Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It's strange.

Well. There was hardly anything in Gromov's life that wasn't unordinary. But "Captain" and zeer merry crew were particularly odd. Being with them was odd.

It was a twisted bastardization of a... a family- almost. And he was some voyeur, intruding in a kind of way. Well, that was fine with him. Gromov wasn't a "people person". He knew their inner-workings, he could nudge a conversation toward a desired subject (however awkward a nudge it may be), but he had no want for their company. Yes, he would much rather work out a bug in a machine than the vapid inconveniences of his fellow man. Machines could be perfected. Human beings, intrinsically not so.

He lagged behind them now. They had to move from their previous lodging because "ZEE TERMITES WERE MOST RUDE HOSTS!" There was little to sway Seven once zee got an idea tacked on to zeer incomprehensible head.

So here they were, trudging through knee-high snow. Ca- Seven-excuse him - Seven glid proudly at the front. Charles had been beside zeer a little while ago, arguing with zeer like he usually did. He regret that now didn't he? His eyes bore down at his dragging feet and he hovered just behind Seven. Pilot kept a careful distance from the two of them. He mutters to himself, angry, or impassioned, about whatever was going on in that deranged dome of his.

The landscape stretched on, lazy. So flat...Smooth white opal. There were once skyscrapers there. Towering things. Yet they were ripped down to their skeletons all the same. Subtle dots in the horizon, little mockeries of civilization. All his work, reduced to these drowning specks. Gromov sighs and looks back to the footprints in the snow. He knows they'll be blown away come nightfall.

...

They come across someplace by sunset. It's a dainty little shack, only one floor and not much to look at. Isolated, dot among dots. By all means something that should have been flattened by those bombs. Captain stands in front of it, one hand on zeer chin and the other on zeer hip, nodding.

"YES," booms Seven,"THIS WILL DO GOODILY!"

"You're kidding." says Snippy, suddenly to Gromov's left,"How are we all supposed to fit in that thing?"

"REMEMBER YOUR CLOWN CAR TRAINING, SNIPPERS, REMEMBER IT WELL!"

Gromov shudders, and the emotive lenses on Snippy's goggles downturn angrily. Pilot elbows him as he moves toward the splintered door and he gets even angrier.

"No way am I living through that nightmare again! A little more walking isn't going to end the world. A second time." Like he hadn't been complaining and looking as pointedly miserable as possible toward the end of their trek.

But Seven had already sauntered inside. Charles looks over to Gromov. He shifts his weight, shrugs, and trails after zeer.

"There isn't even anywhere to get food from." Charles grumbles, close behind.

...

Well, at least it's a little bigger on the inside. Paint peels off the stained walls, the tile in the entrée-way is full of cracks and chips, and there isn't a single piece of furniture that isn't askew. To his side is a half wall lined with pop cans, behind it a tiny kitchen. There's a hallway beside that and a wrecked living room with a single window in front of them. There's a strange odor, and the air is clouded with swirling dust. This place had been abandoned a long, long time ago. Gromov wraps his arms around himself.

The cabin creaks.

Seven hums, loudly. Pilot tries to follow along but ends up humming his own tune. He flips a striped couch upright and falls back onto it. dust explodes from it, smokey. Seven kicks a coffee-table back onto its legs and sits beside him, propping up zeer feet. They sure felt at home. Something taps his shoulder.

"Engie." says Snippy. Gromov shuffles into the living room and Snippy speeds into the hallway.

"Angie!" cries Pilot,"Help us with the telovision? Plz?"

Seven nods,"YOU WILL BE REWARDED MOST EXCELLENTLY!"

"...Okay? What's wrong?"

Pilot points frantically to the antenna (on an old radio), the top of which has been snapped off, exposing the hollow insides. Gromov knew much more about modern software than he did antique hardware, but it seemed to be an easy enough fix. Just get some sort of replacement wire.

He looks around the room. Ah. There was no way wire would just be laying around in this mess. Well, maybe there was, but Gromov wasn't so keen on sticking his hands in decades old irradiated trash. Eugh. Maybe he can make something up? The two of them liked playing pretend. They all did, really.

Gromov's eyes move to the pop cans. If he just had some way to cut them. Conveniently, Charles emerges from the hallway.

"Uh." Gromov manages intelligently," Scissors....Do you have them?"

Charles fishes them out of one of his breast pockets, and tosses them at him as he makes for the living room. They clatter against the floor. Well. Gromov picks them up and gives them an experimental snip. The rust impedes the blades terribly, but they'll have to do. He takes one of the cans and cuts into the aluminum with much efffort, the scissors just barely sharp enough to chew their way through. The result is a thin, jagged spiral of aluminum. Gromov flattens it under his boot to make it a little more convincing to someone to doesn't have eyes.

Pilot and Seven look at him expectantly, Charles sits between the coffeetable and the couch with his arms wrapped around one of his knees. The radio sits sadly in front of them. How exciting would it be this actually worked? Gromov walks over to them and stuffs the strip into the hole. The inner silver of the strip sticks to his hands. It's old, old residual pop, probably mingled with saliva. From somebody's mouth. Brimming with bacteria. Gromov works quickly, and snaps his hands to his sides once he's finished. He's wearing gloves. Don't wipe your hands on your pants. Someone's speaking.

"...DID A VERY EXCELLENT JOB!" says Captain. Oops.

"Uh-huh." says Charles, incredulous. That's right, pal. Uh-huh.

Pilot leans forward and turns a knob. The speaker-

"Huh?" blurts Gromov. Charles was more wrong than he thought. The speaker crackles.

...

