Chapter Text
In theory, Yellow is helping with the wires. And ostensibly, he is; he's at least supplying Lime with the insulation tape and more solder when he needs it, so at least he's being fairly useful. He's also using the chance to complain.
"There's no way Green isn't the imposter. Doesn't it creep you out knowing he's just... on board? Skulking around?" Yellow moans, then rips a length of insulation tape and hands it to Lime. Lime wraps it around one wire, thinking about all the other tasks Yellow could be doing. True, helping him with this isn't useless, but equally... Yellow's taken it upon himself to stick to Lime's side religiously. Seeing as Black seems to have stuck to Green's side religiously as well – or, perhaps, science-ly, considering Black – the ship has rather split into two. He's become very acquainted to the sound of Yellow's voice.
He doesn't hate it. And seeing as Black gives him the normal average human creeps and Green gives him the imposter type creeps, he's glad it's Yellow. But. Yellow doesn't seem to like silence much. Lime would really like two seconds alone to sit with a cup of tea and stare out at the stars without someone commenting on it.
He refrains from sighing. Instead, he readies his soldering gun. Seeing as Yellow is about as good at this task as Pink was, it's a miracle he hasn't been chucked out by their slightly eject-happy crew. Maybe he covered for it by being excellent at shooting asteroids and some of the other tasks, whereas Pink seemed to have two left hands.
Lime isn't really sure someone as tall as Green can move in a way that would be called skulking. White seemed better at that. However, unwilling to make this recurring conversation longer than it needs to be, he nods. Yellow continues fuming while Lime works on soldering more wires together. How do these ships even function with this level of shoddy wiring? Never mind killing people on the ships, maybe they've got imposters doing the wiring, too. Maybe that explains the vendetta. And the wiring.
"Or maybe Black is the imposter, and Green is covering for him..." Yellow ponders. It's certainly a possibility. Lime is planning to avoid being in a room alone with either of them. With Yellow on his mission of sticking together, it doesn't seem like that will ever happen, even if Lime tried. Lime shrugs. He's pretty sure it's Green. Black, he's seen poring over the samples in Med Bay plenty of times. Yellow has been talking to him alone for way too long without murdering him to be the imposter. That, or he's doing a very good job of hiding it, and is perhaps fond of Lime?
It's a puzzle.
"Urgh, we should just eject both of them!" Yellow spits, crossing his arms. "At least I know I can trust you!"
Ah, he thinks as he holds up two loose ending on a matching wire: the final cut wire. This whole wiring system really is a mess, Lime thinks as he solders it. As much of a mess as this situation, really. Standing up, he slams the panel shut with his knee, and advances on Yellow. Yellow back away until his back hits the wall. His face a mixture of bemusement, dawning panic, and... something else.
"You can't trust anyone 100%," Lime states, and flips the power back on. He probably shouldn't have done that. He still has a soldering iron in his hand, too. Oops. He unplugs that and collects the insulation tape and solder that Yellow had dropped.
Yellow had kinda been in the way. He probably ought to have just said that. Lime and words… don’t really work too well.
"Lime?" Yellow says, undercurrent of shakiness in his voice. Lime nods. "Please don't... scare me like that."
"... Sorry," Lime murmurs, then for good measure, pats Yellow on the top of his helmet. He jerks a thumb towards the exit of the room. "Trash?" Yellow nods meekly, and trails after him. This, then a cup of tea. A nice cup of tea watching the stars glide by and forgetting about the imminent threat of death by imposter. Perfect.
He gets a minute or two of peace. About the time it takes to traipse from electrical to the trash chute in the cafeteria. Yellow helps him with the damn clunky lever, hard to push all the way down. He hovers with his hands still on the trash chute, and for a second, Lime thinks he's checking for something left in the chute.
"How are they both still alive, if one of them is an imposter?"
To be honest, Lime has asked himself similar questions. After Black had mentioned his suspicions regarding Green – must have been founded on something, Lime thinks, because Black doesn't seem the type go merely go on 'intuition' as stated – Lime had taken the care to observe Green as subtly as possible. Green had seemed to soften with regards to Black over a few weeks, between White's ejection and Red's murder.
Black isn't great at lying, Lime has observed. When he stated it was due to intuition, he'd glanced into the corner of the room, towards the vent grate. When he'd said he didn't know who it was, he'd glanced at Green. Black was very good at saying what was on his mind, no matter how disturbing. He'd thoroughly creeped Pink out within two days of setting off just by talking about piercings getting ripped out in accidents.
So. Black knew, and was covering for Green. But Green had covered for him too. Now they're barely apart. Green softens significantly talking to Black instead of anyone else.
