Chapter Text
Sung was used to weird dreams. They came as a side effect to being devilishly handsome and charming… but probably more so because of his futuresight and empathy powers. Strange dreams were entirely expected for him, and not in a normal “oh no my dog has grown human teeth and is trying to throw me a birthday party for Christmas” kind of dream-logic way. Moreso of the “this dream is strange because I can see my friends and we’re all dying in very excruciating detail” variety. Most of these dreams about his friends didn’t come true, which Sung was eternally grateful for (he didn’t have a strong desire to drown in oil, after all), but they did often find themselves in situations where they almost came true (such as the time where Meouch had managed to piss off a cave full of oil monsters by asking them if they worked at an Auto Zone and they’d all had to run), which was unsettling for him, to say the least. His core kept them from becoming too cumbersome, which is why he didn’t have visions while awake much anymore, but at night his subconscious was free to roam the galaxy. Whether he wanted it to or not.
Right now, he knew he was sound asleep in his room on their ship, comfortably cocooned in a nest of blankets. His eyes didn’t see it that way. In his sleeping mind, they were projecting a desert, red as the setting sun and endless as the seas of space. He knew the place well, so well that seeing it once more caused him to grimace. This planet would show up every so often in his dreams, but nothing would ever happen. Sung contemplated sadly if this was because of the collection of lost feelings and terror hanging around the atmosphere of the planet, staining the sand as noticeably as blood. You wouldn’t need to be an empath to sense that, he was sure of it. Being in the Zone with Havve so long ago had given him a lifetime of experience with the barren place, and his visions had only increased his familiarity.
He sat down, ready to wait it out until sunrise. His visions rarely let him wake up when he chose, which made him a very heavy sleeper. The only option was to simply wait for as long as the dream needed to progress. It would end after a while— it always did. Sung was usually not a patient person in the slightest, but somehow when he was asleep, he found it very easy to just sit and do nothing. It definitely didn’t stop him from tapping on everything around him while he was awake, or from bouncing on his heels, or pacing the length of the ship until Meouch had to hiss at him to stop, or from messing with his synth until the sound coaxed Phobos out of his room, bleary-eyed and shivering.
He really wasn’t the best shipmate.
Sung eyed the sky above him. The Zone’s atmosphere didn’t show many stars. The thought of the planet being surrounded by sadness came to mind again as he stared up at the smooth purple sky. Signs of life were very rare here, usually nonexistent. If anything appeared on the planet that it perceived as alive, it was quickly trapped and set into stasis in the sand for the planet to feed on. Sung was pretty sure that his dream-self didn’t count as alive, so it left him alone.
A sudden crack from across the sands caught Sung’s eyes as a large cloud of sediment rained into the air. The grains quickly settled back into the desert, and the air became silent again. But something had happened to cause that, and Sung had to find out what it was. The desert posed no threat to his subconscious, but it might have harmed whatever had crashed into the planet, and he had a duty to help.
An intense feeling of dejà vu settled in the back of Sung’s mind. This felt a lot like when he’d found Havve’s ship, bent and twisted, already half buried in the sand. The loud sound and the spray of red pigment were all too familiar as he raced towards where he’d heard the crack. Whatever had caused the explosion had left an impressive mountain of sand, which made it pretty easy to pinpoint. He carefully stepped around the crash site, trying to get a closer look.
As he turned to look, his core grew warm, pulsing in his chest. Sung had just enough time to mutter a quick curse before the emotions hit him full force. There was a lot of panic, some desperate sadness, a sprinkling of terror— oh, right, and the pain. The aching pain settled in his limbs, spreading out from his chest, heavy and tight. Nothing out of the usual for something that had just crashed into the surface of a planet. That didn’t make it feel any more pleasant, but at least it let him know there was something alive in the wreckage. The only thing more blinding than the pain was the sheer and utter panic he was picking up. It was like a wild animal cornered in a trap, desperately struggling to do something but ultimately useless. It was disorienting, and not even because of the feeling itself. No, it was disorienting because something about that panic was screaming HELP ME, and Sung had a very clear feeling that it was talking to him. Like he was meant to see this, or someone of his abilities was. He couldn't do anything about that information right now, however, being non-corporeal in his dreams; he’d have to tell the others about it when he woke up. That was the good part about being able to see the future: you could prevent it, if you could figure out where to look.
