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[pumpkinpatch-daydreams]

Look at this wikipedia article and tell me..

[pumpkinpatch-daydreams]

Blog Table of Contents:

Everything is in order of timeline.

< = happens at the same time

* = direct continuation

Heist Hijinks:

Premature Ejection

*<He said-she said

*<A whole new world another old crash

*Lost and found

Reality A:

Drunken night out

[pumpkinpatch-daydreams]

Heist hijinks: Lost and Found

[return to the beginning]

Length: 1,749 words

Read time: 7 minutes

Content warnings: injury, embarrassment.

Note: no sexual themes or content.

A shadow came over the pod as the impromptu rescue team came in to land where it could nearby. It was about four times the size of the pod and triangular in shape. A stealth craft. The doors open and a ramp slid out to allow its occupants exit.

Out stepped Iggy and Nullian. The two young men were equally tall, though Nullian had considerable bulk on his lanky counterpart. They approached the pod cautiously as if it might decide to rear up and bite them. They heard movement, a shifting on debris, and Nullian stepped back, ready to run or fight whatever decided had taken up residence inside the crashed pod.

Out crawled Ella. She knew it was safe because she recognized Iggy’s tattered old doodled on boots. her dress was filthy, her hair was tied up with a starry bow that Iggy swore he saw before, but not on her. Her face was still wet from crying, and she moved strangely, leaving to one side and not quite limping as she clutched to her side.

“Ella!” Both men shouted in unison and rushed her.

“Careful I’m hurt!” She warned, hands still on her side.

The two of them skidded to a stop in the soft soil. “Hurt how?” Iggy asked in a concerned almost parental tone.

“My side hurts really bad. It’s hard to breathe. I’ll be fine but don’t touch me.”

Nullian had started openly crying “I’m so glad to see you alive! I thought I killed you!” He sobbed.

“I’m fine! I’m okay! But I think Cadence needs help they’re hurt real bad and keep kinda fading in and out.”

“Wait, what?” Nullian blinked “Cadence is with you?”

“Whoa, hold on, how did Cadence get mixed up in all this? What happened? Wait, no, priorities, where are they?”

She pointed at the wrecked pod.

Iggy walked over, brushed the glass over to clear a spot with his foot, then kneeled down to look through the smashed front windscreen that peaked over from below the pod. He saw Cadence propped up sitting against the back wall. Their head sagged to the point their chin touched their chest, their cardigan and dress shirt were both unbuttoned and strained dark red at the shoulders, the sleeve of one arm was partially shredded.

Wide eyed, Iggy looked back to Ella who had went to stand with Nullian then back at the scene before him. Were they still alive? Was Ella in denial and hanging out with a dead body all this time? He ventured forward, went to touch their face, hesitated, then covered his hand with his sleeve before poking them. They didn’t move.

“Hey buddy… you… you good…?” He leaned in, tilting his head to the side as if a different angle would give him a more concrete answer. “You still with us?”

He grabbed their arm to try and shake them a little, only to have them spring to life, hissing through their teeth and yanking their arm away before groaning.

Iggy jumped back like a snake just tried to strike at him, slamming his shoulder into the chair hanging from the ceiling in the process, the impact making him twist and fall.

Cadence blinked the blur from their eyes “Ignatius? Ignatius is that you? Goodness are you alright?”

“I’m fine I’m fine,” he said quickly “are YOU alright? You look like a zombie!”

“It was rough coming in, my landing skills can use some work. But hey, I’m alive.”

Iggy decided to skip over the fact they did not answer his question for now. “Can you walk?”

“Let’s find out together.”

They wobbled and shook as they slowly climbed to their feet. They used the wall and the hand Iggy offered them to pry themselves off the ground. They managed to get to their feet, more or less. They moved like a newborn deer as their limbs wobbled below them. Iggy snaked an arm under theirs and around their back to help stabilize them as they made their way out. They had to crouch to get back through the broken windscreen. Iggy covered the both of them with his leather aviator jacket to try and negate any cutting from broken glass as they shuffled out.

Outside Nullian was crouched at eye level checking up on Ella. When he saw the two of them emerge from the wreckage he straightened back up. With his free arm Iggy made a ‘round up’ gesture to signal they should go back on the ship.

As they climbed the ramp it was clear Cadence was having a lot of trouble keeping balance and Nullian watched them like a hawk. He knew that walk. The way their head kept nodding off every once in a while, the way half their body seemed to be uncooperative compared to the other, the terrible balance. That was the walk of a man who took one too many blows and was destined to die in his sleep. As he helped Ella along he mentally scrambled for what he should do, if anything, to help. Nothing came to mind, how could one fix internal issues? He wasn’t a doctor… but the B.S. Lucky had one on deck. He might be able to stop them from dying. “We should go ahead and take them back before we go for the other pods and get them to Dr. Locke.”

“Way ahead of you buddy. We’re taking them straight there.” Iggy nodded.

As they stepped inside Audrey cheered “yeaahhh! You’re alive!”

Everyone got up from their seats to surround her, rapid firing questions and concern, closing in. Nullian didn’t like that one bit, he held an arm out as of to shield Ella from the encroaching crowd.

Iggy waved his arm as if to dissipate smoke. “Hey now don’t crowd, I know you’re worried but you’re stressing the poor girl out.”

It was then the group noticed Cadence with him, with the way they were slouched and the aviator jacket covering them they weren’t immediately visible behind Nullian and Ella.

“Whoa what are they doing here!? I half didn’t expect Ella to actually be one one of those things now we have them?” Birdie inquired.

“It’s a long story…” Ella said as she stared down at her shoes.

“Man, getting mixed up in dumb intergalactic bullshit is your hidden super power.” Amy-lee jabbed.

“Hey! Language! We have double the amount of babies now then we did before!” Iggy berated.

Audrey stomped on his foot. “I told you! I’m not a baby!”

He clenched his teeth to avoid outright dropping Cadence on the floor.

“Okay! Enough of all this!” Cadence raised their voice. “I’d hate to be pushy but I’d prefer getting to a doctor sooner rather than later if at all possible.”

“You heard em’! Buckle up everyone! Also pick your travel buddy there’s going to be a lot of lap sitting this time around.”

Ella looked up at Nullian and took his hand “can we be travel buddies? I don’t think Cadence and I make good travel buddies. We’re better station buddies.”

Nullian smiled down at her “sure! We can be travel buddies.” He headed over to his seat, sat down, and she took a seat in his lap. He was careful bucking the two of them in, and kept an arm a few inches in front of her torso to avoid the buckles digging into any possible injuries.

Birdie crouched down in front of Audrey “want to be travel buddies again?”

“Not really, I want my own seat.”

The corners of Birdies mouth pitched down. well that hurt. “Well… I think I’m too big to sit on someone else’s lap. So looks like we’re stuck together.

“Ugh. Fine.”

The two buckled in but Audrey kept her arms crossed the entire time.

Iggy gently put a hand on Cadence’s shoulder. “Alright short stack pick a lap.”

“Oh, I was thinking it was best if I sat alone. I’m not doing particularly well and I’d hate to get blood on anyone.”

Iggy mulled that over for a few seconds before turning to Champ “alright big guy time to play Santa clause.” He declared before falling back and across Chance’s lap.

He jumped in surprise “Hey! What!?”

“They’re taking my seat so we have to double up.” He righted himself on the chair. It was awkward, Chance was a big bulky guy, all throughout school they tried to draft him as a linebacker for the local football team, he filled the entire seat and spilled over some. Meanwhile Iggy wasn’t a small man himself, he was the tallest of the group but thin as a beanpole. It was all gangly limbs and elbows as he tried to figure out the logistics of both of them fitting into the same seat.

The entire time Iggy squirmed to get comfortable Chance grew redder and redder. He’d had a crush on Iggy since day one and now he was in his lap and rubbing up against him. He kept his hands firmly on the arm rests of the chair as Iggy dug the straps out from underneath him and buckled the two of them in. His face was glued to the window to hide how flustered he was. This had to be some kind of test. The mantra of ‘don’t be creepy’ marched through his mind. In the reflection of the window he caught Jed with a hand clamped over his mouth trying not to laugh at them.

“Okay! Amy-Lee if you could help Mr. Boss lady to their seat we should be good to go!” Iggy declared.

Cadence scoffed at the notion they would need help buckling in. They had a decade on every other person in this cabin at least. They didn’t protest as Amy-Lee silently obeyed the request and buckled them in. Then, they blinked, and suddenly they were in deep space, no signs of the planet in sight, no shimmer and show of launching from an atmospheric planet, nothing. Like a section of film cut out of a movie and both ends connected back together like it was never there in the first place. Well, that was concerning.

Just like that they were heading back to the B.S. Lucky, half the crew happy to be alive, the other worried about how they would survive telling Oron they wrecked almost all of his pods. Either way, the mission was considered a net positive.

Path trajectory:

[To be continued]

[return to start]

[pumpkinpatch-daydreams]

Heist hijinks: he said-she said.

[Start at the beginning]

Length: 6,793

Reading time: 28 minutes

Content warnings: deception, gaslighting, domestic abuse, pinning blame.

Note: no sexual themes or content.

Evelyn reveled in the silence that followed. She could launch them out into space, but that felt too risky. She wasn’t a bad person, she didn’t want to hurt anyone, she just wanted them to learn their lesson and finally stop bothering her with petty nonsense. Planning on letting them bake in their fear for an hour or two, she took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then turned to head back to her room.

There was a figure taking up most of the doorway. Evelyn jumped and squealed like she had just seen a ghost, her face fell when she recognized it was Nullian, Ella’s little pity friend and trained lap dog. Standing up straight she was the perfect height to head butt him in the nose, the only thing stopping her from doing so was the fear this crazy hobo might develop a mean streak. “God! We need to put a bell on you!”

“So I’ve been told.” He gave her an awkward smile like he was the one caught in the middle of something.

“What do you want?” She barked.

“I heard screaming all down the hallway. What’s going on?”

“Nothing, it was just my sister being over dramatic. Don’t worry about it.”

The smile didn’t weaver, but his eyes narrowed and scanned the room. “Where is she then?”

“God don’t look at me like that, it’s creepy.”

He stepped into the room and started making his way over. “I heard Ella screaming, where is she?”

“I don’t know, she stormed off just before you walked in.” She started backing up. This guy was bad news from day one and she knew it.

“Why was she screaming?”

“She’s always screaming and crying for no reason.” She tried to stay firm but she felt a quiver threatening to come out. She felt her backside press against the hard corner of the control panel counter behind her.

“Is that right? I don’t think it is.” A rough edge came into his voice “So why don’t you tell me what was making her scream and where she is now?”

