Archive of Our Own ^beta

“I am writing this to say/I am not leaving you forever/

I am going to get better/and then I’ll come home.”

– Soup Is One Form Of Salt Water, Heather Christle

__ Minutes After Judgement

Imagine: you are near-delirious from pain. The metallic tang of your own flesh lingers on your tongue and you know the nausea bubbling in your stomach is your body’s rejection of itself. You have almost forgotten what it’s like to stretch your legs and flex your fingers: the stump of your knee–less of it now–is sticky with cooling blood. Around you, the metal pod swallows you whole and beyond that foggy window, the dead pixel you kept out of sight and mind.

Curly doesn’t have a reflection, even facing the glass. If he strains, he can see the hem of Jimmy’s jumpsuit, the sole of a shoe. He doesn’t wait for a twitching movement or for the body to rise to his feet and stand before Curly, hale and whole. Regardless of the damage, he’s not completely deaf, not completely blind. The ringing sound of a gunshot still echoes in his skull and he knows that the captain (the both of them, ex-co-pilot turned leader and leader turned walking dead) will go down with his ship.

Hydraulics hiss. The temperature drops. His limbs go numb, raw skin frosting over, though the searing pain doesn't leave him entirely. It’s a peculiar relief that doesn’t mirror the one of Oxycodone and Paracetamol, but a relief anyway. Did Anya think so too? Or did the bitter taste of the pills overshadow any comfort?

He’s a pilot, not an engineer, despite his passing interest in the field and the bare minimum needed to fly. He doesn’t understand the mechanics of cryosleep. But he knows that it will pull him under within minutes. Twenty years of cold unconsciousness. God. He should have died with the rest.

Should have been the first to go.

The smudged glass has hoarfrost creeping along the edges now. Curly is beginning to detach from whatever is left of him, drifting in a starless, black sky: seconds remain. Maybe it’s the frost, or he’s blinder than he thought and his reflection is just artificial light bouncing off of ice. But he thinks he can see the watery blue of his own iris staring back at him, set in a face he doesn’t recognise anymore.

It’s a green light. It’s Gatsby’s beacon, except it’s blue and unblinking. It’s the albatross of an ancient mariner, dead around his neck. It’s just good ol’ Captain Grant Curly. There is nothing else to look at. The lingering cobwebs of consciousness in his mind form little, pitiful thoughts. He hopes that the cryopod breaks down, hopes he bleeds out. He hopes wherever he goes after death, it isn’t nice to him. He hopes he never sees Anya when he’s there. He hopes Daisuke and Swansea take care of each other.

He’s content with a crimson lake and ladders and a sky of screaming system failure notifications. He wonders if Jimmy will be there too, and can’t find it in himself to be content about that, but thinks it's probably fair. He thinks about cake and cement shoes and responsibility and that godforsaken key. Thinks about himself and doesn’t like it very much. Thinks–wonders–wishes...wishes.

Curly wishes for a lot.

The cryopod finishes sequencing. It's a controlled hypothermia that rocks him to bed, frosted over and raw like so much meat. Curly goes out thinking, Anything. I’d do anything. I’d do everything I didn’t and I’d do everything I should.

---

7 Days Before the Crash

“Captain? …Are you listening?”

Truth be told, Curly isn’t. Were it anyone else, he might brush the comment off with a smile he’s been told is “commercial” – gleaming teeth and all – or offer up a half-hearted response that doesn’t actually answer the question. The issue is, it’s Anya asking: he likes her. Beyond that, he respects her. She’s their guardian angel out here in space, with steady hands that have probably been done pretty dirty by the standard Pony Express medical courses.

All that to say, she’s not just a ship’s nurse: she’s the closest thing they’ve got to a doctor. A psychologist, a therapist; or some mix of all three. It means she’s got a sharp eye and knows what she’s doing. So Curly absolutely cannot let her know that he’s been–well, it sounds bad even in the silence of his mind. He can’t let her know he’s been seeing things. This means he’d better rustle up a convincing answer to alleviate whatever worries she’s got, even if it gets less so with every second he spends staring blankly at her across the table. And he’d just finished the eval, too.

Curly blinks back to the present, forcing a small smile.

Anya looks as tidy as ever, her hair brushed and gleaming under the artificial light. The stripes of her turtleneck that he’s come to associate her with are a welcoming pop of colour, its brightness suffusing her wan face. God, her eyes really are sharp. You wouldn’t think it, with those feathery eyelashes she’s got, framing each dark iris. It gives her a sort of mournful, soft look he’d taken at face value when they’d first met. Has it been so long already? Feels like yesterday he was striding down the gangplank to welcome her to the crew as their nurse after Tom had left the position.

He’s been quiet too long. Her mouth begins to purse, a furrow appearing between her brows. Her hand twitches where it lies on the table like she’s going to reach for her clipboard. Curly panics, clearing his throat and running a hand through his hair. It’s getting pretty long now–higher risk of tangling.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, brightening his voice with a cheer he can’t quite feel. “Damn. I’m so sorry. Couldn’t sleep again.”

Anya’s shoulders relax, and she cocks her head. He knows it’s a silent invitation to explain, but he can’t take it. Beneath the table, where their shoes knock against one another as they shift, there’s a wet, rattling sound. Curly can’t help how his expression freezes: hopefully, the smile stuck. A stiff grin’s better than the instinctual pity and horror the hallucination brings out in him.

The issue, see–well, he really hasn’t been sleeping, and the reason sits slumped at Anya’s feet.

Another hoarse inhale, more like a dying animal than any normal breathing. The Tulpar is metal and scrap: noise echoes around her hollow walls. He can’t brace his palms on the table and rise to his feet, can’t lean over the table to hush the corpse collapsed on the ground. Firstly, Anya would frown at him in confusion, following his gaze to see…nothing. Curly’s perfectly aware the rest of the crew can’t see the thing that follows him around. Doesn’t make him feel any better, that’s for sure.

Secondly…he can’t stand to look. Not really. Sure, it’s–the man is a sad sight. A bandaged mass of raw skin and exposed bone, his medical gown stained more red than blue. He tends to sit like an abandoned doll, head limp and shoulders loose, breathing strained and grating. Curly’s become used to that choked sound echoing around and following him at all hours, though it’s a little sickening. It seems like each inhale pains the man–really truly hurts. His teeth are set in a perpetual bloody grin, chin faintly trembling, but it’s the eye Curly can’t stand to look at. Lidless, wide: it’s a brilliant blue, and within it is a terrible consciousness. There are words and emotions trapped in the iris, and once Curly got past the dread of the hallucination, he sometimes wondered what they were.

But if that corded throat can produce a voice anymore, he doesn’t know it. The apparition hasn’t spoken to him; maybe he never will. Maybe he can’t.

There are other, better ways of tormenting him, anyway, like how he’s shadowed by the hallucination as he works, as he relaxes, as he sleeps, as he laughs with his crew. The latter isn’t so bad: the corpse is always subdued around everyone. But otherwise, it is his constant companion and bedfellow. Curly must slowly adjust to how the man-corpse drags himself after him, bandaged stumps catching on the grating with the press of sore and bloody flesh. He must adjust to that piercing blue eye, he must adjust to the presence of him, settling on the edge of his bed like a vulture as he sleeps.

It’s not easy, honestly. If there was just a reason for it, why he’s there, if there was any respite from the hallucination…no.

It’s probably just stress. It’s probably just responsibility pressing down, lack of sleep, the isolation of space–whatever. Curly’s never had to deal with anything like this before, so it’s gotta go away soon. No need to bother Anya with all of that, no need to make her doubt his capability.

It’s just a little disturbing, watching how the hallucination acts around her. The corpse huddles at her feet like a kicked dog. The blunt ends of his wrists rest on her thigh, his head bowed like a sinner and hidden behind his elbows as he lays it against his arms. Curly had never paid much attention to the way the corpse acted around each of his crewmates, but now he wonders if he should’ve. The breathing has changed, less raspy: those are sobs, stifled and shallow. Gasping sobs, ones that shake the man’s shoulders so fiercely.

Every so often, Anya will shift in her chair, oblivious to the cowering mess slumped below her. At each tiny movement, the corpse will flinch, like he’s expecting something. It’s curious, the way he immediately stifles the reaction, almost forcing himself to lean back into her. His mouth opens, waiting, and his singular eye roves wildly. What is it he expects her to do? That he fears yet would accept from her? But the contact soothes him–it has to, the way he rests his head against her hip so mournfully.

It’s hard to focus, is all. And Curly’s reading into it, which means he’s really going around the bend.

Whatever the hallucination does, it’s–well, it’s part of his own head. It’s literally his imagination. It’s weird, that’s it, and he’s not doing a good job of hiding it from Anya. He doesn’t know how long he’s been quiet, thinking over things, but the faint suspicion settles once more on the bones of her thin face.

Curly clears his throat, bracing his hands on his knees. The jumpsuit (company-issued, of course) is coarse and thin to the touch, but it’s comforting in its mediocre familiarity. He keeps on smiling at her, suppressing the urge to apologise. “But I passed the psych eval?”

Anya shrugs lightly, glancing down at the clipboard and playing with a corner of the paper secured to it. Her handwriting is slanted and cramped even upside down, the mark of a true practitioner. “Well, you gave the same answers as last time.”

He shrugs right back at her. He’s too tense for this. For some reason, the rattling breath of the corpse is too loud. He can’t block it out like he’s been doing. Anya’s lips twist when she looks at him, the shadows under her eyes darker than usual. He knows he’s not making it easy. If it were just the two of them in the bay…but it’s not, and he can’t focus. “Just means I’m twice as dependable,” he jokes, low and friendly, swallowing down any strain.

The smile she gives him feels like she’s humouring him, settling against the back of her chair with a black lock of hair sliding over her forehead. Curly doesn’t mind that–it’s good to see her uplifted at all. She’d seemed a bit quieter these past few months. “Sure,” she agrees. But there’s a severe set to her eyebrows and her mouth. She’s not going to let the attempted redirection slide. Still, her voice is gentle when she tells him, “I do wish you’d open up a little more, Captain.”

He blinks at her, folding his arms across his chest. “Well, I’m an open book, Anya, really. Don’t know if you’d find it interesting but ‘m happy to share. Let’s see…I don’t like sweets, but I think you knew that. Favourite colour is yellow–could you guess? My favourite season is winter–”

Anya’s hands make an appearance from where they were folded in her lap. Balanced between the middle finger and her thumb is a worn-down pencil, its eraser dark and dirty. She taps the point against the paper, a repetitive thwack that might be annoying if it wasn’t a relief from that hoarse inhale-exhale. “You know that’s not what I meant,” she says quietly, her brow furrowed. “These evaluations aren’t just about you, you know.”

Curly rolls his shoulders, avoiding her eyes. He doesn’t love it, here in the medbay with the groan of the Tulpar and the corpse as company. The evaluations–he knows they’re important. He’s glad Anya takes it so seriously and does it so well. It’s just different, advocating their importance to the crew and then actually doing his own mandatory one. Every man’s got doubts about his purpose, his ambitions, surely. That’s normal. And anyway, he’s captain. Anya shouldn’t have to hear about it. He’s got to be a bastion; a beacon of strength. No room for weakness.

He raises his hands in mock surrender, faintly ashamed at the resignation settling like ash over her face. “As long as I’m fit to fly in your eyes, Anya.”

She sighs. The pencil disappears under the table again: even though Curly’s trying to blot the red-bandaged stain out of his vision, he sees the corpse flinch minutely at the gesture. Her voice drags him back, still warm despite her clear disappointment. “Oh, stop it.” He’s almost pathetically grateful for it, that she doesn’t push and lets him charm his way out of another inconvenient situation.

It’s silent for a minute, aside from the shuffling of papers as Anya sorts them out. He can’t help the way his foot taps a jittery rhythm out on the floor, knee shaking with the movement. He knows she probably sees it, is observing it: he can’t stop it. She doesn’t say anything except to sigh again, shoulders slumping inward as she stares down at the empty form she’s fastened to the clipboard in place of Curly’s filled-out eval.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, eager to lend a hand in any way. Least he can do.

A tight smile appears, small and quick to fade. She doesn’t look directly at him when she answers, but he can feel the pinprick weight of her attention nonetheless. “I was just thinking that I only have one more eval to do.”

Oh. Curly casts his mind behind him and tries to run through who he knows has already met with her. With three people, luckily, that’s not a long list. “Jimmy?” Underneath the table, it sounds like the corpse stifles a choked gasp, which he determinedly ignores.

Anya’s mouth presses thin. “He acts as if I do these things for fun,” she says. From anyone else, it would sound like a complaint, really, but she’s got a voice that’s good for diplomacy. Still, Curly knows his friend and knows how much he whines about that sort of thing. It’s nice of her to sound so level.

He chuckles, leaning back in his chair and lacing his hands together behind his head. “He giving you trouble?”

She looks up at him, and for a second he feels like a bug pinned under a microscope. There’s a strange emotion he can’t decipher swirling in her eyes, settling in the curves of her face. Her mouth opens, and he waits for her to speak, but after a long moment, she just closes it and huffs a breath from her nose. It’s an airy sound he suspects is meant to be dismissive, and he would let it, except…she looks so tired. She doesn’t meet his gaze when he tries to catch her eye.

“It’s just a little difficult,” she says. Belatedly, Curly thinks to wonder about the corpse: the breathing is shallow and nearly silent. It’s the quietest his hallucination has ever been, and it’s odd. Like someone holding their breath. “I’ve got to make reports with things like…oh, how he’s found himself sexually excited at the sight of cartoon horses.”

Curly can’t help the snort he lets out, but Anya only smiles at him humorlessly. She has the look of a Burton protagonist, he’s always thought, a tendency towards gloomy elegance that’s suited to lurking at the edge of ballrooms, not bustling around their medbay and handing out Tylenol to Daisuke. Still, the furrow between her brow is deeper than he’d like. At this rate, it’ll carve a permanent groove in her skin.

He sobers, pulling his chair closer to the table with a screech of metal legs against metal grating.

“Hey,” he says softly, and only remembers that hardly anyone on the ship is as physically affectionate as he is after he’s already hooked an ankle around Anya’s. She doesn’t pull away, though, her shoulders slumping, and he leans over the table. They’re like a couple of kids, giggling over a secret with their heads together, except she looks so unhappy. “Now that ‘m thinking about it, you always do these one-on-one, don’t you? I suppose Jimmy can get a little intense sometimes. I could take it off your hands.”

Anya finally looks at him. Her mouth is still pulled faintly into a frown, but there’s a new light in her eyes. “Really?’

Curly shrugs, pulling her clipboard closer and squinting down at it. The words sort of blur into lines of slanted black, neat little boxes marching like ants down the side. How many times has he sat here, patiently answering her questions? It wouldn’t be an inconvenience to be on the other side. Though, she’s right–Jimmy really should be taking these more seriously. “I’ve known him a long time. He won’t try any bullshit with me.”

Anya hesitates, but says, slowly, “I suppose you are the Captain.”

“I am the Captain.” He leans back, satisfied that she returns his grin with a warm one of her own. This is more familiar territory, the sly back-and-forth that he’s continuously delighted by. It’s a blessing, really: if he had to go hurtling through space with anyone, the four he’s stuck with in this tin can currently are the best of the bunch.

“Then thank you,” Anya says, standing and brushing her lap off briskly. There’s nothing there but a few eraser shavings, but Curly’s got his own silly habits. She cocks her head, artificial lighting shining harshly down on the top of her head. He waves a hand dismissively, mirroring the tilt of her head. “It’s a relief.”

And that’s nearly where he leaves it. Wouldn’t think twice about it, even, except–the corpse. Terror can only persist so long before it becomes tedious and no matter how tragic this wreck of a man is, wherever it came from within his head, the sight of blood-soaked bandages and death’s-head grin is rote by now. That’s not what catches his attention. Or the way the corpse drags himself away from Anya either, a strange, slick sound that had made Curly a little nauseous at first.

It’s the fact that he’s looking at him. Shoulders squared, head raised, dead on staring at him. The blue eye is unnerving enough when it roves purposelessly across the room, like a glassy marble spinning in an empty socket. But it’s not that the hallucination is pinning him with such an intense look, it’s that it feels like there’s genuine awareness behind it. Like a consciousness, a mind, someone screaming behind soundproof glass. 

Curly tries not to stare right back, mouth pinched, hunched defensively. He’d been intending to get up, shoot some witty word of farewell to Anya, and saunter out the door, happy to take some stress off her plate. It’s all fled from his head, though, leaving him stumbling. God, not again. Of course the worst of the distraction and the wariness would happen around her. Feels almost unfair; if the thing has such a preference for her presence, curled at her feet, why’s he trying to jeopardise it? If she finds out–

For some reason, his flailing mind latches on to how Anya had said relief. Not just a thank-you; not just an off-hand thing. Bone-deep relief, ease sinking into the curve of her mouth and her brow smoothing out. Sure, Jimmy’s intense. Can be a piece of work on the better days and downright nasty on the mediocre ones, even if they mostly just end up joking about it. But her reaction…his heart sinks, a little.

The corpse is still staring at him, still staring up at him. Curly nearly trips over his own feet and the leg of the chair as he hastily stands. Barely understands why, except it feels like he's got to, like he has to look closer. What with the wildness in the corpse's eyes, boring into him like there's an important conversation lost in the void between them. Anya blinks up at him, an eyebrow raised in faint bewilderment. 

She’s got an anatomy book under her arm, had probably picked it up while he was distracted (again), and fiddles with the spine as he struggles with what he’s trying to say. What is he even trying to say? But the corpse just keeps watching him. Maybe he’s just going crazier than he thought, but Curly swears the thing wants him to speak.

“How are you?” he ends up blurting. 

Anya frowns at him, reaching up to adjust the soft folds of the turtleneck. “Where’s this coming from, Captain?” There’s a faint accusation in her words, maybe, like she’s trying to pick apart his motivations but is already certain of what she’ll find. Except it’s not a pitiful attempt at deflection: just pitiful. He remembers that he doesn’t make it easy for her. 

“Just that…” he hesitates, gladly turning his back to the corpse and its blue eye to peer down at Anya. He hopes he doesn’t seem like he’s fussing. It’s just that now he can’t stop thinking of the way she’d said it: it’s a relief. “Maybe I don’t check in enough. As our nurse, you never get psych evals. I should have thought of that sooner.”

“I’d like to think I’d tell you if I was struggling, Captain,” she says. It’s wry, it’s clearly a joke: why wouldn’t the nurse know if she was going to go around the bend? 

But there’s suddenly a crack across her placid expression even as she says it, a shadow that doesn’t sit right on her features. Its appearance surprises him, and he probably doesn’t do a good job of hiding that. Surprises her, too, maybe: that he can see the emotion seeping into her skin. It looks like a festering sore. She touches the fragile skin beneath her eye with a light brush of a finger. 

“Hey,” he says, quieter. “You will, won’t you? You can always come to me–you’re my responsibility. You and the crew. I’d do anything for you. I’ll tell you over and over, yeah?”

Behind him–no, beside him; hallucination or not, for some reason he can always feel his fever-warm touch, moving to settle against his calf–the corpse sighs. It’s the most human he’s ever sounded, the most he’s ever sounded at all, and it sends a chill down Curly’s spine. It sounds like grief. The remains of his hand taps against the ground, weakly reaching towards Anya.

She’s studying him. Sharp, sharp eyes. Whatever emotion leaked out, she’s gently swept it up again, expression serene and only marred a little by something bleaker. “Okay,” she murmurs. The silence after it grows larger, bigger, like there should be something following it. Nothing does. 

Curly pauses, turning the words around in his mouth like sour candy. “...Is it because of Jimmy?” Nothing in her expression changes, but the hand around her book clenches. He reaches out to pat it gently, noting how cool her skin is compared to his. How her bony fingers are dwarfed by his own. He doesn’t like the hollow look on her face, the miserable slant of her lips. 

“I know he’s your friend, Captain,” she finally says. “I know you’ve known him for a long time and I know I…I know that could be an awkward position. You’ve never been one for conflict.” And it’s true, always been something he’s been praised for, been promoted for: but underneath her steady look, it feels like a failure. 

He just wishes he understood more. Aware just enough to know that he’s missing something, that the stress lines settling by Anya’s eyes are writing a story for him, except it's one he can’t read. It blurs before him, like the psych eval, and no matter how he squints, he can’t understand it. But he truly doesn’t like to see her upset, so he does his best to muster a smile and reassure. “I’ll figure this out, all right?” he says. “I’ll talk to him, tell him to take the evals more seriously.”

The assurances don’t seem to stick. “Okay. You know what he’s like,” she says, perfectly measured. 

Curly does know what he’s like–why wouldn’t he? They’ve been friends longer than not. It’d felt like second nature, to spin the co-pilot chair around and offer it to Jimmy right after he’d been hired, sure, what the hell. They've always been a pair, and he trusts him. Anya doesn’t, though. That’s suddenly clear. Why? Has it been hard adjusting, have they never clicked right, have they been arguing over something?  

It can’t be so bad. It’s nothing he can’t sort out. And in the end, doesn’t Jimmy just have a few too many sharp edges? He’s not cruel. 

But she looks so resigned, under the harsh white light of the medbay. I want to understand, Curly thinks of telling her. I’ll look for it. I’ll try my best, I promise. His mouth only works soundlessly for a moment, and not a single syllable passes his lips. There’s a sinking feeling in his gut, a jagged rock that hurts to swallow, and the sense that he’s not just missing something, he’s missing a step. He’s making a misstep. There’s something he’s missing. 

Behind them, the screen that takes up one of the walls flickers and shifts from the neon-orange daylight of a fake sun to the cooler tones of an equally artificial night. Anya casts a glance behind her, the blue of the screen painting her like a Van Gogh for a brief moment before she faces him again.

“I don't expect much. But I appreciate it, Captain,” she continues, quietly. It rings hollow. Behind her, a pixelated moon rises among the clouds. 

“Curly,” he says. Between them, each of his foot-in-mouth attempts sit, a leaden lump that neither of them have the strength to pick up. “It doesn’t always have to be ‘Captain,’ Anya. We’re friends too. Not when–not when it’s difficult or if you're struggling. I don’t want you to think I’ll put things in the performance logs.”

