Chapter Text
As it turned out, the tiny, colorful humanoids Wash was hallucinating could scream pretty loud for their size. Wash watched the light blue one in particular run through a series of interesting paths and brand new forms of obscenity.
"So this was your plan," the bright red one shouted in a Southern accent. "Lure us out here and expose us all!"
"No! Exposure was not in the fucking plan! And this is your fault for getting me so caught up in this stupid argument!"
"You guys might want to keep your voices down," Wash suggested in a level tone. If he was losing his mind, which he clearly was, he'd rather do so peacefully.
The humanoids jumped at the sound of his voice, a few covering their ears. "Oh fuck," the orange one said, "he's trying to talk to us."
"...Sorry?" Wash made an effort to lower his voice. "It's just that on the slim chance this is real, I doubt you want anyone else to hear you."
"It's not real," Aqua said immediately. "It's a dream. In fact, it's a really stupid dream. Little dudes on the floor? You clearly got some issues."
"And don't tell anyone about it in the morning," Orange added, clearly trying to sound at ease despite visibly shaking. "Nobody cares about that wacky fucking dream you had last night, trust me."
"...Okay, that does it." Wash had been laying on his stomach to stare at the tiny soldiers. He pushed back up into a sitting position, which seemed to spook his 'audience.' "York, I don't know where you got a hologram generator, but this is a really stupid form of hazing. Creative. But stupid."
Except Wash knew what a hologram looked like. It would glow slightly, flicker, and most importantly wouldn't cast a shadow.
Most of the soldiers were dwarfed by his own shadow, a fact that briefly made him feel disproportionate and monstrous. He quashed that sensation by reminding himself that this was his room, and moreover, this wasn't really happening.
But the one in brown armor stood a bit distant from the others, and he cast a shadow.
"So." Red stepped forward, holding something Wash couldn't quite make out and aiming it up like a shotgun. "What's the protocol for breakin' the protocol?"
"There is no protocol for that," Maroon sputtered. He was pressed flat against the wall, panic in his voice. "We just aren't supposed to be caught!"
"Well, then. Guess it's time to use my diplomatic skills." Red cleared his throat, turning back to Wash. He'd kept the weapon trained on Wash the whole time. "Attention, Giant!"
"Washington." Wash was talking to the hallucination again, because he couldn't seem to snap himself out of it. "It's Agent Washington."
"Great. Now we know his name." Light Blue threw his hands up. "Sure, let's just talk to the human like he's people. While we're at it, let's exchange social media contacts!"
"Church! You don't start with that!" The pink soldier craned his neck to look up at Washington and gave a wave. "We can't be rude and not give our names now. Right, Washington? I'll go first. My name is Franklin Delano Donut. I'm a Virgo, and once I almost got blown up. Who wants to go next?" He looked around at the mostly silent, hesitant soldiers. "Anyone...?"
Yellow jumped up. "Hi! I'm Kaikaina Grif. I've seen you naked like a thous-" She stopped short when the orange soldier ran over to pull her away. "Hey! Grif, leggo!"
"Don't talk to it," 'Grif' hissed. "We never talk to it!"
"
Why are you telling me what to do?" Kaikaina replied, pulling her hand back. "I'm Blue Team, remember?"
"Nobody fucking talk to it! Him. The State of Washington." Light Blue barked out orders, only to be drowned out by a cacophony of tiny voices shouting at one another. They were erupting into panic and disorder without a leader to really take control, and it was clear Light Blue didn't inspire enough confidence in his troops to command them in a time of crisis. And as Wash evaluated the little soldier's performance, figuring out what he'd do differently, it finally hit him how ridiculous this was.
"Shut up," he found himself mumbling as the impossibly small figures kept shouting at each other, their voices pitched like average-sized adults but sounded like they came from a cheap radio held at arms' length. They drowned him out or ignored him, arguing over him like he wasn't in the room, which would annoy him if he wasn't so sure they didn't exist. He shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, hoping this dream would end so he could go back to not getting enough sleep. Never mind how his earlier injuries ached through the dream. Never mind how suspicious it was the soldiers wanted him to believe they were fake. This was too much.
"I said," he snapped, "will you SHUT UP?!"
Wash took a deep breath and opened his eyes. The little soldiers were gone without a trace, as if the'd never been there before. Which of course they hadn't. Whatever that was, dream, hallucination, unexpected side effect of pain medication, it was over. He hadn't heard anything like tiny footsteps running on the hard floor. No, what he'd heard was just the hum of machinery, right? Right.