Lime is pretty sure he knows what's going on. He’s also sure he does not want Yellow to be screeching about it.
"Who knows?" He checks his task list for the day – clearing the oxygen filter, and actually ridding the trash into space. Cup of tea? Urgh. He'd best get this stuff done first, though.
"I mean, do imposters have emotions? They kill people though!" Yellow says while they walk over to the oxygen filter. How are there always leaves in this thing? Damn trees. Lime takes his helmet off and sets it to one side – it makes this task easier. Otherwise the helmet clunks against the side of the filter and if it scrapes it makes a horrific noise.
"Humans sometimes kill people, and they still have emotions. Maybe we're a threat to them somehow," Lime murmurs, and sticks his hand in the tube, trying to grab those damn leaves. This task should be easier than this. He can’t even see the damn things, left to grope about blindly.
“Left. Back a bit. There,” Yellow murmurs, as though he’s operating a claw machine. Lime used to like those. He grabs a leaf, and throws it back into the tree enclosure to rot down. “I doubt we’re a threat to imposters if they can kill us so easily, and blend in.”
Lime shrugs. Not like he knows anything about it, anyway. He’s not really going to volunteer himself to have a nice chat with an imposter just to ask. He’s only passively curious. Maybe Black’s asked. Black probably has asked.
God, he preferred this place with more people on it. The Skeld is so damn empty like this. He’s only here because he likes the stars and wanted to get away, but now he’s here, on a broken ship with murders afoot, he wishes he could go back.
A useless thought, now. Let’s see if they even make it to Mira. Let’s see if they can evade the imposters there, too.
He liked life with a lot less murders. He’s become frighteningly used to seeing corpses and blood.
Yellow continues helping with guiding his hand remotely, until the filter is clear once more. Yellow falls quiet as they make their way to the trash, and helps with the lever again, heavy and chunky as it is. They both silently watch the trash float off into space, no doubt thinking of all the other less savoury things that have been ejected out of the ship.
Yellow’s task list indicates that they’re entering an asteroid field soon, so Lime gets a short reprieve in which to get his cup of tea. Yellow insists that he doesn’t sit in the cafeteria alone, though, so instead he sits against the window in the weapons room, sipping it and watching the stars and blown up asteroids. Yellow is incredibly good at this; he falls into a level of concentration that’s intriguing to watch, although Lime’s seen it a lot recently. It’s not like he’s had anyone else to watch.
It’s a few hours, in which the dregs of Lime’s tea grow icy cold as he swills it mindlessly this way and that. Tea is probably a luxury up here, but he used some of his packing space to include some, and uses it sparingly. He can deal with weak tea while he’s on the ship. He wonders if Mira has fresh tea; maybe there are cargo vessels. Maybe those have been infiltrated with imposters too, and there’ll be a space version of dumping tea into the harbour. Maybe Yellow will be shooting down high speed tea bags instead of asteroids, next time.
“I think we’re through…” Lime glances up, finding Yellow wringing his gloved hands together, the shine of the lights rendering his face impossible to see. “Can I rest?”
“Go back to your room, if you want,” Lime says, but Yellow shakes his head.
“Here is fine. Just for a little while. I think another field is on the way, probably half an hour or so…” Lime could probably verify that on his task list. It’s probably his turn to shoot asteroids. Yellow will undoubtedly take it instead, so he nods. Yellow takes little time settling in next to him, removing his helmet and gingerly resting his head on Lime’s shoulder.
That’s… new.
“Just for a bit, please?” Yellow nigh-on whispers. Lime doesn’t see how it could possibly be that comfortable; he shoves a hand under Yellow’s cheek and pushes it up. Ignoring the betrayed look and the start of questions, he disconnects one of the pipes that runs over the shoulder of his uniform, and pats his shoulder again. The look of relief on Yellow’s face is palpable. Lime returns to looking out the window. He wasn’t used to physical closeness on Earth, let alone here, with murderers and suspicion afoot. The pressure on his shoulder returns once more, taking a moment to settle. Lime wishes he knew how to deal with this. He burns the stars into his retina instead, especially when Yellow shuffles closer, leg pressed against Lime’s, their arms flush, a small murmur of a thanks as he does so.
Lime doesn’t have any choice over who he’s stranded in space with, but he’s not upset with this. Loud and prone to complaining Yellow may be, but they’re in the same situation, on a small ship with a known murderer. It would get to anyone, but Yellow has taken the deaths hard, especially Red’s. They all assumed they were safe, after White’s departure, but this must have shaken him, finding there was more than one imposter.
Footsteps.
Lime freezes, just able to see two pairs of black boots from around the weapons chair. They don’t seem to notice that anyone else is around.