God, nothing he says comes out right. He barely knows what he’s trying to say anymore. What is he trying to say? His mind whirls with attempts at comforting, a drop of water in a wildfire that Jimmy’s set ablaze–his oldest friend. The corpse grunts softly, collapsing to raw elbows and knees, crawling over to Anya to rest at her feet once more. The awareness has fled from his blue eye, and it rolls aimlessly in his skull once more. But there’s a sheen of tears over the iris and the set of his shoulders suggests he’s defeated.

The hallucination and himself both, Curly thinks. For some reason, it’s that silence (from a figment of his imagination, nonetheless! One that’s been silent!) that hits the worst. In the quiet, it sounds a lot like failure. He’s supposed to be better than that.

Anya pulls him back to the present, reaching out to pat his hand like he’d done to her own a few minutes ago. Dry skin, probably from the amount of sanitizer she uses. She smiles up at him, warm and distant both. There’s a finality in her tone when she tells him, gently, “I know, Curly. I haven’t doubted that, despite–I don’t think that of you. It’s alright.” And then, before he can register that, she clears her throat and pulls a yellow sticky note from the cover of her book with little fanfare. 

“Here, before I really do forget. Swansea wanted me to give you this.” Curly takes it from her quietly, staring down at the scrawled complaint. Miracles!!! it cries. “Not sure what it’s about but…looks like fun! Good luck!” And it’s that faint cheer, the same banter he’d been so glad for, that drives home she’s gently shutting him down. 

He winces, crumpling it in his fist and raising his free hand to rake through his hair. God. Is this how it felt when he did it, always turning down each opportunity to open up? Like pulling teeth to him or not, maybe he should have tried harder. Okay. All right. “Thank you, Anya,” he says. Wants to keep talking, to say: I’ll be back, I really will talk to him, you never told me if you’re alright–

He leaves the medbay, half-glad for the new purpose in his step, the things a captain must do, and half-troubled with the thought of this tension that’s sprung up without his knowledge. The corpse doesn’t follow. He drags himself to rest against one of the cots and watches Anya as she bustles around, breath rattling in his lungs.

When Curly throws a glance over his shoulder, startled at the hallucination’s absence, there’s such a profoundly human air of defeat and despair that hangs over the corpse’s head that he nearly breaks out in a jog to get away from it.

He really is going crazy

---

Lucky for Curly, he doesn’t have to go far to find the people on his to-do list. Jimmy’s hanging around outside the utility room, peering around the doorframe to watch Daisuke struggle in the foam with Swansea right next to him, expression thunderous. Curly’s half-inclined to stop and chat with Jimmy for a second, but Swansea catches sight of him outside the door and then he’s distracted with getting the axe and freeing their poor intern. 

Maybe it’s frowned-upon to leave it with Swansea, but he trusts the older man. Sure, it’s not protocol. But it’s nice to know he doesn’t have to worry about it, and this deep in space, it's become a little lax anyway. 

Curly steps over the raised door frame, bracing his hands on his lower back and stretching with a sigh. It’s a nice strain, but there’s an edge of actual pain there that lets him know he’s gone too long without working out. Not that there’s too much opportunity on the Tulpar, but any attempt is better than nothing. He mentally marks it down and expects to find no time for it. Jimmy watches him, leaning against the wall. 

The other man jerks his chin in the direction of the utility room, the door now closed. His arms are crossed across his chest, a yellow stain on the collar of his shirt. Coffee, probably. Jimmy blinks at him, his eyes half lidded. “Thought Pony Express didn’t have on-board entertainment.”

“Feels like something’s always broken in that room, doesn’t it?” Curly agrees, offering him a small smile. It feels a little strained on his face, so he lets it fall. “Tulpar’s starting to show her age.” It’s funny to him, how little the persona Jimmy likes to keep up matches with how he sounds. His friend’s determined to achieve some brooding hero archetype he never quite reaches by sole virtue of his often-pissy attitude, but even if he had, the man’s got the softest voice he’s ever heard. Hell, Anya’s voice is deeper. 

Drives Jimmy nuts, naturally. Curly tries to worm it into conversation wherever possible for that sole reason. 

Jimmy shrugs apathetically, propping a foot behind him. “Passed inspection, right? Shouldn’t be an issue.” There’s shadows beneath his black eyes, and it looks like a thicker growth of stubble on his cheeks than usual. Curly feels an abrupt flash of shame. Despite how busy it’s been (and honestly, why’s there so much to do in such a limited space?) it’s clear Anya’s been struggling. Jimmy doesn’t look great either. He barely knows what Swansea and Daisuke are up to, lately; he’s got to do a better job of checking in on his crew.

“Mm,” Curly says, a little absent-mindedly. Where’s the corpse gone? It’s the longest that he hasn’t been shadowed by it. Is it still with Anya, in the medbay? But it’s his hallucination. Is that normal, when you’re seeing things? For a product of your mind to have its own? He’s got little experience, thankfully. Maybe it’s gone for good. “Remember though, they added Daisuke last minute. Five of us, now! I really should have raised a bigger stink about that.” 

A twitch of Jimmy’s shoulder, the jumpsuit pulling tight against his bicep. There’s a dull, sly sort of look on his face, a narrowed eye that he levels Curly with, though he doesn’t take offence. Out of the two of them, Curly’s aware he’s more expressive. The more emotional one, really. “Log a complaint then, Captain. Or just leave it be. It’s been fine–nothing’s gonna happen. Your call, of course, but why make such a fuss?”

Well, he’s right. It’s been fine so far. 

Still, though. Daisuke’s a wonderful kid, cheerful and eager to learn. Certainly goes a long way towards brightening up a room. They’re his crew, and that means a level of accountability if something goes wrong. He presses his lips together, unable to resist darting a glance at the utility room’s door. “I’m the Captain, mate, it doesn’t work like that.” At Jimmy’s unimpressed look, he raises his hands. “I’ve got a responsibility for him, that’s all.”

“Nothing’s happened,” Jimmy sighs, exasperated. He reaches up to push his hair out of his face, the brown strands hanging lank in front of his eyes. “And if you do your job, nothing will, right? Pony Express hired you, someone they were trusting to step up and be a leader. It’s stupid to harass them about one little cryopod. You don’t wanna lose your position, right?”

Curly hums noncommittally, raising a hand to rub at the tension in his neck. Maybe it was just best to let it slide for now. Jimmy wasn’t wrong, really, Pony Express had strict standards for their captains, but it was hard to reason with him when he got stuck on something. “Right. Hey, listen–”

Jimmy pushes off from the wall, arms falling to his sides as he cocks his head. 

They’re about the same height, nearly the same build: maybe Jimmy is a little taller if he squints, and tends to be better at keeping an exercise routine than Curly is, so maybe a little stronger too. Jimmy likes to get in his space, though half of the time it was probably just to try and hold those triumphs over his head, so Curly never takes him too seriously.

“No, seriously, you trying to lose your position? Just leave it.” Jimmy claps a hand amicably on Curly’s shoulder, his palm a warm brand through the jumpsuit. “I’m always lookin’ out. And I’m always right, huh?”

“Yeah, sure, I’ll leave it,” Curly said, a little quieter. For now, at least. It’s nice that Jimmy’s concerned–”Captain” can be a pretty lonely role, stuck up on a ladder with no one else at the top. 

Jimmy smiles at him, close-mouthed. “I know you got a lot on your plate,’” he says. “That's all I mean. You gotta think of yourself sometimes.”

There's a softer note to his voice now, for all that he's not suited for it. With Jimmy you've got to take what he offers and then pick it apart and squint between lines. Curly's gotten used to that, in all their years of friendship. Nicer, sometimes, to not have to spill your guts awkwardly in front of the people you hope won't hurt you. 

He doesn't say anything, just pats him on the back and hopes it's enough of a thanks. Jimmy takes it easily, fiddling with the cuffs of his white sleeves so they sit neater.

“I take it Anya diagnosed you with “being sane,” then, if you’re released from the medbay,” he says after a moment, eyebrow cocked.

“Just off-center,” Curly disagrees, laughing a little. It’s airier than he’d like, but it’s imbued with faint relief Jimmy’s not pressing the topic, his eyes boring into his soul. “But it keeps me on my toes. I said I’d do yours.”

Jimmy reaches up to lay his collar flatter, frowning faintly. A faintly aggrieved look blooms on his face, some emotion lying darker beneath it that makes his features ugly with its strength. Curly blinks, taken aback, though he wipes the expression away in a flash. “What, the nurse is too busy? I ain’t good enough or what? Seemed perfectly happy to do yours.” 

Curly hesitates, rubbing a hand over his chin, the faint pressure comforting as he gathers his thoughts. It’s…difficult, to think of what to say. Had Anya had an actual problem with Jimmy? What’s got her so stressed? Not for the first time that hour, he curses himself for not being better at stepping up. He should have pressed her, or figured out what she was concerned about. In the end, he settles on shoving Jimmy’s shoulder teasingly. “Well how else ‘m I supposed to hear all about those cartoon horses? Something you were born with? Or a recent devel–”

“Alright, alright, shut up,” Jimmy huffs, brushing his hand off his shoulder. There’s a faint smirk pulling at his lips though, a reluctant smile that Curly returns. “I’m not in the mood to do this in the corridor. Meet me in the cockpit.”

That’s fine by him. Never hurts to check in on the ship and its journey; space is surprisingly perilous for being so empty. Curly shrugs in response, tucking his hands in his pockets and rocking back on his heels. Jimmy doesn’t waste any time, wheeling around with only a half-hearted hand thrown up over his shoulder as farewell. Curly watches him walk away, something nagging at the edge of his memory, and only finds the words when his friend’s nearly rounding the corner.

“Hey, listen,” he calls, voice booming down the corridor and echoing around the walls. The only sign Jimmy’s heard him is the way he tilts his head, brown hair obscuring all but the curve of his cheek. He’s clearly impatient, barely waiting for Curly to speak, so he hurries himself up. “Cut back on the jokes to Anya, alright? No more of this cartoon horse shit. I think it’s making her stressed. Especially during the evals. You know she’s just doing her job.”

Jimmy scoffs, turning halfway to shoot an incredulous look at Curly, who squares his shoulders. He’s serious about this: hopes it shows in his face. He gives Jimmy a lot of freedom, a little too much slack, but this can’t be an area where he budges. His friend studies him for a second, the dubious expression fading to make way for irritation as Curly sets his lips thin and firm. Jimmy shoves one hand in his pocket, tch’ing quietly. “She’s just sensitive,” he grumbles. “Don’t be so controlling.”

“Jimmy. C’mon, mate, I said I’d talk to you about it.”

“Right, damn, the perfect Captain,” Jimmy scowls, shoulders hunched to his ears as he turns around and begins his brisk pace once more. “Sure, whatever. Hurry up, I don’t got all day.” He disappears around the corner, the parting words buzzing around Curly’s ears like insects. He almost misses the pesky things, the sunny days with bees or mosquitos fluttering around his head. It’s sterile and grey here, more familiar almost than the home he’d grown up in, grassy and warm. 

It’s silent, even Jimmy’s footsteps having faded away. With a quick glance through the port window of the utility room door–there’s Daisuke, bouncing around and following Swansea with a stream of chatter, something the older man doesn’t do a good job of looking unhappy about–Curly follows after his co-pilot. 

Feels like the blink of an eye before he’s at the cockpit, the glow of green screens visible even through the cloudy glass. His fingers are curling around the handle, arm already tensed to pull the door open, when he’s interrupted by a slow shuffling. It’s a strange rhythm, a thump followed by a dry sssshhh, the floor creaking with weight. Curly looks down and tries not to visibly startle when the corpse stares up at him, a loose edge of the bandages fluttering around his mouth. 

With a hissed groan, the hallucination painstakingly pulls himself straight, wobbling in place. They stare at each other for a minute, Curly trying not to frown and with a headache blooming to life behind his temples. It’s just that the guy is so realistic. So recognizably human. It had felt nearly normal without his presence, no breathing to drown out, no lidless eye to avoid. For some reason he finds himself addressing the corpse, tilting his head. “Back again, hm?”

Predictably, the corpse doesn’t answer. He sways in place, like a gentle breeze is buffeting him and he doesn’t have the strength to not follow it, chest rising and falling with that familiar rattling. But the eye is pinned to Curly’s face, sharp and aware and with a hard edge in the blue of his iris. It makes him uncomfortable. Each time his jaw twitches, toothy maw parting slightly, Curly half-expects him to speak. Nothing kind, surely. There’s censure lurking in the unwavering gaze. 

That unshakeable belief–that he’s going crazy, that this isn’t going to go away, that he can’t let his composure slip–returns with a vengeance. 

Closing his eyes briefly, trying to steel himself against the world, against Jimmy and his keen ability to pick at what’s bugging someone, against Curly's own stress… He turns his back to the corpse decisively, plastering a friendly smile on his face, he opens the cockpit door. It opens near soundlessly, a faint mechanical whir the only indication, and steps over the metal lip of it easily. Behind him, there’s a fleshy thwack and another sound like dragging snakeskin. So the hallucination has once more dedicated himself as Curly’s shadow.

He resists the urge to turn around and offer his aid; it can’t be easy to clamber over the door frame with nothing but limbless stumps. Figment of my imagination, he reminds himself, and settles in the chair opposite Jimmy’s. His co-pilot has been watching him silently, and now lazily swivels his chair to face him.

“You can’t just make something up for this?” Jimmy asks, wrinkling his nose faintly.  “It’s not like these evals ever go anywhere when we get back.”

Curly settles into the captain’s chair. “We’ll power through it.” There’s a ragged edge of fake leather that’s cracking, fracturing across the headrest like lightning. It catches on his hair if he relaxes back, so he doesn’t, pulling out the eval paper he’s folded and stuck in his back pocket. There’s a pen in the pocket of his jumpsuit, thankfully–he’s always glad he has the foresight to grab one, even if he forgets about it later–and scrawls Jimmy’s name across the top. 

The corpse has crawled over the stoop, though not without a hissed groan. Curly tries to not look over, wide-eyed, as the hallucination drags himself to slump against the center console. There’s a streak of red left behind on the ground, and the bandages around his knees have blood seeping through more heavily. Once propped against the cool metal though, he goes limp, something dull and empty settling in the blue of his iris. 

Curly’s sort of resigned himself to reading into every one of the corpse’s actions, trying to parse human emotion from a ravaged face hidden by gauze. Makes him feel a little more grounded, even if it’s just his head playing tricks on him. 

There are little habits the hallucination has around the crew that are interesting. Around Daisuke, he tends to cock his head, like he’s always waiting for the kid to ramble on about something and eager to listen. Around Swansea, he’s not very physical (like Curly himself, really; the older man isn’t very touchy and won’t tolerate more than an occasional clap on the back), except there’s a distinct air of admiration for the older man. It persists, no matter whether Swansea’s griping about breakfast or working thin-mouthed at the vent in the utility room. With Anya, of course, it’s that same perpetual grief, sitting like a kicked dog at her feet, sometimes reaching out to paw pitifully at the hem of her jumpsuit.

But with Jimmy–it’s like the corpse mentally checks out. Curly’d been interested, a few weeks ago when the hallucination had first appeared and he’d noted its habits, how it’d act around his oldest friend. Nothing. Like a deer in the headlights, he’d freeze his limbs and sit like a wooden doll, barely recognisable as living except for that constant, shallow breathing. It’s odd. Up until that moment, it had been easy to brush off, too. But Curly’s certainly on edge, Anya still on his mind and the corpse at his heels. 

He shakes himself back to the present, Jimmy waiting with a fist propped under his chin. It squishes his face, hollow cheek extended and round against his knuckles. Might as well hop to. Curly clears his throat, squinting down at the paper, and asks, “Have you been able to complete your mandated tasks as Co-Pilot efficiently and to your fullest capacity?"

Jimmy rolls his eyes, face barely twitching. “Urgh. Uh, let’s see…”

Curly’s eval had taken an hour or so, but he’d freely admit he’s a chatty person and tended to interrupt Anya with his own questions they’d get briefly sidetracked on. So Jimmy’s evaluation only takes thirty minutes; though his answers are curt, it seems like he's trying to put effort into them. Curly unhesitatingly marks the right boxes with a slash of his pen–soon, there’s nothing else to scribble down. It’s already creased along the right lines, and he easily folds it back into a square that goes into his back pocket. 

“Done and done,” he says, running a hand through his hair. It feels a little greasy, and he mentally sets a reminder to take a shower before he calls it a night. The corpse’s pupil jitters at the sound of Curly’s voice, darting briefly to Jimmy before returning to stare down at his lap. At the jerky movement, Anya’s wan face comes to mind again, another ghost to haunt him as he sits amicably next to his co-pilot. The stupid joke he’d planned on shooting at Jimmy to break the silence fades on his lips. Instead, he gets serious, clearing his throat and leaning forward to level him with a look. “...How are things otherwise? Off the record.”

The light of the screen paints Jimmy’s skin a sickly grey, shadows collecting under his eyes. He purses his mouth, considering. “I like it. We’re in control here.”

Curly leans back, folding his hands over his stomach. Good, they’re actually talking. It’s hard to tell with him, sometimes, what he’d brush off or what he’d listen to. “Didn’t think you’d ever take to being a freighter pilot as well as you have. What with how you struggled back on Earth.” 

Sometimes he looks at Jimmy and all he sees is the brooding, angry kid he was when they met, fresh out of high school and both of them looking for something more. Little things like the creases by Jimmy’s eyes, the thinness of his skin, or the exhaustion of adulthood–it doesn’t register. Overlapping the face of his co-pilot is always some translucent fraction of the unsteady teen that had latched onto Curly’s offered hand like a leech. 

“Sure,” Jimmy says, but it’s absent-minded. He props an elbow on the arm of his chair, reaching down to tug the sleeve of the white undershirt in place. “I’m sure nobody’s ever doubted your affinity. All I ever hear is how great of a leader you are.” He grins, white teeth on a stretched display. “Honestly, it’s kind of annoying.” 

Curly runs his hand over the buttons on the consol, each curved edge bumping against his fingertips. A few come away with dust, and he makes a face at his skin. Jimmy’s gaze drops down to follow his only briefly before returning to his face, something sharp and knowing in the way he watches Curly. “So what is it?”

“Hm?” Curly frowns over at him. It’s going to give him wrinkles, honestly, feels like there’s never not some furrow settled comfortably between his eyebrows. 

“How come it always seems like you’re standing on the edge of a bridge with your feet in cement?” Jimmy presses, insistent enough that Curly shifts in his chair, trying to give his friend his full attention. Maybe he looks confused: Jimmy sighs, shoulder twitching as he reaches out to tap the edge of the console in emphasis. “Maybe you’re not thinking of jumping,” he says. “But it seems like you’re gonna fall.”

Curly pauses, worrying the inside of his cheek. That’s the bad thing, he supposes, about having your closest friend as a co-worker. You can only put so much professional distance between them. He might know Jimmy, but more than anything, Jimmy knows him. All of his crew, really, have begun to wear at the blurry boundaries he keeps up, the spaces between each other that keeps them distinct. Months in a rust bucket hurtling through the galaxy: you can’t escape the other people running the same way. 

Besides, it would be…nice, to get some things off his chest. 

Anya means well, and in any other situation, he’d take her offer and open up happily. The issue is, he's not by nature closed off or reticent. He starts telling her one worry and everything else will spiral out of control after it. And she can't doubt him. Shouldn't even have to worry about him. A mutilated hallucination stalking him day and night would certainly engender some hesitation. 

Jimmy’s a safer option, because Curly can clam up anytime, refusing to elaborate, and not be pressed in return. Besides, it’s good to be honest with your friends. Yet even as he thinks it, the directionless dread that’s been buzzing around his head solidifies into a hard knot beneath his sternum. He can talk all he likes, but there’s a yoke he won’t be able to cast off, even if he doesn’t know what he’s carrying. 

But he forges on, holding onto that fraction of relief like water in a desert. “...Lately, I’ve been thinking if this is enough. If I’m just staying here because I’m successful at it.” And barely even that anymore. “A good long haul freighter Captain.”

“And that’s bad?” Jimmy’s voice, soft and pointed, cuts through all the thoughts in his head clamouring to be spoken. 

“That’s what I’m saying, it’s not. But…it’s terrifying.” Curly rolls his neck awkwardly, trying to hide the chill that creeps down his spine. It is. It’s horrifying, knowing he’s what must stand between four people and the things that want to take them. He’s got a responsibility to take responsibility and if he doesn’t, no one else will. Humbling, too, that his crew trusts him. The longer they fly, the worse the idea of something happening to them is. Worse still the knowledge that he can’t do anything. “I think, is this all I’ll ever be? Or do I take a risk and try something new? Even if I’m bad at it.”

It’s silent for a minute, only the low groan of metal and the higher buzzing of technology surrounding them. Curly’s foot nudges–or his brain makes him think it nudges, anyway–the corpse’s hip, and they both startle a little. At least he’s getting better at blocking the hallucination out. Jimmy’s fingers tap a slow, staccato rhythm on the consol, eyes narrowed.

“I guess I get it,” he mumbles, but the divot between his brows suggests otherwise. Curly doesn’t have to wait long for him to clarify. If there’s one thing Jimmy’s never been accused of, it’s being shy about speaking his mind. “You reached the highest rung on this ladder, sure. But it can’t be that bad up there–you really that upset about it? Why bother leaving something you’re good at? People you’re good with? They rely on you.”

Curly winces. “I know they do. And it’s not bad. I’m happy that I’ve gotten this far. But don’t you ever feel like you’re…mm, I don’t know. Figured out, I guess. Like this isn’t the hill you should have chosen to die on.”

“Me? No,” Jimmy snorts inelegantly, shoving away his bangs from where they hang, limp, over his eyes. They’ve grown out from when they first boarded the Tulpar. “I told you, I like it. And anyway, it’s not like I chose this hill: you were the one who got me this gig. Can’t bail out now and leave me behind.”

“No, no,” Curly murmurs, staring down at his hands and flexing them idly. They’re calloused and large, clumsy with tiny screws or finding the corner of a bandaid to peel, but they’ve never faltered when wrapped around a yoke. “It’s good you’re doing well here, then.”

“We’re doing well here,” Jimmy corrects. “Mindset’s supposed to be everything–it’s stupid to wonder about better things when what you’ve got here is pretty good. Besides,” and the edge in his voice makes Curly look up, bitterness faintly seeping into his friend’s voice and the curve of his frown. “you’re worryin’ you might be on the wrong ladder, but I’m still climbing and climbing.”

