#sanders sides deathworlder au

[delimeful]

WIBAR Intermission: Visiting Home (1/3)

G/T July Day 17: Home

this intermission has 3 parts, taking place during different points in the WIBAR timeline. this chapter takes place before LMMR/Act 2 of WIBAR! baby time :)

shoutout to nyn for inspiring the last scene with Roman at the end! 

warnings: negative assumptions, mentions of blood/hunting/injury, mild fear/nervousness, other than that it's all fluff (literally)

-

Despite the tension buzzing at the back of his skull, Virgil found that being planetside again was surprisingly… nice.

He would have preferred that it was an uninhabited area— or at least, that it wasn’t one of the only places in the universe that had aliens he really, really couldn’t afford to terrify— but he couldn’t deny that feeling the ground under his feet and the sunlight on his skin was soothing, a balm he hadn’t known he’d needed.

It wasn’t the same as Earth, not really, but Patton’s home planet was close enough to familiar that he found tension seeping from his overwrought muscles despite himself.

He shook some of the dazed contentment off, flicking a glance over his shoulder and reminding himself that if any of the locals saw him, it could spell Capital-D Disaster.

His little excursion into one of the less populated natural areas near the little port town was entirely unplanned, and all the riskier for it, but they simply hadn’t had any better options.

Patton had been putting off visiting his family for longer than anyone would have liked— first with the excuse of healing from his injuries, and then with the financial strain that had come from his crewmates dedicating the bulk of their time to searching for him, rather than doing their usual delivery and transport jobs.

(The strain of providing for an entire new off-the-books crewmate, too, Virgil knew. He tried to avoid taking up too much, resource-wise, but there was only so little he could eat before his symptoms went from barely-tolerable to unmanageable.

The adrenaline crash and resulting sprains after he’d intervened in the raiders’ attack had been a painful reminder that most days, his body felt like it was barely holding together at the seams.)

Finally, they’d managed to weave together a cover story believable enough that the trip was set in motion, with the caveat that Patton would go planetside to visit, and Virgil would stay on the ship, up in orbit, firmly out of range of discovery.

Patton hated the idea of lying to his loved ones, wanted more than anything to introduce Virgil and prove he wasn’t the monster the galaxy thought he was, but even his stubborn optimism hadn’t held up under the combined forces of the other 3/4ths of the crew.

It was too dangerous for word to get out about Virgil, especially after the close call they’d already had, narrowly averted thanks to Remyy. Between Logan’s points on the historical government response to rumors of rogue humans, Roman’s assertions that bounty hunters of all kinds would begin targeting them, and Virgil’s own intense discomfort with the idea of his existence being revealed to others when he’d only just gotten free, Patton had conceded, if a bit morosely.

So, things had proceeded according to plan… right up until Patton’s clutchmates commed in, requesting that they bring the Mindscape down so that they could fill Patton’s quarters and kitchen with a variety of gifts and supplies to remind him of home after he left.

Patton hadn’t been informed. A surprise, they’d said, meant to show their love and care for their sibling in a way that would linger as long as possible.

It was a cultural custom, apparently, and Patton’s hard headed tendencies must have run in the family, because they’d refused to take no for an answer without a good reason.

Unfortunately for the reason in question, informing them that there was another crew member onboard who couldn’t be seen by anyone else would only defeat the purpose of staying off planet in the first place.

And so, after very intense sweep of the ship to hide away any trace of Virgil’s presence, he’d swept his old cloak around his shoulders, followed Logan offboard, and let himself be guided to what seemed to be an unoccupied area of the coastal jungle that surrounded the local populace.

Logan had requested he stay in the general area until he returned from corralling the busybody relatives, and then rushed back to the ship where Roman waited, looking more harried than Virgil had ever seen him.

It was an awkward, stressful situation, sure. But he still couldn’t help but marvel a little at the thick, dark fronds of the trees and the almost powdery texture of the grey-white sand beneath his feet.

He hadn’t gotten very many chances to actually appreciate the wonder of being in space, on alien planets, with how much of his stay so far had either been locked in cages aboard ships or on the run, too busy trying to survive to take in the scenery.

Running his fingers over the corkscrew-patterned bark of one of the nearby tree trunks, Virgil didn’t notice the slight rustling of a nearby brush.

—

Marren had thought the alien an intruder at first, had skidded to a halt and narrowly avoided toppling out of the underbrush right in front of them.

Behind her, Robbyn and Denel tumbled against her back with the beginnings of peeped complaints at the interruption of their game.

“Ssst!” Marren made a whistle that was more air than sound, her baby feathers ruffling up in pre-emptive upset. “Quiet, there’s a stranger!”

Unlike any other game, her playmates immediately went silent, eyes growing round and nervous. They all knew better than to catch the attention of a maybe-dangerous unfamiliar alien.

Especially now. One of the older kids had told horror stories about smugglers when the grown-ups weren’t listening, insisting that straying fledglings would get all their feathers shredded off and fed to the horrible monsters at the bottom of the Spacesea, where starlight and ships alike couldn’t reach.

They’d gotten in big trouble for the tall tales, but the story had already been taken up by the waves and couldn’t be squashed, especially with the fearful but dedicated belief of younger fledglings.

“Is it a monster?” Denel asked, already looking more fluff than form.

Marren… couldn’t really tell.

They were huge, even bigger than the Draellex spacefarer who had come to do a presentation for her class last season, but most of their features were also obscured by the long, deep grey cloak that they were swathed in.

“They’ve got hands,” she reported instead, because the stranger was touching various plants and rocks with nubby, strangely smooth fingers. “No claws, though.”

“Maybe a trader ship came early?” Robbyn offered thoughtfully. Their downy soft pink feathers were the least fluffed up between the three of them, their gaze focused on the alien with an intense curiosity.

“We woulda seen it, right?” Marren replied dubiously, before going quiet for a moment as the hooded head of the stranger turned and paused as though listening.

She didn’t continue until they turned back to their slow inspection of the wildlife, letting out a tiny peep-peep-peep of relief. “The only ship that came down is Uptel Patton’s, and he’s only got two playmates.”

She’d only met one of her Uptel’s friends in person, and only when she was a baby baby, way before her first molt, so she barely remembered it, but there were plenty of pictures in her Elder Uptel Farrun’s home. Patton’s parents were always happy to talk about their spacefarer son, and Marren always got a fun trinket from her Uptel when he visited.

Well. Almost always.

He’d seemed very distracted when she’d seen him this morning, enough that he’d barely noticed her amongst the many relatives that had swarmed to greet him after his longer than usual absence.

Something bad had happened to him, Marren had been told, which had made his parents’ home feel all sad-grief-loss whenever she visited, but he was all better now.

She wasn’t so sure. Everyone around him had felt like relief-joy-kinship at the sight of him, sure, but her Uptel had never flinched away from preening before.

“Maybe he got a new one?” Denel asked, still half-hidden behind Robbyn but not quite as frightened.

Marren made a considering chirp, and then began shuffling under the wiry branches as quietly as possible, seeking out a closer bush.

“Where are you going?” both of her playmates asked in very different tones.

“Gonna look closer,” she replied, and then froze as the answer carried farther than she meant it to.

The stranger turned sharper this time, and searched the clearing with tiny back-and-forth movements of their head.

“Patton?” they called after a moment, and Marren almost startled back in shock: the alien had spoken Uptel Patton’s actual name, not the Common version, and sounded uncannily close to an actual Ampen.

If it weren’t for how impossibly big the stranger was, she might have thought it was a simple prank, a couple of older kids stacked on top of each other under a form-disguising cloak.

Her gaze trailed down and finally focused on the familiar glow coming from the shadowed neckline of the cloak. She would know that glow anywhere!

“They’ve gotta special charm!” she crowed, and pushed past the branches to dart out into the open, intent on inspecting her Uptel’s newest friend.

Patton’s friend stumbled back hard with a sharp inhale, and Marren abruptly remembered that it wasn’t polite to startle people, especially strangers, and slowed to a stop. She angled her head up to try and peer into the shadows of the hood, squinting her eyes almost closed in as innocent and friendly a look as possible.

“I’m Marren,” she introduced herself, using the little bit of Common that her Uptel had taught her. “The stars greet you and so do I!”

That kind of greeting was more for actually being up in space with all the stars, but she figured it was the thought that counted.

Patton’s friend muttered something in an unfamiliar language, their tone soft, and then lowered themself to a seated position, much slower than they’d moved before. “My name is Virgil. It’s… nice to sea you?”

Marren let out a peal of chirping laughter, nearly knocking herself off balance with the force of her amusement.

That was definitely one of Uptel Patton’s friends, alright. He was the only bondrelative she had who put silly word jokes in his greetings like that.

“Can I sea you?” she shot back brightly, and when that didn’t seem to make it through, she pretended to move an invisible hood down from her own head.

Friend Virgil went all stiff for a moment, before speaking again. “I don’t think… uh, that’s not a good idea. I’m… I’m shy.”

Marren was distracted for a moment by puzzling through the words; it was an odd combination of Common and Ampen words, some of them a little smushed together until they almost seemed like a new word entirely.

Once the meaning behind the answer registered, though, she made a long, protesting whistle. “I’m not gonna be mean to you! Denel’s shy, too, you guys can get along!”

“Denel?” Friend Virgil echoed, again pronouncing the name eerily accurately, and Marren heard a little peep of alarm from behind her.

Antennae twitching with frustration, she turned and gave the bushes her best irritated stare, fluffing up indignantly. “They’re Patton’s friend! They’ve gotta be nice to me, I’m his favorite telit! Stop acting so new-hatched!”

“You’re his only little cousin,” Robbyn was speaking to her as they hopped into view, but their wide eyes were locked on Friend Virgil like they’d just found a shiny new stone. “Can they talk?”

“Kinda,” Marren chirped back, since it seemed like Friend Virgil knew more of the spacefarer tongue than their native one. “I know enough space words to translate! Probably.”

“You’re going to hurt your throat,” Robbyn cautioned in their best know-it-all voice. Marren was saved from having to answer by the thud of Denel tripping his own way out of the bush.

With his underlayer all fluffed out like that, it was no wonder that he accidentally rolled a few feather-lengths along the ground, squawking in high-pitched, babyish alarm as he tumbled.

Friend Virgil leaned forward so quickly that even Marren peeped in surprise, but all they did was set a humongous cupped hand next to Denel to keep him from toppling any further. Denel pulled all his limbs in with a panicked squeak as he bumped into the helping hand, and turned his head to peer up at Friend Virgil nervously.

“Safe and sound,” Friend Virgil crooned, in the sort of lullaby sing-song tone that was usually used to soothe hatchlings. “Okay, good, okay?”

It took Denel a stunned moment to respond, but when he chirped affirmative, the waver in his whistle had faded to almost nothing. He slowly uncurled, and even reached out for balance as he got back upright, looking absolutely awestruck.

He was way more aether-sensitive than most fledglings, Marren recalled, which meant that Friend Virgil must have been radiating some deeply trustworthy energy. As always, she had been totally right! Of course Patton’s friend was nice!

Marren wasted no time in spinning back around and darting up to Friend Virgil’s legs, giving them her best pleading expression.

“See? We can all be friends, you’re big-nice and nobody will be mean to you! Please please please?”

—

Virgil was not good with kids.

Specifically, he wasn’t good at saying no to kids.

Back home, they’d always picked up on it the moment they saw him, like sharks catching the scent of blood in the water, except the sharks were twelve year olds and the blood was Virgil’s inability to tell them not to draw on him in sharpie.

He’d finally found something that humans and aliens had in common, it seemed, because Marren– the apparent leader of the little group– had immediately figured out exactly how to use the Ampen version of puppy dog eyes against him. It was like nature had designed them as adorable feathery pom-pom creatures as a tactic designed to target him, specifically.

He hadn’t stood a chance.

As such, he found himself seated in the middle of the small clearing, his hood lowered and face exposed for anyone to see, being used as an actual, literal human jungle gym by a bunch of chirping alien fuzzballs.

The playtime racket must have been attracting more, because it felt like every time he looked up, three or four entirely new bundles of fluff had appeared, racing around his feet or climbing up the side of his cloak, chattering between themselves in strings of tweets and whistles.

The namecall they used for him wasn’t quite accurate, sounding more like ‘frrr-kul’ with a rolling trill followed by a chirp that only occasionally resembled the latter half of his name. They seemed to have a much harder time than Patton making the non-bird sort of syllables, which made sense, seeing as they were itty bitty babies.

“Frrrr-kul!” one of them called gleefully, summoning him over to the other side of the clearing for the newest round of whatever it was they were playing.

Virgil wasn’t ashamed to admit that something in his chest squeezed a bit as another fledgling turned dizzying little loop-de-loops in front of him, presumably leading him over to the new spot. For once, the heart palpitations he was experiencing around strange aliens were almost entirely cuteness-induced.

Almost, because there was still a solid chunk of his brain panicking viciously about how tiny and soft and fragile they all were, hence him moving at the pace of a seasick slug.

Marren had put forward a half-hearted complaint about how slow he was moving, to no avail. As it turned out, the only thing more compelling to him than a kid’s heartfelt request was the fear of accidentally hurting one of them.

It had taken him at least fifteen minutes just to stop flinching every time one of them fell or flung themself off of his knee or shoulder or— for one very stealthy candidate— his head, only to tumble lightly back to the ground unharmed, the impact entirely cushioned by their fluff.

He’d caught the first five or six on sheer instinct, which had only prompted even more to partake in the fun new ‘game’, until he gave up and accepted his fate as a living launch pad. Thankfully for his stress levels and long-term heart health, they had moved onto another game quickly enough.

He was slightly less thankful that every game so far had included him being scampered over, without exception, but he should have figured as much just from being friends with Patton, honestly.

His latest role seemed to be a very ill patient, as one of Marren’s friends walked around—and on— him carefully, calling out chirped instructions and sending the rest of the participants scrambling into the nearby brush. Within a few moments, they’d return with leaves, twigs, and other forest detritus, which would then be painstakingly applied to the top of his hand, or his chin, or wherever else the ‘doctor’ gestured to. Half the time, the makeshift bandages would flutter off the moment Virgil shifted even a little, prompting chitters of delight as the kids hurried to re-apply them.

Still better than any healthcare he’d gotten on Earth, honestly.

Seeing as his current job was to lay in place morosely like that guy from the Operation board game, he eventually closed his eyes and let himself relax a little, trying to hide an irrepressible closed-lip smile.

A few rounds later, he heard a chorus of what sounded like Patton’s favorite greeting chirp, but in a range of much higher pitches. He cracked his eyes open, expecting another gaggle of fledglings had showed up, and instead found that Logan was standing at the edge of the clearing, arms all dropped limply to his sides in shock.

Virgil went tense, only managing to repress his flinch because a good portion of his brain was still dedicated to monitoring where all the babies were around him, and currently at least ten were clinging onto his person. “Okay, listen. This was not my idea.”

Logan carefully tucked his hands behind his back in what Virgil first mistook for a polite gesture, only to emerge with what was unmistakably the portable camera he used whenever he was collecting video data for later.

“...Really?”

Whirr-click. Logan didn’t even bother looking apologetic as he began recording Virgil’s pint-sized tormentors. “If Patton didn’t get a memento of this, he would never forgive me, facetiously speaking.”

Rolling his eyes, Virgil slowly shifted up to his elbows, a startling amount of leaves fluttering down from his hair. A tentative hand feeling around in his hair revealed a fluffy stowaway, who peeped in displeasure as Virgil carefully disentangled them.

Talk about having a bird’s nest for hair. That was probably a sign that he needed a trim, but for now he could only laugh to himself, using two fingers to try and soothe the ruffled feathers of the fledgling that had apparently seen his head as prime real estate.

“You’re… very good with them,” Logan commented, shuffling closer with uncharacteristic tentativeness. “Is it normal to take on a parental role for children that aren’t under your care on Earth?”

Virgil snorted, and then leaned forward a little to help keep one of the more tenacious fledglings clinging to him from losing their grip. “It depends on the person, but honestly? A lot of humans are total suckers for anything cute making baby sounds, human or not. Sometimes to the point that the keener wildlife will take advantage of it and lead us to babies that are injured or out of reach because they know that odds are, a human will help.”

“Truly? Non-domesticated species, as well?” Logan replied, visibly distracted from his slow approach by the implications. “Cooperative dynamics between sapient species and local fauna are present on many planets, but for almost all studied Deathworlds, such a thing is unheard of. The risk is higher in harsher environments, where a much more competitive nature is required for survival.”

“Yeah, for real. I used to work as an assistant… uh. An assistant animal-healer, and people were always bringing in abandoned babies they’d found. Sometimes they were actually in need of help, but sometimes they definitely weren’t,” Virgil huffed a little at the memories, holding still as a fledgling took a running leap to jump from one of his knees to the other. “It was well-intentioned, though. Lots of people hate to see a baby left alone and jump to conclusions, since you’d never do that with a human infant.”

Logan’s hands twitched, and Virgil carefully shrugged one shoulder, giving him permission to record the information.

“Just make sure you don’t write stuff about babies or kids down where anyone could get to it,” he cautioned, chewing on the edge of his lip. “I trust you, but I don’t trust, y’know… the rest of space. Better safe than sorry, right?”

“Correct,” Logan confirmed, having heard that exact catchphrase from Virgil probably about twelve times a week. “Am I alright to approach?”

“What?” Virgil raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, of course, just be careful. I mean, you’re definitely safer for them to be around than me.”

There was a relieved angle to Logan’s ears as he stepped forward, nimbly avoiding a few of the fledglings chasing each other back and forth like feathered tumbleweeds. “I disagree. They seem quite safe in your hands,” he said. “I have no doubt that Patton would be ecstatic to know that you’ve managed to make some friends amongst his kin despite our need for secrecy.”

Right. His cover had been blown five minutes in by the Ampen equivalent of a bunch of grade-schoolers. Crap.

“Let your mind remain at ease,” Logan added, either correctly reading the panic on his face or just guessing from the not-inconsiderable experience he had with Virgil. “With Ampens this young, I’m certain that your positive impression as a playmate will be the bulk of what they mention to their families. I’ve already heard a few of them refer to you as ‘Patton’s shy friend,’ so I imagine most will come up with the rest of the answer on their own assumptions.”

"'Patton's shy friend'?" Virgil felt his ears redden as his face heated up, and there was a chorus of delighted whistle-squeals from the nearest fledglings.

“You change colors just like Uptel Patton!” Marren shouted excitedly, and, well.

There were at least four different species of alien he knew of that shifted colors in all sorts of ways, from a gradual chameleon shift to the rapid flush of an octopus. This was one trait that wasn’t likely to make anyone think ‘Human’.

“Do another color!” A small harmony of encouraging peeps and eager gazes.

“Uh…,” Virgil cast a helpless look of his own Logan’s way. “I mean, I can probably do purple if I hold my breath for long enough?”

“Alright,” Logan cut in urgently,“I think it’s time that Virgil get back to the ship, actually, you’ll have to play with him again the next time we come to visit. Yes, yes, everyone off now…”

–

Miraculously, they’d managed to get through the entire impromptu visit without either of Patton’s flockmates seeing any errant belongings, broken cabinets, or any other indications of the highly illegal and infamous Deathworlder they definitely had onboard.

Roman let out an exhausted snort, trying not to shift impatiently as he stood by the boarding platform and waited for Logan to return with Virgil. If Patton was there, he would have given him a disappointed look for being so blatantly untrusting, but he wasn’t, and it had been a long day, so Roman could be on edge if he wanted to, okay?!

Thankfully, Logan chose that moment to step out from the shade of the forested area, exchanging an assessing look with Roman before deeming the path clear and beckoning Virgil to follow him on board.

The Human padded after Logan, footsteps eerily quiet as always, and… huh. He looked a lot less stressed than he’d seemed when they’d all but shoved him off the ship a few hours ago. Roman tried not to feel immensely suspicious about it, but he glanced down to check his hands for blood anyhow.

He was mostly sure that the Human didn’t actually have any murderous designs, especially not on anyone from Patton’s hometown, but they’d set him loose in a random forest with little to no guidance. Roman couldn’t rule out the idea that Virgil had entertained himself by hunting down some of the local fauna or something.

There was nothing, though, and so he forced his eyes away and checked in briefly with Logan instead. See? He could be cordial when he wanted to! He was a beacon of toleration, okay?

The claim fell a little flat even in his own mind, but he was promptly distracted by the tiniest hint of a whistle. He straightened up, alarm shooting through him as he swiveled his head this way and that, searching for any surprise witnesses.

His gaze fell on the Human as Virgil passed him to board the ship, and Roman stiffened at the sight of three fluffy bundles perched in the swoop of the Human’s hood. “Stop right there!”

Virgil went still, shoulders hunching upward like a bristle and eyes bizarrely wide, and Roman let his tail scrape from side to side for a moment as he glowered, only growing more certain of his guilt.

“I knew it, those are fledglings! Let them go this instant,” he started, planning to end with a suitable threat to ensure the safety of the smallest and most vulnerable of Patton’s kin, only for the Human to somehow go even more stiff and frozen.

“Oh my god, where?” He hunched over slightly, eyes flickering down to scan over his front and arms. “Are they okay?”

Roman pulled up short, admittedly disoriented at the show of clear and abrupt concern. One of the fledglings cheeped in dismay, and Virgil’s head tilted, following the sound.

“Guys, that’s not safe,” he groaned, and then repeated it in Ampen tongue. “Not safe. Not good, not safe, okay?”

His hand twitched up like he was going to reach for them, but then he hesitated for a moment, before slowly turning around so that his hood faced Roman. “Can you help them out? I know they’ve got all the feathers and stuff to keep them safe, but I still don’t want… I don’t want to jostle the hood and knock them out or something.”

“I… yes,” Roman said, feeling like he’d just been hit by a paralyzer shot. He reached out and scooped the fledglings out of their makeshift nest, watching as Virgil’s shoulders grew more and more taut. The Human didn’t trust him, but he held still anyways. “You’ve got, ah. Leaves and twigs. In your head pocket.”

“I bet I do,” he muttered, before taking a few slightly too-fast steps away once he’d checked that his fuzzy passengers had been evacuated. With soft, cautious movements, he patted down the rest of himself, including his other pockets and even the folds of his overcloak. “I think I’m good.”

“That was very dangerous,” Roman scolded, looking down at the trio with disapproval.

Virgil shuffled slightly, looking at him more directly than he usually did. After a moment, he spoke. “They’re fine, right? It’s not their fault, they just think it’s a game.They’re… they’re only babies.”

This was what worry looked like on a Human, Roman realized with a jolt, and managed to choke down his initial offense at the very idea that he would hurt them. He’d assumed the same at first glance, hadn’t he? Virgil had never seen him with kits before, and didn't know very much about him. Roman hadn’t exactly been sharing information or encouraging any bonding, and it wasn’t like the Mindscape had provided very many opportunities for interacting with younglings thus far.

Stars, he hoped there hadn’t been any kids on the smuggler ship. The very idea made him sick.

“Of course they’re fine,” he replied a bit shortly, cradling them a little closer. “Kits will be kits. They didn’t mean any harm, like you said.”

“Oh. Okay, that’s good,” Virgil said, some of that odd tension falling away. He looked back down at the kids. “Uh. Bye, little guys. Stay safe.”

He mimicked a farewell trill with uncanny accuracy, and the fledglings all echoed it with varying levels of mournfulness. Virgil waved as he edged his way up the ship’s ramp backwards, like he thought the kids would ambush him the moment he took his eyes off of them.

Seeing as these three had somehow snuck past a Human’s senses, Roman almost couldn’t blame him.

“When I next see Patton, I’m going to tell him to have a serious talk with you all about being too adventurous, you hear me? Crewmates are not for climbing,” Roman lectured as he carried them back to the main path. He paused to think about how hypocritical that lesson would be coming from Patton, who took any excuse to perch on Virgil. “Oh, for stars’ sake.”

Well, whatever. This was just a one-off. What were the odds they would ever be bringing the Human back here, anyhow?

[geminimoon14]

Protective Instincts

Read on Ao3

This is Part 3 of my space Au

Wordcount: 3,917

Ships: Platonic

Feel free to ask any questions about the story.

Captain Roman Prince was a strong and clever leader, or he strived to be one. He never once thought himself smarter or more powerful than any person on his crew. As a matter of fact, Roman believed his crew to be the sole reason he was able to accomplish as much as he did. Concerning captains, the USS Sanders got lucky with theirs. The crew’s only complaint was how much trouble he could get in if you left him alone.

In Roman’s defense, he had been with Logan when it happened. He did not want any unsavory individual to make off with the Human while he was away from the ship. What he did not account for was the group grabbing him as well.

Logan and Roman had been browsing wares in a local market, after reassuring Virgil that they would be okay and were going to stay right at that fabric stall right in his eyeline. Logan was always looking for new items to study, the fabric caught his eye because of the weaving techniques the vendor said was used. They never noticed the group that had crept up from behind and shocked them.

The electricity knocked Roman to the floor and barely clinging to consciousness while his scientist was still trying to struggle. The Faera felt hands lifting him off the dirt and carrying him away. His head lolled and his eyes looked out, unseeing and half-lidded. He thought he heard someone shriek his name, most likely Patton, and found himself wondering why the medic sounded so panicked.

The sound of clanging woke Roman up, the grating of metal making the pounding of his head worse. Slowly, he opened his eyes, wincing at the brightness, and reached out to get a feel for his surroundings.

His hand struck glass. Roman patted a little more frantically and discovered that he was surrounded by glass. He pulled himself onto his knees and started feeling around for an opening, too panicked to notice Logan coming around outside his container.

Logan jerked awake, suddenly aware of his wrists cuffed to the wall above him, and slowly rotated his head to fix the pain in his neck. Making a note of his surroundings, he noticed his glasses were askew but still perched on his face. Logan remained calm, assuring himself that the others would be searching for them.

The Human’s eyes went wide as he saw his captain. The Faera was trapped in a transparent tube, frantically hitting the glass as their captors spoke seemingly unaware of his exposed wings and horns. One glanced towards Logan as it remarked, “Human’s awake, wonder how well it’s going to do in the ring.” It’s ally gave Logan a once over before responding, “Eh, it’s a Deathworlder. Give it time and we’ll be raking in Units.”

There was a cry of pain that drew their attention to Roman, who was lying on the floor of his container groaning. One of their captors nudged the other as he cackled, “Faera in a bottle. How’s it going in there little guy? A little staticky?” Roman curled onto his side as the other laughed, “I guess it doesn’t like the bug zapper we have installed.”

Logan, despite being part of a famously emotional species, did not usually indulge his feelings however, the pure fear and pain in his captain’s eyes made his vision grow red. He pulled on his restraints with his heart pounding in his ears. Logan was not the most athletic example of his people, but the rage that overtook him definitely helped.

Roman was brought out of his daze when he saw Logan pulling against his restraints with anger in his eyes. His eyes went wide as the Human’s cuffs strained and screeched as they tore from the wall. There was a cry of alarm followed by the sound of Stun Rifles. Before Roman could blink, Logan was across the room and knocking their captors away. 

They flew into the walls, a loud crunch noise coming from the impact, before they hit the ground. Roman saw hands feeling the glass, presumably searching for a way to open the prison, and felt himself let out a panicked laugh. He tried to get Logan’s attention as the human pounded against the wall and ordered, “Go! I’ll be okay but-”

A hand, a fist actually, broke through. Roman’s voice died in his throat as he gaped at Logan. The fist withdrew before smashing another section of the glass. There was blood on the floor of Roman’s prison but all he could think about was the glass Logan had broken through. 

The Human reached through as the shouting grew louder and hauled Roman through the opening he made. Instinctively, Roman wrapped his arms around Logan’s neck as the latter cradled him and darted away.

