Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter 1: Leave your problems behind, space is at your doorstep.

Bdubs woke up slowly.

He stretches, arching his back and shifting the sheets. He clumsily grasps at his head to pull off his face mask before sleepily staring at the ceiling, letting himself breathe. He feels calm, almost calm enough to go back to sleep but he knowsthat isa bad habit to start from previous experience. Getting twelve hours always left him more tired than rested, Doc had some stupid science reason, but Bdubs forgot it before Doc even finished talking. Bdubs reaches for his comm mounted onto the wall charger, scrolling through notifications and logging in what time he woke up—some healthcare thing Gem recommended—and flips to a different screen, typing a small blurb about his dream. It’s fuzzy, like most of his dreams are, but he remembers bright colors and falling stars. And robots for some reason. His dreams usually don’t make much sense.

He puts on his flower themed slippers and starts his morning routine. He pops a toothpaste tablet into his mouth, neutral flavored, which half of the hermits found gross and said it made their teeth feel dirty. They just don’t know true cleanliness and also mint makes him want to never have teeth again.

As the tablet bubbles he picks out some clothes, a simple white t-shirt and this beautiful pair of pants with stars embroidered on them. They’re soft, he is going to be wearing a space suit over it so anything else would be literal hell. The comb catches knots as it rakes through curls.

He looks at himself in the mirror. Adjusts his shirt and pulls his mossy jacket over his shoulders, he smiles.

He did it.

He was free!

BdoubleO100! Free of constant mothering! He cheers, raising his arms in the air, and sitting on the floor of his room. He has clothes and small care items splayed across his bed and various stands. He usually hated packing, hated having to choose how to discomfort his future self, but now it is an accomplishment, an opportunity.

Six months of check-ins, check-ups and doctor visits. Six months of proving he wasn’t a risk, that he was sane enough to sit behind the flight deck, that he wouldn’t danger himself. Finally, finally, he could actually do stuff! Ohh, he is gonna show how slow things were without him, he’s gonna beat his best supply time first time back and show them all! Last week he started his retraining on the proper regime to keep a ship afloat, only a week ago and he’d already passed with flying colors. Nothing could stop him now!

Sure he was a bit rusty and this is a very low risk run, but a run none the less. Get to the planet, get the equipment from the stupid government building, sign a few papers, and come back to write a report. A job he would have hated a few months ago, but Doc had kept him cooped up too long! Freedom is nigh! He’s going to do so many loop de loops in that hunk of junk.

A voice came through the speakers.

“Bdouble O, head to command center’s medical room for final check-up before take off.” Bdubs groans, slamming his suitcase closed, “I know.. boss man said it was the last one, sorry, don’t shoot the messenger!” Skizz continues, probably hearing his discontent. He keeps forgetting the mic turns on for personal announcements. He hears the static of the comms shutting off.

He grumbles, zipping up the suitcase, why say it was the last check-up if you got another freaking check-up!? He passed all the stupid questions, let him fly!

Bdubs sighs, standing up before pulling the suitcase with him. If his first mission gets set back he’s going to riot.

He slips on his green fluffy jacket and opens his door, chill air fills the room and his lungs. He smooths his face from its scowl. One more, one more stupid check-in, it’s not their fault anyway. Xisuma is just worried about him, they all are. It’s a bit.. smothering, but it's understandable. On his old crew, they would have just sent him off again, probably to a far off planet with a billion different ways to die along the way. Sometimes, he tells Mumbo some of the things he did for his old piloting gig and watches the mounting horror the more he says, and he hasn’t even told him the worst of it! And who are they to judge!? It's good money! Sure a little risky, but most space jobs are, it comes with the career!

He walks down the twisting halls, daylight filtering through the windows, the station sits on a terraforming planet, currently one half of the crew is terraforming it (which he was a part of until recently!) and the other half is maintaining stations, creating a habitable environment and supply runs, Bdubs’ favorite. They do supply runs in shifts, each person gone for at least a month or two, depending on how far the company is willing to deliver it. If it’s longer, they’ll have a team of three. Bdubs’ mission is eight weeks, it’s a long and incredibly safe trip. No planets on the way, no meteors to navigate, nothing but space. Comm systems are set up to ensure complete communication during the entire trip. Ninety percent of the flight uses some fancy automatic navigation, a new one that just got licensed for commercial use, he’s just there to land it and sign legal work.

They’re acting like they’re tossing him into deep water with his legs tied, but it's more like shallow water with floaties. It’s a walk in the park, a piece of cake for good ‘ol Bdubs!

He passes by the stairs to the second floor and steps out the hall into a large room, a communal area that connects each section of the station. He hears a few conversations going. Two people on a call. He looks towards the people and meets Cleo’s eyes. Her face lights up–which totally doesn’t make him feel loved, he doesn't know what you’re talking about–before she makes their way to him.

“Bdubs! Good afternoon, you off for your first mission back out? Lucky you.”

“I am lucky! I get to get away from you freaks!”

Someone from the group gives an offended gasp. A head with long brown hair pokes out from behind someone standing.

“Hey, I am no freak!” Scar says from the TCG table. The group lets out a chuckle.

“Well off you pop, don’t want the auto navigation system to leave without you.” Their nose wrinkles as “auto navigation” left her mouth. Bdubs rolls his eyes, he’s had this conversation enough with them. “The ship would never leave me, it loves me, the ship would fall apart without me.”

Cleo giggles and gets up close, setting a hand on his shoulder. “Be safe, okay?”

He holds his tongue for a moment, usually he’d make a joke, poke fun at the mountains of worry they have for a silly little trip. But he sees her eyebrows pinch, their lips curled to an almost frown. He can’t fault them for it, no matter how many times he’s heard it.

He smiles, as warmly as he can muster, “I’ll try my best, okay? Absolutely by the book. Not a page unturned.”

They smile–that’s better–and take her hand off his shoulder. “I’ll make sure to see you back then.”

Bdubs turns away, getting a few goodbyes from the groups in the room, wishing him luck and telling him to get back safe. He goes through the door labeled ‘WORK ROOMS’, smiling, knowing that if a single hair is misplaced on him he’s probably never going to be let on a ship alone again. A reality he’s okay with, because he’s the perfect BdoubleO100 and he’s going to do perfectly. Each turning hall he walks the excitement grows, he’s here, he won! Bdubs, back in space!

He tapped his ID card against the censor, "Pilot J. Booker Hunderson: BDoubleO100, entering.” The words make him giddy.

The room has giant windows in the back, bright light illuminating Xisuma and Skizz from the back, they glance at him before looking at each other with wide smiles. Skizz launches up from his seat with open arms, yanking him into a hug, nearly picking him up off the floor.

“Bdubs! Today’s flight day! How you feelin’ buddy?” He’s smiling brightly, looking more excited than Bdubs himself. And then he remembers.

“I feel great! I love being lied to.” Bdubs smile turns sharp.

Skizz’s eyebrows pinch, an obvious look of confusion on his face. Xisuma tilts his head.

“Last check-in, my ass! ‘Oh, our final check-in! No more seeing my face!’ Oh, right!” He stomps his foot to the ground and crosses his arms.

Skizz bursts out into laughter, taking a few steps back, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, X wanted to be extra sure! What if you.. blow up or something!”

“Blow up—!?”

“I’m sorry for pullin’ you back in here Booker, uh, I thought maybe a check-in before could help settle nerves, or clarify things.” Xisuma interruptes his very fair question, he stands up and joins the group, interlocking his fingers as he speaks. “I know it seems like a bit much but, you had really scared us before, so, I hope you can understand.”

(“Not that it’s your fault though!” Skizz says fairly quietly, Xisuma nods his head in agreement.)

“I get it, I do. I’m fine though! Honest.” Bdubs makes sure not to put on a smile or another expression, being honest works with them more than too much reassurance.

“That’s great. I’ll let you have your check-in, alright? I’ll be outside when you’re done.” Xisuma gives a nod and closes the door behind him.

Skizz sits down in the chair in front of the desk, Bdubs follows sitting right next to him.

“Sooo, Bdoubledown, how we feeling?”

Bdubs smiles, ”Oh, wonderful. I missed the stars, I didn’t realize how long it’s been.”

“That’s great, I’m glad! I think a different person would be terrified. Is everything going well with packing? You got everything?”

Bdubs sighs heavily, “I had to leave the most important precious item I have to me.”

Skizz smiles, glancing up at him from his comm.

He puts a hand to his head, like one of those mothers from those dramatic sitcoms, he wishes he had a fainting couch. “I have to leave my lotion, how will my skin stay smooth? Oh it's just terrible. How will I live?”

Skizz giggles, “What’d you leave it for?”

Saying he replaced a lot of care items with food felt a bit embarrassing. He glances at the wall trying to see if there was a better way to word it but, there really isn’t.

“...Scar’s cookies are really good, okay?”

Skizz giggles, “Of course! Of course,.. is the weight limit stressing you? I know it can be a bit jarring after a while.”

“Ah, no! No, it's alright, having to choose is a bit annoying but nothing I can’t do.”

Skizz nods, his fingers fly against the hologram as he notes stuff down, Bdubs doesn’t think he’s said anything noteworthy but what would he know?

A calm silence is held between them as Skizz sorts through files and different documents, typing a few words here and there. After a few moments Skizz looks back up at him, his eyes look guilty. Oh no.

“Bdubs, I’m really sorry to have to do this to you.”

“What? Why are you saying it like that!? What!”

He flips his hologram towards him, about twenty questions looking back at him. “Y’have to do this for me buddy.”

Bdubs groans, his head falling into his hands as he cries. “WHAT! No! I thought we were over this!”

