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There was peace and quiet aboard the Dragon Hawk 5, or well, it had been renamed "Galaxy 2" by majority vote. Although, if you asked him, it was a boring name. Dragon Hawk 5 was much better.
The point was that the peace wasn't going to last, especially when he heard a noise coming from the storage room. Now, since Gary was a very responsible captain, he decided to go check whether one of his crew members was in trouble.
(While ignoring the fact that he wasn't the captain, he'd only been given the position to escape the insanity. Just ignore the fact that he hadn't realized that Quinn, his Quinn, was suffering.)
He had to admit, he wasn't surprised to see Ash there, taking her anger out on some crates, although with less force since her hands were still broken.
"Die!" she shouted, letting her eyes glow.
"Ash."
"Gary!" She blinked and turned to look at him, her eyes—eye—turning cold as she gave him an indifferent stare. "What do you want?"
"Okay, I'll be direct. I'm bad with words and feelings in general, and I know you're angry—"
"ANGRY?! I'M FURIOUS!"
"Right, furious, hurt, etc. The thing is, from experience—and a lot of bad experience, I might add—I need to make sure there aren't any misunderstandings that might make you want to kill us all."
"Misunderstandings? I think I understood perfectly well. You're a selfish bastard who left my brother to fend for himself when he was in danger," she growled.
Gary's heart hurt at hearing that. Not because of the insults, he was used to those, but because she genuinely believed that and was suffering because of it.
"Ash..." Gary slid down the wall and sat on the floor. "That's not what happened, and you know it. But you're feeling helpless, so you're trying to take your anger out on everyone else."
"AND WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT IT?!" she screamed, her voice distorting as her hair floated around her.
"...I've had a lot of time to deal with loss, pain, and loneliness. I've gotten plenty of lectures (thanks, HUE), and I've read a lot about the subject... I didn't want to abandon your brother, but we had no choice."
"WE DIDN'T?"
"No. Invictus was already on his way, and even if we'd freed him, he wouldn't have gotten far enough away before Invictus killed us with his mechanical arm. It wasn't your fault, either. Nobody expected you to be stronger than Jack after he'd been revived and empowered by Invictus."
"But I... he was the only family I had."
"First of all, he's not the only family you have left. If you accept us, you've got us. And second, you'll get him back. He's still alive! Look at Avocato! He spent over a month in Invictus's hands, and he's still alive and wagging his tail—and quite literally, too. Your brother's in the worst possible hands, but I know he's alive."
"Speaking of hands," she muttered, looking at her broken and bandaged fingers.
"Oh, right. Um, could I put them back into place? Only if you want me to! You don't have to agree, and it's going to hurt like hell, but—"
"Do you know how?" she asked hopefully.
"Of course! I've broken and reset my own bones way too many times for my comfort. Come here."
Ash crouched in front of him, and Gary removed her bandages. Her fingers were bent at all sorts of unnatural angles and looked swollen.
"Hmm, looks like only your fingers are broken. Your hands and wrists are fine," he said after a brief examination. "Take a deep breath. Do you want me to count to three? Because I have to do them one finger at a time. I could knock you out if you want."
"Just... do it already."
Gary took one more deep breath before resetting the first finger.
A scream of pain followed the loud crack of her bones being put back into place.
Gary didn't want to go into too much detail, but he knew it was incredibly painful, so he worked as carefully and quickly as he could, at a pretty good speed (hehe), until he'd finished fixing her hands.
"And... good as new! Now you can go back to... doing teenage stuff. Maybe there's another bowling alley on this ship that I don't know about, either."
Ash looked away as she settled into her seat, holding her hands protectively against her chest.
"He's coming."
"Huh?"
"Invictus. He spoke to me, and he's coming for me..."
"Ash..." Gary said, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Invictus is a manipulative bastard. He knows you're powerful. So what if your powers come from him? At least something good came out of that pile of garbage."
"But I... for a moment, I wanted to enter the black hole and demand answers from him... Even when I had enough strength to catch Quinn, you, and myself, I'm still weakened."
"Yeah... I don't know why I thought your hands had magically healed. Tell me, you and Quinn...?"
"What?"
"Are you two okay? I understand that you... you miss Nightfall. We all do, but—"
"DO WE, GARY?! Because it seems like you're willing to sacrifice everyone just to save Quinn!"
"I didn't know there'd be a sacrifice involved. If I'd known, I would've let your father come instead. Besides... things between Nightfall and me... were complicated. Don't get me wrong! I didn't want her to die, but I wasn't going to stop Nightfall from making her own decision. Partly because I was physically too far away, and she wouldn't have listened to me anyway, but also because deep down, I know why she did it."
"Why?" she whispered, her voice suddenly very small.
"...For love. And I know that one day, you'll understand."
"Love? Me?"
"Heh... don't think I haven't noticed the way you look at my son, although I admit I don't know whether you see him as a pet or a friend. It's strangely sweet."
"N-No, I..."
"It's okay. I trust you'll figure things out in your own time."
"..."
"..."
"This is awkward, and I'm still sad."
