Chapter Text
Death, this is a word that many don’t like to hear, especially when you’re on a ship in the middle of space. So, when one of the crewmates onboard split in half out of nowhere, it's hard to trust anyone around you.
Lime knew that they couldn’t trust anyone from the start.
They couldn’t let their guard down, and now that someone had died right in front of their eyes, that just proved their point. They couldn’t trust anyone.
Well, maybe they could trust someone on the Skeld.
Blue, who at this moment, was in medbay along with Red, Orange, and White's very dead corpse. Everyone else stayed in the cafeteria making up theories and waiting for any news about the situation that unfolded right in front of their eyes.
After a long moment, the 3 from medbay finally appeared again, informing every crewmate that White had passed away peacefully from an industrial accident. However, Lime wasn’t going to believe that! Not one bit.
Red explained that everyone had to get a body scan in medbay, to which Lime immediately declined. They weren’t gonna let that happen to them! That was the one thing they were gonna avoid as much as they could. So, they scurried back to the vents, the one place they spent most of their time in.
There was no one to disturb them and no one to talk to, just them, the vent walls, the totally real gremlins who definitely lived somewhere in those filthy vents, and the muffled voices they would hear from different rooms in the Skeld.
It was safer to be in those vents than anywhere else on that ship, so that's where they decided to spend most of their time.
After they stayed in the vents for a while, hearing hushed voices from above, they suddenly heard a voice they couldn’t mistake for anyone else on the Skeld.
The doctor.
“And now it’s time to look a gremlin right in the eye!”
That sentence immediately made Lime rush over to the medbay vent.
“Don’t do it! You’ll fall in love!”
The moment Lime focused their vision, they saw Blue kneeling in front of the vent, thanking them for scaring the gremlins away.
But the moment Lime tried to leave, Blue stopped them in their tracks, and asked them to do their scan, which Lime obviously refused to do.
But, after a lot of convincing from Blue and a bit of swooning, Lime finally caved in.
“Fine! Swoon, swoon, swoon! But I’m watching you shred my scans when yer finished…”
They had agreed to do that information-stealing body scan.
* * *
Lime stood on the platform, arms stretched out wide as instructed to do so.
“How long is this scan gonna take?”
Blue wrote something down on their clipboard, then looked up at Lime.
“It should be done in about a minute or so. I apologize if this is taking up any time for you to do your own tasks.”
Lime shook their head.
“Nah, I don’t have many tasks today, already did some of' em.”
After a moment, the scanning stopped.
“You can step off now, thank you for stepping out of your comfort zone for this Lime.” Blue’s visor widened into an obvious smile.
Lime grumbled, feeling a sense of heat spread across their face as they stepped off, hands crossed over their chest.
“Ya better keep that promise to shred the scan once yer finished.”
“I would never lie or keep any information from you Lime, never in a million years.”
Then, Blue walked over to the printer, which was currently printing out a report from the scan. After a couple seconds, it finally finished printing. Blue picked it up and looked at the information on the white paper, nothing looked wrong. They also seemed healthy enough, which Blue was glad to know.
Lime looked over, curious as ever.
“So what does it say?”
Blue looked over from the report, walking over to Lime and passing the paper over to them.
“You can take a look if you’d like.”
Lime looked at the piece of paper, before taking it out of Blue’s gentle hands, and focusing on what laid upon the form.
The paper showed a scan of their silhouette, with one bone in the middle, along with other information to the side of the document.
Blue observed Lime as they read the information, mumbling words that were too quiet for the doctor to hear.
After a moment of letting Lime read everything that was on the document, Blue spoke up again.
“Your scan seems completely fine, you’re nice and healthy Lime.”
“Even though I have squish-bone syndrome?” Lime looked up from the paper to stare at Blue, a hint of curiosity across their face.
“Squish-bone syndrome isn't common, but it isn’t uncommon either, and it wouldn’t affect your health at all,” Blue reassured Lime.
Lime handed the report back to Blue, their hands slightly grazing. It was only for a second, but Lime still felt embarrassed.
“When can ya get rid of it then?” Lime asked as Blue walked over to their desk, setting down the paper.
“I’d say in a day or two, I need to print the rest of the scans and make sure there aren't any anomalies on any of them.”
Lime grumbled, they had to wait days to shred that information-stealing scan? Blue could easily use that scan to give their information to marauders during that time! They could already be planning to take their organs!
Lime started grumbling to themself, not noticing that while being lost in their thoughts, Blue had slowly approached them, grabbing their hands with their own gently.
“Lime, I promise you that I will never give any of your information to anyone, and I swear that once I finish my work with these scans, we can shred that scan together. But, you’ll have to trust my word. Will you do that for me?”
Lime’s visor widened, that warm feeling appearing on their face once again. They were still convinced Blue was some sort of witch who could cast spells, and Lime hated the fact that these ‘spells’ worked.
