Chapter Text
“He’s really not that bad.“
“Uh, not that bad?” Eddie echoes back, eyes narrowing in a you’re-great-guy-but-are-you-actually-stupid kind of look. He takes a quick sip of his coffee. “He’s the slimiest son of a bitch I’ve ever seen. He’s- fuck, he’s so sweet, laying on this fake ‘Working For the Common Man’ bullshit to visitors and investors and press. And what’s the worst,” Eddie says. “What’s the worst part? He’s just able to sweep all that suspicion under the rug about what’s going on behind the scenes with a bat of his dewy little eyes and that cheap, charming smile that’s plastered on every advert-based hologram on the intergalactic highway.”
Dan frowns. “He’s still our boss.”
Eddie takes a moment to consider this, like somehow it’s news to him. “Y’know, I take it back. That’s the worst part.”
He looks up to the security cam that’s mounted in the corner of the room and thinks about flipping the bird. He doesn’t. There’s no way Drake would just conveniently be watching the cams on their ship. Eddie thinks he’s pretty interesting, but not that interesting.
“You can complain about him all you want to me. I’m all ears, you know that.” Dan hesitates. “But-“
“Yeah, yeah,” Eddie waves a hand. “Not with Anne. I got it.”
He thinks that maybe Dan will tell him to also keep this kind of shit to private, personal settings only, but then again Dan has only known him for a few months and hasn’t realized just how big his mouth really is. Or maybe he thinks it doesn’t really matter.
His voice, as loud and as proud as he likes to make it, doesn’t even come close to reaching the ears of Drake. It’s probably hard to hear anything while running a company/monopoly/possible-capitalist-dictatorship. Eddie’s pretty sure Drake’s even drowned out that whispering little thing some people like to call a conscious.
That isn’t to say it’s affected absolutely nothing about his job. As the Life Foundation just about sucked up the last few independent workplaces that actually provided decent pay, Eddie had (pretty unwillingly) sent in an application for something to do with communications, or journalism, or anything (his only other option for work had been going to Stark Industries; Eddie had given that idea an instant and very obnoxious No).
Anne (who during the time had still worn a ring around her finger and only fiddled with it on an off day) had reassured him that the Life Foundation would find a nice place for him somewhere. She’d helped him pick out what pieces to put in his portfolio, had made him look as close to squeaky-clean as he could get for the interview and had all but micro-managed every other stage in the application process. Even if he’d had his doubts, he’d still allowed himself a sliver of hope.
He’s pretty sure Anne was much more crushed than he was when he got a letter back saying that ‘communications didn’t seem quite the right fit’, and that with his past experience fixing up crafts and carrier-ships, he’d be an excellent candidate for a venture-pod’s engineer.
Eddie had mentioned that only briefly on his resume if only to show off that he had some other skills; he hadn’t thought they’d make it his whole fucking job.
(he’s still fully convinced it had to do with the article he wrote in his twenties about possible human experimentation involved in their pharmaceutical endeavors; Anne still calls him completely paranoid)
Though he’d wanted something closer to home, being an engineer wasn’t the worst job in the world. He’d felt just a little better when he thought about how Anne was going for a Captain’s position; the two of them ending up on a ship together, cruising through the stars and bringing back data that might help save some lives, was very possible. When he shared that fantasy with Anne, she’d even called it romantic.
The timeline from there is a little shaky for Eddie. There are two solid spots, one where he takes the offer and another where Anne gets accepted into the academy for formal training. A steady blank, a blip of interaction. More blanks. Some empty conversations. Blips. Some sleepless nights. Blanks.
And then, somewhere at the end, Anne gives him his ring back.
She’d said something about responsibilities, about her future, about his own, along with a few mentions about how they were too different now and that it was better this way.
Eddie, being the walking, emotional hurricane that he is, handles all of this like a champ and goes on a bender for six months.
He’d forced himself to clean up after the notice came in the mail, informing him that he’d finally been assigned a mission. There were clearances to go through, examinations to be done and while Eddie hadn’t needed to be at his best, he at least needed to be good. Or at the very least sober.
For the few months that he’d spent signing paperwork and making arrangements for his belongings while he was away, Eddie had almost liked the idea of going out into space. Was it absolutely fucking terrifying? Yeah. But getting away from the planet seemed like the best option for his situation. His relationship was gone, his place was an absolute shithole, his situation was generally in shambles— space couldn’t be that much worse from what he had on Earth.
Unfortunately, Eddie had conveniently forgotten how much of a disaster his life actually is and how much the Universe just loved to fuck him over. He doesn’t know how or when he managed to piss it off, but he’s done so royally, considering he’s now got to spend the next four years of his life on the Belvedere with his ex-fiance, her new boyfriend, and a lady who’s absolutely convinced that Carlton Drake is the modern-day messiah.
