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Purple was talking to herself again.
Blue didn’t mean to eavesdrop, really he didn’t. Everyone had different ways of coping, even murderous and terrifying Impostors like Purple. Besides, he wasn’t really one to judge. He’d spent most of his time on Polus playing videogames just to avoid thinking about what’d happened on the Skeld. Compared to that, reasoning out loud was downright normal.
What wasn’t normal was the way she did it. Blue had walked into (and then promptly walked out of) several rooms that week, when he’d seen Purple in them gesticulating wildly at thin air. Once or twice he’d even caught her yelling. And, yeah, again, he was aware that was none of his business. It was just getting a little distracting.
Purple was supposed to be helping clean up the ship. After they found out they still had a few months left to get to Mira, it’d been decided that it’d be stupid to leave it as damaged as it was. Since Blue was still injured he hadn’t really been able to contribute. Meanwhile, White was still trying to get the comms disabled to stop the guards and Crimson from trying to contact Mira if they ever got out of their cell. Which left Purple and Red doing most of the manual labour.
She’d been trying to clean up the cafeteria while Blue ate breakfast. It had been going well, ignoring each other’s presence. Except midway through picking up some debris Purple had dropped it and started swearing and pointing at the air right next to her.
Blue must have been staring because Purple had turned right around and growled at him. He hadn't been able to hold back the small yelp he’d let out as Purple stalked out of the cafeteria, still swearing. Good LORD, she was absolutely terrifying…
“Yeah, she’s been doing that for a while now.”
Blue let out a second terrified yelp and jumped out of his seat. Sometime in the last few minutes Pink had managed to sneak up to his table, completely unnoticed. Now, she was sitting on it, chewing a piece of pizza and staring at where Purple had just left.
It took Blue a second to recompose himself, “Uhm, verbalizing?”
Pink snorted, “If you wanna phrase it nicely, sure.”
Blue clamped his mouth shut, firmly resisting the urge to point out that if he was anything other than polite, Purple would probably take it as a chance to stab him in the face. Repeatedly.
“Has she been doing that since the Skeld?” He asked instead. "Because if she did, I never noticed.”
“She didn’t.” Pink confirmed, finishing off her slice of pizza. “I think she started in the fridge, actually.”
Blue’s mind went blank.
“The…. fridge?”
Pink’s expression shifted from neutral to somewhat smug. She took a second piece of pizza out of her suit (how the hell was she finding space for those?) and tossed it into her mouth.
“Did we not tell you how we got out of the Skeld after Red’s little reactor meltdown? Yeah, turns out fridges have a supply of oxygen.”
Blue couldn’t even react to that at this point. It was just one more dumb thing to add to the ever growing list of stupid coincidences since the Skeld. Because off all the fucking ways they’d managed to survive the ship literally EXPLODING-
“Y’know, it's weird, she kept mentioning the others when we were in there,” Pink continued, expression darkening. " 'Specially Lime.”
Right. The rest of their crew. Those that hadn't been lucky enough to be close to the docking bay when Purple had started her massacre. In all honesty Blue had done his best to avoid thinking about any of them. It was just easier to get on without the sadness that came from remembering that half of the people he’d come to care for in his months on the Skeld were gone.
Blue knew he wasn’t the only one who struggled with the loss. White and Red both had their own ways of dealing with it and so had Yellow. He just hadn't thought that Purple, the perpetrator of it all, would struggle as well.
“... Lime. He and Purple where… really close, right?”
Best friends, according to Lime at least. Out of all the crew on the Skeld he’d been the one that was always there for Purple, no matter how angry. Not that it had ended up mattering to her in the end-
“Mhm. Bestest of buds ‘till she chopped his head off.” Blue flinched involuntarily but Pink didn’t seem to notice. “Don’t think the lack of sleep helped, either.”
“The fridge wasn’t comfortable to rest in, who would have thought?” Blue muttered.
“Yeah,” Pink nodded fervently, “pretty inconsiderate of Green not to have added some blankets in there for us.”
“I don’t think he was in charge of stocking the fridge, Pink.”
“Pft, whatever.” Pink sniffed. “He’d only have needed to add one in there anyways. Purple wouldn’t have slept even if we were floating on the comfiest mattress in space.”
Blue wondered when they’d switched from talking about Purple to gossipping. Not that it was unwelcome. It reminded him a bit of late nights in the observatory with Cyan, fixing up wires as she jotted down constellations, exchanging stories about their fellow crewmates and laughing. Blue shook off the memory as quickly as it had come.
“Doesn’t she have a pretty good sleep schedule? I remember Bl- her roommate was always complaining about it.”
“Heh, maybe back when she was a crewmate. Nowadays she doesn’t sleep at all.”
Blue blanched.
“... Doesn’t? Uhm, present tense?”
It was Pink's turn to look bewildered.
“Ya don’t hear her pacing at night? I mean, it keeps me up.”
“Pink, you… you sleep in the vents. If your bed’s near Purple’s room, you can probably hear her pretty well.”
“Oh.” Pink sprung from the table. “Oh, yeah, that makes sense.”
She walked over to the vent near Blue’s table and opened up the grate, before turning back and shooting him a toothy grin.
“Thanks, Blue. I’ll be sure to move tonight.”
“Wait, but what about-”
Before Blue could even finish his sentence she’d already crawled into the vent and slammed the grate behind her. Shit.
… He was gonna have to tell White about this… wasn’t he?
Blue was no medic, but he was pretty confident that Purple was hallucinating. Specifically, about half of their dead crew, which she’d had a hand in killing. Which was, to put it lightly, really not fucking ideal. Plus, their alliance with the impostors might be tenuous but if there was anyone Purple actually might listen to on this ship, it was White.