THE SPACE NAVY AU (18+)

What. The. Fuck. That is adorable.

AD: the ship is totally fine! your crew is sorta worried about you but everything's basically chill.
AD: i don't know details cuz i'm a outsider basically, i arrived w/your doc yesternight, but folks are just going about their biz.

 

HS1: ok
HS1: tell Them ok im ok
HS1: TELL THEM
HS1: im Ok rit
HS1: rite ret reit how Bakspess?

 

AD: just kinda imagine the cursor going back and the letters disappearing.
AD: as for telling the ship, i wouldn't know how, but sigs told cmdr kadros & lt-cmdr gawker when you came out of surgery, is that enough?

 

HS1: yes ok shold be
HS1: so how much is left
HS1: of me cant tel

Your cautious nosings have found a part of wall that is not there. You slowly push your front bit over it. It's colder... if that's the edge of your tank you don't want to fall out. You wave a front bit slowly around in the cold while bracing with your other front bits. It hurts a lot. Something is making a fast, sour beep. Is this air? Are you breathing?

HS1: i want my head
HS1: did is my head on here i want it who has it
HS1: need for Ship!!
HS1: NEED HEAD FOR TO SHIP CAPTAN!!!!

 

AD: hey, careful, don't pull out your dripline.

You take his waving hand, give it a reassuring squeeze, and tuck it back down in the warm gel, checking his IV in the process. When this doesn't result in an explosion, you stand up and help him settle himself more comfortably in the netting hammock submerged in the warm gel as you continue talking to him.

AD: sigs didn't take off any more of your leg, don't worry. or i guess he might've taken some damaged tissue, but it's not any shorter.
AD: your head, bro? is that a typo?
AD: cuz your head is on your shoulders like usual, right where you left it.

You go so far as to pat the top of his head gently in case he can feel it. This is not pale flirting, this is just a demonstration to help him locate his cranium.

 

You relax a little, as hot, bright hands help define the edges and attachments of your body. With such sensation between your horns you can even feel your fins, flaring wide to catch his impression— green, like his text, calm, slow heartbeat, psionic but not very. When his hand withdraws you curl on your side and grab for your horns, breathing— probably breathing— in relief. Hands. Horns. Face. It's good to have a face to hide in arms you have and horns to rub at. A body. You can work with this.

HS1: ok
HS1: ok how do i fix
HS1: everything
HS1: OH CAN YOU SEND PICTURES??! WITH THIS? !!!

 

AD: sure can, dude! you gotta link to your local account, i'll walk you thru it, and then it's just like using your phone.

It takes a while, and not just because of his typos. You're starting to think it's not just panic and painkillers; he's genuinely horrendous with computers. Fortunately, the process isn't terribly complicated. You send the first picture, copied from your phone's memory, to demonstrate the concept.

AD:
AD: there ya go boss that's my lusus, he's super dignified
AD: oh, re your other q: you don't gotta fix everything. that's sigmah's job. what you gotta do is try to keep hold of your sense of self and stay lucid, and i'll be working with you on that.
AD: but you just got out of surgery, you can rest up some, it is ok to chill!

 

After ages of scrambled nothingness where your eyes should be, you're nearly overwhelmed with color and shape and clarity and meaning. This is the most beautiful thing you have ever managed to see. It takes awhile to figure out it's an arctic bear.

HS1: he is Handsome very nice

Then you read the rest of the message and get swamped with frantic urgency. You can't just rest, you've been resting, you've been doing absolutely nothing of any consequence besides lying around oozing on things for something like a perigee now! You can't rest, you've got a voice again.

HS1: but need tell pancho! said for list ship!! list for work ship things!!!

You're getting scrambled. You rub your horns and do your best to compose a reasonable explanation for why you need to get back in touch with your officers as soon as possible.

HS1: didnt get make instrutons bfore cripled in head
HS1: stuck lost nights lost now lost cant do fuckall
HS1: ship things tell lainey so much to do
HS1: CANT WAIT!!

 

You sigh. Time to find out if what Bel and Pancho told you about the culture on this ship is true. You might be signing your death warrant, but it's been a long time since you were scared of a little thing like criticizing your hemosuperiors.

AD: boss, i know you outrank me but you're being a real dumbass rn.
AD: what if it was one a them in that heal tank tonight, would you want them trying to get back on the job afore they was healed up?

 

You scowl.

HS1: not OFFICER im CAPTAIN Im It blus arnt rated for sunslamr cant do it
HS1: im for the ship its My job im For It
HS1: gally dosnt get sick nites

 

AD: look man, keeping busy is gonna be super helpful to your recovery but i'm not gonna lie, at this particular you are not fit to command jack shit.
AD: you will be soon if you focus on getting better.
AD: and like, WORK with me, ok? we haven't even started chemo, you're gonna be getting even more nerve static once that starts and if you ain't taking shit seriously you could end up with one or more senses permanently distorted or even gone.
AD: how you gonna feel next sweep if you're blind or deaf cuz you couldn't trust your officers to hold shit together for a few nights more?