“She just doesn’t want anything coming back to her bite. That’s all.” Dan says, patient and so understanding of absolutely everyone.
“I know that. So long as she doesn’t ask me to say anything nice, my lips are sealed.”
“I’m guessing you haven’t talked about this kind of stuff with Skirth.”
Eddie gulps down the rest of coffee. It’s probably his third cup today. “Yeah, no. One time I tried,” Eddie shakes his head. “Never again. That guy could kick a puppy in the head and she’d still be singing his praises. Which sucks because otherwise, she’s a pretty nice lady.”
There’s a flicker of something on Dan’s face. It’s curious and, he realizes a little too late, teasing. “Pretty nice, huh?” He smiles from behind the rim of his mug.
“If you push Skirth on me, I’ll never forgive you.”
“I’m just saying, four years is a long time.“
“Jesus, Dan.”
“It would be kind of nice, maybe-“
“I’m not going to start doing double-space-dates with you, sorry.” Eddie gets up, throwing his mug in the sink. “’Sides, don’t know if Skirth could handle all this.” He gestures to all five feet and nine inches of dark eye bags, scraggly hair, scruffy jaw and bad attitude that is Eddie Brock. It’s not a very impressive display. Dan laughs softly anyways. “It’s better that I keep it contained. Y’know, for her sake.”
He hears the soft sound of boots in the doorway a little too late. “Who’s sake?”
Eddie doesn’t really turn from the sink, rolling up his sleeves and dunking his hands in the suds. There’s nothing in there besides his own coffee mug, and he hadn’t even been planning on actually washing it out, but it’s better than turning around and just standing there.
Dan— sweet, innocent Dan, turns and gives Anne a warm smile. “I was just talking with Eddie about Skirth. I think it’d be a nice little arrangement, but he’s not that into it. I was just about to start going over the pro’s and con’s.”
There’s a beat of silence. It’s just enough time for the air to turn a little thicker. “Really?” She sounds a little put off. “I mean, that’d be nice.”
“That’s what I said.” Dan doesn’t sound as confident as before. Eddie lets out a soft grunt and leaves it to the pair to decide whether he’s agreeing with them or not.
He doesn’t wait for Anne to possibly chime in with Dan about just how ‘nice’ that kind of arrangement would be, wiping off his hands on the front of his shirt and turning on his heel. He manages to make eye contact with Anne, pointing a thumb over to the right. “I gotta go check air circulator. Thought I heard something in the vents— didn’t you hear something in the vents?”
This is about the millionth time he’s strung Dan into one of his little lies. Sometimes he feels a little bad, most times he doesn’t. Dan’s usually a pretty good sport about it, only coming to him afterward to talk to him in his doctor voice about how he probably needs to have a real conversation with Anne about everything. He always says he will, eventually. He still hasn’t.
(honestly, he probably never will)
“I think so,” Dan says without even a hint of hesitation, nodding along as he looks between the two.
Anne looks at him, squinting. He can feel the holes she’s trying to drill in his head, can practically hear her mentally calling him childish and wondering how he can think she’s that dumb.
It’s been like this for the past three months. Sometimes it’s better; they’ve managed to have some conversations here or there that don’t end with Eddie making a quick escape or Anne giving him a pitying look. Sometimes it’s worse. Somewhere in the second week after the launch, he’d gotten completely sauced by the control deck. Anne had grilled him mercilessly for drinking on the job.
He still doesn’t remember exactly what it was that he’d snapped back but knowing how much of an asshole he is when he’s drunk, it’d probably been stupid and hurtful and untrue. Whatever it was, it’d been enough to make her avoid him for four days (which is extremely impressive, considering there are only about six different places to go and none of them are particularly roomy).
It’s a rocky relationship, to say the very least. He tries not to think about it too much. It’s easy enough to distract himself from it, seeing as he’s got a whole ship to maintain and keep from killing all of them.
Eddie waits for her to say something else, possibly press him on his bad escaping strategies, but she doesn’t. Instead, Anne just asks: “Can that wait?”
His hand flies to the back of his head, blunt fingernails scratching at his scalp. “Uh, yeah, I guess. Vents are pretty important though. For, y’know, breathing. Air circulation and recycling, all that.”
She crosses her arms over her chest. “I’m sure it is, and I’m sure you’ve got plenty of time to fix it later. Right now, I need you at the control deck.”
Eddie only sighs, following on her heels when she starts to walk. Dan comes by his side, nudging his ribs softly as some silent kind of comfort. It doesn’t really help. Honestly, it kind of hurts. The guy’s got surprisingly pointy elbows.
Right after that, Dan enters officer mode, looking intently to Anne. “What’s up?”