Sung had made it his top priority to learn as much as he could about the galaxies that visited him in his dreams for that exact purpose, but even with that knowledge, sometimes he was wrong, or he failed.
The dream slowed, tunneling into a void of black and gray and shining nothingness before dissolving into something new. Sung mentally raised an eyebrow, confused. Usually that little tunnel of void was where he’d wake up— nothing had ever really appeared to change that, not in billions and billions of years. Until whatever this was apparently decided that it was “Sung has the weirdest of all weird dreams” night tonight, and the vision shifted into a different perspective. One of someone else.
This absolutely baffled Sung. He’d never lost control of his dreams in his adult life. That was something his species were almost immediately trained to do from birth, like walking or talking— just a fundamental part of who they were. He’d never entered someone else’s body, or not been able to move in a dream, for that matter, both of which seemed to be affecting him right now.
A first person view of a ship’s cockpit melted into view, showing the endless expanse of space outside of the glass viewing port. The planets hovering in orbit seemed vaguely familiar to Sung, he figured he could probably place them if given a little time, but of course, the dream didn’t give him that courtesy. The ship began speeding away from the planets, stars blurring into lines of light and color as he (or whoever he was right now) left them all behind. A sense of bubbling joy and excitement that wasn’t entirely his own filled his lungs, boiling to the surface and stretching his face into a grin. The ship eventually stopped— Sung had no idea how long the flight had been, dream time was weird even under normal circumstances— and a beautiful blue planet appeared in its path. It almost reminded Sung of Earth, if Earth was more vibrantly blue and all the land was swallowed under it.
The dream skipped forward a little, which was a strange sensation. Like a framerate glitch in a video game: one second you’re standing on a mountain, the next you’ve fallen into a river. Now the person he was observing seemed to have landed on the blue planet, which was surprisingly not covered in ocean, but rather in some kind of mysterious plant life. Small mushroom-like plants (fungi?) lined the ground, rubbing off on his hands and clothes. They radiated light. Again, a sense of unbridled excitement and anticipation filled his chest. He had no idea what that was for, but it probably meant that the person he was supposed to be was 1) very excited and 2) had arrived at their desired destination.
Good for them, he thought.
The dream skipped again, this time to a dark place. Those light bearing plants didn’t seem to be growing here, Sung observed wisely, given the fact that it was dark. Soon enough, though, the darkness gave way to colors, bright lights dancing along the top of the empty cavern that he now found himself in. The gentle movement of the colors reminded him of his Earth friends’ description of what they called the Northern Lights, but something told him this wasn’t caused by debris in the blue planet’s magnetic field. Namely the fact that these lights were dancing in a cavern, and for debris to cause the light flaring they would have to hit the atmosphere of the planet, which was not in a cave.
The person moved forward, setting their hand on the wall of the cavern. They walked to the center of the room, running their hand along the wall all the while. Once they’d reached the center, their feelings of excitement gave way to painfully intense nervousness. Sung didn’t need to be able to read emotions to know something was about to happen, and he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to be here when it did. Too many times he’d felt that feeling only to have something horrible happen. Sure, it could also give way to something good, but he wasn’t about to test his luck. He always failed that test anyway.
The colors in the ceiling began to collect, floating down from the ceiling and swirling around the person. It felt a little like a higher stakes version of a friend’s new dog trying to see if you were nice, sniffing out whether you were the friend or foe. Tense and definitely a little threatening, but promise of a great reward. Sung could feel his heart beating in his throat, his shoulders tensing. This went on for a little while before the tight ball of emotions in his chest just… vanished. They didn’t unravel, Sung was used to that, they just disappeared. This was more suspicious to him than anything else in this crazy dream, but it was definitely more than enough to catch his attention by the scruff of its neck.
The dream tunneled in a flash of blue and green light, and Sung woke up to the dark walls of his room.