“Yeah, it's just, Xisuma and Doc—y’know how they are—they want to be extra careful! And it’s probably good to check, a big thing is happening. You’re back in business! A lot of things can be happening in that head of yours.”

Bdubs drags his hands down his face. He glares daggers at him.

“Oh! C’mon don’t look at me like that!” Skizz pleads between giggles. “After this I’m done, I swear! No takesie backies. Promise”

Bdubs snatches the comm from him, scowl apparent on his face. Skizz only laughes at the motion, jerk. “That’s what you jerks said last time too.”

In the last two weeks, yada yada yada. A buncha who cares and whatevers, he could do these stupid things while asleep.

No, no, yes, no, yes, no, no. He does his short answers very quickly. He answers honestly, taking the time to at least read the questions over. But after doing so many times he could repeat the stupid questionnaire backwards he couldn’t care less.

“I’m done, I never wanna see this stupid thing again.”

“I can’t make any promises on that, but I’ll try my best if you try your best, okay?”

“I always do my best!”

Skizz pats his knees before moving to stand up, smile still on his face.“Sure, ya do,.. anything else you need to go over? Or can I send Zuzu in before he gets lonely? ”

“Oh yeah, of course, let the poor man in.” Bdubs waves him off, any more distractions from take off will surely break his heart.

Skizz taps his I.D and presses the screen to open the door.

“Oh? Are you two done already?” Xisuma peeks his head into the room from behind the wall.

Skizz nods, Xisuma walks in. “I think B-Town would say it wasn’t done quick enough.”

“Damn right it wasn’t.” Xisuma takes a seat behind the desk, pulling out a folder from a cabinet and sliding it over to Skizz, he rolls his eyes and begins to copy down his notes from the hologram.

“So I imagine there wasn’t anything too notable?” Xisuma looks towards Bdubs, he knows the question wasn’t really directed towards him, he’s not known for his seriousness.

“Nope! Bdoubledown is perfect for liftoff. I already sent his files off to Stacy, so as soon as we get approval for that he’s off to the stars!” Skizz smiles drops off his face as he begins to aggressively scribble out a mistake.

“Alright! That’s great. Bdubs, you feeling ready?”

“More ready than anything.” Bdubs points to the sky, a smile beaming on his face. “I’m already packed and good to go for the stars!”

He sees Xisuma’s eyes scrunch from behind his helmet. “Awesome! Let’s go down to the ship, I’m sure the others are already loading your stuff in.”

Bdubs hops out of his seat and practically skips to the door while the other two follow behind him, laughing. He taps his ID to the door and presses the symbol to open the door. Not many doors had the function, but offices and storage rooms needed the extra safety measure to be up to code. He walks down the hall and follows the signs leading to the space ship hanger loading dock combo.

He opens the door, arms wide. “Hello! Newest Supply Flier, BdoubleO here reporting for duty!”

“Bdubs! Pleasure to see you back on this side of the station!” Joe walks over to him. “The mechanics are over the ship checking it over with their doohickeys and gizmos.”

“That’s spectacular.” Bdubs takes in the sight of the hanger, of space ships mounted to the ceiling and worker bots rolling around doing simple assignments. He spots Doc next to the Navey, facing towards their newest space ship with the new state-of-the-art technology that apparently "innovates space travel.” Bdubs doesn’t know much about it, but he got trained in guiding the new systems and they’re fairly smooth, if not stiff at some times. Xisuma is already doing his rounds around the ship, checking with the redstone nerds and making sure supplies would last the four weeks to drop off. He looks around a bit more, trying to spot the other redstoners, but they’re not here.

He walks over to the Navey and tries to pick up the conversation Doc and Xisuma are having, but the subject matter is too far from his knowledge. He peeks over Xisuma’s shoulder, he’d read his files but it’s in his stupid half cursive half chicken scratch.

“Ah! Booker, Doc was just telling me how Tango and Impulse are getting the cargo over here, they already did their final checks. All I have to do is check in with Joe and Cub.” Bdubs pumps his fist and spins around, excitement running through his system. He turns back to Xisuma. “This is great. This is so great. Ohh the stars are never getting rid of me.”

Xisuma pats him on the back, eyes scrunching in a smile. Doc’s shoulders tense, a jolt of worry goes through Bdubs. Did something wrong happen? Is he ok–?

“Are you sure you’re okay? It can wait, you don’t have to go today.” Doc says, back to him, he doesn’t even have the decency to look at him, this guy! “If you’re not ready.”

“Oh, not this again. I’m plenty ready! The readiest!”

Doc turns to look at him, for the first time since he entered the hanger, he looks tired. “I know, I know you're ready Booker. I’m not saying you’re not, it’s just. First time you’ve been out alone since your… incident–”

Bdubs sighs, a loud dramatic one, and takes a few steps towards Doc to cut him off with some flair. “Don’t say it like that, you’re acting like my parents got brutally murdered or something, I’m not a baby, I’m fine!” He puts his hands on his hips, he resists the urge to stomp his foot despite all the energy demanding him too.

“But–”

Joe appears from behind the Navey–somehow–and cut Doc off, again, hah, three billion points Bdubs, negative one Doc, “Doc, I get being concerned but we’ve had about a hundred ‘what-ifs’ and ‘what-abouts,’ Skizz said he’s perfectly fine to go and Ms. Stacy agrees. We aren’t just shooting him off into space, we’re trusting Bdubs and about three different professionals to know how to keep him safe. Have some faith.”

“Yeah!” Bdubs smiles, puffing out his chest.

“I just, I worry Bdubs,” Doc lets out a breath, pulling at the fingers of his metal arm, a nervous tic, “That it won’t be as safe as we hoped. Anything—anything could happen.”

“I’ll be okay! I’ll call everyday and you’ll see my beautiful face. I'm also getting check-ins once a week while on the trip. Honestly, the only thing changing is that I’ll get some freaking space from you jerks for once.”

Doc pulls him into a hug, it’s stiff, a bit awkward, Doc is fairly touch adverse, not finding much of a use in hugs. It’s sweet. “Call me. For anything.. anything at all.”

“Will do, almost captain!” Bdubs salutes, he feels Doc laugh against him. He pulls back, holding him by the shoulders, face suddenly stone cold.

“If anything happens to you I will hunt you to the edge of the universe and back, raise you from the dead, hide all of your clocks, make you share a room with Beef until the end of your days and he will snore you right back to death.” He says, pointing a finger at his face, deadly serious, Bdubs has no doubt he would.

“Jeez! Jeez, alright, okay! I’ll be safe, promise.”

“All we ask is for one whole Bdubs back safely to us. Nothing more nothing less.” Joe says before passing him his helmet. Beef and Xisuma walk up from behind him with a checklist.

“One whole Bdubs! I can do that,” he pulls the helmet over his head, adjustes the gloves, and flexes his hands. The texture is tacky, he’d have to make new gloves when he got back, he misses his fabric lined ones. He clicks the button to flip the helmet open and plants his hands on his hips. “Anything else before I go?”

Beef hugs him, “If you die I’ll never forgive you.”

“I’m not going to die! Judas Priest.” Bdubs shouts, hugging him back. He’d miss hugs, he usually did.

Xisuma laughs before clearing his throat, “Joe, Cub? Updates on the ship?”

Cub? Where’s Cub? A voice echoes out through the hanger, he can’t quite tell where from. “It looks good, the equipment is high quality and up to date. Nothing to worry about. Looking at the blueprints, I’d suggest a few adjustments to the atmospheric engine but I don’t wanna mess with anything that’s not necessary.” A head pops out from under the ship, covered in bright blues, pinks, oranges and dust, a lot of dust. Bdubs isn’t sure what he was expecting.

Cub pulls himself from under the ship and gives a thumbs up “All set for flight.”

Xisuma checks a few things off of his clipboard. “Perfect, that’s wonderful, Joe?”

“Impulse did the software check last night.” Xisuma checks another thing off his board, Joe continues protocol. “Tango and Mumbo said the weight was sufficient for travel, including food and any other necessities. They’re carting stuff over now.”

“Splendid! Alright,” Xisuma checks one last thing off the board, before scrawling something at the top of the page, “Bdubs? Still alright?”

“Oh, oh, I’m wonderful! I’m so excited, almost a year since I’ve gone on a flight and now I get to go with all this fancy smancy tech? I couldn’t be happier, X.”

Xisuma smiles at him, it’s filled with a fondness so sweet it’s disgusting, “I’m glad, Bdubs. Do you want to see everyone before you go?” “And see a dozen other saps threatening me into safety? No thanks!” He loves them all, a lot, but seeing them all half convinced he’s going to die would turn his mostly stable psyche to dust.

Five heads turn to the door as the hanger opens, showing Tango tugging a cart with cargo piled nearly twice his height, angling himself to get some leverage. The cart is moving very, very slowly towards the ship.

Doc rushes towards him, Tango lets out a frustrated squeak. “Oh my god, what are you doing?! What happened to the cart pulley, you’re going to strain your back!”

“Zed lost the charger!” Impulse calls, clearly straining from the back of the cart. Doc moves to go help push. His mechanical arm taking the brunt of the push as he moves it towards the ship, at a much quicker speed. Tango quickly jumps on the front, trying to avoid being squished, he makes a few frustrated noises that get ignored.

“Thank you man, we were struggling.” Impulse follows behind Doc, his arm pushing far more than he ever could. “Wow, I forget how strong that arm is.”

“You’re taking me with it! Slow down, I’m going to get smushificated!”

“A minor consequence for efficiency.” Doc says, lightly strained. Tango lets out an offended gasp.

“What! What the heck!”

Doc pushes the cart into the lift as Tango scrambles to get off. He secures it to the platform and types the weight into the attached keyboard. “What type of cargo is this?”