Curly sits up in the chair, creaking as he shifts his weight. “Hey, hey, hey,” he protests. “You know I believe in you. Here, on Earth. Doesn’t matter.” 

And it’s true. Despite all this…uncertainty recently, his concern over Anya, his own doubts, the weight of his hallucinations–he thinks there’s got to be something more to Jimmy. A man and an ability worth cultivating: a constant friend. It’s what gave him the idea to recommend Jimmy a position on the Tulpar; why he’s glad to have him as his co-pilot; it’s what Curly’s always done. In a flash of memory tinted gold and rose, they’re teenagers, and they’re never one without the other. Curly dives headfirst and whole-heartedly into something and he drags Jimmy along. 

Curly loves like a dog. He knows it. It’s never backfired on him before and he hopes it never will: there’s nothing wrong with loving people with everything you got. It can patch holes, fix wounds, keep your crew safe and healthy. He tries to burn that belief into Jimmy, levelling him with a firm look, and his friend looks back, faintly amused. Curly’s got to believe in him. 

“Hah,” Jimmy says, crossing his arms again. He’s softened a bit, the severe lines of his features blurred under the green light. He’s got his own brand of affection, sharper and subtler, but any hint of it makes Curly relieved. Reassured. That he’s not giving into the void, that there’s a man at the bottom of the pit, that they’ve got each others’ backs. “Should write that on the psych eval.”

Before Curly can respond, the terminal emits a loud, melodic tone, cheerily informing the pair there’s a MESSAGE INCOMING. He frowns, swivelling his chair around to face the screens more directly. He hadn’t been expecting anything from Pony Express: communication is sparse. You’re expected to know how to do your job and sort out any issues inbetween without whining about it to corporate. 

“The big guys themselves. Guess that’s my cue.” Jimmy pushes himself to his feet, brow settling into its default crease, shadows settling easily into the hollows of his cheeks. Behind him, the printer springs to life, a piece of paper inching out from between plastic teeth. “Hey–you want me to bring the eval to our, uh, lovely nurse?”

Curly waves his hand dismissively, rising to his feet as well and catching sight of the printer. Only a single note? Must not be a very important memo. “Knowing you, you’d forget, mate. I’d hate to cause Anya more trouble.” He stretches his arms out in front of himself, fingers interlacing and straining. His wrists are sore–humbling, to feel his age. “She's got enough on her plate.” 

Jimmy shoots him a look. Curly can't decipher what it is, exactly, something slant and assessing. After a moment, his head cocks, chin nearly resting on his shoulder and with brown hair falling in uneven lengths over his cheek. “Right, right. Must be hard with all those patients. Maybe this time, Swansea will need a painkiller instead of Daisuke." 

He's smiling, faint and snaggle-toothed. The white of his undershirt turns a sickly green when he shifts from one foot to the other. Curly’s brows furrow, thinking of the stacks of textbooks Anya'd brought on the ship. Pony Express nurses got by with a loose grasp of medicine and a whole lot of luck. They were beyond fortunate to have Anya and her passion–her care. 

"Regulations won't let the Tulpar out of orbit without a nurse, you know," he reminds Jimmy, rubbing at his jaw. The stubble there is too thick, and scratches his skin. Just another thing to do. "That's a lot of pressure for one person. I'd like to make it easy for her when I can." 

"Didn’t realise she had you wrapped around her little finger," Jimmy says conversationally, still poised in front of the door like he means to leave. "Doesn't the Captain have more important things to worry about?" His lip curls in something too sharp to be humour. "She’ll fret regardless. It’s what she does.”

Curly shoots him a disapproving glance, lips pulling thin. He’s used to Jimmy’s jagged edges; he’s sandpaper to them. But this is different. Aimed at him, Curly can take it–even find a certain rough amusement in it. But when it’s Anya, when she’s not here to defend herself, that’s something else entirely. Hell, it shouldn't be a topic at all. There's a way to resolve issues among the crew, and though the depths of the issues between Anya and Jimmy are only recently clearer, this complaining isn't productive. 

"There's nothing more important than the crew," Curly says, smoothing a hand over the Pony Express insignia embroidered into his jumpsuit. "My crew. She doesn't fret, Jim, she just cares. Maybe you need to get to know her better." 

Jimmy rests a finger against his lips, leaning against the doorframe with a thunk. His eyes, black and small, remind Curly of a crow's, or shining beads. They narrow with his brand of sly, irritated teasing, the familiar sort Curly’s grown to dislike. His frown deepens at the sight of it. "Sure, maybe," he agrees, sotto voce. "Guess I don’t know her like you do. All those little talks, one-on-one. She...eager to open up? I wouldn't know, she barely gives me the time of day. But that's just being professional. Must be nice."

Curly braces the heel of his palm against the corner of the center console, the plastic curve of a button nudging the side of his hand. He shoots a distracted glance at the monitors behind him, where the notification waits, blinking patiently and green. “You know it’s not like that,” he sighs. He can’t help the note of weariness that creeps into his voice. 

Jimmy raises an eyebrow, eyes darting over Curly's face like he's trying to decide if he's serious or not. He’s still got that air of amusement hanging heavy over his head. Curly forces himself to hold the gaze, though it's awkward under Jimmy's scrutiny. His friend relaxes after a moment, raising his hands in surrender. 

“I’m kidding, Captain,” he says. There’s something almost pitying in it, like Curly should be better at recognising these sorts of things. How many times over their friendship have they shared a grin, after all? “Can't joke around here anymore, huh, not with the tight ship you're running. You know I don't mean anythin' by it, damn." 

That stings more than it should, the look Jimmy gives him. Something between a mix of irritation and incredulousness, like Curly's the one who should take a step back and reevaluate. Is he right? Is he being a hardass? But Anya, Curly reminds himself firmly. It's different if it’s himself.

In his mind's eye, the glittering figure of Anya looks up at him, a smudge of mascara at the corner of her eye. You know what he's like, she tells him.

"C'mon, mate." His voice softens. To his chagrin, he sounds less like he's trying to meet Jimmy halfway, and more like he remembers his mother in his childhood, pressing a hand to her temples and pleading for him to stop making such a mess. "We've talked about this before, yeah? The joking. I need you to cut back." 

Jimmy doesn't respond right away. He's resting his elbow on the red length of the door handle, expression empty aside from a faintly narrowed gaze. 

For a second, Curly finds himself moronically wondering: have I overstepped? At heart, he's still the teenager who shied away from raised voices and with a burning desire to make people happy. He's not one for conflict, not with his crew, not with anyone, and he wants very badly to just let this go. Things have a way of sorting themselves out–he's always firmly believed it, pleased to watch puzzle pieces fall in place as long as he at least presides over them with a watchful eye. Not this time. He thinks of Anya; makes his heart firm even though his mind turns away, and waits for his old friend to just let this one go.

"Alright, alright, no fun allowed. Message received." Jimmy blinks at him, a crooked scowl that’s probably mostly performative spreading over his mouth. The relief that crashes over Curly is immense. It's just been an off day, that's all. Off week, really, but who's counting. 

"I'm glad," he says. Tries to impress it upon Jimmy, that faint pride Curly rustles up just for him, for every time that Jimmy's needed it; tries to brand the imprint of his faith into his skin. It's what Curly relies on. He hopes it's what Jimmy relies on, too. "I am glad, really. That's good. I do have to take this message now, though."

“‘Course,” his co-pilot murmurs, moving his weight and pushing off of the doorframe, shoulder slumping once he’s no longer leaning on it. “I’ll see you later.”

Curly raises a hand in farewell, the corpse in his peripheral vision as he turns around to face the screens fully. Hopefully Jimmy doesn’t notice the awkward way Curly steps over the hallucination, unable to grind his heel against his flesh even if it’s just his imagination. Only the hiss of the door indicates Jimmy slipping out of the cockpit. Impressive, how quiet he can step when he wants it. Curly can’t count the times he’s entered a room and never noticed Jimmy there. 

The paper is still warm to the touch when he slides it off the tray, but he doesn’t register the words when he stares down at them. It’s bad that he’s this distracted constantly, but even as he retreats into his own thoughts and the neat print smears in front of his eyes, he can’t stop himself. After a moment of blankly staring, he gives up and shoves it in his back pocket for later, next to Jimmy’s psych eval. 

Oh, right. He should give that to Anya. 

It wouldn’t be bad to talk to her again, either, see if he can get to the bottom of this whole mess. Maybe…maybe he should have brought that up better with Jimmy instead of spending their whole conversation just spilling his guts. Curly rakes a hand through his hair, sighing through his teeth. It’s fine. Probably. Jimmy wouldn’t–well, but Anya seemed so upset. And maybe it’s been a little tenser than normal, with his co-pilot. But if anything had happened, would he really jeopardise his position like that? Curly’s trust? 

“I believe in him,” he repeats out loud to himself, firm and determined. 

He’s stopped in his tracks by a choking sound. He’d forgotten about the corpse–alarmed, hands reaching ineffectually and absurdly to help someone who’s not real, Curly rounds his chair. The hallucination is still sprawled against the consol, head lolled against his collarbones, but his shoulders are shaking. Curly hesitates as the noise evolves into something recognizable. It’s wheezy and soft, halting like there’s not enough air or ability to be laughing as he is. And the corpse is laughing. 

It’s so human, the fractured, hitching voice that tears itself from the corpse’s throat. Feels like the laughter rises, hangs heavy in the air and fills every crack of the cockpit until it’s echoing in Curly’s head like a gong. The hallucination’s whole body is shaking, hysterical shaking, mouth frozen in a toothy grin even as his amusement intensifies and devolves into a hoarse cackle. Louder and louder, the blue eye pinned to Curly’s face.

Like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard. 

Curly steps gingerly over the corpse, heart pounding strangely in his ears, and as he reaches for the door handle, chants to himself: I’ll talk to Anya, I’ll talk to Anya, I’m going to talk to Anya--

---

Doesn’t quite find the time for it, though.

Nobody ever tells you the amount of mundane busywork of running a ship. You get pulled into Pony Express because of the way they sell the galaxy to you: great opportunities. Easy money–just a trip or two! Easy to get on, hard to leave. You say today is the last day, but then another, and another; Curly’s been the Tulpar’s Captain for years now. Yet he never stops being surprised by how much there is to do. So he doesn’t get around to Anya, and he doesn’t see Jimmy for the rest of the day either. Whatever counts for day up here, anyway, the windowscreens shifting from red to blue.

And now there’s another world on his shoulders, a heavier weight than the smaller planets he’s used to carrying. Corporate’s memo hasn’t left the pocket of his jumpsuit, the edges ragged and soft from rubbing against cheap fabric and the way he fiddles with it. Closer to the haul destination, it commands. Wait to tell them. Wait. Wait. 

He’s glad for its order, in a way, some vestige of authority that’s not just him. Some leader he has to rely on, not a leader to be relied on. What a joke. He’s got that type of luck. Wondering if there was more to life than being a freighter captain? Now he’s able to find out. But it feels like such a monumental loss, a devastation of his life as he knows it, and the understanding that there will be more joy to find doesn’t make its destruction any less miserable. He will have to learn who he is outside of the Tulpar in a world that has moved on without him. 

Under Curly’s skin as a child was immortality, the galaxy as an adolescent, and with his thirtieth birthday stuck somewhere in the seasons of Earth, it will be discovery. But he fears the change that must take place first. And he dreads having to tell the crew. It’s nice to have the time to figure out how he’s going to tell them, and mourn in private. 

It’s not too hard to hide that, at least, from his crew. He’s been successfully hiding the fact that he’s going crazy from Anya for a good week now–he glances down at the corpse, following slowly after him. It’s hardly the work of a moment to make sure his smiles aren’t strained and his voice is cheery when he talks to them. 

So he’s been all over the place. Swansea had needed him in the utility room again, crouched over the cryopods and shooting questions about regulation and tools at Curly. Daisuke, then, had been shooed off by the older man with a command to follow Curly around and “learn somethin’ useful, damn it.” Their intern is personable and eager to help, so it had actually been nice getting to go around the ship with the kid. Curly hadn’t really had a chance to talk with him alone for that long before. 

It was busy. Even sitting down on his own bunk, the ship void of voices and life, he half-expects someone to burst in and the duties to pile up again from there. He’s tired, always tired: knowing he’s probably not going to get much sleep doesn’t make him less so. The captain’s quarters aren’t anything fancy, and only adjacent to the rest of the dorms, not next to them. It can feel a little lonely, sometimes, but right now, he’s glad of the solitude. 

Near solitude, anyway. The corpse is slumped in a corner by the door, draped in the shadows his flickering lamp doesn’t cut through. He’s staring up at the ceiling, the only indication of life the rise and fall of his chest. He barely seems aware that Curly’s there, which makes it easier to get ready for bed. His hair sits damp and cold on the back of his neck, air-drying from the sluggish shower he’d taken. There’s a clean jumpsuit hanging from the back of his tiny bathroom door, ready for the morning, and a powder-blue undershirt folded beneath it. 

It feels strange to have the walls of the Tulpar pressing down on him without that familiar armor. Curly feels small, sitting on the edge of his bed in a thin pair of sleeping pants and a yellow t-shirt. He thinks about nothing and everything, the groan of the ship a comforting white noise in the back of his mind. After a while, his back starts to ache, sitting hunched over with interlaced fingers hanging between his knees. Hazards of ageing, but it finally spurs him into action. 

So the lamp is turned off, and the sheets untucked from the bed. Curly lies there in the dark for a good while, eyes stinging with exhaustion as the staticky silhouettes of pipes and his desk blur into something confusing and fantastical. The pillow is soft and cradles his head easily, but no matter how he adjusts himself or how many sheep he counts, his tiny digital clock marks the passing of several hours before he finally succumbs to a shallow oblivion. 

He’s not sure how long he sleeps–if that’s what it can be called. He doesn’t dream anymore, probably because he never rests deeply enough. Images flash in front of his eyes anyway, distorted and fragmented, all the while surrounded by the confined darkness of his quarters and the infinite darkness of the space beyond the ship. 

It’s not the noise that wakes him–the way the corpse’s breath shudders and the schhh-thunk of his limbless body, dragging itself where it needs to go. What wrests him from the jaws of sleep is the sense that the foot of his bed dips with new weight; that fever-hot skin, wet and raw, is touching his own. He blinks away cobwebs, blearily hauling himself up on his elbows to squint through the gloom.

The corpse is so light. That’s the first thought that claws its way into coherency. Just feels like his childhood cat, sitting curled up on his chest–except this time it’s a hallucination of a man, burned and bandaged, staring him dead in the eye. The shock of his blue iris wakes Curly up further, and he tries to shift back and sit up.

The sheets bunch around his waist, pillow warm with the indent of his cheek when his hand sinks into it. To his credit, the corpse seems barely disturbed by the shuffling, sitting on Curly’s knees. Some instinct prompts him to see the terror in the situation: for a moment, before he can get it back under control, Curly shies away from the other’s face. 

And then he stops, heart slowing from its startled pace. This is his imagination. But then what woke him? Is his brain so determined to torment him for reasons he can’t figure out that it’s willing to construct a scenario like this? For a long, long moment, they just stare at each other. The metal headboard is cool against Curly’s back, chill seeping through his thin shirt. He oscillates between being certain that the weight of another human being is pressing down on him, his legs half numb, and between feeling nothing at all. 

He’s contemplating the merits of attempting to sleep, even with his unwelcome guest, when the corpse’s unusual company suddenly starts to make sense–he starts to speak. 

Curly’s half-certain it’s just another one of the ship’s creaking groans, at first. But the corpse atop him is moving his mouth, white teeth clacking quietly against themselves. It’s a hoarse, raw sound, eeking from him in a way that’s certainly painful. Doesn’t sound like a voice at all. Yet as Curly stares in morbid fascination, it begins to solidify; begins to form words. 

“D’you en’oy lying on your back?” the hallucination asks, punctuated by pauses to gasp for air. Enjoy it? It’s such a ridiculous question, one Curly has to replay in his head to fill in the gaps of, that it takes a minute to wonder how the corpse is talking to him at all. 

“Do I…” Curly starts, his own voice rough from sleep and with the accent he always tries to keep tightly restrained slipping. “Sleeping, you mean?” The absurdity of their conversation–that they’re having a conversation–doesn’t escape him. 

The corpse’s eye rolls in its socket, his head twitching. Curly’s not sure when the thing’s leaned closer, the stumps of his arms propped on his chest. He looks down, fingers rising to press against the yellow of his shirt, and nearly expects blood to seep out from the bandaged limbs and stain the fabric red. 

“No-o,” the hallucination says. The syllables slur and slide into each other, nothing but stiff flesh and teeth to form the words that should have been shaped with a mouth. “To ‘ust lie there, staring up. I hated it, afterwards. I 'ouldn't move from that cot for months. Still 'ouldn't move by myself when he 'ut me in that cryopod. Guess I learned what it was like to be her, being mo'ed around a’ainst my will and a'le to do nothing about it.”

Curly’s never had hallucinations, nothing beyond the occasional, hazy shadow in the corner of his room if he wakes at night. But this? This doesn’t feel right. Shouldn’t there be a cause for this? What has his mind been so tortured by that it has created this spector, with his broken, unnatural voice and human experiences Curly’s never gone through? 

Maybe it’s time to steel himself and tell Anya.

“...her?” Curly asks cautiously, nearly whispering. It’s the cool dark of the night. It feels wrong to speak louder. Besides, the corpse clearly can’t raise his voice. It’s strained and low, seemingly pulled from his throat like a length of brambles. Like he’s only not screaming in pain by some monumental force of will Curly’s never had to find within himself. 

The apparition looks through him, simultaneously laser-focused on his face and staring at a distant point within Curly’s skull.“Well, you ne'er looked at her be'ore. Ne'er saw her. I 'ouldn't stop seeing things. One eye that di'n't burn away 'ust to drive home how blind I was. So there I lay. All I 'ould do was see. I see it now. D'you? I think we'e got to burn an eye out o' your skull an' hope for the 'est.”

The pressure on Curly’s legs shifts as the corpse does, hunched over as far as he’ll go and still wobbling like he’s going to lose his balance. He pauses for breath, that familiar ragged inhalation. Everything about him is tense, from the stiff jaw to the corded neck. It takes effort to speak to him; Curly sees that clearly. "They still thought I ’rashed the ship, y'know. No 'ause for any of it, that she banda'ed me and soothed me and 'ared for me; I wasn't him but we both knew I was the sour'e of her pain and the 'ause of her abuse. They all thought I ‘rashed the ship, but she... She 'as so, so smart. And kind. Too smart for him to be comfor'able with.”

Curly’s not going to think about it. He’s just–if the hallucination wants to speak with him, he can speak with him. He’ll listen, he’ll put in the effort to try to understand. Past the genuine confusion, the struggle of piecing words and sentences together, he knows some parts of this new, strange story sound familiar. Like things and places and people he knows. But he’s not going to think about it, because that would be crazy, and the Captain cannot–in any circumstances–be crazy.

"There 'ere only two things I thought a'out when I 'ould think and it was what I 'ould have done with the hands I'd treated so 'arelessly, if I 'ad them now. ‘ith the faith I'd given out, and what I'd tell her. I 'an't explain to you what I'd do with those hands be'ause you still think yours are infallible and you 'ould never hurt him, be'ause of 'ourse he'd ne'er hurt you. But I 'an tell you what I wanted her to know, and I wanted her to know tha'..." For a minute, silence fills the tiny room, the corpse barely managing to turn his head aside before spasming in a hitching coughing fit. Each pitiful, hoarse sound is punctuated by the sound of misery. Curly nearly wants to reach out to help, but what can he do? 

It passes, after a moment, and the hallucination’s burning eye once again fixes on Curly’s face. He wonders what he looks like. 

“...I ‘anted her to know that it 'as my fault. That I made a mistake, that it 'as my 'orst moment and that I 'asn't better than it. That I ‘as so, so sorry. That I saw it now.”

The off-white gauze circling the corpse’s head nearly glows in the low light slipping under the crack in the door. He sits back, entire body shaken by the force of the sigh slipping past his bared grin. He looks more like a man than Curly’s ever seen him–that there’s something and someone recognizable past the pain he’s suffered. Worn as thin as the fraying medical gown tied around him.

“I know the ta'te of me'icine. Bad cake. Me. But I 'on't remember what hope ta'tes like. You're all I've got. The on'y promise of action left–and I know how much that's 'orth. But I know you thought it was 'orth a lot. I 'anted to tell you that it 'asn't too late. It's bad. But it's not too late. It 'ill be, u'less you start to see it too. There's a dead pixel on your ship, Cap'ain. She'll poin' it out to you if you 'ant to find it.”

The corpse doesn’t so much crawl off of him as collapse to the side, blankets bunched up as he goes to curl like a wounded dog at the foot of Curly’s bed. He’s tucked into the corner, where the foot of the cot meets the wall, resting his head on the metal wall. It must hum like something living, underneath his ear (or whatever’s left of it). Curly’s leaned against the Tulpar enough times to know. 

As for Curly, well. 

The room feels too small for the both of them, and in that case, most certainly his narrow bed. He swings his feet over the side of it, ground cool and solid beneath his skin. He scrubs a hand over his face, the heels of his palms grinding into his eyes as he tries to find something to say. Tries to ignore how shaky his fingers feel. “Who? What’s the point of all this?” he asks. Maybe a little hysterically. It’s been–it’s been a long week. “What do you want me to learn? You’ve gotta want me to learn something.”

He twists halfway around, shaggy hair falling into his face when he does. With distance put between them, it’s harder to make out the hallucination’s shape, the distinct edges of his body blurring and combining with the shadows he lies in. Even the blue of his eye has dimmed, bloodshot and dry. The corpse shrugs, maybe, one of his arms twitching as he brings up the nub of his other to tap weakly at his neck. 

Right. No more speaking. Curly probably should have been more grateful he even got anything from the thing, or listened more carefully. The latter shouldn’t be an issue. Bewildering and grim as the story was, it echoes in his head, a repetitive chant that keeps getting louder and louder until he’s half-crazy, or more than he already was. He wants to fall at the corpse’s feet, clutch at his knees, begging for an answer. What is this specter torn from, the depths of his mind or straight from a Dickens novel? 

It’s funny enough that laughter bubbles in his chest, but if he lets it loose he knows it’d just be a sob. The sleepless nights are wearing on him. 