“God dammit ,” he muttered, sitting up slowly.
“Looks like someone slept in, huh?”
Havve was used to Sung being impossible to wake up. It had once happened just before they were attacked by a crew of space pirates looking for a fight, which in retrospect was utterly hilarious. At the time, he hadn’t been laughing. Meouch and Phobos had been absolutely panicking and he’d had to manage the ship on his own while they desperately tried to determine if he was dead. But hey, he’d gotten them out in time! Nobody had died, and he was very grateful for the additions to the teasing Sung list he had going.
So when Sung refused to wake up at a normal time, the crew figured they were in for some fun news when he got up. Havve had felt the change in Sung’s core energy as he slipped out of the dream, which was interesting. This vision felt much longer than most by a significant margin. Usually Sung’s visions would end and he would sleep normally for a little while, but this one took up the whole time. At least he was up before Meouch, who slept just as heavily but didn’t have the excuse of magical prophecy powers to aid him in his power napping endeavors.
Havve stepped outside of Sung’s door, punching in the code and letting it slide open gently. “Looks like someone slept in, huh?”
Sung appeared to have woken seconds before Havve had stepped in. He was rubbing his eyes, his core still glowing from the effort of the dream’s energy. “Am I up before Meouch, at least?”
“You know it.”
Sung grinned. “Perfect.”
A few minutes later, Sung was out in the cockpit, where Phobos was running morning checkups on the ship’s systems. Havve nodded a little greeting to the Corvidae as he worked, and got a small smile and a salute in return.
“Taking bets on when our good commander will wake up,” Sung announced, laughing slightly with a half eaten protein bar in his hand. He was already tapping on the table as he sat down. “My money’s on another… twenty minutes.”
Phobos’ shoulders shook a bit and he turned on his heel, away from the diagnostics. “That’s cheating, Sung! You know exactly when he’ll wake up, don’t you,” he signed teasingly, chirping twice for good measure.
Sung shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Sung, you give him too much credit,” Havve intoned, “I say at least another hour.”
Phobos chirped brightly in a bout of laughter. “That’s more like it,” he signed.
Sung snorted. “We’ll see.”
Twenty minutes later, Phobos was leaning down in his chair, pouting, and Havve was handing over 5 dollars. Sung smiled smugly. “You’d think you would have learned by now, guys…”
“Oh, shut up, Marty McFly,” Phobos signed, still pouting.
Meouch sat down at the little meeting table they had. He’d grabbed some breakfast from the fridge, but he looked half dead. “Mmff… whuzzup, guys?”
“Nothing,” Havve grumbled. He knew that Sung couldn’t foresee what would happen with little events like these, but he could guess, and man he was good at guessing. “Sung, did you have a dream last night?”
Sung perked up at Havve’s words. “Oh! Yeah!”
Phobos did his best to look uninterested, no doubt still holding a grudge from the bet. Havve knew Phobos would still listen. He was utterly fascinated by Sung’s futuresight, and to an extent, they all were. It was weird and mysterious and just so fucking bizarre that it was intriguing just by nature. Try your hardest not to look interested if someone walks into your room, says they can see the future, and then predicts multiple life threatening situations for you and your friends. Most of Sung’s visions didn’t come true, so they weren’t always sure about what the future held, but they were always important to know, just in case.
Sung opened his mouth to begin what Havve assumed to be the recap of the dream, but before he could start, his eyes widened slightly and his mouth shut again. Havve shot him a questioning glance. A quick look at Sung confirmed that he had just realized something unpleasant and was hesitating slightly. Havve knew that Meouch and Phobos probably couldn’t pick up on that, but his little link with Sung let him understand more than usual.
The other man only hesitated for a moment before sighing a little and hopping back to his story. “Anyway, um, so it was— the dream took place in the Zone.”
The effect of his words wasn’t instantaneous. There were a few seconds where everyone had to sit and process what he’d said before the reactions came pouring in.
“Really?” Meouch inquired, looking up for the first time all morning. “You’re not fucking with us?”