Impulse walkes over with Bdubs following closely behind, he never realized how much went into doing supply runs. He didn’t have all this training before, just a lot of experience, and he’s fairly certain his old crew didn’t check cargo. The more he thinks about them the shadier they get. “A mix of personal items and cargo we’re trading for supplies.”

Doc types a few more things onto the keypad, the lift starts sorting through items and stacking them onto the ship.

Impulse turns to him and opens his arms for a hug. Bdubs happily accepts it. “See you soon. Two months to the Solarius sector and back right?”

“Two months or so. Nothing more than three, unless Navey gets lost.” Bdubs pulls back from the hug and crosses his arms, he readies himself, trying not to smile at his own joke. “But I’ll simply steer it back with my perfect navigational skills.”

Impulse chuckles. “I think False and Cub would be doing most of the steering. I’d say Grian but, you know him.”

“Oh, they do the steering because they know if I was doing it I’d be there in two days.”

Impulse laughs again, which, rude. And opens his mouth to reply before Doc butts in. “How much weight is the expected cargo, the amount of the ship is just at the limit.”

“Two thousand pounds–”

“Put that into normal people measurements.”

Impulse grumbles some jargon about measurements while typing it out into his comm. He rattles off the numbers, “Nine hundred something kilos, you happy?”

“Yes, very.”

“The Navey holds way more than that, it's fine.” Impulse says dismissively, flailing a hand in Doc's direction. “Unless, Xisuma didn’t double triple check, which I doubt.”

Doc calls out for Xisuma, giving him some statistics that sounded fairly positive. Bdubs resists the urge to start bouncing on his heels. He feels a tap on his shoulder and he turns towards Joe, holding a bulky folded piece of fabric, Bdubs gasps dramatically. “For me? Oh, how kind of you Joe!”

“Specially made and everything.”

Bdubs pulls on the suit over his pants and shoves his arms through the sleeves. The suit has both a zipper and a self sealing material, made to keep air in. It was important to wear the suit until he was fully out of the planet's orbit, the spaceship was pressurized and included a machine that corrected gravitational pull, but when all of those things activated it had the chance of fritzing a human's nervous system, knocking them out in minutes. Not deadly, or even particularly dangerous if you see it coming, it’s just scary and very inconvenient. Unfortunately, Bdubs is incredibly susceptible to that.

He fastens his gloves and helmet to the jacket, zipping it up and making the adhesive flush with each other, like velcro. He tugs at a few spots in the suit to let the fabric lay properly before doing a spin. Joe lightly claps at the display. Joe gives him a warm look and tells him he would see him before takeoff, he had a few more things Xisuma wanted him to check, and the sooner he did it the sooner he’d be off.

Bdubs nods to him and turns to look at the hanger again, the last time he would for weeks. The last time with the weight of the past on his shoulders. Cub and Tango are next to the ship, they both have holograms opened and seemed to be in some type of debate. He hears a few mentions of atmospheric engines and complications with mismatching parts but neither of them have crashed a ship in their twenty years of building ships so he trusts their judgment. Doc, Xisuma, and Impulse are in a tight circle comparing notes, every so often Xisuma would pass his board to either man and both of them would fight a sigh. Xisuma has never been a fan of holograms, he did all of his work on paper, to the frustration of all the other hermits, and to the delight of Grian, who can easily say he lost what Xisuma gave him.

While Doc begrudgingly writes his notes down for him, Joe walks over from the cargo bay and Impulse calls Cub and Tango over. A few words are shared, Bdubs waits, and the excitement shifts to nervousness. What if they disagree? What if they don’t think he’s quite ready yet? What if the ship actually does explode!? He rubs his hands together and resists the urge to click his helmet back down–hiding is a bad habit of his.

Xisuma turns to him, how long had he been staring? That’s a bit embarrassing. And the group walks over, they’re all smiling—oh my god it’s happening—and as Xisuma reaches him he gets a glance at the clipboard, covered in multiple different scripts and checkmarks. It’s happening, oh god, it’s really happening!

“Are you ready for takeoff Bdubs?”

His hands start moving before he can think to stop them “YES! Yes! I’m so extremely ready! You won’t believe how ready I am!”

The group starts laughing and cheering. Tango pulls him into a hug, and the group switches to a new protocol. Readying for liftoff. Bdubs thinks he might shake out of his own skin. Impulse, Tango, and Doc give him the sweetest goodbye he’s ever received, full of hugs and he’s fairly sure Doc almost cried. They leave and Cub follows behind him, wishing him luck. All the love almost makes him want to stay!

“Bdubs,” Xisuma passes him the dreaded clipboard. “Now it’s up to you to do the final checks on board.”

Bdubs happily takes it, nearly running to the ramp. Joe follows behind him, to make sure he checks everything thoroughly. He flies through the list while being sure to be thorough, he checks the medkit, closes and locks all the doors, checks that the cargo is secure and that food is up to code. A few weeks ago they checked to make sure that his ID let him access everything and that the personalized assistant understood his mannerisms. Joe walks him to the on board control room and gives him his final goodluck. Bdubs tells him that he would miss them, Joe tells him the feeling was mutual. The door closes with a final swish and he takes as deep of a breath as he can manage. He sits in the seat facing the closed hanger door and the control panel, he takes a moment to collect himself. It’s happening, out there, in space, for two whole months, after nearly two years. He did it, he’s back!

Bdubs buckles himself in, the crisp click, sealing his fate in the stars. The smile grows bigger and bigger as he hears the engine warming up, and doors automatically closing. The sounds of the ship preparing for liftoff, his hands feel jittery, he goes from rubbing them against his knees to flapping them widely. Gently whispering yes, yes, yes! under his breath.

“Hermit Control to BdoubleO100, do you hear me?” False, honestly the most reliable one in the control center, he wonders if Grian’s there. Impulse and Doc better be there, all that garbage about being safe just to go back to tinkering. His smile still doesn’t shift.

He clicks his helmet shut and presses the button to activate the microphone. “BdoubleO100 to Control, I hear you loud and clear, I feel like a nerd saying all of this junk.” False laughs, although the filter system the microphone has tried to cut it out. “Alright, Bdubs, y’ready for liftoff?”

“More than ready! Beam me up!” He raises his arms with the words, knowing they could see him through the blinking camera.

“Will do!” The speaker cuts off and Bdubs tries his best to stay patient.

After a few seconds he presses the button for the microphone, “Is Doc and Impulse there? They better be, I’d never forgive them.”

“We’re here buddy. Wouldn’t miss firing our favorite little guy into space for anything!”

“Hey! I am not anyone’s favorite little guy! I am–”

“May I remind you that these are recorded.” Doc says, although his voice sounds fairly happy.

“Party pooper.”

False’s voice cuts back in. “Alright! Ready for liftoff in control, is everything good for you BdoubleO?” He goes through his mental checklist, he is buckled, his suit is secure, and no lights are going off on the control deck. He’d shut the door for the main room and secured the cargo. He has already checked that the medkit had everything he needed. All good, he can’t stop shaking, the smile is still stuck on his face. He presses the button for the microphone. “Everything’s perfect!”

“Okay, liftoff in–”

Five

The doors to the hanger open, his smile somehow gets wider.

Four

He can see each star speckling the endless darkness.

Three

Two months. Two months to prove he can handle this.

Two

I am so excited.

One!

Have a safe trip BdoubleO, we’ll be waiting!

Chapter Text

Chapter 2: The calm before the meteor shower.

You’d think the endless black sky would get boring after a few days but after years of having one hermit or another down his back he’s come to appreciate long bouts of silence. Most of his time is taken up by statistics, check console, measure fuel, measure water reserves, count food packs and report back to base. Again, and again and again. The hermits are lucky he loves a good routine, he remembers the first time Gem went on a supply run, he’s fairly sure he listened to her cries more than he did his own work. “I’m just so bored!” “There’s nothing to do!” “I have another month of this!?” When the news got out that he’d be going on a supply run a few people came to give him condolences. And Bdubs would reply with the biggest smile that he’s never been happier!

He’s glad the rest of ‘em hate doing supply! More for Bdubs.

He loves stars and space. He didn’t study for a decade just to stay on a floating rock all day! Although he does miss building. It’s kind of the reason he’s on the supply run anyway. The hermits have the people but not the materials. Typically they use resources found on the planet and turn them into usable materials for builds and landscapes but this planet’s a bit dry. No quartz, the rock deposits it has are too fragile to use at all! And mud brinks can only get them so far. So he’s been blasted off to save the day! BdoubleO, the hero, yet again.

Maybe when he’s back he can schedule a more fun supply run, to another district, or a whole other jurisdiction! He’s been stuck in Zone Tetra too long.

He turns the little nob on the stove in the ship's common room, his meals are all prepped and dehydrated but while he’s rehydrating it he can season the living hell out of it before it reaches his precious taste buds. Some stupid space code forbids a little flavor for some reason. Doc loves it, “it’s efficient!” its torture, freak.

Lunch today is mashed potatoes, grilled chicken, and some broccoli on the side. He added cheese on his mashed potatoes and also mixed about four different spices into it. Tango told him he’s only allowed to add moderate amounts of salt when making meals, pure evil.

He hums as he mixes it, watching the pulverized potato chips turn into mashed potatoes, it kind of looks gross. He probably should stop looking at it— Bzz, bzz!

Bdubs startles, a gasp leaving him as he turns towards his comm. That scared the life outta him! He had set it to the side as he started cooking, whenever he doesn’t it becomes a mess magnet, his comm is too old to get scrubbed like it used to. He hovers over the screen trying to read the notification but it quickly disappears. He sighs, resolving to look at it after he finishes plating.

