THE SPACE NAVY AU (18+)

"Well, hello, I guess I'm doing this now," Twitch comments. After a moment's shoving and wriggling, she gets comfortable, and sticks a hand out to psionically retrieve her third sandwich from the floor. She determinedly packs it in, then picks a few crumbs out of Lu's hair, then yawns.

"I'm tired," she announces to the room at large. "Anyone know what I was up to tonight?"

 

"Just taking care of Lu, near as I can tell. She was pukey earlier." And you are taking care of them both, apparently. You message Lainey to please send you any work that can be done online or over the phone, because you're apparently watching kids tonight.

 

"Oh. But I'm all sweaty. And—" she holds out a hand, which is trembling, and her veins show a faint pink glow. "Were we wrestling...? Why would I wrestle her, she looks indigo, she'd crush me."

 

"No, you were playing tag with my lusus just a few minutes ago." You indicate the window; your dad is relaxing in his nest, idly tweaking his salvaged construction materials to make them look more like natural twigs. Good luck, Dad. "Before that you were taking care of Lu. She threw up at the cafeteria, so we all came here."

 

"Oh! Cool! Wow, he's so pretty," Twitch says, trying to sit up in a burst of enthusiasm. Lu objects to this, and the psionic subsides after a moment, a wondering smile on her face. "This girl is pretty too. Shit, I'm doing fine, aren't I?"

 

"Doing pretty good, yeah," you grin fondly. "I got some files sent over so I can work here, so you guys can nap as long as you like. Well, my moirail will get back probably around..." you check the time -- "three hours from now, that might wake you up. But she won't mind you two being here." And maybe Pancho can just casually make sure Lu's not suffering from anything worse than exhaustion and malnutrition.

 

"Okay. Okay. I'll do that, I think. Don't get mad if you startle me awake and I zap you though." Twitch closes her eyes and snuggles in.

 

"I won't," you assure her, meaning you won't startle her; you know better than to startle a sleeping psionic in any case. "Sleep well."

What follows is an extremely pleasant aftermidnight, quietly catching up on neglected paperwork, fielding occasional texts from Lainey and the department heads, and every once in a while glancing over at the couch to see the kids sleeping so peacefully, or out the window to watch your dad chew his toes and preen his flight feathers.

Near the time Pancho should be getting off-shift, you send her a message warning her what she's coming home to, and asking her to keep it on the down-low for now, as the kid is skittish. Pancho simply sends back a "!" -- but when she arrives with her fluffy entourage, the parents are keeping the pups close at hand, not letting them go surprise Twitch awake. One of Twitch's pink sparks could really hurt something that small. You kiss Pancho's cheek, and she hands you a stack of enticingly garlic-smelly food storage tubs.

"It's Pastageddon Night at the big caf, I figured we could stuff our guests full of spaghetti," she smiles.

 

Twitch raises her head sleepily from the cuddle pile at the smell of pasta.

"Am I supposed to be doing anything right now?" she mumbles.

 

"Wake up Lu and see if she feels up to eating. I know she wanted to meet the pups." You kind of have to dodge curious fluffballs as you help Pancho set the table; not allowed to go bother the girls, the baby beasties are involving themselves in pasta time.

As you both lean over the table to set something down at the same time, Pancho whispers in your ear, "Who did that to her horns, and if they're still alive, can I put dibs on killing them?"

"You'll have to ask her," you return sadly, and shrug. "She's scared, don't spook her."

 

"Lu," Twitch repeats, and runs her claws through Lu's choppy hair, then daringly goes in for a face snuzzle. "Hey, Lu, wake up. Hey. Hey, Lu. There's pasta. And baby lusii. Lu!"

 

The little low-grade mostly asleep purr you've got going on escalates into a tiny throaty trill at that faze snuzzle. "Mnnnh." You smell garlic and other nice food smells even before you open your eyes, but your bilesac turns over in a decidedly unpleasant way at the thought of eating anything. Your head also feels approximately a million pounds. You manage to return that face snuzzle and crack a smile. "Aww, fuck, I'd love to be all joining y'all and shit but maybe later? I dunno if I'm all being up for that carblicious partyzone, I might barf on your bro's shoes again." You blink your eyes open again, only half aware that they'd drifted closed in the first place. "But if you're needing some space, I can up and let them lil' puff babies join me up over here."

The puff babies are completely charming. They don't crowd your head at all, they're just happy, nosy little peepfaces. You lift your head a little more, with effort, and peer over at where Bel and a new troll are getting the food prep area put together. You observe the newcomer, taking in pretty horns and curly hair and a curvacious bod and a lovely, cheerful face all in one wide-eyed glance, before your face goes hot and you retreat under the covers. She is perfect, completely and utterly perfect, and you fall in love instantly.

 

"Okay, you keep sleeping if you need," Twitch says uncertainly. She lets herself off the sofa and crouches to have a look at the little fluffy herd.

"Hello, guys!"

(Jesse next)

 

You are momentarily distracted from your queasy guts by the spectacle of fluffpeeps. You are reduced to a grinning, cooing, teary-eyed lunatic--it's just been forever since you've been around animals, let alone BABIES. They're shattering your bloodpump into little bitty pieces. And their own delight at the world and all its curiosities isn't hurting either--you burst into helpless giggles as "your" tiny critter investigates your mask. You adjust the blanket to help it get comfortable, and note to anyone who might be concerned: "This shit's all being nontoxic, so you know."