Nothing comes of it. Every time either he or Charles moved to configure the radio Pilot would swat their hands away and Captain would say "LET HIM WATCH HIS SHOWS, HE NEEDS THE STIMULATION." It ends up in pieces on the floor, indiscernible from the rest of the garbage. The four of them despair, for different reasons. Seven shakes zeer weary head and tsks.

...

Chapter Text

Gromov is harshly kicked in the shoulder. He scrambles awake, his legs barreling him straight into some leathery object that somehow sweeps him off the floor from his hood.

"SHHHHHH!" comes the distinct voice of Seven, stage whispered. Spreading a palm across his visor, "CONGRATULATIONS! YOU ARE OUR FIFTH VISITOR, CLAIM YOUR PRIZE NOW!"

It's dark. Far too so. But he can make out the slim shape of Pilot from a little ways from him, looming over his makeshift bed (newspaper, largely. Softer scraps. Random fuzzballs. He tries not to think about it.) And of course the amorphous blob taking up half of his field of vision is Seven. Gromov wedges his fingers in between his neck and the collar of his coat. It would certainly be nice if he were put down. He's dragged outside, instead.

The wasteland is much less depressing and much more vast and terrifying when it's this dark. Like standing in the middle of an ocean. A smudge of light glows through a scattering of clouds, opposite to it the blue beginnings of the morning, far too dim to give reprieve from the night. Gromov adjusts his mask.

"It's too early to be out." says Gromov.

"Late!" yelps Pilot.

"And -uh- Snippy. Aren't we leaving him behind?"

Captain seems to consider this: stroking zeer mask as though it were a beard and tapping zeer foot.

"HMMM. YES."

"Yes? So, we're going back inside now?"

"NO <3. LEAVING SNIPPY ALONE HAS NEVER, EVER HAD ANY CONSEQUENCES!"

Pilot nodded. "Only good things!"

Something terrible was going to happen to Snippy. Gromov is pushed forward

"Snippy is so cakey and smelley that no ones will come near him, anyway!" Pilot's voice reverberates through Gromov's back.

Oh, well. Gromov nods in acknowledgement. The three of them continue on their way to wherever; maybe at an angle to the direction from which they originally came, maybe at the exact same projection. The snow is heavy and thick. It burns, faintly, paradoxically, and the rest of him is bathed in a stiff numbness. He wishes the apocalypse had at least taken the form of a desert like the movies. Then, maybe, he could pretend he was just on a bad vacation. Somewhere exotic. Somewhere he'd go just for the sake of bragging. He could pretend he had work to come back to. Nice food. Nothing trying to murder him. ANNET. Yeah, wouldn't that be fine.

It takes a while. Much, much longer than he'd like, really. The landscape is soaked in a dull yet vibrant red. For the first time in probably years, decades, the sky is somewhat clear, and the sun punctures the horizon with violence. It's nightmarish. For the sake of his sanity, Gromov focuses on this instead of the fact that he has pointlessly walked in mid-calf snow in near absolute darkness, that he is sore, that he is hungry, and that he is so, so unbelievably tired.

Maybe. Maybe it's a different shack.

The three of them are standing around the back of the building, Seven crouched in front of a cellar, jamming a key zee plucked from zeer coat into the keyhole. Pilot cheers zee on, like he was watching a football game rather than someone fumbling with a key.

"WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" screams Pilot, flailing his arms.

The key slides off of the raised metal.

"YEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSS!!"

Seven misses again.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

Seven drops the key. Pilot stares, something solemn about the way he stands. Zee finally unlocks the cellar doors, and flings them open. Zee hums, and spins on zeer heel.

"ONE MUST ALWAYS KEEP THEIR MIND SHARP! YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN YOU WILL COME ACROSS BEFFOOZLING PUZZLES SUCH AS ZIS!"

Pilot nods his head dutifully. Captain gives a sharp nod back, and enters the cellar, Pilot on zeer heel. Well. He sweeps his eyes around the area. Finding nothing, he submerges himself in it.

Somehow- and Gromov suspects it's because fate has it out for him- it's colder inside of it than it is outside. Maybe it's his mind playing tricks on him: the concrete walls, the splintered wood steps (is that mold?), the sensation of his stomach dropping through the floor as he looks between these rotting steps to the floor below. Yes, he hasn't been reliable to himself recently. Gromov is grabbed once again. This time, at least, it's by the upper arm.

"Come on Angie!" Pilot tugs, Gromov shakily obliges.

Hm. It's colder down here, after all.

Captain stands beside a table in the middle of the room, bare, white tablecloth draped over it. A naked light bulb hand hangs slightly swaying over it. Shelves line the small room, lined themselves with rows of miscillaneous items. Most notable of all is the empty one, perhaps, having once been filled with the food now displayed on the table. Nowhere to get food, Snippy?

"YES! ALLOW ENGIE'S FANTABULOUS BIRTHDAY BASH TO COMMENCE!"

"Feast! Feast! Feast!" chants Pilot.

"Wait a minute- feast?" asks Gromov,"Shouldn't we save this? It isn't even my birthday. I think."

"TODAY IS YOUR CAPTAINIA ASSIGNED BIRTHDAY."

"That explains nothing. Actually, I think I have more questions."

"SO? TAKE A SEAT AND EAT, BITCH."

"But-"

"Snippy feeds on other people's misery!" Pilot jabbed him right on the sternum.

"I wasn't even going to ask that." Gromov mutters.

He pulls out a chair. It's a rickety old thing, wobbles when you shift. He's given a flimsy paper plate, then, Pilot and Captain pile everything available onto his plate. Maybe they made a game out of it, seeing who could put more stuff on it faster. Or maybe "fast" was just the natural pace for them.

It's the most food Gromov has seen in ages.

And. Well.

He doesn't feel great about it.

But that hadn't stopped him before, had it?

Gromov takes a bite.