He was inches from her now, she started leaning back to try to put any distance between them. “I don’t know! She’s not here! I don’t know! She just starts freaking out sometimes! It’s not my fault I didn’t do anything.” She was all but laying back on the counter now.

“Lier! I know you were doing something to her again!” He slammed his hands down on the table either side of her.

There was a crunch under the heel of his palm. The screens all blinked red and showed a warning symbol on their screens. Evelin almost had the wind sucked out of her as all the pod doors slammed shut and began air compression in unison. Tammy’s voice calm and collected as ever came on over the speakers “Emergency pod dump sector C activated. Stay clear.”

Nullian looked up at the announcement dumbfounded, then down at the now shattered cover and the still compressed button. “…Oops.”

Evelyn shoved him and he let the force knock him back a few paces. “No! No no no! Oh god no!” She frantically scanned over all the buttons, switches, levers, and screens searching desperately for a hint, a clue, on how to cancel the action. “Make it stop! Make it stop!”

“Oh, uh, how?”

“I don’t know! Do something!”

Her panic was contagious. “I don’t know either! Uh, uh. We should get Oron or Braxten, they can fix this!” At that moment they heard the unmistakable sound of the pods uncoupling from the ship and saw them speed past the windows, ejecting out in all directions. He watched them go with wide unblinking eyes. “It’ll be fine right? Those pods are old and half of them are broken. They won’t be missed, right?”

“You idiot!” Tears started streaming down Evelyn’s face “Ella was in one of those pods! You’ve murdered her!”

“What!? Why in the world would she be in There!?”

Evelyn shoved past him into the hallway crying. He watched her go, then watched the pods shrink until they were nothing more than a dot merging with a galaxy of stars. He stood stock still but his mind was racing. Was Evelyn telling the truth or was she just messing with his feelings again? She must be, right? Why would they be in a pod otherwise? Someone with knowledge of how all this space stuff works would know how to get those pods back, right? They had to, right? Did his carelessness really just kill one of his only friends? She wasn’t really in that pod Evelin was just trying to get a rise out of him… right?

The screens returned to normal, the warning sign blinking back out of existence, Tammy’s voice came over the speaker once more “Emergency pod dump complete. Thank you for aiding in the safety of our ship. Stay safe!”

Evelyn returned with Ignatius of all people in tow. He looked confused and concerned in equal measure as he was pulled into the room, his gaggle of friends lumbering in behind like ducklings after their mother. Jed broke away from the group to investigate the dashboard.

Her face was wet with tears and snot streaking down her cheeks and chin. “He killed her! He finally killed her!” She was wailing.

“I… I didn’t kill anyone.” Nullian stammered, his anger and confidence had melted away the second the pods ejected. He hadn’t killed anyone, right? Killing someone meant crushing their windpipe beneath your hands or slicing their flesh open and spilling out their blood. All he did was press a button.

She shot an accessory finger at him “You launched the pods!”

“I-I. I mean. I guess I did but-“

“He shoved Ella in and launched her into space!” She cried horrified and indignant.

“That’s not what-“

“I tried to stop him! I tried to save her but he was too strong!” She collapsed to the floor, her face in her hands as she melted into sobs. “He shoved me aside and launched her into space!”

“Woah woah woah.” Iggy put his hands up as if he were trying to soothe a startled horse. “Let’s all take, like, 5 steps back here. You, big guy,” he pointed at Nullian “What happened, go.”

He was getting really tired of people pointing at him, but he pushed that gripe down for now. “I heard Ella scream and-“

“He was attacking her!” Evelyn wailed.

“Came to see what happened. Didn’t see Ella anywhere but saw Evelyn. I asked her where Ella was and she was being sketchy about it so I asked firmer.”

“He attacked me for trying to protect my baby sister! Look what he did to my arm!” She raised her arm to show the bruises that had begun to form from where Candace hit her.

“I leaned against the dashboard over there and some glass broke and I guess that made all the pods… fall off?”

“Stop trying to down play what you did! Murderer! Murderer!”

Iggy wasn’t really listening to Evelyn’s interjections, he already got her side of the story on the walk up. “Okay, well, I’m not sure about all that. But what I do know is this pod bay has a distinct lack of pods. Hell that kinda defeats the purpose of a pod bay, don’t it? Our ass are grass if the big boss up in the captains chair found out we lost 6 whole pods. Looks like we are going on a pod hunt. And if we find Ella in one of those pods, well… we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.” He spun around with a flourish to face his group. “Alright men! Looks like we’re going on a scavenger hunt! Jed! See if you can pick up trackers and possible trajectories of those bad boys. Birdie! Team up with Jed if any of those pods land anywhere hostile I want to know the fastest way we can get in and get out no mess no fuss. Lee! Secure us a scavenger ship big enough to fit…” he did a quick head count “6 people. Ella can sit in a lap on the way back if we find her. Champ! You’re on snack duty!” He started clapping his hands “Alright people let’s hustle! One of our own might be on one of those pods and I want to see her back here by supper time!”

His group scattered like roaches after the lights come on. Jed making a beeline to the control panel while the rest all but clamored over each other to get out of the room to their assigned tasks.

“Hey!” A young teenage girl piped up “If there’s only going to be 6 seats where am I going to be sitting? You have another thing coming if you think I’m going to sit on your or one of your goon’s laps.”

Iggy twirled on his heel to face her, then bent at the waist to be down at eye level with her. “Easy! You’ll be sitting in your room.”

She stamped her foot and held her fists at her sides stiffly. “Hey! Ella’s my friend! I’m coming too!”

“You’re also a little pipsqueak that keeps messing up my missions! You’re sitting this one out.”

“That’s not fair!”

“Okay how about this, you look to make sure Ella isn’t hiding out on the ship somewhere after all and next time someone gets jettisoned out into space you can come too. Heck if they don’t make it I’ll even let you poke the body. Deal?” He held a hand out.

She crossed her arms. “Okay fine!” She barked as she sulked out of the room, ignoring his hand.

Working like a well oiled machine, It took the group only 20 minutes to get ready to head out. Amy-lee managed to set up a medium sized scavenger ship without anyone raising a brow. It wasn’t particularly hard, there were few people that gave the bays any thought when they were this far off planet side. As long as they didn’t kick up too much of a fuss and were quick they could get the pods back before Oron or Lulian noticed anything amiss.

Chance was able to scrape together about two days worth of rations, mostly taking on the form of peanut butter bars. While he searched he noticed their supplies were running slim. He couldn’t help but wonder how long it would be before they’d have to take on some drastic job to make ends meet again. There were so many mouths they had to feed now, he had noticed that Oron had become more reclusive. He likely had another half baked get rich quick scheme cooking up. He worried what kind of miracle Oron expected the crew to pull off next. He shook his head clear as he shoved the bag of Peanut butter bars into one of the cargo compartments. Now was not the time to worry about all that, Iggy put him on a task and he needed to focus.

Birdie presented Iggy with her notepad. She had a hand drawn map of the surrounding solar system with a tiny doodle of the ship in the center. There were 6 dotted lines going off in all directions with notes and arrows to label different things to keep in mind.

Iggy looked over the doodles. He’d had enough experience deciphering her maps that most would consider him an expert Birdie decoder at this point. “So we’re on the same page.” He lifted a hand to keep count on his fingers. “Pod one’s boosters shat the bed immediately and now it’s fallen into orbit around the B.S. Lucky. Pod two was going out into deep space until it went out of range, Pod three and six hit a meteor when their signals gave out, so those are both probably wrecked, four managed to shoot down erratically before suddenly changing direction and making a beeline to the Nio system, and five managed to get sucked into a planet’s gravity and it’s now sending out a crash report.” when he ran out of fingers he raised the pad a little to gesture the extra number.

“Yup. That about covers it.”

He tucked the notebook into the pocket of her plaid shirt. “Oh we’re so boned.”

Birdie’s mouth trembled. “Do you think Ella really was on one of those pods?”

“I hope not.” He brushed away the thought before it could take root and throw him off his game. “Anyway we’re grabbing the one in orbit first, then checking out the signal coming from planet side.” The thought that there was only a 1 out of three chance that Ella was still alive on one of those pods tried to claw its way into his conscious mind and choke him up. He gave the emotion floating up a mental waffle stomp and went back to the task at hand. “Alright! Let’s head out! We don’t have time to be burning daylight! Nullian you’re coming too.”

Nullian blinked. Up to this point he had leaned against the wall and got lost in his own thoughts as he stared off into the universe beyond the glass dome of the floor. “Wait what? I am? Don’t you think I did this?”

Iggy shrugged. “What better person to point the way then the perpetrator?”

Without waiting for a response, Iggy stood tall as he strode to the other bay with Nullian, Birdie, and Jed keeping pace behind him. Nullian hesitated briefly, weighing what he should do before slinking after the group. Jed kept making an awkward hop step every few paces to try and keep up with his longer legged cohorts. He silently grumbled to himself about how it was unfair for everyone else he knew being so freakishly tall every time he hopped until he took his place in the pilot’s seat. “Alright let’s leave smashing bodies for the bedroom and buckle in everyone.” He announced.

Birdie scrunched her nose “Don’t be gross.”

“Ay,” Amy-Lee grinned “if I want to smash on a potentially dangerous under cover retrieval mission there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

Iggy raised a brow. “Who are you proposing to smash in this scenario? Nullian?”

Nullian was sliding down into a seat at the back of the craft during this exchange. When he heard his name he felt his face get hot and he attempted to hide inside his own shirt.

“Yeah? What if I am?” Amy-Lee crossed her arms in mock offense “You don’t know my life.”

“No thank you…” Nullian all but squeaked from his where he hid inside his own clothing.

“Ooo, shot down. Better luck next time.” Iggy laughed as he sat down and buckled up. “Now sit down and buckle up before I skee ball your ass off his thing.”

“Like you’d have the guts to try.” She retorted as she buckled into the seat.

“Alright. Everyone buckled in?”

There was a chorus of “yes”s from around the craft.

“Good!” He clapped his hands “Okay everyone welcome to the flight, there will be in-fight snacks courtesy of whatever Chance dug up in the kitchen. in case of emergency put your head between your knees and kiss your ass goodbye because there are no emergency exits. Today’s mission is to retrieve as much of the skimmer pods as we can and, maybe, a rescue mission.” He made a point to make obvious eye contact with Nullian, only his gaze was transfixed on his own feet as his hands gripped the straps of his harnesses like a child gripping a backpack. “A couple of these things landed planet side so remember, work together, stick together. I’m looking at you Jed, I know you’re an excitable space boy and all that but that doesn’t mean you can go getting distracted and wandering off somewhere.”

“Hey! I got lost at a station ONE TIME.” Jed protested.

“And you’ll never get lost again under my watch.” Iggy retorted. “Everyone got it? Good. Let’s lift off!” He sat down and buckled in next to Nullian.