Somewhere in his mind, Logan was aware that he would not be able to keep it up for long but at the moment all he could see was red. Roman’s fingers creased Logan’s uniform as he exclaimed, “Look out!” On reflex, he ducked away from the plasma blast of rifles and slammed his foot into an alien too slow to realize they should be shooting. They dropped their Stun Rifle as they slammed to the floor. 

Logan took a second to grab the rifle as he growled, “You shoot, I run!” Roman took the weapon and aimed it behind them, returning fire as Logan’s feet slammed against the floor in a steady rhythm. 

The smugglers ahead seemed to retreat as they realized what Logan was. Humans were infamous for their fight-or-flight reflexes, Logan had even told them how Virgil’s species seemed to have the same stress reflexes as Humans. Seeing Logan, who was normally unnaturally cool and calm for a Human, smash through his prison and was run faster than he had ever seen, unsettled Roman.

He felt Logan’s back tense and heard the Human hiss in pain. Roman glanced down and saw the burned away section of Logan’s pant leg. Roman’s eyes went wide in alarm and he started squirming as he exclaimed, “Put me down! You’re injured! Logan?! That’s an order!” 

Logan held Roman a little tighter, careful not to crush the Faera’s wings, and charged towards the cluster of aliens attempting to cage them in. Roman yelped as Logan barreled through them, using his body to shield his captain from the impact, and turned a sharp corner. He felt Logan’s gait wobble for a moment before steadying as they ran.

Wherever they were was not near the market, that much Logan could put together from the view of the city through a giant window. Almost nothing looked familiar but they were somewhere up high. Logan smirked as he activated his communicator and panted, “This is Dr. Croft of the USS Sanders... Requesting back-up... at my... location.” He managed to get out the first part flawlessly but breathing was getting a little difficult.

Roman barely kept a startled yelp from leaving his lips as Logan’s legs buckled and he hit the floor. The Human’s face was pressed against the floor as he gasped for air. Remembering Logan’s lessons on Human respiratory systems, Roman propped Logan up against the wall. 

He gave the Human a once over before pulling some stray crates around them defensively. He looked over the rifle as the Pulse Charges reloaded and asked, “How’re you holding up, Specs?” Logan huffed, either from lack of breath or fond exasperation at the nickname he could not tell, and replied, “I will be fine though I appear to be suffering from a sudden lack of adrenaline.”

Roman chuckled as he took up a defensive position, aiming down the hallway, and smirked, “At least you’re using big words.” Logan pushed his glasses into position, fingers trembling, and retorted, “An adrenaline crash is no excuse for proper vocabulary, Captain.” The Faera laughed at the sass and told him, “Just keep trying to get in contact with the ship, I’ll try to keep them busy.”

They had only a few moments before charges were flying overhead, Roman returned fire while Logan repeated, “This is Dr. Croft of the USS Sanders requesting back-up at my location.” There was no answer.

Roman kept shooting as rifle fire got a little too close and Logan screamed, “Damn it! If you guys don’t frelling answer I swear I will release every bit of blackmail material I have on all of you!” Roman laughed, barely ducking out of the way of a charge blast, and asked, “Including the ‘Medbay Incident’, Dr. Croft?” Logan shot him a glare as he growled, “Especially the Medbay Incident!”

“We all swore to never speak of it again!” a voice called from Logan’s communicator. They glanced down before Roman laughed and returned fire. Logan sighed as he spoke to Virgil, “Well since you picked up I will not have to speak of it.” 

He could practically see Virgil roll his eyes as he remarked, “Good. We’re on our way, be ready.” Before Logan could ask what to be ready for, there was a low thud as something hit the window. Roman and Logan glanced up in time to see a mass of tentacles stuck to the glass and watched as cracks began to form. Logan wrapped an arm around Roman, pulled him close, and grabbed an exposed pipe on the wall.

The winds swept through the halls and whipped by at great speed. Roman found himself thankful that Logan had kept his wings from being caught in the high speed winds. The Human was holding tightly to the pipe and curled himself around his captain as their enemies were either flung down the halls or launched out the window.

Remus crawled towards them, tentacles wrapping and holding onto parts of the building, and tethered them to himself. Roman had to unwrap Logan’s fingers from the pipe while Remus held them both with one of his tentacles. It took longer than he would have liked but Roman managed to pry Logan’s fingers off. 

As soon as his grip on the pipe was gone, Logan wrapped his free arm around Remus and tried to calm down as he carried them towards a pod hovering outside the broken window. He passed the pair over to Patton, the Empara’s glow a dark red, careful to ensure they were safely buckled into their seats before he pulled himself in.

Patton began examining them, Logan refusing to let himself be treated before Roman. When the Faera tried to object, Logan cut him off with a pointed remark of, “Your wings and horns are showing which means you are in more critical condition than myself. Humans are able to carry on with injuries longer than most species, I can wait.” 

Patton shot him a look but treated their captain while Logan explained how they had been captured. Remus glared at the building as they flew back while local law enforcement broke up the scene. 

While Patton wrapped Logan’s hands and wrists, Virgil parked them inside the docking bay on the USS Sanders. When the Araneus caught sight of the Human’s hands, he hissed sympathetically and asked, “They smash your hands?” Logan adjusted his glasses with a free hand, a nervous habit of his they had noticed, as he clarified, “The damage was actually my doing.”

Patton had moved on to examining the Human’s chest when he noticed their scientist’s breathlessness, listening to his lungs as he questioned, “You what?” Logan winced at the tone as he defended, “I had to get Captain Roman to safety quickly and there were limited resources. I used what was available.”

Roman gave Logan a hard look as he cooly remarked, “There’s a difference between smashing glass and shattering Deia Glass.” Everyone froze for a moment before Patton broke the tense silence and screeched, “You did WHAT!” Logan winced as the medic smacked his arm as Virgil yelled, “Humans are frelling insane!”

Remus turned to the scientist, eyes practically sparkling as he asked, “Would you do it to me? I wanna see!” Everyone immediately turned on the Faera and screamed, “NO!” Remus stuck out his lip in a pout as Patton continued treating their scientist.

The Empara moved on to Logan’s leg, tearing off the pant leg above the burned section. Logan winced as the fabric clung to the skin, thankful the damage was not severe. Patton muttered something under his breath that made Logan’s ears turn red as he scolded, “That language is not appropriate, Patton.” 

The medic rubbed the cream against the burn with a little more force than necessary as he retorted, “You got kidnapped, broke one of the strongest materials we know of, hurt yourself doing it, and got hit with a Stun Charge. I will use any language I want!” Logan’s cheeks turned red as they waited for Patton to finish treating him.

Once he felt that everything was treated as best he could, Patton lifted the captain into his arms and ordered, “You both are going to rest in your quarters. If you need anything someone will be stationed in your room. Do you understand?” Both patients nodded, albeit hesitant. 

Patton smiled as he requested, “Now, someone needs to take Logan back to his quarters and sit with him if he needs something.” Remus jumped to his feet, waving his hand in the air as he exclaimed, “Me! Me! Pick me!” Roman laughed as his brother scooped the human up and promised, “I won’t let you down!” Without another word, he ran down the hall with Logan shrieking, “Watch where you are going!”

Patton started to walk towards the Captain’s Quarters when Virgil offered, “Let me, someone’s gotta calm down the crew.” Patton handed the Faera over with a small grin as he squealed, “I get to use the intercom!” Roman groaned as the medic took off and told his chief of security, “You don’t have to look after me.”

Virgil looked away, already walking, as he mumbled, “We were right there.” Roman frowned as Virgil hissed, “We could have done something but we didn’t! They grabbed you and Logan and then you were just... gone!” 

Roman grabbed the Araneus’s shoulder and hugged him as best he could while being carried. Virgil huffed a laugh as he asked, “What are you doing?” Roman smiled as he answered, “Telling you that it isn’t your fault and if you keep insulting my Chief of Security I will have to discipline you.”

They laughed as they entered the Captain’s Quarters and Roman’s wings and horns retracted. Virgil smiled as he commented, “Glad to see you calming down after all that dren.” Roman flopped onto his mattress, only a little surprised when he noticed another weight settle beside him.

A clawed hand gently ran through Roman’s hair, occasionally scratching his scalp, and turned the Faera into a relaxed puddle. Virgil laughed as Roman’s wings unfurled and began to rub his back, careful to avoid his spines as they continued down along his tail. His horns curled back before spiraling towards his face, unlike Remus’s jagged ones that curved straight back.

While Remus may not have wings, his horns were a force to be reckoned with when exposed, often using them to impale threats. Logan had made it a point to compare their anatomy as a way of predicting reactions to unknown substances. Remus was very quick to volunteer despite his brother’s objections.

The Faera, much like the Empara, did not have much information about them. Unlike the Empara though, the Faera simply did not realize that information was needed about them, often forgetting to inform others of their biological idiosyncrasies when not asked. Logan and Patton nearly threw a fit when they discovered this and forced the both of them to put in multiple requests to their homeworld for information.

Virgil chuckled at the memory and commented, “Must have been pretty freaked captain, your wings were out.” Roman let a humorless laugh as he admitted, “Yeah, must have freaked Logan out pretty bad too. I’d never seen him so…” “Angry?” “Terrifying.” Virgil gave him a look as Roman explained, “We’ve always known that Logan was a Deathworlder, not a super strong one, but he’s Human.” Virgil chuckled, remembering the time Logan slipped on a wet spot in Medbay when someone had forgotten to put up a sign. 

“I’ve heard of Humans having incredible strength and speed, even the weaker members of their species but,” Roman took a breath before continuing, “ to see it in person was... It scared me, Virgil.” Virgil paused as his captain went on, “He saw me in my cage and his eyes just locked on me. He hurt his wrists breaking his cuffs, he frelling threw the smugglers against the walls and smashed through Deia Glass for me! Then he just took off with me!”

The security officer went rigid as he processed the information. Roman sighed as he murmured, “Thanks for the help by the way. I’m lucky they didn’t zap me any harder.” Extra arms wrapped around him as Virgil pulled his captain onto his chest and buried his head in Roman’s hair.

The captain chuckled as Virgil curled around him and mumbled, “We were scared too. Remus nearly went feral and Patton looked ready to tear into the one we caught. I think he nearly wet himself when Patton projected his anger.” Roman laughed as he gasped, “Patton?! But he’s always telling us that being scary won’t work.” Virgil cackled, “Oh Patton wouldn’t do anything, but he did threaten to let Remus do what he wanted.”

“No, what did you do?”

“I got out of the way, do not get between an angry Patton and his target.”

“Did he... you know?”

“Nah, the guy was so scared of Remus he just started babbling everything he knew.”

“Remus can be usefully scary when he wants to.”

They sat there chatting while Remus watched Logan. The Human would not have issues with his appointed guardian if he would not stare at him while he changed. He said as much to Remus who replied in a falsely-innocent tone, “But I’ve never seen what you really look like.” 

Logan gave him a blank stare as he limped into his bathroom and shut the door. He heard Remus whine but ignored it as he pulled on a black pajama shirt. The bandages did not interfere but when he tried to pull on his pajama pants, the burn on his leg flared with pain. The Human hissed in pain and let go of the pants in exchange for trying to keep the pain to a minimum. 

There was a beat of silence before he heard a knock at the door and a cautious, “You okay, Doc?” Logan let out a painful laugh as he called back, “Just some irritation around the burn, I will be fine.” There was another pause before Remus called out, “Yeah, that’s a load of dren. Open the door.” 

Logan sighed as he admonished, “If you are attempting to watch me again-” “Not really, it’s kind of something I’d like to see, but you’re hurt so I promise to only help,” Remus interrupted. Logan hesitated, a little wary of letting someone in while vulnerable, but after the day he had, he really wanted to go to bed.

He opened the door, letting Remus support him as the Faera carefully pulled the pant leg over the bandaged burn. Logan hissed a little as the other’s fingers brushed the bandages but encouraged Remus to continue. Remus pulled the drawstrings of Logan’s pants and tied them before he scooped the human up and settled him on the bathroom counter. 

Logan let out an indignant yelp as Remus asked, “Anything else you need to do? I heard you have a paste that keeps your teeth from rotting.” The scientist rolled his eyes as he answered, “Yes, that is an important ritual to keep us in optimum health.” 

Remus watched curiously as Logan grabbed his dental supplies and started brushing. The Human was a bit more methodical than average but given the lack of Human dentists onboard he supposed it was a logical caution. Remus seemed fascinated with his teeth and the tools he used to maintain them. 

He had just enough patience to wait for Logan to finish before he bombarded him with questions about how to take care of a Human’s teeth and the consequences for not brushing. Logan answered as much as he could given how tired he was though, he was rather happy to answer someone’s scientific inquiries however strange. 

Patton came to check on them, still a little giddy after using the intercom. Once he declared them on their way to recovery, he put them on bedrest with the threat of enforcement via tranquilizer. Remus offered to continue keeping watch with Janus volunteering to help the captain so Virgil could resume his duties. 

Patton assigned their guests to caretaking until he was satisfied they were completely recovered. The pair sighed but allowed their overseers to do their job with minimal complaint- thank you very much Janus. More often than not, Roman and Logan ended up in the same room just talking. 

Occasionally, the others would flinch when Remus asked his questions, unsure which was worse- the question or the answer. Janus was fascinated when Logan revealed some of what the former could do thanks to his DNA, such as the ‘Hysterical Strength’ Logan had recently demonstrated. Roman could only scrunch his nose in disgust as Remus began to ramble about Human facts he had learned and speculating about Janus’s abilities and origins.

By the end of the seventh Solar day, Roman was more than happy to go back to work and avoid his brother for a while, not that something as paltry as a job schedule could keep away Remus’s disgusting theories. Thankfully, Logan was able to disprove or simply denounce most of them and spared the crew from any troubling thoughts when they went to bed. 

The crew was more on guard at the next planet they arrived at to replenish supplies before continuing the journey. Remus stayed close to his brother with Virgil while Patton hovered near Janus and Logan while the human asked about the cultural significance of a jewelry piece he found. 

Any eyes that lingered for a moment too long would hastily turn away at the glares of the crew. This time, they left the market with all their crewmembers safe and sound without any injuries. Virgil smiled as he informed the crew that the new security protocol was successful and would be implemented immediately. 

Unaware of any new protocols, Roman inquired and found himself annoyed as Virgil explained, “Whenever our Captain and/or Chief Science Officer leave the ship, they are to be escorted by at least two crew members in order to prevent further incidents.” For his trouble, Virgil received an obscene gesture from his captain and an indignant exclamation of, “I don’t do it on purpose!” 

This proclamation was met with a series of sarcastic laughs and his Chief Medical Officer calling out, “We know! It’s for your own good!” Roman took his seat at the helm as he muttered, “Traitors.” He sat up in his chair as he loudly announced, “Well let’s get going! We have much to discover!” Without another word, but plenty of mirthful titters and laughs, they pulled away from the planet and headed into unknown territories.

[sanders-sides-fic]

There is no nice deathworlders! (Right?) [Chapter 7]

AU-masterpost: here

Virgil wasn’t sure why, but Remus would wake up every night after that. Every time Roman slept, Remus would come out and talk away the night with… or, rather to Virgil. And it was calming, really. Having someone treat you like a person after all this time again. Just talking about random stuff, as gruesome and disturbing as some of it may be, and having a conversation. 

Patton didn’t leave. Much to Roman’s dismay the sylemn didn’t want to leave his friends. Though Virgil did assume that they had noticed him reacting to them talking some time or another, as they had begun to talk a lot more quietly. But Roman still insisted on Virgil not being able to understand common, which was kind of confusing. About as confusing as Roman slowly becoming less and less aggressive towards Virgil in behavior, yet showing no signs of warming up to the human in the way he talked.

The storm didn’t stop, but it got better. Before you could barely see a foot through the pouring rain and the wind was cold and biting even inside the cover of the cave. Now you could at least see far enough not to be concerned about falling down a cliff you didn’t see. Of cause everything would still be slippery, but if you stepped outside, you didn’t need to worry about being flooded away. 

So Virgil started to leave again. He didn’t search for Janus, of cause. No, that would have been suicidal in that weather. But he went outside to go and find some food. He was really worried about both Roman and Patton, and he himself started to have trouble standing up fast. Even now he was out of breath way too fast and saw black spots dancing around in his vision.

And Virgil also visited his ship. He didn’t want to do so before because whenever he went inside the ship even though he didn’t want to leave yet he… remembered things. Now was hard, too. But he didn’t have much of a choice, Roman, Remus and Patton would die of hypothermia at this rate and he needed a few other supplies and tools because of the weather right now. Fire wasn’t really a possibility with the soaking wood around here, and he refused to die of an allergic reaction to some weird berry or fruit or something. No, he’d rather use up the supplies on the ship for now and worry about reloading later. Still, he would have to skimp out on meals if he didn’t want to starve on the his way to the next market.

Where would that be? HJ-9? Or maybe better YK-21? No, there was a lot of security there. He’d had a few run-ins with them when he and Janus were together and they’d barely made it out of there in one peace working as a team. Though there was a lot of stuff he had yet to find anywhere else, he guessed he shouldn’t risk it.

With a sigh, Virgil left the shiny, black, bubble-shaped space ship again and went back into the rain. On the way back he found a few more of those blackish berries Roman seemed to like, or like enough to eat them at least. Finding the right cave was a lot harder than without the rain, though. He had to try five before he finally found the one the two aliens were whispering in.

“-feel him again, you said! I mean, that’s something, right?”, Patton asked when he entered. He stood there, dripping onto the floor, for a few moments as he watched Roman’s scales flutter softly. “Yes. But I can’t reach him. I’m just worried. What if it stays like that? What if I never get to talk to Remus ever again? I just… I miss him, you know?”, he whispered, just loud enough for the echo of the cave to carry it to Virgil’s ears over the raining noise behind him. Patton, in answer, let out a soft, sad chirp and rubbed against his friend. Roman cuddled him back, his tale wrapping around the smaller alien protectively.

He wondered if Remus would hug him back if he were to try?

What was he thinking?! Remus may be nice to him, but the creath wasn’t his friend. His other half made that more than clear enough for both of them. No, Remus was intrigued by him, maybe they were on neutral terms, but there was no way any alien would ever want to be friends with him, a human, a deathworlder.

With a sour taste in his mouth, Virgil walked over to his side of the cave and let the supplies drop. He could hear the other two stiffen when he did, but ignored the sharp pain in his chest. Virgil made a point of it to set out the things he’d brought back from the ship as carefully as possible, simply because that meant it would take more time. He both wanted to give the two friends a little time to collect themselves and wanted to stall for time before he had to face what he inevitably knew: That they still hated and feared him and always would, because he had no means to communicate his good intentions to them.

When he couldn’t put it off any longer, Virgil took a deep breath and clutched the fabric of the blankets in his hands. It wasn’t like fabric at home. Weirdly thin and sleek almost like liquid, but still as warm as a duvet. The color was weird, too. Something in between maroon and black, but shining in every color of the rainbow when the sun hit the right way. A little bit like oil. Virgil wasn’t too sure what it was made off, only that he didn’t want his thoughts to wander in that direction. But they worked, and they were cheap, so Janus and he had bought a few with the stolen money.

“It’s not really stolen, you know? Think of it more as a… compensation. For the things they did. Besides, they don’t need it anymore. At least we still have a use for this.” Janus’ words echoed inside Virgil’s mind, making him smile fondly. They’d snitched the money and their first disguises from the ship they’d been held on and bought the ship outside with it, together with more elaborate disguises, a few supplies and necessities. They’d used it all up quite fast and since it was kind of hard to get a job without risking to be found out, Janus had quickly become quite the skilled pick-pocket. Sometimes they would just go on missions with little to no risk of being seen. There were only few of those, but somehow Janus and Virgil had been able to make due.

Until he’d lost Janus.

If he was being honest, Virgil had given up on finding him here. Or at all, really. Space was just too big and planets were too big and Virgil was too small. And with storms like these here? Even Janus wouldn’t have been able to survive this for all too long. He would have kicked the bucket by now if this had been where he’d decided to go into hiding after they’d got seperated. And even if he was still out there, if he hadn’t died or been captured by now… There was no way Virgil would find him anymore.

And he really only wanted to go home right now. Go back to the house with too large windows and too clean floors and uncomfortably quiet dinners and suffocatingly tense air. Back to the yelling and fighting with his father and the frustration and the useless therapies and the scandals in the news. He wanted to go back to being the problem child, wanted to go back to earth where he knew what he was supposed to do and what he couldn’t do and where he was just an outsider, not a monster.

Shaking his head to disperse the thoughts and biting his lip to push back the tears, Virgil’s hands clutched the blankets even tighter. Not right now. He’d wait out the storm, find those aliens’ missing crew mate, figure out a way to talk to them, bring them to safety and then he could go back to drowning in self pity until the oxygen in the ship would be used up and he’d suffocate. And now? Right now he had to make sure the two aliens in this cave with him didn’t die of the cold they’d been shivering in for the last few days.

So he took another deep breath, this one shivering more than the last one, went over to where the two watched him, one with caution and one with horror barely concealed by a mask of anger, and threw the blankets at them. Patton caught one in his hands, while the other got stuck on Roman’s horns. Patton, of cause, carefully took the second blanket as well, as Roman was still tied up and couldn’t reach for it himself. Both of them looked at Virgil silently and Virgil only looked at them.

“There you go”, he couldn’t say, “If you need something else tell me. I want you to stay healthy.”

So instead he turned around, ignoring the way one of them breathed a sigh of relief, and put the berries as well as one of those weird fruits that reminded him of a pineapple in taste and a persimmon in texture on what had essentially become Roman’s plate. He walked back over to them and put it down on the floor, a little away from them so that they wouldn’t tense up as much. He knew Patton would reach it once he was gone, even though Roman couldn’t.

“I hope you like it. I know it’s not much, but we’ll have to make due.”, was stuck in his throat underneath glued lips and a limp tongue. But maybe his eyes conveyed the message just a little bit. At least Patton looked into his eyes, looked back down at the food and hummed happily: “Thank you!”

Virgil blushed, hoping that they wouldn’t see it in the dark. He quickly retreated into his corner of the cave and curled up in his own blanket. He chewed on a piece of alien bread, ignoring the sour taste, and watched as Patton put one blanket around Roman and curled up in his own, sharing the fruit and the berries with his friend.

The delighted chirp Patton let out when he ate the fruit, now, that Virgil did not ignore for once. At least he’d done something right, he thought, pulling the blanket tighter around himself. At least something at all…

___

Logan looked outside suspiciously. Could he get outside now? It was still pouring rain outside, but at least it had let up a little bit. Just a little bit, though. But was it safe? And did it really matter whether it was safe or not? After all, Roman and Remus or Patton could still be out there in that rain. If so, he knew that he had to find them quickly. Patton may be immune to lightning as sylemn didn’t conduct electricity, but Roman and Remus were surely endangered by the lightning he’d seen before. And even if electricity couldn’t harm Patton, a sylemn was very much flammable.

It was day still, but with the clouds and the rain the sun was a lot less bright, which very much worked in Logan’s favor. The rays of sunshine were barely more potent than on his home planet, and due to his cross-species breading it would not harm him as much as it would other photynêsc.

Just as he was about to go out, he saw the deathworlder return to the cave on the opposite side, his arms full of supplies. And he hesitated when he entered the cave, his eyes obviously focused on something inside. Or was it someone?

Logan’s heart sunk further when he realized that his fear from back then might very well be true. It was possible that he had found one of Logan’s friends and taken them prisoner. Probably Patton, because neither Roman nor Remus would have gone down without a huge fight. No matter who had been in charge, that deathworlder may have won but wouldn’t have gotten away as unharmed as he appeared.

Logan closed his eyes to recollect himself. It was alright. If his assumptions were correct, that would mean that the deathworlder had let Patton live. For now. So that meant that Logan still had a chance to help him. Get in while the deathworlder was away or asleep and get him out of there.

But it was likely a trap. There was a high chance that the deathworlder had figured Patton wasn’t the only one stranded here and that others would come looking for him. Deathworlders were smart, after all, cunning and dangerously skilled in drawing conclusions. That was one of the few things known after Virgil Feline and Janus Serpent had escaped back then.

Logan involuntarily shuddered at the thought of those two. He could only hope that this deathworlder would be at least a little less volatile and/or violent.

Careful not to let himself be spotted, Logan left the cave. He shuddered again at the cold water raining down on him. He wasn’t necessarily against being wet. Back home everything was covered by a thick layer of fog at all times, after all. But this cold water, heavy and raining down in almost painful drops, was something he hated about the planets far from his own. Not that he would ever say that out loud. If asked he would only say that it was uncomfortable to him.

Soon he saw the warmth emitting from the cave. The entire cave appeared to be slightly warmer than the outside, but he could see the deathworlder on the right side to the cave even warmer, though a lot less warm than he himself, Patton or Roman and Remus should be. Was that normal for a deathworlder? That cool body temperature? Logan wasn’t sure.

Taking another breath, Logan hid behind a tree. He hoped that that was enough to hide the soft glow of his skin. He couldn’t be sure about the sensitivity of the deathworlder’s eyes, though, so he wasn’t entirely sure. And it wasn’t exactly an ideal position either. He couldn’t see much colors in the darker cave, only temperatures. At least from this far away. And the temperatures were hard to pick up on at this distance as well.

But he did see something, and what he saw made breathing harder than it should be. Not only Patton, but Roman as well were huddled up together opposite from the deathworlder.

So did that…

Was that…

That meant…

If this really was a trap, Logan concluded with bile raising up his throat, it could only be for him. And if he didn’t fall for it, he didn’t want to imagine what would happen to his friends, his family.

This truly was a disaster.

Taglist 🖤

@the-ultimate-a @bunny222 @elvis-has-been-dug @what-is-love-babey-dont-hurt-me @gattonero17 @selenechris

[skeletonsloverockcandy]

I did some fanart of Logan the Ulgorii, from @delimeful ‘s Watch It Burn And Rust, or WIBAR, braiding Virgil’s hair and a wild Patton made an appearance! I really love this AU and after Lime said something about Logan learning to braid Virgil’s hair, I knew I had to draw it. 😄🥰

I also really love Logan’s “Mind Weaving” too, so I knew I had to draw it as well <3

(I’m on mobile, but I’ll try to put the sketches under the cut)

[[MORE]]

[rebloged-content]

Recommended Sanders Sides creators

Marry Christmas, everyone! And a wonderful December day to all of you who don’t celebrate Christmas, too. Let’s be honest right off the bat, though: I’m only using the date as an excuse to do this list anyways.

So. Throughout the time I’ve spent as a part of this wonderful corner of the sanders sides fandom over here on tumblr, I’ve often found a new creator and wished I’d found them sooner. It kind of makes me wonder who else I might miss. If you do to, here are a few creators I’d love for you to check out. You’ll probably recognize some of the names, if not all, but maybe you’ll find a new favorite creator here?

And to the creators in question, I really love your content. If you’ve made it onto this list, you’ve definitely cause one or two sleepless nights of reading for me, because who needs sleep if I can have this, right? XD Whatever you’ll find written next to your name is the impression you’ve left on me and… Well, just know that you’ve made some days of my life at least a little happier, all of you. And I hope to repay the favor by telling you how much I appreciate you releasing your content into this world… Well, repay the favor at least a little, I suppose.

Let’s begin, then, shall we?

@5am-the-foxing-hour Because this? This is who you go to if you want to read good Janus-content. You are in a mood to read sympathetic Janus? Wanna see the danger noodle just casually interact with other sides? Go to their short stories. I mean, “the cult”? Prime example of how to tell a story with impact in just a few words. 8 paragraphs, but boy did I read that one on repeat. Or “water spray bottle”, this one is fun, short and will make you laugh. An energy drink for the fander heart, so to say.