“Dora says we’re coming in close to an asteroid cluster. She says it’s nothing serious-“
“So then why are we going to the deck?” Eddie can’t help but ask. He regrets saying anything when Anne misses a beat in her step, looking like she’s about to stop in her tracks just to address him.
(In that beat, he’s sure his whole life passes before his eyes.
Unsurprisingly, it’s pretty shitty)
Anne doesn’t stop. She doesn’t turn to look back at him either. Somehow, Eddie feels like that’s a whole lot worse. “She only says it isn’t serious, but we don’t know that for sure. I want confirmation before I make any moves.” Her tone is firm, leaving no room for further questioning or arguments. Eddie and Dan walk soundlessly after that. He doesn’t even say a word once they get onto the deck. Standing at one of the panels is Dora Skirth. She’s in a neatly pressed uniform, fingers moving fluidly across the screen, looking like she’d just jumped out of a pamphlet about the perfect astrographer. Anne sidles up beside her, some of her iciness melting away. “What do you have for me?”
“Trying to find the cluster now. I sent out a drone to take some scans of the surrounding area. I’ll have a visual to compare to the map we’ve already got in….” Dora fixes her glasses as she reads something off the holo-screen. “Two minutes. Maybe three.”
Eddie looks over the screen she’s eyeing like a hawk. He can see a semi-circle of dots representing a thin asteroid field that’s already been recorded. There’s some circle just at the edge, a tiny little thing that probably doesn’t even count as a planet, labeled only as AL-627. He steps forward, not past Anne, but close enough to reach out and touch the holo-screen. He slides the screen to the left, just to see how far the cluster reaches. “It looks like we’d be able to cruise through just fine. Just put some shielding up for the nozzle to avoid any denting.”
“It looks like that, yes, but the logs recording it are old. Nobody’s passed by here in at least five months. It could have grown or could maybe not be there at all.” Dora turns to him and shrugs. “Better safe than sorry.”
Eddie mumbles something under his breath, but he relents. He doesn’t see anything out from the windows of the HUB just yet; it’s still all just inky black, occasionally dotted with a twinkling star. He moves away from the panel and towards the edge of the deck. He stops a few feet from where the quartz-glass starts, leaning in and squinting. The ship’s cruising slowly along, but he’s sure that if whatever’s out there is going to be a problem, then it’ll start cropping up somewhere along his line of sight soon.
“Five months? I thought the Foundation’s logs were updated biweekly.” He hears the soft pat of Anne’s boots and a few clicks from the panel. “They usually have cruisers making rounds in every region. We’re not out of range of course, right?”
“We couldn’t be.” And that’s Dan, finally chiming in. “They’ve mapped almost every system. Not all of them have been explored by an actual crew, but still. It would take years for us to get anywhere close to meeting the edge of what they’ve found.”
Finally, after enough squinting that it’s started to strain his eyes, Eddie sees something. It’s not the little dusting of debris he expected; it’s a singular speck in the distance. It takes another minute for him to see the white edges and blue stripes. He steps close enough for his breath to cloud the glass. “Uh, guys?”
Anne either doesn’t hear him or just flat out ignores him. “So, then what? They couldn’t have just forgotten to send out a cruiser. They’re on automated paths, they don’t just skip regions.”
Eddie tries again. “Guys.”
“I mean, sometimes there are glitches. It happens, even with a multi-million dollar company.”
Third time’s a charm. “Captain-“
“But they would have reported that.“ Dora sighs and clicks of the panels grow a little more frantic. “It looks like we’re closing in on the cluster soon. Mr. Brock? Can you see anything?”
Eddie turns around fully. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Look.”
Dan is the first one to come forwards, Anne and Dora following quickly after him. There’s no need to try and point it out to any of them; it’s not very close, but it’s no longer just a dot in the distance. He can already make out the shapes of the front, the bits of debris floating alongside the helm. Beside him, Dan sucks in a breath. “That’s…not a cluster.”
Dora places a hand on the glass and another over her chest. “It’s the cruiser.”
He almost wants to correct her and say it’s only what’s left of the cruiser. The crafts aren’t very big, usually made to hold maybe one or two people if any are required to board them at all, but this one looks tiny in the midst of its own destruction. The sides have been blown out, metals and fibers and glass spread out in all directions. One of the engines has been severed complete from the actual ship, dangling from it by a few thick cords from the bottom of where he guessed the engine deck had been (which is now essentially a little crater). It’s a mess, and it doesn’t look entirely accidental.
Eddie hasn’t felt scared any time he’s been out here. He’s been angry and drunk and very much depressed, but never scared. But when he looks at Anne and sees the slight horror written all over her face— well. He’s a little more than just spooked. It’s gone before anyone else can see it, though, replaced with something steely and resolved. She moves without a word, back into the main pilot's seat, throwing the thrust controls back hard enough for the ship to shake a little. Dan heads for her just as Eddie regains his balance. “Anne?”
