Chapter Text
Grif has been alone on the moon for four weeks, five days, seventeen hours and thirty-two minutes.
Not that he’s been counting or anything. Doing math is lame, and nerdy, as he’s told Simmons repeatedly over the last few years. He can’t just go against his principles like that and start counting stupid shit now like how many rocks are at the bottom of the spring because if it’s an even number the others are coming back today.
Thirty-three minutes now.
Also, counting stuff is a silent activity, unless you count the way Caboose does, which is loud enough for the whole moon to hear how a hundred plus fifty-two is fifteen, drawing the five with a big belly because it ate the two.
But Grif actually knows how to count in silence, so he’s had to find noisy things to do with his time. Like watching TV, and singing, and playing ping-pong against a wall, and playing videogames, and playing every instrument in the base.
So it was only a matter of time that he got to role-playing —LARPing, Simmons would correct him, and he’d be wrong because that isn’t what Grif is doing because that’s geeky as hell— and started acting out scenarios he made up in his head (which honestly are much less far-fetched than any of the shit Project Freelancer cooked up for them, Grif is a serious writer, thank you). It was also a matter of time before he got bored of doing solo performances and had to, er, recreate his supporting cast with the nearest material available, in this case, volleyballs.
Yeah, it’s a good thing that nobody’s watching him right now.
Things would be easier, though, if his co-stars would just stop interrupting him when he’s trying to say his lines. Goddamnit! He knows he’s fucked up, okay, he knows, he’s trying to apologize, he’s trying to talk to Simmons, it’s just that these jerks won’t let him get a word in edgewise, and now Church is dead, again, damnit!
“Shut up and listen to me! Everyone, I am so, so—”
“Completely insane.”
What follows is Grif triple checking —Simmons always triple-checks things— whether Locus is real or just a hallucination —he could be, he’s imagined the guys returning several times— and also whether he’s going to kill him —he also imagined the guys coming back just to do that one time. That was a bad day— but once everything’s cleared up, it’s just a matter of grabbing his volleyball friends and boarding a genocidal maniac’s ship. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Easy peasy of lemon cake, piece of cake squeezy.
It feels like the longest trip Grif has ever gone on. He talks and talks and talks. It doesn’t make time go by any faster, but it distracts him from his thoughts.
Locus is mostly quiet, and so are the guys, and Grif misses having someone to snark back at him. But it’s okay, he knows it’s coming. He can’t wait to hear the gang bitching and complaining again. However bad things have gotten, he’s sure at least Simmons will find the energy to yell at him.
When Grif finally reunites with his team, Simmons is bleeding out on the floor.