Chapter Text
Graphite jumps back as the tide laps onto the shore where Statue Island dips to meet the water. Every wave breaks with a cap of white foam, and it sprays the leather of their boots with a fine mist. The air smells like salt even through the recycler in their oxygen tank. It makes the inside of their helmet feel wrong .
They don’t know how Gabbro stands it.
“You yelped.” Gabbro says over the shortwave radio as if on cue.
They’re ahead of Graphite, digging lines into the sand as they wait.
“It’s really wet here, ya know?” Graphite responds.
“That’s the nature of water, buddy. Kind of admirable if you think about it.”
“Being soggy?”
“Nah, just the sheer… force behind it. Water doesn’t care what’s in its way. It’ll carve through solid rock given enough time. It takes thousands of years to widen a crevasse into a canyon, drop by drop, but it’s never deterred. Now that? That’s resilience.”
Graphite steps back farther until their boots meet dry (or at least dryer) sand. They make a sound somewhere in the back of their throat.
“Did you just gag ?”
“What? No!” They laugh, but it’s more of a wheeze. “You’ve been around these cyclones for too long.”
“My hearing is fine, time buddy. Gneiss gives me enough grief during my physicals as is.”
“Because you’re pickier than a hatchling when it comes to rations? Or because you refuse to wear regular ear protection?”
“Those for sure.”
“Excessive recreational drug use?”
“I wouldn’t call it excessive, per se.”
“Shut.” Graphite says. “We should try to get into the Statue Workshop during another loop. Yeah. Let’s go.”
They spin on their heels and grab the crook of Gabbro’s elbow. They pull. Gabbro doesn’t budge.
"I had to get out of my hammock for this.” They say, twisting to grab Graphite’s arm in return, stopping the younger astronaut in their tracks.
“And I changed my mind. We have like…two hours left? We can go back to my ship and play cards, or eat marshmallows, or jump into a black hole?”
No thanks , Gabbro thinks.
They let go and lean backwards, bending their knees so that they land in a sitting position. Graphite follows suit with all the grace of a shimmerwing that circled too close to a porch light - arms and legs splayed as they land hard on their back. Their weight crashes into Gabbro’s chest.
“Oof.” Gabbro says and straightens their posture to push Graphite a little more upright.
The pressure on their ribcage lessens marginally (and Graphite clearly has no initiative to move themself), so they wrap one arm around Graphite’s chest and use their free hand to shove.
Graphite gets the hint. “I’m up!” They do not stand, but they do dig their fingers into the sand.
Gabbro feels Graphite’s heartbeats, even through their glove and their friend’s EVA suit, the faintest, racing flutter. That…couldn’t be right. There were too many layers to feel something like that, and yet, there it was - the kind of beat that Chert would play on their drum just to show off technical prowess, the kind of beat that Gabbro did not enjoy. It wasn’t made for relaxation; it was the kind of thing that had urged Gabbro to ever consider relaxation as something that took dedication in the first place, so many years ago, upset by thoughts and feelings they couldn’t put into words. They’d tried painting and poetry and smoking things that were bitter and filled their head with the bubbly effervescence of a waterfall churning a stream. Their poetry has gotten better, and yet, they still don’t have the words. As Rutile puts it, Gabbro (and Spinel, ol’ fishing buddy, ol’ pal) “know how to talk a whole lot about a whole lot of nothing.”
Even so, they remember what it was like to breathe so hard that surely the world might end.
(They have that in common with Riebeck, they suppose. But Riebeck’s anxieties are loud where Gabbro’s are quiet. Riebeck’s are based in potential disasters where Gabbro’s are…vague senses of malaise that nestle in the back of their mind. Gneiss’ breathing technique do little to help ground Riebeck but work wonders for Gabbro. Riebeck repeats affirmations to themself and counts the things they can see and hear and feel. And, in the way that both Gneiss and Porphy had been surprised for such anxious hatchlings to be born less than a generation apart, Gabbro forgets that sometimes, fears are natural. And some hatchlings haven't been given lessons specific on mindfulness. Instead, those hatchlings (Hatchling, specifically) are sarcastic little adrenaline junkies that are too adventurous and convinced they can “mind over matter” their way out of any situation for their own good.)
