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The biggest problem, Yama found, while living with a group of intergalactic pirates was the lack of help. Oh, not help with cleaning the deck (which had everyone disappearing) or helping the cooks in the mess (which got him extras and he hopes no one catches on to that one) or even helping to put away their supplies after a successful raid.
No. Wrong kind of help.
The help he needed wasn’t here.
He has the pamphlets memorized. The various articles from online engrained in his brain. Even has some of his meds securely hidden away inside his jacket. Though those are running low now. Doc Zero has none in his stores, which means he can’t go to him to talk to or get more. He’s down to hoping they run into a fully stocked enemy ship soon.
During the day he’s mostly fine. There’s sometimes weeks in between running into another Gaia ship. Quiet times are spent catching up on the botany books his new family has found for him. Looking over Tochiro’s schematics along with his own to create a greenhouse within the Arcadia. Seeds, dirt, and fertilizer miraculously made their way into the greenhouse without him noticing. Miime even helps him with looking over how to bring her race back from the single digit like Tochiro did so long ago. Harlock tries to offer his help, but most of the science-y bits go over his head rather quickly.
When they did get to engage in battle? Staying behind to man the guns, sneaking in to lift supplies, that’s all good. He can handle those days. They’re mentally and physically taxing without triggering anything too badly. With his mask on, because of course he still doesn’t wear a hard suit, the filters remove the reek of smoke. Sometimes he has to spend an extra hour in the shower, furiously scrubbing off the stench of smoke and burning leave and sparking electricity.
No one thinks twice when he asks them to be rougher than normal when he joins them in bed later on. The cooks are inventive, Engineering adventurous. Kei and Yattaran love to tag team him. The main crew have no problem passing him around until they’ve wound down cuddling with a barely conscious Yama.
Those nights he can sleep passed out and wrung out. Dreams are few and muted by the lingering pleasure pulsing through his head and limbs and heart.
Some nights falling asleep reading about cultivating plants or passing out from overstimulation don’t work. Those nights, smoke curls in his lungs, bright sparks and explosions blind him, hot metal under his hands wakes him from restless dozing. His head aches and his knee refuses to straighten out despite it being years since the accident.
Those nights he extracts himself from a tangle, of blankets or limbs, and quietly limps out of the room. Clad only in shorts and a thin shirt, he begins his rounds. Hours go by with him checking on everyone, checking on the hard suits, checking all the safety precautions, checking checkingche-
He always ends up at the central computer console. The heat radiating off of the mess of machinery instantly soaks into chilled skin. It wraps around his sore knee until it only vaguely hurts as he slides down one thick cable to sit. Facing Tochiro’s main hub, he never tries to suppress the grateful smile as the glowing reds shift to blues.
Warm metal under his ass and legs, arms curled around the cable acting as his backrest, the slow fade in and out of cool blues… It helps. It helps with loosening his tongue. Here he can talk about what he did, how he caused so much anger and despair between himself and his brother, how he’d destroyed the life of someone he loves (always loves, she’s never gone). His throat goes dry as he confesses fears about betraying the crew, his family, again. Fingers quietly snapping the holster open behind Kei’s back, pointing a gun at Harlock, pushing one of the crew down the stairs, letting the retinal scanner do its work…
He wakes hours later, still warm, still curled up around Tochiro as best he can. Sometimes Miime is also curled up around him, little tuffs of light dancing around them. She never really talks to him. With his eyes still closed, she shows him. Shows how the crew lightens up when he challenges them to a wrestling match or when he gets that look on his face when the others meander into the greenhouse.
When it’s Harlock, he talks. He talks and talks and talks about the decade without a single crewmember aside from Miime, about the weight of knowing what he unintentionally did to the Earth. They share and compare, something his therapist back on Mars told him never to do. But they do, they compare what they went through, how they handled it, how it still haunts them to this day.
Sometimes one of the other crew members fetches him from the room. They all carry their own baggage, their own traumatic experiences that drew them towards the freedom, of their past, of their duties, of their futures. They don’t really talk about it like Harlock, but they let him say small things here and there. Not really venting, not really giving advice.
It’s something, though.
Not professional help that his brother insisted on, that Nami encouraged him to attend.
He still needs to figure out how to get more medication without seeming weak to his crew. That can wait a little longer, though. Just a little longer.