He mixes the potato goop one more time before transferring it to a plate. He rips open the tiny preportioned bag labeled “Day 5” and dumps it into the pot. Little scrunched up veggies fall in, he scrunches his nose. He pours water into it and watches as the sad little shriveled up devils it up. He misses home grown food. Maybe the Solarius station will have regular human people food– Bzz, bzz! Bzz, bzz!

“Okay, that's–” Bzz, bzz, “ridiculous!”

He sighs, dumping various spices in and probably over seasoning his veggies as he rushes to finish the focusing part.

He washes his–Bzz, bzz!–his hands. And dries them off on his shirt.

He walks to his comm and grabs—Bzz-! “Okay, okay! Alright! Judas Priest!”

He immediately flips to his messages and watches as another two messages pop up. Five from Pearl, two from Grian, and one from Doc. Goodness sakes.

Pearl Moon @PearlescentMoon

PearlescentMoon : 12:16

bdubs meeting time

meeting

are you alive?

im telling doc if youre not alive

i told him

BdoubleO100 : 12:18

GOOIDNESS SAKES!!!!!!

I’M FINE

I’m alive can’t you freaks wait a minute!

PearlescentMoon : 12:18

no

He doesn’t even dignify that buffoonery with a response, he rolls his eyes and flips to Grian’s messages.

Grian Sol @Grian

Grian : 12:17

Pearl said you might’ve died, my condolences.

I would’ve died from boredom as well.

BdoubleO100 : 12:18

I’m not dead stop it.

He huffs, two minutes! These wacks need therapy more than he does. He switches to Doc’s hoping to read a shred of sanity.

Dominykas C. Monster @DocM77

DocM77 : 12:17

Bdubs, please respond the pesky bird is already starting rumors.

BdoubleO100 : 12:19

IT WAS 2 FREAKING MINUTES

DocM77 : 12:19

What were you doing?

BdoubleO100 : 12:20

making food?? to eat????

DocM77 : 12:20

This late?

BdoubleO100 : 12:20

I wake up at 8!

DocM77 : 12:20

Ah, I forgot.

He drags his hand down his face, a groan leaving him, he resists the urge to pull his hair and turns back to his sad overseasoned veggies. He covers it with the glass cover for the pan and pulls his chicken out of the weird meat cooking machine, he’s not sure what it’s called. It’s this weird tube of hot water and you put the meat in with the specific meat cooking machine bag. It’s very strange, but it’s better than having to cook his meat til it was crispy just to be sure he wouldn’t get food poisoning in space.

Bdubs waits a few minutes before dumping the veggies over the rest of his food, not really caring much for appealing plating. He washes his hands again, wildly flapping his hands to dry them before clipping his comm back to his arm. He grabs a water bottle, shoves it under his arm, and holds his plate with the same hand. He walks to the other side of the room and places his plate on the living room table.

He sits back on the couch, taking a deep breath. They are definitely just sitting there, all hovering around Doc’s comm, just waiting for him to ring them. He almost doesn’t want to call at all, make them wait until he’s done eating. He sighs and turns on his comm, none of them has messaged him since he’s responded, thank god.

He opens Doc’s profile and presses the call button, picking up his fork and starting to eat.

It rings, and rings and– Ding!

“Bdubs, you’re alive!” Pearl’s voice comes through, loud and bright.

“Of course I’m alive! Judas Priest, a guy can’t eat!?”

Ding! [DocM77 has requested a video call. Accept?] Yes.

The screen switches to a dark panel as it connects to the camera. He takes another bite–and nearly chokes as light blue eyes fill his screen. A scream leaves him.

“GOODNESS SAKES! Can you get any closer to the camera?!”

She giggles, evil lady, and somehow gets closer. “Is this better?”

“No!”

A hand comes onto the screen, covered in freckles, he hears a squawk as they grab onto Pearl’s forehead and tug her off the screen. Dirty blonde hair and almost black eyes replace her. “Hiii, Bduubsss.”

“Hello, Grian.” He flatly says as he takes another bite.

“Glad you’re alive. Was worried something happened!”

Bdubs scoffed. “Like what? I have a moment of peace and quiet?”

“Well, I don’t know! What if you, uh, went offline, the worst thing that can happen, imagine that!”

Doc responds before Bdubs can even open his mouth. “Don’t say that! You’re going to—to speak it into existence or something!”

Bdubs and Grian laugh as he finally backs away from the camera. Bdubs lifts another bite to his mouth. “I’m fine, everything's fine. Take a breath, or fifty.”

“Does that taste good?” Grian tilts his head with the words.

“Noh.” He can deal with the overseasoned explosion but it’s mushy, he’s never been a fan of mushy. He wishes it was rice.

“Don’t speak with your mouth full.”

“Your fault for spamming me when I’m meant to be eating.” He takes another bite, and a silence is held between them for a few seconds. And then Pearl shoves Grian, and Grian shoves Pearl and now they’re both elbowing each other like two toddlers who want the same toy. He would laugh if not for the terrible mess he has to eat, he could really go for some take out right now. The altercation ends with Doc snatching the comm from them and placing it a few feet away.

“Bdubs.”

“That’s me.”

Doc lets out an amused sigh. “How have you been?”

“It’s been great! Xisuma gave me a few more tasks to do. Just general stuff to make sure everything’s going well.” He pushes his food around with his fork, trying to make a bite that tastes fairly good.

“Is everything going well?”

Bdubs smiles, rolling his eyes. “Yes, everything's perfect. I promise.”

“That’s good.” Doc untenses and takes a breath, giving him a stiff smile. Pearl jumps onto his back and wraps her arms around his shoulders. “Aw, what a softie! Who knew Mr. Evil Science guy had it in ‘em!” Pearl cooed. Doc shoves her off, and gives her an unamused huff.

“Where’s the cooler worry wart, I haven’t seen ‘em in a while.”

“Impulse or Cleo?” Pearl says, leaning back into the camera's vision.

“Cleo, I saw Impulse yesterday.” He hears the sounds of doors opening on their end, their eyes flick over to the person walking by, but no words are said. Peal leaves the field of view.

“Cleo has been a bit busy.” Doc’s eye looks away from the comm, his hands go to fidget with his metal fingers. Liar.

Bdubs raises an eyebrow. “Busy? Busy, how?”

“Ah–they-” Doc begins to speak before someone snatches the comm.

Pearl shoves her face into the camera, taking up the whole camera, again. “Ah, y’know! Projects to build, things to sew, she’s a very busy person!”

Her eyes also never look down to meet the screen. What are they hiding? When he’s thousands of miles away from base is not the time to be keeping secrets! “Too busy to see me? Last time I saw her was at take off!”

“Ah, well. Things happen! Maybe they’ll–” Grian shoves his way into the frame, now taking up all the camera in Pearl's place, he can’t tell if he snatches the comm from her or not.

“They’re all up in their head. She’s terrified for you, doesn’t want to admit it, and doesn’t want their anxiety to wipe off on you.” Grian says it very plainly, as the other two weakly complain in the back. “She’ll probably come see you once she’s not scared out of their mind that you’ll die.”

“Ah, that–that’s,” worrying, sad, frustrating, “sweet. Tell her I’m alright, okay?”

Grian nods, backing away from the camera, he definitely snatched it from Pearl. “Will do.”

Grian passes the comm back to Doc who sets it back on the table. Bdubs takes a moment to compose himself, not a time to be worried, he has plenty of time alone to be doing that! Honestly, it’s kind of funny how badly they tried to lie. Bdubs smiles smugly, he knows his hermits so well. “See isn’t it much better to be honest with the guy a million miles away from home?”

Pearl scoots back into frame. “I’m sorry Bdubs we just didn’t want to worry ya!”

“I never worry!” He hears the doors open again, this time it garners all of Doc's attention.

Pearl smiles cheekily. “Sure you don’t–”

“Impulse? Is something wrong?”

The conversation is muffed, it’s very clearly Impulse talking but he can’t understand the words, all he sees is Doc tensing and his brows furrowing before he gets up and leaves. “I’ll message you later, alright Bdubs?”

Oh, meeting adjourned. “Ah, okay. Goodnight, Doc.”

“Grian, come.” He gets up stiffly, giving a stilted wave to Bdubs as he also exits the frame. What a way to not make a guy worry.

“Is. Is everything okay?”

“I think so, Impulse said something about a routing issue? The ship had gone slightly off course, Impulse wanted to reroute it but he’s not too good at that part. It’s why they needed Griba. He also said something about a tiny connection issue? But that it was expected, so it’s not a worry, it was a whole lot at once, that’s for sure!” She doesn’t sound too sure, or worried, he’s assuming that they’re using space technology jargon that neither of them can decipher. It sounds worrying, but nothing they can’t fix. He takes another bite of his food, it’s cold now.

“I’m sure everything's alright.” Pearl says, she gives a light smile. “Ah, jeez! It’s really late. I’ll give you a call tomorrow, yeah?”

He checks the time, twelve fourty-two. “Yeah, it is a bit late, isn’t it? I’ll see you tomorrow Pearl, goodnight!”

“Goodnight Bdubs, be sure to call Impulse later! He can tell you a whole lot more than I can!”

Bdubs smiles and picks up his comm. “I’ll be sure to do that. Night, Pearl.”

“Nighty, night!”

[DocM77 has disconnected.]

Bdubs sighs. Today will be a very long day.

He continues his day as normal as he can, he doesn’t have much to do. He already did all of his Xisuma assigned chores. He has a few streaming services on his comm (he’s already watched all the movies he downloaded, trying to get stuff from the actual platform takes hours.) He has a few news feeds to scroll through but they've gotten kind of morbid lately. And maybe, he wants to talk to his friends! Is that so wrong? They just all left, left poor ol Bdubs all alone after scolding him for hours about always keeping contact. And no. He hasn’t messaged anyone he knows will be awake. And he’s absolutely not checking his comm to see if anyone has messaged him first. Why would he ever do that!