Then there’s their mafia-au, “there’s more in me than precious metals”. Six are out so far, and I adore every single word of every single part of this. Protective Remus, sassy Janus, angst, comedy relief, destruction, Roman-Remus-sibling-rivalry, braincell Logan, survival instinct Virgil, working together over a common enemy… This fic has it all, believe me. Take your time and read it, because you will read the entire thing in one go once you start. At least I did, and I didn’t even notice.

And their advent writings? Those had me squealing and jumping around in a way I will deny if anyone ever sees it. I don’t even know what else to say, they are fucking fantastic and that’s that.

So, yeah. Go check them out, before I start fangirling about them even more. You know my personal favorites now, so just go there. You won’t regret it.

Next up is @coconut-cluster. Ah, yes, Lexi. Lexi, whose uni-AU started as self indulgent and has become the loceit story on tumblr. We all know her, or at least most of us do, and we all love her too. And while I also drop everything I do at any point of time I possibly can once I realize the uni-au has any form of new addition, there are a lot of other fics created by her that you should check out as well.

Did you, for example, ever want a sappy prinxiety one-shot with the sappiness only being implied, a mutual understanding of “we’re-not-saying-we-care-but-we-both-know-we-do” born from joking reassurances and a not-a-date-nope-only-a-break? While that may seem to be a tall order, that is exactly what “before the sun goes down” is. Plus there’s ice cream. Or maybe you’re more of a logince fan? Do you want a fic where Roman isn’t the prince but serves His Highness? Do you like sincere talks while you’re procrastinating showing your face to the subjects you don’t really want to rule over? In that case, you really should read “Viva la Vida”. Careful, though, this one is so sweet you’ll probably get a toothache… There also is an analogical fic that I’ve enjoyed very much: “Cracks in the Ceiling”. I love it, because it’s just calm. Fears creeping up on you, thrown away by a trusted friend with a few words, just by being there and playing into the metaphors you head created this time around. It’s calm, and there’s not really a climax or anything, but it doesn’t need one. Because it’s just a glance into everyday life. It’s beautiful in its own right, really.

What I’m saying is, Lexi has a lot more wonderful stories to tell than the uni-au. It’s the most popular one, sure, and it’s one of her best works. But you really should check out her other fics as well. Lexi herself once said that she writs fics she’d like to read. I would figure it’s because of this, but her stories are mostly things you don’t really find anywhere else. Dynamics, stories, world building, all of those are aspects you may find somewhere else. But Lexi is just one of those people who see what they miss in a fandom and create it themselves, and among these creators Lexi is my favorite. She just has that certain skill that makes that approach to writing result in the most enjoyable reading experiences. Lexi’s fics are special, because they’re different, because they are authentic and you can feel that when you’re reading her work.

@djpurple3 is another talented individual I want to talk about. I have to confess, DJ is, as far as original content goes, almost exclusively locked in my brain with the fiction “I just keep loosing my beat”. 23 Chapters so far, one better than the last. It’s a bitter-sweet story following Remus and his children, after the bitch of a mother has been brought behind bars. Abusive piece of shit. Yeah, I don’t like her much. But the story is so full of love and support, everyone trying their best, everyone seeing how much the others deserve the world and wishing they could give it to them… Roman and Remus have a sibling-dynamic I would die for here, too. Patton is just the most adorable friend to Deceit - here Damion - Virgil is a precious bean, Logan is cute and the teacher we all wish he’d had ourselves and… god, I could keep gushing about this fic forever. I’ll stop now, though, before I’ll start spoiler things. Wouldn’t want to do that, especially since I really, really, really want more people to give this a go. It’s not underrated, I just think everyone who doesn’t is missing out by a lot, so… Go over there and read DJ’s fic right fucking now, if you haven’t already read it at least once. Thank you.

@delimeful​, our wonderful lime-friend with a cute cat making a terrifying face in his header. First of all, there is the WIBAR universe, short for “Watch it burn and rust”. 5 chapters in act one, 4 intermissions (one of those with three chapters), one chapter of act two, as well as three extras and an au of this au called “the end of being alone”, and I’ve lost count of how many nights I spent reading those instead of sleeping like I should. (Or interacting with family. Or being productive. Or… It’s really a good story, okay?!) WIBAR is a deathworlder au. So a space au in which humans are regarded as dangerous deathworlders who can survive on a deathworld like earth. In other words, Virgil is the only human, and boy does that scare everyone around him. And the best part? You can feel the development, the shift in mentality regarding Virgil, feel the moment approach in which he isn’t a threat but a companion instead.

And, apart from the fic that inspired me enough to start writing “TINND!R?” over on my writing blog, there are a lot more amazing fics to read on lime’s blog. He wrote “How easy you are to need”, for example. It’s soft, it pulls at just the right heartstrings, it’s achingly hopeful and, god, the ending still has me in tears, even after the fifth - ? sixth? something among those lines - reread. This one’s a werewolf au, actually. Virgil is the werewolf, Logan, Patton and Roman are the humans.

Do you want yourself some of that pre-AA dynamic? I’d recommend “to taste your beating heart”. In this, Virgil gets separated from the rest of his group of vampire hunters and gets turned into a vampire himself, loosing his memories. And he’s “Anx” now, not “Virgil”, goddamnit! He isn’t their friend anymore, why don’t they understand that? Well, probably because they can still see Virgil’s old habits shining through. There’s a lot of tension, a lot of angst and a whole lot of frustration involved in this.

He also wrote some amazing one-shots. They’re mostly so well written that I’m almost sad not to be waiting on a continuation. There’s “the littlest mermaid”, in which Virgil goes to investigate a noise, finding a scared, tiny mermaid in need of help. In “community gardens” we have Remus being Remus, gaining the interest and friendship of the forest’s giant Logan. “Magical mutualism” tells the tale of a witch and a demon making a pact beneficial to both parties and opening the doors neither could have gone beyond alone. The way we’re all confused about our ships not actually having set sail yet comes to a hight in Virgil in regards to his friends in “amateur matchmakers”. And this is the point at witch I stop talking before I actually recommend every single one of lime’s fics instead of just my favorites as I had planed because I started to gush too much… XD

Let’s move on to @muppenthings​. Mupp is an amazing artist and she created a giant mermaid au. There’s this one orca who’s just… We love her, but I actually don’t think she’s the brightest. I really, really love her, though. Virgil himself is being a little protective over his human friends and casually so. I love this comic series for the art style, but I also love the way it makes me crack a laugh at least once per work. Or appeal to my mother-instincts, if it’s about baby Virgil. Too cute for his own good, I tell ya! And the facial expressions! The detail, the jokes, everything about this is wonderful. You should at least take a look.

@whenisitenoughtrees​. Cat got me with “This cup of yours tastes holy (This lie is dead)”. “A slow voice on a wave of phase” was next, later “Infinity and beyond”, “we are not alone in the dark with out demons” and “changing of the guard”. And then, suddenly, the night was over. I’ve read almost all of the fics in one go, and I’ve been semi-frequently visiting her master post ever since. When “There’s an endless road to rediscover” came out just a little while back, that lead to me re-reading through almost the entire list. I don’t regret it, my plans for that weekend would like to disagree.

These six fics I mentioned here are, by no means, the only ones I enjoyed. Those are just the ones I’ve found myself opening up again and again in sleepless nights. Those are the ones that pop up in my head and have me smiling to myself in the middle of god-knows-whatever-I’ve-been-doing-at-the-time.

Angst, fluff, hurt-comfort, you’ll find everything in that list. And something I’ve grown to like about Cat’s fics even more than anything else is the quick change between feeling perplexed, a startled laugh at certain wordings (you’ll know what I’m talking about when you see it) and apprehension. These fics will have you at the edge of you seat, swooping you away on an emotional roller coaster. And, god, the way Cat writes from Remus’ perspective? The introductions of her stories and the way she redirects to the main topic after going into detail on something? I saved a few paragraphs as screenshots on my phone because I love them and I want to read them again when I’m down. I just… Cat’s great.

Next up is @eliemo. Because Elias Virgil is the royalty of Virgil angst. From the touch-starved Virgil we’ve all had a head cannon of at one point in “Heart of Ice”, over ace Virgil panicking over telling his boyfriends that he his ace and didn’t think to tell them before in “Love our way” to so, so much more.

Mostly EV follows the story arc of an underlying feeling of dread at the beginning, which slowly grows into panic, exploding in a storm of angst and concludes in everyone, or at least whoever is around, coming to the rescue and helping to calm down, with the end being the hope for getting better in the future. They always manage to convey the confusion, fear or just the general thought process so well that you can’t help but get absorbed in the story. They know exactly what to say and what to leave between the lines to get the maximum effect. And, your heart will definitely be shattered after their angst. Still, the way the sides comfort each other and support each other so well every time is just… I love their stories, a lot.

I want to make two more suggestions if you want to check out this creator. A Janus angst fic, which can only be described as “ouch” you’ll find under the name “snake bite”. It hurts in the best way possible, because Janus gets the comfort he deserves.

The other suggestion gets a lot darker. It’s about Virgil having been abused by the “others” before he got accepted into the light side. The others are shocked to find out what has gone on behind their backs and they help Virgil in every way they can to recover. Of cause it’s a rocky path, though. This would be “Learned Behavior”. The series/au has twelve stories so far, one of which has two parts. You’ll find the master post for this pinned to the top on their blog.

If you like angst, you should also give @maybedefinitely404​ a look. Ly has a soulmate-au going, in which they use the concept of “you hear the music your soulmate listens to”. "Music in my head” is a prinxiety fic, but the two of them have yet to meet. Four chapters and two mini-fics in. The reason I mentioned angst is because in this - spoiler alert for the first few chapters here - , Virgil gets put through conversion therapy. Luckily Janus and Logan are better foster parents than the ones who did that to him.

They also have a master list for all their soulmate stories, featuring different ships. Apparently they participated in soulmate month, if I understood that correctly. And to be honest, that was how I even found their account. I absolutely adore their anxceit fic, which takes place in a human au. It’s starting off pretty sad, but the bonding moments are absolutely wonderful. It’s a lovely story, and the ending is one of the best ones I’ve yet to read. Their logince fic took my breath away, too. A flower shop/tattoo artist au, and Logan is the tattoo artist. Stunning writing, wonderful world building, just the right amount of backstory to have everything make sense without overwhelming/drowning the reader in unnecessary details. Their moxceit fiction… Well, this one had me in tears within the first few paragraphs. It’s terrible and you feel for Janus, whose perspective this is written from. The ending, though… Gods! The ending was so indescribably cute. To be honest, all of the soulmate stories are great, these three are just my personal favorites.

Concerning their one shots, you’ll probably have to figure it out on your own concerning this. I haven’t been able to read all of them yet, as sad as that makes me. Definitely palling on doing it in the future, though. I did read two of them, though. “Pippity poppity” really was amusing, and I am so looking forward to the second part of “The Boy who sings next door”. The way they write the dynamics between the sides? I live for that.

Another creator I would like to recommend is @maybe-im-tired.They don’t have a master post, as far as I could see, but they only post their content anyways, so… “Can’t take my eyes off of you” is my favorite out of their fics so far. I mean, the way they managed to fit the sheer chaos that is intrulogical into this one short fic is amazing. And you could take about two thirds of what Remus said and put it up on your wall as out-of-contexts-quotes. Don’t worry, he says them out of context anyways, and they will definitely make you laugh. 

The series of short stories for the human au that starts with “Glowing stars” is another au by them that you will almost certainly like. We have Logan and Virgil as kids (about 7 I think), Remus and Patton as single parents, Roman as the most adoring uncle, Emile as babysitter and Remy as his amazing partner. Remus is a great father, wonderfully chaotic as well. And a teacher! Imagine that, Remus as your teacher... He’s great with kids though, as long as they aren’t entitled villains come to make his precious Virgil feel bad, that is.

They also wrote a bunch of “random one shots”. They are all amazing, but my favorite has to be this one. It’s a logince one, once again human au. Patton may or may not tell his big brother’s crush about the feelings he wasn’t prepared to share yet. You know, as small kids do. It’s soft, it will make you smile as much as Logan does, and I love Remus in it. I generally like how they write Remus, okay? I know how much I’ve said it, but I’m not even exaggerating. They always write him differently, and all versions they write him as are so, so lovable and just… I wanna hug the life out of all Remus versions they wrote, okay? Take a look, you’ll know why.

Anyways. Let’s continue with @figurative-siren-song. This is the last account I’ve followed and I’m still sad about it having taken me this long to find them. Little salty, to be honest. (I’ll stick to they/them because they said just not to use she/her, and, well… consistency, you know? Don’t have much, so I have to get what I can XD). When I finally did find them, I went through their entire master list (at least all of the ships with characters I actually know. I’m kinda bad with the shorts characters, so I usually just… avoid them? Idk. Personal preference, I guess), and, well… I would honestly recommend every single fic on that list. They call themself “Repair Fluff King™️” and they deserve that title. But when they warn you that a fic will be angsty, it will be angsty.

I found them through the anxceit fic “A Deal”. Well, through an animatic by their friend on youtube that had linked the fic, but details. I’ve been reading this fic up and down again and again. It’s just so good! And when they talk in the second part and Janus explains why he proposed that deal. Or in the continuation, which i can’t talk about because I will probably spoiler things! So wholesome!

 Also, their losleepxeity fic “We’re worth it”. So soft! The nicknames, the plot, the everything. It’s softer than clouds look, and we all know that means something.

But, really. Everyone will find something for them by this creator. So many ships, all incredibly well written, and soft and fluffy without getting boring in the slightest. It’s as energizing as coffee, actually. And, let’s be honest, this whole fandom drowns itself in angst most of the time. Take a break from that, repair your broken hearts with goof fluffy content that you’ll want to read over and over again. Go check this creator out. You will love them. 

Last but not least… @myfriendsasthesides​ A blog by a creator who just takes the wonderfully chaotic dynamics of a friend group and using that to give us content of incorrect sides quotes. Maybe it doesn’t fit with me going on and on about fics here. I don’t care. Follow them and turn on those notifications, please, because seeing even one post of theirs on your dashboard will make your day. It’s funny, it’s absurd, it’s chaotic, it’s making you jealous of them for having friends like that. Believe me, you will want to see those posts. It’s just… the random shots of serotonin and dopamine out generation needs really fucking desperately 100% of the time. 

That’s it with the list! Eleven creators I absolutely adore, and I’m sorry I was babbling so much all the way through, but… Well, actually I’m not sorry. And actually, half of the reason I even made this post is to tell them how much I love them and fangirl about them a bit. So… Yeah. Well.I love you guys and hope you’ll have a wonderful day! And to everyone else reading this: I hope this helped you ind some new creators you can enjoy. And a good day to you too, of cause.

Sincerely, Joy 🖤

(@joylessnightsky/@sanders-sides-fic)

[stillebesat]

On the Run

DECEMBER DRABBLES DAY 1 Sanders Sides: Virgil, Janus Blurb: When life gives you an escape attempt, you run as fast and as far as you can to get away. A Prequel moment for my other fic The Sweater Written For: @acanvasofabillionsuns​ who asked: How did Janus get to Earth? Fic Type: Alien!AU Overall Fic Warnings: Injuries, Blood, Extra Limbs, Captivity Mention Taglist in Reblog.

Run.

AnXie stumbled in the death white--the snow--that was cold enough to the touch that he was sure even the mighty Illec warriors would succumb to the freezing temperatures if not to the constantly falling flakes from the sky pelting their skin. He shuddered, breath wisping out in front of his face as three of his now blue-tinged arms tightened around little DeCei’s trembling body, his fourth hand keeping pressure on the jagged metal spear that had embedded itself into his side. A wound he would need to look at soon if he had any hope of preventing infection from setting in from the Earthly microbes that seemed to cover every inch of this raze awful place. 

Run. 

He flinched as yet another explosion sounded in the distance behind him where he hoped that the transport carrier--semi truck--would burn until nothing but a twisted husk was left. 

Run. 

Before their captors regained consciousness. Before they realized their test subjects hadn’t died in the crash but escaped.

Run. 

He drew in a shaky breath, lungs screaming at him, unused to the oxygen rich air even after the four lunar cycles he and DeCei had spent on this awful Deathworld of a planet since an unexpected solar flare from the nearby sun had disrupted their navigation systems sending their ship into a death spiral that he, with his extensive piloting experience, had barely been able to break them out of. 

Not in enough time to properly land though. Barely with enough time to prevent the ship from disintegrating upon impact. 

AnXie forced his darting legs -the four long spider-like limbs sprouting from his back- to keep moving as he wove through the trees, aiming to keep his more human looking body and legs lifted up off the ground so that those larger feet wouldn’t leave tracks in that awful snow that a half blind Paelex could easily follow. 

Run. 

AnXie risked a glance over his shoulder, grimacing as his ears caught the faint sound of sirens in the distance heading towards the black plume of smoke standing out against the grey cloud covered sky. 

That wasn’t a good sign. To have the humans already sending aid to the toppled vehicle meant that there were more of the fleshlings nearby, possibly even a settlement which meant there was a higher chance he and DeCei would be found and recaptured. 

Run.

AnXie gritted his teeth, forcing his shaking legs to keep running, fourth hand doing it’s best to staunch the flow of blood to avoid leaving a trail. He couldn’t let that happen. Not to DeCei. He was far too young to be dealing with--with---

The youngling whimpered as another round of sirens started their wailing cry somewhere in front of them. “Annie?” He asked, wiggling in his grip, looking up with his bright mismatched eyes. “We’ll be safe now right?” 

AnXie exhaled, wincing as the movement twinged the spear sticking out from his side before pressing a quick kiss to the youngling’s forehead. “That’s the plan, Dee.” Though they wouldn’t be safe until he could track down a ship to get them off planet. “We just need--”

They both tensed as a faint hum of a hovercraft reached their ears. 

RUN. 

He bolted through the trees, head on a swivel looking for something, anything to help them get away.

But if their captors were already awake and coming after them he didn’t have much time before--AnXie skidded to a stop at the edge of the treeline, cursing under his breath as he stared at the city laid out before him, the faint hum of an active early morning community reaching his sensitive ears. He’d known the humans had larger settlements than the average Quixx but this?! It was like staring at a Yuzewi hive magnified tenfold. 

And here he’d been hoping that stupid semi truck had crashed far far away from whatever facility his captors were transporting them to.

Run. 

But where?! Sure he could fold his darting legs flat against his back to keep them from being as visible and walk around like any other human, but neither he nor DeCei had the right clothing to hide their extra limbs, let alone hide the fact that he was injured. Humans were quick to notice things out of the ordinary. They couldn’t hid--

No.

AnXie pressed his lips together, eyes narrowing as he looked around. He couldn’t hide. But DeCei was small. Easily overlooked. Especially in the shadows. If he could--AnXie tensed his darting legs and jumped, aiming for a large pine tree with branches all the way to the ground. 

No one would be looking for DeCei because they’d assume that AnXie had him. He had been rather protective of the youngling in that stupid lab. They would know he wouldn’t willingly leave him behind.

And by the time they realized they’d separated...the falling snow should help to obscure his tracks. 

“Dee. Stay here.” AnXie whispered, ignoring how the needles from the tree jabbed into his frozen skin as he spread the branches with one hand, placing DeCei into the empty space within as close to the trunk as he could manage. 

DeCei cried out, four of his hands grabbing at him as he went to pull away. “You CAN’T Leave!”

He didn’t want to. But they had no time! He forced himself to smile in a confident manner, meeting the youngling’s shimmering eyes. “Shh shh. You need to be brave, Dee. Like the Illecs, okay?”

DeCei shook his head, bottom lip trembling. “Safe! You promised!” 

“And you--we will be. But they can’t find you.” He ran a thumb along the youngling’s scaled cheek. “Stay here. Don’t come out until it’s Safe.” Until he could come back for him.  

“Safe?” The youngling drew in a shuddering breath, hands clenching before he crossed all his arms in a quick gesture before stepping back. “Be quick, Annie.” 

AnXie bowed his head, mimicking the gesture as best he could with three arms. “I will.” He let the branches fall back into place as he stood, a quick glance ensuring that he hadn’t made any obvious signs of being there before he jumped back to his original stopping point and took off running along the treeline in the opposite direction of DeCei. He circled halfway around the open space where some humans had already gathered to point at the smoke in the sky before darting back deeper into the woods. 

No matter what. He grimaced, forcing his aching limbs to move faster despite how he could feel the cold temperatures making his movements more sluggish, his fourth hand trembling on the metal shrapnel as the humming sound drew nearer, easily following the trail he left for his captors even as he zigzagged back towards the human settlement then away again, hoping to muddle the trail. No matter what. He would return to DeCei. They would get back home. Together. 

[posusm]

a little thing for @delimeful 's alien Sanders Side Au WIBAR. Go check it out if you havent already. (The speaker's native tounge will be in italics) Chapter Two will be posted soon.

Clownery, hijinks, shenanigans, whatever you wanted to call it, these events were commonplace on the Mindscape. They had increased pretty significantly since the addition of their latest crewmember, a deathworlder who had been abducted from his home planet and forced to survive in a universe to wide to fathom. Or Virgil, if you wanted to be polite. 

This particular misadventure began when Virgil asked if Logan would be able to calculate the date on Earth, which Logan took as a personal challenge. The two of them spent several hours planning and theorizing, Logan speaking in his normal flowery cadence, and Virgil in his slightly stiff common, occasionally replacing a word with an English one if he couldn't think of the right translation.

"Well when I... left, it was winter, so-" Virgil isn't able to finish his sentence before Logan butts back in, hands twitching excitedly. 

"What is winter?" He asks, leaning forward. Virgil blinks a couple of times, trying to think of the right words to describe it. 

"When the sun is far away. It's cold?" Virgil offers hesitantly. Logan nods thoughtfully, seemingly appeased. 

"Yes, we have that too, on my home planet. We call it Abether." Logan says matter-of-factly, Virgil looks interested, and opens his mouth to ask a question, but is cut off by the door slamming open, making him jump to his feet and draw his shoulders up defensively, his mouth curling into a snarl. 

It, of course, is Roman and Patton, both bearing warm plates of food. Virgil catches sight of Roman's vicious glare at his defensive behavior and immediately sinks in guilt. Thankfully for the energy in the room, Patton's eyes were too scrunched up in his own version of a smile to see Virgil's aggressive reaction to his arrival. Logan side-eyes him slightly, which Virgil ignores valiantly. 

"What are y'all up to?" Patton asks cheerfully, setting down the plate of food in front of Virgil. He knows that it's his because it has the most food on it. Virgil can't really find it in himself to feel bad about being allotted the biggest portions, both because of his demanding physiology and the fact that he is severely underweight, even for his naturally lithe figure. 

Virgil eats as quickly as he dares without coming across as predatory, and finds himself, not for the first time, grieving his life before he was taken. He shakes off the dark thoughts threatening to cloud his mind and tunes back into the conversation. 

"-We've been trying to figure out what time of year it is on Virgil's home planet," Logan explains evenly to the others. Virgil nods in confirmation. 

"Why's that?" Patton asks, sitting down to eat and popping a piece of yellow fruit into his mouth. 

"I just want to know," Virgil says quickly. His eagerness to brush off the question draws curious stares from all three of his crewmates, and Virgil curses himself internally. 

"Yeah, right. What's the real reason?" Roman asks accusatorily. Virgil frowns, swallowing the strange meat in his mouth before speaking. He had learned a good few weeks ago not to talk with his mouth full. 

"I just... I want to know what's going on back home." Virgil says hastily, averting his eyes to look at the quickly passing stars outside the window. The others must sense that it's a heavy topic for him because the questioning stops, and Vigril catches Patton elbowing Roman in a weak spot in his natural armor when he thinks Virgil isn't looking. The sight makes a small, closed-lip smile appear on his face. 

They all eat in silence until the computer (or an alien equivalent of it) lets out a shrill beep that has everyone in the room startle in surprise. 

"Ah!" Logan says brightly, setting down his half-eaten food and walking towards the large black monitor. "The results are in!" 

Virgil gets up too, moving silently to Logan's side. He tilts his head curiously, and then straightens it, a bit self-conscious when he sees the curious look Logan shoots him. Virgil clears his throat pointedly to get Logan back on track, making the four-armed alien jump and turn back to the screen. 

"Here we are..." Logan says, staring at a block of text that is completely incomprehensible to Virgil. "Ah, the date is in your language. I guess there wouldn't be an approximate translation. Can you read this?" Logan asks, stepping out of Virgil's line of sight so he can have a better view of the scrawling text. Virgil leans forward, squinting slightly at the only familiar line in the script. 

"It is... December 18th." A shock of emotion runs through Virgil making him go a bit lightheaded. He takes a step back, ignoring the concerned looks of his crewmates. 

"Virgil?" Patton asks softly, brows furrowing. "Is everything okay?" 

Virgil knows the signs of an oncoming panic attack, he just doesn't know why this is making him panic. It shouldn't matter. He usually didnt celebrate his birthday even on Earth, and he's had countless ones pass by in space without even noticing. Why does it matter so much now? 

A small hand is on his elbow all of a sudden, and Virgil's swirling vision returns to him enough to see Patton's worried face. 

"Do you need to leave the room?" Patton asks calmly. Virgil shakes his head no. He's fine. He is. He just needs to go cry it out in his room. 

"No, It's fine. I just... need to go lie down." Virgil grinds out, wincing at his rough voice. Before he can go Logan places a hand on his lower arm. Virgil jumps, but at this point, he supposes he should just be proud of himself for not putting his crewmate in a headlock out of shock. 

"Hold on, before you go," Logan starts, making Virgil tense. "What upset you? I want to know so I can avoid it happening again." Logan says evenly. Virgil could sob with gratitude, but he swallows it down. 

"It's really nothing serious, it's just..." Virgil has to take a second to breathe so his next words don't come out as a sob. "It's my birthday tomorrow."  Despite Virgil's best efforts, the last word comes out cracked, and he quickly turns to hide his embarrassed face. 

He makes it out of the room without having a breakdown and practically runs to his room. He wedges himself into the cupboard he sleeps in, ignores how hard he's shaking, and cries. 

[delimeful]

you can't go back (10)

warnings: depression mention, death mention, animal violence mention, angst, lmk if i missed any

-

Roman had been poking and prodding the alien in his barn for answers for the better part of a month, to no avail. 

No matter what combination of words, actions, or prop-laden charades he and Logan had attempted, they’d come no closer to anything resembling communication than they had when Roman had been angrily threatening the alien with a broom. He’d been growing more hopeless— and admittedly, more guilty— by the day. 

And then, entirely unintentionally, along came Patton. 

Less than an hour after their accidental introduction, Patton had somehow managed to not only convince the alien to speak to him, but also earn their apparent undying loyalty. 

Roman kind of got it, because, well, it was Patton, but he was still feeling incredibly miffed about how the entire situation had played out. He couldn’t even say as much, because then Patton would start making pointed statements about not hiding things from one’s friends and how nice it would have been for him to have met their excitable extraterrestrial earlier. 

Going by the way the alien kept hovering over Patton like a brooding hen, Roman figured their captive-turned-guest(?) probably felt the same way. Not that he could really blame them.

Despite Patton’s gentle prompting and Logan’s intense staring, the alien refused to utter so much as a recognizable syllable in front of them, sticking firmly to bobbing a clawed hand up-and-down or side-to-side for ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers, respectively. 

That alone was enough to confirm that Patton was right: the alien absolutely could understand human speech, though not as comprehensively as Star Wars would have had him believe. Even with this new willingness to interact, around half of their questions were still answered with a hesitant motion of bumping the sides of their forearms together and then drawing them back apart, which seemed to be the alien’s version of a shrug. 