She barely even looks at him, freezing the controls and going back on the move. “I’m going to need you to keep this ship docked. I don’t want us getting any closer to that craft than we have to. Doctor Skirth-“
Dora practically whips around so hard her glasses nearly fall off her face. “Yes, Captain?”
“The scans are done by now, right? I want a full visual.” Anne pauses for a moment. “Are there any life signals out there?” At that, Dan looks almost a little pained (because while they’re both pretty optimistic people, even Eddie doesn’t need a medical degree to know that this shit’s been wrecked longer than any human could manage to survive).
Dora all but runs back towards the holo-screen, tapping furiously as another image pops up in front of her. “I’ve got it up now.” Her hand spreads out, the screen enlarging till it’s nearly the size of the deck's window, the image tinted blue. Eddie moves to get a better look at it, peering over the cluster that is somewhere beyond the cruiser, just as small and as harmless as he’d hoped. He wishes that it was still their main concern.
He spins around to face Anne just as she’s settling Dan into the pilot’s seat. “What about me?” There’s also no way Anne’s going to let him sit idle, so it’s better to ask than to be barked at.
“I’m going to need you out there with me. We need to see if this was something to do with the engine.”
The fact that she sounds at least a little doubtful about that is the only thing that keeps Eddie from arguing that that shit is just from an engine bursting.
From the corner of his eye, he can see the screen moving, turning to different angles as Dora searches for something. He doesn’t wait around to find out what, heading back towards the airlock. “You really think there’s somebody still out there?” He asks as they round the corner, Anne making a beeline towards the suits.
She strips off her light sweater and her shoes, throwing them to the side. “Maybe.”
Eddie chucks his boots off. He unties the arms of his jumpsuit from around his waist, zipping it and clumsily trying to fit his leg into that of the suit. “Really?”
Anne doesn’t respond immediately, stepping into the chunky white spacesuit. It takes a second before it snaps, fitting tightly around her form. The helmet pops right up after, sliding over to encase her head. “Not a person.” And that’s that.
Eddie doesn’t ask any more questions. He doesn’t need to. They’re not the only ones out here, after all. Eddie’s heard the stories of rogue ships carrying a human or non-human crew that would destroy ships for parts, or even go so far as to sell the crew to any distant planet that had some kind of institution of slavery. They’re mainly rumors, though Eddie doesn’t doubt that there’s some truth to them. Drake would be the guy to cover up that kind of shit. He wouldn’t want to ruin his reputation of diplomacy with other planets by pulling a rescue mission for some missing employees.
Anne gives the all clear for Dan to lock down the area and open the hatch. Even with his suit on, Eddie can feel the instant drop of pressure as the oxygen’s sucked out of the room, the craft opening up before them to reveal an inky black void. A platform juts out from the entrance, offering some kind of make-shift springboard for them to leap off into space. Anne takes a few steps forwards before activating the thrusters on the bottom of her boots, heading for the wreck. Before Eddie goes, he takes a few extra seconds to send out a prayer that he won’t have to have a zero-gravity fist fight with a space pirate.
“Testing com-link,” Dora’s voice filters into his helmet as they push towards the wreck. “Eddie? Captain? Am I coming through clear?”
“Com-link established. Got you loud and clear, Skirth.” Eddie says, flinching when some scrap knocks against his helmet. While Anne is managing to avoid most of the debris, he’s almost stuck in it, having to stick out a hand about every ten seconds to push away a chunk of metal or plastic.
They come in close enough that Eddie can practically see the individual parts of the wrecked engine. The cruiser’s smooth sides have been fucking mutilated, like some fucked up egg hatching. He also sees how badly the fronts been blown wide open, but it doesn’t look like it’s from an explosion; there are no burn marks, no tell-tale wild rips or craters. It looks more precise. Maybe not deliberate, but close to it.
Anne comes to a stop good few feet away, tapping the side of her helmet gently. “Doctor Skirth, log these visuals. We need to send a report to the Life Foundation as soon as possible, and-“ She stops. It’s probably because she notices Eddie’s propelling himself towards one of the many entrances in the cruiser. “What are you doing?”
“Getting more for your report.” Eddie squirms right through the hole, managing not to shred himself on one of the edges. “Don’t worry about it.”
There’s a cacophony of noise that comes from the com-link from Dan, Anne, and Dora, who all tell him he’s an idiot, to get back, that it’s not safe— all of the usual things. He almost mutes the channel, but decides against it, just ignoring them all the old-fashioned way. It’s pretty easy to do, considering the shit he sees around him.