No, instead he’s on his couch–maybe pouting–while trying to find something mildly entertaining to do.

You’d think a guy who’s finally alone after having a hermit down his back twenty-four seven would be appreciating the silence. But no, not when his skin feels wrong and every other thing he does is a mistake and honestly just having someone reassure him that they didn’t leave because he’s annoying would do a world of change.

Bdubs sighs, tapping his head against the coffee table from where he’s sitting on the floor. His comm is projecting a movie he’s already watched.

He dejectedly turns to his comm, still silent, no buzzes against his arm. It’s eleven thirty-two in the morning. Work time for hermits, night time for Bdubs.

“It’s almost time to shreep..” He slams his hands against his table. “And not ONE message! These freaking people.”

He crosses his arms, he refuses to be the first one to message, now it's definitely about the principle! He stands and turns his nose to the ceiling. Fine, fine! He’s just gonna sleep, watch, he’s not even gonna care! Not one bit.

Bdubs goes down the hall huffing. He taps his ID to the censor and it- it doesn’t open the door.

“Oh, fuck off, great! Just great! Perfect.” He taps his ID against it again, it registers it, before flashing red. “Pilot J. Booker Hunderson: BDoubleO100, is not permitted to enter. Notifying ship staff.”

“What!? I am ship staff! Ship staff is me! Navey!”

[Yes, BdoubleO?]

“What the heck is wrong with the stupid door!”

[It seems someone who is not permitted has tried to enter Bedroom. Would you like me to notify space station 1028?]

“What is wrong with this thing!? No! No, freaking space station! Open the door, it’s me!”

[Apologies for the trouble, BdoubleO100. A temporary malfunction occurred, please try again.]

He groans, tugging at his hair. He taps his ID to the stupid censor again. “Pilot J. Booker Hunderson: BDoubleO100, entering.”

“Freaking, finally!” He stomps into his room and unclips his comm, chucking it at the wall and onto the charging port. He takes a deep breath and tries to calm himself. “Navey.. send a report to station 1028 on the previous incident. With the st- door.”

[Creating a report, would you like me to send the code involved with the temporary malfunction?]

“Yes? Why wouldn’t-” He sighs, it’s not worth it. Calm down Bdubs you’re getting upset at a space ship. “Yes. Please. Send it all.”

[Report has been sent.]

He lets out a hefty sigh, now far more tired than he was five minutes ago. He walks over to the bathroom, dragging his feet along the floor. This day has been truly, entirely, totally awful. He hopes to never wake again. He shouldn’t make that joke, Doc would punt him.

Maybe he wouldn’t make the joke if the guy freaking messaged him! No, no, calm down. Catastrophizing will do you no good. Even if it is kind of rude.

He inputs his preferred temperature into the keypad for the shower. It’s kind of silly, but it saves enough water that it’s worth the goofiness. He brushes his teeth while waiting for the water to heat, his mind tries to wander. To the tensing faces and the quick–unintentional–abandonment. But he refuses. He has his hygiene to worry him enough for now. And in the morning everything will be ay okay! Tomorrow is another day, the fact that he doesn’t really have a day is besides the point.

A bell chime rings through the bathroom as he Bdubs finishes brushing his teeth. He spits out the bubbles and smiles at himself in the mirror. He looks a little disheveled and a bit exhausted. But his smile is still bright and his tooth gap is still as stupid as it was when he was twelve. Cleo might punt him for that one. Good thing they don’t have to know!

He steps into the shower and all of the tension fades out of him. He sits in the shower, sue him, the weight of the world is already pressing on his shoulders he can sit a little! Beef thinks it’s a ‘depression thing’ but he simply doesn’t know the joy of not dreading a shower.

When he finishes his shower he feels a bit,.. silly.

The aggitation that he had been steddily growing dulls to a low hum. The hermits didn’t mean to upset him, it was just a series of unfortunate circumstances. Frustrating circumstances, but out of his control nonetheless.

But that door, that stupid door! It should just be regular freaking doors with hinges and no stupid panels. He’s dying on that hill now. That was stupid.

He pulls on a tower and walks back to his bedroom, pulling some pjs out of his drawer (cute little star ones that he got from a general store, Pearl loves these ones.) He dries himself aggressively, dresses himself, and practically throws himself into the bed. He wiggles about until he’s in the middle of the massive bed. He thanks Impulse every night for it.

Bdubs stares at the ceiling, it’s blank and mechanical. Covered in wiring and tubing that connects the lights and probably the water, he wouldn’t know. He kind of misses his room. Filled with plants and random junk he’s collected over the years. He can’t bring junk to the Navey. Too much unnecessary weight. Some of those stick on stars would be really nice, though. Maybe Gem would have some, her room is covered in stuff.

He should stop thinking about the hermits before he gets homesick.

He folds his hands over his stomach and tries to relax. Hopefully tomorrow will be far less frustrating. For his sake, or he may not make it back to the HermitCraft with his sanity intact.

He thinks of possible futures and stick on stars, his hermits and stuck doors as he falls asleep.

…

Bzz, bzz, bzz!

He stretches, arching his back and ruffling the sheets. Flopping over and pressing the stop button on his comm. Stupid alarms, one thing he always hates about routine. In space and on planets. Why couldn’t his brain have an alarm, he’s sure it’d be much nicer. He sighs, rubbing the sleep out of his face, he sits and stares at the wall letting himself wake up for a few moments before fully committing to getting out of bed.

He grumbles under his breath. “Alright,.. ships not gonna check itself now is it?”

Bdubs hops out of bed and pulls on his fuzzy robe and matching slippers. Clumsily strapping on his comm to his arm and hobbling out the room. He flicks on the light before pressing the button to open the door. He glances down at his arm and turns on his comm.

The screenlight nearly blinds him as it boots up for the day. Giving him the usual, “Goodmorning, BdoubleO!” that he quickly scrolls by. He makes another turn down a hall before flipping to his notifications.

Which is…still.. notably empty, huh.

No notifications? That’s,.. A bit odd. Lazy day, maybe? He fake pouts before giggling to himself, barely a week gone and they already forgot about him! He turns to the door to the storage and taps his ID against the sensor. "Pilot J. Booker Hunderson: BDoubleO100, entering.” He mocks the robot's voice under his breath as it opens. Stupid door.

He scrolls through his comm, sifting through data reports and endless measurements to find the section labeled ‘Daily Checks.’ Water is at the estimated level, food is great, he still has a bunch of puzzles he hasn’t gone through but he still has a few weeks left for that. He hums, idly typing in numbers that don’t matter much to him.

He leaves the storage facility and turns back down the hallway, leaving the storage room and running back to his room. He pulls off his hoodie and tugs on his self proclaimed “Work Jacket.” Which is just his mossy one with a nice little HermitCraft logo, courtesy of the wonderful Cleo. He confidently strides to the bathroom and brushes his teeth, he combs his hair into a presentable look and readies himself for the rest of the kind-of-day. One of his greatest joys is his cleanliness, despite his hiccups he always tries his best to present himself. He smiles at the mirror and corrects his curls, using wet hands to smooth his hair into submission. Once he deems himself up to the BdoubleO standard he starts his way down to the command center.

“Okayyy, now we check the console before night check-in, great.” He checks the clock on his comm, twelve ‘o two A.M. Check-in’s at twelve fifteen. “Right on time, yet again! Perfect, BdoubleO, as usual.”Bdubs checks his comm again. Only two things left on the ‘must be done’ list. Check the console, in-case any emergency garbage needs to be done. And finally, he needs to check-in with his wonderful Hermits, lest they think he’s dead. Those over dramatic losers.

He switches off the check-list and scrolls through his comm hovering over a social media app that he was strictly forbidden from using while working. But, a little peruse wouldn’t hurt anyone, right? He smiles evilly before clicking to the tab.

Comm is offline, check connection and try again later! Bdubs blinks. And scoffs.

“No way!”

No way the one time he wants a simple distraction the universe blocks him! No way no how! He huffs, angrily stomping down the hall as he scours through settings. His comm is old, but well-kept, he’s used to it giving up every now and again but never while on a run! That’s probably why he got no freaking notifications! This stupid hunk of junk only knows how to wake him up!

As he sorts through pages of settings he finally makes it to the door, he sighs knowing that other matters come before stupid comm glitches. Maybe Impulse could lend a hand. He’s probably awake. He taps his ID against the door. Pilot J– blah blah blah!–been there, done that.

He sits in the chair and awkwardly scoots towards the desk, he uncuffs his comm, setting it aside and flipping to the check-list again. He checks the statistics, en route to the Solarius sector, perfect. The engine is good on fuel, great. No warning lights, no detected malfunctions. He cracks his knuckles and stretches his back. Done, done, done! Nothing more but waiting. Bdubs pulls his comm onto his lap and checks the time. Twelve.. sixteen. Huh.

Bdubs brows furrow. They always meet at twelve fifteen. Always. Doc blows up his comm if he doesn’t, but his comm doesn’t have a signal so surely he should be getting a billion calls on the console, wouldn't he? He glances at the settings, he hasn’t turned notifications off, he switches to the main menu where the notification board takes up half the screen. No,.. anything. He blinks.

He changes tabs again, this time to reports. Every hour it sends updates back to the hermits. Whether it be temperature shifts or glitches, it always happens once the clock shifts hours. The screen is slow to load, he feels anxiety pool in his stomach.

It finally loads and a long list takes up his screen, half of the text is red.

Report 11:42 - Door Malefunction failed to send, try again?

Report 12:00 - Hourly failed to send, try again?

Report 1:00 - Hourly failed to send, try again?

Report two, three, four, five, all to now, all failed. Never sent in the first place. He clicks try again. It loads and loads and loads.

