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Swansea curses and yanks his hand away from his work.
Daisuke’s eyes dart from the wicked curl of exposed metal sticking out of the back of the cryopod to Swansea’s bloodied hand and back. “You, uh, you should have Anya look at that, boss,” he says, voice shaking and ever so slightly tentative. “An infection would be… bad.” The kid looks vaguely green, but also like he’s trying to hide just how much the sight is affecting him. Damn useless kid, Swansea thinks fondly.
“Damn thing’s probably filthy,” he grumbles in agreement, turning his hand to study the gash. About an inch long, the skin on either side jagged from the way it tore, and slowly oozing blood. At least it’s his off hand, but as a mechanic he needs both hands more often than not. What a goddamn pain.
He’s been looking for an excuse to talk to Anya, sure, but this wasn’t exactly what he had in mind.
“Don’t touch that,” Swansea says, pointing firmly at Daisuke, who snatches his hand back from where it was reaching for the ever-so-slightly bloody bit of metal. “In fact, don’t touch anything. Go sit at the desk and read that manual I told you to.”
“Aw, but boss,” Daisuke whines, seemingly already over his bought of queasiness. “I’m sure I could fix it.”
“No,” Swansea snaps, then sighs a little when the kid’s face falls. “Look, the last thing Anya needs is to look after two idiots who got themselves injured on the same thing,” he says gruffly, looking away from Daisuke’s brightening expression. “You sit, and you stay out of trouble, and maybe, maybe, you can help me when I get back.”
“Sounds good!” Daisuke practically chirps. It’s almost impressive how high the kid’s voice can get without breaking.
Swansea watches with narrowed eyes as Daisuke deliberately circles around the utility room and makes a show of sitting at the desk and pulling his copy of the ship’s repair manual towards himself. With one last glare, Swansea turns to leave.
“Say hi to Anya for me, boss!” Daisuke calls after him, and Swansea waves him off with his uninjured hand.
Curly and Jimmy are both in the cockpit, thankfully, so Swansea doesn’t see anyone as he walks through the halls the long way around the lounge. He can admit, if only to himself, that he’s avoiding being alone with either of them. Jimmy for obvious reasons — he may have a plan but that doesn’t mean that he won’t snap and break the asshole’s jaw the moment he opens his trap. Curly, though… even 95 percent sure that Jimmy was the one to cause the crash and then lied about it, it’s just plain uncomfortable to be around Curly. Swansea is pretty good at separating reality from memory, when he’s sober at least, but he still has trouble looking at the man, whole and hale and absolutely fucking useless, without thinking of the all-but-corpse he became. It doesn’t make for pretty thinking.
The door to medical is open, and Swansea makes sure his steps are loud enough for Anya to hear his approach. She’s over by the sink, and as he walks through the door she turns. There’s a faint smile on her face that becomes slightly wider and much warmer when she catches sight of him.
“Swansea,” she says. She takes in the way he’s carefully holding his hand elevated, and her expression fades to something closer to but not quite a frown. “What happened?”
“Oh, you know, was trying to do my job and caught my hand on something sharp,” he grumbles, holding it out for her to see. Her hands are warm and careful as they gently grasp the inside of his hand, pulling it closer so she can study the damage. Swansea only winces a little. “No disinfectant down in utility, you know how corporate likes to make you hoard it.”
Anya’s smile returns, wry. “Everything in its place,” she agrees, and tugs him towards the sink. He goes easily. “It doesn’t look too bad, I think we can get away with just cleaning it out and bandaging it. No need for stitches.”
Before he can realize what she’s doing, Anya has his hand under the faucet and turns on the hot spray. Swansea isn’t proud of the way he instinctively jerks back, but despite her appearance Anya’s grip is strong and his hand barely twitches in place.
“Sorry,” she says softly, but Swansea waves her off.
“Nah, should have been expecting it,” he says. “Just be glad it’s not the kid, he would have torn his whole hand off. Damn fool.”
Anya giggles, a short bright sound. Swansea hasn’t heard her laugh in far too long. She’s so much brighter now than she was, even shortly before the crash. Of course, Swansea knows who’s to blame for that. But he has a plan.
He’ll fix it.
Anya releases his hand and turns towards the cabinets over the sink. She pulls out a clear, rectangular plastic bottle, and Swansea’s eyes catch on it.
He’s been trying not to think about the fucking cocktail. He’s been avoiding thinking about it, because if he thinks about it he’s going to seek Jimmy out and tear him to shreds with his bare hands, and while that would feel good, that would feel absolutely fucking amazing and would solve so many issues, it might possibly bring up more issues than it solves.
