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It had been a deeply symbolic gesture, as touching as it was surprising, when Red had volunteered their Captain’s Handbook for punting the alien eggs into space. They’d given Purple the honors of holding it steady while they delivered their infamous “captain’s kick,” a symbolic gesture in and of itself as the final blow to their subservience to MIRA. Beyond all the grand symbolic stuff, though, Purple had gotten a baser satisfaction out of it. MIRA itself was a parasitic monster, one that had infected their former friend, changing him into something he was not. Punting that stupid handbook into space was like freeing the Red they had known way back when, finally getting him back for their own. Granted, this feeling had diminished since then, given that Red had apparently memorized that book down to the damn footnotes. These past couple of days, they had cited it almost constantly.
“You know what the Captain’s Handbook said?”
Purple sighed heavily. “What did it say?”
Either he didn't pick up on their tone, or he simply ignored it as he paced up and down along the table in admin. “The handbook said a ship like the Skeld needs ten plus crewmates to keep up with tasks. What if this ends up like last time?”
“Last time? You mean when we were interns? That only happened due to weeks of MIRA negligence. Besides, all things considered, we’ve been doing pretty good!” Purple winced at their own, flimsy words. Being an optimist was never their thing. If only Cyan was still here.
Red’s voice hardened slightly. “‘Pretty good’ was forty-eight hours ago. We are overworked… underfed… and I have all three symptoms of sleep deprivation.”
“Symptoms?” Purple asked groggily. “Like what?”
She sat squatly in one of the chairs, grimacing at the laptop screen that continued to fill with service requests. At first, it had seemed manageable. With some jogging back and forth, they’d been keeping in pace with the steady stream of issues. It was never a flood of issues. Even now, there were only four things in need of maintenance, and most of the tasks were so simple that anyone 9+ could figure them out. The real issue was how they just. Never. Stopped. They were going on three days of sleeplessness, and like with most things, Red was taking it with very little grace.
“There’s the impaired focus,” he said, faltering and bumping into a chair. “Memory lapses. I hardly know where I am half the time. And my least favorite part, the psychiatric effects. I thought I saw Cyan this morning! Like the souls of the crew would just be hanging around.” He whirled to address an invisible audience. “Hey crewmates, if you’re listening—get back to work!”
“Impaired focus. Memory lapses. Psychiatric effects.” Purple hummed, taking a precious few seconds to rest their head on the table. “So the acronym is IMP, then. Interesting.”
They were handling this better than Red. After years of hungry nights and financial anxieties, sleeplessness was more of a staple to her than… well. The better kind of staples, such as food, clothing, and shelter. Having signed that NDA, Red was always well-fed and well-rested, so he wasn’t as used to emotions like exhaustion and distress. Purple tried not to be too irritated with them when they mistook her calmness for her not—
“—taking this seriously??”
Purple lifted their head, having spaced out that first part, though it wasn’t too hard to fill in the blank.
“I am, I am,” they sighed wearily. They pushed out of their chair, a bit unsteady on their feet. Their words slurred as they spoke, and they had to pause to remember basic words. “Look, this is going to be… this is going to be tough. But as long as we split up the work and take it one task at a time, we will get this… this godforsaken turtle to Industria.”
Red chuckled a little, swaying precariously. “It does kinda look like a turtle.”
Purple caught them before they fell to the floor. She awkwardly cradled them in her arms as their body and mind took a much-needed rest, the dark circle beneath their visor about as dark as Black’s eyeliner. The sight inspired pity in her. So much so that she briefly considered just letting them sleep. Then another task popped up on the laptop. It did so with a notifying ping she’d come to hate almost as much as MIRA itself. Sighing, she patted Red’s cheek.
“Wake up, Bud. C’mon. We got work to do.”
“Mmm,” they sleepily grumbled in protest. “The handbook says five more minutes…”
But their visor blearily opened, slowly pulling into focus as they gazed at Purple’s own.
“Uhh,” they said in a strange tone. Their gaze flashed to the arms that held them, then back to her face. “Uhh,” they said again, the tone Purple realized was panic increasing.
All at once, he shoved himself away from them and back to his feet, stared at the service requests with the newfound alertness of someone with a full eight hours of rest, and announced that the lower engine needed refueling at once. Then he strode from the room, his brisk pace just short of a jog. Purple stared after him.