Report 8:00 - Hourly failed to resend, try again? What the fuck.

“Uh, Navey..”

[Yes, BdoubleO?]

“Open–uhm–Open messages with Station 1028. Please.”

[Opening messages with 1028.]

The screen switches to the logo of the HermitCrafts messaging system. It loads, and loads, and.. loads.

Until a screen pops up.

The Navey V.1.2 is offline, administer an emergency landing and contact your admin.

What..?

He stares at the words.

What if you, uh, went offline, the worst thing that can happen, imagine that!

His hands feel hot, he can’t quite think. He stares and stares and stares.

He remembers the connection issue, the tensed faces, the leaving. He turns to the settings and runs a troubleshoot. He taps his fingers against his thighs and watches the loading symbol, spin spin spin. It’s been hours. No notifications. The hermits would have sent something before they went offline, anything. It must have been off for hours, while he was sleeping, no reports, no updates. Hours, hours of no connection in the middle of space. This was supposed to be the safest route in the history of ever! No, nonono, there must be something, something.

He bolts out of his seat and pulls out the manual from a compartment just under the command deck. He flips through the contents, trying to find something that says. Hey! The ship sometimes has little disconnections! Just press the “answer to all your problems” button and everything will be alright! But nothing pops up, nothing, like nothing from his friends, nothing from his family. Just a little blurb about the ship’s flawless test runs, the infinite failsafes and back-ups. He feels his stomach flip, flawless, perfect, state-of-the-art. He turns on his comm again and opens his messages, nothing nothing nothing. It loads and loads and loads.

Comm is offline, check connection and try again later!

His hands shake as he types into the hologram. It was supposed to be a simple connection issue. He hovers over ‘Travel Statistics.’

En route to Solarius sector, Space Station 2127, arriving in approximately three weeks.

He looks at the map, no planets, stations, or common routes for many many miles. Too many for an emergency landing. Xisuma never showed him how to change course, no one did, the hermit’s were meant to, he’s stuck, he’s stuck. He tries to take a breath, even if his chest feels too tight.

Three weeks. He’s still following the route. He has enough food to last four weeks, he could double it if he eats light. It’ll be–fine–fine perfectly fine. So very fine.

He looks back to his notifications, it still loads and loads and loads. Three weeks without any communication with his friends.

Three weeks with himself for his only company.

[Troubleshoot complete.]

His head snaps towards the screen, he scrambles off his feet and reads the diagnostic.

The Navey V.1.2 is offline.

No issues detected.

Attempts to reconnect made.

No solution found.

Administer an emergency landing and contact your admin.

No issues detected, routing to nearest station.

“Oh.” He’s really stranded isn’t he?

[No internet connection found, emergency protocol activated. Reroute to the nearest station?]

“Fuck.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 3: A long way home.

Saying he’s scared is an understatement. It’s been a few weeks since he lost connection. Seventeen days, according to his comm. And Bdubs doesn’t have anything to do. He tried to keep up with his routine, but if anything went wrong he would have nothing to fix it. He scoured through the instruction book but most of it only applied to home base where control is.

He had no leads, although his search wasn’t as thorough as it could have been. The entire time he was looking his hands were shaking quite violently, he had to take multiple breaks to calm himself down and he found it hard to do anything. Except crying, at this point he cries more than freaking sleeps. Thinking about it now it’s kind of embarrassing. Looking through dusty storage containers with snot running down his face. Glad Xisuma couldn’t access the cameras to see that. Yuck!

Bdubs huffs.

But he can’t really blame himself, it’s startling how little agency he has. It’s against code to let a ‘medical hazard’ steer a ship but it's not against code to give a guy a little independence? Maybe a little leniency given the fact the ship may be more unstable then he is. If he dies he hopes the hermits sue the hell out of the ISDR. He forgets what it stands for but he knows they make and maintain all the stupid codes for ship manufacturers. Infrastructural whatever the hell. Doc probably told him, fuck he might never see Doc again. No. No, he will because he’s BdoubleO and some lousy connection issues won’t stop him from getting back. And everything will be fine and he’ll land on Solarius in a couple weeks and everything will all be fine and dandy.

He’s sitting in the bathroom, tucked behind a cabinet with his back against the wall. With the lights off. It’s how he calms down, okay? Sometimes a guy needs dark time, don’t judge him! He had finished brushing his teeth and kind of had an anxious breakdown. He’s running out of toothpaste. Not something he would typically think about, something he probably should have, it made him realize there’s a lot he probably hasn’t thought about that he might die to in a matter of weeks. Or days.

Like oxygen. Or fuel. He’s going to die, he’s going to die so quickly and it will be painful and cruel and–

He takes a breath. His nails dig into his legs, the pain distracting him from the thought. Okay, okay, nonono. Focus on other things, wonderful things, what can he focus on? Food? He hasn’t eaten today, the idea of eating something kind of makes him nauseous. Once he eats something that should go away, it usually does. Even if it sucks.

He wildly flaps his hands before he makes the move to stand. He’s shaky as he pushes himself up, his brain rushes to fill in the gaps. Maybe he’s sick, maybe the ship is poisoning him, maybe maybe maybe. He shakes his head as if to shake the thoughts away and shoves a finger in his mouth to bite on. Not helpful, not helpful at all. He’s a pilot, not a medic, focus on fixable things.

Like food, right. Back to food.

He walks down the hall to the kitchen, idly biting his hand as he turns down familiar walk ways. The habit is embarrassingly soothing, it’s something that he can’t do in front of others, lest they freak out. He tries his best to keep his head empty. He keeps repeating to himself, “worrying will not fix anything” again and again.

He makes a food packet, labeled “Day 12”. It’s not day twelve, but he’s been eating less since the whole, maybe or maybe not lost in space situation happened. Because he’s alone in space. Terribly alone. He bites his hand harder. Food, focus on food.

He preps it, not too inspired with his seasonings this time, his nausea making everything sound disgusting. It’s some type of pasta covered in white sauce. The pasta was already cooked so warming it up just makes it a mushy, very upsetting, texture.

He sets it in on the coffee table in the living room and pulls out a box of puzzles. A few hermits had given him things to entertain himself with. A fair bit of them were puzzles. Kind of boring before but now it’s his only form of entertainment that doesn’t fill him with dread. He’s tired of watching the same cheesy romcoms.

He picks at his food that tastes like cardboard with the texture of baby food, while putting all the edge pieces in a pile. He hasn’t done this puzzle yet, he found it when he was digging through storage. He dropped it a few times so he may have lost a piece or two. It was a picture of a mountain that faded into a pale blue sky covered in clouds, a very pretty picture and a very annoying puzzle. All the whites faded into the same color after flipping enough pieces. At least it’s a good distraction.

[BdoubleO, you have hit two hundred million miles from your destination.]

“Oh, jesus! Navey you scared me!”

[Apologies for the disturbance.]

He glares at the roof as if it could sense his agitation, before he actually thinks about the words. “Wait-wait, two hundred? That’s like, three days from Solarius!”

[Yes, you are three days away from your destination.]

“That's physically impossible!” The trip was four weeks, minimum. Traveling across galaxies takes time, even with the speeds that typical ships go. Three weeks is crazy,.. a bit too crazy.

“Navey, pull up the map.”

A small drone hovers down from the ceiling, he hates the stupid things, they sound like bugs. The drone projects a hologram of the map, a small replica of the ship is shown. He presses his fingers to the screen and zooms out, different known stars are highlighted.

That he doesn’t remember seeing. Shit.

He zooms out further, one hundred miles, one-fifty, two hundred. At the edge of the hologram is a space station. It’s highlighted in yellow with a dotted line heading straight towards it. The space station is the size of a planet, created around a small star and housing around half a million government officials in charge of distributing products of many different types. It’s like a space postal exchange.

He slowly gets up, leaving his puzzle and half eaten food behind, he walks down the hall with the drone following close behind. The buzzing makes his skin crawl. He enters the command room and walks to the massive window in front of the super computer. He pulls the hologram in front and looks at the stars. He finds one of the maps, Galactica 1229, he follows his finger and aligns it with the point it’s meant to be at. The spot is empty.

He finds another and repeats the process, not empty but it's far closer than it should be with the way it's measured on the map.

He does it again and again, each star not appearing or being completely different. Bdubs lets out a stuttery sigh, vision blurry.

His arm drops, he falls back into his chair. He looks at the map dejected, lost, defeated. He’s not close to Solarius. He’s not in the Solarius galaxy at all. He doesn’t recognise these stars, he’s well and truly lost. He slumps back in his chair, resting his head against the arm rest and curling his legs up to his chest.

This is how people die. Alone and lost with no connection.

He feels tears roll down his face and a sob catches in his throat. He’s lost, so utterly lost. He’ll never see Beef or Doc. He’ll never hear if Cleo ever snark him. He’ll never rag on Xisuma’s stupid clipboard. Never see how Planet HC10 looks after all of them worked so hard. Never, never, never.

He hears a ding from the computer. A pop-up has appeared on the hologram. He wipes his eyes to read it through his tears.

Navey has attempted to contact station 1028 for Code 6: Emotional Distress, attempt failed, try again?

Bdubs screams, “Fuck off! Fuck off! It’s unfair, it’s unfair. It’s all so unfair!”

He falls to the ground gripping his hair. He tucks his head into his knees, pressing his hands so hard onto his ears it hurts. Each breath he takes is ragged, tripping over his panic and tears. He’s alone, so alone. The speaker buzzes again, wretched AI rattling off some other stupid statistic. He can’t do it, he can’t, he can’t.

