Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

She did it. She did it and it didn’t feel any better than she’d thought it would. As the ringing left her ears she glanced down at curly. He wasn’t very expressive anymore, but his eyes were moving around frantically.

“I fixed it Captain…” she said softly, putting the gun back in its case. “I’m… we’re going home.”

Curly looked at Jimmy's crumpled corpse on the floor and seemed to let out a sigh of relief.

“Now… he was the only one who knew how to fly this ship… but I think we can manage, can’t we?”

Curly didn’t respond, he couldn’t. He could only wheeze, grunting out Anya’s name.

“Yeah. Yeah we're gonna fix this.” She smiled, and it looked broken, and part of Curly was afraid, so deeply afraid.

Anya kicked at Jimmy’s corpse. She began to step out of the room before turning to quickly grab the gun. She unloaded the pistol and walked out with it in her hand.

Telling Swansea and Daisuke was complicated. Daisuke at first was seemingly glad, Swansea was shocked. Anya gripped the pistol, the heavy steel machine being her sign of authority, her security. The gun was empty, but she didn’t know how the others would react, so they didn’t need to know it was empty.

“What do you mean you shot our acting captain?! Why the fuck would you-“

“He’s an idiot. Was an idiot.” Anya said, fists balled, “but- but we don’t-… we can get home now.”

“How… we don’t- we don’t have a pilot.” Daisuke pointed out,

“We have curly.” Anya said, “he’s still… conscious in there. Maybe he can guide us.”

Swansea frowned, “the cockpit is full of foam and barely works. How is this gonna work?”

“Clear the foam. We fix the autopilot and take it to our destination. We’re so far from earth it would take too long to get back.”

“Yeah cause that’s gonna be easy!” Swansea frowned, then sighed, “it’s… it’s probably doable.

“What… what about the body?” Daisuke asked, “we can’t just-…”

Anya glanced back over her shoulder, “we… we could throw him out of the airlock. Say he was flung from the ship in the crash.”

Swansea nodded, “yeah well that’s what we’re going to have to do now! Fuck sake.” Swansea rushed off to the cockpit, axe in hand to carve out the foam, leaving Daisuke and Anya alone,

“Y’know jimmy always creeped me out. Even before the crash. You ever get that feeling too?” He asked, fidgeting.

“Yeah… yeah something like that.” Anya squeezed his shoulder, pocketing the gun, “I-… curly needs his meds.”

“I can help!” Daisuke said,

“P-please do. It’s…” she trailed off without finishing her sentence,

“I know. But hey, you’re really good as a leader so far! You’re, like, really smart!”

Anya smiled, “thank you Daisuke.”

Chapter Text

Curly was in and out of consciousness. His vision never truly darkened, really just blurred until there was nothing but grey smears in his line of sight. He knew they were in stasis, he knew Jimmy was dead. He knew they were on their way to deliver the payload still.

When he thawed all he felt was raw burning pain again. He was caught in coolness, a blanket around him like the cool water of the ocean. God he missed the ocean. He knew he’d never feel the ocean again, never feel sand or the sun.

Someone was speaking to him.

A distant voice.

Far away, farther than he had ever traveled, distances that likely added up to light years.

“Pain is merciful.”

“-pain captain?”

Curly lifted his head. He was held by someone in a space suit, their helmet off. He tilted his head.

“I said, would you like something to manage the pain, Captain Curly?”

Curly nodded as best he could and then felt a warmth flow through him as a paste was carefully rubbed into his gums.

As he fell through the warmth he saw Jimmy standing in the doorway, swaying like a hanged body , half his face a bloody mess of bone and brain, they had the opposite eyes intact. Two halves of a wretched whole. He glanced back at the rescuer and then the doorway again and Jimmy was gone.

“Our… copilot. He overrid the navigation system. Crashed us into an asteroid… it’s a miracle we didn’t crash when we got here…” Anya said, wincing at the pain in her joints and the nausea filling her. “our pilot, our captain. He was… well you saw him. So the chain of command said Jimmy was in charge, he appointed himself and blamed Curly for the crash…”

“And then what happened, Miss Terrace?”

“He-… we found him out, some other things he’d done had come to light and I was appointed operating captain as Cu- as our captain was still unable to act as captain. We managed to repair the cockpit enough to get the autopilot functioning and with the captain’s limited guidance I managed to reset the autopilot and set a course for our delivery destination. Life supports were failing and we had run out of food. the others then went into cryo for the remainder of our journey, with only one person the food lasted longer, as did the oxygen supply. I knew it should be me as I was both the most experienced one and needed the least caloric intake to survive”

“It’s a miracle you were able to pilot the ship to land all on your own. Miss Terrace-“

“Please, Anya is fine.”

“Anya. We didn’t find the body of James Fields anywhere on the vessel, can you tell us what that may be about?”

Anya looked the detective in the eye and told Him. It wasn’t entirely a lie, not really. Jimmy had sealed his fate the moment he turned that key, he knew he wasn’t coming home. He meant to take everyone with him of course. But, Anya got lucky this time. This time it was her choice who got to go home.

“He killed himself.”she said, “the crew turned on him, he realized he lost control. He finished the job he started in the first place, in a way. Just… took the murder out of his murder suicide.”

Chapter Text

They had him hooked up to so many machines. A camera pointed at his eye helped him to communicate while an IV slowly dripped morphine into his body. The first things he was asked was his name. The robotic voice read what he spelled out,

“Grant Curly”

“Alright. Grant, do you know where you are?” the doctor asked. Curly glanced at the police officer in the room, a detective given their lack of uniform besides a badge around their neck and note taking. the two of them stood wearing what looked like hazmat suits, and he was in an incredibly blank and sterile room. An airlock separated his room from the hallway of the hospital and he could just barely read "Immune-Compromised Patient" written on a warning sign near his door. Curly remembered Anya mentioning something about him being open to infection while on the Tulpar but he was frequently delirious from pain during that time.

“Hospital.” he spelled out, the machine autofilling midway through. The doctor opened her mouth but Curly interrupted her, the computer taking longer than either of them had anticipated to speak for him, “Am I home?”

“You’re in the colony on Teegarden B. Your vessel, the Tulpar, had a water landing. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” there were a few words on screen that were auto filled. “the others?” he asked.

The doctor hesitated. The detective intervened, glancing up from his notes “the other survivors were in cryo-stasis with you.”

“Who landed us?” he asked

The doctor glanced at the detective, he nodded and she answered, “Your ship’s nurse, Anya Terrace.”

“Anya? Is she ok?” curly asked, the brief moment of pride in her ability to land the ship based on limited instructions that he felt was quickly overshadowed with concern for her wellbeing and a hint of shame.

“Yes… she seemed exhausted when we found her, and had been surviving off of diminished oxygen canisters from the medical bay of the Tulpar. You’d been… knocked off course, so your arrival was slightly later than planned oxygen supplies would permit.” the detective answered,

“He- don’t overload him with information.” the doctor said to the detective,

“No!” curly said, surprised by how harsh the exclamation point made the no from the computer. He then typed out, “please tell me.”

The detective frowned,
“According to your nurse your copilot tried to destroy the ship to kill himself and the rest of the crew. Injured you in the process, and then killed himself when the crew found out what he’d done. Apparently he found out the company had gone bankrupt and... overreacted.”

Curly nodded, painful as it was, “go on?”

“Does that sound accurate to you, captain?” the detective asked instead.

“Yes.” curly selected, “I remember the crash. Everything’s a blur after.”

“I see. Thank you for your time, captain.” the detective said as he left, “and feel free to tell us if you remember anything.”

Curly started to nod again before the doctor stopped him, “Grant, please. You’re… you need to rest. Do you have an idea of how severe your injuries are?”

“Yes. only one eye. No lids. No lips. No skin.” curly typed, “phantom pain, hands.” as he typed curly grew frustrated, “awedscfrfvghgdvbhyrdssdr” the letters filled in as he dragged his line of sight across the screen.

“I- I see. I’ll leave you to your rest, Grant, and check on you in the morning.” The Doctor said

“Jimmy's body?” he typed

The doctor gathered his meaning, “they… didn’t find his body. You were listed as his only emergency contact in his employee file, I'm sorry you won't be able to bury your friend, Mr.Curly.”

Curly nodded. “When can the others visit?”

“They’re recovering from cryo, they were only under for a few months so it isn’t as severe as it could be for them. They will have to wear hazmat suits like me and the detective, you don’t have skin anymore so your risk of infection is very high.”

Curly nodded again and typed “dark please. Sedation?”

