THE SPACE NAVY AU (18+)

"That was terrible. That was a terrible joke. I expect you to think of a better one by the next time I see you!" you call after her. Then you gingerly haul Kadros to a sitting position, realize you can't carry something his size one-handed without dragging most of it, get out your fourwheel device, wrestle him mostly into it, and drag the whole gruesome mess out of the quarantine zone. Someone's thoughtfully installed a decontamination trap right next to the last door, and you shove Kadros into it, chair and clothes and all, and flip the spray on. It immediately gets a lot easier to deal with the smell.

 

wetcold

hurts​

sotired​

 

"I know, I know, you big whiner," you shush at him when he makes grumbly noises. Black goop is still dripping sluggishly from his mouth, and every now and then he convulsively spits up another wad and undoes your progress in cleaning him off. He's heavy and floppy and you resort to just cutting his clothes off him in strips— it's ruined, anyway— and training the spray hose over whatever gets revealed. The first coating of black gunk comes off, but the rest is mottled under his skin, his bruises like puddles of ink and his cuts like lines of tar.

His eyes are sunken pits, and when they flutter open you can just make out a gleam of rust-red behind the cloudy black. It's hard to tell if he can see much of anything, past all that gunk. Well, he'll be getting better, now. It makes you smile, even when he hacks black gunk on to you.

You shut the water off when he's mostly clean and mostly not dribbling. Towel him off, throw the used grey material down in the floor of the shower, get a nice clean one around his hips. He might be watching you, through this, or he might be staring straight through you head. But he's going to get better.

"Off to Medical," you tell him, wheeling the fourwheel device into the back of the cart, clipping it fast. You drive off very carefully, very smoothly, so he isn't thrown off as he drowses.

When you push him into the forward Medbay, the few volunteers on duty jump to their feet and look as if they might cheer. Grinning, you put a finger to your mouth— shh!— so no one startles him. But there's no end of eager trolls to help you get him onto a clean new cot, propped up with pillows, hooked up to nutrient drips. He's still got his shunt in, of all things.

A big furry greenblood lusus sniffs their way into the room, and squints up at you evaluatingly. You're not sure, but it might seem— confused? taken aback? Well, a lot of land lusii aren't best pleased to meet a seadweller face-to-face, you've provoked any number of startle reactions from your crew's custodians just by showing up.

"Ah, you're Pancho's, aren't you?" you greet it softly. "Hallo, ma'am. Goodness, you must have known Kadros for ages, too— well, here he is, all one piece." You step aside for the creature to have a look.

((loggan: smells like girlfriend?? but isn't??? girlfriend?????))

 

so sick, so sick and afraid so sick and so afraid
(toomanyvoices) but then

not? so sick?​

wet animal smell: home

where are my fingers i know i had some around here somewhere (warm licking) there they are

touch​

fur​

remember how to smile​

 

"Well, that's the cutest thing I've seen all night," you remark, watching lusus and troll curl happily around one another. "Here, you'll let us adjust the lines and such on your chap, won't you, ma'am?"

The lusus manages to convey yes, of course, you dumbass very eloquently with two titchy little ears and the tip of a nose, and you finish taping the cords in place on his arm. She noses over the spot when you've finished and seems to find it acceptable, for she goes back to licking Kadros's neck and face with a businesslike air.

"You're going to get a shot in your fluffy butt for that, ma'am," you tell her. She tells you wow go fuck yourself, or something very much like, and you take the opportunity to sink on to a nearby cot for a bit of a sit.

"The Sergeant's working through the infected with a team of what medics are over there," you tell the four volunteers in the room. "A few of us should stay here, but I could use help extracting and cleaning the— medicated? innoculated?— patients. The chaps she gets to."

"We'll go," three of them say, and the fourth adds, "I'll keep an eye on things— and you— here, sir."

You glare a little. "I meant—"

"We know what you meant," one of them says. "But nah. Put your damn feet up, Cap."

The vote seems to be four to one, with Kadros abstaining. You flop back on your cot as petulantly as a man of your rank and station is capable of, which is very.

"I'll do it but I shan't like it," you tell the world at large, which does not care. The fourth medic gives you a pillow and tweaks your nose, then skips off laughing when you click your teeth at her.

Kadros is purring fitfully from right next to you. So it's not all bad.

 

Green lake water is for drifting. Warm, moon-dappled
not harsh like your blue sea, not loud like the sea, but still, smelly, homely, homelike.
Pancho's, and you also
are Pancho's.
Open your eyes (ache) under water under reeds.
Reeds under leafy branches
under one moon.

It's good.

White paw on your chest, long curving claws, smooth sickles like one moon, green eyes like one moon.



You speak, but all that comes out is the rustle of reeds.

 

You doze a bit, putter around the medbay passive-aggressively cleaning things while your disgraceful excuse of a subordinate giggles at you, doze for another bit, get bored, and tip Kadros and his new fluffy tumor over to one side for a good hair-combing. It's a horrendous mess, and still damp, so this should keep you busy for awhile. It'll be nice to present him in good shape to his moirail, though.

A small part of you suspects she might prefer to be the one to brush his hair out, but tough cookies to that. She could have gotten here faster if she wanted to. So there.