“Okay, well,” he says, the crack of his own voice startling as it cuts through the silence. He stands, though the ground feels like it heaves beneath his feet, and squeezes his eyes shut. Maybe he’ll find the parts of him he’s clearly losing in the colours blooming behind his eyelids. “Next time we chat maybe you can explain why you won't leave me be. Cheers.”

Without another glance at the corpse, Curly stumbles out of the room. 

It's not hard to leave the warmth of his bed behind, illuminated only by the green numbers of the digital clock on his desk. The grating is cold beneath his feet, each divot in the worn floor threatening to trip him with the way his head spins. It feels like he's drunk, a mix of exhaustion and confusion and irritation that tastes bitter when it goes down. The constant noise of the Tulpar does pretty well in drowning out the hum of his own heart, so it gets easier to think straight the further down the corridor he staggers.

He's still in sleep pants and a rumpled t-shirt: it's probably around the time they've all set their alarms to go off–their democratic day time. Plus, he's heading to the lounge. There's a high risk of running into somebody, but it doesn't incite the usual dread of someone seeing him fall apart or falter. He doesn't care right now. Just needs somewhere normal to sit, somewhere that's lit up and wide open. 

The door opens quietly, its handle comforting and solid beneath his hand. The lobby is suffused by darkness too, but not the oppressive type that sat low in his quarters. There's no pitchy buzz of the florescent lights to break the silence, and the occasional clunk from the refrigerator unit they've got tucked in their kitchenette reminds him of being a little kid again, sneaking downstairs to get a glass of water with the moon standing watch. Curly steps around the table carefully, the chairs little more than blocky shapes. 

If he squints, he can make out the gleaming tines of a fork someone must have left out on the table. Daisuke's the one who's always looking for snacks, so it's not a bad guess to attribute it to him. Curly picks it up quietly, the cool weight reassuring in his palm, and pads over to the sink to place it gently within. It clatters against the basin, a small sound that's nonetheless deafening. Where the giant windowscreen glows blue, stretching nearly across the whole wall, Curly sees a dark head pop up from the couch. 

“Who is it?” Anya asks, barely more than a whisper. There’s a note of fear in her voice, wild enough that Curly ends up banging his hip on the kitchen counter in his haste as he rounds it.

“Damn, I’m sorry,” he says, lowering his volume to mirror hers. “I didn’t realise anyone else was awake. Didn’t mean to startle you.” The minute he speaks, her shoulders relax from where they were hunched nearly to her ears. He approaches the couch with a hand outstretched apologetically. Anya’s features are obscured by the light silhouetting her, but he thinks she smiles up at him. 

“Oh, it’s just you,” she says. Faint relief lingers in the laugh she lets out, one hand rising to cover her mouth. “That’s all right, Captain.”

Her jumpsuit is tied around her waist, the arms in a loose knot. She looks like a stranger for a moment, curled in the crook of a cushion and wearing a striped turtleneck that makes her look as she must have on Earth. Curly’s never been too fond of the night time screen, convinced the moon was too dull to pretend it was real. But under its pale light, Anya looks soft and content, her arms circling the knees she hugs to her chest.

He crouches behind the couch, folding his arms on its top and rests his chin on the edge of his wrist. Anya begins to shuffle over like she means to make room, but stops when he waves a hand: it’s good to stretch, muscles aching as he balances on his heels. They watch the clouds creep across the sky in companionable silence, little pinprick stars peeking through the mist to twinkle slyly down at them. It’s the peace he’d been missing in his sleep; if he lets his eyes blur, the screen becomes deep and wide enough to look like the actual sky. 

As long as he doesn’t focus on the pixelated moon, anyway.

Curly turns his head slightly, cheek pillowed on his hand, to watch Anya. People tend to shrink in the dark. Like the corpse had, surrounded on all sides and swallowed by it. Even Curly himself; he can’t count the number of times he’s stumbled into the bathroom at night, only to catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror and wonder, is that really how I look? Everybody, reduced to the same level in the fuzzy gloom. Not Anya, though.

She fills to fit the space around her. Not overtaking it, stealing the air in the room, but tiny little pieces of Anya that drift in the cool air, diffused and yet so present. There’s more to her, he knows suddenly, than the body her soul inhabits. A collapsed star behind her kind, endless eyes, one that’s finally got permission to stretch beyond the limitations of her flesh as long as she’s alone in the dark. 

But it doesn’t seem she’s aware of it. There’s sadness, sitting heavy in the faint dimples by her mouth, smeared under her drooping eyes and hidden within her clasped hands, resting on her collarbone. They must be watching a different sky. She’s scanning the screen restlessly, every part of her still except the tireless flickering of her pupils. 

Curly reaches out to pat her gently on the shoulder, strands of soft black hair tickling his fingers. She blinks, tilting her head back slightly to look at him. “You doing okay?” he asks, as gently as he knows how. His voice is still rough from sleep, thick with that damnable accent, and he clears his throat. 

“Yeah,” she says, flicking her fingers dismissively. Then, softer: “Yeah. No, I just–can’t sleep.”

Curly can’t help the snort he lets out, thinking back to his claustrophobic room inhabited by one too many people. Anya cocks an eyebrow, and he offers her a sympathetic smile. The room is colder than he’d thought, only in his shirtsleeves, his skin speckled with goosebumps as the AC rattles quietly to life high above them. “I know how that is. I just toss and turn. Or stare at the ceiling all night.”

Used to, anyway. Before tonight, he’d lose himself staring into the dead eye of his own personal ghost, slumped in a corner and wheezing like a dying man. Curly’s never been able to tell if the man slept or not, head flung back and mouth slack, but the longer the nights drag and the more exhaustion pulls heavy at Curly’s limbs, he suspects it’s certainly better than himself. 

Anya hums in acknowledgement, fingers tracing slow loops on her knee. The little furrow between her brows hasn’t gone away–Curly wants to press a thumb in its divot and erase it with that gentle pressure. He suspects it wouldn't work. He’s opening his mouth to speak again (you can talk to me, are you really okay, is everything–), when she jerks her chin at the sky.

“I actually kinda like the night time window screen, if you can believe it,” she says. Curly stands with a wince, his knees popping far too loud, and points at the couch in a wordless question. She pulls the excess fabric of her jumpsuit closer, legs curling so that she doesn’t knock into him. He settles down next to her, careful to leave enough space that she won’t feel crowded. The cushion is a welcome support against his back. 

“Sure I can,” Curly teases, reducing his voice to a lower volume now that there’s not so much distance between them. “I know my opinion about the evening screen isn’t a popular one.”

“It’s just too bright, Captain,” Anya says, mouth curving with laughter. It's a good sound, bubbling up from deep in her chest, and he feels a flicker of pride for coaxing it out. “God, and it’s such an ugly orange. I’m convinced you’re just pretending to like it to be different.”

“You’re breaking my heart,” he sighs, tsk-ing as he turns to face her better, stretching his arm across the top of the couch. “You think so little of me, huh?”

She smiles at him, faint and pitying. “Poor thing,” she says, though the amusement fades as she exhales. She lets her legs fall to the ground, still hunched over in her little corner, pulling at the cuffs of her shirt to cover her hands. Maybe she’s cold too. “I like the stars. I come to look at them, sometimes, if I can’t fall back asleep.”

“It’s growin’ on me,” Curly agrees quietly. His hand smooths idly over the fabric of the cushion his fingers lie on, little loose threads unravelling beneath his touch. If he squints, he can see a faint marker stain on its pale expanse, blue like the permanent one Daisuke likes to scribble notes and silly drawings with. 

“Mm.” Anya’s staring up at the moon, which sits placidly unless the screen shudders, a brief glitch of colour before it settles into that calm sky. Not surprising it’s low quality, but a little surprising it’s lasted so long. Won’t matter for much longer, Curly muses, once this final voyage is concluded. He thinks of the report, tucked in the pocket of the jumpsuit in his room, and tries not to let his dismay show on his face.

“You know,” Anya says, something in her voice that makes Curly’s attention snap back to her, “if you look really, really close, you can see there’s a dead pixel in the upper right corner.”

“That so?” Curly murmurs, but his heart’s not in it. That phrase–it echoes in his head like a broken record, her voice overlapping with the raspy one of the corpse. Dead pixel on your ship, the memory says, teeth bared and frozen in a grin. He hadn’t known what the hallucination had meant, if anything, and even now is half-convinced he’s over-analysing the whole thing and trying to find significance in something that was from a product of his imagination. Troubling. Beyond that, strange. 

It had been such a specific expression. To hear it from Anya–

He crosses his arms across his chest, a sudden band of warmth soaking through his shirt that’s welcome in the cool room. It feels silly to squint so intensely at the screen, scanning it for the tiny pixel she sees. It feels like a failure when nothing pops out, no glaring blank spot–nothing. Curly resists the urge to apologise, smiling over at Anya and hoping she can’t tell that something’s weighing on his mind. Damn corpse. “Hmm. Nope. Don’t see it.”

“In the back of my mind, it’s always there,” she says. His gut twists at the mournful note in her voice. He doesn’t have to understand why it’s there to know she’s struggling with something. In the theater of his memory, the corpse pins him with his blue eye; tells him: if you want to find it. 

Well, he does. It’s going to drive him crazy otherwise, carving a place in his head too. Maybe he wasn’t looking close enough. “No–hold on,” he murmurs. 

He doesn’t mean to, but he slides forward to perch on the edge of the cushion, bracing himself on his thighs and practically burning a hole in the screen. Anya glances at him, rubbing a hand up and down her arm, but he determinedly blocks her out. Blocks out the soft sound of her breathing, the hum of the Tulpar, the squeal of his own thoughts. Just picks apart each and every pixel, slow and steady.

And for a second–there. A minuscule square, dead and black. It doesn’t matter that Curly loses sight of it a second later. He’d seen it. It was there.

He falls against the seat back with a relieved sigh, reaching out to nudge Anya’s foot with his own. She’s got striped socks, he notices with a tiny grin, his success making him giddy. They match her turtleneck, red-green-brown-yellow. Like autumn, back home. He misses that. 

“I think I see what you mean now,” he tells her, stretching out his legs and relaxing. He can see her startle out of the corner of his eye, her foot twitching against his. Curly tilts his head, patiently raking back the hair that falls into his face to see her turn a wide-eyed look upon him he doesn’t entirely understand. 

Doubt spears through him at her silence, and he clears his throat, brow furrowing. “It’s there, isn’t it? A little off from the exact corner?” he asks gently, pointing with a pinky. A cloud drifts past, and for a second he wants to follow its path, like a kid finding shapes in their depths. 

“Yeah,” Anya says after a beat, her voice subdued. She’s shifted in her seat, pulling her legs up to sit criss-cross, shoulder dropping so she can lean against the back of the couch. Dark hair pools like ink against its white upholstery, dripping down the line of her chin and neck. “Yeah, that’s it. I–”

She hesitates, mouth opening, but doesn’t speak. After a moment of waiting, Curly clicks his tongue, rubbing the back of his neck and hoping the tension will melt away the harder he presses. “Huh. Well, that’s not good.”

Anya blinks down at her hands, a flash of white teeth at her mouth as she worries her lower lip. “It’s just a pixel, Captain,” she mutters. “It–barely ruins the illusion.” There’s a hitch to her voice, like she’s going to laugh it off, but Curly frowns at it. He lets his chin rest on his shoulder even though it makes his neck twinge, trying to catch her eye.

“Curly,” he reminds her, reaching out to drum his fingers in the space between them. They make a muffled sound when they hit the fabric, rapid pittering like rain on a roof. “I’m sitting here in my pyjamas, Anya, we’re practically having a slumber party. Anyway, it’s still a problem.” 

Just as he hopes, it makes her crack a smile. But it doesn’t last long, fractured and pressed thin. “But it’s silly, really. It’s nothing. I hadn’t even thought you’d see it.”

“Nearly didn’t,” he agrees easily, tugging the hem of his shirt so it sits more comfortably over his stomach. It’s a cheerful red-yellow, Polle’s hoof emblazoned over his heart. In the grey light of the moon, it’s washed out, though. “But it would have driven me insane. Small flaws are an indicator of bigger issues, you know. What if it spreads? And this ship's my responsibility. If she's falling apart, I need to know about it–or at least try to fix it.”

Anya’s tucked her chin into the crook of her elbow, arms wrapped around herself. She sinks into the darkness, only the glitter of her brown eyes visible. “You really think that,” she murmurs. It sounds like a question, even if her voice doesn’t lilt upwards in curiosity. 

Curly nods, gazing back up at the sky. He can’t see the pixel anymore, sky wide and blue, but she’s right–it still lingers at the back of his mind. Those types of things really are indicative of larger problems. “I do,” he says. She makes a small, wounded sound in the back of her throat, and he looks down at her, frowning. “Anya, I…”

Her shoulders stiffen, but she doesn’t turn her face away. He takes it as encouragement, though the words he wants don’t come easily. It’s like fumbling around in the dark trying to find something that was described to you by a blind person. 

“Maybe it’s not the time. And it’s fine if you don’t want to talk about it,” he says, kindly. “Tell me to shove off and I’ll do it happily. But I know you’ve been struggling with something for a while. And I know it–I know it involves Jimmy.” They both wince, almost comically in sync, though Anya’s bared teeth remind him of a trapped animal. 

“Yes,” she finally whispers. 

“Will you tell me what’s happened, please?” he presses, soft as he knows how. “He hasn't said anything to me. If it’s some type of fight, we can mediate it. I know he tends to be a bit snappy, so if he’s been rude to you, I’ll get him to stop. Even if it’s something you might think is silly, like–” He searches his mind, trying to think of an example. “I don’t know. He’s giving you the cold shoulder, he’s not taking you seriously. Whatever it is.”

He’s not blind: he knows his friend can be abrasive and snide and hard to work with. Curly likes to think he’s gotten better, that the Tulpar has been good to him, but change can be slow. He’s realistic, but still–whatever it is, he can fix it. 

Of that, he’s certain.

Anya watches him in silence, still tucked away in the safety of the barricade she’s made of herself. There are emotions playing across her face, he can see the way her eyebrows and her mouth screw up, but her bangs shade her face. It’s hard to tell what she’s thinking. 

“Will you listen to me? Without saying anything?” she asks after a moment, her voice muffled against her forearm. “I just–I’ll tell you. But I have to do it all at once or I’ll never speak about it again. Okay?”

“Always,” Curly says “Of course.” He settles back against the cushions, pulling a pillow against his side as he waits for her. Her focus has drifted from him, staring down at her hands. She twists them together and then apart, a web woven of her thin fingers. He imagines he can almost hear the rasp of her skin.

“I want to say, first, that I–I know this is serious. I wouldn’t accuse someone like this just because they were mean to me or we didn’t get along well. I have to know that you know that.” She sounds faintly pleading. Despite the fact that she’s closed her eyes, lashes fanning dark and feathery over the curve of her cheek, Curly nods anyway. She clears her throat, silence overtaking them again. It’s a false quiet, though; the calm before the storm. She takes a deep breath, a hitch in it, and the words begin to spill out. 

“It’s been…months. It wasn’t so bad at first, so I thought I could just ignore it and maybe he’d get bored. He wasn’t weird in the beginning: he’d come into Medical when it was just me and we’d talk a little. He talked, mostly, and I figured it was just him trying to get to know me, which was nice. Sure, he’d…make comments, but they were little things–he liked my eyes, told me my hands were soft, made jokes about that. And I’m used–I know I’m not supposed to make a big deal out of things.”

There’s a stone in Curly’s throat. It’s sharp and heavy, and no matter how many times he swallows, the lump there doesn’t go away. It’s making its way to his gut, to sit and anchor him to the couch, captivated by Anya’s low voice, which has grown stronger the more that she talks. 

“That’s not true,” he says, and then immediately curses himself for interrupting, grimacing apologetically. She sends him a small smile that’s rife with an emotion he can’t decipher. It looks pitying and envious both, her gaze half-lidded. One of her fingers uncurls from where it clutches the cuff of her shirt to press a sharp nail against his chest. 

“I’m not supposed to make a big deal of things,” she repeats. “You’re allowed to do whatever you like, Captain.” The title has never fallen so politely from her lips. He’s never felt smaller.

The weight of her fingertip falls away, a tiny circle of warmth left behind that fades fast. He rubs his chest and watches as she chews her next words over, shoulders up to her ears.

“Eventually I couldn’t go two steps without him showing up. I know it’s a small ship, but it’s not that small. He started–” Her throat jumps, and Anya stares down at her hands like she’s trying to burn a hole through her skin. Her mouth is pulled thin and tight. “It evolved from harmless compliments to pointed flirting, and then, when I told him that I wasn’t interested, it all just collapsed. It was like he suddenly had free range to say and do whatever he liked because there wasn’t that unspoken barrier there. If that makes sense.”

Curly thinks he makes a noise of agreement, low in his throat. His chest is knotted tight and painful. 

“By then, he knew–well, he knew I couldn’t do much.” She glances up at him, her eyes flicking briefly over his frame. Curly glances down at himself. He’s in shape–does his best to stay that way. Tall and broad-shouldered, the type where most sports were easy for him. And then there’s Anya, shorter than him and Jimmy both, and thinner than when Curly had met her for the first time. It’s a side effect of her time on Pony Express rations; he’d dropped weight on his maiden voyage too, very badly. But it’s a sobering reminder all the same

And hadn’t it been just yesterday that Curly had eyed Jimmy and laughed ruefully to himself about his own lack of consistency? There was a lean, corded strength to the other man that even Curly’d often forgotten, belied by his hollow cheeks and long-sleeved shirts. 

“Not like that,” she murmurs, drawing his attention back. “...Not yet. God. Not yet. He just likes that I can’t pull away if he grabs my face.” He’s not sure what the expression on his face is, but if it’s as stricken and nauseous as he feels– 

But he said he’d let her speak. It was becoming clear that he owed her that much, smaller pieces of a bigger puzzle falling into place and painting an image he shies away from. 

“Um.” Anya blinks, gaze distant. “That’s the other thing. It’s normal, now, for him to just…touch me when we’re alone. I try not to be, but. Well. Hands on my waist to move me around, touching my neck, brushing the inside of my t-thigh. It’s gotten pretty bad. He likes to back me into corners–he’ll whisper things to me. Threats, jokes. Other things.”

Her mouth flattens, a flush sitting high on her cheekbones that’s dark enough to see even in the low light. For a minute, she glances up at him, and he sees in the curves of her face a bitter, determined pride. She won’t tell him what Jimmy says to her. She doesn’t need to. Curly’s almost glad for it, in a way: he’s frozen in his seat, fists clenched in his lap and focused entirely on letting her voice spear through him. He’s going to think about all this. Oh, yes, it will torment him. But if he lets his mind linger on it now, he’s going to crack. 

She needs him to listen, not collapse into pieces. He wanted to be dependable, someone capable for his crew. It's never been clearer how far he's missed the mark, but he clings to the oath desperately. It’s not her job to comfort him. 

“Recently–” she pauses. The way she eyes him, something wild and pleading both, makes his heart fall even further. God, this whole thing. God. “I know it’s a lot to take in,” she says, more abruptly. “I know some of it sounds absurd. I’m not making it up.”

“It would never cross my mind,” he says, when it’s clear she’s waiting for a response. His mouth is dry and it feels unusually difficult to find the right words, let alone form them with a numb tongue. “I know that. Anya…”

She holds up a hand, and he quiets. It’s trembling faintly, thin fingers twitching, but the set of her shoulders is firm. 

“Recently,” she continues, stumbling over the word like it’s easier to treat it as ripping off a bandaid, “he’s been…in my room. I don’t want him there. I wouldn’t ever invite him in. At first, he’d just pace outside the door, and I could hear it, but he never opened it up and he always left after a little while. So I–I got complacent, I guess. It was horrifying, but I got used to it. And then a few days ago, I woke up, and he’s–he was already there, sitting at the foot of my bed. He watches me sleep. Talks to me, sometimes, if he doesn’t know I’m awake. How could I not be?”

The end of her sentence rises, a faint tinge of hysteria bubbling there before she visibly swallows it, touching her collarbone lightly. It’s silent for a minute before Anya clears her throat, voice detached once more. “He likes to talk about himself. Told me that he figured out how to spike the mocktails. I don’t know when: he said it like it was a fun, throwaway fact. Laughed to himself about it, even. But it needs isopropyl, mainly. The next morning, I took all the bottles we had and I spread them around the ship, every little nook and cranny I could find that I hoped he wouldn’t. Except–” 

Her voice cracks. Curly, tentatively, rests his hand in the space between them. It lays on the cushion, his fingers splayed out and palm open in a silent invitation he prays she knows she can turn down. Anya observes it for a moment, her face drawn. The exhaustion under her eyes hangs heavy and dark, more so than usual, and not for the first time that hour, Curly curses himself. 

Why hadn’t he realised it earlier? That the skittish way she would watch the world around her was new and indicative of something worse? He thought back to their conversation in the medbay: how easily he'd let her shut him out. And she'd practically spelt it out for him, hadn't she? How many times had she hinted at it, how many times had her cries been lost in the void between them because he didn't try to cross it? 

And what had he told her–only that he would speak with Jimmy? That he would fix it, when he didn't even know what was broken and shied away from finding out? I know you're not one for conflict, the memory of Anya says in his mind, kind and distant. It feels like a slap in the face. 

The soft press of Anya’s hand against his own tears him from his thoughts. Silently, he watches her lace his fingers with his, squeezing gently. Curly squeezes back, in time to the slow pulse he can feel at her wrist; one-two. He lets go the moment she begins to pull away, retreating within herself once more, arms wrapped around her ribcage. 

“Is it bad,” she whispers, the groan of the Tulpar nearly drowning her out, “that I considered just putting the bottles back? It’s going to happen either way. I know that. I feel it. What can I do? If it has to happen, wouldn’t it be nicer to just be unconscious? But I can’t bring myself to do it. Some self-preservation instinct still screaming at me because it hasn’t figured out that it’s useless up here.” She laughs, a little wetly. 

Curly has never felt as viscerally, sincerely sick to his stomach as he does now. Anya blinks at him through the curtain of black cascading down her jaw, strands fluttering gently in the cool air of the AC that's rattling above them. He knows she deserves more than this silence, but the right thing to say keeps slipping through his fingers. No sentence he rolls around in his mouth wouldn't sound hollow.

