Chapter Text
The Skeld was unusually quiet as Lime stepped into Electrical, a toolbox tucked under one arm. Once again, they were sent here to fix wires that refused to work.
"How does this thing keep breaking?" They muttered, staring up at the tangled mess of wires hanging from an open panel.
The lights had been flickering all morning, and nobody else seemed interested in fixing them. With a sigh, Lime climbed onto a small maintenance crate and reached into the wiring.
For a moment, everything seemed fine.
Then a spark jumped between two loose cables.
"Ah—!"
A sharp jolt shot through their hand, making them jerk backward. The crate wobbled beneath them, and they nearly lost their balance. They caught themself before falling, but their hand slammed against the side of the panel.
The lights flashed brightly before settling back into their usual glow.
Lime winced and pulled their hand back. Their fingers tingled unpleasantly, and their hand ached where it had hit the metal casing.
"Great," they groaned, climbing down from the crate. "That's definitely not supposed to happen."
They flexed their hand experimentally. The tingling hadn't gone away.
With another groan, Lime closed the panel and headed for the door. Alteast they got the job done, one way or another.
“Oh! Heyyyyy lime- woah. Your vibes are like.. totally wack right now.”
Cyan looked lime up and down. Their tense posture and strange aura produced horrible vibes which were ruining the mood of the spacecraft. This had to be dealt with.
“Lime, my buddy! You need to like really calm down. Hehe.” Cyan awkwardly gave. “Follow me and I’ll help restore your inner balance with some healing crystals.”
“Guuuhhhh” Lime gave in response right before he fell straight on their face.
“Lime???”
“Shhhh. Just.. just Shuddup- ok?” They mumbled, muffled from the floor.
Lime was obviously not ok. Their hand looked like it was dipped inside a shredder and they were extremely visibly disoriented. They sluggishly dragged their body against the cold silver ground before slipping into the nearest vent.
“Oh.. ok? S-see you around..” Cyan shyly added as they backed away from the vent.
—
After scaling the vents for some time, lime found their little hide out. They grabbed their small bottle of holy water and poured it on the wound, slightly crying out in pain.
“Ergh- cyan trying to get me to join their crystal cult huh?… ow- well not today.. cus I got JESUS with me baby!” They mumbled to themselves while cleaning the wound. Their hand stung with a lingering pain, keeping lime on their toes.
“… this sucks.”
Lime continued to crawl through the vents with all the grace of a potato rolling downhill. Their injured hand throbbed with every movement, and the holy water had only done so much to help.
The metallic tunnel echoed with distant footsteps and muffled chatter from the crew below, but Lime kept moving. They didn’t want anyone seeing them like this.
“Just a little farther…” they muttered, wincing as their hand scraped against the
vent wall.
They rounded a corner and paused when light spilled through the grate beneath them. Voices drifted up from the room below.
The Captain’s room.
Lime carefully peered down through the vent slats. Red was inside, standing beside the navigation table with a very serious expression, playing some type of dating sim. The room was dim except for the glow of holographic screens reflecting off Red’s visor.
Lime tried to keep crawling quietly past the opening.
The vent creaked.
Red’s head snapped upward immediately.
“Lime?”
“…No?” Lime answered weakly.
A long pause.
“Lime,” Red repeated, this time with a tone of seriousness “Get down here.”
Lime sighed dramatically and pushed the vent cover aside. They dropped into the room with a harsh thud and nearly stumbled forward before catching themself against the wall.
Red stared for exactly two seconds before noticing the injury.
“What happened to your hand?”
Lime groaned
“Electrical and I had a… spiritual disagreement.”
“Lime.”
“Fine. Wires sparked. I got zapped. The panel won.”
Red walked over and grabbed Lime’s wrist before they could pull away. The skin around their hand was red and irritated, with a few small cuts from the panel casing.
Red swiftly turned around and open a book of some sorts, quickly flipping pages and scanning words.
“Uhhh.” A dramatic pause. “You need to go to MedBay.”
“I cleaned it already.”
Red stuck his visor into the book again.
“With what?”
Lime hesitated. “Holy water?”
Red slowly released their wrist. “You poured holy water on an electrical burn.”
“It was blessed by yours truly.” Lime said proudly.
“Um. Preeetty sure that’s not how medicine works.”
Lime looked genuinely offended. “Agree to disagree.”
Red pinched the bridge of their visor in visible annoyance. Bastard wants to get back to their little game huh?
“Lime, listen to me. You’re disoriented, your hand is injured, and you nearly fell out of a vent. Fix yourself up before orange comes in here and files a HR incident report and go to the doctor right now.”
“HR? For getting electrocuted?”
“I dunno. Orange would say ‘For refusing medical treatment after getting electrocuted’” Red mocked.
Lime opened their mouth to argue, then closed it again when Red folded their arms.
“…You’re serious.”
“I’m the captain. I’m always serious.”
“…”
“I am?!”
For a moment the room was quiet except for the hum of the ship’s systems. Lime eyes immediately went to the dating simulator red was playing. The character looked like red if he had REALLY big boobs. Weird.
Lime then looked into their hand, flexing it, and in return, aching. They grimaced.
“MedBay is all the way across the ship,” they complained.
“I know.”
“And Blue’s probably on shift there today.”
“Yes.”
Lime looked away a little too quickly.
Red noticed immediately. “Ah.”
“Ah what?”