If they were real, he'd have felt pretty awful about scaring them off with his voice. He caught himself before he apologized on instinct, sighed and forced himself back onto his feet before collapsing back into bed.
He hadn't heard anything. He hadn't seen anything. Just take the orange guy's advice, let this go and tell no one about this stupid dream. Wash found himself drifting off before he could ponder the implications of taking an imaginary guy's advice seriously.
"FUCK." Church collapsed with his back to the wall the moment the Blues made it back to their base, burying his helmet in his hands. "Oh fuck. God. That was-that was way too close."
"He thinks it's fake, right? Right?" Tucker, usually confident, was pacing back and forth next to Church and glancing at the wall entrance warily. "Shit, what's the next step if you break the Prime Directive?"
"There is no next step! You don't break it! There's no 'in case of a human seeing a whole bunch of you at once' help guide, Tucker!" Church stopped mid-rant. "Did you just call it the Prime Directive?"
"Don't yell at me! You're the one who broke it, dude!"
"And then we talked to it! I talked to it. Why the fuck didn't you assholes stop me from talking to it?!" Grif managed to pull off a lot of yelling while he was catching his breath.
God, it was so loud. A human shouting in close range at full volume was like hearing an earthquake, powerful enough that Church had felt his whole body vibrate at Washington's little meltdown. Those hands could crush any one of them easily, and they were all so close.
Clearly Church wasn't the only one overwhelmed by the thunderous yell. He and his fellow soldiers scrambled on instinct, hiding behind furniture in seconds as if acting on a hive mind. As soon as the giant had lumbered to bed, they'd hauled ass to Blue Base.
Wait.
Church stared at Red Team. "Why the hell are you guys in our base?"
"Yours is closer! Evasive measures. And I knew unlike Red Base, you'd keep yours completely unguarded." Sarge was clearly trying to inject the swagger back in his words even as his hands shook.
"Fine! Whatever." Church threw up his arms. "Look, we need a plan in case Gigantor wakes up and doesn't think it's a dream."
"We could kill him," Sarge suggested. "In his sleep. Make it look like an accident."
"With what? This?!" Tucker held up his two-pronged wire 'sword.' "It's for fighting off cockroaches. Pretty sure this wouldn't make a dent. And even if it did, them finding him bleeding out the neck when no one else was in the room? I'd be suspicious."
"And when they do find out? They'll take it as declaration of human-Borrower war," Grif added.
"Maybe he fell on a tiny harpoon. In his bed," said Sarge.
"No one is killing the human. That's not on the table, ok?" Church groaned and slumped all the way down onto the floor. "Fuck, ok. We gotta consider evacuating."
"Evacuating? Aww, but I was getting so attached to this place." Donut crossed his arms. "I mean, I guess we are getting in too deep. And if you go too deep, you gotta pull out."
"I-thank you, Donut, I guess." Church already had a headache; Donut could only do so much. "I know it'd be a pain in the ass, but..." He looked up and did a double take at the figure slumped on Donut's shoulder. "Whoa, what happened to Lopez?"
"The volume and shock shorted him out. Gonna need a few tweaks to get him back online." Sarge huffed. "See, if we'd gone with my first plan and found a way to micro-engineer a Diesel engine, we wouldn't have these problems."
"Which means we're currently down two," Grif pointed out, "counting Caboose. And I know that guy. If you leave without him and tell him to meet us somewhere, you're never seeing him again." He paused. "I mean, however that influences your decision here. I won't judge."
"Aw come on, man, we wouldn't abandon Caboose," Tucker said. "He'd break the ship sooner or later. Wouldn't be surprised if he hasn't found the engine room already and is pressing buttons. Though why the hell hasn't he been answering his god damn radio?"
There was one reason why Caboose wouldn't be answering, but it was one Church didn't want to consider. Caboose was...Caboose, but he was the strongest member of Blue Team. (Never mind the only Blue who couldn't honestly be considered athletic was Church himself.) The guy always came back from recon intact and babbling about 'adventures.' And it was his fault they were in this mess to begin with. If he hadn't up and vanished, that stupid argument would never have happened.
"Okay, yeah. We can't leave without Caboose. We have to find a way to reach him. Somehow." Church groaned.