You scritch the tiny along the scruff of its neck and sigh happily as it starts purring so hard you feel it through your clothes. It is kneading you, and you don't even mind its little prickleclaws--its little eyes are almost closed and its face is just so adorably doofy with happiness that you can barely stand it. Its thoughts are also full of joy: warmth and safety and pasta smells and you smells--it's always a little weird knowing how you smell to other creatures; kinda like watching yourself on a camera, except in your nose. There are also thoughts of Bel, which are amusingly close to yours earlier when you were mostly asleep: big, solid, deep voice, protective.

And then there's Pancho. Pancho is warm and soft and kind. Pancho has smooth, steady hands and long fingers that are good at petting. Pancho smells like herbs and tea and strong, harsh soap, and ever-so-faintly of blood. This doesn't surprise you, given that Bel said that she was a medic.

Just, damn. Where was she when you were looking for the burn cream?

Your head is pounding again, which feels really weird in contrast with your flushed cheeks and earfins. You probably look like an eggplant with paint on right about now.

You're also starting to feel kind of miserable, in spite of your awesome surroundings. The longer you try to stay up and follow the various threads of conversation, the worse you feel: the deep blushing morphs into a more vague, nervy burning sensation spreading down your face and chest, and your scalp prickles unpleasantly. When you scratch it, it burns. Your joints ache like you're on the verge of a flu, and before too long you become aware of a mild vertigo that's just enough to disorient you.

But you get the impression these folks won't find it terribly rude if you drift out of the conversation. Their voices don't bother you, you're just so tired and thinking is so hard...

But this couch is soft, and this little critter seems bent on using you as a pillow, and who are you to deny it anything? Without meaning to, you settle into a half-doze, lulled by the sound of pleasant conversation and clinking forks and peeping babies.

 

Twitch rolls around with the babies, helping pile them on Lu, then eventually leaves them all to it and goes to sit down where Bel and Pancho are busy with eating and telling each other about their night.

 

Talking to Jethro about aquaculture doesn't help so much with the nausea, but it does give you the focal point you need to work through the discombobulating fingers of synesthesia that tear at your body. From animals to coral and then to plants and then to the composition of soil, everything you've learned in your time here about pulling life out of raw stone and dirty water.

"No one on this ship ever goes hungry," you tell him fiercely. Proudly. "Never."

And if you'd known then what you know now— if you'd been hatched intelligent, if you'd put in any work at all to bettering yourself, at technology, at people, you could have known— you smooth the cube of dirt you're showing Jethro out into a vast plane. Black volcanic sand, hazings of white salt here and there. The stars above you like spearpoints.

"If I'd known," you say, and raise a dark cube up to study. You'd recreated your old home well enough, for your private block, you've got the facts and figures of mineral composition, humidity, solar exposure. The program's got a sort of architectural game in it, and you layer it over the clumsy dreamscape. Feed in what you know, feel the landscape firm up. Stones. Springs. Salt. You could have done better.

You get to work. It's easy to push through disorientation, even nausea, like this. Tiredness. Fear. You stack stones, dig wells, estimate what crops you might have traded for, had you made friends with the rare wanderers who came through instead of hidden from them. You explain what you're doing to Jethro, when he wants to know. He's easy to talk to. It takes hours, probably nights, but you have nights.

You build a tower, destroy it, build a fortress, destroy it, a bunker, destroy it. Dig out oases, erase them, wells, erase them, fountains, erase them. The final complex is a labyrinth of residential and storage and work blocks, much like your ship, though half underground, with pressure ventilation to carry cool air in and hot air out. Aboveground, irrigation channels from the spring send out long nurturing arms to a wide spreading field of root crops. Scale- and shellbeasts by the dozen forage the leafy tops you can't eat. There are birds.

You stand on the roof of one of the little above-ground blocks. You're done, you think.

"This is it," you tell Jethro. He's come up in his warm, quiet way to stand beside you. "This is what I could have done— could do. I'm. I'm better now. I'm so much better."

You wait to feel pride, or even satisfaction. Instead, horrifyingly, you feel your eyes burn. You scrub them with the back of your wrist, and it comes away wet, and your cheeks are wet right afterwards, and, and you sniff.

"All those sweeps," you murmur, the weight of it hitting all at once, sending you breathless, dizzy. "All those fucking sweeps I spent on rocks and sand and scraps."

You sit down, a bit more abruptly than you meant, and bury your face in your knees, your arms up to ward your horns, and do your absolute best not to cry.

 

You sit down next to him and put a hand on his back, between his shoulderblades; don't rub or pat, just leave it there. "Then isn't it awesome," you say quietly, "that you have so many sweeps ahead of you and a great big ship with so much empty space in it?"

 

"Yeah, I. Yes, I—I know. I know. I'm alright. I'm alright now. Everything's alright now." You get this out in strangled little bursts. You know this, don't you know this? Isn't this what you've always told yourself? You can't stop shaking. "It's— stupid, I'm stupid, I can't. I'm just. This is just. I'll be alright."

 

"You don't have to be," you point out, and it's as these words leave your mouth that you realize you're hopelessly pale for him.

Welp.

It's not like denial makes feelings go away, and the guy needs some moral support right now whether he wants pale attention or not, so you shelve your freakout for later and continue to focus on him. "You ain't stupid, bro, I didn't mean it's dumb to be bummed about the past. Just... it wasn't for nothing, you know? It wasn't wasted, cuz of what you can do with what you learned, you dig?"