 

Fuck. Fuck. You snuffle in helpless rage-fear and roll over in what's hopefully the direction facing away from wherever he is. FUCK. You feel so miserably useless and afraid. You worked so hard and everything came apart anyway. Everything's going to keep coming apart. You don't even want to command you just need to know everyone knows what they need to know. Which they don't. And you can't.

You hate everything. You are probably crying. You especially hate crying.

HS1: fuck you
HS1: fuck THIS

 

Aw hell, he cares so much and he's so scared, seadwellers aren't supposed to be like this. You like him for it. But you can't let him wreck himself.

AD: i know man, it sucks. but that's how it is.
AD: also it's hard to draw the line because like
AD: your officers are also your quadrants? so i wanna tell you you can have visitors, cuz that'd be good for your mood, except you can't be trying to work instead of rest.
AD: and sgt pancho is medical staff, so she could be allowed in here, but she's one of the ppl you wanted to give a list to.
AD: what am i gonna do with you, bro?

 

Holding your breath to keep the cry-noises in, you try to come up with something he'll accept.

HS1: Kadros
HS1: call kadros he cant lie hes not right allways but cant lie
HS1: if its all ok really he can say to me
HS1: what is
HS1: how ship is how i am if its all fucked
HS1: kadros

You try to convey Kadros better than just six letters, and send, clumsily:

HS1:

In the tank, in the image, you sit in the rusty grass. Fix your gaze expectantly on the distant, dark shore.

HS1: kadros

 

AD: whoa. that's uh.
AD: impressive.
AD: you've got a hell of an imagination there, boss.
AD: ok, i'll call bel for you.
AD: i mean, cmdr kadros.
AD: i'll leave the neural link open so you can play around with its capabilities. brb.

 

You'd relax while you waited, but whenever you forget to control yourself you make what are probably audible weepy distress noises and tense up again, holding yourself stiff and quiet for counts of ten, twenty, thirty. Menacing shapes move through the thick amber atmosphere of your picture-concept, huge sweeping things, angular and diseased.

It doesn't feel much like playing. It feels more like vomiting. You're producing this place, these things, but... not from anywhere you can really help. Not from anywhere meaningful or good.

To make some use out of the time, you compose a list of everything that you can remember that needs doing, though for all you know it's a perigee out of date. And has been done. Or compounded into a whole new set of problems to attend to. That's the thing, you don't know. You need to know.

When the texting square flickers and brightens— it's a scrap, now, a sort of leaf— you think perhaps someone has come back.

HS1: ?

 

AD: Hello, Trouble.
AD: Oh, I'm typing in green for some reason, just a second.
- AD has changed their text color to 120A8F -
- AD has changed their handle to crossfireHurricane [CH] -
CH: That's better.

 

HS1: bel!!!
HS1: mr green says hes my thrpist i gess is he?
HS1: but i need to know how is everything out there how is the ship crew everyone
HS1: whats wrong
HS1: so much i coldnt do!! but ic an now rite?

 

CH: Oh yeah, I guess Jethro was studying to be a physical therapist, Sigs must've corralled him into helping. He's a friend of mine from way back, very mellow, likes everyone. Writes very funny stories.
CH: Everyone is fine, quit tying yourself in a knot. It's like you think Lainey and I can't do our jobs without you patting our butts every five minutes. I'm offended.
CH: See, I'm pouting right now.
CH: Oh, your depressing background image is 3-D, I could actually show you the pout maybe.
CH: One moment.

This system uses a slightly different command set from what you're used to, and it also seems to respond intuitively to impulses, which turns out to be more confusing than helpful to someone who properly learned to use a training simulator, though it's undoubtedly how Erskin managed to create this sort of -- it's not really an environment, it's more like a diorama, like a stage with an animated backdrop. Rather than try to visualize yourself into it by instinct the way Erskin presumably did, you use text commands to pull up your own training profile. So when you step into his miniature world, you're dressed in full battle rattle with captain's insignia on your shoulder, armed to the teeth, and carrying a backpack full of explosives.

You shrug out of the backpack and weapons harness, drop them with a loud clank. Your armor jacket too, because it chafes, even as a simulation. Then you look around, appreciating what your rival has built with his mind.

"It's lovely, in a gloomy way. Disturbing and ethereal. I like it. Is it original, or a reference to an artist I'm not familiar with?"

 

When Bel steps through the doorway of night you scramble to your feet— feet! plural! you don't let yourself think about it— and throw your arms around his neck. You're breathing hard, agonized with relief that someone's in here with you. Bel's at least as dangerous as those burning things off in the distance.

After a minute of clinging, you remember how out-loud words go.

"No, it's, I don't know. I don't know how this works. It came out of me. It's what's in me. It's... you?" you point at the small, squarish cup of blue sky, the little doorway to the distant shore. "I was trying to tell Jethro who you were. When I asked for you. This bit is you. I guess the rest is... me." You look back over your shoulder at the murky bone-char wasteland, the crawling, crumbling, infested groundcover. "Flattering, what?" you try to laugh.

((erskin probably looks very young right now))