“That was…” They didn’t get to finish their thought. A new ping sounded from the laptop, a bit more urgent than the previous ones. Purple furrowed their brow at the latest maintenance request.
“Stabilize steering,” they muttered. “That sounds important.”
They leaned out the doorway of admin.
“Hey, ‘Captain?’” They called. “There’s a new task in nav, you should probably...” She was talking to no one, she realized. With storage closed off, Red would have taken the roundabout route to reach the lower engine, so he was probably out of earshot by now. Behind her, the laptop repeated its urgent ping for someone, anyone, to stabilize steering.
Purple sighed. “If Red can do it, it can’t be that hard.” She loved… liked?… tolerated the guy, but he wasn’t the sharpest lens in the camera. And since both of them were going to be fired after this, she might as well get to play captain, too.
When she got to navigation, her confidence faltered at the triple array of flight decks spanning from one side of the room to the other. They were covered in buttons, levers, panels, and indicators, none of which she knew the first thing about.
“Whoa,” they drawled uneasily. “Were there always this many instruments?”
And all without a single label to guide them, other than an engraving in the deck beneath the yoke: YOU BETTER KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING.
“Pfft,” said Purple, rolling their visor. “Of course I know what I’m doing. It’s just a bunch of pretentious doo-dads to make the captain seem smart. Bet it looks a lot more complex than it actually is. All I have to do is just… take this yoke…”
They extended their hands toward it. Not only had they hardly slept these past few days, but they hadn’t eaten much, either. That must’ve been why their hands were shaking so badly.
“Get a hold of yourself,” Purple muttered. “It’s a straightforward task… wait, what does that say?”
There was another engraving in smaller, finer print under the first, and they read it aloud: “You better know what you’re doing… because if you don’t, every death is your fault??” They slammed their fist on the deck. “Who wrote this? The same, stupid people who wrote ‘no biggie’ in the handbook?”
Purple gasped. “The handbook!” they cried, hitting the heel of their palm to their temple. “There’s gotta be something else like that, like a manual or something!” There were drawers set into the decks, and they started tearing through them. She doubted she could mess up badly enough to send them hurtling into a planet or star, but it was always better to be on the safe side of things.
On the fourth drawer, they came across it.
“Ugh,” they muttered, narrowing their visor at the handbook in their hands. “Of course they would have an extra copy. Makes that whole gesture a little less meaningful.”
It was even bookmarked like the other one, though they remembered the bookmark for killer aliens being further along in the book than this was. Why killer aliens wouldn’t be mentioned on the very first page in big letters and red ink, they would never understand.
“What’s this bookmark,” Purple grumbled. “Wait, let me guess. ‘Phantoms are real and they like to kill.’”
They opened to the bookmark, assuming nothing could surprise them as much as last time. They were wrong.
“‘Rule 148: What to do when one crushes on crew?’”
The task at hand all but forgotten, Purple hunched over the handbook and glanced at the doorway. As far as they could tell, they were totally alone on this side of the ship.
Resettling their focus on the Captain’s Handbook, they muttered its passages aloud:
Love is like Ore+. It only fuels you if you choose to ignite it. In this case, take all the Ore+ of your pathetic yearning and dump it into the icy cold vastness of the loneliness within you.
Purple paused at that last bit. “Yeesh.” They continued reading.
Find comfort in the fact that Mira professionally and distantly takes interest in your wellbeing.
If your romantic feelings fail to eject, try imagining your crush as an alien imposter (see Rule 214). If they get you alone, they will ruthlessly murder you! Important note: avoid this tip if you are a freak.
They let out a sigh at that one. “Okay.”
If absolutely necessary, seek platonic touch. You may find that your desires are satiated through innocent gestures of social cohesion that doubly serve to assert your authority. This includes: the classic, mildly condescending hand-on-shoulder technique.