But now? The world had ended now, and it would end again, and Gabbro can’t find even the smallest spark of energy to ignite the fears or joys their younger self had experienced so intensely. So many of their emotions are lost and muted to time. They sit carefully still, the sand surely cold and wet but impossible to discern through their thick pants, and they squeeze Graphite in a one-armed hug.
Graphite’s chest rises and falls like someone is conducting an accelerando.
“Woah, buddy. Woah.” They say. “Deep breaths. We’re alright.”
Graphite squeaks out a chirp. Gabbro winces in sympathy.
(It’s a cute noise tadpoles make when spooked by their own shadow or patches of light reflecting on the water, rarely predators. When it was predators, the sound became closer to an insistent trill. For hatchlings and adults, it’s a distress call. Some distant hindbrain instinct tells Gabbro to look for danger, but their EVA suit keeps them from turning their head too far, and the sides of their helmet block a chunk of their peripherals. Standing up is…too much effort. So, they don’t.)
Graphite chirps again, and Gabbro feels them tense as if to stifle the sound.
After a moment of breathing together (still facing the back of Graphite’s helmet), Gabbro says, “You're scared of something, and that’s okay, but I think you need to talk about it instead of trying to run away from it. Trust me.”
“Stop touching me.” They say.
Gabbro lets go and scrambles to cross their legs so that Graphite isn’t bordered by their knees. “Is that better?”
“‘S fine.” They say, and they tilt their head back. “I just. Woof. Words. I love saying words so much. Mhm.”
“Of course.” Gabbro nods sagely.
“I ohhhh, I hate this, I hate this, I hate talking about this thing. This one specific thing. Ewwwwww.” They press their hands together in front of their own stomach, and the jut of their elbows peeks out from their sides just enough for Gabbro to see. They understand the gist of the gesture.
“Take your time, buddy. No rush, no judgement.”
“So. You know. How we’re like…amphibians and all? That little bit of biology?”
Gabbro’s ears lift a little in surprise, shifting their beanie. It’s a funny feeling under their helmet.
(It has been so long since their ears had perked up about anything. They almost forgot their ears were so firmly angled downwards at all, brushing their cheeks. Weeks, maybe, outside of time loop time. Or time loop-not-quite-really-time. A month of regular Hearth time since something has bloomed in their chest fragile and weightless, and their ears had moved so naturally to sit high. Happy. An emotion like smoke, Gabbro thinks, heady and intoxicating with its warmth, intangible as it flows away on the wind. It can’t be held. It slips through outstretched fingers without a trace, and the harder you try to hold on, the less you appreciate it in the moment.)
“I do know that. I paid attention in school. I mean, it was mostly because Hornfels drew those little stars on our chart if we did well in our lessons, but still, a very good motivation tactic if you ask me.”
“They never did that for me….” Graphite mutters.
“They still did when Hal and Marl were little. Marl kept trying to bite Hal’s ears ‘cause Hal was earning more stars than everyone else though, so Hornfels had to change things up.”
“Why do you know that and I don’t?”
“Well, you weren’t hatched yet. That has a lot to do with it. Not to mention Hornfels would split a reedcake with me if I helped clean at the end of the day. I erased a looooot of stars.”
“What!?” Graphite says, incredulous. “That can’t be fair. That is absolutely not fair. I’m going to radio Hornfels aaaaaaannnnd. No, I’m not. Time loop. I am all sorts of out of sorts today. WOO!”
They punch the air enthusiastically before clambering to their feet. They dust sand off their suit. Then, visor glinting gold in the ever so faint sunlight, they begin to walk from Gabbro to the nearest tree.
And back.
And forth.