If the outside of the cruiser is a mess, the inside is an absolute disaster. Eddie can only recognize he’s in the habitat module by the floating remains of fluff from a couch and the glitching holo-screen in the corner. He eases his way through, pressing lightly at the side of his helmet to start getting visual recordings. As Dan and Anne continue to yell at him, Dora goes silent. She’s got to be getting his feed now, and the scientist is probably too interested in the findings to spend energy scolding him.
Eddie’s just trying wrench open the doors to the control deck when he decides to actually respond to Anne. “Look guys, I’m-“ He grunts, forcing the door to slide back. “Fine.”
“There could be radiation in the area. That engine could have gone nuclear-“
“Dan. It’s working off emergency solar power. No nuclear shit here.” Or he hopes. He hadn’t gotten a great look at the engine because it’d been basically shredded, but saying that out loud would probably make Dan blow a gasket. “I’m getting you guys the good stuff. Honestly, I deserve some praise here. I’m not hear anything about my bravery or courage.”
Anne scoffs over the comm. “I’ll be sure to put it on your gravestone.”
“Aw, you’d do that? For me?” Eddie lets out a mocked, flustered kind of sound. He pushes himself through the frame, checking over the deck. “That’s too sweet of you. I’m gonna drown myself in here with happy tears.”
Most of the front’s been blown open, leaving a gaping hole where most of the consoles should be. Miraculously, there’s an emergency light flickering from the right, shedding only a little light on the whole situation. Eddie reaches into the pouch on his leg to retrieve a flashlight, everything looking all the shittier when there are no shadows shielding it. “An exploding engine wouldn’t have caused all this,” he says, moving over to the wall. There are four strikes down it, maybe three feet in length each, like something had been trying to claw inside the ship- or out of it. “Whatever happened, it had to start here.”
He turns to the rest, the beam of his flashlight grazing over the wreck before it stops at the pilot’s chair. Instead of having a normal reaction, Eddie just lets out a loud ew when he sees that the pilot is still strapped right in.
Personally, Eddie hasn’t seen a dead body before. Or at least not in person; in training, he’d been exposed to plenty of pictures of what might happen to the human body if shit went wrong on the ship. He’s seen dramatic pictures of bodies floating with their eyes popping out, tongues boiled, frost-covered, mummified, bloated, everything in between. Honestly, this one is hardly anything to go peeing his space-pants over.
He moves in closer carefully to investigate, making sure to do a clean sweep over the corpse. She’s got her sealed suit on, boots and gloves and all, but no helmet. What he can see of her skin is wrapped tightly over her features, making everything a little angular and almost too bony. Her eyes are closed, but her mouths wide open, revealing a shriveled tongue. Eddie would find nothing wrong with there if it hadn’t been for the fact that she was missing all of her teeth. “Jesus,” Eddie flashes the light into her mouth, looking over rows of empty, swollen gums. “Like a fucking horror movie.”
He reaches for her jaw when Dan cuts in over the com. “Don’t touch her.”
Eddie throws his hands up. “Okay, okay.” Another quick look over her body with the flashlight is done, and he can’t help but frown at her grayed skin and the hollow cheeks. “What’s your diagnosis?”
“I would just say exposure to cosmic radiation, but the teeth….” He makes a disgruntled sound. “I don’t know. Can you get a closer frame of her face?”
Eddie’s wants to say no, he absolutely fucking cannot, because even if he’s cool with a corpse he doesn’t want to be nose to nose with it. It’s for science, though, and he’s done a number of things more disgusting and stupid than this, so he moves so he’s staring the body head on. From this position, he can see every vein that’s popping out, the way the muscles in her neck are permanently taut. He grimaces. “Good?”
“I can’t say how long she’s been dead, but it doesn’t look like she was in good condition beforehand. The water in her body should have made the tissues swell. Instead, she just looks emaciated.”
“And that’s not normal,” Anne says, half a statement and half a question.
“Really, really not normal. I would want to take the body in to examine, but that would risk exposing our own ship to anything that she might be carrying.”
“No,” Anne’s quick to shut down even Dan’s roundabout way of asking her for permission. “They’ve got a HUB close by. Once we call this in, they’ll have professionals come and take care of it.”
Eddie can’t help but huff just loud enough for it to be caught over the com. That’s the right and legal thing to do. Technically, their crew isn’t supposed to deal with this kind of stuff. The Belvedere is only a venture ship; their job is just to catalog planets, do a little research and then hop over to the next civilization. But Eddie hates that once the Life Foundation gets their hands on this, all details will be shoved under the rug and some sugar-coated statement will be released that will mention none of the actual damage done. He turns away from the body, looking towards the helm. Anne is watching him from beyond the shrapnel. “C’mon-“
“We need to get back to the ship. I think we’ve gotten more than enough for a report.”