Before they could help it, Purple’s thoughts provided a crystal-clear montage of all the times that Red had done just that, and not to anyone else but them. The unwelcome side-hugs, the hands on their shoulder. Before their face could start heating up, they shook the ridiculous notion from their head. For one, Red had always been a touchy guy. And even if they weren’t really friends anymore, he was still more familiar with them than with anyone else on the crew. Also, not seeing him do the same thing to others didn't mean it didn't happen when she wasn’t around! As head of security, surveillance was her job, but she honestly kind of sucked at it. No. It had to be someone else. Cyan, maybe? He had gotten constipated after they kissed him: maybe that was a sign of love. Who knows?
Purple read the last part of the page.
Good to Know: If platonic touch only worsens the crush, make a point of distancing yourself. Think of all the reasons they could possibly hate you and understand that they probably do. Being captain doesn’t make you good enough for anyone but MIRA. Remember, MIRA is the only constant presence in your life! Even if we fire you due to inappropriate conduct.
Setting the open book in her lap, Purple took a second to process what they’d read.
“Wow,” they said, finally. “That is a can of worms.” They sighed. “Speaking of worms, I wish Green was still here. The real one…”
As it was, the only company they had was the flashing red lights and the blaring alarms that erupted in nav. On the cockpit window, a message appeared: ASTEROID BELT APPROACHING. GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS.
“OH!” cried Purple. Tossing the book to the side, they grabbed the yoke in both hands and the message disappeared, providing full view of the swarm of distant space rocks, tiny right now, but swiftly growing bigger. “Oh God,” said Purple, and with no clue at all how to pilot a spaceship, they wrung the yoke all the way to the right.
The Skeld lurched sideways, items spilling from the still-open drawers, but that was far from Purple’s biggest concern. Though they were out of the path of the densest cluster, the Skeld was still on a collision course with the outer fringe of asteroids. One of which had grown to the size of a boulder in the window.
Grunting, they strained against the yoke to perform a sharp left, missing the asteroid by the sheen of their visor. They almost immediately were forced to strain right, and then left again, to avoid a couple more rocks. The ship alerted them of a clear path, its big red button flashing, and they took it, blasting them into the open. Once the ship automatically slowed to normal speed, they had put a safe distance of hundreds of miles between themselves and the asteroid belt. The nav room rewarded them with a level-up sound effect: a mod that was definitely added by Red.
GAME NOT OVER, the window said. GOOD JOB.
With a little bit of effort, Purple managed to pry their sweaty fingers from the yoke, then hobbled out of the captain’s chair. “I never want to be captain… ah!”
They jumped at the sight of Red, who was standing in the doorway.
“Red!” they cried, clutching their chest. “How long were you… uggghhh.” She deflated and sagged as she exhaled the stress of these past couple minutes. “If you’re here to stabilize steering, I already…” Purple trailed off when they noticed the book in his hands, which was still open to that bookmarked page. It must’ve slid across the room during the asteroid fiasco.
She had never been caught reading someone else’s diary—well, Cyan’s, but that didn’t count—but she imagined it felt exactly like this. She felt panic, embarrassment, shame. None of which made any sense. It was a handbook, the least personal thing in existence! It’s not like a person like Red would even keep a diary. Purple scratched that last thought. A person like Red would definitely keep a diary.
For someone as expressive and open as himself, Red was eerily quiet and still as he stared at the handbook’s pages. When it became clear that he, for once, wasn’t going to be the one to break this awkward silence, Purple cautiously spoke up.
“A lot of stuff spilled out from the drawers,” she explained. She wasn’t lying. Why did she feel like she was lying? “I will, uh… I’ll get it cleaned up.”
She reached for a rolled-up map of the Skeld.
“Let’s make a pizza,” said Red.
Purple nearly fell flat on their face. “Huh—what?”
“Let’s make a pizza,” Red repeated airily, tossing the book to the side as if it belonged in the trash chute.
“But… but we’re running behind on the—“
“Tasks? They can wait, for once. We won’t get anything done if we starve.”
Without waiting for her answer, they turned and walked off. Purple lingered behind for a moment, uncertain. There were a lot of complicated thoughts and feelings that told her not to follow, but none held more sway than the low, rumbling growl that came from her stomach. Hunger was a monster of its own, and so she had no choice but to follow Red’s promise of pizza. Did he even know how to make one from scratch?
Apparently he did.
When she walked into the kitchen, they were already laying out ingredients onto the counter.
“Whoa,” said Purple. “Never took you for a chef.”
