Chapter Text
The aftermath of Limes insanity wasn’t supposed to have ended like this, if anything it should have given them far more protection against the outcome they were trying to avoid, especially with the amount of holy water they had scattered around, and the salt circles dotted everywhere, and all those candles that they had lit. Despite their frenzied efforts, it all amounted to no difference whatsoever
Lime had always blamed everything on the gremlins, and now aliens, the horrors were always the fault of beastly little things like them, but despite their being an obvious scapegoat for everything – they were still hovering over the remains of their body.
They felt grossed out just looking at it. So much for keeping it a temple, they had thought, it was a god awful looking thing after their run in with ‘Orange’. They felt a little drop on their stomach. Just thinking about how it all happened made them really want to puke.
Unsure whether they could puke at all now, they tore their eyes away from the body and into their reflection of themselves against the reactor. Defiantly a ghost; first of all they were hovering, not only that but they were incredibly pale, or transparent – which Lime seemed to assume was the most plausible of explanations. Looking down at their hands only proved it further, whatever was below them seemed distorted, although despite their hand being hardly visible, even to themselves, they could still see a couple of blemishes against their palms, the same they had on their fleshy body from a job a few days ago.
Maybe this was a good sign. They had always thought being a tad rough around the edges was a good thing, like a little sprinkling of God themselves.
Blue had still offered to clean and wrap the wound though.
Speaking of Blue...
They had to be around here somewhere right? And white they guessed, but that was despite the point! Lime made no time in facing the door behind them head, leading themselves out and phasing through the door. They weren’t sure what they expected it to feel, a body like this wouldn’t show up on the open sensor so it was the only option really, but for the second they wandered through they hadn’t expected it to feel so tightly packed against their skin. They wouldn’t be doing it again any time soon.
Before them, now stood a decently large corridor leading out to another door and a little security camera sitting limply above – they knew enough from that to tell them where they were - where everything else is on the other hand, not so much. Having had spent all of their time traveling through vents, Lime could only really navigate (quite poorly) to one place to another using the vent system and they weren’t going to try to sink down below to follow the nearest one.
Traveling above it would be then.
After a quick game of eeney meeney miney mo, Lime decided they would head down from reactor and follow wherever the path took them.
It felt strangely foreign moving around the actual cabin floor, having been so accustomed to using the vents below to get around it made them feel almost vulnerable; gremlins could come out at any second, from any angle, any corner, God it freaked them out more than it should have. They would be glad when whatever this test from God was over.
Eventually they came across a much larger room compared to what they had seen so far, everything became much more familiar, reverting their memory back to the first day on the ship. Lime was met with the huge wall of trust balls from the day before. In an attempt to look for Blue they circled round the large crates, lots of those rocks Orange had seemed to love and look after lay sadly on the floor along with a few cloths, Lime didn’t want to think about what was obviously underneath and suddenly felt the urge to move on to the next room.
Coming up to what they assumed to be the cafeteria door, they readied themselves for that icky feeling once again and shut their visor for the upcoming impact...Yet when they went to move forward, the sensation didn’t swell all around them like before, in fact, nothing seemed to happen at all.
Limes visor hesitantly flickered open.
“Boo,”
“Holy SHIT!?!”
Instead of the door being there, the ghost of White stood in its place, peaking their head out from the other side, Lime would of flung themselves across the room if it wasn’t for the fact it was...White.
“Oh heya Lime, what are you doing here?”
White fully pulled themselves from out the door. Lime squinted, propping themselves back up. Whites already light colour was even harder to see now they were a ghost,
“DYAAH! That’s none of your business!” They pointed a stray finger against Whites chest, but wiped their hand against their overalls after, they didn’t want to smell like wine for the rest of their days, “Why do you even want to know, you working with someone pal?!?”
Despite Limes more than obvious distain towards having to even be around this guy, White didn’t seem at least bothered about the fiasco Lime was making for themselves,
“Oh don’t be silly! Not since they kicked me from that island!” There was a silence for a second, “Oh right, if you’re looking for Blue there in Medbay, straight up then left! It’s pretty hard to miss it smells awful! Oh and Orange and Green are probably just about as usual,” Lime had always found White suspiciously cheery up until the last bit, but didn’t bother to dwell on it.
“What the- How did-“
“Right when I died I also went looking for Blue, you know, on the off chance they could do something, but it was kind of embarrassing when I realized they weren’t actually ignoring me and I was just actually dead...So...”
Right what the hell was Lime supposed to say to this.
“...Agh, right well,” Lime looked anywhere but White, usually they would be able to jump in a vent and escape by know, God please just let this be a test, “I’ll be off then...Bye”
Having eventually found the words they had been looking for, they unfortunately had to carry on through three doors, almost jumping out of their skin when they saw the crew gawking at the amount of gunk left against the window after their second door, their first instinct was to jump into the nearest vent, but no need for that any more, they were fairly certain that the crew couldn’t see ghosts. Once passing through the final door, the stench of a lethal amount of medical cleanliness trying to hide the metallicy smell of blood hit them like a loose pipe. God it reeked of how it smelt when Lime had their last run in with Blue. They prayed this time it would at least end much nicer than before.