Lime quickly let go of Blues hand.
“Fine! Swoon swoon…” Lime had turned away, paying attention to the floor instead of the doctor in front of them.
Blue had a gentle and calm look on their face.
“Thank you Lime, I knew you would do it.”
Lime started walking over to the vent, until Blue said one last thing.
“Well then, I'll see you soon?” Blues visor had widened into what seemed to be a smile.
Lime kicked the vent open, but then turned around to look at Blue.
“Yeah, see ya soon.” They returned a small smile back, one you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t paying close attention to them. But Blue noticed.
Blue couldn’t help but feel their own face grow warm, even after Lime had leaped back into the vents, crawling away to wherever they had to be next. Blue kept that smile on their face.
Blue had to admit, Lime was one of the most interesting patients they have ever had, and that made Blue even more intrigued about them.
They let out a quick chuckle to themself, before jotting something down and heading back to their work.
* * *
It had been a couple of hours after scanning every crewmate, 26 to be exact.
Blue was still up, and they had been up for those 26 hours doing all the research and work they could to figure out what could’ve caused White's sudden death. They weren’t going to rest until they figured something out.
They would normally advocate for a healthy lifestyle, especially a healthy life and work balance, but extraordinary measures require extraordinary sacrifices.
So they stayed up, their mind focused on their paperwork and scan reports in front of them, but also about a certain engineer.
Lime. They hadn’t left their mind ever since their interaction a while ago. Blue wondered about them, even before that interaction.
Lime intrigued Blue, they were the one crewmate who didn’t immediately swoon over them the moment they entered a room, and they actually listened to Blue, instead of just being fixated on their physical appearance like the others do.
They told them the truth about them looking terrible after not sleeping for a while, instead of lying to their face and saying they look great.
Blue loved that about them.
They would make sure to do Lime’s appointments after everyone else had done theirs. Obviously because they had to do a lot of convincing to get Lime to do even a simple check-up, but also because they wanted the appointment to last longer than the others did.
Though Blue wasn’t really ashamed or embarrassed about it, they still would never admit it to anyone, they do need to stay professional after all.
While lost in thought, they hadn’t realised their test samples of the strange pink residue had finished and that the machine had been beeping for the past couple of minutes.
So they shook their head, trying to focus on the task at hand. They walked over to the beeping machine and went back to work.
Once they were done with the scan reports, they could see Lime again to shred theirs. And they would be lying if they said they weren’t overjoyed to know they would be having another conversation soon.
They wondered what Lime could be doing right now, they were probably scurrying around in the vents getting lost and taking wrong turns. It wasn’t unusual for them to forget where they were going, and that hilarious but worrying thought stuck with Blue as they took the test samples out of the machine.
“I need to focus.” Blue spoke to themselves.
They then gently grabbed their clipboard, inspecting each sample carefully, jotting things down before going to the next sample.
After each sample was inspected, they moved on, setting their clipboard down, and walking over to their printer.
They began printing out the rest of the scan reports, and while they waited for the reports to print, they walked over to their desk. Originally planning to write some things down, but they caught a glimpse of an already printed scan report.
To be more specific, Lime’s body scan report.
They picked it up, reading the information on the side.
They couldn’t stop thinking about that bandana wearing engineer who basically lived in the vents in the Skeld. The one who made up the craziest theories you’d ever hear. The one that would accuse people of the most insane things, like ‘trying to steal their organs’. Maybe that was another reason Blue was interested in Lime, their theories were so unique. It made Blue want to know every single one they had made, even if it would take hours of talking to Lime, Blue didn’t mind. They wouldn’t mind one bit.
But they set the report down, because they knew they had to focus on what had happened only a matter of hours ago.
“There’s something I must be missing…Crewmates don’t just mysteriously split in twain." They paced around medbay, speaking to themselves. “And with that pink organic residue, I have a hard time believing it to be a normal workplace accident…I just need-”
Suddenly, the printer was done and had started to beep, which had snapped them back from their thoughts. They walked over to the printer, grabbing the scan reports in a stack to flip through and examine every single one.
But as they started scanning with their eyes over the first scan report, their mind strolled back to Lime. They weren’t fully sure why, but they shook their head again, focusing on the report. They could think about Lime later, tomorrow was another day, right?
“Okay, okay this is normal…”
They continued reading through the reports…Until they moved on to the next scan report…
“This is- Wait…What's this?!”
A scan report with no bone.
“And lou, the knowledge of thy sin be found, the curse of blessing leaves the loss profound…”
Suddenly, they saw what seemed to be a shadow looming over them, but it was too late to run or call for help.
If only Blue wasn’t so focused on what they had found, maybe they would’ve heard the vent open, maybe they would’ve been able to find someone to tell this ground-breaking discovery to, and maybe…Just maybe…They would’ve heard someone- No, something behind them.
The doctor had ended their final shift.
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