“That’s why you’re hesitating.”
“It is not.”
“You’d rather crawl through vents with a damaged hand than talk to Blue.”
Lime’s visor practically reflected panic.
“I’m leaving now.”
Red stepped aside and stood in front the door. “Buddyyy, you got a little crush on blue? Very reasonable. I won’t tell anyone!”
“You really think I could have a crush on the devil incarnate? I know the bastards gonna make me spit in a cup to steal my DNA to make a doppelgänger of myself to preform weird medical experiments on and then-“
“Yeah yeah I get it, just go.” Red deadpanned
Lime muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “traitor” and shuffled toward the exit.
Just before they left, Red added more quietly, “Blue’s a medic, Lime. They’ve seen worse than a fried hand.”
Lime paused at the doorway, then groaned. “That’s not what I’m worried about.”
Red almost smiled. “Go to MedBay.”
Lime finally obeyed, trudging into the hallway with sore feet, a throbbing hand, and the growing realization that avoiding Blue was probably impossible now.
—
“Oh god.” Was the only thing Lime could say while standing in front of medbay. Lime has never trusted healthcare in any way their whole life, but this distrust was for a different reason.
“I hope blue ain’t a snitch.” Lime muttered.
Some hours before, Lime, Purple, and Cyan were busy with.. things.
~
“Oh you hog, cmon and pass it.”
“I’m just making sure I’m savoring it all duude!”
The trio bickered as quietly as possible in a small corner O2, hoping the fresh air could clear out the fumes they produced.
“Can y’all shut up before we get caught? Where’d you get this stuff anyways Lime?”Purple questioned.
“Oh! I made it all myself. I always do. If you ever catch me using weed that was not made by my own sacred hands, kill that person. It’s probably an alien trying to get you to do some dirty stuff with them. Well, that’s what I know from experience.” Lime gave with wisdom in his heart.
“Dutifully noted.” Purple sighed. “Where do you even grow the plants? Someone would have noticed. And how did you get it on the ship?” Purple asked, taking the joint between their fingers.
“I grow it in my safe sanctuary in the vents, there’s a real open space where I keep my stuff. They are a cute addition to my little alter I made. I wrapped the whooole area in aluminum foil so no one could detect it so obviously no one knows.”
“Right rightt.” Purple exhaled, clearly out of it.
“Guys!” Cyan interrupted, “I think we should step it up a notch or three”
Cyan open their backpack just for a small bag with an extremely suspicious white powder inside to plop out onto the floor.
Purpled gasped. “Oh yeah! Count me in.”
“Oh hell no. Cyan.. what the FUCK is that??”
“No clue. So let’s find out!!”
‘They are so fucked’ was the only thing Lime said while purple and cyan took turns sniffing what looked like a grandmas ashes.
~
“Oh God.”
Lime stood frozen outside MedBay's automatic doors.
The bright white lights inside felt less like a medical facility and more like an execution chamber.
The injury on their hand pulsed angrily beneath the bandages they'd slapped together in the vents. Every heartbeat sent another wave of pain through their arm.
"Maybe it'll heal on its own."
Lime took a step backward.
"Yeah. That's usually how bodies work."
Another step.
Then Red's voice echoed through their head.
*Go to MedBay.*
Lime groaned.
"I hate authority."
The doors slid open automatically.
"...I hate automatic doors too."
For a moment, Lime just stood there staring inside. The room was spotless. Too spotless. Everything was organized into neat rows of equipment and tools.
Needles.
Scanners.
Medical monitors.
Machines that made beeping noises.
Absolutely not.
Lime slowly began backing away again.
Then the pain in their hand flared.
"OW."
With a defeated sigh, they shuffled inside.
Blue was sitting at a workstation reviewing medical reports. They looked up when the doors opened.
"Oh, hey Lime."
Lime immediately forgot how to speak.
"..."
Blue tilted their head.
"You okay?"
"Yep."
"No."
"Fair."
Blue stood up.
Only then did Lime actually look around the room.
Bad idea.
There were medical supplies everywhere.
Cabinets.
Surgical equipment.
Sterilization tools.
One machine looked like it could remove a person's skeleton like tender meat on a bone.
"Nope."
Blue blinked.
"What?"
"Nope."
Lime turned around and started walking straight back toward the exit.
"I'm leaving."
"Lime."
"Nope."
"Lime." Blue repeated with more urgency
The doors were only a few steps away.
Freedom was so close.
Blue quickly reached out and grabbed their wrist.
Unfortunately, Blue grabbed the injured hand.
Lime froze.
A sharp sting shot through the wound.
"OW-"
Blue immediately let go.
"Oh! Sorry!"
Lime swayed.
The room suddenly felt very far away.
Blue's voice sounded weirdly distant.
"...Lime?"
The medic's expression shifted from confusion to concern.
"Lime?"
Lime tried to answer.
Instead they mumbled something completely incomprehensible.
The floor tilted.
"Oh that's... probably not good..."
Their knees gave out.
Blue barely had enough time to catch them before they collapsed face-first onto the floor.
"LIME?!"
The medic lowered them onto a nearby bed as alarms on the scanner immediately began lighting up.
Lime's eyes fluttered half-open.
"...tell Red..."
Blue leaned closer.
"What?"
"...HR can suck my..."
Then they promptly passed out again.
Blue stared.
"...Yeah, that's definitely a concussion.”