He wants his family, he wants his friends, he was a hug so badly. He wants to lay in his bed and watch cheesy movies and drag whatever hermit to watch it with him. He wants, he wants so much. So much he’ll never have again, fuck. They must be freaking out, tearing apart every avenue they can find just to get a trace of him while he’s stuck, so unbelievably stuck. He should've done more, he should've tried. Tried to fix things, paid more attention. Something, anything. Instead he’s stuck, so stuck. Millions of miles away in foreign skies with no hope of ever finding the hermits again. Fuck, he’s never going to see his family again. Not their builds, not their art. He’ll never drag them out of their caves for stupid crafts. To play stupid games, to do anything. He’s going to die here, cold and alone and lost. All because he couldn’t do more. All because of some stupid ship!

His throat aches from his wails, every hitched breath he presses his hands harder to his head.

“It‘s unfair. ‘s unfair. It’s so unfair.” He mumbles through tears. The speaker buzzes again.

[BdoubleO, you appear to be experiencing–]

“Shut up!” He screams, his body shakes with the words. He can’t stop crying, he aches so badly. He aches with his want, with the inevitable, he’s so stuck. “Just shut up! Leave me alone, please. Please, please.”

The speaker shuts off with a click. He shuts his eyes, the bright lights beam onto him, the stupid drown buzzes around his head, fraying his nerves as he shakes apart. He pulls on his jacket and tugs it over him, like a blanket. He covers his ears, increasing the pressure until it just edging on uncomfortable. He curls up, knees to his head, his face wet with tears and snot. Gross so gross.

He sits and wails. Cleo always joked that he cried ugly, he wishes she was here. She’d always say some weird stupid thing to pull him away from everything. They’d press a hand to his back and tell him it’d get better. They always told him that, even if she didn’t believe it themself.

He doesn’t know how long he sat there. On the floor of the control room barely holding himself together.

He thinks of his cabin, his unfinished projects. Of his horses Xisuma imported when he mentioned being bored. Oh his hermits, his wonderful hermits. He hopes they know he loves them. He thinks of his panic, the way his breaths are out of control, and he’s being too much, he’s always too much, isn’t he? What is this? Breakdown number three?

And then he thinks of nothing. A cold dull feeling settles over him.

Bdubs lets out a wet sniff as he stops crying. His breath still comes shaky, occasionally hitching and jostling his body. His face wrinkles in agitation. He tugs his jacket down onto his shoulders, pulling the hood up to cover his head. The light hurts his eyes, so freaking bright. He blinks, letting his eyes acclimate, his skin feels tacky from drying tears. And snot, so much snot.

He wipes his face with his shirt, he cringes at the feeling before looking at his tear stained snot covered shirt. He huffs, he’s been pushing off laundry anyway. He sits, simply breathing.

He hums, throat raspy. He’s tired. Melt downs make him tired. He looks at the control deck, not truly taking anything in. Unfamiliar stars fly past the glass, he never knew his doom could look so pretty.

He pushes himself up on shaky legs, feet filled with pins and needles as he walks down the cool hallway. The stark cold of metal plating helps sharpen his focus. He has a lot to do, he’s spent the last few days moping. If he dies, he can at least die comfortably. Even if he starves to death.

Doc definitely wouldn’t like that one.

Bdubs lets out a hefty sigh, following cold corradors that feel so much colder. He slides down onto the couch, his abandoned food cold, he can already feel the disgusting texture in his mouth. Puzzles still organized in neat piles, slippers left on the floor. He pulls his legs onto the couch, breathing still unsteady. The longer he sits the more he loses himself, idly picking at his nails as he zones out. He’s stuck, so stuck. Even more stuck than he thought.

Bzz bzz! He glances down at his comm, still hastily attached to his wrist. Now that he thinks about it his wrist twinges at the tightness. Text pops up on the screen, “Time to shreep!”

He sighs and picks up his spoon to finish eating his lunch.

It’s less eating and more pushing nasty sludge around on a spoon but he gets in a few bites before giving up entirely. He throws the rest into the trash, it’s fine, he’s going to die anyway and something is better than nothing. At least for now.

He stares blankly at the puzzle, he tries to put pieces together, but he’s noticeably slower. Focus keeps slipping, he keeps finding himself staring at walls. Trying to put brown pieces to blue. He fidgets with his hands, rubbing his palm and idly twisting fingers together.

He should go to bed.

He shucks off his clothes, not bothering to change and curls up under the covers. He’s not tired, not physically. He clings to his blanket, twisting it in his fingers to feel the texture. He does it in a loop, twirling it around his finger tight enough to hurt before releasing it and doing it all over again. He doesn’t know how long he sits there. He feels lost. And empty.

He glances down at his hands, still twirling the blanket. His knee aches, and his face is sticky, he’s still nauseous and everything is wrong.

But he can’t fix it, he can’t fix anything. He’s stuck, so frustratingly stuck.

He closes his eyes, and tries to lose himself in sleep instead of his own thoughts.

. . .

Bdubs takes a breath, he rubs his eyes as he watches the stars quickly going past him, each one foreign and new. He tried to pin point where he was but he recognised nothing and the map didn’t load more than a few million miles off course. He has his legs tucked up to his chest, resting his head on his knees and curling his arms around himself. He’s been doing that a lot lately. His eyes sting with each heavy blink. He’s tired enough to sleep the whole day away but sleep never comes quick enough.

It’s been a few days since his,.. episode. Bdubs is not sure if it could really be justified as an episode, especially since he knows the direct cause and knows it was a very reasonable breakdown (unlike the majority of his breakdowns). He doesn’t really remember the day much, just the mess he left the place in. Pots left dirty, clothes just on the floor, he hadn’t even showered! Breakdown him has no sense of decency. He scoffs, turning his nose up at the thought. The numbness he felt after his absolute meltdown had been welcomed but it tanked his concept of ‘hey! doing stuff is actually important!’

Now he was back on routine, even if he felt constantly away from another breakdown. And still pretty lost. Skizz said something about feelings being important, even if they’re not good ones. He wishes he could have no feelings with the productivity. Then he can die in comfortable silence instead of the blazing inferno that is Bdubs. Maybe that's unhealthy. It doesn’t feel unhealthy.

He glances down at his hands, looking at each mark and freckle. A few tiny scars from carving stone and feisty creatures. A few pimple scars. He picks at his nails, at his clothes, anything to sooth the constant worry. It doesn’t really help, but it’s something.

He feels lost. In that way you never fully feel there. He’s lost but he’s not numb and It’s this really frustrating middle ground that never fully settles, maybe if he wasn’t so lost he could find something, anything, that could help. Being stuck in his head never helps but yet he can’t get out. A spark of adrenaline, a trail to follow. It’s all nothing, nothing, nothing. Weeks of exasperated nothing. He sighs, picking at his nails again.

He looks back up at the stars, expecting more foreign shapes far off in the distance. But.. he-.. he sees a planet. He knows it's a planet, it’s not that far either. A green dot in the expanse of the stars. That the ship is rapidly approaching. That he can’t steer away from. If he had to estimate it, it’s only a few days away. Three at most. If things are functioning properly, which they aren’t. Anything could happen. He hates uncertainty, it’s awful, disgusting feelings of doom pool in his stomach at the thought. Stupid ship.

There’s not meant to be any planets on this route. Just stars. No planets for millions of miles. And the planet doesn’t look to be inhabited. It has no space stations or man-made moons. There are no signs of earthly garbage, nothing. It has a man made sun. Which is a century old device from the last millenia used to manage single planets that are often used for government projects or-.. shady business practices. Only really used if people want to be off the grid.

Shit.

The next day he holds his breath. Metaphorically of course, his lungs aren’t that strong. Each morning he checks to see if anything has changed, if they’ve finally slowed down to prep for a landing of it the Navey finally got its shit together and they turn around entirely. But the little dot in the middle of his window grows, and the next day he checks the map to see if anything has changed. He’s ran more troubleshoots, even debated with the Navey’s AI itself once, all it said was “You are not authorized to do that.” again and again, for every solution he tried to find. He feels useless, and stuck. And the stupid trafficking planet or whatever illegal fighting ring that runs it is only getting closer and closer.

Far closer than it should be. They’re nearly there.

One of the most important parts of piloting is intuition and patience. So many things could happen or go wrong, things can end up backwards or sideways or lost (like some people). But usually there are systems in place that pilots follow to keep everything on track. Common procedure is to slowly approach the planet at a tenth of the speed of travel to disengage systems and prepare for planetary discussions. Bdubs has none of that.

He can tell something's wrong, they’re moving far too fast, all systems are fully powered and the Navey still hasn’t detected the planet. The planet they’ve nearly reached.

He’s not prepped for crashes. No one is. The only person he knows that's ever been in a crash is Doc. He didn’t have anything nice to say about it. And his circumstance was so terrible it’s near impossible to recreate. Although Bdubs situation feels pretty impossible at the moment.

He’s been spending the majority of his time in the control room, as if looking about his demise would slow it. He’s eating in the control room, running to the bathroom, he’s debated dragging a few blankets and pillows in but the planet’s so close he doesn’t think it's worth it.

He can see the artificial sun in closer detail now. It rotates the planet with precise machinery pushing it. A giant ball of light with various machines circling it, maintaining it in an automated cycle. He hasn’t seen any ships fly to it, and Navey hasn’t caught any movement, not that he trusts this stupid giant flying metal casket.

He doesn’t think this planet is inhabited. It’s too quiet. When he uses the special cameras, the ones to measure stars or something, he can see clouds, structures, but no lights. Or ships leaving, or landing, nothing. Artificial suns are expensive ventures, no way in hell some group of traffickers gather enough money to make a sun without having some presence!

So it’s either an abandoned trafficking ring or a failed terraforming project. Both are terrible options for Bdubs. Both leave the planet empty of sentient life, meaning no way to communicate, leaving Bdubs just as stuck as he started.