“If I cut your finger off, would it regrow?” Black asks brightly, far too brightly to be asking such a morbid question. Green sighs heavily.
“Yes…” he intones suspiciously. Black’s eye glitter.
“Can I do experiments on it? I wanna try with imposter flesh. How many times would it- What?” Black cuts off, bumping into Green who’d stopped abruptly. Green, taller than Black, had spotted the two of them over the chair, something Black only notices upon leaning around it. “Oh.” Black remarks, unrepentant. Yellow, Lime notices, has gone completely still, but he keeps his eyes shut and his breathing even.
Green stares intently at Lime, who just stares back. He swears he can see murder calculations going on behind those eyes. Lime nods hesitantly.
Everything is silent for a long, long moment. Yellow does a good job of pretending to sleep.
Lime takes a breath.
“If no one dies, I heard nothing.”
Green blinks, almost audible in the wide expanse of thick silence, then laughs. It’s raucous and grating and not at all comforting. Black smiles at Lime widely, no comfort there either. Lime holds fire, holds his breath.
“It would be a tie, anyway,” Green remarks, something of which Lime has not a single doubt about. Black is not going to lose this opportunity, and with the look he gives Green, there is no incentive there for him to vote to eject him. He also thinks Black may have removed the wiring to the emergency meeting button. “I’ll let you live.”
And on they go. Lime releases his breath, and just about hears a smacking sound, and Black yowling in pain.
“You idiot!” Lime hears Green shout before the ranting becomes too far away to hear, and smiles grimly. They… aren’t out the woods yet.
“I am not letting you out of my sight for even one second,” Yellow states. His tone is such that there is no argument Lime can make to get around this.
Lime can’t even think of one. He doesn’t even want to think of one. Lime would not put it past Green to try and kill them, although manning the ship alone would be a lot for Black. Maybe this is a case the two of them can make in return for their lives.
“That… sounds reasonable.” Somehow, the nebulous fear of death has solidified into something very, very real.
“How is Black not dead?”
Because, Lime thinks to himself, for some reason, Green is in love with him. Lime just shrugs.
“We… should eject them both…” Yellow states, with far less certainty than mere hours before.
“If Black has his imposter tamed, I think we shouldn’t raise a fuss. I want to stay alive,” Lime murmurs slowly.
“I- yeah. I hate that he’s right, too. But yeah. Urgh.” Yellow buries his head further into Lime’s shoulder. “Which room are we staying in…” Yellow asks, and now he actually thinks about it, that’s the logical conclusion to not letting either one out of the other’s sight. Lime thinks about it for a moment.
“I’ll solder my vents shut and wire up an alarm system.”
“Why your room?”
“It’s got a window.” A small one, more like a porthole than a window, but he can see out of it, so it counts.
“You got me. Okay. Hope your bed is big enough,” Yellow whispers, then shudders, a full body thing violent enough to jolt Lime too, the dregs of his tea sloshing dangerously close to the rim of the cup. “I hate this. I HATE this!” he shouts, standing up and shaking his whole body out. “It creeps me out so bad! I wanna- I wanna! Urgh!” he shouts, making several aborted gestures, looking as though he might kick the glass or punch it. Then his hands fall to his sides, and he stares out into space again, his expression blank. “I want to live, though.”
He collapses into a crouch, hands pressed to his face, his shoulders trembling. “I didn’t come out here to die, I want to live!” He mumbles into his hands, his voice shaky. Lime crawls closer and pats his head. Yellow peers at him through the gaps between his fingers with one watery eye. Lime gingerly puts his arms around Yellow, resting his forehead against Yellow’s head.
“You stayed quiet,” Lime murmurs. Yellow, the active one, the loud one, stayed silent. He doesn’t get it. He definitely wasn’t asleep, although he seems to have fooled the other two.
“I would have got us killed,” Yellow states, as though that is mere fact. Lime can’t even argue, although he’s not so sure he’s saved them from certain death.
“We’ll make it to Mira.” He makes it as sure as he can. They’ll do everything they can to make it to Mira, even if it means bowing down to an imposter and his lover. They’ll make it. They have to.
Yellow task list bleeps alongside Lime’s; he releases Yellow to check it. Asteroid field approaching. Yellow sniffs loudly, steeling himself, and stands up, plonking himself down in the chair with a determined gaze past the controls.
“We’ll make it to Mira.” Just before he takes the controls, he flashes a grin at Lime. It’s shaky and uncertain, but there. “Thanks.”
Lime didn’t have a choice about who he was stuck in space with, but this doesn’t seem like a bad option. They’ll make it. Somehow.