“You know he’s not going to use any of this shit. We could delay the log, see what’s going on here for real.”
Even from a distance, he can make out the way her expression goes tight with annoyance and exhaustion and maybe even a little disappointment. “Eddie.”
He knows that tone. It’s the one she’d used when she’d come back from the academy when she’d screwed the ring off her finger and dropped it back in his hands. It makes his insides curl up and his chest grows tight. He knows that once they get back on the ship he’s going to have to lock himself up in his own quarters. The thought of cracking open a bottle of bourbon he’s got hidden in the vent above his bed waiting for him is the only thing that keeps him together.
“Okay.” He says, because what the hell else can he say.
Anne honestly looks a little relieved that he’s backed down so easily. She opens her mouth to say something, but it just…stays there. Stuck, going wider, the edges turning downwards as her brows knit together. She looks disgusted, horrified-
And she’s not looking at him.
“Eddie.” His name comes out in a gasp this time.
He turns just in time to see the once lifeless corpse convulsing in her seat. His limbs are flailing wildly around, stiff and strange, and he’s sure that they would have snapped right off if it hadn’t been for the suit keeping them stuck to the body. Her head’s twisting right and left, up and down, slamming back against the headrest so hard it’s physically shaking what’s left of the craft. The skin around her mouth rips, tearing open her jaw, leaving tendrils of flesh to hang around in the air.
“Oh my god,” he hears Dan over the com, though it’s a little muffled by the pounding in Eddie’s ears and the sounds of Dora Skirth’s utter disgust.
Beyond the seizures, he sees it. The exposed line of her neck, still somehow managing to keep the head on her shoulders, is moving. There’s a bulging something crawling its way up over her throat, thick and lumpy, squirming up from the jawline, somewhere up into her temple. There’s a second he wonders where it’s going rather than just what the hell it is. The former is answered quickly enough as her left eye suddenly snaps open, rolls back and a thick, black substance leaks out.
It floats upwards in the air, twitching slightly as it rises up. When it exits the corpse fully, it leaves behind an empty socket.
Eddie feels a little sick when he wonders where the eyeball went.
He doesn’t even flinch when he feels a hand clamping down on his shoulder, the grip just shy of bruising. Anne spins him around so they’re face to face. She looks terrified. “Ship. Now.”
“Captain, take a sample of-“ Dora starts, but there’s no way for her to finish when Anne manually mutes the com-link.
Eddie manages to turn around a little, only enough to see the corpse out of the corner of his eye. “Where’d it go?” His voice sounds a little distant, like it’s coming from outside of his suit. He can’t find the black blob anywhere; the shadows and the void of space make it impossible to spot.
Anne tugs him away again, rougher this time around. “Doesn’t matter.” She practically drags him from the wreck, only waiting till they’re outside to let go of him. He has no choice but to follow after her- not because she’s his Captain, but because his body is just on autopilot.
Eddie’s brain seems to block out the trip back to the ship, because one second he’s looking at the back of Anne’s pack and the next he’s got Dan shining a light right into his eyes. “You with me here, bud?” He asks, frowning a little when Eddie nods silently, all his movements a little too jerky. He’s got one hand on Eddie’s shoulder, the other wrapped around his wrist. It takes a second to realize his thumbs pressed hard against it to check his pulse. “You zoned out a little there.”
“That’s probably got to do with a lady going full exorcist on me.” Eddie blinks, seeing her spasming body behind his eyelids. “Nightmare fuel. One hundred percent nightmare fuel.”
Dan does a once over and that’s the only thing that reminds Eddie he should probably take a look for himself. He’s still in his suit, though the helmet’s pulled off and his boots and gloves are gone. He’s got all his fingers and toes. It’s more than he can say about the lady out there.
He looks around to see he’s still standing just outside the airlock; Anne’s suit is crumpled on the ground and now that he’s actually paying attention he can hear Anne’s voice coming from the direction of the control deck, followed by the softer notes of Dora’s. He’s got no doubt that there’s some kind of argument going on down there. He doesn’t even bother to ask what it’s about. He already knows.
Dan seems to see the wheels turning in his head because he looks over to the hallway, his brows stitched together. “They’ll work it out.” He tries to sound reassuring. It doesn’t really work.
“Yeah, yeah,” Eddie nods. “Someone’ll see sense. But for me- I’m staying out of it. I need to lay down or…something.” That ‘something’ is the bottle, and he’s going to be going at it.
Dan’s still in doctor mode, giving him a steady look. “I’ll need to do a quick check up tomorrow.” He says. There are a few seconds where Eddie can actually start to make his escape, but it’s hard to when Dan’s face softens and his tone becomes just a tad friendlier. “Do you want to talk about it? I know we’re trained for losses, but that…” His expression twists. “It was a lot to see just from the screen. It can’t have been much better seeing it in real time.”