“I’m so tired, all the time,” she says. “The stress, the fear, the paranoia. I can never sleep and I know he watches me, twenty-four-seven. Bolder and bolder with how he touches me, no matter who’s around. I have to keep track of where he is, except he’s nearly always around me. And he’s–I mean–this whole thing–” The breath whooshes from her in a great, heaving breath, her throat bobbing as she visibly pulls herself together. 

“I don’t have any proof,” Anya sighs. She’s staring at a point somewhere over his shoulder, eyebrows furled and shutters closing over her dark eyes. “And I know I’m not as important to you as Jimmy.”

At this, Curly starts, spine snapping straight. “What?” he says, jolting forward to try to catch her eye. Does she really think that? Do the others? But even as the dismay sets in, he knows there’s truth to it. Was, at least. The parts of his heart that have sheltered his friend since they were teenagers wither now, cold and bleak. “Anya, no, of course not–”

“I know I’m not,” she repeats, an edge in her voice. She doesn’t look at him, cheek nestled against the back of the couch once more, gaze straying to the window screen where the stars have begun to wink out as the artificial sky lightens. For the first time, her composure slips, blinking furiously at the screen. There’s a sheen of tears over her iris, pooling in the corners of her eyes and beading on the ends of each eyelash. “But I’m at the end of my rope, Curly. We’ve got eight months left in transit, and that’s if everything goes well. If he gets me–if he really does–if I can’t–”

She presses a hand over her pale mouth. “I can’t do it,” she breathes, voice thick. “I can’t do it.”

Anya cries quietly. 

If it wasn’t for the little gulps of air she has to take, staggering in her throat before she muffles them, Curly would never know. The tears leave silver tracks down her cheeks, shining under the dim light of the moon, an endless waterfall that soaks into the sleeve of her turtleneck. It hurts his heart, to watch the way her shoulders shake, and after a moment of careful deliberation, he shuffles closer. She looks up, the delicate skin around her eyes slightly puffy. 

Curly holds out an arm, open and inviting. It feels like a selfish embrace, really, something meant to comfort her but that he knows he’ll end up taking more consolation from. Anya collapses against his chest, warm and present, and he squeezes her tight. Her small frame shakes like a violent wind batters her on all sides, one of her arms worming underneath his shoulder to clutch at his shirt. A cool hand lands on the back of his neck, nails digging into his skin and tangling with the fine blond hairs there. 

It stings, sure, and he can already imagine the bruised half-crescents from her fingers, but he doesn’t mind it. Probably deserves it. Curly hooks his chin over her shoulder, his ear pressed to the side of her face. Her jaw trembles with the force of the tears, and the furious grief that rips from her throat stabs his heart. This is all he can offer her. That she lets him is a breathless sort of gratitude, overshadowed by the knowledge that he doesn’t deserve it. He’s failed her. 

Each gasping sob seems more fierce than the last, burrowing nearer to him like Anya can suppress it if she just presses close enough. The collar of his shirt grows cold and damp. She only turns her face away from his throat to wipe her nose, eyes bloodshot and wet, hand trembling as she scrubs her cheeks. It’s good to cry like this, he thinks, but it’s going to leave her drained and tired. He’s not going to leave her here like that. He won’t leave until she pushes him away. He thinks to tell this to her, to reassure her with something more meaningful than just his arms wrapped around her waist, but the words stick in his throat. They tangle with guilt and helplessness, acidic and sharp, and though he swallows, they don't disappear. 

“I’m sorry, Anya-girl,” Curly finally murmurs into her hair. Hopes if he stares long enough into the depths of that pixelated moon, he’ll burn away the tears collecting in the corners of his eyes. The words taste empty and useless, but they batter at the back of his teeth in a desire to be spoken anyway. “God, I’m so sorry. I should have…”

He should have done a lot. It fizzles, dead, on the tip of his tongue. 

“I don’t w-w-want him in Medical anymore,” she wheezes, her breath cool against his collarbone. The grip she has on his shirt tightens, knuckles pressed against his back. 

“Of course,” Curly says. Carefully extracts his hand from where it’s trapped between their bodies and reaches up to thumb away the tear snaking down his cheek. He doesn’t want it to soak into the thin skin of her temple; doesn’t want to distract her from her sorrow just to have his acknowledged. “If it helps you sleep, we can move you there so you can lock the door. We can move the Polle statue too, if you want, so you’ll know if he somehow gets in. All right? We’ll figure this out. Anything you need.”

She doesn’t respond, but he thinks her breathing slows, the first sign of calm. He rubs a hand down her back, bumping over the sharp shoulder blades there, his cheeks aching with how hard he’s frowning. 

His heart constricts in his chest. Some miserable, tiny fraction of it calls to him, a soft, worried attempt at persuasion. It tells him, wounded and protesting: Jimmy couldn’t have done that. It wants to curl up alone in the dark, keeping blindly on the same path. The desire to ignore it, the desire to avoid it all. His best friend? His co-pilot, the man he’s supported and believed in and done everything in lockstep with for nearly his whole life? Surely it’s a misunderstanding, surely it’s something that can be fixed, surely Jimmy will own up and apologise and get better and they’ll all move on.

Surely it's not so bad as all that. 

His mind claws for excuses, reasons–anything that makes it untrue. It's shameful that he does, but he can't help it. None of them hold, each one shattering like brittle glass under the weight of his desperate prodding. Those threads of despair and lingering hope feel like his own unique type of disloyalty to Anya. He doesn’t want to believe it: can’t wrap his head around it, this massive betrayal, this gross display. 

But he knows the truth, he knows she’s honest and taking a leap of faith with him. It’s that understanding, that tentative trust she’s held out and hoped she won’t regret, that means he grits his teeth and begins to purge the bonds that tie him to Jimmy. 

He runs a hand tentatively down Anya’s hair as she quiets, staring over her head at the window screen. He swallows the huff of laughter trying to escape his throat, aware it would only sound raw and stressed. Who would have thought? The dead pixel really does stick out like a sore thumb if he just looks in the right place.

---

Curly’s not sure when they split apart and return to their rooms.

It was late enough that the window screen had begun to transition to the neutral, cloudy blue sky of a warm day on Earth. That he’d actually seriously started worrying about the rest of the crew waking up and wandering in. Despite the short walk to his quarters, barely more than rounding the couch and turning a corner, the way there feels like he's squinting through thick fog. A headache is pounding at his temple, threatening to get worse if he doesn’t go back to sleep.

How could he? Thankfully, the corpse had moved off his bed, now slumped in its customary corner with arms folded to its chest. It’s sort of how Curly sleeps, which would be funny any other day, how his mind pulls habits and features of his to use for the hallucination. But even as he lays down and pulls the sheets over himself, he knows rest will elude him. His mind won’t stop racing, pulling apart interactions and conversations and history like it will reveal something to him.

It doesn’t. It just makes Curly feel distinctly worse. He thinks he drifts off, a hazy and shallow state that’s broken seconds or minutes later by the shrill of the alarm. Only the best for Pony Express’s crew, and that means five hours of sleep exactly. His eyes feel gritty and swollen, but there’s little regret over having wandered into the lounge. He dresses mechanically, boots and belt pulled into place, collar smoothed and jumpsuit unwrinkled. 

He doesn’t go to breakfast. How had Anya done it, sitting parallel to Jimmy every morning with a placid smile? If he sees hide or hair of the man, he’s going to lose it. 

It hurts, that thought. Curly’s never had it before, so it sits in his mind like a foreign invader, heavy and hard to ignore. Even after their worst fights, after insults and anger and disgust on both their parts, it had never been scorched earth between them as he knows it is now. 

Curly’s policy was that the door would always be open for the people he loved to come home. Jimmy skulked back eventually, always with the air of a kicked dog that Curly couldn’t turn a hard heart to. And Jimmy’d always apologise eventually: spitting a sorry in Curly’s general direction, silently following after him to a show or a match he’d complained about before, shoving gift cards in Curly’s pockets and pretending he didn’t know where they came from. He can’t quite reconcile that, the cruel, sickening man who’s terrorized Anya for months and the one who, for all his faults, Curly trusted his life to. 

Curly’s never had to lock the door before. He’s never even closed it, and finds now that his hands are clumsy and the house is empty. There will be no third chances. 

Of course, it doesn’t feel very Captain-like to avoid him. The Captain thing to do would be to storm in there and–do something. Instead, he finds himself on the floor of the utility room, slumped against a cryopod and staring up at the ceiling. The rows of fluorescent lights bathe the room in a stark white, the pipes stretched across the ceiling rattling faintly. Besides him, the corpse shifts, and he shoots it a sideways glance.

The hallucination doesn’t like being in here. Curly’d noticed it right away; he dragged his feet, as it were. Even after Curly had settled on the ground, it had taken a good five minutes for the corpse to follow. He’d shuffled over, taking periodic breaks to stare up at the cryopods surrounding them like monoliths, something wild in his gaze. The medical gown shifts as his shoulders raise to his ears, chin ducked nearly to his sternum. Curly had stifled the urge to extend a helping hand, as he usually did, and waited for the corpse to collapse beside him.

The bandaged stumps of his legs stretch out in front of him, soaked through with red. Curly lets his head fall to the side, the metal of the pod cool against his cheek. “You were right,” he murmurs. The corpse’s eye darts toward him, something sharp and aware in its depths that’s more disconcerting now that he’s spoken. “About the pixel. All of it, I s’pose. I don’t know how. You’re one eerie hallucination, mate.”

The corpse makes a sound low in his throat. Choked and wet, it takes a second for Curly to realise that it’s a chuckle. It’s wheezy and fades away quickly, chest heaving as he overcompensates for breath. He doesn’t say anything, just raises one arm to tap clumsily at his cheek, right underneath his eye. It shines, blue and bright as ever, as Curly frowns at him. For the first time, he notices that there are faint strands of blond hair, miraculously intact, that peek through the strips of gauze wrapped around his head.

Strange. 

For a brief moment, Curly’s scrutiny of the corpse distracts him from the rest of his problems, but it can’t last. They creep in, lapping waves on a beach with an undertow that crashes over him. He came down here for a reason, didn’t he? Curly’s got to figure out what to do with his co-pilot, hunched over his knees in the belly of the Tulpar. If he stays down here long enough, maybe he’ll fuse with the metal and let the world move on without him—no. That’s unfair to Anya. In any other universe, any other time, he’d defer to what she wants to do. Except he’s her Captain, and it can’t be just a title. He’s got a tangible responsibility that sits on his shoulders alone: he should be grateful she’s trusting him with that much. 

All right. There’s a lot of things to consider. 

The glaring issues: they’re alone in a freighter thousands of lightyears from Earth and in a very enclosed space. Curly can only give Anya so much protection and so much room to herself–and he can’t turn the situation around and lock Jimmy away. There’s no place; the hold won’t keep him and it’s impractical. Who’s to say he won’t make a run for it? Beyond that, Jimmy would demand a reason, and he now no longer has faith in the man to be sensible or listen to him. And he’s his co-pilot. Curly’s confident in his own skills, after all these years, but he’s not stupid. It’s not just regulations to have another person who knows how to fly the Tulpar, it’s crucial.

Curly’s in a little box and it grows smaller the more he turns to search the corners and pry at the flaps. Pony Express wouldn’t care, if he reported it. It’s too much fuss and responsibility, it’s lawsuits, it’s hassle and lost profits for a company that expects too much from them and cares too little. There are no locks on the sleeping quarters, a realisation that now makes him nauseous. They’ve got exact allocations of food and oxygen to make it from one port to the next, that’s it, and if anything happens…Curly shudders at the thought. 

A report would mean consequences for the wrong people. What if they blame Anya? Not just that, but if this is his final paycheck–everyone’s final paycheck–they need the money, can’t afford to have it docked for poor crew synergy or unrest or whatever bullshit the company would rustle up. Expectations are high: timely deliveries and constant productivity. He needs Jimmy. The knowledge burns and spits like a hot coal in his chest, but it’s true. It’s not feasible without him. 

God, it’s all spiralling out of control. Curly can’t just talk to Jimmy and hope for the best, either. They’ve been–were friends for years. He knows how the man will react, and it’s a tossup between bad, worse, and completely shameless. Anya doesn’t deserve to suffer the fallout from that. What if he turns violent? What then? There’s a gun that corporate issues to Captains, but the thought of using it makes him sick. No matter the devastation, the cruelty and disgust of it all–he can’t–he won’t murder a man in cold blood. 

In the corners of his heart that he’s walled off and frozen out, something cries out at even the thought. Put him in prison, get him away, punish him as is deserved…but Curly can’t separate the love and anger easily enough to be the one to do it. It’s out of the picture. So where does that leave him? He sighs, head thunking against the cryopod. It rings hollowly, reverberating through his skin. 

Then again, Pony Express is still firing him. He doesn’t want their commendation and exceptional references: he’s alright losing it. The thought of having to break the news to his crew still sticks in his throat and sits heavy on his head, but it’s the first glimpse of hope he’s had in a while. He’ll take the fall, for whatever happens, whatever he has to do. What will they do? Let him go?

The corpse twitches when Curly laughs to himself, low and rough. What a mess. 

He’s pathetically glad to be torn from his thoughts, the utility room door sliding open as Daisuke steps into the room, an easy smile on his face. He's got a little square of pink confetti on his shoulder, and it nearly blends in with his Hawaiian-print shirt until the kid's exuberant wave makes it flutter to the ground. Curly eyes it, watching Daisuke's shoe grind it into the floor as he jogs over.

“Captain, hey,” he says, sing-song voice steady and pleased. He plants his hands on his hips, surveying the utility room with the casual pride of someone who knows all its ins and outs. He’s got a sharp eye, but it’s not like he needs it. He cocks his head at Curly, who’s practically lying on the ground dedicated to getting a crick in his neck. “Swansea said to grab you for an–uh, issue the crew’s having in the lounge. We’d expected you at breakfast, actually, but…guess you had your own thing going on!” 

He grins, and Curly can’t stop the reluctant twitch of his own mouth. “Yeah,” he sighs, aware of how undignified his position is. “Got my own thing going on.”

Daisuke wanders closer, blinking inquisitively. He’s got that type of face that seems like it would be interested in watching paint dry, like he’s eager to be invited to watch it and happy you thought of him to watch it with and here, there’s another wall to watch paint dry on next week and he thought of you–it devolves, a bit, the more Curly thinks about it, but the sentiment remains. All that to say, he knows Daisuke’s clocked he’s troubled. 

Doesn’t love it, honestly. 

It’s his own damn fault, moping around down here and running worst case scenarios through his head that have now become the best way to manage the worst case scenario that’s been happening right under his nose. But the knowledge that Daisuke’s aware he’s conflicted, that his brow sits heavy with a sincere desire to help–it’s foreign, it’s uncomfortable. He’s got to be someone that can be relied upon, not someone to rely on others, now more than ever. That’s what Jimmy was, some fraction of authority big enough to support the Tulpar and its captain if he falters. What good friends did, except Curly’s now bitterly aware that “good” has nothing to do with it. 

Half-hearted interest sparks in Curly’s chest as Daisuke steps over the corpse, unaware that he’s there and yet seemingly unable to walk through him like so much mist. He balances on his heels right by Curly’s head, wobbling and hastily slapping a palm against the cryopod to steady himself. He’s beaming, sun-kissed hair falling in front of his eyes as he squints down at him. 

But even as he opens his mouth, Curly knows what he’s going to ask–some mixture between you all right and wanna talk about it? The types of things people have to ask, when they care about you. It’s a nice thought. Hell, if the positions were reversed, he’d be asking Daisuke the same thing. 

“I’m good, kid,” he says, folding his hands over his stomach and watching how the fluorescent light silhouettes Daisuke’s head like the mockery of a halo. “Nothin’ you can lend a hand with. Just a lot on my plate.”

“Captain stuff, huh? Paperwork? Um…” Their intern hesitates, face screwed up in thought. The idea that he thinks that’s all Curly does, that it’s the only thing that he can think of, is such a bright, amusing thought that Curly actually chuckles a little. 

“Lot more to do than just that,” he corrects, gently. “But yeah. It piles up, y’know. Can be pretty exhausting. Just tired–that’s all. Don’t let me get you too down.” Daisuke laughs, folding his arms in his lap as he does. 

“Don't I know it! Back when I was in school I was sooo bad with assignments. Can't tell you how many times I got in trouble for it! ‘Cept by that point, I didn't even want to start all my missing work because it felt impossible.” Daisuke shudders theatrically, though it upsets his precarious balance. He flings out an arm, darting a glance at Curly. “Man, I hope you don’t mind me saying this…”

“Sure.”

“Me personally,” Daisuke says, ducking closer to whisper at him like they’re operatives on a mission, eyes darting around, “if I were just tired, you’d catch me down here sleeping on the down low. But you seem to be kinda out of it, Cap. Not to call you a liar.” He grins, lopsided and sharp in the friendliest way that lets Curly know he absolutely is.

He finds himself chuckling at the kid, bubbling up from his throat before he’s aware it’s begun. “Yeah? You seem real comfortable with the idea. I steal your favourite pod to sleep against?”

“No, no,” Daisuke says, collapsing to the ground next to him with a groan. He stretches his legs out like a contented cat, shoulders rounding as he gestures to the cryopod with the number four painted beside it. “I like that one. Hey, look, I’ll let it go if y’want me to, but, uh–you seem like you’re deflecting. Sir.”

Curly winces, resisting the urge to rub a hand over his face. “None of that sir stuff, mate. Though we were done with it.” 

He can’t count the times Jimmy’s called him out for fidgeting when uncomfortable–thumbing the corner of his mouth, rubbing a finger over the poorly healed ridge of his nose, tapping a nail against his eye socket. All things unbefitting of a Captain, if he remembered the censure correctly. It’d made him laugh then, glad to have his friend’s gaze pierce through him to the pieces that wouldn’t fit in a leader. Now, it just makes him vaguely…seasick. Like he’s drifting alone in an ocean. 

The weight of Daisuke’s observation is kinder, when it rests on him. “Right, right. Habit,” he agrees, offering Curly a wry smile. “You know, I prob’ly didn’t inspire much confidence with the whole “bad at assignments” thing, but, um. If you’ve got a lot of paperwork to do, I’d be happy to lend a hand. You could even pass it off as teaching the intern if anybody has an issue with it! Unless it’s, like. Confidential.” 

He makes a face. The report sitting folded in Curly’s pocket burns against his hip, and he wonders if it will burn a hole through his jumpsuit. 

He heaves himself upwards, cool metal leaching heat from his palms. The cryopod, contrary to its name, is faintly warm against his back when he sits fully against it, humming and trembling faintly. They’re not in use, but they’re still active. “You lookin’ to take over the Co-Pilot position?” Curly asks, mouth curving. The title doesn’t sit wrong in his mouth, at first, and only begins to ache when he thinks about it. 

“Naw, Jimmy’d be mad at me,” Daisuke murmurs, the cheerful expression warping into something more apprehensive. The man’s name seems to spark a thought in his mind, and his shaggy hair sways as he abruptly turns to Curly. “Hey, d’you guys have a fight or what?”

The name feels like a slap, abrupt and unwelcome. Curly’s stomach churns, but he keeps his face impassive—or tries to. It’s unlikely he does a good job of it. “What’s got you wondering?”

“Dunno. I think he was surprised that you weren’t at breakfast–” this earns Curly another curious look, the soft concern on Daisuke’s face a balm to the wound it prods, “–and he seemed like he was looking for you. I just never knew you to not be where he needed you before. Like, you’re a package deal, right? So I thought maybe something was wrong.”

“Mm.” Curly doesn’t want to let on that this stings. It’s increasingly obvious there was a Jimmy-sized blind spot in his vision, and he’s only aware of it when people outline the edges for him. “It’s nothing you gotta worry about. Thank you, though.”

Daisuke cocks an eyebrow, curiosity and sympathy burning clear in his eyes. He doesn’t pry, though, just nods wisely and takes a minute to stare up at the ceiling alongside Curly and his hallucination. “You’ll figure it out,” he says amicably, eyes crinkling. It makes the moles on his cheeks shift, like even that small part of him is trying to emulate his smile. 

Curly reaches out and pats his knee. One of the cuffs he’d rolled up past his ankle is coming loose, and he resists the urge to scold like a mother and stoop down to fix it. “You know,” he says. “It wouldn’t be terrible to teach you the ins and outs of piloting the Tulpar, though. You never know when it’ll come in handy.” 

Maybe it’s not quite regulations, maybe it’s not quite what he’s interning for. Still, it feels worth it, when Curly heaves himself to his feet and swings the stress he’d shed on the floor back to his shoulders. It’s a lighter load, if he’s feeling optimistic. Little solutions, little suggestions, a little bit of comfort, even if it’s tough to swallow–they go a long way. Besides, when they finally leave Utility and head for the lounge, he can’t find it in himself to regret it. 

Daisuke nearly skips through the corridors. 

—

When the door to the lounge slides open, it’s suddenly obvious why Daisuke had come looking for him in the first place.

The room is decorated as festively as they can manage, balloons bobbing in the corner and held in place by Polle’s plastic hoof. There are banners stretched across the walls of the kitchenette and behind the table, little colourful flags that would look lively in the breeze of a summer day. And adorning each of the heads of Curly’s crew–his stomach lurches when he briefly meets Jimmy’s eyes–is a cheap party hat, red and yellow as good employees might have. 

“Surprise!” Daisuke sings, bouncing over to join the tiny group clustered around the door and nearly tripping over Anya’s leg. “Look at your face!”

Their nurse is clapping gently, a smile on her face that lightens her entire countenance. Maybe it’s just his guilty conscience begging for a reprieve, but he thinks she looks less tired than yesterday. Swansea stands off to the side, hands on his hips and with a scowl pulling his mouth thin, but the willingness to engage as the others crow their delight is significant. 

“...Cheers.” 

Curly offers a thin smile to the older man, trying to force it to stay as he surveys the room and the crew. They’ve clearly put a lot of effort into this, and he’s not ungrateful. “Wow. What’s the, uh, occasion?” 

“We only get one communal party per trip,” Anya reminds him, a hand propped under her chin and resting on her crossed arm. “So we can really have it whenever.” He can’t help but scan her, trying to not seem strange. There’s some tension in her shoulders, but it’s nothing abnormal. Hell, he’s not the most relaxed guy out there either, still angled slightly away from his ex-friend who doesn’t know he’s been–well, for lack of better words, dumped. The whole situation, for a blinding moment, seems so absurd he has to swallow a laugh. 