This wasn’t the only new gesture they were introduced to over the course of the next few days. From subtle shifts of their faceplates to the absent air-pedaling their stabby limbs did while they were thinking, they were now witness to a whole gallery of unfamiliar mannerisms. The thick spiral-ring notebook Logan had dedicated to documenting the alien’s body language had rapidly begun to run out of blank pages, with the frantic scribbling becoming such a well-worn background noise that even the alien stopped being wary after a while. 

As it turned out, the alien was a lot more expressive when all six of their limbs weren’t forcibly restrained. This was one of those things that seemed a lot more obvious in hindsight. 

Given that four of those limbs had both the sharpness of a spear and the spring-loaded power of a harpoon gun, Roman still felt a fair amount of uncertainty about just how much trust they were placing in a relative stranger, but he kept those thoughts to himself.

After all, this was a welcome change from the quiet, still way the alien had been curled up on their makeshift bed for the past week, not nearly as aggressive as before but also not nearly as alert or even responsive, some days. Roman had been getting more and more worried, half-expecting to find a corpse every time he went to check on them, like a bug left in a jar to suffocate. 

Whatever magic Patton had worked, it had brought an undeniable spark of life back to the alien, and wary or not, Roman was unspeakably relieved about it. 

The past couple of days had been dedicated to finding supplies for the alien’s project, which they had figured out (mostly through extensive guessing) was a makeshift translator. One of Logan’s old laptops, the disemboweled guts of the alien’s helmet, and an old car battery from the junkyard had been sacrificed to the alien’s tinkering, along with various bits and bobs pulled from old charging cables and a broken VCR player. 

After the third unsuccessful game of charades, Roman had just grabbed the whole junk drawer in the kitchen and tipped all the contents out in the hopes that the alien would find what they needed. 

Seeing as there hadn’t been any more requests, they seemed to have found the pieces they needed— or at the very least, acceptable substitutes. From there, all that was left to do was loiter in the barn and wait for them to finish. 

“Guys,” Patton called, the only one allowed to sit nearby while the alien worked. “I think it’s ready!” 

The moment the words split the air, Logan practically teleported over to their corner of the barn, and Roman was only a step behind, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm in his chest at the thought of finally learning what had happened to his brother. 

The alien was crouched with their backwards-jointed legs folded under them, and as they all gathered around, the limbs on their back pulled in to avoid grazing any shoulders, as though even the barest touch would be poisonous. As always, they didn’t make direct eye contact with anyone, simply reaching out to the contraption and pressing one of the buttons on the VCR. 

They made a series of carefully enunciated clicks and churrs, the same muffled language that they had used during Roman’s pointless interrogations, and then released the button and pressed down another one. 

There was a brief moment of silence, and then: 

“Can you understand this sentence?” 

The voice was robotic, the inflections slightly strange, but the words were clear. 

“Yes!” Roman exclaimed, half an answer and half a cheer of success. “It worked, we understood that!” 

The three of them exchanged glances, sharing a sort of awed joy at the impossibility of it all. The alien waited for a moment longer before recording another stretch of clicks and sending it through the translator. 

“The energy cell won’t last long. Ask important questions first.” 

Like mirror images, both of his friends turned to look at him at the same time, and whatever expression he was making seemed to tell them everything they needed to know. 

“No matter what the answer is,” Patton told him, reaching out to hold onto his hand tightly, “we’ll figure it out together, okay?” 

Logan flipped his notebook over, abandoning the list of questions to set the tip of his pen to a blank page. “I’ll record the information verbatim. It’ll ensure we don’t miss anything.” 

Embarrassingly enough, Roman’s eyes began to sting. He cleared his throat, smiling weakly at his best friends. “Thanks, guys.” 

The question sat heavy on the back of his tongue, the shape of words practically memorized after the many times he’d spoken, shouted, screamed them. When he looked forward to the alien, though, he realized that there was something else he owed it to them to ask. 

“What’s your name?” 

The alien went rabbit-still for a moment, a reflexive attempt to hide that Roman was pretty sure meant they were surprised. He didn’t rush them; he was pretty surprised at himself, too. 

Finally, they leaned close to the speaker again. “I am known as Anxiety.” 

“Anxiety?” Patton echoed, his eyebrows lifting in bewilderment. 

The alien shuffled their hands over each other in an uncertain-looking gesture before speaking into the translator, a little quicker now. “Was that the wrong word? The direct translation is more like ‘he who fears needlessly’?” 

“Anxiety… is a good word for that, yes,” Logan answered after another uncertain pause. “It simply isn’t a word we would usually use as a name.” 

“Alien,” Anxiety replied succinctly, with another one of those forearm shrugs. 

Roman nodded, fitting the name carefully into the list of things they’d learned about this stranded stranger. “My name is Roman, and this is Logan and Patton.” 

Each of them waved on cue, one perfunctory and the other over-enthusiastic. Anxiety glanced between them for a moment before apparently giving in to his curiosity. 

“Who is first?” he asked through the translator, earning three confused looks. 

“I’m the oldest?” Roman offered, not in the least confident that this was the answer Anxiety was looking for. “But not by that much? We’re all in the same grade, um, which basically means we’re only a few months apart in age.” 

Anxiety didn’t lose the air of puzzlement, but he shook his hand in the ‘no’ gesture. “Nevermind. Ask your questions.” 

Roman swallowed, his nerves returning to him twofold, and forced the words past numb lips. “What… What happened to my brother?” 

Although Anxiety had almost certainly expected the question, his limbs still flexed behind him, trembling slightly with tension. Foreboding sunk into Roman like a stone through water. 

“Your brother was abducted,” Anxiety finally answered, the translator turning the words flat and stilted. “Stolen, but most likely alive.” 

Alive. Alive. Most likely alive. Roman’s chest felt like it might burst with how hard his heart was beating.

“Why? What are they going to do to him?” he asked, his voice rising louder in his desperation. Patton squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back.

Anxiety’s hesitance stretched even longer. This time, after speaking into the translator, he shuffled backwards slightly. Preparing for a violent response to whatever he’d just said. 

“Deathworlders are valuable in some circles. That crew is money-hungry. They probably took him to use as a champion in illegal fighting rings. Dangerous, but not lethal if he can fight,” the translator spit out dutifully. 

Fighting rings. Roman thought about every movie scene he’d ever watched with gladiators, every news article about local dog fighting, every old story about men shoved into a pit of starving lions. Pictured Remus, dropped into some horrible real-life version of that scene from Star Wars, but without magic powers or even so much as a lightsaber to his name. 

He felt sick. His hand went limp in Patton’s grip, nausea churning in his gut. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. What could he possibly say to that? How was he supposed to ask about his own brother’s odds, his life expectancy on an alien battleground?

“What do you mean by ‘Deathworlder’?” Logan asked, his gaze sharp as he picked up the slack. 

Anxiety’s attention was clearly riveted on Roman’s response, but he managed to answer after several seconds passed without anyone lashing out, leaning forward again. 

“It’s a title. Sapient species that originate from deathworlds.” When this clearly wasn’t as helpful as he thought it would be, he elaborated further: “Planets with harsh terrain, hostile fauna, lethal weather patterns. A Deathworlder has adapted to thrive in these conditions. You make a home out of a place that is difficult for most aliens to even survive.” 

Patton frowned, confused. “You’re surviving just fine, aren’t you?” 

Anxiety’s faceplate twitched slightly, an expression they had no reference for. 

“I thought Patch would kill me for our entire first interaction.” For the first time, a sense of his voice was audible even through the machine-tone translator. “I pay attention to danger. This planet is full of things that could very easily kill me.” 

His extra limbs twitched slightly, as though he’d said more than he’d meant to, and he firmly averted his gaze to the ground. 

Abruptly, Roman realized that they were one of the things Anxiety was referring to. The primal panic that they’d witnessed while interacting with him wasn’t a farce or an exaggeration. To Anxiety, humans were a potentially lethal threat.

“Patch?” Patton asked.

The angles of Anxiety’s back limbs shifted to point at where Lady Macbeth was sprawled out in a beam of sunlight, content that all was well within her kingdom. 

“You renamed my cat?” Roman asked incredulously, and then, more pressingly, “If you thought she was going to kill you, why did you befriend her? You tried to stab me the moment we made eye contact!” 

Anxiety’s arms twitched in what seemed like a hastily-aborted shrug. “Predatory beasts normally kill to eat or to defend territory. Sapient species are capable of a lot worse. If I am going to die, I want it to be quick.” 

Something about the way the words were spoken, present tense and oddly direct, made Roman’s skin prickle unpleasantly. It was uncomfortably close to a request. 

(Sure, Anxiety understood their language, but had they ever said aloud that they wouldn’t kill him?)

“To aliens, humans are dangerous?” Logan asked, dragging them back on-topic. “How so? From my perspective, you have more natural weapons than we do.” 

Anxiety made a dragging chirp that seemed to serve as a wordless scoff. “Humans are impossible to kill. I bite you, and you hit me. My bite bothers you, but your hit shatters my exoskeleton. I bleed out and I die. Your body heals and you live.” 

Patton looked discomfited at the very idea.

“Aliens are delicate, compared to us,” Logan surmised. “Because the environments they evolved in weren’t as hostile as Earth.” 

Anxiety nodded a fist in confirmation. 

By the time Logan turned to him with a grim look, Roman had already put the same pieces together. 

“They wanted Remus because they were sure he would win,” he said, fists clenched at his sides. “Because he’s a Deathworlder, so he’s hard to kill.” 

Remus wasn’t being tossed to the lions. He was the lion, trapped and caged far from home. A monster only let loose to slaughter. 

Sure, maybe his brother wouldn’t die, but what kind of a life was that? Remus was sixteen. He was supposed to be trespassing in abandoned buildings with his shithead friends and creating bizarrely gory trash sculptures for his art portfolio, not fighting for his life in front of a crowd of alien scumbags. 

“How do we get him back?” he asked, lifting his jaw stubbornly.

Anxiety only watched him, making no move to speak into the translator. 

“Come on, there has to be a way,” he urged, shoving to his feet and staring down at the alien. “He can’t just be gone. I have to help him! You have to do something!” 

Patton stood too, frowning in a way that suggested he thought Roman needed to back off, take a few deep breaths. 

“Please!” Roman added instead, his voice cracking down the middle of the plea. “Please.” 

Anxiety shifted to press the record button again, but the laptop screen flickered and faded, nonresponsive. Their battery power had run out. 

With a displeased sound, Anxiety slowly rose back to his full height, immediately moving several steps away, and for a moment, Roman thought that was it, his begging had been rejected. It was hopeless, and there was nothing else to be said. 

Then, there was a strange crackling sound from Anxiety, who had turned to face away from them in an uncharacteristic move, his spidery limbs shifting tensely. 

“Give t—ime,” he spoke, the words nearly made unfamiliar by the odd pronunciation. “Thhhin—k.” 

“Think?” Roman echoed with uncertainty; the ‘th’ sound dragged so long it was almost a hiss. 

“You need time to think of a way?” Logan interpreted, clearly exercising all his willpower to remain where he was instead of circling around to see Anxiety’s face. 

“T—ry,” Anxiety emphasized. “Don—t. Hope.”

“Trying is all we can do,” Patton replied warmly, while Roman was still puzzling out the soft clicks Anxiety was using for the ‘T’ sound. “Thank you for trying to help us, Anxiety.” 

There was another odd noise, like the crinkling of paper, and Anxiety’s face was as concealed as ever when he turned and hurried back over to his makeshift bed, apparently done with speaking for the day. 

Feeling more than a little exhausted himself, Roman didn’t begrudge him it. All that mattered was that Remus was alive, and they would figure out a way to rescue him. Anxiety might have warned them not to hope anything came of his efforts, but long odds had never stopped Roman from hoping before. 

He wasn’t giving up on his brother. No matter what it took to bring him home. 

[delimeful]

let my mind reset (6)

warnings: angst, brainwashing, torture, psychological conditioning, references to injury/gore/death, harmful surgical implants, they are really going through it now, lmk if i missed any

-

Where the hours had passed slowly before, now they seemed to slip by all too fast. Every spare moment Roman had was spent in anxious anticipation of the next session and all that came with it.

He had never seen something like the haze used on a person before. Crav’n were invulnerable to it, and he’d only ever witnessed his aunt use it briefly on one of the local fauna once, a harmless and finicky tree-dwelling species about the size of his hand.

(Roman remembered the way Marta had compelled the little creature to pace back and forth, from place to place, wearing its will away until there wasn’t any hesitation between order and action. Then, she’d sent it walking into the nearby pond.

He remembered the way its survival instinct had set in late, the way it began to thrash, and still Marta didn’t call it back. He remembered feeling relieved when his mother stepped in and put a stop to the demonstration, scooping the poor beast from its fate with disapproval etched firmly in the set of her shoulders.

He didn’t remember if the creature had lived through the withdrawal, afterwards.)

Virgil was far from a simple animal, though, and despite Roman’s half-formed nightmares, he didn’t mindlessly succumb to the influence of the drug the first time it was forced on him, nor the second or the third.

In fact, every time the other Humans entered his cell with that unsettling green canister, he seemed just as panicked as Roman, if not more, putting up as much of a fight as he could with a battered body and a wrung out mind. No matter how they tutted or scolded, the other Humans still couldn’t get the mask on him until Roux had him forcibly subdued, which was a tiny victory in itself.

That didn’t stop the drug from taking its toll each and every time.

As horrible as it sounded, the worst part was that the effects weren't painful or malicious in nature. At least that would have been easier to fight against; a logical, instinctive response to being hurt.

No, it was far more insidious than that. The haze dulled pain. First, the physical: it eased away the stiffness of sore muscles and the burning of shocked nerves, leaving only a pleasant numbness behind. Then, the mental: it stalled the production of stressful chemical compounds, replacing them with whatever was needed to trick the victim’s mind into believing they were happy, relaxed, pliable.

Roman had never seen Virgil so unwound, so carefree, and he hated how unnatural the behavior seemed on the Human. It was a miserable experience, finally seeing him without the hunted slant to his posture, and feeling sickened by the sight.

What was worse was watching it wear off.

As though a switch had been thrown in reverse, Virgil would be plagued by a creeping, unrelenting sense of panic and dread, pacing around his cell frantically until a sudden hypersensitivity to touch left him crumpled in one spot, breathing harsh and pained.

Time after time, he was shown exactly how painful withdrawal from even a few doses was, until he was left bracing for it well before the next session had even begun.

“The last guys who had me would have killed for something like this,” Virgil said, nearly panting as he laid out on his back. He had his fingers pressed against his neck, feeling his pulse. His heart was racing so hard that Roman could see the veins pulsing eerily under the skin. A heavy spike of adrenaline, unprompted by anything tangible. “Bet she has at least a few people stashed away just to drain for easy cash.”

He spoke more, like this. Out of turn, about topics that were morbid and pessimistic, as though the thoughts were tumbling free of his mind without his permission. Roman never let his negative reactions to the more grim topics go beyond his ears flickering back; it wasn’t like he had the room or right to judge. They didn’t have very many reasons to be optimistic. Besides, he’d realized early on that the more worked up Roman got, the worse Virgil got in turn.

He still didn’t know the exact details of how Dren harvesting worked, and he was fairly sure he was better off for it. The very idea of setting an entire person aside for something like that was reprehensible, and therefore entirely possible for Marta.

“She said she… she gets rid of Humans that don’t break,” he replied after a moment, the words tumbling freely from him for once. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she tried to turn a profit from it.”

He’d been trying to match the distant, dry tone Virgil had used, but he must have missed the mark, because the Human stiffened, and drew his hand back from Roman’s grasp to press it harshly against his eyes.

Belatedly, Roman realized what he’d just implied. Virgil was one of those Humans trying not to break, was at this very moment barely clinging to his composure, and he’d just been informed he was stuck between two horrific fates worse than death. “I didn’t mean—,”

“‘S alright,” Virgil interrupted, voice rough with exhaustion. “It’s not like I didn’t know. It makes me feel a little better, honestly.”

Roman stared at him, bewildered and still slightly aghast at his own stupidity, and Virgil shifted a few fingers to peer back with one eye.

“At least some Humans didn’t fall for it, y’know? At least some of them got out in their own way,” he continued, a thin thread of hopelessness tangled up in the words. “I was starting to wonder if the rest of space was right. If we were all just destined to be monsters with the right motivation.”

Roman should have been more alarmed at the implication that Virgil felt close to succumbing, that he was nearer than he’d ever wanted to be to a Human on the brink of falling under someone else’s blatantly malignant control, but all he could feel was a painful sympathy.

“You’re not a monster,” he said, and then, more firmly— “Humans aren’t monsters.”

Virgil’s eye widened slightly, gaze intent in a way that would have made Roman bristle in the past.

“They’re just people. They can do good or bad, just like anyone else. And sure, these guys are— they’re not doing good.” A pause, and Roman forced himself to meet Virgil’s stare. “But you have. You saved Patton, and you tried to save me, and you’re— you’re not a monster. You’re a good friend.”

Virgil buried his face back in his elbow and was quiet for a long moment.

“…You’re not so bad yourself.”

—

Roman hadn’t expected Marta to show up in person, not with how much she had delegated to her brainwashed underlings thus far, but arrive she did.

“Don’t fret, ghiva’al,” she crooned to him, passing by his cell with the lightest clink of her claws dragged against the bars. “I’m here to meet your little pet, not you.”

“Don’t—,” call me that, call him that, he wanted to snarl, but his throat closed up so sharply that it sounded a little like he’d choked.

Marta made her stilted croaking laugh, sparing him a glance that might have been pitying if it had bothered to reach her cold, empty eyes. “You always did struggle with words when emotional, didn’t you? Not nearly as well spoken as your mother. What a shame to see that hasn’t changed.”

There was a sharp clacking as an aggressive shudder ran through Roman’s scales, but he still couldn’t find his voice. Not even when Marta moved on to grip the bars of Virgil’s cell, her attention shifting to the Human where he stood warily in the center of the cage.

Roman had learned more than he’d ever thought he would about Human body language over the past few weeks. He knew from the slight sway to Virgil’s every shift that the Human was drained, likely barely keeping his feet.

Still, he was upright to face Marta, his height advantage allowing him to look down at her, and that was better than being crumpled on the ground at her feet. Little victories were all they had now, and they clung to each and every one.

Roux wasn’t there, Roman realized with a jolt, and the knowledge was enough to drag his mind into overdrive, a sudden double-edged hope springing to life in his chest.

Virgil must have already realized, because the way he held himself shifted into something taut and coiled, like he was preparing to lunge forward at the first opportunity, weak or not.

“Back of the cell,” Marta commanded, voice turned brisk and blunt in a way it hadn’t been with Roman. Like she was speaking to a beast instead of a person.

Virgil didn’t move, barely deigned to acknowledge the words beyond a brief flicker of his pupils upwards.

Marta waited, letting the silence stretch for a brief moment, and then clicked her teeth together in a mild reprimand. “The hard way, then.”

Despite her apparent annoyance, the words held a sort of anticipatory delight, and Roman felt the thick tar of dread slide under his scales as he watched her slide a small, triangular remote from a pouch at her side.

When she pressed the button in the center of it, she was looking at Roman.

It was Virgil who went rigid and fell.

Despite knowing it would undercut every lie he’d tried to sell about how little he cared, despite the fact that he was playing right into her claws, Roman couldn’t help but rush to the bars separating them, a shout of horror catching in his chest.

The Human hit the ground hard but stayed chillingly frozen, with every muscle locked into hard lines. He didn’t make a sound until Marta shifted her thumb away from the button, the motion somehow allowing him to finally go limp like a puppet with strings cut.

“Virgil!” Roman managed, though the sound of it was nearly lost in the sudden loudness of the Human’s gasping breaths. He hadn’t been breathing before, Roman realized with a terrified shock.

Whatever Marta was doing, it hadn’t countered Virgil’s natural stubbornness, and he climbed back to his feet with less staggering than Roman would have expected.

His gaze caught on the tremor to Virgil’s hands, the shuddering of his pulse, and he understood. Adrenaline.

The fight or flight instinct, Virgil had called it while talking with Patton. Roman had seen him choose to fight once, at their very first meeting, but even that couldn’t compare to the speed and ferocity of the way the Human lunged now.

Marta didn’t flinch back when he made loud, skull-rattling contact with the bars, but she didn’t blink, either, keeping her eyes firmly locked on Virgil as she pressed the button once more.

Instead of letting him drop, however, she reached out and seized him by the face, claws digging in on either cheek and holding tightly.

Virgil couldn’t so much as flinch away from the pain, and Roman slammed his arm against the door of his own cell with force, furious at his own helplessness.

Marta released the trigger again, and this time, every gasping inhale Virgil took was dosed with her haze. He tried to jerk back, but it was far faster acting straight from the source, and he had barely a moment before his expression dropped to something hollow and smooth, his desperate strength wavering and then extinguishing like a flame with nothing left to burn.

“Down,” Marta commanded, releasing her grip, and Virgil stood in place for a few long heartbeats before his legs collapsed underneath him.

She waved a hand absently down at him, still scattering her haze thick in the air. “There you go. It feels so much better when you listen, doesn’t it?”

Virgil twitched, a ripple of discontent crossing his face, but didn’t respond. He was shaking relentlessly now, his entire body trembling in a way that had Roman deeply concerned.

“You’re safe with me,” Marta lied, reaching down to glide the palm of her hand over the side of Virgil’s face. “You’re only safe with me. Everyone else wants to hurt you, but I’ll make the pain go away. Always do as I say, okay?”

Virgil didn’t move away, even as her rough skin caught on the wounds her claws had left only moments ago. His breathing grew wispier, slower, until he appeared almost calm, his eyes dazed and distant.

“Let’s try this again,” Marta straightened, and when her hand left Virgil’s cheek, he strained after it for a handful of seconds. “Back of the cell.”

Virgil climbed back to his feet, and Roman closed his eyes as the Human quietly began shuffling across his stretch of cell. He felt all of six winters old again, watching his aunt lead something fuzzy and helpless back and forth, closer and closer to the water’s edge.

“Good. Now, heel.” More shuffling, wordless as a corpse.

How long did he have before Virgil took his own plunge?

—

It took longer than before for Virgil to regain coherence, afterwards.

Roman knew the moment he’d come back to himself, because the soft grip around his hand had instantly vanished, yanked away so sharply that he’d barely registered the movement before Virgil was up on his feet and backing away.

“Virgil,” he tried, and the Human shook his head, the motion harsh, his hands lifting up to grip roughly at his hair in a distressed motion Roman had only ever caught glimpses of back on the ship.

He’d continued to retreat until he hit the furthest corner of the cell, where he slid down and curled in on himself, utterly unreceptive to any of Roman’s stilted calls. Roman caught his expression crumpling into a miserable grimace before he buried his face in his knees and hid that away too.

The silence stretched.

If there were some right words to say here, Roman couldn’t find them. Even if he did, he undoubtedly wouldn’t be able to say them. The helplessness sheared against his scales like rough sand, but how could he allow himself to wallow in it when he at least still had his mind, his existence still unarguably his own?

Freshly taunted by the knowledge that he didn’t have even that much, Virgil remained still and taut and quiet in the furthest reaches of his cell for what felt like a very long time.

When he did finally stir, Roman was appalled to see the faint streaks on his face where his tears had washed away the sweat and grime.

Patton had described Human weeping as arrhythmic vocalizations, much like Ampens, but with a physical manifestation as well. Roman hadn’t known that Humans could cry silently, like a pup gone still and quiet in the face of danger, with only the barest hitching of breath to indicate distress.

The expression on Virgil now was creased into firm lines, but it didn’t seem agonized or crumbling at the edges. Rather, as he climbed to his face, he seemed to hold the same bitter resolution Roman had seen in him a few times before: during the tail end of their first meeting, and after the fight with the raiders, both times when he’d thought he was about to be left alone again.

“Roman,” he started, and then worked his jaw tersely, once, twice. Rather than continue, he held out a hand, palm-up in silent offering.

Things had changed a lot over the course of their captivity, Roman reflected as he reached out and set his own hand in the Human’s grasp with barely a shred of hesitation. It felt like second nature by now, to reach out and cling on whenever his stomach was roiling with stress.

Virgil watched him for a moment longer, and then wrapped his fingers around Roman’s hand and drew closer, slowly pulling his arm up until he had positioned Roman’s claws just above the skin of his neck.

“This,” Virgil said, each word resolute, “is the best place to sever if you want to kill a Human quickly.”

The words took a dull, ringing moment to sink in, but once they did, Roman jerked back sharply. “Virgil, what—?”

For the first time, Virgil held on, keeping his hand pinned in place with ease even as he had to grip the bars with his other hand to remain upright. Roman could see the way the Human’s pulse fluttered under the skin, a heartbeat racing visibly exactly where Virgil had indicated.

“It’s important. You need to know,” Virgil insisted, and lifted their joined hands higher, to his temple. “Head wounds bleed a lot. Gashes up here are valuable because the blood runs down and drips into their eyes, which will work pretty well as a distraction—,”

“Stop it!” Roman demanded, yanking harder as his panic increased. “I’m not going to— stop talking like that! I don’t need to know how to hurt you!”

At the start of their voyage, Roman would have done just about anything for information like this, anything to feel safe on his own ship again. So why was he learning it only now, when each word and accompanying gesture made him feel ill and rotted down to the tip of his tail?

“It’s not— Roman, it’s not about me,” Virgil said, frustration seeping into his voice. He let Roman drag his hand away from his face, but still didn’t let go. “It’s about them.”

Roman wasn’t sure he believed that. “I don’t need to kill anyone. They’re brainwashed, this is Marta’s fault! I know the truth, now.”

Virgil shook his head, ghosted the fingers of his free hand over his implant scar with a distant, sickened expression. “It’s not that simple. I don’t want guilt to be the reason— Look. If it’s them or you, I want it to be you. I want you to make sure it’s you.”

And what if it's me or you? Roman thought, but the words lodged firmly in his chest until he could barely breathe around them.

“They all made their choice,” Virgil continued once it became clear that Roman wouldn’t respond. “They’ve kept making that choice, every time. You have to want to survive, too, okay?”

Mutely, Roman nodded, trying to ignore the creeping sense of horror. He pulled Virgil’s hand back towards himself, fumbled for speech for a long moment before finding the words and hoping they didn’t feel like a betrayal when spoken aloud.

“The underbelly,” he started, and Virgil’s expression— shut down. Every hint of body language went flat like stone, and just as unyielding.

“No.” The word was final, a sentence all its own, and Roman scowled mulishly.

“But—!”

“Roman.” Virgil lifted his other arm over so that he was clasping Roman’s hand between both of his own. “You’re the only one left, right? You told me that.”

The thought was still a wound-like pang in his chest, even after all this time. “Yes,” he admitted. “But, even still—,”

“No way. I don’t want to hear it, man. There’s nobody I would be willing to use it on, anyhow.” Virgil kept his gaze locked firmly on a point past Roman’s shoulder, but his shoulders were set, his voice steadfast.

There was no point arguing. Not now, when the both of them were one wrong move from collapse.

“Okay,” Roman finally said, and forced himself not to protest when Virgil reclaimed the position of lecturer. It was a struggle not to wince away with each gory anecdote, a full guide on the quickest ways to make the Human body stop functioning or even turn on itself.

“Gut wounds are slow to kill, but they can be painful enough to debilitate. There are vulnerable organs here, below the rib cage, and damage to them is difficult to treat without surgery if the wound is severe enough…”

Still, he held himself at attention, did his best to memorize every word.

If Virgil wouldn’t accept knowledge about Roman’s own vulnerabilities as a gift of equal exchange, Roman would simply have to treasure this information with the same dedication that he applied to the rest of their small crew.

After all, knowing all the individual weak points of a Human would make it that much easier for him to protect each and every single part of Virgil.

Virgil wasn’t going to die. Not here, and certainly not by Roman’s own claws. Not if Roman had anything to say about it.