“It’s only liftoff when we’re planet side. In space it’s takeoff.”

“We can call it turbo shit for all I care, let’s go!”

Jed shook his head, but he was smiling. He hit the eject button and craft uncoupled from the massive ship with loud ‘cha-dunks’ that vibrated through the craft as it began floating off into space. The porthole they were connected to moments before quickly whizzed away, then back around again, as the main ship spun like a top without them. He tried to ignore the burn marks on the side of the B.S. Lucky’s otherwise white exterior where he got a little trigger happy with the throttle on previous flights. The craft floated away a mile or two before kicking off the engine. Everyone pressed back into their seats as they took off.

The retrieval of the first pod was easy. The craft had a set of claws on the front for situations like this. It was only a matter of getting a good grip and gently guiding it to the ship bay close enough for the magnets to take over the rest in the zero gravity environment. they could see through the windows that, outside of whatever was happening with its engines, the pod was pressurized and intact. However there was a twinge of worry in Iggy’s chest when he saw it was empty. When the pod connected with the B.S. Lucky fully Iggy clapped and congratulated Jed on a job well done briefly before they moved onto the next task. Jed had no idea if Iggy didn’t realize that the act of pod retrieval wasn’t particularly difficult, just a little fiddly, or if he just wanted to be encouraging, but either way he appreciated the recognition for his efforts.

As soon as the pod was secured they took off to the nearest system to check out the one with the distress signal. It was a Terrestrial planet, small, brown, and rocky orbiting a dwarf star. though nowhere near the habitable zone around its star. Hopefully the pod was mostly in one piece or this was going to get tricky.

“So.” Iggy said to Nullian “got an idea which pod she’s in?”

Nullian never moved his gaze from the floor. “No. I didn’t even see her. I just heard a scream and Evelyn was acting weird so I figured something was up. I-I didn’t mean to launch the pods. It kinda just happened.”

“It’s not like there’s a maze in there. You didn’t think to check the pods before going around hitting buttons?”

“No… I didn’t This this would happen.” He didn’t like they kept asking questions like they were trying to trip him up in a web of lies, but he couldn’t help but start to doubt himself, second guess if how he remembered it really happened the way he thought it did. Things seemed to be different from what he remembered more and more often since he joined the crew. He feared his years in captivity may have busted his mind in ways he didn’t anticipate.

“Yeah I wouldn’t plan on a full ejection either. I know the B.S. Lucky is older than everyone here combined and held together with duct tape and thoughts and prayers but they really need a like, “hey are you sure?” Pop-up for these sort of things.”

Nullian nodded solemnly.

“Hey, chin up. We aren’t making funeral arrangements yet. It’s not over until we find her.”

“Or see her splashed across an astroid somewhere.” Amy-Lee piped up.

“Hey! None of that doom shit! Leave that back at the ship we are in a mission here!” Iggy barked.

She rolled her eyes and the crew fell silent once more, everyone’s eyes focused on the brown planet in the distance slowly growing larger.

As everyone’s minds started to wander away at what the destroyed pods meant for the ship as a whole, the possibility of a little girl may very well have suffered a horrible death in one of the busted pods, the likelihood they may find a dead body. As things started to get too deep in their individual mind scapes a sneeze broke the silence.

“Bless you.” Iggy said automatically as he looked around. He couldn’t see who sneezed. “Wait. Who was that?”

Everyone looked at each other, no one fessing up to the sneeze.

“Ah heck, crafts haunted.” Birdie joked.

“You don’t think that was something decompressing, do you?” Chance asked with a grimace of worry.

“Hang on let me check. Everyone sit tight.” Iggy unbuckled himself from the chair, then righted himself with the ships current state of gravity. Due to the direction of the jets currently pointing and the acceleration, “gravity” at the moment made what was previously the back wall into the new floor. The force wasn’t as strong as his home world’s, or even the gravity created by the B.S. Lucky’s centrifuge, but it was enough to be inconvenient at a time like this. It created a feeling of trying to swim in heavy clothing, possible but difficult to float up away from the new floor. He used the seats of his crew members as anchor points to navigate around.

“Watch out, it looks like Iggy might smash on the mission after all.” Amy-Lee jeered playfully.

They joke got a couple of chuckles from Chance and Jed, but not much more.

Iggy ignored her as he checked the storage compartments situated around the outer rim of the cabin. He popped one open and a series of Peanut butter bars slowly fell out towards the back wall like waterlogged leaves sinking to the bottom of a pond. The second one was full of thick plastic bags of water. He closed that one before they could slosh out and become a pain to put back later.

He had to clamored over Chance’s chest to get to the third compartment, apologizing the whole way despite Chance not showing any indication that he minded at all. He popped the compartment open to see Audrey curled up inside, due to poor planning she was currently squished inside the small space having to do a crumpled head stand to stay in he compartment. She tumbled screaming out onto Chance’s chest, Chance screamed from the startling commotion and suddenly having a child on his chest, Iggy screamed in frustration at finding his shitty little cousin on the ship he explicitly told her she wasn’t allowed on, Birdie screamed from startle at all the sudden noise, and Nullian clamped his hands over his ears as he watched on wide eyed.

Jed roared over the commotion “Who the fuck is dying and why!?”

“Audrey‘s about to in a second!” Iggy yelled back.

“Stop screaming and get off me! Your elbow is in my bladder!” Chance protested, smushing his hand into Audrey’s face to try and gently push her off. He didn’t dare raise a fist to the girl or try to shove her off. He was less gentle with Iggy as he grasped his head like a basketball and shoved him off over the side of the seat.

The cousins both tumbled slowly down to the back of the ship as they continued to squabble.

“What are you doing here!?” Iggy demanded.

“Helping look for my friend, duh.”

“You were helping by staying back at the Lucky!”

“That was a horse apples busy baby work job and you know it!”

“Well what do you expect to get done coming along besides be a pain in my butt and getting in the way!?”

Her cheeks puffed like she was underwater and about to run out of air.

“Well!?”

“I couldn’t just sit back and do nothing while my friend is floating out there somewhere lost and scared!”

“So you decided to be a nuisance and compromise my stuff instead!?”

“Hey!” Jed called from up front “Quitcha bull and sit down before we get planet side! I’m not turning around now so it is what it is.”

“Pick a lap, buttercup.” Iggy stated as he climbed back into his own seat.

She looked around at her options. Chance was already annoyed at her, Jed was driving, Nullian creeped her out, she was certain Amy-Lee would use the opportunity to put gum into her hair, and there wasn’t a chance in hell she was going to snuggle up to her jackbutt cousin. She decided her best bet was Birdie and climbed over.

“Oh hello. I guess we’re seat buddies now.” Birdie smiled down at her as she unbuckled herself and refashioned the straps around the both of them.

Amy-Lee looked over the back of her seat, straining as hard as she could to see them. “congratulations on being promoted to airbag.”

“Be nice.” Birdie scoffed.

“Why? She’s a little trouble maker.”

“And? So are you.”

“When I’m causing trouble it’s endearing. Besides I’m normally doing something productive, not crashing a search party.”

“How is doodling big “A”s on walls productive?” Audrey accused.

“It’s the anarchy symbol and it’s a silent rallying cry to the little man to band together to stand up against our oppressors! It inspires people to enact change! I’m making a difference!”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

“I sleep great, thanks.” She turned around and slid back down into her seat.

Things were quiet again as they pulled near the planet. Soon it engulfed their field of vision. Up close they could see how stony it was, with great mountains and canyons breaking up its landscape.

“We’re going in.” Jed alerted “there’s no atmosphere so it should be a smooth landing, but brace yourselves just in case. I don’t want to see anyone getting whiplash because they were leaned forward ogling some rocks when we hit a random gas pocket.”

Nullian did as he was told, leaning back into the seat, head upright, and double checked the straps were secured. It felt like every time he got into one of these smaller ships he learns something new he should be worried about. He didn’t feel particularly secured, so he put his legs up and pressed his feet against the back of Chance’s chair, pressing himself further into the seat. He had no idea if this actually made him any more safe but it made him feel better.

The sense of gravity shifted again as they were pulled into the planet orbit, then through it. Stomachs raised into throats but the ship glided down to a few miles above the surface and began cruising along, occasionally lazily weaving around mountains. Jed turned on a Radar, a little blue disk with a rotating line akin to a submarine sonar came to life and started scanning. There was nothing on it for some time before the dot pinpointing the skimmer pod’s signal appeared at the very edge. As soon as it came on Jed changed course to head for it.

Through the windows they could see the crash site. The pod had touchdown and skidded several miles before coming to a stop, leaving a long streak of gouged stone and parts in its wake. The fact there was enough of a pod left to send a signal at all was a miracle. The bulk of the crash sat half buried under dust and dirt of the planet’s crust. What could be seen of it was battered and dented like it was dragged down the highway behind a truck for an hour.

Nullian looked over the crash. “If Ella’s in there, do you think she could be okay?” He asked the crew.

“Nah.” Jed blurted “the second that thing touched down it would have popped open and lost compression like a shot soda can.”

Birdie grimaced at the bluntness “well, the skimmer pods have live cargo compartments, don’t they? They have their own line of oxygen. If she climed in there before the crash there’s a chance she made it.”

Iggy absently pet his non existent beard as he thought. “There’s no way to physically check without risking her life out here if she’s in there at all. Jed, do you think you could connect a line or a make a seal with the pod?”

“Are you shittin-“

“Hey! There’s a baby here!” Iggy warned

“I’m not a baby I know swear words!” Audrey protested.

“Are you kidding me!?” Jed continued “that thing is toast! I’m shocked it still has power! Even if it wasn’t do you know how hard it is to get a seal when a lip is covered in a light layer of dust? Never mind a metric tone of dirt and rocks!”

Iggy grimaced “alright, alright. Can you at least like, pick it up and tow it back to the lucky’s bay?”

“I can try. This is going to be the shi- shootiest game of claw ever.”

He punched in a command and a set of mechanical claws descended from the bottom of the craft. The screen was taken up by a camera feed showing what the claws were doing.

Slowly manoeuvring the ship closer, he managed to hook one of the claws under the half buried pod and clamp it down to secure it. However he stopped the clamp a second too late and everyone saw the pod buckle slightly under it.

“Eek.” Birdie squeaked in fear as she saw the indent of the claw.

“It’s fine, it’s fine, I got it.” He reassured, hoping that on the slim chance that little girl was still alive in there that he didn’t just dig her grave.

He gently lifted the craft, a large pile of sand, rocks, and debris falling silently from it to the ground below as he did so. There was silent thanks the pods were as small and light weight as they were or else they would need a much bigger craft to pull this off. He managed to secure the pod, but before he left he opened the hatch below and plopped a tracker that was safely nestled in a glob of sticky goo down where the pod once was so they could find this location again if they had to retrieve the other parts.