The doctor frowned, “I’m afraid the drug cocktail you’re on paired with the severity of your injuries would not allow for us to safely sedate you.”

“Ok. lights off?”

“Sure thing. Your screen has a nurse call button if you need anything.” the doctor said as she left.

“Are you sure about this Anya? What if the remote doesn’t work on your pod?” Daisuke asked as he sat against the soft back of the chair.

“Come on, doubting you and Swansea’s work? You’re gonna scare me Dai.” Anya smiled, but her hands shook as she helped Daisuke strap himself in.

“Just promise you’ll wake one of us up if it doesn’t, ok?” Daisuke smiled nervously at her, noticing her hands shaking.

“You know it.” she said as she activated Daisuke’s cryopod.

Anya went to help Swansea secure himself, giving him a look to wait until Daisuke was unconscious before commenting.

“Just gonna lie to the kid?” Swansea asked, once Daisuke was under, “I don’t blame you… but-”

“It’ll be fine.” she said, harshly clicking Swansea’s seat belt over his chest as Swansea handled the lap seat belt. “It'll be fine.” she said again, more softly.

Swansea nodded, “just- wake me up if you need it. I assume you have a plan but…”

Anya knew what Swansea meant. As much as she could learn from the manuals strewn about the ship on how to care for it she knew the work ahead of her was hard. All with the fact that she had to be sure she wasn't pregnant when they got to Teegarden B or else she would have to explain why she was pregnant with Jimmy's baby. That explanation would lead to suspicion, motive to kill.

“I mean without you guys the air and food might last me twice as long!” Anya laughed shakily at her own deflective joke.

“I mean it, Doc. If anything unexpected happens and you need help I won’t mind. Gives me something to focus on.”

Sometimes Swansea called her that, it felt endearing and it made her feel more confident about her future. Maybe that's why he did it. He sometimes talked about his kids with Anya and she was generally glad they had Swansea. Below the gruff exterior and high expectations he was kind.

“I know… thanks Swansea.”

Swansea nodded as the cryopod activated. With a low hiss and a deep electric hum Anya found herself alone on the Tulpar, and for a moment the tension in her shoulders finally relented.

Chapter Text

Anya stared at the application as she sat on her girlfriend’s bed. Paid training and testing to practice medicine on a freighter vessel wasn’t such a bad proposition. And besides, after a few deliveries she could always quit and reapply to med school, saving up money from the job and having clinic hours on top of that.

“You know Pony Express is dangerous as hell, right, and they’re super unethical with how they treat employees?” Shannon ran a hand through Anya’s then short hair before kissing the top of her head,

“Yeah, but I’m sure I can handle it.” Anya said, leaning into Shannon,

“I don’t know how you can stand it, giving them your labor.” she stared into the middle distance, her green eyes flitted about like small birds.

“I don’t- I need to be a doctor, Shannon. I need to help people.”

“You can do that here!” Shannon smiled and laughed, “why sell out?!”

“I wouldn’t call it selling out…”

Shannon’s smile got sad, “yeah… yeah that was mean.” She sat beside Anya on the bed and rested her head on her shoulder,

“It’s just… if I get this job I can come back and start med school!” Anya smiled.

“Yeah… I guess I just want you all to myself.”

“But-“ Anya hesitated, but she’d already started, “I don’t think we can work like that.”

“I know.” Shannon sighed, “I know…”

Shannon and Anya broke up at the end of that month, and Anya got the job at Pony Express. And everything that happened happened. Anya didn’t blame Shannon, she couldn’t have saved her. Anya was destined for the stars and nothing could have changed that. There was something bigger for her, bigger than she knew, a thread drawing her upward and away.

Anya, in her time alone on the Tulpar, would frequently wonder what Shannon ended up doing after they broke up. Her band was starting to make a name for itself, Anya hoped that went well. Shannon had been like a fire that Anya could sit beside to keep warm, but she’d be lying if she said she never got burned.

“I should call her if I survive this…” Anya said aloud to herself as her footsteps echoed down the empty halls.

She got to work scrubbing Jimmy’s blood and brains out from the floor and walls of the ship on the first day on her own. scrubbing it out of her uniform, out of the airlock’s floor. She put the gun back where it had been kept before the crash, sat next to the autopilot override key. The beginning and end of what Anya would, in a tongue in cheek way, call Jimmy’s exit from employment.

“To Grant Curly, destined for greatness and gracious enough to share!” Jimmy raised his glass, speaking as if this were his first toast when he was two pints deep.

“C’mon man we’re celebrating you! I already had the job.” Curly said, clinking his glass against Jimmy’s. They’d been drinking since Jimmy got the email confirming his employment with Pony Express and his assignment to the Tulpar with Curly.

“I wouldn’t be here without you.” Jimmy smiled. A genuine smile, curly didn’t see it much on him. Curly always thought it looked good. He didn’t wear it much, usually more of a joking sneer or a frown was on his face.

“I wouldn’t either, Jimmy.” Curly smiled,

“Oh please, you’d manage.”

“I mean it.” Curly said, grabbing Jimmy’s wrist. Jimmy glared at Curly’s hand and he took it away, “I mean you’ve always been there for me. Always had something we could do to distract me from it all. The least I could do was help you out.”

Jimmy nodded, looking away. Curly watches him draw into himself again. He always wanted to peel back the layers, to see what small animal existed inside Jimmy and hold it gently. Jimmy didn’t talk about his family much but what he said never sounded good. Sometimes when Jimmy got angry at himself Curly would hear him whisper about being just like his father before punching a wall or bottling up. Curly wanted to wash that away from him, hold him and make something new to fill the whole of what was missing in him.

“Hey, this is gonna be awesome.” Curly said, nudging Jimmy with his elbow, “I mean we’re really gonna be seeing the stars together, like we used to talk about.”

“I’ll never shake you off, will I curls?”

“You’re stuck with me Jim.” Curly smiled, “And I’m stuck with you so come on let’s drink till we get a smile on your face that stays!”

Jimmy laughed, “I’m gonna drink you under the table blondie.”

In hindsight it was all so obvious. All so clear. But Curly never really looked at anything without optimism and the belief that he could help, and that helping would be easy. It never is, real help, real work, it’s never easy. But that’s what makes it mean something. Fond memories were all stained, Jimmy’s smile made his bones feel like they were burning. Every microsecond he wasn’t distracted Curly thought of the crash. Thought of the fucking betrayal. He knew Jimmy was dangerous if he was left alone, but curly always thought he’d have an eye on him. He thought he’d be able to carry it all, be a nice enough verbal punching bag that Jimmy didn’t stray.

A sick and selfish part of him felt like Jimmy cheated on him with Anya. He was supposed to be the one Jimmy hurt, the one that Jimmy begged for forgiveness, the one that Jimmy laughed at and for and with. He knew better than to feel that way fully, but it still gnawed at the back of his head like a termite. Curly blamed himself in a number of ways, more so after the crash than before. But early on he almost felt like he didn’t break pretty enough anymore. His pain didn’t keep Jimmy satisfied anymore and Jimmy just had to seek out a new toy.

Logically curly knew that was nonsense, that the thought was probably just years of manipulation talking. But it still felt that way. He still followed that feeling and it still led to ruin. He would make it right, he had to. He just had a better chance this time than ever.

Chapter Text

Alone in the utility room Anya sighed. There was a certain peace to being alone, she wouldn’t need to worry about the autopilot. But there was of course the other problem.

There were not any abortion medications in the available medical supplies. But there were medications, side effects that Anya knew would maybe help. And luckily the Pony Express’s general neglect of its female employees left a blindspot. No negative pregnancy tests required for prescription. Diclofenac, definitely for acute chronic pain, Benzos were for sure for her anxiety, ibuprofen because the diclofenac sometimes falls short, and misoprostol for the inevitable ulcers of course.

It wasn’t the safest option.
It was the only option.

Anya had been on benzos early in college, but they didn’t help her, just made her more anxious and affected her dreams. The ibuprofen and diclofenac could box her liver and dehydrate her, and if she wasn’t careful she could bleed out from the entire process considering all the meds combined definitely slowed her clotting speed. But she would be careful.

She wouldn’t start all the meds at once, wouldn’t stress her body, and she would survive.

“Miss Terrace?” her doctor asked, pulling her out of her own mind, “are you feeling alright today?”

“Yes. yes thank you for asking…”

“We’re going to do another cognitive test, ok?”

“Of course.” checking on how her brain handled the low oxygen.