"Plus, wouldn't you have to tell Blue Command?" Sister was lingering near the door, serving as lookout and ignoring Grif's nervous glances towards her. "Speaking from experience? Way better to apologize than seek permission. I mean, the best case is where you never get caught at all. Obviously."
Never get caught. Right.
"So," Grif said, "we all agree this never happened and neither Red nor Blue Command finds out. Because we like our asses here where they are and not handed to us by our bosses. Right, Sarge?"
Sarge bristled. "Well, chain of command does demand that...as leader, I make the executive decision to pretend all is well."
"Oh man, you're agreeing with me?" Grif sounded positively gleeful. "We should encounter humans more often."
A glare from almost every corner of the room made Grif cough and look aside. "Uh, that was totally a metaphor for something. Hey, Simmons, you're not gonna object to us not kissing Command's ass over this?"
Simmons, who hasn't said a word since their narrow escape, just wrapped his arms around himself and shook his head. Grif awkwardly patted him on the shoulder and said nothing else.
"Yeah, okay, we don't tell Command. Obviously. But we still have ourselves to worry about, and the big dude." Tucker gestured with his thumb towards the entrance. "And if he's on the lookout for us now, that's gonna make supply runs hard. He sees stuff missing and can guess why now. So what the hell do we do?"
"I..." Church wanted to crawl into a hole. A smaller hole. "I don't know."
"I am definitely okay," Caboose told himself as he limped along, leaning against the wall of the ventilation shaft. "I have taken several turns and I have not turned the same way four times because that takes me in a circle. I am not scared because I am talking to myself, which is not the same as not being alone but it is a nice substitute. Like margarine. I am hungry and thirsty, but that's okay because I will soon find a nice unopened can of soda and a cookie. Because I will look down in the next place with slots and see the vending machine. The inside of the vending machine! And it will say, 'Hello, Caboose! You've had such a rough day. You can have whatever you want and take a nice nap after, and I will alert Church who will not be mad that your radio won't talk to him.'"
At least he was getting closer to the dim light pouring through the vents. He could hear sounds, voices too big and distant to make out and heavy footsteps. That meant there were humans about. Church had instructed him to walk past the grates very carefully when he could hear humans, never stop and look except for safety. But he was so tired, his leg aching from the bad fall he'd taken earlier, and it wasn't as if they'd see him. They were too giant, and their helmets hid their eyes. No wonder humans were so dangerous and destructive when they couldn't see where they were going.
He knew to stay away from humans. He'd been told a thousand times. But there were no rules against watching them. And if Church did eventually find out and object, Caboose could point out that he was just too tired and sore to keep going past the grate.
Oops, he was plopped behind the grate now, peering down.
From above, humans looked small! Like actual beans. And hey, that one in the black was hitting those other guys really hard. Why were they fighting? Maybe they were in a big war too. Maybe the Mother of Big Huge Ship was inside a much much BIGGER ship, and these beans were hiding from even larger people. And THEY...
"There's a multiverse theory about that!"
"And maybe I was saying that out loud instead of thinking it out quiet," Caboose realized when he registered the unfamiliar voice.
"Oh, sorry! I didn't mean to eavesdrop. Talking to yourself is actually a very common response to stress." A Borrower in purple traveling garb walked right up next to Caboose. He wore no helmet, his dark-skinned face exposed. He had makeshift glasses made from bits of wire and lens fragments and a knit cap over a shaven head. "Don't worry, they can't hear us. Especially not with that going on. What a ruckus, right?"
"Um." Caboose pondered where to start. He'd never encountered a Borrower out of armor cobbled together from discarded plastic and metal on the Big Ship Place. Most of the colonists didn't need armor, but they were all back on Blue Colony on the spaceport, which was not at war. Also, there was no Purple Team. No Violet Team either, come to think of it. If there was, Blue would really be in trouble. Violet was the end of the color spectrum, and no doubt powerful.
"Do you have any water in your backpack?" he asked instead. "I am worried I might die."
The purple Borrower startled, fumbling with his pack immediately. "Oh, jeez! Sorry! I thought you sounded a little hoarse. Hold on!" His gloved hands pulled out a capped thermos made from welded plastic, pulling off the rubber cap and offering it to Caboose.
Caboose brought it up to his faceplate before remembering he could not drink through it, flipping the shield up so he could gulp down the contents. It was lukewarm, and tasted like toothpaste, but it was better than nothing.