“MIRA did,” Red responded, “after… the incident.”
They noticed her staring, and smiled through their visor. “I might’ve signed the NDA, but they didn’t completely trust me at first to keep my big mouth shut.”
“Well, yeah. MIRA’s evil, not stupid.”
“Very funny,” Red deadpanned as he fastened his apron. “Anyway, long before I got promoted to captain, I worked as a humble assistant cook. That’s why I created my own status symbol: Redsie’s Famous Quattro Formaggi.”
With all the ingredients laid out—an intimidating array of herbs, spices, and cheeses—he gestured her over. Purple balked and held up their hands.
“Yeah, I feel like I should leave this to you. I can hardly cook a tv dinner.”
“Nonsense, Purps. I can teach you. It’ll be fun!”
“‘Fun,’” Purple repeated, their weary tone a perfect contrast to the concept. “Well… just don’t get mad when I ruin your pizza.”
“That’s the spirit,” said Red, who tossed them an apron.
And for a while, it was just like the old days again.
They bickered and teased one another, engaged in impromptu competitions (Purple was faster at shredding cheese and Red was faster at dicing tomatoes), and even indulged in a bit of a food fight. It started after cleanup, the pizza cooking away in the traditional oven, when Red said he had a “secret cook magic trick” to show her. He poured some flour into his palm and told her to lean in close, as close to his hand as she could get—seriously, how had she not seen what was coming?—and proceeded to blow a big puff into her face. As soon as she scrubbed the white powdery stuff from her visor, she wielded a meat stick like a half-thawed club and chased him around the kitchen with it while he laughed and screamed like a maniac. Then he made the foolish decision of cornering himself between the wall and the sink… Purple silently thanked the stars that neither imposter had targeted him… and made some pathetic appeals for mercy.
“No way, Red,” Purple said, trying out an evil, growly voice. It probably sounded like they had a piece of corn stuck in their throat, but whatever. They pressed in closer, giving him no room for escape, and distantly marveled at the fact that there were probably twenty tasks that needed to be done and yet they were doing this. Go figure.
Deciding they’d have plenty of time to be serious and miserable later, they leaned into their role, raising the meat club over their head.
“You’re gonna get what you deserve,” they growled, quoting one of the many movies they had watched in their unemployment. There was little else to do between filling out dozens of job applications and praying for a single response.
If Red were to truly get what he deserved for causing them all that misery, his new name would be “Black with Blue.” He seemed to understand this himself, for he shrank as much as he could into the corner before blurting a desperate bargain: “Wait! Don’t whack me with the meat stick! I-I’ll do anything! I’ll even tell you something embarrassing!"
Purple lowered her weapon and backed off slightly. “You know I wasn’t going to whack you that hard, right?”
Red straightened a bit and crossed their arms. “Well, I wouldn’t put it past you,” they huffed.
“That’s fair,” she admitted.
Red made to move past her, but she held out the meat stick, blocking his exit. “Not so fast. You still owe me an embarrassing truth.”
“What?” said Red with a whiney voice. “Really?”
“Really. Unless you’d rather make the acquaintance of some ultra-processed beef?”
He eyed the meat stick wearily. “I think I’d prefer to stay strangers… fine. But I’m only telling you because it seems like you already know. I did have a crush on one of my crewmates, and I am aware that, as the captain, such a thing could be considered misconduct. But that’s only if I acted on it, which I never, ever did. I may have messed up a lot as captain, but that’s one thing I ask you do not hold against me.”
Purple backed up a step, hit with a four-cheese combo of surprise, pity, anger, and indignation.
“Wha—why would I hold that against you?”
He stammered for a second. “B-because…” He made a vague gesture to his uniform.
Purple crossed their arms. “Even as captain, you’re still just a person. You’re bound to have crushes, especially on people you have such close proximity with. And I know you’d never use your position of power in such a bad way. I may not entirely like you, Red. But, for the most part, you are a good guy.”
Red gazed at them, seeming both reassured and uncertain of her words.
“You mean that?” he asked, his voice soft and vulnerable, stirring feelings in her that she quickly stomped down like they threatened to infect her. Her cheeks were only warm because they were standing so close to the oven.