The lusus puts her snout up against Kadros's neck so she can whuffle at you whenever you get a hand close enough. It's a little unnerving.

"I'm Erskin," you tell her. "Erskin Aspera, at your service. I run this place. Even giggly twerps like that lady in the corner over there. I'm probably going to pitch her out the airlock when I'm done grooming your boy. Yes. Yes I am."

The lusus whuffles.

Well, it's nice having someone to talk to.

 

It takes sweeps to lift your hand onto the animal's head. Then animal's green eyes make happy crescents.
You know the animal. You cannot name the animal.

Coarse warm fur. Your palm is rough. Catches.

Close eyes. Timeskip. Open eyes. Hand no longer on animal. Animal now on hand.

You know this animal.

Hair is also a thing. The hair that is being touched belongs to you. It's attached to head skin, sore and gritty, attached to you, all the things that hurt are attached to you. But also some of the things that don't hurt.

Head: turn. Turn. Come on. It's not far. There, good.
Eyes open when did they close open.
Troll face watching you: scars, smile (trouble smile), chin (stubborn trouble chin), eyes like blackcurrant wine (liquid sass). It's a pretty good face.

You painstakingly craft and emit a sound: "Hi."

 

You grin delightedly. "Hallo, Kadros, you great big pain in the neck," you say. "How're you feeling?"

 

You roll the question around in your mind for a little while, then discard it as unanswerable.

You lift a hand that is simultaneously leadlike and jellyish. Slowly raise it to his face. Press the tip of your index finger to the tip of his nose, slightly off center.

"Boop," you explain.

 

"Ouch," you tell him. "You have defeated me, brave knight." You catch his hand and press a kiss to the fingerpad. You were so scared you'd never see him smile again— never touch him— to have lost him nearly as soon as you found him would have been so dreadfully unfair.

The fourth medical volunteer drifts by and passes you a small container of orange cubes. When you sniff one it appears to be frozen juice.

"The driplines are handling the dehydration but it'll give him something to do," she says. You nod, then take Kadros's hand and put a cube in his palm. You carefully close his fingers around it and enjoy the look of utter bewilderment that comes over his face.

"Put that in your mouth," you order him.

The lusus whuffs. You give her one too.

 

Fascinated by (I know this animal) snuffling the cold orange thing around on your stomach, you forget about the one in your hand until Blackcurrant Eyes guides your hand to your face.

PURE JOY occurs in your mouth.

!!!overload!!

 

"Must taste a lot better than spore soup," you comment, watching him happily maul the thing. He looks absolutely baffled when he manages to spill it on the floor, so you give him another and make sure both his hands are cupped before you leave him to his delighted snorfling. You try one yourself— it's watered-down to the point you can hardly taste the sweetness. Easy enough on the stomach, you suppose.

"How many of these do we have?" you ask. "We should probably make up a lot more. He's having a great time."

"I really hope the helmsman is recording this," the medical volunteer— Spider? you think she goes by Spider— comments. "I want a copy."

Kadros pauses, gags, heaves up a mucky grey glob all over his arm, examines it blankly, then resumes gnawing his ice. You accept a damp wipe from probably-Spider and clean him off before the lusus can lick it.

 

There is a time of delicious frozen treats and not-so-delicious vomit. A sort of... ice age! Your giggling makes trolls look at you. Green moon animal does not look at you.

Green moon animal has run out of ice. You share yours.

Eventually the vomit stops happening. Some time after that, you realize Blackcurrant Eyes has no ice. You offer him what you have left.

 

"No, dear, you keep it," you tell him, patting his shoulder. Before you can go get any more from the miniature thermal hull in the corner, the block's doors open and two of the three volunteers come back with soggy, exhausted no-longer-infected trolls slumped over in fourwheel devices. You get to your feet and catch yourself awkwardly on the side of Kadros's cot, torn between going to help and staying right here, between him and anything else.

 

He can't go away. You try to make this clear with your hand, which does a grippy thing on his arm even before you tell it to. Clever hand.

"You." Talking is hard. He's going to leave before you can figure out what to say. "Please."

 

You hesitate for a long moment, squinting into the churn of trolls and cords and chattery noises, then sigh and sit down on the edge of his cot."Alright, alright. I'm here."

He's bloody enormous but you're not so large you can't pile on with him and the lusus, once you toss a number of pillows off to the next cot for someone else to use. You get his big antlers against your shoulder and his head against your chest, and then you can just lie there and hold him and it's awfully nice, even when a horn tip accidentally rasps across a bit of one fin.

"Go fetch more ice," you tell the lusus, who flips her tail and disregards you utterly.

 

Context is absent in every direction, but what you know is that this is good. This is a thing you want. This is maybe a thing you have sought or needed or lacked, because there's relief with the comfort.

You try to explain: "I missed you. What's your name?"

 

"I'm Erskin," you tell him. After a bit of thought, you add, "You're Kadros." After a bit more thought, you add, "I forgot your first name, sorry."

 

"So did I," you muse, but the next moment it comes back: "Bel. I'm Bel. You're Erskin." You pat his chest experimentally. "You smell safe and your laughing is good."