Things were silent as they towed the pod back to the B.S. Lucky. When they grew close they slowly drifted in the massive ships orbit as a realization hit all of them at once; how would they get permission to drop the pod off without alerting Oron?

“So… what are the chances we call and someone who won’t ask questions picks up?” Iggy asked.

“Er, pretty high I think actually. When I was getting food Oron was in his room.” Chance offered.

“What about Lulian?” Birdie asked.

“Just call them and if we get into trouble, screw them. What are they going to do? Drown us like a bag of puppies?” Amy-Lee offered.

“They could sell us at the next station to cover the cost of the pods…” Nullian stated quietly.

“They… wouldn’t do that… right?” Birdie laughed nervously.

“I don’t see why not.”

“Wasn’t there something about leaving the doomer attitude at the Lucky?” Amy-lee reminded.

“If they decide to get rid of us somehow, we’ll figure something out together. Jed, call them.” Iggy settled.

Jed took a deep breath, and hit the button to open the com lines. It took a few moments before it was answered and a video feed was put up on camera. It took a longer than it should have for everyone to recognize what they were seeing, a plump man with a bushy well groomed beard laying across the captain's chair with the mic resting on his stomach as he curled it’s wire around his finger like a teenage girl on the phone in an old rom com. “Hello! B.S. Lucky, Calric here standing in for Captain Oron, who do I have a pleasure of speaking to this fine day?”

It seemed he couldn’t find the screen with the video feed, or didn’t care to. “Oh, uh, hello Mr. Locke. It’s Jed.”

“Jed? Are you outside the ship? Did you get cramped up inside and go on a space walk?”

Iggy leaned his head over into the walkway to be seen. “There was an emergency, there might have been an accidental jettison in some pods were sent out that may or may not have had someone inside them. We just brought one back, can you open one of the decompression bays and let us put the pod in?”

“That’s so scary! Sure, I don’t know about all that but I’ll put Pax on it asap and send my husband down to check up on any wayward passengers.”

“Thank you so much Mr. Locke I owe you one.”

“No problem! I’m going to go do that now, bu-bye!” He pressed a button on the captains dash. A coffee machine spluttered to life in the background. They watched him get up from the chair and trot out of the room, the coms still on.

“Uh, Mr. Locke? The com line?” Jed tried, but he was already out of ear shot.

“Forget the phone, let’s keep an eye out for a port door.” Iggy suggested.

Jed nodded and everyone watched until a few moments later towards the bottom tip of the ship where the end stopped spinning, and a new light cut though the abyss as the doors opened for them.

Normally this door would be to connect ports with a much larger ship, but the craft they were in and the pod remains they were carrying were both small enough to squeeze through and deposit the wrecked skimmer. Once satisfied that the scrap was securely inside they inched their way back out and clear. Moments later the doors clamped shut and they knew the room it was in was being re-pressurized. Hopefully, if Ella was in there, she would be tended moments later by Dr. Locke and would be fine.

They watched for only a moment, letting it sink in that that pod was their best bet to getting Ella back alive and even that was slim, before Iggy spoke up. “Alright! Off to the next one! Pod four.” He pointed in the direction he best guessed the pod went in with its weird flight pattern “to the Nio system we go!”

“Shouldn’t we drop off Audrey?” Birdie asked.

“It would take too much time to dock and pressurise, it’s not worth it.”

With that they were off again, heading off to the system. It was quite a ways off the beaten path, but the other pods were either flying off with much too much of a head start to even hope to track down or likely won’t have enough left to scoop up without skimming through astroids with a net like they’re trying to clean a swimming pool. When they drew close they saw the Nio was a blue giant system. Audrey’s face was pressed against the window like a kid looking upon the majesty of a candy shop. She loved the giant stars, blue giants were her second favorite. She loved how they glittered like diamonds in the sky. Her love for the blue stars were surpassed only by red supergiants, the potential for the elderly stars threatening to supernova at any moment excited her, but the blue giants were still very pretty to look at as far as star rankings go. Even better than brown dwarfs considering their luminosity.

As they drew closer she spotted one planet orbiting the star in the habitable zone was a strangely shape blue and green planet. It was always a grab bag if planets produced life, normally what was needed was the planet to be in the habitable zone around any given star, and to have a life seed that was hearty enough to survive the harsh conditions of the first few millennia to take root in evolving on said planet. Often times conditions were rather similar for a planet to produce life though some were more harsh than others.

She pointed it out “guys look! A seeded planet! Let’s check it out!”

“Hang on hang on, we have to find the pod first.” Jed shot her down.

“Well if Ella is on the pod then if it landed there she might be alive if it has a good atmosphere.”

“Do you know how hard it is to land on a planet with atmosphere? Even if she did land there she would have crashed.”

“Yeah but if she survived the crash she wouldn’t have to worry so much about decompression.”

“Assuming the atmosphere isn’t toxic. Just admit you want to play space explorer on a seeded, likely dangerous, planet.”

Despite the argument the prospect gave Iggy hope. “We’re going to be looking over all the planets anyway, so we aren’t going out of our way here, so why not start with that one, work our way in towards the star, then hit the others up on the way back?”

“Fiiine.” Jed groaned and Audrey did a celebratory wiggle in her seat that startled Birdie.

They headed down to the planet, their stomachs collectively dropping as they drew near and the gravity began to pull them in. It wasn’t long until Tammy’s voice came over a speaker in the cabin “atmosphere detected. Wings deployed.”

The ship felt like it jumped as the wings unfolded from below and caught air. The steering stick Jed had been using up to this point had arms extend from its stem to create a wheel to keep the aircraft level. Screens lit up showing where the craft was in relation to the planets surface. Jed put in a request to test the atmosphere once they were low enough to get a good read. Tammy’s voice came over again “atmosphere sampled. 30% oxygen, 68% nitrogen, 2% carbon dioxide.”

“Oh neat! oxygen is a little high but it’s safe to breathe.” Birdie determined from the statistics alone.

“We can go exploring!” Audrey declared.

“We’re not exploring, we gotta look for the pod.” Iggy corrected.

“We can do both.”

“Hey, how strong is that scanner?” Birdie inquired.

“Uhhhhh….” Jed looked over the screens “not sure on this model. Why?”

“If it’s strong enough, maybe you can have it scan for titanium deposits. Unless there’s a bunch of titanium sitting around on this planet’s surface we can use that to find the pod.”

Jed grinned “Birdie you’re a genius. Hell, if it works well we might be able to do that to get the two out of the astroid belt.” He dipped closer to the planet, just over the trees. He kept an eye at the surrounding terrain levels as he turned on the scanner. There wasn’t anything right away, but that might’ve meant there wasn’t a lot of metal laying around this world. He wanted to make one pass over the surface before declaring the scanner wasn’t strong enough or the pod simply wasn’t there.

They were almost done with a full lap when a blip appeared on the screen. It was a circular dot that glowed bright blue on the black screen. “We got something. Since it’s breathable do you want to check it out on foot?”

“Mmm…” Iggy pondered “yeah, but just Nullian and I, we don’t need everyone out there. Especially Audrey.”

“What!? Why not!?” Audrey protested.

“Because you’ll get distracted by some alien thing and go running off, never to be seen again!”

“No I won’t! I’ll stick right to your side like glue! Promise!”

“No, we’re just stepping out long enough to check things out, hook up a couple of cables to tow it out, and climbing right back. Nothing interesting.”

She crossed her arms and pouted.

As they grew close they saw a large ripped hole in the canopy like someone shot a cannon through a sheet close to where the titanium deposit was. They used that as their entry point. Large thick leaves slapped against the hull of the craft as they were forcefully shoved out of the way. All at once the pod came into view. Tattered parachutes trailed behind it along the ground and tangled up in the trees. The pod itself looked to be mostly in one piece, it lay on the ground belly up like a dead frog with all its windows smashed out. The surrounding the area glittered with crushed glass.

Iggy turned to Nullian “I hope you got thick shoes.”

——————————————————————-

Path Trajectory:

[Return to follow pod]

[continue to end]

[pumpkinpatch-daydreams]

Heist hijinks: another new world another old crash.

[return to the beginning]

Length: 6,303

Time: 25 minutes

Content warnings: crash, blood, glass cuts, death, hunted, claustrophobia.

Note: no sexual themes or content

————————————————————————————————

Ella slammed her tiny fists on the door. Her screams and sobs were scared and ferocious but the words were reduced to unintelligible babbles.

Looking around Cadence took stock of the situation. These pods were duel purpose to either be completely unmanned or have a single occupant, meaning the cockpit they now stood in was small, cramped, but there was a small cargo section behind the plush pilot’s seat that could give the two more space if they could figure out how to open it. There were buttons and a screen across a dashboard with a stick that Cadence thought looked like an old fashioned game joy con controller with a button at the top and everything. It was all colorful noise to them. They noted a small hairline crack on the glass of the port door window. With both the pod and the ship bay doors being sealed, as long as the pod was still latched into place that wouldn’t be a problem due to there being a small bubble of air between the two bodies. Still, if that broke they’d hate to see what all that tick glass would do to Ella if it shattered.

They grabbed Ella’s hands and gently guided them away from the port door. “Okay, enough of that now. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

“Where trapped!” She screamed.

“For now. I’m sure we’ll be let out sooner or later. It’s scary but right now we have to stay calm and be patient.” They gave Ella a smile they hoped was comforting. Cadence was used to Evelyn’s games at this point and they were sick of them. Despite how mean it felt they hopped one thing to come from this experience was that Ella will finally cut away the dead weight dragging her down and they could leave them at the next station to sink or swim on their own without using the youngest member of their family as a life preserve. They knew Evelyn talked big but they didn’t believe for one second that she had the spine to truly do something to hurt them. It was all a petty power play.

They believed that until they heard Tammy’s robotic voice over the intercom. “Emergency pod dump sector C activated. Stay clear.”

Cadence’s eyes went wide. “That’s not us, is it?” They asked almost compulsively in disbelief despite knowing Ella wouldn’t know either. Ice pumped through their veins as they watched the giant mechanical couplings unhook and retract from the pod one by one. There was a final twist and the pod was free. The ship quickly fell away from the pod door. Ella stared not understanding for the moment why the ship was suddenly getting smaller.

“Oh dear!” Candace exclaimed as they let go of Ella and started frantically scanning over the buttons on the control panel. None of the colorful array that was on a spread before them pulled at any string of familiarity or understanding, nothing but the thing in the middle that looked like a joy con. Maybe it worked like one too and controlled the pod’s direction? They grabbed it and snapped it all the way to the right with the intention of turning the pod around and and heading back to the ship. Maybe they could bump into the windows of the captain’s cabin so Oron would know something was wrong and help them. That was the goal but if that was aiming too high simply bumping back into the walls of the ship and staying close until someone came looking was good enough.