The questions were math questions along with memory tests, short and long term. Doctor Laurence smiled each time Anya got a question right, Anya noticed the way her eyes crinkled when she smiled. She had a kind smile.

After the test Doctor Laurence set her own and clipboard down and folded her hands, “may I ask, was there any particular reason you were taking benzos? I understand the stressful situation, but your medical record suggests you had an adverse reaction to them.”

Anya nodded, “they make me anxious, paranoid. But… that specific feeling felt familiar. Made me feel how I felt when I was in college, undergrad. It reminded me of a simpler time.”

Laurence nodded, then got up to shut the blinds and leaned close. Her gold and blue braids curtaining over her and Anya’s faces,

“You can tell me y’know. Doctor patient confidentiality applies more on these colonies than on earth sometimes. You’re safe over here.”

Doctor Laurence held her hand, a steady weight, though her hands were smaller than Anya’s and softer they felt like a shield. Armor over her vulnerable self. There’s an honesty in her eyes, and hope. So much hope. For a moment Anya wonders why it’s there, what’s she hoping for? Then she realized it was hope that Anya would open up, hope that Any would listen and follow her down this road safely. That earnest hope drives Anya to feel safe, to accept that this is a place where she will be safe and listened to and most of all protected.

Anya met her eyes then looked away.

“Benzos… Ibuprofen… misoprostol.” Doctor Laurence murmured the list of medications Anya had been self administering.

“Yes.” anya said, “i-... I was raped. I got pregnant. I- look I know-“

“It’s ok! It’s ok.”

Anya nodded, “I knew what to do, I knew that route wasn’t the safest option in the world but it was the safest option available. I survived.”

“You did. I’m proud of you. I assume the meds were…”

“To induce miscarriage. We didn’t have anything to block progesterone but… I guess the meds along with the stress and slight starvation towards the end all helped to mess up my hormones enough anyway. I forced my body to prioritize my survival.”

Doctor Laurence nodded, “may I ask… Jimmy, did he-“

“Jimmy killed himself.” Anya’s eye contact made her meaning clear. Doctor Laurence understood her.

“Yes. Of course.” The doctor said, “You’re clear for discharge, but you can stay as long as you need.”

“I don’t-… I can’t afford to stay.”

“We have a fund for people from off the colony seeking treatment.”

Anya nodded, “may I ask, I never really stay at these colonies for long, and we don’t get much news from them back on earth. What is it like here?”

Doctor Laurence smiled, then frowned, “we’re… in a privileged position to be here. Our ancestors came here, terraformed this little pocket of the planet for us, and set us up well. But they weren’t… they were the wealthiest on earth. It’s not wrong to say they abandoned everyone else.”

Anya nodded, listening,

“I think we should open ourselves to more colonists and citizens, but some say things are too bad on earth. I don’t know much of what it’s like there.”

“There’s pockets that are safe, terraformed after everything that’s gone wrong. But the rest of the planet is mostly smog. Some places where there’s a season of acid rain every year. But the underground architecture in those places can be something to behold… we’re surviving. It’s part of why I took this job. I wanted to get away.”

The doctor nodded, “I feel things changing. Moving. Do you?”

Anya hesitated then said, “I think things are different now, that’s for sure.”

Daisuke stood in the hazmat suit in Curly’s room, smiling down at him, “y’know you look a lot better captain! It’s good to be able to talk with you again now!”

“How are you?” The voice was still robotic, the doctors said they could try to make a voice profile from his captain’s logs over the years, but it would take a while. Until then Curly's voice was a setting in a computer called “British man 2”

“I’m alright. I was pretty dizzy after they got us out of cryo, but Anya seemed exhausted! I guess cryo sleep isn’t really sleep, it’s kinda just a pause on your whole body. Swansea’s been talking to the counselors and so has Anya.”

“Have you?”

Daisuke seemed to avoid the question, “but yeah this tech is pretty cool, huh? It tracks your eye right, and you type? Like that uh… that guy, from… a while ago? The scientist? Jeez, there’s a planet somewhere named after him I think I forget-”

“Daisuke.” The computer mispronounced his name. Curly rolled his eye at that, but Daisuke laughed,

“Yeah boss?”

“Are you ok?” Curly looked at him pointedly.

Daisuke frowned, shuffling in the sterile suit and making a rustling sound. “My mom and dad were worried. I didn’t think we would be that late and they told me to call them as soon as we were in the colony. I had a feeling we’d be ok but… I didn’t- I dunno…. Anyway, my dad has a cousin here apparently, kinda distant though. They share a great grandfather I think.”

“Teegarden, nice place.” Curly typed. Daisuke nodded,

“They said something about growing you skin? At least to protect you from infection.”

Curly nodded, “hopefully eyelids first. Sleep’s weird with none.”

Daisuke winced and forced a laugh, “jeez yeah I bet… um… Captain can I ask you something?”

“Yes.”

Daisuke hesitated, clearly worried about what he had to ask.

“Was Jimmy… always like that?”

Curly looked away, thinking,

“Im sorry! I know that’s a really complicated question!”

“It’s ok.” Curly typed. “He was always…” Curly paused and the computer sent the message out early, he then continued “he was always slightly off. I thought he was getting better.”

“Oh…” Daisuke looked disappointed, “I just thought… I didn’t think you’d- never mind!”

“Daisuke?”

“It’s ok! Um… I’m gonna call my mom and dad again! See you later captain!”

Curly stared at the ceiling thinking about what Daisuke asked him. Thinking about the blur of horror Jimmy had committed. He thought about how he saw Jimmy before that. How there were times when Jimmy frightened him and Curly told himself it was just butterflies. Curly thought Jimmy was capable of change, he thought he could fix Jimmy. Look where that got him.

Chapter Text

Curly’s mind wandered to a memory that night, though his eye did not close he still dreamt, the scene played out for him like a film he was forced to watch, eyes held open like a clockwork orange.

“It’s a great opportunity! Easy money and we’d be able to hang out. C’mon just try out, a trip or two, it’ll be great!” Curly smiled,

“I don’t have a pilot’s license, man.” Jimmy rolled his eyes, glaring a little.

“They have flight simulators and tests you can do online!” Curly said, squeezing Jimmy’s shoulder, “they’re looking for pilots and hey, I need a copilot!”

They stood outside Jimmy’s apartment building, having spent the evening out doing little of importance. Curly handed Jimmy a flier for Pony Express’s pilot openings for their cargo vessels. Some of the further colonies had just approved the company for shipment to them from earth and the company was hiring.

Jimmy nodded, smiling, “someone’s gotta make you look cool, otherwise you’re more of a golden retriever.” He joked,

“Ah come on you’re cool, like a hound dog! You’ve got that… brooding sort of aesthetic! Like a Byron protagonist.” Curly was animated as he spoke, exaggerating himself a bit to keep Jimmy interest in the hopes that he would take him up on the offer.

“Byron?”

“The author?”

“Right.” Jimmy didn’t seem to get what Curly said, seemingly a little angry about that.

“Anyways I really would be happy if you tried for the tests. Think about it, you and me, seeing the stars!” Curly was already hired, having had his starship pilot’s license for at least three years at that point and with his degree in cosmonautic physics there was no way Pony Express would turn him down. In all honesty he could have gotten a better job at a better company. But none of them would have taken Jimmy along with him, and Curly felt bad to leave him on earth. Jimmy’s roots had dug so deep into him already, in some ways damaging him enough that he would likely barely be able to stand without him like a concrete building covered in roots and vines.

“Sounds kinda romantic, you coming on to me curls?” Jimmy joked again, but there was a threatening edge to his voice. Jimmy was rarely directly homophobic, but he would sometimes play chicken with curly verbally, like repeatedly drawing out a rubber band to let it snap back into place. He’d feign vulnerability and then shut off. Curly always wondered if that was him testing Curly or flirting with him. Either way it didn’t really matter, it kept Curly wrapped around him until the end.

“No! No I just think- I mean girls think pilots are cool, right?” Curly laughed

“I’ll be a copilot.” Jimmy’s smile fell, he didn’t look angry but he didn’t look excited. A cold neutrality on his face.

“That’s still a pilot.”

Jimmy didn’t say anything. He pocketed the job flier and walked off towards his apartment.

Curly, in this memory of his, turned to look at himself, like a character breaking the fourth wall in a film. He smiled, it was a sad smile, “you wanted him to see you. You wanted it so bad that you didn’t really see him until it was too late, huh? You played with fire, Grant. Did you really think he’d want you? Realize he was bi up in space? Maybe you’re just as bad as he is, keeping him like a caged bird hoping he’ll learn to love you, to want you?”