[delimeful]

to know that song (and all its words) (10)

just like virgil, it's time we get to look at the raiders' attack from a few different perspectives :)

warnings: violence, blood and injury, implied minor character death, guilt, fear, lmk if i missed any

-

CAMERA LOG SF 7

DESIGNATION: LOADING BAY

20:34:27

“You hurt him,” Patton said, and he barely even recognized the sound that came out of him as his own voice.

The crowd of aliens was frightening, the way all aliens were to him, but there were some advantages to being monsters, and one of them was that aliens were scared of him back. They parted before him like leaves scattered by a leafblower, his steps unimpeded as he made his way to where a bundle of familiar feathers and fuzz laid. Unnatural, twitching movements spasmed through them, but they hadn’t gone deathly still– not yet.

Whatever the leader alien was saying was lost to the distant buzzing in Patton’s head. Logan’s response made it through, just barely. His voice had dropped into that icy pitch that meant he was well and truly angry, an ominous tone that made something primal and hunted in the back of Patton’s mind shiver to life.

Be ready, it said. We’ll have to fight soon.

He hated fighting more than anything else in space, even the tests. He hated seeing the fear set in, with bristling spines or flinching spikes or rolling, panicked eyes. He hated the way alien bones and bug shells gave way so easily, like they were made of hollow styrofoam or old eggshell.

Feathers’ arm was broken, snapped with a nasty, jutting-out bit of bone that made him feel sick to even see. Patton remembered the chalky taste of shock when he broke his wrist as a kid, the way the hurt had overwhelmed everything, the cautionary tales about grabbing little creatures or bothering baby birds, because they would die from the shock and the stress sometimes.

Aliens were so much more delicate than the little beings back home.

There’s a sob, somewhere in the back of Patton’s throat. He folded it down carefully, because he was surrounded by danger and because Feathers was still alive, and so he couldn’t just give up or break down, not even with all his fear and dread mixing into a horrible, pulsing mess in his gut.

Feathers had always been spirited, from the first moment the three of them snuck onto the little guy’s ship. Patton repeated this to himself like a mantra as he crouched next to them, feeling his lips wobble a little at the sight of their little head craning slightly to see him.

Their eyes narrowed into little crescents, and they made a small, warbling chirp that seemed to get a little tangled halfway through the sound. Feathers had made a lot of sounds, but none of them had ever sounded like this. The high pitched whistling breaths sounded a lot like almost-whines, like a hurt dog begging for help, but Feathers didn’t even seem to know that they were making them.

The alien leader kept speaking as Patton carefully slotted his hands under Feathers’ small, too-light form. The cadence of the words was songlike and mocking, and Patton could practically feel the way Logan’s ire sharpened to a honed point, aimed directly at them like the tip of a saber. Whatever the stranger had said, it hadn’t helped their case at all.

And that was saying something, considering that they’d already dug the hole pretty deep by hurting Feathers, who they’d all grown attached to despite Logan’s best efforts.

Patton has to blink back the automatic tears when he sees Feathers’ arm up close, trying his absolute hardest to lift them into his arms without jarring the injury. He had to hurry; the last thing they needed was for Patton to be stuck on the wrong side of the room with precious cargo during their plan.

Feathers was still conscious as Patton made his way back over to Logan’s side, the hair on the back of his neck prickling in nervous anticipation all the way. They seemed… out of it, their antenna flicking in strange little circles and their feathers puffing up and smoothing back down as waves of trembling pain seemed to work through their little body.

Patton clutched them a little closer, exchanged a brief look with Logan, and scrunched his eyes closed, knowing that he’d need the advantage once Roman flipped the switch. Next to him, Logan would be doing the same, only keeping the slightest sliver of vision to make sure they weren’t ambushed.

Even knowing it was coming, he still flinched away from the burst of noise when Logan whistled the signal.

The final whistle had barely faded into silence when the orange-pink of the back of his eyelids flicked to an unmistakable pitch black.

For a moment, Patton was back in the labs. He moved to grasp for Roman in the dark, knowing that the only way he could help him through these punishments was to grab on and hold tightly, prove that he wasn’t alone in the dark through whispered words and interlaced fingers.

The only thing his hand found was empty air, and next to him, the silhouette of Logan moved.

Right. He had a different friend to look after this time, and if he didn’t hurry, he’d be leaving Logan to deal with an entire ship’s worth of armed aliens on his own. The moment of disorientation would serve as an effective distraction for a few moments– but only that.

He twisted on his heel, ignoring the sicking crunch of impact from a few feet away to lunge back through the doors they’d come in through, turning and sprinting down the hall for onetwothreefourfivesix long steps and turn again, reach out and there was the little open shelf area built into the wall for storage.

This was where he tucked Feathers, the lowest part of the shelf, pushed to the back corner, his heart breaking a little at the pain they were so obviously in.

He left them there with a whispered promise to return, his heart pumping rapidly as he bolted back to where he could hear shouting and the beginnings of screaming, steeling himself as he picked up the heavy section of pipe Logan had left leaning against the wall outside.

They were in this together. No matter how much he hated it, he hated the idea of not standing between his best friends and death– or worse– more.

With a shuddering inhale, he plunged into the fight.

–

CAMERA LOG SF 9

DESIGNATION: CONNECTOR HALL 3

20:40:56

When the sudden darkness hit, Logan’s eyes had been slightly cracked, and so his vision was still partially impaired.

So, for the first few seconds of the fight, he worked off memory alone.

While the pointless, infuriating conversation he’d had with the raiders’ apparent boss had done their opponents absolutely no favors, Logan had never been one to waste an opportunity. He’d spent the duration of it scanning the room, taking in the aliens closest to him, the ones between him and the boss, and the ones with long-range weaponry held ready.

He went for the ones with paralyzing guns first, because the risk of being hit by a stray shot outweighed the potential of letting them fire off their weapons blindly in a panic, and because it gave him higher odds of hitting targets that weren’t immediately lethal, like hands or arms or even tails.

In his experience, flight was a much stronger impulse than fight for most aliens. Seeing as they had far less adrenaline to numb the pain of an injury and allow them to keep fighting through it, Logan understood why.

He also understood that it made diving into the middle of a herd of opponents much less dangerous. The moment the first few cries of pain and crunches of wrenched limbs rang out, there was a frantic scattering away from the center of the room, like a bowl of marbles dropped on the floor.

Good. The less casualties between him and his goal, the quicker this would be over with.

Even as he twisted around the attempted strike of a heavy, lumbering alien, his thoughts still felt like a looping record, dragged back again and again to those moments before they walked in.

He’d been the one to hold up their sign for wait, paused as though he was assessing the situation even though he knew from the cameras that the Ampen had already been taken hostage.

It had been to satisfy his own curiosity, to justify his own paranoia when it came to their surprisingly resilient impromptu pilot.

The other two hadn’t been in space as long as he had, hadn’t been exposed to the depths that aliens would sink to when it came to humans. He’d taken pains to try and keep it that way, though it sometimes felt as though they were undermining his efforts with how friendly they were, even after everything.

He knew why. Roman and Patton both had far more sociable natures than him, and a willingness to believe the best of others that had been stamped out of him. It was only natural that they would be curious about the first alien they’d met that didn’t hold any sort of power over them.

Logan had attempted to warn them— an attack could stem just as easily from fear and ignorance as it could malice and greed. Feathers, as Roman had so creatively dubbed him, certainly seemed terrified and spiteful enough from the very start.

And yet, even he’d started growing lax in the face of the unexpected kindnesses that the Ampen had granted them. Guidance on the food stocks they had, explanations on the facilities, and a slow but steady easing of tensions the longer both parties went without hurting each other.

They certainly seemed to alarm and bewilder the little alien at every opportunity, that much Logan was more than practiced enough in alien body language to pick up on, but there was understanding there, too.

And it certainly wasn’t greed that motivated Feathers. They’d balked at the Dren canister as though he’d been offering them a severed head on a plate, rather than a rare resource that many aliens were willing to commit atrocities to obtain.

It was the best outcome Logan could have asked for.

It was too good to be true.

So, he’d heard the leader offer Feathers a way out, coaxing them with promises of pest removal, and he’d waited.

Because he wanted proof that he’d been right to keep his distance. Because he’d been so sure that this was it, this was the moment that he was betrayed again, except now it wasn’t only his life at risk, but that of the other two, as well.

Because nobody in space cared what happened to a few humans. Not when ‘human’ was synonymous with ‘monster’.

“I don’t… give starscourge pirates shit,” Feathers had spat, words vehement even as their body refused to do more than dangle limply from their captor’s grasp. “Nobody on this ship… ‘cept me, anyhow.”

For the first time since he’d left Earth’s atmosphere, Logan realized that his worst fears were unfounded.

He’d been stunned. Almost too dumbfounded to think, let alone move.

And somewhere in that unforgivable moment of hesitation, Feathers stalwart refusal to give them up made them expendable.

“Useless,” the leader had hissed, the vitriol dragging Logan’s mind back online just in time to hear a splintering crunch.

The high-pitched shriek of pain only lasted for a handful of seconds before it cut off, and Logan had forced himself to move before his lapse in judgement cost their smallest crewmember any more than it already had.

Only half of his mind was on the conversation, the other half spinning wildly out of control as he watched Patton retrieve Feathers and knew from his tremulous expression alone that it was bad.

‘Bad’ for a human was fatal for an alien, more often than not.

“Logan, eight o'clock!” Patton’s familiar voice snapped him back into the present, and Logan stuck a hand out to smoothly receive the pipe Patton tossed his way.

He forced himself to focus, grounding himself with the sensation of his fingers around the cool metal of the makeshift weapon. Patton was at his side. Feathers had been safely removed from the situation.

There was only one matter he could afford to worry about now, and it was ensuring that he and his companions remained free and safe.

Logan stepped forward and swung, aiming to win.

—

CAMERA LOG SF 3

DESIGNATION: MAINFRAME ROOM

20:49:16

Waiting for the all-clear signal had been one of the most painful things Roman had ever had to do.

Up until now, every battle they’d faced, from their daring escape to boarding Feathers’ ship, had been with all three of them fighting together.

To sit in the dim red glow of the emergency light, holding a sharp twisted bit of scrap metal and his heart in his throat, ears straining for any sign that his only friends in the whole of space were alright— it was torture.

Even so, he sat.

Roman would be less than useless in the darkness that played such an instrumental role in their plan, his body responding to the threat and locking down regardless of what his mind had to say. He would become a liability, and the absolute last thing he wanted was to be used against them.

When the whistle finally came— one long call, and then two short bursts— he wasted no time before flicking the lights back on and sprinting down the halls.

Something tight and terrified in his chest loosened the moment the lighting fixtures flickered back to life, but it didn’t fully release its grip on him until he turned a corner and saw Logan, whole and unharmed.

Only Logan.

“Patton—?” he started the moment Logan turned fully to face him.

“Still in the bay,” Logan replied immediately, and for once Roman was grateful for his utter lack of any sense of drama. “He’s helping some of the more critically wounded with tourniquets and the like. They surrendered after I dispatched their leader and the more stringent bodyguards.”

Looking at the way he was splattered heavily with blood, one hand still white-knuckled around the equally-splattered pipe, Roman could imagine why.

“That’s Padre for you,” he replied, trying to remain upbeat even as he detected something distinctly wrong with Logan’s expression. “Is Feathers with him?”

Logan’s face closed off even more, and it felt like an invisible hand was squeezing all the air out of Roman’s lungs.

“They were injured. The severity is…,” he stopped, looking pained. “I need you to guard the main door so I can retrieve them and assess the damage.”

“Go,” Roman said immediately, reaching out and tugging the pipe from his grasp. “Don’t just give up, Specs. I mean, we don’t just have our resources now, right? There’s an entire ship full of supplies right here, and another connected to it. How often do you want to bet space pirates get injured on the job?”

Logan nodded, jerky at first and then smoothing into something more determined. “Right.”

Without another word, he headed down the hall, and Roman took a few deep breaths. He could keep it together for everyone. It didn’t matter if the composure was fake, so long as he acted it out well enough.

By the time Logan returned, he was put-together enough not to balk at the sight of Feathers cradled in his arms like a corpse.

The first thing Feathers had negotiated for was the right to walk for themself. They hadn’t let anyone else hold them since then, still snapped at fingers if Roman tried to pet them even a little.

There was a faint chirping, interspersed with a few nonsense syllables that might have been trying to be words, and Logan drew to a stop immediately, peering down at his passenger.

“Are you with us?” Logan asked, carefully moving a hand to hover over Feathers in an attempt to keep the bright overhead lights from blinding them.

They flinched a little, and then opened their eyes a little further and slowly moved their gaze to stare at Logan.

“You’re badly injured,” Logan told them bluntly in Common, a frantic edge to his voice. “We need to know what sort of treatment will work for you, what kind of medicine— and what amount, as well— is safe for Ampens. It’s very important, Feathers. Can you tell me?”

Roman couldn’t even find it in himself to tease Logan for giving in and using their nickname, too caught up in scanning Feathers’ tiny face for any signs of comprehension, any hope that they would be able to properly treat their wound.

After a few long seconds of blank staring, Feathers straightened up slightly and pushed their head up to butt against the palm of Logan’s hand, like an affectionate cat seeking attention.

Logan went still, like he was being held at gunpoint, and exchanged a desperate, pained look with Roman.

Feathers made a few tiny peeps, more vulnerable that they’d ever let themself be around them before, and Roman struggled not to be overcome by the feeling of his heart sinking right through the floor.

Hesitant and desolate, Logan smoothed his hand over their feathers as carefully as he could. Feathers crooned quietly and slowly settled back into unconsciousness, tiny muscle spasms still rolling through them every so often.

“Find their medic,” Logan said, and when Roman looked up, he found that his friend had settled into the harsh, sharp-edged version of himself, the one he used to harden himself to what they needed to do if they wanted to survive.

They’d all found a little of that in themselves, over the months spent in captivity. Logan had tried to use it to keep a protective shell between himself and their fluffy, stressed out pilot, but Roman was more than willing to use it on Feathers’ behalf.

“I’ll have Patton bring the first one we find to the medical room,” he agreed with a nod, already turning to head into the bay. “Once we’ve got the other ship locked down, we’ll meet you there. Take good care of them until then?”

Logan’s expression twisted the slightest amount, before firming into something determined. “I will.”

[delimeful]

you can’t go back (9)

Intermission Part 2: Remus

warnings: involuntary drug use, murder (intentional and unintentional), blood & injury, remus POV shenaniganry (specifically mentions of cannibalism, sex, spiders, & gore), tension, and misunderstandings (lmk if i missed any!)

-

It was possible that Remus should have waited until the drugs had worn off a little more before indulging in a blitz through a ship full of aliens.

Unlike what one might expect, the realization wasn’t actually for his own sake. In fact, the drug had left him numb around the edges in a way that was vastly preferable to the bone-deep ache that had slowly seeped into his entire skeleton over the course of his imprisonment.

He was more than fine with delaying that particular feeling, even if it meant dealing with staggering steps and clumsy movements.

The doorways he’d slammed into the edges of probably weren’t as happy with the situation. The aliens that he’d swung at with far less precision than normal were probably even unhappier.

Since they were the ones who had abducted him, he found he didn’t really care about their feelings on the matter.

They should have watched Alien, done a little bit of cultural research on humans. Maybe then they would have had a better idea of what kind of response snooping around on a planet’s surface and picking up passengers would earn them.

Sadly, Remus didn’t have acid blood, but he did have a bile-producing liver and the ability to projectile vomit on command. If these aliens had been even half as badass as Sigourney Weaver, he might have even gotten the chance to try it.

Instead, he’d gotten splattered with alien blood that didn’t so much as sting, and also with his own blood when a lucky swipe had shredded the right straps of his muzzle and the flesh of his cheek alike, and also also with the growing realization that extraterrestrials were far less durable than Star Trek would have led him to believe.

He should have waited for the drug to wear off. His face would be stinging right now, his arm would be even worse, and his fighting style would still have been best described as ‘berserker’, but at least he would have had a better idea of just how much force he was inflicting. Maybe then he wouldn’t still be feeling the sickly pop of organs and bone alike giving way under his knuckles.

Every alien he’d encountered on the ship was down. He wasn’t sure how many were still breathing, and he didn’t particularly want to check.

Well. He knew there was at least one alien onboard that hadn’t gotten their brains bashed out.

Not by him, anyways. With how squishy aliens apparently were, it seemed possible that the guy had slipped and bashed themself right into brain death the moment Remus had walked out the door.

He wouldn’t know until he checked, so he started his way back to his former prison cell, stepping around the limp or twitching bodies as best he could without directly looking at them.

(His imagination filled in the blanks, as always.)

The new guy had caught Remus’s attention from the moment they stepped into his line of sight, because they had familiar crunchy beetle-shell plating in angular, armor-like patterns over their skin.

Just like Tall, Dark, and Spidery. The only alien who hadn’t seemed onboard with the abduction plan, and the one who had been subdued and dragged away right in front of him.

(He’d caught a glimpse of the other cells, during his first escape attempt. They’d been empty.)

There were clear differences between the two, most notably that Spidery was about a foot taller, not even counting the stabby spider-legs on their back, and their plating had been even and symmetrical. Remus remembered how it had gone from charcoal gray to inkwell black, like the plates were full of hundreds of tiny squids, all flushing their ink sacs all at once.

(He’d been pretty thoroughly drugged by that point. Not that thinking about cephalopods was unusual for him.)

Newbie’s plates had been far more translucent, a pearly-gold color, and the ones climbing up the left side of their face were jagged, irregular patches, like a giraffe’s spots. But they had the same glossy glazed-icing shine as Spidery’s plates, a texture that had been promptly wedged between marbles and porcelain in the edible-if-you’re-not-a-coward section of Remus’s brain.

They had the same big, dark eyes, the direction of their gaze only visible by the miniscule movements of the muscles framing it. He’d wondered if they’d known Spidery, and then he’d watched them stare up at the scratches in the ceiling  and he’d been certain that they did.

He hadn’t been planning to move much, hoping that inactivity would keep them from upping the dosage of whatever space-elephant-tranquilizers they’d put him on, and yet he found himself slowly skulking closer to the cell’s front as the muted conversation continued.

Last time, Remus had distracted Spidery at the wrong moment, but Patches had had their back to him. If it turned out that Remus was actually the fly-bait for another spiderguy mugging, he figured he could lunge silently at the barrier and distract the others.

Instead, Patches had revealed their own set of extra limbs, ones that were far less sharp than Spidery’s but turned out to be just as good at stabbing.

At that point, he’d been practically wired with adrenaline, his brain already convinced that Patches was about to be murdered or dragged-off-and-vanished right in front of him. He hadn’t thought twice before lunging through the newly-opened cell door and promptly performing the most lethal headbutt of his life.

In hindsight, maybe inflicting massive blunt force trauma without hesitation wasn’t the way to make friends with new acquaintances that were extremely vulnerable to blunt force trauma.

Sure, Patches had technically started the violent murder streak with their own expert knife-wielding, but Remus had (only somewhat intentionally) continued that streak all the way through the ship. He’d have scared off plenty of humans with his behavior, let alone aliens.

When Remus poked his head back through the doorway to the undersized prison hall, though, he found that Patches hadn’t run for the hills after all.

In fact, they hardly seem to have moved in his absence, despite the open doorway and all the alien screeching and wailing that must have carried down the hall.

(Going by how sore his throat was, he’d probably been screaming too. Maybe they’d thought he was being murdered right back? Or maybe that catchy tagline had been right all along: in space, no one could hear you scream!)

Patches was half-slumped against the wall, their extra arms laying limp against the ground at either side of them, palms up and fingers uncurled. Remus couldn’t see any blood, but his heart still jumped strangely at the sight of the alien so lax and still. The only sign that they were still alive was the barest twitch around their eyes as their gaze flicked over to take in Remus’s arrival.

Their plates slowly deepened to a dark grey, a pale imitation of the sharp flush of pitch-black that had overtaken them while they’d been gutting the boss alien earlier. Remus was guessing it was some kind of reflexive threat display, since he remembered that Spidery had done the same at the mere sight of him.

Patches’ half-hearted attempt was almost funny, except it felt less like they weren’t that scared, and more like they were too resigned to really try, which was much less funny.

“You don’t look too hot,” Remus told them, ignoring the still-dripping gouges on his own face. The broken muzzle was still dangling from one ear, and it swayed slightly as he tilted his head. “In the possibly-dying way, not in a you’re-unattractive way. At least if you do kick the bucket, you’ll still look sexy doing it!”

The alien didn’t respond, which Remus decided to take as an invitation to keep chattering, stepping into the hall and squatting so that they were closer to eye level.

From this close, he could see that the irregular plates along Patches’ left side were still that same shiny gold color, even as the rest of their plates went even darker at Remus’s proximity. He absently wondered if it was some kind of scarring or something they’d been born with.

Did spiderguys even have live birth? Were they hatched? Could they produce webbing? Were there huge insects on their planet?

“Do you bite the heads off your baby daddies after doing the nasty?” Remus asked, still scanning them for visible bumps or bruises. “Or are you the guy getting devoured? Is it like a matriarchy run by huge cannibalistic spider ladies?”

Patches didn’t say anything in response, gaze still locked on him, but a pair of transparent eyelids distinctly swept across their dark eyes, once, twice.

Honestly, those eyes kind of looked like really big boba balls. Would that be a societally appropriate thought to share if they were cannibalistic? Actually, if the cannibalism took place during sex like some Earth spiders, it would probably come across as flirty.

“Your eyes look like boba balls,” Remus told them, because obviously he wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to flirt with an alien, recent traumatizing experience or not! “Wait, if it’s just the ladies that eat people, does that mean that spiderdude-on-spiderdude action is the only nonlethal boinking on the planet? Gay guys don’t get to participate in the cannibal dystopia? Tsk, tsk. Hannibal would be so disappointed in—!”

He cut off mid-admonishment as Patches lunged for him with an alarming number of limbs, his whole body twitching sharply as he just barely wrestled down the impulse to lash out. He could still hear the crunch of the last ribcage he’d immolated, and he wasn’t eager to repeat the experience.

Instead of hands on his throat, or possibly even a knife to the torso, he looked down to find Patches had simply grabbed onto his ratty, bloodstained pajama shirt in six different places, stretching the fabric slightly with the force of their grip. Their chin had dipped down slightly, as though bracing for a blow.

The lunge had been violent and startling, but the actual ‘attack’ had been harmless, as though they hadn’t even expected to get that far. As though they’d known the motion was a bad idea and done it anyway, like a spider held in the palm of a hand biting down even though it meant triggering the reflex of the massive, crushing fingers around it.

Except Patches was a lot smarter than a spider, smart enough to know what their movement would provoke, especially when Remus had spent the last half hour displaying exactly what a twitchy, half-drugged human would do when attacked. And they’d done it anyway.

Remus had originally thought that Patches and Spidery were different. That he’d been freed because they saw humans as more than bloodthirsty animals, unlike the aliens who had literally strapped a muzzle on him.

Now, it was looking more like they’d just found out that their goth friend had been disappeared-probably-murdered, proceeded to stab someone to death in an act of furious all-consuming vengeance, and finally set a dangerous feral creature loose in a theatrical murder-suicide attempt.

“That hurts my feelings,” Remus informed them. “I’m a very emotionally complex murderbeast who didn’t ask for any of this, and also it’s hypocritical of you to treat me like a monster when you potentially live in a society that runs on sex-cannibalism.”

Patches lifted their head up to stare at Remus directly and hissed, the single large plate on the right side of their face shifting back so they could properly display a pair of wicked-looking curved fangs. They were translucent enough to show the venom within, shining like liquid gold, and positioned awfully close to his neck.

It was one of the most blatant goading attempts he’d ever seen, and Remus grew up with Roman.

(Remus had spent his childhood doing just about every inadvisable thing he could think of. He had plenty of experience keeping his hands still and gentle while spiders bit him.)

“Do you envenomate your prey?” he asked, leaning back slightly to rest his weight on his hands in a purposefully relaxed manner. “It seems like you’d need a lot of venom for me since I’m so big, but I also don’t know your organ arrangement, your torso could totally be full of venom sacs instead of lungs or something. Hey, if you did melt my insides into a smoothie, would you use a straw or shotgun me like a frat boy with a beer?”

His new friend’s hiss slowly spluttered out, their grip loosening as Remus continued to not tear their head off or punch through their chest or perform any of the reflexive murder they were trying to prompt.

“If you’re not going to drink me like a soup, we will become BFFs,” Remus warned them. “A blood pact will be involved, and also at least three jars of mayo, and also also, semi-regular ritual sacrifices to appease the ancient Earth deity, Hatsune Miku.”

Patches, who had dropped the snarl and withdrawn far enough back to look at Remus properly, jerked back with wide eyes. He had half a second to wonder if the guy could actually understand him after all before there was a stinging impact against his spine, sending a painful paralyzing pulse through him.

His muscles seized for a moment— he wasn’t sure if the weird space-tasers actually used electrical currents, but it sure felt like the time he’d reached up and touched an exposed wire on a shitty theme-park carousel— and he caught a glimpse of Patches diving past him as he listed sloppily to the side.

Nobody new had entered the space, and there was only one body behind him, so there was only one alien it could have been. The tall one that followed the boss alien around everywhere like a bodyguard.

Huh. Guess his headbutt hadn’t one-shotted them, after all.

As annoying as the weapon’s blast was, it wasn’t exactly debilitating until he’d been hit by it like seven times in a row while also trying not to breathe in more drugged air, which was coincidentally how his last escape attempt had gone.

He had more important things to worry about now. Remus forced himself to move through the pain, pushing back up to his knees, and immediately twisted around, ready to come to his new buddy’s aid whether they liked it or not.

His new buddy had knocked the weapon from Bodyguard’s grip and was now shaking them like a ragdoll, tense as a live wire, as though they hadn’t been resignedly waiting to die five minutes ago.

Bodyguard made some truly wretched-sounding noises— probably due in part to losing whatever had splintered to bits under the force of Remus’s skull— and seemed altogether unconcerned about the new knife that Patches was now holding against the underside of their jaw.

(So they did have more knives. Fun!)

Humans that sounded that level of gurgly tended to be in the process of dying, so it made sense that Bodyguard cared about the threat to their life about as much as Patches had while threatening Remus. Being inured to death wasn’t the same as being inured to pain, though, and their nonchalance didn’t hold up against being stabbed through an arm, especially not when Patches twisted the blade like that.

Remus settled back onto his haunches. Going by the interrotorture, Patches probably didn’t need his help with this one. If he’d had access to someone who’d caused Roman’s death, he definitely wouldn’t want someone else elbowing in on his bloody and excruciating vengeance. He’d also be doing much worse, but Patches seemed too focused for this to solely be about revenge.

He could see the moment they got what they needed, their entire frame going stiff with tension at whatever information Bodyguard had just ground out. They headed towards the door, and Remus pushed himself up to his feet to follow.

At the movement, Patches whipped around and scrambled back a few paces at the same time, like a snake rearing back but not quite striking.

At some point, one of their hands must have sneakily scooped the abandoned space-taser weapon off the ground. It was pointed directly at him.

Maybe they’d only just found out that he was the reason Spidery was gone.

“If you’re going to crazy-murder me for not saving them, you should at least do it with a cool knife. I don’t even know if you can murder me with that thing, unless it's got a setting strong enough to induce heart failure.” Except if they didn’t want to murder him, it would eventually work to incapacitate him. Which meant he’d probably be going right back in that cell.

Remus’s hands balled up at his sides, part of him already bracing for the sting. “Come on, I know it’s not as effortless as pulling a trigger but a little stabbing action won’t kill you. I’ll even make my death throes super dramatic and overblown, as an added bonus.”

Remus had spent the last however many days so drugged he couldn’t feel his toes, but he wasn’t stupid. He’d seen the way the others had looked at him, the excitement some of them had shown after he’d dragged his nails down an alien’s arm and gouged far deeper than he’d meant to.