Phobos looked a little confused. “We’re not… in the Zone right now? Or even particularly close to it, for that matter.”
Sung had stopped tapping on the table. He didn’t seem to hear what his crewmates were saying. Instead, he gazed worriedly at Havve, picking at his lip with his teeth. The other two were still carrying a conversation amongst themselves. They had no idea about exactly where Sung had found himself after his planet’s destruction, only that that had been where he’d found Havve’s body.
That place was the Zone.
Just thinking about the sands he’d been trapped in sent his programming into a panic. It didn’t know what to do to process those memories— they were almost too human for him to keep, but somehow Sung had been able to (or hadn’t known how to remove) hold the memory of flames and voices in his head, drowning out his own head and sucking him in…
Havve had no idea what he’d been looking for on a death trap like the Zone, but he knew going back for any reason would be the stupidest thing he’d never let himself do. And he was sure Sung knew that, given their link, so why was he bringing this up?
Against his better judgement, Havve nodded for Sung to continue. Sung cleared his throat and Meouch quieted down, Phobos’ hands falling to his lap again.
“Well, okay, so… it was on the Zone, but I wasn’t following us around. It was someone else.”
“That’s possible?” Meouch’s eyebrows shot up. Phobos leaned forward, elbows pressed against his knees.
“I mean, apparently! I don’t know how, I swear. As far as I know, this was just a glitch in the Matrix and I’ll never do it again,” Sung shrugged, still messing with his lip. “But I know this because a ship crashed, and it wasn’t a model I’ve ever seen before. Not even when I found you two.”
Phobos and Meouch exchanged a look. Havve was getting a little impatient. He knew that this dream was an out of the ordinary vision for Sung, but he still didn’t see any reason why they needed to give up their safety to go back to the hell he’d already spent too much time in. Sung probably sensed this, because he launched into a quick explanation of the vision soon after, summing it all up in about a minute or two.
The crew sat in silence for a while, each ruminating on Sung’s words. Meouch spoke first, a little gruffly. He hated asking for help more than anything. “What do you guys think that even means?”
“It doesn’t mean anything,” Havve snapped, making his companions jump slightly. Sung frowned a little. “It’s just a dream. It doesn’t involve us yet, so we shouldn’t tempt fate to put us in even more danger when we’re supposed to be going to a little vacation soon. Earth is just in the next system or so over, we’re so close!”
“Havve, you know that’s not true,” Sung said softly. “If someone’s stranded out there and I saw it, we’re meant to help. Fate’s already decided.”
Havve knew he wouldn’t be arguing this point if it was happening on any other planet. But you could never trust the Zone, never never never. It would tear you to pieces if you showed any weakness or mercy. Sung’s complete naïveté was infuriating to him and it was on full display here. He knew better than anyone how Havve felt about that place and yet he was still the one suggesting this idiotic plan. “Sung, we can’t endanger ourselves to go help some person we’ve never even met because you think fate decided it,” Havve spat. “You need to grow up a little and think for once.”
“What if I go alone?”
Havve’s LED eyes blinked once. Meouch and Phobos were quiet, sensing that this was not an argument they wanted a part in. “I’m sorry, what?”
“What if—“
“Oh no, I heard what you said. I’m just trying to think of a reason as to why you would think it would be okay to run off to a death trap of a desert to look at something that may or may not happen soon, abandoning your crew and friends to try this, and getting yourself killed in the process.”
“Havve, I can’t just do nothing .” Now Sung was getting heated, standing up from his seat at the table. “I saw something and I have a responsibility to act on it or live with that guilt! I’m not abandoning anybody, I’m—“
“Sung, you are not leaving this ship to go to a murder desert.” Havve’s voice was robotically calm, which was a sure sign that he was absolutely furious and his hardware simply wouldn’t process it more. “I will not let you. This vision was probably just a normal dream that normal people have. That’s bound to happen at least once in your lifetime. Nobody is in danger, and even if they were, you cannot leave your ship to go help. That would be irresponsible and idiotic.”