“One downside of this time loop is that our bodies can’t adjust to the gravity of other planets. Kinda wish Hornfels had sent me back out here sooner so it wouldn’t feel so much like I ate a rock or something. Probably wouldn’t have looked at the Nomai statue at the right time though, so things kind of work out as they are. I also like not staying dead. That part’s nice too.”
“What?” Says Graphite with a static fizzle, shortwave radio struggling from all the way over at the tree.
“Your pacing was making me think of acclimation periods. Obviously. Or not obviously, I guess.”
“Are you trying to distract me?”
Gabbro shrugs. “Is it helping?”
“Nope.”
“Then, no.”
“Iamscaredofswimming.” They say in a rush, starting back from the tree.
“Can you repeat that one for me, buddy? Didn't quite catch that.”
“I. Am. Scared.” They say, and they stop to stand in front of where Gabbro sits. “Of. Swimming.”
“Ohhh.” Gabbro tucks their chin to their chest for a moment, though it’s really the bottom of their helmet and not their chin. “Why?”
“It's stupid.”
"You can't call something stupid just because you don't like it."
"No, the reason is stupid."
“That’s fine, but what does swimming have to do with anything?”
“It’s the only way into the statue room. I shot my little scout into the water back there.” They point at the sheer drop from rock and sand into the ocean at the island’s edge. “And there’s an opening.”
“We could always try breaking the door down, instead. Not like Gossan or Hornfels can scold us if it’ll just reset.”
Graphite is quiet. It almost strikes Gabbro as funny rather than odd because they’re never quiet. Them being quiet is like a fish in a pine tree. That’s why they’d never talked much before the time loop. Graphite is loud and bold and reckless, and Gabbro is quiet and reserved and only ever meticulous when it comes to something they actually want to do, which isn’t much in hindsight. They both enjoy new experiences, but Gabbro doesn’t go searching for them volatilely. Hanging out together is a bit like trying to mix oil and water, but the breakdown of spacetime has acted as a wonderful emulsifier.
Graphite taps the fingers of their left hand to their thumb in a rhythm Gabbro can see but can’t hear.
“I already tried that. You’d be surprised what Slate just leaves lying around in the cabin. By lying around I mean shoved in my room since I’m apparently ‘not home enough to need all that space.’” They say, making air quotes. “Anyways, the only explosives strong enough to break the door also cause this whole wall to, um, collapse. Yeah. Your ribs’ll go crunch, snap, ow.”
“And you did all that without updating me when? How did I not notice?”
“Cyclones. Playing your flute. Uh, mediating so hard you barely even notice the supernova?”
“I mean, I still like to hear about your ideas. Even the dumb ones. You've got to keep me in the loop .”
Graphite groans.
“Get it? Loop? Time loop?”
“I got it, Gabbro. Please stop.”
“Sorry.” They say, not sorry at all. “What took you so long to mention it to me though?”
“I didn’t want to explain myself. Besides, I’ve always preferred to try things alone first - even when time was still linear. I don’t need someone else to witness all my mistakes, and trying to get you out of your hammock is like pulling teeth.”
“I - sorry.” They say again. They mean it this time, but the word comes out flat.
“I tested a few different explosives and stuff. Got yelled at by Slate and Gossan for trying to sneak said explosives onto Soujourner. Have you ever seen those two agree on anything? Slate was mostly mad that I took them without asking and thought I’d blow up my ship, but still, they were in agreement for a very, very long half hour.” Graphite turns their gaze up to the clouds. “Let’s see. What else did you miss? I died a bunch. Duh. Stared at the ocean for a long time. Almost vomited in my helmet thinking about getting into the ocean. Lots of fun.”
“I think I get the idea.”
“Good. I just…I thought if I brought you with me now, I’d find the guts to jump in the water, but….” Graphite reaches up, but their hands meet their helmet, and they grasp at nothing except smooth metal. They drop them to their shawl, burying their fingers in the fabric’s folds. “Clearly, I have none.”
(Are they trying to pull on their ears? Didn’t the adults scold them for that? Gabbro knows they’d been scolded for it plenty - to the point that Tektite had dug a beanie out of a box of old winter gear and plopped it on their head. Which. They like their beanie a lot, so in the grand scheme of things, they consider that a win.)