"Hmmm. You know what I do when I'm sad?"
"If it's singing karaoke and eating cookies, I'm not interested."
"Yeah... but there's something else, too!" he said as he stood up and searched his pocket, eventually pulling out a lighter.
At Ash's raised eyebrow—which looked strange considering she only had one—he searched for something to burn, settling on a piece of fabric lying in the storage room. He quickly set it on fire.
"And how is that supposed to make me feel better?"
"Hmm, maybe it's because you're not doing it yourself. Here, grab it," Gary said, waiting for Ash to pick it up with her mind as he showed her another, larger piece of fabric.
The flames licked at the edges, which were gradually blackening and curling in on themselves, and smoke began to rise.
Ash watched the flames, hypnotized.
"Do you feel better?"
"No... but this helps."
////
Gary walked down the corridors leading to the sleeping quarters, massaging his head. It still hurt a little, even two days after Quinn's procedure, but that was to be expected after requesting a completely mental treatment without anesthesia. At least Quinn could take painkillers for her injuries, while he didn't have any.
But he didn't regret a thing.
As he headed toward his room, wishing with all his might that he had a cigarette, something slammed into him from behind, making him stumble.
"Heeey, Garyyyyyyyyy!"
"KVN... I've got a headache. If you don't get away from me this instant, I'm going to set you on fire."
"But how could I ever separate myself from my best friend in the whole wide world?" KVN said, draping an arm over his shoulders and moving uncomfortably close to his face. Gary would never admit it, not even on his deathbed, but the cold metal felt nice.
Until KVN continued speaking directly into his ear.
"You have until I count to three."
"Starting from zero?"
"Three."
With that, he transformed his robotic arm into a flamethrower and pointed it at KVN.
Honestly, how had he not noticed sooner? He'd seen those robots use flamethrowers hundreds of times. He'd never seen the sword, and he hadn't known he had a weapon because the security robots always used weapons that were, well... not attached to their bodies.
"AaAaAaAaAa!"
"STAY STILL, KVN!"
They'd made it all the way to the kitchen, where KVN fled in terror. Gary put away the flamethrower and approached the counter to grab a cookie.
Everyone was gathered there, even his mother.
"Uh... what was that?" Little Cato asked.
"Oh, nothing. Just KVN being KVN."
"I was talking about you. What was that on your arm?"
"Oh, this?" he asked, showing off his flamethrower. "It's my flamethrower. Honestly, I don't know how I didn't figure it out sooner. I've seen Carl use his flamethrower hundreds of times."
"Uh... who's Carl?" Ash asked.
"One of the robots that were aboard the Galaxy 1. We ripped one of those robots' arms off to use as my robotic arm after I lost mine."
"And what did KVN do?"
"Not die," Gary groaned as he sat on a stool, grabbed the cereal box, and poured himself a bowl.
"We should put a lock on that," Avocato said.
"On what?"
"I don't trust Gary with a flamethrower."
"That's not fair! That's a completely unjustified and incredibly rude concern!" Gary complained, standing up and gesturing wildly, completely forgetting about his bowl of cereal.
"Actually," HUE interrupted, "Gary has a documented tendency toward pyromania. It simply hasn't been possible to confirm it, as there weren't many things to burn aboard a suicide-proof ship."
"What— I... I'M NOT A PYROMANIAC!"
"Well... you did have a lighter," Ash pointed out.
"I'M A SMOKER!"
"Your advice for dealing with depression was to set things on fire, Gary, and that was before you knew about the flamethrower," Ash said.
"I— well, hold on a second—"
"You're a smoker?" Avocato asked.
"Yeah, but I quit when I joined the Galaxy 1. After all, there wasn't much nicotine on board, was there?"
Gary noticed Quinn entering the kitchen just then. She looked better than she had that morning, because now that there were no more secrets between them, they were sleeping together. TOGETHER! In the same bed.
"What are you talking about?" she asked, and before Gary could answer, Little Cato spoke up.
"WE'RE TALKING ABOUT HOW GARY'S A PYROMANIAC!"
"I'm not!"
"Well..." Quinn said. "The first thing you said when you saw me was that I was hot."
"Hey... that was a perfectly normal compliment."
"And the first thing you said when we arrived at Newton's factory to manufacture KVNs was, and I quote, 'This place needs to be purged with fire! We have to burn it to the ground! LET'S BURN IT TO THE GROUND!' while waving your hands around like a lunatic and looking completely unhinged."
"It's not my fault KVN drives me crazy!"
"Furthermore," HUE added, "when faced with an explosion, your heart rate increases more rapidly than that of 72% of the average human population. Your cortisol levels rise, and your serotonin levels remain elevated for longer. In other words, they excite you."
"HUE... shut up. Besides, explosions excite everyone."
"Dude, this explains everything. Remember when I caught you muttering about burning your entire room down after KVN went into it while we were on a mission?" Avocato asked.
"HE MADE IT DISGUSTING!"
"Except you actually did it and managed to burn your bedsheets before the robots tackled you."
"Hmm." Gary didn't pout, thank you very much, but he was in a bad mood. Now everyone was ganging up on him.