"I always like to keep a supply of mint tea leaves so I can have something refreshing to drink. I mean, well, cold mint tea is refreshing when it's...cold." The other Borrower shrugged. "Really wish the humans stocked some Yerba mate or rooibos. Maybe I should sneak a note on their bulletin board about the health benefits." He blinked. "Um, can I have it back now?"
With utmost reluctance, Caboose returned the empty canteen. "That was good and now I am less worried about dying. Uh, my name is Michael J. Caboose and why are you in the vents? Are-are you the funny tasting water fairy?" He was still rather dizzy.
"Huh? Oh, no, I'm a field medic! Frank Dufresne." Purple offered his hand for Caboose to shake. "You never know what kind of troubles you'll run into out here, so it always helps to be prepared."
"We are not in a field," Caboose felt the need to point out. He meant to shake hands with the nice doctor for plants, but slipped up and instead found himself collapsing against the metal siding of the shaft. "Ow. Sorry. My leg quit."
Immediately DuFresne, who Caboose decided to call Doc because he wasn't sure how to spell DuFresne, knelt down next to Caboose and started examining him. He pulled out a handheld version of the LED light Caboose had on his helmet until a few hours ago. "Man, looks like you twisted your ankle! What happened?"
"I fell trying to climb up the vent and it slowed me down a lot, but that's ok because I'm doing important work and also am not lost," Caboose tried to say. Instead out came several different notes of "ow."
"You're lucky I brought a supply of aloe vera gel. Did you know the medbay has an aloe plant and they don't even make use of it? It's just for decoration! Humans can be really wasteful," Doc observed as he started removing armor plates from Caboose's bad leg.
Meanwhile, Caboose found he could still see at least some of the fight going on below. It was a welcome distraction, since something about Doc's approach to medical care made him a little nervous. The black-armored soldier was taking on three other humans, which struck him as a little unfair. Weren't the teams supposed to be even? No wonder Black Armor Person was so mad.
"That one's a doozy, huh? I think I overheard their announcer lady call them Texas." Doc was rubbing goo on the leg, which wasn't doing a whole lot but was at least distracting Caboose from the pain. "Hard to tell. That thing's so loud half the time it's incoherent."
"I did not hear it," Caboose said. "Actually, I might have, but I wasn't paying attention. I was busy being lost. Wait, I mean not lost. Also I think the bean in black is going to win the tag game--"
As one of the armored humans slammed into the wall, it sent a thundering, quaking vibration that left Doc stumbling and debris falling from the top of the vents. A screw landed perilously close to Caboose, the clang reverberating. The quake was followed by alarmed shouts from the humans below, more noises that Caboose ignored in favor of a more important topic. In this case it was the spider that had fallen right on top of Doc and was perched on his back.
"Um, Doc..."
"Phew! That was a doozy, huh?" Doc got back to his feet and dusted himself off, oblivious to the creeping spider. "Every day's an adventure around here. I tell you, nothing like how it was on Earth. No cats at least."
"Doc?"
"I hope that human's not too badly hurt. They can get kinda roughed up in those, uh, exercise sessions? I don't even know what they're doing. Who knows with humans? Did you know there's sections of this ship even we can't seem to get to? One would almost think the security system's onto us, but that's silly."
"Doctor Doc."
"I'm not actually a doctor, Caboose. But I guess you could call me Doc! Has a nice ring to it. Is something on my head?" Doc asked as a long spider leg pulled at his cap.
"Excuse me." Caboose leaned forward, putting as little pressure on his hurt leg as he could, reached around Doc and grabbed the big spider by the back of its thorax before flinging it out into the darkness. "Flick."
"...Was that, uh." Doc looked back at the rather unfortunate spider, now stunned on its back, and felt the top of his head. "Was, uh..." His voice had gone up a full octave. "Was that a huge spider?"
"Oh, no, that was only a medium size spider." Caboose sat back down, pointing up at the ceiling. "That is a huge spider. A lot of huge spiders."
It was probably for the best that Caboose's radio was broken, or Doc's scream might have broken Church's eardrums.
It was close to nightfall, which meant the human would be back in his quarters sooner or later. Close to nightfall, and no sign of Caboose. No plan formulated, no one sure what to do other than argue with each other or sulk. It was as if, stunned by fear, they were all panicked and standing still.
Kai hated when nothing happened.