“I wouldn’t say that. You’ve made the most discoveries of anyone in the Outer Wilds. You found more on Giant’s Deep in a couple hours than I’ve found in the months I’ve spent here, which is rude, by the way.” They say but grin despite themself. “I’m joking about the rude part. You’re downright impressive. So what if you’re afraid of a little water?”
“So everything!” Graphite snaps. “If it weren’t for the loop, I’d be grounded right now for hitting the Attlerock so hard I shattered Sojourner’s cockpit and gave myself a concussion! I’d be dusting stars-damn books! I broke my frothing collarbone the first time I used a jetpack outside of the Zero G cave! I’ve been bad at everything I’ve ever done, but at least I tried! And now when it really matters, I can’t even get myself to make an attempt !”
Gabbro lifts up their arms, and Graphite stares down at them, gaze burning. It makes the scales on the back of Gabbro’s neck prickle.
“My knees can’t do this alone, pal.”
“You are TWENTY-SEVEN!!” Graphite shouts.
“Just gimme a hand.”
Graphite heaves a sigh, but they untangle one hand from their shawl and hold it out.
Gabbro laces their fingers together with their friend’s and pulls themself to their feet. They give their palm a gentle squeeze before letting go. Gravity feels a little like it is crushing all their joints (the bone ones, not the ones they’d left rolled up in their pack).
“You really make me mad sometimes. ‘Cause if both of us just sat on our asses all day, guess where we’d be!?”
A twinge of guilt makes Gabbro’s hearts sink. “Infinitely pondering the universe’s rewind button?”
“Frogshit frothing insane!” They grasp the neck of their shawl with shaking fists.
The sky grows darker as the winds change direction. Storm clouds swirl from gray to green and every shade of bruised flesh in between. Leaves like flags snap back against damp bark, and Gabbro can almost imagine the sound. They can almost feel the new, fat raindrops hammering against their spacesuit. Almost. Holding their open palm to the sky, there’s nothing there. No temperature or sensation of water against their scales, no humidity thick in the air. Nothing.
As if in response to the wind, the waves on the ocean surface rise higher. They peak in jagged swells like great, dark fins. Roaring as they fall against rock. Distant cyclones spin closer.
“I think we should go back to your ship.”
“Why!?” Graphite demands.
Their voice is loud and clear in Gabbro's ears. Too much, too sharp. “Let’s not get smooshed today. You may be scared of water, but I’m scared of breaking every bone in my body.”
“Deep water, not all water. I’m not that messed up.”
Gabbro puts on their stern voice, the same tone as the elders used to use when they were caught putting things in their mouth they shouldn’t. “Hatchling, please.”
“Fine. Fine. To Sojourner we go,” the younger astronaut grits out.
What an angry hatchling, Gabbro thinks. What a miserable way to live it must be, deciding the weight of the universe is yours alone to bear, lashing out when the stress dwelling in your mind chokes your every breath.
Together, they approach Sojourner. Its landing gear pegs are buried by half an inch of sand. Impressive, honestly. The landing had felt smooth from within the cockpit, but Gabbro had snugged themself up under a shelf of provisions and pressed their side into the wall. The pressure had felt nice. They’d found their mind drifting only to be pulled back by a voice full of enthusiasm and orange eyes like stars. And now they were back. No new discoveries that their buddy had promised, not that they really minded.
Graphite slips under the ship first, standing in the glow of the gravity elevator for a few bright moments before their feet lift from the ground. They nudge the hatch open, latching onto the rungs within the hatch’s rim and swinging themself inside with a confidence that suggests practiced ease. To an outsider (read: Gabbro) it looks like a fulvous eel flopping on a muddy bank.
