Work Text:
Rocky is working with a new strain of xenonite. He’s been at it for hours. The clink between his fingers as he weaves is the only thing disrupting the silence. Clear, lithe. Like a suncatcher, the xenonite swallows light and spits out rainbows, projecting colour against the white walls. I can’t take my eyes off it.
He drops another finished shard onto the ground. It clatters, then stills, catching the glare of an overhead LED and reflecting colour onto the ceiling.
Rocky keeps weaving. The clinking of his fingers. I hover my hands over the keys of my laptop. Pixels blur in front of my eyes. I readjust my glasses. Clinking. Light against shards, the clink of a handle being pulled down. Light from the windows stretches into the room, reflecting off the viewing glass of the door. It’s trapped inside when Lab Coat shuts the exit.
“Please stay calm.” I forget that sentiment immediately.
Straat stands up, casting a shadow over the desk between us.
My chest tightens and an involuntary chuckle escapes my throat, “What is this?”
“Mission plan will state we induced your comma early to maximise your safety,” she looks down. Her next words are lost on me. “You will be remembered as a hero.”
“Come on, this is crazy–”
“I have to do it.” Her chin brushes against her turtleneck as she speaks, and suddenly, my throat, bare and framed by yellow fabric, feels far too exposed.
I lean forward, looking up, trying to appeal to her senses. “You’re not–”
But her lips are pursed and her eyes solemn. I sit up in my chair again.
“Come on… What are you doing?” My legs feel shaky as I try to–
“What is Grace doing, question?”
There’s a lump in my throat. I lift my head from its bowed position over my screen.
“What?”
“Grace heart rate faster than normal. What is Grace doing, question?”
“I’m not–” My voice squeaks, I swallow the built up saliva on my tongue. “I’m not doing anything. Just… daydreaming.”
“Grace heart not beat this hard when doing nothing.”
“Don’t make this harder, please.”
And I’m backed up into a corner. Literally. My heart is beating so fast and it feels like I should be doing something, so I grab the chair in front and push. It collides with one of the guards. I jump, hit my back against a shelf. Find my footing and lift up.
Arms reach towards me. Two pairs, the chair did nothing. I look down at the table between me and the door to see a briefcase. Clinking. Light against shards, and the clink of a latch being flipped. The briefcase opens soundlessly. Light through glass. Light reflecting off the tip of a syringe.
I am on the Hail Mary, Rocky’s voice distant in my ears, an unprocessed sound. I am in Straat’s office, she tells me to sit, and an hour ago I would’ve. I want to, still, but I raise my arms and use my words yet the guards are reaching for me still. The doctor is filling the syringe, and a part of me says to run. So, I run.
Someone tries to grab at me from behind, clipping my raincoat. I stumble, my knee hits the ground. A carpet burn against my thigh as I crawl back up to run. My leg burns warm.
A laptop hyperventilating heat, seeping through my pants into my skin. My head aches.
“Sorry, Rock. Say that again?”
“Grace not listening to Rocky. Grace leaking.”
I trace the little indents on the f and j keys. My mind feels frozen, but somehow, my hands find the edges of the device and lift it onto the table. I know how to switch Mary onto manual, but can’t seem to switch myself off autopilot. A droplet lands on my index finger and I rub the salty water against my thumb.
“Grace not hearing Rocky again.”
“No, I hear you, bud. What’s up?”
“Rocky ask the same thing.”
“Oh, um–”My eyes start to unfocus again, I try forcing them to clear. “You’re asking…” There’s mud in my brain. “You’re asking me what’s up?”
“Grace is leaving again.”
And I don’t know what he means, but I don’t have time to think about it because I am running. Kicking up the ground, swallowing dust as I wheeze in deep breaths. I’m almost at the chain link fence. I can see the great beyond through it. The nearest police station is miles away, but if I just keep going, it won’t matter where I’m running to. With blood in my temples and adrenaline in my veins, running for days on end feels like the most realistic goal in the world.
There’s a metallic taste on my tongue and I’m almost at the edge. I can already feel my fingers wrapping around the wire, arms scratching against the barbs adorning the top. The pain of vaulting over a fence sounds blessed right now. Pain releasing emotions bunched in my chest; like a pinch being worked free, like turning myself inside out. There’s electricity buzzing underneath my skin and I’m almost at the border. Air is knocked out my chest.
I scramble up from the chair, only to sit back down on the floor. I can’t breathe. There’s no oxygen in the room. There must be a leak on the ship. My voice crumbles in my mouth, and the only sound that comes out is a low uncontrollable whine.
“Grace is hurt. Rocky fix fix fix,” Rocky scrambles around me. Hands trying grabbing for my clothes through a xenonite barrier. I dip forward, pull at the hair on the back of my head. “Rocky get Armando, question?”
“No!” Armando with his needles and restraints flashes in my mind. “Rocky, please, no…”
“No, no, no, Armando.”
“No Armando,” I shake my head.
Rocky guides me to lean against the table leg, “Grace sit.”
Sit down and we do it differently.
Rocky’s ball is pushing me back, pinning me. Pressing against my chest. “No! Stop, don’t!”
I try to push myself back up again, my palm slips across a rock with a wet squelch, releasing red. I try crawling forward but a foot lands square between my shoulders. My face is pushed into dirt. Mud between my teeth, gravel digging into my cheek. My yell is stifled by a guard grabbing the back of my collar and slamming me back into the ground.