She hated how the entire life of a Borrower meant nothing ever happened. Humans built ships and colonies, and Borrowers lived in them and hid. Humans fought aliens, and Borrowers hid. Humans probably had all kinds of interesting times in the bed, and Borrowers...well, of course they had fun too. When they weren't hiding.
And now? Now that something had finally happened, that real danger and excitement had made it into their lives? Everyone wanted to hide from it! Hide and go on as if nothing had happened. Like the human was going to buy it. He was a smart guy! He owned a calculator! Who besides nerds and technophobes still owned a calculator? And Mt. Hottie wore fancy armor and lived on a ship, so he obviously wasn't a technophobe.
Plus he ate cheese puffs. Guaranteed Nerd Alert.
So as she grew bored of watching her fellow Blues and Reds alternately argue, yell, insult one another and shoot down plan after plan, Kai took advantage of how little attention she was getting from any of them to come up with a plan. Grif would be pissed when he found out, but he'd thank her in the end. Besides, if she told him about it he'd freak out and try to keep her safe, again.
Better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission. Wasn't that how it went?
It was easy to convince Church to let her have his lookout duty again that evening, since Church was so distracted he would have agreed to letting her throw a party. (She should have at least asked, in retrospect.) Grif was too distracted trying to deal with a nearly-inert Simmons to notice or protest as she left. Shimmying up to the perch on top of the doorway went smoothly when she had a goal in mind.
"Come on, big guy," she whispered, leaning over the edge and waiting. "I know you've gotta come home sometime. It isn't like you have a social life. I don't think any of you do. I mean, I can think of a few interesting things to do with full body armor, but not
every day! You need variety."
She waited, kicking her legs over the edge and latching the end of her grappling hook into the doorway. There, down the hallway, a looming shadow preceded by the vibrations his boots made on the metal floor. Thud, thud, THUD. Closer, closer, had to time it right...
"Hey, Big Stuff," Kai chirped as she hung upside-down in front of Washington's visor, suspended by the rope tied around her waist. "Can you help us out? The others are being REALLY DUMB and..."
Oh, whoops. He was screaming again. Yeah, she probably should have taken into account that might happen. Unfortunately, Wash's voice was literally so loud Kai couldn't hear herself think. More specifically, her eardrums throbbed and her armor rattled, her brilliant plan briefly overridden by an instinct that said hide, hide, hide. The very thing she hated doing.
Also the very thing that was difficult to do when she was hanging in midair.
"Wash?" Kai thought she heard a distant female voice from down the corridor. "What the Hell was that about?"
Two huge gloved hands clamped around Kai, cupping her inside and snapping the rope effortlessly. "Nothing," Kai heard Wash rumble. "Nothing! Just saw a spider."
"Ugh. You're on your own there," the unknown woman said, footsteps trailing off with her voice. "Just flush it down the toilet yourself."
Though Kai couldn't make much out in the little bits of light peeking from between Wash's fingers, she could hear a door slam behind them and felt herself jostled as the human sprinted to his bed. Only then did he remove the hand above her, staring down at her.
"What the fuck are you doing?!" he hissed. "Why are you here?"
As intimidating as it was seeing a human peer directly down at her with terror and fury in his eyes, Kai reminded herself that she had a mission that couldn't fail. She forced herself to her feet, difficult in Wash's shaking hand, and started shouting at the top of her lungs so he could hear.
"I'm here to cut the bullshit! Duh. Hey, you're not actually going to flush me down the toilet, are you? Because I'm super not into that." She held her hands out for balance. "Also could you like, chill for a second? We're the ones in mortal danger here and your shaking is gonna make me barf. Into your hand."
Several terrified and furious voices were shouting into her radio all at once, and it was taking effort to ignore them. Grif, in particular, was clearly not entirely pleased with her decision. Well, she expected that. "Oops! My radio's dying," she declared, "guess you'll have to come out into the open and deal with it here." Then she shut it off.
"Anyway, big guy? Here's the deal. Our friend got lost, and there's a lot of things that could kill him? So, you need to help us find him, and in return we won't..." Oh, oops. Kai hadn't thought of that part. She was never the best at improv.
"...You exposed yourself to me so I would help you. And so you could threaten me." Wash sounded more dumbfounded and deadpan than actually menacing, though Kai's childhood training reminded her that just because he wasn't immediately trying to kill her with his massive death hand didn't mean he wouldn't on a moment's notice. "In return, you won't what."
"Tell everyone you drool in your sleep like a purebred bloodhound, asshole. How about that?"