“I’ll be fine on my own. Really.” Eddie turns, but pauses, thoughts stirring around in guilt. “…maybe later. I mean, the talking thing. I can’t promise I’ll be super chatty or, y’know, open feelings or anything. Just, right now-“
Dan raises a hand. “I got it. Don’t worry about it.”
Eddie gives Dan a smile (a real one this time) and bounces before either Anne or Dora can come storming through for support. He actually locks the door to his quarters once he’s inside because he’s afraid of just that.
The crew quarters on the ship aren’t anything to really write home about. It’s a few feet away from becoming a closet; the bed is long but pretty damn narrow, enough so that he usually finds himself waking up on the floor wrapped in blankets. Eddie hasn’t complained about it once, though; his place back on Earth wasn’t exactly anything luxurious and at the very least this bed has actual cushioning and clean sheets.
He plops down on said clean sheets, raking a hand through his hair and sighing. In an hour or two, Anne will get her way and the report will be sent straight back out to the Foundation. He can’t really wrap his head around why she’s so stubbornly loyal to the slimy bastard. Sure, she’s got orders, she trained hard for it all, but she has to see through all that flowery bullshit.
Right?
It hurts his head to think about it too hard. It hurts even more when his thoughts turn and he starts to wonder what they’ll do with the body. There’ll be an autopsy for sure- if the footage from the cam on his suit is being shipped with that report, there’s no way they would skip over something like that. It’s just a matter of whether or not that report will make it anywhere besides the Foundation’s database. Eddie’s sure he’ll find out the answer once they’re asked to come to the nearest HUB for a debrief, which will no doubt turn into some kind of hush-hush meeting.
When he starts to think about the family members that’ll be left to wonder what happened to their daughter, he smacks his forehead lightly. Nope. Not getting into that. There’s no time for it, not when he’s got an appointment with a lovely bottle.
He shucks off the space-suit he’s still wearing, kicking it and the pack into the corner of his room. He stands up on the bed and slips away one of the grates of the ceiling, rummaging around till he finds the handle. With a low, pleased whistle, Eddie slips it out, cradling the bourbon in his hands. The weight of it makes some of the tension leave his shoulders. “Well hello,” he purrs, twisting the cap off and flicking it somewhere onto the bed. There’s no need for it. Whenever he decides to set the bottle down, it’ll be empty.
The bottle doesn’t go too quickly. It’s not that he’s suddenly become a lightweight, but it’s been a month or two since his last drink and he doesn’t really feel like blowing chunks in the shared bathroom. Lying flat on his bed, Eddie puts on some stupid movie from the selection they’ve got just to make the time go faster while he nurses his bottle. By the time that ends, it’s about halfway empty.
The holoscreen that’s propped up on his stomach randomly selects another movie. The title screen is blurry and he can’t really make out the words, but the music’s light and airy enough that he groans and slam his head into his pillow.
“Fuck you,” he drawls, pointing an accusing finger up at the Universe.
Right back at you buddy, the Universe says, spitting in his eye when Eddie actually confirms that it’s a romantic comedy.
Despite his grumbling, he doesn’t actually bother to change it. It’s much more fun to just sigh and groan and hiss at the screen, to laugh at the actors and the stupid dialogue. It helps him to forget about any bloated, spasming corpses, at the very least.
“Love is mysterious, Andy.” The woman on the screen says. She’s crying in a train station, or at least trying to. She’s not exactly the best actress, but Eddie’s letting that slide. “Just like life. It’s messy and terrible, but I want to go through it with you.”
Eddie physically cringes, causing the holoscreen to clatter onto the floor. He doesn’t actually bother to pick it up, just rolls over and leans off the side of the bed so he can still watch. The love interest has got some weird, conflicted expression on his face. Eddie’s pretty sure he’s had that same expression when taking a shit. “But Veronica,“ he says, taking her hands in his. “You told me you were going to marry Henry.”
“She still is, you dumb fuck.” Eddie takes another swig of bourbon. He misses whatever it is that they say next, but when he checks back in, they’re kissing passionately and the crowd around them is whooping in encouragement. It’s so sugary sweet that his stomach hurts. He has to move onto his back to avoid actually throwing up over the screen, staring up at the ceiling.
Not for the first time, he thinks about Anne. It feels kind of fucked up, considering all that’s happened. A part of him is guilty he isn’t spending even more time thinking about that lady out there, what happened to her or the rest of her crew, but he can’t really help it. Besides- wallowing in his failed relationship is a welcome distraction compared to revisiting the nightmare that was his life only a couple of hours ago.