My body is screaming, packed with adrenaline, trying to reach out to the great expanse of field. And when my limbs are pinned – one arm folded against my lower back, another clinched down beside me – even then, my muscles twitch and spike for movement.
“No! No–” my voice cracks, throat hoarse. I drag the word out, like a howl, an animalistic whine, “No…!”
A hand against the back of my neck and I think back to Straat’s turtleneck. What a dumb thought to have. They’re pulling me apart, trying to expose flesh, laying me bare for picking, and all I can think of is a sweater. Calloused hands grab at my shoulder, my neck. I bury into myself. Kick against the guards holding me down.
“Don’t do it! Don’t do it!”
A flash of light, light against a shard of glass, filtering through sedative liquid behind lines and numbers. A white lab coat, billowing as it crouches down. I grunt. I scream. I flail.
“You’re murdering me!” my voice trembles, my body shakes. “Please…”
I let out something between a scream and a groan as one of the guards claws into my hair and pulls my head to the side. With my skin alight and buzzing, I hear the thud before I feel the needle in my shoulder. Cold seeps in.
I look up through blurry eyes. “You’re killing me…”
They get up. We all know it’s over. Yet, I still close my fist against the yellowed reeds. Dead grass, hold me down, pull me into you. Don’t let them take me. Fibers rip and my fingers grow weak as they pull me up again. Blood from my cut palm stains the reeds left behind, a stark contrast against the faded yellow.
Will I regret running when I wake up? Regret bringing on this feeling of being crushed under the weight of another’s body? Or will my lack of compliance spark pride somewhere in my chest? If I am to be grabbed by the neck and dragged onto a ship, if I am to be strapped down and stuffed with wires, at least I can say that I struggled against my leash.
Movement fleeting, muscles falling asleep. My head drops. My eyes turn to the sky. Tears stream down my face, causing dust to turn mud. A strip of colour breaches the flow.
Reflected in my pupils, an iridescent band against blue. Perhaps in another universe, this would be the only line across the sky. Yellow, green, indigo. I can’t take my eyes off it. The last thing I’ll see of earth, and it’s every colour combined. A gift. God is bidding me farewell.
They drag me up and I’m finally still. My head tips back with a lack of sensation in my neck, and with gravity collecting my tears, I can see it even clearer. I never want to take my eyes off it. The rainbow in the sky.
The rainbow on the ceiling. Rocky stands six feet away.
I reach out to him. He runs forth, barreling into me.
“No! Rocky, no…”
Rocky steps back again.
One arm crossed over my chest, I reach out again. He comes slowly this time, tentatively, reaches his hand through malleable xenonite to place it in mine. I close my hand over his. Melt.
“Grace want hug?”
I shake my head. It helps free it of cotton. “Not right now.”
“No touch, question?”
“No touch, statement.”
He walks to sit beside me. At some point, I seem to have backed up against a wall, and the comforting cool of metal soothes me. Rocky leans against it a bit to my left. We spend a moment just breathing. My gaze trains back onto the rainbows on the ceiling. I shut my eyes.
Rocky is unusually quiet. I must have scared him, I’ll need to apologise later. He’ll want an explanation. An explanation I don’t know if I can give him. My words would fail and I wouldn’t know where to start the story. Distantly, my own mind echoes the events with a dose of shame. Maybe he’d judge me. No. I shut that idea down. That’s my own voice speaking back at me, not Rocky’s. I sigh.
I hear Rocky shifting beside me, clicking softly. It’s a calming sound, drowns out Straat’s voice still fresh in my mind. I hug my knees to my chest. I have no shame crying, and now finally, a sob escapes me. More. They rack my body, shaking my frame. Phantom pains of hands in my hair and my chest flush against the dirt. Rocky sits quietly until I’m done.
I sniffle. I reach out to him again, placing my hand against his xenonite ball. The scar across my palm itches. Rocky, very slowly, places a hand against my own. He taps against the xenonite. Small shockwaves travel up my wrist, grounding me. I let out a breath I’d been holding in for way too long.
“What Grace need, question?”
“Stay,” I whisper, adding a soft, “please.”
“Grace lied. Not daydreaming.”
I let out a chuckle. “No.”
“Grace day nightmaring.”
I laugh at that, a proper laugh. Mixed with tears and snot, sure, but a laugh all the same.
“It’s better now that you’re here,” I say.
“Rocky watch Grace sleep. Rocky watch Grace day nightmare too.”
A smile tugs at my lips and warmth blooms in my chest. I put my hand against my heart to trap it in. More droplets kiss the ground. “Thanks. Actually, that would help.”
Rocky inches closer. I let him. My pulse slows down and fatigue rolls over me. I lean into it.
Everything I’ve been through has led me here to this moment where colour paints the walls and my friend leans against me. Rocky’s new xenonite is beautiful. Colour like sunshine reflecting off the sea. Colour like a close up of the moon. Two things can be true, I think. The sky through tears. LED’s through xenonite. Maybe one day rainbows will remind me only of the latter, and the syringe in my shoulder will be a memory not worth fretting over.
But for now, I’ll make a list of all the beautiful ways light shines through glass and focus on the warmth seeping through the xenonite surface I lean against. For now, I’ll close my eyes and let the adrenaline crash consume me. After all, Rocky will watch me sleep.