“I do,” she said. “And, despite everything that happened between us… I honestly kind of missed you. That’s my embarrassing truth.”
Red held her gaze for a few seconds longer, then looked at his feet with their stupid crocs. He was such an idiot, and Purple did not find it endearing at all, not in the slightest.
“Thanks, Purps,” they said, finally, and that’s when the timer for the pizza dinged.
It turned out to be the most delicious-looking pizza that Purple had ever seen, and it wasn’t made by Yellow, or Brown, or literally anyone other than Red. Sure, she had helped, but only by doing what they'd told her to do. Haloed by a perfect golden crust, a ooey gooey collection of cheeses glistened in the light, an herb-garnished circle carved straight out of heaven after two days of munching on frozen pepperoni.
“Red,” she said, gazing in awe at his masterpiece. “You’re the new cook.”
They chuckled and placed a hand on her shoulder, and she forced herself to think nothing of it.
“And you can be my assistant cook.” They held up a pizza cutter. “Which means cutting the pizza is your job.”
“Great.”
She cut it pretty unevenly, but other than a joke about cutting her wages, Red didn't seem to mind. He grabbed her a plate and they dished themselves up, then made for the cafeteria. By the time they set them down at the nearest table, both plates showed nothing but crumbs. Red and Purple stared for a second, then laughed at themselves.
“Guess we were hungry,” said Red. He grabbed both their plates. “I’ll grab us some more. You save us our spots.”
Purple felt kinda bad for laughing. “‘Save us our spots.’ From who?”
“I don’t know.” Red glanced around the empty room. “The ghosts? How many more slices you want?”
“Oh, God,” said Purple, their hunger having ignited as soon as real food hit their stomach. “As many as I can get.”
“Coming right up.”
He headed back to the kitchen, leaving Purple momentarily alone with her thoughts.
As an obvious source of great shame for poor Red, it felt wrong to exploit it as a silly mental guessing game. At the same time, Purple just couldn’t help it.
Who was his crush?
The most obvious answer, of course, would be Blue. Literally everyone swooned over the guy. Even herself, admittedly. So what? They knew how to charm! At the same time, this option seemed rather unlikely. Purple remembered a bit of one-sided resentment between Red and Blue, with Red seeming to perceive them as some sort of threat to his title as leader. She supposed that crushes could manifest themselves in negative ways, but… honestly, she couldn’t see Red as being anything but sappy when it came to a crush.
Purple shuffled through other possibilities, quickly dismissing all but Cyan. She could see the two of them being friendly with each other. With Cyan a social butterfly and Red a raging people-pleaser, interactions between them were bound to be interesting. Come to think of it, though, Purple couldn’t recall seeing them having any interactions. Perhaps that was due to Red trying his best to be a good captain. Or perhaps Purple was doing what she apparently had the habit of doing, which was putting too much weight into baseless conjecture.
With a start, Purple realized only one thing was for certain: Red had liked one of their crewmates. And this crewmate had died a horrible, grisly death—he had seen their dead body—and no one had known of Red’s pain or consoled him. She never knew he was so good at masking. Even now, as he traipsed back over with two plates of pizza and a pep in his step, she would never have guessed that he was dealing with a somewhat personal loss.
He cheerfully handed her a plate. “I let you have the extra slice. No biggie.”
Purple gratefully accepted. She took a big bite right away, then said through the mouthful, “You’re never gonna stop saying that, are you?”
“Nope,” said Red, swallowing a bite. “It’s a part of who I am now.”
“Mm.”
They devoured the rest of the pizza in a silence enforced by their hunger. Afterwards, the two of them leaned back on their seats as far as they could without tipping right off them.
Purple lulled their head toward Red. “This might be the last two days without a proper meal talking… but that was the most delicious food I have ever had in my life.”
Red tried for a chuckle, burping instead. “Hunger is the best seasoning,” they weakly joked.
“Yeah… apparently it is…”
They sat in companionable silence for a minute. Purple couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so well-fed and at ease, and her visor grew heavier and heavier by the second. She didn’t even realize she was drifting off to sleep until Red’s distant voice pulled her out of it: “Tired?”
Purple snapped to attention. “What? No. Not even a little.” Summoning the strength of the crewmates before them, they pushed themself from the table. “Those tasks aren’t doing themselves. Let’s go.”