When the hatch falls back down on its hinges, Gabbro follows suit. They collapse inside on Sojourner’s floor, open hatch half beneath them. 0.8x gravity makes them forget what the words, “How in freshwater hell did you dislocate your knee again!?" mean. Almost. (Chert meant well, but they got a little swear-y when it came to other people - Gabbro - injuring themselves, or losing their ship, or crashing their ship, or short circuiting their communications and going radio silent for two weeks too long so ground control called them to track Gabbro down.)
A boot nudges between their gill ridges and their ribs. It tickles.
“Off the hatch and close it while you’re down there.”
“Sure thing, boss,” Gabbro says, offering a full-hand salute before rolling onto the floorboards proper. They pull the little glass door closed with too much force. The hinges creak. “Whoops, haha. I love almost normal gravity. It’s like a fun little surprise in your marshmallow tin.”
They turn onto their back. A click is followed by the familiar hiss of pressurized air, and Gabbro turns to watch Graphite hang their helmet from a hook on the side of the pilot’s chair.
“Care to join me?” Graphite asks, spinning to face the back wall. They tuck their legs under themself, and small grains of sand from the bottom of their boots fall free. The grains pool in their seat, tiny silicate sparkles lit by an array of control panel lights.
“In de-helmeting or in the chair?”
“I like seeing your face. It’s harder to be mad at a person than a suit.”
Whatever that sensation in their chest is, they abhor it. Not hate. No. That wasn’t a strong enough word. Abhor. Loathe. If they're going to feel at all, let it be anything else. Please. They want to dig out whichever one of their hearts is to blame and throw it into a cyclone. They want to watch it sink beneath murky waters.
They fold a hand over their sternum and put the other along the right side of their ribs. The pulses under their palms are normal. They slide their hand to the left side of their ribs, but the rhythm is the same. Everything seems fine.
Graphite doesn’t look at Gabbro as they peel off their thick leather gloves, and they drop them on the floor with two soft plops. One of their hands is poorly wrapped in white gauze, the kind in every Outer Wilds Ventures first aid kit. They flex their fingers. The set of their jaw is tight. Gabbro can see the tension in their muscles even as they pull the high neck of their shawl over their chin.
“Please?” They say into the fabric. It muffles their voice.
Gabbro pushes off the floor with their elbows and reaches for their helmet seal. Their own gloves are thin, but the mechanism is tricky with or without them on.
“You sure you don’t want me in the chair, too, buddy? You could scoot over.”
“I…the chair isn’t that big, Gabbro. And I really don’t want you sitting on me. You have less meat on your bones than a jackfin.”
“Hey!” Gabbro protests. “That is not an accurate comparison! Those things don’t even have eyes!”
“They taste like motor oil.”
The seal hisses. With a tug, Gabbro slips their helmet off their head and lets it hit the floor in a crash of metal. Not like being careful mattered. They flick their ears out to the side, twitching them back and forth a couple times. Oh, three-dimensional hearing, they think. What a wonderful gift.
“Why would you know that?” They ask.
“Ate one.”
“Why would you eat one? Why do you know what motor oil tastes like?”
“Got bored. Forget to wash my hands sometimes. I live an interesting life.”
When they're in their suit, they forget how bright and vibrant real colors are. Everything is a rainbow of different shades. From the red-tinged blush wood of the floor to the purple of the gravity crystal to the dark, rich brown of the polished pine shelves gleaming under fluorescent lights. It’s all so vivid. They miss their art supplies, the way their brush glides across fresh canvas. The scrape of dry bristles, oil lamp light gleaming on wet paint as it dries. The grit of charcoal dust on their palms. There’s a lot to miss when they stop to think about it. That’s why they think about everything but home.
“Stop looking at me like that.” Graphite says, and they stick out their tongue. One of their front teeth is flat instead of sharp, chipped.
“I’m not looking at you like anything. What did you even do in this loop, fall into a pile of rocks?”
Graphite worries their bottom lip as they study the gauze wrapped around their left hand. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I meant your tooth.”