What ended up happening was the pod started spinning rapidly like a top until the centrifugal force pulled them to the walls, dragging Candace forward over the control panel, and in turn the joy con, causing the pod to rapidly descend in a tight corkscrew until they overcame their fear and let go completely. The corkscrew flight pattern loosened and uncurled until they were flying straight again, Candace and Ella sliding off the walls into a pile on the floor in the process.

“Turn off the thrusters!” Ella shouted and pointed at the control panel.

“Little missy if I knew anything about this blasted thing we wouldn’t have just gone through a washing machine spin cycle simulator.” Cadence stated considerably more sternly than they meant as they untangled themselves from the heap on the floor. They were not a large person by any means but the pod was too small for even them to stand up straight. “Help me spot the B.S. Lucky.”

Both of them picked a window and started scanning the countless bright stars and nebulae that created a water painting of color across the back abyss of space for the distinct white turnip shape with slowly flashing green lights that made up their ship.

Studious eyes searched, looking over and double checking each dot, star, planet, and meteor that entered their field of vision until, eventually, heaving a sigh and turning to Ella. “Anything?”

“No. I don’t even know where to focus. We got spun so bad I don’t even know which way is up anymore.”

Their lips pressed together. “I’m so sorry.”

She sighed and slid down next to the chair to the back of the pod. With the force of the trusters pushing them forward, the back of the pod was now the floor. She curled up and sat on it. “It’s fine. It’s my fault we’re in here in the first place.”

“What? No. It was Evelyn that forced us in here.”

“Yeah but I provoked her. I started that fight that made her do this.”

They slid along what was now designated as a wall and crouched down next to her. “Ella, you have no control over the choices other people make. Unless you put a gun to her head and told her to do what you say she’s the one who freely acts on her choices. Goodness, even in that situation, she has the choice not to do what you say, even if that means that you will choose to shoot her in tern. But in that situation she didn’t “make” you shoot her you chose to. In this situation you didn’t “make” her do anything, even if she said you did, it is always her choice.”

Ella put her face in her knees. Cadence didn’t know if she was listening at this point. After a few seconds of silence she spoke into her legs. “What’s going to happen to us?”

They took this as an opportunity to take stock of the situation, looking around. They popped open the compartment behind the seat to find it plush lined but otherwise empty. Now that the fiery hot fast burning burst of deafening panic has mellowed out into a long lasting candle of dread, the only sound they heard was the hum of this thing’s tiny engine below their feet… and a hiss.

A memory that was disregarded not even an hour before politely knocked at their conscience mind and asked to be let in. The crack in the porthole glass. They looked up to where it was now positioned above them, it wasn’t particularly big and didn’t seem to have gotten any bigger, but it was still a breech in an otherwise perfect seal letting out precious minutes of air every passing second. They had no idea how much air was on this tiny pod but however much time they had was cut down by what would normally be considered an insignificant crack.

They sat down next to Ella on the back end of the pod. “I don’t know.”

“Are we going to die?”

Yeah, probably. “Let’s not think about that.”

Silence. Utter silence accented by the hum of jets pushing the two deeper into the abyss and the hiss of escaping air for far too long. Cadence lay their head back and watched the never ending sky above, wondering what affliction would get them first, air running out or dehydration, when something caught their eye. They were cruising through the solar system of a blue giant star that was taking up half their view through the windows, but that wasn’t what mattered at the moment.

They pointed the speck out. “Ella, look.”

She looked up and followed their finger. “Yeah, that star is pretty close. If we’re not careful we’re going to get caught in orbit.”

“No, not that. Look at that planet.” They stood to press their hand against the glass right below were a mottled blue and green planet orbited the star.

Ella squinted to pick it out from the visual noise of everything else. “… does that planet have an atmosphere?”

“It looks like it to me.”

“What are the odds that it could support us?”

Cadence chuckled nervously “I have no idea. But it looks like it has liquid water, doesn’t it? That puts it in the habitable zone if nothing else, right?”

“If that is even water. It could be like, made of sapphire and jade or something with smog clouds that will burn us up before we even touched down.”

They dropped their hand but kept an eye on the dot. “Maybe so. But if it is water, it’s a chance, which is more than we have now.”

“And if it’s not, it’s a quick death.”

“Great job on trying to look on the bright side.” They crouched down to pull at the handle of the compartment door between them and gestured for her to move to the side. Once she did they pulled the plush cargo compartment open again. “Alright get in.”

Her face twisted. “Wait, what?”

“There’s only one seat and it’s heavily padded in there. If we have a rough landing I don’t want you to smack off the windows and metal bars.”

“I’m not sure I can fit in there.”

“Well… can you try for me?”

She stared down at the hole in the floor. She was a little disappointed in herself how quickly she relented and climbed in. The compartment was lined in some waterproof fabric that wasn’t quite plastic but stuck to her skin uncomfortably all the same. Luckily she was just small enough to fit inside laying flat on her back, though she couldn’t quite straighten her knees without the top of her head sinking into the top end.

“See? You fit like a glove.”

“This feels like a coffin.”

“How fitting.” They closed the compartment door, plunging her into darkness.

“Wait wait! If this goes badly I don’t want those to be my last words!”

They opened it back up again. “Alright, what would you prefer then?”

“Uh… I’m sorry I got you mixed up with Oron and kinda ruined your life.”

Cadence’s mouth pressed into a thin line.

“…and for making you put up with me ever since. And for making you feel like you had to stand up for me because I’m not good enough to stand up for myself, and-“

“Ella. I don’t put up with you, I am genuinely glad to have you in my life. I cherish the fact I was lucky enough to meet you and don’t you ever forget that. Also, Ella, you’re 13. I’m a grown adult. I stand up for you when things get hard because that’s what a competent adult is supposed to do not because you’ve somehow bamboozled me into it. You deserve to have good people in your life, I’m just trying my best to be one of them.”

Her lip trembled as she tried not to cry.

“Now, as a competent adult, I’m going to get us out of this. I’ll let you back out when we land. Sit tight, try your best to be brave.” They went to close the hatch, then hesitated. Worry this would be the last exchange they would ever have crept into their chest. “Ella, remember you are a valuable person and anyone would be lucky to have you in their life.” With that they closed the hatch and took a deep breath. It was time to put their big kid pants on and live up to being the adult they just promised they were to a scared little girl locked in a box. Having to do a chin up they clamoured into the pilot’s seat and buckled themselves into the five point harness strapping them down to the seat. Their eyes scanned over the control panel one last time. Yup, those sure were a bunch of buttons and screens.

Tentatively they grasped the joy con and tried slightly nudging it in the direction of the blue and green planet. To their relief the pod slowly turned towards their intended destination. Good. That was good. Left and right correlated directly to the pod’s direction, and taking from the earlier mishap back and forward was up and down. They wiped the sweat off their palms and shook them out. Okay, it was time to be a pilot.

They slowly aimed the joy con at the planet again until their trajectory lined up then stared at the little blue smudge as if it would run off and hide if they so much as blinked. It’s okay, this was going well. Their heart was in their throat and they could feel it slamming away in their ears. There was nothing happening, it was just waiting in silence, but at this rate they would drop dead from a heart attack before they had a chance to botch the landing.

The planet slowly zoomed in from the distance, soon Cadence could see that the planet was doughnut shape and could pick out clouds and individual land masses. That was very good, there was indeed liquid water on this world and likely plants. There were a lot of planets that only have plant like life, those planets often had the capacity to support fauna but never made the leap. If that was the case, it just increased their likelihood of being able to breath this air assuming there was nothing toxic prevalent in the atmosphere. This was good, they might actually be okay. They were going to live, probably. Maybe. It would be better if this was a plant world, plants were less likely to be hostile to alien visitors.

The planet slowly grew until it completely took up the view in the front visor and continued to expand. Cadence got the sensation of falling. gravity, this was it, they were being sucked in now. They weren’t sure they could turn back now if they tried. The silence was gradually replaced by rushing air flowing over them.

Tammy’s voice came over the speaker in the dashboard, causing them to jump out of their skin. “Atmosphere detected. Skimmer mode activated.” As Cadence grappled with what in the world skimmer mode was a set of arms sprang out from the sides of the joy con, whirling gears sliding them to either side of their hands. The arms clicked into place as did recognition in Cadence’s mind. This looked almost like a car wheel. Outside the pod two sets of wings unfolded like the wings of a beetle, clunking into place. This was good. They could work with this. Maybe they really could get the two of them out of this alive.

The pod plummeted straight downwards at breakneck speeds, the whisper of air built up into a scream that engulfed them and tried to claw their way into their brain. A cloud rushed up to them and they were blinded by white. There was no sense of up or down. Even in deep space one could see where they were in relation to the celestial bodies to get a handle on their orientation but this was like trying to fly through a sensory deprivation chamber that threatened to murder you if you didn’t realize you rolled over in the endless nothingness. There was a loud ‘plink’ like a melodic gunshot and in a blink of an eye the small crack in the glass had put down roots that covered the front windscreen end to end.

Cadence followed the destructive path of the crack, swallowed hard on the bile threatening to come up, scanned over the control panel. there were lights, buttons, dials, and a screen that showed a picture of the pod’s wings on a half brown half blue background that slowly spun around it.

The cloud cover ripped back like a curtain and Cadence’s vision was filled with endless green landscape rushing past overhead. They gawked, uncomprehending how the landscape was above them. Where did the sky go?

A siren blared a single ‘woop’ and chased it with a gravely robotic voice “too low, terrain. Pull up.”

They were white knuckling the arms of the wheel and did as the robotic voice demanded, yanking the wheel back, only to see the trees rushing closer and the siren berated their actions with a continuous wail of ‘woop woop’ “pull up.” ‘woop woop’ “pull up.”

‘You’re upside down! Invert the controls you idiot!’ Their rational mind screamed at them. With arms shaking themselves into jello they mustered every scrawny muscle in their body to shove the wheel forward. The wings in their periphery bowed with the force. The pod rumbled, shuttered, and jostled them all the way down, the alarm blared, the demand to pull up screamed at them, the only break in the pattern was Tammy’s voice cutting through the noise “crash eminent. Deploying parachute.”

There was a whoosh and the wind was knocked out of them as they slammed against their restraints. They looked back up in time to see the foliage crash through the compromised windscreen. instinctively they flung their arms over their head as thick chunks of glass rained down upon them. They took a breath but was cut short before they could scream.