As she stumbled toward admin, ping ponging off a couple of tables, Red spoke up with that captainly voice. “Purple, no. I won’t stand by while you work yourself to the bone. It isn’t healthy.”
Purple paused, taking a second to work up the energy to be properly mad. “You know what’s even less healthy? Letting this ship fall apart. There’s probably a hundred new tasks that need to be done by now, and—”
“And I will take care of it,” said Red. “You get some rest.”
”But—but I can’t just—”
”It’ll be good for you, which makes it good for the ship. You are half the crew, after all.”
She instinctively bristled at the concern in his voice. They had a long way to go before they could call themselves “friends,” and one of Purple’s biggest hurdles would be understanding the difference between him showing genuine care for her and being a condescending prick. Right now, her exhaustion-clouded brain wasn't very much help in distinguishing the two. Still, in this case, she decided to assume that he was being mostly genuine. She settled for mild sass in response.
“I said you can be the new cook, not the doctor.”
“I’m hot and smart. It’s inevitable, Purps.”
They pinched her visor, hating how quickly they could feel themself giving in. “You’re definitely something, Red.” They sighed in defeat. “I will take a one hour nap, but I have my conditions. For one, I expect you to—”
“Wake you up, got it,” said Red, who was suddenly standing by her side. Slinging an arm around her shoulder, they guided her toward medbay, where the beds were stored. “Quit worrying, Purple, or else you’ll be ‘Gray’ by the time we reach Industria.”
“Gray’s a good color,” they half-heartedly returned.
“Never said that it wasn’t.”
They led her all the way to one of the beds, as if she were some helpless bean that needed to be tucked in.
“Okay,” said Purple with just a little bit of a warning in her voice. “I think I got it from here.”
Red made the rare, intelligent choice of backing off without argument. He waited to put a safe distance between them, standing just outside of the hall, before adding, “I’ll be checking in, so don’t even think of sneaking off to do tasks.”
“Wouldn’t ‘dream’ of it,” said Purple, sitting down on the edge of the bed.
Red narrowed their visor with suspicion. “Hmm.” Then they turned to walk off.
“Hey, Red?”
They paused, looking back at her.
Purple avoided looking them straight in the visor. “I’m sorry that… whoever you liked…”
Red appeared confused at first, then understanding dawned on them. They averted their gaze as well.
“I don’t think it was going to work out, anyway,” he admitted, voice rumbly and soft. Purple always thought he had such a nice voice. A foolish part of them wished he would stay here, rambling on about something or other, so that they could fall asleep to it. Of course, they'd sooner eject themself into space than ever admit that aloud.
“Now get some rest,” said Red after a beat. “Sleep well.”
With that, the medbay door closed, leaving Purple alone in darkness.
They exhaled, leaning back onto the pillows. The first time she had inspected these beds, she thought they looked about as cheap and cut-rate as one could expect of the accommodations from a soulless corporation. Now, though, she felt as though she was reclining on the most luxurious mattress that the colonies had to offer. Even the hospital blankets, which they would usually have some serious sensory issues with, felt like the softest, comfiest blanket to ever swaddle her world-weary form.
“Only an hour,” Purple repeated to herself, already barely clinging to consciousness. Her visor began to drift closed, and she instinctively resisted. A dozen times, she almost fell asleep, and a dozen times, she forced herself out of it. At some point during this battle for alertness, she may have vaguely remembered the medbay door opening and sensing a presence near her side. But in the end, Purple’s vast well of stubbornness ultimately failed them, and they drifted away into outer space.
When their visor finally opened again, it was crusted around the edges.
Purple groaned, feeling simultaneously rejuvenated and like death had just swirled her around in its mouth, decided her sour, and spat her back out. She sat up a little, rubbing her head, and realized that something was missing—her hat. Sitting up fully, Purple glanced around the room, where she spotted it hanging from an IV pole like a hat rack. She furrowed her brow at the sight, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.
“Did I put that there? Why can’t I remember…” They massaged their temple, trying to work some lucidity into their sleep-addled brain. They hoped O2 was still functioning fine. “It’s like I’ve been conked out for hours…” With a gasp, they honed in on the clock across the wall. “Oh my God! I slept for hours!”