"Chookity, chookity-pok."
"SHHH, Mooncake! Not now! It's bad enough that not only I can understand you, but now the others are starting to learn your language, too. You can't just go around saying things like that!" Gary said, before suddenly bursting into laughter.
"What's so funny?" Ash asked.
"Something Mooncake said got me thinking... what a stupid name!"
"What?"
"Mooncake is an adorable name. It's the one I gave him, but... it's so stupid! And don't get me wrong, I love it, but it's funny hearing Lord Commander, Bolo, the Arachnitects, and even Invictus himself calling him Mooncake. What did they call him before? I doubt it was E-351."
Little Cato chuckled at the thought. It really was ridiculous.
Ash stood up and left. She was bored, and the conversation had stopped being interesting. Quinn also left, though she was more interested in seeing whether she could talk to Ash. In the end, only Avocato, Little Cato, Sheryl, and Gary remained.
Sheryl hadn't said anything throughout the entire conversation. She'd simply been watching in silence until she finally found the right words.
"Gary... do you know why... why, when I returned to your father's house years later, it was completely destroyed?"
"...You went back?"
"Yes... I was told... I was told there'd been a fire. Nothing was left, and... at first, I thought you were dead, but they never found your body."
"...I burned it. Happy?"
"Gary... why—?"
"Little Cato, could you leave, please? I think we're going to have an adult conversation here, and that's not up for discussion," Gary said, making Little Cato leave with his ears drooping in annoyance.
"You too, Avocato," Sheryl said.
"No," Avocato replied. "I'm not leaving unless Gary wants me to. And even then, I'll wait outside so I can be there to support him."
Unlike you, who wasn't there for him, went unsaid, but it was pretty obvious.
"I... Avocato, it's okay, buddy. I mean, you can wait outside. I don't care if you listen, but I don't think I'll be able to insult my mother properly with an audience."
"Got it baby. Come on, KVN," Avocato said, walking toward the exit and taking KVN with him.
When the door closed, Gary turned toward his mother, who was still staring at him.
"What?"
"What do you mean, 'what'?! You burned the fucking house down!"
"I DID! SO WHAT? It's not like you were there to suffer through it!"
"Why...?"
"BECAUSE I HATED IT! There were too many painful memories. I tried to spend as little time at home as possible, to the point where I started sleeping in the treehouse, the only place you hadn't ruined with your presence. Some days turned into every day when the food ran out and the utilities were shut off. I only went inside when it rained, and then the house went up for sale..."
"And what were you doing there? You shouldn't have been... I don't know, in an orphanage or something?"
"I should have been, yeah, but I never let them take me. I barely finished school and convinced my teachers not to call social services, and to hide me whenever they did. When the house went up for sale, I realized it wouldn't matter whether I was the rightful owner or not."
"And that was enough to turn you into a pyromaniac?"
"It was about 'rising from the ashes' and coming back stronger. Legally speaking, Gary Goodspeed was dead until they found a body. I lived on the streets and developed a pretty severe cigarette addiction from an early age. I had to fight in gang wars and steal to survive, all because you abandoned me when I was eight years old."
"...I didn't want to..."
"I DON'T CARE! I understand why you did it, and I appreciate that you want to try again, but STOP MAKING EXCUSES! I HAVE THE RIGHT TO FEEL RESENTMENT! I HAVE THE RIGHT TO HAVE A PAST! A PAST YOU WEREN'T PART OF! I want to start over, but you need to stop treating me like the helpless little boy you left behind. I'm not a fire hazard. Yes, I burn things for fun. Yes, I like explosions. SO WHAT? Ash has a disturbing interest in gore, Little Cato has a desperate need to prove himself, and Avocato has war trauma. Just... just stop pushing, okay? Let's start slowly and try not to kill each other."
"That sounds fair. And Gary... I'm sorry. I really am..."
"It's okay... I guess sometimes you need to yell things out to get over them. And the fact that you're here proves you want to change, and that... that means a lot to me."
Sheryl looked at him, but not like he was an idiot. She looked at him as if he were something precious, and that made his stomach churn.
Weird.
"ALL RIGHT! Enough intense talking! I can practically feel the tension between us! AND NOT THE SEXUAL KIND! That would be weird. Actually, disgusting. I'm supposed to be the funny one, you know? As captain, I have to keep a cool head! I'm going to get a cookie!" Gary announced, trying to leave.
Except that when he opened the kitchen door to head toward the sleeping quarters, Ash and Little Cato fell to the floor. Avocato was watching them from a distance with a disapproving look.
"Heyyy, Gary," Little Cato said before picking Ash up—carefully, so as not to hurt her hands—and running off.
Avocato placed a hand on Gary's back and began guiding him outside.
"You have the right to feel things. You don't have to be 'the funny one.' You can have feelings. You're human," he said.
"I know," Gary murmured.
"You know what would make you feel better?"
"A cookie?"
"Better. A game of cards."
"Oh! I'm on fire, buddy! I'm going to destroy you!"
"Suddenly, that expression worries me."