Curly wheezed, shaking his head, even in his own dream he couldn’t speak.

“Cat got your tongue?” The younger version of himself asked, growing meaner, “maybe you thought cause you’re trans he’d be open to it. Enough of a girl that he’d want you? Debasing yourself.”

Curly shook his head again, harder, crossing his arms over his chest,

“You were something good once. Now look at you. Scrambling to be a man and failing like a boy.” Curly’s own face in his dream warped into Jimmy’s as fists came down onto him. In all their time together Jimmy never knew about him. Curly thought about telling him, but the part of his brain that knew better, the part that screamed at him when Jimmy confessed to his fantasy of crashing the ship, told him not to. Then they were in space, and curly knew he could never tell him then, and they’d only be back on earth briefly before the next job so there was never a good time.

Never a good time.

Anya paced the corridors in her free time, which there was a lot of. She maintained the ship, reading instruction manuals Swansea had left. Maintaining the whole ship was tiring, but at the very least she didn’t have to do her medical duties beyond taking her own medication and checking the crew’s vitals every once in a while. And beyond that there wasn’t much else to do, she was really only filling in for Swansea and curly and without a crew to manage and with the ship on autopilot there wasn’t much to do, solidifying the fact in Anya’s mind that jimmy truly did nothing on this fucking ship.

“I did plenty.”

A voice echoed through the hall. Anya gripped her wrench. Jimmy’s voice rattled through the corridors, louder than even the gun shot was, in her mind at least.

“We threw you out. I saw you depressurize. Even if you survived the shot you’re dead.” Anya said aloud, more reminding herself that Jimmy was gone. She was hallucinating. There’s no way Jimmy could have survived any of what happened to him.

“But there’s still a piece of me.” Anya felt a pain in her abdomen,

“Oh don’t worry I’m handling that too. I’m fixing everything you broke.” She ground her teeth and continued her repair of one of the water distribution pipes.

“I was trying.” The voice said. Any felt a chill up her spine from her tailbone to the top of her skull, she imagined that’s how cats felt when they puffed their fur to look big, “trying my best….” She almost felt his breath on her neck.

“Then your best effort is fucking pathetic.” Anya said, she felt odd speaking aloud to ghosts on the empty freighter, it made her consider drinking some of the mouthwash like Swansea had, but she knew the alcohol and the Xanax mixing could kill her. Which meant everyone else would die when they arrived at their destination. Hell it could risk serious damage to the colony as well when the ship got into landing distance.

So yeah, drinking the voices away was not an option.

“You’ll see. This job wears you down. Makes you something you aren’t. The dark makes monsters of us all. Believe it or not I was good once. Why else would Curly like me?” Anya’s heart raced but the adrenaline added gasoline to a fire of anger inside her head.

“Oh please! I read your file, the one curly kept kept hidden.” She packed her tools and made her way back to the captain's quarters. The room was nicer than the others, which makes sense, and the only room with a connecting bathroom. she kept speaking as she went to check the sink was working, running cool water into the basin, “You were already a fucking creep. I don’t know what curly saw in you but it was as real as this bullshit is now.”

“Swearing like a real sailor, Baby.”

Anya frowned, splashing water in her face, “it is what it is.”

“It sure is, isn’t it?”

Anya took her pills.

Chapter Text

“So you’re planning on suing?” Swansea asked, poking at his food,

“Yeah I mean, sure Jimmy did a lot but it’s not like he’s an anomaly, y’know?” Anya said, “he should’ve never been on that ship in the first place, I mean he had like three aggravated assault charges. He was a violent person that also had a record of not responding well to confined spaces.”

Swansea nodded, “curly probably told Pony Express that Jimmy had changed.”

Anya glared at her plate, “yeah well he lied and they should have checked him.”

“You have my support if you need it. I’m… I'm tired of just being angry and doing nothing.” Swansea rolled a 24 hour sobriety chip in his fingers, a black enamel and metal coin with a tree on it, “24” being embedded in its roots. The chip had been given to him when he went to a meeting at one of the twelve step groups that met at the hospital.

“Y’know it was months between you going under and ending up here.” Anya pointed out, gesturing to the coin. She was eager to change the subject, and it was nice that Swansea was being more forthcoming with his emotions.

“Yeah. But for me, as far as the choices I’ve made, it’s really only been a day.” Swansea stared at the coin, “so I’ve only been sober for a day. I told my wife I broke my sobriety. She wasn’t thrilled about that but she understood. I think she was more sad for me than disappointed.” Swansea sighed, taking a sip of his water before continuing, “I thought we were going to die. Thought it was all over, but here we are. We have to survive now, don’t we.”

Anya sighed, “yeah.”

“Otherwise it wasn’t worth it.” Swansea said, looking away. Anya knew he really only meant him breaking his sobriety. His attitude towards killing Jimmy didn’t go any further than “he deserved it.” At that point in time, he’d been worried about landing the ship before but Anya pulled it off and that worry left him. It bothered Anya a little that he doubted her but then again up until the gun was in her hand she hadn’t really known what to do either.

They sat in silence for a while. Anya thinking about what Swansea said. She knew she had to kill Jimmy, but she also took an oath to do no harm when she joined the crew, as flimsy as any oath to Pony Express may be it meant a lot to her. And she killed someone. It had to be done, but if she doesn’t keep living, if she doesn’t use her life to make things better, then she broke that oath for nothing. That was what she thought at least.

“When I called my wife she said she had been worried sick, said the company wasn’t responding to her calls and emails.”

“That tracks, they weren’t exactly very swift to respond. they didn’t even notice the auto-distress signal. Hell I was never able to turn that thing off. It just kept beeping every time I was in the cockpit.”

“Are you ok, by the way? I mean you were completely alone for months. That drains ya.”

Anya stared at Swansea for a moment as he mentioned her isolation. She remembered how the axe felt in her hands as she stared at him months ago, contemplating destroying the cryo pods. How she felt it would be so easy to just kill herself and everyone on board. How she’d almost ended it all while her mind spiraled. How her mind had told her that killing them in cryo didn’t make her like Jimmy because they wouldn’t feel it, it would be so humane, more humane than surviving even. She remembered the shadows at the corners of her eyes.

“Yeah!” She smiled softly, “it’s good to be talking again! I missed you guys but it was alright, kinda nice to have more time to myself to read.”

Swansea looked at her suspiciously but didn’t push it further, “y’know these colonies are semi-sovereign? Commonwealths technically. Apparently since the US sent this one out like a hundred years ago. You could stay here. I mean you said you didn’t really have much to go back to.”

Anya nodded, “I’m thinking about it. I might… I might send my ex an email, tell her I’m alive. If she cares. She probably cares, we broke up on amicable terms.” That was all of course if Shannon was even still alive. Shannon lived so fast, so dangerously. Always in some kind of fray. Some kind of fight. It certainly let Anya practice as a medic but she wasn’t ready to fight like that, not yet at least. But Anya knew Shannon would help her in taking on Pony Express, if she asked.

“Have you talked to curly yet?” Swansea asked,

“He’s talking?”

“They gave him a computer. He types with his eye or something.”

Anya frowned, “I’ll think about it.”

Swansea nodded, finishing his lunch, “y’know…” He sighed, “I don’t forgive him either. He should have listened to you, he should have realized how dangerous Jimmy was. But, we’re probably all in this together if we’re gonna take on Pony Express. We’re still a crew. And I mean he’s… already hurt.”

Anya nodded, “you’re right. Hate to say it but you’re right. But he- the punishment he got was more than the accountability he deserved, it wasn’t right. The right thing should happen.”

“What’s the right thing, do you think?” Swansea asked,

“I don’t know. I don’t know if that’s for me to decide.”

“Well… all we can do is keep going I guess. One day at a time...”

Anya nodded. Swansea handed her a pamphlet, a therapy group that met at a community center down the road from the hospital.

“We… should we even go back to earth?”

“I have to, eventually. My family’s there. Daisuke may not but he wants to. I don’t know about Curly. I guess it’s whatever you want, Anya, if you mean to go back eventually I’ll join you in what you’ve got to do here, I’ll speak my piece if that’s what you want. But I have to go back home. I miss my family.”

Anya nodded, she pocketed the pamphlet and thought about what to do next.

“They’re making progress with your skin grafts, Grant.” Doctor Laurence told Curly, “I thought you’d like to know. The rest of your face will take a very long time, reconstructing a nose as well as lips will help protect you from increased risk of respiratory infections, but doing so will be difficult. you lost some muscle mass and fat in the accident.”