“OH!” They say, ears perking up. “That’s from the jetpack incident, too. I didn’t even entirely crash land at first, which no one believes. I touched down, but you know how we don’t go to the big crater ‘cause the geysers up there have eaten away at a lot of the rock underground? I was fine, then the ground broke, my jetpack broke, my collarbone broke, aaaaand my tooth. You should see me bite into a jumbo marshmallow. Looks weird.”
Gabbro chuckles. “You’ll have to show me sometime.”
“Um. Maybe? I think I’m sick of marshmallows, but I don’t know how. Our bodies reset every loop, which includes our brains, so they should still taste good, right?”
They don’t know how to tell Graphite that only about ten foods they’ve eaten in their life have tasted good. The rest make them gag. (The texture, the smell, void have mercy.) Since the loops had started, they’d forgone the whole, ‘get up, make food, eat food,’ process apart from, well, marshmallows. It was repetitive in a bad way. Time consuming. A distraction from the sway of their hammock and the warm, dark sound of low notes buzzing through their flute. Plus, it took way more than twenty-two hours to starve. And they’d be the exact same amount of hungry after they got burned to cinders anyways, so what was the point?
(They ate the same meal of rations every day for weeks on end before the loops, too. They’d never gotten sick of it. Knowing exactly what flavors and consistencies to expect is nice. Predictable is good . Waking up and realizing they couldn’t stomach reedcakes or canned fulvous eel anymore is a mortifying idea.)
Well, they’d tested exactly how many marshmallows they could burn to a perfect char and eat in a single sitting during…a loop. That happened. At some point. The answer was roughly twenty-three and a half, at which point they’d laid face down in the wet sand because it was the best option for convincing their stomach not to stage a rebellion. Even then, they’d still thought marshmallows tasted fine the next loop. Magically reset taste buds, how nice was that?
“I don’t get it, is all. Sugar, dopamine, boom.” Graphite mimes an explosion in front of their own face. “I need instant gratification, not ‘oh stars, this tastes like I want to die.’ Do you think our memories being shoved back into our head every loop is an instant rewire for our brains? Like, even though none of those things technically happened? Because if we’re only remembering non-existent experiences, it shouldn’t matter. None of this is real.”
“You have to attribute a very particular definition to the word ‘real’ for your argument to make sense. Quantum mechanics suggests that all the loops we’ve lived through have happened to different versions of us. Our consciousnesses lived out those experiences, and all those other quantum iterations of us were stripped of the consciousness that now resides within us the moment they died, shuffled along to the next adjacent version of our universe. Hence us being here now.”
Graphite blinks. Their ears dip low. “Oh. Oof, ow. My head.”
“That’s just my personal theory, though, if that helps.”
A rumble. Vibrations burrow deeper than sinew. Shelves and screws and glass panes rattle. Heat blossoms beneath a dead sun, blue anthers with petals unfurling ever outwards in a burning white blaze.
“Roastin’ time.”
“Speak of the sap wine, and it shall appear.” Gabbro says.
“You’re teaching me how to swim next loop.”
What? Gabbro doesn’t say. They are disembodied, a soul without a vessel. Thoughts without sensation. Memories are ice on nerves rewinding into existence.
The cockpit of the ship is gone. Inside their helmet, the air is cold and tastes like water left in a tin cup. Gold tinted sand sinks beneath their foot as they fall into awareness mid-step. A solid weight presses between their elbow and their gills, hammock rolled tight inside its pack. On their other side, their flute knocks against their hip, dangling from its clip. They’re heading for the trees.
They stop. Giant’s Deep roars around them. The sky is deep and dark, and light is a distant, hesitant thing. They drop their arm. Their hammock hits the sand, rolling to a stop at their feet.
They sink to their knees. A deep breath to fill their lungs, and they lean forward until their helmet rests against their dropped hammock. Helmet metal is cold against the ridge of their brow.
A deep breath out. A picture of somewhere else painted inside their mind. It envelops their senses until they’re gone. Not here, not now, not living and breathing and thinking and feeling but observing from somewhere just outside it all.
Why can’t everything be this easy? Why does it have to be them at the end of the universe?
They don’t know the answer.