He’d mauled one of their own, and they’d liked it. They wanted violence from him, and they didn’t care who he’d be hurting, because it benefited them somehow.

Even back on Earth, they’d thought he was too impulsive, too strange, too violent. He’d tried not to be, and then when that hadn’t changed anything, he’d embraced it, voiced all his gross, gory thoughts until everyone already knew what to expect. Why bother changing himself when it was never quite enough to avoid disappointing them either way?

Out here, they thought he was feral, bloodthirsty, a weapon to be pointed in whatever direction they preferred. How long would it take to convince himself he enjoyed it? How long would it take for him to forget how to be anything else?

Space wasn’t even horrifying in the fun ways. Remus wanted to go home.

Patches was still watching him, not lowering the weapon but not drawing a knife, either. Their extra arms were stretched out on either side of them, hands slowly flexing open and closed as though grasping the air. It kind of looked like the motions a cat made when kneading.

“Hanging out with you was a lot more fun when you were still thinking about liquefying all my flesh into palatable mush,” Remus told them.

Their hands tightened on the gun, and Remus’s whole body scrunched up in anticipation, his eyes slamming closed and his chin ducking against his chest without conscious thought.

“Knowing if you will try to kill me would take less effort if you’d stop thinking strongly about cannibalism,” a dry voice said in slanted but entirely understandable English.

Remus’s head jolted up, and he found that Patches had tucked both the weapon and most of their arms out of sight, and was now watching him with a calmness that was only slightly undercut by their stone-gray plating.

“Did I imagine that or did you just talk to me with human words,” he asked blankly.

“Talk,” Patches echoed, fangs flashing as they shaped the syllables. “That’s the word. Stop talking about cannibalism.”

They’d understood what he’d been saying the whole time.

… Holy shit, that was so funny.

“No can do, boss,” Remus replied, grinning unabashedly. “I’m a romantic at heart. Which, coincidentally, is one of my most edible organs.”

“I do not liquefy organs,” Patches told him haughtily. “And drinking your organs, coincidentally, would give me death throes.”

Remus couldn’t stop smiling, even as he mimed a blow to the chest. “Ouch! You really know how to make a guy swoon.”

Patches ignored his wink, rotating their wrists in what looked kind of like a nervous tic as they formulated their next sentence. “If you’re thinking about crazy-murder me with bite,” they gestured to their own mouth, mimicking Remus’s exposed teeth in a hilarious-looking grimace, “do not.”

The flat delivery was too much for Remus, and a slightly-unhinged cackle slipped out, presumably not helping de-escalate the situation at all.

“Wait, wait, no. I promise I will not crazy-murder you,” he told them, voice pitching high with barely-suppressed hilarity. “You are much cooler and funnier alive.”

Despite the unconvincing delivery, the alien took his promise in stride. “I will not crazy-murder you. I will not envenomate, stab, liquefy, melt, bite,” they made a little encirculating gesture with cupped hands, as though to say ‘and so on, you get the idea,’ “murder, cannibalize you.”

“Boo,” Remus protested, though the mirth was fading. “What do you want from me, then?”

“Lungs,” Patches started, ominously enough. They gestured to their chest and their sides, and inhaled loudly through their mouth. “Do you? To alive?”

“I need my lungs to live, yeah,” Remus told them, nonplussed. “For breathing, and stuff.”

He took a deep breath, his own torso swelling significantly more than theirs had. Patches made a short clicking noise, getting tenser in what seemed like excitement. Was that the spiderguy version of a nod?

“I want to know your breathing– Earth breathing?” they tried, hands returning to that air-kneading gesture as they searched for the right words. “Will it crazy-murder me?”

“Earth breathing? Breathing on Earth? Like… the atmosphere?” Remus puzzled aloud. “Wait, like you want to know if you can breathe on Earth?”

“Breathe on Earth,” Patches echoed immediately. “Alive on Earth?”

Okay, so however they were picking up the language, it wasn’t exactly fluency. They probably hadn’t actually understood everything Remus had said right away. In fact, it was possible they’d spent that entire silent stare down earlier trying to piece together a coherent sentence.

“I mean, you guys have reverse spacesuits for that, right?” Remus replied, miming the blocky helmets he’d seen out in the fields, shortly before receiving what he assumed was the space version of a shovel to the skull. “That’s how they came down and got me in the first place.”

Patches repeated the charade. “Yeah reverse spacesuits for breathing, right? No reverse spacesuits.” They mimed taking the helmet off, and then inhaled again. “I am alive, right? No? Will the atmosphere breathing kill me?”

Remus understood the question. Unfortunately, he didn’t know the answer.

“I don’t know. The air on Earth is oxygen, carbon dioxide, uh, nitrogen I think…,” Remus trailed off, realizing that however they were translating, something as specific as humanity’s periodic table wasn’t going to be easy to convey. “Why? Do you want to go to Earth?”

Patches hesitated for a long moment. “They came down to Earth.”

Remus frowned. “Yeah, I was there for that part.”

“Not…,” they clenched their hands. “Not you. Me, not me. Spiderguy. Chelcerae.”

The last word was too sibilant to be an attempt at imitating one of Remus’s words. “Spiderguy, but not you. Another spiderguy. Your spiderguy? Spidery?”

Remus held his arms up, trying to imitate the shape of Spidery’s long, sharp limbs, and struck down at an invisible opponent a few times. “From before, right? They saw me in the cell, freaked out, got attacked?”

“Yeah, right, yeah,” Patches replied with more of those confirmation clicks. “The spiderguy, Virgil. They came down to Earth with Virgil. He would talk about you in the cell.”

The pieces snapped into place. “So they left Virgil on Earth. Without a spacesuit. To kill him.”

“Will it kill him?” Patches asked, stuck with present tense even though this had already happened. Did he die?

“I don’t know what you breathe!” Remus groaned, finally on the same page and now just as frustrated with the non-answer. “I don’t know, he could be dead. He could not be dead.”

Schrodinger’s Alien.

Patches had clasped their hands together firmly, but Remus could see the way their cape was rippling slightly from the agitated motions of the limbs tucked underneath. “Virgil is dead,” they said, as though trying to convince themself. “Breathing or no breathing, Earth will crazy-murder him.”

“I mean, yeah, probably, but there’s a chance that he’s still alive,” Remus pointed out. “It’s worth checking, right?”

Patches’ right face plate twitched back and forth slightly in agitation. “Earth will crazy-murder me.”

Remus rolled his eyes, a gesture that Patches watched with mild concern. “You were ready to get crazy-murdered by me like ten minutes ago, remember? Besides, I’ll be there. I’m an Earth native, I know all the ways people get crazy-murdered there, and I’ll make sure none of that happens to you.”

All of their fidgeting went still. “...Why?”

“Because I think you’re funnier alive, remember?” Their expectant silence continued, and Remus sighed petulantly. “Because I want to go home. And also because he was the only one who tried to get them to put me back. Unless he just wanted them to kill me, I guess. I didn’t exactly catch what they were saying.”

Patches made a weird kshh sound, and when they spoke, they sounded amused. “No, Virgil is not like that. He is… ‘I’ll make sure none of that happens to you,’ to me and you and little ones and hurt ones. Saving them. He doesn’t need liquefying venom. His insides are a lot mush.”

“A total softie, huh?” Remus snorted. “He’d probably get along with my brother. His brains are mush, too.”

“... You want to go back to him?”

Remus pulled a face on principle, but ultimately nodded. “It’s my solemn duty as his twin. His hubris would grow too strong without me there to mock him, and I can’t exactly vibe check him from off-planet.”

Patches made that whispery noise again, longer this time, and Remus realized it was a laugh.

“To crazy-murder planet, then.”

[delimeful]

you can’t go back (8)

Intermission Part 1: Janus

warnings: misunderstandings, lying, violence/injury/blood, dehumanization, on-screen minor character murder, dissociation, implications of self destructive behavior, lmk if i missed any

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Janus knew something was wrong well before he stepped on board the transfer ship.

They hadn’t docked properly, remaining detached from the main station and letting their ship hang in the low-orbit field for refueling. According to the frustratingly vague e-report, the crew had picked up some ‘hazardous elements’ and was partaking in a ‘low-level precautionary quarantine’ for the safety of the rest of the port.

Seeing as Leond and her ilk were one of the stupider and more arrogant crews around, he seriously doubted that. If she’d picked up merchandise that was valuable enough to risk contamination for, she would be on the station bragging about it the moment they arrived. If asked, she then would have brushed aside questions about exposure by claiming that a few lower-level lackeys were the only ones to make contact with it directly, and so she’d obviously put them in a decontam cell.

Janus knew a thing or two about how con artists worked, occasionally taking up the role himself. Suffice to say, he wasn’t buying it until he saw the underside of the coin for himself.

See, the claim to be in quarantine wouldn’t be entirely unbelievable, not with Virgil on board. His role on the mission had been auxiliary at best, and the real purpose behind his presence was to keep a few eyes on Leond’s activities, the dynamics of her crew, any information Janus could tuck away and use later.

People were wary of Janus and his reputation. They often forgot to be wary of his twitchy, reclusive Second, who clearly spent more time bodyguarding than thinking.

If something hazardous had infected the ship, though, Virgil would have broken his cover without a second thought. He answered to Janus first and foremost, and if he’d thought for a moment that docking properly could infect his First with anything dangerous or even lethal, he wouldn’t hesitate to lock the ship down, even if it meant jettisoning the chain of command right out the trash chute.

Except.

Except Janus hadn’t received a single comm call from Virgil for the past 7 sim-cycles, not even a simple long-correspondence message complaining about all the basic safety protocols he’d had to manage himself.

Except his own L-C message checking up on the mission progress had received a short, flippant response from someone else, who hadn’t even bothered mentioning the status of his Second.

Except when he pinged the transport a request to come aboard in a hazsuit, it had been granted without a word of warning.

Even the most stringent precautions were scorned by Virgil’s paranoia. He would have reached out to make digital contact long before ever letting Janus enter a contaminated ship, hazsuit or not.

(Unless he wasn’t conscious enough to stop him. Unless he wasn’t onboard at all–)

All that to say, by the time Janus was stepping from the small transfer pod into the ship proper, he was operating on the assumption that 1. something had gone deeply, horribly wrong for his Second, and 2. Janus needed to find him and whisk him away before his exoskeleton collapsed from stress.

Not that Leond needed to know that. Janus had kept their interactions pleasant and inoffensive, which is how he’d gotten the chance to send Virgil on a mission with them in the first place. As far as they were concerned, this was a standard visit from someone with a stake in their profits.

The alien in question was waiting in the hanger bay, a few of her ever-present followers behind her. Virgil had called the smaller one– an Evalka, by the look of it– her Second out of habit, which meant they were the most loyal.

“Deceit,” she greeted, wearing a suspiciously smooth expression for someone supposedly in quarantine. “Welcome aboard! I’m glad you were confident enough to venture over, there have been some very exciting developments.”

The formal tint to her speech shouldn’t have irritated him so quickly, but he couldn’t help but recall Virgil complaining that she casually spoke down to him. Some species really couldn’t grasp that an insult to one of them was an insult to both, regardless of who was ‘in charge’ at the moment.

“What a surprise,” he answered smoothly, forcing down the instinctive hiss until there wasn’t a chance of it slipping free. “I’ve heard so little from this vessel, I’d begun to worry that there had been some sort of… trouble.”

The wry amusement of the pause came through perfectly, just as practiced. He’d researched the vocal indicators of Leond’s homeplanet extensively while awaiting the ship’s return, and the work paid off now, as her demeanor thawed further into something conspiratorial.

“One could say that. Anything worth its cost comes with a little trouble,” she told him with a glint in her eyes, dropping some of the standard lilts of Common and returning to her species’ customary blunt cadence. “Forgive the silence. Our current trouble isn’t the type that can be spoken of over comms.”

There was an uneasy shift that seemed to ripple through her followers as she spoke, but Janus gave no indication of noticing.

“An interesting sort of trouble. That’s my favorite kind,” he replied, working hard to keep his own typical vocal flourishes muted as well. “I suppose that your wise discretion must be why Anxiety didn’t respond to me.”

There was a subtle yet distinct difference between Leond’s natural flat expression and the lax stillness of her hiding a reaction. It was hard to see, but then, Janus had excellent vision.

“All contact was limited,” she confirmed, and Janus could practically taste the lie slipping in between her words. “I’m sure your neurotic little friend is wandering around somewhere, ensuring all our hallway lightstrips are fully charged or something.”

If that were true, Virgil would have been the first face Janus saw the moment he stepped out of the pod. Virgil would be standing at his back now, an ominous, looming threat against the world on his behalf.

Behind his back, his clasped aux limbs twitched just slightly under his capelet. It was the only loss of composure he would allow himself.

“He is often preoccupied with safety,” he replied casually, as if his Second’s location was hardly relevant to him. “I’ll forgive it, seeing as you’ve seen it fit to introduce me to your valuable new trouble.”

The act was flawless, because he couldn’t afford to lose. He was all too aware of how close her followers were, how many of them there were in the bay alone.

When it came to battlefields, there were only two available here. Physical and mental. Janus already knew exactly which one he would find victory on.

“I knew you held a keenness for opportunity,” Leond praised, more accurately than she knew. “Follow me. I’ll show you our newest investment.”

Janus let himself be guided without hesitation, not showing a single twitch of tension as her crew fell into step behind him. She was surrounding him on purpose, putting eyes on him to see how he would react, what it would give away.

He gave her nothing.

Transport ships weren’t typically too large, so it didn’t take them long to traverse the levels and reach their final destination. Janus didn’t glance down halls or into the rooms they passed, because the chance that his Second would miraculously be there wasn’t worth the odds that his searching would be noticed. If he was going to look for Virgil, it would have to be without eyes on him.

In the end, they stopped outside the entryway to the cellblock, alarmingly enough. Holding cells were a precautionary measure typically only used for stowaways or captured raiders, with the rare exception of small-time bounty hunters that couldn’t afford a better ship.

Janus didn’t ask, but his mind was already buzzing through possibilities. What ‘valuable trouble’ would be put in a cell? Livestock transit required special containers, and was rarely requested around the Reach, anyhow. Some infamous outlaw with a huge bounty? Leond certainly wouldn’t have brought Janus in if that was the case.

“Aisleen, with me. The rest of you, scatter. Make yourselves useful elsewhere.” Despite her confident directions, her hand automatically ghosted over the holster strapped onto her side, which held a paralyzer that looked distinctly illegally-modded.

The motion was telling. Whatever her investment was, it had her frightened.

Considering Leond had more hubris than sense, it was more than enough for Janus to raise his guard as he followed her and her underling into the narrow hall.

There were three large cells, each with a door and a front wall made of clear, thick plastic, so one could see inside.

The first cell they passed was empty. The second cell was also empty, presumably because the viewing wall had been shattered right through the center, a rust-brown substance splattered on the ground and the jagged edges of the hole. The third cell was more reinforced, a wall of metal bars accompanying the plastic guard wall.

The third cell also held a Human.

Janus stopped dead, a deeply-ingrained survival instinct holding him still, as though the Human’s eyes weren’t already on him.

Even without the eyes, he would have recognized it. Being part of a shadier trading company meant that he’d learned the infamous Deathworlders weren’t a hoax early on. Everyone seemed to have a Human story they’d heard from a friend of a friend, and though the validity of them varied, the potential threat was enough that Janus had dug up as much information as he could.

Every word of it paled in comparison to witnessing one in person.

The Human was seated, half-slumped against one of the walls, oddly-jointed arms bound behind it in a way that looked downright painful. There was a streak of that same red substance smeared along the floor, from the center of the cell all the way to where the Human sat, as though they’d crawled there.

“You see the need for secrecy.”

Janus jolted at Leond’s voice, barely able to drag his gaze away from the Deathworlder in front of him. His single pair of auxiliary eyes opened on reflex to track the heat signature of the threat.

It was an appalling show of weakness, but Leond seemed satisfied by his reaction.

“We’ve had quite the trip, trying to keep it contained on a ship like this. The restraints, the drugs, even the cells aren’t built to withstand its level of strength. Poor Gally got gouged trying to force it back in, nearly lost his entire arm.” Her words were grim, but Janus could see the bright glimmer of greed in her gaze. “Can you imagine how well it will do in the rings?”

The Human had lifted itself forward just slightly, its head bobbing unsteadily as though it couldn’t quite find the energy to hold it up. Those half-lidded eyes were still locked unerringly on Janus.

“You’d make a fortune,” Janus’s mouth said on autopilot.

His mind was preoccupied with the knowledge that Virgil would never have let this happen willingly.

And he knew what happened to those who got between traffickers and their money.

“Yes, I will. And we’re offering you a part of it.” Leona’s voice was cajoling now, as though Janus was too much of an idiot to understand that she wanted someone to take the fall when she inevitably was tracked down by the authorities or worse, someone who had a reputation for cunning words and deceiving deals.

Janus stepped closer to the clear barrier, as though entranced. The Human roused further, head tilting sickeningly far to one side, gaze flickering between him and Leond with surprising intelligence.

“Is it secure now?” he asked, and with his face too close to the glass for her to track his eyes, he flicked his gaze upwards.

In the ceiling of the hall, thin enough to go unnoticed by most, there were gouges. The kind left behind by something sharp and narrow catching on the ceiling unexpectedly.

The kind Janus knew from his own quarters, where Virgil had gotten too worked up over a conspiracy thread and in his startlement, accidentally fully extended his aux limbs and voided their rental deposit by scraping a long line into the wallpaper.

These ones were deeper. Marks from offensive, full-force strikes that had gotten snagged and lost all their momentum, because a narrowed corridor like this was the worst place for a Chelcerae like Virgil to fight–

“Of course.” Leond’s mildly affronted voice seemed oddly distant as she gestured to the cell door. “The second cell was really a simple experiment, just to test the strength of our specimen. Even if it could somehow destroy the solid plylon bars, we’ve been administering regular doses of the tranquilizer since then. The next one is due soon; see for yourself how weak it becomes.”

Even hidden under fleshy opaque eyelids, the Human’s eyes seemed a little too bright. Janus let his tightly-folded aux limbs begin to unclasp, the movement rendered invisible under his cloak.

“I’d be a fool to turn down such a generous offer,” he said as he turned towards her, his posture open and disarming. “Frankly, I’m shocked Anxiety didn’t accept on my behalf.”

The carefully calculated words earned him a derisive scoff of amusement.

“I expect your underling isn’t as attuned to your desires as you thought,” Leond replied. “He objected to the presence of the Deathworlder even after we graciously offered him a cut of the profits.”

Janus didn’t have near as much plating as Virgil did, but the ones he had were visible enough for any shift in color to be noticeable. It took all of his willpower to hold back the reflexive threat display.

“My, how surprising. I suppose you didn’t take too kindly to that kind of insubordination.” The implied question rang clear: Where is he?

“I did not.” Leond shook out her mane in a gesture of casual impatience. “I didn’t want to inform you before you could see our investment firsthand, but Anxiety is no longer on board. We left him planetside, but still alive out of respect for you.”

Planetside. On the world they’d most recently retrieved ‘cargo’ from.

They’d put Virgil on a Deathworld. They’d left him there.

“What a shame that he didn’t catch on immediately. How long has it been since?” he asked, somehow not tripping through the words. “I’m reluctant to lose my own… investment, particularly one I’ve spent so long cultivating.”

Leond’s gaze flickered absently, as though trying to recall, but Aisleen shifted a step forward.

“It is too late. He was granted the mercy of a quick death, as is proper.” The low gravel of their voice was almost indistinguishable from the ringing that rose up in Janus’s mind.

“Aisleen!” Leond scolded, as though her crewmate had simply knocked over something delicate. “You take all the fun out of it when you do that.”

“I am sorry for displeasing you,” Aisleen replied, the words so dull they felt almost recited. The barest possible apology, one that showed no regret for the crime committed.

“An unfortunate ending. Once we’ve won the first tournament, we’ll grant you the cost of your investment back in full,” Leond said, placating but firm.

Janus folded himself away into a space small enough to hide the truth of him, because it couldn’t help him accomplish what he needed to accomplish.

Only his mask responded now, squeezing itself into a brief, mild annoyance before giving a dismissive shrug. A false shell to help him pretend he could ever brush off the loss of Virgil with such callousness. “As long as this plan of yours works as it should, I won’t take offense. My agreement is yours.”

A front hand offered forward, for the common arm clasp used by many for sealing barter deals. The other front hand held up in a silent signal of honesty.

Leond’s face was smooth and flat with smug surety when she stepped forward to accept the grip.

It didn’t remain that way for long.

With one hand, Janus dug his claws into her arm and pulled her forward.

With another hand, he drove a dagger through her gut, the hooked edge of it catching like a viper’s fangs.

With another hand, he reached out to the walls around him.

With another hand, he pulled the paralyzer from Leond’s holster, dragging it up to point at his non-stabbed opponent.

“What are you—?” Leond choked, before her words became too wet to distinguish.

Janus let his faceplate snap back to bare his teeth, his plates flushed pitch and his venom shining bright gold in a display that wasn’t a threat, but a promise. His aux limbs had all unfolded their way out from under his cloak, shorter but far more dexterous than Virgil’s, and were easily able to navigate the narrow hall.

His other front hand was still held aloft, and he leaned in to grant Leond the truth for the first and last time in their conversation.

“There is no toll you could pay that would even begin to match the worth of my Second. Your life and all it’s ever held is worth less than the tip of his claw,” he snarled, twisting the blade deeper. “But it’s certainly somewhere to ssstart.”

A flicker of motion out of the corner of his vision. Janus pulled the trigger, but Aisleen ducked under the paralyzer shot and crashed into him with their full weight, moving faster than he’d imagined they could to try and slam his back— and by extension, the vulnerable section of nerves between his aux arms— against the wall.

His brace barely held, and he dropped Leond’s thrashing body to press another two hands to the wall and give himself more support as Aisleen attempted to wrench the paralyzer from his hands.

No. He snapped his teeth, but his opponent managed to wedge an arm against his throat, holding him off as his booklungs flared to compensate for the lack of air.

“Release it! Or I’ll ensure you don’t receive the same mercy as your brethren,” they growled, and the last lingering threads of self-control in Janus’s mind snapped clean in half.

Most of his aux arms had been relegated to pressing palm-first against the walls, keeping him locked in place so he didn’t lose any ground or get cornered.

One of them was wrapped around a thick red emergency handle. It twisted easily under his grip.

“Your mercy is only another word for murder,” Janus spat, and wrenched open the door to the Human’s cell. “Receive it yourself.”

The Human, who’s heat signature had crept closer and closer to the front of the cell over the last few moments, dropped all hazy-eyed pretenses of being drugged in favor of lunging for the escape that had been granted to it.

Janus released his hold on the paralyzer, drew all his limbs in tight, and dropped to the floor. Aisleen staggered from the sudden lack of opposition, and recovered just in time for the charging Human to slam its skull directly into the stretch of rigid exoskeleton between their chin and their chest.

The bone shattered under the force like a piece of dropped glassware. The Human’s only sign of injury was a brief scrunch of the nose.

Aisleen dropped to the ground, paralyzer skidding from their limp fingers, and the Human stepped over them to the cell block entryway. Janus remained entirely still where he was huddled on the floor.

Without even glancing at him, the Human contorted horrifyingly to get its still-bound arms back in front of it. Then, with one sharp movement, it brought a knee up and its arms down at the same moment.

The bonds snapped apart easily, as though the cuffs were made from hollow branches.

The Human ignored the door keypad next to the entryway in favor of simply grabbing the manual handle and sliding the door open in one heave. Between one blink and the next, it was gone, the barest sprinting footsteps audible.

Janus lay there for a moment, between two soon-to-be corpses, and wondered why he wasn’t dead.

Distantly, he could hear echoing screams as the rest of the crew presumably encountered the consequences of their latest get-rich-quick scheme.

He didn’t particularly care. There was a little voice in the back of his mind that was frantically demanding he get up, grab the paralyzer, and see if he could circle around to his pod.

Janus considered it idly, getting as far as pushing himself upright before abandoning the effort and leaning back against the wall instead. He let his arms settle limply around him. The Deathworlder would be back for him sooner or later.

Live, that little voice demanded. It sounded like Virgil.

He’d sit here and listen to it a while longer.

[delimeful]

you can’t go back (7)

warnings: depression mention, injury mention, misunderstandings, arguing, lmk if i missed any

-

His eyes had been open for a while now, and yet Virgil still wasn’t entirely sure he’d actually woken up.

He’d found himself sleeping deeper the longer he’d been stuck on this planet, and while part of him was worried about the possible detrimental effects of being dropped in a new atmosphere, most of him knew it was because there was no point in being on guard.

Even if he kept his rest cycles light and easily disturbed, all he was doing was waking himself up enough to remember that nearly all his defenses had been forcibly lowered.

There was also the fact that waking violently often made his aux limbs automatically strain against their restraints in a way that sent twinges of almost-pain down his spine.

After the first time he’d jerked awake to a Human’s gentle jostle and nearly pulled a muscle, Roman and Logan had taken to opening the barn door loudly— much louder than he knew they could open it— to alert him if he was sleeping, which he usually was. It was what he spent most of his time doing, at this point.

He still didn’t understand where he stood with the Humans.

On the surface of the coin, he was definitely still a captive, and they’d grown no closer to understanding his attempts at communicating, though admittedly he might have had more success in imitating their own syllables if he hadn’t been stubbornly sticking to Guard-tongue this entire time.

On the underside, however, he hadn’t been harmed or even threatened since Logan had persuaded Roman to give up on the ‘yell angry nonsense at the alien who doesn’t speak your language’ method of interrogation, and lately the Humans seemed almost… delicate, in how they handled him.

Despite the language barrier, Logan seemed committed to making sure Virgil more-or-less understood what each test would entail. Roman, who was often recruited into the demonstration, was surprisingly enthusiastic about playing the test subject role, even if half of his exaggerated expressions were near indecipherable. Frankly, Virgil was just quietly grateful the victim role was Roman, who had complained pitifully at length about a splinter, rather than Logan, who had significantly less visible pain displays.

(Virgil had once watched him grab the wrong end of a scalpel while he was occupied peering into one of their more fiddly science instruments, and the extent of his reaction had been a slight jolt, and then a few seconds spent staring blankly at his bleeding hand.)

Really, a shocking amount of their time during tests was dedicated to not freaking him out, made extra impressive by the fact that freaking out was one of Virgil’s strongest and most frequently used skills.

It was… confusing. Virgil’s Lator implant had grasped most of the words and sentence structure rules required for basic communication, but Roman and Logan never actually spoke about the reasoning behind their care. It seemed almost like an understood fact between them, which made Virgil think it was either a scheme established out of his hearing or a cultural rule so obvious that it went unmentioned.

Or maybe the Deathworlders who’d stumbled upon him were the only pair of Humans on the planet who weren’t vicious predators, and they happened to prioritize relatively ethical science over their own gain and/or violent revenge.

Except no, that was never how Virgil’s life worked. He’d scoffed at the idea the moment it sparked in his mind, dismissing it out of hand.

Now, seated unbound next to a Human and being taught the best way to pet Patch, who was alive and entirely unharmed, he was starting to reconsider.

The Human had come into the barn quietly, unaccompanied by either of the two Humans Virgil knew probably wouldn’t murder him on sight, and he’d realized only a moment after waking that he should definitely be growling or flashing his fangs, doing something to make himself look too scary to attack. At the very least, he needed a more defensive stance.

Except— Patch was there, looking up at him with big dark eyes. Patch was alive.

So instead, Virgil had bodily put himself between Patch and the stranger. Apparently, he was actually completely willing to get in a deathmatch with a Human if it meant not watching this furry little creature get hurt right in front of him.