“Not an accident.” Curly typed.

“That’s… yes. In the crash.” Doctor Laurence nodded, “can I ask something? Rather personal?”

Curly nodded,

“Who was Jimmy to you?”

Curly sat with the question for a while. He thought long before he answered, “a friend. I was wrong.”

Laurence nodded, “did he… did he know you were trans?”

“No.”

“I see.”

“Looking back, probably not safe to tell him.”

“I agree...” Doctor Laurence frowned, “why keep him?”

“Hope. Love. Fear.”

“I see. His death must be difficult for you?”

“No.” Curly lied, thankful the computer’s tone gave nothing away, “he was dangerous. Better he's dead.”

“He was still your friend.”

“I was wrong.” Curly felt thankful he couldn’t cry for a moment, thankful his face wasn’t particularly expressive in his state.

The bandages covered most of his flesh, serving as a substitute skin for him. The hospital had far more supplies than the med bay on the Tulpar. He felt like a fly trapped in a spider web, or moreso a silk moth encased in its pupa. His almost claustrophobic confines kept him alive as his flesh tried to rebuild itself, pulsing and living but so undoubtedly changed underneath. Curly could really only roll his eye or look away to be expressive, no eyelids or eyebrows, no visible brow ridge or muscle either.

Doctor Laurence nodded. The room’s airlock made a noise and she saw Anya in a clean room suit step in.

“Hello Anya.” Doctor Laurence said with a smile. Curly watched them interact. There was a tension that was soft, not like a cable about to snap but more like the slow thickness of cold honey.

“Doctor Laurence. It’s… nice to see you.” Anya smiled,

“Likewise…” Doctor Laurence smiled sheepishly, “I was just talking with Grant. I’ll- I’ll leave you both to it.” Doctor Laurence took a few notes of Curly’s vitals before she left.

When they were alone Anya stared down at Curly,
“Now that you’re not my patient I find myself… unsure of how to feel about you.”

Curly nodded, “I understand.”

“You loved jimmy?”

“Yes.” Curly looked away, no point in trying to hide it seeing as the prick was dead.

“You trusted him?”

“Yes. No. Complicated.” Loving him, loving the idea of him, and trusting him we’re two entirely different animals.

Anya nodded, “before joining the crew I had this girlfriend, Shannon.” Anya sat in the chair beside Curly’s bed, “she was like wildfire. I was always scared I’d get burned in her wake but I still loved the warmth. She got into fights, I would patch her up and worry for her, I’d chase her into the next burning building. Did it feel like that? Loving him?”

“No.” Curly typed, “felt like lightning. Felt like validation and power. Like catching a falling star, blinding and numbing.”

Anya winced but nodded,

“He never doubted I was a man.”

Anya sighed. Curly had told her he was trans when she told him she was pregnant. She didn’t really understand the feeling but she certainly understood wanting validation from something built to deny you of it. It felt like more of an achievement that way, “You could have found that in a better place, Curly.”

“I know that now.”

They sat for a while, not speaking. The beeps of Curly’s monitors, the pumping and hissing of his ventilator, and the slow drip of his IV filled the space.

“I’m sorry Anya.” Curly typed, staring at her. He wanted to cry then, needed to cry. But his tear ducts must have melted shut in the crash, hell every hour a nurse or doctor would come in his room to give him eyedrops. Instead his eye ached in its socket, his whole head and chest felt tight. He remembered starting T late in high school, how he’d never understood the frustration of not being able to cry until then. It had only been an annoying thing at the time, as the scale of what he was crying about barely compared. It was agonizing, needing to cry but being unable. He felt his limbs shake a little where he laid.

Anya looked at curly then at the computer, a broken part of her wondering if Curly even typed that or if the computer was broken. But she knew Curly was sorry. She in a way was sorry too. Sorry she couldn’t give him his pills, sorry she let Jimmy get to him when he was so vulnerable. It felt fair in a way but unfair in others. Anya was not the type to wish her pain back on people, but she recognized the narrative justice. But narrative justice isn't what mattered to her. Real justice mattered.

“I know you’re sorry captain.” Anya said softly, “I don’t forgive you. But we can still fix this. We’re going to fix this.” Anya had spent her time crying about it, months alone on a starship gives you time to think. She would probably cry about it again when she felt she had time, and she certainly thought that she and Curly needed to have a deeper conversation about what happened, but in that moment she felt only a call towards righting a wrong. The time for forgiveness came after the pain, and they both still had much to do.

“Fix?” Curly asked. Part of him was scared when she said that, considering the last time he heard someone saying that to him had been just before the crash he wasn’t sure how to feel.

“I’m- we’re gonna take down whatever’s left of Pony Express. We can change the universe… we have to.”

Curly nodded, “I understand.”

“It’s what we signed up for when we chose to survive.” Anya said before getting up to leave.

Curly hadn’t decided to survive. But then again he wanted to make things right, wanted to fix what he let happen. And doing so would require that he lived to help Anya. They had a good case and they had their voices, so to speak. And because they had those things it was their duty to use them.

Chapter Text

“You guys did great!” Anya jumped, throwing her arms around Shannon’s neck. Shannon was sweaty and still covered in glitter and dirt from the show.

Shannon grinned and lifted Anya up with a spin, “I’m glad you could make it!” she shrugged off her guitar and started to pack her equipment from the set, “how was the opener band? I didn’t really listen because I was going kind of insane in the greenroom. Nerves, y’know?”

“I wasn’t really paying attention to them. I think they’re over there,” Anya looked around and gestured near the bar, “I don’t think their bassist is their usual though, he seemed kinda out of place.”

Shannon shrugged, “bassists are always weird. Right Glass?” Shannon called over her shoulder to her band’s bassist, a very short person with spiky jet black hair.

Glass flipped her off but grinned, “Maybe we’re the only ones who really get it!”

Shannon laughed then turned to Anya, “they do whippets don’t take their advice.” Shannon gave a serious tone but giggled, “I’m kidding they don’t do that anymore we made them stop.”

Anya nodded, “are you gonna stay for the closing band?”

“Do you want to?”

Anya hummed, “I kinda just want to get a beer and go home.”

“Sure thing! Could you pass me that pedal by your foot?”

“Sure.” Anya handed the pedal over, “did- did you want to stay?”

“Fuck no the closer’s prog-rock we’d be here for another two hours.” Shannon shut her case and slung it over her shoulder.

When she got to the bar she glanced and made momentary eye contact with the bassist from the opener. There wasn’t much behind his eyes. She felt like though they looked at eachother he didn’t really see her. It sent a chill down her spine for a moment but she then ordered her and Shannon’s beers and they headed out after finishing their drinks.

Still, as they left, Anya felt a recognition. That night she just assumed it was because of how close the bassist was standing to the blond guy he was talking to. But he was simply not there.

Chapter Text

“I’m Grant.” Curly watched the memory playout. The day it all began, freshman year of college. He watched his younger self hold his hand out to shake, smiling at Jimmy. Jimmy always stood a little taller than Curly, lanky and lean.

“Jimmy.” He said, shaking the hand non-comittently,

“What’s your major? I’m majoring in applied physics, so that’s why I’m here in precalc.”

“Aerospace engineering.” Jimmy grumbled, seemingly uncomfortable with Curly’s eagerness to befriend him.

Curly honestly should have listened then, backed off from that stray dog before he got bit. But Curly always loved strays.

“Cool! I thought about astrophysics but I’d probably end up teaching with that degree and I’m not really much for it. What about you? What do you want to do?”

“Whatever keeps me going I guess. It’ll probably get me a decent job at one of the space transit companies. They always need mechanics.”

Curly nodded, “are you a musician?”

“Y-yeah. What makes you ask?”

“Lucky guess, that and your hands look worn from some kinda string.”

Jimmy curled his fingers into a fist, “yeah. I uh- I play bass.”

“That’s cool, I was never really good with music, I was in my choir at church as a kid but I couldn’t really keep a beat.”

“I like the bass. It’s steady. Controlled. You set the tone for the song.” Jimmy said, seemingly lost in himself as he spoke. Curly had thought that was a passion for music at the time, in retrospect he was probably more into the power a bass carried.

Curly smiled, the class started up,

“What’re you doing after this?” Jimmy asked as their professor started to speak,

“I was just gonna go to the lounge at my dorm, get some homework done and people watch.”

“People watch?” Jimmy made a face,

“I like people.” Curly said, shrugging,

Jimmy grunted, “wanna hang out? I know a cool spot.”

“Sure!”