“But—“
“Sung.” Havve’s voice was deadly serious. He could sense Sung’s frustration and anger building, but Havve was determined. He would not be going back to that place, not ever again, and neither would his friends.
Sung sat back down, his protein bar forgotten on the table’s edge. “Fine.”
Meouch and Phobos almost seemed to snap out of a trance at this. Phobos immediately swiveled his chair back to the control panel, messing with switches uselessly. Probably trying to avoid eye contact. Meouch got up to make coffee for himself, probably also trying to avoid eye contact with the two seething parties involved in the debate.
Sung relaxed a little and took to tapping on his thigh and chair arm. He was still pissed, Havve could feel it, but he knew he’d won.
Havve turned on his heel and walked back to his room. He needed a quick checkup after all that— his internal systems tended to overheat when he was angry like that.
He glanced out the window. It looked like they’d arrive at Earth’s system soon, which Havve was grateful for. He wished they’d get to go there more often, but patrolling the universe was a calling that none of them could refuse.
Havve plugged himself into the rig on the bare walls of his cabin, thinking about their apartment in Los Angeles.
Meouch was pretty sure he’d just witnessed the equivalent of an atom bomb exploding in their ship. Havve and Sung sniped at each other all the time, but it was mainly Sung being a little too much of an idiot and Havve having to remind him that he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d had such an explosive fight, and if he was being honest, he hadn’t even known that Havve was capable of that much anger. The robot was unsurprisingly very controlled, keeping his emotions guarded and wrapped up neatly. Sung, in contrast, had a tendency to almost radiate emotion every second. He had more nervous energy than Meouch had even seen on his little brother. But that fight was also strange for him— Sung never got that mad at them. He would get annoyed, sure, but even when Meouch and Phobos had been literally at each other’s throats, he hadn’t been mad.
Something was definitely charged about that argument, Meouch concluded, sipping his coffee slowly. Sung was still tapping on the table, a sporadic beat punctuating the silence of the cabin. Havve had gone to his room, and Phobos was finished with the checkups and was now half sitting, half laying in a chair next to the biggest window in the common room. He was probably stargazing, trying to ignore the way Sung’s quiet indignation was settling in the air.
If Meouch was smart, he would have done something similar. But, unfortunately, he was not, and so he made the mistake of sitting next to Sung and clearing his throat.
“So… is there anything that we need to know about that?”
Meouch had never been particularly observant or empathetic, but even he caught the shift in Sung’s body language at his question. He tensed up, clearly frustrated.
“About what?”
“About the big fuckin’ fight that just happened, Sung.”
“It’s fine. Just leave it alone.”
“It’s clearly not fine. I’ve never seen Hogan that mad. Is there something we need to know—?”
“I said it’s fine, Meouch,” Sung responded, his tone clipped. He stormed away to his room, his hands clenched tightly. Meouch heard the quiet sound of Sung’s door sliding closed and sighed.
Phobos chirped smugly. “Nice going, dude.”
“Yknow what, Phobos? What would you have done?” Meouch frowned, huffing as he plopped down into a chair.
“Waited for longer than ten seconds, at least,” Phobos signed, “maybe just kept an eye on him for a bit. Definitely not engage him in another argument.”
“Uh-huh. And how would you know that would work? Did they teach it in lord school?” Meouch’s tone may have read as harsh to an outsider, but no real malice was held in his words, as Phobos knew.
The Corvidae’s face softened a little. “No… Dei used to get into fights a lot. He was so sweet, but very hotheaded. Kept trying to fight kids who’d make fun of me.”
Meouch was quiet. He knew the feeling, but had never known how to handle it. Seeing Phobos use his brother’s name sign was like picking off a scab from a barely healed wound for Meouch. His guilt came washing back, and Phobos caught sight of it, smiling a little bitterly.
“Hey, Meouch, it’s okay. I’ve made my peace with what happened. You should too.”
Meouch frowned and turned away. “Do we have anything else to look at from the ship diagnostics?”
Phobos took the change of subject, thankfully, and responded by pointing at a screen above Meouch’s head.
Meouch ran more checkups than were needed. He needed something to do, anyway.