Except the Human didn’t want to hurt Patch, was apparently safe enough for Patch to waltz right up and receive attention as though it was her due.

As it turned out— after a brief and terrifying mishap where Virgil looked up to find that uncanny Human expression of delight way too close— the Human didn’t want to hurt Virgil, either.

The Human had given him the words he needed to hear, which also happened to be the ones that he’d wanted to say.

His aux legs were free now, stretching and flexing tenderly in the air behind him. His wrists were still uncuffed, had been so for long enough that his wounds were entirely scabbed over. His hands were unbound, the fresh air cool against his underskin.

For the first time since he’d seen Roman’s brother in that cell, he was free.

He should already be running.

Next to him, the Human demonstrated how to delicately brush a finger up and down the little stretch of velvety fur above Patch’s nose, prompting the loudest rumbly pleased noise yet.

Virgil reached out and mimicked the motion.

The “kitty” was still settled firmly on his folded legs. Until there was an active threat, it was too risky to displace her. She might start making those petulant little upset noises.

“Yeah, just like that!” the Human encouraged, and no wonder Patch had deemed them an ally, with that open friendliness paired with unmistakable Deathworlder resilience.

(He’d seen the way they’d instinctively tracked his aux limbs with wariness, understanding that Virgil could hurt them, and yet they hadn’t attacked. They’d believed him, when he echoed their earlier words. Raised on a planet where every unknown could be a lethal threat, and they had decided to trust him.)

Honestly, Virgil kind of wanted the guy as an ally, at this point.

He paused, considering.

The Human’s gaze flickered over to him as soon as he’d lifted his hand, but despite their attentiveness, they didn’t shy away at all when he reached out, angling his fingertips up so only the pads of them would make contact.

Oh, this fur was a significantly different texture.

“Are you— Are you petting me?” the Human asked, voice noticeably rising in pitch.

Virgil hurriedly withdrew his hand, with an automatic chirp-chirp-click of concerned inquiry. He hadn’t thought Humans would be hurt by simple touch, but if he was wrong…

“No, no,” the Human’s shoulders were shaking slightly, their lips twitching up at the edges, “it’s okay! I just wasn’t expecting it, that’s all.”

They tousled their own hair in demonstration, much more thoroughly than Virgil’s careful pats, and then looked back at him, blinking expectantly.

Virgil cast a glance between them and Patch, wondering exactly how many species on this planet had perfected that expression.

When he’d thought of Earth as a planet full of physical contact, he’d been envisioning brutal takedowns and punishing blows, not this.

And yet, here he sat, patting the human again anyways.

They continued to speak, a good percentage of the words translating properly, but it didn’t seem to be about anything in particular. Virgil let his eyes wander, wondering at which point Humans usually introduced themselves. His own introduction was supposed to come after, both in terms of him being a Second and a lower social status(being both a visitor to the planet and a hostage(?)) but so far, zero out of three Humans had properly declared themselves. Maybe it was a cultural thing?

Out of pure habit, he flicked his second set of eyelids down, scanning back and forth for a routine check of their surroundings. It was the sort of thing he did regularly while hanging out with Janus, a simple method to ease some of his more irrational fears of danger.

This time, with the sight of two Human-sized smears of heat barreling in their direction, he felt far from soothed.

He was on his feet between one moment and the next, aux limbs poised high around him as Patch trotted a few steps away and began agitatedly cleaning her face with one paw.

The Human seemed much more concerned at the movement, jerking back in surprise so hard that they nearly toppled over entirely. “Woah! Are you okay?”

Virgil muttered a distracted confirmation in Guard-tongue, hurriedly reaching down and pulling them to their feet. They cooperated, which was good because although Chelcerae were on the larger side, they were also lightweight. Humans, on the other hand, were dense.

He didn’t need to take a second look at the barn to plan their next move; he’d been looking at the same four walls long enough to have any possible exits memorized. The window panels had all been closed and latched from the outside. The back doors were much the same. The front entry doors of the barn were slightly ajar, but that was exactly where Roman and Logan would enter.

There was no time. The only option was to stand his ground and fight, taking advantage of the Humans' urge to keep him in one piece. If he could keep their attention on him, he’d be able to create an opening for Patch and her Human to slip away.

Not that he had the words to explain any of that to them.

Hands still on the Human’s shoulders, he started to maneuver them towards the side wall without the table, hoping to capitalize on the Humans’ lack of 360 vision.

Three steps in, the barn doors were shoved open with a loud bang.

Virgil’s plates flushed a bottomless black as his mind reset, all higher thought set to the side as protect became the main objective.

He immediately yanked Patch’s Human close, chest-to-back so that both of them could track their opponents, and wound an arm around their front as a makeshift shield, ensuring that his claws were on full display. Thankfully, the Human was short enough that he could properly bare his fangs over their shoulder, and so he cracked his guardplate open without hesitation and let out a low, rattling hiss as bright venom flooded his mouth, a warning as distinct as the sun above.

Roman and Logan stopped dead, arrested by the sight of his aux legs flexed to their fullest length, the pointed ends angled directly at them. It no longer mattered how fast Humans were. Not when Virgil only had to twitch to send a lethal amount of spring-loaded force directly at an attacker.

“Release him!” Roman demanded, his face gone slightly grey.

Virgil couldn’t remember what emotional response that color shift signalled, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to hand over Patch’s Human, not when the other two were sure to be furious with them for sneaking in and freeing him.

Two against one would be a poor matchup no matter what, and the odds were worsened by the fact that Patch’s Human wasn’t nearly as tall as Roman or Logan.

Virgil was more than willing to play substitute Second for the guy, they’d earned that much and more, but he wasn’t a fair match for a Deathworlder on a good day. Today wasn’t a good day. In fact, today happened to be the latest in a truly impressive string of bad days.

“I said, let him go!” Roman snapped, edging forward a step.

Virgil snarled, the sound coming out deep and clear without the guardplate muffling it, and retreated a step back despite himself.

He couldn’t afford to show weakness, to get boxed in, but he’d centered Patch’s Human in front of him, an automatic urge to have him solidly under the protective halo of his aux limbs.

Unfortunately, that left the Human closer to their opponents than Virgil, meaning that offensive maneuvers were too risky. Virgil already regretted not tucking the guy behind his back, instead. He wasn’t usually the plan guy, okay?

“Wait, guys—,” Patch’s Human started, only to be cut off by Logan moving forward as well, eyes cold and assessing.

“There’s no solution to be found by taking Patton hostage. The moment you move to hurt him,” another step forward, “you will have given up every bit of your leverage, and you’ll still be trapped. Don’t be foolish.”

There was something off about the words, parts of the sentence not lining up, and Virgil’s rumbling growl grew louder as he scuttled back another step, struggling to process what little his Lator implant had retained.

“Surrender our friend now, or face the consequences,” Roman added, the pitch of his voice dropping back to that low, simmering anger he’d worn while asking about his brother. “There’s not a force on this planet or any other that can save you if you hurt him.”

Wait, there was something in there, something wrong— but Roman slid his next step along the dirt, bringing him just out of striking range, and Virgil’s panic ramped up further.

He feinted sharply with his aux limbs, but the Humans didn’t even flinch, their gazes locked on Patch’s Human. They were both still edging closer with each moment his attention switched between them, slowly but surely cornering him back against the far wall. Once they had him pinned, one would lunge forward to draw the focus of his attack, and the other would rip Patch’s Human away to be punished.

No. He wasn’t going to let that happen.

Back to Plan A, even if the chances of success were much lower without the chaotic element of surprise.

His grip on Patch’s Human began to loosen, his legs bending in preparation to shoot forwards, his sensor lids flicking back as he mentally readied himself for the insane task of trying to keep the two Humans occupied in a fight for as long as he could.

The Humans could see his tension and responded in kind, shoulders lifting and eyes narrowing as the air in the room grew thick with anticipation.

“Guys!” the Human in his arms half-shouted, making Virgil full-body twitch in surprise. “Would everybody please calm down a little?!”

There was a beat of blank silence, and then Roman was the one to open his mouth.

“Patton, you’re being held hostage by an antagonistic alien attacker!” he protested, releasing his coiled up predator posture to gesture with both arms.

It took Virgil a moment to absorb the words, his head still following every motion warily.

Wait, what? Had he heard that right? Was his implant even working?

There was a gentle tap on the back of his hand, the flexed one that was still hovering protectively over Patton’s(?) torso.

“Hey, kiddo?” he started, which had been used enough that Virgil knew it meant him, even though the form of address was coming through the translator as ‘small young one’ (affectionate). “Take a few deep breaths, okay? Everything’s alright, I promise.”

He didn’t really understand the request— nobody used their upper lungs while brawling, and his lower ridgelungs weren’t consciously controlled enough to alter his air intake pattern— but the requesting tone to the Human’s voice was enough to make him drag his primary eyes down to look at him, waiting for elaboration. Was there a plan after all?

“You just got a little startled, huh?” The question seemed to be rhetorical, and Patton patted the back of his hand in a gesture that seemed well-intentioned but meant nothing to him. “Well, you don’t have to be afraid. I know these two knuckleheads, and they aren’t going to hurt me or you.”

If the other two had been waiting for the perfect moment to ambush him, now would be it, because he couldn’t help the way his entire head tilted to face Patton, guardplate shifting back and forth the slightest amount in the most blatant expression of doubt he had. A downright quizzical croon bubbled up in his throat to accompany the look.

“I won’t let them hurt you,” Patton corrected firmly, and Virgil was pretty sure at this point that Humans didn’t have anywhere near the same social hierarchy pair structure that Chelcerae did, but he recognized the steady resolution of a First in that voice nonetheless.

He didn’t bother hiding his reluctance as he slowly released his grip on the Human. He'd always been atrociously bad at taking orders like this, even from his actual First. Patton took a small step forward, looking now at the other Humans, and Virgil pointedly kept his fangs out and venom-flushed.

Roman looked gobsmacked, and Logan’s stare had returned to its usual all-consuming intensity as it flicked between him and Patton.

“They… understood you?” he asked, nearly vibrating with energy. “We’ve been trying to work out the basics of a language structure for weeks, how—?”

Patton’s hands had settled firmly on his hips, his stance pointed enough to definitely signify something loud and clear in Human body language. “Nuh-uh, don’t try to change the subject. I found a whole alien tied up like a pretzel in this barn, we are not playing twenty questions until you two explain why you thought that was a good idea.”

Both of the other Humans looked apprehensive, now.

“They attacked me!” Roman tried with righteous indignation. “And during our first encounter, they almost murdered Lady Macbeth!”

Patton turned enough to look down at Virgil’s feet, and everyone else followed suit, revealing that even in the chaos, Patch had still somehow found a moment to reclaim her favorite perch directly on his feet.

She was bundled up into a resting pose, the one Patton had called a ‘loaf’, and her eyes were half closed in near-sleep. She barely even blinked at all the eyes on her.

In the ensuing silence, her purr was extremely audible.

Patton turned back to Roman, whose face was now looking less grey and more red.

“You didn’t see the mouse toy they skewered,” he muttered mutinously. “And! The Logan they almost-skewered!”

“The bindings weren’t intended to harm them,” Logan added, pushing the bridge of his glasses up a bit. “It was a precautionary safety measure to prevent injury. They really did prove to be actively hostile for our first few interactions, and no initial attempts at communication were successful.”

Patton didn’t seem convinced. “And were these attempts before or after you tied them up?”

Uncharacteristically, Logan looked away.

“They were already handcuffed when we found them,” Roman mumbled, and then, stronger: “They could know where Remus is. We couldn’t just let them go, not when it could mean I’ll never— never see my brother again.”

Even from behind him, Virgil could see the way Patton softened slightly.

“If someone’s in trouble, you help them, you don’t make it worse,” he replied, the sharpness slowly fading from his voice. “I know that you were scared for Remus, Ro. But I bet they were pretty scared, too.”

Roman looked down, because apparently Humans only followed galactic etiquette rules about avoiding direct eye contact when they were experiencing unfortunate emotions.

After a moment, he firmed his shoulders and looked back up, meeting Virgil’s gaze directly for the half-second before he automatically averted it. Luckily, Humans couldn’t track the dark-on-dark of his iris movement very well.

“I’m sorry for frightening you,” Roman said, speaking directly and unmistakably to Virgil. “Pat’s right, we went about this all wrong. I think I already knew from the moment you freaked out about your legs, I just… didn’t know what to do about it without getting skewered, I guess.”

Logan cleared his throat. “It was my idea to restrain their legs. Logically, I thought the concept was sound, but I clearly underestimated both how many nerve endings were attached to them and the psychological effect the action would have. If I’d understood sooner… well. The point is, I apologize as well.”

Virgil felt his sensor eyelids slide slowly over his eyes in blank astonishment. He’d once watched these same two Humans argue all the way to sunset over the best way to arrange the stacks of papers on their table.

And now they were apologizing. To him.

Maybe his Lator implant really was busted.

His guardplate shuttered closed, and when that didn’t manage to convey his dumbfounded silence well enough, he leaned to the side slightly so that Patton was between him and their imploring stares.

What else was he supposed to do?! He had managed two words of Human language semi-comprehensively, and neither of them were particularly useful for this situation.

“I’m so proud of you guys,” Patton enthused, once again securing his position as Best Human by breaking the silence. “I’m sure they’ll say sorry for trying to stab you once they have the right words for it!”

Wait, he had to apologize for pre-emptive defensive stabbing? What kind of Deathworld was this?

“… Um,” Roman replied, sounding just as dubious. “Pat, I’m not entirely sure they can speak in a way we’ll be able to understand.”

Patton tilted his head, an inquiring lilt to his words. “They talked to me, though?”

Virgil wasn’t sure that him mangling the words Patton had said only a few moments before qualified as talking, but the news sent the other two Humans into a frenzy of shocked excitement anyhow.

He blatantly ignored the resulting request for him to talk again. His guardplate was staying firmly in place for at least the rest of the suncycle, his lungs still clenching slightly at the memory of trying to return Patton’s smile earlier.

Patton patted his hand again. “I think they’re shy,” he offered. “Having their teeth visible seemed to make them nervous.”

Logan hummed. “Perhaps the language we’ve been hearing through their… organic mask is easier to form, or more culturally acceptable.”

That mostly depended on which hemisphere of his home planet one was from, but the Human was pretty close. Virgil was impressed.

“So, we have to wait? Or it might not happen again at all?” Roman visibly deflated, his posture sagging miserably. “The only reason I got us all into this mess in the first place was to find Remus, and I still don’t even know if they’ve ever seen him!”

Virgil couldn’t help the telling way his aux limbs flexed in and out, and was abruptly grateful that none of the Humans had gotten that far in interpreting his body language.

The addition of Logan had changed the focus of the Humans’ interest in him, moving from brute force interrogation to trying to understand him well enough to communicate. The tests were so abstract that he’d almost forgotten the origin of Roman’s interest in him.

He still cringed away from the idea of being the one to deliver the news that his clutchmate was definitely far out of reach by now, and probably in the process of being sold into some terrible fate, if he hadn’t been already.

However… If he himself had the chance to learn about Janus, to know for sure what his First had done upon finding Virgil missing and a Human on board as cargo, to find out whether or not he was safe…

He would take it. Of course he would take it. The only thing more painful than knowing was the uncertainty of not knowing.

Besides, Patton probably wouldn’t let Roman bite the head off the messenger.

One distinct step forward (after making sure his feet were cat-free, of course) was enough to draw their eyes to him, and he ignored the reflexive urge to darken his plates as he slowly, painstakingly bobbed his chin up and down. The sensation of his plates scraping edges at the unnatural movement made him grimace slightly, but he was fairly confident that the end result had looked like a nod.

“Yes?” Patton hesitantly translated. “Yes what, buddy?”

He pointed at Roman, who stiffened up with wide eyes.

“Are you— is… is this about Remus?” He sounded a little warbly with emotion already.

Virgil managed another grinding nod, and then gave up and simply ‘nodded’ his closed fist up and down.

“You have seen him?” Another faux-nod, and Roman’s face did something weird and alarming that Virgil had no hope of interpreting. “Where? When? What happened to him, is he okay?”

A completely predictable response, one that Virgil had no way to coherently reply to. His aux limbs pedaled in the air for a moment as he considered his options, and then the answer hit him, so obvious it was embarrassing he hadn’t thought of it immediately.

The Humans trailed after him curiously as he approached the table covered in science equipment. The box shoved into one corner was easy enough to open now that his hands were un-mitted, and he lifted his helmet out triumphantly.

The internal audio system was beyond repair, ripped out first by Virgil’s own teeth and then practically dissected by Logan, but that didn’t matter. The Humans had technology that could record and play audio, and the translator chip plugged inside the helmet was still untouched.

This was their key to two-way communication.

All he needed was some tools, some time, and a really big battery.

[delimeful]

let my mind reset (4)

warnings: dissociation episode, references to previous chapter's events, manipulation/gaslighting, antagonists disregarding personal boundaries, psychological manipulation, touch starvation, medical issues, i throw some funny little ocs in there because sanders sides only has like 8 characters

-

By the time they brought Virgil back, Roman had thoroughly burned himself out, leaving behind only crumbling charcoal husks of his previous fury and despair.

Virgil wasn’t conscious to comment on the emptiness that surely had to be visible in his posture. In fact, the Human didn’t so much as twitch when they dragged him back into the room and set him limply in his cell, the slow rise and fall of his chest the only thing distinguishing him from a corpse.

Wisps of worry and frustration formed at the edge of Roman’s mind, but he didn’t reach for them, instead choosing to remain centered in his distant, dazed headspace. It was fine that his scales had gone flat and defenseless. It was fine that he couldn’t seem to feel his limbs.

He didn’t want to feel, not the cold cell floor beneath him or the concern for his fellow captive or the huge, overwhelming sea of grief that lurked at the edge of his consciousness, waiting to pull him back under.

It was all too much. He couldn’t do it.

Time passed like this for a while, Virgil curled up on the floor quiet and still, Roman staring at him without actually seeing him. Every time his mind began to clear, his physicality began to return, his thoughts only had to return to the true fate of his colony, of his mother, and he’d fade away again.

Unfortunately, it was more difficult to remain unfocused when the person he was staring through began to actually stir.

Roman had seen Virgil wake before. Not often, but there had been a few rare occasions where Patton coaxed him out into the commons of the ship and proceeded to fall asleep sprawled against his side, and pinned in place with nothing else to do, the Human had slipped into a doze as well.

(They all knew Patton was a heavy sleeper. Virgil could have carefully shifted him off and left at any point. How telling it was in hindsight, that he instead sat there, as though the mere presence of a small, fluffy friend leaning on him was more than enough to keep him immobile. How could Roman have been so dull-witted, so unyielding–)

The moment he or Logan stepped into the room, however, no matter how quiet their steps were, the Human would wake. His head would snap up with a sharp inhale, eyes roving until they found him, his gaze just the slightest bit wild before he remembered where he was. Roman had thought it downright creepy to witness.

(He remembered Patton telling them about how Virgil had kept him safe through an array of ship ports and wild terrain, jumping from planet to planet, never settling in one place long for fear of being caught again. Every moment of rest would have been a risk, a chance for someone to approach with malintent.

Had Virgil always been a light sleeper, or had necessity made him into one?)

Now, however, his cellmate woke slowly, with a low groan and seemingly none of that frenetic need to check his surroundings. It was almost as though he was weighed down by something, a strange slowness to his movements.

Roman was coming back from that faraway nothingness now, despite himself, despite everything, because it wasn’t just him. ‘It wouldn’t be the first Human I’ve been forced to put down,’ she’d said. Because she’d called Virgil an ‘it’, saw him as a pet, a tool, a means to an end. Because she had a way to strip the will of one of the most feared species in the universe, and overlay it with her own.

Virgil needed to know what Roman had gotten him into.

He forced himself to focus, trying to drag his attention to all the little details around him the way he’d been taught. There weren’t a surplus of options he could use. Not the cell, not his scales, nothing that would drag him back down into that bottomless desolation.

Virgil. Virgil looked different.

He looked cleaner, the dirt and grime of being shuttled through the black market’s trafficking system all washed away. His clothes had been changed from one of the makeshift & patched together outfits he wore on the Mindscape to a well-fitted set of Human clothes, with near-invisible seams and expensive-looking fabric. Most notably, there was a thick layer of bandages wrapped around the lower part of one arm, presumably from the procedure.

(At least their non-consensual mystery surgeries came with clean bandages. Still, Roman couldn’t help but notice that none of the other injuries that Virgil had gained during his ill-fated rescue attempt had been treated.)

“Virgil,” Roman mouthed silently, sorely wishing he’d told the Human anything about Crav’on sign language. With his ears flicking back flat, he forced his voice into existence, ignoring the fact that pushing himself into being verbal would only mentally tax him more in the long run. “Virgil. Virgil. Can you hear me?”

Virgil lifted his head up after a short delay, but his eyes were hazy and dull, his face slack in a way Roman had never seen before. It took him several long moments to focus on Roman, and once he did, his face flickered into one of those odd human expressions Roman couldn’t quite parse.

He could parse the way the Human’s body stiffened up, the way he shoved himself backwards until his back hit the bars, the way his strange legs drew up to act as a shield between himself and the rest of the world.

It was the same thing he’d done back on the ship, shortly after being in the throes of some terrible dream. A fear response, a show of terror.

One that surfaced at the mere sight of Roman.

“Easy,” he said, voice still dragging on softer consonants, putting stress on the wrong parts of words. “I’m not going to hurt you. Can… can you understand me?”

Virgil continued to hold himself in that terrible stillness, gaze flickering from point to point on Roman’s face. For the first time, it struck him that the Human probably had just as difficult a time reading his body language as Roman did his.

He smoothed his scales out from their prickle of alarm, angled his ears back but not flattened, and tilted his head up slightly, angling his crown of horns back. The motions were all Crav’on, broadcasting not a threat at every level.

After only a moment of hesitation, he lowered himself slowly onto the ground, hunching over and holding his hands in front of him, palms up.

These weren’t Crav’on. These motions were alien, uncomfortable in nature, nothing he would be soothed by. Crouching was a precursor to lunging or sprinting, his palms should be down, claws pointed away and tucked in.

But Virgil was blinking now, eyebrows drawing together slightly, a relief to see in place of that frozen, wide-eyed stare. His shoulders, which had drawn up like a pale facsimile of defensive scale bristling, slowly eased back down.

“I won’t hurt you,” Roman repeated, and then again in Patton’s warbling home tongue.

Virgil jolted at the sound of it, but it didn’t drag him any further into coherency. Rather the opposite, his head abruptly began to turn this way and that, his hands reaching as though searching out something that should have been in the corner of the enclosure.

Roman abruptly remembered the last time Virgil had been drugged in an alien cell, and more importantly, who he’d been with.

He leaned forwards, trying to draw the Human’s attention back from the search, which was growing frantic. “He’s not here,” he said, and whistled Patton’s name-call. “He’s safe, though. You made sure he was safe, okay?”

Virgil asked something, the words slanted and guttural in what was either his own language or an attempt at Common that was too mangled to parse. Roman dipped his head in a Human-style affirmative, hoping that it was the right answer.

It must have been, or at least it wasn’t the wrong one, because the Human only dragged his hands up to his face and pressed his too-wide palms against his eyes for a long moment, saying something else in a low voice that wobbled, the noise pitiful enough to make Roman feel all tangled up inside.

“It’s going to be alright,” he tried, an echo of Patton’s cadence in the words. He huffed nervously before trying the one Human word he sort of remembered, one oft-repeated between Virgil and Patton like a murmured promise. “Safe. Safe.”

One white-edged eye peered through the curtain of fingers clasped over Virgil’s face, careful and assessing, before he slowly breathed out. “Safe,” he said back, not a question, but not really reassured, either.

He nodded a couple of times, head bobbing like a seabird’s, and then shifted to curl back up so tightly that Roman could finally see how he’d shoved all those gangly limbs into such small hiding spaces.

A brief moment later, and he was still again, asleep or unconscious or somewhere in between.

Roman couldn’t be too surprised; whatever had been used to drug the Human, it must have been extremely potent to cause this level of incoherency. Logan believed sleeping was a particularly vital recovery method for Humans, and Virgil would need all the recovery he could get.

“Safe,” Roman mouthed to himself again, and wished that it wasn’t a lie.

—

Virgil didn’t get to wake again— this time, he was woken.

Roman’s voice had gone again, so he couldn’t speak when Roux reappeared, this time with several Humans crowded behind him. A mixture of terror and fury fueling him, he pulled out every physical threat display he could think of, attempting to draw their eyes away from his vulnerable crewmate, but didn’t earn a single glance for his troubles.

Instead, he was forced to stand aside and watch as Roux rapped a metal rod harshly against the cell bars, the clanging noise enough to jerk Virgil awake and probably give him a headache as well.

Despite everything, Roman felt almost reassured by the resulting groan and swear. Virgil was obviously still suffering the effects of whatever they’d dosed him with, but this was leagues better than the tremulous, barely-there demeanor from before.

“Rise and shine,” Roux announced nonsensically. (Humans couldn’t glow. Roman would have noticed by now. Probably.)

“Bite me,” Virgil snapped back, an invitation that would be lethal for practically any other alien. Roman immediately lowered his previous estimation of how much the drugs had worn off.

Roux laughed, the sound nothing like Virgil’s barely-there chuckles or snorts. “Aw, did someone wake up on the wrong side of the prison cell? Poor thing.”

Their mocking cadence set Roman’s hackles on edge, but one of the other Humans cut in before any snippy responses could be offered.

“Enough, already. You’ve done your part,” the Human said firmly. “It’s time for us to do ours.”

Roux rolled their eyes but pulled the door to Virgil’s cell open with a sarcastic flourish, allowing the four new Humans to crowd inside, pulling a small cart with them. “Back in an hour,” they said, and then locked the cell once more before striding away.

Leaving Virgil locked in a cell with four other Humans.

The anticipatory horror settled on Roman like too-heavy armor, his heart thudding painfully in his chest. Virgil seemed to feel the same way, shoving himself back into the far corner of the cell and struggling to get his feet underneath him, teeth bared in a back-off snarl. (Patton was right. This close, the expression looked nothing like a Human smile.)

Roman shuffled closer to the bars separating them despite his screaming instincts, hoping he could reach out and claw at one of them once they started attacking, draw their attention onto a more suitable target.

“None of that, now,” the first Human told Virgil, utterly unperturbed by his threat display. Their hair was wispy and grey, with firm lines pressed into their face. “This isn’t an attack. Quite the opposite.”

“You’re in no shape to be fighting anyhow,” the second Human piped up, stepping forwards into Virgil’s space and grabbing onto his wrists. “I bet you can barely feel your face, huh?”

“Back off,” Virgil demanded, but his attempts to yank his wrists free were clumsy and futile, and only served to prove their point. Even that small effort left him visibly shaking.

“Tanner,” the first Human snapped, and the second Human’s hold on Virgil snapped away automatically. “The poor thing’s been terrified enough.”

“Sorry, Matron Carmela,” ‘Tanner’ replied, a well-recited tone to the words. “We’re gonna have to touch him eventually, though.”

“Leave me the hell alone,” Virgil spat, his wrists drawn close against his chest. The brief hold hadn’t seemed painful, but it had drawn up something extremely unsettled in Virgil’s demeanor.

“Oh, honey,” the third Human said, a cloying pity to their words. “It’ll be alright. We’re here to help you.”

Virgil didn’t respond, only glaring, but that seemed to be enough expression for the others to read plenty from.

“Everyone takes a little convincing at first,” Matron Carmela said matter-of-factly. “Afina, hold onto him, please.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Virgil went rigid, but even with this blatant warning, he wasn’t quick enough to prevent the third Human from ducking behind him and sweeping him up into their grip. Whatever they’d drugged him with had eliminated all of his usual strength and speed, his writhing struggles easily contained by an arm around his shoulders and another looped over the bend of his legs.