Jimmy smiled, more wolffish than curly remembered. But curly then remembered he was dreaming. Jimmy turned to him,

“Y’know I’d probably have noticed if I gave a shit about you. In retrospect I mean… those hips.”

Curly sighed, tired but unable to really dodge anything even in sleep.

“You’re a naive idiot, y’know? I mean look at you, nothing but wishful thinking and those baby blues.” Dream curly was still frozen as jimmy turned his face towards curly.

Curly looked down at his hands. His hands. He felt his hair between his fingers, warmth in his cheeks. Curly blinked in his dream,

“I thought you could be good.” He said, after he stopped feeling at the skin on his face.

“That ship sailed off with my daddy, baby.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“It’s what you wanted, right? Dirtbag smoker with a heart of coal that you thought you could crush into Diamond. But now look at you, there’s just ash in your hands.”

“Was I wrong to be hopeful?”

“No.” Dream curly spoke up, “but you let it blind you.”

“I know that now! I realized! Can’t I just rest?”

“Oh blondie there’s no rest for the wicked, and you’re as rotten as they come.” Jimmy grinned at him, face slowly warping as he stood. His skull caved in and his brains spilled over his shoulder, next to him dream curly melted and burned, on fire as he joined Jimmy and the two of them stood and danced in the back of the lecture hall.

“It takes two, y’know.” Dream curly said to himself, taking Jimmy’s hand as fire ran over and through him

“And you followed my lead all the way…” Jimmy cupped dream Curly’s face, some skin pulling away with his hand when he brought it to Dream Curly’s hip,

“Stop.” Curly said,

“I should have gotten you drunk, I had my suspicions y’know. I knew how to read you, curls. Just never really cared to turn the page. But still, I should have gotten you drunk and checked out the goods.” As they danced Jimmy’s left eye fell from the gory mess the bullet had turned his half head into.

The rest of dream Curly’s Skin peeled off of him, he shrugged it off sensually like lingerie or a robe, skin flaying far more evenly and perfectly than the reality of Curly’s injuries.

“We would have loved that, wouldn’t we Grant?” Dream curly asked him, how he spoke curly couldn’t figure out, his teeth chattered like he was a puppet Jimmy controlled,

“Stop this.” Curly said, more forceful,

Jimmy dipped Dream Curly in their waltz and his right eye fell from his head and bounced on the floor to meet Jimmy’s left eye.

“Instead we’d just get high and watch porn together, my idea. You’d call it gay when I said we should jerk eachother off!” Jimmy laughed, “You, calling it gay! You were just hiding…”

“Scared he’d get us knocked up, curly?” Dream curly taunted, his arms up around Jimmy’s shoulders, “ruin our perfect body, the one we worked so hard for?”

“I did in the end, didn’t I?” Jimmy asked dream curly, “ruined you…”

The two eyes on the floor turned to stare up at curly as Jimmy dipped his dream self in their waltz, chunks of his brain and skull falling onto dream Curly’s burnt face. Jimmy leaned in, head tilted and kissed the bare porcelain of Dream Curly’s exposed teeth.

The eyes still stared at him.

His chest felt tight.

Dream Curly brought a stump to the back of Jimmy’s head, pulling him back for another kiss,
Curly’s stomach flipped.

“STOP!” Curly shouted, in his dream he lunged at the two dancing corpses as he woke up, accidentally knocking his sensitive bandaged arm into the camera trained on his eye. In his panic he silenced himself, eye frantically darting around.

Chapter Text

He woke up trying to scream around his ventilation tube, hurting his throat in the process. His pulse was rushed and his blood pressure high, alarms were beeping around him as a nurse rushed in wearing a sterile suit to check on him,

“Mr.Curly? Mr.Curly are you alright?” The nurse adjusted the camera’s arm so curly could type again.

“Sorry.” Curly typed when he finally could, trying to calm down.

“There’s no need to apologize, are you ok?”

“Just a nightmare.” Curly typed, his mind trying to cope with how wrong the machine sounded when it spoke for him, how he’d just moments ago heard his own voice.

“I see. Do you need anything?” The nurse asked.

“Can I use this to type journals? Or is it only for speaking?”

The nurse nodded, “you can. This icon at the corner will open a menu, you can write your thoughts there, it’s all private.” They pointed to a part of the screen in the bottom right corner.

“Thank you.” Curly typed as he opened the menu and selected notes.

“Anything else?”

“Up my morphine?”

“Um… you’re on the maximum dosage sir I’d have to ask your-“

“Joking.”

“Right!” The nurse laughed nervously, “sorry! Ha…”

“Thanks. Can I be alone now?” Curly asked,

“Yeah, sorry!” The nurse nodded and they rushed off, leaving curly to his thoughts.

With little better to do, he wrote. Documenting his memories of the crash, of Jimmy, of working with Pony Express. Everything that haunted his mind he kicked it out to the page. He didn’t sleep the rest of that night, but he still felt more satisfied than if he had.

Pony Express was dead. His crew survived. But the CEO, the shareholders. Pony Express going under was simply a small loss to them.

Curly refused to let this suffering amount to a simple email.

Daisuke paced the hallway outside Anya’s room. When she stepped out he stood and smiled,

“Hey! Um… I was wondering if you wanted to check out some of the stuff to do around this place?”

“Pony Express expects us to return soon, I don’t really want to come to love this place.”

“Come on! Pony Express is dead, they’re just waiting on the ship for a tax write off!”

“That implies they pay taxes, Dai.” Anya laughed,

“Right?! So come on! We’re already late, what are they gonna do? Fire us?”

Anya sighed, “you’re right…”

Daisuke squeezed her shoulder, “besides if you’re gonna fight you can’t reload a gun when your hand is broken.”

“I guess so… I just, can we be chill?”

“Totally!”

There was a cafe and used book store a few miles from the hospital. Teegarden B was similar to earth, but incredibly different as well. orbiting a red dwarf star the foliage was a deeper green, sometimes brown or even a red color. The sky was a dusty pink color. There wasn’t life on the planet before human colonization, there were surprising amounts of hydrogen deposits below the surface however which in the early days of terraforming exploded with oxygen to generate water. This combustion was how the Teegarden colony generated power for a while, as solar was less efficient from the red dwarf and wind was not yet viable.

There were no seasons on Teegarden, rather regional temperate areas, as Teegarden B had no tilt in its axis. Anya felt slightly sluggish, being every so slightly heavier on Teegarden than Earth, or the slightly diminished artificial gravity of the Tulpar. She felt herself slouching. She also found she was a bit taller than the average colonist.

The year on Teegarden B was only about 4 days so they simply used earth’s calendar for communication purposes as the seasons associated with months were entirely meaningless. Some would travel to the winter zones in December while others just stayed where they wanted. The days were a bit longer closer to the equator so you could really just pick a season you wanted to live in and live there.

The city they were in was the capitol city of the US colony on Teegarden B named Adventa officially, though colloquially the capitol was referred to as New Canaveral as the majority of the original settlers had launched from Cape Canaveral. New Canaveral was in a constant state of early autumn, at least Anya guessed. It was cooler than early autumn on earth, but Anya remembered reading what Autumnal temperatures used to be like on Earth and a nice 60 degrees Fahrenheit was accurate in her estimation.

Anya and Daisuke boarded a bus, holding on to the hand rails. Anya felt incredibly out of place, constantly looking over her shoulder. The hospital had donated them both some casual clothes so they didn’t have to wear their uniforms, which helped since Anya’s was stained with blood. She managed to get Jimmy’s blood out but when it came down to her abortion she was already rather out of it and didn’t think to wash her own blood out.

“How can I help you?” The barista asked, just then Anya realized she didn’t have any money, she wasn’t sure if the cafe took the credits pony express gave them, as she turned to Daisuke he started talking, already taking his wallet out.

“Can I get a…” Daisuke started to order before he knew what he wanted, “oh Anya I’ll cover this by the way, do you know what you want?”

“Um… just a chai latte.”

“How spicy?” The barista asked,

“Oh Uh- extra black pepper and nutmeg if that’s possible?”

The barista nodded, “and you sir?”

“Uhhhh” Daisuke looked up at the menu, mouth slightly agape.

“I’ll find us a… table.” Anya said,

Daisuke nodded. Anya winced as a line started to form behind him. She whispered, “you mentioned liking Thai tea why don’t you get that, they have it.”

“Yeah but I might wanna try something?”

“Then just pick whatever you haven’t heard of up there.”

“Oh yeah duh. How about maté?”

“How do you want it?”

“Uhm… sweet?”

“Hot or iced?”