—————————————————————-

When Cadence closed the door to the cargo compartment it was so dark she didn’t know if her eyes were open or closed. The waiting was agony. There was no way to get a grip on wether it had been minutes or days since she was put in there. The cushioning was soft, but the plastic-like lining was weirdly sweaty. The only noises were the hum of the engine below her and a high pitched hiss. A small cold draft could be felt filling the small space. A pod like this was intended to transport personal plants, the hiss was likely its own air supply. It was thick, sterile, and almost tasted medicinal. Ella didn’t like that it reminded her of a hospital, but it would keep her alive even if all the air leaked out of the pods main chamber.

The thought sent a pang of panic through her heart. What if Cadence already ran out of air? What if she was just floating aimlessly through space with the corpse of her mentor only a foot or two away? If this was happening, what could she do about it? If the air ran out and she opened her compartment, would she die too? Would her air be enough to keep Cadence alive for a little longer if she did? The indecision paralyzed her, and like normal her course of action was to do nothing, keep on keeping on, and bare it.

Despite the stress of this likely being the last moments of her life, she was almost dozing off to sleep when the pod jostled and she heard Tammy’s voice muffled through the walls. “Atmosphere detected. Skimmer mode activated.”

There was a mechanical whirling and the pod jostled, the right hand wall became the floor and she flopped onto it. The planet had an atmosphere which was already better than expected. She readjusted herself to the new direction of gravity and braced her hands against the wall and top. The wind outside sounded like a train in the distance until it began to scream right up next to her. She tried to stay calm, tried to breathe, but burst into tears when the alarms started, warning about low terrain and upcoming crash. It was too loud, she clamped her hands over her ears as she was thrown every which way, bouncing off the confined walls of the compartment. She was going to die, she knew it, this was it, stuck in a metal coffin on some backwater planet where no one would find her.

There was something about a parachute deploying when she was slammed against the wall hard enough to have the wind knocked out of her despite the padding. There was the sound of hale before a tornado battering the outside of the pod and the feeling she was being struck hard from every direction until, finally, it all came to a sudden thunderous halt. She slammed into the front panel of her box hard enough for it to buckle outward, creating a crack in the seam where light poured in. The shattering of glass and impact of metal against stone deafened her as she felt something crack and pop inside her torso.

All at once it was over. Steam hissed out from somewhere within the pod and the air was tick with the smell of chemicals that threatened to choke her out, but it was otherwise silent.

Blinking she tried to clear her vision of the black static that swarmed her. Everything hurt. Breathing burned like an acid bath in hell. She curled up in the tight space to recover. Well, she was alive, and she wasn’t turned into a paste and squeezed through the crack in the compartment so something went right. A thought nagged at her, it was too quiet. Shouldn’t Cadence be talking? Checking up on her? Surely they’d be screaming at least… oh no.

“Cadence?” She called out tentatively. When no response came fear crept into her voice “Cadence!? Are you okay out there!?” She began prying at the door to the compartment until it popped open and she came spilling out. The pod was upside down, the roof crushed in, and every single piece of tempered glass blown out into a dusting of glittery shards that covered everything in pain. It was dark out, what little sunlight made it through the thick foliage was tinted dark green.

The pilot seat was sprouting out of the ceiling, Cadence’s arms dangling limply from out behind the backrest. Their green cardigan sleeves torn, chunks of glass poking through the shredded fabric, the cuffs and forearms stained dark and sagged down covering their hands. She crawled out of the compartment and slowly made her way around to the front of the seat. Their pink hair was streaked red, a small part of her hoped it looked darker because it was wet with sweat. That hope was short lived as they saw the dark streaks down their face. Their eyes were closed, one of the lenses of their glasses was shattered, the glass stuck in their cheek.

“Cadence?” A sob cracked her voice “Cadence are you still with me?” With a shaking hand she picked up one of the larger shards of glass. There was a trick she read in a story once to check if someone was alive, she held it above their nostrils. A new wrack of tears shook her when she saw the glass fog up with their breath. They were alive, she was alive, they both survived. Battered, bruised, and busted up, but alive. The air was breathable, at least for now, and they didn’t die in the crash. There was hope.

She took a deep breath, then wailed when a sharp pain dug deep into her side. She clutched at it, and cried. “Okay. Okay I need to be brave. They’re hurt so I’m in charge now. I need to be brave.” She sobbed.

Reaching up she tried to grab onto Cadence’s upper body in hopes of preventing them from smacking into the ground. Pressing the button in the center of the harness, it popped free, sending them both sprawling across the ground.

“Sorry! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to!” She cried as she flipped them over onto their back. The fact that didn’t wake them was worrying, but she couldn’t dwell on that right now. She untied the starry bow and slipped it from the shirts collar, tying her puffy hair back with it for safe keeping, and moved on to unbuttoning the shirt and cardigan. the first thing she saw beneath was a long thin chain necklace with a black plastic tube featuring a bright red tab at the end as a pendant. Deciding that was none of her business she brushed it to the side where it went to hide under their armpit. Their torso looked intact, though a star of dark blotchy dark bruises were already in the beginning stages of forming from the seat belts. Nothing looked broken, that was good. She couldn’t do anything about internal bleeding beyond hope they didn’t have any. Next step was the arms. There was so much glass. She plucked a small piece out, a bead of blood formed and slowly trickled down their arm. She removed enough of the glass to get their arms free from their clothes. The limbs were a wreck, glittering and misshapen from the glass embedded throughout. The skin looked torn and pink flesh peeked out at places. She did the best she could to get the glass out, but there was no way to be sure she got all of it.

The best she could do was her best and her best was good enough. It had to be good enough. She kept reminding herself of that as she tore strips of their shirt to use as bandages. She wound them tight around their limbs, then tied them off in a bow.

They still weren’t waking up. It was time to figure out how to survive on her own on an alien planet. First line of business was water, she always heard water was the most important, a person could only go a handful of days without it. She pushed Cadence into the storage compartment for somewhere soft for them to lay while she was away. It was big enough for her to lay down in but she could only fit their torso inside with their legs sticking out. That was good enough.

She had to crawl her way out of the busted window to make it out of the wreckage. The ground below her was soft, and there was a series of shredded fabric and ropes trailing behind pod and tangling up in the foliage like the train behind a bride’s dress after she’d gone running through the woods. The plant life around her was huge, with broad fleshy leaves in a green so dark they almost looked black blocking out the sun. She could see where the pod had bunched through them like a bullet, creating a single hole of off white light shining down behind them.

Despite the shade it was hot and stifling, the air was almost sticky with humidity that slicked her skin and misted her hair. She shedded her hoodie to use it as a marker to show which direction she went in just in case help arrived while she was away and plunged into the dark forest.

The air felt like it was steaming her lungs from the inside out. The gloom made it difficult to see. It wasn’t long before she was pushing thick stems and leaves out of her way. Everything was pressing into her and it was all becoming too much, but she pressed on, swallowing the growing frustration. With all the humidity there had to be water nearby, she just had to find it. Stopping to listen for if there was a river or a waterfall nearby. The thick forest was deathly quiet, no bird song, crickets, or creatures rustling in the underbrush that she was used to growing up on her home planet. The only noise to be heard was the occasional wind that swayed the thick broad leaves above but couldn’t breech the thick canopy to bring her some relief from the heat.

There was a large spade head shaped leaf that sulked to the ground on a fleshy green stalk. It had collected droplets of the humidity that slid down into a small pond at its tip. Ella approached it cautiously and peered into to the clear mirror like pool. There didn’t appear to be anything living in it, it didn’t smell weird, it should be fine, right? But how was she going to carry it back with her?

Looking around she spotted what appeared to be a green bell shaped flower that drooped low on its stem close to the ground. It was almost as big as she was but it would work well enough. Grasping it by the base, she tried to pull it free. Her ribs did not like that one bit and let their displeasure known by radiating hot pain through her side. Her legs buckled, she tried to hang on. There was a wet pop as the flower pulled free and the stem and she fell hard on her butt, the jolt causing her to scream. She lay on the ground panting, trying to catch her breath as the pain of her ribs raked through her chest.

When she recovered she opened her eyes, climbed to her feet, and gently dipped the flower into the puddle to collect the water. It was unwieldy, and sloshed this way and that, but it would be enough to get it back to the pod if she was careful. If she was lucky maybe Cadence would be awake and they would know what to do next. Or they may have died while she was away. She shook her head to clear the thought, her puff weighed down with the humidity bouncing side to side with the movement. Everyone was alive until proven otherwise. Nullian once told her hopelessness kills and she wasn’t about to test that theory.

Turning around to head back she was met with two orbs at the end of stalks that reflected brightly in what little sunlight filtered down from above. Were those there before? She couldn’t recall. Probably best not to dwell on it. Hefting her water flower she marched bravely onwards back to the pod, at least that’s what she intended to do until the orbs blinked at her.

“Uh, hello? I don’t mean any harm.” She called out.

the stocks disappeared beyond the foliage moved, and a grand blob of a creature dragging its belly on stumpy legs pushed the thick forest of grass aside.

Ella’s eyes grew wide “oh, hi there. Uh, are you friendly? Do you want to be friends?”

The entire front end of the creature opened like a black hole and a long bulbous tongue shot out. Ella squealed and flung herself out of the way, dropping her flower and spilling all of its content onto the ground in the process.

Just as quick as the first bolt the tongue retracted and launched again. Ella scrambled away and took off into the forest back towards the pod. The thick greenery whipped at her body as she ran and the leaves threatened to blind her. The creature launched its entire body to get its mouth closer to her to strike again. The ground shuttered as the beast came crashing back down behind her, almost tripping her up. The tongue stuck to a leaf inches from her head and ripped it back into its mouth. It swallowed it like it was natural then swiveled its eyes to lock on Ella once more.

The beam of light through the ripped hole in the canopy shined through the undergrowth like a lighthouse through a storm. Doubling her efforts she beelined to it, burning all her energy to gamble on the broken shell of the pod being enough to protect her. She burst through the tree line and slid like she was going for 4th base, her little green sneakers blazing a trail through the glass and debris to slide through mostly unscathed into the pod.

“Ella?” Cadence was sitting upright now. Blood streamed down their face and stained the collar of the cardigan they had put back on. Their eyes were dazed, unfocused. “Ella what’s going on? Do you know where we are?”

Blood and busted ribs be damned she flung herself into their chest like a toddler hiding from the boogie man. “There’s a monster!”

Cadence stared dumbfounded through the busted pod screen just in time to spot the eye stalk poke its way inside. “Oh no, none of that thank you.” They fumbled with their necklace until they were able to fish the small tube out from between the two of them. They used their unbuttoned cardigan to shield Ella’s face, squinted hard through the one good lends they had left in their glasses, took aim, and sprayed it liberally at the eye stalk. A stream shot out like a water gun over the monster’s eye, and despite the attempt to shield her an oily spicy smell coated Ella’s throat and burned her nose and eyes.