Afina patiently waited for his resistance to die down before settling into a seated position on the floor, casual as anything even as they continued to restrain him. Tanner grabbed something from the cart before bounding back over to crouch beside them, reaching one hand out to Virgil’s face with… a small white rectangle?

Virgil seemed just as bewildered as Roman felt, his face scrunching up as the other Human carefully pressed the soft pack against the more swollen side of his face.

It was a temp pack. To reduce swelling. Why?

“What a nasty bruise.” Matron Carmela clicked her tongue. “Honestly, Roux should know better. Making more work for us.”

“Those guards really have no tact, treating you so harshly when you’re one of our own,” Afina said with a frown.

Virgil opened his mouth, presumably to object to being one of theirs when they’d literally imprisoned him, but was immediately distracted by Matron Carmela moving forwards and grabbing one of his hands, pinning his fingertip against the nozzle of a device.

“Don’t worry, it’s just a little prick,” Afina reassured, completely misinterpreting the way Virgil had stiffened. “Like a glucose meter, but for checking a bunch of different things! Can you even believe all the crazy space tech they’ve got out here?”

“It took some fiddling to recalibrate it for Humans,” Tanner added, still holding the temp pack steady. “Super useful now, though.”

Matron Carmela pulled the meter back, studying the screen for a long moment, her displeasure growing. Tanner snaked his free hand into Virgil’s, replacing the presence of the meter with interlaced fingers.

Strangely, Virgil didn’t pull away.

“As I thought. We’ll need to get you on a nutrition plan immediately,” Matron Carmela said, and began jotting down notes in a looping scrawl as she spoke. “Severe vitamin deficiencies, pernicious anemia, clear malnutrition— we’ll have to be careful to avoid refeeding syndrome. A bone density test is in order, I wouldn’t be surprised if—”

“What are you talking about?” Virgil cut in, his voice equal parts angry and incredulous.

“We’re in charge of medical treatment for new arrivals,” Afina provided helpfully. “It’s hard to get what we need while being space fugitives, so most new folks need special diets for a while! No need to be ashamed!”

Tanner nodded. “That’s just what happens when you’re an interstellar fugitive surviving in the wilderness of foreign planets.”

“Of course, not all of us end up in that situation,” Matron Carmela said. “However, even amongst civilization, the needs of humans are rarely met. For cases like yours, they’re outright neglected.”

For the first time, her gaze shifted over to Roman, frown deepening and eyes going icy. He recoiled slightly with a reflexive bristling of scales.

“It’s monstrous, the way aliens treat us,” Afina added mournfully, curling in closer to Virgil. “All you did was exist, and they starved you of everything you needed to thrive. It must have been so hard.”

“You’re here now,” Tanner added, scooting forwards a bit so that his arm curled around Virgil’s shoulder. “We protect each other here. We’ll make sure you never feel so weak again.”

Virgil stared at him for a moment, and then his gaze trailed down to their joined hands, and when he looked back up it was Roman’s eyes that he met, a hint of that wide-eyed terror visible at the edge of his expression.

He looked away again before Roman could respond, swallowing thickly before speaking again. “Who’s that?”

Roman followed the tilt of his head to the fourth and final Human, who stood stiltedly near the entrance to the cell, arms crossed tightly in front of their chest. They’d been so quiet, he’d barely registered their presence amid the shrieking wrongness of watching Virgil be manhandled by a bunch of strange Humans.

“That’s Iris!” Afina said, smiling. “She’s—,”

“She’s a trainee,” Matron Carmela cut in. “Don’t mind her, she’s still learning her bedside manner. Now, the first priority for your recovery…,”

The other two Humans obligingly returned their attention to her words, but Roman caught the way Virgil and the newly-introduced Iris held eye contact for a long moment.

Virgil’s gaze flickered between her and the cell door, some silent question in them. There was a brief pause, and then he watched as Iris’s mouth pressed into a flat line, her chin dimpling slightly before she averted her eyes entirely and turned away to rifle through the cart. Virgil’s expression twitched the slightest amount before smoothing back to a flat scowl.

The ‘appointment’ continued on like that, Roman’s nerves rising with every barbed statement the Humans made about aliens and the mistreatment Virgil had clearly gone through at their hands, his worry growing with each gentle touch that Virgil didn’t shy away from.

He had reverted to a numb silence for the most part, only speaking up when Matron Carmela approached with a pair of scissors, flatly refusing to let them cut his hair.

There had been a taut stretch of silence, glances Roman couldn’t understand exchanged between them all, and then she had acquiesced without a fuss, placing the shears back on the cart and moving on.

By the time Roux returned to retrieve the attendants, Roman was huddled in his cell, having worked himself into a near-frenzy of stress. He barely even registered their amused jab at him, too busy watching as the Humans carefully untangled themselves from the knot they’d created around Virgil, leaving him sitting there on the cell floor.

A few discordantly cheery farewells later, they were alone again.

Roman’s voice had been all but intangible with the presence of other Humans in the area, but now the words seemed to fall from him so quickly they almost tripped over each other.

“Virgil, why were they talking like that? Like you have— Like you’re— Are you sick? You would tell us if you were sick, wouldn’t you? You said you’d been eating enough!”

Virgil shot him a strange look, shaking his head slightly. “I’m fine, Roman. That’s not what we need to w-worry about right now.” Even as he spoke, he was folding in on himself, arms coming up to wrap around himself in a mirror of Iris’s earlier posture.

He was trembling, Roman realized with a start, hard enough that his breathing was off, his words coming out slightly stuttered. He felt a sudden surge of panic. “Oh, stars, what did they do to you? Are you dying?”

Virgil’s laugh came out half-choked. “No. I’m alright, I just wasn’t e-expecting that.”

“‘That’?” Roman felt a sense of foreboding slide under his scales. “Virgil, please, you can’t believe what they say. There’s more going on here, this isn’t what you think—,”

“I don’t believe them,” Virgil interjected, and Roman felt a weight ease away. He hadn’t realized just how worried he’d been about the possibility until it was so swiftly struck down. “They tazed me. They d-drugged me. I’m in a cell. We’re obviously not cool.”

“Right, of course,” Roman said, attempting to scrape the remains of his composure from the ground. “Then, what’s wrong?”

“It’s— I’m—,” Virgil grimaced, curling in on himself further. His hands were digging into his sides, fingers curled in sharply. “Look, it’s not about what they’re saying, not yet. It’s about w-what they’re doing.”

“Lying to you?” Roman guessed halfheartedly.

“Holding me,” Virgil bit out, like the words were painful. “It’s just— touch is important to Humans, okay? It’s— It’s manipulation, they’re taking advantage of that. Trying t-to lower my guard.”

‘They crave connection,’ Marta had said. Roman shuddered, his scales giving a sharp rattle.

“… Is it… going to work?” he asked, still entirely uncertain on how Humans worked, what they really needed.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Virgil replied, which wasn’t a real answer. “It doesn’t matter, I just– it's just been a while, that’s all.”

He was still trembling, shudders working their way through him one after another, like aftershocks.

Roman felt a twisting in his gut at the sight. He might not have known about this, but the other Humans must have. They’d made a point to hold him, to crowd in close and press their hands to him in the guise of medical aid, to give him a taste of something he needed and then rip it away. They’d flipped him on his back, bared his weakness for the whole world to see.

“Come over here,” he requested, giving into the impulsive urge to try and fix it.

Virgil’s eyes flicked over to him, and his posture was distinctly wary, like a wild animal coaxed to the edge of a torch’s light. Bit by bit, he pulled himself back upright, edging forwards until he was in reach.

Forcing himself not to overthink it, Roman offered his hand in that strange, palm-up Human way.

Virgil hesitated, clear as day, his gaze once again flicking about, searching Roman’s face for something. Roman held still and waited, his hand never wavering.

Ultimately, he wasn’t sure Virgil found what he was looking for, but the Human reached out and set his hand in Roman’s anyway.

The thought came unbidden: Humans were strong. If Virgil wanted, he could probably crush the plates on Roman’s hand to dust.

Roman slowly folded his fingers around the soft, unarmored hand, trying to replicate the way the other Human had held it, and forced the idea out of his mind. Virgil had never tried to hurt him before; why would he abruptly decide to crush his hand now?

“What are we doing?” Virgil asked in a low voice, his hand twitching nervously.

Roman’s tail thumped against the floor in embarrassment, and he let his nose wrinkle in irritation before sighing and lowering himself to sit against the corner of the cell.

“You need touch, right?” he grumbled, pointedly pressing as much of his side as he could against the bars, scales slicked down. “Or… does it only work if it's other Humans?”

Virgil stared at him long enough that he began to prickle, and then his fingers curled slightly around Roman’s. “No, this– it should work. I think.”

He slowly lowered himself into a seated position as well, scooting closer when Roman tugged meaningfully on his hand. This close, he could feel the warmth that the Human radiated, chasing away the chill of the cell bars.

They were both tense at first, but as time went on and Roman remained quiet and still, Virgil almost seemed to melt, the stiffness slowly leaking out of him as his shoulders slumped and his head tilted to the side. He’d witnessed it before, when Patton was curled against him and chattering away and neither of them knew Roman was watching the security vidfeed, but he’d never thought it would happen in close proximity to him.

Still, there Virgil sat, slowly letting his body relax from the battle-ready tension that he wore like a second skin. Making himself vulnerable, showing his soft side, even though Roman was right there in striking distance. Even though all Roman had ever done was despise him.

It was a show of trust. Even after all he had done, Virgil wanted to trust him.

Roman held on long after the trembling eased, long after Virgil’s laxness turned to the limpness of sleep, as though if he clung on long enough, he could make up for the time that Virgil had spent without this.

As though he could convey through the careful holding of a hand in his that he wanted to trust Virgil, too.

[delimeful]

you can’t go back (6)

warnings: tension, fear, miscommunication/cultural misunderstandings, mentions of pain/injury, maybe cliffhanger?, lmk if i missed any

-

Patton was on a mission.

He adjusted his armful of tupperwares and stared down the front door to the Torres household with the determination that had carried him all the way through two hours of baking and a thirty minute bus ride.

His friends had been acting super weird lately, and he was going to find out why.

First it had been Roman, who had been too distracted to hold even the most basic of conversations for ages, and now it was Logan, too, who backed up every silly rambling excuse Roman made with a completely straight face.

Patton didn’t want to push too hard, especially since he knew Remus’s absence was still weighing heavy on Roman’s mind, but the way they were acting… whatever this was, it didn’t seem to be about that. At least, not entirely.

And honestly, being left out was kind of hurting his feelings! The two of them had been having secretive whispered conversations in the halls that just so happened to end as soon as Patton got within earshot.

He’d held out for a while, hoping that maybe there was a surprise party for some holiday or anniversary he’d forgotten about, but enough was enough.

Patton was done joking. He was going to walk in there, sit his friends down, and talk to them about how he felt, no matter how awkward it might end up!

… Well, at the very least, he’d try and bring the topic up at least once. He’d brought their respective favorite cookies to butter them up, and hoped that being a little bit more honest about everything would encourage them to open up about whatever was bothering them in turn!

Taking a deep breath, he knocked on the door.

There was no answer, but since Mr. & Mrs. Torres were at work, that wasn’t too surprising. Roman was supposed to be home, but he would sometimes miss a knock at the door, busy blasting theatre music in his room or painting with headphones in.

Luckily, Patton had been friends with Roman since they were kids, and there had been plenty of times in the past where he’d let himself in. He shook the house key out of the hollow, palm-sized dragon statue on the porch, and wasted no time in stepping inside.

The house was eerily quiet in a way Patton rarely saw it. He tiptoed into the kitchen, feeling a little bit like a home invader, and set his tupperware tower on the counter.

“Hello? It’s Patton!” he called up the stairs, loud enough to hopefully reach the ears of any errant friends.

Still, there was no sign of Roman, or Logan for that matter.

“Miaow,” a petulant, adorable little voice called up to him, and Patton looked down to see Lady Macbeth practically standing on his toes, little furry head craned back to look up at him with the most potent pair of pleading eyes he’d ever seen.

“D’aww,” he said, crouching to scratch under her chin and mentally promising himself that he’d remember to wash his hands afterwards.

Lady tolerated the affection for a few seconds, and then ducked away and walked a few steps before looking over her shoulder at him expectantly.

“You need something, kitty?” He was already standing to follow her, expecting to be led to an empty food bowl or feather toy.

Instead, she pranced over to the back door and sat expectantly in front of it.

“Outside?” Patton asked, surprised. Lady Macbeth typically preferred the indoors, especially when there was a lap nearby to curl up on. “Is that where Roman is?”

“Mow,” Lady told him, standing on her hind legs to press her paws against the plastic portion of the screen door.

Good enough for him!

He took a brief detour to scrawl a brief message on a sticky note, leaving it on top of his tupperware, just in case.

Without wasting another moment, he unlocked the back door and pushed it open, watching as Lady trotted outside with her tail held high in the air, with none of the usual lingering-in-the-doorway shenanigans she normally loved to partake in. In fact, Lady seemed to be on a mission of her own, heading directly down the dirt path as though she was a tiny kitty businessman, late for a kitty business meeting.

Patton grinned at the thought, and then hurried to follow her.

To his surprise, they went right past the new barn and the animal paddocks, two of the most likely places Roman might be.

Instead, Lady led him all the way through the overgrowth to the creaky old barn near the edge of the property, the one that hadn’t been in use for at least a year or two now. The doors were closed, the bolt slid shut, but Lady only sniffed disdainfully at them for a moment before circling around to the side and inspecting each window along the sides of the barn.

“What would Roman be doing in here?” Patton wondered out loud, stepping closer to look at the windows himself.

They were all shuttered, despite the fact that they were long past the season for heavy storms, and there wasn’t supposed to be anything important inside this barn, anyhow.

Lady had already figured out that the windows were blocked, and was sitting at the base of the locked doors impatiently, pinning Patton with an imploring stare the moment he turned his attention back to her.

“Alright, alright,” he chuckled, moving forwards to knock gently on the doors and then slide the bolt free. “Let’s see what’s got you so worked up, hm?”

When the doors opened, he actually missed the most startling thing in the room at first.

To be fair to him, the last time he’d seen the barn’s interior, it had been after the lingering old tools finally hauled over to the freshly built shed, so it had been all but empty.

Now, however, it was decidedly not.

There was a large folding table shoved into one corner, the surface of it covered in scrawled-over papers, an odd helmet, and what looked like lab equipment checked out from their school’s library. There were a few old chairs along the sides of the table, and one sitting with its wooden back against the opposite wall of the barn.

There was a heap of old linens and even a faded comforter next to the chair, and that was where Lady Macbeth was headed now, probably intending to curl up in the lumpy pile and enjoy the warmth of the afternoon.

Patton tilted his head. Had the blanket mound just… twitched?

Lady stopped right at the edge of the blankets and mewed loudly. In response, an entire person sat upright with a wheezy-sounding inhale, as though abruptly waking from a nightmare.

“Ro…,” Patton started, and then immediately trailed off as a distinctly-not-Roman face twisted to lock eyes with him.

It only took a heartbeat of staring for Patton to register that it was a distinctly-not-human face, too. “Oh!”

The stranger didn’t widen their eyes, and there didn’t seem to be a mouth visible to them to gape with, but Patton could still see clear alarm in the way they tried ineffectually to shuffle back while still entangled in about three different blankets.

He related; he’d frozen in surprise, his gaze flicking from the dark shiny plates covering their skin to the windows cut into their synthetic-looking jumpsuit that revealed gill-like slits along their sides.

Abducted by aliens, Roman had claimed, and— unless this was a theatre friend that was extremely skilled at costuming— he’d apparently been more on the nose than anyone in town had believed.

This wasn’t anything near what Patton had expected them to be hiding.

The silent stare down only lasted for a moment longer before being interrupted by another distinctive, wheedling meow.

It was hard to tell where exactly the alien was looking, no pupil or iris discernible in their shiny dark eyes, but Patton did catch a tiny flicker of movement in the muscles around their eyes, presumably to look over at the feline friend currently kneading her claws into the edge of a blanket.

“That’s Lady Macbeth,” Patton offered, lifting a hand to gesture to the cat in question.

The alien moved nearly as soon as he did, lunging forwards with startling quickness, and for one short moment, the thought that the alien might not be friendly rocked through him like a plunge into icy water. “Wait—!”

Instead of grabbing at Lady, though, the alien had simply shifted to be slightly hunched over her, arms lifted as though to block her from view, head turned to keep that unnerving gaze locked on Patton.

By the time he finally opened his mouth to speak, an entire bundle of confused thoughts were already racing through his mind, all of them practically tripping over his tongue to be the first question asked: Was the alien trying to protect her from him? Was Lady Macbeth their friend? Were all cats secretly aliens all along? Had something just twitched behind their back?

The question that came out instead was, “Are those oven mitts?”

A set of clear eyelids flickered over the alien’s eyes twice in rapid succession, but they otherwise remained still, their oven mitt-covered hands hovering in place over Lady Macbeth like a protective forcefield of gingham-patterned fireproof fabric.

Impatient as always, Lady pushed up to sit on her haunches and promptly butted her head against one of the oven mitts.

The alien jolted back as though they’d been burned, somehow making a low, vehement click-click-click-churr sound as their head snapped back and forth between Patton and Lady with comical speed, seemingly trying to watch both of them closely at the same time.

“She wants you to pet her,” Patton explained, and then stretched his hand out a little further. “I’ll show you?”

When no clear objection came, he carefully stepped closer, and then held his hand out and rubbed his fingers together. “Pspsps, Lady, c’mere.” He received a deeply disdainful look for his efforts. “Hey now, I know you want attention, but forget out of this world, our buddy looks like they’re about to have an out of this body experience if we keep bothering them.”

He winked at the alien, who was staring at him and holding very still, like a deer in front of a T-rex.

After a few more seconds of coaxing, Lady seemed to grasp that her new best friend wasn’t going to start bestowing scritches upon her anytime soon, and turned to meander over to Patton instead.

The alien’s stillness abruptly began to feel more like the tension of a loaded spring. Patton kept his movements slow and gentle as he stroked a hand over Lady’s head a few times. “Like this, see? Roman says she’s arrogant, like a little queen receiving her dues, but I think she’s just got a lot of dignity packed into that teeny tiny frame. She loves when you scratch under her chin, too.”

He scritched lightly behind her ears before moving to do just that, and within a second or two, Lady had started up her low, rumbly purr, her eyes closing in the kitty version of a deeply pleased expression.

When he glanced up, the alien had leaned forwards slightly, watching them closely. This close, Patton could tell their eyes were actually a dark purplish color.

“You wanna try?” he asked, and carefully reached a hand halfway to one of their oven mitts and held it in the air there. An offer.

The alien recoiled slightly at first, but Patton simply waited, arm outstretched. After a few moments, they extended their own hand with painstaking slowness, caution lining their every move.

“There you go,” Patton encouraged, and took hold of the edge of the oven mitt to carefully guide their hand over to hover above Lady’s head. “She won’t hurt you, okay?”

Those uncanny eyes stared at him for a long moment, and then they lowered their mitt to brush the top of Lady’s head, the contact as light and delicate as someone handling fine china.

Predictably, Lady immediately bumped her head up into the mitt, a clear demand for more attention. Patton had no idea how she’d grown so attached to an alien that didn’t know how to pet cats– that didn’t even seem to know cats liked to be pet– but clearly she remained just as good a judge of character as ever.

Though the oven mitt made things a little more difficult, the alien managed something resembling clumsy chin scratches, and Lady made a little chirping meow at them. They tilted their chin up slightly and made a sound that wasn’t anywhere near a meow, but imitated a similar rolling cadence as the chirp.

Patton couldn’t help it; he grinned big enough to make his cheeks bunch up, overcome by how adorable it all was.

The alien took one look at him and shoved themself back hard, the plates on their skin abruptly flushing an inky black like a startled squid. Even Lady jolted, scurrying a few feet away as the rapid movement startled her in turn.

Patton’s expression dropped like a hot potato, but it was too late: the alien overbalanced, an unsteadiness to their movements, and hit the ground back-first.

They didn’t scream or yell even as their whole body seemed to sharply convulse with pain. Instead, the only sounds they let out were choked, hissing breaths as they scrambled for purchase against the dirt and twisted onto their side as quickly as possible.

The motion relieved pressure from their back— and also gave Patton a perfect view of the long, spindly limbs that protruded from their spine, bound together and convulsing like a cramped muscle.

There were four of them, almost insectoid in nature, made of the same material as the shiny plates over their skin, but thicker, more solid. Like the difference between a fingernail and a tooth.

The restraints weren’t digging into anything, but Patton could see the way the alien shuddered with each little twitch of the limbs, causing more pain with every automatic attempt to recoil from it.

With the oven mitts on, there was no way for them to remove the restraints.

Roman and Logan had a lot of explaining to do.

Patton knew his friends. They weren’t cruel, not intentionally and they wouldn’t do something like this without reason. Maybe it would be smarter to wait for them to return, get the full story. But they weren’t here now, and he didn’t know when they’d get back.

Patton had never been particularly good at staying still when there was something wrong happening right in front of him.

The alien was still making those horrible, pained little breaths, struggling to keep themself still.

The moment Patton audibly shifted forward, they seemed to realize just who their back was facing, and let out a rattling hiss, a sort of kh-kh-kh-kh that was more vicious than any other noise he’d heard from them so far.

He swallowed, but didn’t let himself falter.

“I want to help you,” he told them. “I don’t know how well you can understand me, but I can see that you’re in pain. I want to help, I— I won’t hurt you.”

Gradually, the defensive hiss faded, though every part of the alien he could see was still rigid with tension.

“I’m going to reach out and touch the restraints, okay?” Patton waited a beat, and then did just that, carefully avoiding touching the sensitive-seeming limbs themselves. Their back twitched slightly, probably not helping the pain, and Patton winced in sympathy. “Sorry, sorry. I can see the knots they did, and I think I can undo them. I’m going to try to loosen them by pulling, okay? If it hurts, hiss and I’ll stop, okay? Give me a sign and I’ll pause, I promise.”

The alien made a low click-click in the back of their throat, but let the side of their head rest against the floor, pointedly not reacting when Patton started moving his fingers again, working at the knotted strips of fabric.

Logan had probably designed the clever way the restraints connected, but Roman had definitely been the one to tie them. He’d gone to a sailing camp one summer when he was younger, and apparently learned all sorts of knots and ropework there. Patton still remembered him showing off the process of tying a butterfly knot at lunch.

It took some wiggling, and a few tense pauses after Patton accidentally tugged too hard in one place or another, but eventually he’d gotten the restraints loose enough to slowly pull them off the limbs without causing any further agony.

The alien pushed themself up to hand and knees as soon as the fabric slipped free, putting some distance between them and Patton before beginning to stretch those folded up limbs out… and out… and out.

“Woah,” Patton breathed, seeing the way the limbs uncurled to be almost as long as Patton himself was tall.

Using the wall as a support, the alien finally stood fully upright and turned to face Patton. Their newly-freed limbs spread out even wider, hovering in the air behind the alien like a scorpion’s tail held aloft, each ending at a curved point. Something about the sight of them made a faint, primal impulse in the back of Patton’s mind light up, sending a thrill of fear down his spine and demanding he get as far away as possible, as fast as possible.

His breath hitched just slightly, and he struggled to force the feeling away and ignore the pounding of his heart in his ears. The alien hadn’t tried to hurt him, and they weren’t being mean now. It was just his brain falsely recognizing a threat and flooding him with automatic wariness, much in the same way a cat’s mind filled with panic at the sight of an unexpected cucumber.

Even a comparison as silly as that couldn’t erase his body’s reaction, though, and when the alien took a delicate step forward, Patton’s shoulders rose up to his ears like a turtle shrinking back into its shell.

To his surprise, the alien halted their approach, apparently watching him just as carefully as he’d been watching them. After a moment of hesitation, their face pinched slightly, almost like the expression a human would make when wrinkling up their nose, and then– the flat thick shell covering the lower part of their face cracked in two.

With a series of crackling sounds that sounded pretty similar to Patton’s mom stretching her back in the morning, two interlocking plates separated and pulled back along the jawline, overlapping into hard ridges like a set of hard-edged wrinkles on either cheek. Where the plate had previously covered, there was a recognizable mouth, though the oddly-shaped lips were faint and thin, and the teeth configuration certainly had a lot more visible fangs than any human Patton knew, even with their mouth mostly closed.

The alien’s sharp limbs folded and unfolded slightly, moving in an absentminded way that made Patton think they were concentrating hard on something else. Their torso swelled with a visible breath, lower than Patton expected, and then their mouth finally moved

“Won’... hur,” they enunciated distinctly, with a sharp, inhuman click at the end. Then, they repeated the words again, the click more muted, almost sounding like a ‘t’. “Won- t. Hur- t.”

Won’t hurt.

Echoing Patton’s earlier promise one more time, they rotated one of those narrow limbs forward and extended it into the space between them.

Patton knew his eyes had to be wide as quarters, his apprehension replaced by a heartfelt awe as he reached out and watched as the end of that alien limb tapped gently down into his hand.

This close, he could see that the edge wasn’t actually razor sharp or barbed. Instead, it was similar to a cat’s claw, safe to lightly touch, but just curved and thin enough to catch and tear if force was put behind it.

There was no force behind it now, though, and Patton ghosted his fingertips over the smooth insect shell-like surface, surprised by how cool and sleek it felt.

He smiled broadly to himself, delight rushing through him. “I’m holding hands with an alien,” he confided to the alien in question, who had gone still for a moment before hesitantly smiling back.

Well, really, it was more of a brief, awkward baring of teeth, and the two halves of the face-plate clicked back into place shortly afterwards, but Patton was too overjoyed to care.

“This is so cool, I can’t believe it! We’re friends now, aren’t we? After that, how can we astronaut be friends, am I right? I’m going to tell you so many things about cats, you have no idea,” he rambled, easily releasing his new friend from their sort-of handholding when their limb seemed to twitch nervously. “Lady, pspsps, here kitty, come back over here and sit with us!”

Patton plopped himself down on the dirt floor, patting the ground nearby in a gesture that apparently translated well enough, because his alien friend only wavered in place for a moment before slowly folding their backwards legs to sit next to him.

Lady was lured in quickly by the temptation of cuddles like a heat-seeking missile, and Patton swiftly scooped her up and crooned at her before turning and setting her in his friend’s lap. “Here, let’s get those funny mitts off of you, you’ll have much better odds of being her new favorite if you can pet her properly!”

His new friend might be a little hard to read, but there was no misinterpreting the delicate care in every motion as they curled their talon-like fingers through Lady's fur. This alien was a fellow cat-lover, and Patton was feline pretty sure that this was the start of a wonderful friendship.

“There you go, you're doing great! Lady sure warmed up to you fast, didn't she? My other friends are probably going to freak out a little more, but don’t worry about a single thing, okay? I’ll explain everything to them, no purroblem!”

—

Inside a house not very far away, a pair of teenagers stared at the counter, where a small mountain of cookie-filled tupperware sat. On the top of that mountain, they had found a bright blue sticky note with a message in familiar handwriting.

‘To Roman (or Logan! or both of you!)

‘Accompanying Lady Macbeth on a fur-ocious journey through the backyard wilderness to find a missing prince! If you get back before me, come join us!

‘Love, Patton <3 <3 <3’

Roman and Logan exchanged matching horrified glances, and then bolted for the back door without another word.

They had a friend to rescue.

[sanders-sides-fic]

Will there be chapter 8 of there are no nice deathworlders

Yes. I know it’s been a while since the last chapter. The next one is mostly done, actually. But... I’m just not happy with it yet. I am still working on the story though.