“Iced?”

“Lemon or plain?”

“Oh jeez, lemon?”

“Ok.” The barista finished typing and Daisuke paid for their drinks while Anya sat at a table by the window.

“I’m gonna be honest I have no idea what I ordered dude…”

“There’s a tea book here,” Anya handed it to him.

“Thanks! Jeez when was the last time we really got to just have lunch and chill out?” Daisuke grinned, flitting through the pages.

“Well…” Anya looked away, trailing off,

“Fuck- right… sorry… hey, I uh-... I’ve been meaning to ask.” Daisuke shut the book, “you um… Anya you’re looking kinda rough.”

“Jeez man” Anya rolled her eyes with a laugh, “way to kick a girl while she’s down-”

“Rougher than you should… rougher than you would if you were in cryo with us…” Daisuke’s face was worried, but his eyes bore holes into her.

Anya looked at Daisuke, then quickly looked away.

“Anya.” Daisuke frowned at the table, “I’m-... I know I’m the youngest in the crew, ok? I get that. I understand I might not be the smartest either but-”

“I’m sorry I lied to you Daisuke but I had to.” Anya didn’t look Daisuke in the eye as she spoke, “I had to handle it. The oxygen wouldn’t have lasted if you’d been with me and everyone would have died instead of just-”

“Don’t say just yourself, alright?” Diasuke sighed, “you saved us! you got us home safe! You deserve credit for that.” Daisuke crossed his arms, “I- I would have understood if you’d explained it to me.”

“Daisuke I-“

“Anya I’m not an idiot-“

“Sh!” Anya held a finger to her lips and leaned close to whisper, “Daisuke I was pregnant.”

“Oh- I- what?”

“Jimmy… I couldn’t risk anyone else knowing, it-…”

“Cause that would give you a motive…”

“Exactly.”

Daisuke nodded, “I-… I’m sorry I took it personally but-“

“No! No don’t be sorry. I messed up. Honestly I had already told Swansea and I told curly before the accident. You… you were the only one I didn’t tell. I didn’t want you to have to deal with that since you weren’t even supposed to be on the Tulpar.”

“Neither was jimmy.”

“What?”

“I mean… he wasn’t qualified. And I get it neither was I but… he was like criminally unqualified. He didn’t really do anything but complain and be an asshole. Even when he was so called captain! It doesn’t make sense that he was there. As inept as I was on the ship, I had to do so much to get that intern spot!”

Anya nodded, “it is odd… he never mentioned what flight school he went to when I asked, curly brought it up in conversation that he went somewhere in San Francisco.”

“Maybe he did the pony express course.”

Anya furrowed her brows,

“What?” She asked,

“Well they’re like the nursing courses you said you took. Specified to working for pony express.”

“He… he didn’t have a pilot’s license going into the job?”

“Maybe not I dunno.”

Anya’s fist curled on the table as someone brought them their drinks.

“That fucker.”

“What?”

“He always gave me shit! Saying I wasn’t a real nurse because I took the pony express course. All the while-“

“Yeah. He projected a lot on us Anya. He was an asshole and he’s dead now.” Daisuke said,

“I-“

Daisuke leaned in to whisper to her, “there’s a time to be angry… not out here. Not when we’re saying he’s a suicide.”

“Yeah…”

“I mean hey he definitely had a lot of problems, the guy killed himself.” Daisuke said, stirring his tea. It was in a cup made from what looked like metal, wood, and leather. When he looked closer he noticed the wood was actually a dried gourd,

“Total depressurization… I wonder what that’s like…”

Chapter Text

“It’d be so easy y’know?” The Voice said, “like stepping out a door.”

“Not like stepping out a door. More like waiting for a garage to open and getting hit by the car waiting outside.”

“Its a cool car.”

“Come on, you can do better than ‘it’s a cool car.” Anya stood up from the control panel she was repairing and rolled the tension out of her shoulders, “I get you’re my brain’s hallucination of an idiot but I’d like to think I could come up with something better than ‘it’s a cool car.’”

“You can’t.” Anya felt her chest tighten. She rummaged in her pocket and popped a misoprostol. The hallway distorted around her, warping like a hall of mirrors. Endless shifting corridors laid out before her. The choice was to either proceed down the unending maze before her or step out, leave this place and end it all.

Anya sighed. Death to the vacuum was no way to go.

Total depressurization. First the eyes would likely either pop or boil internally. The gut and lungs likely expel from their corresponding orifices, fifteen square pounds of pressure being released into an unpressurized environment. The blood boils internally, capillaries and smaller vessels exploding under the pressure differential. The soft tissues bloat and rupture.

The body resembles a blob fish, bloated and warped. Exposed to a place so foreign the form destabilizes and falls apart. Jimmy’s bloated corpse, like a body left in a river or a bathtub for too long, yet absent of decay. No rot will ever touch his body, if anything he’s cleaner now. So clean. Anya could be clean too. Everything, every welcome or unwelcome passenger in her body, expelled and expunged. Natural gut bacteria and unnatural foreign bodies alike. All gone in nearly an instant.

The Voice continued, a laugh dripping from its familiar rasp, “you’re slipping Anya. I couldn’t handle being in charge, you think you can? You’re a nervous wreck, a failure, just a stupid d-”

“Shut the fuck up!” Anya threw a wrench down the hall towards where she heard Jimmy’s voice. His laugh echoed in the hall, that slimy and reedy laugh.

“Do no harm, huh?”

“Fuck off.”

“Whatever you say, Doctor Terrace.” Jimmy’s voice gave the title a mocking stench before it fell silent.

Sometimes the silence was worse. Days without any stimuli, even the pain and bullshit the meds put her through was something to focus on, an anchor to remind her that she was alive. By the second month she’d finished every book she brought with her, by the fifth every book that was available on the ship.

She built up the courage to open Jimmy's room. She’d never been in there, but she was starting to lose it wondering what was inside.

The room was simple, not much going on. Some books were on a shelf but they didn’t look like they’d been touched at all even before Jimmy died. None of them really had much as far as personal effects are concerned, company policy given the load they’d be carrying across space. But they’d dropped at least a hundred pounds recently and it didn’t change the fuel use at all on the ship so Anya concluded that was, no pun intended, a load of horse shit.

In the corner of the room there was a blue bass guitar. Dusty, abandoned. Anya stared at it. It vexed her, confused her so deeply.

She reached out and touched it. It was real.

Pony Express allowed each crew member an allotted weight of personal items, Anya had brought a digital library, books she hadn’t cared to buy physical copies for but still wanted to read. She brought her favorites, annotating the pages in the page edges or corners, along with a board game and her clothes. Daisuke had brought just some things he could fit in his pockets, a gameboy and some game cartridges for it. He was the more stylish one, bringing more changes of clothes than anybody else. Swansea brought more things, and had been allowed to select his own tools, but ultimately only brought a few pictures and books, along with several pairs of sneakers. He managed to get the company to sign off his tools and books as company property for his job so he could bring his sneakers and other personal craftsman items.

Jimmy brought a bass guitar.

It was heavy, expensive, and needed its own case and a separate amp as well. Delicate yet lumbering, like a horse.

Anya plucked a string and heard the dull thrum it made while not connected to the amp.

“What the fuck?” She said softly, trying to reconcile such a creative hobby with such an uncreative man.

“Familiar?” she heard Jimmy ask,

“Jesus- fuck sake.” Anya picked up the bass and aimlessly strummed it, “what do you mean?”

“You’ve seen this ax.”

“Ax, what are you a punk?” Still Anya wondered what the voice meant. It was from her mind, it wasn’t like it really was Jimmy’s ghost. So it had to be talking about something she knew.

“More of a poser.”

Anya scoffed, “funny… ax. Curly never trusted you with the-”

“Oh yeah laugh it up you bitch.”

“Not my fault you’re dead. You killed yourself the moment you pressed that button. Hell you killed yourself the moment you stepped foot on this freighter.”

“I wanted to improve.”

“Yeah well I didn’t want to get raped so here we are.”

“You’re fine, you’re handling it. I’m fucking dead.”

“You’re not gonna make me feel bad for you.” Anya put the bass down, “I don’t care if decades ago you were a sensitive boy who loved music, that’s not my problem. My problem is that you let that kid inside you die, and started devouring his rotting corpse.”

“We are all products of our environment.”

“Yeah and cruelty can make kind people, horror can make beauty. It takes work. It takes growing the fuck up.”

“Don’t tell me to grow the fuck up when you’ve been trying the same shit for eight times now-“

“You threw a tantrum cause you knew that if we weren’t working for pony express anymore I wouldn’t be afraid to report you! That’s the end of it.”