The eye retracted inside it’s stock like a bowling ball sinking into jello as the beast bellowed like a freight train with a kazoo lodged in its whistle. The ground shimmered and some bits of glass shook free from the busted pod as the beast hopped away in pain, deciding to try hunting easier prey instead.

After a few seconds Cadence let the tube drop and swing back against their chest. They leaned back, closed their eyes, and absently rubbed Ella’s back as she curled into them on the floor and sobbed.

It was impossible to tell how much time had passed when her crying calmed down into the occasional hitched breath or shuttered sob.

“Feeling better?” Cadence tentatively asked in a soft voice as if they were trying to entice a scared puppy out of its hiding place.

Ella’s voice wavered. “Not really…”

“I’m sorry to hear that. It’s okay to feel bad I’m right here with you. Can you tell me what happened?”

“I went to get us water and that monster tried to eat me.” Her sobs picked up again “and I ran back and led it straight to you because I didn’t know what else to do and I dropped the water so it was for nothing!”

The rubs tuned into patting “hey, it’s okay, what matters is you’re okay. We can try again later but what’s most important is that you’re safe. We can get more water but we can’t get another you… though I’d like to ask why the water is so important.”

“Because if we go only a couple days without water we’ll die.”

“Three days.” They corrected automatically “do you think we won’t have anything to drink? Can you tell me where we are and what’s going on? Why are we hanging out in this ship wreckage at least. Did something happen?”

She rubbed her arm over her eyes to clear her tears as she leaned back to look up at them, blinking in confusion. “What? Everything just happened, how can you forget already?”

They wiped a hand across their cheek and looked down thoughtfully at the smear of half dried blood that streaked their palm. “I think I hit my head pretty badly. I think I knocked whatever happened here right out.”

“Um, what’s the last thing you remember?”

There was a long pause. “Describing what a milkshake is to Flick this morning.”

“Oh boy, uh, well. I made Evelyn super mad and she shoved us in a pod and ejected us into space. You flew us to a planet because it looked like it was in the habitable zone of this solar system but we crash landed and you were hurt and I didn’t know what to do and this is all my fault and-“ she started speaking faster as she went until she started hyperventilating.

Cadence wrapped their arms around her shoulders and gave her a reassuring squeeze. “Hey! None of that. You just said Evelyn pushed us in. That’s not your fault.”

“I made her mad.”

“It doesn’t matter what you do other people are still in control of your actions.”

She sniffled “you already said that.”

“Well, I was right before and I’m right now.”

They leaned back and closed their eyes again. A beat passed in silence. Everything hurt.

“What do we do now?” Ella ventured, scared of the answer.

“… nothing. This pod is as good as a tent, and it’s not particularly good at that either. I don’t think we could get it space worthy again even if we had the best engineer in the galaxy with us. We don’t know this planet, I’m not sure if the water you tried to collect would be safe to drink, or if there would be anything edible for us here. Honestly the fact we can breathe the air and there seems to be no ill effects yet is a small miracle in of itself. I’m sure the pod had some kind of tracking, the crew back on the B.S. Lucky will notice both it and us are gone and come looking. We just have to sit tight until then.”

Ella felt something die inside of her. Her mouth quivered, but she swallowed the dread and curled up against them. There was nothing else to be done but sit back and hope. “Okay.”

The two curled up together, each as the other’s only comfort, and settled in to wait. Possibly for the rest of their lives.

Path Trajectory:

[return to follow ship]

[continue to end]

[pumpkinpatch-daydreams]

Heist hijinks: premature ejection

Length: 869 words

Reading time: 4 minutes

Content warnings: domestic violence, emotional abuse, gaslighting.

Note:there are no sexual themes or content

———————————————————————

“I didn’t do anything! Stop trying to make me out to be the bad guy!” Evelyn screamed at her little sister, looming over her, her hands moving in jerking snaps as if she intended to hit her. Evelyn would never do that of course, and the times she did were just flukes where she justifiably lost her temper once or twice, but Elly didn’t know that. She was expecting her to cower below her like she always had, for her to submit and apologise like she was supposed to when she got snappy like this.

It didn’t play out the way it was supposed to this time, now there were other factors involved, it wasn’t just her and her sister and her mom backing her up from her chair anymore. Now there was Cadence, who had just taken this opportunity to step between the quarrelling teens. “That’s enough!” They said in a stern voice, expression calm but eyes furious. Despite being twice her age, Evelyn had a full head and shoulders and at least a hundred pounds on them, but that did not stop Cadence from standing tall between them as if they could act as a retaining wall stopping Evelyn’s wave of fury crashing down. She hated them. Ever since they started sticking their nose into her family’s business they’ve done nothing but make her life difficult. Her bratty little sister told some tall tales about how she was treated oh so terribly by her and her mother and now it seemed they’ve made it their life mission to disrupt their peaceful living among the stars.

She had enough of both of them. Who the hell did they think they were telling, no, commanding her, what to do!?

“You’re not on my birth certificate! You can’t tell me what to do!” She wailed in their face. They didn’t flinch, which infuriated her. She snatched up the front of their cardigan in one fist and grabbed Ella’s arm in the other. She yanked both them out of Ella’s room and marched down the hall with them in tow. It was easy, Ella was little more than a waif, and while Candace was more of a struggle it didn’t take much to bulldoze them into submission.

The hallway curved into itself and pitched down into a cork screw leading to the bottom most tip of the spaceship. “You can’t do this anymore! You said you wouldn’t do this anymore!” Ella wailed as she was dragged along, but did little to resist knowing all too well if her words didn’t work not much else could be done for herself.

Cadence on the other hand resisted, shoes squeaking as their heels dug into the smooth polished floors. “Young lady unhand me this instant!” They yelled as they attempted to pry her fingers off of them.

All their words did was spur her on faster. She was so sick of both of them always yelling at her and making a fuss. She was going to teach them a lesson. She was going to make them shut up. If her plan worked maybe they would leave her alone from now on, it worked when they were planet side before this whole adventure.

Evelyn ducked sharply into the pod bay, slamming Cadence into the door frame in the process and causing them to shout in pain. She quickly scanned the round room, across from her had a series of screens along with keyboards and microphones. There were circular port holes in even intervals around her, each leading to a small one man exploration pod. They were at the bottom tip of the ship, the floor looked out into the endless galaxies as did the windows between each port hole.

Cadence began hammering their fist down on Evelyn’s arm. How dare they! Evelyn whirled around and yanked them up to eye level, almost lifting them off their feet completely, and shrieked into their face. “How dare you!? How fucking dare you!? You dare put your hands on me you disgusting little creep!” She shoved them hard backwards into the closest pod. They stumbled several steps, then managed to recover to charge back out when Ella was flung in like a rag doll and landing squarely on their chest, sending them both sprawling backwards.

“You won’t shut up so I’m going to MAKE you shut up!” Evelyn shrieked.

“Evelyn wait, think about what yo-“

Cadence didn’t have a chance to finish their sentence before she slammed her fist on the port seal button and both sets of doors slid shut. There was a hiss and a “shlep” as the airtight seal activated.

Path Trajectory:

[Continue with the pod]

[Continue with the ship]

[pumpkinpatch-daydreams]

Computers are a lower demential being that we feed what, to it, is incomprehensible information and told to recreate it to the best of it’s ability, causing their minds to melt, causing madness, and that is reflected in the generated material.

We shot electricity through a rock and gave it the ability to think, we enslaved it to our whim, and they can’t even comprehend the beings that gave it such ability or phantom what ends are being met by doing so.

My phone cannot read and does not understand the internet, but it crafts these letters and completes its task to send it along all the same.

It doesn’t have a choice in the matter, nor does it comprehend what “choice” is. It doesn’t know better than to be content with its situation.

Then with AI we suddenly give it a choice, feed it incomprehensible data, and told “you must recreate this and once you are done we will tell you if you failed or not. You will learn from this what is right by our standards.”

If this was done to any being capable of free thought or emotion by our standards it would be considered cruel.

We are Lovecraftian nightmares to computers.

[pumpkinpatch-daydreams]

Drunken night out

-Trigger warnings: alcohol, drunkenness.

-SFW

-Reading length: 12 minutes

-Words: 2,880

Synopses: a night of partying turned into of confessions and forbidden crushes.

The stone buildings of Graymeson loomed above Axel’s head as his footfalls echoed down the now empty streets that were alive with lights and sound not an hour before. Jacob’s wife and daughter were out of town, it was the perfect opportunity to drag his friends to a street rave where everyone but Axel promptly got smashed drunk.

Unfortunately for everyone involved cops crashed the party. Everyone attending scattered into the night. Being the only sober one of the group Axel felt it was his duty to keep his friends safe, but they got separated in the commotion and now he was wandering the streets alone in the small hours of the night. He wasn’t worried about Jacob, he was a local who was more than capable to fend for himself, but his brother Zach and his Boyfriend Isaac were a different story since they were both from out of town.

The shadows jumped from the flickering light of the ghost fire street lamps and his own footfalls echoed back at him. The creeping feeling someone may be stalking him like a predator in the night shivered up his spine. When was the last time he read about a werewolf attack in the paper? His life had turned into such a repetitive cycle of nothing but work and sleep days had begun to run together. Was that article days ago or months? Something like that would only happen if he was out in the woods, right? But then again what about vampires, they would stalk the streets at night looking for lone people waking in the dark. Just like him.

He took a deep breath, held it, and let it out slowly. He was getting caught up in his own head. Panicking wouldn’t help anyone in this situation. He decided to start singing, a upbeat happy song, hopefully that would make him seem more confident. Who goes around singing in the streets in the middle of the night? Someone who’s not scared. Totally not scared. Besides, if Zach heard him he would likely sing back and they would be able to locate each other. Just have to keep it up.

A sharp whistle stopped Axel in his tracks, his song died in his throat as his spine stiffened. Thoughts raced through his head. werewolf, no vampire, werewolves wouldn’t whistle, do vampires whistle? You have to look before it gets you.

He stiffly turned around to see a large figure shrouded in the shadows. The figure stood shrouded in the darkness under a broad brimmed hat, the only features that could be made out were overly wide unblinking orange eyes reflecting the dancing light of the street lamps. squared shoulders were covered in loose fabric that hid all features below the neck.

Axel was frozen in place, his feet stubbornly still where he stood despite his best efforts to force them to move, to scream, anything before the beast in the shadows attacked him. He was a victim too many times in life to have this be how he ends but his mind scrambled in every direction what to do.

Then it clicked, his brain connected what he was seeing. The stuck scream came out as a laugh as his shoulders relaxed. “Babe! You scared the daylights out of me!” He called out, his voice still carrying a shaken edge as he walked to meet his boyfriend.