How the fuck could Jimmy be so damn short sighted, so narrow and negligent and just plain stupid? Everything that had happened was just that asshole trying to ’fix’ whatever mistake he’d just made only to make another and another, compounded by his cruel and thoughtless actions.
Of course, Swansea was the one who drank the damn thing. Who didn’t pay attention to the shifty-scared way Daisuke was acting, who didn’t think of the many reasons not to trust that flea-bitten whoreson there were even then, who straight up ignored the too-bitter taste of the drink the moment it hit his tongue.
Once he’s done tearing Jimmy to pieces, he’ll have to give himself a turn.
“Are you okay?” Anya’s voice breaks into his thoughts. He blinks hard and tears his gaze away from the bottle of rubbing alcohol to look at her worried expression.
“Yeah,” he says, rough, then clears his throat. “I’m fine, just thinking.”
She raises a brow at him, but doesn’t press. Instead, she opens the bottle and snags a square of gauze from the counter. “This is going to sting,” she says, wetting the gauze.
She’s right, it does sting. It stings quite a lot, actually, but the pain snaps him out of his lingering thoughts, so at least there’s that.
When she’s done, Anya waves him towards the cot. “I’ll have to wrap it,” she says as she puts the rubbing alcohol away and rummages through the cabinet. “You work with your hands enough that an adhesive bandage will come right off.”
“Aw, no bandaids with cartoon characters on them?” Swansea snarks, settling into the cot and very determinedly not thinking of what he saw the last time he was in here. His eyes want to linger on a spot on the floor, but he forces his gaze back to Anya, alive and smiling and turning away from the cabinet with a roll of gauze and some medical tape in hand.
“Pony Express doesn’t make bandaids with Polle on them yet, alas,” she says, humor lacing her words. “You know as well as I do that that’s all they’d let us stock if they did.”
Swansea snorts. “Don’t give them the idea,” he says. “They’ll go through with it.”
Anya giggles. “That sounds like a threat,” she says, and walks over to stand in front of him.
“Good. It was supposed to.” He holds out his hand and she catches it, gentle. She wraps the gauze around it deftly, and watching how sure her movements are he wonders how he could ever be so blind as to dismiss her and all of her experience. He wonders how he could have been so damn stupid to have what was happening shoved in his face and choose to turn back to his ignorant drunken stupor.
“Anya,” Swansea says quietly as she finishes taping down the loose end of the dressing. She pauses, then lets go of his hand and meets his eyes. The words he wants to say fall out of his head.
“Swansea,” she replies after a long moment of silence, lips still curled in a faint smile.
He looks down, flexes his newly-wrapped hand. It only twinges a little, and he clenches it into a fist in his lap. “Look, I know what I am,” he finally forces out. “I’m a gruff, mean old man who says things he doesn’t mean and pushes people away. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone like you, the only woman on a ship full of men, was a little scared of me. Or at least wary.”
Swansea meets her eyes again, and the humor is gone from Anya’s face. There’s something guarded there, now, something uncomfortable.
“I just want you to know that if there’s anything you want me to know, anything you want to say to me or you want me to do, I’ll listen,” he continues. “You and I, we’re the only two on this hunk of junk with our heads on straight, I think. And if our heads start coming loose this whole thing’s gonna come apart.”
“Curly’s head not on straight enough for you?” Anya asks, an attempt at a joke to lighten the suddenly heavy air.
Swansea grimaces. “He’s friends with Jimmy,” he says, words too weighty to play off as a joke. “I don’t think anyone who likes that bastard can be counted as having sense.”
Anya jerks her face away, but Swansea can see the way she abruptly pales. Her knuckles go white from squeezing the gauze too tightly. They sit in tense silence for a long moment.
The moment breaks when Anya abruptly moves towards the cabinets. “What brought this on?” she asks, voice tight in a way that means she’s probably trying to keep it from shaking.
Swansea looks back at his neatly bandaged hand. “Daisuke was afraid of me,” he says lowly. “I know what I am but I don’t like when people who don’t deserve it are scared of me. I’m just… not always good at showing that I’m not someone you need to be afraid of.” He shrugs. “Plus, I’ve got a daughter. I know the world can be a horror show for women at times.”
Anya’s movements are deliberate as she puts the gauze and tape away. She closes the cabinets firmly and lets her hand linger on the handle for a moment. Finally, she asks, “People who don’t deserve it?”
Swansea grins, all teeth, and is faintly glad that Anya’s back is still turned. “There are some people who really should be afraid of me. If they’re not, it’s their problem.”