The Voice fell silent. Anya stood in that silence in Jimmy’s old room for a moment. There was a picture on the bedside table, the only other personal item. It was him, Curly, and some other people at a party. He was taking the picture and some of the others were looking at the camera.

Curly was smiling at Jimmy. Jimmy wasn’t looking at him.

“Stupid bitch.” Anya muttered to herself, pushing the photo so it was face down, “thinking with his fucking dick and heart instead of his brain.”

Anya sighed then her brow furrowed. She looked at the picture again, bringing it closer. She knew the bar the picture was taken at. It was where Shannon used to play sets with her band.

“You’ve got to be fucking joking.”

“Fated to meet.” The Voice said softly,

“Destined to destroy.”

“What?”

“That was the name of your band.”

“Right.”

Chapter Text

One night during his stay at the hospital Curly remembered when Jimmy was still in his band, Destined to Destroy. He had his own body, not the one Jimmy had given him in the crash, and watched himself watch the set from the bar, the band was too loud for him that night. He could hear them fine from the bar anyways, and he could see Jimmy on his bass. He seemed to go somewhere else when he played his music, he seemed calmer.

Curly wanted something like that, a thing he could do that could take him away from every worry he had. When he was still a gifted kid, before the burn out got him, school had been that for him. He did well, he could conceivably go to grad school easily if he wasn’t in a constant scramble to try to escape earth. But he wanted to travel to space.

When the set ended Jimmy stepped off stage, carefully packing up his bass and equipment. His eyes scanned the crowd until he found Curly waving at him from the bar.

“Like what you saw?” Jimmy asked, taking his hair out from the half ponytail at the back of his head. He rubbed the tension out of his scalp and Curly fought everything inside him not to do that for Jimmy.

“You did great!” Curly said, clapping a little, “I’m glad I got to see you play finally.”

Jimmy smiled. Another genuine one. Few and far between, and usually they quickly died as soon as they were made. Like neutrinos, short lived and small but curly was in a constant hunt for more of them. One could argue they were more like nicotine highs in that way. Ever waning as you chase them more and more. Till your teeth rot.

“We should drink.”

“Mmm I agree, celebrate a great show.”

“Can I crash at your place tonight?”

“Might as well just call it our place given how often you’re over!” Curly laughed, Jimmy didn’t laugh. He scowled.

“I’m trying to find my own place ok.” Curly had to fight himself not to scoff at that while he watched the memory unfold.

“No I- I meant… I don’t mind! It’s nice actually, having someone else around!”

“It’s a one bedroom, what are we, Queer?”

Memory Curly didn’t say anything. It’s not that he was closeted, he just didn’t really have much going on in his sex life and Jimmy never asked so it never came up. Then again Jimmy was part of why curly didn’t have anything going on in his sex life. curly absolutely wouldn’t say that.

“Look, all I’m saying is you’re welcome whenever you want.” Not need, want. Curly wanted Jimmy to stay. Trying to catch lightning in a bottle and continuously getting shocked when it ran off.
The nerve damage would be killer, numbing.

“Let’s just… there’s probably a liquor store still open, why not buy some booze and go home?” Jimmy asked, squeezing Curly’s shoulder. Curly smiled when Jimmy called his apartment home.

Jimmy reeled him in. Rebuffed him, shamed him, made a joke, and rinsed and repeated until Curly was his. Curly saw that, looking back. How isolated he’d become.

When he decided to go stealth he’d lost a few friends he had, other trans people. It wasn’t a direct refusal of one another, they never hated him for his choice and he never spoke ill of them. But, they started running in different circles. Curly had friends he’d made while stealth, friends he went to the gym with or people he ran in the same local band circles Jimmy did, or other people in the STEM programs he was in. curly always made sure not to shit where he ate, keep any hookup separate from his life at large. If they’d seen him naked they could absolutely never see him again.

Jimmy didn’t really have much going on either, he had a few brief situationships with women, he’d hooked up with one of Curly’s old friends, one of the few who really remained after he went stealth. She never said anything about Curly, which he was thankful for. Sometimes Jimmy would play a kind of gay chicken with Curly, teasing him about his pretty eyes or his ass. Curly felt partially affirmed in every “no homo” Jimmy would throw out.

But sometimes, when Jimmy was too tired or calm, Jimmy would drop the act. The moments were further and further apart.

“Wanna watch something?” Jimmy slurred, fumbling with the remote,

“Yeah. Whatever you want.” Curly nodded, feeling his head swimming.

Jimmy put on some horror movie, some kind of Stephen King thing, curly wasn’t sure. Curly watched it for a while, not really paying attention. Each blink was longer and longer as Furly tried to follow the movie, he turned and saw Jimmy also nodding off. Jimmy eventually reached over curly, putting the remote on the arm of the couch on his right. He then collapse, shoulder and head in Curly’s lap.

Curly whined, “get up.”

Jimmy just mumbled, turning to face the tv as he laid there,

“Whatever.” Curly hummed, “kinda gay.”

“No you.” Jimmy grunted.

Sometimes Jimmy pissed him off, Curly tried to avoid anger and he hated being angry at Jimmy especially. But sometimes he just pissed Curly off. Not even when he did something wrong, hell sometimes Curly got angry at him when he did normal things, good things. When Jimmy didn't fit his expectations, when Curly felt like Jimmy was pulling a bait and switch with him. He stared down at Jimmy, he looked oddly peaceful when he slept, sometimes he had fitful dreams but he never really seemed to dream very actively when he was drunk. Part of Curly wanted to keep him that way, a selfish part that imagined Jimmy serene and thoughtless. Maybe that part just knew what Jimmy was capable of when his mind was allowed to follow trains of thought, or maybe Curly was just a sick bastard. Either way Curly stared down at Jimmy and wished he'd stay in that blissfully incoherent haze, for Jimmy's own good really. If he couldn't think he couldn't talk and if he couldn't talk he couldn't get into fights. He couldn't say cruel things. He couldn't manipulate Curly.

Curly didn't think he was being manipulated.

"does anyone? when it's happening?" Curly wondered, as he remembered. His past self looked at him and brought a finger to his lips,

"he's sleeping."

"he's a monster."

"right now he's just my friend..." in his memory Curly ran his hand along Jimmy's head, a shaggy grown out buzz-cut that felt almost like a dog. "he's my friend."

"he's using you."

"I know."

"he's-"

"don't make me let go of him." He'd grown so attached to Jimmy, so close to something so destructive, something that gave him nothing of nourishment but only momentary mockery of comfort. Curly took a Psychology class in college, it wasn't required for his program but he was interested. he remembered a study done on baby monkeys, they were presented with two fake mothers, one that was covered with a warmed cloth but gave no milk and one that only gave milk but not comfort. The babies stayed with the cloth "mother" until they nearly starved and would then go to the wire mother for milk, before returning to the cloth mother. comfort with no nourishment, because the mind wants it more than what it needs.

Curly watched himself cling to that wire frame covered in cloth, refusing to let go.

"you- you have to."

"he hasn't hurt me! not really! not when I haven't deserved it. sure we've fought but-"

"listen to yourself." Curly sighed in frustration, "I mean god how was I so stupid-"

"we're not stupid!" Curly's memory of himself glared at him, "we aren't. maybe we made a mistake, maybe we got tricked. that's... all we can do is learn but please just let me have this."

"you know you can't. not... not if we're learning. the memory can't stay sweet."

"just... let the memory run its course, let me fall asleep with him. I know so much of the memories we have are... not exactly accurate, but please. I did fall asleep with him, that happened for a fact. let me have that."

"just... just remember how we woke up."

Curly watched his memory, watched himself and left his memory. He should probably tell his psychiatrist he'd been arguing with himself in his dreams but considering he didn't have skin there were probably bigger problems he was dealing with, then again maybe it was just the pain meds.

But that night, after watching Jimmy play, Curly fell asleep with Jimmy on the couch. With his friend, his dirtbag of a friend but the only one who stayed on him. Then again leeches cling hard, wrapping themselves around their host when they can, clinging with their teeth when they can't.

They fell asleep like that. nearly intertwined.

Curly would have thought it hadn’t even happened had it not been for the bruise on his thigh that Jimmy’s bony shoulder left. He looked around. No note from jimmy. He only sometimes left one when he headed out.

Curly pressed his thumb into the bruise, sitting there feeling the dull ache of it. Reminding him he was alive, reminding him Jimmy was his friend.

All in a dull ache.