Lime didn’t want to think about it anymore and phased through the Medbay door, the sensation starting to become less of a disgusting mess and more of a small inconvenience.
Medbay was exactly how the last time Lime had remembered it, they hadn’t wanted to go back when Orange and Red had taken Blues body to what they now knew had to be the storage room, being more concerned at the time about that boneless scan they had found and what Blue had done with their own, plus Lime didn’t want to have to look at that gore fest again, at the time they were flesh and bone they had been sure they could vomit.
“White is that you? I did ask you if you could possibly knock in the future didn’t I?” Blue looked up from whatever they were doing to only find it wasn’t White, “Lime? What are you doing here?” their expression suddenly going from fairly neutral to more concerned,
“Well...I,” God this was embarrassing, it was kind of obvious but admitting how they had let this happen was still hard to admit, plus the way Blue was looking at them was NOT helping in the slightest, “I-“
“Don’t worry about that, I apologise, that was a stupid question of mine!”
Lime shifted their weight slightly, it was weird seeing Blue like this, well, this wasn’t the first they had watched them snap out of their professional façade and cover it over again with a less buyable one, yet - but never had they seen it done so poorly before.
“Blue, the WHAT THE HELL are you doing in here...its grim!!” They shivered, “You know this is the perfect place for gremlins right now..!” Lime squinted through the dim lights, looking around they started to feel their chest hollow in dread.
Blue made a similar face to when they had to pick up Whites mutilated body and put it on the stretcher,
“Ah! I- I mean, that is a very valid concern Lime,” They said, looking around, “But I’m afraid I’ve got a few tests to run,” It was the only excuse Blue had been able to think off, which they kicked themselves for.
“I know you don’t take me an idiot! What tests!?! Theres nothin’ in here to do anymore!!”
“I know, but there’s always something that can be done! For the crew and such, of course,”
Lime drifted a little closer, still wary of anything that could possibly scurry around them,
“Listen if you had something you gotta do, God would be the first one to let ya know,”
Blue looked away, further into the corner in which Lime had found them dead where they stood, the little paper that Lime remembered to be on the desk was now bottom side up in a puddle of God knows what. Lime grumbled slightly,
“What’s this about, you got a brain worm or somethin’?”
Blue decided not to question what that was and shook their head, “No, just a little something on my mind, it’s a small inconvenience, I wouldn’t want you to risk a headache over it, Lime,”
The use of their name gave Lime a quick snap back to reality, at least they knew for sure that this was the real Blue, doppelgangers did exist and they knew it, but only Blue would put another first in a time like this.
“Gaahh...Well, you might as well spit it out, better than bottlin’ it up for how long until we get to heaven,”
There was a silence for a few seconds, and with flick of time Lime could practically see the cogs turning in Blue’s head. Blue sucked in a breath,
“I was so incredibly close to finding out whatever was killing of these, poor, innocent, unfairly paid crewmates,” Blue turned to face Lime head on, their shoulders slouching slightly as their fingers clasped together, “If I had acted earlier with the scans, maybe White wouldn’t have died either. I could of prevented everything! Maybe even Green...or Orange, ”
Lime could see the anguish in Blues expression and didn’t want to see it there again and spoke the first thing they could think of to get rid of it,
“Your kiddin’ me right..! No one on this ship gives a damn about anyone other than themselves!! Your like...” God Lime hated to admit it but it was the honest truth, “Your different, you just, care...I guess,” Lime could feel themselves burn up for a second at the confession, “If you hadn’t done those scans of yours, I wouldn’t have found that boneless scan and gone all sceptical and-“ They stopped themselves from going on a tangent,
“Lime, you don’t have to explain don’t worry, I saw your efforts, it very brave of you”
They felt their chest twang at the acknowledgement, but brushed it off, “You did shred up my scan didn’t ya?”
Despite the gloomy surroundings, Blues laugh made everything slightly brighter, “As I promised, yes, despite life or death, crewmembers wishes should always be accomplished,”
“...Well, at least it’s gone from darn MIRA...You’ve seen that ‘Orange’s’ been delt with and such?”
“I defiantly heard, aliens screech awfully loud,”
On the topic of loud, Lime could feel themselves getting riled up from the shitty music being played from the room next door, Lime had assumed it was another one of those damn pizza parties. The only good thing that ever came out of them was the fact they could hide out in the vents the whole time and eat other people’s food. But recently they had found Orange trying to talk to them during such times a little too often and only went to dine and dash. Blue snapped them, out of their thoughts,
“You...want to go with me? To the celebration, I mean,” Blue coughed into their fist, “But, only if you want to...of course!”
“OH uh-“ Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad, technically there would only be three people there maybe five – but only if the others White had mentioned bothered to show up but there was no questioning that they defiantly would – two was a bearable number, “Yeah, fine as long as you do all the talkin’ big dog,”
Blue’s visor slightly lightened up, “I assure you I will, I’m glad you trust me enough to accompany me,”
Lime started to head out and Blue made sure to follow behind, “Shut uuupp...”