Over eleven hours, to be exact. Eleven hours of no one but Red doing tasks, if they were even still conscious themself. Purple couldn’t imagine them staying awake for that long. They’d been as exhausted as her, and she’d never known Red to be a trooper when it came to these things.
Leaping out of bed and tugging on their hat, Purple rushed out into the hallway. It seemed as though the ship was still in one piece, but who knew for how long that would last?
“This is bad this is bad this is bad,” they repeated as they sprinted over to admin. “Red?! Why didn’t you wake me???”
Then again, of course they hadn’t. Their new thing was being a good, caring captain, one who put their crewmates’ needs above everything—even that of the ship, apparently. As she ran into admin, Purple vowed to give Red a good talking to as soon as she found them.
“How could they do this?” they lamented to themself. “Did they think they could just take care of everything by themself?!” They opened the laptop and turned it on, bracing for the worst.
Sure enough, some words popped up right away. But they weren’t service requests, or an announcement that the Skeld was now unserviceable and about to crash into a flurry of asteroids. Purple’s visor rounded as she read it aloud: “All tasks completed—feel free to chill?”
They took a step back. “H-how did they… how is this even… I gotta go find them.”
To thank them or strangle them, she wasn’t too sure. Even if they had managed all of those tasks by themself, how could they put themself through that? All while she was snoring away like a coddled little bean! Was this yet another thing for them to lord over her? To turn on her whenever they got into an argument? What kind of case were they trying to build against her? What exactly were they plotting?
At the moment, nothing, for she found them passed out in weapons, leaning against the wall beneath the downloads terminal.
As morbid as the comparison was, he looked like a vacated alien meat suit, his form was so disturbingly limp. At the thought, an unexpected panic filled Purple’s whole being, and she rushed to check his pulse.
When it thrummed against her finger, steady and reliable, she sighed with a depth of relief that she wasn’t quite ready to acknowledge just yet. “Still there…” she murmured. She lowered his hand to the grimy floor, sighing. “I suppose I can’t leave you like this…”
As head of security, it was their job to keep him safe. There were probably at least a couple of reasons that sleeping on the floor was a safety hazard. And so, in a purely professional gesture, they gathered a sleeping Red into their arms and carried him off toward medbay. Despite being the only conscious crewmate on the ship, she got this strange feeling of being watched. Perhaps there were ghosts on this ship. Perhaps they’d heeded Red’s order and gotten back to their tasks. It honestly seemed like a better explanation than him doing it all on his own. Either way, they supposed he deserved her thanks. And what better time to thank him than now, when he was totally unconscious and unable to refer to it later?
Purple carefully settled him down on the bed, the same one she’d slept on. “Here you go, Bud,” she whispered, tucking him in. “Thanks for the pizza… and for letting me sleep in.” With a small, breathy chuckle, she gingerly sat on the edge of the bed, careful not to disturb him.
“Reminds me of our internship,” they quietly mused, voice barely breaking a whisper. “They‘d give us a break every couple of weeks—the actual minimum required by law—then we’d binge out on pizza and sleep the whole day. We knew how to make the most of it.” They looked down at Red. “What ever happened to those dumb, carefree interns?” As if he could possibly answer such a question, whether mired in sleep or not. As it was, his only response was a quiet noise as he rolled onto his side, curling into her warmth.
Purple’s gaze softened. In sleep like this, they seemed so vulnerable and difficult to hate, no matter their troubled past. They almost seemed like the Redsie she’d known before the whole meltdown, before the atmosphere of a world had been poisoned along with her ability to trust. In this moment, Purple wondered, what was the difference between this Red and that one?
She could only think of one, and she took it off of their head and hung it up on the IV pole. After some slight hesitation, she smoothed her hand across their forehead. “There you are, Redsie,” she murmured. Then she stood from the bed and headed out the door, closing it behind her.
There was an icy cold vastness within her as well, the Captain’s Handbook had been pretty spot on with that analogy. Thanks to that brief glimpse of Redsie, though, she felt a little bit less like she was stranded in it alone. Perhaps it wouldn’t feel so icy and vast if they could share in it together.
Purple wondered what the Captain’s Handbook would have to say about that.