There was Church, approaching the bed like he feared it might explode at any moment.
"Mention the time we saw you Googling 'Disney fan fiction," added Tucker, pronged paper clip sword in hand, poised on the dresser. "I mean, not that I pay attention to your browser history. Seriously, dude? Belle isn't even the hottest princess. Get some taste."
"Shoot you. In the face. Until it's effective." Sarge had his crossbow trained on Wash as he marched forward.
"KAI FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM THERE." Yep. That was Grif. No sign of Simmons...
“Jesus, I'm not going to expose you assholes, alright?!” He set Kai down on the edge of his dresser, where she sat with her legs dangling over the edge.
“What,” she cracked, “am I too much to handle?”
This prompted another outburst from Grif, which Kai’s mind filtered as “Blah blah Kai blah mortal danger blah inappropriate blah.”
Wash lowered himself onto his bed with a creaking noise and buried his head in his hand, his thundering voice coming out muffled. “How am I supposed to find your friend without drawing attention to him. Also, what the hell ARE you. Can we start there?”
“Borrowers,” Kai said, kicking her legs casually. She’d mouthed off to a Bean and survived, which left her with a bit of a fearless rush.
“Which is admittedly kind of bullshit because being honest here, we’ve never returned anything that I can remember.” Church’s voice was still shaky, but Kai’s prediction ran true: he'd risk danger for a fellow Blue.
“It's like when you borrow a book, or a shirt? You're never gonna see that shit again,” Tucker added, still holding up his sword despite his more casual tone. What was he going to do, hope Wash fell in the right direction to poke his eye out?
“We can give you some stuff back as ammo. If we shoot you. In the face.”
Wash seemed undeterred by Sarge’s threat, mumbling something incoherent into his hands. “Fine. Okay. I'll find a way to help. Somehow. And then you guys need to…go.”
“See? Even State Guy thinks we should get the hell out of here.” Church huffed and then paused, looking back up at Washington. “Wait. Go where.”
“I don't know. You can't get off the ship. Maybe if you catch a ride on a drop ship during a-no. No, I am not bringing you all along on a mission.”
“What mission?” Kai grinned. “Do you guys blow people up?”
“I don't suppose you, uh, ever go portside? Like to a place with girls? Borrower girls? More than one girl, I'm dying here.” Tucker examined his sword, trying to sound casual.
“You need help shooting people?” Sarge cocked his harpoon. “I can't expose myself obviously but I can lend my secret skills. S’just what this protracted conflict has been lacking! Actual bloodshed. Especially if any of your enemies are Blue!”
Grif raised his hand. “For the record? I am 100 percent okay with us getting off this ship. Leaving this war behind. For the sake of all Borrower-kind. You don't want to betray Borrower-kind, do you, Sarge?” He patted the older soldier on the back, earning a growl.
Still no sign of Simmons, Kai noted. Maybe he was ill?
“No one is going on some ultra-violent Bean bullshit mission!” Church snapped, holding his arms out. “You want to explain that to Blue Command?”
“You're not coming along for a mission,” Wash bellowed at the same time, loud enough to silence the others as his voice rang in Kai’s ears. “Sorry, sorry,” he added at the reactions, softer now. “Anyway, that's all classified info. The Director can't even know you're here, or…I don't know. Honestly, I still think this is some complex hallucination I'm going through due to stress. I’ll help your friend, and then…fuck, we’ll figure it out later.”
Kai stood up, fist pumping. “Hell yeah! Mount Hottie’s gonna help us, guys!”
“Sister,” Church said, “you are in so much trouble.”
“Oh man, am I gonna get disciplined for once?” Even better!
“N…no, but…”
Wash lowered his hands. “Mount What?”
Simmons rested against the wall of Blue Base, unable to move. He knew he should be out there in case the others did something I'll-advised, like say, converse with a Bean? Hell, he could hear Washington’s horrifically loud voice from behind the wall. He sounded sincere, if confused.
But it didn't matter. Couldn't talk to humans. Couldn't look at humans. Couldn't make himself move, not when he thought about thundering footsteps and looming shadows. Not when even Grif was willing to actually communicate with one of them. They just pretended to be nice. They'd never see any of them as people.
He swallowed down his nausea. Nausea, there, that would be the excuse if Sarge asked why Simmons wasn't out there. Grif would cover for him. Grif always did. Usually. Sometimes.
They were all so doomed.