“Only one person can get surprise birthday-ed per trip,” Jimmy cuts in. For the first time, Curly notices the dismissiveness of it, the way his voice swallows up the sounds around him despite its softer tone. Curly’s not sure how to act around him anymore, focused uneasily at the man’s furrowed brow instead of his eyes. “We did Swansea last haul. Didn’t think you wouldn’t remember.”

Curly shrugs, resisting the urge to scrub fingers over his jaw. No, really. How did Anya do it? Daisuke is once more his unknowing saviour, piping up with stars in his eyes that are snuffed out with disappointment as the statement registers. “No way! I can’t believe I missed that!”

Jimmy spares a glance for Daisuke, but they flick back quickly to pin Curly in place. “You were next on the list. So congratulations.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Curly mutters. He knows he sounds curt, but there’s no fixing it now.

The weight of the man’s attention is unrelenting. It's like any one of their old fights, highschool to college to beyond, getting heated and saying things Curly always regretted over something as stupid as taking out the trash. Now? It's different. It's worse. This tension won’t be one-sided for long, either. It’s a unique pain, to know someone so well that he can tell by the slightest twitch of Jimmy’s mouth that he’s getting irritated. Probably at Curly’s short answers, or just that he’s avoiding his gaze. 

And isn’t that the worst part: knowing someone so well that you can see every little shift in their mood—and knowing they can see yours just as clearly.

“Mm.” Jimmy grins, the stretched-wide one that passes as a grimace. It’s unfortunately what his smiles tend to look like, but Curly also knows this one is flatter than his genuine ones. “Hate to say it though, your duties have to extend to even your own party.”

Anya briefly adjusts the party hat, the elastic band pressing into her hair as she snaps it against her chin. She doesn’t look at Jimmy when she leans past Swansea to point at the packet machine. “You’re the only one with clearance to make the cake. You know where the recipe is. Hop to it, Captain!” 

Her cheer’s infectious, at the least. It’s good to see her smiling. He raises a hand in mock surrender, letting Daisuke push him to the kitchenette. The rest of the crew scatter around the room, Anya fiddling with the plates on the table and handing off solo cups to Swansea to place around the settings. As Curly bustles around and scans the book, gathering the packets, (“You can throw extra sweetener in there, if you want, Captain…” “Yeah, nah, nice try, Daisuke.”) he can feel Jimmy’s eyes burning into the back of his neck. 

He wonders if they’re thinking about the same thing. 

If he doesn’t set his heart firm enough, doesn’t push those terrible things Anya’s told him of to the forefront of his mind, it’s easy to sink into the false comfort of better times. Other birthdays. God, that terrible cake. He can hear Jimmy’s voice, his own, raised in tandem, laughing argument: Jim, you remember that awful protein powder you used–? Damn, Curly, we tried our best– Your best tasted like a chalkboard! Don’t appreciate that it took all that effort to do something for you then, shit– Aw, you know I’m kidding, you know I loved it–

Curly shakes the memory away, white creeping along the edges of his mouth as his lips press thin. He can’t reconcile his friend and this base, arrogant man he knows now is there. He tosses a gelatin packet down, its corner leaking powder, and he tries to gentle his hands. Still, he pulls the handle down with more force than he should. 

He’s not one for sweets, never has been. The cake smells nice, though, something sweet, light, and distinctly artificial that still does a lot to cover the stench of overheated wire and stale oxygen that’s more familiar to Curly than fresh air at this point. Someone’s left a few melty candles, lying loose on the counter. Fire’s a hazard in space, so he doesn’t expect to light them, but they make the whole thing look complete. 

The cake wobbles precariously as Curly carries it over to the table, the rest of the crew already settled in their seats. 

Daisuke looks particularly excited, tucking his hands under his thighs and eyeing the cake out of the corner of his eye. Curly can’t blame him: it’s the closest thing to real food they’ll get compared to the rations, and anything sweet or extravagant like this is a treat. “You gotta make a speech!” the kid tells him. 

“Can’t argue with that,” Jimmy drawls, sprawled in the chair with one hand tapping idly at the table. He presided at the head of it, a seat Curly had shrugged and easily given up at the beginning of their voyage when it was clear his friend wanted it. 

Emboldened by Jimmy’s encouragement, Daisuke pipes up and says, “Speech! Speech! Speech!” His eyes crinkle into half-moons as he twists to beam at Curly. Anya laughs, throwing in her own support, and even Swansea shrugs lightly. It’s unanimous, then. 

Curly takes a moment to gather his words but finds he doesn’t have any. 

He’d like to scrounge up something sweet to say, grateful and quick, just to make the crew happy and rush through their celebration. The thought makes him guilty, that he can’t appreciate what they’ve done for him just because he’s got a little too much on his plate. Everything picks the worst moments to crash down on him, really. Like in the medbay, with the corpse pulling Curly’s attention whilst under Anya’s searching gaze, or now, weighed down by attention on all sides and trying to avoid Jimmy’s. 

And where is his hallucination? Curly’d expected him to follow him to the lounge, considering how hard the corpse had seemed to cringe away from the cryopods, shrinking in their looming shadow and turning his blue eye away from his reflection in the glossy metal. Though he can only scan the room so surreptitiously, there’s neither hide nor hair of the man–not even the trailing edge of a bandage. 

Curly can’t blame him. He’d prefer the solitude of the Utility room too. 

He’s sunk into the mire of his own thoughts for too long, pulled back out by Jimmy’s cold hand. “Hey,” the co-pilot says. His eyebrows pull tight and settle low over his eyes, glittering under the white light. “What’s wrong?”

All considering–a lot. But there are no good answers for it. Curly’s not going to sit here and unload his various, pitiful woes on the shoulders of people who didn’t ask to carry it. He’s also not going to air Anya’s business to the world–he’s resigned himself to talking with Jimmy, dreading the outcome and certain there will be no good resolution–but not now, not here. He’s certainly not going to throw his hands in the air and explain in great detail that he’s going insane and have they seen the man crawling after him this past week?

Still, if even Jimmy’s noticed, then it’s obvious enough something’s wrong with Curly, and he’s got no way to spin it.

Later, he’s going to regret it. Halfway does already, but it’s the only thing left that can justify how out of it he’s been and it’s burning a hole through his pocket. He doesn’t pull the report out to read it to them; the short message has been emblazoned in his mind. To their credit, his crew sits quietly and doesn’t interrupt as he finally says it: Pony Express is letting them go. 

“That’s all it said on the report from management,” Curly finishes, resisting the urge to grind the heels of his palms into his eyes. It’s only now hitting him, how little he’s slept recently, and the world’s beginning to take on that hazy, wobbly filter that plagues the unrested. Colours a little sharper, sounds a little louder. That kind of thing. “We will receive the paycheck for this delivery. I don’t know any more than that.”

Curly hopes that it’s some measure of comfort at least, that their loyal service will at least be paid off and that he’s shared all the information he has. It’s not the way he was planning to go about it, he’s aware enough of that, but the past few days melt into one bleak, grey smear. He’s not Captain for nothing, regardless of his doubts: he knows what it’s like to fly by the seat of your pants and he knows how to do it well. 

Swansea grunts, leaning back in his chair with crossed arms. He looks supremely unimpressed, his craggy face worn by cynicism. The party hat sits crooked on his head, polka-dots as yellow as his shirt. Curly has to suppress the increasingly frequent urge to laugh hysterically. “Pony Express finally kicking the bucket, huh,” he snorts. “What a joke. And we’re the punchline.”

Anya presses a hand against her mouth, eyes wide and aghast. He hates to put that look on her face, the weight of the world settling on her shoulders again. He hadn’t realised how much lighter she’d seemed until now, her frame shrinking and shoulders folding inward. “I don’t have any savings,” she whispers. “T-they can’t just do this, right?”

Jimmy rolls his eyes, a muscle ticking under his jaw. “Clearly, they are.” 

Curly’s unable to help himself, shooting Jimmy a sharp look. God, has that always been the way he’s spoken to Anya, that patronising, irritated tone intermixed with disparaging comments? Shit. He forces himself to swallow his disgust, trying to focus on the other members of his crew. 

“Pony Express was one of the last manned freighter companies,” Swansea says gruffly, patting Anya on the shoulder with a large hand. Beside Curly, Daisuke silently twists a chunky silver ring on his finger, staring down at his plate with a blank expression. “The writing’s been on the wall for a long time.”

Well. Maybe it has been, but that doesn’t mean Curly knew to read it. He’s sunk so much of his time into this forsaken corporation, marked it as his hill to die on, and now he’s suffering for that optimism. It had been his future, what he’d expected to rely on for paying the bills even twenty years down the line. He’s a respected Captain, sure. But it’s Pony Express, who cuts corners with their medical staff and gives you barely enough to scrounge by. 

Their commendations and recommendations won’t mean much. 

“When did they tell you?” Jimmy asks, pointed and loud. The faint smile playing at his lips didn’t reach his eyes, glinting with something black. 

Curly sets his jaw. “Earlier this week. I was instructed to wait until we were closer to the haul destination.” He hesitates, folding his hands on the tabletop and letting his sincerity leak through his words. Hopes they know he means it. “But I couldn’t keep something like this from you all.”

He’s not sure what he’s expecting. Maybe for Swansea to shove his chair in and excuse himself; for Anya to put on a brave face and wave her hands in the air; for Daisuke to ask if they can still have cake, if they can all take a minute to calm down. Jimmy–he expects sullen defeat, retreating into his own head and cutting everyone out. 

He doesn’t expect Jimmy to laugh joylessly, raising a dark eyebrow. “...So I guess you got what you wanted. Without the guilt.”

What is he–? Oh. That stupid confession in the cockpit, Curly toying with the evaluation to have something to do with his hands, relieved to have a friend he could open up to. He really should have told Anya he was having doubts. At least then there would be patient confidentiality. There’s an angry, mean set to Jimmy’s lips that’s far too familiar, and his heart sinks. 

“Come off it,” he mutters. “I didn’t know.”

But the man bulldozes past any protests, the edge in his voice honed with every word he throws at Curly. “I can go back to my–how’d you put it? Struggle of a life? Anya never got into medical school because she’s…well, let’s be real. And how many employment years Swansea got left in him? Daisuke will be fine, Mommy and Daddy have him covered. So there’s that at least. But you.”

Jimmy chuckles sardonically, brushing fingers across his shoulder like he’s flicking away dust. “Headed for bigger and better, right? Leaving the dirt behind now that your boots are clean, ever the model Captain.”

Curly nudges the cake away with his elbow, making room on the table for him to finally give in and bury his face in his hands. God, his head is spinning. How’s everything fallen apart so quickly? If this had been even a day ago, he knows how much Jimmy’s frustration would hurt him. Make him feel like he’s been a bad Captain, like he’s choosing to leave them behind, like he’s thrown them all under the bus. He’s not immune, even now: apologies and explanations sit at the tip of his tongue, and he wants to offer them to everyone around him, served on a silver platter with a pleading expression. 

It would be so much easier to just sit here and weather it quietly until it’s over. Let the anger run its course lest he end up a punching bag, convinced that it’s only the heat of the moment that makes Jimmy cruel. Besides, some of it is probably true, isn’t it? He’s too tired to guess at what, to pick apart what inner motivations Jimmy thinks he’s been hiding and seems to believe he can always sniff out like a bloodhound. If he thinks about it, it’s absurd to sit here and be berated by his Co-Pilot. In a professional capacity, that’s bordering contempt and is definitely disrespectful. 

In whatever personal capacity that still exists between the two of them, though: it’s insulting, it’s cruel, and it’s manipulative. It’s not what a friend is supposed to do.

Good thing Curly knows a little bit better now. So maybe it’s that betrayal that’s been souring in his gut, the nauseating mix of grief and anger and disgust, that spurs his tongue on. There’s an abrupt dissonance, between what he’d been intending to say (I’m just working on my life not being someplace to escape–I didn’t mean it that way–can we please move on and just cut this cake–) and what bursts from his lips. 

“You know what, Jim?” he says shortly. “If the life you’re returning to is a struggle, it’s one entirely of your own making. I have stood by you for most of our lives, constantly willing to give you a helping hand regardless of how far you pull me down with you. And I was happy to, because I cared for you and because I believed that you were someone worth that help and that my faith in you would one day be paid off. The only reason you’ve got this position on this ship is because I stood up for you and told them I trust him, I said you won’t regret it, and I said I know he’ll make me proud. Well guess fuckin’ what, James, I’m not.”

Dimly, he’s aware that he might be losing it. 

He’s used to fighting, he’s used to arguing, he’s used to their stupid petty conflicts. Whatever this is feels deeper, raw and painful and like he’s clawing through his own chest to find bits of his heart to throw at someone who used to be his oldest friend, just to make a point. It’s certainly nothing that the crew should be hearing, and it certainly shouldn’t be done over a melting, gelatinous cake.

But Curly finds he can’t shut up, leaning forward to stare frostily at Jimmy. It doesn’t feel good to say these things—it feels wrong, like he’s betraying something fundamental about himself. He’s always tried to smooth things over and to fix things without breaking them further. Even now the instinctual desire to soften his words gnaws at him. But it’s been a long time coming. Beyond that, he thinks now it’s deserved. 

“I'd recommend therapy, if I thought it would work. Hell, I'd recommend an entire library of self-help books. Medication. An intervention. Whatever it takes to fix what’s wrong in your head that makes you think you're in any position to say this shit.” Jimmy bares his teeth, hands fisted on the table and knuckles white with pressure, but Curly barrels through, light-headed and furious. “No, I’m not done. You can’t play the victim here.”

“The hell I am,” Jimmy says, low and cold. “I’m not the unreasonable one, Captain, throwing these accusations and insultin’ me out of nowhere. You’re desperate to make me seem like the bad guy just so everyone will forget that you’re getting the better deal and happy to leave us behind.”

Curly slams a hand down on the table, a deafening bang that echoes out into the high ceiling. His palm stings, skin reddening, and the solo cup by his setting wobbles and tips over. The plastic rim rolls over the wood, bumping gently against his pinky. It’s loud enough that Daisuke jumps, shoulders flinching to his ears, and the silence in the room suddenly seems tense. 

“No, no, I won’t let you get out of this one, Jim. You aren’t innocent, no matter how you frame it. I regret ever thinking you had a better nature. You relied on my trust too heavily, on my willingness to let you get away with things. It only goes so far, you know, and you crossed the line the minute you decided it was okay to abuse your position–" 

He bites down hard on his next words, swallowing her name. "...I admit it. I shouldn't have let you, should have been better, should have seen the signs. But it’s not all my fault.”

For a moment, Jimmy looks rattled. His eyes flick to his right, where Anya sits, lips pressed thin and chin ducked into the collar of her turtleneck. Though she's wrapped her arms around herself, she's watching the proceedings steadily. Jimmy's fist clenches tighter, and he says, flatly, "Fuck are you goin' on about?"

Curly stares him down, unblinking and unforgiving. He hopes some fraction of that disappointment and disgust brands itself into Jimmy's skin. "You know exactly what I'm talking about. Don't you dare play dumb with me. If we weren't being fired, I'd ask for your resignation, I'd demand that they let you go. I'd report you myself. Hell, I might anyway, and see if I can't get you any of the consequences you deserve. I’m not going to turn a blind eye like before."

Jimmy’s gone silent, face whiter but eyes burning black and angry in his face. Curly takes a moment to consciously relax, sitting back stiffly in his chair. The vitriol is deserved, yes, but it’s also exhausting, this rage that doesn’t come naturally to his lips. Scorches the throat and the heart on its way up. 

“If your life is miserable," he says, a humorless chuckle tearing itself loose from his chest, "it's because every single time you've had an opportunity to do better, you've taken the easy way out. Coasted on other people's goodwill–my goodwill–or else twisted things so far into a knot you come out the other end looking like a hero. Not this time. Take some damn responsibility.”

The silence is oppressive for a long moment, broken only by the hum of the ship and Curly's own shallow breathing. The cake knife glints under the light, untouched. He wants to grab it–not to swing it around like a lunatic, but just to have something to do with his hands, something solid and real under his palm. Instead, he grips his knees under the table, fingers digging into his jumpsuit. 

Finally, Jimmy scoffs, affronted and loud. He rakes hair away from his face in a sharp movement, his shoulders squared. “I see how it is,” he sneers, jabbing a finger in Anya’s direction. “She does have you wrapped around her finger, huh. That's what this is really about. You're so caught up with a nice view, so drunk on her–" his tone dips suggestively, and Curly closes his eyes, mouth pursed. The insinuation hangs heavily in the air. "...I'll be generous and call it charm. That's all it takes to make you believe her?"

"You should shut up, Jim," Curly says, quietly. His heartbeat's pounding, echoing in his ears and pulsing at his temple. 

"You'd like that, wouldn't you." Jimmy leans back, arms folded across his chest and narrowed eyes pinned to Curly's face. "Didn't even have the guts to talk to me first, huh? No questions, no hesitation. No proof. Just her word–and how reliable do you think that is? Coming from her, I'll tell you: it's not a lot. No value in it, either. But I guess that's all it takes now, just one little sob story and suddenly I'm the bad guy." 

God, the way he talks about her, the things he says. He thinks perhaps it's the way Jimmy's always spoken and Curly's always excused it as jokes and let it slide because clearly, his friend wasn't serious. No, it’s soberingly obvious he is. Disdain and irritation sit heavy on Jimmy's face, and the look he gives her is beyond dismissive. He doesn't care, that much is clear. 

Curly's chest tightens, the lingering disgust turned inwards. He's let it go years like this, and never thought to make a fuss until it affected him. He's not confused why Anya didn't tell him sooner–he's bewildered she told him at all. 

“What a joke,” Jimmy spits. “Years of my support meanin’ nothing. But I guess that’s the type of Captain you are. The kind of friend you’ve always been. I see how much your loyalty's worth.” The barking laugh he lets out conveys exactly what he thinks about that.

“Hey,” Anya cuts in, voice quiet. She’s pale, meeting Curly’s gaze with a troubled look and steadfastly turned away from Jimmy, but she’s got her jaw set. The cross patch on her jumpsuit seems to glow white in the low light. “There’s–there are maybe healthier ways to go about this. I think–”

For a minute, Curly thinks it’s really going to end there. 

That they’ll get out fine: sullen and betrayed and furious, sure, and having definitely ruined the party, but unscathed. As much as they can be. He’s already said more than he’d like to, in front of the whole crew, let his temper get the best of him when he should have gone about this more delicately. Should have pulled Jimmy aside, should have asked Anya what she wanted him to say, should have–been better. It’s a genuine recommendation from their nurse, and even knowing there’s no fixing this situation doesn’t make it less applicable. 

Only for a minute, though. 

Jimmy scrubs a hand over his face, expression dark and sharpening the hollow angles of his face. He sneers faintly at Anya, nothing but acute exasperation settling over him. Harsher than Curly’s heard him sound, he tells her, “Oh, well, if you think so. Don’t be a bitch. This is your fault anyway.” 

Several things happen at once. 

Daisuke stands abruptly, eyebrows furrowed and a startled, upset expression wiping away the good cheer that sits naturally on his round face. “Hey,” he snaps, one hand reaching across the table to hover by Anya, like he’s trying to shove the words away. Swansea’s silent, watching Jimmy unblinkingly with the coldest look that’s ever graced the man’s face.

As for Curly, he makes a split second decision that a Captain probably should have deliberated over longer. 

His mind goes pleasantly, fuzzily silent. Sure, he can hear his heartbeat over the rushing in his ears, the reedy sound of his own breath as he shoves himself to his feet and rounds the table in two quick steps. But any higher thought or rationale has flown out the metaphorical ship front, as it were. The air feels charged, dancing like little electric sparks across his skin as adrenaline and anger surges beneath it. 

Jimmy kicks his chair back, the legs squealing against the ground. One hand's braced on the seat, the other stretched out in warning. Curly ignores it, shoving closer and ignoring how Jimmy's fingers claw at his chest when he reaches in and grabs the collar of the man’s shirt. “What the f–” is all Jimmy manages to sputter before Curly yanks him up and his fist connects with his nose.

There's a sickening crunch, followed by a shout of pain as Jimmy's head snaps back. His mouth goes slack, eyes wild as he tries to wheel backwards and escape from Curly's grip. Blood is gushing from his nose, dripping down his chin and creating a shock of colour against his white shirt. His nose doesn’t look right, either, crooked and already starting to swell.

Aside from Jimmy’s choked breathing, it’s blessedly silent. Curly stares at his ex-friend, wondering if he looks as unsteady as he feels. For a moment, the whole thing feels surreal. His knuckles ache sharply, the skin stinging in a way that tells him he’s probably split it. Blood is smeared across them, blending with the faint red-purple of a forming bruise. His hand trembles faintly as he lets it fall, and he stares down at it. It doesn't feel like it's attached to his body. Curly flexes his fingers experimentally.

He looks back up at Jimmy, at the way his eyes are darkening and his face twists with fury. A few strands of brown hair stick to his face, plastered there by the streak of blood smeared across his skin. Curly knows he should be braced for retribution, but he’s rooted to the floor, eaten away by an aching nostalgia, a strange shame. 

He wants to clap his friend–the man he thought he knew–on the shoulder, offer him a tissue, and make light of the whole thing. Say, sorry about that, don’t know what got into me, you know I love you and listen to Jimmy gripe, shrug him off, and then seek him out hours later, moody but amicable once more.

Curly’s torn from his melancholy as Jimmy sucks in a deep breath, pulling against the hand fisted in his shirt. Before Curly can brace himself, watching his movement in what feels like slow motion, aware but reeling back too sluggishly to matter, Jimmy twists violently. He jerks away, and winds up his fist to drive it into Curly's stomach. The air escapes from him in a great, choking gasp, ribs aching and breath coming short.

The room erupts.

With an unintelligible shout, Swansea shoves his chair into the table in his haste to rise to his feet, Daisuke scurrying behind Curly to slink into Swansea's shadow, his eyes wide and startled. Anya stumbles away from the table, the cups rocking in place at the abrupt movement and the cake wobbling, retreating to stand by Polle. 

Curly notices this through dim vision, still reeling from the punch and trying to urge himself into motion once more. He stumbles back a step, ears ringing, but hardly has a moment to gasp for air before Jimmy's on him in an instant. He shoves him hard, his palms a painful press through the jumpsuit, and Curly's back slams against the table's edge. 