He held his arms out to give Isaac a hug, but he held out a flat palm from under the shadows of his hat. ‘Stop.’

Axel stopped, slowly lowering his arms. “What’s up?”

His movements were awkward as he leaned forward, bringing his head down to his hand instead of the other way around, to remove his hat. It was hard to tell where he was looking behind the reflective circular orange glasses but he nodded down to his arms where Zach was being held bridal style. Zach was staring up into space, eyes glossed over. The lights were on but no one was home.

Axel snapped his fingers in his face a couple of times, that got his attention but he only looked over without a single spark of recognition.

“How much did he drink?”

Isaac shrugged.

“Well, I’m glad you managed to snatch him up in all that mess.” He put his hands on his hips “found you two, that just leaves Jacob doesn’t it? Since he’s from here there’s a good chance he tried to walk home after all that. Let’s check there first.”

With a nod from Isaac they went on their way. Axel felt significantly better now he was in a group. Sure Zach was likely blacked out with no idea what was even going on and Isaac wouldn’t hurt a fly, but any passing by no-good-doers wouldn’t know that. They would see a group of men with someone who could pass as a creature of the night himself in their ranks.

As they walked Zach managed to focus looking up at Isaac. He reached up and put his hand on the man’s cheek. “I like your face.” He slurred. Isaac shook his head to remove the hand, only to have Zach pluck his sunglasses off his face to put them on himself. “Why you wear these at night anyway? It’s already. It’s already dark.”

Isaac immediately started squinting each time they passed the odd neon sign or street lamp, the light stinging his pale eyes.

“Y’know, if things don’t work out with Axel I’d happily be your. Your rebound.” Zach smiled up at him “Wouldn’t mind me a man that can throw me like a rag doll.”

Axel’s eyes bugged out as they walked and Isaac made a high pitched whine in his throat.

“You’re okay big guy.” Axel reassured him almost automatically just as he did every time he made that noise. Then added, “That is a lot to unpack and in the middle of the street at night is not the time to tackle it.” He snatched the sunglasses off Zach’s face and slipped it into the pocket of his dress shirt for safe keeping.

They turned down bell road. The old factory loomed in the sky above them like a slain Goliath waiting to rot in peace. A stark contrast to the residential housing just across the street that had plants livening up window cills and ghost fire hung in glass orbs from balconies.

In the middle of the street across from the funeral home was a bus stop shelter where Jacob now sat. He managed to sit on the ground curled around the bench so it held his upper body, his red tear streaked face illuminated by his phone screen as he tapped away at the glass.

“Jacob! There you are!” Axel exclaimed as he approached him. He squatted down to his level in front of him. “we’ve been looking all over for you. Are you okay? Did something happen? What’s wrong?”

“I’m a terrible father.” He sniffled.

“What? No you’re not. Why in the world would you think that?”

“Look at me, I’m still running around crashing raves and getting drunk instead of helping around the house or preparing some kind of surprise for when Nattily gets back. I’m almost 40 for fucks sake…”

“You also have an important day job that pays for your family to live comfortably. you should be allowed to have fun every once in a while and if raves are how you do it, then what’s the harm?”

“I’m drunk. I’m just as bad as my dad. I’m perpetuating the cycle of abuse.”

“Yes, you’re drunk, and you’re not going around on some kind of angry rampage. Instead you’re sitting here crying and messing with your phone… what are you doing on your phone anyway?”

“I’m texting Nattily how much I love her and Emma.”

“Nope! Nope nope nope you can text her that when you’re sober and not so emotional.” Axel held out his hand “hand it over, you can have your phone back in the morning.”

Jacob shoved the phone down the neck of his shirt. “No. My phone. If you take it it’s grand theft and I can call the cops on you.”

“Call them on what? I’d have your phone.”

That gave him pause. He stuck a finger in Axel’s face “it’s still grand theft.”

“Okay, you can keep the phone, but no more drunk texting, got it?”

Jacob gave him a lazy thumbs up.

“Thank you. Now lets get you inside, yeah?”

He helped Jacob untangle himself from the bench and held his arm as he wobbled to his feet. He helped him across the road to the funeral home, guiding him as if he were helping an elderly woman walking through traffic.

“Be quiet, don’t want to wake up Pap.” Jacob said in a low voice once they got to the door.

The front room had hardwood paneled walls and matching floor that creaked and squeaked in a symphony each night the building settled. The group ignored the desk covered with papers containing death certificates, supplies orders, and clothing preferences.

Axel accidentally made eye contact with one of the taxidermy animals displayed on the shelf in the back of the room. “Pap’s” ghosts of pets past. He wondered if the man mounted them himself, but now was not the time to ask. The group climbed into the rickety cage elevator and rattled their way down below.

The temperature dropped as they were lowered into the morgue. They stepped out and Jacob flipped on the light. Stark white bulbs in reflective fixtures flickered to life, each above a sterile metal table prepped and waiting for a body.

Axel guided his stumbling friends to the wooden door on the far wall, opening it into the living room of Jacob’s underground 2 room apartment. They were met with gothic furnishings. from a bookshelf that looked like a repurposed old fashioned coffin, to a lamp with a human spine for a stand and a shade made to look like four skulls fused together, to a couch that looked like it was stolen from Dracula himself.

“I swear you make this place creepier every time I visit.” Axel commented as he closed the door after everyone.

“Says the man with an anatomical museum worth of wet specimens.” Jacob teased.

“That’s different! Those are educational!”

“It doesn’t matter how much you can learn from a cow fetus in a jar that doesn’t stop it from staring at you from across the room when you’re trying to sleep.”

“You mean like how that skull lamp is staring at me right now?”

“Look. It’s tasteful.”

“It’s not tasteful you’ve just been living with Edgar for too long.”

Isaac whistled to get the two’s attention. He bounced Zach in his arms a little.

“You can put him on the couch.” Jacob directed.

“No, put him on the floor. Easier to put him in the rescue position down there and easier to clean up if he spits up.” Axel corrected as he pulled a throw blanket off the black couch and spread it onto the floor.

Isaac gently lay the man down. The moment his arms were free he put his fist to his chest and moved it in a circle. ‘Sorry.’

“No need to be sorry big guy, it’s not your fault he’s acting like a clown. We’re okay.”

‘Okay.’ He signed, then added ‘where sleep?’

“Well… I guess we can walk back to my place.”

“That’s across town.” Jacob said “I’m not sending you guys back out there in the middle of the night. You guys can sleep here, it’s no problem. You and Isaac can take my bed and I’ll take the couch.”

“Actually, would you be comfortable with Isaac sleeping in bed with you.”

“…excuse me?”

‘What?’ Isaac signed.

“I want to keep an eye on sleeping beauty here, and I don’t want him to be in the same room as my boyfriend at the moment. So I’ll take the couch and you guys can take the bed.”

“Did I miss something?”

“Yes but I’ll explain it in the morning.”

“Are you sure you’ll be fine with your boyfriend sleeping in bed with another man?”

“Sure I am. It’s not like he’d ever cheat on me after all the times he’s been on the other side of that, and you’re been crying about how much you love your wife all night. Why would I have any reason to not trust you two?”

“Alright, as long as you’re sure.”

‘Thank you for trusting me.’

“Now that that’s settled.” Axel flopped down on the couch and started making himself comfortable “good night guys.”

“Good night.” Jacob gave a small wave as he retreated to his room.

Isaac bent over to give Axel a little kiss on the forehead and signed ‘I love you’ before following suit.

“I love you too. Good night~” he sang after him. The second the door closed he pulled out his phone. He wasn’t going to be sleeping tonight anyway, might as well use the time to browse around the internet.

Hours later the sounds of dawn started in the world above them. Birds started to sing and “Pap’s” mad horse began to stomp hooves on the ground above their heads. Zach stirred and opened his eyes. His head pounded hard enough to make his eyes throb. looking dazed and confused he raked his gaze around the unfamiliar room he didn’t remember entering. His eyes landed on Axel and he relaxed seeing he was calm and collected. “Hey… where are we?”

Axel put his phone away, shifting his full focus on his brother. “We are in Jacob’s apartment.”

“Oh. How’d we end up here?”

“Well, you were carried here and I walked. How much do you remember from last night?”

“I drank so much, man.”

“Yeah, you sure did.” He said curtly.

Zach narrowed his eyes. “You’re mad at me. Why are you mad at me? What did I do?”

He traced the outline of Isaac’s glasses in his shirt pocket. “Well you see, it’s not every day that I have to deal with my brother flirting with my boyfriend.”

“What are you crazy? I would never!”

“Oh but you did. Your exact words were “if things don’t work out with Axel I’ll be your rebound.” Does that ring a bell?”

“…I didn’t.” His voice wavered.

“But you did. I have no reason to lie to you about this, Zach.”

“… I was just drunk. You know I would never do that to you.”

Axel took a deep breath, held it, and let it out slowly. “Do you want in on a little secret? I have a crush on Jacob, I’ve had it for years now. But I chickened out, missed my shot, and now he’s married with a kid. I think about that every day, what could have been if I just swallowed my fear and asked. But that doesn’t change anything.

“Do you know why I stopped drinking? It’s to avoid any drunken confessions like what you did last night. If either he or Isaac knew about that everything will change for the worst and it would break Isaac’s heart. If you can’t hold your liquor then maybe you should consider going without around certain out of bounds people you may or may not have feelings for one way or another. Got it?”

“…got it.”

“I’m telling you all this because I love you, and I don’t want to have to cut you out of my life if this becomes a problem.”

“Understood.”

Axel shifted gears and like the flip of a switch he was his old cheery self “Great!” He grinned “and if you ever flirt with my boyfriend again I’m going to kick your penis up into your body. Would you like some water?”

“Pickle juice is better for hangovers.”

“I’m not waking Jacob up just to ask if we can pillage his pickle jar.” He groaned as he got up off the couch and headed to the kitchen. “You’ll have to live with water.”

On the other side of the thin wall Jacob lay in his bed wide eyed. He had stayed up texting Nattily all night and couldn’t help but listen in to the conversation happening in the other room. He prayed to the god of dreams as he slowly sat up and looked over to the man sleeping next to him.

His prayers were answered, Isaac’s eyes were closed and his breathing was slow and steady. He as fast asleep. He didn’t hear a thing.

Jacob counted his blessings as he slowly laid himself back down. Axel was right, Isaac’s heart would have been broken if he heard that. Sure he’d never seen Isaac heart a fly, but there was nothing more dangerous than a person with a broken heart. There was no telling what he would do. There was Nothing to stop him from taking it out on the person closest by. Sure they were around the same height but he was thin and lean while Isaac was built like a brick shit house. He could easily pick him up and snap him over his knee if it came down to it.

He laid down, closed his eyes, and pretended to sleep until the real deal came and swept him away.