbs in, maybe? Or those LED stick-on grow strips. Toss a roll in for you all to put up as you like."

((i bet day-seeking behavior is a pretty consistent parasite-driven behavior. more warmth and tasty radiation for the parasite, and easier prey for your host... plus frankly creatures that operate in the blinding light of day must be scary as fuck for trolls))

 

"Yes," you say urgently, surprised at your own vehemence. "Yes. More light. They don't like the light, and we can see better if they're, you know. Trying to get. In."

 

"Alright, I'm texting Lainey, we'll rustle up everything we can spare from the greenspaces. I'm certain there's miles of light tape around."

There might be a bit of eyestrain, after this, but a few crewmembers possibly needing glasses seems worth it to keep the infected a bit calmer for a bit longer. Hmm— you text Lainey a followup thought. If the darkness aversion holds steady— and it certainly seems to be, with Kadros, a lot of what he's been looking for all session's come clearer— you might be able to dim the lights anywhere you don't want the infected to go, should they break loose, and run light strips along the hallways from the quarantine blocks to medical. It's going to be a damn pain operating around here with enough light that there aren't shadows, and— hmm.

"Here, what do you think about goggles?" you ask. "Like with shade lenses, and all. Enough light to keep you and the rest safe is really going to make it hard for medical staff to go about our business... plus we'll all get headaches. But you know, it can be a trifle spooky to not be able to see anyone's eyes, I shouldn't like to agitate anyone worse. I might have to go around taking a poll."

 

You shrug one shoulder. "Well, if it upsets people, I suppose you could try those dorky shade visors like card dealers wear in movies. What's most important is that we protect the people who are sleeping. Especially the ones who sleep with their mouths open."

 

"Yes, alright," you say. It's vaguely funny how many infected have manifested a paranoia about further infection. And by 'vaguely funny' you mean actually not at all and really more like 'tragic'.

"Oh my stars, I'm an idiot," you realize. You pick up Kadros's tablet. "Here, these things are basically huge phones, I'm sure there's a flashlight function— ow!" You've shined it right in your face. It doesn't have a light on the back or outside, the screen just goes a brilliant white. You could kiss whoever set that function, right after you kicked them in the shins for not just putting a little light on the backside like a sensible device. You pass it off to Kadros, rubbing the sting out of your eyes. "You can hold that," you say. "Don't point it at me. Ow."

 

That gets a ragged laugh out of you. "Okay, okay, I'll be careful, how does it work -- whoops!" Right in his eyes. Only for a moment. When he manages to focus on you again, you make a spade with your poor clawless fingers.

 

"Oh, sure, you can't work a tablet, remind me why I keep you around," you grump, rubbing your eyes all over again, but it's hard to maintain a scowl. These flashes of good humor are coming less and less frequently. You headbutt his chest, then stay leant there. He's washed and dressed neatly, this time around, but he still smells terrible, all the infected do, a sort of dirty thermal hull smell under the sharp fear-sweat, a vegetable rot.

When the medics come over to unplug Kadros, you stall them a moment to show them the lit-up tablet, tell them to go along the row of quarantine blocks letting the other patients know. Someone from hydroponics is going to be along with the light strips, soon, too, and those will have to be parceled out... chewing over the details only takes so long, though, and then Kadros gets disconnected and hauled to his feet.

You squeeze his hands, awkwardly reluctant to let him go.

"Chin up, what?" you tell him. "You can do this, you know, you really can. You've been magnificent so far."