It's unyielding and sharp, pressing into his vertebrae and likely indenting a red bruise across his spine. Curly grits his teeth, blinking rapidly like it will dissolve the sparks of agony bursting behind his eyelids, and hurriedly lifts himself with one hand braced on the table to dodge Jimmy's next sloppy punch. It doesn't entirely work. Jimmy catches him just under the jaw, knuckles searing into his skin as the crack of bone against bone reverberates through Curly's skull. Stars sparkle at the edges of his vision again for a moment, foggy and tunnel-vision focused on the seething eyes of his ex-best friend. 

But he keeps his footing stubbornly, shaking his head like it will wash away the impact. His own hand swings out in return, determined to not let this brawl be one sided, and catches Jimmy cruelly on the temple with a blow that's more desperation than precision. Jimmy pauses, wobbling visibly on his feet, one hand raising to pat briefly at the side of his head. His knuckles are raw, fingers curled tightly, and there's a smear of blood there that looks fresh. 

Curly pushes away from the table, wishing for its support the minute he shakes out his fist, and thinks he feels a trickle of blood beading from his lip. Jimmy twitches, the muscles of his face taut and drawn. He tosses his head, lank brown hair swaying with the motion, and starts forward once more. His hand is already outstretched to try to grab Curly, lip peeling from his mouth to show a flash of a canine in a nasty sneer. 

In a wordless answer, Curly knocks aside Jimmy's hand with a sharp blow of his own, trying to trap the other's arms and end this. Jimmy doesn't go easily or quietly, chest heaving and with teeth bared. Curly doesn't put it past him to try to sink his teeth into his skin, and tries to push him away. It begins to resemble a child's scuffle on a playground, messy and uncoordinated and untalented. For a moment, the both of them stand there uselessly clawing at the other until Jimmy's boot flashes out, quick like a viper, and rams his heel into Curly's knee. 

By some luck, when they crash to the ground, Curly's the king of the mountain, as it were. He lands on top. 

He rests his full weight against Jimmy's legs, briefly driving an elbow into the man's sternum and using that disorientation to press down his shoulders. Jimmy snarls up at him, teeth red with watery blood, and slams the flat of his hand against Curly's throat. For a minute, he panics, choking on air and with a tight chest, but when Jimmy renews his struggles beneath him Curly finds the presence of mind–and the dwindling strength–to pin him to the ground with a forearm across his chest. 

“Stay down,” he says hoarsely, his breath short and ragged. It feels like he can't get enough air in his lungs, but he's got enough to spit that one command. It's stupid and futile to hope that Jimmy follows it, but Curly's heart is a wounded, unchanging beast. 

Jimmy's only answer is a guttural laugh, ugly and sharp. Curly can feel it underneath his wavering hands, punched out from the man's chest. "I’m not stupid," he says, pupils blown wide. There’s a distinctly calculating look deep within the black depths. He goes suddenly slack, and Curly's startled enough that the weight he's pressing into Jimmy slips, just for an instant. 

The man doesn't hesitate to take advantage of it, the steel set of his jaw the only warning before he lurches forward and slams his forehead into Curly's with a sickening crack.

Pain explodes through Curly's head. It feels like his brain's been cut loose and rattles freely in his skull, each rebound a nauseating, acute agony that pulses through his entire body. It's white-hot and swallows him whole, his vision blurring in a way that makes him more dizzy. His hands slip away from Jimmy's shoulders, the strength and ability sapped from him, and he distantly registers being pushed away as his co-pilot squirms out from under him. His white shirt is stained and wrinkled, knuckles bruised and face encrusted with drying blood. 

The sight brings no pleasure to Curly–no satisfaction, no content, no anger, no indifference. 

He's not feeling much of anything, except for unbalanced. The world begins to tip sideways, like water being poured from a glass, and Curly collapses to the floor, the impact barely registering except to send another wave of pain down his neck. The last thing he hears before the ringing in his ears grows too loud and insistent is the sound of voices raised in alarm, footsteps pounding against metal grating, and a guttural roar that makes his chest tighten.

Get up, he thinks blearily, fingers spasming. What are you Captain for? Get u–

The darkness washes over him in a peaceful wave. He knows no more.

---

Consciousness crashes into Curly like a train.

So does another swell of pain, temples throbbing. The skin of his forehead feels tender and hot. The world is muted around him, with static hissing in his ears as he blinks sightlessly up at the ceiling. After a slow moment, details and shadows begin to appear in his line of sight again, sharpening as he clears away the haze with each blink. Anya’s dark head is leaning over him, her expression pinched and wild, and she catches the hand he tries to rub his eyes with.

Curly’s lying in her lap; through the confusion that’s blanketing his rattled brain, he’s grateful to not be left on the cold, hard ground. Her fingers are icy and trembling faintly when she squeezes his hand, lowering it to rest over his stomach. “Don’t move just yet, please,” she tells him quietly. Her fingertips gently pry his eyelids wide, and he can’t help the instinctual way he cringes back when she shines a tiny pen-light directly into his iris. 

Anya must find whatever it is she’s looking for, because she shuts it off a moment later and tucks it away. This time when Curly shifts, groaning through clenched teeth as he forces himself to sit up, she lets him with one of her arms braced across his shoulders. He’s ashamed that he needs it, that without the firm support she provides he’d be flat on his back again. That’s his job, isn’t it? But here he is, throwing punches like a child having a tantrum and then leaving his crew to deal with his angry ex-friend. 

“Thank you,” he says, the words slurring together. Anya’s face gets clearer the more he squints, trying to brace his hand on the ground so he won’t keep swaying. She smiles at him, thin and strained, waving a hand in dismissal. 

“It’s my job, Captain,” she murmurs. “I’m glad you’re alright.”

It takes genuine effort for Curly to look past the heartbeat pounding out a sharp rhythm behind his skull, the pain demanding all his attention. But Anya’s eyes keep flickering to the side, like she’s trying to focus on him but can’t, and if he concentrates, the sound of raised voices finally cuts through the cotton stuffed in his ears. He wobbles, leaning hard against Anya’s side, and steels himself to lean forward and peer around her. 

The scene in front of him is strange enough that Curly wants to scrub a hand over his eyes, like that will make it any clearer. His heart sinks. 

Swansea, axe clutched firmly in his hands, is standing over Jimmy, where the man is slumped against the Polle statue. The plastic horse’s voice cracks and stutters, a dying loop of say-say-s-say-s that’s probably because it’s cracked and its head has fallen off. Rope is knotted around Jimmy’s wrists, arms tied behind his back, sporting a swollen, black eye. He’s breathing shallowly, swaying in place like he’s as dizzy as Curly is. There’s a smear of blood on the handle of the axe Swansea’s got. 

Daisuke is pacing behind Swansea, a hand pressed to his cheek. He looks upset, eyebrows furrowed and lips curved in a deep frown, but there’s a simmering anger beneath it that’s startling to see on the cheerful man’s face. He shoots periodic looks at Jimmy, and the tension only gets worse, his eyes sparking with fury before he turns on his heel to march the length of the room again. 

Jimmy is staring at his lap, jaw set. He looks smaller than Curly's ever seen him, like all the fight has drained out of him. Maybe the weight of Curly's attention, his troubled gaze, sets off some alarm in the man's head, because Jimmy looks up through his eyelashes a second later and their eyes meet. It's a sullen, black look, but it's a familiar one. It's the one that'd grace his face any time they got into trouble in school, any time he'd come stumbling around to Curly's door and snarling about the multitude of jobs that had fallen through. 

It's the look of someone lost at sea, set adrift on the waves in a boat that's taking on water. Instinctually, Curly wants to fix it, as he always has. He's a gift-giver. He's got plenty of words of praise bubbling up on the tip of his tongue at any given moment, enough love and faith to fill an ocean–this is how he fixes things. In the depths of Jimmy's brown eyes, Curly sees those faint, glowing parts that he'd chosen to focus on which made his friend so redeemable and worthy. There isn't a stranger looking back at him, from the contours of Jimmy's face and shaded by limp hair. 

It’s why it hurts so badly. 

Will you have my back just one more time, his best friend asks, wordlessly; silently; humbly. Will you fix this, will you figure this out? questions the man who was all but his brother.

And Curly looks back and his heart doesn't like it but it is his mind that rules the body. His mind is disgusted and ashamed and angry. His heart may mourn but it was betrayed. Curly shakes his head, even though it makes the world spin and his head pound. No, he can't. More than that, he will not. 

And that's that. Jimmy's mouth thins, expression hardening and stormy once more. 

He scoffs bitterly, loud enough that Curly can hear it from where he's slumped against Anya, and lets his head fall back to rest against the headless Polle. Eye contact broken, Curly is sure that Jimmy will never look at him for support again. It’s nearly revolting that he thought Curly ever would support...this. But he closes his eyes, letting the nausea and exhaustion sweep over him, and gives himself a moment anyway. 

“What happened?” he finally says, glancing down at Anya. She looks vaguely ill at ease, but she’s got her shoulders set firmly straight. There’s a lightness that lingers around her, and when she glances over her shoulder where Swansea stands over Jimmy, the blade of the axe gleaming as he turns it in his hand, she looks faintly, solidly pleased. 

Daisuke turns on his heel, running fingers roughly through his hair. His face is clouded over, mouth working soundlessly for a moment before his voice bursts from him. “Dude, he tried to kill us! Holy shit, man, he tried to actually kill us! How can you even–” He rubs a hand over his mouth, pupils blown wide. 

Curly blinks, whipping his head around to stare at Jimmy. He regrets it nearly immediately after, with how the world spins, but the shock is deep enough that no other action suffices. Jimmy’s chin rests on his sternum, gaze unseeing and unwilling to meet the eyes of any one of the accusing pairs that stare him down. “No, no,” Curly denies, numbly. They were falling apart, sure. But murder? His friend was capable–had he always been capable?–of murder?

“Yeah,” Daisuke cries. “Captain, it was insane. You two were going at it, right, and it was kind of awkward because, like, do I jump in and help? Except I didn’t know what was going on and I don’t think anyone else did either ‘cause your whole argument seemed pretty personal–anyway, and Swansea would have killed me–”

The aforementioned man nods shortly, gaze flicking over to watch Daisuke gesture wildly. He’s twisting the handle of the axe in his hand, arms crossed over his chest. “First smart choice you’ve ever made, kid,” he says mildly. 

It’s distantly amusing, how the backhanded praise makes Daisuke light up, even while he’s distracted. He flaps a hand in Swansea’s direction, the dimples by his mouth fading as he recounts the story and becomes more invested in it. Curly can’t look away from his earnest expression, brown eyes locked onto his. 

“–ha, thanks! Anyway, look, it was crazy is the whole point, and I was pretty sure you were gonna win, Captain, you seemed like you really had it in the bag, but then I think Jimmy hit you pretty hard in the head. It must have been a worse angle for you than for him because you went down like a sack of bricks! Hey, man, that’s kind of funny, you had it in the bag, you went down like a sack?”

“Focus,” Anya says, shooting a tight smile in Daisuke’s direction, who lights up and returns it. Some of the angry tension has fallen from his face, the curves of it softening once more. Her cold fingertips reach up to press on the fragile skin under Curly’s jaw, and when he startles at her touch, frowning down at her, she turns that same smile towards him. 

“Just taking your pulse,” she says quietly, drowned out by Daisuke’s voice.

“Yeah, so you got knocked out, but only for a little bit, I think you should be fine! I hope you’re gonna be fine, anyway. Good job, Anya! And then Jimmy stumbled out of the room and we were all looking at each other and I was just gonna leave it because I didn’t wanna get into a fight. I’ve got the meanest swing out there but I wasn’t jumping at the chance or anything. I think Swansea was gonna leave it too, he’s chill like that, but then Anya told us someone should go after him.”

“I didn’t trust him,” she murmurs, letting her hand fall. Curly sets his jaw, stomach sinking. No, she wouldn’t. 

Daisuke nods fervently, turning to send a sharp, ugly look Jimmy’s way. The man hasn’t spoken up once, not to spit accusations or explain or beg. He just sits there, sinking into the shadows and unmoving except for the rise and fall of his chest. 

“Yeah, what she said! And she looked really serious about it so Swansea told me to go run grab the axe he left in Utility and man, my heart was pounding, I don’t think I’ve ever listened to him so quickly before! I got it to Swansea in record time. And then he went after Jimmy and do you know where he found him?” He doesn’t wait for anyone to volunteer an answer, leaning forward with eyes that belay his lingering nerves. It’s a sobering reminder that he’s still so young. 

“Swansea found him in the cockpit! And get this, Captain, he was trying to steer the ship into an asteroid! Like, you know there’s fields of them around here, and the ship’s computer was telling him to make corrections and he completely ignored it. Swansea got there just in time, apparently, ‘cause Jimmy was trying to go for the key to turn off autopilot or something!”

“What the hell,” Curly spits, ignoring the nagging nausea to clamber to his feet. He sways unsteadily, trying to repress the way his legs want to stumble around like he’s drunk, and points an unsteady finger at Jimmy’s prone figure. Anya shoots up as well, a steadying presence he’s given up being ashamed of needing and glad to lean an elbow heavily on her shoulder. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Jim? Why would you–God, do you even know–”

System failure notifications flash red and searing behind his eyes, a stone in his throat at the thought of the devastation that would have occurred. In Curly’s best case scenario the foam saves them from a breached hull, but they’re barely making the rest of this voyage on halved rations as it is. The thought of his crew, stranded alone and grimly aware of their fate, is sickening. Worse still is the understanding that Jimmy’s best case scenario would have them dead on impact. 

His co-pilot is silent. 

“I know!” Daisuke says, loud and rushed. “I know. It’s insane. It’s scary, honestly. But luckily Swansea got there in time and man I wish I could have seen it. He used the handle of the axe to whack him so hard over the head that he got knocked out! And that’s when I got tired of waiting and went to go find ‘em and saw what had happened. Then Swansea had me grab the rope from the locker in the cockpit and we tied him up just like that! I made it sound like it took a while but it all went so fast, really! And then you were awake! And that’s everything.”

He pauses, sucking in a deep breath. “Man,” he says, quieter. For a minute, they all just stand there, the same weight on their shoulders. But then Daisuke shakes his head firmly, like batting away flies, and bounces over to sling an arm over Swansea’s shoulder. The older man huffs, but angles the blade away from the kid’s careless arm. 

“You should have the title of meanest swing, really,” Daisuke tells Swansea earnestly. “You really corked him.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Swansea says gruffly. “That’s your thing, not mine.” Daisuke’s smile is warm and small, and for a brief moment, chases away the tension lying over the room. Swansea doesn’t shrug his intern off, turning his head to pin Curly with a sharp look. He doesn’t have to speak; the question sits heavy on all of their minds. What are we supposed to do now?

Curly pinches the bridge of his nose, trying not to wince. What a mess. 

“Alright,” he says, and can’t help that it sounds a little helpless. He steps gingerly away from Anya, glad that the ground doesn’t roll beneath him. He pulls his uniform straighter, all too aware of the blood staining his cuffs and the various wrinkles around his collar. “Alright, well, we obviously can’t let this go unpunished. There aren’t a lot of options, honestly.” He means to list them out, means to have the crew give their input, but before he can, the bubbling anger and dismay boils over. The words burst out. “God, Jim, what the hell were you thinking? Murder-suicide? Over what, being laid off? Over being found out? The looming consequences of your own damn actions? I can’t believe I trusted you.”

He rubs a hand over his face, one hand on his hip. The crew, very kindly, let him gather himself for a long moment.

Curly sighs, resisting the desire to just throw his hands up and throw in the towel. “Options,” he repeats, glancing at Jimmy. The Polle statue has finally quieted, its jarring, glitchy voice lines silenced. “It would be remiss of me as your Captain to allow a violent and irrational man to roam the ship for the next eight months. However, I am also in a dangerous position because I am absent a co-pilot.”

Daisuke raises a hand, then lowers it sheepishly when Curly gestures at him with a longsuffering smile that doesn’t feel natural on his face. Joy has been a little scarce. “Uh, I don’t wanna get too ahead of myself,” the intern murmurs. “But if you’re willing, I’m happy to do my best to help. I’m the only one who’s not already assigned firmly to anything. I know it’s important, so if I’m not qualified or something, then that’s okay. But you didn’t seem to think it was a terrible idea…?”

Curly very seriously considers this. No, technically, Daisuke is not qualified. He’s missing about fifty training courses and thousands of logged hours, not to mention the delicacy of the position. But the man, despite his age, is good-natured and smart, quick to learn and easy to teach, and always willing to take criticism and run with it. But they’re in between an asteroid and a hard place, as it were, and there’s no better option. Curly needs Jimmy, but he no longer wants him. It would be a nerve-wracking, tough couple of weeks, even months, getting Daisuke up to speed, but it’s possible. 

“That does solve some problems,” Curly murmurs, pulling absently at his collar so it sits around his neck better. For the first time, Jimmy looks nearly aware, the furious sheen in his eyes made worse by the bruising over his skin. Curly can nearly hear his indignation at the prospect, of the position suddenly wrested from him, and it’s satisfying, in a bitter way. “That–would be something to look into. But then we’re stuck with, again, a violent man in an enclosed space.”

Swansea clears his throat. Curly glances over, and is slightly taken aback at the detached, cool expression steeling his craggy features. “There’s always, uh,” he casually hefts the axe in his hand. “Can’t say it sits well with me, but if safety’s concerned…”

Curly doesn’t have to think long about that one, heart lurching in his chest. “No,” he says firmly, raising a hand. Swansea doesn’t look upset–if anything, his shoulders relax. “No. Murder is–well, morality aside, we’re not the people to decide that. I just–” He shuts his mouth quickly, trying not to let the words I don’t know what to do escape. 

His silence says a lot, though, probably. What a mess.

Anya clears her throat, and he turns halfway to look at her. She’s got an arm wrapped around her waist, propping up the arm that she uses to gesture behind her. “I know it’s against company policy,” she says quietly, blinking a couple of times quickly in succession. “but I think we should use a cryopod. The resource drain would be improved by one less crewmember. There wouldn’t be any safety concerns. And Pony Express is shutting down anyway. It seems our best option.”

Yes. It would be. Something about it seems so final, though–Jimmy won’t spend the intended twenty years, frozen in stasis, but the thought makes Curly uneasy. Hell, it’s his worst nightmare. It’s a stupid thing to hesitate over, and she’s right: it’s the best choice they’ve got, so he firmly brushes aside those thoughts. “They could dock our pay,” he tells her, tilting his head. “I know you said you were–financially strained. Is that alright? I know it’s not ideal.”

She smiles humorlessly at him, tucking an unruly lock of black hair behind her ear. Her face looks lighter, less drawn, and even the exhaustion smeared below her eyes doesn’t seem so stark. “Nothing about this is ideal, Captain,” she says wryly. “It’s fine. I’ll not lose sleep over it.”

Probably just Curly and Anya get the bleak humor in the words, the shared, morbid joke they’ve found themselves the butt of. No, it’s likely she’ll sleep much better now.

Curly turns his attention to Daisuke, then Swansea, studying their faces. “If that’s alright with you gentlemen,” he says. He doesn’t really expect a protest; Swansea’s shrug and Daisuke’s energetic thumbs up are still nice to see. “Okay. I suppose I’ll…” He hesitates, unwilling to look over at Jimmy. It’s the coward’s way out, probably, but it’s become increasingly clear he can claim the title easily. 

He’s pathetically grateful for Swansea, cracking his neck and raising an eyebrow. “Don’t bother,” he says gruffly, palming the axe handle. “It’d take two of you to do the job of one, and he knows better ‘n to test me. Ain’t that right?” 

Jimmy barely twitches, hair covering his face, but within the depths, Curly can see a flash of white teeth as he sneers. 

Swansea snorts, heaving the axe over his shoulder and striding forward to yank Jimmy up by the arm. The man goes slowly, dragging his feet and tensing as he attempts to pull away from Swansea’s grip. Their engineer’s got a firm grasp on Jimmy, though, knuckles white with the force he holds him with. It looks like a shuffling, tense parade, and Curly doesn’t envy the effort Swansea will need to shove him in the pod, but for the first time in weeks, he finds it within himself to relax. 

Swansea pauses in front of Anya, jerking his head at Jimmy and watching her with a shrewd expression. “Can’t say I understand the finer details,” he says bluntly, nose twitching as he frowns. “But I sure know they’re there, ‘n I always had a bad feeling about this bastard. I won’t pry. Suppose if ya wanted to take a pot shot at him, nobody would stop you, is all.”

For a second, Anya clearly hesitates. 

She opens her mouth only to close it, cheek dimpling faintly as she worries the flesh of it with her teeth. There’s an intense look in her eye, glimmering within the inky depths of her iris, and a detached expression that descends over her face. Each feature looks like it was carved from ice as she deliberates, a scrutiny that Jimmy doesn’t raise his head to meet. He stands there, hunched shoulders and a bristling air, and doesn’t once look at the consequences of his actions. 

“No,” she finally says, clipped and short. She shakes her head, smiling thinly at Swansea. It’s like Jimmy’s ceased to exist, even though he’s trapped in front of her, his burning glare nothing more than an annoyance. She gently taps the cross embroidered over her breast, glancing down at it with a small sigh. “I don’t think so.”

Swansea shrugs, pressing a flat hand against Jimmy’s back to shove him forward. The man stumbles, cursing lowly under his breath, but is pushed again and forced to take mincing steps towards the door. “Just thought to offer,” Swansea says, then shoots a narrow-eyed look behind him at Daisuke. “C’mon, kid, might as well show you the cryopod mechanics in action. Best chance you’ll get.”

“Oh, man, sure!” Daisuke says, jogging to catch up and nearly tripping over his own feet. He brushes sharply by Jimmy, shoulder-checking him harshly, and shoots an insincere smile over his shoulder when the man hisses. “Oops,” he deadpans, and opens the door for Swansea and Jimmy to slip out of. 

Curly watches them go, the back of Jimmy’s head shaded by the low lights and then disappearing entirely around the corner. So that's the end of it. It doesn't quite register, the shock too overwhelming and unprocessed, but Jim being marched away hammers home the finality of it all. 

It’s not grief he feels; it’s not joy, it’s not vindication, it’s not anger. But he feels it, certainly. He absently rubs his chest, wondering at the ache under his skin, and tries to remember the last things they said to each other as friends. But each memory is bleak and fuzzy, only a faint sense of warmth and laughter imbued in it like tiny stars in a dark, dark sky. 