Phobos regretted bringing up his brother. He really missed the strange little moth, but telling stories about him made it a little better. He probably should have considered that it would make Meouch feel terrible.
And now that everyone on the ship was in a bad mood, it seemed that Phobos had nothing left to do but look at the passing planets and feel the jagged scars on his back grow tighter.
The scars were what he suspected made Meouch feel worst. They definitely didn’t make Phobos feel good, either, so he could understand why, but their loss had been a total accident. Meouch couldn’t have known that Funk exposure would make the leviathans go crazy and murder everyone. They’d agreed on that long, long ago, and though Phobos trusted and loved Meouch now, it was definitely hard to think about Dei, even now.
Dei represented everything good that Phobos wanted to be— the little fluffball had fallen into his life from god-knows -where and Phobos had found him on the forest floor, injured and almost unconscious. He knew that he wasn’t supposed to be on the ground, and he knew that his dads would kill him if they knew, but it was either their mild anger or letting this boy die. Phobos chose to bring the tiny boy back home, for his fathers to decide what to do with. They’d adopted him into their little group, and he’d fit right in, like the last piece in that 2000 piece puzzle in the living room.
Deimos had learned the traditions of the new land he was in very quickly. The first thing they’d told him was to beware of the leviathans. Never leave the trees. Never. Phobos was pretty sure he’d never left Dei’s side for the first two years they’d known each other. They were brothers, inseparable by anything.
Deimos was the nicest person Phobos had ever met. Where Phobos was hotheaded and impatient, Dei was calm and sweet. Phobos had been, frankly, a little shit in his youth. His dads had trouble getting him to do anything , but once Deimos came along, he’d changed. Just a little, at first, but the two had rubbed off on each other.
Then the leviathans had come, and undone it all…
Phobos knew that he was still working on getting better, even now. He’d been so angry when he’d learned what had happened, so desperate for a reason that he’d lashed out constantly. Once he’d accepted that Meouch wasn’t responsible, he’d gotten a little closer to the Phobos that Dei had known, the softer and more understanding person hidden somewhere inside of himself. The Phobos hiding somewhere, cloaked in that rage.
Sung had helped him a lot. Phobos figured it was the weird empathy stuff that let him do shit like that, though from what he’d said, his empathy wasn’t as strong for others as it was with Havve. Maybe he was just good with people. Phobos had no idea how to do anything with people. He’d been jokingly called the Lord of his flock’s group because he’d lacked the basic social skills to seriously take that title. The only people he was really super comfortable around were his bandmates and a few earth friends, and even they exhausted him sometimes. His mind would get tired of constantly reading social cues, trying to interpret a tone or a specific wording, of having to keep coherent conversations. The list would go on if he let it, but frankly, it made him sad to think about, so he tried to stop.
He’d never understood how Havve was so graceful around people. He always knew what to say, how to show people what you meant, how to be blunt. Phobos suspected that as time went on, his personality had absorbed some of Havve’s bluntness, which didn’t really help him on its own. It just made him look mean.
He really, really, really missed Dei. Deimos had been just as socially inept as he was, but at least he’d been nice about it. All Phobos knew how to do was accidentally insult someone, or how to make sarcastic comments. How to get under someone’s skin, how to piss them off, how to do everything wrong.
Phobos switched his focus to the window again. Thoughts were too depressing, and when in doubt, start counting things around you.
The number of planets passing by. That seems like a good number.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5…
...12, 13, 14, 15… wait, is that a planet?
Phobos squinted. A silvery ship was floating outside the nearest planet, a smaller reddish-orange colored body. The ship seemed to be patched together through many different kinds of metals and a few assorted other kinds of materials. It was headed straight for the red planet.
Phobos’ first thought was Well, that’s not my problem.
Wait, that’s mean. Being mean to others is bad.
I should tell Havve. Or Meouch.
Phobos turned from the window, stepping away to find his crewmates, when he realized something.
That was their ship. The escape pod they kept stuck on the side of the ship for emergencies.
And Phobos had a very good idea of who’d taken it.
He’d definitely need to tell Havve about this one.