So he lays there and he wallows and scoffs at the stupid movie playing. When they get to a scene where Andy starts a physical, but comical, fight with Victoria’s beloved Henry, Eddie huffs and puffs and kicks the screen. It’s hard enough that the picture fizzes and the audio makes a couple of scratching noises, the device hitting the wall and falling onto the lump that is his space suit.
Eddie groans, takes what’s left of the bottle burning down his throat, and flops onto the floor. He lays on his back and crushes his palms into his eyes so hard that when he stops, there’s inky blotches popping up at the edges of his vision.
For a moment, he closes his eyes and wishes that it could all play out like a damn movie. Except he knows it won’t, and it probably shouldn’t, because Anne is happy and Dan is way too nice for him to ever consider having some weird battle for her over (that concept itself is pretty fucked up and Eddie sure as hell would never play as the kind of guy who thinks he could just ‘own’ a lady because he beat somebody up).
He presses his hands down his eyes again, harder this time. He wonders if he can do it long enough that one of them will pop or slide out from his head. Naturally, his stomach turns over itself and he gets nauseous enough to start lying on his side. It wasn’t quite the fetal position, but it was close. Eddie still took it was some kind of triumph, especially since he didn’t do anything more than let out a few dangerous little burps.
Eddie wraps his arms over his stomach. The metal beneath his temple is surprisingly calming. When he opens his eyes, the first thing he sees is the broken holoscreen. “You idiot,” he says to himself. “You big fuckin’ idiot.”
Eventually, he does crawl over to the corner. It takes him a moment or two to make sure he won’t just start blowing chunks before he makes any sudden movements, getting to his knees inch by precious inch. Once he’s actually kneeling does he actually pluck the holoscreen up. The left side of it is cracked, the edge chipped off. Somehow, it’s still projecting, though the image is a stopped clip of Henry on the floor cupping a bloody nose. Or at least that’s what Eddie guesses it is. The picture is pretty fucked up.
Eddie gathers together all his years of training and knowledge as an engineer in one brilliant moment of inspired genius and smacks it against the wall a second time.
Part of the bottom breaks off entirely, making the image go out completely. Eddie just kind of sits there looking at the broken pieces.
He’s too deep into his own drunken wallowing to notice how the suit in the corner is squirming around. Only when his pack thumps to the side does he actually even look, though he doesn’t even know what the hell he’s supposed to be seeing.
There’s tar oozing out of the suit-pack on the ground. It’s slow-moving, seeping onto the floor and twitching around. Eddie sits up a little straighter and squints through the bleary lense of his own drunkenness to figure out what it is or if it’s even real. He hasn’t drunk enough to start seeing shit, and he knew it hadn’t been laced with anything, so a hallucination really isn’t in the cards. Right? Yeah- right.
The black blob twitches again, this time in Eddie’s direction. It shifts suddenly, stringy tendrils jumping out from the mass so it can move across the ground. It’s slow and almost lethargic as it goes, but Eddie meets it halfway and holds out his hand. He probably shouldn’t try to touch it, but he’s already half convinced it’s just a shadow moving around the room, so it’s better if he just passes a hand through it and be comforted that his eyes are just playing tricks on him.
Except his hand doesn’t pass through. Instead, the thing latches right onto his fingers, engulfing his hand entirely. He feels a tingling warmth and something like pain, but before he can try to wave his arm around like a madman to get it the fuck off, it’s gone. Not gone as in disappeared but gone as in that thing just got soaked up into his arm.
“Okay.” He says to no one, still staring at his extended arm. “Okay.” There’s a few minutes of just sitting and breathing and staring. There’s still that tingling feeling, but it’s expanded since, enveloping him entirely. When he focuses in on it, he thinks he can feel something squirming around under his ribs, nestling in around his lungs and making it just a little harder to breathe.
He should really freak out. He should throw out the booze and go to Dan and make sure this is all just some funky dream or hallucination or something, because the likelihood of contracting some sickly space disease seems pretty high after what he just saw on the wreck of a cruiser that’s still floating not so far away from the Belvedere.
Unfortunately, he’s never really been one for doctors. Anytime he’s been sick (which has been a lot) he’s either just taken care of it himself or hidden it until it gets bad enough that someone has to physically drag him to the hospital. Knowing he’s got some shit going on inside freaks him out way too much to want to get details.
He shakes himself off, drops his arm and gets to his feet when—
PATHETIC.
If Eddie were sober, he would have jerked around and panicked. The voice is echoing, rumbling and fucking demonic in his head, sounding like it’s coming from around both of his shoulder, over and under his head— everywhere. It’s not natural in the slightest, but his self-hatred is always at an all-time high when he’s drunk, so that nagging voice seems to make sense.
Eddie just grunts in response to his thoughts, wipes some sweat that’s started to accumulate on his forehead and passes out with a dull thump on the floor.