He blinks back to the present, and realises Anya’s watching him, a hand pressed to her collarbones. 

“Hey,” he says, a gentle exhale. There’s nothing else to say. She blinks up at him, unsmiling, but with a gentle set to her expression. 

“Would you sit down, please?” she says, pointing to one of the chairs at the table. It’s knocked askew, Jimmy’s chair flat on its back. The cake has collapsed, an unappealing mixture of pink frosting and gelatinous crumbs. “You might have a c-concussion. I’d like to grab a few things from Medical and confirm that without making you move around too much. Okay?”

Despite being made cheaply and of a wood that’s uncommonly unyielding, the seat looks downright comfortable. Curly collapses into it with a groan that would put the Tulpar to shame, the breath whooshing from his lungs in order to let acute exhaustion set in. His knuckles throb faintly, the bruising dark against his skin. He’s lost most of his tan, after no sunlight for so long. 

“Anything for our lovely nurse,” he says, tipping his head back and letting his eyes fall shut. Then, softer: “I appreciate it.”

Sounds are amplified, when staring into the darkness of the backs of his own eyelids. He hears her clothes rustle as she moves, offering him a chuckle from low in her chest. “It’s the least I can do, Curly,” she tells him, and doesn’t give him the opportunity to protest.

Her footsteps move away from him, shuffling against the carpet, the door sliding open with a hiss and then closing with little more than a quiet snick. He sprawls there, new parts of his body choosing the silence and the rest as a great opportunity to shrill their displeasure, pain shooting down his back. But it’s nice, that utter solitude. A few brief moments of moping, of agony, and everything should go back to rights.

Or he can pretend that it will, anyway.

When the door slides open again, the scrape of metal and thunk of the handle, he frowns, forehead aching as his eyebrows fall back into their habitual furrow. It’s barely been a couple minutes; he knows Anya, knows that she’s thorough and likes to make sure she’s not going to need a return trip. It wouldn’t be her. And Swansea and Daisuke are occupied. 

Reluctantly, he cracks open an eye, letting his head fall to the side and cheek press uncomfortably against the wooden back of the chair. Ah. The corpse. Curly had been wondering where he had gone. 

The hallucination is comforting in his familiarity, which is so absurd it would make Curly laugh if it didn't take so much effort to sluggishly process the world around him. The corpse drags himself over the threshold, wobbling as he pulls himself forward. One of his knees is amputated shorter than the other, which makes the whole process unsteady and slow, and Curly faintly wonders how–no, why–he follows him around so doggedly at all. 

What little flesh remains pulls tight over exposed muscle, the bandages soaked and old and not enough to cover every injured inch. It's got to be painful, to move as he does, the stumps of his limbs scraping across the carpet as the corpse crawls to the table where Curly slumps. He's got to admire the hallucination's determination; if that were him so badly wounded, he'd never want to move again.

With a great, rusty sigh, the corpse makes it to the table. He hooks an elbow around the leg of the table, using its support to pull himself into a sitting position. Blood soaks into the gauze around his legs, and Curly glances down at the carpet half-expecting to see wet patches of red leading from the door to the table. Nothing. It's so easy to forget that it's a figment of his imagination when he does those subtly human actions, shuffling around with that sharp blue eye observing the world around him. The corpse props himself against the leg of the table, head lolling to the side and his arms lying limp in his lap. 

They sit there in silence. Curly finds himself mirroring the rise and fall of the corpse’s breathing just to occupy himself, though he can’t match the rasp of each inhale. The medical gown the hallucination wears crinkles quietly as he shifts, tipping his head back to pin Curly in place with a curious attention. He’s not sure when he got so good at reading the moods of this thing, but if it’s part of himself, he supposes that checks out. 

Curly looks down at him, lacing his hands together and resting them on his stomach. The flickering light from the single bulb swinging over the table illuminates strange angles of the corpse’s face, deepening the shadows of his eye socket. “Well,” he says after a moment, unable to muster up any real emotion. “You missed all the fun, huh?”

The corpse’s cheek twitches, the leathery skin of his forehead barely wrinkling. Belatedly, Curly wonders if this is a facsimile of a blink, whatever remnants of confusion that linger and are understandable. He rakes a hand through his hair, fingers catching on knots and stinging as they yank on his scalp. “Put Jim in a cryopod; he tried to crash the ship. God, what a mess.”

He nearly doesn’t catch the motion, too focused on the mire that his brain is sinking into and the way it pulls his whole body down. But the insistent way the corpse shakes his head a second time catches Curly’s attention, frowning down at the disjointed action. “What, don’t put him in a cryopod? There’s not much else. Besides, it’s–yeah, nah, wait. I don’t have to explain this.”

But the corpse shakes his head again, bared teeth clacking against one another as he soundlessly moves his jaw. It’s like the mimicry of speaking, though nothing about it seems natural. Curly blinks, running back his sentence in his mind. “...Not a mess?” he hazards. That earns him a faint nod, chin dipping and touching the torn collar of the medical gown. 

It’s still a shock, but a dull one in the face of everything else, when the corpse clears his throat and speaks once more. It remains that choppy, slurred speech, hoarse and clearly a struggle to force from his mouth, but it’s a voice. “You ‘id goo’,” he says, quiet and strained. “A goo’ job. Wha’ I shoul’ have done. This is the o’ly time tha’ matters ‘ow.” 

“What you should have done?” Curly murmurs, glancing down at the corpse with a raised eyebrow. But the hallucination doesn’t respond, sinking back into that contained isolation that lingers around him at all times. Something seems different about him, though Curly could simply be finding importance in what’s barely consequential. Still, the corpse’s shoulders are loose and relaxed, that nervy, kicked-dog air that hung around him like miasma lifted, if not gone. There isn’t any edge that sparks, bright and sharp, in his iris, and his breathing is deep and slow. 

Curly thumbs the corner of his mouth, dried blood flaking off onto his skin and the flesh there tender to the touch. His thoughts feel so muddled. "It's nice of you to say, mate," he mutters, and doesn't bother to be dismayed about the fact that he's taking comfort in reassurance his head has literally made up for him. To his chagrin, the words do mean something to him. That he didn’t mess it up irrevocably. 

They sit in comfortable silence. 

The lounge is eerily quiet, save for the faint buzzing of the fluorescent lights in the kitchenette and the soft creak of his chair as Curly leans back. His hand aches more now, enough that he idly wonders if he should get up and press his hand against one of the Tulpar's walls–the freezing metal is the closest he'll get to an ice pack. But he feels so drowsy, eyes heavy: the air is warm, thanks to the rattling AC, and smells faintly of stale coffee. It's an odd, limbo-like state, the solitude and the exhaustion pressing down on him and cooing at him to give in and rest. Those few minutes of unconsciousness now feel like the best sleep he's gotten in weeks. 

Curly should probably check on Swansea and Daisuke, make sure it went alright, that there's not an angry man running loose around the ship currently. But, he reasons with himself, there would have been more commotion. He's sure he's not Jimmy's favourite person right now–or at all, really–and he'd probably come, fist cocked, to find him first thing. So the stillness is a good sign, and it pulls heavy at his limbs. Besides, Anya had told him to wait. 

He stares up at the ceiling, lazily tracing the pipes as they wind above and spear through the walls. The corpse is an amicable presence, a strange companion he hadn’t expected to appreciate. It’s hard not to when the hallucination, imagination or not, is so willing to simply sit in silence. Curly glances down, blinking away hazy cobwebs, and watches the corpse stare off into the distance, head tipped back to rest against the table leg.

Maybe they’re thinking the same things. Maybe they’re of the same cloth, served terrible hands and then forced to play them anyway. Maybe Curly’s just being stupid and maudlin. But the thought is nice–that there's enough of the cloth to cut two similar pieces from it, that he's not alone, that "okay" could be just around the corner. Yes, nice thoughts: there’s been a shortage of those. 

Fittingly, it doesn't last long when Jimmy swims into his mind, and Curly sighs, trying to erase the mental image. 

Fuck. What a mess. 

—

4 Days After Justice

Curly only goes to Utility to look at the pod once. 

The room’s got a sense of unease hovering about it now, and though he wouldn’t admit it if someone asked, he’s avoiding it. He remembers being slumped on the ground, pressed against the cool metal of the cryopod and relishing in the silence to think through every pressing issue that weighed him down. Now, the thought makes him shudder. It’s not tainted, exactly. But it feels wrong, to collapse against the cryopod and sigh and work out his issues while his ex-best friend freezes behind him. Like some distorted mockery of their conversations over the years, Jimmy now a listening ear that can no longer respond. 

Curly’s not superstitious or even a man very prone to disquiet. But it feels very distinctly wrong, and so for the first few days, he’s refused to step foot inside Utility.

He’d taken Swansea’s word, gratefully: it’s relieving, to have someone to rely on and know that they’ve done their job thoroughly and well. He’s been filling his free time with going through the ship logs, tracing their path, scrutinizing every command inputted and every single turn of the yoke. Paranoia, maybe, that Jimmy’s messed with it, or the lingering horror from the idea of the ship crashing. But mostly–and Curly’s self-aware, at least–it’s a good way to avoid any conversations he doesn’t want to have and any place he doesn’t want to go to. 

But curiosity got to him eventually, mixed with rage and disgust and that undying seed of affection that has sprouted and refused to be uprooted for every person Curly’s ever met in his life. Deaths, betrayals, absences: that garden remains, and it’s shameful that he cannot give up those last bits of friendship. So maybe it’s that which propels him to creep down to the hold, during whatever passes as their “night time,” and finally see where Jimmy’s going to spend eight months. 

It’s underwhelming. 

The cryopod looks exactly the same as the last time he saw it. Blocky and large, something that would fit better in a low-budget sci-fi movie, tubes reaching up to connect to the ceiling. Unlike the other dormant pods, the one Curly stands in front of is humming faintly, and if he presses a palm to the metal, it’s as cold as ice. The small window is frosted over, opaque with the cold, and he’s pathetically grateful for it. Still, beyond it, he imagines he can feel the edge of Jimmy’s glare, the weight of his fury and betrayal. 

No, no. Realistically, the man’s eyes are closed. There’s no consciousness inhabiting this cryopod, only a body that will eventually be thawed and defrosted and handed off to justice on Earth. Yet, their home planet feels so far away, nothing more than a blue-and-green marble rotating gently in the quiet of Curly’s mind. It’s not hard to imagine decades like this, Jimmy soundless and motionless in a metal coffin that will cradle him until he dies and then years beyond that. 

The corpse followed him down here, as he usually does. He’s a light pressure leaning against Curly, something as intangible as a hallucination must be. But warmth seeps through the fabric of his jumpsuit and the bandages that are pressed against his leg feel as though they’re genuinely wet, clotting with blood. It’s unnerving, but nothing about this hallucination has been typical. The corpse is staring up at the window too, a sheen over his iris.

Not for the first time, Curly wonders at its striking blue. It’s funny. They’ve got the same eye color.

Curly’s not sure how long he stands there, hands in his pockets and staring numbly at the rattling cryopod. He keeps expecting that if he peers through the fog hard enough, the outline of Jimmy’s face will surface, like a swimmer breaking for air. But no–the only thing that stares back at him is his own reflection, distorted and faint, frost settling over the window like a blanket. He doesn't like seeing himself, the drawn expression on his face, the sad curve of his eyes. 

He’d like to disrupt it, wants to reach out and tap the glass, like a child poking a bug, call into the confines of the pod and say are you still there, can you still hear me, I’m not sorry but I’m sorry because I thought you would never hurt me and I think some part of you probably thought the same thing and then you fucked it all up, you really did, but I’m still sorry just not for you, you deserve all of this and worse and I wanted so badly to think you were better than this and I hope you go to hell and I’m sure you’ll see me there one day too. 

No, Curly’s getting melancholy again. Honestly. The older he gets the worse it is, this tendency to drift off on the sea of his own thoughts and get lost in hypotheticals. It must be a sign of age to poeticize what makes you sad just so you never really have to address it head on. Curly rubs a hand over his jaw, throat bobbing as he swallows, and wishes he never had to address it head on. 

The corpse shifts, drawing Curly’s attention. He watches idly as the hallucination drags himself forward, shuffling over the black and yellow tape boxing the pod in. It’s a line Curly hasn’t crossed, even as he leaned forward to press his hand on the metal door; it feels too close to the pod, an extension of it that would keep him trapped if he stepped over it. The corpse has no such qualms. 

The fluorescent lights set in the ceiling are large and painfully bright, illuminating nearly everything in Utility except for the corners. That’s where the corpse drags himself, collapsing in the little nook between one of the pod’s protruding tubes and the cold wall of the Tulpar itself. He looks slightly more ghoulish, hunched in the shadows with nothing but the faint gleam of his eye to announce his presence. The hem of the medical gown rustles faintly with the expelled air from the pod, cooler than the surrounding atmosphere.

Curly cocks his head, a wordless question, but the corpse isn’t even looking at him. He’s still staring up at the pod, pupil darting over every inch of the surface, seemingly soaking it in. His head leans against the side, face nearly obscured by the pipe that goes down from the cryopod into the floor. His arms are limp at his sides, legs curled as much as he can manage to fit into the tight space. The corpse’s breathing slows. 

Curly takes a half-step closer, unsure of what he’s trying to do, but footsteps echoing through the hall stop him in his tracks.

He’s left the Utility door open–he hadn’t intended to stay this long. Guilty, though unsure why, he steps away from the cryopod and turns his back firmly to its frosted window. He’s only made it halfway to the door when the footsteps stop, Anya’s dark head peeking around the doorframe. She’s looked more relaxed these past few days than she has nearly the entire trip, and every time Curly notices it, pleasure and shame grapple for control in his chest. Happiness, of course, that she’s at ease, that the animalistic terror he’d seen spark in her eyes when she told him what Jimmy was doing has slowly drained from her. 

But shame, that he’d never noticed it until he’d been forced to.

“Oh, Captain, it’s you,” Anya whispers, faint surprise in her voice. Curly clicks his tongue against his teeth, his eyebrow pointedly raised, and she huffs, the corners of her eyes crinkling. “Curly,” she corrects, lightly amused. “This is the second time we’ve run into each other like this. Can’t sleep?”

“Something like that,” Curly agrees wryly, ambling closer and leaning his shoulder on the doorframe. It’s easier like this, head to head, with the darkness surrounding them. She squints up at him, wearing a loose sleepshirt with a cartoon Polle on it that’s distorted into some absurd creature in the gloom. He knows she’s aware of why he’s here; in the silence, the hum of the cryopod seems absurdly loud. But she doesn’t say anything, just curls her hand around the door handle and gestures to him to step out from Utility. 

Curly goes readily, unexpectedly glad to be gone from the room. There’s a weight within it that wasn’t present before. He’s not superstitious, but he swears it’s there. 

“Daisuke’s been experimenting with comic strips,” Anya tells him, smiling. She looks comfortable and softer, the outlines of her form blurred. “Says he’s so excited about the new “pilot internship” that he’s got to focus on something else so he doesn't go crazy. He gave me a stack to read through that I hadn’t gotten around to yet. I know it’s late, but I wanted to have some feedback for him. So I was going to make myself a cup of coffee and look over them.” She studies his face–he tries to smooth it out, whatever expression his bared heart forces on his face, but probably isn’t successful. 

Anya reaches out, patting his bicep gently. “You’re welcome to join me,” she says. Then, in the nicest censure Curly’s ever received, she tells him, “It’s probably more productive than this.” 

He doesn’t know how she does it. How she puts it behind her, how she sets her shoulders firmly and goes about her day. He knows she’s not unaffected; she still sleeps in Medical. She jumps nearly sky high if you startle her, and on bad days, fiddles with the medicine cabinet for hours, picking up bottles of Isopropyl and twisting them in her hands. But there’s an air of relief around her, warm and contagious and prone to leaving her smiling more than she used to. 

For a minute, he wants to clutch her hands and beg her, say, how do you move on except she hasn’t moved on, she’s just moved around it and he’s still stuck behind it, aware of how to change and unable to do so. 

“That it is,” he sighs. “Maybe it’s a bad idea if I ever want to sleep, but coffee would be nice, Anya. Thank you.”

She reaches up and covers her mouth, yawning a little. It turns into a quiet laugh, one that deepens when Curly grimaces and yawns too, nearly directly afterwards. Her gaze is too knowing, and he avoids it, combing through his hair and tipping his head up to stare at the ceiling. If he deflects enough, if he’s reticent enough, then she doesn’t poke at the sore, bleeding heart he’s got visibly exposed. It’s a familiar game–

“You know,” Anya says suddenly. “You can’t blame yourself for what he did. You aren’t guilty by association, Captain, it’s an unhealthy mindset to have.”

He blinks down at her, a little taken aback. Ah. She isn’t playing. “I know that,” he says. It rings hollow even to his ears, echoing around the walls of the ship like his poor denial is trying to mock him. “It’s just–it went on for so long. I should have seen that. I let him do whatever he liked and I trusted him enough that I thought it would be fine.”

Anya frowns. Her face is sober, light playing around her cheeks and with her thin nose casting a shadow across her chin. “Nobody saw it, Curly. I–hadn’t expected anyone to. I know he was your friend, I was aware there was a bias there. People are blind to the flaws of people they love.”

“I wasn’t blind,” Curly murmurs, staring down at his hands and flexing them idly. “I was closing my eyes to it, I think. There’s a difference. I thought the best of him and coasted years on that even when I was proved wrong hundreds of times. I don’t know why you told me.”

“Because I thought there was someone good in there,” Anya tells him gently. She raises a finger to poke at his chest, fingernail cutting into the Pony Express logo. “And I trusted that it was someone who would listen. That’s all I wanted. You could have laughed in my face, you could have taken his side, you could have ignored it all together, and you didn’t. That’s the important part.”

Curly hums wordlessly. 

For a second, the hum of the ship fills the space between them, nearly a physical thing that vibrates in his bones. He doesn't know what to say–or how to say it. He wants to tell her he's sorry (oh, God, so sorry, more sorry than he's ever been before, rotting in his chest), but it feels more like a rote plea at this point than anything sincere, no matter that he means it.

He grimaces, aware it likely looks sad and sopping wet. "I worry, sometimes, that I listened but didn't act soon enough or well enough. If I'd done more, sooner. If I'd have been able to stop it. Fix him, I suppose." It's not painful, baring his heart, but like most things that are worth doing, it's miserable and feels like he's about to drop off a cliff. Part of him will likely always scream of authority and strength and the dismay at speaking so frankly to a crewmember. 

Anya doesn't respond immediately, and after a few beats of silence, he looks over to her, pushing wavy blonde hair out of his eyes to see her better. She reaches up to touch her collarbone, an idle habit he's noticed, her lips pressed in a thin line. Not disappointed, not angry; her eyes are too bright for that, framed by dark lashes. Just thoughtful. "It's no good to think in hypotheticals," she says quietly. "You just go in circles and it never changes what happened. What you did was enough, in the end."

Curly clears his throat. There's a stone stuck in it, a lump he can't swallow. He stares over her head, leaning more heavily against the doorframe. The cool metal presses against his cheek, words slightly muffled as he says, "It doesn't feel like it.”

"That's just how it is," Anya agrees. She smiles at him, crooked and small. The tiny gap between her teeth peeks out from between her lips a moment, and he instinctively wants to smile back. "But regret doesn't mean you failed. What you did–it was good. Even if you don’t think so. Even if there might have been better ways to do it. It meant so much."

“Mm.” Curly briefly closes his eyes, taking the opportunity to let those terrible, late-night emotions wash over him and for a moment get the better of him. It means a lot to hear her say those things, too. Means enough that it even drowns out the memories of Jimmy, though in the back of his mind, they’re always going to be there. Still, he’s sure she’s right; he’s seen the psychology books she pours over. Areas of the mind and heart aren’t his field, so he’s got to start trusting the expert. He opens his eyes, smirking at Anya. “Putting your title to good work, Nurse Anya.”

She lets him move on without a fuss, the warmth still lingering around her even as her mouth sharpens with cheerful mischief.

“I’m supposed to be off the clock,” she chides, consulting an invisible wristwatch carefully. “Here I was just trying to be polite, and you distract me. You’d think you don’t want terrible vending machine coffee.”

Curly laughs, surprised to find that it’s not just loud, it’s genuine. Maybe there really is something to these terrible, wonderfully honest conversations.

“‘M sorry,” he says, pushing off from the doorframe to gesture down the corridor with a sweeping arm. He bats his eyelids coquettishly, buoyed by the playful joy she waves him off with. She wears such a sharp beauty when she's happy. “Of course I do. How could I turn down the promise of Daisuke’s comics? As apology, let me buy you a cup. My treat.” The joke, of course, being that the coffee is free and beyond that, absolutely not a treat.

Anya laughingly agrees, turning on her heel and slowly making her way down the hall. Curly makes to follow after her, but when he casts a habitual glance down at his feet, the corpse isn’t there. Usually, he’d have already clambered over the threshold, trailing bandages and all. But no–when Curly turns to peek into the Utility room, the corpse is still there, tucked between cryopod number four and the thin wall separating him from empty space. 

From behind him, Anya calls out to him, asking if he’s coming. Curly waves a hand over his shoulder, still squinting to see the complete outline of the corpse. It’s not unusual to have the hallucination sometimes stay behind in one room or another, but he’s never been so motionless before. Even the rasp of his breathing seems reduced, thin and airy and blending in with the rattle of the cryopod. In the dim light, he looks like a shade, translucent and unreal.

Something pulls Curly back, keeps him with one foot into the Utility room and laser focused on the corpse. Some curiosity, some confusion, maybe. But something.

The lights flicker; for a moment, he sees the corpse clearer than ever before. There’s a man behind the bandages: it’s easy to forget that, when faced with stretches of raw skin, the jaw that moves soundlessly, the scraping, miserable process of dragging himself after Curly. But nestled in the shadows of Jimmy’s cryopod, a flash of intense triumph bursts in the man's blue eye. The corpse has never looked so wholly, unmistakably human. It spreads across his face, muscles twitching, head lolling to the side. 

Absurdly, and for no reason Curly's really sure of, he imagines the corpse’s voice, clear and whole and healthy, crowing: I did it, I did it, I did it. Anything.

Between one blink and the next, Curly’s blue-eyed ghost disappears.