If he doesn’t get smushed in the impromptu ‘landing’.

Now his two possibilities are what? Die from combustion or die from whatever fun stuff this planet has for him. It clearly has some type of ecosystem. The majority of the thing is covered in lovely blues and bright greens. A very inconspicuous planet. He bets it’s some boujee trafficking planet with fancy tigers and a ton of forced labour. Maybe some trillionaire bought it and invested a ton of cash only to drop it. He heard of a story like that, the story was everywhere for years. Maybe he’ll be a story.

His comm buzzes. “Time for shreep!”

Bdubs sighs. He’s been sighing a lot lately.

He’s not tired.

He doesn’t want to leave.

He’s worried. Worried the moment he looks away some ship will hijack the Navey, the moment he looks away he’s crashing towards the planet like an artificial meteor, the moment he looks away he’s truly dead.

But he swallows his worry, and his grief and horror because even if he stares, stares until the worst happens, he can’t do anything. He’s stuck. And staring at his demise will not help him escape it. The least he can do for himself is sleep.

Maybe he can sleep in his chair, to quell his worries. Maybe he can put on some cheesy movie to make it a bit easier. Maybe he can finish that puzzle. It’ll be fine, because it has to be. Because Bdubs is stuck, and he’d rather be happy. Dying sad is even sadder than dying in the first place. Common Bdubs saying! Bdubs lets out a wet laugh.

He grabs a few pillows, his nicest blankets and changes to a pair of pajamas he likes. He sets up his comm to play the same stupid movie he’s been watching the past few weeks and gathers up the half finished puzzle. It’s hard to hold all together but he can only stomach one trip around the stupid ship.

He dumps all of his items on the chair and drags a table over, he sets up his movie and pulls the puzzle pieces out. He curls up on his chair, wrapped in blankets and cushioned by pillows.

He stares at the stars as the drone of generic music plays. The planet is far closer now and there’s nothing he can do about it.

Bdubs organizes puzzle pieces and gets through another quarter of it before he gets too tired to keep going. His blinks get longer and longer. The planet gets closer and closer. He sighs, tired and fatigued. He rests his head on the armrest of the chair, legs curled up to his chest. He clicks the seatbelt on (you can never be too careful) and tries to sleep. Even if it isn't for long and anxiety looms heavy over his shoulders, he can relax, for now.

.

..

…

Doc always said you’d never really get what a crash landing was like until you experienced it, and he also would say he never wished experiencing it on his worst enemy. The feeling itself is very surreal. The feeling that there is something very wrong, and there is nothing you can do to escape it.

It was a lot at once, probably because so many things went wrong. As a pilot he’s fairly familiar with how things are meant to go. And this was wrong in too many ways to list.

For one, to land a ship it must be landing ready, especially with newer ships. Newer ships are equipped with their own gravitational pull. Made to keep everything balanced in its own routinely kept ecosystem. It starts with slowly, or quickly, depressurizing the ship before disabling the gravitational pull. The process itself takes a few hours and is still very taxing on some people. It’s why passing out is so common.

For two, you have to know what you’re landing on. Each planet has different gravitational pulls and terrain. You’ll have different speeds for landing in water compared to landing on dirt.

For three, you have to secure the ship. The ship is made to handle the pressure of landing but it’s always good to double check if things are working. Bdubs can’t count the amount of rush repairs he had to do because something or another broke while landing.

But what happens when one thing goes wrong? Or two, or three, or too many freaking things to count!?

The main thing he notices is spinning. A lot of spinning. So much spinning. He only really knows because of how blurry the scenery got outside the window. And how nauseous he got. It kind of felt like he was being pulled apart. His brain was rocked out of his skull and he was put in a blender, minus the blades.

It’s also really hot, terribly hot. There is a heater that fends off the terrible cold of space while also heating rooms, water, pipes, liquids, and him. A lot of things broke, too many to count, too many for Bdubs to fix. He heard a few things burst and metal being pried apart. And then it got cold, really quick. A lot of loud, bad, breaking sounds happened on the outside of the ship. But he wasn’t really worrying about that at the moment, he was kind of busy being blended.

There were a few more steps in the landing process he skipped. It’s not like he had much of a choice either way.

The spinning had stopped halfway through, he’s unsure if the machine was destroyed or if the ship had installed a safety feature in case of crash landings (the least they could do). He started floating away from the control deck, which was very frustrating in its own right. Apparently, in cases of extreme emergency the ship will let go of any locked features. Which would have been great, when he first saw the freaking planet! Trying to steer an out of control ship while shivering out of his own skin with gravity rebelling against you? Great, just great. Thank you so much, Navey, Bdubs really appreciates it.

He remembers bits and pieces, trying desperately to steer the ship into a graceful landing only to have one of the jets fail. Halfway through crashing his belt snapped and he was flung somewhere in the cockpit. And after that was pain, pain, pain, until his vision got spotty, and his hearing went lame, and then nothing.

His head aches. And breathing is uncomfortable, is he sick?

He knew he was going to get sick on that stupid ship, something always goes wrong.

Wait. No.

He crashed! Oh, shit he crashed.

His eyes snap open, he winces as the dark room fills with blinding red. The emergency lights. He should tell Tango to change the colors, these are not very comforting.. Y’know maybe that’s on purpose. He sluggishly pushes himself up against a wall. The movement is painful, very painful, that’s very bad.

He passed out, he’s not sure why or how far along through the whole ‘crashing on an uninhabited planet’ thing. He’s due for so many medical scans, honestly a lot more than medical scans. Also more therapy, maybe double therapy. He smiles at the thought, the movement pulls a cut on his face.

He’s laying in a pile of broken glass and thrown objects, a few pens, half burnt notebooks, and other things that got fried in the whole process. He aches, he can’t tell if it's a general ache or if so many things are aching it all blends into one. He hopes his first aid kit wasn’t fried.

A small light flickers under a bit of rubble. He lifts it, his hands feel shaky, that’s probably not good. It takes a bit of effort, his muscles feel weak, that usually happens when he passes out.

He looks under the rubble, it’s his comm, the flashlight on the back blinks on and off in a repeating pattern. He picks it up and clips it onto his wristband, which is damp. Ew.

From what he could already see he was littered in bruises and cuts. He felt warmth on his face that he assumed was a cut that hadn’t stopped bleeding. It’s hard to tell how much he was bleeding since the only light on him was red. Bright light beams in from the half torn ceiling, the half he’s not under, and he can hear rustling leaves and water dripping from broken pipes. No animals though. Probably ran from the everything that was happening.

Wow, he crashed. He really crashed. Bdubs takes a breath, tasting burning ship and ash on his tongue. And blood. Yuck. This sucks, this might be worse than just starving to death on the ship…

“No, probably not.. starving sucks a lot more..” His voice comes out, low and raspy. He pushes himself onto his feet, aching the whole way up. “Jeez, I sound awful..”

He stumbles towards the loading dock. He remembers someone mentioning that certain doors have safety features, he’s not sure which one but the loading dock has multiple exits so he’s holding out hope that one of them will work. Bdubs knee aches with each step, probably an old injury that got jostled in the everything.

He presses the button to the hall, it opens with a loud screech. At least there’s no stupid voice asking for his I.D. Thank god.

The hall is dark with the alarm lights occasionally bathing the area with deep red light. He holds the wall for balance as he makes it to the loading dock. It’s surprisingly clean, items knocked astray and a small fire in the corner but no ceiling holes at least. He could reasonably huddle here if this is a stormy planet.

He abandons the wall and walks to the door, avoiding a massive puddle of coolant or something, it looks like blood with all the evil lighting. That feels like a bad omen.

He presses the button to the door, the door beeps accepting his request before screeching open, he moves to cover his ears before it stops. Halfway to opening. There is a weak whir of machinery as the door fully gives up. Bdubs frowns, the motion pulls at the cut again. He frowns further.

He attempts to push the door up, using his arms, legs, back, everything to push it just that little bit further. His arms shake with the strain, muscles aching at the admittedly low effort task. He huffs and begins to crawl under the door. His knees scrape against jagged rocks, probably caused by the whole crashing thing. He’s never getting over that. He stumbles to his feet, knees stinging, legs weak and arms sore. Truly his peak.

Bdubs squints his eyes at the bright light, wind rushes through his hair. This place looks extremely close to Earth. It’s almost concerning how close it is. Tall trees surround him on all sides, a few got crushed underneath his stupid metal disaster. Poor things, they’re probably hundreds of years old. Destroyed by a stupid ship.

Flowers cover the ground in a beautiful array of colors. Small bugs fly to each one, none coming to be a nuisance in his face, surprisingly, he’s usually a bug magnet. Now that he looks a big closer all of the bugs are kind of gray-ish. That’s weird, maybe this place isn’t as close to Earth as he thought.

He looks around through the trees, trying to spot anything really. If this planet is inhabited, whatever governing body should be rushing to see what large waste of metal crashed onto their planet. But he doesn’t hear anything. Or see anything. Maybe it is abandoned.

He feels a buzz on his wrist. He tilts his comm up, looking at the screen.

[Hello, BdoubleO! Your C.O.M.M. failed its attempt to connect to a nearby source. Please contact the admin for the necessary password.]

Nevermind then, never let Bdubs be right, why would he ever be.

A small hologram appears, a little white arrow pointing towards the direction of the source. He should follow it, trafficking people or not. Bdubs sighs as his everything aches at the thought.

He marks this spot on his comms map, he hums for a second before naming the waypoint ‘Leprocy’. He smiles.

He starts following the arrow and readys himself for a very long day, or a few days depending how far away the ‘source’ is.

He sighs, again. He’s getting tired of sighing.

At least he’s not on the ship anymore.